hard work pays off a little

http://www.csudh.edu/extendeded/MBAShoeString.htm

Marketing and Advertising

I think what I want to do in the immediate future is find a way to merge the 2. In my experience in working in Marketing Management, most organizations do a poor job combing the 2 so that the goals and the messages are aligned. The Marketing team decides what who the target market is and how to market to them. The creative team makes the advertising units that go to them. But most organizations that outsource the creative team lose touch of the ROI on these advertisements and assume that they did or did not work. No one can properly be held accountable for it creating a lot of uncertainty which leads to people doing the status quo just because thats what they have done in the past.

Also, if both teams are led by 1 person then the message will be uniform in all marketing material. These are just my ideal thoughts. I love marketing, especially the creative aspect of it...

The Mystery of Michael Phelps' Father

During Michael Phelps' races, camera shots of his mother Debbie were a fixture on NBC. The network showed endless replays of her falling to her seat after that memorable 100 butterfly finish. She even watched one race on camera with Cris Collinsworth, squeezing his knee the entire time. And after her son won his eighth gold medal, Debbie was all over NBC getting interviewed by Bob Costas, Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera. Michael's sisters, Hilary and Whitney were also in Beijing cheering on their little brother. All this coverage of the Phelps family led to one obvious question from our readers: Where was Dad?

It's been well-documented that Debbie and Fred Phelps divorced when Michael was 9. Beyond that, little else has been publicized about Michael Phelps' father. Enter: Fourth-Place Medal's Investigative Unit. Today the FPMIU looks into the mystery of the whereabouts of Michael Phelps' father.

Fred Phelps is a retired Maryland State Trooper, lives in a suburb of Baltimore and has remarried since divorcing Debbie Phelps in 1993. According to the Baltimore Sun, he watched the Olympics from his home, saying he was "on pins and needles" every time Michael dove into the pool. But, the New York Post reported that Fred has yet to call his son to congratulate him on his Olympic accomplishments.

Following the divorce, Fred Phelps had little contact with his son. Prior to the 2004 Olympics, Michael told a reporter that his father hadn't even called to congratulate him when he set his first world record. However, the two reconciled prior to the Athens Games and Fred even made the trip to watch his son win six golds and two bronzes. Since then, however, the relationship has reportedly fractured.

Fred Phelps declines most interview requests, citing a desire to have the focus remain on his son.

Mystery: solved.

www.freebizcheckup.com

If you have a small business, check to see if its health.

phelps phan

Michael Phelps, your life is about to change....

If I were him, I'd be walking around all the time with those 14 medals round my neck expecting royal treatment everywhere in the US.

I swear he was letting that Serbian guy win so he could come back and crush him at the end. If you didn't know, he ran some smack before the race. Paraphrasing what he said, but he said he was going to rip the 100M Butterfly Gold from Phelps. He didn't say I was going to win the gold which would be a bold statement on its own.

I can imagine what was going on in his head during the last relay... "Don't you fuckers ruin it for me!!!"

Anyways, that guy is pretty cool. He listens to the same music I listen to, was picked on as a kid and kept that chip on his shoulder to fuel his determination. He started his olympic career when he was 15!! He's a badass. I want to know where his dad is though...

Small-business owners' outlook bleak

(Fortune Small Business) -- Is the country in a recession? While economists debate the question, small-business owners live it.

The National Federation of Independent Business' monthly Index of Small Business Optimism fell one point to 88.2 in July, continuing one of the longest strings of recession-level readings in the 22-year history of the survey. Weak capital-spending plans, lower earnings, a soft labor market and heavy inventory reductions contributed to the continuing decline.

Inflation remained the number-one concern of those polled for the second month in a row; the government announced earlier this week that inflation jumped to 5.6% in July, its highest point in 17 years.

"I'd like to see the light at the end of the tunnel," said Tom Ulbrich, president and CEO of Mow More Landscape Supplies in Alden, NY.

Ulbrich, who also works at the University of Buffalo's Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, speaks with small-business owners on a daily basis and sees a number of factors contributing to owners' frustration. "I've been hearing a lot about increasing costs of health care, fuel and materials," he said. "In my own business, we have to get our lawnmower replacement parts from the south, then ship them back out for delivery, but the parts are heavy and the fuel costs are impacting us."

Spending activity has declined since September and has fallen to early '80s levels, according to the NFIB's poll results. Nearly half of respondents (48%) said their earnings were down in July compared to the previous three months, with weaker sales and higher materials costs weighing on companies' bottom lines. Employment also remains soft: 10% of those polled said they had hired new workers, but 15% reduced employment at their firm.

The NFIB's chief economist, Bill Dunkelberg, thinks the outlook is glum for the economy for the next six months. "That said, we should remind everyone that the U.S. is never uniformly in a boom or a recession," he said. "You really have to analyze what's happening in your market where you are and how it ties in to the fortunes of the larger economy."

Not all owners are pessimistic; some treat the recession as a creative challenge. Even in the hard-hit construction industry, 19% of owners polled by the NFIB said plan to expand their workforce, while just 12% intend to cut back - and while 13% have cut their selling prices, 48% said they hiked them. Another glimmer of light: so far, the credit crunch remains a Wall Street problem and has not crimped small-business financing opportunities. Borrowing activity has stayed on pace with typical trends, and few owners say loans are hard to get.

"Our country was built on the entrepreneurial spirit and we will get through this," Ulbrich says. "Entrepreneurs are optimistic by nature, and although they may be being cautious right now, they're still looking for opportunities."

The good news is that the economy isn't as battered as small-business owners' optimism. The NFIB notes that its index showed similar numbers in grim days of the early '80s, but back then, inflation and unemployment were sharply higher than they are today.

But if you still want to hunker down, Dunkelberg suggests resisting buying a lot of inventory, collecting customer payments quickly, and paying slowly on receivables. He encourages discussions with your bank - a relationship that serve you well if it stays on friendly terms. Finally, he believes that advertising is critical. "Don't pull back on it," he says. "Customers are so important now."

small achievements

As I sat through a 4 hour (and still going) City Council Meeting, I had time to reflect (since I didn't have my laptop and ran out of things to do on the crackberry) on all the small little achievements before real success. I remember the founder of Bugle Boy telling me success didn't hit him until he was in his private jet looking down at commercial airliners from 50K feet. It hit him. That's not my topic here though.

It's those little things that fill out as small ornaments on your tree of success that make it really have some eccentricity to it. (it sounds like a xmas tree). I got to meet some highly-successful individuals and got to exchange ideas with them. I got on TV Asia, and now the local programming channel in the LA market for Time Warner Cable. I got so many other ones my mind is going blank now but even when things go bad its nice to have things like that to think about.

10 minutes

10 minutes is a measurement of time arbitrarily speaking. But its become the yardstick for how serious, or time intensive an activity can be me. For instance, 'she will be ready in 10 more minutes.' That can mean she has already taken too long and 10 more minutes is really 25 minutes. Or it can mean 10 minutes which is a very small amount of time. What I'm getting at is girls take too long to get ready!!

sleeeeep

Here are five recent findings that might help you rest easier:

1. We sleep better than we think we do

For most of us, sleep deprivation is a myth. We're not zombies. The non-profit National Sleep Foundation (which takes money from the sleep-aid industry, including drug companies that make sleeping pills) says the average U.S. resident gets 7 hours a night and that's not enough, but a University of Maryland study earlier this year shows we typically get 8 hours and are doing fine. In fact, Americans get just as much sleep nowadays as they did 40 years ago, the study found.

2. We need less sleep as we age

We'll die without sleep. The details are sketchy, but research suggests it's a time when we restore vital biological processes and also sort and cement memories. Last year, the World Health Organization determined that nightshift work, which can lead to sleep troubles, is a probable human carcinogen. On the upside, the latest research suggests we need less of it as we get older.

3. You can sleep like a baby (or Thomas Edison)

Multiple, shorter sleep sessions nightly, rather than one long one, are an option. So-called polyphasic sleep is seen in babies, the elderly and other animals (and Thomas Edison reportedly slept this way). For the rest of us, it is more realistic and healthy to sleep at night as best we can and then take naps as needed. EEGs show that we are biphasic sleepers with two alertness dips - one at night time and one mid-day. So talk to HR about setting up a nap room, like they have for NASA's Phoenix mission team members.

4. Animals exhibit a range of sleep habits

The three-toed sloth sleeps 9.6 hours nightly. But newborn dolphins and killer whales can forgo sleeping for their entire first month. However, the latter extreme is not recommended for humans. We grow irritable and lose our ability to focus and make decisions after even one night of missed sleep, and that can lead to serious accidents driving and using other machinery.

5. Get used to being tired, hit the desk

The bottom line is that a good night's sleep is within the reach of most of us if we follow common-sense guidelines for sleep hygiene:

Go to bed at the same time nightly.
Set aside enough time to hit that golden 7 hours of sleep.
Refrain from caffeine, heavy or spicy foods, and alcohol and other optional medications that might keep you awake, four to six hours before bed-time.
Have a pre-sleep routine so you wind down before you hop in.
Block out distracting lights and noises.
Only engage in sleep and sex in bed (no TV-watching, reading or eating).
Exercise regularly but not right before bed.


But you already know all this and you don't do it. So your realistic plan might be to surrender to the mid-day desk nap.