Generation Y – are you ready to work?

As my 38^th birthday approaches, I realize that the past 5 years has given me a tremendous amount of life experience and business knowledge.  I am finally getting into a groove and feel comfortable with my role in life.  While I celebrate that accomplishment, I am also somewhat disturbed with the next generation.

 

First of all, I would like to exclude my current co-workers from these thoughts.  Right now, I have 7 highly capable and motivated people under the age of 21.  For them, I am very appreciative of the hard work and passion they bring.

What I want to discuss, however, is the others who have come and gone.   I have noticed some trends over the past few years that I have trouble with.  I am unsure of what the solution is, but hopefully there is a solution out there somewhere…

 

I can boil the tendencies down to 3 items: motivation, work ethic and entitlement.

Motivation:

Showing up – Does it really take that much effort to show up for work?

Finding work – Is it really necessary to hold your hand for each task?

Staying focused – Do you really need a break after a half hour?

Goofing off – Do you really need to find humor in everything you do?

Socialization – Can you spend some time on a task without making it a social event?

Sitting down – Are you motivated enough to actually stand up while you work?

Work Ethic:

Pace of work – Yes, you can get a lot done in 5 minutes, but can you keep it up for 2 hours? 4 hours?

Quality of work – Can you care enough about your work that you are proud of it?

Ability – Do you know how to work?  Or just how to text?

Entitlement:

Breaks – Do you need a break every half hour?  Or hour?

Pay – Can you begin at a starting wage, or do you already deserve what everyone else is making?

Advancement – Once you master a task, can you stick with it a while before thinking you should be doing your supervisor’s job?

Pay #2 – Do you deserve the pay of someone who has been working longer than yourself?

 

So here is my $.02 worth of advice to the next generation of workers.  Show up, do your job well, work hard and expect less.  There is opportunity in this world if you are able to learn these traits.  You might not get rich by the age of 25, but you will have the skills necessary to succeed later in life.

 

Maybe I am idealistic and getting old and crusty, but really, has our society changed that much that the younger generation doesn’t have a clue?  I am a fan of having fun.  I am willing to provide a special place to work.  I am willing to be generous and forgiving.  All I ask in return is to be flexible, motivated and hard working.  My thanks go out to Jeremy, Ryan, Justin K., Justin M., Erin, Hilary and Donna for being just that.  Hopefully others in your generation can follow by example.

 

Habitat for Humanity – This Quarter’s ‘Awards for a Cause’

We are proud to announce this quarter’s ‘Awards for a Cause’ charity – Habitat for Humanity of East King County.  Each quarter, Trophies2Go.com chooses a charity or cause to rally behind.  This quarter we are doing so by featuring several products and donating a set amount per item sold to Habitat for Humanity.  To view these products, click http://www.trophies2go.com/charities.  In addition to our financial contribution, Two members of our staff are actively involved with Habitat for Humanity on a regular basis. Janice works at the East King County office and on build sites in the area. Her daughter, Hilary, (also the newest member of our staff here at Trophies2Go), volunteers with the Wilfrid Laurier University chapter, where she goes to school in Waterloo, Ontario.

 

We applaud Janice and Hilary’s volunteerism and will strive to find ways over the next few months to make an impact with a larger group effort.

 

 

Here is more information about Habitat for Humanity:

 

Habitat for Humanity is a faith-based organization that makes comfortable living available to families in need at manageable rates. Contrary to popular belief, Habitat for Humanity does not simply give away houses. Instead, the recipient is required to put in 500 hours of work on the site and can then purchase the house at a lowered rate with 0% interest on loans. For many, this makes a world of difference.

 

Though Habitat is a faith-based organization, not all volunteers are Christian, or do the recipients of houses have to be Christian in order to be eligible. Many schools and universities have their own chapters and volunteers can choose to donate their time over spring break to travel with their chapter to an area in special need of help in what’s called the Collegiate Challenge.

 

Founded in 1976, Habitat for Humanity has since built over 200,000 houses and supplied as many families with a comfortable means of living. Since the East King County chapter’s creation in 1988, 72 houses have been built across Bellevue, Carnation, Redmond, Snoqualmie, Kirkland, Newcastle, Sammamish and Issaquah.

 

If you think you’d like to volunteer with Habitat, or simply learn more about their organization, visit www.habitatekc.org.

 

Doing right by the Planet - Our partnership with PSE and Light Doctor

As promised, we are acting on our environmental stewardship.  The latest item now complete is our lighting retrofit.  We partnered with the Light Doctor (Mountlake Terrace, WA) and Puget Sound Energy to dramatically cut our lighting cost to our 5000 square foot facility.  I am hopeful that our energy usage from lighting will be cut by 2/3!  That is right; our energy use from lighting will be 1/3 of what it was just a few days ago!  Talk about a decrease in carbon footprint!

Initially, both myself and landlord were concerned about the color and amount of light that we would get out of the change, but check out the pictures below.  They are taken without a flash and are unedited.

Display area before                                                           Display area after

 

Conference room before                            Conference room after

 

I want to personally thank Willy of the Light Doctor for his patience and great service as well as Lee from Puget Sound Energy for his commitment to the environment and financial subsidy to make this project happen.

I think we have significantly improved our lighting, saved energy, and helped the environment at the same time.  To me, that is part of what being the leader of meaningful recognition is all about!

Weekly Promotions from February 11th through March 30th

Want a super deal?  Look no further!  For the next 7 weeks we will be having a ‘Special of the Week’.  The discounts and promotions below are in addition to our already great quantity discounts.  These promotions will also be emailed to our customers around February 10th, but I wanted to get them posted to my blog as soon as possible.  In the past we have not offered extra discounts, but what the heck, this is a new year!  We plan on offering weekly specials throughout the year.  After these promotions expire, we will be offering 4 weeks of savings on select corporate awards. 

The promo code needs to be entered on the confirmation (last) page of the checkout.  Offer is valid only when placing an order through the trophies2go.com website. 

February 11-17th - Free UPS Ground Shipping on all orders of $50 or more.  This applies to both our Bronze and Emerald shipping levels.  Promo code: freeship50

February 18-24th - 25% off selected Winter Sports Dog Tags.  Your choice of Basketball (product 8663), Hockey (8130), Volleyball (8135) or Wrestling (8818).  Promo code: winter08dog

February 25th - March 2nd - 20% off Basketball Shield Resin Trophies.  Your choice of male (product 8648) or female (8649).  Promo code: winter08shield

March 3-9th - 20% off MVP Basketball Trophies.  Your choice of male (product 8646) and female (8647). Promo code: winter08mvp

March 10-16th - 20% off All-Star Basketball Team Trophy with Column Choice.  Your choice of gender (product 8658).  Promo code: winter08allstar

March 17-23rd - 20% off Rock ‘n Bop Basketball Bobblehead Trophies.  Your choice of male (product 8635) or female (8634).  Promo code: winter08bobble

March 24-30th - All items 10% off storewide.  Promo code: allitems10

 I hope you enjoy the extra savings.  We look forward to providing your meaningful recognition!

Kip Beelman - Raising the bar in Seattle Photography

I have 4 very close friends who are photographers in the Seattle area. I have had a chance to work with 3 of them in the past (Michelle Enebo, Dana Wasuyluka and Michael Johnson) and had incredible success with all of them. Add to them Kip Beelman.

Recently, my marketing mastermind suggested I needed some up-to-date pictures of me for PR, internet marketing and the such. Since I am no Tom Cruise, I needed some serioushelp. In steps Kip Beelman. In steps Kip Beelman’s gear. In steps Kip Beelman’s expertise.

Kip was very gracious in coming to my house on a Sunday evening. He envisioned the poses, set-up his gear and had me flash my cheezy grin. Below are a few samples of what came out of the session. Get used to them. After my marketing guy gets a hold of them, they will probably be plastered throughout the internet. I will hold my favorite back for when I hit the cover of a magazine. Oh, I forgot, I am not getting a ton of calls to be on a magazine cover. If that is the case, I will show it to you anyway…

While he was hot, my girls, Brenna (7 1/2 Years Old) and Audrey (4) got on their ‘Poofy Dresses’ from Carol. By the way, how did they grow up so fast?

When you have a minute, please check out Kip’s site. Not only are there incredible images, but there is great music to complement them as well. I am very fortunate to have quality friends like Kip in my life and am extra thankful that some of them have unspeakable talent. Thanks, Kip!

Does your Awards Supplier have Site Search?

Today we went live with site search on the trophies2go.com home page.  It is a very interactive tool designed to quickly and efficiently find the product you are looking for.  The user starts with a keyword, category or unique characteristic for their award.  They type it in to the search box in the upper-right hand corner of our site and click the ‘Go’ button.  Our site reveals products with those characteristics and also allows the user to refine the search by category, material, price, size or several other factors.  The results are given in either a grid or list format below the criteria.  The user can then resort the results by popularity or price. 

This new feature is provided by Nextopia.  If you have a moment, please try it out and let me know what you think!

As described earlier, you can find it on the trophies2go.com home page in the upper right hand corner.  In the next few weeks, we will also be adding site search to our smaller sites as well.

Thanks, Jeff

Coming in 2008

As the New Year approaches, there are many new features that are in our pipeline to improve our customers’ online experience.  The purpose of this article is to give a sneak peek of these improvements.

• On all 9 of our sites (trophies2go.com, issaquahtrophy.com, pokertrophies.com, cheapbaseballtrophies.com, cheapbasketballtrophies.com, cheapgolftrophies.com, cheaphockeytrophies.com, cheapsoccertrophies.com and cheapfootballtrophies.com), we will be implementing ‘Site Search’.  This will give the user quick access to all of our products, the ability to refine the search by several product attributes and help with misspellings.
• Improved product descriptions.  We will be altering all of our product descriptions to be more descriptive and give the user a better mental picture of the product.
• Product reviews.  We will be adding the ability for customers who purchase products to review them.  This will give prospective new customers another means of ensuring their product selection is right for them.
• Improved product detail page.   We will be altering our product detail page to me more efficient.  We will add product attributes, product reviews and alter the engraving input to be on this page instead of a pop-up window.
• Improved check-out process.  We will be re-engineering the checkout process to be more compact and efficient.  This will help with the speed in which it takes to check-out.  We will also be adding a guest-shopper feature that will also assist those who want to be one-time buyers.
• Improved transactional emails.  After our customers place an order, the order confirmation email, order shipped email and post-order email asking for feedback will be improved.
• And Much More!  If we told you everything we were up to, how could we surprise you?  Long story short, look for great things from us in 2008!

As we grow, our pledge is to continually improve our systems to make your awards purchase painless and worry-free.  Our goal is to be the best in the industry.  These changes will be a great step in continuing our improvement and our customers’ user experience.