Pictures, rants and randomness!
Driving into work this morning I followed a car carrier down I-75 off the ramp to M25 and all the way to Labadie GMC. Because I was on my way to work and I thought it was kind of funny that this truck was going to the same place I had to snap a picture with my cell phone when we got to the stop light on Euclid Avenue.
Sometimes it’s hard to be creative day in and day out. This is where it helps to have a partner that can help you out. Now that Domo is my camera bag assistant, Gumby has decided to help me at work. He spent the morning going through “Words That Sell” to help me write a few blogs posts for selling more cars in Michigan. No doubt Gumby has become more valuable to me at work instead of being locked in a bag!
Branding is important. I had been using a semi cleaned up copy of the old Defoe Shipbuilding logo for a few years. I want something that is recognizable and not too generic. The old Defoe logo just seemed a little out of date. So out of the blue back in April I get an email from a SVSU graphic arts student who created a logo for one of her classes. I’ve attempted a few time to contact her for a price but haven’t gotten one yet. As a small business with more going out than coming in I don’t really have the budget for a professionally created logo but I also can’t afford not to brand myself from the start – catch 22!
This is the logo that was created by the SVSU student:
I like this logo a lot. But since I can’t get info from the creator (Katherine Karnes) I decided to try a few derivatives of my own.
This was my first attempt: 
I like it as a stand alone logo but it does not look good when watermarked on a picture.
So here is my second attempt: 
This last logo works well when used as an image watermark.
But is it to generic?
Often I look at the statistics for my website and wish I had more visitors. But like most website owners you need some perspective when it comes to the numbers.
This morning I was doing some competitive research for my day job (Labadie Auto Company) and decided to look at some stats for my defoenet site. I was looking at the numbers on Compete.com and here are a few things I found:
I love 360mainstreet.com and support these guys. They sell reasonably priced advertising and I’ve considered buying some ad space on their site. A quick look at compete.com showed: August 2011 unique visitors = 477 and when I did an average of the past 6 months visitors it was 705 per month.
Next I decided to take a look at Review Magazine’s website. They also sell reasonably priced advertising and I’ve considered buying some ad space on their site. A quick look at newreviewsite.com showed: August 2011 unique visitors = 980 and when I did an average of the past 6 months visitors it was 959 per month.
I really expected these numbers to be bigger. This puts things in perspective. Thinking a little bit I was trying to come up with another Saginaw Michigan based website that might compare in traffic to my site. Don’t know why but SaginawSports.com popped into my head. So I ran the numbers at compete.com – August 2011 unique visitors = 1,481 and when I did an average of the past 6 months visitors it was 780 per month. Saginaw Sports has a decent amount of advertising but I have never looked into what they charge.
Now for the big test. What are my numbers for defoenet.com? August 2011 unique visitors = 1,224 and when I did an average of the past 6 months visitors it was 1,090 per month.
WOW my personal website gets more visitors than some major websites in Saginaw. Perhaps it is time for me to start selling advertising! Anyone want to buy a banner on my homepage for $50 per month? Let me know! How about trading links? Give me your website and I’ll see about writing a review and placing a link on my site. Just contact me.
I decided that 2011 is the year to get in shape. The exercise was going good and I was feeling better but I hit a plateau. Then I had a week where I was working 12-18 hours a day and seemed to put on all the weight I just lost. Now I’m going all out. I ran into an acquaintance that has had phenomenal results with the Beach Body program. You may have read in my blog that I tested a few Beach Body programs and liked the Slim in 6. Now I purchased a legal copy and decided to give the Shakeology a try also.
In general chocolate is not my favorite but when the order went through they shipped me chocolate. Looking at the recipes online for chocolate Shakeology I decided that I can make a morning coffee shake and see how it goes. Now on my second day this was a good purchase. A cup of cold Starbucks coffee with some frozen blueberry’s and a scoop of Shakeology is my new “wake me up” morning routine. I’m looking forward to seeing the results that are posted on the Shakeology website take place in my life.
The morning drink is the easy part. Now can I fit 6 days a week of exercise into my life!
We packed the car on Wednesday night and headed off to Mt Pleasant on Thursday afternoon. It was a great summer reconnecting with my daughter and her fiancé. Unfortunately I had allowed myself to be manipulated into alienating my daughter the past few years. We has a great time this summer and it was fun being able to help her move back to CMU. I have some remorse for the past few years and now that she is a senior it is the first time I’ve helped her move and met a bunch of her friends . . . but that was the past.
Jesse and I spent a few hours putting the loft together and moving furniture around while the “girls” went shopping for a few last minute items for the room and a CMU t-shirt for mom.
After the work was done we stopped by La Señorita Mexican Restaurant for a desert and I headed back to Saginaw.
Peanut Butter Pie at La Senorita in Mt Pleasant is yummy!
Author:
I work in marketing for a small group of Michigan car dealerships. This is a competitive market. It seems that in Michigan there is a car dealership on almost every corner. Even with GM and Ford thinning out their dealership counts the past few years, Michigan didn’t seem to get hit very hard. Or at least not mid-Michigan where I live and work. There were a few dealerships in this area marked for shutdown but it seems they all petitioned the MFG and were able to keep their dealerships.
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Labadie Buick Cadillac GMC 711 S Euclid Ave Bay City, MI |
Keep looking back as I’m going to try to get pictures of as many Michigan car dealerships as I can for this page.
I started my exercise program with great hopes. Perhaps I’m just not cut out to be a sculpted beast. Exercise is tiring and it hurts. I have to admin that I have lost a belt notch. And I suppose I should be happy about that. I was hoping to see more of a difference in the mirror. But hey – I’m lazy and I like my night time chips. Plus I haven’t really stuck to the program. As mentioned in other posts I have used the segment 1 or Start It Up of the Slim in 6 program. Problem is I’m only using the video about twice a week. But I am filling in with bike riding. I’ve found that I like the bike riding because I listen to my iPod. The bike doesn’t provide an intense enough workout to make big changes but it is helping. Perhaps I should just admit that I’m not a workout junkie and my path to a better looking body make take a year instead of a few months.
The workouts, well riding the exercise bike, had gotten me hooked on my iPod. Previously I didn’t use it much but now I love it. At the availability of free podcasts on iTunes is great. There is a lot of great free stuff out there. There really is no reason for someone not to be educated with the plethora of free resources just on iTunes. The podcast that I’ve become hooked on it This Week In Google. Yeah I’m a geek! But my job requires that I stay up to date on trends in SEO and the Internet and this program is not just educational but entertaining.
Since I ride the bike for about a half hour per day and the TWIG is 1 1/2 hour long I’ve researched more podcasts to listen to. I kept coming back to the TWIT content. I shouldn’t be getting all my infotainment from one source and need some suggestions. Please make your recommendations for podcasts below!
I was doing some file maintenance on my hosting account and found a really old portion of my site I had forgotten about. Here is a re-post of the site:
This is my dream house that I look forward to the day it gets built. It was designed in 1952 by the world famouse architect Alden B. Dow. These are pictures taken of the original drawings. A few years back my we took these drawings to the Alden B. Dow archives in Midland, Mi to have them authenticated. They were confirmed to be hand drawn and colored by Mr. Dow himself. These pictures were taken with a HP PhotoSmart C200 (a long time ago).
Note: If for some reason you know where these plans are let me know. They are stolen and need to be returned to the Defoe family.
Floorplan:
Elevation 1A
Elevation 2a
Elevation 2b
Section
Detail 1
Detail 2
Detail 3
Detail 4
My first week of trying to use the Slim in 6 program proves that I will not be the poster child for the program. I used the “Start It Up” video only twice this week. However I did ride my exercise bike 3 other days. That makes a total of 5 days of exercise for 20 minutes or more for the week. Not a great way to loose fat but it will help keep me healthy.
Speaking of healthy I was given a copy of the June 2011 issue of Success Magazine. The editorial starts out, “what do you think causes more deaths in the United States each year? Car crashes, drug overdoses, alcoholism or firearm accidents? All of those combined don’t total a third of this insidious instrument of death: food.” It goes on, “obesity kills some 400,000 people in this country every year, according to the Centers for disease control. Only smoking-related diseases account for more deaths.”
WOW – if that isn’t a motivator to keep up the daily exercise routine I don’t know what is. So lets get off our butts America and get moving.