This is it. Thank you Sun Country for five weekends of travel for not a lot of money. I’ve seen new places, met new people, saw current friends in Vegas, old friends in Tacoma, gave plenty of local ratings and reviews and flat out enjoyed new experiences.
The first four weekends were in places I’ve never been to. Weekend 5 of 5 was Tacoma. Not only have I been there, I worked there for four years and still have dear friends who live there. It was hard to say goodbye after being there only two days.
I did give a couple reviews including a restaurant called Harbor Lights. I’ve never been there and it’s right on Puget Sound and Ruston Way.
With that said, sometimes local search and online reputation management can succeed just by caring and being passionate at what you do. Enter Ted Brown Music. They were my employer from 1995-1999 before I decided to move back to Minnesota.
Over the years, their Google Place Page has received a few honest, positive reviews. Even KING 5 is involved as they showcase a 2010 Best Of image in the page.
At some point, they decided to create a Facebook Fan Page. They keep it updated fairly regularly and do have a nice number of fans. Why? Truly caring can only help.
While getting a tour of their flagship store (nine years old, new to me) from my old boss Whitney on Friday, there were a number of people I got to see working there for the first time since 1999. Why? They care and love their jobs.
After that tour, Whitney invited me to visit Gail at their newest Puyallup store. Gail happens to be a perfect person to manage a store. Why? She seriously cares that much.
Here’s Whitney, Gail and myself at lunch. Two people don’t age a bit. The other one loses the rest of his hair 
We talked zero about local search and don’t know how much attention they put to it. All I know is their passion for music and music education is still second to none, and it shows.
Aside from this visit, I enjoyed seeing longtime friends, Oktoberfest at the Puyallup Fairgrounds, and sitting in my official happy spot. Yep, I do have a Flickr photo set for the trip.
I do have some overall thoughts regarding the whole Sun Country promotion I wrote about in August. First, thanks again to Sun Country for allowing me to have a great experience for not a lot of money. I’m now definitely a long-term customer. They fly out of Terminal 2 so the lines are much smaller. They’re also worth a follow on Twitter.
For those of you who fly a lot for a living, kudos go out to you. It wore me out. I can’t specify how, but it’s probably a combination of going to different time zones, sitting in ten germ tubes in five weekends and general stress of air travel.
San Diego, Vegas, Boston and Seattle airports have free Wifi. This encourages me to arrive even earlier at an airport, therefore giving me more time to purchase four-dollar waters.
Other things I noticed:
- I’m not a big fan of the car rental industry. Their sales models aren’t far from the print yellow pages level.
- Minnesota-based Schmitt Music is part of the Omega Group. I’m guessing they benefit because of it.
- I miss Tacoma already.
- Vegas will eat you up and spit you out.
- Marketing with Foursquare means just using common sense.
I look forward to more Sun Country promotions. I couldn’t be happier with the one that ended just a few hours ago.
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