Caribbean People - Be Careful - This Year’s Hurricane Could Teach Us A Lesson

Don't Get Caught With Your  Hurricane Pants Down

Caribbean people should be battening the hatches and getting ready for the next

hurricane season.  It’s coming soon. 

There is almost a guarantee that it will hit at least one island in the Caribbean. 

When Katrina hit a few years ago I lived in Coral Springs Florida and I have never seen anything like it. 

When the storm subsided over 50% of the houses were without roofs.  Fortunately, I lived in a community where the roof was made of clay tiles. 

 I experienced the "what the hell" feeling when i witnessed flying off S tiles being embedded into the roofs of parked cars. Slamming into earth violently sticking like thrown knives.  It was as if God was up

there somewhere with a large slingshot just shooting down tiles and everything else He could find. .

 

Imagine the sight of what seemed like 100 year old fichus trees that lined the side walk in Ft Lauderdale uprooted as if they were mere weeds.  

Laying upturned, pointing skyward and the earth below torn open just like an earthquake; side walk and road wide open. 

Wonder what will happen if the Islands in the Caribbean were hit with a category 3 or 4 hurricane?.

Roofs will go first but the way houses are built in the Caribbean it’s not hard to imagine the entire structures being blown away.   

What's even more bewildering is the Island mentality. Last year when hurricane warnings were announced in Trinidad enterprising Trinis decided to have “Storm Parties”.  

And yes, it is what you're thinking, regular drink, dance and make merry parties.  Not held in fortified buildings but at the local bar where patrons can weather the storm out while getting wasted. 

 

The same mentality existed with the officials. At one hurricane shutter presentation to the local Office of Disaster Preparedness Management, ODPM the attitude was "we really dont need it"..  The organization had the authority to rally all the high ranking official in the protective services to hear the presentation.     

The officials came listened to real reasons why all government building should be equipped with hurricane shutters.  None opted to have it installed.  Some were a little curious but most thought that it was not necessary, afterall "God is a Trini” they say,  "He will protect us"   Let's hope so. 

The building material company even offered to install the shutters at the ODPM building at a steep discount but they never took the offer.    

A building with large sections of glass, tasked with the job of preparing the nation for natural disaster and they are still unprepared.  What good will it be for the people we supposed to turn to in time of disaster are ducking from flying glass and debris. 

Unfortunately the only thing to change that mentality is a disaster of major proportions.   Some Caribbean islands "have to feel to learn". It's really like safe sex, we all need the protection..    

And believe it or not, but Trinidad is supposed to be more advanced than the rest of the Caribbean Islands.  If that is true may God help the rest of the Islands....

US government forecaster announced yesterday that they are expecting three to six major hurricanes from an above average Atlantic storm season. As many as 18 named tropical storms may deelop during the six month Atlantic Hurricane season.

Here is some advice from the local newspaper

Are you ready for the next hurricane season?

Are You Guilty Of This?

“Every truth has two sides; it is as well to look at both, before we commit ourselves to either” Aesop Quotes

This has nothing and everything to do with marketing, it's totally about who we are as enlightened humans being in a world that we have created.

Sometimes as business people we need to step back from whatever we are engaged in and evaluate ourselves. We need to examine what we are doing to our reputation and character by the little decisions we make in our daily lives. By themselves they are by no means life changing decisions but they always define who we are and how the rest of the world perceives us.

It's the little things in life that really count. Like how some people behave with a waiter/waitress in restaurants that gives invaluable insight into their own character. In business, these same behaviors determines how we are perceived by others.

Our word, that is our oral promise should be "as good as gold" or even paper money.

Of course we must always leave allowances for the unexpected, it’s why pencils are built with erasers because everyone make mistakes: in judgment on completion times, returning calls, emails, meetings or even promises for payment. As humans, we plan and it is said that "God laughs" at our plans, but that's no excuse not to communicate.

Communicating after making an oral promise is not something we do "if we have the time" but should become a personal obligation/commitment to, at a minimum, explain why we could not or did do what we promised to do. The promise does not evaporate into the universe, being known as not having a "good word" destroys the character.

Allow me to put it into perspective. This came up because of the experiences I have had recently with web designers in and outside of Trinidad. Yes, consider this a request for your services if you meets the criteria below.

You may or may not be aware, I have been in a continuous search for a Web designer/developer for the last couple of months after a very strange experience with someone I trusted. I will not go into that here but suffice it to say that has happened was surprising and an enlightening experience which I will share in another post. It's no wonder that the web design/development industry continues to be so nefarious with a saturation of wannabe designers who all claim to be able to build anything. There are designers and Designers.

What am I looking for? Not much. A designer for sure but there are other qualities that, after my experience, are much more important. I call it character. Fortunately we all have one.

But before we go there, let me share some background so you can appreciate
why the urgent need for a designer with certain predispositions.

Team players

In my function as a Business Web Coach assisting business owners to establish their web presence, it’s essential that I have a pool of designers/Developers to design websites for clients.

The coaching includes all aspects of web development starting with the initial concept, story board, structure, copy, business model innovation, traffic generation and one-on-one or group training after the launch. The intent is to bring to the table online experience and marketing strategies to develop a viable revenue generating web site for the business.

My plan is to host a one day seminar titled "Getting Started Online" This seminar promises to embed a marketing mindset into the participants enabling them with foundational knowledge to establish their web presence and possibly a web site.

With the web coaching service I prefer to begin at the concept stage and not have to do an extreme marketing makeover on a website that is already published. I know very little about web design, coding or graphic design. It is therefore very important that I work with a web designer. But not just any designer, I'm looking for designers with two enduring qualities apart from their ability to design a professional web site:

Professional Integrity

This requirement is at the top because it is extremely important the designer/developer understand that this can make or break our relationship. This has nothing to do with being a honest person but more with character. In my humble opinion, behavior as described above does not show a lack of character because whatever they do is their character. It demonstrates a blatant disrespect for the value of "their word" when given as a promise.

From time immemorial oral communication has initiated business it's indeed a sad day when everything must be in writing. Imagine putting a simple promise like, "I'll call you" in writing.

Mind you, this relates not only to designers/developers but too many professionals are beginning to behave like politicians and lawyers. Granted, It may be a little thing to some people but expeditiously making repeated unfulfilled promises is wrong. Not only wrong in business but in any social setting.

If you are a designer and you don't agree, I'm so glad you are reading this because I hope I never do business with you.

Experience and Creativity

The designer must be self motivated and creative. He/she must be able to reproduce an idea and essentially make it look good online. The nature of the industry, i.e. overpopulated with semi-professionals, makes it important that the designers/developers have a registered company and preferably a design staff.

There skill must include all the necessary coding capability to develop a self contained eCommerce site with content management system and accommodate a merchant account platform. I am also looking for someone with an entrepreneurial spirit, someone who is willing to invest in their own future and to gain experience in developing websites that generate revenue.

If you meet these requirements, I would love to speak with you, send me an email.

In the interim, because of my experience I have used my limited knowledge to host my domain on a wordpress blog platform. If you are serious about online marketing click over to the blog, review it and make a comment or give some feedback. Done without the aid of a designer, it's not professional but it meets my needs until better can be done. Take a look at it and leave some feedback. You can find it at Here

Caribbean Web Site Scam Alert

A True Story Of An Actual Scam

“There is honor among thieves.” Proverb

Read This And Tell A Friend You May Short Circuit A Scam

The post today is about a despicable individual who has been scamming Caribbean business owners for the past 6 years. Sadly, there is nothing the authorities can do because the Caribbean islands are not protected under US laws. The company behind the site claims to have offices in South Florida and Virgin Islands.

The Background

The story unfolds when I was contacted by a former client and friend. She had sent an invitation to me to join her new Facebook group. The name of the fan page said it all “IslandYellowPages is a Scam: if you have been Scammed join this group" If you were scammed please join the group.

Being sensitive to these things I emailed her a short message asking what happened and at the same time informing her that I could not join her group. The reasons were simple, I was not scammed and it will send the wrong message for me professionally. I did promise to help her in any way I could. This is the result of that promise.

She was livid, she sent me an email promising to get back at them using a number of revenge tactics that she described in detail which I prefer not to share here. She was ademant that the company and the individuals responsible be exposed in Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean and the World.

The Investigation

This is what I found out when I looked into it...

You will need to follow along and click the links below so you can see yourself. My friend provided the links that identified the company as IslandYellowPages.net and the named perpetrator, a Mr. David Randall Phillip, 6021 Williamsburg Way Tampa Fl. 33625. You can read the blog post here outlining all the sordid details.

The Perp's Web Site

I followed the link to IslandYellowPages.net (the one above) a website that gives the impression of being a Yellow Page Directory with a listing for all the islands in the Caribbean and the Philippine islands. Strange... is not the Philippines Islands continents apart from the Caribbean islands?

The site is positioned as a vacation directory with Hotels and Resorts listings.
Clicked on the navigation button labeled “Categories” and it brings up a listing of too many categories to read. Using the search box on the top, I typed "gifts" and used the dropdown box to pick out Trinidad.

The Client Web Listing

The search located 6 businesses in Trinidad. Next I clicked to see the website. Ok, if you did not follow the path I took still take a look at one of the sites if you are on there. Not a website at all but just a listing page with a link to a web site that does not exist.

Every other business listing had the same page. Out of curiosity I clicked back and did other searchs. I searched “cars” more listings. “Hotels” no listings, “resorts” no listings. Why would a vacation site not have one hotel or resort listings in Trinidad?

Riding On The Coattail Of A Legitimate Site

I’m no Sherlock but then I probed a little deeper into the site;s "Advertising" page. What I observed is that the site blatantly aligned itself with the real “Caribbean Yellow Pages the online Caribbean telephone directory.

Compare the sites yourself by using the two previous links to see how they make reference to Caribbean Yellow pages interchangeably with Island Yellow Pages. I’m sure that the Caribbean Yellow Pages company officials will love to see this page.

The Amazing Price Per Listing

Now here is the kicker. All the listings are allegedly purchased at a price of $954 USD per listing. That’s approximately $6000 TTD. The straw that broke the camel back for my friend was after about 3 months the company contacted her and demanded an additional payment of $500USD to keep the listing. That one page was going to cost her $9000 TTD to stay up for 12 months.

As I said, this company is preying on business owners in all the Caribbean islands and there are no authorities here to take action against them. As you may have read it is already in the hands of the Florida State Attorney and the Better Business Bureau.

Even if this was not a scam, the businesses listed on this site are not receiving any value for their money. Not only are these pages buried too deep in the site but the pages do not point to any business website or even have an email address. The only contact is a phone number.

Honestly, I was totally surprised to see the number of local businesses that had listings on this service. As I have noted in other post the digital divide in the Caribbean is wide and unscurpulous people are taking advantage of this lack of internet know how.

Even if you did not believe what was written on the blog about the owner of this site, the site itself provides ample proof its using unethical online marketing tactics to scam visitors.

What You Need To Do

Help spread the word about this site, Tell everyone and anyone you know about it, if you or your friends are not being scammed they may have friends who are. Copy, paste, tag and comment on this article so that all of your friends become aware of this scam.

This is worst than being infected by a computer virus. I commend my friend for being bold enough not to melt quietly into cyber space and keeping this a secret.

If you are on FB tag your friends to this note, not only in Trinidad and Tobago but the Caribbean.

Every business person you know should be alerted. If you have the time search the site for businesses you know, make sure none of your friends are being scammed. My search revealed a number of Trinidad businesses listed. Check by island and let your friends know how to check or direct them to this article.

Be Careful About Phone Calls

Also take note of how the site owner tries to scam companies by slapping up a quick listing after a phone conversation then attempting to collect payment. If you should ever be contacted by this company, act accordingly. Do your friends a favor let everyone know about this.

If you're on FB and was tagged on this note; cut and paste it into a note of your own and tag the people who you think this could help. Share it with your friend or make a comment. These people must be stopped. Let’s help get the word out.

This is a blog post on the Caribbean Blogger with a and a Facebook Note on Guerilla Marketing Fan page.

For an alternative quick money making site option, Try this.