More people seem to be asking themselves "Why do I work?" these days. The short answers for me; I enjoy eating out sometimes, an occasional trip is fun, I subscribe to a thousand streaming channels now (how did that happen?)... The meaningful answers; People value my work, and I really enjoy what I do. Here's a few value solutions to h...

Hey all! Change is constant; we are moving monthly Umpire posts to https://www.facebook.com/umpiremitigation. I will still post here on HEY World from time to time, but it will be random. Thanks for following! Stephen

Our home internet router can't be moved. It's located in a room wired to a small satellite dish outside. One day the electric outlets in that room stop working. Our internet is down! I have online projects that must be done. So, acting quickly, I throw my laptop in the truck and drive to the end of the driveway where my cell phone sign...

Keeping Customers Everyone has a different medium to communicate. Some like Dave, write like master storytellers that get you engaged. Others are verbal and shine under the camera's lights, Dane comes to mind, conveying emotions. I communicate best with action, getting it done. In today's busy world, you need to consistently do all thr...

More than 2,600 years ago, a Greek guy called Aesop started telling stories with amazing life lessons at the end. Most of them were about animals. He told tales of ants and grasshoppers, lions and mice, and you’ve already heard the one with the tortoise and the hare, right? But the story we love most at Umpire, is the one about the Wil...

This email was almost going to be about the story of Umpire... how it all started back in 1962, the day we cleaned some fire damaged comic books, and what the blue P in our logo really means. But instead of telling you what we’re all about. I’ll let our Google reviewers do it instead… • Patrick said: “I had a late-night plumbing emerge...

I bought pet insurance. I should tell you an exciting story of adventure and death-defying acts that border on the impossible, but that's not my way, I like to give it straight and stick to the facts. Alpha, our 8-year-old German Shepherd, instantly started acting funny one evening. Stumbling around barely standing, white marshmallow f...

There’s an army waiting to ravage your home right now. Ready to do real damage. To inflict real pain. Without mercy. And you won’t even know it’s happening until it’s too late. I’m talking about mold. This stuff’s nasty. It holds no prisoners. All it needs is some food and a little bit of moisture, and it’s on the warpath. One of its f...

Everyone has different views. I enjoy reading The Flip Side every morning, it's free and gives you differing views on current issues in a fun format. Today's read was about UFOs, Unidentified Flying Objects, you can read it @ this link. Who would have thought UFOs would be an issue? In the water damage industry, we don't have differing...

"Added sugars include sugars that are added during the processing of foods (such as sucrose or dextrose), foods packaged as sweeteners (such as table sugar), sugars from syrups and honey, and sugars from concentrated fruit or vegetable juices. They do not include naturally occurring sugars that are found in milk, fruits, and vegetables...

There’s no denying it: your kitchen is a death trap. With sharp metallic objects that slice and dice, and blenders that whizz around really fast, it’s a wonder you’ve got any fingers left. Then, if you’re not careful with your sink, that thing’ll overflow in the blink of an eye, making the floor nice and slippy for your next big tumble...

I admire how HEY protects their email customers for free. They can afford to do this because they charge for their main service, email. Umpire makes a living by providing water, fire, and mold removal to homes and businesses. Doing that lets us offer free advice over the phone (or by email) when you just have questions and don't need s...

Demand loyalty? I used to work for a franchise where it was mandatory to attend their conventions. The franchisor made it mandatory because franchisees stopped attending. They stopped attending because the conventions were mediocre, did not provide value to the franchisee. A franchisor is unique in that it can force its customers, the ...

If I threw four baseballs at you right now, how many do you think you could dodge? Two? Maybe three? You’ve got no chance of dodging all four though. Now imagine those balls were big fat splodges of rain, powering down towards you from the sky at 100mph. You’re going to get wet, right? This kind of howling rain doesn’t fall very often,...

I try to promote Umpire on as many channels as we can. Multiple emails, newsletters, videos, social media, and more. But it's a crowded digital world and getting noisier by the minute. It feels like everyone is bombarding people. I am not going to add to that any more than is relevant, we need to promote ourselves to grow, but we don't...