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How does a guy who nearly went bankrupt become a power-seller?
John Lawson (ColderICE) is the founder of 3rd Power Outlet, an online retail site.
He has sold more things online than I can list, concert tickets, piggy banks, mouse pads, printer ink, etc. You get the idea, but wait till you hear the one thing he did to sell 10,000 bandanas.
Watch the FULL program
About John Lawson
John Lawson (ColderICE) is the CEO of the retail ecommerce store 3rd Power Outlet and knows how to use social marketing for business.
Raw transcript
Mixergy's audio transcription is done by Speechpad
Andrew: Three messages before we get started. If you're a tech entrepreneur, don't you have unique legal needs that the average lawyer can't help you with. That's why you need Scott Edward Walker of Walker Corporate Law. If you read his articles on Venture Beat, you know that he can help you with issues, like raising money or issuing stock options or even deciding whether to form a corporation. Scott Edward Walker is the entrepreneur's lawyer. See him at WalkerCorporateLaw.com.
And do you remember when I interviewed Sara Sutton Fell about how thousands of people pay for her job site? Look at the biggest point that she made? She said that she has a phone number on every page of her site because, and here's the stat, 95% of the people who call end up buying. Most people though don't call her but seeing a real number increases their confidence in her and they buy. So, try this, go to grasshopper.com and get a phone number that will make your company sound professional, add it to your site, and see what happens, grasshopper.com.
And remember Patrick Buckley who I interviewed? He came up with an idea for an iPad case. He built a store to sell it, and in a few months he generated about $1 million in sales. Well, the platform he used is Shopify. If you have an idea to sell anything, set up your store in shopify.com because Shopify stores are designed to increase sales plus Shopify makes it easy to set up a beautiful store and manage it, Shopify.com. Here's the program.
Hey there, freedom fighters. My name is Andrew Warner, and I am the Founder of Mixergy, home of the ambitious upstart, the place where I take entrepreneurs' stories very seriously. I love hearing them, and I want to hear as many details as possible because I don't have an audience who are looking for entertainment, and frankly it they were, they wouldn't be coming to me because I'm not entertaining. What I do have is an audience of real entrepreneurs who are looking for things that they can use in their business, ideas that will inspire them, and they are looking for stories that are meaningful and useful, not just entertaining.
All right. In this interview I'm going to be pushing for that with a guy who nearly went bankrupt and then went on to become a power seller online. John Lawson is the Founder of 3rd Power Outlet, an online retail site. He has sold more things online than I think we'll get through, not just in this interview, but more than I could get to in the intro or even in the whole interview. He sold concert tickets – let me see the list here – piggy banks, mouse pads, printer ink, bandanas, et cetera. You get it, but wait until you hear, for example, how he sold 10,000 bandanas. We're going to get into his whole story here and, John, welcome. Thanks for sharing it.
John: What's up, Andrew? How have you been?
Andrew: Good.
John: Good. Good. I'll be the entertainment. That's OK.
Andrew: You're going to be so much more entertaining than me. I saw that video with the bandanas. Wait until I call you out on that. I've got to be honest with you, John. When I saw this potential interview come on, I said to Jeremy, "I don't know that this really fits. What the hell does it even mean to be a power seller on Amazon and eBay? I don't even know what it meant. Let's start off this way. Give me not titles like power seller on eBay? Revenue. How much revenue have you generated from sales online?
John: Over $20 million, easy.
Andrew: Over how long?
John: Over, let's say, the last eight years.
Andrew: The last eight years. And in the last 12 months?
John: Probably not even hat long, but go ahead.
Andrew: In the last 12 months, how much have you done?
John: Billions. [laughs] I can't tell you that, brother. Somebody might be watching.
Andrew: All right. Over a million dollars the last 12 months?
John: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
Andrew: Is it a jerky thing for me to do, to start off the interview, by asking you about money?
John: Well, not really, because I think everybody is really interested in money. Although one of the things I will tell people, and this is very important, because when you ask somebody, "Well, how much money did you sell?" And they tell you all these great numbers. Who gives a crap? Can I say the 's' word?
Andrew: You can curse. You can be honest.
John: Who gives a s***? It's not about how much you make, it's about how much you keep. People can go out and spill all this nonsense about "I've done a hundred billion dollars" and they're broke as hell, and I'm not really interested. So it's really about how much of that money do you actually keep? Just keep that in mind, guys, when you're buying and selling and absolutely sitting in a room talking to other people, spouting off how big their chests are. I could care less about how much your gross are. What's your net?[laughs]
Andrew: Good question, John. What's your net?
John: [laughs]
Andrew: Are you a millionaire, at this point, cash in the bank?
John: You know what, cash in the bank, I am not a millionaire. God, but I went through millions.
Andrew: All right, we'll find out all about that story. It kind of happened while you were working for. I guess it was Coldwell Banker.
John: No. No. No, I was actually working for (?).
Andrew: (?), excuse me, I don't know where I came up with Coldwell Banker. Oh, because I'm looking at your name, Colder Ice, Colder Ice Media is one of your properties, and your name online is Colder Ice. So, sorry, you were working for (?). What happened when you were working there that got you started on this path?
John: Well, basically you know, this was like early 2000s, late '99s, somewhere right in there. You know, everybody was flipping a house and it just seemed like that was the easy thing to do. That's what people wanted to do. That was a way to get into making supplemental income, growing rich, it was the it thing at that time.
So, I was like, "Yo, I could flip a house, too." So, the problem really didn't enter into the frame until I actually bought the house. I was able to buy the house. My problem was I wasn't able to flip the house. So, we bought this piece of property in the middle of, you can see I'm Atlanta so, I'm in the middle of downtown Atlanta, the worst area of town, but there were some things that were (?) supposed to happen. I ended up getting this house, I'm working for (?). I'm on a budget basically, because most of us that work for a company we're going to have a fixed income; we know what it's going to be every month. I was able to handle it for the first three months, but then when it didn't flip in the 90 days, like they do on TV, I was stuck with a second mortgage, and I had to do something. About six months in I was totally bankrupt. I was ready to do it, man.
Andrew: How close did you come? You didn't fully file the paperwork. How close did you come?
John: I went to the lawyer and I got the paperwork. You know, it wasn't short paperwork, it was like 24 pages of crap. But, at the time I had bought a vacation early in January, when things were better. So, I bought the vacation in January of that year, but by the middle of the year when I was supposed to take the vacation I was broke, but I had already paid for it. So, I figured, "Hey, I'll take my paperwork with me, and I'm going to have a nice time at the beach, filling out my forms for bankruptcy, for when I come back home." So, literally, it was that close, man, that close.
Andrew: You did something that kept you from having to file it. What was that?
John: Yeah, basically, back when Staples was starting up, the office supply store, they've got Staples, and Office Max, and Office Depot, and all these were coming to mature in the market place, and they were fighting each other. Every Sunday, they would have these sales circulars and they would always start off with free after rebate something. Remember, they used to have these things called CDs, that you would actually get stack of CDs like, "Free, after rebate." So, we used to get the Sunday paper, and we would find the free after rebate stuff, and I would go purchase it all around the Atlanta area. So, that would be 10 to 20 stores, and I'd have my little map, and I would get this free after rebate stuff. My partner was good at filling out the rebate and waiting for the money, and I would start selling it on eBay. So, at this time, I got a little bit of income from that.
What happened was, I got an idea. They were doing free after rebate printers. All right, and so what I did, because you guys know, printers it's not, they don't make money on the printer, they make money on the ink. So what I started doing, they'd get the free after rebate printer, I would open the printer box, take the ink out, and separate it from the printers. So, I'd sell a printer with no ink at a low cost, and I'd sell the ink, which was the real money winner. We had bought a whole bunch of those the week before I went on vacation, and while I was on vacation those things sold, sold like crazy, enough to make my mortgage payment on my second property. From that day forward, I never had to look back and I never filled out the paper work for my bankruptcy.
Andrew: Do you think that, if not for that, you would have wanted to climb the ladder at your company, that you would have wanted to be a corporate guy, with his regular vacations, and his safer lifestyle?
John: No.
Andrew: Why not?
John: Because, here's the deal man, I really believe that entrepreneuralism is something that's genetic. When I talk to a lot of people that are successful entrepreneurs, you'll talk to them and they'll be, like, well, I used to sell cars when I was a kid. That was me. I was always doing some kind of hustle. My friends always thought I was cheap because I had the car in high school so I wouldn't take them anywhere unless they had gas money. But that was my hustle. You know what I'm saying'?
Andrew: Like making money on the drive because you get [inaudible]. Tell the audience about what you did with Turbo Tax.
John: Yeah, that's one of the big things is that one year I had actually, and this is kind of pretty interesting, I actually got to go and see a Zig Ziglar thing. Right? So.
Andrew: The motivational speaker who passed away recently.
John: Right. He had inspired me to just look at ways, because one of the things he had said that the greatest thing as a tax shelter was to own a small business. Whether or not he made a profit or not, it's a good tax shelter. It's a good way to reduce your tax.
Andrew: Because the idea was if you buy a printer for yourself at home you can't write it off, but if you have a business and you buy a printer for the business then you can write it off and, of course, you might want to print stuff for the family.
John: That's exactly it. I was, oh, that's pretty interesting. I bought my computer and I had all that. I was a computer geek. One day I bought Turbo Tax 'because I wanted to write off some of these [inaudible] things that I had done for this new little business I had created. I learned Turbo Tax. That's back when they were on these things called floppy drives. I'm sure your audience doesn't even know. I'm dating myself. Yes, I'm that freaking old.
Andrew: [laughs]
John: So I learned how to do this software, and once I did my taxes the first year, the next year my mom, my sister, and my family members wanted me to do their taxes. From that I had started a tax business. That was one of my first real businesses.
Andrew: You told [inaudible] when he pre-interviewed you that you made thousands of dollars doing this.
John: Only two months out of the year.
Andrew: Two months out of the year. How many years did you do it?
John: I did that for at least eight, nine years. I mean all the time while I was working I would make thousands of dollars January, February, part of March. But mostly because that's when people, when we work we want to get our taxes as fast as possible. So once February rolled around, I was busy as Hell but I would do it on that Turbo Tax and it made it easy for me but nobody else learned it. So that was an opportunity to make some money.
Andrew: I see. So now I see why going to Accenture [sp] every day wasn't really the life dream of yours.
John: Let me just tell you I was the worst worker ever. I would never hire an employee like me.
Andrew: Why?
John: Never. Because I was always trying to do as little as possible to allow myself to do other things at a time. So some of the things would come to me pretty easily, especially a lot of the things I had to do at a computer. It was easy for me to do. I could get it done by noon. I'm working on my own business. Whether that be making the taxes, doing product listings. I would only do just enough not to get fired. [inaudible] sorry.
Andrew: You did this math in your head that you had an exit strategy that you can leave your job if you did what?
John: Well, I went through different iterations of business models. One day I saw this thing about what's called sublimation. Who cares what it is. But what it is is that you can put an image onto something with heat. So it's not like a heat press for t-shirts. This is something that would be very flat. It wasn't an iron-on. All right? In order to do that, you'd have to have a heat press. So I bought the heat press. I bought these special inks and I started making mouse pads. All right? Just regular old mouse pads, the things we used to use when we didn't have these lap-toppy things. Again, I'm old, old.
Andrew: I've got to tell you, whenever I fly I will inevitably see some guy on the plane with his Windows computer. Big computer, plugging in a mouse and sometimes even a mouse pad.
John: [inaudible]
Andrew: Those things should die, those mice, especially for laptops.
John: The thing was I had found this kind of niche.
Andrew: Yup.
John: I had done all of these different kind of mouse pad designs but somewhere in there I realized and found out that teenage girls like teenage boys. I used to make these mouse pads with these teenage boys on it, whatever, whoever was the hot, like Teen Magazine kind of kid. Whoever is the wall poster kid, I'd make his image all over this pad and they would buy it like crazy. I came up with the idea, and I used to sell these for like a 5 dollar profit, alright? So five dollars every one that went out. I'm like, dude, now if I were not spending 8 hours a day working on Accenture stuff and spent that eight hours working on my mouse pad business, how many pads would I have to sell to accommodate a lesser lifestyle than I'm living here? And what I mean by lesser lifestyle is look, if I didn't have to go into work I could eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day. If I didn't have to come to work I wouldn't have to buy clothes. I wouldn't have to go into the cleaners. When I say buy clothes I mean work clothes, you know what I mean? I wouldn't have to transport myself back and forth, no parking fees. All of these things that are auxiliary, is that the right word, anyway.
Andrew: Auxiliary? Ancillary, ancillary.
John: Yeah, that's it. And I was like, dude, if I could literally sell 8 pads a day, 7 days a week, because I only work five, but I had seven days if I was working for myself, I could really make this happen. So, I actually just quit my job and started pressing mouse pads. It's crazy.
Andrew: And then from mouse pads you moved on to what?
John: From mouse pads I moved onto everything else.
Andrew: I see a list for me too big to even name, Joe. But, at some point early on, you were selling refurbished dell computers?
John: Yes, yes.
Andrew: How do you even get Dell computers that are refurbished to sell online?
John: Well, you know what, if you go online right now, if you want a computer, go to delloutlet.com What that is is that, if someone gets a computer from Dell if they don't like the color, the keyboard is broken, whatever it is, they take the whole thing and send it back to Dell. Dell will not resell that computer as new, even if it's a small blimmage. They will call it, in fact, a refurbished computer. They will keep it brand new, keep the same warranty, and sell it at a cheaper price. So we found out about it and we started recognizing, I mean there was a whole lot of geeky stuff we used to do. We created a script that could actually go out there, because they would push them every hour on like the 45 and the 20. So 20 minutes after they pushed new ones out, 45 minutes after, push one out. We would figure out if we could get a screen refresher to refresh the screen, we'd get it and put it into a cart. Once it's in the cart, you can buy it. I mean, we really killed it. It was used nailing it. We were buying these computers and flipping them right on eBay. So much, in fact, that Dell themselves told us to cease and desist using their Dell logos. I'm buying it from you guys and you don't want me to sell them? Okay, fine. So they couldn't make me not sell them on eBay, but they did have the right to say I couldn't use their logo, at least in the eBay world. So I got kind of ticked off, because my whole living is filled with these boxes. These were desktop computers, not the laptop with the monitor and all that crap. My whole living room was filled with this stuff. So, I was really upset about it and I decided to do something just out of anger. I was really mad, so I said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take my own picture of the Dell computer, then I'm going to push this chick in a bathing suit next to it.
Andrew: A picture of your own computer with a chick in a bathing suit next to it. Now you get to show that it's a Dell computer, but also have a chick with a bathing suit in your ad.
John: Right.
Andrew: Or a woman in a bathing suit.
John: I think the chick in the bathing suit was a bonus. I didn't think it was a good thing. I was thinking about it being a bad thing. So to have all these Dells and all these half naked women sitting next them. Well, guess what, it sold twice as much in terms of how much the prices would go up.
Andrew: So the same exact product, but now you have a woman in a bathing suit and more people are buying it?
John: That's right. That's why you have women at car shows. Not because they're buying the car, but because that makes people just look. I don't know why, it actually worked. Now I have an even better business model, and I think it really kind of ticked Dell off. There's nothing they could do after that point.
Andrew: Did they try to get you to stop at that point?
John: No, no.
Andrew: At that point, if you're not using their logo, they're fine.
John: No more problems out of those guys.
Andrew: So at that point, roughly, what size business do you have? How much revenue?
John: I mean, at that point we were doing, 10, 12, 15. I remember actually the December just before we stopped selling those a little bit, that we were doing about 10,000 and 15,000 a month in Dell Computer.
Andrew: All right. That's pretty good. Now again, you're not keeping all of it, of course, because you have to pay for the computers, but you're still doing pretty well. What I'm wondering is, Dell has a store on eBay. People who buy on eBay have access to the outlet store. Why is this market so funky that people are paying you more money than they would pay on eBay, either on the outlet store or on eBay's own store?
John: Is this just between us business people?
Andrew: What's going on?
John: All right. Here's the deal. Here's the secret, guys. People are lazy and stupid. I'm not saying that in a bad way. I mean, I'm even lazy and stupid when it comes to some things. What really happens is it just becomes easier for somebody else to do the leg work and find the cheapest computer for the amount of money in your budget and then will pay for you to do that kind of information stuff.
I don't want it to come off crazy when I say that, but you really do have to remember that 85% of us in this world are sheep and will follow anything. That's why you've got people with, I don't know, an earring in their tongue [??]. It doesn't serve a whole lot of purpose. I remember, I was watching the NFL on Sunday and I was like, dang man. Probably 60% of the NFL players have tattoos down their arm now. Why do you have a tattoo? Because you saw somebody else [??]. Ten years ago, nobody had a tattoo.
People are sheep. If you can find something that will lead them and make them feel good, they will follow you. That's the secret. That's why people actually followed us on eBay. Simple.
Andrew: All right. That makes sense. Roasters. You've bought some roasters on Amazon. Tell me about that. What is a roaster?
John: It's a big thing that you put a turkey in. Turkey roasters.
Andrew: You just put it on your kitchen counter?
John: No, no. It's what you cook the turkey in. It's a big turkey roaster. There's this company called Le Creuset.
Andrew: Le Creuset, yeah, yeah.
John: You know these guys, right? At one point, when Amazon was getting started in the real retail space after they decided, hey, we're not just going to just sell books, they started selling all these other products. They would buy it. They would house it. Then, when it was time to let it go, they would let it go at some crazy, ridiculous prices.
One day we happened to find some Le Creuset, and these are the biggest ones that they make, like 15 or 17 . . .
Andrew: Those things are heavy. Even a basic pan is heavy from them.
John: It's heavy, heavy. It's made out of cast iron, and then it's covered with all this nice, pretty enamel. At any rate, again, knowing how to flip this stuff, we bought a whole living room full, you know? It was really interesting because the guy would come to my house, and I would be at work, and he'd leave it on the porch. I'd have all these Le Creuset boxes when I'd come home from work.
These things sell retail for, like, $350-$400. Unbelievable. I couldn't believe people actually paid this amount. We were getting them from Amazon for, like, $150 a pop. So every one of those sold. We started at $0.99. They all sold over $200. Most of them sold over $250. So you just do the math. It was ridiculous.
Andrew: Were you still working back then? This was after the mouse pads.
John: This is actually before mouse pads.
Andrew: Oh, really, OK. So you were just trying to hustle and sell and find your one thing to sell that would work.
John: See, that's what it was. I realized that my job at that time for myself was sourcing product. I'd always find something that's on sale and then re-sell it. At some point I was like, you know, if I could just figure out how to manufacture a product, it would change everything. I wouldn't spend all my time trying to find something and then sell it. I'd already make it. That's how I came to the mouse pad business.
Andrew: Gotcha. How long did that business go? How long was there enough of an interest in mouse pads to keep you going?
John: It was for, like, ever.
Andrew: Do you still sell mouse pads today?
John: No, I don't, but it became the 80/20 rule once again where it's like, OK, if I spent most of my time I was making the most money, I ended up having to give up the mouse pad business. But, you know, I actually still got the stuff sitting in the garage just in case. I'll come back to making some stuff.
Andrew: Concert tickets even. I'm going through the list here of stuff you sold.
John: Concert tickets – now that one lasted about two years. All right, and I'll tell you a good story about this one. We were supposed to go to an American Idol concert. I think this is American Idol 3, 3 years in. So my daughter wanted to go, she was a little kid back then, so we bought the tickets. I ended up buying four and then I looked again and found four that were closer. I bought the four there then I bought the other four. So I needed to re-sell one of the sets of tickets. I mean, this was American Idol, nobody was paying big bucks for it. I think they were $35 a ticket. So I was just like, let me get rid of these. They were on the floor, they were close, you know. Those tickets sold for over $300. I'm like, whoa, wait a minute, we're on to something here. Again, I went around and bought American Idol tickets with every concert and every marketplace they went on sale with and we made a killing. That same year, Prince came back out of retirement went on a marina tour, and we sold those tickets. The cool thing is, the third tier tickets made more money than the floor tickets, because the markup was greater. So, I mean, it's all these kind of things I actually ended up learning about the ticket secondary business. That was a big business for me.
Andrew: Aren't customers such a varied group of products, who don't know you, big pains in the butt? They are, right?
John: You know what, you probably solidified what it's like to do business on eBay, because you're not known to that buyer, and yes they ask a lot of questions. You have to do a lot of refunds and returns, but that was my job. I got good at it, so I learned how to reduce the risk of those customers to make sure that they felt good about purchasing from us.
Andrew: So what do you do to reduce the risk?
John: I mean today, how do you reduce risk on e-commerce? You just tell them that you can return it for six months, six weeks, I don't care. Free returns. These kinds of things reduce a risk to a customer. So you have to sit there, and whatever industry you're in, you have to think about what it is people are scared of. Let's say you sell informational products. That's why people buy the $1 30 day free trial. The reason why is because it reduces that risk in the customer's mind, and you will ultimately make more money than you actually thought you would. You think you're losing money, but you're making money because more people are apt to push that buy button.
Andrew: What about the questions about is this the right kind of ink, is this the wrong kind of concert? Do you have a seat that's four seats back because I want to save some money? How about we negotiate on the lib rate? Can I pick it up at your house? I still haven't gotten it, what's wrong with it? How do you deal with that?
John: Again, it's an 80/20 rule. 80% of the questions asked are always asked. So what I ended up doing, whatever mail tool you use, once you answer something, you should save it. Answer it in a non-personal manner. Meaning, don't say Mr. so and so such and such, keep it kind of generic, and I used that as the answer. Ultimately, when I got my customer support team, I said this is the answer to that question. That's how you really deal with those kinds of things. It's really about efficiency. The more you do it, the more you realize the patterns of things.
Andrew: I guess that's how you ended up creating this bandana folding video. Tell the audience, what led to the bandana folding video? I'm watching it right here.
John: It's the stupidest video ever, guys. The thing is, I used to sell these bandanas. I think we still got a few of them. We sold the bandanas, and this is the early part of this decade. Tupac was still really popular. He's popular now but he was really popular then. The thing was, I would sell these bandanas to these hip hop wannabes. It wasn't the east coast/west coast guys, it was everybody in the center. Then we would sell it to a lot of people in Germany and Italy. All around the world they wanted to look with the hip hop feel. We would get this question over and over again, 'How do I fold my bandana to wear it like Tupac?' I'm like, 'This is the stupidest question I've ever heard.' I'm used to people in my circles, they know how to fold a bandana. One day I got a wild hair out of my butt and said, 'Let me record a video on how to fold a bandana.' I got four different ways in this video on how to fold a bandana. I made this video. I didn't put my head in the video. I had the worst video ever, worst video camera ever and the lighting sucked. However, the content is great.
Andrew: I'm seeing that your head is cut off, but your bare feet are in the video.
John: They're ashy. They need lotion.
Andrew: I can't see that, but the video is not very good, but the humming is still there in the background. I've got to tell you, people on YouTube are so hypercritical about everything. You got 248 thumbs up on this thing and only 31 people who thumbs it down. When I typed in 'How do I fold a bandana like Tupac?,' I didn't want to follow any external link to here. I wanted to see how this naturally showed up. It was right there at the top. The only thing that's up above it is Expert Village. This guy in Expert Village I don't think I trust to teach me how to do anything. He looks like a nice guy, but he's not going to teach me to be like Tupac.
John: We go back and forth as number one. Sometimes he'll be one. Sometimes I'll be one.
Andrew: What happened with that? Now, you have a video to give people who ask you the same question, but it led to sales.
John: It led to crazy sales. We have tracked over 10,000 transactions. You said 10,000 pieces. Not 10,000 pieces, 10,000 transactions. Probably 100,000 freaking actual [??].
Andrew: Meaning when someone buys a bandana they say, 'I want one for my head but also one to cover my mouth so that only my eyes are visible.' So they buy two.
John: That's one of the examples. These are the things you get into and you don't know. A lot of people use them for napkins. They have western themed parties. All this kind of stuff. We found these other markets that I never even knew. We started doing it because of the hip hop thing, but we found the biker community, we found a skater community, we found so many different ways to sell it. It's been very lucrative. If you look at the video, it's almost at a quarter of a million views.
Andrew: It's over a quarter million views and I see it's uploaded July 15th, 2007. We're talking about the early days of YouTube.
John: That's right. That's why I tell people today, it is one of the best channels. People are like, 'I want to get into YouTube. What should I do?' 'What should you do?' I said, 'You should take the top ten FAQs that you have, the top ten frequently asked questions, or five frequently asked questions and make each one of them a video.' That's one of the best ways to get traffic to your sites.
Andrew: At the top of the description here, there's a URL that links directly to the buy page where you still sell bandanas. I clicked over to see. The description is, 'Buy bandanas here.'
John: Here.
Andrew: Here. One of the issues, we talked about eBay, one of the issues that other people who started their business on eBay have told me they had is your business stays on eBay and people are constantly going back to eBay, and they're going to see your competitors. What you need to do is find a way to get them to come back to you, to feel a need, a value and come back to you. You did that with these 3×5 cards that you included with your orders. What was on these 3×5 cards?
John: On the front it said, 'Thank you for your order.' On the back, it had a five percent off coupon and it went directly to our website.
Andrew: Now they have an incentive to go to your website?
John: Yes. Now, like you say though, some people don't want to go to your website. They're more comfortable shopping on eBay. You have to make amends for that. We made the coupon available both on eBay and off of eBay, however, we saw a huge amount of people coming back and buying from us. Whether they bought on eBay or off eBay, brand affinity was now becoming an issue for them because they were coming back to us once again.
Andrew: Before we move on with your story, what does the name Colder Ice mean?
Man: [laughter] It has no real meaning. My name is John Lawson. I think at one point there were over six million John Lawson's when you did a Google search. I wanted to rank, and I one day remembered an old story. Do you want to know the story?
Andrew: Yeah.
Man: Yeah, it's historical, You should know this story. Like before there was integration there was a separate but equal culture in America. Especially, in the South. What would happen is the African American's could not shop downtown at Macy's. They had their own department stores. Their own dentist. Their own everything. Even their own busing system. Everything had to be separate. What happened when integration came is a lot of these shop owners would see their sales decline rapidly. The reason is because people would walk by their store to get downtown to shop at the place they never could shop before. Out of that came this one saying, "Oh, the white man's ice is colder."
I remember that story, and I was like colder ice. Ice cold. I did these little iterations of it, and I put in colder ice one word one time, and I saw there were over 300 references. You know what? I could rank number 1 out of 300. That is how it started. If you do Colder Ice now you get over 30,000 results. Literally, all of those are pretty much mine.
Andrew: I was wondering about that. As I was researching you, I kept coming up with Colder Ice. As I looked at my notes on you, Colder Ice kept coming up. You are building up a personal brand name for what? Why do you want people to be able to search you?
John: The deal was I have a site that is Colder Ice, and it's about the Ice. I have an acronym for internet commerce education. That's been one of my big internet passions. I have been able to go around and teach and speak about E-Commerce, and course social media when it blew up. I had to use a monitor, and I used colder ice. That thing is me, it's my brand now. It's a personal brand feel.
Andrew: As far as I can see, you are not selling anything on here, except people can have you be a key note speaker at an event.
John: Yeah. I don't sell anything.
Andrew: It's not your personal blog in the sense, but you are showing family photos, but in a sense you have your passions. Like marketing quotes from Zig Zigler on here. A hilarious example is a truly awful stock photography. I have to click on that.
Andrew: You are just linking to stuff that you think is interesting.
John: Yeah. Absolutely man. Sometimes we get to interviewing someone in the e-commerce space. Those kind of things that I enjoy doing. I have been pretty successful at doing that now. Reinventing always reinventing.
Andrew: By the way that 13 hilarious examples of awful stock photography is on Hubspot.com. That thing has been tweeted out 11 hundred times on Facebook, 827 shares on LinkedIn, and all it is, is dopey stock photography that we see everywhere.
Andrew: But it's funny.
John: Don't you hate that. You see that every time. We are customer service, and the lady with the stupid thing…
John: Yeah, right? She doesn't work there, I know that.
Andrew: It should be you with an earphone. People feel more connected with that.
John: That is true. Very good. I am going to make one today!
Andrew: Let's see what else we want to talk about? Here is where social media did help you. I saw when I was looking up you, I guess this came from you to be honest, you won Startup Nation's Social Media Comcast. What was that and how did you win it?
John: That is a good question, I like that one. Start-up Nation is a blog for small start-ups. E commerce mostly, online and web start-ups. Teach you a little stuff like that. I was out there one day reading. They said they had a contest coming up. They were adding a social category, and it was based on who voted most. I came up with this strategy in early Twitter day. I think it was 2009 we did this. It was all about me sharing stuff. I came up with this morning coffee article. I would find five good articles that I would read and I would post them every morning and I think it would be around 11 o'clock or 10. I don't remember. But every- I would train my viewers to come and see what I was going to tweet on that day at 5 o'clock. And at the end, my sixth post, so I'd do 5 posts. My sixth post was if you like what I just shared with you, please vote for me in this contest. And I won the contest. Simple and plain.
Andrew: And what do you get from winning that contest?
John: I got this Coca-Cola can that says 7 Up on it. I'd got nothing.
Andrew: Nothing.
John: I got a great link, which is important. I got a great link. I got recognized by MSN. And that was probably almost the beginning of OK, I actually think I like sharing and doing this whole thing that is called [???]. And I think that was probably really like the validation that, my ice is cold.
John: You know, and it's, it was really just about sharing other, you know, nuggets of wisdom. Again, people kind of being, you know, sheep. They want to find out what this person says. That's why when you go into the market, when you go into the, like you go into Macys or any department store, they always got somebody there, how can I help you? Right? And then they're going to tell you what the best thing is or this cologne is the best smelling. You go into a restaurant, and they'll always give you the specials of that [???] so you don't have to think. So you can really just say, OK, I'll take that. So, make, this is a good one guys. Whatever you're doing in your business, you're the expert in that business. So make recommendations. If you make recommendations, you will increase your conversion simply because people want to know what you think is the best. Because you are the expert. And you are the guy that they follow.
Andrew: And they just want you to keep making recommendations.
John: Absolutely.
Andrew: Tell them what to do because they're sheep.
John: Pretty much, you know, and they're happy that way. They're happy. You know, keep a sheep happy. Keep them happy.
John: I'll never forget one day my sister told me, she's like, you know, she's like, you got a lot of fans. I was like, really, you think so? She's like, yeah 'cause I hear people talking about you, ya know. She's like, you need to feed your fans more though. And I took that from her and it changed the way I interacted with my followers. So, I mean, always remember that. People are looking for you to guide them in some sort of way.
Andrew: She said lead your fans more?
John: Lead your fans more. Feed, I actually said, no, feed.
Andrew: Oh, feed. Feed your fans more.
John: See, because that's what we talk about in social media. We talk about consumption. Right? So it's like, oh, I'm consuming. Make it so, make sure it's something that they can consume. So, feed your sheep.
Andrew: You know what? I had an entrepreneur on, Tim, Tim Sykes, and he called his, you know him. He called his customers stupid and lazy, and I forget what it was, but he said that's what they were. And my sense was, that day he was like on fire because he was looking maybe at his-. He tends to do an interview with me after he gets his numbers for the previous year. And he comes on to share those. And so maybe he was especially excited about that and started calling his people stupid. I asked him afterwards how that went over. He ended up making more sales because of that. Because your customers, your audience, ended up buying from me. They love that attitude!
John: They do- wow, OK, well I'm going to have to just work on that one, thanks.
Andrew: Go figure.
John: But it's, you know, it's just they need to understand who they are relating to.
Andrew: So, how does that play out on your site? When you are selling me something. How does that recommendation leading to sales play out?
John: I mean, definitely on your landing page. You want to make those kind of recommendations. Don't put it too far away. And another thing, don't make them have to click too much. You know? And I see people do this all the time. They'll put a link on a Twitter or Facebook. And they don't actually link all the way to the actual store. They'll just link to the homepage. People hate the home page. They're hating it more and more and more. So don't make them do any of the work. If you can get them as close, as close to done, they'll pay you extra for it.
Andrew: Are you selling shoelaces?
John: I love shoelaces, yeah.
Andrew: Shoelaces sell $3.95. You can make money off $3.95 shoelaces?
John: Absolutely! You got to make money off of $3.95, yes. You can make money on pretty much anything if you got the right volume. So, one of those things, that's a volume sale.
Andrew: This isn't directly related to business but I think it's a fun story that we should talk about, American Express. Did you get into an American Express commercial? I didn't see it, but I heard about it.
John: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll have to send you the link. I did do an American Express commercial. It was like 'Fantasy Island' if you've ever seen that show. I literally got on a plane, landed, I was treated like a star for a weekend, and then I was a nobody for a while.
Andrew: So how did you get treated like a star for a weekend for American Express?
John: Well, at first, I think I went to an American Express event here, locally in town. They were taking interviews from people at the event that were card members. You had to be a card member, and I was a card member. I was . . . you were going to put me on TV because I'm standing there and making sure I'm going to stay. Right.
So anyway, I made this little commercial and it wasn't really a commercial, it was just a little spot for American Express. Then about, it had to be like a year or two later, I got an e-mail and it said, "Do you want to do a marketing opportunity with American Express?" I thought it was junk mail, so I didn't open it for like a week. Then I opened the thing and I was like, "Whoa!" And it had an agency in there and they wanted me to contact the agency.
Long story short, anyway, I contacted the agency and she's like, "Well, can you . . . we'd like you to be, possibly, in a commercial."
I was like, "Really? Wow!" She's like, "Well, we want to get a feel for how you'd be on camera," and this kind of stuff, right. So she was like, "We're going to send you something and would you record it on your computer, send it back to me." I'm like, "Well, I can do that, but you know I've got like 200 videos on YouTube if you wanted to watch me talking to the camera like this." And literally, man, she went away for 30 minutes, came back and is like, "When can you come to California?"
Andrew: So it was that beyond like wow, right. So you get to California, you know there's some driver standing there with your name on the board, you get into a limo, you go and check into the hotel, the whole rigmarole, you know?
John: The next day, you get on set, you get your makeup on, it was like, 'Wow! I can't believe this!' Right. But the whole time I'm there, the guy's like . . . he won't answer me. I'm like, "Well, how much time would I be on the camera and duh, duh, duh."
He's like, "Well, you know it's not definitive," and he was very nonchalant about it. I realize now, because people can be left on the cutting room floor. Several of the people that were in that commercial were just in it for a half a second, whatever.
I talked to this one guy. He was on the set and I'm like, "Man, I hope I make it in this commercial." And he was like, "Let me just tell you, bro. You're the only black guy here. You're going to make it in the commercial."
Because they're typecasting, you know. They have to have a female, a young person, so I was shocked about . . . you know, this was in December. By the time the playoffs rolled around, so this was, as a matter of fact, it was the first weekend in December. You know, this same time in that year. By the time the playoffs rolled around, all of the sudden, people are calling, my friends are calling me, "I just seen your ass on TV!"
I'm like, "What! Are you kidding me?" I mean that was a national commercial that played a lot of places. I even had a friend call me and he was like, and I think he was incarcerated.
Andrew: He called you from jail!
John: "I'm in the commissary and I hear your voice!" I'm like, wow, that's pretty interesting.
Andrew: We've been talking about a lot of the fun parts of business and a lot of the successes, but you told Jeremy that you had some issues. We talked about the bankruptcy issue. What we didn't yet talk about is the issue of just creating your own site, which for many people today would be a snap. A site that you can use to sell that has a smooth transaction. What was the trouble you had in creating that?
John: It was almost impossible, you know, and it was costly. One of the things was that we tried. We had a site, it was a nice site and I never really took into account how hard it was to drive traffic. You know?
Andrew: Because on eBay and Amazon, you get your traffic.
John: Yeah. You're piggybacking on the Amazon traffic, you know. It's pretty much a 50/50, guys. I mean, you can have a great idea, but the other 50% of that equation is how you're going to get traffic, you know. Either you're going to buy it, or you're going to generate it. I will just tell you one thing, it is better to buy traffic than it is to generate traffic.
Andrew: So you started buying traffic for your site.
John: Yeah, you buy traffic.
Andrew: And it's all profitable even when you're selling shoe laces for under $4 bucks?
John: No, it's not! That's, you know, those kinds of things are when we have to build or when we have to . . . You know, that's an ancillary again, I use that word, product. You're already on the site, you bought a hat, you bought your sweatpants and your bandanas. How about your shoes?
Andrew: Got you.
John: You want to go all the way. You want to get all the way fresh. You can't be halfway fresh.
Andrew: I would never be halfway fresh. People who know me know that about me.
John: I got the hat and the shirt.
Andrew: I do see that. You and I are alike that way. We would never go halfway fresh.
John: That's one of the things. Let me tell people why I say traffic that you buy is better than traffic that you generate. This is coming from an eCommerce guy. Could be different in other areas. The reason why it's better is because you can scale it. Once you find that you're making money off of this traffic, for every $5 that's spent, I make six, or every $5 I spend I make five even. How much of that $5 are you going to spend? Over and over again until it stops paying off. You can't do that with your social presence and all that good stuff. Social has its place and it accounts for a lot, but don't discount that paid traffic because that paid traffic can scale you up rapidly.
Andrew: PayPal. [??] a lot of negative stuff. What happened with PayPal?
John: This is a good story because here's what happened. We had touched on it. That's why when we were talking about the Dell computers, I went from selling small things that were very low cost to selling these Dell computers and selling them very rapidly. I talked about how fast it actually grew. At some point PayPal started looking at us and saying, "Why are these guys taking these tens of thousands of dollars so quickly?' They thought we were a scam and they shut our PayPal account down on, I'll never forget the day, December 15th. It was the busiest Christmas shopping day. I had sold so many of the computers, and nobody could get payment, so my inbox was getting flooded with people saying, "I can't pay." Luckily I had a friend. I called him up, said, "Let me roll this over to your account." Literally PayPal froze our income. Every dime of it was frozen for six months, and we couldn't get it unfrozen. For no reason other than they thought we looked suspicious. This [??] long time ago.
Andrew: I have heard this so much on Hacker News. I used to be so worried this would happen to me. I even called up PayPal just to check in when I started with them and when we started to grow. 'Is everything OK?' You could never tell because you're just talking to some stranger on the phone. It's not like you're talking to the president of PayPal whose word is his bond. Did you ever get it reopened?
John: I finally did [??] many years later.
Andrew: Can you accept PayPal now?
John: I do accept PayPal. I sell on eBay. You have to. Here's what I do. I don't let more than $500 sit in PayPal ever. I will never ever leave my money in PayPal. Ever.
Andrew: Soon as you get the 500, you can actually create a rule that would have it auto swept into your bank account. Do you do that?
John: I definitely do that. The difference now is back in the day PayPal used to have this money market fund. If you left it in there, they'd pay you two, three percent. They don't have that anymore after the economy went in the toilet. There's not a whole lot of incentive. I tell people, "I don't know why anybody leaves money in a PayPal." I've got a friend, he swears by it. "I can use my charge card, save one percent." I'm like, "Whatever, dude. I'm never, ever getting caught in that game again."
Andrew: What do you do to have the redundancy there? Do you have a friend who has a PayPal and you guys keep switching it over, a relative?
John: For us, I always keep a redundancy. I'm not going to say I got a secondary PayPal account. "I don't have a secondary PayPal account." One of the things, I definitely have a merchant account. I have other payment accounts that we can use. I do keep redundancy, and I think for a lot of businesses, you should always have some sort of redundant payment processing system because PayPal has gone down before. My credit card processing company has gone down before. I learned from that a good practice is to have some redundancy on payment because that's how we make our money.
Andrew: Just so I get you straight, you don't have a PayPal account.
John: I don't have a PayPal account.
Andrew: Someone else that you know, a friend of yours has a redundant account?
John: Other people that have PayPal [??].
Andrew: Fair enough. What else? I think I've got just about everything except for your sleeping habits, which apparently there isn't much sleep going on. Why not? Do you have a lot of worries?
John: No. It's not that. I'm just a night owl. I've always been like this. One of the things is when everybody in the house goes to sleep, my brain turns on. And until I get it out, if I try to sleep, I keep going over and over. And that could be a plan. It could be a, it could be almost anything sometimes. I don't know what it is, but, you know, and a lot of my great ideas come up at that time. And, like right now, as we're speaking, I got this song playing over and over in my head from Demi Lovato. Ew! Gross! But it's like- you know.
Andrew: But there's always something else.
John: Yeah. That's one of the things, man. You got to, you know, so and late at night is when I, and that's when, the, you know, the chat stops popping, the emails are done. You know, and I get some downtime and that's when I really think.
Andrew: So, what's been the most profitable product over the last 12 months?
John: Over the last 12 months, to be honest with you, me.
Andrew: How?
John: Yeah, I mean, because, I think people will pay really good money for good information.
Andrew: So, you're getting speaker's fees?
John: Yeah. Yeah. I speak now.
Andrew: How much money do you get to speak at an event?
John: You know, you know, I'll give you my rack rate. Five thousand.
Andrew: Five thousand is what, that's the rack rate.
John: That's the rack rate.
Andrew: OK.
John: Now you know what the rack rate is. That's the thing on the back of the door at the hotel. It's like, wow, people pay for that room? You know? But I have gotten the rack rate on many occasions. You know?
Andrew: So, they paid? So you get paid more for speaking than you do for all the other products? Or you're saying it's the most profitable product, not necessarily that all the others combined do less.
John: And it's a product that I'm now in the 80 20 mode again. You know? It's like OK 80 percent of your money can come from this speaking thing but you're only giving it 20 percent of your time. How can you flip that? But the thing is, and this is important because for me to even talk to you right now as long as I'm actually in the business of doing the business, I can't tell you everything about the business. So, part of that has to be that I'm going to have to separate myself from the day to day so that I'm not training up my own competition. You know? So that's one-
Andrew: What do you mean, so you're not training up your own competition?
John: So if I tell you where I get my products. How do I source is one of the number one questions that people always ask me. And my answer is always the same. None of your damn business! Because that's my business. You know? That's everybody's business of course that's the number one. Now, now, I have ways to teach you how to source but I'm not going to tell you who I'm buying the shoelaces from. Heck no! You know? How do I manufacture those? If I tell you that, then I create my own competition. So you can't actually do that to a degree that you want to do that while you're still doing it.
Andrew: And so, can your business yet run without you?
John: Yeah, you know what, the thing is, it's all about automation. It's all about training up the right people. I don't think it will have the directional overhead that I bring to it. You know, because I'm, I'm an entrepreneur and it was started by an entrepreneur. And unless I find somebody that's in that mode, I don't know if it's going to do that. But until said time, you know, I've got to make a bridge, just like I did when I was still working at [???] and doing my e-commerce business. I've got to also make this bridge from the e-commerce to the speaking and training and teaching. You know? So, it's 2013, bro. That's what's up!
Andrew: All right. I got to ask you one last question. We've talked about some of the way that you got here. I want to ask you one question about now where you are, but first, I got to tell the audience, the most important thing I'll ever tell them. Go to mixergypremium.com guys. If you do, what you'll find there is proven entrepreneurs teaching things, right, since we're talking about systemizing. How to systemize your business. How to make sure that you're not driven to insanity by doing every single thing in your business the way I was. In fact, John, you know that we're so systemized that there was an email sent to you requesting an interview. I didn't find you. We found you. Someone internally sent you an email. Then the next part of the process is systemized so that you can book your own time. And then the next part of the process is someone makes sure that we extract the best stories from you. So, we're not hoping to end up with a good interview. Then the next part of the process is I, you book, then I sit here with you. We do the interview, then someone else has a systemized way of editing it. And the whole thing. I used to do all that every single day. Now I don't have to. I get to focus on other things. And the reason I was able to do it is because I put out a cry a few months ago, and I said on Twitter, guys I am exhausted, help me out. How do I systemize this thing? And I had a few entrepreneurs come on and teach systems. How to figure out what you can systemize. How to systemize it so it makes sense, how to pass it on to other people in a way they can get it done, how to then monitor it so it's all getting better and better, and I learned it, I absorbed it, I've done it.
Now, thanks to that, Jhonny and I never would have met otherwise, this interview never would have happened otherwise, and if we even had a chance in hell of making this happen, it would have taken way more work from me than it did. Instead, I had this whole team of people who helped, including Jeremy who I keep referencing because he put together the pre-interview here. Anyway, that is just one idea of so many others that if you're a premium member you get access to and see the results in your own life and you'll be smiling like I am right now if you go to mixergcramium.com and sign up today. If you're not happy with it, I will give you 100% of your money back. I am learning from John Larson, if you're not happy of course the risk by saying of course I take away the risk by saying, of course you get a refund. But really, frankly guys, thousands of people are happy and if you look at Twitter, many of them are telling me to charge more and I will, but for now, anyone who signs up will keep this rate. So go to mixergpremium.com.
Andrew: I'm getting better at promoting, by the way. I used to be very shy about self-promotion in these things, because I wanted it to be about the conversation, and I got you looking at me waiting for your turn. It's not an easy environment. I'm getting better at it.
John: You never get the sale if you don't ask for it. Ever, right? That's what you got to do.
Andrew: I got to do it. I felt bad before, but I'm getting better at it. Every single day I keep practicing.
John: I'm joining up, yay.
Andrew: Right on. We talked in the beginning of this interview about how you were nearly bankrupt. You got on a plane, because you already bought the ticket, and while you were away sweating it, really not able to focus on your vacation from what I understand, these printers you sold and the ink you took out of it and sold separately, this whole thing started to generate some revenue and you were on your way. Even while you were stressed, things started to clear up. Today you still travel, and you had an interesting experience I want to talk about where you showed your passport to the agent at the airport. Is this not true
John: Tell me what happened.
Andrew: I will tell you exactly what happened. I am prepared. I come to these interviews prepared with a guest's life story. You went in there, you had so many stamps on your passport that the guy didn't even know where to stamp it.
John: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Andrew: And you're looking back and seeing all these different places you traveled to.
John: Belize, Australia. I've been there five times now. France, Sweden, Holland, yeah they have great coffee shops in Holland. I don't know if they still do but they did. I just came back the Gangnam style guy.
Andrew: Oh, Korea.
John: Yeah, I was just in Korea. I've traveled a lot, and that's in the last two years; ten different countries.
Andrew: Life is good. it's so much better than when you were working a job you didn't like. When you were near bankruptcy filing out the paperwork. In fact, you had a better shot of your house than I gave you. Can you swing things around, or swing your camera around and show people what it was? What is that outside the river?
John: There's a river back there?
Andrew: Is there a vacuum there?
John: It's a river.
Andrew: Yeah I know, but now I'm seeing a vacuum behind it. We should have made you take the vacuum away.
John: Yeah, I'm putting it on eBay next week.
Andrew: Perfect place to leave it.
John: Hey, look at this. Christmas cactus is doing its thing. Look at that.
Andrew: Way to go. I got to tell you, I'm looking forward to meeting you in person, but if I'm ever at your house I'm not going to leave my jacket behind because I may need to buy it back on eBay.
John: That's right, dude. I will sell it.
Andrew: And if I drive somewhere, I will need a few singles in my pocket just in case.
John: You got it, bro.
Andrew: All kidding aside really, you've come a long way. Thank you for coming here and sharing this story with us and telling us how you did it and telling us about some of the adventures along the way.
John: Hey man, thanks a lot. It was a fun time and I really appreciate it.
Andrew: Thank you for doing it. Thank you all in the audience for being a part of it. Bye, guys.
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News: Drake & Jay-Z Impersonator "Lights Up" Saturday Night Live [Video]
Thursday, Sep 9, 2010 4:25PM
Comedian Jay Pharoah, known for impersonating Jay-Z and Drake, is joining the comedic lineup of the popular "Saturday Night Live" show.
Pharoah is the most recent African-American cast member on the show in seven years.
If you're excited about "SNL" hiring new cast members for the upcoming season, kicking off on Sept. 25, then you might really, really, really like that 22-year-old comedian Jay Pharoah, who's made a name for himself by impersonating celebrities like Jay-Z, Drake, President Obama, Denzel Washington and Eddie Murphy, among others, is one of them. Pharoah, who hails from Virginia, is the fourth new talent hired by SNL this season and will be the first African American to join the cast since 2003, when Kenan Thompson arrived. (Billboard)
Appearing for the first time during the September 25th broadcast, Pharoah will be one of three new actors to join.
The information was provided by a person with firsthand knowledge of planning at "Saturday Night Live" but who was not given permission by NBC to speak on the matter. Jenny Slate who finished her freshman year at "Saturday Night Live" in the spring, will not have her contract picked up for a second season, the person said. Will Forte, who performed on and wrote for "Saturday Night Live" for eight seasons, recently announced that he was departing. The new featured performers this coming season, the person said, will be Taran Killam, an actor and comedian who has appeared on the sketch shows "Mad TV" and "Nick Cannon Presents: Wild 'N Out" and the comedies "Scrubs" and "How I Met Your Mother"; Paul Brittain, a performer from the iO Improv Theater in Chicago; Vanessa Bayer, also of iO in Chicago; and Jay Pharoah, a comedian and impressionist. "Saturday Night Live" will have its season premiere on Sept. 25. (New York Times)
The comedian has also made a buzz for impersonating blockbuster actor Will Smith.
Jared "Jay Pharoah" Farrow studied business at Tidewater Community College and VCU, but all that scholarship went by the wayside in favor of comedy: He's been performing since he was 15, honed his craft at Virginia Beach's Funny Bone and toured with comics Corey Holcomb and Charlie Murphy (Eddie's brother). "I'm known for impressions and family stories," Pharoah told us Tuesday night. He wouldn't say much about his future roles on "SNL," but admitted he's good at celebrities. Which ones? Again, not talking, but Pharoah does a dead-on Will Smith, Denzel Washington and ...President Obama. (Washington Post)
Last May, Jay-Z performed multiple songs on "Saturday Night Live."
During her appearance on "Saturday Night Live," 88-year-old host Betty White referenced her age often, both as a nod to her spunky old-lady persona and her expansive Hollywood career. Jay-Z, the musical guest, is roughly half White's age, but the legendary rapper's resumé is just as vast, spawning 11 #1 albums. And the Brooklyn MC seemed intent on showcasing as many of his LPs as possible as he ran through a five-song medley of his hits. (MTV)
Check out some of Jay Pharoah's material below:

subset: commoncrawl


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South Carolina State pounds Benedict, 63-0
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) Jalen Simmons had touchdown runs of 5 and 15 yards, Javon Hargrave returned a fumble 61 yards for a touchdown, and South Carolina State beat Division II Benedict College 63-0 in the Palmetto Capital City Classic on Saturday. Simmons had 78 yards on 12 carries to lead the Bulldogs rushing attack, which amassed 381 yards on the ground and had four players gain...
Via AP on Fox
3 days ago | Discuss
Texas A&M To Hold Midnight Yell Practice On Steps Of South Carolina State House
Despite having literally no history playing against each other, Texas A&M and South Carolina have been slotted as permanent cross-divisional opponents in the SEC. It looks like the Aggies faithful are doing their best to turn the annual matchup into an exciting rivalry game. Per the school's alumni network website, The Association of Former Students will be taking to the steps...
Via College Spun
24 days ago | Discuss
SC Mayor Flew to Florida to Hook Up With Some Strippers Using Federal Funds
The money was supposed to be for the South Carolina State college, but instead it was used to put some Florida strippers through school (so maybe not as bad as it sounds?). Columbia mayor Steve Benjamin, Florida businessman Richard Zahn and businessman Jonathan Pinson took an overnight trip on a private jet to Florida, where they visited a strip club and wound up taking two young...
Via BlackSportsOnline
June 30, 2014 | Discuss
South Carolina State player killed in campus shooting
On Friday afternoon there was a tragic shooting on another college campus, this time claiming the life of a football player. Brandon Robinson, a linebacker and defensive end for South Carolina State, was the victim of a shooting incident outside a campus dorm. According to a statement released by South Carolina State, Robinson was rushed to a nearby hospital and was later pronounced...
Via Pro Sports Daily
January 25, 2014 | Discuss
SC State Lineman Killed In On Campus Shooting
Sad news out of South Carolina today. Multiple media outlets are reporting that South Carolina State defensive lineman Brandon Robinson has died hours after being shot outside a dorm on campus. The 20 year old was shot at approximately 1:30 pm.R.I.P to our fallen bulldogs always and forever in our Hearts Brandon Robinson
Via HBCU Gameday
January 24, 2014 | Discuss
Draft Diamonds Prospect Interview: Kimario McFadden, DB, South Carolina State University
Draft Diamonds Prospect Interview: Kimario McFadden, DB, South Carolina State University Kimario McFadden is a 6'0 defensive back that has that "it" factor teams are looking for. He will be knocked for playing at South Carolina State University, but the kid has the skills to play at the next level. He has great speed and […]The post Draft Diamonds Prospect Interview:...
Via NFL Draft Diamonds
January 16, 2014 | Discuss
College All-Star Bowl To Feature SC State Flavor
SC State receiver Tyler McDonald will play in the College All-Star Bowl this February. After a down 2012 season, South Carolina State reemerged as a MEAC power this fall. The Bulldogs went 8-4, finishing second to Bethune-Cookman and hosting a home playoff game. Tyler McDonald and kicker Nick Belcher were a big reason for that success. The two seniors will get a chance to extend...
Via HBCU Gameday
December 16, 2013 | Discuss
SCSU-NCCU Preview: Scrappy Eagles Host Surging Bulldogs
NC Central's ball-hawking defense has helped it win three of its last four games. (News And Observer photo) South Carolina State at North Carolina Central: These two teams enter Thursday night's game on a tear, having won a combined seven of their last eight games, the lone loss being NCCU's 35-17 to FCS power Towson. Both are coming off impressive victories, SC...
Via HBCU Gameday
October 09, 2013 | Discuss
South Carolina St. over North Carolina A&T 29-24
Richard Cue threw a pair of touchdowns to lead South Carolina State to victory, 29-24, over North Carolina A&T in a Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference game on Saturday. Cue was 17 of 28 for 236 yards, throwing a 13-yard touchdown to Caleb Davis in the second quarter and a 65-yard TD to Tyler McDonald in the fourth. Freeman Lewis rushed for 70 yards and a touchdown. North Carolina...
Via AP on Fox
October 05, 2013 | Discuss
Defensive Battle Looming In Atlanta Classic
NC A&T and South Carolina State will meet in the Georgia Dome on Saturday. (Chris Martin photo) South Carolina State vs. North Carolina A&T The Atlanta Classic When this matchup was announced as the centerpiece of the Atlanta Classic, a lot of folks were left scratching their heads or just plain salty. Florida A&M has been a fixture at this game...
Via HBCU Gameday
October 04, 2013 | Discuss
Lewis-Freeman runs SC State past Hampton 30-6
Dondre Lewis-Freeman ran for 140 yards and one touchdown to lead South Carolina State to a 30-6 victory over Hampton in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference opener for both teams. The Bulldogs (3-2, 1-0) played without three of their top four rushers coming into the game, but still piled up 248 yards rushing, nearly 78 more than their season average (170.5 per game). Dondre Brown...
Via AP on Fox
September 28, 2013 | Discuss
SC State, Alabama A&M Looking To Rebound From Tough Losses
Tyler McDonald and SC State enter Saturday's game against Alabama A&M 0-2. (Washington Post photo) Saturday's game between Alabama A&M and South Carolina State is more than just your average MEAC/SWAC out of conference game. It will mark the return of Alabama A&M head coach Anthony Jones to the place where he cut his teeth in the coaching profession. After...
Via HBCU Gameday
September 11, 2013 | Discuss
Carter resigns at South Carolina State
South Carolina State basketball coach Tim Carter as resigned after six seasons. The school said Carter was leaving immediately and associate head coach Murray Garvin would take over the struggling Bulldogs (4-17, 0-8 MAC), who have lost their past 14 games. South Carolina State has lost 24 consecutive conference games. South Carolina State athletic director Charlene Johnson thanked...
Via AP on Fox
February 06, 2013 | Discuss
SC State 27, Savannah St. 13
Richard Cue passed for two touchdowns and ran for another as South Carolina State defeated Savannah State 27-13 Saturday in the season finale for the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference rivals. Cue found Caleb Davis with a 3-yard touchdown pass to make it 20-7 in the third quarter after giving the Bulldogs (5-6, 4-4) a first-and-goal at the 1 with a 28-yard toss to Temar Hemingway....
Via AP on Fox
November 17, 2012 | Discuss
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text: The overall appearance of this render is very Galaxy-esque because of the curvature of the corners (it's a more broad curve like on Samsungs) and the roundness of the back cover at the edges, which is strongly reminiscent of the S3 and S4. I don't think it'll turn out looking like these. The day Apple uses a clearly asymmetric design on the front is the day it snows in Hell.


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So I'm a film maker right? And I went to film school right? And when I wasn't in class dreaming up blockbusters and ignoring the salty and bitter instructors teaching me, I would listen every now and again. So one lesson I can recall is that the most unforgiving slight in film is a slight in sound. That's right an audio glitch. Static, a beep, or missing work, or worse still a dead spot in audio. It breaks the viewer from the experience completely, it is sound… rhythm that allows us to immerse ourselves into an experience of film, and to live there, be there in 3 D!
A break in that takes us out of the fantasy and back into "what the hell, this is so unprofessional." So you know that is what a lot of ladies are saying about us right, "what the hell, this is so unprofessional."
When do the ladies say this? When you are engaged with them sexually….
When you break your beat, break your stroke, create a lapse in the rhythm all that emotional imagery wrapped in mental projection and orgasmic visualization just fell off a got dam cliff!
Yeah there are plenty of reasons why we stop…I get it, I'm witcha , but damn, is the drink worth the squeeze? And truth is if she is not in tune with her body, or a talker, or a moaner… So she too is not giving you the clues and hints you need to know how and where to take your rhythm next. Right? Plus, you never knew how close you were to all kinds of vaginal "fantastic~ness". So both of you are in shock and expecting something more from this perfect set… well supposedly.
So look guys here is what you do – you need to have a base movement, I recommend about 2-3 inches in in a circle. This can be done using just your hips which doesn't feel so good that it makes you finish early (as that is a major reason many of us stop, to avoid finishing too early… Ab strength helps that.) But the base movement above will keep her warm and in flow while you get your stuff together and re-engage. In fact at any time your not power stroking or wall stroking or stroking for friction building or pressure points or searching that is what you should be doing on a rhythm you can maintain.
Get that… on a rhythm you can maintain with ease. And while you are there engage her mind with some verbal stroking or by saying some really fly shit in Wolof or in Patois with that deep tone that says you mean business.
Here at JujuMama Men's Stroke Skills we are all about functional training for optimal performance. Add Stroke Skills Course to your workout regimen and complete your fitness cycle, unless of course your biceps and shoulders are more important then the muscle you have downstairs.
Be about that work fellas. Let's serve these Progressive Women like champions… they deserve it.
Montique "Zstroke" Stephon


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We're SorryClose
The Amazing Recycled Crafts Contest
Snappy Little Treasure Box
- Contest Photo by: ballison29
- Madisonville, KY,
- Category: Functional
A cute little treasure box with handle. It holds a little girl or boy's most valuable possessions.
Plastic store-bought strawberry container, Wire hanger, Scrapbooking paper scraps, Fabric from outgrown play clothes (optional), Beads for handle (optional), Craft glue, Sissors & Wire Cutters.
How to Make
Wash and dry a strawberry container.
Cut paper and fabric to fit top and bottom of lid and bottom of box. You can add a name on top.
Embellish it any way you want. Get creative. You can use old or broken costume jewelry, buttons, games with missing pieces, bottle caps, etc.......
Cut the bottom of a wire hanger off. Bend the wire into a handle shape. Bend an 1/2 inch of each side to a right angle and insert into middle hole in side of lid. You can decorate handle with beads for a little pizazz.
Tips for Taking a Great Photo:
- Avoid clutter. Keep the background simple -- your gingerbread house or holiday cookie is the star!
- Daytime, natural light is best. If your area is bright enough, try taking the photo without the flash.
- Upload a horizontal photo. If you crop the image on your computer, make sure you keep a landscape 4:3 aspect ratio.
- For best results, make your image 1200x900 (or "save for web").
- With a digital camera, you can take as many photos as possible and choose the best one. Have fun!


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Study Finds Access to Free Birth Control Causes Dramatic Drop in Abortion and Teen PregnancyBy Rhonda Miller | Published 08 Oct 2012 07:36pm |
A new study at Washington University in St. Louis found teen pregnancy rates declined dramatically when girls got free birth control. MPB's Rhonda Miller reports the study heats up the controversy over the new requirement for employers to provide coverage for contraception.
At Pascagoula High School, 16-year-old Erin is signing up for the Teen Mother Program. Erin asked not to use her last name, but she's upfront about having sex for the first time when she was 14. Now, she has a one-year-old daughter.
"I wasn't planning on getting pregnant. It just kind of happened. "
Erin says she agrees with the findings of a study in St. Louis, which gave free birth control to 9,000 teenage girls and women.
"I think it's good that kids at any age can actually go get on birth control, because they won't end up being pregnant at an early age. "
For 15-to-19-year-old girls in the study, there were six births per 1,000 girls. The national rate is 34 births per 1,000. And according to the Centers for Disease Control, Mississippi's teen birth rate is 55 births per 1,000 girls.
The study found longer-acting contraceptives, like intrauterine devices, or IUDS, and hormonal implants, are more effective than the pill, which girls can forget to take. Connie Jo Williams is director of the Teen Mother Program.
"The hormones are telling you you have a biological urge to be sexually active. I was told by a teen mother, you're not thinking about birth control or anything else, you're just thinking about the act of having sex."
Jennifer Williams also works with the Teen Mother Program.
"I'm a firm believer in abstinence until marriage. Unfortunately, a lot of times when they come to these clinics to get free birth control, they're not telling them the long-term consequences of birth control use, of chemical hormone birth control pills, and long-term effects of abortion."
Under President Obama's health care reform, employers will soon be required to provide coverage for contraception. Shirley Henderson is spokeswoman for the Catholic Diocese of Biloxi.
"We do not want to be forced to include contraception and abortion services into our insurance. We are self-insured and because we are Roman Catholic, we do not want to offer that."
Members of the Catholic Archdiocese of Biloxi and Jackson have joined Catholic organizations across the country in suing the U.S. government over the new contraception requirements.
Rhonda Miller. MPB News. Biloxi
CommentsMPB will not tolerate obscenities, threats/personal attacks, hate speech, material that is ethnically or racially offensive, abusive comments, comments off topic and spam, to name a few. You can see a complete list of the MPB guidelines by viewing our terms of service. If you spot a comment you think violates these guidelines, report it to the moderators by clicking "x" next to the comment, then "report". MPB reserves the right to adjust these guidelines. If you have a suggestion, please contact us.


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Thinstall removes barriers to application virtualization
Self-contained virtualization solution makes for clean, quick deployment
Have you heard? Thin is "in" again. From VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) to RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) to SVS (Software Virtualization Service), the ghosts of thin client computing are being resurrected like a scene out of "Field of Dreams." Only this time they're looking to ride the virtualization bandwagon and recapture some of their former glory.
But like specters of Ruth or DiMaggio, many of these solutions are stuck in the past, out of touch with the realities of today's computing landscape. How fortuitous it is, then, that one of the pioneers of Windows application virtualization in the OEM space -- Thinstall -- decided to step up to the plate in the broader enterprise application deployment competition.
The timing couldn't be better. With the market's two major players (Altiris and Softricity) now acquired by venerable industry franchises (Symantec and Microsoft, respectively), there's a real need for a small-town team with "everyman" appeal to shake up the league and keep the big guys innovating.
Playing clean
Thinstall Virtualization Suite 3.0 -- the first version to be targeted at the broader enterprise IT audience -- brings some fresh ideas to the Windows application virtualization game. For starters, Thinstall boasts one of the "cleanest" architectures around. No messy client agents or device drivers required: The entire Thinstall virtualization runtime is embedded directly into the repackaged application executables.
The resulting file image runs entirely in user mode, making it virtually impossible for a Thinstall packaged application to crash the system. By contrast, both SoftGrid and Altiris SVS require at least some kernel mode interaction, potentially exposing the OS underpinnings to errors or attacks.
Another benefit of executing in user mode is that Thinstall packaged applications can run under almost any security context, including "locked down" (i.e., nonadministrator) desktops. With Windows Vista and its UAC (User Account Control) mechanism now a reality, the capability to run "cleanly" in user mode is a real advantage.
Click for larger view.
|Test Center Scorecard
|Thinstall Virtualization Suite 3.0
8.0 Thinstall Virtualization Suite 3.0" /> Thinstall Virtualization Suite 3.0" /> Thinstall Virtualization Suite 3.0" />
Very Good


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Northeast Middle School in Clarksville was evacuated Tuesday morning after a student brought what appeared to be a potentially explosive device onto school grounds.
Elise Shelton, spokesperson for the Clarksville-Montgomery County school system, told News 2 when the device was discovered, the school followed its evacuation procedures and contacted law enforcement.
The device was later determined to be a "drilled out and disarmed device that had its explosive core removed," according to an email from the school's principal.
Students and staff were never in any danger.
ClarksvilleNow.com reported the school has identified the student responsible for bringing the device and appropriate disciplinary action will be taken.
441 Murfreesboro Road Nashville, TN 37210
Telephone: 615.369.7222
Fax: 615.369.7329
Email: email@example.com


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ESPN reports that Cobb is a finalist for this new award. The article says it is being given to the "most versatile" player in college football.
I think its a great award that recognizes the evolution of the game. With more and more players getting involved in Wildcat formations, special teams, etc while still playing the traditional running back/wide receiver role; its hard to recognize them for the special talents that they are.
I'm hoping Randall gets the recognition that he so richly deserves.


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Day 12: Favourite Pokemon attack or move
Perish Song
After 3 turns, all Pokémon that were on the field when Perish Song was used will faint unless they switch out. Perish Song does not affect Pokémon with the ability Soundproof. If a Pokémon switches out with Baton Pass, Perish Song will still be in effect on the Pokémon switched in, even if it has the ability Soundproof.
Perish Song can hit non-adjacent targets in Triple Battles
When this move was first introduced in Gen II I instantly fell in love! I figure, If i'm going to go down you best be coming with me. :D
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Frances "Fran" Hirdes passed away peacefully on Friday in Turlock. She was born in Farmersville to Joseph and Mary Riberio in 1928. She was the second of six children: Mary, Fran Ellie, Lee, Joe and Tony. The family later moved to Ceres. Fran attended Ceres High School and graduated in 1947. In 1949, she married Les Hirdes. Together they worked hard in the farming and dairy business for over 40 years. They were married 50 years when Les passed away in 1999; a daughter Leslie preceded Fran in death in 2008. She enjoyed line dancing, rodeos and roping. She timed ...
Howard Vincent, 87, of Hughson was born in Ceres. He graduated from high school in Nicolaus and joined the Navy shortly before World War II broke out. After the war he started his dual career of farming and truck driving. He drove for Valchris Turkeys of Turlock. He was a member of the Grange. He was a farmer and gardener, but his real love was for his family.
Howard is survived by his wife, Ruby McKee-Vincent of Hughson; children, Barbara (Charles) Daily of Oakdale and Jack V. (Sylvia) McKee of Riverton, Wyo.; brother, Duane Vincent of Yuba City; six grandchildren ...
Edsel Giles Blair
Kulwant Singh Somal
Barbara Ruth Otto
Idalina D. Ferreira
Eulalio I Segoviano Jr.
Goldie Worner Beling Reeser
Gurdev Kaur
Jose Alfredo Guerra
Gertrude "Trudy" Furnivall
Francisco Emmanuel Lopez
Felicitas Martinez
Frances L. Coleman
Edward Marvin Bishop
Terrence Eugene McSweeney, age 73, passed away at his home in Turlock on August 25th. Terry was born to Eugene and Bette McSweeney in Oakland, CA. Terry was a graduate of Hilmar High School and lived most of his life in Hilmar and Turlock. Terry had many friends and with his outgoing personality, made friends easily. He had a long career in the construction business, ultimately owning two successful construction firms in the area. Terry enjoyed fishing, camping, traveling and visited many foreign destinations over his lifetime. His favorite travel destination, however, was much closer to home. Along with many ...
Passed away in his sleep on August 23, 2014 at the age of 93. Gordon was born in Nebraska on October 8, 1920 to Martin and Sena Petersen. He was the oldest of ten children. When Gordon was seven years old the family moved to Montana where he lived until enlisting in the Army Air Corps in December 1941. Gordon's unit sailed on the Queen Mary to Australia in February, 1942. He attended radio school at Point Cook outside of Melbourne and then served in New Guinea for the remainder of World War II. When Gordon returned to the ...
Don was born in Hemet, CA to Harry and Gladys Hall on December 6, 1921, and joined his wife of 61 years, Bernice, in heaven on August 18, 2014.
Marilyn Davenport passed away peacefully in Turlock on July 31st after a brave battle with lung disease. She was born and raised in Minneapolis, MN, then moved to California in 1950 upon marrying Henry Morrett and earning her nursing degree. She worked in hospitals for 19 years and another 10 years as an aerospace industry nurse in southern California. She highly valued her work as an ER nursing supervisor and enjoyed the variety of patients she served. She raised her two beloved sons, Hal and Bryan, mostly as a single mother, following the premature death of Henry in 1961. In ...
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Penn State's board authorizes Sandusky settlements
Published: Jul 12 2013 05:13:03 PM EDT
Penn State trustees said several tentative settlements have been made with men who claim former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky sexually abused them.
The board voted Friday to authorize members of a committee to approve settlements in the matter.
The deals are limited to a range of dollar values that the board received in a closed-door session.
The school said it won't be commenting until the deals have been made final, which could happen in the coming weeks.
Sandusky is serving a lengthy prison sentence after being convicted last year of 45 counts of child sexual abuse.
Copyright 2013 WFMZ. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Red Sox offer Edwin Jackson $5-$6M 1-year deal?
"Boston, which has offered a one-year deal in the $5-$6 million range according to major league sources, is definitely in the hunt.... Jackson reportedly has at least two multi-year offers. One of them is believed to be from the Baltimore Orioles. Jackson would like to pitch for a contending team. If he's to accept a one-year deal it would likely be in a place where he could prove his worth."


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The ODU Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) initiative will present a seminar, "The New Faculty Experience," from noon to 2 p.m. Friday, March 23, in the Rectors' Room of Webb Center.
Experienced faculty members will speak on topics such as, "The Job Search," "Transitioning into a Faculty Position," "Negotiating During Hiring" and "Developing a Plan for Your Career."
Elaine Justice, the associate professor of psychology who chairs the campus' PFF initiative, said the seminar is for graduate students who are interested in teaching. She said the advice offered should help students get jobs and make the most of their first year as faculty members.
The national PFF program is sponsored by the Council of Graduate Schools and the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
This article was posted on: March 7, 2007
Old Dominion University
Office of University Relations
Room 100 Koch Hall Norfolk, Virginia 23529-0018
Telephone: 757-683-3114
Old Dominion University is an equal opportunity, affirmative action institution.


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MT102 Intro to Semiconductor Dev
Examines commonly made semiconductor devices, including diodes, solar voltaic cells, and MOSFET transistors. Includes electronic materials fundamentals of electricity, conductivity and semiconductivity. Audit available. (For detailed information, see the Course Content and Outcome Guide ).
- Credits:
- 1.00
Distance Education: Web Course Information
- From the Instructor:
- This course is designed to be conducted 100% on-line. That is to say that all exams and assignments are submitted in the on-line environment.
- Course Specific Requirements:
- Text Book: Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology, Michael Quirk and Julian Serda
- Web Technical Requirements:
- Please be sure to read the Technical Requirements for this delivery mode.
- Students with Disabilities:
- Students with disabilities should notify their instructor if accommodations are needed to take this class. For information about technologies that help people with disabilities in taking Web based distance learning classes please visit the Office for Students with Disabilities website.
- Registration:
- To register, you need the CRNs (ex. 22398) of your selected classes.
- Fees:
- Please note that for many courses, additional fees may apply.
- Textbooks:
- To find textbooks, you need the CRN, Campus, Term & Course Number (ex. BA101).
|Campus / Bldg / Rm
|07-Jul-2014 thru 03-Aug-2014
Instructor: Paul T Wohr
Notes: Online course scheduled from 7/7/14-8/3/14.
Tuition: credit Fees: $20.00
For information, contact Rock Creek


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Poached Eggs With Grits and Tomatoes
Serves 4| Hands-On Time: | Total Time:
- 1 pound cherry tomatoes
- 1 bunch scallions, cut into 2-inch lengths
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- kosher salt and black pepper
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar
- 8 large eggs
- 1 cup quick-cooking grits
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- Heat oven to 400° F. On a rimmed baking sheet, toss the tomatoes and scallions with the oil; season with ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Roast until soft, 18 to 22 minutes.
- In a large, deep skillet, add the vinegar to 3 inches of barely simmering water. In 2 batches, crack the eggs into the water and cook until the whites are set, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Meanwhile, cook the grits according to the package directions. Stir in the butter. Serve the grits topped with the eggs and vegetables.
Nutritional Information
- Per Serving
- Calories 405Calories From Fat 176
- Fat 20g
- Sat Fat 7g
- Cholesterol 438mg
- Sodium 963mg
- Protein 18g
- Carbohydrate 40g
- Sugar 5g
- Fiber 3g
- Iron 4mg
- Calcium 96mg
What does this mean? See Nutrition 101 .
Similar Recipes
Quick Tip
This juicy, tomatoey dish is also delicious served over slices of toasted country bread.
Did you try this recipe? How did you like it?
High in vitamin C, these hard, tart berries are grown in bogs in colder regions of North America and Europe. They're almost always eaten cooked, as in the classic Thanksgiving relish.


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Glasvegas - Glasvegas
Yet hype is no barometer for quality when it comes to music - Glasvegas would probably tell you that much themselves. Just as well, then, that this album is good enough to override the hyperbole. A collection of songs that sit astride both the hazy feedback of The Jesus and Mary Chain, and the shimmering, hand-clapping doo-wop of Phil Spector girl groups, Glasvegas is undoubtedly a stunning album - see standouts Geraldine, Daddy's Gone and It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry for proof, all songs that simultaneously glisten with sadness and exhilaration.
What sets them truly apart from 99% of their contemporaries, though, are James Allan's lyrics. Tales of broken homes, unlikely love stories and reminiscences of schoolyard fights are all delivered succinctly and effectively, Allan's emotive, sometimes painfully truthful Glasgow thrum adding extra poignancy to simple lyrics like "How you are my hero / How you're never here, though."
If you're lucky enough to 'get' this album, you'll know that there's something bigger, something strangely hard to understand about Glasvegas. You'll understand that bands like this, bands who appeal to taxi drivers, musos and indie kids, don't come along too often. And you'll understand that even if they never make another album, Glasvegas is a reminder that in this cynical age of music-making, good old-fashioned magic can still happen. Spellbinding.
Review by Lauren Murphy | 09:00 | Tuesday 9th September 2008 | Album Review
The opinions expressed in the comments section are those of the viewer and do not reflect those of Entertainment.ie. Entertainment.ie accepts no responsibility, legal or otherwise, for the accuracy of viewer comments. Please contact us to report abusive comments


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Products & Services
Why Naya Jeevan?
Naya Jeevan for Employees
Naya Jeevan for Kids
Naya Jeevan for Families
Value Added Services
About Us
The Team
Board of Directors
Advisory Team
Our Values
Our Community
Get Involved
Pro Bono Expertise
Keep In Touch
News and Announcements
Social Networks
Contact Us
About Us
The Team
Board of Directors
Advisory Team
Our Values
Naya Jeevan is a growing organizationn and is often seeking new team members to help us alleviate poverty and rejuvenate the lives of low-income families in the emerging world. Listed below are positions we are presently recruiting for. If the positions are not your within your area of expertise, email us your resume/CV to allow us to consider you for future positions. Contact us at
Community Liaison Manager (Karachi)
Enrollment Officers (Karachi)
Community Liaison Manager (Karachi)
Reports To:
Vice-President, Business Development
Direct Reports:
Sales and Enrollment Officers (To be developed)
Assignment Focus:
Serve as a primary relationship manager for Naya Jeevan with NGOs and academic institutions. The CLM will be responsible for managing all aspects of client management from business development, initial induction, enrollment, renewal and termination of contracts to the latter. The incumbent will also be involved in fund raising for Naya Jeevan for its Health Rescue Fund and marketing its value added services to the clients.
Primary Responsibilities:
Develop and maintain community relationships to ensure rollout of Naya Jeevans Health insurance plan, value added services such as micro finance, Child-2-Child finance, etc. Keep a tight feedback loop with the non profit, NGO, academic and government/public sectors.
Play a key role in community and corporate development i.e assist Naya Jeevan in expanding its networks in the non profit, NGO, academic and government/public sectors.
The CLM will also be required to build and manage a team of NGO and academic Sales and Enrollment Officers.
Work as an integral part of the Naya Jeevan team and suggest new avenues for fundraising and value added services to the local communities.
Follow Naya Jeevan policies and procedures for business development, induction, enrollment, renewal and termination of policies in a timely and diligent manner while ensuring that relationships and partners of Naya Jeevan are maintained and improved.
Develop and rollout out specific sales targets for Naya Jeevan - Set sales targets for the Sales and Enrollment Officers and provide coaching and training on an ongoing basis. In addition, ensure that the Sales and Enrollment Officers are following through with the enrollment process thoroughly.
Work very closely with Regional Director to ensure delivery of highest levels of customer care for each client and ensure each relationship is renewed annually.
Seek and build new relationships and partners for Naya Jeevan.
Help in public image building initiatives, work with the media and help in fundraising for Naya Jeevans healthcare eserve fund.
Assist in Naya Jeevans development and fundraising initiatives. Work closely with the Corporate Development team and the media in developing promotional material, rolling out various fund raising initiatives, event management, etc.
Develop quarterly reports on client management, enrollment and claims incidences - maintain a client pipeline report.
Additional Responsibilities:
Work closely with the Medical Services Manager to ensure all legitimate claims are being handled efficiently by the underwriter.
Assist the Regional Director in the rollout of sales objectives and new products.
BSc/MBA from well recognized university/Undergraduate in social sciences or marketing with two years or more experience in a client servicing role.
The candidate should ideally have worked in or have good exposure to the non-profit, NGO, academic and government/public sectors.
An energetic, forward-thinking and creative individual with a strong analytical and creative ability.
Able to handle a large staff and be prepared to handle all aspects of a relationship management.
Good networking skills and ability to maintain and build relationships with all stakeholders.
Good verbal and communication skills.
Good managerial and leadership skills.
Enrollment Officers (Karachi)
Roles and Responsibilities:
Collecting and checking enrollment forms that they are in compliance with underwriter requirements.
Ensuring that all paperwork supporting the forms are available in compliance with underwriter requirements.
Enrolling domestic staff of clients identified and initiated by Community/Corporate Liaison Managers.
Enrolling SME employees identified by Community/Corporate Liaison Managers.
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Naya Jeevan
- Micro Insurance for the Urban Poor
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