Hello everyone,

My blog took a backseat in light of me coming home for the first time in nearly a year. It is hard to believe that already one week of my one month recharging is already gone. So what did I do this week?

I had a lot of fun meeting my family and friends. I finally went to the beach and while I didn’t surf yet, it so the most relaxing experience in a long time. People who live here in Israel sometimes visit the beach only couple of times during the summer, because they are so used to the commodity of having the beach whenever they want. It is very different for me especially after such a long winter in Toronto. I enjoyed sitting on a warm sand and watching the waves. It is a simple pleasure, but I felt like in heaven.

Even though only two weeks passed since I quit my daily job it now seems like a distant memory or a bad dream. I finally feel awake and my energy is coming back to me. I wake up in the morning wanting to do stuff (ok writing blog posts wasn’t one of them). This is a positive side.

On a negative side my “little” brother (who is soon will be 15) is a bit of trouble at school and with his life. He started to hang around with other kids who listen to heavy metal and think they whole world hates them. He even tried to explained to me what anarchy is and why it is a great way to to build society. His behaviour effects the whole family, so dealing with him is a challenge as well. The upsetting part is that he is very talented and smart (just like his older brother), but has no desire to succeed in  any field in his life.

My plan is to be here for him and help him even when he thinks the help is not needed. Obviously, it is just a stage that we need to pass as safely as possible. If anyone reading this post have an experience dealing with a kid who got a bit lost in the woods – please leave a comment. A psychologist told me that I and everyone in my family need to constantly tell him that we love him.

So this is it a nutshell. My first two weeks of jail of 9-5 to job and living of my savings.

Love to everyone and till next time.

Alright “can’t live without” was just my sales attempt. Still these are no BS tips right from the front of the battlefields of advertising career in Toronto. This post is a work in progress my plan is to gather 100 tips. If you have a tip please leave in a comment.

1. Impression is the reality - is doesn’t matter what you do or know, what matters is what managers and peers think you do. All the tips that follow are just to help you to manage the perception and sell yourself.
2. Being nice pays off – being nice to everybody around you creates a positive aura around you. You stop having problems with accounting and production departments.
3. People talk – rumors in the office are spread faster than you can press “publish” on your twitter account. Think 3 times before you say a word.
4. Drinking Advantage – going out with your co-workers for drinks can help your career if done in a right way. Never get drunk or say anything bad about the company though. It is scientific you will earn more money.
5. Don’t take sides – there are always bunch of wars happening in the office. Never take a side. I know it is hard, but if you are serious about progressing in your career don’t take sides.
6. Looks matter- while the decisions on your promotion should be based on your performance it is rarely the case. Get inside the head of your bosses, their employees represent the company. The feel great when you look great. It doesn’t mean you have to buy super expensive cloths, but being always neat counts
7. Face time – nobody will give you extra pay if you come early and leave late. However, your bosses lilke to see it. You will become a clock watcher and not a motivated employee in their minds if you work 9-5. It doesn’t matter if your sales are great, they still like to see the hours.
8. Make it look hard – if you are a talented person and your sales are rolling in easily please, don’t publicize it. Your bosses want you to work hard, if they think your job is too easy they will make it more challenging.
9. Don’t complaint -you can’t afford to be perceived as a negative person. Never complain, find a way how to get what you want without complaining.
10. Political Savvy – do you shoot from the hip? Say what is on your mind without a regards of consequences? Not going to work in a corporate world, you will be labeled rude. Find a positive way to express whatever you need.
11. Bad projects happen – at some point you will be given a total deadend project. Try your best to put it on someone’s else shoulders. Trust me it doesn’t pay off to challenge the impossible.
12. Is it not the size of the account base – if you just started and received 20 pages of accounts, be carefull. What matters is how much account spent and if they are active. Try to avoid adding dead weight accounts to your base.
13. Document – document everything positive you do. The best way is by email or account updates. Your documentation needs to support your positive image in the company
14. Don’t kiss bottoms – if you do eventually you will realize that you been kissing the wrong one and you will have no respect from your peers. Be nice to your management, but not in a kissing way.
15. Mind the competition-it is ok to make friends in the office however remember that when money comes into the question your “friends” might not be so friendly. Since, I was a sales rep working on a commission – this was a case bunch of times. Always remember that they might be your competition.
16. Never give away sale -never give away what is rightly your sales. Example: a new sales rep came in and by mistake sold your account. Don’t be nice – take it back. If you will be clear about it, nobody will try to mess with your accounts or prospects.
17. Know cofee tastes – caffeine drives corporation. People love people who bring them a cofee. Don’t do it all the time or you will be a bottom kisser. Do know every manager’s way to drink cofee and bring cofee to them on a rotation scheduale each Friday. Small investment – goes a very long way
18. Compliments – make at least couple of compliments per day. This will strengthen your nice image. The best compliment is when your colegue gets a new article of clothing  and you comment how nice they look in it. Be careful with compliments to the opposite sex and keep them sex free.
19. Mind the Jokes – know a great joke? Think twice before telling it in the office. Bunch of people got dinged for telling an “offensive joke.” The rule is to only tell a joke a 5 year old kid would understand.
20. Computer Use – never ever write anything personal on you work computer. Everything you do is completely monitored. Keeping computer work related will help your image in manager’s eyes of being an honest worker.
21. Love the company – you don’t have to actually love the company, but managers need to think that you are passionate from head to toes about the product you are sellig and the company your work for.
22. Find a roof - a roof is what protects you from heat, rain and cold. Find a higher level person in the company who will protect in these times. Choose the person wisely and let the person think that your achievements are due to  his or her contributions. Make sure that the person is following the rules about positive image as well. It will not help your career to be associated with a rebel.
23. Diverisify experience – being the best sales rep in the company will not get you promoted. Get involved with competition comitees or other comitees. Demand to work on variety of projects. That way nobody will through in your face later: you didn’t get position X, because you don’t have X experience
24. Take your boss to apointments - only good ones. Make sure that the customer you are taking your boss to absolutely loves you. Your boss will tell other management that you are being well liked by the clients.
25. Walk Fast – it seems like a minor tip, but if you consistently walk fast it will look like you are always busy and working for the company. You will look way better compared to a guy or a girl who walks really slow.
26. Public Goals - let everyone know that one day you want to become a manager or top sales rep, or whatever your goal is. Let managers know that you have these goals and you are working hard to achieve them.
27. Send Holiday Cards - send or give as many personal postcards as you can on as many occasions that you can. They key to do it consistenly with everyone: peers, management, clients. This will turn people towards you and if by any chance they don’t get postcard from you on Christmas they will wonder what happened to you and will write to you.
28. Don’t rely on email -email is great especially for advertising executive it allows you to pitch hundreds of people at once. However, make a point of physically seing as many people as you can. Needless to say that it is especially true with your top 20%. Seeing them regularly even if it is just to bring cup of cofee and dicuss recent game is imperative to your success. It will be way harder to say “no” to a person that know, than just to write an email message.
29. Be Consistent – whatever efforts you put into creating the image of next coming you have to do it consistently. You have to be know for these things and just as in advertising the key is repetition, repetition, repetition. It is way better to grow your sales by 10% every month, than to have one month at 30% growth and another at 0%.
30. Don’t ask for favours - as thr situation permits try not to owe anything to anyone. Don’t ask for favours, do favours for people and let them feel that they owe you one. You will ask for it when the time comes. Sounds harsh? I am just trying to be real here.

I was too lazy and too busy partying over the weekend to post anything. Today is my first Monday in a very long time when I didn’t and wearing a suit with a tie. This is the first day when I actually feel that I quit my daily job.

The feelings are mixed. I am reading Finding Career Path by J.T. O’Donnell and she writes that she quit and it was “the most terrifying yet exhilarating thing I ever done.” I think I feel the same way and feelings of “i need to do stuff” with “it is time to relax finally” are struggling inside me.

I think balance in life in general is really important and it is important right now. Obviously, I have millions of things to do starting from catching up on my projects at home to planning on how I am going to earn income after my savings run out. Yet I don’t know when is the next time when I will have 5 weeks of a time that belongs just to me, so I will need to make the most of it.

How do I maintain a balance? I try to be reasonable with myself: I made a short to-do list and decided I will reward myself with a book reading after. This way I am still active, but having a plenty of rest as well. My plan is to completely clean and de-clutter my house. That way when I come back I can really start from clean slate without pending tasks that been chasing me for months.

Tomorrow to do things:

-clean my office (picture at the top) it will take awhile
-buy cofee beans (no more Tim Hortons)
-check out Digsby
-have a nap
-try to print my business cards before CaseCamp
-attending CaseCamp and SummerCamp party afterwards

I will post my reflection about CaseCamp tomorrow, hopefully it will be productive and I will be able to network with a lot of people.

I don’t have a lot visitors over here – it is a new blog and I my writting is not for everyone. Still, I was analyzing my traffic with google analytics and figured that 45.45% of the traffic that came from Google’s organic search. Guess what was the keyword: “rogers wireless overcharging” and my post would should up in the first page of the search. Apparently, it is a hot topic right now.

I decided to do a little investigation a did the search myself:

“rogers wireless overcharging” -6630 pages, mostly from blogs. I also found that there is a website over there with a simple name “I hate Rogers Wirelss” that sells T-Shirts and you can get an email with the ending of that domain.

Sounds like I am not alone in my thoughts:) One might think, so what Rogers probably doesn’t know about all those negative comments – but he or she would be wrong.

I continued to analyze my traffic and checked out my feed subscribers and one of the subscribers was a mysterious bot: www.radian6.com/crawler. I went to their page and quickly learned that Radian6 provides big corporations a service of monitoring blogs and forums to see what people are saying about their brand. I cross checked the subscribtion and my post about Rogers and figured that they are actually monitoring what am I saying about the company.

Check out couple of posts about Radian6:

An Abusive crawler from Canada

Radian6 Monitors You

Now I know Rogers is reading what I am saying or at least the aggregate version of our cumulative posts. I don’t know what I am more appaled by, by the fact that I am being watched or that nobody still didn’t appologize for my experience with the company. I know I spend around $2500 per year with the company and as thanks I just get bunch printed flyers in my mailbox with an attempt to sell me more services. Own up to your campaigns about customer service, make me not dread calling your line or better don’t create any reasons to call you rather than to just say thanks.

Make me wanna tell my friends that I love Rogers Wirelss and I will pay even more for your services.

I didn’t find any blogs with words in them “I love Rogers Wireless.”

Think about it!