www.MasaeArtBox.com 
When Masae wanted a new car to deliver art and books, she needed a truck or SUV to qualify for a commercial parking permit. All of them were too big for her until she saw the Chevy HHR. It’s basically a small panel truck with windows that drives like a car. She bought it from Cutter Chevrolet, and to “brand” it, she took it to David at Kapiolani Signs and had her signature Pink Rose painting made into decals to put onto the windows on both sides of the car along with her website address below them. Almost immediately she received hits to the website along with a nice e-mail complimenting her on the art.
What are you doing to “brand” your business?

27 Years Ago
That’s when IBM introduced its first personal computer.

Then came:
Bill Gates
The Internet
The Mac
Steve Jobs
Floppy Discs
Hard Drives
Windows
The iPod
CD ROMs
E-mail
E-commerce
Instant messaging
The dotcom boom
The dotcom bust
Mobile phones
PDAs
Notebook Computers
Digital Cameras
Computer viruses
GPS
Google
My Space
iPhone
Cloud computing
YouTube
IBM drops out of the PC business
iPhone 3G
iPad
And Now…
iPhone4

Time Flies!
Are you keeping up?

WHO is Watching?
When I opened an account with Constant Contact, my original mission was to send some informational e-mail to retailers about how the Morning Report has impacted so many people that I work with, and ask if they might be in the need for some added revenue. I quickly learned that I cannot send unsolited e-mail to people, and that new people wanting to get my Daily Motivator would need to either request it, or be someone I am currently doing business with. I was told by many people that to send unsolicited e-mail amounts to Spam. I guess I knew that, but thought it must be okay since I get so much of it. Well, I chose to follow the law and subscriptions to my FREE Daily Motivator continue to grow steadily. If you are not on that list and want to be, just CLICK HERE:
Also growing steadily is the amount of Spam e-mail that I get, currently 150 to 200 a day. This leads me to wonder, “Who Is Watching?” Those of us in business all know that we must “Inspect what we Expect.”

Robo Call Monster
I was pretty excited when I read recently that robo calls had been outlawed. A robo call is an automated, recording that calls and pitches you on this or that. In spite of this LAW, I continue to get such calls daily. They usually will ask you to press a number at the end of the message to reach an operator. I used to just hang up, now I press the number and ask the “operator” where she got this number. The answer is always, “It was computer gererated.” I realize that the “operator” is just doing what she was hired to do, so I am nice to her, but I ask a few more questions. I ask if she is aware of the law against robo calls. The answer is always, “No.” I then ask for the name of the owner of the company; I never get a name. My final question is, “Do you have the ability to remove my number from your list?” I either get a “Yes” or an ubrupt disconnect. I don’t get called again with that same message.

How Many Do You Want?
People using Twitter seem to be obsessed with how many “followers” they have. It’s as if it is a status symbol or contest of some sort. I even saw someone today bragging about getting 100 followers in one day by simply signing in on this website, which allows you to buy followers at three different prices. I thought, WHY? Perhaps as a celebrity there is a value in having more followers. I see Conan Obrien creating an audience for his I Will Survive Tour, and staying in touch with his 873,577 fans after losing his show, but he surely didn’t have to buy those followers. People with a universal message of goodwill should accumulate as many followers as they can, such as Bill Gates, to promote his foundation for a better world.

“Please”
For the average person to benefit from Twitter, these three things more important than how many followers you have:
-Having the right followers-Your target audience
-Following the right people-Those you can learn from
-Having something to say-Something to make you worth following
When those three things are in order and working, Twitter becomes a very valuable tool for business. Without them it is purely a distraction and a waste of time.

Oh Well!
When a brick wall refused to get out of the way of my car on Sunday night; I was real bummed for about 30 minutes. At first I wanted to blame the person who parked in my reserved space, then the security guard who suggested that I park in this other space for the night. I even wanted to blame the wall; anyone or anything other than myself.

No Biggie
After sulking for about 15 minutes I snapped these photos, sent them to the Cadillac dealer saying, “I screwed up, and will be there in the morning. Fix this right away.” Once I did that I felt fine and slept well. And since dropping the car off I haven’t thought about it much at all. Out of sight. out of mind. The lesson is; when you screw up, it’s human to look for the blame, but once you accept responsibility and then take some corrective action all is well.

Times Do Change
When I saw this video of 50 firemen and a helicopter rescuing a German Sheppard from the Los Angeles River, memories flooded back. As a boy growing up in Downey, not too far from the City of Vernon, I remember it as “slaughter town.” Twenty-seven slaughterhouses lined Vernon Avenue from Soto Street to Downey Road. You could hear animals screaming and the morning death stench flowed all of the way to the freeway going into LA.

Gotcha!
When I saw fireman Joe St. Georges finally reach the dog and grab him, my eyes teared up. The dog was viciously biting him as he fought to save its life. It’s hard to think that this was happening in that same town where animal life was so abused on a daily basis. As a curious pre-teenager I ventured into one of those slaughter houses one day, and saw awful things I will never forget. These were not people who would go out of their way, let alone risk their own lives to save the life of a dog they didn’t know.
We have come a long way, baby!

Great Name
The dog was nicknamed Vernon, and he is recovering nicely in a Downey Shelter. Joe too is recovering after a trip to the hospital with serious bites on his hand and arm. He was unable to both muzzle and save Vernon, He opted for the latter. I understand there are 20 people lined up to adopt Vernon should his rightful owner not show up. If I lived there I would be in that line. I would also go visit Joe with a bottle of fine wine. I hope the other 20 do.

It’s like Shorthand Information
I became enticed into joining Twitter about a year ago. I have elected to “follow” people that post things I can benefit from. I rarely hear anything on the news that I haven’t already seen on Twitter. I’m more up to date on the world’s happenings than ever before. I peek at “Trending Topics” to see what people are talking about, and if it’s something interesting to me, I click on it to see what they are saying.

Celebrity Attention
Unfortunately there are more people talking about Tiger Woods and his wife today than the war, economy, the holidays or health care. Tomorrow (or later today) it will be something (or someone) else. Of course the same is true of TV News.

Followers
Somehow several hundred people have found me on Twitter and decided to “follow me” meaning that they presumably read my short “Tweets.” I don’t know who the vast majority of these people are, and really don’t care if they follow me or not; I’m just tossing out my thoughts in less than 140 characters, which can be challenging at times.
I know that they don’t care what time I went to bed or what I had for breakfast, so I attempt to say things that are either informative, interesting or funny; we all need a laugh now and then.

No More Please!
When Mr. Obama announced “his” decision to send another 30,000 troops into harm’s way I couldn’t hold back. I have a hard time understanding the sanity of it all. We have had close to 40,000 Americans die in our efforts to retaliate for the loss of 3,000 people 9/11. To me there’s something wrong with this picture. Apparently not everyone agrees with my assessment here. I have posted 2,499 “Tweets” to date, and my list of follwers has grown considerably. But when I expressed my thoughts about our president (who I supported) deciding to “step the war up,” I saw follower drop out like never before. I really don’t care if anyone follows me on Twitter or not, but I do care about American lives; any lives for that matter.

Island Air Terminal
Several records were set during my recent trip to Maui. The first was the number of people at the sleepy little inter-island terminal. One of the reasons I like to fly out of this terminal is the small amount of traffic, making for easy, and hassle free checking in. Not this time. I have been flying in and out of this terminal for 28 years now and have NEVER seen it like this. My thought was, “What recession?”

Kaanapali Morning
One of the enjoyable things about Maui is waking up in Kaanapali. I normally stay at the Westin Maui, but this time it was overbooked and I could not get a room. I took this picture from my room at the Sheraton just down the beach. They were at near capacity, but I got in. My thought was, “What recession?”

Whalers Village Shopping Center
I have been doing Success Rallies for the merchants at Whalers Village for 18 years now. We meet at Leilani’s on the Beach. During that time I have seen attendance as low as 10 people, and as high as 50 or 60.

7:45 AM
The rally starts at 8 AM. I often joke that you have to get there early to get a back row seat. As you can see that was the case today.

7:50 AM
Five minutes later they are lining up to get in. The coffee is hot and the pastries are tasty.

7:55 AM
Besides hearing me talk and getting coffee and sugar, the attendees also get free parking stickers. Signing up for that usually creates a bottle neck getting in the restaurant.

8 AM - Showtime
By 8 AM the place is packed and it’s time to learn something. My topic today was “befriending” your customers in a way that makes them want to return to your store to buy more as well as referring you to those they know and meet. One suggestion was having your customers pose with their purchase and promise them that you will post their photo on line to share wiith their friends back home.

It’s a Record
Before leaving this morning I congratulated them on a record turnout and asked them to pose for this photo promising that it would be on my blog for them to see in the morning.

Another Record
One last record set this morning was in coffee and pastry consumption. Mahalo Whalers Village for 18 years of success; I’ll see you soon.
 

It’s the Right Thing to Do
Today’s telephone answering devices and call identifyers have caused some people to develop bad telephone etiquette. Few things are as annoying as leaving a message and having it not returned. It says more about you than you might intend to. The thing to do is answer the phone if you are there, and if not, return the call as soon as possible. It’s the polite thing to do, even if it is to say, “No thank you.”
I have taken to not leaving messages as it removes control as I await the return call.

“Maui Hotel Numbers Low Again”
The sub Headline said, “64% Occupancy, $238 Average Room Rate.” If you read further down into the article (most won’t) you see that “statewide occupancy” was more like 70%. When I see those percentages I always think, “% of how many rooms?”
I checked into The Westin Maui on Wednesday afternoon (9/9) and told the front desk clerk that I prefer the Beach Tower. She said, “They may all be gone, I’ll check.” Upon checking, she told me that room 470 was the last available room in that tower. I took it. I then asked her what the hotel occupancy rate is, and she said, “The high 90’s.” On my flight back to Oahu today I sat next to Michael Troy, Director of Advertising and Promotions for Starwood Hotels & Resorts. He confirmed that The Westin Maui is 98% full. I asked him how many rooms in the hotel and he said, “700 plus.” That adds up to 630 full rooms, and I can assure you they are a lot more than $238.
The media would be doing everyone in Hawaii a big favor if they would make the good news the headlines.