|
|
Well sort of. We were in the same room and I was just a few feet from him. Well maybe more than a few feet. It was more like 50 feet. Maybe you get my point.
He came to Flint to Mott Community College for the Lecture Series that they have periodically. Daymond John was the keynote speaker for the night and was there to speak to our residents about his life story and business experiences. With starting this endeavor, I’ve realized there is so much to learn, so I was looking forward to going. He was quite interesting and hit on a lot of points that I believe can help me and others in our businesses.
My wife, Amy and I decided we wanted to go and asked our children if they would like to go as well. They tagged along and we made our way to the college. There was a real nice turn out and they even had to open the bleachers to allow for more seating of the overflow crowd.
He spoke on many topics and related all of them to his acronym:
S et Goals
H omework (Do your homework before starting in any endeavor)
A more (Love what you do)
R emember you are the brand
K eep Swimming (Keep moving forward and don’t stop)
I’m ashamed to say but I used the program to right notes and boy was I writing notes. I look forward to utilizing many of his suggestions
The thought that came to my mind when the events I described in the previous two posts was that it is important to always be ready for the unexpected. This whole scenario was unexpected, but I was prepared. I made a lot of items for the Victory Biker Church Breast Cancer Ride as well as Breast Cancer Awareness month in general and the items that I had already completed worked perfectly for this scenario. I’m excited to see how things work out.
In addition to Always be Closing, I am working at thinking ahead as well. I have been scouring the local area for shows that we can do. The two shows that we did earlier, were great successes in my book. Not just monetarily but in terms of making contacts. With each show I got so many ideas about other designs and colorations to make. People were so helpful and I always make every attempt to utilize every idea offered to me. It is impossible for me to know everything and I truly depend on the help of others to point me in the right direction in many areas.
Next time, Constant Reader, I should be able to give and update on how the deal at the Coffee Shop went. Until then.
Actually I couldn’t wait to write this post. I was so shocked at the events of earlier today that after it happened, I pulled out my journal and jotted down a few notes while they were fresh in my mind. What happened…well here goes.
I received a call from a friend of mine. I’ll leave her name out since I forgot to ask her if I could publish this story with her name and everything. She called and was wondering if I could meet with her. I didn’t have anything pressing going on at the moment and I told her that I could meet with her. The other day she bought a Gray and Pink Camo Breast Cancer Awareness bracelet for her son, so I figured she might want to exchange it fora different size. I do this for people that make a purchase from in person if their item is a regular and not a custom coloration that would be harder to sell to someone else. Many people have bought bracelets for other people and are guessing on their size. Most guess just about right but from time to time we have to do an exchange.
Well she did want to exchange for a Black and Pink Camo bracelet. She said her son thought the other one was a little too feminine. Before she left me she told me about the Making strides for Breast Cancer walk and was going to a local coffee shop to meet with the owner. Apparently she would be working at this cafe on the next morning and she suggested that if I had a flyer that maybe I could speak with the owner and she could put the flyer up in her shop. Well that sounded like a good idea to me although I did wonder if this lady would like the idea as well as my friend. I told her I would meet her and this lady after getting my pack with a few bracelets and a couple flyers.
I walked in this shop and I really like how it looks. I had never been in this shop nor am I much of a coffee drinker, so this place was off of my radar. My friend and the shop owner are at the rear of the shop. The first thing that pops in my mind is Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote, “Do something everyday that frightens you”. I had no real reason to be afraid other than this is all new and unexpected.
Next time, I’ll let you know what happened from there, Constant Reader.
As I’ve said before this guy really shocked me. After he did that first day I thought it was over. Well before his next class, he asked me several times, if I can be sure and get him a few bracelets, matching key chains, flyers and business cards. I made sure to do just that.
In the afternoon of the Saturday session of his class, he calls me and says that several guys bought bracelets, but he could use some larger ones. He was wondering if I could make a few and we could meet up and he would get the new ones and take them the next day. Well I was in my shop working on some other items, but I dropped everything to help him out. How could I not, right. This guy was going out of his way to not only help me but help out the people that he was in class with as well. I’ve always liked, even more than making the money, being told how much people enjoy the bracelets or other items and seeing the smiles and hearing the great stories. It was great hearing him say they were selling like “hotcakes” and every one liked them.
After I put together about a half dozen, I met up with him. The next week, I saw him at work. He had sold about a dozen bracelets all told, with more people wanting to buy. He even passed out lots of business cards and gave out several of the flyers. Did I say I was shocked. Well I was and I am.
In the last post I spoke of how this generosity has made me look within myself and ask several questions. I believe this will ultimately make me a better, man, husband and business owner. I’m looking forward to see how I handle these types of things in the future. This is a part of the story that hasn’t been written yet and I like that.
We’ll speak again next time, Constant Reader.
I consider myself a pretty kind and conscientious person. I’m no push over but I work at being kind, loyal and easy going to just about everyone I come in contact with. I’ve asked myself is that enough? Am I doing all that I can for others? My answer is basically: NO. In this business endeavor, I’ve come in direct contact with what I would label as true kindness, loyalty and even dare say love. Not intimate love, but the kind to do as much as you can to help someone achieve their dreams and goals. I’ve seen that in others that have come forward and helped me and as I’ve previously said, it shocked me. Their largesse, has inspired me in more ways that one to do more for others. Not in the generic way of helping the needy just to make me feel good, but to help someone I know achieve their goal. I don’t have to go out of my way or do something I’m not good at, I just have to help where ever I can.
This segues right back to what started me down this line of writing. The guy that I was speaking of came to me at the Bikes on the Bricks event and told me that he was taking a class (Firefighter type) and was wondering if he could take a few of the flyers for the Thin Red Line Bracelets. Before the class arrived he personally asked if I minded if he took a small variety of sizes of bracelets with him to the class to see how they would be received. Well I’ve worked with this guy for the last 15 years and see him every morning. I don’t really feel any reason not to trust him frankly. At the first class he sells a few bracelets and a key chain. Sounds great I thought. He did tell me that the guys really like them and wanted to buy more at their next class if I can provide him with more.
What did I do? Find out next time, Constant Reader.
I might have wrote about this before regarding another person or event, but it bears saying again. Why do they do it? For so long, I’ve heard people in business say they have always been approached by others telling them they could never make any success with their business plan. I’ve heard people with business ideas that I didn’t think would work, but I would never have the gall to actually tell them. I consider that rude. If someone is doing something that I don’t envision myself doing, I just tell them that it isn’t for me and I wish them well. To think that someone that would actually tell another person that their ‘dream’ of owning a business will never work seems ludicrous to me.
When it comes to me, guess what I’ve heard and experience from others. We’ll start talking about that next time, Constant Reader.
When I went to Bravenet.com. I typed in a name that came to me one morning: Paracordsandmore.com. What do you know it was available, so I signed up for it for two years. Not really expensive in my opinion, around $8.95 per year if my memory serves me correctly. Once I had the Domain name it was time to get my website hosting. As I’ve said previously I selected Hostgator.com. I went with their Baby Croc package. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles but it has enough for my needs. I can add an unlimited number of domains to this site and currently I have three (3) on here. Once I did this it is necessary to point my domain names to my host server so that they can link up and be used, in my case with hostgator.com.
I had to do some digging to figure out how to do this. Eventually I found it is necessary to find the nameservers attached to my Hostgator.com server and type in that code, whatever it was, over at Bravenet.com. Once I did this I had to wait 24-48 hrs, then, wait for it, voila. It worked. I found whenever I wasn’t sure what to do, if I would Google the question, just as I wanted to know it, I would indefinitely find someone that had the same question and figured it out. This saved me so much time. I’ve always liked to learn from other people’s efforts and this was no exception.
We’ll pick up again next time, Constant Reader. See you then.
I’ve always enjoyed writing and personally feel I have a little talent in it. It comes fairly easy for me, but I did yearn for something that was more tangible and hands on. I don’t like feeling so attached to a journal or the computer that I can’t get out and live life. To see the outdoors and experience a beautiful day and the company of some good people from time to time.
My very first site was a blogger.com site. I liked it but once I found that the company could pull the plug on all the work that I had written and that it wasn’t good to do an e-commerce site on it I began looking for another alternative. I’ve read in many places, and I have to agree, if you are putting together a site and are planning to make a good go of it, it is imperative to do a couple things. Buy your own domain name and purchase some hosting. Neither is relatively expensive, nor are they cost prohibitive. I went through Bravenet.com to get my domain(s). My wife suggested them and I find their prices to be very competitive. I got hosting through Hostgator.com. I’ve used them for a couple years now and find their product and service to work just fine for me. NOTE: In the spirit of full disclosure, I do have an affiliate account with Hostgator. If you click on the link below and ultimately purchase their product, I will get a commission.
This will take you right to hostgator for domains and hosting packages.
We’ll continue with the next step, next time; Constant Reader.
What steps you ask? Like how I did the site. A guy with only the smallest morsel of html or coding experience. I probably should explain that.
Over the past few years I had heard of the Word Press blogging platform and its ease of use for people like me; the non-egghead types. I found a site that had a step by step tutorial of how to setup an e-commerce site: click here for the tutorial. It’s in two parts and it helped me to come from nothing to what you see when you come to this site now. There were a few things I didn’t like and I changed them and their still remains a few changes that will occur but this was how it started.
Now let’s backup a bit. WordPress. Every time I think of the name it makes me think of the old Word Perfect program from waaaaay back in the day. For all you computer geeks, this is probably dating me, just like if I said I liked Prodigy.
As I said earlier I’d heard of WordPress, but had little experience with it until I did my second blog at: Neverquitever.com. I developed that site with Artisteer and used the Word Press platform. I found it very intuitive and easy to use. I still have that domain and website but after posting on it for a few months I felt like I was missing something; some direction. I stopped writing on it and did a few months of soul searching on what was it that I truly enjoy doing.
More on the steps, when we reconvene, Constant Reader
I’m actually a fan of all types of music. R&B, Motown, heavy metal, rock, country, jazz, ambient, as you can see all types. It’s difficult for me to write or type and listen to spoken words so I don’t listen to audio books or something like that. I find that ambient and jazz are my favorites but recently a different favorite genre has come into the mix: dubstep. Yeah I know. How can a 45 year old black fella, be a big dubstep fan. Heck if I know, I just do. My first official experience with dubstep without even knowing it what it was s the Go Pro Video with the guy kayaking down the rapids. The soundtrack in the background is the song Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites by Skrillex.
I think this video came out during the 2011 or 2012 Superbowl and I liked it the first time I heard it. I looked up who the song was by and found the above name and artist. I thought this was rave music at first. Shows you just how little I knew. I’ve since learned it is DubStep and their is this entire culture attached to the genre. Now I don’t think I will become a dubstep dance artist or be seen walking around pop locking and moving like a robot. I just find the music interesting.
When I was doing the Brooksie way Half marathon a few weeks ago, a group of youngsters were playing some Skrillex at their water stand at mile 12. I was bopping to the beat, but I bet they would have been shocked if they knew, I knew, who they were listening to. It surprises me, I’m certain it would surprise them as well. Just goes to show me that I’m not done learning and experiencing different things.
I guess that is enough of that constant reader. I’ll be doing a little robot…exit stage left. Until next time.
|
|