Seahawks Blew It! And We Ought to be Mad.

Russell Wilson after brilliant performance in Atlanta

The big bold headlines to the Seattle Times this morning says “End of a Super Season” with a subtitle of “Heartache after fearless comeback; finale to thrilling year”. To me it sounds all to familiar. “That’s OK boys. It’s OK that you blew a chance to bring this city its first ever football title and first major championship in more than a generation. We still love you”. A Seattle sports team gives our city some excitement one week, wins a few games and proceeds to take a bow from adoring fans devoid of much sports success to embrace when ultimately all they did was perform a face plant in front of the entire nation.

In case you missed it let me inform you of all you need to know about yesterday’s 30-28 loss to the Falcons in Atlanta. Seattle had the lead with 25 seconds to go in the game and Atlanta had the ball at its own 27 yard line, 34 yards away from the possibility of a LONG field goal. It turns out, Atlanta only needed 12 seconds to complete two long passes to the Seattle 31 where kicker Matt Bryant

Matt Bryant | Atlanta Falcons

Matt Bryant

lofted a chip shot 49 yard field goal for the win. For the uninformed football fan let me inform you: THAT SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN! Not to a championship caliber team it shouldn’t.

But wait…it has happened before…to this same team. Please recall Chicago, December 2. Seattle scores a wonderful comeback touchdown with only seconds to play to take the lead on the 8-3 Bears and seemingly wins the game remarkably. Only they didn’t. Like Matt Ryan yesterday, Bears quarterback Jay Cutler completes a pass of about 50 yards to Brandon Marshal against Richard Sherman and a befuddled Seahawk secondary.

English: Jay Cutler of the Chicago Bears warmi...

Jay Cutler of the Chicago Bears

Putting Chicago in position to kick the tying field-goal as time expired, forcing overtime. Had it not been for the flip of a coin going Seattle’s way, giving them first possession of overtime, the Seahawks could have lost that game. Having lost that game Seattle doesn’t make the playoffs. Chicago does.

So what does it say about a team that twice in 7 games allows an opposing team to move from deep in their own territory into field goal position in mere seconds and lose a game they led. To me it says some really bad coaching is taking place. When it happened the first time you could blame Richard Sherman for not trying to knock the ball down and instead trying to intercept it. When it happens a second time and it involves other players besides Sherman, you have a pattern and you have a problem.

The thing Seattle fans need to learn and still haven’t is the team had an opportunity and you can’t blow opportunities like that. The team had the momentum and a realistic shot at going to and winning the Super Bowl. I’m not talking about a “punchers chance”; which everyone in the NFL playoffs has. I’m saying, and so were a lot of other people by the way, that Seattle was possibly the best team in the playoffs. Period! Of the 4 teams left in this years playoffs Seattle has already beaten two of the teams this year, and woulda, coulda, shoulda beaten a third, Atlanta, yesterday. Yes, they are THAT good. But they blew it.

The Seattle Times headline this morning is so typically Seattle and so pathetic. I want a championship and am no longer going to settle for “Nice Try”. And if the rest of the city joined me and insisted that our sports teams get their acts together I’m sure a championship could actually come our way.

Being stubborn and demanding and often annoying in ones drive to excellence is a BIG part of what makes champions. Watching U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor last night on CBS’ 60 Minutes, she said as much. She said, “I’m sure my stubbornness has a lot to do with what success I’ve achieved in life”. She elaborated more…but…there ya go.

I have a brother one year older than me, raised in the same house, same parents, and we are as completely different as two people can be. My brother is a millionaire. He’s also a stubborn bull-headed, my-way-or-the-highway jerk. He always has been. Even when we are kids. I’m no pushover. But I would never be accused of being a sore loser, or poor-sport. I have always tried to be positive and complimentary to my teams, my opponents, and in every situation. Not my brother. As a child he used to cry whenever his team lost. He still can’t stand losing. A few years ago while spending a New Years Eve at his 4500 square-foot home we were playing pool. Pool is a game I can play. Not my brother. I was beating him repeatedly. At one point after 3-5 game after he missed another shot he threw his cue stick on the table scattering the balls and ending the pool play for the night. I’ve played pool in bars ever since lying about my age at 19 and being a frequent customer at the Mustard Seed Two tavern in Bellevue. I have a table in my home. I have never seen anyone do that before…show such poor sportsmanship. For my brother…it was predictable.

So what I’m saying is don’t be so accommodating Seattle. Expect more. The Seahawks blew it yesterday and deserve to be criticized not praised . They lost a very important game they should have won and we have no business patting them on the back. We ought to be kicking them in the ass and saying…“Don’t mess up next year! We’re sick of your mediocrity. And we deserve better”. By the way…same goes for you Mariners.

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.

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January 14, 2013
Categories: Sports, Washington State . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: Comments Off on Seahawks Blew It! And We Ought to be Mad.

What Should You Spend on Advertising? – Businessweek

Pile of Cash

With the start of a new year comes new goals and new budgets. One bothersome question that small business owners wrestle with all the time is how much of your budget and/or income should be dedicated to marketing or advertising. The successful business will have an answer to this question. The failures will not.

Cover of BusinessWeek

Read this article from Businessweek then come back and let me enlighten you with more tangible information.

What Should You Spend on Advertising? – Businessweek.

A marketing expert said in a seminar I attended today that each business should dedicate 10-15% of their gross income to marketing. He correctly pointed out the few business actually do this. The Businessweek article says to look for examples from similar public traded companies and base your decision on them. Another way, they say, is to start at 5% of revenue and move your spending up or down depending on several factors. It’s assumed that “revenue” they refer to is “net-revenue” otherwise I can’t imagine them recommending that a growing business would spend so little.

In a blog entitled Marketing as a Percentage of Revenue Benchmarks blogger Jeff Grill  provides far more detailed survey results on what other companies do, and thus gains credibility in my eyes.

Time invested in marketing/advertising must be factored in. And when doing so judge the time in terms of dollars. How much would it cost you to hire someone to do what you do? That’s the determining factor. Far too many entrepreneurs pay themselves far too little, and one should not base their calculations on such an unrealistic figure.

From my standpoint business owners and managers are no different from others and can get lost in the world of marketing, or social media; two not too divergent characters any more. Your time is best spent making money. Any “How-to” book on starting or running your own business will tell you this. Find a marketing expert who can demonstrate the success they will bring for you or the time they will save for you will ultimately make you more money, since you’ll be focused on serving your customers and making money.

Another great mistake made by small business is to pull back money from advertising when the economy softens. It’s exactly the opposite of what should be done. When dollars are hard to come by you need to increase your efforts to get some. Cut back elsewhere.

Total Broadcasting Service helps small business in so many different fields. we strive to be a one stop shop for small business marketing. Website design, Video production, radio advertising, and SEO expertise are our primary areas of focus. We’d be honored if you called us to assist your business.

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.

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January 10, 2013
Categories: Business, Washington State . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: Comments Off on What Should You Spend on Advertising? – Businessweek

Let the Sonics Go!

The final logo of the SuperSonics

The final logo of the SuperSonics. Always thought the “S” looked too much like a swastika.

My first love in sports was basketball and by extension the Seattle Supersonics. My Dad was a season ticket holder from year one of the franchise in 1968. I was four years old. Every season until I moved out to go to college in 1982 he would bring home player and team posters from some of the 41 home dates the team played in the leaky T-Pee, the Coliseum. The blanketed my bedroom walls as I grew up.

By the time I was 12 and in the 6th grade, I was 6-foot 1-inch tall, and was taller than anyone at my school. And naturally I played basketball. Had I kept growing, even a little bit my basketball career would probably have amounted to much more than it did. But 6-1 remains my height today.

I grew up loving the Sonics. Leaping Lee Winfield was my first favorite star, though I know now he was hardly a star. I just liked the nickname that Sonics’ announcer Bob Blackburn laid on him. Dick Snyder, Fred Brown, Gus Williams, Jack Sikma, Xavier McDaniel, Tom Chambers, Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, and Kevin Durant…to name just a tiny few…were all my primary source of entertainment November through April and if we were lucky, like we were three different Springs, into June. When they won the NBA Championship in 1979 I organized all my friends to skip school and take the bus downtown to watch the victory parade. Pretty heady stuff for a 13-year-old. I’d never been to downtown Seattle unaccompanied by an adult.

English: Supersonics basketball game; City Lig...

When Sonics owner and Starbucks magnate Howard Shultz announced the sale of the team to Oklahoma businessman Clay Bennett I immediately bought a full season ticket package. While I was instantly fearful that Bennett would move the team to Oklahoma City I wanted to make certain I did everything I could to stop him, especially attending all the games and giving him more money than my family and new business, Total Broadcasting Service, could realistically afford to spend.

I didn’t renew my tickets for the 2007-2008 season. At that point it was abundantly clear that Bennett had zero intension of keeping the team in Seattle, Bellevue, Renton or any place else. I still wrote letters to the Seattle Times and watched all the games on TV, that lousy, NBA worst team. And when Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels betrayed us all and sold out the city’s final chance of keeping the Sonics where they belonged and had resided for 40 years a little bit of me died. I haven’t watched an NBA game since.

Image representing Steve Ballmer as depicted i...

Steve Ballmer

Like so many others in the Northwest today’s news that the Sacramento Kings were being sold to Chris Hansen and Microsoft billionaire Steve Ballmer excited me tremendously. But unlike everybody else, I am not hoping for a return of the Sonics or Supersonics. I know I’m alone in this quest, but I sincerely hope Hansen and his group get an NBA team here to our wet city and give it a name other than the Sonics. To me the Sonics are dead. They are gone and short of the Thunder coming back to Seattle I want nothing to do with them. Furthermore, when Bennett left, Nickels allowed him to keep all of the franchises history, their team colors, even the 1979 Championship Trophy. In catching a glimpse of the NBA Finals last year it made me sick to hear the announcers incorrectly say “…this is the fourth trip to the NBA Finals for this franchise”. NO IT WASN’T. It was the Thunder’s first. Seattle’s 3 trips to the finals are not yours to claim, Clay Bennett. What the hell do you know about the glory of Lenny Wilkens and THAT team, or George Karl and THAT team? Renaming the Kings the Sonics would be hollow to me.

I want a new beginning, a fresh start and the ability to root on a new team with a new name. And that new name should be strong, bold and reflective of Seattle’s history. Before it was even a city it was a timber town. In fact supplying timber pilings for San Francisco construction efforts was what enabled the Arthur Denny Party to establish roots here in 1851. They cleared the hills above the Duwamish tide flats and sold what they harvested to a merchant seaman who just happened to sail into their vicinity. Denny knew they’d be coming back for more and immediately set up the Northwest timber industry.

I’d like to see the new Seattle NBA team take a name no previous sports team in the city ever has. Embrace the city’s beginnings and become The Loggers, or The Timbers (too much like Timberwolves?), The Lumberjacks, Ax Men, Saw Men, Foresters. Such names denote strong men with character. And it salutes our regions past like no other name could and like no other organization ever has.

Realizing this is only a dream of mine I’m eager to hear other suggestions. If not the Sonics, what name should a Seattle NBA team have?

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome and encouraged.

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January 9, 2013
Categories: Sports, Washington State . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: Comments Off on Let the Sonics Go!

JAWS and the 2013 Hall of Fame ballot: Edgar Martinez

JAWS and the 2013 Hall of Fame ballot: Edgar Martinez.

January 9, 2013
Categories: Sports, Washington State . Tags: , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: Comments Off on JAWS and the 2013 Hall of Fame ballot: Edgar Martinez

Why Supplementation? – YouTube- Good Food is Not Enough

Vitamin and nutritional supplements are necessary for your good health. Watch this short video for a detailed explanation.

My wife and I became AdvoCare Distributors after enjoying the tremendous benefits using AdvoCare products provided us. We’re not actors or non-real commercial people. We’re normal everyday working Americans, your neighbors, telling you something worked for us and you ought to try it. Click on the AdvoCare link to read our story and get started.

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.

January 8, 2013
Categories: Weight Loss . Tags: , , , , , , , , . Author: Michael Schuett . Comments: Comments Off on Why Supplementation? – YouTube- Good Food is Not Enough

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