During the unsubscribing each day I found it quite amusing at how some companies treat the process.  To me it’s pretty obvious that I didn’t find value in the content of these emails and that is why I don’t want them anymore, so why would a company make it difficult for me not to receive their e-blasts anymore, and why are you asking why I don’t want to receive them any longer?  Its nit like they get that data and do something about it, because most of these emails are the same and provide little value, most are just the latest ads or pricing on products.  It’s like the company thinks I’m going to open my email and instantaneously buy something.  Even funnier when its an item that you only purchase every few years, such as a computer.  Annoying!

Now if I was getting an email that had great content that would tell me how a product could solve a problem in my life or just educate me on topics I’d be more willing to have a read, but when its the same products and their prices each week it gives me great pleasure to hit the delete button, and now to the point of unsubscribing.  Oh and by the way, when you make the unsubscribe process difficult thinking I’ll just give up, you are ruining your brand reputation with me as well.

So my advice to those companies sending out content regularly is to provide content that is of value to your target market.  Each and every one of us is getting bogged down more and our attention spans are much shorter so unless you are providing something that is of value to the reader its not getting the response you desire.  Likely better to have a few hundred people receiving and fully reading your emails than a million people that just delete it a soon as they see the subject line!

Topics that I can anticipate to come up will be those that are on my mind, typically related to sports, personal finance, marketing and sales.  This time around plan on speaking my mind a bit more and giving insight into my thoughts on different areas of discussion.

Over the coming weeks I do plan on changing the layout of the blog and making some other minor changes but nothing overly significant.  What I hope drives you, the reader, back is the content of these posts not the design or layout of the blog.

I hope you enjoy the posts and encourage you to comment and express your opinion whether you agree or disagree.  I will try to respond to all comments as regularly as I can.

Cheers

I’m constantly learning through others actions, whether they be the right thing to do or the wrong thing and think those moments can be so valuable!  It’s quite interesting if you take the time to think about some things and maybe specific interactions and than ponder how those may have impacted your response to a similar situation.

As such, I think we should all have some random acts of reaching out to people and telling them how they have influenced you.  I bet you’d be surprised at what you hear back from others once you told them how they had an important role in who you are today.

Could be interesting, try it!

Having watched a few matches in the English Premier League this weekend, I was impressed by how unbelievably silent the stadiums were prior to matches, when they were having a minutes silence for the victims of Japan.  These fans, who are usually cheering and singing their hearts out of the entirety of a match, just hushed down to the point you could hear a pin drop.  Stadiums that are normally echoing for miles were eerily quiet with people showing their respect for the recent events that have unfolded and thinking of those that are being impacted.

Well, that wasn’t the case during the recent USA versus Argentina match being held in the US.  You can hear on the video below that not all fans were quiet, as there are rumblings throughout the minute silence.  However, the idiot that yells out during this time really goes too far, probably just because he wanted some attention and knew that everyone could hear while it was relatively quiet.

If that guy was beside me I’m not sure what my reaction would have been, and if he was with me that’d be even worse.  What a straightforward lack of respect and selfish act!

The plan isn’t to become a millionaire over night, but it’s to get a better return than leaving the funds in a high interest savings account.  As such I’m not sure how aggressive I’ll get and at this point am really leaning toward ETFs and maybe some dividend paying stocks, but that’s not 100% decided either.  It’ll take a bit of research from my side before I actually put the money into the market but it’s going to happen.

Decided to use an online brokerage to keep my fees down on trades, that’ll be new to me as well.

Exciting times, hope I get lucky!

Not only that they also are dealing with some Nuclear explosions and what will be the long term impacts of such?

I have felt very fortunate while seeing these events unfold, fortunate that I’m in a safe place currently and do not have to worry about where I’ll stay tonight or where others I know are and if they are safe.  Can’t imagine what that would be like.

Not that I’m saying I’ve never had a few digs at some friends, but it’s all in good fun.  I respect them for what they do and if I thought it was the right move for me than I’d be teaching…almost did actually.

Well here’s a good video for the teachers, next time you’re questioned.  Probably has been sent around in emails within your organization but thought I’d share for others to see.

The one thing that I still find kind of strange about this all is why was the show cancelled?  Charlie showed up every day and was obviously able to perform, no matter what he was doing outside of work.  The difference being that his life is in the public eye and therefore we all know that he was doing drugs and partying like it was his last day on earth.  Who cares though really as long as he was able to perform his duties on the job?  Keep the show going is my opinion.

This document, found at DebtCrunch.ca is pretty interesting and goes into a bit more detail on how this debt could affect us all.  Very interesting, and it’s good to see that they are recommending an action plan to help.  I’ve read recently that they are even looking into teaching personal finance in school which is something I’ve been such a fan of for some time!

We are living in a different time than that of other generations, with the growth of social networks and our most recent financial crisis.

The one last recommendation I’d make is to watch the documentary “Inside Job” which has some interesting information about the recent crisis in the US.  I found it informative and wasn’t aware of how it all flowed, crazy!

I’ll post the interview below in it’s entirety but really the parts of the conversation that were interesting were some of the comments that Bill had made about his life.  He stated that he was the reason that Ghostbusters 3 was being held up, as he had the script somewhere in his house but hadn’t read it yet.  Basically they are waiting on him but he didn’t seem to keen to get to it and it wasn’t really bothering him either.

The same has happened in the past with other projects.  Basically Bill states that if people really want him to play a role they’ll contact him.  He doesn’t go out of his way to be accessible, nor does he live in Hollywood where the jobs are.

It was this that struck a chord to me.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have that type of freedom where it didn’t really matter.  Of course this is much easier when you make a few million per movie, and maybe are getting some royalties, etc..  But hey with a little financial discipline and a plan I think we can all get there some day.

It’s not that I hate going to work each day, because I don’t.  It’s the fact that you have the choice to do whatever may be interesting to you at that specific time, that’s what I found pretty cool about Bill’s choices.  This may lead to another endeavour by myself, maybe another blog about my goal to get to that freedom level, although I’m typically pretty private about the financial situation.  We’ll see, guess it’s the freedom I have

Here’s the interview if you’re interested in hearing at all: