Give your ‘best’ self to every client & every connection-no exceptions.

Where I grew up, the three meals of the day are Breakfast, Dinner and Supper. So, when our parents announced we would be having company over for ‘Sunday Dinner’, my brothers and I knew if we pulled together and did what extra chores were needed, we were in for a heck of a meal.

The ‘company’ good plates and silverware came out. The dining room table was extended. The ‘special napkins’ were in order (the real cloth ones we had to learn to fold a certain way). The same for the ‘special glasses’ that had to be hand washed. A flurry of activity erupted as in a Disney fantasy movie while great smells from the kitchen wafted throughout the farmhouse. Read the rest of this entry »

People come and go, and sometimes they show up again in your life. Be careful not to burn a bridge you may need down the road.

If you have spent much time in a particular industry, you tend to notice that certain people may move from one company to another, but if they stick around, you’ll see them again. It may be at a networking event or you may end up working with them again.  You just never know the path that others will take.

I recently ran into someone whom I had worked with many years ago. This person remembered me as a nice guy who always showed respect for others. It wasn’t necessarily that I went out of my way to show ‘extra’ respect to him; in fact, I don’t have as good a memory as he does about when we used to work together.  But the payoff of a good reputation is priceless and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing someone say nice things about me to others. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s  been said before: hang around smarter people than you and you will become smarter, too.

I’m hedging my bet on this one.  Not only do I hang around Gaye Kruger, but I married her just to make sure I didn’t lose her.

Ours is a unique relationship, to be sure, because we work together every day.  Not sure how many couples can do that as successfully as we have figured out how to do.  It’s not for everyone.  But, when it works, it really works well. Gaye comes from a show-biz background, as in Actor, Singer, Dancer and Director. That’s a lot of creativity rolled into someone who loves our clients and loves coming up with unique ways to help our customers set themselves apart from their competition.  Read the rest of this entry »

Kinda like when you go to the fridge and are looking for something but you can’t find it and your spouse comes along and points out that what you are looking for is right in front of you…yeah…it’s kinda like that.

Oh, don’t even start with me.  And if you tell me ‘this has never happened to you’, well,  you probably fib about other things, too.

I kid, of course.  But, the parallel to this is searching everywhere for connections to the right people and, in that process, stepping over people who might have some very good connections for us, but we never asked!

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Pay attention to the little things, for they can add up quickly.

If it is true we only get one chance to make a good first impression, why do so many professionals out there continue to believe we will forgive them for slighting us, over and over again?

Our Promotional Marketing and Consulting business takes us in to about every industry out there. Anyone who is has competition in their industry becomes someone we can usually help, so when we find out what they truly need to capture more market share, we turn to hundreds and hundreds of our best supplier partners for help in recommending the right strategy, tactics and products that will help us help them meet their objective. It is smooth sailing, most of the time, but when we hit a glitch with a supplier, we find out very quickly whether that supplier sees the bigger picture or is just going to look out for themselves.  It happened again today.  Perhaps you can identify with this story. Read the rest of this entry »