Disqus - Latest Comments for coreysmith

Re: Insurance is the Problem, Not the Solution

Corey Smith — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 17:27:25 -0000

We haven't had a free market in the pharma industry in years. There is so much overhead in the US and the research and development for those drugs can't be charged to the consumer in most socialized countries that the cost in the US must necessarily increase.

Most of the consumers, especially those that are incredibly healthy, will likely see an increase in premiums. My premiums have skyrocketed and, yes, I have verified this.

Consider this post: http://www.theblaze.com/sto...

Also, consider the cost of the website alone at over $400 million adds a significant amount of overhead that has to be paid by someone. That and the website doesn't even work right. Then add the employees to run it and all the other new costs that the health insurance system has never had to worry about.

But, what really drives me nuts is the $100million paid to a Canadian consulting company that doesn't even stay in the US economy. see: http://www.washingtonpost.c...

Re: Health Insurance - The POV of a Thinking Man

Corey Smith — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 13:51:45 -0000

Mark, Thanks for your perspective. I don't think that all insurance is bad. I pay for insurance. What I really hate is when people complain they can't afford to pay their bills because they don't have insurance but never put away the amount of money they should have been paying on insurance.

I believe that insurance is a false sense of security. They think that once they get insurance all will be well. While, if they would have been putting that same amount away for the number of years they were healthy then the insurance becomes less of a necessity.

I do have insurance. I also understand the costs associated and know that if I would have put that same $1,000 per month away for the last 5 years and paid for my family's medical expenses instead, I would likely still have $20,000 in the bank. That includes the consideration of the birth of a baby, two kids with broken arms, emergency room visits, well checkups and prescription drugs. If I had paid cash, each of those situations would have allowed me to negotiate better rates for all of my services and I would have come out ahead.

You keep saving that same money over the years and you are set. The challenge is to make that transition. We have been conditioned for so long that we have to have insurance that we think there is no other way. Maybe just add a catastrophic policy on top to be safe.

Re: How to Sell to Me

Corey Smith — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 12:57:31 -0000

Kelly, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Re: Monday Marketing - Checking Broken Links

Corey Smith — Mon, 09 Sep 2013 12:01:46 -0000

Most people don't have access to the server logs but if they have a CMS like Drupal or Wordpress then they can at least get a simplified version of what server logs can do.

I think the biggest problem for our own web properties is remembering that we need to take the time to do it.

Re: Monday Marketing - Understanding Social Bookmarking

Corey Smith — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 12:18:54 -0000

There are a number of other social bookmarking sites but these four are the top sites that I would consider for now. As you get more effective in your strategy you can start to branch out a bit more.

Tumblr is more of a microblogging platform than a social bookmarking platform. Yes, you can add social bookmarks but it's treated by most people as a place to blog.

Re: Doing the Impossible

Corey Smith — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 14:18:06 -0000

Bill, I don't think I was thinking of you particularly with this post. As far as I'm concerned, if we are willing to get a little creative, we can usually come up with solutions that solve the problems we face.

Re: Are You Paying Too Little For Social Media Management?

Corey Smith — Sun, 23 Jun 2013 17:29:54 -0000

Sometimes I am simply amazed where people will try to save money. Usually when the deal is too good to be true, it probably is.

Re: Who is the real Corey Smith?

Corey Smith — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 22:51:31 -0000

Tim, I've often wondered about you.

Thanks for the compliments. The background moving like that was actually a happy accident when designing the website. I'm glad you like it.

Re: Who is the real Corey Smith?

Corey Smith — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 16:24:52 -0000

Kyle, maybe your doppelganger isn't as cool as mine.

Re: Three Reasons for Social Media

Corey Smith — Fri, 03 May 2013 12:37:25 -0000

Glad you like it. I'm not sure where I got that image. I might have stolen it from someone else :).

Feel free to use it as you like and if you give me a link back, that'd be great. If you don't, I won't cry.... too much.

Re: Choices and Consequences

Corey Smith — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 10:23:35 -0000

I'm not sure of many teachers that have a hard time feeding their own except those that make poor financial decisions. I knew a father of five children, whose wife didn't work, that taught school. He took care of his family just fine.

I'm pretty confident that most financial problems people find themselves in are those that they create themselves.

If you take into consideration that teachers work only 9 months out of the year, most of them get paid pretty well.

Let's look at some real numbers. You can find average teacher salaries here: http://www.teacherportal.co... If you take just the example of a California teacher starting making $56,950. That's for 9 months of work. If annualized that becomes nearly $76,000... for a first year teacher. That's not exactly poverty.

After taxes they are bringing home at least $4,000 per month. $2,000 for rent, $500 for food, $500 for utilities leaves them with $1,000 for other things. I think they can do it.

I don't think that the decision to teach children is a loser choice. My wife was a teacher in 6th grade. I taught at the college level. These decisions are very important. However, they know going in that they will get paid less. If they wanted more money, they would have made a different choice.

Re: I Hate Online Malls

Corey Smith — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 11:02:50 -0000

Online malls and online shopping are not the same thing. Most online malls are not designed for shopping. That capability wasn't in it's infancy when online malls started and the majority of companies that use online malls do not intend to sell online.

Online shopping is important but do not require an online mall to be visible.

The fact is that most online malls live in the 90s and do not help their clients but help themselves. I know there are exceptions and outliers. Congratulations if you are one of them. Most can not claim that success.

Re: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Marketing Myopia

Corey Smith — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 23:01:51 -0000

We do use the built in blog feature from Drupal to post our blogs. I can't imagine any advantage to not using it.

Re: The iPad 3 vs. the iPad 4: Another New iPad? No Thanks, Apple! Why You Should Skip This Upgrade

Corey Smith — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 12:30:02 -0000

My guess is that Apple is putting the iPad on the same schedule as the other computers (desktops/laptops). It seems they are trying to make the iPad feel more like a regular product and not a novelty product. By having it on it's own schedule, it's like it's too special. By putting it on this schedule with the other devices, it makes it more mainstream.

We'll know if I'm right or not after some time. If I'm right, it will be a year before we see another.

Re: Choices and Consequences

Corey Smith — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 19:42:50 -0000

If the teachers want to make more money then they need to change careers. There will always be those that are willing to perform the work for less... that's why they aren't making top dollars. If there were more positions that needed to be filled, the requirement would be to pay them more to stay... it's simple economics.

I teach my own children. I have taught college. Teaching is hard work. It's also not very lucrative.

Re: Choices and Consequences

Corey Smith — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 19:40:41 -0000

I think my main point regarding teaching is that you don't go into teaching to be rich. You go into teaching to teach. That is the primary reason that I am not a teacher even though I love it. Most people when they start teaching know they won't make a lot of money but it doesn't really sink in until later in life when they realize they need more money to live a higher lifestyle.

The other consideration in this is that when you don't control the revenue source, you have to really consider the issues at hand for not commanding more money. A top notch sales person will always make more money than a company HR manager because the sales rep increases revenue and the HR rep doesn't. A teacher doesn't earn revenue but spends it. The potential for doing a great job for a public school will generally not increase revenue... as such, it is counter-intuitive to be paid more for a great job in the public school system. In a private school, a top-notch teacher will increase revenue because more students will pay a higher tuition for a great education.

Working hard isn't enough to be rewarded. Performing well should be required to be rewarded. I'm the president of my company. I don't get paid more for working harder. I get paid for getting more stuff done.

Re: When Your Policy Sucks, Suck It Up

Corey Smith — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:36:48 -0000

When you call your complaining customer irrelevant, it sort of sums up your attitude about doing the right thing.

As an update to this post, Ben Baldanza, CEO of Spirit, said that having nearly three times the complaints of the second wost airline provider doesn't really bother him.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2...

This post says that Boycott Spirit Facebook page is sitting at 21,000 up from 700 since before this instance. I decided to like the page and it's already over 24,000 since the article was written earlier today.

https://www.facebook.com/Bo...

Re: When Your Policy Sucks, Suck It Up

Corey Smith — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:47:40 -0000

I hope her inbox does get full. If she hates the backlash enough, maybe she'll attempt to change something.

Re: When Your Policy Sucks, Suck It Up

Corey Smith — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:14:40 -0000

Jeff, I've flown Spirit a couple times in the past via one of their codeshare partners. I didn't have a bad experience. But, I'm also not often on the east coast.

Thanks for the heads up on the the background. When you try to stack 'em deep and sell 'em cheap, there is usually some sort of fallout.

Re: Social Media Explained with Bacon

Corey Smith — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:41:52 -0000

I might have to update my chart: *ALL* social media channels explained by bacon.

Re: Losing on Mailing Lists

Corey Smith — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 11:52:58 -0000

As much as I hate canvasing, I agree that the list produced is much more qualified.

Re: Losing on Mailing Lists

Corey Smith — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 11:34:45 -0000

Kim, this is a problem that is really easy to complain about but not so easy to fix. The challenge for people who buy lists is that they are subject to the quality of the list from the provider.

Unfortunately for many, the solution of simply not buying the list anymore may not be appealing. However, I would bet that most of those that do direct mail do not ever calculate the ROI. Our house gets at least 5 letters from Chase bank each week and we never buy. How is that sustainable?

I think the only thing that marketers can do is step back to the basics and only work with what actually generates positive results... I bet direct mail for banks doesn't work as well as they think it is.

Re: Technology Doesn't Matter

Corey Smith — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 20:34:56 -0000

Thank you for the kind words. There is certainly some value in picking up the phone and calling.

I love your comment that says, "There is no substitution for face-to-face conversation to understand the nuances of the communication."

If we use the tools right then we can enhance proper communication.

Re: Search Engines & People Want Content

Corey Smith — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:24:28 -0000

I'm glad that you like the post and the blog. The real key is that Google likes content. The more you write the happier they will be.

Good luck on your blog.

Re: 3 Reasons Why Flash Sucks

Corey Smith — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:24:31 -0000

For applets (simple applications) I would argue that increasingly HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript are becoming far more valid. Especially since Adobe no longer supports Flash in mobile devices and that traffic is really growing.