Hell Yeah or No

I subscribe to over 200 blogs and news letters, thinking till now "I need to be in touch with what's happening".

Today I read an article by Derek Sivers, or actually it was a short animated video called Hell Ya - or NO!

It really got me thinking about how I plan my day and my projects. People would say I am always leaning way out into the future and starting the first 10% of projects. Some are fantastic, like our new website build, being the first carbon neutral office supply company in Canada or the ecoYIKE, while other projects were just a bit trivial and didn't really get me jazzed. And most important, if there is nobody behind me to carry to project forward, it can just die.

Sometimes it's best to say no and make room for the "Hell Ya, I love it!" projects.

Have a look at some of Derek's videos: Hell Ya is #92. I also really like A Real Person - A Lot Like You (#93)

Cheers

Calvin

Does all your STUFF really make you happy?

I have been a long time fan of Annie Leonard and The Story of STUFF Project.

Annie has spent nearly two decades investigating and organizing on environmental health and justice issues. She has traveled to 40 countries, visiting literally hundreds of factories where our stuff is made and dumps where our stuff is dumped. Witnessing first hand the horrendous impacts of both over- and under- consumption around the world, Annie is fiercely dedicated to reclaiming and transforming our industrial and economic systems so they serve, rather than undermine, ecological sustainability and social equity.

Watch this video  and give some thought to her claims facts and data. It really made me think about all the stuff (most of it crap - I call it) that I purchase each year. Where is it a year later? Annie is right, most of it is in the trash. From this point forward I have made a new policy (first of many I hope) that if I do need to purchase hard goods like a stapler or a shovel - I will purchase the best quality I can find. Yes, it will cost more, BUT it will last many many years, I hope, instead of choosing the cheap "toss away" version.

At Costless we sell staplers for $5.00 and ones for $40.00, and I can tell you the $5.00 staplers are made to throw away. Investing is the word to think of when spending $40.00 on a stapler. Investing in quality, useability and the environment.

Have a look at the video and make your own judgements.  

Cheers,

Calvin

10 Travel Tips for Protecting your Privacy

This year in 2011 I have logged half a dozen or more trips for business of personal and not given much thought to WiFi security in the hotels.

Now with Starbucks and McDonalds offering free WiFi, it seems it won't be long before you can find a hot spot almost anywhere in a major populated area.

So what are some tips to protecting your privacy? Check out this article from Mashable (one of my favorite sites/blogs)  

Cheers,

Calvin

I'm sure we can beat that Office Depot Price on Paper ;-)

Here is a screenshot a customer shared with us about copy paper being sold at Officedepot.ca.

Save a negative 47% off the list price. Hummmmm, not such a great deal.

The great news is Costless Express sells paper at about half that price.

Tell you what, for reading my blog - I'll sell you a box of paper for $24.99! Add #273199 - 8.5x11 white 92 brite paper with your order when you call in and tell your account manager you saw "Calvin's Corner Paper Deal". Let's run the offer as one box per order till July 22, 2011.

Thanks so much for buying local, and keeping your money here in our community. Did you know 70% of all dollars spent with the American-owned big box retailers like Office Depot leave our community?

Hello Happy Hour, and Buh-Bye Grand and Toy.

Tonight is HAPPY HOUR for all the staff at the pub!

Reasons to celebrate include new staff additions Shawn, Hailey, Alysha, Lucas and Nabil.


Oh, and celebration that we stole a nice, six-figure-per-year-in-sales customer away from Grand & Toy!


Grand and Toy is owned by an American company, OfficeMax, so we don't feel as bad as if it was a Canadian company. Seems we have been picking up lots of new customers that were once G&T customers, and the main reason why they tell us is service. With the announcement yesterday that G&T let go 100 small business account managers, I only see the service getting worse. I'm not sure what their long term plans are for Small Business customers, without any account managers to support them.

Here is an interesting article about the G&T retail stores: Von Hahn: Image is everything, so Grand & Toy sells nothing

If you want to hear what the Grand & Toy employees are talking about their company:  http://www.ratemyemployer.ca/employer/employer.aspx?l=en&empID=2726

Here is Staples’ employees: http://www.ratemyemployer.ca/employer/employer.aspx?l=en&empID=739

All good news for Costless Express - thanks so much to our awesome customers!

Amazing Calendar Stats!

I think I saw some sunshine the past few days. July looks to be nice and look at all the weekend time we have lined up!

This year, July has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. This happens once every 823 years.

This is the only time we will see and live this event!

Calendar for July 2011  July Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat         1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Kinda interesting - read on!!!

This year we're going to experience four unusual dates.

1/1/11, 1/11/11, 11/1/11, 11/11/11 and that's not all...

Take the last two digits of the year in which you were born - now add the age you will be this year.

The results will be 111 for everyone in whole world.

New to the clan at Costless Express

Lucas

We have been growing like weeds at Costless Express, and with growth comes new people.

Today was an awesome day as I walked around the office.

First I ran into Lucas, a new addition to our warehouse team. I asked him how things were going and he said "I'm Happy". What a great answer. He said he loved being able to jump in and make a difference using his skills immediately. He said the things he as doing at Costless in his job would have taken years to move up to in responsibility at his last job at a large company.

It's is also a special day because we hired our first ever VP of Finance - Nabil. This high level position will allow us to expand and manage growth at an even faster pace. Nabil comes with a long list of successes in our area of business.

In searching for Nabil, we focused first on a culture fit - looks like Nabil fits right in.

Nabil

Also watch a video of our management team breaking the news that Nabil got the job.

We have have several more new people that are new to the Costless family and I'll write a second blog post soon.

Cheers,

Calvin