Shhh, it's picking up ... & Oscar stuff too

And, so….here it comes. Along with the warmer weather, daylight savings time and the ability of the American people to put things behind them to concentrate on the present, while they get comfortable with being fed up with the incompetence of our Federal and State governments …. here comes the vitality, the energy and the uptick everybody’s been waiting for….Honey, we’re baaaaack.
You know, a guy hates to jinx this kinda thing but we’re definitely noticing an attitude change lately. Clients calling up asking about hiring people, needing some temps or giving us a “heads up” that they’ll need some help in a week or two. Makes me tingle all over.
I feel as if our team’s hard work through the slow period is going to be paying off. The Marketing Programs, the follow-up, staying-in-touch stuff, information calls, temperature calls… it’s all going to be paying off to help us get our traction sooner rather than later. This just drives home the importance of keeping your name in front of your clients and prospects… especially if they’re not buying today; so they remember you when they buy again tomorrow. So, for those of you wondering when things are turning around, I offer the following. If you’ve made the mistake of putting your Marketing plans in hibernation, pull off the tarp and re-kindle that fire… amp up your personal positive attitude for your team…and get it in gear. You don’t want to be left behind.
I hope that now too, we can get our friends and neighbors to re-visit the price versus value proposition we’ve been talking about. As a community, we have to start managing smart for the long term. In the end, our consumers and clients will be looking for value … lasting value… quality and value they can count on. The price points will still be there…but we have to loosen up a little to get the value we need in order to reap the benefits of improved efficiencies and effectiveness. We need to stop thinking that it’s ok if the useful life of the products and services we are buying are short. How many times do we want to re-buy our products and when are we going to get fed up with cheap labor changing our culture and diluting the quality of our products? Let’s go back to “do it right and it will last” as our motto. We can learn something from Toyota. They acknowledge they got too concerned with growing at the expense of not paying enough attention to safety. That’s also saying they were willing to sacrifice quality for growth. You really are going to get what you pay for.
Of course, the Oscars deserve a mention too. Martin and Baldwin were great but who had the brilliant idea to NOT sing the nominated songs but give us an interpretive dance instead. Yawn. I don’t know about you but I wanted to hear Randy Newman and of course, Ryan Bingham. My personal favorite for movie was Precious and I really do think they made too big a deal out of Katherine Bigelow being a woman who directed a war related movie (The Hurt Locker, my 2nd fav.). I mean, I just don’t get that. A good director directs a good movie…since when shouldn’t a woman be able to direct a movie about a war? So, now men shouldn’t be directing romantic comedies? Misogynists...and then they played her off the stage with Helen Reddy’s “I am Woman”. Please. How trite. How silly. But, I liked Sandra Bullock in Blind Side…she deserved it and I liked it more because she actually went and received her “razzies” award in person for starring in the worst movie of the year (All about Steve) telling them “you can’t be a hypocrite and not come to pick up these tough awards and expect it’s ok to just go to get the good ones). She also brought a wagonload of DVD’s of the movie for the audience. So, she’s got a sense of humor about herself unlike the smug Sean Penn and George Clooney. And Jeff Bridges was great in Crazy Heart but deep down we all know they gave it to him for The Big Lebowski; which is just fine with me. Best dressed my wife tells was a toss-up between Demi Moore and Sarah Jessica Parker…but I was snoring by this time.