Thoughts on how the weather teaches us about marketing

Like a great number of my fellow Northeastern U.S. citizens, I am living through the summer that never was. Aside from one nice weekend last week around July 4th, we have been in nothing but cold dark and miserable weather. There have been either all day long showers and drizzle or horrific thunderstorms neither of which are fun.

I can't help but think of all the people who run seasonal resorts in Maine or Cape Cod. Unlike those in the mountains, who have the ski season to fall back on, the resorts in Maine and on the cape rely on the summer for the bulk of their revenue. What has to make this even worse is that with the economy the way it is, they certainly do not need another weight on their shoulders to make their lives even more difficult.

The point here is that sometimes you can have a great marketing plan in place and be ready to go to market and events out of your control will then intrude and make lemons of your lemonade. Does this mean your plan was bad no, nor does it mean that you failed by not having a plan B. There is no plan B when it comes to an act of nature. Rather what needs to be done is you need to have an emergency plan where you can pull back a bit and then when the environment returns to a more agreeable setting, you are ready to seize back the initiative.

I remember reading a history of the Boer War fought, at the turn of the century between the Boer's a Dutch colonial group who colonized today's South Africa, and the British. The Boer commanders gave one order to their troops and it was save your resources and fight the battle's you can win. That way you win the war. That is true when dealing with attempting to market against the unknown element that is mother nature. You plan your marketing, but have a reserve group in place to act when and if your first plan is not able to be used.

In my other favorite news, I was so happy to see that Tim Wakefield proved he is an All-Star last night. 8 strikeouts is in my opinion a perfect cap to being named to his first All-Star team. Also, speaking of the weather, we had a monsoon here yesterday for the second straight day. I thought New England was a temperate climate, not a tropical one? Oh well it is fun and cool to watch.

Well work will not wait. Some writing to do and then an errand in Newton. I hope the hot dog guy is there with his cart in Wellesley Hills. Yum!

These are the times that try men's souls

My blog title post today is my own personal tribute to the Bicentennial of the passing of Thomas Paine, one of our lesser known Patriots. Thom wrote some of the greatest tracts that stirred passions during the Revolutionary War and if that wasn't enough he also wrote the Rights of Man during the French Revolution. He had an amazing ability to get under the skin of the powers that be, even those who benefited from his writings. He is a lesser known Patriot but someone who should not be forgotten.

I have had yet another lovely occasion with a recruiter who puts a thought into my mind. I believe it was Henry Kissinger who once said about lawyers that 99 percent of them give the other 1 percent of them a bad name? The same holds true about recruiters. I had one call me because she saw me and thought I would be perfect for a job she was recruiting. She had seen my resume online and asked if I could send her a word version. Well that was about a week ago and no response to courteous follow up emails and a phone call. No I may have been born at night but it wasn't last night and I can tell what tricks she is pulling but you know how hard is it to shoot back an email saying we picked some other candidates.

Or better yet like the job I interviewed for a few weeks back where I nailed the meeting, got thank you's from the people I met with saying how much they enjoyed the meeting as well. After several weeks of hoping I would go away, they lied and said they hired someone for the position. The hard part is that they didn't. The media contacts have never changed. Now I don't care about not getting a job but being treated like I have a brain and with courtesy and respect is so lacking from the recruiting process in this day and age and that annoys me.

I must say that there are several recruiters I have worked with who I consider the ever shrinking rare exceptions to the rule. But again most of the recruiters treat candidates as cattle or sheep and seem indifferent to the result. There is the case of one of Boston's best known recruiters who used to hire for Marketing and PR. Then they hired this guy who kept telling all candidates they were not suited for positions and told all hiring managers he couldn't find any qualified candidates. Monster killed their business to no great surprise.

I was interested to see that in Pakistan some citizens are rebelling against the Taliban. Can I say about time!!!! Speaking of rebellion, the Globe's employees not ratifying the plan offered by the New York Times is a good thing I think. The Times has ruined the Globe and giving senior executives fat packages while expecting all the worker bees to take deep cuts for the good of the paper is ridiculous. Much the same as what is going on at many Colleges where they want employees to take cuts but leave the senior posts untouched.

Well off to another day of building the world's next great Home Healthcare company!