Blog

Questions about beds and mattresses answered & stories told.

When I first turned on an open sign in 1993 our plaza was 50% vacant. The economy was struggling to make a comeback, there were just open fields between Winston Churchill Blvd and the lone building to the west (Aikenhead's which is now Home Depot). When I first drove west on Burnhamthorpe road past city hall there were still wooden barns and fields with livestock.

To attract customers you had to advertise in the local paper The Mississauga News and we did so all three days of the week that they published. Great friendships were made with the people who served us from their advertising department. We invited them to special occasion diners, as they did us. We ran an ad in The News congratulating the publisher on his 50th birthday and we ran an ad thanking Don Cherry for bringing hockey to our town when he led a group that started the Mississauga Ice Dogs.

We also ran ads in all the surrounding Yellow Pages that were actually the best investment we ever made to get noticed when customers were actively considering purchasing a new bed or mattress. Friendships were made there as well, Leaf playoff games, Eagles Hell Freezes Over concert tour. Google changed all that, slowly at first but completely within five years. People started throwing their Yellow Pages directly into their blue-box the day it was placed on their doorstep.

Google is a monolithic structure, my sales rep changes every four months, there are no long term relationships formed at all. I sorely miss those good old days.