Amazon Prime is your wake up call. Don't have your device on mute.

I was thinking about advertising today. Losing a Sears and Macy's at a mall near my house this month reminded me of one of the dumbest store manager moves that I have seen. More on that later. I know I need to advertise more. I can always use more swimming pool heat pump dealers to support my decadent fast food McDonald's one dollar large coffee and 2 dollar oatmeal lifestyle. When I wrote my first article for Linkedin, people advertised by yelling their message in the town square, or hired biplanes with pilots wearing leather helmets and red scarves, to spread the message to all the beach going public. I might be mixing eras? Don't confuse me with the facts, please. Now it seems everyone is telling you that social media is the only way to go. I personally doubt it. There is no "only" way to go. I am on all the social sites though just in case. :-) I promised my readers that when I wrote one of my early articles that I wouldn't research content, as I thought that isn't the best value that I could give to you. You can Google as well as me I am sure. Your search history proves that. Wow, you do have an interesting imagination...... What you can't do is to go back into my life and see what I have seen, and the conclusions that I have made, from all those experiences. That is the value I can share.

I use Amazon Prime. They are great. Saves me time and money most of the time. I sure do have a lot of empty huge boxes piling up for tiny products though. I keep thinking they know best on how to ship. But I wonder. I would rather use a local store when I can however. There is an auto parts store next to my post office that I use all the time. It is faster than Amazon Prime, as I don't have to look up what I need, order the product, don't have to stand in line to pick up the box at the Post Office as I don't have home delivery, don't have to take the box in the house, unpack the box, and then crush the box into the recycle bin separating out the plastic filler, and then put the recycle bin by the street, and then take the bin back to the house. The street is 1/3 of a mile from my door. To my European and Asian friends that is about a million meters. I don't even have to check the credit card bill a month later for accuracy, if it was a $5.00 part, as I still keep a couple of fives in my wallet. The guys and gals at the auto parts store even seem happy to see me when I enter the door. That makes me feel good. A human smile can brighten my day. More fulfilling than clicking a buy it now button at 3 am when I can't sleep. If they were indifferent at the store and didn't greet me, and then made me wait in line because they were saving money on the help, I would be back to online ordering in a minute.

One of my hockey buddies, Al T. got me video contract work with AT&T and Comcast Cable companies. I worked part time, while I was running my HVAC contracting business during the day. It was a hobby that helped me relax. I took my girlfriend, who is now my wife, to work with me on many occasions. I was the camera and floor director for a few of their cable TV shows, and I was also in the field helping local businesses make commercials to promote themselves. Many times, I and my girlfriend helped out with a little acting, when the client needed us. We did a commercial for a Mexican restaurant where we played a happy couple eating, laughing and singing, while the servers brought us an amazing amount of stunt food. By accident, we bumped heads during the celebration. We kept that scene in the commercial, as it was funny. Note: No humans were hurt during the recording, and we always got to keep the stunt food. I was eating Mexican food for a week after that commercial. A week later it was broadcast on TV, with a potential audience of over 6 million people. My girlfriend's ex in-laws friends saw her and me eating dinner and called her ex husband, not knowing she was divorced. They thought by some miracle the cameras caught her cheating, and tattled on her. They forgot we live in a land of paid actors and signed releases. Guys, if your are going to rat someone out, make sure you have it correct. Her ex called and congratulated her. We all laughed about it and ate dinner a few weeks later. On the next commercial, my now fiancee showed up late, and I had to use a sexy stunt wife. (If my beautiful wife is reading this now, the TV stunt wife really wasn't that sexy.) My fiancee then, also seemed to forget it was all acting. For future commercials, I waited for as long as it took for her to get to the shoot, and never had another stunt wife. As Frankenstein's monster once said: Stunt food good, stunt wife very bad.

There was a low traffic mall in a high traffic town that hired us to do a mall wide commercial, to promote all stores in the mall to try to save it. While we were there, most of the tenants had a great time with the shoot. They had just remodeled the food court, and the vendors were all over acting in a fun way. Everyone was happy that the mall management was taking care of them with free advertising, except one store. The manager chased us away when he saw us aim the camera on the store's banner and display window. He yelled, while waving his arms at us, and told us not to film. It was an amazing example of a business shooting themselves in the foot. We watched him sulk back into his almost empty store. I wonder how many businesses sabotage themselves by forgetting the basics of making your customers feel like invited guests and treating them with respect and kindness. Free advertising can't hurt either. Personally we don't have to buy bird seed at a high end bird store, but we do. They give good advice, smile, and they make it a fun experience for us. 90% of the commercials we made had a positive impact on the businesses we shot. Still not sure why the Lasik eye surgeon was wearing glasses in the commercial though? Many people don't know that sometimes when a TV station has an open time slot at night, they will drop your commercial in it for very little money. Good to know if your customer base are insomniacs, or gamers fighting the last gallant battle against the infidels at 3 am.

I am not happy about losing Sears. That was part of my childhood. I saved my money to buy tools there. I brought back damaged tools, after I innocently abused them, because they had a lifetime warranty. Christmas was an event there. I wore their clothes for years until my wife put an end to that. Many financial writers say their time is running out. I am not a forensic retail pathologist, but I played one on TV once, so I can speculate. Something changed in the last 10 years or so. I don't think you can blame Amazon or Walmart for this failure. You can't get an oil change at Amazon. It just wasn't the same store I grew up with. The auto shop service slipped. 3 hour oil changes were common even though the shop was empty. The time they forgot to put the oil fill cap on, and I didn't notice until it was too late while washing my motor and getting water in the crankcase through the missing cap. Then there was the time they promised me a rebate for tires, and then when it never came in the mail, them telling me that I didn't qualify. Now I hear they are selling their signature Craftsman tool line to another retailer. Ugh. The end of an era. Just treat people right and they will tell everyone they know about you and you will have a crowd of customers at your door. In a way, that is the original social media that has been going on for a few hundred years since the local town's Miller made sure you got your grain ground fast with the least amount of product loss, or too many rock bits mixed in. See, I had to get my name somewhere in this post. Don't forget the basics. Business isn't a mystery. It is hard but not complicated. At the end of every transaction is a person, Treat them right and don't make them click for their every need. Except if you are on one of my sites. Then it is OK, as you can't get my stuff at Walmart.....yet.