Disaster Struck Before My Presentation

For the past ten years or so, I have been traveling across the country giving presentations to businesses on how to increase their profitability.  I not only love my job, but I like to think that I help others increase their business success.

Most of the time, things go smoothly and have over the last decade, but there was one time where disaster struck.  You see, we were booked to present to a crowd in Washington on a Friday afternoon and I was stoked.  We had not been to Washington in a long time and from what I remembered, they were a very friendly bunch.  I was really looking forward to presenting there.

There was a problem with our truck on the way there, so when we did arrive a day early, we put our presentation gear in storage, and sent the truck to the garage for repairs.

But disaster struck.

A water line broke in the storage facility and ruined all of our presentation equipment.  It looked like it was going to be a disaster, but one of our crew was able to secure a laptop rental and a LCD projector rental in the nick of time and we were able to proceed with the presentation as scheduled.

Needless to say, Neil got a hefty raise that day, and we never store our stuff anywhere but the truck we come in.  We have learned our lesson.

Paintball Adventure

Recently one of my buddies invited me to go paintballing with him. He had been talking about this sport a lot, and it sounded pretty fun. And he was getting pretty serious about it too. So the day came, and he took me out to where they did this crazy thing. When we got there I saw that he wasn’t the only one who took this all very seriously too. They had a special facility all set up with big blow up things that they used for cover. And everyone was all decked out in their paintball gear.

My buddy loaned me one of his paintball guns and a mask, and then walked me through the drill. Basically it is like the game steal the bacon that we played in grade school. Only this time you are trying to steal the other team’s flag. And they are shooting at you with paintball guns! I had so much fun!

And now I’m all excited because he invited me to go again this weekend. Only this time they are doing it at a different place. I’m not sure if the rules are exactly the same, but this time we are doing it in a wilderness setting. He said I should wear any camouflaged clothing I have and even asked me if I had any tactical gear! It sounds like this time around it is going to be more like real combat. And I can’t wait!

A Vacation to Remember

One of the biggest challenges that I have had to face in my adult life is that we haven’t had the opportunity to travel as much as I would like. With three kids in our family, most of our money has gone to keeping the roof over our head and food on the table, with vacations being a low priority.

But I didn’t want to give up on my dream to swim with dolphins. Ever since I watched Flipper as a child, I knew that I wanted to try it someday, but I knew that I had to be patient – eventually we would get the chance.

As it turns out, we did get that chance a lot sooner than I expected. We paid a little more than we needed to into our income taxes, and received a nice refund. Instead of using it for something useful, my wife decided that we should do something fun for a change and we went to swim with dolphins in Tortola.

I would have to say it was one of the happiest moments of my life and one of the most memorable. If you ever get the chance, you should try it too – you won’t be disappointed.

Make Your Dog Happy: Work from Home

As a freelance writer, I have the ability to work from home. I've found that this has many advantages — not having to commute to work, particularly in rush hour traffic, and not having all the workplace politics to deal with — but all of those are just good for me. Therefore, the biggest advantage is being here for my dogs, because that makes them happy, too.

Being around for the dogs is a good thing for a variety of reasons. For instance, if you have a fairly active or athletic dog, one that needs plenty of exercise to stay healthy — such as a Rhodesian ridgeback — you'll be around and able to, say, take them for a walk when you break for lunch, or take an hour in the afternoon to take them to a dog park.

Another advantage is that you will be home to let the dogs out as they need, so that you don't have to worry about them having accidents in the house. In this respect, working from home is the perfect situation for anyone who is trying to house train a puppy. Also, you can let your dogs outside just for pleasure's sake, and allow them to nap in the sun or explore the backyard while you work.

Of course, by no means do I shut myself in my home office while my dogs have all the fun. A lot of the time, I'm actually outside with them, typing away on my little laptop while they do their doggy thing!

Increasing our Customer Base through Direct Mailing

One of the biggest challenges that our pizza restaurant faces is the threat of competition from other restaurants in our area. Though we did have great success twenty years ago, the choices available to our potential customer have increased and in turn, they are less likely to frequent our establishment.

Even though the food that we serve is the best in our area, we don’t have the lowest price. Since the economy is not doing as well as we would all like, we have seen a decrease in customer retention and frequency of orders, which in turn has led to a decrease in revenue. This put us in a position where we would either have to reduce the price of our pizzas, or work harder to get more customers.

In our case, we decided that we would take a more proactive approach and use direct mail marketing to increase our customer base. We decided that contacting prospective customers and offering them the opportunity to try our pizza at a discount would let people know what they were missing and in turn increase both customer retention and profits.

Since we purchased consumer mailing lists and sent out our marketing materials, we have seen a 15% increase in business, with many of these new customers placing repeat orders. In fact, the response has been so good that we are going to make it a part of our regular marketing strategy.

Health Benefits of Settling Credit Card Debt

There are probably a lot of reasons that you would like to settle your credit card debt once and for all. Did you know that your health should be one of those reasons? When you settle credit card debt, you significantly reduce the amount of daily stress that you feel. This ends up reducing your risk for a lot of health problems that could otherwise plague your life.

A lot of the health problems that you experience right now are probably related to stress. If you have back pain, headaches, fatigue and other common ailments that you reduce with over-the-counter-medication then stress is probably to blame. If you alleviated all of the stress caused by your debt woes, many of these daily ailments would go away.

Relieving yourself from the stress of debt also helps to prevent the long term health problems that are associated with stress. Heart problems and diabetes are linked with prolonged exposure to stress. If you've been carrying your debt for years then you might be putting yourself at risk for these serious ailments.

And finally, getting rid of your debt can help cure a lot of the psychological health problems that you may experience. Depression and anxiety are frequently caused by (or exacerbated by) money-related stress. Settling your debt actually helps to settle down your mind so that you can be healthy again!