Aaron Ewer
Aaron Ewers thoughts about everything

A story in today’s Chicago Tribune reports that Sonic will be entering the Chicagoland market this year with 4 new drive-in restaurants. That’s great news! What took them so long?

Sonic is headquartered in Oklahoma and is the country’s largest operator of drive-in restaurants, with over 3,000 drive-ins nationwide. SONIC enjoys the highest customer frequency rate in the quick-service restaurant industry.

In 1953, SONIC was founded by Troy Smith and was originally named Top Hat Drive-In, and the name was changed to SONIC in 1959. The prototype of the first SONIC Drive-In opened in Shawnee, Oklahoma and the unique use of curbside speakers to allow customers to place food orders without leaving their cars, was the basis for their slogan of “SONIC, Service with the Speed of Sound.”

They have a special offer of milkshakes for 99 cents - that makes it awfully hard to drive past one without stopping for a different milkshake flavor every day at a bargain price!

It seems like this year my allergies have lasted weeks longer than usual. I’ve been sneezing and having sinus headaches ever since the temperatures hit 60 degrees. I’ve always been sensitive to tree pollen, but now I’m concerned that there are other things in the air that bother me, too.

My son has suggested getting an air purifier for the house, and after going through one more box of allergy pills I have to agree with him that it is worth a try. He found a website that gives ratings of air purifiers and we took a look at it tonight to try to decide which one would best suit our needs.

An air purifier would help with my allergies and also help reduce the sensitivity to the smoke that wafts upstairs occasionally when my son has friends over in the family room who smoke in the house - even though we keep asking them not to. So every once in a while smelling smoke in the house is an issue and a purifier would take care of that for me, too.

Speaking of Wood, another one was in the news today. Tiger Woods won the golf tournament that had the whole golf world buzzing these past couple of days.

Yesterday Tiger and Rocco Mediate finished the U.S. Open in a tie and had to play another round today. This in itself is remarkable. Even more so is the fact that today’s tournament became a sudden death playoff and at the very end of the course, Tiger clinched the win when Mediate missed a long par putt.

Congrats to Tiger Woods for winning his 14th major golf tournament today! He’s creeping even closer to Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major championship wins and he’s young yet.

I was reading about the new Netflix Player by Roku that will stream movies on demand to your TV. This is a little black box that sells for $100 and then you pay a subscription fee to Netflix instead of having to get DVDs delivered by mail. Great idea! This is perfect for the generation who has come to expect everything delivered on demand.

A little trivia note: the guy who invented this little black box and is the founder of Roku, Anthony Wood, is the same guy who invented the personal video recorder. So it’s pretty cool to see that someone who embraces technology and can find a way to make a practical device as an inventor has a real shot at  the American dream and  making a good living from his inventions. Way to go, Wood!

Years ago I took a sales position with a database marketing group. It only lasted about a year, as the boss was impossible to work for, but I learned a lot about marketing and sales, and I have to give credit to the people at that now defunct company for teaching me some important lessons. By the way, the company is defunct because the boss went to jail for tax evasion - but that’s a different story. The people who worked there were the tops in their fields and their expertise is what fueled the company to its high level - although short lived - success.

The main thing you need to know about using database marketing for a sales campaign is that the quality of your leads is the single biggest influence on the success of your campaign. There are lots of companies that sell sales leads, but the lists have to be targeted properly, as current as possible and very very clean.

If I was to start a business to business sales campaign, the first call I would make would be to “The Lead Dogs.” This company knows their stuff and they share a lot of useful information about marketing on their web site. There are several critical steps involved in a successful campaign, including business to business telemarketing, direct mail and a unique URL to support the campaign. You can read more about this and other marketing tips on “The Lead Dogs” website, so take advantage of their knowledge and abilities.