Some fun cards we've sent recently - Week 3

More and more, Marge and I utilize custom printed greeting cards we create with SendOutCards to send heartfelt messages to people.

We love to take photos of folks and put those pictures in cards that we later send as thank you's or notes of appreciation.

Here are the fronts and insides of some of the cards we sent recently.

Here's the front of a birthday card to our granddaughter:

 

A card we sent to Joe Gaugham or WECT and Mike Triggiano of Mail Express in Leland:

 

A card I sent to Tom Hemphill, Director of the Brunswick Community College Small Business Center:

A card I sent to Jerry Helms, Manager of Brunswick Forest  Realty, the front of which was a photo of the community entrance as it looked four years ago:

 

And a similar card to a neighbor of the street where he now lives:

Here's the front of a card I sent to Jon and Amy David with their son:

And this last one, a 90th birthday card to Marge's Uncle Morgan, with the card front and inside three panels:

 

 

If you're looking for an effective, easy, low cost, and very personal way to keep in touch with friends, family, contacts, clients, and referral sources, using cards like this can be highly cost effective. And they sure are fun to create and send.

We invite you to send a card on us, absolutely free, to see what it's like.

Just go to our web site www.FatCityCards.com and click on 'send a free card'.

If you're wondering about whether using the SendOutCards service would make sense for you, answer these 3 questions:

1. Do you send cards and gifts?
2. Do you know anyone who sends cards and gifts?
3. Would you like to make money whenever you or anyone you know sends cards and gifts?

If you answered 'yes' to the first question, it might make sense for you to be a SendOutCards customer.

If you answered 'yes' to questions 2. and 3., it might make sense for you to be a SendOutCards distributor.

All it takes to find out if either does make sense for you is to watch a 15 minute video, which you can see on our site www.FatCityCards.com. After you watch it you'll know if it makes sense for you.

We have a ball sending custom cards - Week 2

As you know, Marge and I utilize custom printed greeting cards we create with SendOutCards as one of our primary ways to keep in touch with people.

We love to take photos of folks and put those pictures in cards that we later send as thank you's or notes of appreciation.

Here are the fronts and insides of some of the two dozen or so cards we sent in the past two weeks:

Here's the front of a card we sent to Monica Clark and Kerry Kasotsky of K&M Speed Networking:

 

Here's the inside:

 

Here's a birthday card we sent to Dana Fisher:

The inside:

 

Johnny Mercer, Director of the Wilmington Regional Film Commission spoke at a meeting I attended, so I sent him this card:

Here's the inside:

Our friend Sidney Rabon of Cape Fear Chem-Dry Carpet Cleaning (whose passion is cooking for crowds):

The inside:

A card I sent after meeting Rita Tatum and Amy Lowrance of the Ocean Isle branch of East Carolina Bank:

 

The inside:

A card we sent to Brandon Sneed after meeting him at his book signing at RBRBooks in Leland:

 

And last, the front of a card we sent to several friends for Halloween:

 

 It's fun to use custom greeting cards for business (as well as for personal use). All you do is create them on your computer and then hit send and the company prints, stuffs, stamps, and mails them. And, to top that off, each of these cards costs only .93 (plus .44 in postage with a real, first class stamp on the envelope).

A great deal.

If you're looking for an effective, easy, low cost, and very personal way to keep in touch with your clients, contacts, or referral sources, using cards like this can be highly cost effective.

We invite you to send a card on us, absolutely free, to see what it's like. Just go to our web site www.FatCityCards.com and click on 'send a free card'.

If you're wondering about whether using the SendOutCards service would make sense for you, answer these 3 questions:

1. Do you send cards and gifts?
2. Do you know anyone who sends cards and gifts?
3. Would you like to make money whenever you or anyone you know sends cards and gifts?

If you answered 'yes' to the first question, it might make sense for  you to be a SendOutCards customer.

If you answered 'yes' to questions 2. and 3., it might make sense for you to be a SendOutCards distributor.

All it takes to find out if either does make sense for you is to watch a 15 minute video, which you can see on our site www.FatCityCards.com. After you watch it you'll know if it makes sense for you.

We have a ball sending custom cards - Week 1

As many know, Marge and I utilize custom printed greeting cards as one of our primary ways to keep in touch with people. We love to take photos of folks and put those pictures in cards that we later send as thank you's or notes of appreciation.

Below are the fronts and insides of three of the dozen or so cards we sent this past week (each card took only about a minute to design):

After Justin and Kristy William's 5th anniversary party for NBM magazine:

This is the card front with Justin and Kristy:

This is the inside of the card - note that we used my handwriting and both of our signatures:

 

 

After Dr. Sheila Hanby's Capeside Animal Hospital Business After Hours for the North Brunswick Chamber of  Commerce:

The card front - note the human rabies (vodka) shots on Sheila's tray:

 

And the inside of the card - check out how many photos we were able to include:

 

After I met with Shannon Carlson, Career Services Coordinator for Miller-Motte College:

Here's the card front:

 

 

And inside the card - I had an older, silly shot off myself that I included, just for fun:

 

It's fun to use custom greeting cards for business (as well as for personal use). All you do is create them on your computer and then hit send and the company prints, stuffs, stamps, and mails them. And, to top that off, each of these cards costs only .93 (plus .44 in postage with a real, first class stamp on the envelope).

A great deal.

If you're looking for an effective, easy, low cost, and very personal way to keep in touch with your clients, contacts, or referral sources, using cards like this can be highly cost effective.

We invite you to send a card on us, absolutely free, to see what it's like. Just go to our web site www.FatCityCards.com and click on 'send a free card'.

SendOutCards Luncheon - Holiday Cards and Gifts for Business

Each month Marge and I sponsor a luncheon at Antonio's Pizza and Pasta in Leland, NC where we present a business topic and also provide information about SendOutCards - with the focus on using SOC for business marketing.

This month, with the holiday season upon us, the business topic focused right on the central point of our SendOutCards focus, "Business Holiday Card and Gift Giving." We had a lively group of about a dozen people and it was entertaining and informative (at least I thought so, but then I was the main speaker).

Before the luncheon started Marge Brown, Doc Hamm, David Merrill, Kerry Kasotsky, and Jennifer Altman chatted.

If you'd like more info about our monthly business topic meetings, comment on this blog or email Marge@FatCityCards.

Our Trip to Salt Lake City to the SendOutCards Convention

This past weekend Marge and I went to Salt Lake City to the SendOutCards convention. The temperature was a lot like our home in Leland, NC but the air was drier. Here's Marge outside the Salt Palace Convention Center.

Obviously, Marge and I were not the only ones at the convention.

This video captures a bit of the feel of the convention prior to the opening session.



We quickly found our friend Maran Banta.


In addition to some energetic and exciting SendOutCards news and presentations, there were three major speakers during the two day event: Stedman Graham; Les Brown; and T. Harv Eker. Their styles are exceedingly different, but their messages overlapped: you can succeed in anything you wish if you focus on finding your personal strength within. We are each of us the source of our own success or failure. The master of ceremonies was Linda Clemons (founder of Sisterpreneurship) who was a powerful speaker and great entertainer herself.

In the photo below are Linda Clemons, Stedman Graham, and SendOutCards founder Kody Bateman.

American Idol finalist Megan Joy, who's also a SendOutCards distributor, appeared at the convention on Saturday morning and sang two original songs.



Here's a still shot of Megan Joy (low light so I boosted it a bit).


One of the cool things about the SendOutCards convention is they always honor the company staff on stage.


One of the cool things about our trip was this goldfish. We stayed at the Hotel Monaco in Salt Lake City. This hotel, one of the Kimpton chain of hotels, was lots of fun. The location was fantastic, in the heart of the restaurant district, right around the corner from the convention center. It's a boutique hotel with charming eclectic decorating, free shoulder massages in the lobby at day's end, and no extra charge for dogs (we didn't bring Pepper - it would be hard to fit her under an airline seat). On request the Hotel Monaco also will deliver a goldfish for your room if you've traveled without a pet. This guy was ours for three days.


We had a great trip. Our flights were on time (thanks Delta), the convention was informative, inspiring, and fun. We even managed to stay fairly rested. We'll be back next year.

Can Brownies Bring Business?

Well we sure know they can. Sending incredibly good-tasting brownies to family and friends is a really nice thing to do. When you send them to customers, clients and prospects it prompts a call. What a nice thing to do!

If you're in the Wilmington-Leland, North Carolina area or will be tomorrow, August 19th, come join us for lunch to see what this is all about.

We'll have a brownie tasting, have lunch, and those who want to can experience how easy and quick it is to send a box of amazing brownies to a business or personal contact.

Click on the image below for full details or just call Marge Brown at (910) 431-1508 or e-mail at margejbrown@yahoo.com to RSVP.

And yes, this is for sure a business thing that Marge and I do and I don't often pitch business in this blog, but we're so pumped about these brownies I wanted to be sure to put the word out.

Change Is Good - New Directions for Being Bruce

"Late to the party, last to leave."

I started this blog in September 2008. Since that time I've posted more than 250 times and used 49% of my Blogger allotment of image storage space (that's a lot of photos). I had intended to wait till this September to announce a change in, or rather an addition to, the blog direction, intention, and purpose, but, in a move that will come as no surprise to those who know me best, I'm not waiting. I'm starting with this post, but intend by the first of August, to make significant changes to the Being Bruce blog. These changes reflect parallel changes in my business/work life.

I'm not going to stop blogging. I'm also NOT going to stop writing about and posting many photos of places, people, events, and things I think interesting or amusing. The changes will be in added content and additional direction. Therefore, if you're already at or near your limit of my view of the world, you might consider un-following the blog or killing the RSS feed. The previous sentence will be your only warning.

Here's what's going on: I'm a big believer that we each have unique purpose. I also believe that many of us find our best expression of purpose through multiple outlets or directions. In this post I'm outting myself about going back to some of my career/life roots and adding another patch to my current professional canvas.

A while back in my professional life I was a counselor and therapist, later on a computer and business consultant, and (sort of in between and always) a life and business coach. I have decided to charge back into that realm (in my usual high-energy manner) while continuing my profession as a full time REALTOR in the great Wilmington area and also working with Marge on Fat City Cards, our SendOutCards distributorship. I'm passionate about all three endeavors and am looking forward to once again having two full-time jobs and one half time gig.

I should make it very clear that I'm not going to be "doing" therapy or personal counseling - I'm not licensed in this state for that and that's not my interest or passion. I'm also not going to be a business/computer/marketing consultant (been there, got the t-shirt). What I am going to do is offer my services as a coach to a very narrow niche. That niche is defined as high-energy, high-achieving people who have had one or more business successes and one or more failures and are now ready to make a huge leap, a significant change or advance in their business or career.

We've named the service Quantum Results Coaching, which is both denotative and connotative. It's not for everyone, but those for whom it will be of best service will recognize it. Others likely won't get it at all, which is fine.

Here's a graphic we're going to use that depicts the service:

How will that effect the Being Bruce blog? The major difference you'll notice, if you read all the blog items and not just specific event-focused posts, is that each weekday I'm going to be posting content that speaks to change agency.

I will post about:

• teachers or writers I follow or find interesting,
• books I think useful,
• specific tools or principles for personal realization or success,
• profiles of people I know who love what they do or making great leaps, and
• a running personal business diary.

I'll also be changing some of the side content and possibly the color and graphics on the blog, but those changes will come gradually.

So, the Being Bruce blog is going to "be" a lot more personal. It's going to "be" more focused on people taking charge of their (business) lives and living boldly. It's therefore going to "be" longer.

But I'll still post photos like this one of my yummy breakfast today.

Thanks for bearing with me on this post.

If you have questions about Quantum Results Coaching, I'm reachable in all the usual ways. The best ways to contact me are:

• E-mail: brucerbrown@yahoo.com
• Cell phone: (910) 297-8753
• Twitter: @brucebrownnc
  
  

NBCC Ribbon Cutting - Fat City Cards/SendOutCards

Today was a special one for Marge and I. This morning we had a ribbon-cutting for our SendOutCards independent distributorship, which we call Fat City Cards. A nice crew of folks, some of whom are in this photo, turned up for the ceremonical cutting, which we held at the NBCC offices, followed by lots of guilt-free pastries, cakes, donuts, and coffee, etc.

As is probably apparent if you read this blog with any regularity, Marge and I are very active in NBCC activities. I belong as a representative of Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Realty and now Marge has joined for Fat City Cards.

It's a privilege to be part of this active, growing chamber of commerce in an equally active, growing part of the country. We've made many new friends since we moved to the area, among native Lelanders and people from "away".

OK, so what's up with the company name "Fat City Cards?", people have asked. The answer is in the definition of the term "Fat City". In Wiktionary, the Wikipedia-like free online dictionary, the definition is "an extremely comfortable situation or condition of life." Another definition we like is "a condition of continuous prosperity." Does that work for you, too?

And what exactly is it we do in Fat City Cards/SendOutCards? It's a system that makes it Easy, Fast, and Inexpensive to send real, printed and mailed, personalized greeting cards to friends, clients, prospects, and basically anyone to who you want to express appreciation or build a relationship. We use it in our business and personal lives and help others do the same - it's especially powerful for relationship marketing (building and maintaining client and customer relationships). Happy to talk with you about it. Or, just go for a free test drive and send a card at our expense with no obligation: go to www.fatcitycards.com, click on "Send a Free Card" and see what you think.

We've recently introduced an affinity program for NBCC members by which Chamber members can sign up with SendOutCards via the Chamber in a program that financially benefits the members AND the Chamber. For info on that program feel free to contact me directly or call Marge at (910) 431-1508.

But back to today's ribbon-cutting. It was fun, the gigantic ceremonial scissors really are "real" and we had a good time. We played some videos from last night's Excellence in Education meeting and that was fun, too.