A Personal Reflection on Life and Loss

Life has its ups and downs. We can all rejoice about the good things we have experienced in life. As a kid, you may have done special things in sports or celebrated academic accomplishments.

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Let’s Drink to Success

Perhaps this title grabbed your attention? Business is done through building relationships that we build through personal connections. These connections happen when being involved in our community and in our industry. They are created by being engaged with others. Relationships can be built while drinking the beverage of your choice.

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What Do You and Your Company Represent?

I’ve recently had a revelation. For many years, I have worked to build up a significant online presence for my PPAI-award winning, content-driven program, FreePromoTips.com. Our industry database for our e-newsletter is 50,000 and we have a strong social media reach. I’ve shared about this before, but that isn’t the point of this commentary.

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Mindless Drones Selling Promotional Products

It’s actually no “secret” that a successful business is driven by knowledge. Knowledge is power in an increasingly more challenging business environment. My PPAI award-winning FreePromoTips.com industry resource program has been offering relevant business-building information and industry commentary for years.

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How Does Amazon’s Business Model Affect Ours?

Our evolving industry business model continues to be a hot topic. Recently I started wondering how an online purchasing mentality, I’ll call the Amazon click-to-buy world, affects our industry. It begs the question, are we (aka distributors) really needed? It’s getting easier and easier for end-users to buy online or direct from suppliers.

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Suppliers, Where Are You? Distributors, Where Are You?

I am hardly an expert in the area of social media. In my personal online life, I will post pictures of my cute, but very weird dogs and family outings. I’ll occasionally “check in” at restaurants, since it’s important for my “friends” to know I’m eating well and hanging with the right people that I “tag.”

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So You Think it’s Fun?

Having just returned from some early-season trade shows, I am in awe of the commitment my industry colleagues have to help us build our business. I wrote about this some time ago in a commentary entitled, “A Salute to Our Industry Heroes.”

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I Could Have Slept In But Why Should You Care?

Something strange has happened to me. On a recent three-day holiday weekend, I had the opportunity to sleep in. But I didn’t. I attended a concert at the Hollywood Bowl Saturday and started early Sunday packing meals at our church for families in Haiti. I was looking forward to sleeping in on the holiday Monday when my wife told me our runners group was going out at 7 a.m. What would seem like an automatic “no” has become a much easier “yes” for me.

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Tending Life’s Garden

One of the things I enjoy doing is taking care of the flowers on my front porch and tending to the few houseplants I have. I enjoy the color they bring to the home entryway, and people often comment on how pretty the flowers look.

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