My college roommate’s Uncle Howard was a wealthy businessman who gave millions of dollars away .
His most visible gift was the “Touchdown Jesus” mosaic on the Notre Dame’s Library.
While attending Notre Dame in the 1920′s, he sold World Book Encyclopedias door-to-door.
He became a school teacher and continued selling encyclopedias after graduation to supplement his salary.
I asked Uncle Howard to tell me about “Black Monday” when the stock market plummeted in 1929 triggering the Great Depression.
He said he wasn’t worried. Earlier that day, he sold a set of encyclopedias and had $50 in his pocket. If everything went to pieces, he still had $50 and knew he could get by.
He sold right through the depths of the Depression. It wasn’t easy, but he never slowed down. To his customers, encyclopedias provided education, and education meant opportunity for a brighter future.
Surrounded by problems, Uncle Howard delivered solutions.
He rose through the World Book ranks and became the number two person in the company working for Marshall Field. Uncle Howard earned a small override on every sale, and he amassed a fortune.
Today, we are surrounded by fear, turmoil and uncertainty. A young person may someday ask YOU what it was like back in 2008, and how did YOU respond?
What will your role be following the Great Crash of ’08?
Will you be defeated by circumstance, or will you provide solutions and support to others?
I hope that I will be able to say that I chose to be a
victor rather than a victim. In the midst of calamity, I saw
opportunity.
Have a prosperous week.
Dick Larkin
ps. Next time you see “Touchdown Jesus,” remember Uncle Howard, a man who refused to relinquish control of his destiny.
This is a well produced video describing the benefits and services offered by YPG, Canada’s largest directory publisher.
While the service isn’t new, given YPG’s strong sales force and customer relationships, it marks a solid movement toward giving advertisers what they want.
Extending beyond the printed directory, and YPG’s own websites such as YellowPages.ca, advertisers who want a strong presence on Google will be interested.
The challenge comes with accountability and advertiser expectation.
How many leads or sales should an advertiser expect from a $500 monthly investment? What if they are spending $10,000 per month?
Accountability without a well established frame of reference and customer expectation is a dangerous thing.
This will probably be very successful, but less profitable than the company’s print directories.
That’s because $10,000 spent in print is vastly more profitable than $10,000 spent buying leads online (because traffic has a high cost that does not go down as an advertiser spends more, it actually goes up).
AT&T will no longer be publishing residential listings in Madison, Wisconsin. This follows their trend of eliminating residential listings in Milwaukee, Austin, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia. This should make the environmentalists happy.
It’s interesting timing to announce the elimination on the same day that they begin delivering directories.
The 2010 Madison AT&T Yellow Pages is reportedly 1/3 smaller than the previous edition.
In an article on the Wisconsin State Journal, AT&T spokesman Chris Bauer said that there were better sources for residential listings.
“Customers often keep their own personal phone books in their cell phones or on a list on the refrigerator or by the phone. They have school directories, church directories, and they have the Internet.”
My employer, American Marketing and Publishing, publishes the HomePages community directories throughout Wisconsin, and we will continue to list all residents in all of our directories. In the tight-knit communities we serve, residential listings are very important to the residents.
As a competitor to AT&T, I’m thrilled that they’re doing this, because it makes our product even more useful.
As a cheerleader for the Yellow Pages industry, I’m disappointed in AT&T for the move.
The reason AT&T dropped the residential listings was to save money. I respect that.
The problem is that residential listings drive heavy usage. Five years of data at WorldPages.com found that nearly half of the searches were for the business name or for residential listings.
By eliminating the residential listings, AT&T is also eliminating a significant chunk of their user base.
So do you think that they would lower advertising rates to compensate their loyal advertisers for the reduced usage?
Of course not.
In fact, most of the advertisers are not aware that the listings have been dumped.
Is it any wonder why local business owners feel such animosity toward the Yellow Pages industry?
The reduced utility further weakens the AT&T printed Yellow Pages as a local advertising vehicle, and will cause fewer advertisers to renew in future years.
So they charge the advertisers the same rates, they save money by not publishing the white pages, and they make money for providing the information that used to be free.
As my friend Vinny would say, “You got a problem with dat?”
The big Yellow Pages publishers have had financial problems, and business is business.
But it seems like they’re hell-bent on hastening their own demise.
Last January, we announced a contest to our sales reps to reward consistent performance.
It’s really simple. We started with 150 sales reps who represent HomePages Directories in Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and Kentucky.
Make a sale. Every day.
Our directories serve small businesses that serve mostly local customers.
The Yellow Pages ads start at around $385 per year.
But the ads don’t sell themselves.
As long as a rep made a sale, any sale, they advanced to the next day.
We put out a big honkin’ award.
The last man (or woman) standing would drive off in a new Saturn Astra (or $16,500).
The winner of the contest is Joe Brien.
Joe is a remarkable sales rep who has made at least one sale every day since September 2008.
At our company meeting yesterday held in the Duke Ellington Ballroom at Northern Illinois University, Joe chose to receive a check for $16,500 because he already drives a nice car.
Congratulations, Champ! You served hundreds of appreciative small businesses, and were rewarded for your good works.
I received word from an old friend that he is interested in selling his small (around $1 million revenue) independent Yellow Pages publishing business. It’s located in the Southern United States, and would need to be owner operated to be successful. The owner has experienced health problems, and needs to sell to someone who can [...]
January 18, 2010 is the date of our annual company meeting at American Marketing & Publishing, LLC. It’s when we bring all of the sales team and office employees to Northern Illinois University for one day of reflection, direction, and motivation. 2009 was a remarkable year for the HomePages Directories. We expanded our publishing footprint [...]
My friend Joe Brown at Kenyon Design Group reworked this ad into a much more beautiful ad. The advertiser had been running this ad in a large number of directories for years. The advertiser explained that this ad was originally designed by a Dontech rep with 30 years of experience. The problem is that it [...]
On January 18, 2010, I’m giving this Saturn Astra away to one of my sales representatives. This is the 3rd such car I’ve given away in the last 6 months. So what does a rep have to do to win such a spectacular vehicle? One sale, every day. Rep who goes the most consecutive days [...]
The biggest challenge for traditional media is letting go of proprietary thinking without abandoning the proprietary publications. 1. Grow and invest in what you own, control, and can improve. Make your books, papers, websites significantly better for the end user this year. This is basic. Give them more relevant information in highly localized formats. 2. [...]
I was standing in the checkout line at Costco last Saturday when out of the corner of my eye, I recognized a celebrity standing in front of me. He stood there in a navy blue Adidas running suit instead of his orange tunic, but I recognized that famous face. I was standing next to the [...]
