Last Wednesday (January 9), Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, announced on Twitter that he and his wife of 25 years were getting a divorce. It turns out that two days before the announcement, a reporter from the National Enquirer notified him that the Enquirer was going to publish a story about an affair he was having with another married woman. The reporter wanted to know if Bezos had any comments for the story. A lawyer who represents Bezos apparently told the Enquirer that it was “widely known” that Bezos and his wife had been “long separated.”
Do you remember what you received for your 18th birthday? It’s been 43 years since I turned 18 (1975), but I still remember what I received from my parents. It was a 21-inch, gray metal Craftsman toolbox. Prior to my birthday, my mom had asked me what I wanted, and I wrote down the type of toolbox that could be purchased from Sears.
In the marketing world, the phrase “passion brand” refers to a product that has a passionate following among its customers. In addition to being loyal to the product, the customers also personally identify with it. If necessary, they will expend the time and energy to defend the product when someone criticizes it. The ownership of the product becomes a statement in and of itself — a statement that the customer has achieved a special status because of their affiliation with the product.
In 1976, during the spring semester of my freshman year in college, I got in my car and drove to the local Western Union office. When I walked in, I told the clerk at the counter that I wanted to send a telegram. At that time, a telegram was a written message that was sent by telegraph from one Western Union office to a Western Union office in a different city. The second Western Union office would then make arrangements to hand-deliver the message to the intended recipient.
If you could choose a superpower that only you would possess, what would it be? Would it be the ability to fly like Superman? Or would you choose the ability to travel through time like Dr. Strange, or to live forever like Peter Pan? There’s one superpower that I think would be of great benefit to me in my dealings with other people on both a personal and business level.
Last week, I wrote about a conversation I had with a contractor to whom I referred as “Ray.” I told you how Ray tried to convince me that in addition to needing new shingles and gutters, I also needed to replace the fascia and soffit on my house. One thing that I didn’t tell you was that he also tried to convince me that I needed my sidewalk, concrete patio, and landscaping blocks spray-cleaned and sealed. He bragged about how he had the best equipment on the market for cleaning and sealing concrete.