Tuesday, July 15, 2008
We can't solve this problem...
My mother will just love the fact that I put this video up. Thank goodness we're not in the home services business.
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Sunday, July 13, 2008
Why do businesses ruin coupons?
Let me ask you a question:
Have you ever received a coupon or a free offer and when you go to redeem it you end up having to pay? I know it's happened to all of us. Here's my latest story:
Every friday (at least) the Universe Point guys go Cobb's Creek to play some golf. We recently found out that if we register to their little member clubie thingie for every five times we play the course we get one free play. To that, we said a collective, "Cool!". Didn't cost us anything to sign up either.
So, after five rounds I get my free pass and two weekends ago I went to redeem it. Now, when I hand the clerk my free pass, she turns to me and says, "That'll be seventeen dollars."
"Uh, I thought it was a free pass."
"Well, you still have to pay the cart fee."
"I'll just walk then."
"You can't walk, you have to pay the cart fee."
"How much would it be if I didn't have the free pass?"
"Twenty-one dollars."
"Wow, that's one expensive free pass."
Because I'm a business owner I tend to analyze things from a business point of view. So I couldn't stop asking myself, "Why would you give away a free pass and then charge your customer?" It had the exact opposite effect that it was supposed to. If you had told me it was a coupon for 20% off, I would have been happy, but instead, I'm mad because my free play is $17 more expensive than it should be.
Bottom line people, don't lie or trick your customers. It just doesn't pay.
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Tuesday, July 08, 2008
I Pinch
In response to Lisa's comment on the post before this one, here's the "I Pinch" commercial:
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Monday, July 07, 2008
Flying not so Friendly
According to a study
of 106 major U.S. airports and 800 business travelers published by the
Ponemon Institute and Dell Computer, about 12,000 laptops are lost in
airports each week. Only 30 percent of travelers ever recover the lost
devices. Nearly half of the travelers say their laptops contain
customer data or confidential business information.
http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=158099&f_src=drdaily
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Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Welcome Colin
First of all I'd like to welcome our new National Sales Manager, Colin O'Brien. We feel that he's going to be a major asset for Universe Point and his work ethic and attitude totally fit in with this crew.
Now, the coolest thing we gave Colin when he came on board was his business cards. Check it out:
Front:
Back:
I'm sorry the pictures aren't clearer but you get the point.
We want our employees to absolutely love their biz cards. It just seems to have benefits all around (would you agree?). So what do we do? We let them customize the saying on the back of their card. It's gives them a sense of ownership as well as uniqueness. It's one of the little things we do here that I'm most proud of.
Now, if you happen to play golf, and you're a CIO for an IT Firm that's close to Philly.... Colin and I will treat you to a round.
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Thursday, June 26, 2008
Good Neighbor
Neighbors. I mean, they're a shot in the dark right? They can be loud, or creepily quiet, or maybe they like to mow the lawn at 5:30 in the morning. We can all think of a reason why our darn neighbors just drive us crazy.
So, where am I going with this? Well, Lori and I, in fact, have some really great neighbors. Matt, Pearl and their adorable-but-completely-incoherent-to-me two year-old daughter, Ava. Pearl seems be quite the talented artist too so you should check out her website:
www.PearlBell.net
Really impressive.
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Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Our Core Principles
It's one of the things that we've created here at Universe Point that I'm most proud of. Our core principles help to guide us in our decisions and actions every day.
http://www.universepoint.com/core-principles.aspx
The reason that I'm proud is because we weren't afraid to put Fun in there. At first we thought, "People will think we're ridiculous for it". But then we thought, "Why the heck shouldn't work be fun? Won't people work better, harder, and more diligently if they're having fun? Won't people value our company more because it's the one workplace they know of where management actually wants you to have a good time?".
The answer seems simple and obvious now.
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