Greg's Right FIT #431

Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week. 

In this issue: 

- Thoughts on Other Greg Chamberses
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Thoughts on Other Greg Chamberses

Let's use Google to check in on other Greg Chambers in the world.

• The top result for Greg Chambers is a jazzy GC. He lives in California, between Santa Cruz and San Jose. He's known for his smooth jazz saxophone. His last album came out in 2014, he teaches high school band, and last year he played a NorCal Jazz Fest. Greg #1 looks like he's doing well.
• Greg Chambers #2 is a tech solutions architect. Funny story, I did a project with a person who worked with him at Coca-Cola. Something to do with flavor selector soda machines. He's on to another inexplicable job but still lives in Atlanta.
• Number 3 is a super smart Greg. He's a nuclear physicist at the University of New Mexico known for "Development of a positron-emitting surrogate microampere for image-based dosimeter in yttrium-90 reconsolidation therapy." Um, yep.
• And finally, a bad Greg. Bad Greg and his wife were convicted late last year of their baby daughter's death. He's behind bars, paying his debt to society, leaving the rest of us Gregs to say, "no, that's not me."

Being Human - Why would you search that?

“Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error." – Cicero 

I've talked a little about my work using search engines for lead generation. In case you missed it, part of my work is helping sales people find new prospects by running ads or otherwise appearing in Google's search engine. It's an easy thing to explain, but it's hard to teach because it involves a lot of reading of the weird little phrases people search on Google. 

The number of phrases we review can range from 100 to 1,000 in a period, and as you might expect, patterns emerge. This week, I spent a lot of time reading searches originating in a rural area of Minnesota. The client is looking for farmers to try their new, enhanced feed blocks. (at least that's how I'd describe what he sells) We plug in a series of words the client thinks their prospect might search, run some ads, and review the phrases the ads are showing on. Hundreds of searches like "cattle bloat blocks" and "high mag mineral block." We ask ourselves on each phrase, is this something a prospect might search for? We keep the good ones, and tell the Google robot which words to avoid running ads on. 

I know part of the human condition is seeing patterns in everything. It's one of our superpowers, whether the pattern is real or not. So, naturally, when I see a lot of people in rural Minnesota searching for a particular kind of thing, it's easy to jump to conclusions. The sheer number of searches for digestive enzymes, vitamins to help with stomach issues, and gut-soothing supplements makes me wonder what they're putting in the casseroles. The searches looking for cookies that stimulate lactation or how to build up your milk supply sent me to my wife to learn more about the challenges of lactation. The number of people looking for deer antler growth supplements remind me of Ray Lewis, and pretty soon I see a pattern. 

The people in rural Minnesota all look like The Rock, have irritable bowel syndrome, and are making lots of hungry babies. 

I'm probably wrong. Scratch that. I'm definitely wrong. 

But why would you search that?

Random Stuff

“What?" – Wilson the ABC last night

I haven't talked about Wilson the Amazing Border Collie in a minute. He's aging, somewhat gracefully. The middle child was at our house and as Wilson the ABC wandered around looking for a reason to earn a biscuit, the child said, wow, he's really stomping around these days. I hadn't noticed, but he is less graceful, for sure. Much lumpier. Long walks have given way to standing on the porch and yelling at the neighbor dogs. 

Next door, they inherited a little toy-poodle-like-dog named Coby. Coby comes out to the yard to do her business and Wilson can't stand it. I'm not sure what, if anything, poor Cobie did, but she gets an earful. Every day. You'd think Wilson the ABC would lay off, but no, he gets the furs up on his neck and growls and barks and shakes his Wubba toy at her. (I assume it's to tell her what will happen if she comes into his yard or something like that)

Wilson the ABC will occasionally pinch a nerve and his hind legs stop working. It's sad to see because I know how it feels. Sometimes my aging body doesn't respond to my brain signals either. 

When we leave the house for a while, I always tell him goodbye and remind him to be a good dog. It's been this way for over a decade. 99% of the time, when I return, it looks like he's followed instructions, like the amazing border collie he is.

Last night was a one-percenter. All I can figure is Coby must have come out for a tinkle because the old man was riled up enough at something to chew the window casing facing the neighbor's yard. He must have really wanted to get out because there were splinters on the ground, teeth holes in the metal frame holding the glass, and the window is cracked. Mother cusser.

I guess the old man still has some fight left. I just wish he'd taken it out on something else. Now I have to talk to one of those window sales guys wandering the neighborhood.