Will the Dogs Eat It?

Thanks Howard for that funny story.

Howard was a furniture man for decades - watching the rise and fall of Industry Giants throughout his career. One day he told us a story about a Dog Food Manufacturer and how they did what many were doing in the Furniture Industry. The Dog Food Manufacturer would go to their focus groups and gather wonderful and exciting information about what the Dog Owners wanted, and then they’d go back to their labs and create the most perfect, nutritious, “new & improved” dog food imaginable. Then they advertised, sent out thousands of dollars of samples and then they waited for the sales to ROLL in … but after a while, they noticed they weren’t rolling in at all. Oops, they realized they forgot to answer the most fundamental question: “Would the dogs eat it?”

I remembered his story after reading “10 Points to Better Posts”, “6 Tips to Get More Readers” and “How to Optimize your Keywords to Get more Bloggers”.

The advice “should” make me and my fellow bloggers a lot of “¢cents¢”, and these articles definitely make a lot of “sense”. But, I’m cautious - will it fit into my Alternative Marketing Theory about Reality Shows - (superior skill level, authenticity, resonance and likeability)?

No, I don’t think these articles will help as much as they’re meant to because I believe if I did all those things, it would be an exercise in OVERTHINKING!

Our website exists because we have developed a USP (our niche, or unique selling position). We want to introduce ourselves to women who are like us - who want to be the best they can be, and live life to its fullest. And if that’s what Alie James stands for, then we always need to be who we say we are - authentic, approachable, and without gimmicks.

Over the last ten years, I found that the best way to sell furniture is to “not try and sell furniture”, but to “try and sell myself”. I was given a great insight about successful salespeople by a colleague of mine. He said that successful sales people “sell best” to “their” customer - meaning - they find the people they can best relate to - in a natural, friendly conversationally way. That insight reveals why some people are more successful than others in sales - it’s because they are meeting more people during the day that they relate to and who trust them.

That’s exactly what we hope will happen during your visit with us - we hope you’ll like what we have and be able to trust us. That is relationship building … building a nation, so to speak.

So please, introduce us to the folks in your life that are most like you. If you like us, then I’m sure they will, too. That’s how we’ll build “Wings” (our Community). Our Community is going to be filled with like-minded Women, who want to make life simple, beautiful and complete.

Please …

& Thank You …

 

I’m … On … My … Way

I wish it were that easy.

What does that title mean anyway?

Well to me, it’s a statement that represents hope, movement, direction. I need that feeling of going somewhere, especially at this point in my life.

My kids are all grown. I know, you might wonder about them, so I’ll mention here that I have 3 girls and 1 boy, ages 21- 27. One day I’ll introduce them to you. But tonight I’ll just say that I loved every bit of being their mom and helping them “grow up”. That in itself, was constant movement.

And then one day, they flew off. That fly-away-day is supposed to be such a relief, but it’s hard for some people to be happy about it. For me, I am very happy for them, much more so than being sad for me. What I found to be hard, is to transfer the dedication I had for my kids to myself. This dedicated movement was much easier to give them than myself.

It seems to be far easier to get stuck in one spot, and start spining in one place rather than “getting on with it, and being on our “merry” way.

Everything I’ve written about in my books is meant to help myself, and hopefully others to overcome this difficulty. We must learn how to become comfortable with and comforting to ourselves. When we do, we really will be “on our way”.

We’ll be “On Our Way” to discover ourselves … “on our way” to look up, and rise above the things that bother us, “on our way” to experience new things.

That’s why we need this Community, which we’ve named “Wings”. Our tagline - just imagine - means that nothing has to be stagnant if you “just imagine”. Our Team - Wings -encourages movement - we remind each other to catch the wind, and rise above the everyday things that bother us.

In sales, we look forward to the few moments in the week or the month where our customers will start a “buying frenzy”. This means our customers, as well as ourselves, feed off the energy that arises from so many people focused on the same thing - buying furniture.

So let’s start our own “flying frenzy”. We’ll come together as a Community, and motivate each other to catch the wind …

Let’s … just imagine.