I love this recent blog post from Seth Godin called Pricing Power. It got me thinking about worth.

We’d all like to think that we’re worth a certain amount of pay and perhaps for different reasons. It’s hard to tell how much you’re really worth sometimes when there’s nothing to challenge your thinking and perception. For the longest time I figured I was worth a good salary because, although I might not have as much experience as the next candidate, I’ll put my blood, sweat, and tears into my work along with loyalty and doing anything that will help the company grow and prosper. Most of all, because I work hard and I do whatever I can to exceed your expectations.

So if I’m not worth as much as I believe, then what am I worth? And how do we go about finding out what our true worth is? And the ultimate question too, who’s willing to pay for it?

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About a year and a half ago I saw my older sister’s website for her home based business and decided I couldn’t allow it’s outdated look to continue to poison the internet. Since I was building this site free of charge, it became sidelined many times as I was busy with work and my other activities. After I was laid off, I decided it was the perfect time to finally get it done.

My Little Impressions makes a replica of a child’s unique hand and footprints. These precious statues are then mounted in a choice of a shadow box or on granite. I redesigned and rebuilt this website using Wordpress so that the pages and pictures can be easily added and edited. Below you can see the before and after screenshots of the website design. I’m not that great of a designer (I think I just don’t have the patience for it), however I still think this turned out pretty good and it’s a huge step up from what it was before!

BEFORE

AFTER

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Today I’d just like to share with you a good article from Seth Godin’s blog. Sometimes it’s scary how right he is about so many different topics.

Taken from: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/02/how-should-you-treat-your-best-customers.html

Here’s what most businesses do with their best customers: They take the money.

The biggest fan of that Broadway show, the one who comes a lot and sits up front? She’s paying three times what the person just three rows back paid.

That loyal Verizon customer, the one who hasn’t traded in his phone and has a contract for six years running? He’s generating far more profit than the guy who switches every time a contract expires and a better offer comes along.

Or consider the loyal customer of a local business. The business chooses to offer new customers a coupon for half off—but makes him pay full price…

If you define “best customer” as the customer who pays you the most, then I guess it’s not surprising that the reflex instinct is to charge them more. After all, they’re happy to pay.

But what if you define “best customer” as the person who brings you new customers through frequent referrals, and who sticks with you through thick and thin? That customer, I think, is worth far more than what she might pay you in any one transaction. In fact, if you think of that customer as your best marketer instead, it might change everything.

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When you have a job you don’t have much time or motivation to do work for yourself (or at least it seemed I didn’t after a while). My blogging frequency dropped off after a few months at my past job because I got busy and tired and didn’t have the motivation to keep it up, even though it’s something I enjoy. Same goes for anything else career related. So I guess being laid off has been nice in a way that it has given me an opportunity to rediscover these things.

One is definitely blogging, I’m going to do my best to keep it up as often as possible again. The other is mostly just skills in everything I know how to do. I’m keeping up with things by finally finishing a site I did for my sister, which should hopefully be launching this week sometime if I can get all the new hosting figured out (her old host’s website was copyright 2002 and has a max of 40MB storage space… EEK).

Of course, my other side project would be updating this website, perhaps doing a design of my own and getting rid of this old creeky thing. I love how illustrations look and I think it would be cool to be do an illustration of myself to put somewhere in the new design. Unfortunately for me, my patience needs a little more work to take on a project that large – illustration is so time consuming! Perhaps I should just try an hour a day to start out and see where that gets me…

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I don’t believe I mentioned this yet, but in November I was laid off from my job. It’s one of those things that you either definitely know is happening, or you just don’t see coming and it hits you like a brick wall at full tilt. For me, unfortunately, it was definitely the latter.

I would have loved to stay in Vancouver however the prospects of finding new employment at the time weren’t looking very good and Employment Insurance just wasn’t going to pay the rent AND allow me to feed myself on anything other than canned soup and peanut butter sandwiches. So in an effort to save money I moved back to my hometown of Chilliwack and picked up my old job at McDonald’s as a Swing Manager while I continue the job search.

I can’t say working at McDonald’s is my favourite thing in the world, however I learned a lot of things about leadership and customer service there and since going back I have been reminded of many of them. I’ve also been reminded of what that kind of work environment is like (like how that hot guy from Chem class totally dumped that chick from English class by text message on her birthday, like OH EM GEE) and how much I appreciate my career.

One of the most important lessons I think I learned from McDonald’s is “Give ‘em the Pickle“. The basic principle is going the extra mile for your customers. It looks different to every business, but the customer feels valued and will continue to return in nearly every situation. At McDonald’s it could be as simple as replacing food for a dissatisfied customer and adding in an additional free meal or dessert to show you actually care about the business they’re bringing to you. Giving the customer the pickle means not arguing. If they say they ordered something and didn’t get it when you are 100% sure you gave it to them already, it doesn’t matter – give them another one.

So folks, for Pete’s sake give ‘em the pickle!!!

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Canadians are robbed blind by the high cost of the things they pay for. We pay more for food, alcohol, gasoline, clothing, and telecommunications than many other countries, especially the United States. This is one of my biggest peeves about Canada – maybe we’re just too nice, that we just take what they give us without a fight.

I for one, though, will not take internet metering lying down.

The CRTC just decided to let your Internet Service Provider put a meter on your Internet.

Bell Canada and other big telecom companies can now freely impose usage-based billing on independent Internet Service Providers (indie ISPs) and regular consumers. Big Telecom companies are obviously trying to gouge consumers, control the Internet market, and ensure that consumers continue to subscribe to their television services.

This means we’re looking at a future where ISPs will charge per byte, the way they do with smart phones. If we allow this to happen Canadians will have no choice but to pay more for less Internet.

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO STOP INTERNET METERING

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