Right now I have a lot of motivation...motivation that is produced internally. I am the COO (Chief Operating Officer) of Ingam's Drain & Sewer Cleaning, Inc. I have been working there straight out of high school and realized that when your dad owns the joint you can have any fancy smancy job title. I was always weary of actually saying it aloud as I didn't believe in myself that I was worthy of having that title. All the COO's I knew were in business magazines, referenced in the WSJ or profiled on Forbes.com. Over the past year I dropped that mentality and realized that I am the COO of Ingram's and not be scared of it. 

I don't think there is any other company out there like Ingram's. It is my father's empire in which he controls every aspect of. He makes you believe you have a voice but you really don't. On the outside looking in, the company seems like a wonderful/happy company. Once you cross the barrier and become an employee thats when things change. I am not here to bash my father and his ways but just to talk about how I see things. 

My father has ran the company since the mid 80s. Back then things were much different. I always refer to that time as the "golden years". From the stories I hear this time period was the zenith of the company and it has been going downhill ever since. As we fast forward to 2009, so far this year has open my father's eyes. Being in the midst of a recession company sales have slowed considerably. During my time with the company this is the longest "slow period" I have experienced. When it gets slow, everybody feels. I hate seeing our employees having to go home early because their is no work. I feel that this rough patch has caused not to operate business as usual.

At Ingram's I am a versatile person within the company as I know how to do everything except "lay the pipe". I am working on getting my Master Plumber license. This is needed to pull permits within the city and cover myself if something should happen to my father. Even though it is not needed for me to perform plumbing work I need to know that things are performed to code. I believe you can find a lot of people who know how to plumb but you can't find a lot of people who know how to run a company. Over the years I have picked up a lot of invaluable skills from my father. These skills are something I could only gain with time. Just sitting back and watching how things are done in the real world helped me tremendously. 

2009 is going to be the year that defines Ingram's. There are a lot of changes my father wants to implement. The thing is that he is not going to be the one who initiate these changes or actually does them. This is something that has taken me too long to figure out. Even though this is his company I feel it is my responsibility to take the company to the next level. I have big dreams for Ingram's and what we can do in the city right now. What gets me going is knowing this is the time that my dreams can be realized and I have no one to blame but myself if they don't achieve my goal. Its no more finger pointing, no more playing Monday morning quarterback, its time to make things happen. This is my motivation.

Work hard and play later. If I want my dreams to become a reality it takes a combination of prayer, faith, hard work and dedication. 

While checking on the competition I stumbled upon this.

You will see this a lot where a plumber will advertise phone numbers to give the impression that they have multiple locations across the city (I am guilty of this) when in actuality all numbers go to the same place. Underneath those phone numbers you will see the locations they are trying to target. This plumber has every location covered in Philadelphia except for North Philadelphia. There is a high concentration of blacks that live in this particular area and they have one of the lowest household incomes in the city. I would like to find out if any other neighborhoods/zip codes in the city have equal or lesser household incomes than those in North Philadelphia.

For some people this isn’t new but I am not writing this for you. I am writing this for all the business owners who feel that you must advertise in the yellow pages to make money. For years the reps from the yellow pages have done a great job in creating the illusion that we have to be in their book. Today is a new day. There are two major reasons why you shouldn’t be advertising in the yellow pages or at least reducing your spending with them significantly.

When you sign the contract to advertise in the yellow pages it is an annual contract. This means no matter what happens you have to pay that monthly amount. Business is a little slow and you need to allocate dollars elsewhere? The yellow pages will still want their money. Compare this to other forms of advertisement, direct mail, internet, billboards and etc. Those mediums do not make you sign up for the year. I know the yellow pages get printed every year so that’s why its an annual thing. That might have worked 10 years ago but now we have more efficient ways to reach our customers than soley relying on the yellow pages.

When you advertise in the yellow pages you are advertising right next to your competitors. This doesn't make much sense. Why would I spend almost $5K a month so my potential customers can see me and my competitions with a flick of the page. If you are in the middle of the particular category and want to get ahead you will have outspend the leader of that category. So you spend much more per month just to be #1 but we all know the customer will leaf through all the other companies. In the yellow pages it comes down to has the best designed ad, that’s it. You have to draw the customer to your ad and make them call you. It cracks me up when companies don’t spend money to hire an outside firm to design your ad. Yes, the yellow pages will design it for you but it looks like crap. So what if you spend $700 to have someone design, in the long run it will pay huge dividends. Just grab your yellow page book and go to the Plumbing section. The majority of the ads are done by the yellow pages and a few are done by an outside firm.

The yellow pages always had the upper hand when it came to having everybody advertise in their book. Most plumbers (I will use them because I work for a plumbing company and that category is one of the largest in the yellow pages) don’t have the time or don’t know about advertising in other places. So every year when the yellow page rep calls they look it over and sign up for year believing that they need the yellow pages. This has got to change. We are in 2009 and nobody shouldn't be thinking like this. There are tons of ways to reach your customer in more effective ways such as direct mail, billboards and internet. Ok, you are saying if I drop my advertising in the yellow pages where will I get my customers from? First, since the yellow page book comes out every year people always still hold onto previous years versions. So its not like once the new book comes out your phones will stop ringing. Before you stop advertising in the yellow pages you need to start to create your alternative marketing plan. Direct mail is the key. You can send a postcard out to your customers for around 35 cents. This will allow your message to get to the customer without interruption. They wont see your competitors, just your company. You just don’t send this out once but you keep hammering them. Do you remember America Online? They sent out those free discs to everybody and they kept doing it. This is the mentality you need to have. Increase your brand awareness. When your customer has a problem you want them to think of you not flipping through pages in the yellow pages. I am not going to go in too much detail but this is the mindset you need to have. Don’t be scared, just educate yourself so you know what to expect.

The big thing is the way the economy is right now. Everybody is looking ways to reduce their costs and one of the biggest costs in a small business advertising in the yellow pages is that cost. We spend around $9K to advertise in two yellow page books, Yellow Book and Idearc. If you read my earlier post I sat down with our Idearc reps for the upcoming year. We told them that we needed to reduce the annual budget. Of course they didn’t want to hear that. We talked and I discussed with them what other forms advertisement we were looking to divert our dollars to. They are salesmen and are very good at it. Before the meeting we wanted to reduce our spending significantly. After the meeting we left with them creating a proposal to incorporate other means of advertising other than in the yellow pages for a cheaper amount. The next meeting came and their proposal was a couple hundred dollars cheaper per month with us having a package consisting of direct mail, billboard and some internet marketing. I can’t knock the Idearc guys for creating a killer package. At first it was an awesome. I was enamored because we got all this for less money than last year. A sat on it for a few days and then it hit me. We still don’t control our advertising costs, its still an annual contract! Yes we get all these added benefits but they (Idearc) are still in charge. They are driving and we are just along for the ride.

We still haven’t had our follow up meeting since they offered us their package deal. The key is having control of your ad dollars and it is so true in today’s economic conditions. Idearc doesn’t want people reducing spending in their book. If you haven’t heard they just filed for bankruptcy. I don’t know the particulars but the word bankruptcy for a company whose majority of revenues comes from a printed paper product isn’t good. I want to educate other business owners and let them know to start thinking about reducing your spending in the yellow pages. If you don’t your competition will. I know my competition might be reading this but its ok, no other plumbing company has someone like me working for them. We are getting serious at Ingram’s. When we come never say you didn’t see it coming because if you’re reading this we just gave you a heads up.

This post was fueled by a comment from someone who read my earlier post. Thanks Bill.

After reading a couple of tweets by Jason Calacanis (the guy most known for co-founding Weblogs, the home of Engadget) last night, I started to think about what he said and that it is very true. 

I don't know if I will ever get over people leaving the office at 5:30pm. 

@purpleax at startup leaving @5pm,unless you're going to your kids baseball game,seems crazy to me. Not startup culture, not gonna chg world

@Heartagram punching an 8 hour clock is what I'm talkin bout. That's not startup, that's starbucks. :)

I totally agree with Jason 100%. Why? It is impossible to create an awesome innovative company during the 9-5 timeframe. That's the shift of an regular employee who really doesn't care about the company. Yes you may have the one dedicated "regular" employee but in most cases employees don't care. So if you are one of the few people working on the ground floor of an startup, how can you work the same amount of hours as a regular employee? You cant. From my personal experience in working in a small business trying to take it to the next level, my best ideas and thoughts come from working after the company leaves for the day. This is usually around 5-6. Once everyone goes home the office is mine, no phone calls, no interruptions. Its just me in the office churning out ideas and working on getting them implemented. 

If you want to change the world then you have to focus all your energies your idea. If you look at all the great business people of our time I can guarantee you that they and their people were not leaving the office around 6 Monday through Friday. Yes you might sacrifice a lot in the beginning but just look at what awaits you at the end. Regular people or people who do not want to change the world works 9-5. People who are serious about change do whatever it takes to work their dream. They key is surrounding yourself with people who share the same dreams as you. If you are the only person on your team who has the burning passion and desire to work this thing to the end, you will probably won't make it.

Today I met with an Idearc rep and his manager about our advertisement we have in their yellow pages book (Super Pages). I really do hate these negotiations because it's the same thing every year. They come in ask how business is doing, blah, blah, blah and then say our ad costs are going up 5% just because. They try to get us to spend more money but when you have a two page ad in their Philadelphia Super Pages how much more can you spend? I’m waiting for the day the rep comes in and says we have this new holographic imaging tool that when your customer turns to your ad they will instantly see a brief 15 second video of your company. The biggest thing I don’t like about any yellow pages book is that you are in the same place as your competitor. The homeowner sees you and the other 15 companies offering the same service. But anyways what I’m here to talk about is their new SuperGuarantee Program they mentioned to us today.

What the program is basically is they (Idearc) will stand behind the work performed by the advertisers in their Super Pages. If a person has a problem with the services performed by a company they got out of their Super Pages book they will come in as an intermediary. Basically they will do what all credit card companies do for their cardholders, act in a way to protect their cardholders from merchants who don't do right. Why Idearc is doing this is to increase the amount of people looking at their Super Pages book. I guess if people know that if they call Company X and if something goes wrong Idearc has their back. The Idearc reps said the company is spending $60M on advertisement to increase awareness about this program. Throughout the hour long meeting this had to be his biggest selling point to keep us from reducing or leaving the Super Pages all together. I am very hesitant to get happy about what somebody is selling me without thinking it through and doing my homework. Shortly after the meeting I concluded this Super Guarantee Program was stupid, a product that is all show with no substance.

First off, in Philadelphia there are two major yellow page books. It is Idearc (formerly Verizon) Super Pages and Yellow Book yellow pages book. Almost all of businesses in the city advertise in both books. This means that the businesses Idearc supposedly “backs” with this program is the same business in the other yellow pages book. So it's not like you get a better product by calling Company X and getting their number out of the Super Pages.

Idearc does no type of background check on the businesses they will back. Any merchant who advertises gets included. As a potential customer to these businesses how would that make you feel?

Idearc limits their liability to $500. Yea I know thats not a lot of money and it's not a lot since that covers only the labor portion. If a problem arises and a person feels they were wronged by a business they got out of the Super Pages Idearc will refund $500 to that person. This where it's gets interesting. Before you call that particular company out to do the work you have to sign up at the Super Guarantee website and put Idearc on notice. Before you contact Idearc if there’s a problem you have to try to work out it with that business. If you cant work it out you have to log on to their site and submit the claim. Idearc will then look it over and determine if it's a worthy claim. If it's a worthy claim Idearc will ask you to provide written estimates of the the work needed to correct your problem (labor costs only) OR elect to have a third party to inspect the problem you are experiencing. If Idearc determines that there’s nothing else they can do they will refund you up to $500 of the labor costs OR the lowest amount of labor costs from the two estimates you received. Essentially they will go with the lesser amount of the two.

Idearc has about six weeks from the time you submit your claim and do all the extra stuff they require to pay you the amount up to $500. BUT, if you correct the problem yourself or hire another company to correct problem before Idearc resolves the problem then you will be denied that amount up to $500. That’s right, you will have to live with the problem while Idearc works it out.

This is why Idearc’s Super Guarantee program is all show and no substance. It makes no sense and for all the work you have to do just to get $500 and to live with the problem for at least a month and half makes no sense. Why would anybody subject themselves to this? I can see this working on small issues and non-essential items but on serious matters like your roof, a leak coming through your ceiling, heat not working and etc you would be a fool to go to Idearc for help. In our meeting the rep did not mention one thing I said above except for the fact Idearc is spending $60M to let the America know! After Facebook’s fiasco last month on their “fine print” I make sure to actually read the Terms and Conditions and read it much more carefully.

It would be better for a person to pay with their credit card than to use this route. With the credit card companies you call them up say you have a problem and tell them you’re not satisfied with services rendered and they will open a claim and in the meantime refund you the money or freeze the purchase so you wont have to pay finance charges while the situation is worked out. Either the company will come back out and fix the problem or refund you the money. Yes, there a slight chance this could not work and you might have to pursue legal action but it's better than this Super Guarantee program. What makes the credit company methods more effective is that they have control over the business you have a problem with. For an example lets use Amex, if Amex feels the merchant is not cooperating with their cardholder they can go into that merchants bank account and refund that money back to their cardholder. I know, it has happened to me a couple times. It's not a good feeling but you always know they have that power. With Idearc what are they going to do? Nothing they have no control over the merchant. 

So when you see this $60M ad campaign by Idearc just remember the points I mentioned above and don’t believe the hype. Idearc knows less people are looking at their Super Pages book and they’re trying to do whatever they can do to gain those eyeballs back. Sadly people will hear this and go to their book and believe businesses advertised in the book are somehow better just because Idearc “backs” them. All they have to do is pay by credit card and they will have a faster course of action is anything goes wrong then to deal with this slow process offered by Idearc that only refunds you $500.

I just want to see a big company not be a big company and offer something that is actually worth something and not have so many bullet points in the terms and conditions that take away from the value of the product. I know this is America and it's how big business work but believe me the company that goes against the grain and offers a killer product is the one that will be embraced by their customers. This kind of stuff always reminds of the store that offers 5% off your next purchase when you spend some absurd amount.

I call myself a "techie" but I do not code or program. I do not have a computer science degree because I never went to college. I was using Prodigy back in the day on my 9600/kbps modem on DOS before Windows was around. I remember when I talked my dad into buying Windows 95, it came with 25+ floppy disks. I would consider myself a hacker but I will not discuss what "activities" I used to do. What I am trying to say, is it possible for an individual to start a website but not have all the common characteristics of those who do?

For about the past six months I have been serious about starting my website. Yes, there are a lot of websites around but I've did my research and this idea hasn't been taken yet. I always thought that some big newspaper company will take advantage of this concept but to my surprise they didn't. 

What gets the creative juices flowing through my body is each time I read a company getting funding for their new website. The founder(s) had an idea they were passionate about and took the necessary steps to assemble the team and acquire the funding. Don't get me wrong I know there is a lot of "other" things they had to do to get where they are but I am just pointing out the major steps they had to take.

My dream has been living in my mind for the longest. I see the final product and its something that I think about every single day. The problem is how do I get my dream and turn it into reality that materializes into that final product? I have the experience not necessarily in a tech company but in helping run a company with about 15 employees and close to $1M in sales. I gravitate to two things, business and technology. 

I started to look into Y Combinator and how they help people with tech related ideas get their idea into something more tangible. After reading their Q&A it feels like you have to know how to code to even get looked at. Like I said before I know nothing about coding but does that mean I dont have "it"? Thats not going to prevent me from filling out the application for their upcoming summer program. I know I have an awesome idea that will become big but its just getting the right people to hear it.