Archive for January, 2009
Economic Situation: People are Suffering
January 31st, 2009 | 
Author: “People are suffering. People are not worried about how much money is left at the end of the month. People are worried about how much month is left at the end of the money.”
Quote from Phil Gingrey Georgia Congressman (R) on Fox News – Your World Live, Saturday January 31, 2008 discussing the current economic situation.
Well said Congressman. I wish everyone in Washington kept this in mind.
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Driving to Live
Driving to live. I keep these three words in mind when I get in my car to travel. These three words govern my driving behavior and are the reason I drive defensively. These three words are the reasons aggressive drivers may find themselves within a few feet of my rear bumper for long stretches of narrow highway or find themselves in a line of traffic behind me, all of us traveling at a safe speed.
Unsafe drivers are road killers. I want to live so I drive safely and only take safe opportunities to pull over for the road killers or maintain my lawful driving until I can safely let the road killers pass. I call it the PORK maneuver.
Driving to live means that I plan not to find myself in a crash caused by the negligent driver behind or in front of me. It means that I am aware of my surroundings and my options to stay safe and stay alive on the road. It means that I do not react in an unsafe way to the actions of unsafe and/or aggressive drivers; but drive according to the rules.
Drivers that drive to live:
1. Obey the speed laws.
2. Stop for stop signs, obey traffic lights, and other road signs.
3. Remain a safe distance behind the traffic in front of them.
4. Drive safely at at speeds based on the weather and road conditions.
5. Signal for lane changes and turns. Plan merges and lane changes well in advance,
6. Never cut off other drivers.
7. Never use a vehicle to rush to an appointment.
8. Drive defensively, watching out for the irresponsible or negligent behavior of others.
9. Know their surroundings and can anticipate driving conditions ahead.
10. Drive to arrive – alive. Drive to let others live including other drivers, pedestrians, and animals.
When everyone drives to live pedestrians and bicyclists are safer, wild life and pets are safer, as well as other drivers. The risk of injury, death, and property damage is dramatically reduced for everyone. Our police, fire and medical responders can focus on other serious matters besides collisions caused by irresponsible behaviors. When we are smarter about driving we and our communities are better for it.
Drive to live. Take a personal inventory of what you would lose if you died, you were gravely injured, or your unsafe driving caused serious injury to others. Do you really want to drive and die or drive and injure? No, you really want to drive and live. Then do it. Drive and live.
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Tags: Positive Messages for Your Customers
In my personal journey toward faster and better, I discovered that telling a customer what you can do for them is far more successful than telling a customer what you cannot do for them. A positive can-do message even if it does not entirely meet the customer’s expectations builds on your honesty and integrity and that of the company.
Inexperienced sales clerks, tech support or customer service staff, supervisors, managers, and even owners often start a sentence with “We can’t” or “That isn’t possible” or We don’t do that, or a curt “That isn’t what we do here.” The first message the customer hears is NEGATIVE not the least bit positive. The first negative message sets the tone for the rest of the customer’s personal experience.
The primary responsibility of any staff member serving a customer is to create a positive experience. That customer’s experience should be one where the sale is closed, where an alternative product referral is made, and in the absence of the best option a positive discussion about the customer’s requirements demonstrating the company’s and your personal interest. You want that customer to return someday. Return business is likely when the customer believes you truly care – even if you did not have exactly what the customer needed.
Negative messages send customers out the door scratching their heads. They are wondering why they visited the store, signed up for that service contract, or took a chance with your product or establishment in the first place.
When a customer presents you with a need, fear, want, or desire and you cannot help that customer you have to ask yourself what you CAN do for them before you respond. Perhaps the simplest example occurs most frequently at the retail store. Let’s say a customer visits your hardware store to purchase a two-inch metal pipe used to route electrical wires. You know that your hardware store carries several sizes of the plastic type of conduit. You even have everything the customer would need in smaller diameter sizes of metal conduit. The larger size conduit ius typically used in new construction of business buildings and not homes. Your business serves primarily the local homeowner.
Your mission is not to use a negative message and not to use the word ONLY. As an example, “We only have one-half inch pipe” or “You’re in the wrong place for that.”
Using the words ONLY suggests to the customer that even YOU are disappointed you do not have what he or she needs. That’s not just a negative message it’s a downer from which it is hard to recover. Your can do message is developed in conversation by first taking the time to qualify the customer’s needs. Ask questions about the work the customer is doing that requires this product. Use those answers to determine if you have an in-house solution that meets the customer’s needs. I cannot even count the number of times I have made a sale when the customer came to me absolutely convinced they understood what they needed. They either were not completely informed or they were ready to hear about alternative methods or products.
Your product knowledge and experience gives you the clout to ask intelligent questions and at a minimum to locate a person in your company that can ask the right questions. Once you have clearly understoood the customer’s needs you make positive suggestions or internal and external referrals. You make the effort to describe what you do have and what you can do or sell to the customer under similar circumstances. Ask yourself, “What do I have here that can fulfill the customer’s need?”
The positive message may even be that you would like to help the customer find what he needs elsewhere because you know the best positive message may be an external referral. “I understand what you need the larger metal conduit for. That is the best choice, There is a company right here on Main Street that sells products like this to local electrical contractors. They have a retail desk. Would you like me to call them for you to see if that product is in stock?” You have not wasted your time. That positive message speaks highly of your product knowledge, your experience, the integrity of the company and it’s mission to serve it’s customers.
While you are serving this customer it probably doesn’t hurt to make a product suggestion from your store. You may even suggest that you have all the tools he or she needs to install the conduit or do any other work associated with the project.
Your marketing message, your store front, the way in which you greet customers in person or on the telephone should reveal your company’s pleasure that this customer visited or telephoned to ask their question.
Positive messages lead to sales, sales lead to profits, and profits lead to continued employment and the success of the company. Positive messages also build on the community perceptions of the company that it is more than a company that builds a good widget or one that carries brand name products.
Positive messages are made possible by training, product knowledge, personal experience, and company empowerment. Positive messages are not an accident. Companies that allow negative messages are missing out. Negative messages marginalize possibilities, minimize revenue, and reflect a company with a less-than-successful organizational attitude.
Enjoy the read? Support DougWeb with coffee money ;) Sphere: Related ContentMaryland Route 2 – Aggressive Driving Highway on Steroids
Maryland Route 2 through Anne Arundel County and Calvert County is “THE” Aggressive Driver Highway on Steroids! Travel this highway at the speed limit and see what climbs up your tail pipe! The behavior of the majority of drivers on this highway is ABYSMAL. The behavior of public safety officers even worse. Police run radar but I have never seen an officer react to “following to closely” or other aggressive driving behaviors. You are ON YOUR OWN on this highway, at risk of a violent death, if you or the other driver makes a stupid mistake. Police follow too closely as do most other drivers. It is a statewide standard of driver behavior in Maryland. WATCH and learn.
Do you want safe highways? Start driving like you understand the traffic laws. DEMAND that our law enforcement officers ON AND OFF duty follow the same laws you have to follow and DEMAND that laws against aggressive driving be enforced.
Enjoy the read? Support DougWeb with coffee money ;) Sphere: Related ContentCredit Card Telemarketing Scam – 305-445-8932
In the last year my home telephones have received numerous calls from this telephone number. A recorded female voice claims to be my credit card company – while not providing the of the name of the credit card. The voice CLAIMS the company has tried repeatedly to contact me to lower my interest rates.
Clues this is a VISHING scam:
None of my credit card companies have contacted me or have authorized anyone else to contact me.
The calls come on telephone numbers NOT registered with my credit card company.
They don’t know my name.
This call is yet another telemarketing scam, one that I have repeatedly filed as a complaint with donotcall.gov. The FTC warns that they do not respond to individual complaints but that a database of calls from reported numbers is maintained and made available to law enforcement. Based on a Google of this telephone number it sure appears that a number of people are being harassed by this telemarketer. So after over a year what has been done to shut this telemarketer down?
A blogger at Bohemian Revolution wrote about calls from this telephone number back in February of 2008. This blog, Communication’s from Elsewhere wrote about the scam in 2007! Another blogger was so incensed that the blogger created a website dedicated to exposing the scam titled, “Stopping Heather.” Yet another anti-scam website has an actual recorded call from the scammer. The call is hysterical since the scammer was spoofed! This scam has apparently been around for years and the FCC, and FTC and several states attorneys general already are familiar with the calls. Nothing has been done to put these thieves out of their misery.
No company name is provided by the caller. The Caller ID says, “FLORIDA.” Interestingly that’s where the car insurance scams seem to be coming from. Do you suppose these calls are all coming from the same call center?
Has anyone ever determined who is making these annoying calls and masking the intent so that calls seem to be coming from a company with who you have done business and thus exempting the caller from the donotcall.gov registry rules?
What does it take to have telemarketers prosecuted under the law? It is time the FTC takes action against scammers especially during an economic down turn. There is a mountain of information on the company’s behavior on the Internet. It’s time something was done by law enforcement to shut the scam down.
Enjoy the read? Support DougWeb with coffee money ;) Sphere: Related ContentCalvert County Blogs?
Do you live in Calvert County, Maryland and author a blog? Send me the URL. I’d like to list it in my blogroll under Calvert Blogs. It doesn’t matter whether it’s commercial or personal. Send me the link. Searching the Internet our county seems under represented. There have to be more personal blogs and even commercial blogs out there! Send me the link.
Enjoy the read? Support DougWeb with coffee money ;) Sphere: Related ContentHot Off the Press: Calvert County ’09 Visitors’ Guide
(ThewBayNet.com 1/17/09) The 2009 Calvert County Visitors’ Guide is now available. The Visitors’ Guide contains information on shopping, restaurants and County visitor attractions like Breezy Point Beach & Campground, Annmarie Garden, Calvert Marine Museum, Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, historic churches, five local wineries and many other places of interest. The Guide also features contact information and details on charter boating, marinas, boat ramps, campgrounds, golf courses, accommodations and biking/hiking trails.
Read the rest of the story at TheBayNet.com!
Enjoy the read? Support DougWeb with coffee money ;) Sphere: Related ContentMaryland proposes more fees for E-ZPass users
As if MD didn’t impose enough fees and taxes on their residents. Now they plan to charge users $1.50 a month for E-ZPass, regardless of whether or not they actually use the transponder. This would make MD the most expensive state in this regard. Is this meant to encourage more people to get E-ZPass?
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William Zantzinger, villain in Dylan song, dies
William Zantzinger, a wealthy Maryland landowner whose fatal beating of a black barmaid was recounted in a Bob Dylan protest song of the 1960s, was buried Friday. He was 69.
read more | digg story
Coast Guard: Security Zone for 09′ Presidential Inauguration
2009 Presidential Inauguration: The Coast Guard will establish a temporary security zone in designated waters in Maryland and the District of Columbia on Jan. 17, 2009, for a scheduled railway transit by high-ranking government officials.
read more | digg story
Math Error To Cost Maryland $31 Million
As fiscal flubs go, this was a doozy…
read more | digg story
The Maryland legislature, driving and cell phones
Stupid or greedy? The Maryland legislature, driving and cell phones.
Just say “hang up and drive,” but don’t say it too loudly in the halls of the legislature in Annapolis, Maryland. Last session (2008; thank goodness they have only one short one per year) they narrowly defeated a ban on talking on cell phones while driving.
read more | digg story
Parents ‘spy’ on kids’ driving
Parents in the US state of Maryland have installed cameras in their teenagers cars in a bid to reduce accidents on the road.
read more | digg story
O’Malley Begins Quest To Repeal Death Penalty
Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) said yesterday that he will for the first time personally sponsor a bill and do ‘everything in [his] power’ to abolish capital punishment in Maryland, signaling his desire to make the issue a chief accomplishment as he enters the second half of his term.
read more | digg story
State is Addressing Problems, O’Malley Says
A newly released study of Maryland’s emergency preparedness faults the state for a range of organizational and management shortcomings that Gov. Martin O’Malley said his administration has begun to address.
read more | digg story
Telemarketing Car Warranty a Scam? (407) 251-6572
On December 17, January 15, and January 16 my home phone(s) (two lines) received telemarketing calls from an unknown company selling car warranty policies. The call always starts with the loud recorded voice of an older female claiming this is our last chance to update our car warranty. They also say they have been trying to reach us without success. I’ve always thought this odd because we don’t have a car warranty. What we do have however are two registered telephone numbers with http://www.donotcall.gov. The calls always come from telephone number (407) 251-6572. The caller ID always says just, “FLORIDA.” We have twice now told these telephone trolls to crawl back under the rock from which they came.
This company has called my home multiple times throughout the year and multiple times I have logged each call as a complaint on the government’s DO NOT CALL website. The calls keep coming. Twice now I have pushed one on the touch tone pad to speak to the representative that answers. Each time the representative slams the telephone down in my ear.
A legitimate company selling a product would certainly not behave as this company does so I ask myself the question is this a scam? If it isn’t a scam is this just a fringe corporation owned and operated by persons of low moral character? What is it, who is it and why does the government allow these scofflaws to remain in business? What is it going to take to turn these telemarketing calls off? I never give personal information to any unsolicited caller – not even the make and model of my car. This company must stay in business because some persons are falling for the sales technique.
I’m fed up with these people and I am equally fed up with the apparent inability of the government to follow up on multiple complaints. Using a Google search with this company’s telephone number produces many Internet sites with notes from folks equally perturbed.
(See this article at CTV British Columbia regarding vehicle warranty scams.)
Other similar posts:
Enjoy the read? Support DougWeb with coffee money ;) Sphere: Related ContentPower Boating Safety Classes – Calvert County
Each year the Drum Point Flotilla of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary offers complete boating safety classes that meet Coast Guard and Maryland Department of Natural Resources Police requirements. All persons born on or after July 1, 1972, must successfully complete a boating safety course to operate a numbered or documented vessel, including personal watercraft on Maryland’s public waters. (No one under 16 years of age may operate a PWC and no one under 12 may operate a vessel towing persons on water skis etc.)
The course covers boating rules, seamanship, safety, boat types and hulls, piloting, boat engines, marine weather, marine radio operation, PWC (Personal Water Craft) operation and more. This Coast Guard Auxiliary course is the most comprehensive boating safety course available. When you complete the course and successfully pass the final examination, you will have earned your U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Boating Skills and Seamanship Course card as well as your Maryland DNR Certificate of Boating Safety Education.
You must always have the DNR card in your possession when operating any numbered or documented vessel including a PWC!
Members of the Coast Guard Auxiliary Drum Point Flotilla 23-06 teach each section of the course. The Auxiliary members are well versed in boating safety and in the local area’s marine environment. Attending this boating safety course is an excellent way to become familiar with the Auxiliary if you are considering membership. You will learn more about the Auxiliary and can then decide if you would like to become one of America’s volunteer life savers as well! Completing this course is one of the first steps toward becoming a Basically Qualified member of the Auxiliary.
Coast Guard Auxiliary Drum Point Flotilla 23-06
The Boating Skills and Seamanship course is held at Calvert High School, 600 Dare’s Beach Road in Prince Frederick, MD. The class begins on Wednesday, January 21, 2009 and runs from 7:00 – 9:00 PM. The cost is just $35.00 per student. This price covers the cost of the course manual.
To register ahead of time or to get more information please call Coast Guard Auxiliary member:
Bill Noyes 410-535-0450
or
Ray Feller 301-358-0837
The boating safety courses offered by the Coast Guard Auxiliary are exciting and fun for members of the whole family. A boating-safely family is a happy family!
L.A. muralist campaigns for his ‘Resurrection’
Interesting article $100,000 for graffiti abatement seems like a drop in the bucket.
[Editor: Actually having to spend anything on abatement is a terrible waste if you think about it. It sure would be nice if all this money could do something else, but we do have to clean our communities of vandalism. This article from Digg is actually about a muralist in LA whose art was damaged by vandals.]
Enjoy the read? Support DougWeb with coffee money ;) Sphere: Related ContentCoast Guard encourages boaters to go digital with new emerge
(coastguardnews.com)– The Coast Guard is encouraging mariners and aviators to make the switch to digital 406 MHz Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRBs) to keep pace with search and rescue technology. Beginning Feb. 1, 2009, the Coast Guard and other search and rescue personnel will only receive distress alert broadcasts using digita
read more | digg story
Way of Life Slipping Away Along Chesapeake’s Edge
The Chesapeake Bay is not tar-black and dead. It is not bright-green and toxic. It looks just as beautiful as ever, come a sunrise in Annapolis or a sunset over Tangier Sound.
read more | digg story
Report blasts EPA over pollution, crab declines
Pollution and overfishing have caused the Chesapeake Bay to lose two-thirds of its blue crab population since 1990, according to a new report criticizing the federal government for undercutting state environmental funding.
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Chesapeake Bay Advocates Suing EPA
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is following through on its threat to sue the Environmental Protection Agency after the two sides failed to reach an agreement on the Chesapeake Bay cleanup. They allege the EPA has failed to comply with the agreements to reduce nutrient pollution 40% and remove the Bay from the Clean Water Act.
read more | digg story
Images of Southern Maryland
Some photos I took on a Christmas day walk going south on the beach from Plum Point.
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