Archive for category Copy Writing

Presley & I at Miler Park for A Brewer Game

One of the big lessons that I teach to my clients is to use their personality in their copy and marketing materials to form a better bond with their prospects and existing clients.  I am also a big believer in practicing what you preach.  Often you will see pictures of me traveling and utilizing the stories and misfortunes of travel to teach customer service lessons.  Other times you’ll just see some pictures of my daughter Presley (named in part due to her mom’s love of Elvis Presley) & I hanging out.  I often give you insight to my upcoming events, marketing materials and more.

What I’m about to share with you is something many would be ashamed of or embarrassed to talk about…I’m actually quite proud of it.  3 Years ago today I had my last drink (Captain & Pepsi).  Quite cold turkey.  It was a decision I made about a two months before I actually quite.  I knew what day I was going to quite and I knew I was going out with a bang…3 solid 14 hour days of partying!!! Being involved most of my life in the bar and restaurant business it’s easy to push the envelope to let’s say excess.

About 5 years ago “a lot” of things were happening in my life.  The birth of my daughter (the happiest day of my life) and at the same time my marriage was going south.  Many reason that I will not share with the entire world, some due to my work and bad habits.  Moving forward a few years as my personal life was an entire mess it was easy to just work (ALOT) and stay out (ALOT) to forget about everything.

Along with my personal life becoming a mess I started having issues with one of my business partners and our difference of business strategy.  I wanted to provide the best experiences and entertainment value and charge for it.  He wanted to be the lowest priced guy in town and complain that he wasn’t making any money.  It didn’t take a CPA to look at pricing strategy and a few other benchmarks that were horrible as a direct result of the low pricing strategy.  NO business has ever survived on price alone…somebody will always try to lower.  Wal-Mart talks about purchasing carpet that will hide the color of the dirt, oil and grime drug in by their customers so they don’t have to clean the carpets as often.  This is a direct reflection of thier margins.  Disney on the other hand sells at high prices and paint the fence leading down Main St. USA EVERYDAY…and guess what they just RAISED their prices during the worst economic climate since 1929.  Disney can because the are not afraid one bit to charge for an outstanding experience and families cheerfully pay for the memories…no matter the price and over 70% of their traffic is from returning guests.  So my partner and I were the Wal-Mart and Disney Duo…but we were also drinking buddies as well.  When I decided to quite drinking our partnership became even more of a struggle and our dis agreements even starker.

During this period one of my great friends (and now business partner) Bruce Davis said a simple sentence that changed my life.  He said “Darin it’s time to for more thinking and less drinking”.  He saw all of the talent, knew about all of my frustrations, and could hear my struggles over the phone as we talked almost daily about my “issues” and how to get out of the struggle I was in.

That day I decided on Labor Day I would quite cold turkey!  That’s exactly what I did.  Since then I have parted ways with my former partners, got divorced and started a new life.  During these periods I lost a lot of so called friends.  Many a big part of my life for over 10 years.  When you make a drastic change in your life you find out who your real friends are and who was just another person in your past.

Many of my close friends and clients also know of Bruce’s struggles over the past 3 years as his daughter was diagnosed with a very rare brain disease that caused her to have 1/2 of her brain removed.  Olivia has made an amazing recovery, but it was an incredible struggle for her entire family emotionally and financially…but someone has looked out for the Davis family.  I’m certain it’s because Bruce and Steph have helped so many others including me improve their lives in so many ways.  We have now also created the Olivia Davis Foundation to help other families that have even greater health and financial struggles.

Today Bruce and I are partners in a few projects.  The last 3 years have been quite a ride.  The highest of highs and the lowest of lows.  But…I wouldn’t have changed them for the world.  My life has been replenished with individuals that are true friends and success oriented.   My life today is filled with freedoms that I could have never had before.  Structured my new life to be “very portable” and allow me to work when and where I want.  A life that allows me to spend more time with my daughter.  Lot’s of new business opportunities that would have never happened.  Successes that many dream of but never achieve.  As they say every thing happens for a reason.