the secret life of walter mitty

title:  the secret life of walter mitty

director:  Ben Stiller

screenplay by:  Steve Conrad

starring:  Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Shirley MacLaine, Adam Scott, Kathryn Hahn, and Sean Penn.

i am admittedly unfairly influenced by trailers.  it’s odd really since i don’t think of myself as one who falls easily for punchline speak.  there’s just something about those montages of scenes synced to sweeping, epic songs interrupted only be punctuating phrases… the good ones are timed perfectly to peak my interest and tap my emotions.  the best ones are with music so very me they’ll soon find their way to my running playlist, becoming an immediate part of my own life’s soundtrack.  it is for this trailer-influence, not anything to do with Thurber’s short story or the original film adaptation, that my expectations for Mitty were absolutely raised.  on a side note:  it’s also for this trailer-influence that 42, the film about Robinson, was highly disappointing.  i spent the entire film waiting for a big Jay Z brooklyn we go hard moment.

the secret life of walter mitty is a delightful film.  easy and whimsical on the surface, it’s a fun departure from the daily drudge while ultimately circling back to highlight the beauty of what many of us find mundane.  the filmography is stunning, the writing smart and the directing hits the mark perfectly.

the film deals with the distant nature of dreams, and the need for mold-breaking bursts of energy to realize those dreams.  it touches upon the heartbreaking power of loss and mourning.  and, for me, it ultimately highlights the transformative magnificence of love, something that inspires us to jump onto a moving helicopter piloted by a drunk, something that looks back at us through the flying formation of birds, or something that we never even knew was there with us as we sat doing our daily work, managing negative assets.

this film is an absolute gem.  anyone who says otherwise is just being snarky.

Summary:

charming.  lovely.  uplifting.

well-acted.  beautifully directed.

five stars and a high five.

things to do in daytona beach

Looking for things to do in the Daytona Beach area…

2nd Street Farmers Market… Every Thursday, 4 pm to 8 pm

at 101 2nd Street, Holly Hill, FL 32117

(Just one block East of US1 and two blocks North of Mason Avenue)

Fresh fruit and veggies

Local, raw honey

Organic milk & cheese from Natural Springs Dairy Farm

Grass fed beef direct from a local farm

Fresh seafood by Macker Seafood Market from local fisherman

Empanadas, hotdogs, Italian food, Thai food from Songkran, Vegan food from Midtown EcoVillage

Fudge and hot coffee

Plants for your home and garden, Edible plants and herbs, Organic gardening products

Alpaca fleece products and woven baskets

Handmade soaps and handmade candles

Cigars, handmade jewelry, crafts and artwork

Smoothies

Gourmet jams & jellies

And more!

For more information, email market@impressionsbynaomi.com

good business resources

Your online and local community both have great business resources for small businesses.  Tap into them.

Here is a list of sites with good resources.  Some of them are specific to where I live.  Your local community likely has similar resources.  Please be inspired to go find them for yourself.

Looking for Economic Development resources, including community statistics:

Team Volusia

Volusia County Economic Development

Ormond Beach Economic Development

In need of staffing solutions:

Manpower Group

Daytona Employment

Vision HR

Interested in business counseling, mentoring or ideas:

SCORE

Florida Women’s Business Center

Harvard Business Review

songs of the week

“I’ve got style for miles and miles.”  – Pavement

NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts are cool.  I love to see what some of my favorite bands have played when participating in the series, and how their usual sound varies in the NPR office setting.  It has been a while since I checked them out, so I browsed a few of the newer videos this past week.

Here are some highlights.

Please enjoy.

Ben Gibbard plays “St. Peter’s Cathedral,” “Teardrop Windows,” and “When the Sun Goes Down on Your Street.”

__________

Gem Club plays “Animals,” “Breakers,” and “252.”

__________

The xx plays “Angels” and “Sunset.”

__________

Lord Huron plays “She Lit a Fire,” “Time to Run,” “Lonesome Dreams,” and “Ends of the Earth.”

__________

Dirty Three plays “Rain Song,” “The Pier,” and “Last Horse on the Sand.”

__________

keys to marketing professional services

Marketing is a key part of any successful business, including businesses who provide professional services.

Here are some tips on how to effectively market professional services:

Manage Relationships

Existing Clients – Residual business is some of the best business.  Existing clients can also be good for giving referrals.  Be sure to give your clients great customer service.  Provide them with complimentary useful information in regular newsletters.

Industry Professional Peers – Get to know your industry professional peers.  Find out what their niches are and then consider involving them in teams you have the opportunity to compose.  Openly invite them to do the same.  Even seeming competitors often specialize in niches that vary from yours.  Know their niche and refer work that is outside of your scope.  Invite them to do the same.

Complimentary Industry Professionals – Form alliances with some professionals who are just outside your market.  A real estate agent could be great for generating legal, architectural or engineering leads.

Marketing Professionals – Hire a professional whose business is the forming of relationships for a client like you.

Research

Track your own effectiveness.  How did your existing clients discover you?  Determine what you are doing that is working, and do more of it.

Identify your target audience.  Study their websites and ongoing projects.  Figure out how your services will help them before formulating your pitch.

Analyze your competitors.  What are they doing better than you?  How can you stand out from them?  What would make you select your company over theirs?

Network

Attend industry related events, business to business socials and speaker luncheons.  Get involved with a local nonprofit to contribute to your community while growing your Rolodex of connections.

Brand

Branding is more than a logo and color scheme.  Your brand is the impression you make on people.  For professional service providers, brand involves perceived expertise and professionalism.  In order to further your brand, consider publishing industry specific articles which contribute to relevant topics.  Post client testimonials to your website.  Make appearances on your local radio, or connect with newspaper writers as an available expert for your industry.  Do not be intimidated by national publications including trade magazines.

how to incorporate holidays into your marketing: valentine’s day

Here is a cool infograph from Antavo that gives some good direction for how to incorporate holiday thinking into your marketing:

HIGHLIGHTS

Identify how your customers will think in relationship to the holiday.  For Valentine’s, gender and romantic status play key roles in how the customer will be thinking about the holiday.

Know who is the most likely buyer for the holiday.  For Valentine’s, the average male spends around $158 while the average woman spends around $75, making men a key primary target for Valentines’ marketing.

Note those products which are most popular for holiday spending, and incorporate those products into your unique marketing.  You can provide a FREE red rose giveaway or complimentary Valentine’s Card to accompany your usual products as a special holiday promotion.

Romance them!  Have fun and be creative.  People who are setting out to buy holiday items may not seek your store or product.  However, shoppers who are in your store or browsing your product might still enjoy the fun, quirky way that you incorporate holiday flare.

songs of the week

“And we’re slow to acknowledge the knots in our laces…. heart it races.”  -Architecture in Helsinki

I love working out to music.  I prefer ridiculous house music to amplify my energy, keep me running fast.  Last night I set out on my first bridge walk since recovering from my broken foot.  I’m not ready to run quite yet.  Instead of the usual “House Radio Music” on last.fm, I opted for my own library of music.  I did not skip past the slower songs; I allowed them to become a part of my workout soundtrack.

For this song’s of the week post, here is some music from last night, a little something I like to call “The weirdest workout playlist of all time.”

Please enjoy.

“Get it Out” by Blind Pilot

_____________

“Bloodbuzz Ohio” by The National

____________

“Transatlanticism” by Death Cab for Cutie

____________

“Nantes” by Beirut

____________

“Kids” by MGMT

____________

“Peace of Mind” by The Radio Dept.

____________

“One with the Birds”  by Bonnie Prince Billy

____________

is everyone hanging out without me? (and other concerns)

“The author as child star of the TLC series Androgynous Kids and Puppets, the less-successful predecessor of Toddlers and Tiaras.”

title:  is everyone hanging out without me?  (and other concerns)

author:  mindy kaling

Mindy Kaling’s collection of comedic essays is entirely delightful.  Her relaxed writing style is exactly what I imagine to be her preferred style for comedy writing behind the scenes of “The Office,” the hit television show she’s best known for.  She chit chats with the reader, sharing details about her family, seemingly random, but probably life shaping moments with her closest friends, and a lot of opinions held by a sassy single lady living the modern dream.

Thoughts and Observations about the book:

>> This book is probably not for dudes.  Yes, there’s a good chance that some guys might thoroughly enjoy the book, but for the most part, she writes like she’s sharing fun stuff with a girl friend.  Sorry guys.  Sometimes life isn’t fair.

>> Reading this book in public places might turn into an uncomfortable apology session, the kind where you find yourself explaining to people that the title is, in fact, a joke, that it is not a self-help book.

>> My favorite moment of the book:  “Thrown-Together Disaster Funeral is my new HGTV show.  It’s a makeover funeral show where three flamboyant gays and a judgmental sassy broad crash a tacky funeral and fix it” with the host’s catchphrase being “Nuh-Nuh.  Everyone out of this church.  This funeral is a disaster.”  Hilarious.

>> Mindy Kaling is cool.  Her sharp, sometimes irreverent and wacky sense of humor, coupled with her happy optimism and faith in love and family all just makes her a neat human being.

Summary:

I highly recommend the book for a fun, light read.

Five stars.

tips for farmers market vendors (and other small businesses)

My company has recently been contracted to run a new farmers market for a local municipality.  We’ll be recruiting vendors, managing the market activity, developing and implementing marketing programs as well as planning and hosting community events.  As a big fan of eating fresh and buying locally, I’m thrilled by the opportunity to be a part of such a great, new project.

Today I met with a number of new vendors, some of whom have other market experience, and some who are making a first time go at having their own small business.  I thoroughly enjoy meeting with these folks because each has her own passion for her product with a cool story of how it all started and why she wants to be a part of the market.  A day full of such meetings sends me all smiles into my weekend.

I shared with each vendor a short article of 10 ideas for how to manage their booth displays.  That sharing inspired me to do something similar on here.  So, here are some tips for how to be successful as a new market vendor, which also happen to be pretty good tips for small, retail businesses:

>> Capture your customer’s attention.  Use bright, beautiful colors.  Or, if you prefer to avoid the bright, then follow a color scheme throughout your display that sets you apart.  Be unusual.  Weird is a conversation starter, maybe the beginning of a good story.  Engage browsers as they walk by.

>> Fancy it up.  Self-evaluate your space as you walk by your stall or window with the eyes of a shopper.  Pile your product up in a cool, interesting way.  Use fun props.  Make signs.  Handwritten signs can be really neat.  Play with color and font.  Organize as you go.

>> Increase sales with existing customers.  Collect emails so you can keep in touch with your customers and alert them to upcoming specials.  Encourage them to “like” you on facebook or follow you on your social media of choice.  Give them reasons to return next week with a coupon or an advertisement about what product you’ll have the next week.  Offer specials to regular customers, like a frequent shopper card.

>> Give away free stuff.  Share free, useful information like how to use your product in different scenarios or recipes with your ingredients.  Give away free samples.  Pass out complimentary posters or postcards with your logo.

keys to online marketing success for small businesses

Potential customers are spending more and more time online.  They are researching, emailing, listening to music, tweeting, facebooking, posting, learning and definitely shopping.  For many local businesses, this is an overwhelming trend.  The tradition of Main Street is one of Ma & Pa stores, places where neighbors walk to meet each other or personally connect with shop owners.  Many of these retailers follow old habits steeped in antiquated logic that goes a little something like this:

Main Street is the hub of history, commerce and community.  People who live in the area want to gather there to shop and play, and others who visit the area want to go there for an authentic experience.  While all of these people are downtown, they ought to be willing to buy all sorts of things from jewelry to furniture, lunch, or even hair and auto services.  Later, they will have such fond memories of the quaint city scape, that they will return to purchase more.

With this logic in mind, owners turn on the lights, run an ad in the Pennysaver and local Paper, send a couple of email blasts to friends and family, open the doors and wait behind a counter for people to come.  The people do come, but the conversions are often alarmingly bleak for new businesses.  Shopping habits have changed, and no modern business should be relying on the sentimentality of a mad men era to make their numbers, that is unless you’re an online store literally selling memorabilia from the hit television series.

Small, local businesses must get online.  The following is an extremely useful info graph highlighting the habits of potential shoppers, courtesy of Reach Local:

Keys to online marketing success for small businesses:

Know how your potential customers are spending their time online.

>>22% of their time is spent social networking.  This means that they should have an opportunity to interact with your brand in some way on social networks.  It also means that your biggest word of mouth advocates ought to be promoting you through their social networks.

>>21% of their time is spent searching.  Are you searchable?  What must potential customers google in order to find you?  If someone clicks on your site from a search, will they discover a user-friendly site that allows them to make a transaction if they wish to do so?

>>20% of their time is spent on reading content.  Most people do not want to feel as though they are being “sold to.”  Online content for your small business can be the equivalent of sharing a good story with a browsing customer.

>>19% of their time is spent emailing.  Give potential customers the opportunity to get on your email list.  You should also give them the chance to provide you feedback via email.

>>13% of their time is spent viewing entertainment.  Don’t forget to be entertaining.  Make your online presence fun in a way that appropriately matches you and your product.

>>5% of their time is spent shopping.  More and more shoppers are opting for the convenience of online shopping.  Of all the time they spend online, and they are spending a lot of time online, 5% of that time is spent shopping.  A shopper will not purchase something from you online if you do not afford them the opportunity.  If your company is not yet ready, or your service is not appropriate for actual, online commerce, then at least provide the potential customer an opportunity to set an appointment or request a quote.

Embrace the Smartphone.

Customers are using their Smartphones to research products and compare pricing, to let their sphere of influence know where they are by checking-in on their social sites, and to share photos of cool things they discover.  Because of this, smart, local businesses are embracing the Smartphone.

>>Know how your site views on Smartphones.  Work with your website manager to make necessary improvements.

>>Encourage your customers to check-in on social media by letting them know you are on Facebook or Foursquare.

>>Set-up beautiful or interesting, photo-worthy displays.  Give customers a reason to share something about your business.

Diversify your marketing tactics for an online presence.

Online marketing is no simple task.  Your business exists in a specific, competitive market.  Work with a marketing professional to define that market, develop a plan, and outline a budget with a specific expectation for return on investment.  Then, remember to adjust as necessary.  There are always going to be fast, new trends that you should consider being a part of.