Borders; Kahala Mall
As soon as I read about the upcoming release of former Governor Ben Cayatano’s book; BEN, I sent Ben e-mail asking where I can get a signed copy. He kindly responded (the same day) that they would be available in mid February. When I read that the first signing would be at Borders in Kahala Mall, I put it on my calendar and got there early.

Real Early
I sensed that there would be a crowd to hear what Ben had to say, and I wanted to be in the front row. I bought my leather bound edition, which wasn’t even there yet, grabbed a seat up front, and began browsing through one of the many paperback copies on display. While still Governor, Ben invited me on more than one occassion to sit in on a meeting at the state capital. I was honored to do that, and even more honored when he said, “Call me Ben.”

Packed House
Within minutes after my arrival the bookstore seating area was overflowing with fans and interested parties there to get a copy of BEN.

Street Kid Becomes Governor
Before the signing line formed, Ben talked about some of what is in the book, sharing with us that he was born and raised in the blue collar community of Kalihi, graduated from Farrington High school in 1958, studied hard to get a law degree, and on November 8, 1994 became the first Filipino-American governor in United States.

Call me Ron
When Ben was signing my book I said, “Call me Ron.” He had actually called me by name during his talk, and I’m sure that he dosn’t recall the day, when as Governor he told me to call him Ben. I’m sure that meant more to me than it could have to him.

First Lady Vicky Cayetano
In 1997 Miss Vicky Tiu bacame Mrs. Vicky Cayetano and the 1st Lady for the state of Hawaii. Vicky was the long time president and chief executive officer of United Laundry Services, Inc. In the 60’s Vicky played a major supporting role opposite Elvis Presley in the musical film “It Happened at the World’s Fair.” On my way out I was able to see Vicky Cayatano too. All of this made for a great Saturday Morning.

550 Pages
This part will most likely last many more Saturday mornings; and then some. I am loving it already!
Mahalo Ben.

Diplomacy Is Sometimes the Better Part of Valor
CBS News reported today that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has officially asked for an interview with President Barack Obama as a direct response to Mr. Obama’s call for opportunities to engage.
It’s hard to predict where “talking” might lead to at times, but not talking surely leads to nowhere.

Make That Presentation
The same is true when prospecting for new business. It’s easy to “ass-u-me” that a presentation will not go anywhere, and thus no need to make it. That attitude becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. As Wayne Gretzky once said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Take the shot! 

Rhythm in the White House?
Regardless of your political affiliation, if you didn’t feel the glow today, check your pulse. I began to count how many innaugurations I have lived through and stopped at “too many.” But, this is the first time I felt magnitized to the TV set, and surely the first time I had tears of joy running down my cheeks.
It’s not so much what I think Obama will do as President that moved me as it is what this magnanimous event is doing for America. We are all growing weary of the doom and gloom messages on the front pages of our newspapers. It was extremely uplifting to see so many people, more than ever before, take an interest in our new leader. The country has been inspired before he even lifts a finger as President.
People follow leaders. It’s encouraging to have one with a positive vision.

Go To: whitehouse.gov
And there’s already a new White House Web Site for us all to stay tuned in to what’s happening at our nation’s capital. Read about it on CNN HERE, and see the site HERE.

Here Today; Gone Tomorrow
It seems like only yesterday that I read Jim Collin’s book GOOD TO GREAT. He followed companies from 1965 to 1995, and made a list of those which had gone from “good” to “great” in that time. They were:

Abbot Laboratories
Circuit City
Fannie Mae
Gillette
Kimberly-Clark
Kroger
Nucor
Philip Morris
Pitney Bowes
Walgreens
Wells Fargo

A look at that list 14 years later shows some big changes. 

Like This One
Circuit City apparently found reverse gear somewhere along the way. CNN just announced that Circuit City’s will close 567 U.S. stores employing 34,000 employees. They plan to launch a liquidation sale immediately and run it through March 31, providing they get court approval. They will shut down their website and call center on January, 18. I found it odd that they plan to continue to operate their Canadian operations, which employ 3,000 workers.
The most significant comment in the article (to me) was citing a decision to “get rid of salespeople” as one of the reasons for their downfall. My thought was, “Duh!” This is what happens when the importance of good salespeople is underestimated. We certainly saw that during the demise of CompUSA here in Honolulu. The person who is face-to-face with the customer is the most important person in the company.

Can I Be Your Friend?
Creatures in the animal kingdom, including humans all have ways to get aquanited and develop relationships. Some are more discreet and effective than others. Perhaps the most complicated are the ones that we human beings use.

Can I buy you a drink?
Back in what I affectionately refer to as “the good old days” people had to go out to bars and parties to meet others. Many times a lot of money and time was spent with nothing to show for it but a headache (or worse) in the morning.

Then Came the Computer
It is now possible for even the shyest of people to reach out and meet someone. Dating sites like eHarmony.com, Match.com, Computer Dating USA and countless others allow singles to meet without going through the hassles previously required. Next came the free social networking site My Space.com

My Space Success
Our son Gilbert met his lovely bride Ashley on My Space while he was deployed in Iraq and she at nursing school here in Hawaii. Their relationship was well underway before his first leave home when they met in person. There’s no other way that this could have happened.

That Led to “Sweet Sammy”
Yesterday (New Year’s Day) was Samantha’s third birthday. No way could that have happened long distance on the Internet. Another big My Space success was the site formed by Barack Obama where he changed politics and raised more money than any candidate in history, all by way of social networking.

What to Do?
Today Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter seem to be heading the field of hundreds of social networks sites available. The big question is, “Are they valuable or a waste of good time?” Like many others out there, I have been drawn in to a few of these and everyday I am finding more and more time being spent at the computer, but have yet to figure out how to get this stuff to pay off. Is this something I should be suggesting to my clients as a way to find more business? If so, which one is best? From what I have seen so far, at least for business, LinkedIn seems to have the most potential. I am certain that these would be a great source of occupation when retired, but I am not quite there yet, however I don’t want to be left behind as this technology evolves. What to Do?

You’ve Come a Long Way Baby
The headlines in today’s Honolulu Advertiser announced:
“Hawaiian Telcom Files For Bankruptcy”

“One Ringy Dingy…”
I’m sure that I date myself when recalling the days that Lily Tomlin portrayed that hard core woman working at the Phone Company who had full control over your communication. Deregulation changed everything. As a monopoly, the one and only Phone Company thrived. But when things became competitive we saw numerous phone companies now in competition with one another. The Carlyle Group in Washington D.C. acquired Hawaiian Telcom in 2005 from Verizon Communications Inc. They did it with borrowed money, and have now chosen to file for Chapter 11 protection rather than pay the bill.

“Hi Mom”
The once powerful Phone Company has taken hard hits from its own offspring; the cell phone. Along with free enterprise comes competition, and there’s few industries more cometitive today than cell phone companies. Innovation is on the fast track and I don’t see how the old phone companies will ever be able to keep up. I see more and more people opting to use cell phones as their principle at home phone, and then there’s Skype, where you can talk free over your computer. I haven’t paid for a long distance call since getting it. Watching this all play out is going to be very interesting.

Scareware Interview at Uraku
I got a call this week from Jim Mendoza of KGMB News asking if he could interview me about the recent scareware attack I had experienced.  I’m always up for any sort of publicity, so I said, “Sure, come on over.”

This is what happened:
I was searching through various images on the Internet looking for photos to use in my Blog, when suddenly I got a pop up telling me that I had a virus, and could remove the threat by clicking on the “Yes” button. When I did that, strange things started happening right away. It said that my existing virus protection could not handle it, and asked me to purchase new software. By now I was suspicious, and didn’t do that, but it was already too late.
The pop ups kept appearing and I couldn’t get rid of them no matter what I did, so I shut down. But, when I restarted, it was still a mess. It was late at night, but I called a good friend (a night owl) who is a computer whiz. He went to my PC from his computer and installed a new free spyware, ran it a couple of times, and cleared things up (I thought).

Chief Geek
The next morning I coincidentally received Jim Kerr’s SuperGeeks newsletter with this warning:

* You’re using your computer, minding your own business, when suddenly an alert pops up on your screen.
* The alert says there’s a virus on your computer and urgently requests you to take action.
* You click ‘OK’ or ‘Yes’ or whatever seems like the right thing to do and then you’re prompted to purchase the software to remove the virus.
* Wanting to take care of the problem, you pay for it and download the ’software.’
* The end.

That Wasn’t the End
The next morning the pop ups started coming again. I contacted Jim about his newsletter story and he sent “Geek Max” over to my house to fix it completely. My computer was full of Trojan viruses and other spyware software that the scareware had installed. In the process it had uninstalled my other virus protection. Max installed Avast, ran a scan and I am back in business.

I Wasn’t Alone
When I showed Jim and his cameraman what happened he said that the KGMB computer is at Supergeeks being treated for exactly the same thing. We sat down and talked about what happened, and the story appeared on the evening news. If you missed it, just CLICK HERE. It’s safe, I promise.

Busy, but…
I stopped in at the new Ala Moana Brighton Collectibles today and found them to be busy as usual. I normally won’t interupt that, but today I was a real customer, not just an observer.

She Just Had To Have It, but…
You see, while in the store a few days ago one of “Jerry’s Angels” showed Masae this new bag and she loved it. She didn’t want to use up what she had left of her “Brighton credits,” so she passed. But, she hasn’t stopped talking about it. So today I chose to buy her one of those “No Special Occassion Gifts.”

Ring It Up
Store manager DeAnne Imamura agreed to help me with the “surprise” by taking my ctedit card, ringing it up, and then holding it in the store until Masae sees this Blog post and then goes to get it.
You see, I am trying to condition her to pay close attention to this Blog. We’ll see how long it takes.

Mahalo for the Mahalo
I was suprised today to open the November issue of Hawaii Business Magazine to find this substantial public “Mahalo” for my recent lunchtime talk at Morton’s. This is an example of going the extra mile and doing the unexpected and uneccessary. The article says;

“Mahalo Ron Martin
Hawaii Business Magazine and the sposors of the SmallBiz 2008 Luncheon, Bank of Hawaii and Avis, would like to thank Ron Martin of Success Dynamics, Inc. for being the guest speaker and reminding all of us to look for the positive and keep things easy.”

My “Mahalo” goes to Hawaii Business Magazine publisher David Tumilowicz and his staff at the magazine. This was both touching and appreciated.

Turtle Bay Resort
The beautiful Turtle Bay Resort was the setting for the first annual North Shore Chamber of Commerce Business Exposition.

Old Home Revisited
It was a treat to get out to my old North Shore stomping grounds. I was reminded of the peaceful environment and fabulous scenery where I called “home” for 15 years. I confess to having felt the urge to stay.

Great Turnout
Business owners from all over the North Shore turned out for the first North Shore Chamber of Commerce Business Exposition. We enjoyed lunch, information sessions and lots of Aloha.

Many Subjects and Speakers
I was honored to be among a distinquished group of speakers covering helpful subjects such as Grant Writing, SBA Loans, Sustainability Practices, Crime and Loss Prevention, Trademark, Patent and Copyright Law, Marketing/Branding, Business Plan Preperation, and my topic; Customer Service.

Small Groups
The large population was split off into several small and intimate breakout sessions where questions could be asked and we could all get to know each other. I was fortunate enough to speak to two such groups. I spoke on the important, yet often under estimated role that the salesperson plays in the business model.

Selling Books
Masae did her usual great job of selling books, keeping me busy signing them in between my speaking sessions.

No Waiting
My book customers were spotted around the hotel already reading the books they bought.
The day ended with a networking cocktail party where I mingled with my existing North Shore customers, met several new business prospects, sold more books and lined up future speaking engagements. I look forward to the next North Shore Chamber of Commerce Business Exposition.