Sunday Sales Blast 6/9/19

Do you or does your company do marketing to your customers?

Last week we were working on a marketing campaign for a few of our customers (yes we do that in addition to making great products). One of the surprising things we keep running into is a lot of distributors don't have  easy access to their own customer lists. Even fewer actually do email marketing or send their customers regular marketing materials like the Sunday Sales Blast.

There are two basics with this type of marketing, the first is using your existing customer base and the second is to gather, or buy the list. The first should be easy, here are some tips for the second way to build a list:

1. Put out the sign-up sheet
Whether you’re at a trade show, community event or in your own storefront, collecting email addresses in person can be as easy as putting out a signup sheet and encouraging people to write down their details.

2. Leverage business cards
When you meet people face to face for any reason, ask for their business card. 

3. Organize a giveaway
Using snail mail and/or your existing email list, send people a postcard asking for email information and offer them a reward for providing it.

4. Optimize your website for opt-ins
If a customer or prospect visits your website, they’re already at least somewhat interested. Don’t miss the opportunity to add them to your email list. Include email registration forms on every main page of your site, as well as on the pages for popular products and services.

5. Build with your blog
Your blog provides a great way to build a personal relationship with customers and prospects — and to gather their email addresses. Consistently end blogs with a call to action that encourages readers to sign up for your email messages. Require blog visitors to provide an email list in order to leave comments, and set it up so that they have to actively opt out if they don’t want their email address included on your mailing list.

Want to learn more about what Bullen can do to help with your marketing, email us Tell Me More

For the whole list here is the link:
https://www.verticalresponse.com/blog/40-brilliant-but-easy-ways-to-build-your-email-list/

Thanks for the great comments you emailed me on the Escape the Cape Triathlon last week.

Nothing like a little personal challenge to keep one going at 65 years old.

Have great day and even better sales week!

Sunday Sales Blast 6/2/19

Don't Reinvent the Wheel: Seven Simple Steps to Delighting Your Customers

People pleasing – for as long as there have been sellers and buyers, there have been efforts by sellers to get those buyers coming back for more. If we think all the way back to the dark ages of retailing, we can imagine that there was heavy competition for those stone-chiseled wheels – and certainly the stonemason with the best service (and ratings on Yelp) had the most robust business.

Yet, when you examine the actual processes and procedures used in the interaction with their customers, you will often find the opposite. This is not necessarily willful – it likely is a function of a reliance on tried and true business processes in a selling environment when the business situation may have changed. (Pity the stonemason who was beat out by Goodyear to put rubber treads on those wheels!)

Here are seven simple actions you can take right now to make sure you are delighting on the ground and not disappointing:

Ask your customers: Net Promoter scores
Update your customer processes
Be sincere
Be flexible
Empower your employees
Solve problems
Experience your company yourself

Apply these seven actions to your company. I’m guessing you will be surprised at what you find, even if you already believe you have your customer focus down pat. Being customer focused is a journey, not an end point – and if the road is traveled using slick radials rather than jouncy stone wheels, you’ll have a much smoother trip.

Here is the link for the full article:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dont-reinvent-wheel-seven-simple-steps-delighting-your-gary-fassak/

Escape the Cape- As you read this Sunday morning I am on the Cape May Lewis Ferry getting ready to jump off of it and swim to the beach as the first part of the Triathlon. This is my 4th time doing it with 1000 or so others this year. Nothing like a little personal challenge to keep one going at 65 years old.

Have great day and even better sales week!

Scott Jarden

Sunday Sales Blast 5/26/19

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

A little history- 
Memorial Day (or Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for remembering and honoring people who have died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. The holiday, which is currently observed every year on the last Monday of May, was most recently held on May 28, 2018. Memorial Day was previously observed on May 30 from 1868 to 1970.

The preferred name for the holiday gradually changed from "Decoration Day" to "Memorial Day", which was first used in 1882.[66] Memorial Day did not become the more common name until after World War II, and was not declared the official name by Federal law until 1967. On June 28, 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which moved four holidays, including Memorial Day, from their traditional dates to a specified Monday in order to create a convenient three-day weekend.[68] The change moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May. The law took effect at the federal level in 1971.[68] After some initial confusion and unwillingness to comply, all 50 states adopted Congress' change of date within a few years.

Memorial Day endures as a holiday which most businesses observe because it marks the unofficial beginning of summer. The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW) advocated returning to the original date, although the significance of the date is tenuous. The VFW stated in 2002:

Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed a lot to the general public's nonchalant observance of Memorial Day.

Have great day and even better sales week!

Scott Jarden

Sunday Sales Blast 5/19/19

40 Entrepreneurs Share Their Secrets to Staying Focused

What to do this week, variation on to do lists
Each Monday I prioritize what I want to accomplish that week, and then I think about what I've done at the end of the week and share it in an email to my employees called "Reflections." It's a great way to make space in your head, otherwise your inbox and email becomes your to-do list, which is ridiculous because you didn't create that to do list. [It was sent to you by other people.]

I am pretty OCD about creating to-do lists, and I am constantly prioritizing what I put at the top of the list. I also think it's important to break your workload down into digestible nuggets. I break things down into things that feel doable within a span of one to two hours. That helps me methodically sort through everything that's on my plate.

I try to compartmentalize my days. For instance, I'll spend an hour before the workday sending out emails, and I won't look at incoming emails until everything is completely outbound. I find that I focus more when I do only one thing and not a million things; it cuts down on the noise.

Before I go to bed on Sunday, I plan out my week for each day, and ask myself what I need to get done each day. At the top of the list, I highlight my three most important tasks for the week. These are the thing I have to be focused on. I modify it as the week goes on, and I return to that list multiple times a day.

What is important
I try to ask myself the question of nine. Will this matter in nine minutes, nine hours, nine days, nine weeks, nine months or nine years? If it will truly matter for all of those, pay attention to it. If it isn't going to matter in nine minutes, nine hours or nine days from now, you need to not pay attention to it.

My sister used to say "will this matter a year from now"? That question made you think about the priorities and what really could make a difference.

For all 40 tips:
https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/286302

Tiger didn't make the cut but either way there should be some great golf this afternoon if you are looking for an excuse to sit on the couch.


Have great day and even better sales week!

Scott Jarden

Sunday Sales Blast 5/12/19

Industry News!

Bain Capital to acquire Imperial Dade

Bain Capital announced it has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Imperial Dade, a distributor of disposable food service and janitorial supplies with headquarters in Jersey City.

Imperial Dade will continue to be led by its current management team, who will remain significant investors in the company. Financial terms of the private transaction were not disclosed.

“We are pleased to welcome an experienced investment partner who shares our vision for building Imperial Dade into a national distributor of foodservice and janitorial supplies, and who will support our efforts to seize the many opportunities we see in the marketplace,” said Robert Tillis, Chief Executive Officer of Imperial Dade.

What does this mean? If you are an owner of a Jansan house it means Imperial Dade has even more money to purchase more locations. It also means that they now have 27 branches operating in 13 states and has a growing a network of strategically located distribution centers with over 620 fleet vehicles. That is is a very big company to compete with. What will you do to differentiate your company.

Amy Poehler Did 1 Brilliant Thing When Filming 'Parks and Rec' That All Leaders Can Learn From

Poehler expresses unexpected gratitude.

When Poehler was making Parks and Rec, she started a tradition that co-creator and showrunner Mike Schur copied and took with him to his current show, The Good Place. After an episode would wrap, there'd be a dinner for cast and crew. Poehler would start a cycle of complements -- she'd praise one person in detail and then ask them to pick out another and do the same, and so on and so on until everyone had a chance to feel uplifted.

Poehler would always start it by picking out someone who wasn't expecting it, someone who wasn't in the spotlight, like a makeup person or a camera operator. Schur said, "It was just the most wonderful way to end a work experience."

Unexpected. Gratitude.

Leaders of all kinds, at work, leaders of a family, in a community, can all express unexpected gratitude. If you don't have team dinners, you can write unexpected emails of gratitude.

Some of my favorite reasons for sending unexpected emails of gratitude include for being a great business partner, for an attritubute/skill that you really appreciate about them, for going above and beyond, or for them stepping up in a tough situation.

You can also write a gratitude letter, extolling the virtues of someone in a hand written letter, and then reading it to them aloud before handing it over. I have used this method to great effect. 

Whatever the form it takes, unexpected gratitude is a tool leaders should wield for the expected result -- profound gratitude in return. 

https://www.inc.com/scott-mautz/amy-poehler-did-1-brilliant-thing-when-filming-parks-rec-that-all-leaders-can-learn-from.html?cid=landermore

Have great day and even better sales week!

Scott Jarden

Sunday Sales Blast 5/5/19

Burger King has a message for McDonald's: Not every meal is happy.

Burger King's latest promotion throws some shade at McDonald's and its Happy Meals.

The fast food chain rolled out a new Whopper meal box, called "Real Meals," labeled with different moods and colors. The packaging comes in five moods: the Pissed in red, Blue for sad, Salty in teal, YAAAS in purple and DGAF (that's don't give a f--- in internet speak) in black.

And, good eyes, there's no "happy" option, like its competitor McDonald's (MCD) has.

"With the pervasive nature of social media, there is so much pressure to appear happy and perfect," Burger King said in a release. "With Real Meals, the Burger King brand celebrates being yourself and feeling however you want to feel."

Burger King launched the meals Thursday, near the beginning of May, which is the start of Mental Health Awareness Month. The company partnered with the non-profit organization Mental Health America to promote the "overall mental health of all Americans."

Burger King also produced a commercial for the #FeelYourWay campaign featuring young people experiencing the promotion's range of emotions. The nearly two-minute ad ends with "No one is happy all the time, and that's OK."
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/03/business/burger-king-mood-real-meals-trnd/index.html

Ok, you are saying what does this have to do with Jansan? It is thinking out of the box (sorry for that pun), doing something different to get the attention of your existing and new customers. What can you do with your branding and marketing to make people think differently about you and your company?

In Bullen case, while we are a manufacturer of cleaning products we also try to differentiate ourselves by our byline "Craft Blenders of Specialty Cleaning Products"

Have great day and even better sales week!

Scott Jarden

Sunday Sales Blast 4/28/19

Melinda Gates Has Uncovered the Secret to Persuasion. Her Strategy Will Make You a Better Communicator.

Melinda Gates has developed her skill as a storyteller because she knows this fundamental secret of persuasion: Statistics don't inspire, stories do. 

Gates is an exceptional communicator because she balances stories and statistics to get you to care. Adopting her approach will make you more persuasive about any topic that fires you up, especially if you're trying to persuade others to take action.  

Melinda combines her mastery of data with her ability to tell powerful stories

After Bill Gates--Melinda's husband and co-partner at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation--had read the finished book, he wrote in his blog: "What is really impressive about the book is the way Melinda combines her mastery of data with her ability to tell powerful stories about individual women she has met."

If you're delivering a presentation or writing a document intended to inspire people to action, don't start with statistics. Data follows a story. Data supports an argument. The stories should come first. 

Tell stories to release the "moral molecule"
Neuroscientists like Dr. Paul Zak have discovered that stories change your brain--in a good way. Stories bind us together. Zak's research focuses on oxytocin, the neurochemical responsible for feeling empathy. Zak calls oxytocin the "moral molecule," because a notable rise in oxytocin in the bloodstream make people more generous, charitable, and compassionate.

In Gates's book, there are more stories than statistics. It's done on purpose. If you want to get your audience to care, sharing real stories of real people will have a far-reaching impact.

https://www.inc.com/carmine-gallo/melinda-gates-is-a-persuasive-communicator-because-she-learned-power-of-this-1-skill.html

35 days till Summer!
Your customers and facilities need new floor mats, stripper and finish to redo those damaged entrance ways. They also have budget money set aside for new equipment and who knows what else. If you don't ask the answer is no so if you have not sent a mailing out, an email or just talked to your customers about it they will probably give their orders to another company. Do it next week or your competition will!

Have a great day and an even better sales week!

Scott Jarden

Sunday Sales Blast 4/21/19

Happy Easter!
 

Have a great day and an even better sales week!

Scott Jarden

Sunday Sales Blast 4/14/19

Big changes coming to the Jansan market, what are you doing different to adapt?

Walmart goes robot!

Walmart wants store workers to help out customers instead of mopping up floors and unloading boxes in backrooms, so its increasingly turning to robots to fill those tasks.

The world's largest retailer announced Tuesday that it is adding thousands of new robots to its stores. By next February, it expects to have autonomous floor scrubbers in 1,860 of its more than 4,700 US stores. Walmart will also have robots that scan shelf inventory at 350 stores. And there will be bots at 1,700 stores that automatically scan boxes as they come off delivery trucks and sort them by department onto conveyer belts.
Walmart says these "smart assistants" will reduce the amount of time workers spend on "repeatable, predictable and manual" tasks in stores and allow them to switch to selling merchandise to shoppers and other customer service roles.

Not in this article but it looks like Tennant got the business if you were wondering.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/09/business/walmart-robots-retail-jobs/index.html

WeWork has swept up another startup in a bid to bolster its strength as a global workspace company.

WeWork said Wednesday it acquired Managed by Q, a New York-based startup that takes a tech-enabled approach to office services.
The 5-year-old startup helps businesses take care of crucial but unglamorous office needs, such as keeping track of cleaning and office supplies, requesting handymen and scheduling cleanings.Managed by Q's customers schedule it all via online dashboards. Unlike most on-demand companies, the startup set itself apart by hiring workers as employees instead of contractors, offering hourly wages, plus benefits like 401k plans. The company currently has about 500 employees.
WeWork acquired the company for around $200 to $250 million, according to a source familiar with the matter.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/03/tech/wework-acquires-managed-by-q/index.html

Great golf all weekend at the Masters. As I am writing this Tiger is one stroke back from the leaders. Should be a great Sunday afternoon.

Have a great day and an even better sales week!

Scott Jarden

Sunday Sales Blast 4/7/19

Study Finds That McDonald’s Touch Screens Have Enough Fecal Matter on Them to Send You to the Hospital

The last time you were at McDonald’s your hands may very well have ended up covered in fecal matter if that McDonald’s had one of those touchscreen ordering stations. Probably a fitting fate if you’ve ever posted a meme making fun of fast food workers for trying to secure higher wages and instead of being replaced with automation, but troubling nonetheless.

A study in the United Kingdom that tested eight different McDonald’s locations with touchscreen ordering devices between London and Birmingham found that they were all covered in enough gut and fecal bacterial matter to put people in the hospital.

According to microbiologist Dr. Paul Matewele, these bacterias are the kind that cause a ton of infections in sick patients in hospitals all the time. And, obviously, there’s more than enough bacterial on these touchscreens to get even a healthy person sick, let alone someone with a weakened immune system. (So maybe don’t take Grandma to McDonald’s any time soon.)

One machine even tested positive for staphylococcus, a highly contagious bacteria that can cause blood poisoning and toxic shock syndrome.

What does this have to with me and my business?

If you are reading this as an owner of a business think about what you can do to keep your facility clean and pathogen free (as much as possible). If you are a distributors sales person this is an opportunity to teach your customer proper hygiene and cleaning methods (and sell some products at the same time). As you know we don't blatantly push our products on the SSB blast but this news is a good reason to go over to our Airx website and learn about our Spray N Go / Spray N Roll disinfectant and spray system.
https://www.airxlabs.com/sprayngo

Have a great day and an even better sales week!

Scott Jarden

Sunday Sales Blast 3/31/19

12 Life Lessons We Can Learn From Warren Buffett

Despite all his success, Warren Buffett still manages to remain humble and approachable. Here are 12 lessons everyone can learn from the respected businessman.
3. Live below your means.
Despite a net worth of $39 billion, Buffett lives in a surprisingly modest home. He bought the Omaha, Nebraska, house for $31,500 in 1958 and today he calls it the best investment he ever made.
4. Save first, spend second.
Many people save what is left over each month after paying bills and making purchases. Buffett recommends instead that you set a certain amount of money aside each month for savings, then spend the amount that is left.
6. Hone your speaking skills.
In the early days of his career, Buffett was terrified of public speaking. Recognizing that it would be necessary to achieving his goals, he enrolled in a renowned course taught by Dale Carnegie. Today, he regularly tells young entrepreneurs that the ability to communicate effectively is essential to success.
7. Protect your reputation.
Money comes and goes but damage to a person's reputation is irreversible. Buffett emphasizes the importance of protecting the reputation of both yourself and your business.
12. Enjoy your work.
Buffett has expressed disbelief at the fact that people take successive jobs they dislike to advance their careers. He believes life is too short and we should all spend our time and effort on work we love.

For all 12 here is the link:
https://www.inc.com/drew-hendricks/12-life-lessons-we-can-learn-from-warren-buffett.html

Spring Clean Up time is here
Are you ready for spring? Have you sent your customers reminding them your company is the source for all of the spring clean up stuff they will require? We did last week. Need some help? Let us know and we can get you email marketing up and running.

Have a great day and an even better sales week!

Scott Jarden

Sunday Sales Blast 3/17/19

Here is a great story about making something huge out of a great idea. Maybe it will get you thinking about your big thing, hope you enjoy it.

You have probably heard of Scrub Daddy. Did you know their headquarters are right around the corner from Bullen? Here is their story:

How Scrub Daddy Became a Household Name, After First Collecting Dust for Several Years

This tale of accidental entrepreneurship is good clean fun.

"It's nice to start with a big stack of dirty dishes, and then everything is clean after," he says. "A sense of accomplishment in a short time." 

When Krause discovered the sponge that would eventually become Scrub Daddy, the round perma-grin cleansing sponge that's notched $170 million in total sales across 40,000 U.S. markets, he was the CEO of another company he'd founded called Dedication to Detail. He led the Folcroft, Pennsylvania-based manufacturer of paint finishing systems, which included buffing and polishing pads, from 1992 to 2008. It was Krause's dirty work on this company factory's machinery that would eventually give rise to Scrub Daddy. 

As any mechanic knows, fixing heavy-duty machinery can leave an oily film on your hands that can be painful to remove. Industrial soaps, says Krause, felt like "lotions with rocks" and didn't get the job done. A company based in Germany eventually supplied him with a buffing pad that could scrape off grease without grating the skin off his hands. He created a line of sponges in 2006 for people with similar problems, like mechanics and body-shop owners, but the product never took off. 

Two years later, 3M approached Krause about buying Dedication to Detail--hoping to build out its vehicle appearance line of products. They said he could keep the hand sponges.

He discovered the material that removed dirt and oil from his hands also worked on the furniture, and that it was thermosensitive--acting like a hard scrubber in cold water and a soft sponge in warmer temperature. Krause brought it inside and put it to the ultimate test: the evening dishes. 

"It was an epiphany," Krause told Inc. "This has nothing to do with cleaning your hands." 

A rectangular Scrub Daddy prototype didn't feel right in his palm, so he went with a round design, which, it turns out, makes sense. "Why are sponges rectangular?" muses Krause. "Look around the kitchen: Mugs, cups, coffee pots, muffin tins--all round." 

With the design in place, things happened fast: Several live demos at ShopRite, a chain of grocery stores in the northeast, won local press coverage in Pennsylvania and helped land Krause on QVC. Shark Tank came calling in 2012, and Krause persuaded Lori Greiner to ante up $200,000 for 20 percent of his business. 

For the full story, here is the link-
https://www.inc.com/magazine/201904/emily-canal/scrub-daddy-dish-sponge-shark-tank.html?cid=hmsub1

Great golf today with the Players Championship, maybe Tiger will make a run.

Have a great day and an even better sales week!
Scott Jarden

Sunday Sales Blast 3/10/19

Sunday Sales Blast

News from and about the world of the cleaning industry!

Top 5 Counterproductive Questions to Never Ask on a Cold Call

Don't make personal small talk with strangers who know you are selling something.

One of the biggest challenges for most entrepreneurs and small business owners is making cold calls to new sales prospects. These calls are the first step in your sales process, and it’s important to make a good first impression on your potential customers. But unfortunately, lots of small business owners and entrepreneurs unwittingly sabotage their sales relationship before it starts. Without meaning to, even if you’re just trying to be friendly to customers and sound natural on the phone, you might be asking questions that are derailing your sales process.

Here are some of the most counterproductive questions I’ve ever heard being asked on a sales call:

1. “How are you doing?” 
You might think it’s a good idea to open your sales call with a simple conversational greeting like “how are you doing” -- it sounds warm and fuzzy, right? Unfortunately, this simple question often confuses your prospects because it suddenly puts a burden back on them.

2. “Have you heard of us?” 
Unless you work for the most-recognized company in your industry, or work for Amazon or Facebook or one of the other biggest companies on the planet, most people on your prospecting list might not have heard of your company before. But that’s OK! Especially if you’re a solopreneur or a new startup, don’t remind them of the fact that they might not have heard of you.

3. “Are you the decision maker?”
One of the hardest aspects of B2B sales is that sometimes you have to spend time and resources upfront just identifying the right decision makers and influential leaders within the prospect’s organization. So it might sound like a great idea to just come right out and ask if the person on the phone is the right person for you to be speaking with. However, this is often a turnoff for your prospect. 

For the full article and list-
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/328649

Spring clean up time is almost here!
We have now hit March so start thinking about warm weather products that your customer will need. We have Dumpster Devil and Dumpster Demon for keeping those trash areas clean and smelling good when things heat up.

Here is the link for more info: https://www.truekleen.com/dem-dumpster-demon?rq=dum


Have a great day and an even better sales week!

Scott Jarden

Sunday Sales Blast 2/24/19

Sunday Sales Blast

News from and about the world of the cleaning industry!

SSB is on vacation this week, see you in 7 days.

Playa Guiones, Costa Rica


Have a great day and an even better sales week!

Scott Jarden

Sunday Sales Blast 2/17/19

Staples and Essendant finalize merger (1/30/19)

The office products suppliers said today they completed the deal under which Staples is acquiring Essendant, following a conditional approval last week by the Federal Trade Commission.

We value the relationships the resellers have built with Essendant and look forward to helping them build on their already impressive success.

“Staples views the reseller community as partners in serving customers that will allow us all to be successful,” Staples CEO Sandy Douglas said in a prepared statement today. “We value the relationships the resellers have built with Essendant and look forward to helping them build on their already impressive success. We’ve created a strong, externally monitored firewall, to protect resellers’ confidential information, as required by the FTC, and also as a sign of trust, because we know it’s the best thing for the Essendant business, and the resellers.”

The FTC’s conditional approval of the merger marked what some say could be a landmark case by the agency’s new team of commissioners regarding the treatment of merged companies. The commission voted to approve the Staples-Essendant deal by a 3-2 vote along party lines.

In a statement about the decision, FTC Chairman Joseph Simons, speaking for the Republican majority, says the primary concern the agency considered was the potential for Staples to raise Essendant’s prices to Essendant’s client distributors and resellers, some of whom sell office products to businesses that Staples also sells to directly. Theoretically, Staples could then gain a competitive advantage by undercutting the prices of Essendant’s channel partners.

https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2019/01/31/staples-and-essendant-finalize-merger/

I would say this is all the more reason to sell your own brand vs someone else, what do you think?

Learn more on how Bullen can help, click here

Have a great day and an even better sales week!

Scott Jarden

Sunday Sales Blast 2/10/19

Sunday Sales Blast

News from and about the world of the cleaning industry!

Forget the Super Bowl, lets talk about the bathrooms and the commercials

Restrooms Set The Stage For Super Bowl Fans

Even though most of the media was focused on the bright lights, retractable roof and 1,100-foot halo video screen at Sunday's Super Bowl, those visiting Mercedes-Benz Stadium likely paid more attention to the location of the closest restroom — especially after visiting one of the 1,260 beer taps. Fortunately, the sports fans didn't have to venture too far from their seats to get some relief. According to ESPN reports, the stadium features a 30 percent increase over the Georgia Dome in female toilets (22 percent for the men).

"Everyone is going to use the restroom," Scott Jenkins, Mercedes-Benz Stadium general manager, told ESPN reporters, "The functionality, the quantity, the aesthetics of your bathrooms is critical. It seems unremarkable to most people, but, trust me, you invite 70,000 people to your house and you get the bathrooms wrong — you've got a huge problem."

Here are some stats-
On average, a football stadium urinal is used 160 times per game. On Super Bowl Sunday in Atlanta, that could mean more than 100,000 flushes in four hours. "Good plumbers," Jenkins says, "are worth their weight in gold."
New York Magazine's Science of Us says that nearly half of all fans will place a call while using the restroom during a game, 10 percent will complete an online purchase and 8 percent will actually consume food while on the can

For the full article-   
http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/25894368/inside-taboo-bizarre-revealing-world-stadium-bathrooms-super-bowl-liii-nfl-2018

Last week I told you I would give my opinion this week on the best Super Bowl commercials so here are my top 3-

Burger King -- "Eat Like Andy"
Just weird, that's all I can say.

Bubly
These ads don't have to be complicated. This spot for Bubly, a flavored seltzer sold by Pepsi, hits all the requisite Super Bowl beats: Hire a celebrity, make a joke, repeat the joke, pitch the product, and end on another gag. As a disgruntled version of himself, Michael Bublé is game and the other actors, including stand-up Aparna Nancherla, help sell the premise. I don't know -- it was one of the few genuine laughs during a bleak game! What more do you want? 

Amazon -- Jokes about Alexa are a Super Bowl pastime at this point. Amazon recruits some big names for this one -- Harrison Ford, Forest Whitaker, Abbi Jacobson, Ilana Glazer, and more make quick appearances -- but the premise of "Alexa is up to no good" was funnier when more people weren't, uh, actively concerned about what Alexa is doing with your data. It's a dystopian ad for a dystopian product. So, a success, I guess?

Do you want to watch them all again? Here is the link: 
https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/super-bowl-commercials-2019-ranked

Have a great day and an even better sales week!

Scott Jarden

Sunday Sales Blast 2/3/19

To keep sales momentum alive, you need to provide value on every interaction -- even a quick follow-up call. Here are three approaches to making a real connection. 

1. Re-emphasize the Business Value
Your prospects will only change because of the impact you can have on their organization. Reiterate it. Remind them of how you can help.
You might say: "Pat, in our previous conversation you mentioned how important it was to get going on this soon so you could realize the savings (eliminate redundancies, drive incremental growth) that you need by year end. Let's set up time to talk so we can get you moving forward."

2. Share Ideas & Insights
Your prospects want to work with someone who's constantly thinking about how they can improve their business. Be that person.
You might say: "Pat, I've been thinking more about how we can help you increase sales (reduce costs, speed up productivity). I thought you might be interested in what we did with XYZ organization when they were dealing with the same challenge. Do you have a few minutes for a quick conversation?"

3. Continue to Educate
Sometimes your prospects are still asking themselves, "Does it make sense to move forward or not?" From the outside, you won't know. But you can keep giving them more reasons to change!

For the full article - 
https://www.salesgravy.com/sales-articles/relationships/Keep-Sales-Momentum-Alive-Drop-the-Touching-Base-Mentality?_lrsc=ce0ed2a8-14c8-4a26-b0cf-7f54ae1a2806

Marketing 101-  
With the cost of Super Bowl advertising rising to an eye-watering $150,000 per second, brands have never before had such an incentive to create something truly special. Their challenge is to capture the world's imagination and change the way we think about them overnight. Here are some the best from the past:

The best Super Bowl commercials ever

01. “Hey Kid, Catch!”/Coca-Cola (1979)
This Clio-award winning Super Bowl commercial, shown during the 1979 showdown between Los Angeles Rams and the Pittsburgh Steelers, appears in countless lists of the greatest ads of all time – and for good reason.

02. "1984"/Apple (1984)
Nowadays, we’re used to Super Bowl ads with big budgets and epic visions. But in 1984, audiences had yet to experience such things. And then Apple came along and blew their minds – or made them utterly befuddled – depending on who was watching.

A full 20 years after this Budweiser Super Bowl ad aired at the 1999 play-off between the Denver Broncos and the Atlantic Falcons, its catchphrase remains instantly recognizable to an entire generation of viewers. 
03. "Wassup"/Budweiser (1999)

For the full list:
https://www.creativebloq.com/features/the-best-super-bowl-commercials

Next week we will review the winners for this year (in my mind) of the best commercials. Let me know what you think were the best and why, email me at scott@bullenonline.com

Have a great day and an even better sales week!
Scott Jarden

Sunday Sales Blast 1/27/19

Are Fitness Facility Patrons Lifting Germs Instead of Weights?

Facility mangers and cleaners working in buildings with fitness facilities will want to focus on disinfecting workout equipment after a study published in BMC Infectious Diseases found more Staphylococcus aureus bacteria on weight balls, treadmill handles, and other equipment surfaces than on the facilities’ restroom surfaces.

What they found
S. aureus is a common bacterium found in the nose and throat of healthy individuals which can cause a range of staph infection illnesses, from minor skin conditions to life-threatening diseases such as pneumonia, meningitis, and sepsis. Antibiotic-resistant strains of S. aureus such as methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) are a worldwide problem in health care facilities.

Results
The overall prevalence of S. aureus on environmental surfaces in the fitness facilities was 38.2% (110/288). The most commonly colonized surfaces were the weight ball (62.5%), cable driven curl bar, and CrossFit box (62.5%), as well as the weight plates (56.3%) and treadmill handle (50%). Interestingly, the bathroom levers and door handles were the least contaminated surfaces in both male and female restroom facilities (18.8%). Community gyms (40.0%) had the highest contamination prevalence among sampled surfaces with CrossFit (38.9%), traditional gyms (38.9%), and hospital associated (33.3%) contaminated less frequently, though the differences were not significant

What to do about it
Sounds like a chance to sell easy to use, short dwell time disinfectants like Airx Spray N Go. Here is the link for that info: https://www.airxlabs.com/sprayngo

For all of the test data: https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-019-3699-7

Google Phishing Quiz Helps You Spot Fake Emails (do this)

Phishing--trying to trick someone into providing their username and password to a malicious site--is the most common form of cyberattack, according to Justin Henck, product manager at Jigsaw, formerly named Google Ideas. With that in mind, Jigsaw is providing an 8-question online quiz about spotting a phishing email before you give hackers access to your accounts. It's not as easy as you'd think, but the quiz will teach you to be better at it.

If you ever got an email claiming to be from a foreign royal family member who needs to park some money in an American bank account, I bet you knew better than to reply with your account number. But what about an email that appears to contain photos from your child's school? Or--an email I received just today--a PDF about business account services that seemed to come from American Express? 

To help protect users from phishing attacks, Jigsaw has created a quiz only eight questions long that will let you test your ability to distinguish real emails from phishing ones and help you learn to spot the differences. "It's not always as easy as it looks -- attackers have become more sophisticated at making their phishing attempts seem legit," Henck writes in a Medium post. The quiz was designed to take into account the latest and most sophisticated phishing techniques, and is based on security training with more than 10,000 journalists, activists, and politicians around the world.

I took this quiz and while I know a lot of these tricks, it was extremely helpful. Well worth taking the time to do the quiz.
https://phishingquiz.withgoogle.com

Now that football is done (until the Super Bowl) golf is back again and Tiger is playing. Check out the Farmers Insurance Open this afternoon and see what he and others can do.

Have a great day and an even better sales week!
Scott Jarden

Sunday Sales Blast 1/20/19

Let it Snow!

The east coast is being covered in wet, sloppy deep snow Sunday reminding us that it is still winter.

What about selling in the aftermath of a snow storm?

Use social media to get the word out that you have the tools to clean up the mess after the storm. That can include, shovels, ice melt chemicals and Winterinse for cleaning up the mess tracked in.

Bob Clarke, senior vice president of sales and marketing at ABM, suggests some no- and low-cost ways to prepare the lobby for winter:

Utilize safety mats and rugs: “This is one of the most critical strategies in a commercial property to prepare for winter,” he notes. “Matting best practices dictate there should be 5 to 10 feet of coarse matting outside a building, 5 to 10 feet of matting directly inside the building and another 5 to 10 feet of matting directly behind it.”
 
Signage: Direct people to where you want them to go with signs and indicators.
 
Day porters/day matrons: Consider adding or changing their schedule to be available in the lobby during bad weather.
 
Schedule deeper cleans: Schedule your heavy-duty floor work around the inclement weather season: just before to protect and just after to correct. Typically, many of these costs are built into a housekeeping program. 
 
Put out hand sanitizer: Remember the one about protecting the environment: Strategically, but adequately placed hand sanitizer goes a long way in protecting your occupants and the environment. 

If you really want to tap into a unique market do what this company has been doing for about 5 years- Selling Snow

Go to https://shipsnowyo.com to learn more.

The Eagles didn't win but we had a great run!

Have a great day and an even better sales week!

Scott Jarden

Sunday Sales Blast 1/13/19

6 common beliefs about productivity that are total lies

Some conventional wisdom isn’t so wise. Productivity experts weigh in on some commonly held beliefs that are just wrong.

WAKE UP EARLIER TO GET MORE DONE
Want to write that novel? Get up an hour before usual and devote that time to putting words on the page. Need to fit exercise or meditation into a busy day? Set the alarm an hour earlier. After all, the early bird catches the worm.

Not so fast, says Stuart Hearn, CEO of Clear Review, a performance management software company, and former human resources (HR) director at Sony. “Not everyone is a morning person. We all have different productivity rhythms, and while some people are more productive in the early hours of the day, this isn’t always the case,” he says. If you’re waking up early when your best work or high-energy times are in the afternoon or evening, you could be undermining your best work times.

MULTITASKING ONLY AFFECTS THE MULTITASKER
We’ve heard a lot about the downside of multitasking; nothing gets done well. But multitasking doesn’t just affect the person trying to do too much. If you’re not focusing on the email you’re dashing off, you might make critical mistakes or come across in a harsher tone than you intended. You may alienate your team and get a reputation as someone who is constantly overwhelmed or a poor communicator, says business coach Gayle Bu, who specializes in productivity and time management.

“So, all of a sudden, everybody’s time is being wasted with this relationship issue that actually wasn’t even an issue, you were just trying to shoot off some Slack messages and get some stuff done,” she says.

PRODUCTIVE PEOPLE CAN TAKE ON MORE
Just because you do things efficiently doesn’t necessarily mean that you should take on more projects, says business coach Don Scott. It may feel like productive people should take on more projects, but that can simply result in undermining your efforts, he says.

Ward agrees. “As a world-class triathlete, I often coached newcomers to the sport that slower is faster. The science rests in the physiology of the heart. The same is true with projects at work,” he says. In other words, when you are able to streamline your efforts and increase your impact, don’t be tempted to overload yourself with more projects that will dilute your effectiveness.

For the full article: https://www.fastcompany.com/90280925/6-common-beliefs-about-productivity-that-are-total-lies

CDC says it's another bad flu season with up to 7.3 million people sick so far.
• Up to 7.3 million people have been sick with flu so far this season, the CDC says.
• Half those people have been to the doctor because of flu, it says.
• As many as 83,500 people have been hospitalized because of flu, federal health officials say.

To learn what Bullen and its new product Spray N Go can do to help combat the flu in your customers facilities click here:

Thanks to all of you that were rooting for the Eagles last week. That win over the Bears was due to more than just a bad field goal, it was teamwork. Bullen's Core value # 4 is Execute Teamwork.  What are your core values for your business?

Lets hope we can reverse what happen to the Eagles the last time we played the Saints. Go Eagles.

Have a great day and an even better sales week!

Scott Jarden