Reminder

Don't forget that Labor Day is this coming weekend. Place your order now by calling 877-234-6545 or emailing us at sales@aroyalflush.com. We look forward to speaking with you!

Cancellation Policy

We have had a couple of rainy weekends lately (thanks Hurricanes Bill and Danny), so I just thought I would do a refresher on our cancellation policy.

We would appreciate 24 hours notice on any cancellations. Especially if you event is early in the morning. Once our drivers deliver the toilet, there is no way to cancel. Because of this we try to prevent an unnecessary trips.

We hope you understand and we thank you again for your loyal support of our company. Cross your fingers for some sun this weekend.

Labor Day

Can you believe that Labor Day is next weekend?? As usual, I feel like this summer has flown by! This is just a quick reminder to place your orders for the upcoming holiday weekend. Remember we service:

-All of Connecticut
-Southern Massachusetts
-New York City and boroughs
-Westchester, Dutchess and Rockland Counties in New York
-Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, Bucks and Philadelphia Counties in PA

We can provide restrooms for:

-picnics
-block parties
-soccer tournaments
-festivals
-road races
-weddings
-etc.

Call us today to place your order!!! 877-234-6545

Sanitation Sentinel Article

While having a website these days is practically a “must” for businesses, the question arises as to the effectiveness of social networking sites an effective marketing tool.

Websites can cost money to design and maintain, but social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and YouTube are free (a plus if you’ve had to trim your marketing budget in this recession). But they also depend on your customers and potential customers to already be using them as well. That might not be as common a practice as someone “Googling” the phrase “portable sanitation” to look for your services.

However, the fact that they are social networking sites means that if you’re on them and you constantly put the word out there about your services, one of your Facebook “friends” or Twitter followers may pass on the good word about your services to their friends – thus, fueling the power of the World Wide Web on your behalf.

Are you new to the concept and don’t know which one to use? If you want to showcase videos of your business or special events, you may want to post on YouTube. Want to get out a brief message? Use Twitter, which limits comments to 140 words. Facebook and MySpace gives you more text space, as well as the ability to upload photos and videos (the latter appeals more to the younger set). LinkedIn is more of a professional networking site.

(You can sign up for Facebook at www.facebook.com; Twitter at www.twitter.com, LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com, MySpace at www.myspace.com and YouTube at www.youtube.com).

Alexandra Townsend uses Facebook and Twitter. She’s the regional sales manager for A Royal Flush, Inc. and ARF Rental Services, Inc. headquartered in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Townsend has a blog going for her company as well as a Twitter account and a Facebook page. She got onto Facebook and Twitter in the spring, but started a blog in 2007.

Townsend is a “techie” who transitioned her personal interest in social networking into the business realm. She began social networking on behalf of her business after using both Facebook and Twitter for personal reasons.

“Then I started to see more and more companies having accounts,” she notes. “Both are free, so it would be silly to miss that opportunity. I started the blog as a way to inform our customers about our company and the industry. I usually post interesting articles and big events that we
do.”

She says she posts “really weird” articles about portable toilets she thinks people will enjoy reading.

“A blog, in my opinion, is like a free website,” says Townsend. “I can update it at any time and it doesn’t cost anything. It allows me to keep our information up to date. Also, I enjoy blogging, so I figured having a work blog wouldn’t hurt. I thought it may get us new customers at the very
least. The same applies to the Twitter account and Facebook.”

She uses Twitter to look for new special events as well as potential customers.

Townsend says while she can’t say her company has derived any business from the use of social networking, she knows people are reading her blog because she tracks the numbers.

“We usually get 40 to 100 readers per week,” she says.
In marketing – as in any sector of a business – one must calculate whether there’s a good enough return on the investment of time or money to make it worthwhile.

“They are all so easy that it takes almost no time to maintain,” says Townsend. “By far, the blog takes up the most of my time but that is because I update it three times per week. I think it is important to be consistent.”

Townsend also points out that it takes time to set up the blog. But she finds that Google’s Blogger is very user-friendly. “They give you suggestions for layouts and you just have to fill in your information,” she says. “The same applies to Facebook and Twitter, except that I am much more lenient with those. I only update those when I think of something interesting to talk about or if I have event pictures to post.”

Kathie Christ, owner of Crown Restrooms “The Purple Potty People” in Woodstock, Illinois, started using Facebook a few months ago to promote her company by trying out its “fan” feature (on online survey of how many people are fans of a person, place or thing).
Christ says it’s too early to tell if her company’s gotten any business from using social networking. But she points out that it didn’t take that long to set it up, so there was not a lot of time investment on her part.

A word of caution about social networking sites: be careful about mixing business messages with personal messages. It’s one thing to write about a big special event your company is servicing, but it is not in your best interest to share personal information that may dissuade a potential client.

It’s best to keep business and personal accounts separate.
Marketing experts say social networking for marketing has its benefits and drawbacks.

If you see potential customers using social media, then using it yourself as a marketing tool makes sense, says J.W. Arnold, principal with PRDC Marketing and Public Relations.

“For many consumer industries, Facebook is replacing the yellow pages, but for others - especially B2B - social media like Twitter might enhance existing customer relationships and services, but not necessarily drive new business.”

“Social networking - and social media - allows a business to engage in a conversation with its customers instead of the typical monologue. Such a conversation can be used to educate customers while allowing the business to better understand their needs and expectations,” says Dave Nelsen, president of Dialog Consulting Group.

“Engaging in social networking is not like producing a product brochure or press release – ‘set it and forget it’ . Rather it's an honest conversation that requires continuing participation. And like any conversation, neither party is fully in control of what happens. That is an
intimidating concept for marketers accustomed to unilaterally controlling the message.”
Social media is still unproven and ROI is very difficult to measure, points out Lisa Nirell, the founder of EnergizeGrowth. She shares two of 11 strategies in her new book, “EnergizeGrowth NOW: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company” to help business owners successfully launch a social media strategy.

Schwerdtfeger acknowledges that although ROI is difficult to measure, “a sure bet
is to monitor the conversation about the brand. As the conversation expands, so too will the business' prospects for revenue growth.”
Nirell says a company owner should know his or her intended outcome – or purpose - before launching a social media strategy.
For example, those in the portable sanitation business may want to use social networking for the purpose of building a community of loyal
customers.

Second, develop a consistent, impressive company profile using only a few sites.
“If you join just two social media sites and contribute to the conversations, you will gain more traction than if you have outdated impressions across 10 sites that are damaging your brand,” she advises.

Some experts believe that social networking really doesn’t pack much of a punch for marketing efforts.
“There is little to no statistical data that supports a return on investment in social media,” says Drew Stevens, PhD, a sales and marketing expert.
“While it might assist in conducting some brand visibility, the only true method for marketing return is relationships with clients.”
His research indicates “there is much ado about nothing on social media,” Stevens says. “While it is helpful in building community, the larger
issue for a marketer to address is whether the clients are there. Marketers fail when they cease looking at target market selection.”

Bretton Holmes, president of Holmes World Media, believes social media can enhance current marketing efforts.

It’s also a “green” form of keeping the message out there for those who prefer that approach, Holmes says.

“My experience is that it is best utilized as a supplement to more traditional forms of marketing. As we move further into things like Twitter, the things that will ultimately stand out are those that provide the greatest amount of information in the least intrusive way, such as traditional
media outlets.”

Holmes cautions that “dealing with a barrage of social media activity in these various places can be a real pain, and companies run the risk of not only missing out on possible opportunities, but having to hire someone full-time for each social network they are on just to keep up.”
“The online media have been besotted with ‘social networking’ for more than a year - most recently atwitter over Twitter,” says Miki Dzugan of Rapport Online. “In over 12 years of internet marketing experience, I have observed the power of social networking from my first exposure to the ‘Net (social networking has always been a part of the Internet). Using social interaction for commercial promotion is equally old. What was once called ‘guerrilla marketing’ is now ‘marketing through the social Web’."

What Dzugan suggests portable sanitation operators do to make the most of their online experience is to get reviews. Many websites that list businesses provide the opportunity for customers to rate their experience, such as Google Maps and Yahoo Local.

“Any business that has a yellow pages listing is probably listed on Google Maps and Yahoo Local, even if they do not have a website,” points out Dzugan. “These listings provide the opportunity for customers to sign in and rate your service. Any business that has happy customers should get those customers to give them high ratings on the local search sites. This shows up as stars next to the business listing and helps the listing to stand out from others in search results.

“Search engines are now on par in use to printed yellow pages for finding local businesses,” says Dzugan. “These rated listings will get more eyeballs than anyone's porta-potty video on YouTube! Although, there's a thought.”

A.J. Gerritson is a partner at 451 Marketing, which provides lead generation for companies that sell business-to-business by leveraging social media technologies through search marketing strategies.

“Most of our clients who use social media to influence purchasing decisions seem to measure ROI with only one metric of success: leads,” says Gerritson. “The benefit is that most platforms are free and will cost nothing but time and there is a potential of reaching a large amount of
prospective customers and engaging them in two-way conversation.”

The risk?

"Companies are at the mercy of their employees who have the capacity to destroy the brand they work so hard to develop and maintain in one seemingly meaningless click of a mouse,’ says Gerritson. “If a company decides to move forward with a social media campaign, they should have two things in place: a social media strategy and a social media protocol for employees to set boundaries and designate the employees who will carry the companies "voice" online.”

Go Green Series

A new "Green" site for you to check out is TreeHugger. Here is a link for their Green Basics page, which can give you some easy, starter tips for Going Green. Here is another link for How to Go Green. That page covers everything from alternative energy to dinner parties to Green Gadgets. The final, easiest, way to get more "Green" information is to sign up for one of their newsletters, by clicking here.

So start clicking!!!

Go Green Series

The Top 7 Green Products for your Money

By Marc Lallanilla, About.com

The whole concept of green living can be a bit overwhelming. Many people want to lessen their impact on the environment, but they think it’s too hard, too expensive, or they simply don’t know where to begin. Sound like you?

Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s not hard; it doesn’t have to be expensive; and to give you a good idea on how you can begin living an eco-friendly life. Following are the seven most cost-effective, environmentally-sound products on the market to get you started living green:

1. Compact Fluorescent Light (or CFL) Bulbs

These light bulbs can replace incandescent, halogen, and other light bulbs around your home or office, with great effects on the environment. Not only do these bulbs use less energy than incandescents, but they also have a much longer usable life. CFL’s use between 60%-80% less energy than their incandescent counterparts, and their usable life is approximately 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs, meaning they’ll save you energy and money, while also decreasing greenhouse gas emissions.

2. Low-Flow Shower Head

Early models of low-flow shower heads simply decreased the amount of water allowed through in order to conserve water. While this is still the case, manufacturers have concerned themselves with consumer satisfaction as well. Low-flow shower heads today combine air with water running through them to give the feel of high water pressure while decreasing daily water usage by up to 20%.

3. Water Purifier

Bottled water is one of the most wasteful industries in the world today. Not only does bottle production use up to 1.5 million barrels of oil for production in the U.S. each year, but 86% of all used bottles end up in landfills, and plastic is not easily biodegraded. By selecting a water purifier for your home, you’ll get the same taste as bottled water without the negative environmental impact.

4. Solar Electric System

Using the sun as a renewable energy source is not an entirely new idea. In fact, many renewable energy companies have been around for over a decade, though the concept is just now getting a lot of attention. Setting your home up to use renewable energy can be costly, but if you choose, it can replace your current energy source altogether, and end up paying for itself in the end.

5. Hybrid Car

A hybrid car is just that: a hybrid of electric and gasoline engine power. Though hybrids don’t eliminate carbon emissions by any means, they certainly decrease the amount entering the environment. These green cars are a little bit more expensive than more common models, but saving the consumer around $500 of gas a year and cutting carbon emissions by about 30% lessens the blow a little bit.

6. Organic Cotton

While organic cotton might seem like it’s hard to come by, it’s actually working its way into the mainstream, and for good reason. Conventional cotton is one of the most chemically dependent crops produced: in fact, approximately 1/3 pound of chemicals is required just to produce enough cotton for a t-shirt! Organic cotton, on the other hand, is highly sustainable, and it is grown without pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, or chemical fertilizers.

7. Baking Soda

Not only is baking soda a primary ingredient in most do it yourself cleaning recipes, it is an incredibly diverse substance that can freshen pretty much anything. Baking soda can take the place of teeth whiteners, laundry additives, and even deodorant if used correctly.

Obviously some of these items are a bigger investment than others, but you can always start small!!

Green Living Series

I've decided to do a series of posts on Green Living or Going Green. Here is your first tidbit:

What is Green Living?

Answer:

Green living is all about making choices - big and small - that lessen our environmental impact. It's about living a healthier lifestyle, not just for this generation, but for the many generations to come. Essentially, greener choices will fall in to one or more of the following four categories:

1. Protecting Natural Resources

   This means conserving water and energy or preventing pollution. Cutting back your consumption and choosing products that won't damage our world's waters are great ways to contribute to a greener planet.

2. Limiting Waste

   When most people think green, they think recycling. While recycling is a big part of limiting waste, composting, reducing and reusing are also effective alternatives.

3. Socially Responsibility

   By choosing to purchase fairly traded items and shop locally, you're not only cutting out the middlemen, you're contributing to a better way of life for those who need it.

4. Healthy Living

   A healthy planet is important, but so is a healthy lifestyle. By being consciously aware of your diet and exercising regularly, you can be sure that you'll be around to reap the benefits of going green.

In the short-term, you may be just as concerned with saving money as you are about limiting your impact. Or maybe avoiding contaminants in your food more than social responsibility. But making conscious decisions in your day-to-day life will have a very big effect on the planet in the long-term.

It may sound trite, but it's true: Even the smallest efforts add up.

From Green Living FAQ

This Week

From Underwhelmed

This is how I have felt all week!! How about you??

Reasons to Blog

As some of you may know, I have been blogging (personally and professionally) for about three years now. I would never call myself a blog guru but I have found it to be beneficial. For that reasons, I decided to post some reasons for why you should start blogging too.

Share stuff – A blog can be your little place on the web to share things you find interesting. Example: I Can Has Cheezburger

Report News- Many blogs today are highly respected as current news source.

Make money – Some folks try to make money from blogging (usually from selling advertising on their blog). Examples: BlogHer Advertising

Express yourself – A blog is a place where you can let out your frustrations or you’re your soul through artistic expression.

Influence others – Writing to sway the thinking of others has long been a popular reason for starting a blog.

Connect with friends and family – Many blogs are started as a way to share family news and photos with friends.

Comment on issues – Some blogs function as a personal opinion page for authors wanting to share their point of view on major topics.

Promote a business – Many corporations have learned the value of advice and corporate news style blogging as a marketing and public relations tool. Examples: Our Blog

Help others – There are a number of blogs that offer advice, tutorials and other assistance. (Hey, BloggingStartup.com falls in this category!)

Market stuff – Some blogs sell stuff while others directly promote their product or service.

Share your hobby – Hey, want to talk about how you like to spend your free time? Why not start a blog?

Promote yourself – Blogs can be a great way to let the world know who you are, whether you are wanting to change jobs or promoting your services.

Journal your experience – Type about anything. Talk about your day, share your opinion, show a funny picture or tell what you had for dinner.

Try something different – Be creative, explore the world in your own way, through blogging.

I hope this gives you a reason to try. This list is from Blogging Startup, but I changed the examples.

Labor Day

Labor Day is sneaking up on all of us. It is only FOUR weeks away. Be sure to call us today, to place you order. We service picnics, family parties, weddings, sporting events, etc. Call us at 877-234-6545 to speak to a representative about your event.

Twitter

Twitter blackout left users feeling 'jittery,' 'naked'

(CNN) -- Christina Cimino was logging onto Twitter on Thursday morning when something happened that she found deeply unsettling.

"I got some weird error message, and I'm like, 'What's going on!?" the 24-year-old said.

That error message was the scourge of online social networkers worldwide on Thursday as cyber-attacks shut down Twitter and caused sustained glitches in other social-media sites like Facebook and the blogging site LiveJournal.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone wrote the sites were the victims of what "appears to be a single, massively coordinated attack." And a pro-Georgian blogger, whose accounts on Facebook and Twitter reportedly were the targets of the denial-of-service attack, told CNN the online strike was timed to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the Russia-Georgia conflict.

What may prove more lasting about the day social networking suffered its first major blackout is the degree to which people cared. Near-panic erupted in some corners of the Internet as people lost cherished links to their online friends, family members and news feeds. Watch CNN iReporters talk about the attack

Part of the panic relates to the sheer popularity of the sites.

Twitter saw a more than 1,300 percent jump in unique visitors between February 2008 and February 2009, according to Nielsen NetView. The site, which lets users post messages of 140 characters or less, had more than 44 million worldwide users in June, according to comScore. More than 120 million users log onto Facebook at least one time each day, the site says.

To be sure, not all Facebook and Twitter users freaked out because of the attacks. Some people even reveled in the mayhem.

But for people like Cimino, who said she "felt naked" without access to Twitter, the attacks were a serious reality check -- a chance to evaluate just how dependent they'd become.

"You know how you pat your pockets for your cell phone and your keys? Well it's that same kind of phantom [limb] with Twitter," she said. "It's like, 'I can't update! I can't update!' It's just one of those bugs that gets in you."

She added: "I was pretty upset, actually. It feels like a lifeline for me ... Pretty much everyone knows almost every detail of my life by what I'm doing on Twitter."

It's not worth analyzing whether these online connections are good or bad because the reality is that Twitter and Facebook are now an important part of our lives, said Marc Cooper, a journalism professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication.

"For many people, and not just young people, the Web is not just media, it's actually a place where they conduct their lives or a portion of their lives," he said.

"So the panic [Thursday] morning is only reflective of that. This is not just a hobby or an amusement or another accoutrement, it's actually deeply woven into their lives and is integral to their social interaction. So when it's cut off, it's a problem."

Others saw Twitter's existence as the problem and relished the chance to make fun of a Web site that has become so omnipresent in news cycles.

"Horrors!!! People will have to communicate face to face!" one user commented on CNN's SciTech blog.

Another commenter said, "Turn off your computers and read a book or get outside and discover there is more to life than cyberspace. The Internet has become nothing more than the new cocaine."

Now that Twitter is back online, the No. 1 conversation thread on the site is called "whentwitterwasdown," where users discuss what they did without their real-time Twitter updates.

Some people are mocking the blackout. A user named PaulWilks, for instance, wrote, "I took up juggling."

Others seem concerned. "I did absolutely nothing. It's like my heart was gone," wrote a user named HarajukuxBarbie. "I felt so empty inside," wrote another Twitter user called freinhar.

Some business people on Thursday realized just how much they depend on Facebook and Twitter to do their work.

Adam Ostrow, editor-in-chief at Mashable, a blog that covers social media, said the outage made it difficult for his organization to cover the news and to promote its stories.

"For someone like myself who spends all day on Twitter, it's incredibly frustrating," he told CNN.com Live.

Justin Stauffer, a 31-year-old who works in Web strategy at a marketing company near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, said Thursday's attack made him realize just how dependent on Twitter he had become.

"When something that's so central to how you do your business or how you gather information goes down, yeah, you get a little jittery -- like, when's it going to be back," he said.

"I didn't break out in hives or anything like that," he said, jokingly.

David Seaman, an iReporter in New York, said he thinks Twitter needs a competitor so users will have an alternative if the site is down.

And Amy Gahran, who writes about social media on a blog called Contentious, said all technologies can break down, so people need to make contingency plans.

"Hell, when you get down to it, you can lose your voice or break your writing hand or have a stroke and be unable to communicate. We are fundamentally social creatures, and when we lack our usual communication channels it's scary," she writes.

"Don't panic. Have a backup plan, and be prepared."

Cooper, the USC professor, said the fuss surrounding Thursday's attack is a sign that instant, online communication is here to stay.

Fighting the trend would be like trying to stop the ocean's tides, he said, but it's unclear where the technology will take our society.

"The bottom line is that we don't know. All of this is too new," he said. "It's like sitting around in the year 1500 and trying to figure out where the printing press was going to take us."

So how did you feel yesterday??? Be sure to follow A Royal Flush on Twitter by clicking here.

Freakonomics

I found this the other day. On the New York Times website, the authors of the best-selling book Freakonomics have a new (or new to me) blog. The subtitle of the blog is "The Hidden Side of Everything." It is pretty interesting and they cover a wide range of topics. Considering the fact that I am not financially inclined AT ALL and I enjoyed their blog, should be enough of an endorsement! As a bonus, you can subscribe to their feed and receive it in your inbox. Click here to visit the blog.

Happy Reading!

Another Rash of Fires

North Bay teen on port-a-potty hot seat

Posted By JENNIFER HAMILTON-McCHARLES, Sun MEDIA

NORTH BAY — A teenager is in hot water after North Bay police charged him with arson in a rash of recent portable potty fires.

The teenager was arrested Wednesday afternoon following a tip at 2 p. m. that led officers to a dumpster fire behind Chippewa Secondary School.

The tipster provided a description of a young man spotted at the scene.

Const. Merv Shantz, traffic enforcement officer, said police and North Bay Fire and Emergency Services went to the dumpster fire and crews had it under control quickly.

Shantz said police believe the teen is also responsible for setting fires in four portable potties around the city in the last month.

Shane VanDussen, 18, of Franklin Street is charged with five counts of arson -- one set in the dumpster and four previous outhouse fires.

He was held in custody awaiting a bail hearing.

Shantz applauded the tipster for calling police and providing a description.

The portable washrooms have been a target of vandalism in the last month.

Most recently a blue plastic outhouse was set on fire Monday near Chippewa Secondary School. It's no longer usable.

Two toilets at Thomson Park and one at West Ferris Arena were also hit.

Two or three of the blue plastic outhouses sustained significant damage and will have to be replaced by the City of North Bay, which has leased 15 of the units for the summer.

The cost of replacing each toilet is $1,000.

The city puts the washrooms in area parks and on fields where permits have been purchased for sporting events.

City officials have said it's a convenience for the public that they don't want to stop providing.

The city and owners of K&T Port-A-John Rentals in Callander said previously that the washrooms have never sustained as much damage as they have this year.

The worst that happened to them in previous years is they would be tipped over.

It's annoying and upsetting when you run a business and your property is damaged," K&T co-owner Dianne Seguin said earlier in the week.