Now Appearing in an Extended Engagement! Join David Robison as he takes you into his world and his daily life of reviving a stand-up comedy career. Prepare for side trips exploring the "art" of salesmanship and business ethics and his experience with Multi-level Marketing. Enjoy some frequent detours describing his observations on life. Read the exploits of this self-proclaimed Renaissance-man and blooming blogger as you go
On The Road With Dave.
Okay, so tonight you couldn't find anything else to watch on cable TV, so you decided to watch the "State of The Union" Address presented by President George Bush.
So, you're watching and you are thinking, "Why didn't he mention ...?" or you are wondering, "How come he always talks about....?"
Or, you might be thinking, "My Gosh, George Bush is the most articulate speaker I have ever encountered!"
Okay, okay, okay, STOP LAUGHING!
You might be imagining the kind of speech YOU would write for our leader of the Free World; well my friend, have I got a website for you.
You can put words in George W's mouth, his very own words, except the way you'd like to hear them. You too, can write a BushSpeech.
Choose from an assortment of words and phrases spoken by the President and rearrange the words to your liking for sentences ole' George might never say.
My teen-age son's favorite that he personally concocted--
"I want Americans to duty on the streets of our cities."
Along with the rest of the world, on New Year's Day I made a lot of new resolutions. I felt good after making them--kind of satisfied with myself. But here it is the last of January and some of these grand resolutions are beginning to crack, and I'm looking for the reason. I think I have found it. You can't create habits simply by resolving. Only indomitable persistence, trying and failing, and trying again and failing not so soon, will make those resolutions a reality.
I have a task to accomplish. I will eat moderately, play moderately, save moderately, but more than these, I will have a passion to overcome every influence that keeps me from being my best. I won't be a flower that only blooms from January 1st to January 15th. Not for a few days but all through the year I'll make my life count.
Get out your resolutions, your aims, your quota, or whatever has been your goal. Then say, 'I'll make the flame of my resolve just as hot today, and in February, and throughout the year as on January 1st; and by the Eternal, I'll do it'"
--William H . Danforth from As A Man Thinketh, 1924
She's been battling "the flu" for over a week now, so today may not be the happiest of birthdays, but I want her to know that her birthday is a big present for me, because it means she has been in my life for one more year.
Happy Birthday, Renee! (and I'll throw in a "Get Well Soon!; while I'm at it)
Tuesday night on "American Idol", one of the potential "Idols" was a ventriloquist.
He brought his dummy, Scotty, to the audition. One of the things I've noticed lately about the "Idol" auditions is that all the audition participants have combined a "Let's Make A Deal" element to their auditions.
If you remember the game show "Let's Make a Deal" with Monty Hall, you'll remember that all the contestants dressed in wild costumes or held up signs or carried props to get Monty's attention to be featured on the show.
So, last night, here was a guy who wanted to be a singer, a pop idol, who brought a ventriloquist dummy as his prop.
Ok, I'm a ventriloquist and a "wannabe comic" that also loves to sing. I love going to Karaoke bars, I sing in the car, and I make up silly songs around the house and I am the epitome of the kid who sang in front of the mirror with a fake microphone.
But, I do not have the voice to be an American Idol. Neither did this other ventriloquist.
But, had I been able to lock my wife up in a closet and remove myself from the shackles that she would have invariably put me in, had I threatened to show up at an "Idol" audition, you can bet your "sweet bippy" that my ventriloquist figure would have stayed safely in the trunk.
A ventriloquist dummy is part of a specialty brand of comedy; not a singing act.
There are ventriloquists that sing; and sing very well, but they are ventriloquists first and foremost.
I think the guy should have kept his dummy at home.
The good folks at 1to1, who pretty much coined the term "relationship marketing" released results of a new report on retail sales and client loyalty in their current newsletter. And while the report is centered around brick and mortar-type retail businesses; the insight into why "relationship marketing" is so important affects those of us involved in Multi-level Marketing, as well.
LOYALTY ABUZZ AT NATIONAL RETAIL FEDERATION SHOW By Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D.
We've been writing a lot and hearing a lot lately about ways to engender consumer trust. In fact, we think it's the most important element in building long-term customer value. At last week's National Retail Federation event in New York City, our emphasis on customer trust was validated with research.
The research came from the Adjoined Consulting and SAS study, "Retail Demand Insights 2006: What Drives Consumers?" It shows very clearly that consumers connect trust to loyalty. And loyalty, whether or not you're a retailer, is an important factor in customer value. Comments by Kathy Mance, NRF Foundation Vice President, couldn't have expressed our feelings more accurately: "The more trust and goodwill a retailer builds, the more likely it is they will have a long-term loyal customer base."
According to the study, the number of shoppers stating that they were long-term loyal customers dropped in 2006 to 77.2 percent compared to 83.8 percent in 2005, and the issue here goes straight to the relationship between trust and loyalty. The report identifies the types of information customers will trust you with -- and what they won't trust you with. According to the study, the overwhelming majority of consumers are willing to give retailers their name (89.8%), email address (78.1%), and street address (60.7%), and about half (46.8%) are OK with retailers keeping records of past transactions. But very few consumers are willing to give more personal financial information like income (12.5%), job title (12.1%), employer (10.9%), or net worth (8.2%).
The biggest issue in the report, which surveyed more than 10,000 consumers during 2005, is that consumers will not give you financial information about themselves. That is a huge disconnect. Not only does it make it difficult to build a loyalty program for retailers, it makes customer valuation models for any business difficult to build. It is challenging, if not impossible, to calculate the long-term value of a customer without financial information. If 12 percent of your customer base will give you financial information, it creates a big problem when it comes to analyzing your customers' potential.
In our opinion, retailers trying to increase customer loyalty need to refocus on relationships more than on loyalty programs. In the short term it's only reasonable to expect that a consumer will be reluctant to give you any more than a superficial amount of personal information. But in the long term, if you use that information responsibly to build a relationship that the customer values by providing personally relevant offers and communications, then customer trust will build. As the customer sees a genuine benefit from your use of his personal information, he will trust you with more of it. It's that simple.
Make customer loyalty a long-term customer strategy. The more you make it a short-term grab for your database and to hit a manufactured revenue number, the more you risk alienating the very customers you're trying to attract.
Here's another interesting fact from the report. When it comes to reaching new customers in 2006, television (31.7%) is still the preferred method, followed by direct mail (21%) and word-of-mouth (17.7%).
But what customers say about your company is more important than magazine, Internet, and radio ads and many other more traditional methods of advertising. You can bet that one instance of breaching customer trust will be talked about by your customers over and over again. You can also bet that one instance of showing an understanding for customer information and working to build trust will be talked about as well. You control the conversation.
Talking Comedy bills itself as The Internet's Premier Comedy Webzine.
The current issue Vol. 4 / No. 2 2005 is an exclusive ALL-VENTRILOQUISM Issue featuring Ventriloquist profiles, history, photos, and book and movie reviews all related to ventriloquism.
If you read "On The Road" with any frequency, then you know that ventriloquism comedy is my passion. If you want a quick view into the ventriloquist's world, then stop by "Talking Comedy."
Also, past issues are online featuring profiles on stand-up comedians, comedic actors, and comedy theatre.
Look for the entry dated 1/19/2006. Because while Robin attests to the fact that he publishes a real blog, there's still no permalinks for me to link you to just that entry.
But, I applaud Robin for "coming out" with his identity, even though it's been somewhat known around other Quixtar blogs for a while.
"The Real Quixtar Blog" has critics for it's form and style, but I still visit it regularly for it's corporate "voice" on life inside Quixtar.
It's nice to know that it's taken a step towards more "real-ness" by giving a name to the voice.
Anon only has about 4 posts so far under his belt, but he shows some creativity in his most recent post entitled, What Went Wrong.
Anon analyzes a prospecting experience another blogger goes through and offers some great dialogue via an imaginary and colorful sports-like "play-by-play."
Chuck: Next up, Joe asks what Mike & Stacey do for a living. Mike reciprocates with an answer about their web/programming.
Bob: Chuck, that's a third "rung", but here's where the trouble starts: Joe volunteers information about his own business.
Chuck: What happened to building a ladder?
Bob: Apparently Joe's abandoned any more relationship building to get out his message.
Chuck: What happened to establishing a need?
Bob: It looks like Joe is only thinking about his own needs, Chuck.
Chuck: This is not looking good. Let's see if Joe can pull his act back together.
Bob: Mike isn't responding to Joe's need--
Chuck: And why should he?
Bob: ...he's backing off with the classic "No Time" objection, citing his impending MBA studies as the reason.
It's a shame more IBOs aren't blogging in the "light", except for the "leaders" of the Motivational Organizations, but for now that makes two new anonymous IBOs testing the blog waters.
One of the visitors was none other than Scott Larsen, The Beast himself.
I think that Scott has visited my site a few times, but I'm not sure if he's a regular reader or not. Scott emailed me a clarification for the entry.
I think that Scott should know that he was rather instrumental in me becoming the Quixtar IBO I am today.
During the time several years ago, when I was deciding to break from the Amway Motivational Systems, I read Scott's site with great interest, along with all the other sites that had bad things to say about Amway, and later on, Quixtar.
Maybe those sites' intended purposes were to dissuade people from pursuing the Amway business route, and possibly angering the entrenched distributors participating in these motivational systems; but for me, these sites provided me with valuable "market research" into the minds of dissatisfied ex-Amway distributors.
I treated the sites as my own personal "focus group" learning all I could about what works, what doesn't work, and how people feel about their past experiences.
I did not always agree with the site authors on all their opinions or their agenda, (And still don't) but I was able to see past certain biases and took the information they provided to become, I think, a better Quixtar representative.
So, it's nice to know that now they are visiting my little blog and feel it's worth replying to.
And personal to Scott, I don't agree with all you publish, but I don't think you are a beast at all
Anyone participating in the blogosphere that writes or discusses the Quixtar Corporation has undoubtedly paid a visit to the Quixtar Business Analysis website or amquix.info for short.
Amquix is authored by Scott Larsen, an engineer working and living in Germany. Scott has gained a reputation for being the ultimate Quixtar/Amway critic. His site is referenced by other Internet critics often, and he is one of the first sources cited in many "anti-Quixtar" discussions.
In recent years, Scott has published objective and subjective commentaries on not only Quixtar, but also on "leaders" in the Quixtar IBO population.
In December, two leaders associated with the Quixtar-motivational systems contacted Larsen about some of his content at his website.
Larsen is constantly written to by IBOs associated with Quixtar defending their positions and he regularly publishes their rants in the feedback section of his site. He offers rebuttal and debate to these writers and oftentimes decimates their arguments. (Some of the comments NEED decimating)
But these two "leaders" have been successful in having Larsen remove material from his website that pertain to the leaders and their business.
Larsen retracted information and asked for follow-up confirmation on other published material.
Normally, you would think this type of "conversation" between antagonists would take place between attorneys, or private legal letters. Not so in this case.
The ongoing process initiated by these leaders is now being published at the IBOAI website and was recently updated as of yesterday to "answer" the follow-up confirmation requested by Larsen.
Just happened upon a new Quixtar IBO blog tonight.
It's anonymously written by "One IBO" and he's affiliated with the Britt Worldwide Motivational Organization.
He's at 1500PV and figures that $6000 in expenses for the first year of being a Quixtar IBO is a reasonable investment compared to other business investments.
Agree, Disagree, whatever; I'm just letting you know another Quixtar IBO is blogging.
My kids used to love to go to Sam's Club. Not for the bargains, because they weren't spending their money; they were spending mine. And not for the wide selection of toys, because Wal-Mart's toy aisles were always bigger.
They liked Sam's Club because of the free food samples.
It was a veritable free food buffet lining the beginning of each aisle. Free samples of freshly fried sausage, the newest cheese dip, a cheese plate, snack crackers, or during the holiday season you could sample hot chocolate or spiced apple cider.
My kids weren't alone in the sampling of the food variety, because as I tried to maneuver my cart down the beginning of an aisle, I was invariably stalled by the throngs of other hearty sample eaters waiting their turn for a small paper cup of Orville Redenbacher microwave popcorn.
I don't ever recall actually purchasing any of the full-size products that were offered as free samples. Usually my resolve NOT to purchase the items was reinforce by my kids nagging me to frustration and anger and telling them no, out of spite from their begging. (Gosh, I'm a bad parent, no one else would ever say no to their kids, just because of that, huh?)
But, I'm sure that Sam's Club made plenty of sales with this technique of offering samples. They still do it, so it must work.
But free samples aren't just for food. How many CD-ROM disks do you receive each month offering free 500, 1000, 1050 minutes of AOL service?
In my multi-level marketing business, my sponsor's main thrust for making sales is offering a sample. In many cosmetic-based MLMs, small samples of skin care products and cosmetic "colors" are offered to prospective buyers. With the company, Quixtar, many IBOs(reps) are taught, for example, to hand out a can of XS Energy Drink to entice a sale. Recently, I noticed that Oasis Lifesciences' reps offer a free sample of their liquid vitamin product. This got me to thinking about why I have NEVER offered sample products.
Free samples work, right? Everybody uses them.
Insurance companies don't use them. Realtor's® don't use them.
You have to make a decision to purchase items like houses, health insurance, and even cars. (the test drive is not really a sample) Ask the local Lexus dealer if you can have a Free 30-Day Trial of the latest Lexus Hybrid, and see what he says.
But Dave, giving away a sample of hand lotion to get a client to buy a bottle of the stuff isn't exactly like buying a car.
Okay, let's pare it way down.
Let's use this hypothetical hand lotion as our example.
You go call on Client A. You have in your hand your Dreamy&Creamy brand of lotion. You show the brochure, you let the client sniff the "oh-so-fresh" fragrance through the bottle opening, you squirt a dab of the miracle handcream on the back of his hand and you let him rub the "silky goodness" into his skin.
(Excuse me, I got a little "throw-up" in my throat typing that.)
And now you announce, "I'm so sure that this is the product for you, I'm going to let you try a free sample". Call me if you want to order some. How many little trial bottles of lotion or sample packets are you going to have to give out in order to make a sale? How many follow-up calls will you make? When will the prospective client begin to ignore your phone calls?
So, why don't you close the sale immediately after the prospective client has tried the lotion? Why prolong the sale process with days' of sampling? You have the opportunity then and there. Take it.
Look, you've already purchased the one bottle of lotion to demonstrate the effectiveness. Why invest in other smaller bottles? Why increase your expenses?
My sponsor's financial situation is better than mine. He can afford to hand out water treatment systems on a trial basis. He can afford the extra expense of stocking several of these systems in hopes of selling one. Maybe you can afford the expense of doing something similar.
Quite frankly, I can't afford that kind of expense. And furthermore, If I truly am in the business of "duplicating my efforts", how many of my downline can afford the initial expense of duplicating this sampling process.
How effective is a sample without a sales pitch? And if you are going to pitch anyway; then why do you need the sample?
Use a full size bottle, demo the product, but don't hand out samples indiscriminately.
Because until you make the sale, a sample product only makes money for your representative company. If you can't close the sale, why give away a sample?
Instead, offer to the client an incentive to purchase; an incentive to repeat a purchase...better yet, offer them consistent superior service.
That would be a "sample" they most likely rarely receive. They might find that more valuable than a free fried sausage at Wal-Mart.
Everyone always tells me that I'm technologically inept when it comes to acquiring new devices and programs for my computer and online experiences. Well today, thanks to Bill DeMar at WORLDVENTS, I have found a device that I highly recommend to everyone.
Introducing the new Bio-Optic Organized Knowledge device, trade named: BOOK
BOOK is a revolutionary breakthrough in technology: no wires, no electric circuits, no batteries, nothing to be connected or switched on. It's so easy to use, even a child can operate it.
Compact and portable, it can be used anywhere -- even sitting in an armchair by the fire -- yet it is powerful enough to hold as much information as a CD-ROM disc. Here's how it works:
BOOK is constructed of sequentially numbered sheets of paper (recyclable), each capable of holding thousands of bits of information. The pages are locked together with a custom-fit device called a binder, which keeps the sheets in their correct sequence.
Opaque Paper Technology (OPT) allows manufacturers to use both sides of the sheet, doubling the information density and cutting costs. Experts are divided on the prospects for further increases in information density; for now, BOOKs with more information simply use more pages.
Each sheet is scanned optically, registering information directly into your brain. A flick of the finger takes you to the next sheet. BOOK may be taken up at any time and used merely by opening it.
Unlike other display devices, BOOK never crashes or requires rebooting, and it can even be dropped on the floor or stepped on without damage. However, it can become unusable if immersed in water for a significant period of time. The "browse" feature allows you to move instantly to any sheet and move forward or backward as you wish. Many come with an "index" feature, which pinpoints the exact location of selected information for instant retrieval.
An optional "BOOKmark" accessory allows you to open BOOK to the exact place you left it in a previous session -- even if the BOOK has been closed. BOOKmarks fit universal design standards; thus, a single BOOKmark can be used in BOOKs by various manufacturers. Conversely, numerous BOOKmarkers can be used in a single BOOK if the user wants to store numerous views at once. The number is limited only by the number of pages in the BOOK.
You can also make personal notes next to BOOK text entries with an optional programming tool, the Portable Erasable Nib Cryptic Intercommunication Language Stylus (PENCILS).
Portable, durable, and affordable, BOOK is being hailed as a precursor of a new entertainment wave. Also, BOOK's appeal seems so certain that thousands of content creators have committed to the platform and investors are reportedly flocking. Look for a flood of new titles soon.
When I was a kid, and I mean a real little kid, I often heard my momma used the expression, "than Lori Louse."
"David Wayne, you talk more than Lori Louse," she said.
"David Wayne, you break more stuff than Lori Louse," she scolded.
Or I would hear her tell someone on the phone,
"I can't; I've been busier than Lori Louse."
As an eight year old, I just figured that Lori Louse was a really busy woman that broke stuff a lot and talked a lot.
Not until I was much older that I finally understood what Momma was really saying.
It was actually two "sayings" that she used interchangeably.
"David Wayne, you talk more than the Lord allows."
"David Wayne, you break more stuff than the Law allows."
And so I must say that this week; I have "been busier than the Law allows."
During the New Year's weekend I was still suffering from the flu, and after returning to work after the holiday, I have been on the run constantly. I returned to work Tuesday and have worked late every evening since. Yesterday and today combined; I drove almost 300 miles performing my job duties. I was constantly "on the road", but never driving out of our company's 100-mile operating radius.
After I clocked out each evening and came home, I did manage to get online and check email and read my favorite blogs, but I was simply not up to the task of writing in my OWN blog.
Some readers might have thought I was "killing my blog", but I was really just still recuperating and resting up in the evenings.
Tre wrote me asking about my upcoming entry about Samples and marketing and I promise that article will be featured here at "On The Road" early next week. In fact, many more entries are coming next week as I get back on my regular blogging schedule.
