Orange County Advertiser is excited to welcome back guest blogger Kari Adler, owner and founder of Have a Tiki Day with more timely business advice.

Is it really 2011? Yes! And the ONLY way we should think of this New Year is how lucky we are to experience it. Each day is truly a treasure and we need to remind ourselves everyday! Don’t allow yourself to be drained by what you don’t have, or can’t do, or criticism by others. This babble will only hinder your ability to live each moment of your life with appreciation for what you DO have.

I remind you of this because of my own latest experience with negative comments directed toward me. I was recently featured in an article for the Orange County Register titled No jobs? Graduate, 23, creates something bigger . I received several positive comments, many thanks to all of you, and several negative ones. Some were downright nasty. One individual even attacked my family. I couldn’t understand why someone would write such negative things without knowing me. I felt horrible.

This brings me to my first Tiki Tip of the New Year and my own personal resolution…

Tiki Tip: Turn a Negative into a Positive

I know, I know, you’ve all heard this before. But do you actually do it? Or do you dwell on negative thoughts that drain the life
out of you. If you’re like me, you are more inclined to believe a negative comment about yourself than a positive one.

As a self-proclaimed Perfectionista, I am already hard on myself. So criticism from others is especially difficult. This is where my brother Kash Adler, writer and actor extraordinaire, stepped in. Not only is he my younger brother, he’s my go-to for calm and positive energy. Basically, my little Buddha.

Kash flat out told me to stop being silly and turn this negative into a positive. I was dwelling and making myself upset. And upset over what? Some words from anonymous bloggers.

Of course I knew these comments were false and typical jealousy, but nevertheless, hurtful. As a small business owner, I’m not used to criticism that harsh. But he said, one day, HAVE A TIKI DAY® will be bigger than you could imagine. And if I think these comments are bad now, just wait until you’re a Fortune 500 company.

I now view these comments as preparation for the future. It pushes me to work harder on my business and reinforces the fact that I’m the one in control of my thought process. We are all faced with negativity on a daily basis, but it’s up to you in how you think about it. Think positive, be positive and you‘ll be productive!

Tiki Tip: Take out the Trash!

Referring to the physical mess around you. A space full of clutter and chaos will only distract you from what you need to focus on. Whether it’s your bedroom, office or kitchen…CLEAN IT UP! I have always found a disorganized space creates disorganized thoughts. Not to mention a waste of your valuable time if you have to sort through a million papers to find what you’re looking for.

I live and work in a clutter-free zone. Shocker, Perfectionista Kari operates in an organized space. But believe me, its works. I have helped other non-perfectionist people organize their spaces and it’s been successful.

In a hurry and can’t find your keys? Or the all important Blackberry? Eliminate this stress by placing your keys & cell in the same dish every day. Organize the little things and relieve the stresses you simply don’t need. Also, don’t forget to toss those items you won’t use again. They’re taking up space that you will eventually run out of. Whether its old books, kitchen gadgets or paperwork, donate what you can and take the rest to the trash!

Tiki Tip: Don’t Predict, ANYTHING

Predicting is the absolute WORST thing you can do. You may have an idea what will happen in the next 5 minutes, hour, or day, but you can never be sure. We like to plan and predict things as we think they should be and are let down when it doesn’t happen. By doing this, you set yourself up for disappointment. STOP this right now!

Always prepare for the unexpected and you’ll be prepared for anything! Life changes in split seconds and one can never know what’s around the corner. Therefore, DON’T PREDICT!

My grandmother always said, “Man Plans and God Laughs”. So very true! Sure I make business plans and keep events in my calendar, but I don’t freak if things change. I expect plans to change. This way of thinking will allow you to handle personal and professional changes much easier. Expect the unexpected and you’ll adapt with ease.

Celebrate the New Year with Kari’s Tiki Tips for your personal and professional life.

Peace, Love &… HAVE A TIKI DAY®

What Motivates People?
By Rick Warren

If your work involves any contact with people, whether as a construction foreman, salesman, teacher, flight attendant or a leader, or in providing a service, you must understand something about motivation to be effective. Why do people act the way they do? Throughout history great minds have suggested different answers to that question.

Sigmund Freud believed that all behavior is motivated by the desire to avoid pain and experience pleasure. In his view, pleasure-seeking is the reason anything gets done. We work because it will provide us with things that we think will provide pleasure. While it’s obvious that the desire for pleasure is a real and powerful force behind much of what we do – it doesn’t explain all behavior. Millions of people willingly forfeit physical pleasure and endure pain every day for a variety of reasons.

Alfred Adler believed that the desire for power and prestige is what motivates us. He wrote that we all need to feel good about ourselves so we seek to control the people and events around us in attempt to acquire these feelings. We look for things to do that will give us a sense of power and status. Again, this is partly true, but it doesn’t explain why so many powerful and famous achievers still feel unsatisfied.

Victor Frankl believed that it is the desire for purpose and permanence that explains why we do what we do. As a survivor of the Nazi death camps, Frankl learned firsthand that man’s search for meaning is the root of human motivation. People can live with minimal food and comforts but they cannot live without hope.

The truth is, each of these views is partly right. Human beings have a physical dimension, a psychological dimension, and a spiritual dimension. Life involves HAVING, DOING, and BEING. Our physical side desires a safe workplace and a secure income. Our psychological side wants to be valued, rather than devalued, for our work. And our spiritual side requires that there be a meaning and purpose to what we do.

Wise managers and leaders create organizations that help people experience pleasure instead of pain at the physical level, self-worth at the psychological level, and meaning and purpose at the spiritual level. When you integrate these values into your workplace extraordinary achievements are possible through ordinary people!

“Thank you God for making me so wonderfully complex! It is amazing to think about. Your work-manship is marvelous… You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe… How great to realize that You are thinking about me constantly!” Psalm 139:13-17 (Living Bible)

“This article is from Rick Warren’s Ministry Toolbox issue #20.
www.Pastors.com. Copyright 2001 by Rick Warren. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”

Business Expo Center
Connecting you with opportunities

What: Business Expo Center Grand Opening Celebration

When: Thursday, July 29, 2010 3:30 PM

Where:
Business Expo Center
1960 Anaheim Way
Anaheim, CA 92805
949-484-4834

The long awaited Grand Opening of the Business Expo Center is finally here!

Exhibit your business or attend the event with 500 other like minded entrepreneurs with the launch of the 36,000 square foot multi-million dollar facility.

Hear from incredible speakers like Les Brown, an internationally recognized motivational speaker, author, and television personality will be one of the featured speakers at the Grand Opening Event. Also appearing is an array of celebrity and key note speakers Ron Kovach, Matthew Fox, Tara Grace Perry, Dave Espino and Chris Alexander. This powerful lineup of speakers is for local business owners and professionals, but seating is limited…RSVP here today to reserve your spot, seating is limited!

500 Attendees, 50 Exhibiting Businesses, 5 Great hours of food, fun and networking,…all free for you!

Here is a little more about the Expo Center and how it is relevant to you, the OC Business Owner, taken from their website http://www.businessexpocenter.com/?page=about

“Our facility is THE VENUE that provides a membership based, revolutionary approach to integrate opportunities and create long term solutions for personal and professional success.

Empowerment in your business and in your life is a key to your success. The Business Expo Center is a platform for Speakers, Trainers & Coaches to bring their valuable teachings to those in our community, inspiring people to bring their lives and their business to the highest level.”

Seating is limited, so reserve your spot today! http://www.businessexpocenter.com
See you there!

It is no secret that times are tough. Driving through local shopping centers, the “for lease” signs look to be contagious. But as a business owner, this is not the time to put your tail between your legs and slink away. This is the time to focus on your marketing budget and position your company for future prosperity.

In a study of U.S. recessions, McGraw-Hill Research analyzed 600 companies from 1980 to 1985. The results showed that firms that maintained or increased their advertising expenditures during the 1981-1982 recession averaged significantly higher sales growth than those that eliminated or decreased their advertising. This increased growth not only occurred during the recession, but continued for the following three years. By 1985, sales of companies that were aggressive recession advertisers had risen 256 percent over those that didn’t keep up their advertising!

5 Tips for staying on top:

1. Maintain marketing budget making sure efforts include high value and high impact non-advertising venues such as public relations, word of mouth, and social media. Consider direct marketing which gives more immediate sales impact.

2. Market to your target audience. Spending money to sell to people to who don’t need your product is poor budgeting.

3. Keep in mind that customers will be shopping for the best deals and in tough times, price cuts offer a bigger draw than promotions.

4. Consumers want to count on the reliability, safety, durability, and performance of products so stay away from gimmicks and flowery messages. Look to empower consumers to make good choices based on value rather than price.

5. Be innovative. For example, run a competition to win advertising space on your site. You are marketing your website in a way that is free for you but valuable for others. Or add your website’s URL to the signature of each email account (personal or business) you use, so it appears on every email you send.

What it comes down to is that successful companies do not abandon their marketing strategies in a recession; they refine and adapt them. What are you doing to adapt?

We recently saw an intriguing question on Google Answers

“How many advertising messages (from all media sources) is the average American exposed to on a daily basis?”

Here are some of the answers received:

“The average American is exposed to 247 commercial messages each day.”
Consumer Reports Website- http://bit.ly/bReYw4

“If you’re like most consumers, you have been the target of intrusive marketing and a constant barrage of irrelevant advertising messages. The average American sees over 3,000 advertising messages a day. If you fill out a warranty card, get divorced, buy a home, get listed in a school directory, enter a sweepstakes, purchase an item from a catalog, file an insurance claim, or perform a myriad of other everyday activities, some company somewhere makes a record of this fact and sells it to marketers for profit.”
Superprofile Website http://bit.ly/akfKeL

Wow! The average American sees over 3,000 advertising messages a day?? Maybe not…

“This statistic is only used for “hype” purposes, usually to portray advertising as some kind of social evil. When considering these silly numbers, it is best to stop and think: a person is usually only awake for about 1000 minutes per day. If they did nothing else but look at or listen to advertising, it would take every minute of the day to generate 3,000 exposures. A number around 500 might be a reasonable extreme, again counting as exposure all the out-of-home media passed, and small space ads in newspapers and magazines, even thought there may be no notice taken at all.”

The Guru tends to go along with one of the best accepted estimates, that there are about 245 ad exposures daily, 108 from TV, 34 radio and 112 print. The higher estimates probably include all marketing exposure including being in the vicinity of product labels or actual products with trademarks visible, such as your car, computer, fax, phone, shirt, pencil, paper towel in the bathroom, etc. Just think, if we were really exposed to 3000 advertising messages per day, at an average of just 10 seconds apiece (accounting for radio :60′s and brief exposure to billboards), these exposures would consume 8.33 hours out of our 16 waking hours per day.” The Advertising Media Inter-Center Website http://bit.ly/bjYbJP

But regardless of whether the number is 245 or 3,000, it is clear that today’s businesses are competing for consumer attention. Let Welcome Express help. We can ensure that your message reaches out to 32,000 newcomers and pre-move south Orange County families. Your ad will appear in 4 different and highly visible areas including the home page of the Orange County Resource Guide.com and Home at Last magazine, Newcomer Directory and Relocation Guide. If you are looking for reasonably priced dynamic online and in print advertising, then look to www.OrangeCountyResourceGuide.com/TMD.html

Are you angry, frustrated, & worried about the state of the business climate in CA? Many business owners like yourself are too busy running your own company to be active politically, yet you would like to see changes. Here are some answers:

A coalition of concerned chambers of commerce in south OC will now be a voice for you. Chambers work behind the scenes as your legislative advocate; you may not be aware of all that they do on your behalf. This group is LASOC—Legislative Alliance of Southern Orange County—founded to be a strong voice for business. Welcome Express attended the inaugural meeting of about 50 local interested parties forming this group and can confidently report back the following agenda.

Vision: The voice of and Advocate for the Southern Orange County Business Community

Mission: The Legislative Alliance of Southern Orange County LASOC will work to ensure that the collective voice of the Southern Orange County business community is heard at the County, State, and Federal levels of government.

Strategic Initiatives: To that end, LASOC will develop a strong focused agenda and implement a proactive advocacy plan to address the issues most critical to the success of the region’s businesses. These include:
Regulatory Reform
Health Care Reform
Housing & Infrastructure
Workforce Development
Stop the state from raiding local funds

Many top officials in government, legislative advocacy groups, and civic organizations on all levels have made a commitment to become involved and raise the volume of our voice in Sacramento and DC. They will not participate in political theatre; they will contact your elected officials and ‘hold their feet to the fire’ in terms of addressing your needs. You are welcome to attend the LASOC meetings. They will be held 7:30am-9:00am every 4th Friday at Saddleback College (need to confirm location.) Get involved or don’t complain; help be part of the solution. If unable to attend, visit the websites and contact your local officials.

Important & Related Links:
www.calchamber.com
www.uschamber.com
www.freeenterpriseamerica.com
www.savelocalservices.com
www.socchambers.com/advocacy/

We found several lists with info on what is about to join the 8 track and candy store in the “never more” collection. We found it interesting and thought you would as well. Times are a changing…

25. U.S. Post Office
They are pricing themselves out of existence. With email, and online services they are a relic of the past.
24. Yellow Pages
One research firm predicts the falloff in usage of newspapers and print Yellow Pages could even reach 10% this year — much higher than the 2%-3% fade rate seen in past years.
23. Classified Ads
The argument is that if newspaper classifieds are replaced by free online listings at sites like Craigslist.org and Google Base, then newspapers are not far behind them.
22. Movie Rental Stores
While Netflix is looking up at the moment; Blockbuster keeps closing store locations by the hundreds. Countless small video chains and mom-and-pop stores have given up the ghost already.
21. Dial-up Internet Access
Dial-up connections have fallen from 40% in 2001 to 10% in 2008.
20. Phone Landlines
According to a survey from the National Center for Health Statistics, at the end of 2007, nearly one in six homes were cell-only and, of those homes that had landlines, one in eight only received calls on their cells.
19. Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs
Maryland’s icon, the blue crab, has been fading away in Chesapeake Bay. Last year Maryland saw the lowest harvest of 22 million pounds down from 96 million just four decades ago.
18. VCRs
For the better part of three decades, the VCR was a best-seller and staple in every American household until being completely decimated by the DVD, and now the Digital Video Recorder (DVR).
17. Ash Trees
In the late 1990s, a pretty, iridescent green species of beetle, now known as the emerald ash borer. In less than a decade, their larva have killed millions of trees in the Midwest, and continues to spread.
16. Ham Radio
The number of people holding active ham radio licenses has dropped by 50,000.
15. The Swimming Hole
Thanks to our litigious society, swimming holes are becoming a thing of the past. As injuries occur and lawsuits follow, expect more swimming holes to post ‘Keep out!’ signs.
14. Answering Machines
The increasing disappearance of answering machines is directly tied to # 20 on our list — the decline of landlines.
13. Cameras That Use Film
It doesn’t require a statistician to prove the rapid disappearance of the film camera in America.
12. Incandescent Bulbs
According to USA Today, a new energy bill plans to phase out incandescent bulbs in the next four to 12 years.
11. Stand-Alone Bowling Alleys
Today most new bowling alleys are part of facilities for all types or recreation including laser tag, go-karts, bumper cars, video game arcades, climbing walls and glow miniature golf.
10. The Milkman
The steady decline in home-delivered milk is blamed, of course, on the rise of the supermarket, better home refrigeration and longer-lasting milk. Although some milkmen still make the rounds in pockets of the U.S.A., they are certainly a dying breed.
9. Hand-Written Letters
With over 183 billion e-mails sent each day in 2006,and half a trillion test messages sent in 2004, where is there room for the hand written letter?
8. Wild Horses
It is estimated that 100 years ago, as many as two million horses were roaming free within the United States. The Bureau of Land Management is seeking to reduce the total number of free range horses to 27,0007.
7. Personal Checks
On a bill-by-bill basis, checks account for only 49% of consumers’ recurring bill payments (down from 72% in 2001 and 60% in 2003).
6. Drive-in Theaters
During the peak in 1958, there were more than 4,000 drive-in theaters in this country, but in 2007 only 405 drive-ins were still operating.
5. Mumps & Measles
Despite what’s been in the news lately, the measles and mumps actually, truly are disappearing from the United States. In 2005, only 66 cases were recorded.
4. Honey Bees
Perhaps nothing on our list of disappearing America is so dire; plummeting so enormously; and so necessary to the survival of our food supply as the honey bee.
3. News Magazines and TV News
In 1984, in a story about the diminishing returns of the evening news, the New York Times reported that all three network evening-news programs combined had only 40.9 million viewers. Fast forward to 2008, and what they have today is half that.
2. Analog TV
According to the Consumer Electronics Association, 85% of homes in the U.S. get their television programming through cable or satellite providers.
1. The Family Farm
Since the 1930s, the number of family farms has been declining rapidly. According to the USDA, 5.3 million farms dotted the nation in 1950, but this number had declined to 2.1 million by the 2003 farm census.

So what do you think? Do you agree with these items? Do you have something to add to the list?

Granted–websites, blogs, social media, online magazines & online newsletters all contribute toward
brand credibility. However, print is still the most powerful visual tool for building your brand. Print
proactively “forces” the viewer to at least scan your information as part of the viewing process. Print
can drive a high percentage of online traffic toward your website and that of your advertisers. Here’s
a quick review of why “print is still king:”

1) Print is a lead-generation tool: well-planned print vehicles deliver targeted leads to their advertisers.

2) Print has longevity & “pass along” power: magazines & directories are shared in households &
among friends.

3) Readers are “print receptive”: people remember effective print ads. Only TV has a higher receptivity
than print.

4) Print drives users to other platforms: according to the Retail Advertising & Marketing Assoc, 47%
of shoppers are most likely to start an online search after viewing a magazine ad.

5) Print influences trendsetters: those who sway other consumers are themselves influenced by print,
even more so than by in-store & TV advertising.

6) Print travels: it is with you wherever / whenever you want—even more so than a laptop.

7) Print readers are focused: in a multi-tasking world, it is hard for advertisers to get noticed. However, according to a recent university survey—if someone is multi-tasking–print is the primary focus 85% of the time.

8) Print makes introductions: print makes for a great host. It introduces readers to your brand &
acquaints your prospects with keywords for local search.

9) Print offers incredible branding: a well-designed ad attracts readers, & nothing gives your brand
more recognition than an attractive, full color ad.

10) Print provides differentiation: Out of the millions of websites, how many have a print product to
drive traffic to the site? A: very few. Print provides a unique vehicle to drive traffic to online marketing.

Conclusion: Print delivers terrific branding opportunities, content for readers, and leads for advertisers-along with the ability to generate strong online traffic.

Home at Last Magazine is “home plate” for OC new residents who want and need to touch base with their surroundings. Each issue is packed with information — a combination of articles, advertorials and directories focus readers on what’s important to them: City resources (local government, libraries, parks, recycling centers), malls, beaches, automotive (AAA, auto malls, DMV), points of interest (amusement centers, harbors, sports centers), home improvement, dining and other lifestyle topics are covered. And it’s delivered along with a plethora of civic info and gift certificates to welcome new residents to OC.