2009 June | Maid Service Marketing

Monthly Archives: June 2009

Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett & Michael Jackson died–CNN confirmed.

June 26, 2009

Twitter crashed. Google News was unavailable for some for an hour. The internet practically choked on the news of Michael Jackson, The King of Pop, dead after a cardiac arrest at his home. Farrah Fawcett passed away on the same day. Ed McMahon expired just two days prior. While these iconic celebrities’ deaths are cause for great sadness, grief, loss and celebration of their lives and contributions, there is an even bigger takeaway for all of us.

How have we lived…how well are we living ourselves right now?

At our current death rate in the United States (8.27 deaths/1000 population), yesterday on the same day we lost Farrah and Michael, another 8,154 other people died, in the United States alone. That’s 8,154 grandparents, great grandparents, moms and dads, brothers and sisters, children and grand children–each with an individual story and a network of family and friends that grieve their loss.

So while the news of Farrah Fawcett’s passing overshadows the loss of 83 year old Nina Pinsky in Paintsville, Kentucky, it all gets glossed over by the video of a Sheriff’s helicopter taking Michael Jackson’s body to the coroner’s office for an autopsy. Yet this media coverage pales in comparison to the news stories running in the minds of every grieving loved one of any of the 8,156 people who died yesterday, and today, and tomorrow, and every day of the year.

So how am I living?

When my time is up, what will the “news coverage” say about me? What will be my legacy?

I met Ed McMahon as one of my guests while I was working at the Grand Floridian Beach Resort at Walt Disney World. I grew up with Farrah’s famous swimsuit poster in my room. And my ITunes account has Dirty Diana on my favorites list still to this day. I cherish each of these fine performers for their gifts and contributions to their craft and to the world.

Yet more than anything, I thank them all for the gift of invitation to reflect upon how I want to spend the rest of my life…how I want to make a difference in the world…how I want to remembered, when my day comes.

By Steven Rowell | Posted in Employee Attitude, Leadership, Owner Mindset | Tagged Brothers And Sisters, Cardiac Arrest, Cnn, Day Of The Year, Death Rate, Dirty Diana, Ed Mcmahon, Farrah Fawcett, Favorites List, Google, Grand Floridian Beach Resort, King Of Pop, Michael Jackson The King Of Pop, Pails, Paintsville Kentucky, Pinsky, Takeaway, Today And Tomorrow, Walt Disney, Walt Disney World, Yesterday And Today | Comments (0)

Low-Cost Marketing Strategies

June 21, 2009

A few power strategies for Low-Cost Marketing:

1. Instead of putting flyers on windshields of cars in parking lots, perhaps do the proven strategy (Jack George gets credit here) of putting a vinyl wrapped company car in the busy parking lot with business cards or flyers with a compelling offer in plastic holders attached to the back window of the car. Staples and OfficeMax sell the plastic card holders with suction cups. Be sure to answer your phone the day after, especially if its Saturday and Sunday or have MyPerceptionist answer your phone for you.

2. Babies R’ Us–one Saturday per month they have 6 foot tables available for local businesses to promote their services to their shoppers–huge opportunity to market to women from all different angles–grandmothers, new mothers, sisters of new moms, moms of all ages, people buying gifts for baby showers…hint hint, offer gift cards as a baby shower gift as part of your fish bowl give away drawing.

3. One of my most successful proven guerilla marketing techniques is to partner with your best/high quality, larger or largest dry cleaner in your immediate area. You can now offer to pay for the dry cleaner bags (and have your logo and compelling offer printed on the bags) and then give them to the dry cleaner to put on their customers’ clothes. Genius idea. If you can’t afford the printed bags, provide colored sheets of paper with two-sided promotions printed in black ink, and ask the dry cleaner to staple one to every bag of finished clothes. Offer to barter by cleaning the owner’s home for instance.

4. Walk the neighborhoods of your existing customers, (with testimonials in hand) and offer “immediate in-home estimates.” Make sure you have a great leave behind flyer or brochure, especially with a refrigerator magnet to leave with every homeowner, even if they say “No thank you.”

I could write for hours on this, but these are a few truly proven, massive return on investment, strategies to use.

Just think of it this way, “I have to raise $10,000 in new cash business in 48 hours or something terrible will happen to me (you fill in the blank)…what would you do to make it happen?”