Benedict Advertising - Business Building Solutions

My husband and I were looking for a new car recently, so I decided to e-mail a dealership in Orlando to set up an appointment to go look at their cars. I e-mailed them at night and got back a generic response that someone would be in touch with me the next day.
Well, the next day I didn’t get a response from the salesperson until late in the day after I e-mailed the dealership a second time. He sent the information on the cars we were interested in and I emailed him back to ask if he could meet with us that afternoon.
Guess what, no response until the next day at 10:30 a.m. and he didn’t answer the additional questions we had, just that he did have time that afternoon to meet with us.

My problem is: if you have a website and you have a place for people to e-mail and ask questions, etc., you should respond in a timely manner! I do research online all the time for work and most people respond quickly with answers. If I don’t get a quick response I go on to the next company.

We did end up buying our car from the internet salesperson in Orlando. Yes, he was new and yes, I did explain that I worked in advertising and that you really should respond quickly if you are working the internet leads for the dealership. I also informed his senior salesperson that was helping with the deal.

Everyone is complaining about this horrible economy, especially car dealerships. The bottom line is; you can’t sell anything if you don’t communicate in a timely manner. More and more people have Blackberries, I-Phones, are Facebooking and tweeting. Information is being sent and received at an incredibly fast pace. If you provide poor customer service in this day and age you’ll be crossed off the list!

- Brenda Sidoti

As a first time mom of a 14 month old little girl, I’ve learned a lot over the last 14 months. While I was pregnant I spent hours and hours in Target and Babies R Us registering for all the things needed for safely raising a baby. There are so many things in those stores that it’s quite overwhelming. Now that I have and use all these things, my mother, mother-in-law and plenty of random strangers, love to tell me “we didn’t have that when I had my kids.” If I’m out in a restaurant, shopping, or wherever, when someone sees me with my daughter and one of our many gadgets designed to make mommy-hood easier, they love to tell me how much easier things are now thanks to all these new inventions. And though I’m very grateful for all these things and appreciate the fact that they do make day-to-day activities easier, I’m not sure that being a mom is necessarily easier these days. There are so many things out there that can harm our kids that weren’t there 30 years ago when I was a baby. There are so many more germs and much more pollution. There are more cars on the road, people drive faster and there are more car accidents. There is the internet, cell phones and various other ways that sick, mean people can contact and try to harm our children. So, I’m eternally gratefully for my many modern contraptions. Thanks to these things I can spend more time protecting my baby from all the other things that can make her sick or hurt her.

I’ve always been a very Type A personality…I like order, tidiness, and cleanliness, however I never would have described myself as a germaphobe, that is until I had my daughter. And I’m still not necessarily germaphobic when it comes to myself, but I’m VERY germaphobic where my daughter is concerned. My husband teases me and says I’m going to make her into a wimp, but that’s ok by me! As her mommy it’s my job to make sure she’s healthy and safe! So, I’d like to share the top 5 things a germaphobic mommy cannot live without. Most of these things are the things described above…things that “we didn’t have when I had my kids.”

1. Shopping Cart Cover – the shopping cart cover is essential when kids are big enough to start sitting in the shopping cart. It totally covers the seat and uses elastic to wrap around the handle and back rest and ties to the sides. This way the child can’t touch or put their mouth on the dirty shopping cart where other snotty-nosed kids have rubbed their noses, mouths and probably unwashed hands. Not to mention the adults who don’t wash their hands, then push the carts around. Ick!
2. High Chair Cover – same idea as the shopping cart cover, just made for restaurant high chair…protects against the same snotty-nosed, dirty-handed kids that have sat and ate in that chair.
3. Rubber Suction Cup Placemat – This is a rubber placemat that has little suction cups on the bottom so you can stick it to restaurant tables and keep your child’s food off a table, a table that may or may not have been disinfected after the last people ate there. Again, you’re also protecting against the snotty-nose, dirty-handed kids and adults, waiters who might have sneezed on the table, and who knows what else could be on that table!!
4. Antibacterial Hand Sanitizer - Very important, who knows what you’ve touched, and you’re changing diapers…germs, germs, germs…sanitize often! They make nice little bottles that will hang right on the handle of your diaper bag.
5. Wipes, Wipes and More Wipes – Wipes are not just for wiping wet and dirty bottoms, although, believe me, I go through my share doing that! I’m a compulsive bottom wiper! But I use wipes for much more than that! Wipes clean baby hands, baby faces, dirty tables, dirty toys, dirty pacifiers…anything! I should buy stock in the wipe company!

You may wonder how I manage to haul around all these things for the inevitable germ crisis, but I never take them out of my car, that way they are handy for any germy situation!

While all the new inventions for child care have made things more convenient, keeping your children safe is harder than ever, so good luck keeping them safe and healthy, and make sure to use all these inventions, they make life as a germaphobic mommy a little bit easier!

- Stephanie Benedict

One of my co-workers has been asking me for some time now to write a blog for the company website, and up until now I have resisted doing so because I kept telling myself “people my age don’t blog” – but then I decided to give it a shot, so here it is “My First Blog”

My husband Marty, our ferret Teddy and I moved to Daytona Beach from New York a little over a year ago, which technically makes us “Transplants” (these are the people that are not born in Florida, but eventually move here). As a transplant, I probably notice more things in the area then the locals do, like take the beach for instance – have you noticed the beach lately?

If you haven’t it wouldn’t be surprising, because most people take the things right in their own backyard for granted. I know I did when I lived in New York, I hadn’t been to the Empire State Building or any of the museums since I was on a school trip and I have never been to The Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island – you just always assume that these things will be there and some day you will get there!

We like to go to the beach on a Saturday morning before it gets crowded and just walk up and down with the waves rolling around our feet. There is just something comforting and peaceful about being there. Now, I am by no means a religious person, but when you see something that beautiful, that powerful and that majestic, you just know that a higher power had a hand in creating something so wonderful for us to enjoy.

So, if the weather is going to be nice this weekend, grab the family, grab the one you love or just grab a friend and go spend some time at the beach. We “Transplants” will meet you there!

Well, now I’ve written “My First Blog” and who knows Chris, maybe next I’ll set up a page on Facebook!

- Cathy Schwartz

Having a Persian mother has given me the opportunity to share the cultures of two different worlds and enjoy the best of them.

Although like any culture, there are certain traditions that are passed down generation to generation and people follow them without thinking. Why? The real valuable reason and lesson is long lost and what is left is on the surface.

One of these old traditions is the Norouz Celebration, which is the celebrating of the new year on the first day of spring and renewal of life in nature.

As a child I watched my family gather around 7 different items that start with letter “S” in Farsi like ” sib, sir, serke, somagh,
samanoo, sekkeh, sabzeh”(apples, garlic, vinegar, sprouts…) in the last days of winter…all these items would be laid out in pretty dishes along with candles and a mirror, flowers and delicious specialty sweets. Back then I learned that each item represents a meaning which you should ponder to see if you had it in your life in the past year and try to apply it to your life in the new year. For example, “samanu,” which is a wheat based pudding that takes a few days to make, represents patience and persistence.

Keeping all that in mind, last year I decided to take a new approach to this ancient tradition and intertwine it with the lessons that I learn in my Sufi practices (Sufism is the school of self knowledge) to see what I can retrieve from it in the end.

So I thought of an idea and divided it in to different parts and planned my project so that each part would get done
throughout the year and be finished before March 21, which is the first day of Spring.

My idea included two big wings made of styro foam and real feathers, symbolizing the wings of the Phoenix (Phoenix died from his ego and burned into ashes to rise again as a young and beautiful bird in 3 days) which represents oneness with existence and harmony with the essence of life.

I also included 7 columns of different sizes - short, medium and tall - all painted with the sky and clouds scenery. This represented different stages of the inward journey, detaching from limitations and material boundaries, and flying free in the heavens of one’s inner being. I set the columns up in a way that each column would hold one of the 7 Norouz items on it to represent archiving one the virtues by constant concentration and inward practice of teachings which help you soften the harsh edges of self and polish the mirror of the heart.

I put together a mosaic mirror made of different of many mirror pieces of different sizes and shapes which represent the reflection of self in the past year and bringing the awareness back to one’s own being. All the separate and segregated mirror pieces, before being placed neatly next to each other, represented the human being’s mind and the thoughts and senses when they are all wandering toward different directions and get pushed and pulled by the insatiable and constant
desires and needs of the senses and natural pressures and variables. When all these scattered pieces are pulled together by the practice of concentration and meditation and neatly placed next to each other, one sees that they fit perfectly like a puzzle and present a whole unit - all one and now the only reflection that they have is
one reflection, presenting oneness and unity.

Throughout the year I taught myself to bake different old fashioned pastries for the event, rather than buying them. That was a
joy in itself and also made me more aware of what I eat and put in my body and what it takes to make nutritional meals or pastries. So again my awareness was brought back to my health and well being in a different way.

Growing sprouts was a simple act yet so amazing…we take for granted every day all the amazing phenomenon that happens constantly in our environment. When I saw that a tiny little seed of lentils with just a little bit of water transformed its being to a pretty and green plant, I realized that everything is alive and life is constantly moving and nurturing everything around us. Yet it made me wonder this about myself, a small and tiny lentil seed is so concentrated and ready that with a tiny bit of water sprouts it to its fullest potential to give fruit, what about me? As a human being with all the capabilities that have freely been given to me, am I in that constant concentration and preparation to grow to my fullest potential and bring something new and valuable to life? Or am I constantly in a state of dispersion with my mind and thoughts in a million different places and my senses pulling me to all directions and my life just a repetition of action and reaction and cellular interactions? If a seed of lentil served its fullest purpose and gave fruit but I as a human being only served my material and physical needs of sleeping,
eating, reproduction and social interactions and never attempt to go beyond that, what does that make me in comparison to the lentil seed? Have a I served my purpose or have a degraded from what I need to represent?

I must say at the end I had a lot to present for a year of working on this ancient project and I learned a lot. Now I understand
why thousands of years ago the ancient Persians started this tradition, the true knowledge and essence of human being knows no time or limitations. They had discovered their inner purpose and the presence of a hidden ageless knowledge within the core of every human being and by designing this tradition they gave their fruit to humanity. A
valuable lesson that even now, thousands of years later, served its purpose for me and brought my awareness back to I.

May we all live in the tranquil and stable source of life - our hearts!

Happy New Year!

- Kerry McEachern

I have never been into karaoke bars, rarely ever going, and rarer even to actually get on the stage and belt out a few tunes. So something new came as a surprise to me, Rock Band for the Wii. While at friend’s house for dinner a few weeks ago, my wife and I were introduced to the “band life” and became instantly addicted. We went out and purchased a band for ourselves that week and have been jamming since. We now have jam sessions with our band, Boobanation (after our daughter, sort of), which is a family affair as of now. My wife is the lead singer and leader of the band, my brother-in-law is lead guitar and I pick up the sticks and beat the drum all day long, moonlighting as bass when we have a guest spotlight artist joining for some jams. Not sure what it is about the “game” but we have a blast playing. We also think we are better than we are. Case in point, we invited our neighbors over late one night to check out our new purchase, and they came over and watched. When we were finished, they looked at us, said thanks for inviting them over, and they were going back home now. Lesson learned. Keep it between us and those who are about to rock. I salute you.

- Michael Benedict