Just Passin' Through?

Dave Hancock-a great one in the Promotional Product business and, more importantly, a great friend to many-on December 8th finished his race on this earth. Dave started his promotional career in the late 80's with Applegate/Potter in Charlotte and later joined the local firm Fletcher Barhnardt & White-one of the nation's largest promotional agencies at the time. Dave spearheaded the FBW fulfilment division which launched programs in the 90's for the Carolina Panthers, Dallas Cowboys and numerous corporate clients. Dave is survived by his mother, Katy, and his daughters Laura, Liz and a grandson, Carter.

Big Show, Big Success!

Once again, hundreds of Neat Stuff fans attended the annual Christmas in October (click here to see life-changing video) event held at the Ballantyne Resort on Wednesday, October 15th. Entertaining the crowd was motivational speaker and magician, Chris Hannibal. Hannibal (available for YOUR employee or marketing event) dazzled the crowd with numerous feats of intrigue and MAGIC! Dianne "Sweetie" Maxwell did her annual Vanna White imitation at the Spinning Wheel while giving away Parker Pens, Free Golf at Ballantyne Resort, our annual Limited Edition Inspirational Tee Shirts, the 08-09 Neat Stuff U. Motivational Calendar, Cutter & Buck/Clique/New Wave golf shirts and apparel, flash drives from Leeds, Maui Jim sunglasses.....and much more!



Special thanks to our exhibitors representing Fabriko, Cutter & Buck, Gemline, Maui Jim, Panache Publishers, Imagemark, Integrity Media, The Murphy Group, Greg Norman, Le Blue Private Label Water, Parker/Papermate, Plybon Company, Journal Books, WA Recognition, Ash City, Eagle Dry Goods, Shedrain, Starline, HIT Promotions, Kanata Blanket, Toppers and Next Promotions.

Neat Stuff Show this week!

Wednesday, October 15th is the time and the Ballantyne Resort is the place where suppliers from around the country will share the latest in promotional products, employee incentives and direct marketing. "This year we are putting an extra emphasis on helping our clients get results," said Neat Stuff U. Chancellor Haines Maxwell. "While this always drives us, we have brought in a number of exhibitors to help us focus in this area." Among first-time participants in the show dubbed "Christmas in October" are Imagemark-a firm that specializes in variable data printing, direct mail, PURLs (personalized URLs) and on-demand printing; Integrity Media-experts in using video for web and email applications;WA Rewards-our in-house employee recognition division; The Murphy Group - specialists in unique, custom import programs.

It's still not too late to sign up. Register today and plan to drop in this Wednesday between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Back to School - Great Events!

One of my friends checked out our blog the other day and said, "Dude! You haven't posted anything since June!" Guilty. The Chancellor has been on the road this summer to Folly Beach, Blowing Rock, Wichita and the Rocky Mountains! All business, of course.

Time to get back in the groove. Let's start with Great Events:

1-First Fridays. Friends, clients, countrymen - have been joining us on the First Friday of each month for fellowship, burgers, brats, beverage, prizes, chipping golf balls...all at the Neat Stuff U. Student Union patio. Next blast noon-ish on September 5th. Join us THIS FRIDAY if the hurricane doesn't get us.

2-Art/Music show. If you're not hip enough to go up to NoDa (or if you haven't even heard of it...derived from "NOrth DAvidson"...north of downtown). All kind of Neat Stuff going on this coming Friday evening, September 5th...art, music, food.

3-Projecting Hope Film Festival. FREE inspirational films at the Ayrsley theaters (485 and South Tryon) all weekend long.....October 3rd-5th. Amazing Grace, Bella, Facing the Giants, Veggie Tales, Expelled by Ben Stein, and more! Info at http://www.projectinghope08.blogspot.com/

4-Christmas in October. The big NEAT STUFF Show will be held once again at the Ballantyne Resort on Wednesday, October 15th. Suppliers from around the country will be showing there Neat Stuff from 10 a.m. til 3 p.m. On-line registration will be available sooooon.

...and a BUSINESS thought.....according to the experts, what are the most effective days and times to send emails? And the answer is.... (click right here!)

Raving Fans!

What is a raving fan? As Ken Blanchard wrote in his best-selling book Raving Fans, "if you really want to 'own' the customer, if you want a booming business, you have to go beyond satisfied customers and create raving fans."

How loyal are your clients? Are they telling others great things about you? Are they blogging about YOU? (Just thought I'd throw that in since I'm a veteran blogger of 6 months).

Local Story #1 ~ With a customer event a few days away, I stopped by the Matthews Beantown Tavern location and approached my new friend, Beantown owner Donnie Gaskin, about my purchasing a handful of ten dollar gift certificates and "borrowing" a pot of his AWESOME clam chowder so we could give out free tastes at our client cookout. Good for us, good for Beantown, right? Whoa, check out what happens next. Donnie said, "I'll be back in a minute" and left my sweetie, Dianne and me eating chowder at our table. Moments after Big Papi (Red Sox player David Ortiz, for you non-baseball fans) hit a homerun into the right field bullpen on one of Beantowns's flat-panel screens, Donnie returned with a STACK of FIFTY and ONE HUNDRED dollar gift certificates....for me....no charge. I was speechless. Donnie said, "I'm a marketing guy. If just one or two of those folks come to Beantown and become regular customers it's a great deal for me!" Wow....over the top! Little did Donnie know that he would ALSO become FAMOUS by appearing on the Neat Stuff U. blog! FYI: We smuggled the SECRET Neat Stuff-Cam into the pre-opening party of Donnie's NEW Beantown Tavern location by the Western Associates/Neat Stuff office at the Fountains. See the results.

Local Story #2 ~ "I go the extra mile to help you achieve your goals," says the website of local realtor, Ann Cabaniss, http://www.workwithwhoworks.com/. When her firm-Carolinas Realty and Investing Group-helped our own David Murray purchase a home recently, she put her money where her mouth was. Not only did she pay for an upgrade on David's home warranty but when she heard David mention his desire to get someone to pressure wash part of his new home, Ann made the arrangements...and paid the bill. If that doesn't define "going the extra mile" then Ann's recent delivery of a watermelon for David from her family farm in Pageland should do it.

Back to Ken Blanchard and Raving Fans....are people talking about your business, my business? Are they loyal? Are they raving? Are they spreading the news? Have we given them a reason to?

Water, Water Everywhere!

My Sweetie and I started drinking Le Bleu bottled water a couple of years ago. The taste of this water (distilled and filtered in the Carolinas!) is so pure that we won't drink anything else. Several weeks ago we were approached by Le Bleu to distribute their water through a private label program (THEIR water with YOUR name on it). We were delighted! The BEST water with a SUPER BONUS...since Le Bleu is covering most of the Carolinas with their 5-gallon service trucks they can deliver water for our clients (in most counties) FREE of CHARGE! Check out the our short VIDEO clip featuring our highly paid professionals.

Le Bleu was recently voted the "BEST Non-Alcoholic Beverage in the Western Hemisphere" at the International Food and Beverage Trade Show in Miami and better than that....if you have connections in high places (that would be your friends at Neat Stuff U.), you can try Le Bleu's 5-gallon service in your home or business for a month.....FREE!

Tech - knowledge - E?

.....trying to do a little word play on "technology"....not sure it will have the impact I'm looking for...but it does take me to a question: What technology are you currently employing that is making you more effective, more efficient? What new technology do you want to put in place in 2008?

Here are a few things we're learning from and trying to utilize at Neat Stuff U.

1-Video. A friend of mine recently told me that a picture is worth a 1000 words and a video is worth a 1000 pictures. At an industry show in January, a colleague introduced me to his FLIP Camera by Pure Digital. (This was right after a stirring Bobby Lehew seminar, by the way). In the last 60 days, I've "made movies" of a regional industry trade show, several new product lines, an interview with our Cutter & Buck rep on the new 2008 line, a men's retreat in the mountains of Virginia, and a trip to UNCW to see my sweet daughter, Anna! Pretty simple...software is built into the unit and it connects directly to your computer without any cables! Using Windows Movie Maker (on most new computers), you can add Titles, Credits, music, and witty comments scrolling across the screen!

How can you use video? Something to think about. Video clients that you go to see. Clients that come to see you. Send a video follow-up to your meeting. Send a copy to folks who missed the meeting. Show a new product. Video industry trade show. Video your support staff that your clients chat with but never see. Roll play presentations. Tips from top performers to send to the rest of the sales gang. Add video to your website - experts tell us that the Search Engines love video! I just did a Google Search on some industry key words and found our company in the TOP TEN from a video we put on YouTube a couple of weeks ago. Check out this 60-second promo we produced in our Men's Restroom! It's scary but clean.

2-Paying Verizon or AT&T for 411 info? Stop that. Program "800-GOOG-411" into your speed dial and use it, for FREE-thanks to Google- for your phone number searches. After they give you the number, you can say "text" for a text message of the number or "map" for, you guessed it, a map of the location....sent right to your cell phone. Cool. Save those quarters. They turn into dollars. (My dad just told me his cell service charges a BUCK for each directory info inquiry!)

3-Google 2. Have you explored Google? Seems like they come up with new stuff everyday. My brother Scott Maxwell, the custom home builder extraordinaire, mentioned to me over lunch last Sunday that he uses iGoogle (I'd never heard of it) as his home page. You design it to include all kind of useful info, news updates, RSS feeds...it's up to you. Scott also uses the FREE google calendars for a variety of functions including setting up a separate calendar for each job that allows his clients to track the progress on their new home construction.

4-Do you use Microsoft Outlook for your e-mail? Do you get a b-zillion e-mails? These babies will clog your computer if you don't DELETE them. When you DELETE your emails they simply shift to the DELETE FOLDER where you have to ...DELETE them again...unless you know the DSS (Double Secret Shortcut). Identify your e-mail-to-be-deleted, Hit SHIFT while clicking the "X" button, and WHAMMO, the e-mail will be PERMANENTLY deleted. A Microsoft instructor gave us several pages of great tips like this in a Word Document. Email the Chancellor for your FREE copy haines@neatstuffu.com