Thursday, May 29, 2008

Accomplishing the Impossable

So, about three days ago, I started the Master Cleanse. For those of you that don't know, the Master Cleanse is a 10 day process. During this process, you can't eat anything, and the only thing you can drink is this drink you make with two tablespoons of lemon juice, two tablespoons of maple syrup, and a half a tablespoon of cayenne pepper. Then you mix that up with 8 ounces of water, and that's all you get to "eat" for this 10 day process.

Since I've started, I have had almost every friend I've talked about it with ask me, "Why do you want to do that?". At first I found it hard to explain. I knew why I was doing it, but it was hard to convey in words to my friends why I was doing it.

I mean sure, the main reason most people do it, and one of the reasons I did it, was the fact that you are cleaning your body out of all kinds of toxic crap that has been in your body for decades. That alone benefits your body in way too many ways for this lil'ol segment, but that is not the main reason I decided to do this little adventure.

The main reason I decided to embark on this journey, was the sheer difficulty of it. I don't know about all you out there, but I LOVE food. The three things that make my world go round are food, skating, and sleep. Before trying this, I remember saying to myself, "there is no way I could do that", and that alone was the main source of inspiration that made me want to do it.

I have this messed up little thing in my head that tells me to do stuff when people (including myself) tell me I can't. I don't know why, but I like to prove people wrong. It almost seems like proving people wrong super cedes the actual task itself. In other words, my hunger for accomplishing the impossable is stronger than my hunger for food. I mean, if I was told myself that I could do it, I probably would be eating a big ol' breakfast burrito right now.

In conclusion, I would like to ask all of you out there, how do you react when someone tells you that you can't do something. Does it discourage you enough to not try it at all, or are you like me and are more likely not only to try something, but to succeed in it as well?

Now I am off to go make some spicy lemonade. Stay hungry out there world.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Staying centered

If I had a dollar for every time I was skating, and some random person asked me the phrase, "how do you do that?" I wouldn't have to work, that's for sure. Most people are amazed and almost scared of skateboards, when the reality of it is that it's really not that hard once you break it down.

The key to skateboarding is all about staying centered.

That's it, the rest is just muscle memory. Keeping your weight right over where you are at is the hardest, and often most misunderstood part of skateboarding.

But it's not just about skating either. If we stay centered over what it is we want to accomplish, the rest is just brain memory. When we try to throw our weight around too many places, we will fall over every time.

In skateboarding and life in general, too many people are not staying centered on what it is they want to accomplish. Like in skateboarding, fear will tell us that we are crazy to want to stay centered on such a scary and unpredictable vehicle. You may be starting a business, and think that it is too scary to stay centered on your business because of financial trouble, unpredictability, and competition. Well let me tell you, if you are not completely centered on your business in every aspect, you are going to fall every time. The key is not to focus on all the bad things that can happen. I mean you can get hit by a car and die just crossing a street, but I doubt you are thinking of such things why you are performing the act. Skating, and many other things are just like that. Focus on the good, and roll with the punches.

It's not like I am saying for you to just drop every aspect of your life to do whatever it is you want, but when it's time to do what you do, be on top of it.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Well world, it's been a hot minute since we talked. I have been really busy working and testing our site to ensure that it is working the best it can, and let me tell you, it's a lot of work.

I don't think you realize how much actual effort goes into making a website until you at least witness someone trying to build one. Everything affects everything, and one little change will screw up the entire site. It's like trying to take out just the bottom floor on the Empire State Building, one little change, and the whole thing just comes crashing down.

With that said, we have been making some major improvements that I think will make the site much more user-friendly, and easier to navigate. The whole aesthetic of it is much more appealing too.

Other than that, I have been just trying to heal my foot, even though all last week I decided it would be a good idea to skate on a half good ankle, which only prolonged my injury. Now I have to be easy on it so I can actually skate the way I want to again.

Well, I better get back to working on this site for you all, so you can start being the most conscious consumer you all can be.

Until next time, keep growing toward the light.

Friday, May 16, 2008

For the Love

Putting love in everything you do is the difference between success and failure. You may be able to do something well, even very good for the matter, but you can always tell when someone is doing something because they love it, and people who do something because they feel as though they are obligated to.

You can apply this to ANYTHING you can possibly imagine on this planet. weather it be a career, or just a hobby, the people that love what they are doing will have more success than the people that might have more actual talent in the given field.

A lot of us start to do something for the love of it, but after time it can get manipulated into something that is much different. Things like money and fame will blind some people, and they now see what they do is a way to acquire such illusions. Too often are people's motives changed when their external environment does.

Look within yourself. What are the things you do in your everyday life? Why do you do these things? Is it simply to "live", or is it more than that?

I hope for your own well-being that it is.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Litter on the Highway

Lately I have been trying to explore the world of blogs. When I find one that is directly related to a concern that I consider myself to have some form of understanding of, I will leave a comment trying to convey my thoughts and opinions. Usually at the end of such a comment I will leave my email just in case someone would like to have me elaborate on a topic or just to exchange dialogue.

That was when all the junk emails started coming.

Now everyday I get at least 5 emails that are nothing but a sorry attempt to get my credit card number and pin. One that I get a lot is an message from a "banker" saying that he has a frozen account with 15,000,000.00 in it and he wants me of all people in the world to have it. All he needs is my account number, social security number, and my mothers maiden name. It comes at least twice a day, and it is always sent from a different email address with a different name.

Another one of my favorites would have to be the fake pay pal email I get stating that I have to re-register my pay pal account. The email looks perfectly legit, but the only problem is that I have never had a pay pal account in the first place.

This is the world that we live in. A world were people try to prey on the weaknesses and good will of people to make a buck or two. In turn, it has made people who used the internet frequently very skeptical of everything on it. It is now a world where you can't believe anything you read, for fear of losing your money, or even worse, your identity. We may live in the information age, but what's information if half of it is crap?

The information superhighway is cluttered with litter and it does nothing but slow us down, or even break the vehicle that we use to drive on it.

Time to clean up.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Have You Heard?

It's true that the most effective form of marketing is still, and always will be, the word of mouth. Not only are you usually getting useful information needed in choosing a product, but it is usually coming from someone that you trust, or hold in some sort of high regard. If your friend tells you about some new soda that is the best thing they've ever had, chances are you are going to at least buy it once to try it. The whole method of sponsoring athletes or famous people to promote products is a form of indirect word of mouth marketing. I know for me personally, word of mouth is the only form of "marketing" that has a presence in my head when I am debating making a purchase or not. Word of mouth will make or break any business or product.

Yesterday I took my mom shopping at the mall in honor of mothers day. While we were walking through the large marble corridor that is the Sunrise Mall, we saw a shoe store that seemed kind of commercial, and not the kind of place that I would go in to even look at shoes, let alone buy them, but my mom wanted some sandals, so we went in there to take a look. While she was looking at some sandals, I went to go look at the 4 different styles of vans they carried with very low expectations. One of the pairs they carried I had never seen before, and they were exactly what I was looking for in a shoe. If I had to wear one pair of shoes for the rest of my life, It would probably be these shoes. So I bought the my mom some sandals, and bought myself some shoes too.

Later on that day, I met up with a few of my friends at the skatepark, and they too have never seen the shoes that I was wearing, and were asking me where I got them. When I told them, you could see the look of confusion on their faces, because they too would never go into that store to even look for shoes.

Guess how many new customers they are going to have today looking for Vans?

Friday, May 9, 2008

No one said it was easy

So lately I have been reading a lot of peoples blogs for a few reasons. The main reason being so I can obtain knowledge about how people are feeling and learning from established professionals. Every once and a while I will come across a blog that proposes a problem that our product is going to solve.

Most people embrace these comments, and even engage in conversation with me about our product. I am not trying to shamelessly promote myself. I am trying to inform people in what I thought was the most genuine way I could, but I guess nothing is sacred in this world anymore.

A few days ago, I was reading the blog of a well-established blogger who shall remain nameless, and he was discussing one of the main problems that we are aiming to solve. Long story short he was talking about how hard it is for small business to advertise for themselves, and that was the whole reason we made our product and service.

So in an attempt to engage in conversation with business owners that have this very problem, I left a comment on his blog. I think I maybe mentioned the company once, didn't leave a link, and made sure that the comment directly related to what he was saying, and it did.

About an hour later, I get an e-mail from the blogger that what I hope was an automated message, because if it wasn't, this dude has a third person complex. Basically it said that I should take a look at one of his blogs. So I clicked the link and it took me to this post he had that was basically a mockery of someone leaving a comment that is a shameless promotion, and deleted my comment.

At first, I took this 12-year-old immature passive-aggressive approach to communicating with me offensively. Then I started thinking about how he probably gets like 100 comments a day that in deed are shameless promotions. I can't blame him for protecting the integrity of his blog. I'd probably do the same thing (maybe without the third person email though).

That's the world that we live in though. We all have our gaurds up and if we see anything that even looks like a threat we just push it aside. No one said cutting through all this muck would be easy, but it's a job that has to be done.

So after mellowing out for a minute, I decided that I would write him a e-mail conveying my thoughts and it went a little something like this:

"Dear " ",
I apologize if you misconceived that as a shameless promotion. The way I saw it was that your blog proposed a problem that many small businesses are faced with, and I was simply providing a solution to the problem. The whole reason this product was created was so small business owners can focus on providing quality goods and services, and not their marketing budget. If you look at the site, I think you will come to the conclusion that making a profit is secondary to providing the world with the most effective tool for promoting small business in a world of Wal-Marts and Home-Depots.

I have no hidden agenda. My salary isn't going to change if 1 or 1,000,000,000 people participate on our site. All I am trying to do is inform the people of what we got going on here.

I can understand where you are coming from though. I mean at first glance, one might perceive your whole blog as an "embarrassing" attempt to sell your book, but as many people including myself know, you are trying to help small businesses better present and promote themselves through non-conventional methods of marketing.

In essence, that is exactly what we are doing here. If you try to track me, you will find that I am VERY picky as to what blogs I comment on, or even read for that matter, because almost everything on the internet, from blogs to advertisements, is not worth taking a first glance let alone a second one. Our overall vision is to make the Internet a "cleaner" place, so when people leave comments on other peoples blogs offering suggestions they are not instantly perceived as "embarrassing cheap tactics"

In conclusion, I still would like to thank you for writing a article that proposes a problem that we are trying to solve, and I hope you have a good rest of the day. I hope that in due time you will stand corrected. Actually, I know that in due time you will stand corrected.

Jon Escamilla,
WOWzzy.com"

I doubt he even read it, but oh well.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Cutting Through the Muck

The other day, a few of my colleagues and I were discussing how we were going to inform people of WOWzzy.com and all the features we have developed for the business and the consumer. We discussed many different forms of internet marketing such as blowing up message boards, inbound link campaigns, and even putting out press releases, but we kept coming to the same conclusion, they weren't "real" enough.

How do we promote a marketing tool that is going to revolutionize the way marketing is done by using contemporary marketing techniques. We are trying to prove to the world that you CAN connect with thousands of people without having a marketing budget bigger than your employee's salary, so how are we suppost to turn around and film nice expensive commercials, buy big text ads on myspace, and start promising everyone that visits our site a free X Box 360?

I think my colleague Horace put it best when he described all the contemporaty e-marketing techniques as "muck" and in essence all we have to do is simply find a way to "cut through the muck". Lead by example, not hipocracy.

As I thought about it some more, I realized that not only are we going to cut through the muck, but once we do we are going to push it all out of the way by introducing out new system. We are like waste management for the internet. Taking all the e-junk that gets dropped everywhere on everyone's websites and throwing it all in a giant e-landfill. Time to put the information back in "the information age".

So we have our objective, but how do we plan to accomplish it? Well in all honesty, we are still trying to figure it out. re-writing the book on internet marketing isn't by any streatch of the imagination a remedail task, but one that we see nessesary in order to stay true to our product. One thing that we do know will help us accomplish our task is answering your questions and listening to your suggestions. With that being said, I invite you to direct any questions or inquries to my e-mail jon@wowzzy.com, and I would be more than happy to answer them for you.

This is Jon telling you to have a beautiful, muck-free day.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Happy Birthday to Us

MAYDAY!!!!!!!!! Originaly the day of the famous Soviet parade, now it's going to be famous for something else. Today is the day people. WOWzzy.com is going to be launched!! All the waiting and hard work we have been doing here is finally going to pay off, and searching for business will never be the same.

I am honored to share a birthday with WOWzzy.com, and even more honored to be part of the team.

Don't really have any philosophical writing for you today. Just some good news.

So for my birthday, all I want is all you out there to go check out WOWzzy.com, and let me know what you think. I think you'll soon realize that it's more like me giving you a present.