I just got back from four wonderfully luxurious days sitting on a beach in Mexico with nothing more on my mind than my stack of novels. You’d think that for a woman who grew up in New Orleans, in a home that didn’t have air conditioning, I’d only like warm weather places like beaches or jungles. Surprisingly it’s exactly the opposite! Many of my favorite travels have taken me to colder climates.
Tom, my twin brother Vince and I were walking through the mall the other day with no particular destination on our minds. It was just one of those evenings when you just troll the mall because it’s there. Since we didn’t have a goal or focus I found myself taking in the shops from a different perspective. Normally, I’m what Tom refers to as a F&F shopper – fire and forget. I’m a laser-like focused shopper, entering the mall at a fast pace, making my purchases and coming back out just as fast, paying no attention to the in-between.
On the way to to teach the CLNC Certification Program, Tom and I went for our cross-airport trek to the Starbucks in Terminal E. When we got through the line, the young guy working at Starbucks looked (and sounded) like he hadn’t had his coffee yet. After repeating our order at least twice we received a semblance of our “black eyes” a doppio expresso dumped into a vente Komodo blend. From there we stormed back to Terminal C and stopped for our standard pre-flight spicy breakfast (lunch really ‘cause we’ve been up since 4:00am) at Popeye’s Fried Chicken (nothing beats red beans and rice in the morning). The woman working the counter at Popeye’s was complaining in Spanish on her cell phone to a friend about having to be open at 6:00am and how unfair it was that she had to open the store three days a week.
Sometimes we get so caught up in marketing to prospective clients that we forget one of the most lucrative marketing sources – our existing clients. Focusing your marketing efforts on your existing and prior clients will often yield a much higher return on your efforts than prospecting for new clients.
Just about every doctor and nurse in hospitals own a Sharpie at one time or another. Some use them for marking patients and others to label their lunch. It turns out that two different studies on infection risk found that good old fashioned Sharpies out-perform surgical markers in protecting patients from the risk of infection.
During my polar bear watching trip, one of the naturalists, Richard, was often one of the first to spot a polar bear. Now, if they’re sitting next to the ship or licking the bow that’s pretty easy, but Richard could spot an off-white bear in a white environment as far as 2½ miles away. Everyone was in awe of him. Plus, it wasn’t just polar bears that he’d spot. We’d be scanning the ice flows for anything that looked like it might be alive and when Richard would spot a bear he’d tell me something like, “It’s lying on its belly, off the bow at 2:00, about a mile out, just past the two ivory gulls and to the left of the walrus with the cavity in its left tusk.”
How do you start your day? Does your breakfast contain a line of pills (and I don’t mean vitamins) longer than your middle finger? If you open your medicine cabinet too quickly is there an “orange avalanche” of pill bottles? Have you succumbed to the slick marketing of pharmaceutical companies like many of my baby boomer friends who daily whip out an array of drugs for restless leg syndrome, elevated cholesterol, reduced bone density and sleep deprivation?
I just got home from the Great Christmas Migration of 2008. Tom and I are bicoastal. His family is in Pennsylvania and mine is in San Diego. Both demand our presence (and presents) at Christmas. This gives us plenty of chances to enjoy the fun of air travel and to meet interesting and helpful people along the way. This year instead of emulating the executives from the auto industry we decided to forgo taking the VMI company jet (Southwest, in our case), and instead flew our various journeys on the same mainstream airline.
*The opinions and statements made by Vickie Milazzo, the founder of Medical-Legal Consulting Institute, Inc. are based on her experiences and expertise, should not be applied beyond the specific context provided, and do not guaranty or project actual results. Vickie Milazzo is no longer involved in the operations or management of the business, but is involved as an independent education consultant.
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