Part of today was looking into businesses that can be run by a pre-existing operation. That means by us, who have a storefront, parking lot and established community presence. To my dismay, the top-rated startups in the land are pet-grooming, babysitting seniors (yuck) and washing cars. Is this what America is reduced to? Combing dogs and wiping butts?The one item that stood on its own was pet medical insurance. It will experience a 45% growth rate and there are only five companies (offering it). The report noted that while pet insurance is huge in England, just 1% of Americans have it. Yet the majority consider pets to be a family member. Other advice warned that this would be a hard sell because rising human health insurance rates make everybody conservative. Yes, but what happens when the aging population finds a pet to be a lone mascot?
I brought the subject up with Teresa, who I checked on due to her head cold. She likes the idea and offered the possibility of selling it by phone. She has done such work and I can see it as a real candidate for that approach. She and I could never be partners due to a huge difference in conflict resolution methods. She is the type that avoids unpleasant facts where I am the type that wants to nail them into place immediately.
Using VanBasco, the free online Karaoke player, I downloaded 51 tunes. This is the material Arnel will help me upgrade to decent sounding backing tracks. When you do the search, you always get into a web location that offers batches of music, for example, searching on STP (Stone Temple Pilots) gets you to a site offering collections of similar music. Finding this curious, I ran a few extra searches. Guess what? There are a huge number of collections that parallel my song list and nothing that matches the lists of certain other musicians I know. Gee, I wonder what those musicians know that the rest of the world doesn’t?
Certainly, one thing they should know is that most download music available is totally laced with viruses and spyware so don’t do it unless you know what you are doing. You probably don’t. What? I am being nice about it.
The electric bill arrived, confirming that it costs roughly $58 per month for a single conservative person to live here most of the time. This is why sharing makes so much sense. I am meticulous about not wasting power, but only to a point short of comfort deprivation. I A/C only one room at a time, it just makes sense to do it that way. Thus, $58 is the amount to plan on for most of the year. I told you this place was too large for one person. Now you, too, can plan for an easy life in Florida. Just have your money in place long before you get here.
Myself, I think I’ll find out what there is to know about pet insurance during the next week. Teresa used to sell insurance, something I declined to do for Prudential for almost ten years as they tried to recruit me. Prudential had a battery of tests that showed I was an excellent “quiet persistent” sales closer. But they also want you to live and breathe insurance 24/7. That is no life for people with any operating brain cells. To work there, you have to give them a list of every person you know or are related to. Once a month, you are questioned whether you talked with them about their “needs”, but it is “just a friendly chat that doesn’t mean anything to the company”. Don’t step in it!
