Sales and Marketing Consulting Services Since 2009
We took off from the Rawling KOA just before eight this morning. Now we’re taking a couple of hours to work and have a bite to eat.
Traveling By Map
Plan is to get to the KOA in Kadoka, SD this evening for our overnight and to try our hands at emptying the black and gray water tanks!
After a press pot of coffee and some light office work we pulled up the steaks and started our journey north to Rawlings, Wyoming.
We fully endorse the KOA in Beaver, Utah. Clean facilities, level grounds.
One of the things we will be doing is moving the filter to the camper water hookup, bot the directly to the spigot – even though this is what many in the campground had done.
Fox here…
We loaded up our trailer over the last three days to get ready for this epic cross country journey. Our plan was to depart from Las Vegas at 2:00 today, but then disaster broke…literally. I broke a window because I didn’t close it before turning the trailer to fill the water tank. Luckily I have a very understanding spouse and have dealt with trade show emergencies in my past. A few phone calls, a new window purchased, installed, and we were under way by 3:05.
Our arrival to the KOA was greeted with rain, but we were able to quickly connect power, water, and disconnect from the truck.
Not feeling like cooking, we hit the Timberline Inn Restaurant for dinner. The pot roast is amazing and the pork isn’t too shabby either.
3.2% Beer is … interesting.
Tomorrow we’re working from the park then off to our next stop. Somewhere between B and C on the map.
Today we start the epic road trip. After a quick stop back at Airstream for an emergency part, we’re on our way to Beaver, UT for the night.
The F-150 is taking this trailer up about 3000 feet into Utah; so far we’re averaging about 15 MPG uphill.
More pictures to come soon.
Welp, this is looking promising. We’ve got the trailer after an hour and a half delay to start, and the next plan B is… there is no plate. No temp plate either. Not too thrilled with Airstream right now – a combo of failure to plan, lost passwords, and an unwillingness to call the bank to get their crap together.
So plan B is to drive with no plates (not even a plate frame!) with a 15 day temp moving permit in the window. So… this can’t go wrong when you’re gone for a month and a half!
Not impressed for a company claiming to sell a premium product with premium prices.
Ah, the digital nomad. Going from city to city, laptop and iPhone with hotspot in hand. This will be a short post, but that’s what Andrew and I are going to attempt this fall, a coast to coast trip from Las Vegas NV to Boston MA. The last character in this tale, a 2019 Airstream Globetrotter 27FB. We’ll have photos from the road, best practices, and some “plan B” stories as well I’m sure. The trip starts August 28, the planning and packing is happening now!
Keep track of the tales by following us on the web at hopinncoffee.com and social media to come.
Reblogged from Andrew Rabbitt @ DNSimple
So you’ve decided to build your own website and are wondering which of the 286+ top level domains [TLDs] you should use. With so many options at your fingertips, the task of selecting one may seem daunting. You’ve been online and know that .COM, .NET, and .ORG are very popular. You’ve seen .EDU, and sometimes .BIZ and .INFO – but which TLD is right for your website?
Let’s talk about popular, new, special, and not-so-savory TLDs and how to choose your own.
.COM was one of the first top level domains implemented back in January 1985. It’s original intention was for commercial entities, but today almost anyone can register a .COM domain. .COM is so ubiquitous that many people assume a website should end with .COM, and it’s typically the first TLD searched when registering a new TLD.
.COM made up 139 million of the 348.7 million domain registrations as of the fourth quarter of 2018 see report, and is by far the most popular TLD with almost 40% of the total domain market. The next leading registered domain for the same quarter was the country code TLD .CN (China) with 22.7 million registrations.
.NET is another TLD implemented back in January 1985. It was intended for internet companies. There are no restrictions on this domain, and it’s now a general purpose domain with a respectable 13.5 million registrations. Like .COM, anyone can register a .NET domain.
.ORG rounds out the initially available TLDs from January 1985. Of the big three, .ORG is the smallest with just over 10 million registrations. This TLD was intended for organizations and nonprofits, but – like .COM and .NET – has no restrictions. Anyone can register a .ORG domain.
Note: I excluded .GOV, .MIL, and .ARPA from this post, as they’re not available to the general public. However, these three were also part of the January 1985 TLD release.
You may gravitate to these, because they’re the oldest TLDs on the internet. But you have other options, some more popular than .NET and .ORG, others more exclusive. It’s 2019, and you can be successful with any TLD.
The next group of popular TLDs are country code TLDs – ccTLDs. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has assigned a trustee for each ccTLD. That trustee is responsible for the policies and operation of the domain. Some ccTLDs have restrictions you should be aware of prior to registration. Examples of these restrictions include, but are not limited to:
Some ccTLDs have gained support outside of the residents of their specific country. The .IO (British Indian Ocean Territory) domain, for example, is heavily used by tech innovators and startups. This ccTDLD offers a tech savvy, two character TLD that means something to many programming communities – I/O: Input/Output. Another ccTLD that’s open to everyone is the .ME (Montenegro) domain, which is typically used for personal pages.
Some popular generic top level domains, gTLDs, are targeted at specific groups of users:
While I would never tell anyone which TLDs to avoid, the below TLDs have been associated with SPAM and other shady dealings. According to Symantec, these domains are suspicious due to their use by hackers and scammers. While I won’t say you should avoid them, I will say you should do some research into them before committing.
At the end of the day the choice is yours. Some TLDs, like many ccTLDs, .BANK and .INSURANCE have restrictions. Unless you meet the requirements, it’s best to stick to more easily acquired TLDs.
Whether it’s a .IO, .APP, or .PAGE, DNSimple can help you buy your domain, connect it to your content, and operate it through records management. With over 286 domains to choose from, the opportunities are almost limitless. Visit DNSimple’s List of TLDS today to register your domain.
Be it either a one dollar product or a million dollar product, a healthy sales pipeline is key to the success of any sales person. Since 1999 I have worked in the fields of personal protection equipment, book publishing and distribution, food safety analytical test kits, data deduplication appliances, medical laboratory software, domain name services solutions, and consulting services. Over the years I have learned that focused and targeted marketing efforts can result in actionable leads for the sales team to convert to new business, thus growing revenue. This short blog post is going to focus on several marketing campaigns I was involved in that resulted in an increase in sales for my teams.
Back in my Bacou-Dalloz days I was tasked with increasing revenue for their emergency eyewash line. Emergency Eyewash is a product that is mandated by the Code of Federal Regulations – 29 CFR 1910.151(c) and acceptable equipment defined in ANSI Z358.1. The regulations state that works in areas where eyewash is required must be able to activate such devices within ten seconds of the hazard and the device must provide a minimum of fifteen minutes of washing capability per incident.
While not all eyewash is made the same, all must meet the performance guidelines of ANSI Z358.1. This means that the products either need to be price sensitive or truly innovative in order to grow sales in a well-defined market where OSHA often dictates placement and companies are forced to install the products.
Our solution was to target owners and corporate level team members of prospective clients with a laser focused campaign reminding them of the regulation and outlining the features of our truly innovative portable eyewash stations. We did this through the use of a rather expensive at the time promotion. We targeted 10,000 business owners and safety officers with a talking greeting card that, upon opening, said “If your workers can’t reach an eyewash station by the end of this ten second message you are in violation of emergency eyewash regulations.” Along with the card was an offer for a free plant evaluation and details about our eyewash stations.
This campaign was incredibly successful. To send over 10,000 cards at roughly seven dollars each (printing, postage, and handling) was a huge line item on the budget and one of the most expensive non-trade show campaigns we had done in emergency eyewash at the time, but it paid for itself in increased revenue and new business.
This campaign put actionable leads into the queue of the entire eyewash salesforce.
When I moved from protecting people to protecting the global food supply we again used laser focused marketing to target the right customers with truly innovative products. Very similar to emergency eyewash, mycotoxin testing is a regulated industry with the USDA and FDA mandating the testing of foodstuffs and establishing action levels for the various mycotoxins. The AlfaTest® Mycotoxin Testing System has been on the market for decades and is the industry leader when it comes to screening for this carcinogenic fungal byproduct.
The goal of marketing is to provide sales with actionable leads in relevant industries. We accomplished this by attending industry events where food growers and food processors attend to make decisions. We also joined industry organizations relevant to the food and feed industry.
By leveraging trade shows and organizational memberships marketing was able to supply sales with a constant stream of actionable leads.
Food safety, at the time, was a very print centric market. This meant that a well thought out advertising campaign could also educate possible users and generate additional sales leads. Working with the team we came up with an all-inclusive media plan that targeted the global food production and distribution supply where mycotoxin testing is critical.
In the end the efforts of marketing kept a steady stream of leads in the sales pipeline and allowed for growth of the product line even in an economic downturn.
While consulting for a data deduplication company, before the word deduplication was common, we needed a way to reach possible customers to convert them to users. At the time everything was migrating to virtual tape libraries as cost for spinning disk was dropping to the point where it was competitive with magnetic tape. Virtual tape libraries with data deduplication, in theory, could put petabytes of data in a single storage array.
The goal of marketing was to penetrate new market segments including healthcare and education. This was the mid-2000s and email marketing was all the rage. So to email marketing we turned to generate leads.
It worked and eventually the company was acquired by a large disk manufacturer.
This caused me to move to medical laboratory software – an area where tradeshows, events, and print advertising have maintained healthy sales pipelines for over 40 years. The marketing team sought out shows that focused on each major product line: anatomic pathology, clinical pathology, blood banking, molecular pathology, dermatopathology, cytology, etc. Events in these industries brought qualified leads to the table. One event in particular, AMP, brought leads that became sales for me personally.
To summarize, every marketing department needs to find a strategy that works for the products for which they speak. Be it emergency eyewash and food safety where regulations guide purchase decisions to data deduplication where cost per byte stored is a factor or medical laboratory software were lab specific features and workflows rule the day; marketing must work with sales to establish and maintain a healthy sales pipeline.
If you own a home and carry a mortgage, chances are you have homeowners insurance. If you own a car and are licensed in any of the United States, except New Hampshire and Virginia, you must have automotive insurance. If you are a renter it’s a good idea to have renters insurance. Many people have either personal or employer-provided life insurance. In most cases, when issues happen, be it an automotive collision or a tree through the roof of a house, insurance is there to help recover costs and repair the damage.
I own a home, own vehicles, get sick, and will eventually die. I also own a small business. I have homeowners insurance, car insurance, health insurance, a life insurance policy, and business insurance.
Every business owner should consider insuring their business, especially if it is a sole proprietorship or small company with few employees. A sole proprietor is the business and bears all the financial responsibility of the business – profit and loss. There are several types of policies that small businesses should consider.
We have a combo policy for our small business called a Business Owners Policy which includes General Liability, Property Liability, and Indemnity insurance. Specifically our policy covers:
It’s a pretty extensive policy and only costs less than $100.00 per month. In my opinion, it is a good use of business capital. Any of the above would be far more damaging to the business than the deductible.
I would not drive my car without insurance. I will not operate my business without insurance. I hope never to have to make another claim against our policy, but I know that it’s there if I do.
If you are looking for a small business policy, contact me and I’ll put you in touch with our insurance agent.
Repost from https://blog.dnsimple.com/2018/12/why-use-bank/
Previously, we talked about why financial institutions partner with DNSimple to meet their .BANK domain hosting compliance needs in Why Financial Institutions Migrate their .BANK Domains to DNSimple.
In our second installment, we’ll go over why financial service providers – banks, investment firms, payment providers, and other verified financial institutions – should use a .BANK TLD. You’ll love the mix of branding, exclusivity, and security offered by a .BANK domain.
Internet users associate specific TLDs with expertise – .IO for technology companies, .INSURANCE for insurance providers, .EDU for schools, and .BANK for financial institutions. Using .BANK with your branch name provides a higher level of user confidence without needing to educate your audience, and the opportunity to brand yourself like never before.
It’s an exclusive name without exclusive costs. There’s also the added bonus of a premium domain name, and the security of multiple levels of verification. Using .BANK domains assures customers that their financial institutions are technically savvy, and serious about security, branding, and consumer trust.
In our previous post, we talked in detail about the security requirements. Let’s talk a little more about why those matter.
A .BANK domain has certain requirements to ensure security. Of course, you could have a similar security level with a .COM, but that doesn’t mean you can always trust them. A .BANK has to undergo verification, and providers can’t have a .BANK without this rigorous process. These technical requirements are mandatory to protect financial institutions and their customers, and by using .BANK, the registry guarantees the provider adopts these techniques. A .BANK domain is a win/win for financial institutions and their clients.
.BANK DNS management through DNSimple provides financial institutions with the tools for secure online communication and dissemination of information. You’ll have increased cyber security protection, a global AnyCast network with real time DDoS defense, multi-factor authentication, and SSL security certificates.
DNSimple makes it easy, and less intimidating to set up and manage .BANK domains. We take care of everything for you, so you can take care of your clients.
Ready to get started? Get in touch with our Sales Director, Andrew, and we’ll get you up and running.
Have more questions? Visit our .BANK hosting page, or take a look at our previous post.