Just a Minuteman

Are Yellow Pages Necessary?

2011-03-07T12:14:00.000-08:00

I need your help...and feedback.
It seems that the technology of print may have seen it's day in some aspects. Take for example, the "Yellow Pages". As a kid in San Francisco, we used to have the San Francisco directory. (Remember Bell Telephone?) One massive book with white pages in front and Yellow pages in back. It was very useful, my mom would have me sit on when getting my hair buzzed, and when I needed to reach that shelf that was just out of reach, it provided that 5 or 6 extra inches. It was one book, with everything in it. Of course, back then we had one phone, it had a chord on it and you DIALED a phone number. If you missed a call, they would call back. (You get the picture.)
Now we have (in a mostly rural area, no less) 4, count-em FOUR phone books. AT&T, Valley, SureWest and Golden State. Each one touts themselves as the best book, but when it comes down to it I think they are just using up space on my shelf. Not to mention the fact that they will say "we make sure our book gets out to X-(amount) of customers, and they pile up a bunch of books in bags that they leave by the mailboxes... that sit there for a month... or two... or three, until someone gets tired of looking at the now wet and moldy pile and throws them out.
As a small business owner I am approached by each of the "Yellow Pages" books sales people to advertise. In the last 10 years I have seen the swing toward "Looking it up online". Most people are on their computer anyway and it's just easier. Advertisers (businesses) are asked to spend a small fortune on yellow page advertising. Each one now has an online presence and wants to charge for that too.

I have the first sales guy of the season (AT&T) coming on thursday morning and having spent thousands of dollars in advertising in the past, I would like to be armed with some real-life information.

What I want to know from you, my friends is this:

1) When was the last time YOU looked something up in the yellow pages.
2) If you use the yellow pages, which one?
3) Do you feel that yellow page advertising is and effective form of advertising?
4) When you look a business up online, have you ever gone to an online "Yellow Pages" ?
5) Is there anything you want me to share with AT&T Sales Guy? (positive or negative)
I look forward to your responses.

Marketing. The Perfect Storm

2009-10-20T12:16:00.001-07:00

5 or 6 years ago at a Minuteman Convention in Las Vegas, I went to a seminar on marketing. The speaker was the founder of BNI, Dr Ivan Meisner. He talked about the "Perfect Storm of Marketing". A combination of a tip group, (such as BNI), a Chamber of Commerce, and a social group such as Lions, Rotary or Kiwanis. I am a firm believer that your circle of influence is greatly enhanced when you combine all three, I belong to the El Dorado County Chamber of Commerce, the El Dorado Hills Chamber of Commerce, NED (Network El Dorado) which is sort of a knock-off of Le-Tip or BNI, however we don't have a "Mother Ship" to pay dues to. And I also belong to Kiwanis. The people you associate with and the people who are the movers and shakers of the community will belong to at least one, if not several of these groups. People like doing business with ones they can trust and see on a regular basis. I have found this to be a very successful and gratifying method of marketing. The best by-product of this method is that you make many new friends.

Blue Lakes

2009-09-15T15:44:00.000-07:00

Each year pretty much the same group of guys goes up to the sierras to do guy stuff, but mostly fish. This was the first year that I remember my brother not making it and frankly it was a different event without him. But all-in-all you can't go wrong sitting in a pretty comfortable chair with the pole secured and your line in the water. Usually there is massive quantities of beer consumed, stories told. Often the campfire resembles the scene in Blazing Saddles without the cowboy hats. This is the first year in many that I have tent camped, taking the tent that Theresa used at Girl Scout camp, it turned out to be shorter than I imagined, so I stayed in the same tent as Pieter. Having a bear visit the campsite I felt pretty safe because no bear in his right-mind would have come close to our tent... again the scene from Blazing Saddles. We took a field trip to Markleeville and Grover Hot Springs where we were able to get 3 days of campfire and stink off us.

Euro-S'mores and other delights

2009-09-03T18:57:00.000-07:00

We get so caught-up with what we've done since we were young, doing the same thing the same way that it MUST be the best way. Sometimes it is... sometimes it isn't.
My mom, shortly after getting married made some cornbread, thinking that my dad, who's family was southerners through and through (I kid you not, I have a picture of my grandmother wearing a confederate flag apron). My dad was not impressed, I would assume he said it was OK, but I know he didn't like it because it wasn't like his mom's cornbread. My mom called up her mother-in-law and asked for the recipe of which Grandma Zachry gave her, delighted, no doubt that her son was going to get some good southern home-cookin'. She gave the recipe as bit's of this and dabs of that, and a scoop of shortnin' , so it was a challenge to begin with but my mom's talent was persistence. Se again gave the cornbread a shot and again it didn't taste like Grandma's. So my mom decided that the only way she would get this recipe right was to WATCH Grandma make it. So they made the arrangements, went to Grandma's house to watch the process. My assumption is that in the south everything is cooked with bacon in it because when they got to the part of the recipe to put shortening in it, Grandma Z. opened the cabinet under the sink where she had several coffee cans of bacon drippings, she grabbed one and took a wooden spoon and etched out scoop like you would Ice cream ready to go in a cone, while she was saying "just grab a bit of shortning"... that was the "aha" moment for my mom. My whole childhood, I had THAT kind of cornbread, yummy.
When my sister was in Girl Scouts in the early 60's we learned, among other things how to make S'mores. You know the recipe, a graham cracker, broken in half, a chunk of Hershey's Chocolate and a perfectly browned marshmallow. (Unless you are my son, who counts to three before blowing out the flame). This last tuesday the family was all up at my sister's house in Camino and Anina, their exchange daughter from 8 years ago was visiting with her boyfriend and we had euro-S'mores. It's exactly the same recipe, but instead of Hershey's, we used Nutella. Nutella is a hazelnut-cocoa spread that the Europeans eat the way we eat peanut butter. Quite honestly I don't think I'll ever use Hershey's in S'mores again. It was delicious!.
So don't be afraid to try something different when you step into the kitchen or when you're out at the campfire.

Did I tell you about the time I was in Egypt?

2009-08-28T09:47:00.000-07:00

This picture is in front of the Pyramids in Giza. 1961.

Try to remember back when you were just a tyke. Before school age when you were totally committed to just having a good time, exploring life in general EVERYTHING was new. The whole world is a place of wonder and learning is a natural progression of your day. How fortunate was I to be given an opportunity to not only live day to day learning new things, but to be given the experience of other cultures.
My dad was an engineer for Morrison Knudsen. Although lately we have re-assessed our thoughts on his career and think he really was a CIA operative. He did do James-Bondy things, like travel to exotic places at short notice, his passport - if that was his real passport - had pull-out pages with stamps and visa's from every corner of the globe(even color-coded by continent). He also had the demeanor of someone who had to wrestle with his internal demons while putting on a completely different external persona. He was unapproachable and really didn't do the parent thing too well.
Which made my mom a saint.

One day, at Sand Camp...

My mom re-defined a "stay-at-home mom". My dad provided us the opportunity to travel all over the world and she made sure the opportunity wasn't squandered. By the time I was 10 we had lived in Iran for 3 years, Australia for a year and Singapore for a year. We traveled and visited such places as London, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Jerusalem, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpour, Sidney and Perth. So often we would befriend other families of engineers who would just stay where they were put and not explore or experience the culture, then they would complain how miserable the place was that they were. Their loss, a squandered opportunity. Stay-at-home wasn't really in her vocabulary.
You can learn stuff in books, or you can live it. My mom was one who insisted that we experience all that the culture had to offer, wherever we lived or visited. The education my sister, brother and I had first-hand was incredible. It shaped us into who we are.
Memory being what it is, much of what happened between birth and 10 is a blur. The stuff between birth and 3 was REALLY a blur, because they found out I was far-sighted at 3, I got glasses and suddenly the world for me came in to focus. Next post... living in Iran.

Where is the Tie-Dyed Mini?

2009-08-27T16:18:00.000-07:00

By now you've seen a bunch of MiniCoopers around and they aren't the novelty they were in 2002 when I bought it. HOWEVER, the unique aspect of having a Mini that is Tie-Dyed is that everywhere you go, people look at the car. I had it wrapped with the Tie-Dye in the summer of 2003 and it remained that way until this summer. It really was showing it's age and I decided to take it off. The color was still bright and vibrant over much of the car, but the hood was really starting to crack (and ultimately was the toughest to remove).Vinyl is designed to be on a vehicle for no more than 4 years, but I had it on there for 6! So the car is still here, (and I still use it) but it's the original Indy Blue. I feel like nobody loves me anymore, because I used to drive around with one hand on the wheel, ready to wave at the many, many folks that would wave at me. Almost EVERY school bus, Police, Sheriff, kids that would stare and point (at least I think they were staring, pointing and laughing at the car and not me). I had the car wrapped with Hullabaloo on it, advertising the concert in Sacramento for a while and that was fun, but it wasn't tie-dyed.
So, I need to know, should the tie-dye come back? Or, should I go in another direction. I now own the printer that will print out the wrap, so it's a matter of design and application.
What do you think, should the tie-dye return?
John

Don't give the USPS a penney more than you have to!

2009-08-27T11:41:00.000-07:00

Check this out!
We're saving our customers a ton of dough!
I just calculated the postage savings for the summer (June, July, August).
Out of what would have been regular postage of $56,995.46. Only paying $26,376, our customers on average saved over 51%!
WOW!
Go to mm-press.com to see our killer deal on postcards!

Introducing Minuteman Press, Placerville, California

2009-08-27T09:38:00.000-07:00

If Placerville is YOUR town,
Minuteman is YOUR printer.

Being in business has never been more challenging than today.
THAT being said, being in business has never been more EXCITING than today!
I may be crazy, but when backed into a corner, one either fights harder to get out of the corner or gets beat-up. I choose to fight harder. Personally, after this downturn has ended I will be a smarter and more productive business owner. My business has had to adjust to the reduction in business, but my saving grace is my staff. I have the best people in the foothills working for me. Sherry has been with the company 21 years, she's our Graphic Designer who is really good at designing what the customer is thinking. Laura, our Manager has been with us for 15 years and knows the printing business inside and out. Laura is, what I would call a "straight shooter". If something won't work, she'll tell you, straight-up, that it won't work. Sometimes people don't like hearing that the business card that they designed on excell will have to be completely re-designed in an appropriate program for printing, but Laura will give you her honest and knowledgable opinion. Like it or not. Chris is our Pressman. Chris is much more than a pressman, he fills the gaps. When bindery needs to be done or when laminating or tabbing or such needs to be done, Chris fills in. Chris also takes the lead of the Sign department and has become very savvy with the 64" full color sign machine. He's been with us for about 8 years. Shannon, our newest member of the family has been with us for under 3 years. I tell people that if I could clone Shannon, I would. She has a wonderful, positive outlook, her attention to detail is amazing and she is very organized, not to mention she's a human spell-check machine. Kathleen is our bookkeeper and keeps the $ straight. I learned the value of a compitent money person when I had one that wasn't a couple years back.
Then there's me. I've been in the printing industry, in one form or another, for most of my career. I made my first business card in 1971 at Herbert Hoover Jr. High School in San Francisco in Mr. Adams 7th grade printing class. From that experience, I was hooked. I've done everything in printing from driving the delivery truck to running the press to managing a major metropolitan (Long Beach Press-Telegram) newspaper pre-press. All of it in preparation of owning my own business.
This is probably enough to chew on for now, but watch for Blog-only specials.
If there is something you would like to know about Minuteman, Business in Placerville or me, let me know and I'll be happy to share.
Have a GREAT day!
John Zachry - Owner