FunnyBusiness: Everything About Business Except The Bottom Line

Today['s Worst Business In The World Award : U.S. Directory

The phone call came in shortly before 8:00 a.m. The woman was looking for those red coke glasses that are on American Idol. Okay, true confession. I don't watch American Idol and have no idea what coke glasses she is talking about. However, the woman was surprised since she said the phone directory lists me as a distributor.

She explained when she search for Coca Cola Distributors in the Minneapolis St. Paul Area  my name popped up.In case this is your first visit to FunnyBusiness -- I'm not in distribution. I'm a marketing communication consultant/blogomist/social media strategist.

The only time I get near a bottle of Coke is if I am under the weather. That and a bowl of Matzah bowl soup are at the top of my comfort food list

When I learned it was the  listing was in the U.S. Directory I was not surprised. I have had several run ins with this company. For years they have listed me under headings that have nothing to do with my business. Fortunately for me most people must not be looking for what they have me selling because this morning's call was the first time ever that someone searching in the U.S. Directory has called.

I immediately I called U.S. Directory to have them remove me from "DISTRIBUTORS". listing.  Reiv introduced herself as my customer call representative. She sounded like she was talking at the bottom of a swimming pool. After I explained the situation she  explained that since I was no longer a customer of U.S. Directory they had put that listing in as a "courtesy."
It was at the point that Riev,said this was a "courtesy" listing that I demanded to talk to management.
"Reiv," I tried to explain, " this is a nuisance  not a courtesy." 

She didn't go off script. She then explained that upper management was busy. They are always busy. They never come to the phone. Riev promised that I would get a return call in 24 -48 hours.  We'll see. 

So today, U.S. Directory is The Worst Company In The World! ( direct inspiration from Keith Olbermann of  MSNBC'sCountdown's Worst Person In The World)

Business Diet Tip #1: Digital Phones

One of my goals for this summer is to see how much "fat" I can trim from my business operating expenses. Okay I also plan to trim some fat from my hips but that is the same old song I've been singing for years.

I'm hoping that you will share some of the innovative ways you are cutting business costs -- I'd love for you to share them -- my goal is to create a list of ideas that people can use to reduce costs during a time when expenses are out of hand.

My business expense diet is new.This will be the first time --in a long time-- that I am actually going through my expenses--line by line--and looking where I can save money. While I don't have an actual goal. I would be delighted if I could save several hundred dollars a month.

The first thing to go was my landline phone.

While my phone service was never a huge expenditure--about $85 a month--for the next six months I'll be paying a delightful $29.99( that's an introduction price which will go up $10).

It's a decision I've been delaying for months. Even though I knew I could save money by switching my phone service to Comcast,it was something I was reluctant to do.

Having a landline was my Fiddler On The Roof Moment. Giving it up just feels like I'm saying good bye to a tradition.

In the old days, before my mobile phone was always within arms reach, it was reassuring to have a landline just in case an electrical storm knocked out service. At least you could call people and let them know you were okay. But downed wires won't impact my cell phone. So that isn't a good reason to stay hard wired.

Even if the power does go out I can still get online and send emails  thanks to my Verizon Broadband Modem--which I use on business trips.

No my reluctance to go digital was purely sentimental. And that is not a good business reason.

So I made the switch. There are a couple of features I really really like. And one I am disappointed they don't offer.
First to my disappointment -- you can't forward your phones so they will go immediately into voicemail. Instead, you have to let it ring at least twice.  I will adjust. The people who call me will adjust. But, if Comcast is looking at some feature enhancements, "straight to voicemail" would be something I really want.

Now to the good stuff. On my old system, the only way I knew if I had a voicemail is if I physically picked up the phone and heard the voicemail tone. Did I mention I wasn't good about picking up my phone and checking voicemail? Now I don't have remember --Comcast will send me a reminder. I love this feature.

I can also forward the phone from the computer and adjust how many rings before it hops into voicemail. Did I mention I would really like to have an option that says "immediate?"

So what made me switch now? In large part Word-Of-Mouth Advertising. My colleague Dan made the switch and he is really happy with the service and the quality of the calls. That's all it took. Dan's word. If Dan says its a good thing and it could save $40-$50 a month, then I'm in.

If you've just discovered a great way to save on business expenses, I want to hear from you !

At Just 9 Months Old, Adiri Is a Rising Star In The Baby Bottle Business

Since introducing the world to the baby bottle that looks and feels like a mother's breast,The New York Times has featured the company on the front page of its business section and it has become a must have product for celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Halle Berry

The company is run by three women: two attorneys and a marketing executive. None had any experience in manufacturing. In its first year, the company estimates it will earn a conservative 2.5 to 3 million dollars.

CEO Jennifer Morrill had no intention to run this business. She inherited it, along with a life insurance policy from her dad --the original inventor of the product.  When she tried to sell it, no one was interested.

The rest is the Adiri story. To read how these three women are turning the baby bottle business upside down check out my post today on BlogHer.

Manager of Minneapolis Farmer's Market Goes Beyond The Call Of Duty

It was the moment I decided to buy the Flax Seed from the vendor at the Minneapolis Farmer's Market whose pitch included " took care of my hemorhoidal problem"--that I realized my wallet was not where it was supposed to be.  At first, I thought I must have left it on the front seat of my car but when I got to my car, my wallet wasn't anywhere around.

I knew I hadn't left my wallet anywhere because I had just stopped at the  drive thru ATM to pull $100 out to buy my Farmers Market goodies.

Then it hit me. My phone had rung just as I arrived at the Farmers Market  and in my mad dash to answer it, I put my handbag on the trunk of my car and dug deep inside to answer the phone. What I didn't realize is that in my hurry to get to the phone I must have knocked my wallet right out of the handbag.

The phone call was from someone I needed to interview so I went back into my car and proceeded to have a 30 minute conversation. During that 30 minutes, someone found my wallet at the back of my car and helped themselves to the $100.

Fortunately for me, they decided against taking the wallet. The whole scene was observed by Scott and Valerie Robinson who took my wallet to Larry Cermak--the manager of the Minneapolis Farmer's Market.

After I realized that my wallet was stolen---and before I knew that some wonderful people had turned it in-- I drove home making a mental list of the credit and bank cards I needed to cancel.

As I pulled  into my driveway  there was a gentleman standing there. It was Larry Cermak. I rolled down my window and he said, " Are you Elana Centor?"

He then proceeded to tell me what the Robinsons had witnessed and how he was very sorry that my hundred dollars had been stolen.

How lucky am I? How grateful am I that Larry Cermak--manager of the Minneapolis Farmer's Market took the time to  get in his car and hand deliver my wallet to me?  That simple act of kindness spared me enormous stress, anxiety and the awful task of canceling bank and credit cards.

Yes, I am out $100 and in a few hours I might even be mad about that . Right now, I'm feelin pretty happy. I was able to call the Robinsons and tell them personally how much I appreciated what they did.
I hope they enjoy the flowers that should be arriving in a couple of hours.

I still am amazed that Larry Cermak took the time to hand deliver my wallet. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.l
.

European Salaries Not Keeping Up With Price Increases

For some time I've been having Euro envy.There are those reports of Europeans taking advantage of the falling dollar and hopping over here for vacations and shopping sprees.

A few months ago, when the prices of a hotel rooms reached astronomical amounts in New York, taxi drivers blamed the European.

Envy is never a good emotion and as it turns out, life on the other side of the Atlantic is having its economic challenges as well. The New York Times has a report on Europe's middle class == a group that is definitely not hopping over here for shopping sprees. As The NYT reports, they're having a hard time finding enough money to buy a baguette.

When their local bakery in this town south of Paris raised the price of a baguette for the third time in six months, Anne-Laure Renard and Guy Talpot bought a bread maker. When gasoline became their biggest single expense, they sold one of their two cars.

Their combined annual income of 40,000 euros, about $62,500, lands Ms. Renard, a teacher, and Mr. Talpot, a postal worker, smack in the middle of France’s middle class. And over the last year, prices in France have risen four times as fast as their salaries.
[...]
“In France, when you can’t afford a baguette anymore, you know you’re in trouble,” Ms. Renard said one recent evening in her kitchen, as her partner measured powdered milk for their 13-month-old son, Vincent. “The French Revolution started with bread riots.”

It's not just in France-- all over Europe workers are feeling their middle class lifestyle disappear because wages have not kept up with inflation --- prices have risen 25% since 2000 and as one person said if your salary doesn't keep up with inflation you begin to feel poor.

The Year Of The Square Watermelon

The Japanese have perfected a more refrigerator- friendly watermelon--for $80 a square. Stateside,a Pennsylvania entrepreneur is offering an e-book on HOW TO GROW YOUR OWN SQUARE WATERMELONS.

He's selling it for $19.95  Could 2008 be the year when we are all sitting around with square watermelons?

The Japanese decided to try growing a  square watermelon because Japanese  grocery stores  and home refrigerators are much smaller than their American counterparts and they wanted a more Japanese compatible watermelon.

I imagine the American entrepreneur decided to grow a square watermelon because it looks fun,will be a real conversation starter at the family reunion, and he's hoping that his e-book will sell a few copies.

In a year of insane food prices the grow your own square watermelon might just be the thing to bring a smile to stressed out Americans who will look at the garden and  cheer up when they see this square where an oval really should be.

If I had a yard, I'd try growing a square watermelon...just because. Hey, and even though our refrigerators might be bigger than Japanese models,I have never had a refrigerator big enough for a watermelon. Even the half watermelons take up too much room.

  For the past several years I have been buying the pre-cut version. However, given the higher cost of everything seeing the potential of the square watermelon has inspired me: I will cut my own this summer watermelon up this summer and instead of making watermelon balls I plan to cut them  into lovely mini watermelon squares

Hold The Bagel:Skyrocketing Flour Prices Force Price Increases

Okay, so you are thinking twice before you get in your car to run errands. The days of no fat grande lattes are behind you. Now, you learn you may have to give up your morning bagel. Orthonomics shares the sticker shock of seeing how fast the prices are rising from just two weeks ago.

My husband asked me to picked up frozen bagels. I went to Store 2 because they regularly price their store brand, kosher certified, frozen bagels at $1.00 a package. It isn't a great value, but keeping the husband happy is priceless. The new price, $1.50. That is a 50% price increase!

This is not fun. The Washington Post has a comprehensive article on why wheat prices have gone from cheap to "you gotta be kiddin."  In Emptying The Breadbasket, Dan Morgan reports :

...many farmers are cutting back on growing wheat in favor of more profitable, less disease-prone corn and soybeans for ethanol refineries and Asian consumers.

U.S. wheat yields per acre have increased little in two decades, partly because commercial seed companies have all but abandoned investments in improved varieties, preferring to focus on the more profitable corn and soybeans. Subtle warming changes in the climate and the recent availability of new plant varieties that thrive in cold, dry conditions have pushed the corn belt north and west.

In 1996, Congress gave a strong nudge to these changes by passing legislation allowing wheat growers for the first time to switch to other crops and still collect government subsidies. The result is that farmers received federal wheat payments last year on 15 million acres more than were planted.

Not only are these increased costs hitting consumers, they are hitting the restaurant industry and  they are hitting them hard. Most restaurants can't increase the costs of a meal to cover their increased costs and so they are doing what health experts wished they had done years ago, they are removing the iconoclastic super sized American Meal and replacing it with a normal portion.

Restaurants have been cutting back because of the higher prices that they have to pay. So ,the really huge portion that you may have received at a restaurant a few months ago may not be as large and the price may be the same or higher. This is not due to some altruistic health program for the customers. This is because restaurant suppliers and shippers have higher costs which means that the restaurants have higher costs and that means that when the food gets to you, it costs more as well.

The Leaked Microsoft Video: What embarasses some may motivate others

Labeled as "stupid, embarrassing,laughably awful,"  Microsoft has been taking major heat for a video intended for its Vista sales team that leaked onto YouTube.

Actually, I don't think it's so bad--for what it is---an internal video for a sales meeting. Anyone who has ever gone to a sales meeting knows that for outsiders the insider jokes and humor always fall flat.

It's like overhearing two lovers whispering sweet nothing into each other's ears. It may sound great to the two lovers, but to the eavesdroppers its an eye roll.

What seems juvenile and insipid to the outsider, can help build morale for those tasked with selling.Such it is with internal sales material.  It is for a targeted audience. What motivates them, may embarrass us.

This was not a commercial. This was an internal video. We should be embarrassed watching it--we are not the intended audience. But just because we're embarrassed, it  doesn't mean that it didn't do what it was supposed to do: motivate the troops, create community and remind them that the company was supporting the product.

Many years ago, I was retained by an major insurance company to motivate their sales team to promote a particular life insurance policy. We decided to go with a cowboy theme ---not sure why but we selected a cowboy -- it seemed like a good idea at the time. We also created an audio in the style of a 1930's radio program to promote the benefits of selling this product.

The sales team said they were insulted. They said that we had trivialized their professionalism. On the other hand, they all remembered the product---for years. And that was the problem, the one point the client had failed to share before we went all out with this "high creative" was that it was a lousy product.

High creative and lousy products don't mix well. They only tend to embarrass and insult. Which could explain why people are so embarrassed by the video. It's hyping a less than stellar product. They used a spoof of the quintessential music video and they tainted it with a product that consumers are saying,

"Thanks, but no thanks." 

Have Electronic Greeting Cards Reached It's Tipping Point?

It is an ongoing conversation in my head. Paper or Electronic.I have a subscription to an online card service - Jacquie Lawson  It's a boutique online card provider  offering just over a 100 different cards. But they are fabulous cards and people really seem to like them -- ( in this case people is code for baby boomers)

My dilemma was, " Would my client think that an electronic card was a lazy woman's version of saying Thank You? 

As recently as December I chatted with a business etiquette expert who advised never ever send a client an electronic thank you note. According to this expert, hand-written thank yous sealed with saliva and a 41 cent stamp(until May 12,2008 when they bumps up to 42 cents unless you purchased the forever stamps) are the appropriate way to demonstrate you really, really appreciate them.

But then again, she is a baby boomer.

According to a recent article in Fast Company called I Just IM'd 'To Say I Love You' my fears show I'm a product of my generation.

...the clientele is predominately "middle-age women." That is not just anecdotal evidence but acknowledged fact at American Greetings, which generated $1.7 billion in 2007 revenues. Its annual report reveals that women buy 80% of the cards in the United States, and their median age is 47. Not exactly the Facebook crowd. To gen-Yers, a snail- mail card is as antiquated as getting a $5 birthday check from grandma.

From a business perspective, an aging customer base and a renewed focus on using less paper could be the death knoll. But American Greetings isn't waiting for a new generation to discover that paper cards are wonderful. Instead, they are creating products to help this generation express their emotions in emails, chats and social media sites.

The product line is called KIWEE.

Last November, it launched a free toolbar that gives users instant access to a zoo's worth of smiling animals and that gives AGI a piece of search-advertising revenue. "The uptake for the toolbar has been amazing," says Todd Schwartz, product manager for Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger. In February, Kiwee attracted 12 million unique visitors. Young folks may not send paper anymore, but being remembered -- that's universal.

Earlier today I installed the Kiwee toolbar. If they ask any demographic information I'm likely to skew the average age by 40 years.  So now, I can add emoticons and winks  to my heart's delight to visually communicate my true feelings about a topic.

While there's definitely the possibility of having too much of a good thing here. I did spend part of Friday on a Webex meeting which offered lots of emoticons. The truth is, these little animated visuals do serve as an important communication aid.

Maybe the next step will be to create a line of emoticons targeted to babyboomers. In the meantime, it's time for me to go.

Honey Bees and The Economy

You can now add Honey Bees to the list of things you need to worry about.Over the past several winters the United States has lost about 25% of its honey bee population due to CCD-Colony Collapse Disorder ( known in the UK as Mary Celeste Syndrome --in honor of a ghost ship).

To bring attention to the plight of bees and what it can mean to our economy, Haagen Daz has launched a website called Help The Honey Bees.

Now imagine the world without tasty pears, luscious raspberries and juicy strawberries. Honey bees are responsible for pollinating one-third of all the foods we eat, including many of the ingredients that define our all-natural ice creams.

We've creating this site because honey bee populations are disaapearing at an alarming rate and we want to keep these heroes buzzing.

We hope you'll join our mission.

You can read more about the corporate efforts to save the bees at my Blogher
post,

How serious is it? It's serious. An unidentified expert in bees has said,"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left."  This quote is often attributed to Albert Einstein. However, Urban Legends Reference Pages   has done the research and its doubtful that Einstein said it.

On the other hand, no one is disputing the  validity of the quote. According to  Urban Legends,

All in all, this looks like a classic case of a useful quote's being invented and put into the mouth of a famous person for political purposes.

 Sightings:   Political comedian Bill Maher used the Einstein "bee" quote to begin his closing essay on the 20 April 2007 episode of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher

Meanwhile in communities across the country, bee populations are exploding in the abandoned homes ( think foreclosure). Evidently cities and the bee producers need to collaborate a little better than they've been doing. The New York Times recently ran a story about a B. Keith Councell,a bee keeper who is trying to save the hives from extermination.

When a swarm came to the foreclosed ranch house at 3738 Santa Barbara Place in Cape Coral, town officials called B. Keith Councell, a fourth generation beekeeper and licensed bee remover.

On a recent evening, Mr. Councell stood at the light blue house’s open garage door as hundreds of honeybees buzzed over his head and past his ears, disappearing into a hole behind the water meter. The house has been without a human occupant since December.

Then he did what he does at most foreclosed homes: nothing.

“If it’s in the yard I just take care of it,” Mr. Councell said. “But if it’s in the structure, usually I can’t get permission to go in. And it’s a problem, because somebody’s going to get stung. It creates a risk for everybody around.”

At a time when honeybee populations are dropping nationwide, Mr. Councell sees himself in competition with exterminators. Because Africanized honeybees, sometimes called killer bees for their aggressiveness, have appeared in Florida, the current trend is toward exterminating rather than removing them, Professor Ellis said.