Dealer Dan, pictured here with WWE Superstar Mick Foley, has been in internet marketing since 1996. He likes hugs, long walks on the beach, and making money while wearing his jammy jams. For more information, you can read all 
Whew – long time since I wrote a Thank ______ It’s Monday article. Just been crazy here the last little while and it’s nice to finally be able to settle down and write one of these.
At the beginning of May I headed off to Vegas, followed by Edmonton for what was pretty much 10 days of drinking and partying like a mad man. When I came back I was faced with the reality that Summer was fast approaching, and both my kids would be off and I would have to take the whole Summer off. So I spent a week getting everything in order, prioritizing and just figuring out what I had to accomplish work wise in June.
Well then we spoke with the kids and they wanted to go to a daily Summer camp so suddenly I didn’t HAVE to rush through a lot of work. On top of that I had my daughters 6th birthday to deal with, and a whole bunch of stuff around the house to do. I also had to get some office organisation going on, get my business taxes set up etc.
Then there was also getting a few websites in order because I had to. The NHL season entered the playoffs so I had to spend a lot of time watching hockey and focusing on providing my NHL Betting Tips. Watching the playoff games also threw off my sleep schedule, and this was the first day I woke up at 5 in over a month. On top of that I’ve been working on WNBATips.com and getting that back in shape in time for the WNBA season.
Oh yeah – plus I finally left #TEAMBLACKBERRY and I got the Galaxy S4 which has taken up a ridiculous amount of my time from setting it up to testing out all the features to……sigh, getting addicted to games like Candy Crush Saga.
So yeah – basically my whole last month has been a huge mess, and that’s why I’m thanking Monday It’s Monday. I love being dull, I love sticking to a strict routine – and after a month of mayhem I’m finally ready to get back to it.
This week is going to rock!
Coffee:
I don’t have a bucket list, but if I did one thing that would’ve been on it was “drink coffee”. And after 32 years of living on this wonderful place we call Earth, I can finally say “I drank coffee”.
I’d never drank it before. Not once. I’m Scottish so I grew up on tea. On top of that, it smelled gross. And books/movies always put coffee in a weird light. People would be dependent on it and couldn’t function without it, and it’d give them this crazy caffeine rush that really I never needed. So I stayed away from it.
When I was in Edmonton, I was doing a 6k walk for charity. So of course the night before, I got absolutely blitzed out of my mind, and was up till about 3am partying. Because I’m a moron. So I was completely dead the next day. On the way to the walk we stopped at a Tim Hortons and my friends took one look at me in the back seat, slumped over and just completely out of it and decided – yeah, this guy needs coffee.
Thankfully they eased me into it. Instead of strong black coffee they got me a “Mocha” – hot chocolate and coffee I believe. And it was quite delicious. It also gave me the energy to actually complete the walk. It’s not something that I’d drink every day, but it’s good to know I have it as an option.
Anyway yeah – 32 years old and I finally drank my first cup of coffee. Quite the accomplishment. Maybe next week I’ll be able to stare at one of those “magic eye” pictures and actually see the stupid hidden image that everyone else does.
Seriously I’ve looked at hundreds of those bloody things and not once seen anything.
Shit That Kept Me Sane in April/May:
This is a monthly segment where I talk about multimedia that kept me sane and entertained over the last month. Although with no T_IM in the last month I’m going to cover both April and May here.
TV: Haven’t watched much new stuff. I have all of Mad Men Season 6 that has aired so far sitting on my PVR still to watch. I ended up going through Arrested Development Season 1-3 for the 3rd time, in preparation for Season 4. Watched a few episodes of the new season and it’s solid stuff. I can imagine it’s not everyones cup of tea but I’ve thought it has been a very refreshing change, and I’m looking forward to the eventual rewatch where you really catch how brilliant it all is.
With NHL & NBA Playoff season though I have been more focused on sports and just haven’t bothered with much actual TV lately.
Movies: Near the end of May I decided “Man, I gotta watch more movies”. I find it tough watching movies because you look at a show like Breaking Bad, all the seasons of it, all the TV time and hours put into it and the story isn’t fully complete yet. Then you try and get the same thing crammed into a 2 hour movie. However I made it my goal to start watching more movies. This is what I’ve watched all in the last week:
- This Is 40: Thought this was bloody amazing. Just non-stop laughs, great subject matter and references etc. The Lost and Mad Men stuff killed me. Melissa McCarthy is just unreal.
- Jack Reacher: With the books being my favourite books ever it took me a long time to get round to watching this due to the horrific casting of Tom Cruise. it actually started off not bad as it really wasn’t a Reacher movie – it was just Tom Cruise being a badass. But it got extremely bad halfway through and never recovered. Sucked.
- The Last Stand: Arnie is bloody awesome. Great movie – I love how action movies featuring old stars are constructed these days and build up to the big finale. Nothing will beat Universal Solder though in that regard.
- Get The Gringo: Big return for Mel Gibson and he brings it. Thought this was an awesome movie and if you’re a fan of the old Mel Gibson, it’s a must-watch.
- Cleanskin: Always been a fan of that “lone wolf versus bad guys” niche, and Sean Bean being the lone wolf made this all the better as I just love this guy. Solid movie with some cool action scenes considering the budget, and a good story with some twists and turns.
- Silver Linings Playbook: Pretty good. Basic story that relied 100% on the acting and the characters and they all brought it. Bradley Cooper in particular was incredible and is really one of the top actors at the moment.
Whew – that’s it for movies just in the last week! Hoping to watch about 20-30 movies in June.
Books: I finally get to cross another item off my non-existent bucket list because I read a Stephen King book! The Shining, to be exact. Was great although it did get a bit blah for the final act. However now I get to watch the movie which I’m pumped for. Also continued to go through the Spider Shepherd Books which are tremendous and I’m 4 down now.
Video Games: Haven’t played my XBox in 2 months. Skyrim just has me so jaded for gaming. Another thing I hope to get back to though over the next couple of weeks. I keep looking at my big stack of games to play and thinking “Blah”. Think it’s time I pick up Bioshock Infinite and rock the hell out of that.
Brand Loyalty:
We’ll wrap this weeks article up with something related to work! I’m probably going to write an article on this whole “brandable domain” BS that is the latest set of buzz words going round. Not that there is anything wrong with building a brand – but I don’t think people understand what they’re trying to accomplish when they’re actually “building a brand”. Instead they’re too cheap to buy a money domain name, and are building brandable domains just as an excuse.
But yeah – brand loyalty. What a wonderful phrase that is. However it only takes you so far. You still need to offer a solid service or resource behind it – actually bring something to the table. Because brand loyalty can only take you so far. If the end user doesn’t get what they want from your brand, then all the loyalty in the world means absolutely jack shit. Here are 2 examples over the past couple of weeks for me:
Blackberry: I thought I would be loyal to #TEAMBLACKBERRY forever. I really did. However after about 10 years of being loyal to Blackberry and that wonderful keyboard – I dropped them like a hot potato.
I picked up the Samsung Galaxy S4. I was always scared of having a touchscreen phone to type as it seemed impossible to use compared to my Blackberry. So I got a whole second phone and line and account because I was scared to take the plunge. My plan was to have my Blackberry as my primary phone, and the S4 would be a backup phone for whenever I wanted to try out apps etc that weren’t available on Blackberry.
After 1 week, I was completely hooked on the S4 and my Blackberry was a paperweight. I promptly canceled my Blackberry line and went full hog with the S4. Why? Because all the brand loyalty in the world couldn’t change the fact that the S4 was better. Oh so much better. In practically every way. And I even got used to the touchscreen typing very quickly.
All the brand loyalty in the world won’t help you if you’re delivering a clearly inferior product.
Samsung: In 2004, I picked up two Samsung monitors so I could play 8 tables of online poker with the 1600×1200 resolution. I didn’t pick these up due to the brand – I picked them up because these were what every poker player was playing on at that time. Over the last few years, I have had issues with both monitors. Customer service has been fantastic, sending me new monitors at no additional cost and with no hassle, extending warranties, even sending me a better monitor the last time around.
Based on that service, I decided I’d be a “Samsung” guy and when I recently bought a new TV I went straight to Samsung.
However it was my daughters birthday last week, and she wanted a TV for her bedroom like her brother. He had a 24″ TV so I had to buy the exact same size obviously. The cheapest Samsung was $250, meanwhile there were other brands at $150. Now was the Samsung better? Possibly, but when you’re buying a TV for your kid to watch Lalaloopsy and Spongebob, you’re really not too concerned about getting the best overall product. All the brand loyalty in the world couldn’t beat the vast difference in price.
I’ll have another article up later this week talking about building brands on the web from an affiliate perspective – but just remember that “building a brand” really means jack shit. All the brand loyalty in the world really means nothing if other brands can do it better.
Have a great week everyone, I know I am pumped to wake up at 5am every day again.
This article was written on June 3, 2013 however all articles are looked at on a monthly basis and updated to keep them relevant.
If you need to contact Graeme, please see his Contact Page. If you are an affiliate manager wanting promoted please see this page.
