Having the Cake, and Eating it too

Over the past several months, I have experienced "it" through customer service, as well as having numerous conversations with small business owners.

Here is what we as a whole, have come up with.

Sales and Short Term Promotion

A dozen roses is regularly priced at $18.99, but for two, you are getting the second one for $1.01. People, that doesn't mean you can grab a dozen roses for $10.-
From a business standpoint, it's intended to be a sale or short term promotion, in an attempt to try and push inventory. Flowers have a very short life span, ranging anywhere from a few days to a week or even more.

Apples and Oranges

Do not try and compare ice cream to Gelato. Or Kabloom flowers to an arrangement you would pick up at the grocery store. It's like comparing apples and oranges. Another way of thinking about it, ice cream is to a Honda as Gelato is to a BMW. Do you really think you can get a BMW and pay the price of a Honda. It all depends on the quality of the product. The other day, someone comes into the store and says what can I get for $1.25. You look around and the cheapest product on sale is $3.25. What do you tell the customer? As sad as it sounds, you can only advise them to go someplace else or put up more money. Certain businesses will mark-up products in order to achieve profit and cover their overhead expenses and bottom line.

I'm not like that - 2009

To my readers,

Thank you for reading...

There have been several things for which I am not proud of, and when it comes to family and friends, I'm sorry. Perhaps it's the expectations of living beyond myself, or always trying to be the best and compete with others, that I get hung up in the moment, forgetting about the basic principles of life. While you should have fun once in a while, you can not forget about responsibilities and commitments. However, without failure, I would never learn.

As my mother once told me, "When you aren't busy, you flounder...but when you need to, you put your head to the grindstone....well, sometimes". And the more I have thought about it, I am best under pressure, when "everything" is on the line. The problem is when I succeed, I flourish with pride and with "flying colors", but when I fail, I turn several heads in questioning "Who does he think he is?"

I make the choice to walk away if I don't feel comfortable or take whatever steps necessary to overcome any obstacle. And if you are reading this, that's not the best directive. "Talk things out, and communicate...if you are going to do something, don't half ass it, because it shows a flaw in just exactly what kind of person you are. In any situation, you should have a choice, and you carefully assess the situation as well as its surroundings. But sometimes, you don't have a choice, and it's generally based on lower risk or cost/benefit from someone else in a supervisory role. All it takes is one bad choice, for your life to change (promotion, laid off, fired, death among family and friends, auto incidents, personal injuries, and the list goes on). Recently, a few friends of mine have been feeling down, and it's encouraging to know they come to me for assistance. The greatest advice that I can not stress enough, is that the past is simply the past, you can not change history. What you can change is this second, the "NOW".

But sometimes the hole we have dug is too deep for us to bear, that the easiest thing to do is give up. Put together a game plan, talk to other people, and be open to change. What you were doing before didn't work, and look at this as a new beginning. This is "NOW", keep your chin up high, and stay positive.

Think of negativity as simply a fly on your shoulder, brush it off, and move on. Take a deep breath, and take it one day at a time. Baby steps. It took time to dig yourself into a hole, and it will take time to dig yourself out. But in doing so, you will come out a stronger and knowledgable person.