Bits & Pieces…interesting stuff to help you think, giggle or amaze your friends:

(Time to read this Blog section is about 60 seconds)

1. Addicted to screens: A recent US survey reveals that teenagers now spend an average of 7 hours a day looking at screens on phones, laptops, desktops and tablets. That’s 42 minutes a day more than the last survey in 2015.
    
   Another survey shows that the average millennial checks their smart phone 80 times a day.  This is nuts.

2. Now, we can all help feed the world:   Go to The Hunger Site, click on the “Donate Free Food” button and somewhere in the world a hungry person gets a meal to eat, at no cost to you. The food is paid for by corporate sponsors who gain exposure in the process because you’ll see their logos. It literally takes 3 seconds. Pass the word.
3. You have 4 clear competitive choices.  Pick one:  Whatever product or service you sell, there are way too many other businesses selling about the same thing.  You have 4 clear competitive choices.  They are:
   1. Offer exclusive or extraordinary products, services or experiences that make it not all about price.
    
   2. Make it all about price and then develop the business model and world-class operating efficiency required to win the price war profitably.
    
   3. Offer quality products and / or services, be competitively priced (but not necessarily the cheapest) and then out-serve, out-market, out-communicate and out-hustle your competition.
    
   4. Be mediocre, struggle and fade away.   
4. Does your website have a ‘Meet Our Team’ page?  Every website should have a ‘Meet Our Team’ page that creates confidence, makes connections and honours your staff. One of the best I’ve seen is on the website for Parr Auto Body parrautobody.com
5. The restaurant credit card payment machine rip-off: When you pay by credit card in a restaurant, the credit card ‘machine’ prompts you with tip options of 15%…18%…20%.  What nobody tells you is that the tip is then calculated on the tax included price.  So, you’re tipping on the tax. 
6. Airline fees go nuts:  Frontier Airlines now charges a ‘Carrier Interface Fee’ on nearly all of its fares that are booked online.  This fee ranges from $8 to $38 per person on a roundtrip fare. This is nuts!