Craziest UnSubscribe Instructions Ever

I just recently received a marketing email from one of our dealers that uses a web based email scheduler for sending emails over time to prospects. I did a test on this dealer's site the other day and now am in their email schedule.

I'm not sure if this is crazy or genius but read below their instructions if you wish to unsubscribe from receiving their marketing emails...

Please reply to this message with a subject line of 'UNSUBSCRIBE' to stop receiving mass emails. Note: There must be a dash (-) between each letter in the word U-n-s-u-b-s-c-r-i-b-e in the Subject line for the opt out to work correctly.

My guess is alot of folks don't unsubscribe and maybe that's the plan. The better retention solution might be ensuring the content of the emails are worthwhile to receive in the first place.

Thinking Forward

As the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics come to a close tonight I couldn't help but be amazed at the thought of how many athletes are going home to prepare for the next Olympics ... 4 years from now.

I realize in business that we don't typcially have the luxury of working/waiting for 4 years before we have our big moment. but you cannot overlook the idea of getting ready and preparing for your big moment.

What 'big moment' are you preparing for? Do you have any idea or are you just coasting along reacting to every situation that comes your way? What's the next milestone you want to achieve? Where do you want X to be in 4 years, 1 year, 1 month?

Thinking forward is critical to not just being around in the future, but being there with a purpose that gives you the opportunity to live out the value that your business ultimately brings to others. Without having an intentional business you can easily get stuck in the day to day grind and not be able to realize the reasons of why you get up every morning!

Work Just 4 Hours Per Week?

Have you ever purchased a book because you thought that by the sound of the title that maybe there is some hope that reading it might produce some gem of knowledge that when put into action produced a result that would change your life?

How about the book entitled ... The 4-Hour Workweek.

Who on earth isn't somewhat curious of the contents? Who doesn't have even just a small twinge of asking yourself what if? You know the feeling you get when you watch those fitness program info-mercials on tv. You might even change the channel when someone walks by but you flip right back because the thought keeps creeping up in your mind ... that could be me losing 50 pounds and in the greatest shape of my life at 40. It could happen.

Well, by reading The 4-Hour Workweek you might not lose 50 pounds and have those 6 pack abs you've always wanted. You may not even get to 30 hours of work per week let alone 4. Still, read the book! Why? Because there are gems in there that even if you've heard them before may mean something to you at this point in your life ... something that may finally make sense.

One of the realizations I came away with was how much time I waste. Not time sitting in front of the television, but time wasted while working. The question came to mind while reading about how much time spent needlessly on the phone or 'watching' email ... how does that ultimately affect the value that I can provide to my clients? Respect time, be professional, yet get to the point and move on.

Can Perception be Changed?

How do you define perception? I've always thought that someone's perception is their own reality and that you can't really change someone's 'mind' but you can help them make a different decision.

However you define perception, can it truly be changed?

You've probably seen or are aware of the HackerSafe logo that gets plastered all over websites, especially those that sell things online. There have been other 'security logos' that have popped up over the years, but none have really come close to the visual image that the words HackerSafe give you while shopping online. You then associate that vision with the green/black/red colors. Now, that is your perception of security. Because your perception is your reality you feel secure when shopping on sites that display those words and colors in a logo.

Mcafee (a large anti-virus software company) goes and buys your precious perception of what those words and logo does. In other words, they bought ScanAlert who owned HackerSafe. Thinking that the word Mcafee is more well known and trusted than HackerSafe they go and change the words and logos (see image).

Can you be persuaded to change your perception? Or will they have to help you make a different decision about how you feel secure while shopping online. We'll see, but my thought is that they've got a huge challenge in front of them.

Time will tell ... you can read more detail and comments at the Grok Blog.

Decision Making Wonderment

As a family we are on our Summer RVing trek. For almost 4 weeks we are traveling Hagerstown, MD ... Frederick, MD ... Washington D.C. ... Philadelphia, PA ... and Watkins Glen, NY.

We made the Metro ride into D.C. the other day and walked through many of the Museums, visited some monuments, and walked by many historical buildings and places of interest like the Capitol building, the Whitehouse, FBI building, Treasury Dept., State Dept., NSA, the Pentagon, and many others along the way.

One of the most interesting things about watching a movie for the 2nd time or traveling to a destination for the 3rd time is that the most obvious things aren't as obvious any more. You start to notice things you hadn't noticed before. That' what D.C. was like for me this time. The power infrastructure brought to my attention through the buildings themselves. It's often easy to think of corporation CEO's, Congressmen, Senators, Heads of State, and event the President as somehow super-human. Not from super-hero traits like leaping tall buildings in a single bound, but more from the point of view that they are 'better' than you or me.

Not that they don't have what society would consider great accomplishments and not that they havn't earned respect. But what triggers our brains to think of our nation's leaders or large corporation CEO's as somehow a 'step above' you and I.

Fundamentally they aren't any different than you and I. They have 5 fingers, 5 toes, two feet, one head, two eyes, one mouth, two ears, and one brain. They've eaten hamburgers and hotdogs and probably have a favorite home-cooked dish their mom made for them. They get stressed out, have bad days, and sometimes don't want to get out of bed. They stub their big toe and do the one foot hopping dance somehow hoping that will ease the pain. They even have a soul and feelings, even though it may not seem like it at times.

My point in all of this is that it's an interesting thought when you realize that the person sitting in a cabinet meeting ... their ankle might hurt from a fall they took on their back deck over the weekend ... yet they are sitting their advising the President on matters that might and will affect generations to come.

Isn't it time we stopped minimizing our own affect on society, stopped complaining about govt, and made a difference ourselves on the generations to come? You may not be sitting as a member of Congress next week, not that you couldn't be, but you may be sitting at the dinner table of your own home listening to your son or daughter tell of the plans for their future ... do you sit idle and listen without advice or encouragement? Or do you start making a difference in the generations to come right where you are ... with your bandaged left thumb that you cut while peeling potatoes...

It's your choice ... you decide more in 2008 than the next President!

What a Week Off Does for the Soul

I've never, never, never taken much time at all away from the business. We only started taking any real serious family vacations just in the past couple of years. A couple of weeks ago I took a week long fly-in fishing trip to northern Ontario, Canada.

The fishing was less than exciting, the weather was cold and rainy half the days, but the quiet and beauty of the outdoors and wildlife was every minute. When you get to a place like I went you can't help but reflect on life a bit. After all, there's not much else to do:) I came home with a renewed appreciation for what's most important in life. I pray that it lasts.

I'll be updated some more here about some of the ideas/concepts/thoughts that have tickled my brain a bit.

For now enjoy the Slide Show of my Trip Up-North.

Social Website Infancy

If you are online at all you've probably heard about sites like ... facebook.com, myspace.com, squidoo.com, twitter.com, and a gazillion others. Maybe you have a page on one of them, maybe you don't, maybe you don't care, but should you?

That is the real question ... should any of us spend our valuable time on any of these websites? What purpose do they really serve? Ok, maybe for the short run they are cool and give 'social butterfly's' and introverts a way to express themselves and reach out to the world. I've recently begun to wonder myself how many 'pretend drinks' you can send to someone on facebook.com and have it really mean something.

People in general crave acceptance of others and want to let others know what they are up to. Take twitter.com for example ... the whole site is designed so you can let people know what you are up to, what you are doing throughout your day, week, month...

At the end of the day my thoughts on these sites are that they are truly in the infancy stages of online social development. Currently, these sites are pretty much glorified pesonal journals of a sort and how many different journals can one really be proficient at?

And if you are really bord you can check out one of my squidoo lenses that references stuff about selling rvs.

Until next time...