I love Jack Daniels whiskey but I almost never drink it. I’m a wine drinker, mostly. But if I was to order whiskey, it would definitely be Jack.

The Jack Daniels distillery is about a 45 minute drive from my condo, and I love to take visitors there for the tour. It is a beautiful piece of property in the hills of Tennessee, and the story behind Jack’s whiskey makes great telling.

On a quick trip to the liquor store for a bottle of wine on my lunch break, I found they had added a display to the storefront and snapped this photo. I love this waterfall arrangement of whiskey barrels. So very Tennessee.

Our CFO has resigned and we are all in shock. It seems that he has wanted to leave for quite a while but had the strength of character to see us through the end of the year and get the books closed. I have to admire him for that. It would have been so easy to just walk out of the door and not look back. Personally, ever time I have a left a company I felt great pride in knowing that I left my desk and records in good order and that whoever took my place would be able to hit the ground running if they would spend just a little time going over the files and notes that I left for them.

Anyway, his background is in healthcare management and this business is so different that he never really felt comfortable here. In this town, there is a lot of money to be made in healthcare and once the industry got the word that he was looking to leave, he had several big offers to consider. I really can’t blame him for going back to that, but we will miss him.

I’m organizing a group of department managers to take him out to lunch for his last day. It will be hard to get a table for so many people on a Friday, I’m having my assistant check on just reserving a private room for us, maybe at Stoney River or Romanos.

Today we are building a database with the leads from the IFA convention and getting ready to launch a followup campaign. We’ve been setting up the database program to get it ready for the data input. That’s what my assistants are working on today. Then, next week we turn it over to the sale team for the calls and hopefully setting up appointments.

Although telemarketing has become a bad word to a lot of people, it is still a very effective way to market business services and products. The key is to find the right targeted audience and not waste time or resources contacting people who have no use for your services or don’t have the means to pay for or utilize what you are trying to sell.

A good telemarketing company can help a business launch a one time campaign. They will have the trained staff that you don’t have to worry about hiring, finding desk space for, training and supervising. They should also be able to help a business find and cultivate a good list of leads for the calls.

Sometimes you can outsource other activities that require telemarketing but are not what most people think of when you mention the word telemarketing. For instance, if you have a list of people that you want to send Christmas cards or an invitation to a special event, or any other mass mailing, you don’t want to waste all that money on printing, handling, postage and mailing on recipients who have left the company, work for companies who have moved to a different address, or worse, companies who have gone out of business. It makes sense to to put a little effort and time into cleaning up your database list and verifying the names and contact information at least once a year before implementing a large mailing.

All of this is learned and used by marketing professionals and they can add a lot of value to a business, with a totally different but necessary approach to the sales process from what a hard core sales person can do for you. Telemarketing is still a viable business tool and has it’s place in any well planned and executed marketing program.

My condo building is one block off the busiest street in uptown Nashville and very close to the Vanderbilt campus. Not to brag, but it is an upscale area and we hardly every hear police sireins and any loud noises. The neighbors are just too well bred and polite for all that drama.

For some reason, last night there was drama just down the street. When I got home all was quiet, but right before the late night news we heard a lot of shouting and banging. My first thought was that someone was trying to warn neighbors of a fire or something bad, and I was reluctant to go outside but then again I couldn’t really tell what was going on and I was curious.

Across the street, the house on the corner has some Vandy students living there. Not really a fraternity house, just a private residence that the owner rents to students. Well, I guess it was a dispute among those guys over a parking situation. One guy was blocked in the driveway and he yelling at another guy and revving the engine loudly. The other guy would not get in his car to move it out of the way, so the first one got out by driving across the grass, bashing the trash cans that were still at the curb and hitting another car that was parked on the street.

Both Metro cops and the Vandy police were on the scene in a flash, but the guy did drive off, tires squealing, and I’m sure they will catch up with him before long. At least no one was hurt and it was over pretty quick. I also suspect the neighbors will be in touch with the owner of the house with some kind of nasty threats. Ahh, can’t say yesterday was boring anyway! 

Played a few spades games with Cabby tonight. It was pretty much a draw – he played well and I couldn’t find a decent partner, so that’s the way it goes. Besides, I can’t win all the time.

Chatting during the games, Cabby was telling me that once Steph graduates from college in May, he will no longer be eligible for health insurance coverage under his dad’s policy. Even though England has socialized medicine, most of the middle class have private health insurance, too. With Steph’s diabetes, Cabby is worried he will have trouble finding insurance.

After the game, we looked at some internet sites to get a handle on health insurancefor Steph. I found a website called BUPA that had a lot of good information, not only about insurance but also about health conditions and healthy living guides.

It looked promising enough that Cabby is going to talk with Steph about filling in an application and getting a quote. Cross your fingers for Steph.