Craig sent me a blog post about a company that takes waveforms and makes them into bracelets; The Sound Advice Project. It’s intention was to create motivational messages parents could give as gifts to their kids to keep them off drugs, but you can also create custom messages. I wonder what “I AM a WINNER!” or “I AM LUCKY!” would look like?
My current bedside reading is Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles. I just finished chapter 7, Unleash the Power of Goal-Setting. The Cole’s Notes version of the chapter is: all your goals should be measurable; how much, by when. I realized only a few of my goals were measurable.
For example, my contesting goal for this year is very measurable: I will win 100+ prizes worth $35,000+ in 2009. (I am doing well on this goal as I am 20% of the way there number wise and 43% of the way there dollar wise.)
However, some of my business goals are vague. For example, I am a guest on Ellen. Ellen who? Also, why am I limiting it to Ellen? My goal isn’t to be on Ellen for the sake of being on Ellen. I picked Ellen because I felt she is a lot of fun and would appreciate “good crazies” and “Christmas” of the hobby, along with having a massive audience. After reading chapter 7 I realized my goal shouldn’t even be to on Ellen at all, because Ellen is a HOW and the HOWs are the domain of the Universe.
I should be focusing on the end result. My biggest goal. My life purpose. My message. And the rest will take care of itself. What is my biggest goal? My life purpose? My message? It is two-fold; 1) to teach others how to bring more fun and excitement in their every day lives and 2) to think more positively, use the law of attraction and realize that you can have anything you want in life, including prizes!
Based on that goal everything else is just a tool to meet that goal, such as my books. They are a vehicle for the message, not the message itself. Being on Ellen is another vehicle for the message. Same with my website, radio show, and this blog.
Here are my new measurable business/life goals for 2009.
Those are the five “biggies”. I have many smaller ones such as: Twitter at least once per day, or get my newsletter to my webmaster in a timely fashion.
The small goals are the everyday steps that will get you to your end result. As Jack stated, “If I take five steps north every day from Santa Barbara, eventually I will end up in San Francisco.”
I think it’s important to use this blog to document my journey, path, obstacles, hurdles and victories because we are all the same. We are all here learning and we must help each other.
So, what are your goals for winning? Not just prizes, but every aspect of your life?
P.S. I’ll post updates over the next few months on how my current goals are coming along.
I am experimenting with Twitter. Click here if you wish to follow me. I don’t post as often as I would like, but I am getting better and posting more often.
You can also follow me on Facebook. I will admit, I am even less likely to update my Facebook page!
A few people had additional problems and Bob came up with, yet another, fix:
I found an old fix on the Companion site, (yes, it appears to be back). If you have any other folks looking for this problem cure have them do this….
Start regedit and go to “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\Roboform Companio\Settings” Find “EnableSubmitHistory”, double click it and change the value data to “0″. (without the quotes).
This worked “one time in a row” for me. Hopefully, it will keep on working. Anyway, this was just one, (of probably many variations) of a similar problem and fix.
Thanks Bob. We appreciate your help.
Helping each other find contests, enter and win is one of the best, and least talked about, aspects of this hobby.
Today is the last day you can Roll Up The Rim online. (The in-store promotion goes until May 24th or until they run out of specially marked cups.) I know contests alter consumer buying habits because I rarely buy tea at “Tim’s”, but I frequently do during their annual contest. I managed to net myself two free coffees. WOO HOO!
But, I am not posting to brag about my $3.14 in winnings. I am writing because I was amazed at the number of prizes claimed. A marketing rule of thumb for seeded contests (a contest where you have to be lucky enough to find a winning piece, cup, can, box, etc.) is only 30% of the prizes are claimed. Yet, as I stood in line to claim my winnings, I noticed on the paper tray liner that 34 of the 35 cars being given away last year were claimed. WOW! After doing a bit of research, I discovered in 2008, 88% of all the prizes were claimed. An out-of-the-park home run for the marketing department!
I think the claim rate for prizes is so high for this promotion because in the last few years there have been a very public fight over a winning cup (Two Girls) and I think people are now rolling up every rim just to ensure they get their prize and don’t end up on the nightly news as a loser.
So, go get yourself a “double double” this sunny spring afternoon. I hope it’s a WINNER!
We recently won 2nd prize in the recent National Post Vegas Uncork’d contest. It was for myself and a guest to attend a cooking class presented by Richard Chen, the head chef of Wing Lei, the only Chinese restaurant in North America to receive a Michelin Star. The class took place at the flagship LCBO store in Toronto. I was very excited as I knew the food and wine would be excellent.
I got the release forms. They said the prize was worth $2000. I thought, this is going to be good, but there is no way it is worth that much! In Canada, we do not have to pay taxes on any prizes of any kind; lottery, sweepstakes or contest, so I signed the release forms and faxed them back. Had I been an American, I believe I would have turned the prize down as I would not want to pay the income tax on this particular prize.
There were ten winners, their guests, some sponsors and media in attendance. Chef Chen showed us how he created each menu item. Afterward the sommelier came out and described each wine we were being served.
The menu consisted of: Smiked Salmon & Daikon Salad, Pork Pot Stickers, Lobster Won Ton Soup, Shui Mai, Peppercorn Beef Tenderloin and Seared Pork Loin with Sweet & Sour Sauce.
The wine list consisted of: Mionetto “Il Prosecco”, Quinta Azevedo Vino Verde 2007 and Gos Jumilla 2007.
I did look up on the Wing Lei menu what Chef Chen and his team cooked for us that evening. Had Craig and I eaten at the restaurant in Las Vegas, the food would have cost us $250. I am estimating, had we ordered the three bottles of wine they also served us, it would have been another $250-$300.
The evening was wonderful, but was the prize worth $2000. Craig says yes! and I say no.
Decide for yourself before you sign the release forms if the prize is really worth what the sponsor feels it is worth.
There has been some confusion about the blog entry I posted yesterday regarding the fix for RoboForm Companion.
RoboForm and RoboForm Companion are two different programs. RoboForm is an auto-fill program allowing a user to easily and quickly enter online forms. RoboForm Companion works in conjunction with RoboForm allowing a user to auto-enter online forms.
So, a user would install RoboForm on their computer, create Passcards for each sweepstakes they wish to enter and then launch RoboForm Companion to fill and submit all those forms saving the entrant a lot of time.
The fix I sent out yesterday was for RoboForm Companion. It did not work for some. Karl kindly shared this fix for RoboForm Companion:
I think I found a simple way to make RoboForm Companion work!!
You must add an entry in the hosts file.
c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Right click and open the file using Notepad.
Add the following line at the top:
127.0.0.1 www.cydrix.com
Save and exit.
It should look like this when you are done:
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a ‘#’ symbol.
# For example:
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host
127.0.0.1 localhost
::1 localhost
127.0.0.1 www.cydrix.com
NOTE: Several spyware and anti-virus programs put this file read-only, so you will have to right-click the file (before you open it in Notepad), choose properties and then uncheck the Attribute Read-Only. Recheck it when you are done.
As I also stated yesterday, I am working with programmers to launch a supported and maintained replacement program for RoboForm Companion. I will keep you regularly informed of our progress. Like RoboForm Companion, will need to have, and be comfortable using RoboForm before using the auto-entry software.
Click here to download RoboForm.
Click here to take the free online RoboForm tutorials.
Last year, Cydrix decided it was no longer in a position to support and upgrade RoboForm Companion. They removed their annual subscription fee and made the program free to anyone who wished to use it.
Yesterday, their website went offline and the software suffered a fatal error. Today, “watchman” posted the following on Cool Canucks as one solution to the problem:
For those of us that use this program to automate our entries, we have known for some time that the company has stopped supporting the software and is not creating any new versions.
Today you will notice that when it starts the Cydrix.com web site is gone and has been replaced with a generic splash screen that indicates to me that the URL ownership has lapsed.
If you depend on this software to enter your hundreds if not thousands of contests, you should start to get nervous until a suitable replacement is found.
I had a problem with the software yesterday and have just finished spending considerable time rebuilding my system (uninstalling and re-installing software and OS). I am happy to say that it is now working thank goodness.
But the experience has taught me some valuable lessons that I feel that I need to share. So this is for all users of RoboForm Companion.
1. Quickly go to Download.com and download and save a copy of the RoboForm Companion Setup.exe and save it or burn it to somewhere safe. Since the Cydrix.com site is gone, you can’t get it there anymore. You will need this should you ever have to re-install the software as I have.
2. Turn off automatic updates in Windows Update. Yes I know that this will also prevent security updates, but hear me out. You want to be in a position to know that you are going to install an update and take a snapshot of your system prior to doing so. This way if the update causes Companion to fail, you at least have a fighting chance of restoring your system to the prior version and hopefully Companion will work again. You may have to re-install it from your download from part 1.
Ask yourself how important is contesting to you and what is the value of prizes that you have won and potentially will win. Is RoboForm and RoboForm Companion a big part of that equation? If you answered yes, then the following is for you.
I strongly recommend that if you have a current system that is running your software well; lock it down and back it up. Do not use the system for anything else and do not let anyone else use it. Make it your contesting system and don’t upgrade or install anything else on it.
With the prices of computer systems or laptops today, get yourself another system for everything else other than contesting. Think of it as an investment in future contesting wins.
This episode scared me when it appeared that I might not ever be able to use RoboForm Companion again. Just imagine that you no longer could automatically enter all the contests that you have in there, what would you do?
Good luck and let’s hope for a RoboForm Companion replacement soon.
His advice is a good short term solution as there are currently no other auto-entry software on the market.
I have been working with programmers on a longer term solution. I hope to launch a new, supported, auto-entry software package on the market in the next few weeks. I will keep you posted on our progress.
In the meantime, you can enter manually using RoboForm to speed up the process.
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