Ron Lindeboom
2
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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[Mark Suszko] “In the case of Ron’s Zoo Guide, I would love to know, sensei, what types of advertisers you grabbed. My guess would be several restaurants are in there, because after a day at the zoo mom and dad don’t feel like cooking too, so why not extend the fun of the day by eating out. That makes logical sense to me. Why I would want to advertise in the zoo guide if I’m a funeral parlor or a repair garage or a stationer, I don’t know. I’m curious to see what the connections were in that one. I suppose you can always go with “civic pride and proud local booster” even when there is no other connection. But to me I feel the better deal overall is to find a synergy like the restaurants near the zoo.”
Great comments, Mark, as always. ;o)
Yes, there were many “direct synergies” in the Guide, as you guessed. But one of the advantages of dealing with a small municipal zoo — cross this one over to your own situation and where you find advantages that can be recognized and exploited — is that there is indeed a lot of pride in the fact that it is a part of the community, and so we had a wide reach into the local retailers, professionals, service providers, hospitality industry, etc.
The key to getting the credibility in such a new endeavor, was the fact that we took the time to pitch the City Manager — complete with the actual finished Zoo Guide in a binder, flipping page to page showing him the finished guide with empty spots where the ads would be. He too, bought into the community pride that the “little zoo started as a rescue mission for injured animals” had grown into a member of American Zoological Society and was instrumental in preserving the Arabian Oryx from extinction and was also hard at work to preserve the genetic diversity of the Madagascar Lemur population by working with other zoos worldwide to swap and breed the rapidly dwindling species.
When he gave us the letter from the City of Atascadero, that clinched the deal and gave us a level of credibility that we would in no way had without it.
We always showed the letter before beginning any presentation.
It was a community function and it saved our bacon at a time when there was just no way to get any sizable job without it.
As John Davidson alluded to in his opening post, get creative in your pitches.
Ron Lindeboom
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John,
Looks like some people disagree with you and that was probably to be expected, huh? ;o)
But I agree with you, in principle, and I also think the key to what you were saying was in the words “If your best idea is to dig out that LA411 book and start cold calling, you need better ideas.”
We are CREATIVES, are we not?
There’s little creative in picking up the phone and running A-to-Z in desperation.
People can smell desperation, (it is sort of like perspiration with some added despondency, and spelled a bit differently).
While I would agree with you that for those with a financial cushion to rest on, going to school is nice, learning new tricks, or donating time for a project for a favorite charity, is a great way to kill time — me, I’d like to zero in on your point, John.
These are times to sharpen your ability to pitch.
I once knew an old salesman who told me that only one-in-ten sales calls benefit from knowing everything there is about the product or service you are selling. The other nine? Well, he said that “…they are about as pretty as a salesman waiting in his car in a parking lot outside a department store outside a mall and then jumping out when he sees a woman leaving the store, walking up to them and asking, ‘You wouldn’t want to buy something from me, would you?'”
His point?
Eventually, with even a pitch as pathetic as that, someone is going to say yes. It’s a numbers game.
BUT…
Number games will wear you out if there is too much distance between the first pitch and the first yes.
Creative people need to get creative — which is, I believe, your real point, John — and I couldn’t agree more.
I can remember when Kathlyn and I were so broke and so desperate that we couldn’t land a job for the life of us, because we were in one of the past recessionary cycles and money was not to be had — at least not easily.
What did we do?
We thought up an idea for the local zoo in the next town over. We would create a zoo guide, built entirely around the animals in that particular zoo. It would be filled with pictures, stories, crossword puzzles for kids, and other word and quizzes built around the guide’s animals.
We would sell ads to the local merchants and financial institutions in our area who would support it, and we would donate all the guides to the local zoo and the local schools, etc.
Our zoo guide would stimulate interest in the local zoo and would give teachers a way to plan field-trips to it, and discuss the animals in advance, give the kids a guidebook they could take with them on their trip, and local residents and tourists that visited the zoo would receive one during their visit.
There among all the pages would be the ads showcasing the businesses that helped make this free service available to everyone.
I went in and pitched the idea to the City Manager under whose ultimate authority the zoo operated. I got him to write me an official letter stating that the City of Atascadero was behind the project — which he only did because we had already created the mock-up of the zoo guide and he could see it with his own eyes — and so when I went out pitching businesses to participate, the first thing I showed them in my flip-book, was his letter.
This is just one example of using your mind to be creative instead of being like the old salesman waiting in the parking lot.
Sure, it eventually works — sometimes.
But who would you rather be seen as?
“I hate the smell of desperation in the morning”
— Robert Dooval, in the film Apocalypse Business.Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry -
Hello Liz,
We looked into this and it ends up you did not order a CD — which is why you did not show up in that accounting system — but you ordered a DVD from our Master Series and it was ordered to be sent to England.
Unfortunately, international mail does not move as fast as local mail systems and so while indeed the DVD was sent, the post office says that delivery is not likely before the 26th of the month. (Even though it was mailed to you a couple of days after your order — this, as we do international mailings only twice a week as it requires actually going to the post office.)
Thank you for your order.
Best always,
Ron Lindeboom and the Digital Bovines in our Order Department
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Hello Liz,
I just went into the accounting registry for the Royal Bank of Scotland (the company we use to process our credit card orders) and I find no such order for you. I also have no record or entry for your address, etc.
Please do NOT think that I am calling you a liar, as I am not.
I once placed an order with The History Channel that was over $100 and the money WAS deducted from my account, but was NOT tracked to an order with my address. It happens from time to time.
Please email me your address at ron@creativecow.net and I will send you a copy while we sort this thing out.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
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[George Griswold] “Sorry if this got your hopes up– I had “Feature Request” inside the brackets and it removed the text….
Yes, that is because brackets are OPERATORS in the world of LINUX and that is what our servers run on here at the COW. So, when you use brackets, Linux thinks you are trying to feed it a command and it’s looking for the rest of your “command sentence” and since nothing’s there, it tosses it.
Because you used two sets of brackets — one inside another — the second set was seen as text and appears.
It’s a Linux thing.
Use parenthesis instead.
Ron Lindeboom
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You consider AE and Maya the wrong forums? We sure don’t. We have seen the traffic and we’ve thought about such a forum from time to time.
We are willing to add one, but we never add these kinds of forums without a host and NO ONE has volunteered. Without a host, such a forum would be a ghost town and we always cull dead forums.
It would be nice if people would use a dedicated matchmoving forum but in our experience, it is a very small chance that such a forum would fly — especially without a host.
And so we’ve never added one.
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[Mike Sevigny] “To me it doesn’t make sense why creativecow wouldn’t have made one years ago.”
Uh, well, let’s see: maybe because you are only the SECOND person to ask…
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[Todd Terry] “Firstly his “I have little trust in the financial sector” observation, which I completely share. Even though our biggest, best, fastest-paying, most fun, most willing-to-take-a-gamble and most lets-turn-these-creative-guys-loose-and-see-what-they-can-do client is….. a credit union (actualy, these are great folks, couldn’t ask for better).”
We moved all of our business, both our personal and business accounts, loans, mortgage, etc., to a local credit union.
We couldn’t be happier.
They treat us like kings and queens and during one trip, the branch manager saw Kathlyn standing in line and he came up and told her that he knew she was really busy and that he would help her so that she could get back to the office. When she mentioned that she had to go to drop some FedEX stuff before going back, he followed her out to the car and took the packages and made the run for her, saying that he had to drop some packages himself — so why not.
Our local credit union is rated the highest rating they can get. They are rock solid, are not making the kinds of crazy loans that the banks made, are sitting flush with money to loan to solid endeavors and because of that, they do not treat you like a pariah.
I could go on but both Kathlyn and I will never go back to any of the major Skanks, thank you.
Consider us sold on the superiority of credit unions.
Ron Lindeboom
(who also hates the Skank of Amerika) -
[Mark Suszko] “Brendan, your last paragraph alone was worth a million dollars.”
So, since you read it, Mark, when can Brendan expect to start seeing your payments?
(Man I loved that one — ha!)
;o)
Ron Lindeboom
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And I would add a point in support of Walter’s post.
Don’t take too long to negotiate your deal. Weather is fickle and news is even more fickle. You are hot for a day or so and if you do not strike your deal, you have 100% of nothing.
Just a thought,
Ron Lindeboom