Another Summer Slips Into the Past

We had a hot and humid summer with oppressive humidity accompanied by the worst drought in 10 years here in New England. Summer was my favorite season when I was young, but this year I'm glad to see it go. Thanks, Obama. 


Summer business was actually pretty good, led by bird kites, but this August stumbled. Four big sales had made last August the second-best ever, and that lucky streak didn't reproduce this year (at least not yet; there is still a week left for a $1,000+ miracle to appear). I did have two bulk golf ball inquiries and one for bird kites. The 240-ball minimum for imprinting killed one inquiry. The other one went like this:

SHE: "Hi, I'd like to buy $1,100 worth of balls!"
ME: "Great, I can get them to you for $934 with free shipping. That's about 20% off."
SHE: "I only have $600."
(ME, to myself: Then you don't want to buy $1,100 worth of balls, do you?)
ME: "How about some nice loose balls? You can get 216 for $594, also with free shipping."
SHE: (crickets)

The bird kite guy ignored my repeated suggestions that he place his order online, so we played telephone tag wherein he kept repeating the same "I want to buy some kites" voicemail for a week while refusing to actually buy the kites. I did finally connect by phone and land his $175 order. 

To make things more challenging, Jackite ran out of poles shortly after they restocked eagle kites. Poles typically cost as much as, or even more than, the kites themselves, so that cut off a lot of my routine higher-end sales.  

**********************

The ongoing AdWords technical saga goes on, as ongoing things do. On Tuesday I reset my complaint to the beginning with a carefully documented email using only one-syllable words and short sentences suitable for a Millennial. It worked. Yesterday the kid told me he's referring it to his "specialist team" -- presumably meaning somebody who knows what they're doing. Progress! 

**********************

My first Sunshop upgrade in a couple of years is underway even as I write this. I haven't delved into the change log in detail, but I know it includes a lot of goodies that I want. There might even be a new template in my future. Apart from that, I'm getting my newsletter signup dialog back.