Tag Archives: business

Business as usual

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Sad news in the business world of motivational business — the death of Zig Ziglar.

I think I only saw Zig speak once, at a weekly sales training session for Southwestern Book Company in Nashville, TN, back in the summer of…1983?  He and others we heard, such as Dave Dean and Og Mandino, encouraged us to think more of ourselves than we normally tend to think.

All of us have an internal conversation — a running commentary — in our thoughts.  How we focus that conversation and the resultant feelings is what makes motivational speakers so popular.

We don’t know what squirrels knocking hickory nuts out of trees are thinking to themselves (“Gotta remember where that nut fell to the ground 100 feet below…and that nut…and that one…wait!  Was that the shadow of a predatory bird?  Ooh, that skin patch itches.  Must scratch my back.  Let’s see…which nut was I trying to track last?  Hmm…”) but they probably don’t need a lot of motivation to stop negative thoughts in their heads (“Why bother gathering nuts?  I’m just going to grow old and die, anyway!”).

My business hat off to Zig for giving the motivational industry a big boost in his heyday.

My hat’s off also to Eric Thelen at Southern Experience, Inc., whose “customer first” mentality gave my wife and me the opportunity to purchase wonderful pairs of 50-yard line seats for the last two Univ. of TN football games we attended, handling a refund for an accidental double-charge without blinking an eye.

Thanks to Paula at Walmart; Sean at Rite-Aid; Andrea and Miranda at Beauregard’s; Joe, Catherine, Jennifer and Harold at Kinesthetic Cue; and others whose names escape me at this moment.

First, Do No More Harm Than Is Absolutely Necessary To Do No Harm

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The men sat back in their leather chairs, cigar smoke gathering in layers below the ceiling.

“Boys, this is the way I see it.  We gave the women the right to vote.  A few decades later, we paid some kids to crash planes on 9/11.  From my point of view, we’re right on schedule.  Any objections?”

“Why are you so certain this will work?”

“Why?  Because it always has.  We enfranchise and disenfranchise various portions of the population to keep them off-guard and forever picketing city hall for the same rights they’ve lost and gained so many times they can’t remember.”

“If only this next one happened in my lifetime…”

“Anyone else with a question?”

“Yes.  So let me get this straight.  Your schedule shows us implementing Sharia law in Western countries within 100 years of 9/11/2001, thereby reinstating the role of men as supreme leaders…?”

“Uh-huh…”

“But it doesn’t bother you that our religion is pushed off to the side?”

“What do you mean?”

“Isn’t Sharia law the antithesis of ours?”

“How so?”

“Well, our religions are not exactly best friends…”

“Abrahamic, Ibrahamic, call it what you will.  At the end of the day, it’s patriarchical and that’s all that matters to us men.  Right, boys?!”

The yellow-orange glow of burning tobacco sticks bobbed up and down.

“Next item on the agenda — determining which families get first dibs on occupying the initial Martian colonies.  Any suggestions?”

“Well, hadn’t we better make sure the women we send with those families are self-sufficient if need be but ultimately dependent on men?”

“Of course, of course.  As you can see from the list I gave you, the men and women from which you will choose the best candidates have been sequestered into isolated subcultures for three generations, allowing us to control their thought patterns, dietary preferences and genetic tendencies with 99.99966 percent accuracy.”

“I don’t know.  Six sigma sure leaves a lot of room for error.  I’d feel a lot more secure if we had a 10-sigma process in place.”

“You get what you pay for.  Gentlemen, anyone want to raise the stakes to ten sigma?”

“I’ll put a wager on seven.”

“Eight for me!”

“Okay, anyone for nine?  No?  Okay, going once, twice, sold!  Eight sigma.  By my calculations we need an additional half a billion dollars for seed money to get this started.”

“I’d still feel more comfortable with ten.”

“And if you can cough up 100 billion dollars, we’ll give you ten sigma.”

“Let me think about it…”

“Sure thing.  We’ll table it until next week’s Committee meeting.  Now, looking at the list, are there any objections to the list of potential candidates?”

Cross-Market Products That Don’t Work

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In an era of cross-market products, where politicians should wear jackets showing their list of highest campaign donors to help us figure who’s buying the legislation being shoved down our throats sold to us as a bill of goods good for us, there are some products that shouldn’t reach the market.

Example below:

Thirty-one years ago…

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Tired of turkey and dressing for dinner, my wife and I treated my mother to a supper of pizza a few days ago.

At the table next to us sat a family celebrating a child’s birthday.

After we ate, we spoke to the family and discovered they lived about 20 miles away from my wife and me in north Alabama.

Quite a coincidence, eating at the same restaurant 300 miles from home, it seemed.

Then, the grandmother at the table spoke up and said she recognised my mother who, as it turned out, had taught the 37-year old man with graying beard whose son’s birthday was sung by the pizza restaurant staff a few minutes before.

There we stood, watching a couple with a six-year young boy, recalling when the father was six 31 years before, under the tutelage of my mother.

On the ride home, my mother described what she remembered of the man when he was a boy — smart, skinny, shy — who is now an engineer working for our government’s military.

In our country, a popular phrase called “fiscal cliff” hangs in the air, with hints of government military cutbacks threatening to dampen celebrations of birthdays for little boys who depend on their parents’ government salaries to support local restaurants.

The “trickle down theory” is no longer popular but applies in many different ways, from the effect of a first grade teacher on a boy’s future to the effect of political wrangling on the income of restaurant workers.

The future is in our hands, which are the signs of the effects of the past.

Time is irrelevant.  Action is everything.

A Terrorist Tower of Babble Rabble in Runes

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Life is one long conversation with the universe, n’est pas?

In shocking news earlier today, the Government Subcommittee for the Management of Fear in the Masses announced that marketers, marketing departments, adverts, advertisers, advertising departments, public relations firms, newspaper/magazine/book publishers/editors/writers, film producers/makers/staff/actors, videographers, photographers, financial institutes, stock traders (human and electronic) who short shares, money lenders, librarians, museum curators and memorabilia/nostalgia collectors are officially labeled as traitorous terrorists — they should be considered extremely dangerous to the wellbeing of all persons, businesses and governments and reported to death squads without hesitation.

Any activity resembling the above, no matter how innocent, including geotagging your location at a place of business, writing a positive/negative review of a product/service you recently purchased, commenting about the news (weather, sports, politics, religion, arts, lifestyles, etc.), or using a product/service in public is deemed suspect.

Anyone caught not reporting such suspicious activities and/or persons are accessories to traitorous terrorism and will receive extra punishment as a reward.

Every violator may be eliminated on sight, no questions asked by the authorities.

If this does not generate sufficient fear in the masses, private/government spying will increase exponentially until you look forward to dying and meeting your Maker/Great One(s), the omniscient/omnipotent Being(s) who knows all your thoughts/lusts/desires/sins/mistakes and will punish you lovingly for them, Heaven/Nirvana having been filled with the first 100,000 worshippers millennia ago as promised, no room for the rest of us, who are now merely playthings of the Maker/Great One(s).

Those who are able to create their own Maker/Great One(s) are exempt from the above law and may proceed without fear throughout society unscathed.

Always a fun situation

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Two political points:

  1. Many in the U.S. Congress are lame ducks, with no aspirations for a political future, meaning they can make waves in the days before their legislative duties are complete.
  2. In a way, Obama is a lame duck because he can’t be reelected for his political office.  So, for the rest of the world, there are four years to cause havoc and mayhem that put the insurance company adverts in perspective.

Let the games begin!

New business opportunity – limited time offer

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For the very last first time, our going-into-business sale offers you the dream of a lifetime!!!

Don’t pass up this chance by not giving us a chance.

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Are you tired of franchises that haven’t lived up to your expectations — yet another store with a new twist on the fried-cow-meat-and-potato-strip way to fatten up the masses, more knickknacks cluttering your overstuffed-with-stuffy-furniture DIY decorator home, etc.?

Well, here’s the story you want to tell your grandchildren!

For an unlimited number of people is the success before them.

What are we saying here that we can’t tell you in plain language?

If we told you that giving us a few minutes of your time would change your life for the better, would you stop anything and everything you’re doing?

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We have invented a business so successful that our winners walk amongst you without having to say a word about their wonderful lives.

You see them glowing and wonder why they’re so lucky to be “on top of the world” with their humble, loving personalities.

Are you ready to join them?

Of course you are!

We know winners when we see them.

That’s why we wrote these words with you, and ONLY YOU, in mind.

There’s no reason you have to work 20-hour days, or 150-hour weeks, to run your health into the ground just to pay exorbitant franchise fees and burn through your hard-earned cash in hopes of making a profit one day.

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We’ll tap you on the shoulder, shake your hand, or give you a big smile that tells you we have exclusively selected you.

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A franchise of franchises, no money down, no store to lease and no employees to manage.

After you have been selected, we will direct you to the Winners Circle of websites.

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Our paper-based handbook, although out of fashion in this age of ecological recycling, will still give you the answers you’ve sought before you even thought of the questions!!!

We are excited to have you join us.

You will absolutely love success.

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See you soon, WINNERS!!!!