(HT: ChurchM.ag)

The Fresh Beat Band. Guess that tells you what I’ve been listening to recently.

Actually, this comes about because of listening to the Laurie Berkner band with the girls the other day while we were folding clothes. I let them listen to music while we work. Most of the time, it helps them stay interested in the chores.

Who do you bump into on a regular basis? Does it stop there? A lot is said about Friends/Followers/Circles within social media… are those people we should consider how our actions and words fall?

I mean, we impact them too. Right?

Read my question again… How many folks do we impact every day?  There’s no accounting at our disposal for this kind of data. We can’t pull up a report to help us understand this metric. The fact is that we impact folks all the time both positively and negatively.

I read this article from Wayne Elsey, who is a CEO of a non-profit organization called Soles4Souls. Their mission is pretty simple. They facilitate getting shoes to people who need them in the world. Read more about them. Wayne had one of those experiences where he impacted someone without knowing it. Although in the end, this flight attendant did more to impact him.

We all get caught up in the “Stuff” that is going on in our lives. There’s no way around it and frankly we shouldn’t be too worried when it spills over into our interactions with others, but we need to remember our witness is always being presented. We either present a clear picture of the gospel, or we could be blaspheming our creator and sustainer.

Hopefully, as we go through life, we will have folks come up and thank us for how we’ve impacted them, but there are thank you notes that we will never see.

Keep it Going!

My favorite part of the above sketch is this section:

Man:
I came here for a good argument!

Other Man:
AH, no you didn’t, you came here for an argument!

Man:
An argument isn’t just contradiction.

Other Man:
Well! it CAN be!

Man:
No it can’t!

Man:
An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.

Other Man:
No it isn’t!

Man:
Yes it is! ’tisn’t just contradiction.

Other Man:
Look, if I “argue” with you, I must take up a contrary position!

Man:
Yes but it isn’t just saying ‘no it isn’t’.

Other Man:
Yes it is!

Man:
No it isn’t!

Other Man:
Yes it is!

Man:
No it isn’t!

Other Man:
Yes it is!

Man:
No it ISN’T! Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.

Other Man:
It is NOT!

Man:
It is!

Other Man:
Not at all!

Man:
It is!

Whether we admit it or not, A lot of arguments we have in life are like this. They’re silly. Taking sides. Contrary Positions. However, the interesting thing about this Monty Python Sketch, is you can still have the argument without “paying” for the “Abuse.”

I like what Mark Driscoll says about this. We won’t all agree on everything, but we should agree to disagree, agreeably.

—-

Here’s my question for the group. Do you personally use coupons or in this case, Groupons or Local Deals? I’m 35. I would never call myself a “Bottom Feeder.” My wife and I are subscribed to several Deals sites. We have certain activities that we like to do. If there is a groupon deal that comes up for movie theaters or restaurants that we frequent, we’ll pounce on it. We know the place. They’re obviously factoring in that a portion of the groupon sales will be going to people like me who already know who they are, but if they’re wise, they’re banking on a reaching a group that doesn’t know them by the name. They want the opportunity to get someone new in their establishment. We’ve had the opportunity to try a few places that we never knew we’d like because of them.

My thoughts are that you never know who that customer is. If you’re not preaching first impressions to your staff than you always have opportunities loss. You can’t assume that every coupon/groupon customer is going to rip you off. In Seth Godin’s book, Tribes, he talks about how people are longing for someone to follow. They want a tribe to be a part of and they want someone to lead that tribe. You win that one groupon customer over with your brand and they’ll tell others.

Groupon will tell you (if you ask) that a portion of groupon sales will never walk in your door. While that does allow for some margin of profit, it also is lost opportunities to win over those customers.

Now, we could argue that Groupon has jumped the shark by offering “Groupon products” and other weird deals, but the fact of the matter is that they have LARGE reach if you’re in larger markets. I agree that there are hundreds of ways to attract the right customers, but my guess is that most small businesses are not doing more than the status quo of advertising. (Are you still paying for a yellow page ad?) A part of your marketing plans need to stay consistent. Consistency establishes the Tribe that the followers want and need. However, every once in a while, you need variation that grabs someone’s eye. Note that Google, Facebook, Yahoo, does not keep it’s advertising spaces in the same place. They are constantly tweaking it and moving it around…changing size, location, etc. If they kept it in the same place at all times, we as people would begin to tune it out. Have you ever seen Eye Tracking Studies on Websites? It is extremely fascinating stuff, really.

Anyway, I agree that you will find many horror stories online about folks who were completely caught off guard because of how a Groupon deal affected them. I would argue that for the most part, these are places that have different limitations than we have in a the retail world. We don’t have 20 tables that we ‘have’ to turn over 4 times a night.  What we should have is a better shopping experience than someone can get elsewhere.

When you get them in your store, get to know them. Find ways to reach back out to them later.

By the way, don’t believe a word I say.  All Marketers Are Liars Tell Stories (another Seth Godin book that is GREAT)

Oh and Permission Marketing is a great book too.

(Full Disclosure, those links above are affiliate links. If you buy one of the books, I might make a dime.)

—-

Agree? Disagree? Thoughts? Bueller?

It’s the song that no one asked for.
Can’t get out of my head.
It makes you wish you could hear the depressing
Christmas Shoe Song by Newsong Instead.

The Fish loves to play it sooo much.
They play it 20 times a day.
I am praying for a miracle
The station’s version of this song gets accidentally erased.

We need One Less Christmas song
One Less Tune
One less melody filled with pain and gloom
I don’t care if the TV movie
Asked for a song they could play
If you ask me we’d be better off,
With one less Christmas song.

They just posted a link to a site that answers the question “How Secure is my password?”

I decided to give it a try on my password of choice.

No, it wasn’t a word, although the site says that it looked like one. 6 Hours isn’t too shabby, but I had determined to change it.  So I did.

Even without using symbols, 47 Trillion years should be good. Do you think?

Now I just have to go and change it in a few places.

If you happen to know anyone who needs to see this video… feel free to SHARE it with them.

Cheers

My chapter was about Rebellion. Go Read my thoughts on chapter 5 now.

Comments welcome.

You see, it is a play on words.

Get it.

Seriously, our family was in Clearwater a few weeks ago and got to go to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium where Winter and her friends are. We had a really nice time. The movie is based upon the actual story of Winter. What excites me more than anything about the movie is that it is family friendly.

I want this movie to do well because there is too much crap that gets made into feature films that can’t be shown to my kids.

I liked how I Take Joy worded it:

Dolphin Tale is just a sweet children’s story, but it also shows an under story of a child who is failing at school who comes alive when he has real life problems to solve, real causes to get behind. He comes alive because his heart is captivated by the idea that he can do something, even as a child, to help.

So… Go see Dolphin Tale. Starts today. I’m looking forward to going with my family.