To the scrooge at Chick-Fil-A - Toot Your Horn! Read Only. No more posting. - PlanetChristmas! Forums. Read Only. We've moved to http://talk.planetchristmas.com - The Forums of PlanetChristmas have moved to http://talk.PlanetChristmas.com
Dale W wrote: Question for the poster: Would you rather have had the person tell you an impolite lie, or the abrupt truth?
Well, I don't know if he would have been truthful or not if he had listened. We will never know, He possibly could have that it was the coolest thing since sliced bread. But he also could have thought that I was a complete wackanut. And I also wouldn't have minded if he said his part in a nicer way because it was almost a yell.
tfischer wrote:If you feel you must market your display, get some enthusiastic family (not immediate) or friends to carry some cards for you. Then they can say "dude, my buddy has this HUGE display you just gotta see..."
My father absolutly Loves my display and he tells everyone at his work about it. The problem is that is almost 3 hours away. He has the same personality in this way, if he thinks something is cool he must tell everyone about it. I must get this need to tell everyone from him.
My wife calls me the Christmas light Pimp because of the cards and everything. I am always telling people about it even if I don't have the cards, and I will continue to even when I am out of cards.
MrsD wrote: The way I approach people with my information cards is .... I let them make the first move.
After thanksgiving I start wearing Christmas hats and other seasonal head gear (see the image to the left of me at PLUS). If some one laughs or makes a comment about what I'm wearing I make a comment like, "Oh, now you've done it. You obviously like Christmas or have a good sense of humor, so I have to let you know where to see our Christmas lights ..." then I give them the card.
If this occurs in a restaurant or store and there are other people who hear the conversation I make sure to add at the end a comment like “Oh, let me give you an extra card (or two) just incase you want to share.” Most of the time while I’m walking away I hear the person behind me asking the checker for one of “those” cards.
This way I’m not invading anyone’s space in any possible way.
I Really, Really Like this approach because I do wear a Stitch Christmas Hat (from Lilo and Stitch) and if some one mentions the hat I feel I have an invitation to tell them about the lights. I also do the same if I am out with my wife and someone comes up to us and asks us about the dog.
As everyone knows everyone is different and we all get the word out about our displays in different ways. Last night I was just a little peev'ed at his reaction. I enjoyed our discussion it brought up lots of good points. Thank you all for comenting.
Now I think Its time to move on to more of what we all enjoy and that is these darn blinkin' christmas lights.
tfischer wrote: thyno z wrote: if you light it, they will come. plain and simple.
in my opinion, no need to advertise or hand out cards. when you do, it comes off as "hey, come see what i did" as opposed to saying "i did this for you"
I agree with that sentiment.
If you feel you must market your display, get some enthusiastic family (not immediate) or friends to carry some cards for you. Then they can say "dude, my buddy has this HUGE display you just gotta see..."
There's already the perception (unfortunately correct in some cases) that all of us do this just to get attention lobbed onto themselves. I fear that handing out cards and "selling" your display to them will only further it...
I post signs on roadways leading to the house and contact TV and radio stations, newspapers and their free coverage of your display does wonders. But I personally do not approach anyone anywhere either to tell them of my display or hand out cards and such. I was suprised when Chuck Smith said he did that once, not cutting on anyone. Power to you if you want to go that far, but I also remember this pirate not too far from me years ago.
He'd hang around software stores and hand out cards and sales pitching, "Come to our mega pirate copy party. Bring all your disks and CD's (video games on computer) to copy at my house on such and such date (early 90's) and dont forget to bring a stack of blank disks so you get loaded up!" THe man got 100's of people to show up and participate! This all kind of reminds me of that.
So tonite I went to Chick-Fil-a for dinner and after a hard day of work I was looking forward to telling some people about the christmas lights after I was done with my food. I finish my food and throw my trash away and walk up to a nice looking guy with his 2 teenage kids.
I had one of my promotional cards out for the light display and put my hand out to offer it to the father (thinking he probably wouldn't like it if I did the same thing to his daughter). I started my little rehearsed speech:
"Excuse me, If I could interupt you for a moment, I would like to tell you about my Christmas Lights ... I put on my Hou ...".
At both "..." He says in a gruff rude tone "WE ARE EATING DINNER!". Because of the number of times I have said this it took me a moment to derail my thoughts and process his statement. At that point I say
"Bu .... Ok. (pause) Ok."
I was almost going to say "But their computer controlled and you probably think the are cool", but I decided to not push any more conflict and just walked away at that point.
Seeing that probably won't ever see this cause he didn't take the card or hear anything I had to say. I will say this:
I am not selling Anything. I am not looking for you to give me money. I want to tell you about the hard work I put into this to give YOU as a part of the community a cool christmas gift. Since you couldn't take 30 seconds while you where chewing your food to listen, You won't get a chance to bring your kids to see the blinking lights. It is christmas time and If anyone came up to me anywhere I would at least hear what he or she had to say before making any judgements about the person or something they had to say.
Ok, I am done with my venting now. Have a Merry Christmas.
greenmeanie wrote: Maybe he was a Johova
Nope just very very outgoing I'll talk to anyone about anything on a bus, plane, happen to be sitting next to me at a bar. My wife says I'd talk to a light pole if it would listen.
robogeek wrote: greenmeanie wrote: Maybe he was a Johova
Nope just very very outgoing I'll talk to anyone about anything on a bus, plane, happen to be sitting next to me at a bar. My wife says I'd talk to a light pole if it would listen.
You'd get a long great with my mother. When I used to live in apartments, etc. she'd meet my neighbors within 20 minutes when I didn't speak with them in 2 years...
Not sure why I didn't inherit that gene, would come in handy at times...
