Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock
Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock

Those who read my posts regularly know that I believe that a recession is the best time to attempt to expand your business.

Durring a recession your competition:

* Will be reluctant to match your moves
* Will cut back on service to increase the bottom line
* Avoid investing in people and equipment

How Do You Expand Your Business When Your Customers are Spending Less?

The answer is pretty straight forward – you get more customers. You take them from your competitors.

While your competitors are cutting like mad, you reach out and entice disgruntled customers into your fold.

To do this you have to increase your marketing budget, and radio auctions are a nifty tool to convert your unsold inventory or service certificates into needed advertising dollars!

How Do Radio Auctions Work?

Typically, radio stations sell air time for money. In a tough economic climate,advertisers cut back, so stations have to get more cretive to hit their sales goals.

For example, lets say you own a website design company. You might provide a $1,000 gift certificate to the radio station to auction on the air. You would receive $1,000 in trade to spend on commercials, et. in exchange for your certificate.

The station would then auction the certificate on-air to its listeners who call in to make their bids. The certificates often sell for less than their value, so the callers feel like they are getting a good deal.

You get the free commercials (not to mention a 5-minute plug during the auction its self), the customer gets a great value, and the station gets money. Everyone is happy.

All About Vista

This week our show focused heavily on the the latest Vista service pack update. The update was originally scheduled to be pushed via automatic update on June 30, however Microsoft has been making it available on Windows Update now.

If the install is popping up on your computer, you need to install it ASAP. We recommend you bring your computer to Schrock Innovations for our $39.99 installation special. This way you can be assured the update has been installed correctly.

In the News

The latest virus hitting the internet is called Gumblar. This virus attacks websites you trust and infects your computer. An interesting fact is that 37% of the websites you trust actually infect your computer. The Gumblar virus is no exception. The best way to prevent this from happening to you is to stay up-to-date on your security software. As always, we recommend Norton 360.

The Key to Key Words

Have you ever searched for song lyrics or “free” stuff on the ‘net. The majority of us have and the likely hood of you getting a virus is great. Our suggestion, call your radio station and ask for the lyrics to the song and simply stop searching for free things. Here are the most dangerous search terms on the web.

There are, however, key word searches you can type in without worrying about getting a virus. These are phrases such as things about the economic crisis and health questions. Search away about the economy and that agonizing pain in the neck-you’re safe.

If you have ever eaten at Taco Bell, you have this man to thank. Without Lynn Hinderaker it is very possible that Taco Bell would not exist and that the concept of the fast food “value menu” may never have seen the light of day.

In the 1980’s Taco Bell was a struggling subdivision of PepsiCo and was about to be closed down completely. One struggling franchise owner contacted Lynn and said he wanted to make his restaurant’s last stand on an idea that surrounded a value menu. His idea was that if customers could buy their food through inexpensive small transactions, they would buy more of it and profits would follow.

Lynn helped design the concept, the marketing pieces, and then shepherded the franchise owner through the process. Success soon followed and as the word spread, other franchise owners asked Lynn for his help.