Posts Tagged ‘winning’

Why you should give feedback to companies

laelene Posted in general blog,Tags: , , , ,
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Are you the type of person who will write to a company or call them when you have a comment? Or are you like most and dismiss it as not worth your time and effort?

While mostly I’m thinking of standing up for yourself when something goes wrong, this can also apply to positive feedback. Companies won’t ever know if you don’t tell them explicitly. It’s amazing how many people never bother to share when something went awry. If that’s the case, the issue will likely persist.

On a personal level, you can benefit from reaching out to companies. For example, on our recent Europe trip, both Panda and Calavera’s suitcases were damaged (by different airlines). Panda wrote an email to them, was able to dig up an old receipt for a luggage purchase, and is being reimbursed $100. If Calavera doesn’t do the same, she won’t be compensated.

This works in all sorts of realms. When service was not good, I reach out to restaurants or airlines and they usually offer a free meal or airlines miles, as appropriate.

On the positive side, I once reached out to Yuzen because I was so in love with their service. Now I get to be a brand ambassador and receive boxes for free! Or another time, my excitement and eagerness in reaching out got me a free area rug.

Today I came home to find a box for Panda. It turned out to be a bunch of free jerky! Again, we never would have gotten it had he not reached out when we got a less than optimal product. See the opportunities that are out there? And this is not even factoring in how companies can take this feedback and learn from it. I sure hope they’re doing that!!

five assorted bags of epic jerky

Free snacks!!

five assorted bags of epic jerky and trail mix

Smokey wanted a piece too.

365great Day 145: giveaways

laelene Posted in 365great,Tags: , , , , , ,
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Learn more about 365great here.

365great challenge day 145: giveawaysAh! I wanted to find a giveaway to use for this image so I decided to go to Ramblings of a Suburban Mom because she’s awesome and I know she’s been doing some great giveaways. I was soooooooo unbelievably thrilled to find that she’s giving away Zoku products! AND THEN I kept reading and discovered she’s giving away a Homegrown Collective box too (they’re the first thing I’m ordering when I get a job)!!! I swear, I can’t be any happier. And this is exactly why giveaways rock so much. Sure, you won’t win most of the time, but honestly if you keep trying, you will. I set my heart out to win Conscious Box because I wanted to try it without having to pay and when I found that they were really promoting themselves amongst bloggers, I tracked down a ton of giveaways and entered them all. I didn’t just win one 3-month subscription, but three! Granted, two were part of the same giveaway, where I could gift a subscription to a friend, but that’s still awesome. Similarly, I reaaaally wanted to win Escape Monthly so I entered dozens of giveaways for that as well AND won twice yet again! Of course, winning makes you feel super, but even just participating and hoping brings a little joy each day. Sometimes it’s nice just to get involved and share in other people’s happiness as they win. And then winning a giveaway? That’s beyond great.

On My Mind, episode 4

laelene Posted in on my mind,Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
5

Ready for another round of On My Mind? Here goes!

~Ha! I was just thinking about how my blog posts used to be so much more insightful/thoughtful/interesting when I started to get the inspiration bug again and went crazy preparing some draft posts. Tons of goodness to come!

~Sooo I had said I didn’t want to buy any more nail polish until I used up one bottle. Just one! Which shouldn’t be that hard since I rarely buy nail polish anyway, but then I came across a BOGO deal and I couldn’t resist! BAH. I bought it and then promptly spilled one all over my carpet (which took out about a third of that bottle). Karma for going against my word? 🙁 I did manage to mostly get it out (and better than I had hoped at least!).

collage of sally hansen insta-dri nail colors in clearly quick, pronto purple, lively lilac, and blue-away~That nail polish I got? Sally Hansen’s Insta-Dri. I’d never tried it before, but that coupon for buy one, get one meant each bottle was $2. While I may not want to pay $4 for some nail polish, $2 was a deal I couldn’t resist. I know, I’m terrible. But you know what? I discovered an AMAZING brush! Like seriously, why don’t all (or at least more) nail polishes have brushes like this? It applies so well, I just love it. Plus, I really love that these nail polishes dry so quickly, since clumsy old me would usually mess up at least three nails before they managed to dry.

~And if you keep up with the blog, you will see that I’ve decided to exchange some of my old nail polishes for some Zoya ones! At least I’m not accumulating more, right? That’s ok, right?!

~My family went out and got a bunch of Garnier Fructis Hydra Recharge shampoos because of the current deal for them! Only $0.86 in CA if you bring your own reusable bag. Less in other states since our tax is a high 9%, ugh.

collage of broken galileo thermometer

I cleaned the bulbs and put them in a vase.

~About two weeks ago, Missy (one of my cats) broke my Galileo thermometer when she knocked it over – RIP 🙁 – and I learned that the oil they use in it smells naaasty. It smelled like a gas station exploded on my carpet. I guess that’s the only material the bulbs will float in correctly. I cleaned and scrubbed and patted for an hour and the smell didn’t dissipate, so I had to move to another room to sleep. Took about a week of leaving the window open and spraying odor remover on it daily before I could move back. My carpet is forever scarred though – for some reason, it grew a bump that won’t go away.

long raised bump in carpet

It used to be a lot worse but it has since shrunk.

~Panda (the boyfriend) was in town earlier in the month and we got a pretty cool room at the Hilton Garden Inn LAX! I loooved the rocker, which was so smooth and made me feel lighter. Reminded me of the zero gravity chairs they have a Brookstone. The bathroom was rather sweet too, with a jacuzzi/hot tub (what’s the difference?) on one side and an electronically-controlled shower on the other. I got to set the shower water to exactly the temperature I wanted!

panoramic shot of large bathroom in a hilton garden inn lax room

Here I am demonstrating the rocking chair…

awesome smooth leather rocking chair from Mary Qin on Vimeo.

~I had told my cousin about the 1 Second Everyday app, which she was interested in. I’ve been having a blast with it! I was sad, however, that I had redeemed an iTunes gift card for $50 and wasn’t able to split it into two $25 gift codes so she too could get some apps without paying. Then a few days later it dawned on me: gifting an app! I hadn’t thought of it because I never used it (and really wasn’t sure it was even a feature), but I checked and it’s so easy to do it! But by the time I told her, she had already bought the app. Womp, womp… next time!!

~I’ve been doing pretty well with the giveaways I’ve entered and won a couple more, yippee! You’ll see pictures of them after I get them. One in particular I wanted to point out – I actually won another 3-month Conscious Box subscription and this time I got to share an additional one with a friend! I mean, what is more thrilling than winning for you AND a friend of your choice? I picked a super awesome, super supportive friend and she was totally excited. Coincidentally, her birthday was right around then too! Happy birthday!

~I’m so glad I went through that long, long DMV line to get a new picture taken because I am SO much happier with my new picture! The original picture was from when I was in high school and it looks like I have a fake orange tan when in reality I just swam outdoors a lot for our high school team.

driver's license pictures side by side comparison

The old picture looks a lot more orange in person.

~I’m STILL waiting to get my first Goodie box and Graze box. Waaah! I’ve held myself back from buying snacks because they were supposed to replace my snack food shopping and THEY’RE STILL NOT HERE… -___- I, being hugely reliant on snacking to survive/thrive, feel so forlorn… BUT I should be getting my Goodie box today*! *fingers crossed* My Graze box was prepared on the 11th and if I don’t get it by tomorrow I’m going to contact customer service. Yes, you can call me Cookie Monster.

~And finally, I was SO off-the-walls (maybe too) happy to get an email from the Pink Panel letting me know I’m in their nail care testing group. I had just signed up and filled out the survey for the latest testing group and it was awesome to get that invitation!! I can’t wait – I remember seeing Julep in the survey URL so I’m pretty sure we get to test some Julep products. I’ve yet to try anything from them, but I’d totally love to. I’m turning into a nail polish/hand care fiend. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that we get a $75 Amazon gift card (code, probably) for participating. I’m getting my cats a fun feeding maze I learned about from an article on Squidoo with those funds!

*Yay the Goodie box arrived! Time to rip through it. 🙂

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