Just Communicate Ranking 0/5 Stars 

The Rooms to Go in Cool Springs has a parking lot that wraps around behind Home Depot and every time I drive by there they have their cars blocking the parking lot. There is a sign that says ‘Service Drive’ so obviously it’s not intended for high volumes of traffic but it seems a little self righteous to park like this just because you can.

The other day I was driving by there and some employees were sitting out smoking around the cars that were blocking the drive so challenged them on why they were taking this action and I asked them if they thought about the fact that they may be sending the wrong message to customers…after all it does make it harder for someone to get to their store who might have taken a wrong turn and was trying to double back. They cussed me out and said ‘read the sign’ pointing at the sign that read ‘Service Drive’.

WOW!

I will never step foot in that store the rest of my life. Unbelievable!

‘We went green so buy from us now’ seems to be the trend these days in advertising. It’s making me sick. Just shut up and sell your stuff for what it is and you’ll gain more respect. Good article about it over at Ad Age.

Zig Ziglar’s Blog (the guy’s 80 and he has a blog!? SWEET!)

My Tumblr (not sure how much i’ll use this but i have a feeling it could be addicting)

I was looking through different photo albums on Flickr and they have a cool mapping feature that shows where the photo was taken geographically. It’s cool but it’s limited to the pictures in that person’s album. I thought it’d be cool to just virtually ‘roam around’ a map and see all the photos that had been uploaded in that city/area. Unfortunately Flickr doesn’t support this but the answer was just one Google Search away: loc.alize.us Put in a city and start ‘looking around’. It’s a fun way to see the world through the lenses of other people cameras.

We had a new guy start on our team at work today and as soon as we met I asked him if he had lunch plans and offered to take him to lunch. I didn’t prep for it or read up on his personality style report or wait until I had a free day. I just know the sooner you connect with someone the better that relationship will be: Forever.

I’m going to try to implement this principle more because my tendency is to wait and justify to myself that I will ‘do it up right’ when i get to it…9 times out of 10 though I never get to it when it comes to connecting with people. As the saying goes: ‘You only have one chance to make a first impression’.

I’ve decided that I like Yahoo Maps better than Google’s…I’m a pretty loyal fan of all things Google but Yahoo Maps just look cleaner and more like a real map.

There are several things that are having a significant impact on my whole company right now that were my ideas and I suggested them to people who were able to execute on them. I wasn’t concerned with getting credit for the ideas, I just saw a need and shined a light on it.

Sometimes I think we fret too much about being recognized for something when we should just be helping the team …I’m learning to put more trust in the statement that ‘A rising tide raises all ships’.

Matt Murphy was the lucky fan who caught Barry Bonds 756th home run ball Tuesday night, breaking a 30-year Major League record. A ball that was worth $16 a few seconds before will now bring .5 Mil.

Question: What’s the difference between a $16 dollar ball and one that Matt Murphy will be able to sell and retire on?

Answer: 755 It took seven hundred and fifty five home runs for Barry Bonds to get to this hit and break the record, thousands if not millions of swings at batting practice, thousands of runs and multiple seasons. Now he is without question the best.

Incidentally, Bonds 700th home run ball brought a mere $804.00 (still not the best at 700)

The Point: I see too many people, especially small business owners, who are the best at something and still selling themselves as a $16 dollar ball. They can’t for whatever reason look beyond the hard cost of producing their product or service and assess the value of all the time they have poured into becoming excellent in what they do. If you produce the best service or product then charge the best price and do it with confidence…you may say to yourself what idiot would pay hundreds of dollars for something that only took me a few minutes to produce?

Guess what - Matt Murphy doesn’t care what idiot buys a $500,000.00 baseball - as long as the check clears, and whatever ‘idiot’ buys that ball will be a proud owner knowing they got THE BEST!

75 days and counting…I’ve been gone too long. So after all the transition in my life lately I finally reached the sobering reality today that I don’t have an excuse any longer to not post at least every once and a while. I was brought to this revelation when my uncle sent me an email and his signature said ‘check out our blog‘. WHAT!? My uncle is like at least a full generation older than me and he has a full blown up to date blog and it actually looks pretty snazzy.  I can’t let him pass me up in our participation of the technology craze…so here I am, I’m Back! - did ya miss me!?