My name is Al Kennickell; I’m the President of the Kennickell Group out of Savannah, Georgia. 

The question was asked of me, “In this changing environment, what do are you doing to try to stay on top of changes in the industry, and what do we have to do to evolve and survive?”  I will tell you this that I have been a big believer in, and working with consultants and with the tools that some of the big service – some of the big industry providers have that they’ll let you use.  For instance, Kodak has been very, very helpful to me in the past using what they’re market movers and things like that, but I’m also used consultants like, Steven Amiel at Marketing Mentors, and I’m really looking for anybody that I think can help us.  And I have never shied away from  consultant, you know, obviously you bring them in, if they do a great job for you, you just keep them going and sometimes, really, a consultant just needs to be there for maybe six months or less.  But there’s a lot to learn and I think it’s almost impossible for a business owner to try to learn everything he needs to learn just by looking at magazine articles.  I will say that I read WhatTheyThink every single morning, the email that comes to me.  And great information in there.  I highly recommend that and I really mean that sincerely. 

So, there’s a lot of tools out there, there’s a lot of people out there that can help you.  And I think you have to be out there looking for them and don’t be afraid to try out different folks because I have learned a great deal from a lot of these people and I’m very fortunate that I’ve run into them.