AFLAC on the Bob & Sheri Radio Show

For those of you who don't know who Bob & Sheri are, they are morning personalities for a radio show that is popular in the South. I honestly have never heard of them until I lived in Georgia.

Week 51

RSC:

Regina- 145.06% of MPI!

DSC:

Josh- 223.15% of MPI!
Ted- 204.14% of MPI!
Marie- 32.30% of MPI!

Associates:

Gil- $8,448.36!
Brent- $5,604.84!
Aubrey- $4,324.80!
Ben- $2,266.80!
Jason- $1,210.68!
Francine- $1,152.00
Guillermo- $962.64!

New AFLAC incentive item... a backpack for your computer. It's looks sharp. There is also a new picture of a black baseball hat too.

During the bowl games, you will see the latest AFLAC commercials...it's the duck as a superhero! Can we expect a new superhero stuffed duck to be released? I know that Regina has one that is wearing a mask but I am not sure if there was a cape on that one.

We've got one more week in 2006. I am not sure how many of you will be in the office next week, but if I don't see you, Happy Hannukah, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Sactown

Here's a shot of the Bay Bridge from the tunnel. It was raining pretty good tonight, but I needed to come home after five victorious days in Sacramento!

8 years ago, I left Sacramento for Columbus, GA to pursue a career in television. I've come back to visit friends in the "River City" but never had a long period of time to hang out until now. This week I spent some time working and hanging out with old friends. It was great.

Monday I did ee presentations all day. I went to 4 locations.

Tuesday I went to another 4 locations to do presentations.

Wednesday I went to enroll. 2 locations waived. 2 other locations signed up. I also drove back to Hercules to do an ee presentation and then drove back to Sacramento.

Thursday I completed my tour of Sacramento by enrolling 2 more locations. The other 2 waived.

I wrote $3,342 in premium the first day. I wrote $7803.85 the second day. So, my two day total was $11,147.85. This is a personal record for me. I have $707 already posted this week. I have $354 pended in a whole life policy. I have $1,380.48 that is newly transmitted business from another group. I have two other groups to enroll tomorrow so I am not done for this week. What is great is that I can pay back some of the people that I borrowed premium from plus have some premium to call my own.

Another good thing about this trip is that I am writing on my new computer! I've written 37 policies within the last 11 days! That's awesome because I was shooting for 30 policies written on my computer per month. This will help me pay off my computer quickly!

I did a lot of driving. I want to say that I drove about 650 miles since Sunday!

Other news...

I got my giant AFLAC duck! I ordered some mini ducks but I expect those won't come until after Xmas.

The packaging technique has proven to be a very successful way to present AFLAC plans.

AFLAC items on ebay has slowed as we get closer to Xmas. I guess people are getting busy. I've checked a few times this week but there is nothing of note to post up here.

I've joined the bluetooth headset club. I got a new cell phone (T-mobile Dash) because next year, you can't talk on your cell phone unless you have an earpiece or a speakerphone. I made the switch because I just needed to get keep up with the cell phone technology.

Week 50 stats:

Associates:

#4 Guillermo with $5,519.52 and he achieves the super fireball award!
#8 Gil with $3,151.92!
#12 Ben with $2,158.80!
#13 Brent with $2,124.12!
#16 Irene with $1,710.36!
#21 Jason with $826.56!
#27 Richard with $363.72!
#28 Francine with $322.80! I want to say that is the first time I've seen Francine on the board!

DSC:

#5 Georgianna at 163.56% of MPI!
#6 Josh at 144.80% of MPI!
#7 Ted at 73.95% of MPI!
#11 Ellyne at 35.71% of MPI!
#13 Marie at 31.63% of MPI!

Josh is 99.15% of his annual MPI! Whoa!

RSC:

#4 Regina at 142.05% of MPI!

Let's finish out the week strong! You can do it!

This is pretty much how my "package display" looks. I'm excited about it, 'cause I think that it looks great.



Tell Santa
you want
THE PACKAGE:

· Personal Accident Expense, Level 1
· Basic Dental
· Cancer Indemnity, Level 1

$33.80 Employee
$48.75 One Parent Family
$55.65 Employee and Spouse
$68.10 Two Parent Family

I've been slacking

I had the intentions of updating our office blog last week but I was worn out by the end of the week. On Friday, I came home and went to sleep at 9:30 pm. I woke up at 4:30 am and then went back to bed and slept until noon.

I've done so much traveling within the last two months. I want to say that I've driven at least 1000 miles within the last 2 1/2 weeks. I'm not keeping track of the miles but knowing how many times I've filled up my tank gives me a good guess at the mileage.

Big news in the office...

Jason got a cool small Panasonic computer! It's like a mini-me computer!

I got a computer!

Guillermo is getting a computer!

Can't you tell we just love paper apps?!?

My computer came today and I had Jason open it. He said it was a beauty! It sure is. Richard came over and took a big wiff of the smell of a new computer. The smell of newness is great!

So here I am tonight. I bet you can tell I'm very happy to have a computer to write on! This is my computer and I will love it and cherish it and name it "The Green Machine" even though it's black. Oh by the way, I'm wearing my new AFLAC polo shirt I won on ebay! It smelled funny when I got it so I had to wash it before wearing it.

Talking about ebay...there is a green AFLAC tie up for bid. It's $5.99 right now. The ducks on the tie are suppose to have Santa hats on them but from here you really can't see it. It's a cool tie but I think I'll pass. I honestly can't think of a suit I have that I could wear it with.

I'm haven't seen many people in our office recently because we are all busy running around and doing business. That's a good thing though. I hope that we are all writing big premium this week!

"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity." Louis Pasteur

Lessons to be learned

After my fight to achieve the super fireball status, I have a few things to share with the team.

1. I think there is value in knowing how to fill out the paper applications, but if you can write on a computer, do that. It makes life so much easier.

2. If you ever decide to get policies for yourself and you download the AFLAC agent group number, make sure that when you write policies on yourself, that you change the state to CA. If you don't, you'll be writing applications for GA which will pend.

3. Don't wait until the last minute to achieve your goals. It's very stressful.

4. Make a friend in pended business.


Today I went out on an appointment and I want to share with all of you that I was very rusty in my ER script. I haven't had to do that in at least 1 month. Honestly, it could have been longer than that. I've been so wrapped up with ee presentations and enrollments that I haven't been practicing my ER script. I could have done so much better with just a little refresher by going over the script in the car before my appointment.

Guillermo celebrates his birthday!

This is Guillermo right before he blows out his candles for his birthday! The official day isn't until the 12th of this month so what would be cool is he can celebrate his birthday and hit his super fireball award in the same week! Now that would be absolutely great!

Happy birthday bud!

What a week! Phew!

bThis was my last week for the super fireball award. I thought the last two policies that Irene transmitted for me at 2:30 pm were jet issued. Not the case as of this morning. I'm $756 short. I called pended business but I couldn't convince the lady I talked with to help me with getting that unpended today. The reason that they are pended is because it needs to go through a 48 hour review. I thought that cancer and hospital policies are jet issued. It's probably something to investigate so no one else has to deal with this issue if they are going for a certain award.
Theoretically I have hit the super fireball award so I am going to celebrate with my team by treating the entire office to a bunch of food and drinks. I did this because I am a very grateful for the support and encouragement I get from the Giants team.

So today I braved the Saturday crowd at Costco (I hate going there because it's crowded and I don't like waiting in lines) and bought a bunch of food and drinks for all of us. The types of foods I bought breakfast foods because if you are like me, I often don't eat before coming into the office and I get hungry in the morning. I also bought snacks for those stomach gurgles that you might have if you are waiting for pended business to unpend. I also bought some bottled waters and energy bars and rice krispies treats so if you need something for the road you are set.

So this is all the food I bought from Costco today! It took several trips from my car to bring it all in.

(From left to right and from top to bottom) Bottled water, grapes, blueberry muffins, cranberry/raspberry juice, and more bottled water! There is also orange juice, apples, and pears!

From left to right: Pretzels, chocolate chip cookies, chicken cup of noodles, three flavors of nutri-grain bars, cheez-its, and rice krispies treats. These are found on top of the frig.

Gum is on the microwave just in case you need fresh breath for an appointment. I have never heard it said out here, but in the South, the reason you chew gum is "so your breath don't stank!"

In the cupboards below the microwave, you can find cups and towels. I thought that we needed some. Not pictured...underneath the sink I put some wipes to clean with so our kitchen area will smell lemony-fresh.

I also cleaned all the dishes and cups with hot water and soap. I then wiped down the counter, the sink, the outside of the microwave, the coffee machines, and the table that we eat on. I can confidential say that I would eat off the counters and tables and drink out of every cup without any problems. It's clean!

That's what I think of all of you...#1. Enjoy the goodies and once again thanks for the support!


In other news...

I have my ducks in a row in my bag. There's the vision duck, the Santa duck, the doctor duck, the original duck, and the life duck!

I went to one of the schools this week. It had an awesome mural of Thurgood Marshall and a bunch of other cool people.

In the world of ebay...

I haven't received my red AFLAC polo shirt. I was expecting it yesterday.

A person from Savannah, GA has an AFLAC duck that I have never heard of. Here's the description: "This is a limited edition AFLAC duck featuring the sultry voice of Donald Trump's wife Melanie. Instead of hearing the usual AFLAC chant, press the duck and you hear 'If you're hurt and can't work, AFLAC can help pay your bills with cash.'"

It's going for $21.50 + shipping right now. I thought that was a cool and rare duck.

Another AFLAC duck from the 2006 Hawaiian convention is for sale. Right now it's going for $51.00 + shipping.

New Incentive Items

I was browsing the myAFLAC site and saw some cool incentive items to give out!

How about giving away an AFLAC purse made out of AFLAC license plates?! That's making a big statement if you asked me.
How about a Moss baseball hat? This is new because I thought I had the latest baseball hat but I was wrong.
And the mini AFLAC ducks are back!

My new AFLAC shirt

I bought this brand new AFLAC polo shirt on ebay for$18.75! There were 2 bidders but I strategically waited until the last 3 minutes to make my bid. It was $13.25 for the shirt and $5 for shipping. I love ebay. There was a gray polo shirt that was for less, but I like this color better.

There is an AFLAC laynard going for $26.07! That's not including the $7.60 for shipping. That's crazy! Evidently, it's a rare find because 16 people have bidded for this. It's just a piece of material that you can wear around your neck! Big deal to me.

This Founder's week clock looks very familiar. I want to say that Josh has one. Well, some DSC is selling his/her's. No one has bid for this yet. It's going for $15.00 right now.

Someone is selling their fireball pin along with two regular AFLAC pins.

Week 47 Leaders!

RSC:

Congrats to Regina for hitting 98.37% of MPI!


DSC:

Congrats to Ellyne for hitting 123.48% of MPI!

Congrats to Josh for hitting 97.30% of MPI!

Congrats to Ted for hitting 75.46% of MPI!

Congrats to Georgianna for hitting 32.74% of MPI!

Congrats to Marie for hitting 31.24% of MPI!


Associates:

Congrats to Aubrey for writing $3,785.28!

Congrats to Brent for writing $2,567.16!

Congrats to Ben for writing $1,908.72!

Congrats to Jason for writing $1,827.60!

Congrats to Guillermo for writing $1,598.52!

Congrats to Donna for writing $1,526.28!


In the world of ebay...

An AFLAC lanyard is going for $18.05 + shipping.

The Hawaiian AFLAC duck finally sold for $93 + shipping!

To pend or not to pend...

Pend- verb (used without object)

1. to remain undecided or unsettled
2. to hang
3. Obsolete. to depend

Do you remember a few weeks ago when Jason and I sent in paper applications? I sure do. It was a chore because Jason and I wanted to make sure that we filled out the apps correctly. Well, this week, we found out that we didn't.

This week, Jason and I are now having a fun contest to see how much applications we can have pend. Personally, I have 22 applications that are pending. I'm sure Jason has more since he had more pended business before this all started. My computer says $5,104.44! Earlier tonight, Josh and I watched the pended business grow right in front of our eyes. The numbers on the computer increased several times while we were sitting there. Normally I wouldn't think this is funny. I absolutely hate it when business pends. However, in this case, I think it is hilarious. I have a lot of work on my hands this week trying to unpend! So while you are eating your turkey, your cranberry sauce, and your big slice of pumpkin pie, I would like you to consider being thankful for clean paper apps that don't pend.

In the world of ebay...

...this rare Hawaiian surfer AFLAC duck is on sale right now for $71 + $9 shipping! This is by far the most expensive duck I've seen on ebay. Crazy huh?

I have to once again post my experimenting with packaging AFLAC plans together. It works better than I expected. Ben & I are working with a group right now and offered two packages. The first one is a package consisting of a level 1 cancer, level 1 accident, level 2 prp, and intensive care. The second one is what I called the bundle. It consisted of a level 2 accident and a level 1 sickness. I highly recommend this technique in presenting AFLAC. Ben & I 14 plans Monday between 4 people!

I don't know about you, but I've been working in 5th gear for the past month. I have 7 days to hit my super fireball award! Yikes!

Week 46 Leaders + more

Associates:

#5 Richard $3,754.68
#6 Brent $3,587.40
#10 Jason $2,605.20
#13 Alan $2,282.88
#19 Guillermo $1,181.76
#21 Aubrey $1,094.40
#28 Ben $540.00

DSC:

#5 Josh 161.55% MPI
#6 Georgianna 121.60% MPI
#11 Ted 42.82% MPI
#13 Marie 29.56% MPI
#14 Ellyne 14.23% MPI

RSC:

#2 Regina 122.23% MPI

All of you rock! Great work for week 46!

I talked with Marie on Friday and she told me that Francine and Faye are rockin' at their first group! They did paper apps so the business didn't get counted for week 46. However, they will be on the board for week 47! Congrats!

Congrats to Alan for hitting his fast start!

In the world of ebay...

Up for bid is a Long Sleeve T-Shirt given to employees only during the 2001 Employee Appreciation Week. This is probably one of the oldest items I've seen for AFLAC. This is the first 2001 shirt I've seen on ebay. The current bid is $1.99 plus $7.55 for shipping.

Today I went to watch Ben coach his son's soccer team in a big playoff game.

This picture was taken through the chain link fence at Golden Gate Park's Polo Grounds. Ben is in the back in the red hat. His wife is the team mom and is helping the boys with their gatorade. Ben's son, Adam is on the far left in the foreground.

Their team lost 2-1 to a team that was comprised of boys one year older than all of them. It was a battle to the end. This was a picture of the team listening to Ben as he celebrates a great season and great teamwork.

I found this article on the internet that ties in sports management with business management. It is based on a book called "Management: What Professional Baseball Can TEach Professional Managers."

"Part 3 - THE RECOMMENDATIONS

My recommendations to the senior management (manager and coaches) of the baseball team on how to improve the efficiency, quality, and profitability of their operation.

1. Act decisively.It is imperative that the president and vice-presidents (manager and coaches) immediately take action to demonstrate to the employees, customers, and stock holders that they recognize that there is a problem and that they will take necessary action to correct it.

2. Publish performance standards and hold all employees accountable.You cannot expect employees to perform to the required level without knowing what that level is. Nor can you discharge an employee for failure to perform adequately if you have not specified what minimum performance level is required.

3. Train, develop, and coach employees. After you have established minimum performance standards, give employees the help they need to meet or exceed those standards. If a salesperson is unable to meet quotas, you might send that person to a course in lead generation. Accordingly, if a hitter is batting .097 he may need more time in the batting cage or to review film of his swing with the hitting coach.

4. Be patient - to a point. Nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes. A shipping clerk might send a package by UPS to the Federal Express headquarters (yes he really did). A batter might have an 0 for 22 slump. However, it is not fair to the team, or to the non-performing employee themselves, to allow it to go on forever.
“He’ll come around in time” is not an appropriate answer when you know it has dragged on too long already. As a manager, you get paid to make the tough decisions. Being “mister nice guy” has to give way, at some point, to doing what is right.
A customer service representative who only handles 80 percent of the average number of calls, but has been in the job for six years, is never going to reach the norm. A relief pitcher with ten years of experience who has an 0-4 record and an earned run average (ERA) of 24.31 isn’t going to be a closer.

5. Don’t put employees who are struggling into critical situations.You wouldn’t ask a sales manager who has failed to close his last six opportunities to handle the biggest potential sale in company history. Nor would you use a relief pitcher who has blown his last 5 save opportunities, and has given up more home runs than the rest of your pitchers combined, as your closer. Use them in non-critical situations for awhile. If they handle those, they can work back into the closer’s spot.

"Management is nothing more than motivating other people. " Lee Iacocca

"I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism." Charles Schwab

"The way you see them is the way you treat them and the way you treat them is the way they often become." Zig Ziglar

Have a great week! And eat a lot of turkey on Thursday!

Being Creative

Check out Richard's creative way to grow his business and to market himself!

Great idea Richard! You rock!

What's Working In The Field

While I was back in Columbus for my friend's wedding, I had a chance to talk with a friend of mine who is an AFLAC agent. He was talking about how they "package" plans together. He said that it is an effective way to give their clients broad coverage for a great price. Well, I told this to Josh and we've been selling "the package" with great success. People are seeing the value in a broad coverage of lower level AFLAC plans. Sit down with me in the office and I'll tell you the success I've experienced in the field.

Regina wasn't kidding when she said that we would be very very busy in the 4th quarter. I hope all of you are busy writing business and servicing all the great accounts. I've been swamped with work for the last month. It's a great feeling to be productive so I'm not complaining about being busy. It's 100% than the exact opposite!

Any news from the Red Hot Chili Peppers team? I know that several of you are on the brink of writing business for the very first time!

I hope all of you enjoyed the paper app session we had on Monday morning. Thanks to Jason and myself, you can learn from our mistakes! We are working on unpending business this week!
I sent 13 paper apps on Monday. I showed some TLC to these apps by making sure that everything was correctly filled out and that I didn't mess up on the transmittal either! I'm on the edge of my seat as I wait for those to post on my report card!

On the ebay tip...

An AFLAC agent has relocated and from the looks of it, has gotten out of the business. This person is selling all of their incentive items. You can have it all for a bid of $90 + tax. Here is what is in the bunch of goodies:

15 balloons, retired logo
1 pen holder, desk, retired logo
8 rubber coasters with duck, retired logo
92 duck magnets, retired logo
23 magnets, new logo
5 chapsticks, retired logo
2 staple removers, retired logo
2 glass lens cleaners, new logo
2 yellow keychain flashlights, new logo
5 mirrored sewing kits, new logo
40 balck mini note pads, retired logo
1 bundle nail files, mixed neon colors, retired logo
8 duck shaped pens, retired logo
1 orange travel alarm clock, new logo
27 magnetic bandage holders, retired logo
11 blue stadium cups, retired logo
14 white stadium cups, new logo
22 pencils, retired logo
15 pens, retired logo
1 ice scraper, new logo
2 keychain nail clippers, retired logo
2 blue keychain flashlights, retired logo
1 auto pouch, new logo
4 blue mini note pads, new logo
10 retractable keyboard brushes, retired logo

The Santa ducks are showing up on ebay too. I've seen them go for $30! Crazy!

You rock team! Let's finish up the year strong!

Last week's pictures

They've put words on our office building!

Here's comes Santa Duck! I've been out of the office for most of the week but I was fortunate to be around on Friday afternoon to catch the UPS delivery! 24 Santa ducks came for me! I have 19 left. I'm on a mission...last week I was enrolling Tuesday-Friday. I think I know the San Jose area very well with all of the driving I did.

Week 45 premium leaders...

Top 25 Associates

Irene with 1942.08!

Aubrey with 1373.52!

Jason with 1047.60!

Guillermo with 837.00!

In the world of ebay...

I saw this audio package from Tom Hopkins on building AFLAC sales champions! The current bid is $9.99 + shipping.

This week's congrats and other news

Congrats to Ted for 106% MPI.
Congrats to Josh for 120% MPI.
Congrats to Irene for $4,486.80 in week 44!
Congrats to Richard for $2,242.56 in week 44!
Congrats to Aubrey for $2001.84 in week 44!
Congrats to Gil for $2000.04 in week 44!

In other office news...

The office is waiting in anticipation of the newest members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers to write some production for week 45. Has it happened yet?

My order of Santa ducks will be arriving on Friday.

Josh and I made a bid for this Japanese AFLAC duck last week on ebay.

We made the bid of $11 with about 4 hours left in the auction. I thought it was a strong bid considering the duck didn't get much action. Well, the next day, Josh and I found out that we were outbid by $9. Someone won the duck with a $20 bid. Yesterday, Josh told me that one of his clients was bidding on the same duck at the same time we did and she was the one that won the duck for $20. Weird huh? Out of the millions of people on ebay, we found the one that won the duck!

Unusual AFLAC on ebay...

This week there is a 50th Anniversary paper weight going for $8. I would put a picture of the paper weight here but it's such a boring and plain object, I saved all of you the trouble.

I think this lady needs AFLAC. What do you think?

Sports analogies DO seem to work well with sales. It's very competitive. Mostly competing against yourself. Trying to maximize your potential and push through obstacles. My favorite part is the moment you realize the rewards. The hardest part is continuing to have faith. Now, I just say, "It's Easy!" Then, maybe, just maybe, it will be our team raising a trophy high in the air and yelling with all of our might, while ticker tapes fall from the sky, and the crowd of supporters erupts with cheer. (Like when Italy won the world cup this year. It was the BEST!)

On the flight home...

My flight home from GA was a good one. One of my favorite movies was showing...Rudy. I don't know about you, but I really like this movie because it deals with overcoming adversity in life. Some of the quotes in this movie really fire me up...

"You're 5 foot nothin', 100 and nothin', and you got hardly a speck of athletic ability and you've hung in with the best college football team in the land for 2 years and you're also gonna walk out of here with a degree from the University of Notre Dame. In this lifetime, you don't have to prove nothin to nobody except yourself and if you haven't done that by now, it ain't gonna never happen!"

"We're gonna go inside, we're gonna go outside, inside and outside. We're gonna get 'em on the run boys and once we get 'em on the run we're gonna keep 'em on the run. And then we're gonna go go go go go go and we're not gonna stop til we get across that goalline. This is a team they say is... is good, well I think we're better than them. They can't lick us, so what do you say men?"


" Rudy, are you ready for this, champ?"

"I've been ready for this my whole life!"

"Then you take us out on the field."

Rudy had his shortcomings. Rudy had his share of failures. Rudy also had people that didn't believe in his dream. But in the end, he overcame, he overtook, and he overachieved. He played in the last game of the season and went out a winner.

Sales is just like playing sports (like football) to me. Sure we all have our shortcomings. Sure we all have our failures. Sure we have the non-believers. But who's to say that any of these things can stop us from overcoming, overtaking, and overachieving? No one. Not even our own worse critics...ourselves. You have to know that. You have to believe that. You have to live that. Are you?


You've heard the saying, "When the going gets tough, the tough gets going." So what are you going to do when the going gets tough in your AFLAC career? Here are some quotes from a legendary NFL coach, Vince Lombardi.

"The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events that occur."

"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will."

"A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done."

"If you'll not settle for anything less than your best, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish in your lives.

My challenge for the office:

1. Develop the drive to do the things that other agents won't do to be successful. It means going the extra mile. It means gritting your teeth and doing the stuff that might not be your favorite thing to do. It means paying the price now. That means doing the prepare the paperwork so your enrollments go smoothly. That means being creative in ways to get referrals and expanding your scope of influence. That means thinking outside of the box when it comes to expanding your business. That means nailing the script so that you don't "um" and "ah" throughout your presentation. That means taking care of your policyholders by giving them service above and beyond what they expect from you.

Need I say more?

Score the touchdown...in our world that means, open the group and write the business!

Do it!



http://www.vincelombardi.com/index.php Here's the link if you want to know more about Vince Lombardi and his leadership. He has a bunch of quotes and audio clips that are very inspiring.

My trip back to Columbus Part II

This past weekend I had a chance to go back to Columbus, GA for a friend's wedding. (By the way, my friend is an AFLAC agent! So is his wife!) I flew out on Thursday night and arrived on Friday morning. I had to meet up with some friends in the morning but in the afternoon I got a chance to go to visit some friends who have helped Team Abstract with pended business.

I had to check in with the security in the lobby. While I was there I took a picture of a painting of Paul Amos.

Here are the two awesome people at AFLAC HQ that have helped Team Abstract so much! I brought them some sourdough french bread and See's candy as thank you gifts. I figured those would be good gifts that represent the San Francisco area. I can guarantee you that you won't find either of those gifts anywhere in GA.

My two new friends gave me a quick tour of the facility. It was really spacious. They said that many people exercise by walking down the hallways. I am not exactly sure, but I want to say that from end to end, it was about 1/2 mile. This is a picture of the large room with cubicles galore. This is where many of the people we call for pended business and new business work!

If you want to know what the other direction looks like in the room, well, here it is! As I said there were many, many, many cubicles in this room.

Oh yea, I forgot to mention that I was waiting in the lobby and a girl recognized me! It was a trip. I knew her from church. I haven't seen her in at least 3-4 years. When I knew her, she was in college. Now she is a in-house trainer. I gave her my card and I told her to keep in touch. I also found out that there is another guy I know pretty good that works in claims! His name is Brent too! It's pretty cool to know so many people who work for AFLAC. I never thought that these friends would be helpful contacts in my career! My friend who got married is a great contact. One of his groomsmen is also an agent. His mom is a DSC. His uncle used to be a RSC.

This is a picture of the wedding at Sweet Home Plantation. It's near Callaway Gardens. It was beautiful. They couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day to have a wedding. Now the weather got cold when the sun went down, but that didn't ruin their special day. That weekend they were having their annual Steeplechase race there.

If you ever get a chance to go to Columbus, you must do the following:

Go take a walk on the Columbus Riverwalk! It's quite nice there. The river that borders Columbus in the Chattahoochee River. There's a song by Alan Jackson called "Chattahoochee" and the beginning of the song goes like, "Way down yonder on the Chattahoochee, it gets hotter than a hoochee coochee..."

You have to get some barbecue. There are some great places in the Columbus area. My favorites include Country's, Mike & Ed's, Smokey Pig, and 13th Street Barbecue (even though it's on Veterans Parkway now!)

The picture above is a plate I got at Country's. From left to right: cornbread, pulled pork, cabbages, pickled onions and pickles... in the bowl is Brunswich Stew. You wash it all down with some sweet tea. The barbecue sauce is mustard-based so it's like nothing you have tasted here in Cali. Maybe one day I'll make the office some Southern food. I can't make the barbecue, but I can make some great sweet tea, naner puddin', boiled peanuts, and fried turkey.

There are no sissy cars in the South. You better trade in your Prius or Civcs for trucks. That way you can go off road and do some muddin'. This is my friend's truck earlier this year.

You should also take advantage of the beautiful outdoors. I love to bass fish. Here's my whopper of a fish earlier this year! Believe it or not, this lake was in someone's backyard! His backyard was about 5-6 acres!

Finally, you probably should go to one of the sporting events. NASCAR is very big in the South. SEC and ACC football is like a religion for some. When you live in Columbus, GA, you are most likely going to cheer for Auburn (War Eagle!), Alabama (Roll Tide), or Georgia (Go Dawgs!). However, for baseball, the Atlanta Braves are the only team to cheer for. I had a big problem with that because I am a big Giants fan. This is a picture I took of a Braves vs. Giants game last summer. Giants won that night! Turner Field is a really nice park though.

Now you know what to expect when you go to the South for Triple Crown!

Red Hot Chili Peppers

The entire Red Hot Chili Peppers team was in the office today! Here's Matt and their fearless DSC leader Marie!

One more picture!

What's Eric doing?

More Halloween Party Pictures!

These are some pictures that Jason and his girlfriend took at our party!