From the Desk 5/7/2008

Today I woke up and was not really sore from the hike yesterday. I got ready and ate a quick bite to eat and then headed off to work. I got to work and begin re-creating some of the ads that our catalog company, CCC, had done for us. They were given to me in a format I couldn't edit so I began to remake them with separate layers so I could manipulate text items such as price, product descriptions, and expiration dates. I didn't take that long to remake the two recent ads I was asked to change and I had a little bit of time to do more loyalty card research before my first meeting of the day. At 11:00am Mike and I met with Nina, from Graphics Solution Group. They have handled a few jobs for us in the past such as poly bagging our catalogs into 2 packs and mailing them out for us, and creating some presentation folders for the sales reps. We talked mainly about how their operation has grown over the past few years and where their facilities are located now. We also determined the turn-around times for projects that need to be simply mailed, and for projects that we would have them print and then mail out for us. It was a very informative meeting and I think that they would also be a good company along with Atlanta Business Circulators to use for projects and see how smoothly they run before we commit to giving the bulk of our business to one specific company. We also set a meeting for next Friday to tour Graphic Solutions mailing and printing facilities. I got a call right before I went to lunch from a gentleman from QED who wished to meet with me that afternoon around 2:00pm. I had planned on meeting with him later in the day, but I told him to come on since he was out of a conference in downtown Atlanta early. I met with him at 2:00 after we cleared up some confusion as he had received directions to the Northlake store not the Corporate Office. QED is a educational data company that is actually owned by Scholastic Publishing and they continually survey and research educators all across the country. They have focus groups, panels, and market research specialists that can grant access to companies like ours to their database of information or they can build direct mail or email lists to let us buy. We met for over an hour to discuss different services that they offer and ways that they can help us grow our business through effective marketing efforts.

I came out that meeting excited about the possibilities of what our partnership could produce for the future. I created new name tags for the sales floor associates to wear after summer training to have a fresh, new look for Back-to-School. I also saw the most unique product I have ever seen sitting on Vickie's desk when I walked by. It was a goldfish training experiment. It required you to watch an instructional DVD on tips to actually train the fish to fetch, play basketball, slalom, and etc. I'm not sure if it actually will work, but I am eager to discover the results of Vickie's tests. After work came to a close Mike, Carmen, and I headed over to "the mountain" for some more hiking. We decided once we reached the top where we turned around yesterday, to keep going and climb to the top of Little Kennesaw. The trail was about 5 miles round trip so I felt even better about doing something active for that amount of time. After we returned to the cars I dropped Carmen off at The School Box and then proceeded back home for a minute or two. I changed clothes and then headed off to SuperTarget for some groceries. When I arrived I noticed that everything I needed was on sale! (when you bought 4 or this, or 3 of that) So I am now well stocked on food for the next 3 weeks and came out under $100.00! I returned home and unloaded everything (which felt like hiking another mile!) and then ate some dinner around 8:45pm. It is now time to relax and then drift off to sleep for the rest of the night. The week is almost over!

Meditation for the day: Ecclesiastes 9:11 " I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all."