HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

Lassen Transfer & Storage has been a family owned and operated business for 48 years. Owners Arlin and Wanda Mallery started the business with a couple of trucks, and now they have moving vans, a public 70-foot scale, self storage containers, closet cubes and more. Their son, John, joined the business in the 1980s. They are members of the California Moving and Storage Association and America Movers Association, which keeps them informed of new rules and regulations.

LASSEN VISITORS GUIDE IN THE WORKS

It’s January, and that means it is time for us to once again begin focusing our attention on Lassen County’s 2013 tourism season and the impact it has on our local economy.

Again, we know tourists will be opting for more day trips, weekend jaunts and full-blown vacations closer to home. For Lassen County businesses, it always brings an important infusion of dollars into our local economy.

With that in mind, we are already working on our annual Lassen County Visitors Guide (actually, it has been a work in progress throughout the year). Local business owners and service providers should continue to consider this colorful and informative publication a “must buy” annual advertising investment.

The full color glossy magazine is packed full of information about virtually everything our county has to offer to both visitors and locals alike. Through the entire year, some 40,000 copies are distributed free to hundreds of locations in our region.

As an added value, we also post the entire magazine in a very user-friendly format on our website, lassennews.com, to ensure your ads reach the largest audience possible for folks planning a trip to our corner of the world. The electronic version of the Visitors Guide alone gets an average of 300 viewers monthly during the season.

The deadline for advertising space will be here before you know it. Your advertising representative — if she hasn’t already — will be contacting you soon to reserve space in this product. If you are not contacted and want more information about deadlines, prices and our services, call our advertising department here at the Lassen County Times: 257-5321 We can help you design an effective ad tailored to both your budget and your business.

Your advertising investment in this product is also a partnership. Your purchase of advertising space to market your goods and services makes this comprehensive and informative guide possible. Together, we can capitalize on the opportunity that awaits this season with the single most effective print and electronic product used to entice families to come and spend in Lassen County.

YOU KNOW, IT’S REALLY QUITE SIMPLE

From our “worth repeating” files:

Don’t forget that…

If you treat your employees like they are customers, they will treat your customers in the same manner.

Your customers have problems of their own and don’t have time to worry about yours — do they really care if your fax machine is broken?

Customers who complain are giving you a chance to fix the problem.

If your customers don’t trust you, they won’t want to do business with you, so keep your promises and don’t make promises you can’t keep.

Believe it or not, service and quality are still more important to your customers than price.

Happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are and what you have; it depends solely upon what you think.

EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT NOW

Don’t think of our current economic crisis as a recession. Instead, think of it as a recalibration.

Everything is different now. The world I am working in today is different from any world I have ever done business in. The world has been reset.

If you think of it as a recession, you may be temped to hunker down and wait for the economy to cycle back.

If you think of it as a recalibration, you will be motivated to focus on what you have to do differently, since everything is different now.

The way your business generates results is different now.

Your customers think differently, too.

Your customers care about different things now.

Your customers act differently, now.

Your customers may actually be different people now.

Customers aren’t disposable anymore; more than ever, you have to create sustainable customer relationships.

Everything is different now.