Authenticity. Freedom to be yourself. YOURSELF .... complete with all your glorious strengths and weaknesses.

To place yourself in your authenticity is a powerful place for both corporations and individuals. I'd like to spend a bit on why it is so important for companies and how Social Media can be an important tool in finding it.

As an example, let me brag on a favorite restaurant of mine in Calgary called Marathon. Located on 10th St NW in Calgary's trendy Kensington district it serves up awesome Ethiopian fare.

A couple fundamental distinctions of Ethiopian food & culture. First, there are no knives and forks! Ethiopian ethnic delights are served up on a common platter on top of a spongy bread called Injera which you tear and use to scoop up your food. Second, Ethiopia runs on a 13 month calendar as compared to our 12 month calendar.

As with every single corporation out there, this restaurant comes with its strengths and weaknesses.

Some Strengths: Amazing & Fresh Food, Relaxed Atmosphere and Jazzy type music, Owners whose smiles and laughter could cheer up a continent.

Some Weaknesses: Their service can be slow. Parking can be limited in the area.

Whether you are happy with this restaurant will depend on your goals for going there. If you want a quick bite before heading out to a movie or play you will almost certainly end up being extremely frustrated and disappointed if not angry. If you are there for business there will be a moment of awkwardness as you both weren't quite prepared to share a platter never mind doing so with your bare hands/fingers (you can get knives and forks if you ask but by this time it may be too late!)

However, if your goal is to spend some quality time with a person you love or want to get to know better, then this is the perfect place. You won't feel the rush to vacate your table for the next "shift". The slowness of service won't matter as you fully engage in conversation with your partner over a glass of wine and some relaxing music. The wait will seem worth it when you taste this fresh and fantastic fare with its complex flavours from spicy berbere dishes to comfort food lentil based creations all brought together perfectly by a sweet vinegar salad that refreshes your palette for every next bite. As your hands cross the platter to gather your next mouthful it brushes against your partner's hand which is reaching for something on your side. You get the picture... It can be incredible.

I think the danger for business comes when we try to be everything to everyone. Marathon's long term success will come in marketing itself simply for what it is. Unique flavors, Great People and a leisurely dining experience. I think there is a huge market in any city for that.

When we figure out our authenticity as a business, our authenticity being our strengths and the real, true experience customers will have when they engage us in our environment, great things happen.

a) We attract people looking for what we have to offer and we can just be relaxed and genuinely ourselves in serving them. A fundmental truth in managing people is to know that fundamentally people don't change. If you are constantly trying to be someone else in your life as a business, it will be a tough road.

b) We push away potential clients who would only be dissatisfied and angry with our products and services. You cut down on the huge cost of trying to service that segment of our customer base today and you don't have them walking out of your business telling 10 friends about how crappy your product/service/business is.

Here's where I believe every business needs to leverage the power of Social Media. You see in the old days that dissatisfied customer would talk to those 10 friends over the phone. You couldn't see it, hear it which meant you couldn't react to it. My experience as a Retail Manager suggests that 9 out of 10 dissatisfied customers leave your store and never come back without ever confronting you on your issue (giving you a chance to make them happy).

Today, instead of talking to 10 friends on the phone, they are talking to thousands of friends on the Web! While the viral nature of web reviews and comments seem daunting, it actually should be viewed as an opportunity.

You see in the old days you couldn't react to the complaining because you didn't hear their phone conversations. Today, whether your company has a formal presence in Social Media or not, it doesn't stop the public from talking about you in these channels.

The opportunity is to listen. Google Alerts, for example lets you have Google keep an eye out for any new entries on the Web that contain search terms which you define. One of them should be your company or product name and any shortforms of it. When new "discussions" appear on the web, Google emails you automatically and points you to it.

You may or may not like what you hear but feedback is the essence of any businesses growth and it will be powerful in helping you define your authenticity in the eyes of your customer base (which is often different then what we see it as). Your authenticity will then allow you to be targetted with the search tags and keywords you use in helping the right audience find you.

If it is on average 10 times more expensive to attract a new customer then retain an old one then you should delight in your new ability to respond to these customer concerns and potentially turn bad experiences into raving fans for your business.

I encourage you to start embracing various Social Media platforms for the opportunity it gives you to find your authenticity. My last thought: "You may be able to eak out a living outside of your authenticity, but you will find LIFE when you dare place yourself in it."

David Benjatschek is a professional speaker/workshop facilitator who works with Emerging Leaders to set them up for success. http://www.about.me/yourmanwiththeplan

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I recently spoke with Greg Laurin on how Conestoga Cold Storage is helping customers meet the challenge of cost containment while preparing for growth. Greg had some very interesting insights I would like to share with you.

Q: Over the past two years of recession, users of temperature controlled services concentrated on cost containment. As we head into the recovery, how is their focus changing?
Laurin: Food manufacturers have hit a wall in terms of cost containment. Worldwide uncertainties - political and environmental - combined with the increased cost of oil and raw materials have forced the industry to take on more expense than it can possibly absorb. The softer US dollar has helped ease inflationary pressures to a certain degree for companies that can source raw materials from outside the country. Expect to see more manufacturers passing along higher costs to the consumer by the end of the year. A stronger economy should help our customers servicing the restaurant industry as that sector tends to be the hardest hit in financial down times. A stronger economy results in higher commodity prices and increased inflation, therefore we are locking in long-term financing rates as well as concentrating on debt reduction.
A dramatic change for the food distribution model in Canada is the increased number of retailers adding frozen and refrigerated lines to their traditional dry listings. From the arrival of Walmart and their full grocery line to the impending arrival of Target in 2013, existing major Canadian retailers are attempting to increase sales by adding food products to their stores. This trend is gaining momentum as more non-traditional food retailers such as Shoppers Drug Mart, Giant Tiger and even Canadian Tire increase frozen food offerings. These additional sales channels and the resulting fragmentation of the market will drive up distribution costs. Smaller order sizes result in greater picking and trucking costs. Adding food items will also challenge the distribution model of retailers not accustomed to the complexities of multiple temperature zones, date rotation, HACCP, CFIA control and the challenges associated with food related recalls.

Q: How is Conestoga addressing the current challenge of cost containment while meeting the need for growth among its clients?
Laurin: We have addressed these challenges by increasing efficiency and fine-tuning our systems. We have recently reviewed all of our key suppliers to ensure we are getting the most value for our money. Price increases are always difficult to pass on but there is generally an understanding that cost increases do occur in areas that are beyond our control. If the US economy continues to strengthen and the rapid growth continues in developing countries, inflationary pressures are going to put a strain on cost containment over the next 12 months. Gaining efficiencies and improving labour productivity is always of paramount concern as labour is our largest expense. We continue to invest in our computer systems and have introduced new software logic into our automated buildings that allows the system to look at upcoming order demand when it is idle and move product to the most efficient locations in order to manage peak-shipping times more efficiently.

Q: Technology can be a key differentiator in both improving efficiency to foster growth while at the same reducing waste and unnecessary cost. Which technological capabilities are becoming a must for superior service when it comes to the cold chain and what does Conestoga offer in this regard?
Laurin: We continue to pursue improvements in automation technology and source the best equipment from around the world to improve our systems here in Canada. We recently upgraded all of the drives on our stacker cranes to AC drives. These drives are cheaper to maintain, allow for more precise control and provide a 40% increase in vertical and horizontal speed. These devices are regenerative drives that feed energy back into the grid when braking, further reducing our energy costs. A new laser locating system interfaces directly with the new drives instead of communicating with a PLC. This gives us far better motion control and precise location measurement to within 1 millimetre over a 200-metre distance. We have completely redesigned our shuttles to allow us to handle heavier and taller pallets as well as installing wireless cameras on the ASRS cranes to allow us to control the stackers from the dock. We continue to invest in high-speed battery charging units that significantly reduce battery-changing downtime. We are also investigating the economic benefits of hydrogen power. Over the next 12 months we will be monitoring the technological developments of hydrogen power. This new technology could prove to be a very competitive option to current battery systems.

Q: Last we spoke you were working on the purchase of a 4.5 million cubic foot cold storage facility next to the airport in Montreal. Can you update us on how that purchase is working out and what it has added to your service capabilities?
Laurin: The purchase of the facility was completed in May 2010 and we have been working hard since then to fill the new space in a difficult market. We established our reputation for superior service in 2006 with our first warehouse in Quebec. Our reputation and experience has helped us develop a new customer base and we have been able to transfer some existing customers into our Dorval facility. We were at capacity at our original location prior to the purchase of the new facility. As a result, we were unable to offer distribution services to our customers from Ontario looking to enter the market in Quebec and the East Coast. With the additional 15,000 pallet positions we have been able to transition existing Ontario based customers into our new location. We also have ample room for future growth. This new location, close to the main highway and Montreal’s largest container yard is providing an ideal alternative for many of the food manufacturers located close to the Trudeau airport.

Q: Are there more such expansions to your network in the works for the near future?
Laurin: We have had an aggressive growth strategy in the Canadian market and have continually expanded to meet our customers’ increasing space requirements. We are currently reviewing expansion options in Ontario but the West and East seem to be well serviced from a cold storage perspective. Our rapid growth has helped us gather a first class list of top tier food manufacturers and has keep costs down by spreading out overhead costs.

Q: How is the need to provide more environmentally sustainable business practices affecting the temperature-controlled industry and how is Conestoga responding?
Laurin: More than 60% of our capacity is high-rise type storage buildings. This unique warehouse design gives us an advantage from an environmental standpoint because the buildings are inherently more energy efficient. They have a small roof load, small doors and no lights creating heat inside the building that has to be removed. Our refrigeration systems automatically shut down during periods of high hydro demand thus reducing our energy consumption during peak hours. We utilize the waste heat generated by the refrigeration systems to heat the dock areas and supplement the under floor frost-protection systems. The money we save on energy efficiencies can be passed on to our customers.

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As I went through the busy drive-through at Sherway Gardens this morning, I marvelled at what a success this franchise based business has become. I tried to remember the first time I went to Tim Horton’s and couldn’t. Can you?

I did some quick research and discovered the chain has been around since 1964. The first franchise opened in Hamilton, Ontario. Along with their brand of coffee, their unique offering was the apple fritter and dutchie. They started as coffee and doughnuts only and their current menu evolved with time.

The next question. When was the first time I used a drive-through? I remember my first drive-in at an A&W in Moncton, New Brunswick. I remember the first bank with a drive-through when I was visiting family near St Louis, twenty years ago. But, I can’t remember when or where I went through one for the first time, for fast food of some description. You think it would be a memorable moment in time. I haven’t got a clue. How about you?

So again, I did some quick research. It appears the U.S. banks invented the phenomenon in 1928 and the first drive-through restaurant was created in 1947 by Sheldon "Red" Chaney, operator of Red's Giant Hamburg in Springfield, Missouri. McDonalds didn’t follow until 1975.

While I was researching the drive-through history, I found a Canadian first. It seems Thunder Bay, Ontario boasts the first sex-shop drive-through. I wonder what the line-ups are like there at 7 AM, Monday morning?

Lee’s Quote for the day

“As much as we resist change, it comes and we adapt. We adapt so completely, that we might even forget where and when the change actually took place.” J

Lee Palmer is the President and Creative Director at Palmer Marketing, a company that specializes in creative marketing and advertising solutions for the transportation industry.

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I had a client meeting that took the whole morning and I stopped off at a local fish and chip place for lunch. It was a small spot and a pretty casual atmosphere. A well dressed chap, in his mid-forties, came in and I noticed he was wearing a tie clip. I can’t remember the last time I wore one or even saw somebody with one on. I passed that comment on to him and he mentioned how cufflinks were back in style now too. I asked him what business he was in and I got a quick but brief response, “sales”.

Somewhat ironic I thought, that a professional sales person would not have expanded on that answer. What if he was in the business of selling something I or someone in my family or business network might need? Was he embarrassed about what he sells for a living? The conversation ended. And so did a possible sales opportunity.

I had a similar feeling when a transportation client told me (that same morning) that their website was fine. It was all they needed. One of their employees designed it 5 or 6 years ago and he was happy enough with it. I mentioned to him about 5 or 6 ways it could be improved but he wasn’t all that interested. By not addressing these details, will he be out of business? Probably not, but will he lose possible sales opportunities? Absolutely yes!

The carrier in question made a few mistakes that are easily corrected. And from our research, he is not alone. These are a few things that we see often and most likely need to be addressed on your site if it was designed 4-5 years ago.

1/ If you have a 2 language site you don’t need a splash page anymore to select languages. It can all be done with programming. The same goes for a separate splash or flash opening of any kind. Get the visitor to your home page, as soon as possible.

2/ Don’t make your customer click extra buttons to get to the secure log-in area, or rate request forms on your site.

3/ If you’re like most companies with an older site, you probably have out of date information that needs to be updated. Don’t delay, it is easily rectified.

4/ Have relevant information about your core services front and center on the home page with quick links to access additional data. It’s your best opportunity to cross sell other services to existing customers and capture the interests of potential customers.

5/ Make it easy to contact you. That is what the majority of people coming to your site are trying to do.

6/ Don’t have any text explaining your company services as an image as it cannot get picked up by the search engines and therefore, will not move you up in the rankings when people search for your service.

7/ Understand what key words are searched for in your industry and optimize your site accordingly.

8/ If the equipment pictures on your site were taken a number of years ago and they were a few years old then, you could be promoting a 7-8 year old fleet on your site.

9/ Design trends change. Sites are not left justified anymore and they take advantage of the background area to expand the graphic treatment and overall visual effect.

10/ You may have spent a lot of time and energy achieving various certifications, green initiatives, awards... are they promoted on your site and is your last posted news item current?

Lee’s quote for the day

The correlation, between marketing your company to a potential customer and dating someone for the first time, is very similar. In both cases, you need to present the best version of yourself, do something to capture their interest, do things to maintain their interests and if you want the relationship to be long term, never take them for granted.” J

Lee Palmer is the President and Creative Director at Palmer Marketing, a company that specializes in creative marketing and advertising solutions for the transportation industry.

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I had a client meeting that took the whole morning and I stopped off at a local fish and chip place for lunch. It was a small spot and a pretty casual atmosphere. A well dressed chap, in his mid-forties, came in and I noticed he was wearing a tie clip. I can’t remember the last time I wore one or even saw somebody with one on. I passed that comment on to him and he mentioned how cufflinks were back in style now too. I asked him what business he was in and I got a quick but brief response, “sales”.

Somewhat ironic I thought, that a professional sales person would not have expanded on that answer. What if he was in the business of selling something I or someone in my family or business network might need? Was he embarrassed about what he sells for a living? The conversation ended. And so did a possible sales opportunity.

I had a similar feeling when a transportation client told me (that same morning) that their website was fine. It was all they needed. One of their employees designed it 5 or 6 years ago and he was happy enough with it. I mentioned to him about 5 or 6 ways it could be improved but he wasn’t all that interested. By not addressing these details, will he be out of business? Probably not, but will he lose possible sales opportunities? Absolutely yes!

The carrier in question made a few mistakes that are easily corrected. And from our research, he is not alone. These are a few things that we see often and most likely need to be addressed on your site if it was designed 4-5 years ago.

1/ If you have a 2 language site you don’t need a splash page anymore to select languages. It can all be done with programming. The same goes for a separate splash or flash opening of any kind. Get the visitor to your home page, as soon as possible.

2/ Don’t make your customer click extra buttons to get to the secure log-in area, or rate request forms on your site.

3/ If you’re like most companies with an older site, you probably have out of date information that needs to be updated. Don’t delay, it is easily rectified.

4/ Have relevant information about your core services front and center on the home page with quick links to access additional data. It’s your best opportunity to cross sell other services to existing customers and capture the interests of potential customers.

5/ Make it easy to contact you. That is what the majority of people coming to your site are trying to do.

6/ Don’t have any text explaining your company services as an image as it cannot get picked up by the search engines and therefore, will not move you up in the rankings when people search for your service.

7/ Understand what key words are searched for in your industry and optimize your site accordingly.

8/ If the equipment pictures on your site were taken a number of years ago and they were a few years old then, you could be promoting a 7-8 year old fleet on your site.

9/ Design trends change. Sites are not left justified anymore and they take advantage of the background area to expand the graphic treatment and overall visual effect.

10/ You may have spent a lot of time and energy achieving various certifications, green initiatives, awards... are they promoted on your site and is your last posted news item current?

Lee’s quote for the day

The correlation, between marketing your company to a potential customer and dating someone for the first time, is very similar. In both cases, you need to present the best version of yourself, do something to capture their interest, do things to maintain their interests and if you want the relationship to be long term, never take them for granted.” J

Lee Palmer is the President and Creative Director at Palmer Marketing, a company that specializes in creative marketing and advertising solutions for the transportation industry.

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My tickets to Ontariio are booked! The government is making sure I can actually take the Air Canada flight booked .. A rental car and the 401 are waiting.. All is good with this photographer:O)

Now its just taking in Fergus and Rodeo du Camion, meeting some great people, picking out some winning trucks for the Wowtrucks® Calendar and having a blast! I can't wait to meet the men/women behind the trucks that win their way into the calendar and tell their story ... that is personally, the biggest reward for doing the calendar.
The 2012 calendar will be the 5th annual Big Rig Calendar featuring some of Canada's best.

Feel free to follow Wowtrucks and get updates and photos from the shows:

twitter: www.twitter.com/wowtrucks
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Wowtrucks/98747897834Have a great summer! David

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Dan Pautler Live

I started reading about the Beat writers in 1967, probably when I was 14 or 15. When I read On the Road, what amazed me was what a lame hitchhiker Jack Kerouac was. He’d start an across-continent journey and get to Pennsylvania where he’d take a bus. I was sort of disappointed.

In Dharma Bums, Gary Snyder is more in tuned with what was coming in the 60s in terms of being a zen hitchhiker. Kerouac was more like a mad literary genius.

But I think On the Road created expectations in terms of being able to hitchhike. The technologies and the change in consciousness just sort of converged for a certain number of years…after that the technologies made it impossible again. Technologies accelerate and nobody really controls them.

Hitchhiking always existed in the American road mythos. As soon as automobiles came along it was inevitable that people would get rides. It became very popular in WWII because it was that sort of era of cooperation, the war effort and stuff like that.

Then it went out of favour in the 50s when everybody got their own car and became paranoid. With the Interstate highway system in the 60s you could travel fast across the country in 3 or 4 days. When the hippie revolution came along and the two things converged so there was a meeting in time that made hitchhiking a cultural necessity.

It was surpassed mostly because of an over-reliance on technology. Highways became unfriendly to pedestrians, highway speeds got faster. What made hitchhiking possible made it impossible a few years later. The public was given information that was overwhelmingly negative, about what could happen to you if you picked up a hitchhiker, making people increasingly paranoid.

A Couple of Accidents, 1977 Boulder, Colorado

One day I went down to the highway with my friend Salsa to hitchhike into town. It was just a sleepy mountain road, hardly any traffic. A real casual, bright day and this chick picks us up almost right away. Then for some reason as she’s going around a curve the car goes off the side of the highway.

The car rolled twice. I remember the tumbling action. We didn’t have any seatbelts which was good because of the tumbling of the car as it rolled. I remember rolling up into a ball so I wouldn’t get hurt.

The car landed on its roof in a creek. We climbed out but my glasses had fallen off. Then the most amazing thing, Salsa reaches down into the water and pulls out my glasses. Then we went back up to the highway and continued hitchhiking because we had a class at the Naropa Institute leaving the chick to deal with her turned over car.

The second accident happened the same year but a month later. I was leaving Boulder for Alma Gordo, New Mexico to get my aura balanced. I met these Sufi women in Boulder and they gave me a ride all the way to Santa Fe. Which was really nice, me in the back seat in the middle with these women at the compass points. But the hip thing was, in the middle of the night we’re passing through Leadville, Colorado and the radio announces Elvis Presley just died. Elvis Presley man. That was the night Elvis died.

They let me off in Sante Fe, the next day I’ve gotten a ride and I’m somewhere around Albuquerque, New Mexico somewhere and my driver picks up this other hitchhiker, a really weird schizophrenic guy. About this time you’d see these guys in white robes hitchhiking around the south-west. This guy didn’t have a white robe but he was weird. He started attacking this alarm clock that was in the car, really violently trying to kill the clock.

The day was getting freaky. So where the fuck do I end up? Rosewell, New Mexico. I took the ride to Rosewell figuring I could get somewhere else. In the southwest you get to thinking in blocks of hundreds of miles when you’re hitchhiking because there are only a few roads through the mountains.

So this couple of young boys pick me up, really drunk. After ten miles they’re going 100 miles an hour. And they spin out into a fence. We go through the fence and nobody gets hurt.

These French tourists stopped. Like wow, an American accident. So they give me a ride, a fantastic ride for 80 miles when a cop pulls us over. I was selling jewelry at the time and the cop had found one of my fish belt buckles at the crash scene. It had fallen out of my bag during the collision. But the cop made me return to the crash and he tells me I can take you back here afterward. So the whole night was spent driving around with this cop. It was late at night when the cop drops me off.

I finally get a ride to the Escalero Reservation. They have bars on these reservations run by Arabs, I don’t know why. But I went into this bar and had one beer. I didn’t know where to crash but I’d spotted this corn patch where I bedded down. What I didn’t know was that there was a guy’s house there and his shitter was on the other side of the corn patch.

So I’m sleeping in this corn patch and this Apache guy comes walking along in the night. He’s like 50 or 60 and gets extremely startled when he sees me jump up, thinking I’m an apparition or something. When he calmed down he told me I shouldn’t be sleeping there, that I should have checked with him first.

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In preparing for this month’s blog for Truck News I decided to do some homework, so I cataloged every month’s writings by date and subject matter that I have written to date. Time flies and I hoped to discover some pattern of thought I might have followed over the past number of years from my many articles.

I won’t bore you with the chronology of articles I have submitted and truth be told, it really didn’t reveal anything to me that was overly thrilling; and I was even less thrilled after I shared my findings with the wife after which, she gave her reply and said “yea, so!” At that point I took matters into my own hands and gave her, the “do you know who you’re talking to and how important this is” look! For which I got another “yea, so!” Then she said, if you want a good article, tell those drivers to plan time with their families; its summertime! I think she likes it when she’s right a little too much, but that’s another story.

For some of you the title of this article might ring a bell as it is a title an old Toby Keith song. The message becomes obvious as the song unfolds, which is, what in the world takes priority over the ones we cherish most… our families and friends. My wife Connie has an honest appreciation for the songs sentiment and knows it, the same way every drivers spouse knows it. I was on the road for ten years and family holidays were not had, period. I did my 12,000 miles plus consistently, month in and month out. In fact for years I would leave on Boxing Day to run to Texas and return from out of the valley with 44,000 pounds of citrus hoping to make it home before New Year’s Eve. There was decent money to be made when others didn’t want to truck; the traffic usually wasn’t too bad either.

Don’t fall into this trap folks, as life is too short to ignore what’s important. I know this first hand as I lost both parents at a very young age. My dad was a driver who worked hard his whole life and died when he was barely fifty. Many of my summertime memories as a kid were vacations with my sister and Mom while Dad was on the road doing what he felt he had to do. Next thing we knew they were both gone. Shudda Woulda Coulda won’t get the job done.

During a recent trip I made to Dallas where I was part of a seminar program on success, I ran into an old friend Mr. Marvin Shefsky. Marvin is the principle behind a couple of US publications on recruiting/retention and other trucking related topics. One of his latest endeavors is yet another innovation in marketing which Marvin is known for. He has partnered with the company that distributes blood pressure machines, which I am sure many of you are starting to see in many of the US Truck Stops. The machines are currently servicing 150,000 drivers per month

Marvin revealed to me that during the rollout of this promotion at the Louisville Truck Show, his booth had checked more than 2,000 driver’s blood pressure in 21 hours. The results were a little scary according to Marvin and in fact, there were 20 drivers that were taken immediately from the show to the hospital because the readings were so critical that these drivers needed medical assistance immediately. To emphasize the problem even further, one person actually had a heart attack on their way to the emergency room.

As we all know, the sedentary lifestyle of a driver contributes greatly to an increase in health risk; this is obvious to us all. The other item that relates to this though is of course, stress, and not just the stress of driving or finances, it is the stress we put upon ourselves through the strained relationships that are prevalent in this industry because of separation.

I share this story for another reason. It has been well documented that success in business or a career cannot be achieved fully without a balance in life style. The balance referred to is between work/career, family and oneself - including your own health. Of course that balance is all the more difficult when your occupation causes long separations from your family or whatever significant relationships you might have. But keep this in mind, there are no tombstones that I am aware of in the great drivers bone yard that read “Here lies John Brown, his only regret is that he didn’t get more miles in.”

In my research into my past writings the majority of articles have been about planning. They were about planning to be a successful Owner Operator or career driver, choosing a career path or planning an enjoyable retirement by budgeting etc. Here is a budgeting idea for you. Set some money aside from each statement for a family vacation away from it all. Plan it well and include as many of you’re close relationships as you can, and Just Do It. You need the brain drain…we all do!

Get out of the truck, park it someplace safe and forget about it for a couple weeks. Regroup, refresh, relax and reacquaint yourself with the important people in your life away from the industry. It just might save your life!

Safe and Healthy Trucking

Rjh

Here is an interesting web page with driver tips on healthy hearts.
http://healthytruckinginfo.org

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I have mentioned in previous blogs, that I was a full time musician in my twenties and after a long time away, got back into it about a year ago. I have a house gig at Nattie’s in Port Credit every Saturday from 2- 6 PM with my bandwww.treeoh.com. Sorry, couldn’t help but put in a little plug. 

The reason I’m referencing this, is I had a little reboot on what’s really important to an audience. My example pertains to entertainment but I believe the same holds true for anyone you’re trying to engage. In our case, we were playing on the south side of Lakeshore, next to the double doors to the outdoor patio. Doors that are wide open during nicer weather. A neighbour in an apartment building on the north side of Lakeshore called to complain about how loud the music was. How he heard us over the traffic I don’t know, as Lakeshore is a main drag. The guy’s name was Dave.

It started off pretty harmless. An invitation to join us, announced over the PA system, working his name into songs, Move it on over Dave, Mustang Davey etc. Grade 5 kind of humour. The interesting thing is that the bar regulars knew Dave and the bartender who took the complaint call was literally on the floor laughing every time we made some sort of a reference. We worked it for a whole set and carried it a bit into the next set. When new people entered the bar, we filled them in on the running joke…everyone warmed up to the band and we all shared some laughs, at Dave’s expense.

The point?  It wasn’t canned patter perfected with time, it fed off something happening right then and there and it resonated with the audience. There is something genuine about that kind of communication. So my revelation is, whether you are a truck driver communicating with a receiver, a sales person connecting with a new client or a service representative dealing with a customer complaint; take a chance, have some fun, move away from the standard patter, listen and react to what’s going on at that precise moment. Make it real and plough some new ground. It can haul you out of the mundane and bring the person you’re speaking with along with you.

Lee’s quote for the day

If salt were communication then pepper should be spontaneity. Like your diet, a little less salt and a little more pepper is the best way to go. J

Lee Palmer is the President and Creative Director at Palmer Marketing, a company that specializes in creative marketing and advertising solutions for the transportation industry.

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