Was invited to attend a “Social Media and Business Relationships” seminar recently in Vancouver. The keynote speaker was Kevin Knebl from the U.S. Being pretty up to date on Social Media, Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter, I wasn’t sure what I was or wasn’t going to hear. What a great surprise! Kevin is a master at relating how building ‘relationship’ through social media will help you grow a a business.

I took copious notes ( a good sign) and have already started to implement some of the Linkedin strategies Kevin shared. I also plan to get ALL my clients a Linkedin account ASAP and will help them optimize it and use it to grow their businesses.

I would certainly recommend picking up some of Kevin’s products, book or see him live. It will change the way you you do business…guaranteed!

If you need help with your social media needs…just ask.

Regards,

Larry

I am finding the same issue with Dealfind© as with Groupon©. The original deals, even a year or so ago, were real deals and worth the time to purchase. Now, personally, all I am seeing is deals that are worded “save over 50%” etc. but in fact, inflated pricing is reduced to normal pricing and this is the saving portion.

Let’s take today’s deal from Dealfind©  as an example. It was for frozen food products and the Deal stated…” Get 200 dollars worth of product for 25 dollars”. Wow, that is a great savings right? Well here is the fine print:

-$200.00 was 4 coupons of $50.00 each (not to be used at the same time)
– Had to buy @ $240.00 worth of product to use the $50.00 coupon PLUS @ $30.00 in shipping would be added. So you pay @ $270.00 (with shipping) and take $50.00 off and you save a grand total of @ $20.00!!
– How they justified the ‘deal’ was to state a normal price for their meat product, but if your bought the required 8 packages, you got a reduced price. So really your coupon was based on the lower price.
It get’s better! The lower cost on one product, frozen sirloin steaks, turned out to be OVER $25.00 a kilogram for the steaks at the special price!! Heck, Costco © sells AAA beef strip loin for @ $17.00 a kilogram all day long.

In reality, allot of these coupon deals end up with a net savings between 10-25%. You know what…Department stores do this all the time and it is annoying. The amount of restrictions are also increasing and the novelty of “bulk savings” by having allot of people participate, just does not add up anymore.

Maybe I am alone in my thinking but I don’t think so.

Larry J Clark

P.S..I asked for a refund once I did the math. Now what do I do with my credit?