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Thoughts on marketing ideas for events and holidays.
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Tag: Holidays
One Last Trip of 2021 🚙
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Brian and the family are off for one last trip to see family for Christmas.
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One last trip of 2021.
Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.
I’m a Business investor. I also work with businesses either as a partner, as an investor, or as a friend, to help them to use principles, strategies, and tactics that are already being used successfully out there and help integrate them into their business.
Now I tend to talk about ideas about how you can help make your business better make your life better. Therefore, as a result of that, tonight, though, we’re packing everything up so that we can leave early in the morning to try and beat the snow system that is going to be entering Oregon, and possibly blocking our path to reach California.
Which we like to go down to a few times a year as long-term watchers and listeners of Brian J. Pombo Live. And so Christmas is one of those times.
So we’re heading down a day earlier than we thought, we’re going to try and get across Interstate five. Before they shut it down before the snow becomes so large that they can’t keep it clear. So if we can do that, then we’ll, by this time tomorrow, I’ll be reaching you from Northern California.
That’s all I have for tonight. I don’t have a whole lot but just to kind of inform you what’s going on in my world. Go check out my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.
By this time next year, this will not be the same thing I’ll be talking about where we’ve got quite a few things happening in 2022.
So it’s pretty exciting. Stay tuned for that.
But while you still can you get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com. If you go there, and you’re watching this sometime in the future, and the copy is not free, I apologize. But hopefully we’ll have something else there that will be interesting to you.
That’s all I got for tonight. You have a good one. Get out there and let the magic happen.
Slow Business During The Holidays? 🐌
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happy holidays everyone.
Transcription
Slow business during the holidays.
Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.
Business tends to slow down during the holidays, not always depending on what type of business you’re in but oftentimes a whole lot of people see a slump that happens during the holiday season.
We’ve been discussing this quite a bit this last month because it can start as early as Halloween for some industries.
How do you go about fixing that?
Well, we mentioned using the holidays as an excuse to get in touch with people, okay, either via marketing or directly, I don’t care if you gotta get on the phone and call them. But depending on the type of business you have you it gives you an excuse to get in touch with them.
Not necessarily pitch them something right off the bat. Now maybe you have a pitch along with it on offer, offer something to them. But maybe your business doesn’t quite fit that, or you can’t find a way to do that.
Just connecting with them and reminding them that you exist, makes a really big difference.
What’s the other thing, the other thing you could be doing right now that most people don’t set time aside throughout the year is you can be planning, you could be planning your strategy, planning your attack for the next year.
This is a really good time to do it. If you have the time available if you know that you have a slump, so to speak for the holidays, take advantage of it, plan what you’re going to do, as soon as things pick up again.
You should know from previous years or if this is your first year in business or first year in this industry, then you know, plan on you know, depending on when it stopped, I would think that sometime after the first of the year, you should be ready to go again.
If you don’t want to start planning then plan now, plan in the in-between times in between your holiday parties and everything.
Do everything you can to plan where you’re going next. And make time for planning schedule, set up a new schedule for next year, a new personal schedule so that you have a specific time for thinking and planning out the next step in your business. Plan, do check to adjust.
We’ve talked about that previously and that is a major, major thing that you need to have scheduled in your book on your phone. However, you do a schedule, you’ve got to make sure that that is available and that you are paying enough attention to it.
Make sure that you’re working with partners, your employees, your vendors, your mentors, anybody that you go to for advice, and if you don’t have someone you need someone find some people that you can bounce ideas off of it doesn’t mean you have to take it still means you’re the boss, it still means you’re responsible.
But you got to have some people you bounce ideas off of otherwise your business is going stale, I guarantee it.
Even if you’re pulling out a lot of money, it’s going to go stale and it could be doing a whole lot better than it is just by having someone that has some background in your business, not in your specific business and not even necessarily in your industry. But someone with business mindedness that you can bounce ideas off of and hopefully a handful of people like that, that you can talk to on a regular basis a mastermind you plug into anything of that sort you’re always welcome to talk with me.
Or at least you could reach out and we can see if there’s something we can chat about see if there’s something I can help you out with go to BrianJPombo.com there’s also ways you can get in touch with me that are found right in this book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business, goes through some ideas that you can start working on this as nine separate things that you could be focusing on this next year.
Go buy a copy, and if you don’t want to buy it because you’re stingy.
Go and get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com.
Hopefully that makes sense. It’s all I got for tonight. You have a good one. Have a fabulous Merry Christmas. Happy holiday season and we’ll see you tomorrow night.
Get out there and let the magic happen.
Sentimentality Is Evergreen 😃
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Value of sentimental moments during the holidays.
Transcription
Sentimentality is evergreen.
Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.
Let’s talk about sentimentality or some may call it nostalgia. And if you think about it, there’s, there’s always old ways of doing the same thing. And so I’ll give you a great example. It’s right now, this is 2021.
While I’m recording this, we’re in the holiday season. And it’s very, very rare to get Christmas cards anymore.
With the advent of social media, and really having Facebook have and between Facebook and Instagram, having such a huge reach into most people’s lives, the idea of the Christmas card has lost a lot of its flavor, you see that for a lot of us the only time we’d see certain members of our family was in the Christmas card that we got every year.
And so you’d say oh my gosh, look how big they are. Oh boy, look how gray that person is, look how much weight they’ve gained, you know. And, and that’s, that was kind of the Christmas card concept. That was what we got piles of them when I was growing up in the last 1015 years.
It’s dwindled back a bunch and the few Christmas cards that we get, we treasure, we look at it. The last one, we show the whole family.
The really good ones make it onto our fridge and we’ll sit there all year long. Okay, this is an interesting thing, because it’s completely gone away the ability to do it hasn’t gone away.
The desire for it probably isn’t as strong as it once was, otherwise more people would do it.
It has nothing to do with marketing or business like we talked about here, normally, but I’m going to tie it back in. So if you went and tried doing that, back then, if you went and put out a Christmas card, and you made it look just like a family Christmas card with your family, you know, I don’t care if you have a local based business or if you have an international based business. But if you have the ability to see if you have people’s addresses, and you have the ability to send them something, there’s nothing better than a Christmas card, because everyone’s going to be looking at and going, Okay, who is this?
Why are we getting this from these people, you know, and you could have a little message on the back and maybe even a coupon or something. But being able to send something like that out, would have gotten attention, whether it was 30 years ago, or whether it’s today.
Today, it matters more.
Today, if you went and did the exact same thing. And I don’t care if you’re running a barbershop. Or if you’re running a restaurant, or if you’re running like I said, an international e-commerce based business, or what have you.
If you’ve got a business that has the ability to gain addresses, you need to start building up personality in your business, you need to have somebody or a group of somebodies that people can start relating with, I talk about all in my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.
I’ve got a whole chapter on being somebody and then filtering that out through your marketing and how important that is how that makes you stand out. Most companies can’t do it, they won’t do it.
Well, they can do it, any company can do it but most won’t.
They won’t spend the time to do this type of thing. But look at how powerful it could be in something as simple as a Christmas card is one of the most inexpensive things you could possibly send in the mail.
If you sent that to all your people with just you and your family and say hey, I’m so and so with such and such. Just wanted to wish you you know, a merry Christmas, happy holidays, happy Hanukkah, what have you. You just put it out there.
You just toss it out there for people and say, Hey, appreciate your business in the past year or appreciate your business in the past years, you know, in putting something out there that will stop people, it will cause attention and they will pay attention. I would bet you would find a lot of those Christmas cards on people’s fridges and other places where they place Christmas cards. I guarantee it.
Because people yearn for that human connection. Even if it’s someone they don’t even know or have never met. They still want that connection.
I could name people that would not know who I was but if I got a Christmas card from them, I’d hold on to it. I wouldn’t throw it away. And I’m a bit of a pack rat to begin with. But I definitely would not throw away a Christmas card from certain people who I believe I know, but they don’t necessarily know me.
You’ve got people like that too. In your audience and your customer base.
What have you. Hopefully that makes sense. It’s a simple idea and it can be applied to anything This isn’t just about Christmas or Christmas cards.
This can be applied to anything. And you have to look at simple things that can make a big difference. Like they talk about the the big doors swinging on small hinges. This is this is one of those ideas. So hopefully that’s helpful to you.
We’ll be back here tomorrow night. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.
Voicemail Hell During The Holidays ✉️😈
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What to do when it’s hard to get in touch with people during the holidays.
Transcription
Voicemail Hell during the holidays.
Hi, I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.
Let’s talk about voicemail hell, of what is voicemail?
Hell, well, I am talking about trying to reach people during the holiday season.
It’s really, really tough people tend to turn off, sometime after Thanksgiving before New Years a huge portion of the population, even in their business, they turn off.
You can’t find them, you can’t track them down. Here’s my recommendation on how to go about handling that. The best way to handle that is just to realize it’s the truth and don’t get frustrated with it, you’re going to have to talk probably call more people, you’re going to have to talk to more people to get in touch with someone that can actually help you move ahead and business.
Whatever you’re trying to get accomplished. You just have to double up because you can’t do anything about that. I know I’m in and out, as I talked about before the brain fog that happens during the holidays is heavy.
You just have to be patient, work your way through it. Keep going and realize that it’s a factor, but it’s a temporary factor.
It’s a temporary factor that will come to an end sometime after New Years, people start waking up and then that’s when all the great explosions happen. All of my best business explosions happened during very specific times of the year.
And one of the times it’s right after New Year’s, that’s when people start saying yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s talk, let’s talk What’s that they got no more excuses, really, people. People get this far.
They’re like, just get me after the first sometime, you know, it’s a reality. You just have to deal with it.
When you do get someone on the phone, though, just say, Hey, thanks for your time. I know we’re in the middle of the holidays and everything. Sometimes you got to give them an out.
If you think that if it starts to feel like they’re not tracking with you say, Hey, how about I give you a call after the season sometime in early January.
We’ll touch base on this, I just wanted to just want to call on wish you happy holidays and hope you have a good one. And then just leave it, set it up for later set up meetings for later. If you’re getting voicemail, come up with a clever message to leave forum that’s easygoing and nice.
But just a way to touch base with people. Sometimes it’s just all you need to do is just touch base. Just toss it out there and say hi. And leave the rest behind.
Don’t worry about it. This is just how it happens.
It’s just a little pep talk not just for you, but for me. So I had to kind of say it, I have to hear it from myself so that I can keep going and keep. If you’re not making phone calls during this time of year, it’s a good thing to do.
It’s a good way to get in touch with people. Yeah, a lot of people still send holiday cards and Christmas cards and all the rest. And you can do that.
But having that personal touch that you actually took time to do makes a big difference, especially if they’re those people, either business-wise or otherwise, that you just haven’t talked to in a really long time.
This is a perfect excuse to contact them say hey, just saying hi and Merry Christmas and all that jazz. So hopefully that helps. It’s just a simple idea for tonight.
Go check out my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. You can get a free copy for at least for now over at AmazonProofBook.com.
That’s all I’ve got for tonight, you have a good one.
Continue your fabulous holiday season and we’ll see you tomorrow night. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.
Humor Keeps Us Human 🤣
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Why humor and being around others is important, especially during the holidays.
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Humor keeps us human.
Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.
Coming to you from a darkened car.
This is, this is our new van, I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it, we purchased it a little while ago a few weeks ago. And I’m coming to you from the road. I’m actually out at my father’s house for Thanksgiving visiting family in California, bringing everybody along with me, my wife, and three kids, having a really good time.
Just got through playing a game with my dad and two sisters. And he’s just laughing really, really hard and reminding me how good humor is for humans.
If you’re a human look into it, okay, if you don’t get together with people and laugh really hard on a monthly basis, maybe every other month that most at that I mean, at least I should say, then you’re missing out on something, it does something to the insides.
I know there are studies and everything else that say this or that about what humor does for you. I don’t know how many of those I believe but I know that after I go through a few sessions of laughing really hard at silly stuff.
And I’m not saying being heavily in you know, heavily intoxicated or anything like that, I mean, just regular straight gun humor, with good friends having a good time, that that can’t hurt you. If you’re doing it every once in a while. I think that’s I think it opens up something on the inside. That’s a good thing.
This is just a random thought and during the holidays, if you’re not around people, find some people to get around, find some friends, ask if you can come over and just get around some people and have a good time. It’s good for you. It won’t hurt.
I think it makes us more human, as it is.
We talk a lot here about business concepts but everything in business comes back to you as a person. You know, whether you’re the business owner, whether you’re an executive or somebody in charge, which is a lot of the what my message who my messages are designed for.
Even then it always comes back to keeping your head on straight, being a good person, finding other good people to work with.
And part of that is also having a balanced life across the board. If that’s all possible. I know the word balanced is very, it’s kind of it’s a Power Word right now that kind of throws people off a trigger word I should say.
But that’s all I got for tonight.
Tomorrow maybe from the car also because we’ve got a full house full of people and by the time I’m able to break away and make a video, everybody sleeping so I got to get away from everybody in order to do it. So we’ll see you tomorrow night.
You have a good one and before we get back together, get out there and let the magic happen.
Sneaking Business During The Holidays 🦃🎄🎉
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Thoughts on getting business done during the holidays.
Transcription
Sneaking business during the holidays.
Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.
I’m actually holding here the calendar for next year. But I want to point out November, we’re in November right now.
If it we’re not in November, when you’re watching or listening to this, just realize that you got holidays coming up at some point, it’s a good time to get in touch with people.
This is how you sneak business, if you’re even if you’re not supposed to be doing business, this is a great way to be able to get things done when it’s tough to get things done.
What I like to do are what I set out to do, I don’t always do as much of it as I’d like, is to reach out to people who I haven’t been in touch with, for a very long time, especially people I have business connections with, so that you never know, maybe we could do something again, maybes, you never know.
It’s very important relationships is what business is all about.
So you go through your LinkedIn, you go through your Facebook, you go through all the different social media, you go through your phone, you go through it, any place where you have, where you keep your contacts and your connections, go through that pile of business cards that you haven’t been through in a long time, that shoebox full of them or whatever, go through and start calling people to start emailing people start sending people private messages on the social media, and say, hey, it’s been forever.
Here it is the holiday season I just wanted to wish you happy holidays.
Hopefully, everything’s going well for you. And that you don’t reach out to me sometimes, let me know how life is.
That’s all he just kind of say something like that and it can be so valuable doing something like that, you can always do something bigger and grander and find things, find reasons to get in touch with these people, maybe you’re planning a trip somewhere.
You’ll look up all the people from that area and see if you can get together with a few of them.
You know, it’s the little things, it’s the little thin threads that make the business work.
The reason why I’m bringing this up is I I heard a conversation today on the clubhouse, where they were talking about strategic partnerships and joint ventures, that type of idea, the idea of, of really finding people that you can gel and build a business with.
That’s always been it’s the real reason why I ended up in the business investment field is that it really, you can’t ignore the fact that as to the relationships, it’s all in who you know, and who knows you. And so you got to get out there, you got to mix it up.
You got to go back, get back in touch with people you haven’t been in touch with. And you never know what will happen. You never know what they have going you never know what you have going on that they may be interested in.
So take advantage of the holidays if you have any time off whatsoever. Do some very light touches back to the people of your past I think you’ll be satisfied with what you get. It’s one of the main three pillars of BrianJPombo.com is being relationship reliant.
Maybe I’ll be talking about some of the other pillars in future episodes. We will talk to you later.
Hey, follow, subscribe, like whatever wherever you’re at, or go to BrianJPombo.com and sign up for emails. We’ll be back tomorrow.
In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.
Here Come the Holidays 🦃🎄
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Another season of fun on deck. 😀
Transcription
Here come the holidays.
Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.
Holidays are coming, that may be a good thing or a bad thing in your business. We talk about business here in case you didn’t know. So if that bores you, you may as well click off.
I want to talk about this from a business owner executive position. And that’s that was the holidays are coming up, there are certain things that you just can’t control.
Some of them are good and some of them are bad, good thing that you can control that that you can’t control of the holidays is the buying frenzy that occurs.
The buying frenzy isn’t just in the gift sector, the buying frenzy is across the board. When people are in the motion to buy, they are in the motion to buy and they will buy anything.
You could take advantage of that if you have something that you’re selling service, or what have you anything, especially if you could turn it into a gift if you create a gift certificate for what it is that you offer, product or service. That’s something that’s pretty useful right now
You can take advantage. I know we all can’t stand, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and all this stuff. But there’s a reason why it keeps going and it keeps getting bigger.
That’s because it works.
Because when most people are doing the same thing, they continue to do the same thing. If you follow along with it, you will prosper with it because it’s just it’s a weird thing about human personalities and human psychology.
When we’re in motion, we tend to stay in motion and so when people are buying, they’re going to continue buying and so you can take advantage of that. Now.
Those are some of the good things that come with the holidays and we could spend more time on that another time. I want to talk about some of the bad things that come with holidays, especially from a business person’s perspective.
If you enjoy doing business, you’re going to be held back in that area. If you have employees or other people that you work with, they may be running at a slower pace.
During this time period, if you have family and so forth, you are going to be pulled away, quite possibly, for days on end, away from a lot of the things that you love doing business. And that’s good or bad, depending on your perspective.
But you got to be ready for it because this stuff happens every year, the good and the bad, you have to know where the good and the bad, reside, Don’t get worked up about it, plan for it.
Plan for it, you got it, you see it come in here, it’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming. You see it coming, I know what you’re going to do know how to handle it, watch yourself and how you handle things, watch the overeating, watch the oversleeping watch the whole the little overs and unders that ended up taking over our lives during this period of time.
And for those of you who don’t have any of the attachments, meaning family and friends and, and a lot of things that could be very good. If you don’t have those things and you’re in work mode, keep working work through it, I don’t care.
For those of us who have less of a choice in the matter because of the way that we’ve designed our lifestyle, then you got to be ready for what’s coming. And got to do what you got to do and I do it myself.
I only say this because I go through it every year. And every year, I come up with little tweaks of things I’m going to do differently next year.
Maybe I’ll voice some of those here so that I’ll actually remember them a year later, you got to document them somehow. So just a quick note, pay attention, pay attention, it’s coming.
If you’ve got a period of time that you’re going to be taking off like I am, even though I’ll still be here with you. But the rest of the business world isn’t going to see me during certain periods of time.
So I know I’ve got to push hard up to that deadline and get everything done that I can and then allow the world to go to sleep for a month and a half or so and then jump back at it when I can.
That’s all you could do. You know you take advantage of the things you can and you’ll let the rest go there’s always something to be done. If you’ve got time, and you feel like the rest of the world’s gone to sleep.
Don’t stop there’s still more you can do. You can still reach out in the morning my favorite things to do and I heard another business friend of mine he said, this is the time that I call people, I reach out to people and I say, Hey, how’s is everything going?
It’s been a while since we’ve talked, it’s a perfect time of year for doing it because you can get a hold of people a lot easier because a lot of other people are laying around not doing anything. So it’s a way to be able to touch base with people.
Just a couple of random ideas regarding the holidays. Hopefully, you have a great holiday. And if you’re looking for something good to buy for yourself to stuff in your own stocking or for a business friend of yours.
Check out my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.
It’s free. The whole thing is about being competition-proof.
I’ve got a podcast that’s out there right now some of you may already be listening to it. As soon as it goes live officially across the board.
I’ll be talking about it here, about a podcast interview I did all about this book.
You can go and purchase a hardbound copy of this book at Amazon.com Or you can get a digital copy at AmazonProofBook.com.
If you want to get that digital copy and send it to your friend, go for it. You’re not going to hurt my feelings. You’re gonna break a law so you have a good one.
Have a great night. We’ll see it tomorrow. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.