I am going to play around with the people that read this with the linking to relevant sites. Xylitol chewing gum and xylitol gum companies are not yet on the radar, but give it 24 months and there will be opportunities that can make the mainstream market part of our customer base. And, the data and the claims are not ours, but rather they are of well respected 3rd party outfits who have done countless studies.
More on the way, time to bring out 3 more flavors to bankroll this clan!
6 flavors of 100% Xylitol gum. Xylitol chewing gum is gaining momentum, and we have finally opened our new facility and distribution hub in Europe. We now can distribute our xylitol gum from the USA, Australia, Canada, and the UK. Many more markets coming online. What a ride as we have tripled sales in the last year!
Some Big Announcements coming soon to the three of us that read this.
I had to go to the post office today to drop off some personal mail, and I decided to take a package for one of my friends in the UK. The guy saw the ZAPP sticker on the box and said “I love that gum”. I said “oh great, yep, that’s my company, where did you buy it?” to which he said “I didn’t, one of the guys here gave it to me”.
Didn’t take long for me to recall that our shipping guys have declared a black hole in all of our International USPS shipments going “undelivered” and “un-returned”. LOL, but glad the guys at the sorting station have fresh breath, and to all the international customers to whome we used USPS, apologies, we’ll go with Fedex next time!
TGIF. Website issues and upgrades and patches, all foreign to me, but they impacted sales somehow today, and that topic is never foreign 
. But, all is well and thought I’d share this tidbit to the 2 of you reading out there.
My wife, who is quite pregnant at this point, isn’t supposed to do any hard work. I hope to be as lucky in another life, however in a different context. Therefore, she cannot lift anything heavy, over-exert, you name it. Therefore, laundry has slowed, especially mine. And, being a Sunny Friday in Southern California, and a casual office environment, I wanted to wear shorts.
Problem, the clean shorts I have I don’t like, or they don’t match the shirt I want to wear, so, I decide to wear the shorts I briefly threw on last night after work.
Now let me muddle the chronology. My Mother In law stayed with us last night to help out with our daughter while I was at work. She kindly went to “In-N-Out” for us and picked up a quick dinner. Those who know In-n-out know what I am talking about. I had a Double Double with grilled onions at about 9:30pm, went to bed, nice night.
Re-visit today. I am driving to work, on the phone most of the time, smell something as I pass the Harbor, thought it was the harbor. Then off and on from 7:30AM til 10AM I am catching intermittent whiffs of something foul.
At 10:00AM I take a peak at my Shorts. What I see explains everything immediately. I see a tiny piece of grilled onion, from the Double Double, encrusted on the inside of my shorts leg. It’s grafted to my shorts by the molten cheese it was swimming in when it apparently dove onto my crotch. So now I am smelling up the office with this terrible day old In-N-Out Onion smell. But, friends, the story just begins here.
Dealing 3rd party with these web issues, I am frustrated, angry, and impatient, however I cannot stand the smell. I deem it wise to charge over to the closest retailer to get new shorts. But, it’s cold out, so I decide on Jeans on the ride over.
I cannot recall which is closest, but I’m in a hurry, so I head to the shopping center closest that has Sears and Target. I go into Sears only to avoid the 1500 women and children at Target. Both Escalators are Broken, the Elevator is circa 1930, and Mens Clothes apparently is on Floor #2. The day is going well…..LOL.
I get up to mens clothes and it becomes painfully clear that my wife has purchased all my clothes for at least the better part of a decade. I know my waist size, I know I want jeans, and thankfully there are only 7500 choices.
Knowing said measurements I grab what clearly is my size and head for the checkout without trying them on. I pay, fly back to the office, and go into the bathroom with my Sears Bag (by the way I thought they got bought or sold?). What happens in the bathroom is a frightening experience in how disconnected I apparently am with clothing “styles and trends” I put my legs through the jeans and start to pull them up. But wait a second, these don’t feel like my other pants…Why? Because they are way to Goddam tight. I get the things arguably to my knees and I realize either I was in the Childrens section, or these jeans were designed for a “different” consumer.
A s a later imparted upon the few I told, this was what we refer to as “A Sunday paper in a Monday Wrapper” or “10 pounds of Monkey Shit in a 5 pound bag”. No way I can wear these. SO back into the onion shorts for a bit. Had to deal with those for another 30 before I cut over to Target. Tried the Jeans on this time. So, fun little Friday, but I got 2 pairs of new jeans…..
Hey, the good news is Gum Sales are Great!
Guys, congratulations on the adoption of paid search, it’s a cutting edge tool that few have adopted, LOL. But, for Christ sake, with the money you spend on outsourcing everything, could you not find a better PPC firm? Or is this done internally? For goodness sake send people to a landing page and not your flash home page without the plugin for IE7.
Here’s how it works. You have a goal by placing an ad. So, when people click on your ad, you want them to accomplish something. This action gets them closer to your goal, which, recall, is the reason you placed the ad. So, lets take this in stages. 1) You have a goal. 2) To Acheive the goal you need to at least subliminally let the consumer know what they are there to do. 3) With board meetings, pie charts, strategy sessions, consultants, and experts, you hash a plan to accomplish this goal. 4) Using all the same resources and associated expedited timeline…you come up with an ad that helps achieve the goal. 5) When the goal is accomplished, you see if it had ROI. You do have tracking…….do you not….???
Once you’ve done this you can break for lunch, play golf, and attend another trade show., that will keep everyone on there toes.
Time to fire the consultant again. Better yet, blame it on the department below you.
Cheers
USC took on the Huskers at home this weekend and put up their 2nd win in so many games. We’re not looking extraordinary, but we look really, really good.
In Nebraskas defense, they put up a great fan showing. They do travel well, that is in no dispute.
Anyway, Football is back!
I like soda. Fountain Soda. And, sadly, so do others, at least it’s sad when I have to wait behind them. While it’s part of a larger phenomenon, which is that people lose all common sense/awareness when in public, it seems to manifest itself in the soda section. To me it’s not terribly difficult. Fill your soda, step aside to snap the cap on and insert the straw. Nevertheless, my non-scientific survey indicates 100% of the people in front of me need to take care of this business, and typically more, like cell phone calls and whatnot, while parking their ass in front of not only the soda fountain, but by all means my beverage of choice.
Folks, please, move along.
Cheers
Matt
Gum sales are good for most companies right now. Overall sales growth is better than any of the big three could hope for in market share gains in a flat market scenario. This bodes well for us as when middle management and upper middle management at the obvious places ride the waves of good sales numbers through no doing of their own, upper-upper management is smiling too. This typically results in less scrutiny or concern about strategy, and inherent feelings of superiority, and invincible status. So, by all means we hope the overall market continues at this clip.
While all the 35-50 something 220lbs once 175lbs “experts” are yacking it up over their trade show steak dinner and golf, we’ll be continuing to quietly “do our thing….”. My question to them is simple. “Listen Grimmace, you peddle sugar free gum all day, but you’re fat….what gives?”
The global market has been our ally, and I’ll drop a taste of what we’re up to periodically for the 3 of you reading, but for the most part we’ll be flying below hte radar for a bit as we continue to multiply sales. No upside for us to show any cards.
Best To all
MW
