Sales - A Job For The Stupid

I'm too smart for sales.  Well that is what I've been told more than once in my career.  The first time I heard it was right after I got my test scores for the licenses I have to have to do what I do.  The office manager, the guy who hired me, leaned over my cube wall and said, "You got the highest score anyone in the office has gotten.  There's an inverse relationship between success here and test score."   I kid you not that was my first motivational speech from my leader.  The same sentiment has been shared with me over the years by colleagues or other "supervisors".

Hair styles for women.  Be glad I'm not Vidal.  Boon, cartoons,
cartoonist for hire, boondawgoggle, doodles

Well, here's how stupid I am.  I never listened to any of those observations, and I continue to trudge along after 25 years.  I just can't get my head around the idea of how the hell someone can be too smart for anything?  Smart was never a word used to describe me growing up.  I barely made it out of school.  I struggled every year.  If I was so smart wouldn't school of come easy?  It never did.  I test horribly on standardized test.  If I was smart wouldn't they be a breeze?  They aren't.  In the case of school I eventually did good in college hitting deans list every quarter my last two years, but that was through pure pressing my nose to the grind stone and busting my ass.  The standardized test thing still never yielded to hard work.  I took the GRE, GMAT and LSAT and never scored much better than average.  I spent an entire summer doing nothing but part-time work and study for the LSAT to no avail.  Now, test that I can study for, I can crank on those, as evidenced by my licensing exams (I hold about 8 different licences and scored high on all of them).  I'm definitely not smart enough to figure out how a stupid guy like me can be called smart.

Cute creature getting freaky, sexy, hulk, no buck teeth.
Boon, cartoons,cartoonist for hire, boondawgoggle, doodles

The only way I can reconcile other people's observations or impression of me is I'm just the least stupid person in a profession of stupid people.  That is something I can get my head around, but I'm still not less stupid enough to figure out why it is bad or how to become more stupid.  All I really know is if I am smart, and this is how stupid smart feels, then I wish I was stupid.

Snow Day Results in Ground Hog Color Comic Strip

We are kinda snowed in down here in the south this week so I had some time on my hands.  I've really not tested the limits of photoshop so I figured I'd mess around with it.

I took a sketch pad doodle I posted a few post ago and decided I'd see if I could spruce it up, but also do it in a way that was not time consuming.  This took researching some on the internet, reading some post by some other blogs I follow, and reaching out to some cartoonist on Linked In.  In the end I did figure it all out.

For those that are interested this is the initial doodle.  It was never started to be a strip as it turned out.  I really just drew that creature, the one with the "?"over his head, then added the boy later in the day and as the day progressed it evolved into something of a strip.  It was this image that I pulled into photoshop and cleaned up.  I don't like inking in PS so I had to convert it to a blue line and printed it out on card stock to be inked.   Once I had it inked I scanned it back to PS and proceeded to scale and manipulate and eventually color it.

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Women Rule The Economy - Happy Ladies, Better Pay Days

Women with huge foreheads, and cute creatures, Boon
cartoons, cartoonist for hire, boondawgoggle

 Maybe the idea that women rule the economy is not such a secret but I've begun to think about the significance of this truth.  I'm not in the mood to provide a lot of direct quotes of studies and quantitative analysis on the matter, but I've read plenty that support this fact.  For the moment I'll help you (mostly men because I think women know this to be true) accept this fact by focusing your attention on a mall.  How many stores are men only?  Even the stores that have things men would buy they usually have things women would buy and still the men's section is substantially smaller than the women's.   Another antidotal observation, I've had the opportunity to accompany my wife to the Atlanta Merchandise Mart.  This is one of America's largest markets where retailers come to buy the stuff they put in their stores.  Kind of a shopping mall for retailers.  It is massive and astounding the quantity and variety of stuff.  On my trips there I was one of very, very few males and I noticed in the entire place I bet there are only a handful of stores that offer man stuff.  Granted this may not be the mart where there would be a consolidated collection of man stuff, but it is still interesting.

Okay, here is my observation that has me writing about this dominance of women on the economy.  The sales of my Valentine's Day greeting cards at Boon - One Guy Drawing Cards are starting to increase and I noticed the ones selling are the ones a women would buy for her man.  The one that is selling the best right now is one specifically designed to be given to a husband if his birthday is on Valentine's Day.  Who would figure there'd be that many of them to generate the volume of sales at this one small website?

Zombies why are their clothes always a mess.  Don't  most
people get buried in their best clothes?  Cute creature cops
an attitude.  Bic ball point pens best for sketching. Boon
cartoons,cartoonist for hire, doodles, boondawgoggle

Women, hello, you rule the world if you rule the economy.  If you want something to happen all you have to do is latch your wallets and buckle your purses.  In a short enough time the effects would be felt.  Now of course this would please many a husband in the short run, but I'm pretty sure the trickle down effect would shake them to their collective core.  If retail dried up then every business connected with retail would suffer,  not just the businesses that feed into the retails, but trucking, utilities, commercial real estate, fuel, sales tax, government, etc it is a complicated web.  Since most big corporations and governments are run by men they would eventually be inclined to stop and listen to whatever it is women had to say just to get them back to buying things.

My take away.  I'm not advocating a coup d'état, but I will better align my financial future with an eye on what women want.  Happy Ladies, Better Pay Days.

Shameless Plug For My Wife

My wife's company is  Ty Park Candles. If you own or know someone that owns a boutique gift and home accessory store this is her niche to provide candles that can not be found in every store or at the Mart.  If you are a wedding, party or event planner who needs unique favors, gifts or table settings she is your creative source.  If you are a business owner and would like a to thank your customers and referral sources Ty Park Candles has created some huge volume specialty items with our logo and brand.

Ty Park Candles wine bottle candles
variety of sizes, labels, scents

My favorite is the wine bottle candles. If you own a winery, wine tasting room, home accessory and decorating store these recycled wine bottle candles are hugely popular.  If you are a winery she works with many directly in many states and she makes it possible to provide direct to the winery for their gift shops and provide state specific winery bottle candle collections for retail boutiques.  For example, say you are in North Carolina and you'd like to offer these wine bottle candles she can provide bottles from NC wineries which creates a very unique offering.  The benefit to the winery owner is each candle becomes a mini billboard promotion for your winery.

"A Jar Without A Label Is Just Jar"

Ty Park Candles wine bottle candles
Montaluce winery Dahlonega Georgia

Ty Park Candles wine bottle candles
look at the quality of that rim

Ty Park Candles wine bottle candles.
Variety of sizes and labels

Happy GROUND HOG? Day

My ambiguous creature is a bit sensitive as he is still having an identity crisis.  I doodled this out in about 5 minutes while watching some idiotic sales training video.  No they aren't connected, just goes to show you how un-engaging and interesting the video was.

Not a Ground Hog!  This creature has started appearing more than I would
of expected on my sketch pad.  My expectations were low because in
general I hate drawing animals.  Boon, Cartoons, cartoonist for hire,
boondawgoggle, doodles

Free Advise Given For Free -or- How Do You Measure Progress

No drugs behind this doodle....not sure how
it all started but it is weird.  Boon cartoons,
Boondawgoggle, cartoonist for hire.

Wow!  Tomorrow is the last day of January.  Only 92% of the year left.  So let's take inventory.  If the rest of the year continues as this month has unfolded what will things look like in December?  Ah? No, I'm not going to go through that exercise.  It's too damn depressing.  And besides, one month does not a trend make.  Now I just want to cry.  The only aspect of January I can  think of that I hope projects  the balance of the year is that I'm alive.  How's that for positive thinking.

Surely I've done something this month that warrants it as not being a complete waste of 8% of the time I have available this year.   I'm kind of feeling a bit like what a farmer must feel like.  He plows the field, sows the seed and waits,and waits and waits for several months to see if what he had done provides the expected results, but it is not until he waits for months will he knows if he did enough.  By the time he knows it is too late to adjust and correct.  I really need to find a way to get more instant feed back.  I need some Star Wars future vision telescope to see into the future.

Here's what I do know about this month....I've given a lot of advice for free.  Of course this is the normal thing I do because the advise is given in hopes that it will lead to future sales based on my advise and it is for these sales I get paid.   I wish it wasn't that way, I wish I could just say, "I get paid to do the advise thing".  The reason it is frustrating to me is people ask for the advise,

Do you get the artist humor?  Comment if you understand it
or want to know what it is.  Check out the frustrated pose,
completely how I feel this month.  Cartoonist for hire, Boon,
boondawgoggle doodles.

insight and opinion, only to discount the information entirely or go off and implement it on their own.  I had a lawyer friend tell me once that he gives people a bill at the end of meeting with him, and he has actually had people say, "what's this for, you didn't do anything?", to which he responds...you came in with questions, and you are leaving with answers, and this is why you are paying me.  See I live in a world where I have very intangible assets...TIME, INFORMATION and HONESTY.

Here's looking at that glass more full...I've got 225 days to make this a fabulious year.  YEAH!!!