Zach sent me a good read today regarding Social Media Measurement. It reminded me of the things I was sharing with my Reports post. I wish I had a little more time to write out posts like hers with more detail. Great job and really on the spot. Knowing what your users are doing and how you can turn what they are doing into increased usage and word of mouth marketing is key in this world of internets…and turning all of this into revenue.

Being from Blue Springs, I feel I must say something about David Cook. I did not know him nor will I pretend I do. He is about my age and lived in the same town, so obviously I knew of him, but nothing beyond that. I really do not watch American Idol and do not really understand all of it. Plus Paula Abdul drives me nuts. But all that said, I wish David the best. A lot of stuff in the Kansas City Star about his recent day in Kansas City. It is kind of cool to see the entire town filling with pride and kind of rallying together. It is silly to hear all of the stories now…my brothers girlfriends mom works with his mom and she said he used to sing a lot around the house and how she used to always say that he was going to be famous one day…or some story so they can act connected to him. I hope you finish where it best helps your career, even if that means you do not win. Blue Springs what!

So ever since a quite hilarious email exchange between a group of my friends several weeks ago, I keep hearing more and more about the forever stamps and investments. I will not get into, since many of my friends have already explored…deeply, the investment opportunities with forever stamps. I just keep seeing it everywhere and it makes me chuckle a little each time. I even heard a quite detailed conversation including an expert interviewee on the subject from NPR, well actually, KCUR.

I would love to hear some more thoughts about the forever stamps as investments. Drop me a line.

For some extra money, I work with a local bowling alley on some promotional nights. I love doing things like this. It is really where you can get creative. Creativity is really great intellectual capital to have. I am really fortunate to have a blank slate to play with and really hone my skills, so to speak.

I have found that these things can lead to some good exercises that I do on almost a daily basis anymore. A concept I did not think much about until being involved in every aspect of the business as well as consulting on these promo nights. There has to be a reason to all spending. It has to be done in order to create more revenue. Another thing to take into account is even if it gets more revenue, are your margins taking a big hit by doing it and can it be done another way? Everybody has great business ideas, or at least ideas on how a business can do things better. Here is my challenge to you. Really think about dollars and what effect it will truly have.

For instance if I had some prizes worth $50 bucks a piece to hand out to people at an all you can bowl event, would they really generate more than $50 in NEW revenue each? Probably not. In order to get $50 in revenue at a bowling alley, I would need 4 people at the $12 per, price. Or I would need 2 people and 4 pitchers of beer at $7 a piece. And this does not take into account the variable costs, such as electricity to run a lane for 4 hours and the cost of the beer to the bowling alley. Is there a way to get the prizes donated? I really have to create a $50 value for the person or they will not want to donate something. So what are some things that I could do to build the benefit for them that does not cost me more. Maybe I could mention their business name. Maybe that brings them 1 extra customer, if that, and depending on their business could mean $5 or $50. Maybe if I create a game that goes along with their business and/or have a trivia question about their business or have their business be the answer. Now I have created a message to the customers that is a little more sticky. Something a little more top of mind and easy to recall. Just a few notes from my brain’s notepad. I encourage you all to brainstorm like this and I would love to hear some things you all come up with.

I have been analyzing all of my analytical data from the wonderful Google Analytics. It is amazing all of the information that you can assess by looking at all this data. You can take any of these numbers and play around with them and divide and multiply and what not in comparison with others to see exactly what you want to know. You can break down how often someone visits a single page compared to the total number of visits your website gets. Some of these ratios can really be beneficial. Like for instance, we are a member based website, not this one, and I can use something as simple as total visits divided by the unique visitors and can have an average number of visits per member. I think this is one stat that I really need to key in on, which can lead to big results in the advertisement side.

This kind of goes back to the New clients vs. Current clients. As much as I want new customers, this is a great way to see how effective I am with my current customers and numbers are increasing. Fun to watch. I am sure if you have a site, you use or at least have heard of Google Analytics. Use it and find the unique stats that really can benefit you and your websites purpose.

Just like the old Seinfeld episode. “Anybody can take reservations, its the holding of the reservation.” We drove up to Minneapolis for a volleyball tournament and arrived last night. 10 rooms reserved. Got in line at 7:30. Did not get into our rooms until after 9. And beyond that, 4 people are in smoking rooms (we reserved all non smoking), one is in a parlor (no beds, just a pull out and a roll away), and one is in a maintenance room (needs maintenance of some sort).

The guy just kept saying, all we guarantee is that you have a room. We can not guarantee the preferences (non smoking and bed situation) you have. “OK. I get it. But that is not what they told me when I made the reservation. That is not what it says on the confirmation letter I had emailed to me and have right in front of you!” I am not saying it is that guys fault, but quit telling me the same thing. If you do not have the authority to get something done, get somebody here that can. “Well normally each guest gets a letter that explains that,” he says. Well, I did not.

The headaches of travel. I almost lost it. But I held it together. I had to stay in a smoking room, but am getting moved today to a nonsmoking room. I wish I had more time to make this a better post, but you get the picture.

I am really tired of this weather. I really want to get back to being active and get in shape. Bad weather is just too easy of an excuse. I prefer to get my exercise outdoors. I really hope the weather people are right that it is supposed to get 20 degrees warmer today even though it is already almost 11AM. I plan on hitting the trails hard this year and really checking out different parts of the city. This is a great way to learn more about the city and the housing market. I am probably looking to buy my first house in the next year or so and really want to educate myself before I make the largest purchase (by far) of my life up to this point. I am not sure a lot of people really look at buying a house in this regard and if you sit back and think about it, it should blow you away. I am hoping I can really find something that works really well for me right now since it is definitely a buyers market right now. But for now, I am sitting inside typing on a computer.

Things are really rolling at work. Last week I had one of those weeks. You know the week where you are just frustrated as can be and nothing seems to be going fast enough, or even in the right direction. It sure is making this week seem much better than it probably is. We are getting new clients everyday and our utilization has gone up tremendously in the past week. Communication with the clients is key. I have always kind of known, or at least thought that, but never really followed through and stuck with it. Recently I have and I continue to reward clients with t-shirts and water bottles when they provide me with positive feedback. I am really trying to take the customer service and communication to a level that will lead to buzz. I think our product is really great, and we have even better things in the works. It is definitely buzz worthy. I just have to make people realize it. I am really excited moving forward and have some really great ideas to guerrilla market our product. It is going to be a lot of extra hours and a lot of just talking, but when you believe in what you do and believe in your product, that is not so hard to do. I am excited about the way things are going and want to saddle up and ride Uncle Mo (Momentum, for those of you wondering). That was one of my favorite sayings from basketball in high school. It is good to see good ol’ Uncle Mo again.

This will be brief, but it’s funny.

So today I am getting on the elevator, heading back to my little office with no windows to watch the ever changing Kansas City weather, when a guy is heading toward the doors to join me. He has with him a cart holding not one, but two toilets. Odd, I know. The best part is that now you think something is going to happen with the toilets, but that is not it at all. He is talking on his phone and trying to maneuver this cart. So he hangs up the phone, tries to swing the cart out wide and is backing into the elevator. Slip…clump…nothing. This is a description of a phone slipping out of his hand, hitting the floor, then falling in the crack between the elevator floor and the actual buildings floor. That little tiny sliver that you never think about dropping something in. Poor guy looks in the crack…I lean over and look in the crack. All you can see is black, except for this little square light. The light being the screen on his phone. All he can say is, “Dude, what are the odds of that?” Dude, I do not know the odds, but man it is funny. It reminds me of riding up the ski lift and you see one glove or pole or something on a really hard slope through the woods and you know that person is never going to be able to retrieve it. Sucks man, but looking at the other side, hilarious.

As I attended the Royals home opener with my buddy www.zachishere.com, we sat there and went over all kinds of hilarious songs to fit players and nicknames and stuff of that sort. Since then, I have been giving this a lot of thought. For many years now, I have had this crazy notion that one day my best friends and myself will own the Royals. As I still think that would be awesome, I think owning a minor league club would probably be the best job in the world. Not near the pressure or long hours. And from a marketing standpoint…what could be more fun that coming up with crazy give aways and games and really engaging the fans past the ball game itself. The Royals are doing well and I want to give them some props. I hope that the fair market value is more than I can ever afford, not because I will not have a lot of money, but because they are so effin good. I love sport and I love interaction with people. But living on the salary of a marketer for a minor league ball club would be tough. So the next time I go see a financial planner and they ask how much I want to have for retirement, my answer is…”What’s the going rate for a minor league ball club?”