Andy Boyer

Blog

  • Ask a Marketer: Email Marketing

    Doing what I do, I have the privilege to engage with a number of marketing professionals who are among the best of the bunch. Upon reflection, I realized that some of the things we talk about may also be of interest to people who stumble upon this blog. Thus, I am starting a new series called, “What Marketers Need to Know.” And yes, I know we need a catchier title.  

    Each article in this series will feature a semi-deep dive into a topic area marketers need to understand. The answers will come from an industry expert who speaks from real-world client experience. To start the series off, I asked my friend Elizabeth Case of Yellow Dog Consulting to give us some real-time thoughts on Email Marketing.    

    Topic 1: Email Marketing – Elizabeth Case, Yellow Dog Consulting

    Q1) As you look back at 2017, with what kind of strategies or tactics did your clients find the most success?

    Elizabeth: Simple word – Newsletter.

    I will forever be a broken record on this and I am OK with it! Consistency is key in email marketing. If I only ever hear from you when you have a product or workshop to sell me, that’s not going to work. I had one client who at the end of 3 months wanted to wrap up because they weren’t getting registrations for their workshop. I wasn’t aware that was the goal of their newsletter and if you read the newsletter, you wouldn’t have either!  I’m not saying don’t offer a product or service, you can do that on occasion, but you must earn the right to be heard first.

    Also, make sure you have good systems in place. One successful client includes a simple “sign up for a free 30 minute consult” link in the end of her monthly newsletter. It goes to a page to schedule on their calendar. Not 15 steps back and forth for a prospective client – one click, two clicks, boom – new lead ready to talk to them. Every month they get a new (or returning) client from their newsletter.  

    Another good system is automation…“Click here to download…” and then have that system automated. Don’t worry about it. I have 3 offers in the footer of my newsletter (yeah that may be too many, I’ll work on it) and they are automated so I don’t have to worry about it.

    Q2) Now as you look ahead to 2018, what strategies and tactics will you change? What will you do more or less of?

    Elizabeth: So far in 2018 I’m seeing a lot of folks automate their processes which is GREAT! You created an awesome program or free download on your website – let’s get that system working for YOU. Nurture and educate these leads so you can keep doing what you love each day.

    One conversation I often have with clients is about frequency. Do I really need to hear from you once a week? I don’t have time for that. And I certainly don’t have time for it at 10 AM on a Tuesday when I’m in the middle of my work day. Depending on what you do, I may have time for it in the evening or weekends or over my lunch break. But if you’re sending me something daily or weekly it better be damn good or I will find that unsubscribe button really fast…

    There are newsletters that I look forward to receiving each month and ones that I delete each week because it’s too frequent. You know your audience and if the open rates are there then fantastic, but if you’re hovering under 20% it’s time to reconsider if your schedule and frequency are really working for you.

    Q3) How important is a lead nurturing campaign? At what point do you move your clients from a standard newsletter to a customized drip campaign?

    Elizabeth: Lead nurturing campaigns are awesome depending on the size of your company. It may not make sense for a solo-prenuer or a small business with just a couple sales folks to have a big drip campaign setup. But if you have systems in place, as you grow you can start to automate that nurturing.

    You have to use your campaign software, it will tell you when to start dripping. If you aren’t reading reports after each campaign is sent, you’re missing out on the MOST valuable information about your content. What links do they continue to click? How many of the last 10 campaigns have they opened? What are their demographics? If someone is constantly opening and engaging with your content, it’s time to start nurturing that contact. You don’t want to leave low hanging fruit out their to dwindle away and hire the competition. Start to pay attention to frequency and build a plan around it.

    And when that nurture is done – make sure they continue to hear from you on a regular basis so you stay top of mind for them to either hire you again or refer you to a colleague.

    Q4) If a company is just getting an email marketing program off the ground, what tools or technologies would you suggest they invest in?

    Elizabeth: I’m always a big fan of MailChimp, especially when you’re just starting out. They offer free automation and are perfect for a small and growing company (and your contact lists). If you’re a larger company you can’t go wrong with HubSpot. It will help you integrate and automate so your teams aren’t stepping on each others toes which is always a safe move!

    Email marketing continues to be one of the best and most intimate communications you can have with a potential client. If you aren’t taking advantage of all those contacts in your CRM you’re missing out on a LOT of fantastic and low hanging fruit just waiting to be reminded, or introduced, to how awesome you are.

    ===================

    If you’re struggling with your email marketing, you should chat with Elizabeth. And if you have some topics you’d like to see next, let me know. I’ll be asking my marketing friends to share their insights.

  • 4 TED Talks on Bitcoin

    Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies have joined the ranks of “Controversial topics with no clear answer.” Today, the average person has no need to use any sort of Blockchain transaction. But at the same time, in 1986 the average person didn’t need a cell phone.

    So as all of the machines around us become connected to the Internet, maybe we need an independent way to transfer funds instantaneously without a central regulatory body in the middle. Or maybe not.

    I don’t know the answers, but some people think they do. And four of these people have given TED talks. CNBC aggregated these talks together into one convenient page.

    (WARNING – Annoying auto-play ads are enabled on this page, so check your volume.)

  • What I Learned – Scott Servais on the 2018 Baseball Season

    My baseball season officially kicked off Tuesday night. I was able to join about 50 other fans as Art Thiel of SportsPressNW interviewed Mariners skipper Scott Servais.

    So what did I learn/infer from listening to Scott’s answers to 45 minutes of questions from Art, and 45 more from the audience?

    1. Kyle Seager is on the trade block – One of two things will be true on July 31. Seager will have gotten off to a hot start, leading the Mariners to a respectable record and as the trading deadline approaches, The Mariners will be in a position to make a run. Or…… Seager will have gotten off to his customary slow start, and as the only real trade chip the team has, he’ll be dealt for prospects.
    2. This is the last year of the Cruz, Cano, Felix window – It was made clear that witht he amount of money tied up in the Big 3, there was no way to rip the team down to the studs, a la Houston and Chicago. But this is the last year of Cruz’ deal, and if Felix wants to be regarded in the same breath as Glavine, Maddux, Pedro, etc… he needs to pitch another 6-8 years. If 2018 goes poorly, I suspect you’d see Cruz dealt at the deadline and Felix redo his contract to be part of an overhaul so he can get another 150 career starts.
    3. You’re going to see a lot of Zunino, Segura, Haniger, and Paxton in the Mariners marketing materials –If you’re gong to trade any of the Big 4, you need some new guys to make bobbleheads for. The Mariners seem ready to phase out some of the old guard and put their promotional arms behind some new guys. I suppose this is meant to lessen the blow when our favorite guys disappear.
    4. “Performance” is going to mean something different – With the hiring of Dr. Lorena Martin as Director of High Performance, the Manager is going to have a few lineup decisions “strongly suggested” to him. Players will be evaluated constantly on aspects such as fatigue, conditioning, strength, mentality, etc… So while a 5 for 5 day may have previously earned you a week in the starting lineup, if you tired yourself out running all those bases, it may be highly suggested that you be given the day off.
    5. The Mariners decided not to look for new pitching, and are going to try to simply outscore teams – To their credit, they realized there weren’t going to be a lot of great pitching options to pick up this off-season. So as I wrote about last year, they built their 2018 starting rotation under the guise of competing for a 2017 playoff spot. They have accumulated average to above average throwers who they expect can give them 150+ innings. If those guys can get them through the 5th and only give up 3 runs, they will hand the ball off to the bullpen in hopes it gives up just 1-2 more runs. Meanwhile, they’ll try to bang out 5-6 runs a game on offense. Do that enough times and you make it to the playoffs. Now the downside is that if you try to do that in the playoffs, you’ll lose each game 8-3. But the team isn’t shooting for a World Series. It just needs to make the playoffs.

    So those were my takeaways. I’m sure other people heard different things. But pay attention to the interviews Servais is doing all week on sports radio. Were his comments Tuesday off the cuff, or do they fall into some pattern of talking points?

     

  • The Quadrant of Happiness To-Do List Matrix

    It’s a new year. New resolutions. New plans. New ways to get everything done.

    I’ve tried every to-do list, prioritization plan, productivity model, and 4-hour workweek on the planet. And whiel some work better than others, I’m still searching for the perfect method. To do lists are a personalized phenomenon – what works best for a Sagittarius will never work for a Taurus.

    So I’m sharing my new model – a self-designed, structured but flexible layout for optimizing your time and energy. I call it the Quadrants of Happiness. If you share any of my tendencies, feel free to use it.

    Overall theory: To-do lists are designed to make you do the things you don’t really want to do and make you feel bad about the things you do want to do. So, naturally they can’t work. So i said to myself, why not build a model where you are rewarded, not penalized for doing things you like to do, in the same way you are rewarded for doing the things you need to do?

    Summary: In my Quadrants of Happiness model, we’re going to break our giant list into 4 overlapping quadrants.

    • In the Northwest quadrant, we have the things that make us money. This is our FINANCE Quadrant. This includes but is not limited to work related tasks, getting your taxes handled, reading about bitcoin, selling y9ur bitcoin, client pitches, updating your LinkedIn profile, etc…
    • In the Northeast, we have the things that provide us personal improvement and connections with other people. This is the GROWTH quadrant. This could be contacting old friends, reading a book, taking a class, going to a networking event, drawing a picture, writing a blog post. Anything that improves your mind, body or spirit.
    • Back over in the Southwest, we have the things that we need to do but seem like meaningless tasks. This is our RESPONSIBILITY quadrant. These things are as menial as folding your clothes, to taking the time to research and hire someone to look at your heating system. They aren’t fun, but NOT doing them causes more stress than just getting them out of the way.
    • Down in the Southeast, we have the area that is the most fun. This is the RELAXATION Quadrant. Now, in a normal list, it’s hard to justify watching 30 minutes of your favorite Netflix show when there are still 32 unchecked boxes. But a healthy and relaxed mind can help you get everything else done faster, and with a better attitude.

    Daily Activity: Most normal people have about 16-18 hours of waking hours to accomplish everything in these quadrants. An ideal balance would be to break these quadrants into equal sections of time. Unfortunately, for most people, the FINANCE quadrant is the most time consuming.

    Thus, once your tasks are listed in the quadrants, my model is to break all your tasks into 3 categories, “MUST IMMEDIATELY DO,” “MUST DO,” “WANT TO DO.” No matter how many tasks you have, you can only assign the 2 most important tasks in each quadrant to the “MUST IMMEDIATELY DO” section of each.

    After that, you split the remaining tasks in half. One half to the “MUST DO” and one half to the “WANT TO DO” in each quadrant.

    Now start your day and accomplish the MUST IMMEDIATELY DO’s for each quadrant. If something in your top two falls out of a normal time line, then scheduling it and committing to it counts. For example, if going to the gym is part of your MUST IMMEDIATELY DO’s but you can’t go until 7:00pm, you can schedule it. But if you don’t go, then you better start bringing your gym clothes to work and find someplace to go at lunch.

    Once the MUST IMMEDIATELY DO’s are done, surf your way at your own whim and fancy through the MUST DO’s. You won’t get them all done, but it will make for easier list creation the next day, and you can promote the WANT TO DO’s if need be.

    The Result: If this works for you as it works for me, you’ll do all the things you really need, and you won’t feel anxious about writing thank you notes to your relatives instead of looking at Google Analytics and evaluating the nuances of a $100/day AdWords campaign.

    I’ll add some visuals to this, but on the top of my quadrant today in “RELAXATION” I said I needed to do some creative writing. I forgot to add that I needed to generate images as well. Maybe tomorrow…

  • The Conspiracy Theorist’s Guide to the NFL Playoffs

    (This is a work of fiction. I do not believe there is an NFL conspiracy. At least, I’m pretty sure there’s not.)

    It’s Playoff time! And our favorite team, the Seattle Seahawks, are seeded um,  wait a second?! No Seahawks in the Playoffs? So in order to keep these playoffs interesting, I’m going to make some predictions based on the ludicrous idea that the NFL is scripted by screenwriters in New York.

    Overarching themes for the playoffs:

    • The NFL need some new and exciting matchups. And one of those is going to be a new Belicheck vs Brady rivalry, with Belichick leaving for New York after a disastrous 2017 post-season. So this year, no Patriots in the Super Bowl.
    • There a couple of new cool young QB’s. They’ll lose in the first round.
    • There’s one team left that needs a new stadium and new ownership.
    • The NFC is going to win.

    Week 1:

    • Tennessee vs Kansas City: The NFL wants the young but not elite QB’s to do well enough to stay interesting. Mariotta fits that bill. He leads the Titans to victory over the coach that the NFL hates for some reason.
    • Falcons vs Rams: Goff vs the NFC West is the storyline in the division for 2018 and beyond. But Matt Ryan’s revenge is more compelling this year. Falcons win, but the Rams are going to be poised and positioned to be the NFC favorite next year.
    • Buffalo vs Jacksonville: Buffalo tried to lose this season, and yet the NFL needed them to be a playoff contender so the rich guys in Toronto would want to adopt them. A playoff birth is really all this terrible team needed to get. Now the franchise is worth an extra $250mm dollars. Jacksonville wins.
    • Carolina vs New Orleans: The NFL is still annoyed at Cam Newton. Saints make him look silly and he has a meltdown in his press conference.

    Week 2:

    • Tennessee vs New England: Here’s the dumb upset of the playoffs. It’s inexplicable but the necessary plot twist to cause the Belichick/Brady breakup. Tennessee wins.
    • Jacksonville vs Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh has some of the most exciting players in NFL. Plus, I’m pretty sure the Rooney and Mara families have a deal with the NFL where one of them makes the Super Bowl every 3 years. Jacksonville is 2018’s team, this year Pittsburgh wins.
    • Atlanta vs Philadelphia: There is something about seeing Philly fans of any sport be miserable. But they’ll be more miserable if they lose next week. Philly wins.
    • New Orleans vs Minnesota: Best game of the playoffs. It goes down to the wire and New Orleans wins, because the NFL needs enough time to get Minnesota’s stadium ready for the Super Bowl.

    Week 3:

    • Tennessee vs Pittsburgh: We can try to pretend this will be competitive, but Pittsburgh blows them out.
    • New Orleans vs Philadelphia: As we said before, it’s nice to see Philly fans miserable. And everyone in Pennsylvania would be hoping for an intra-state Super Bowl. So karma leans to the Saints.

    Super Bowl

    • Pittsburgh vs New Orleans: Brees vs Roethlisberger. Ingram and Kamara vs Bell. Good WR’s on each squad. An exciting Super Bowl ends with the Saints getting screwed on a bad replay call, and the Steelers get the Super Bowl win.

  • Sounders Release 2018 Schedule

    The Sounders 2018 schedule came out this morning. And it definitely has some interesting angles to it.

    1. The 1st round of the Concacaf Champions League matches are the week before the MLS season starts. So you can travel down to Santa Tecla, El Salvador on Feb 22 for Leg 1, or just wait until Thursday, March 1 for Leg 2 at home.
    2. MLS Opening Day is Sunday, March 4 vs the newest entry into the league, Los Angeles FC.
    3. After that, you have to wait 27 days for the next home match, a 3/31 7:00pm tilt vs Montreal.
    4. If you’re ready for more soccer, grab your patience pants. It’s 22 more days before you get to see Minnesota United come for a day game on Sunday 4/22. So if you are counting at home, that’s just 3 home games in the first (and rainiest) 9 weeks of the season. That seems like a good deal for us fans.
    5. Things don’t get too much busier in May. Dates on the 5th vs Columbus and the 26th vs RSL is all we get. So we enter June with just 5 home matches under our belt.
    6. That means things start to get busy in June. 6/9 vs DC United, 6/23 vs Chicago and then the big one. 6/30 vs Portland.
    7. After a 3 week break, we really get into the meat of the home schedule in late July and August. Hope you didn’t have vacation plans.  7/21 vs Vancouver, 7/29 vs NYCFC, 8/12 vs Dallas, 8/18 vs Sigi and the Galaxy, 9/1 vs Sporting KC.  That’s 5 home games in 7 weeks.
    8. As the kids head back to school, we close the season on a pretty regular cadence of home and away matches. 9/19 vs Philly, 9/29 vs Colorado, 10/6 vs Houston and the finale 10/28 vs San Jose.

    That’s 17 MLS home matches and one Concacaf match, with 14 of them coming in May – October. There will be more Concacaf matches, likely against a Mexican League squad, if they progress past El Salvador.  So I suspect no friendlies will be officially scheduled until we see what happens in the Champions League.

    If you’re looking for good excuses to get out of Seattle, a couple of away matches stand out: Sunday 4/29 in LA is a good time to escape the rain. July 4 in Colorado could be a lot of fun.  And July 15 in Atlanta would be a fun excuse to see their new stadium, especially since it’s indoors.

    Happy 2018. Go Sounders.

  • 10 Things To Do On New Year’s Day

    The New Year is upon us. For many people, New Year’s Eve means staying up past our normal bedtimes, drinking champagne past a reasonable hour, and awaking the next morning thinking that the year can only improve from there.

    But the good news is that you have the day off from work. You could turn on Netflix, find a show, and spend the next 10-15 hours between your couch and kitchen. But you could also be a little productive with your spare time and dead brain. Here are some suggestions.

    1. Take a walk around the block: Yeah it’s going to be cold. Probably rainy. One walk around the block will get your blood moving and lungs working. Plus it will get your brain going again – not much, but just enough to accomplish the rest of the stuff on the list.
    2. Remember your successes from 2017: It’s easy to get hung up on what you want to do better in 2018. Be in better shape, lose weight, make more money, etc… But you did some things really well in 2017. You did some things other people admire. Remember those wins.
    3. Backup all your photos: Oh some of you are really good at doing this on the fly. But the rest of you have hundreds of photos on your phone that you haven’t put in a safe place for awhile. Sure, I know they all get uploaded to the cloud, but why not save yourself the heartache of wondering if Apple is hack-proof? Just get all your photos on a backup hard drive. It takes very little effort.
    4. Clean up your phone: While you’re backing up your photos, why not take a spin through the 346 apps on your phone and clean some out. That new cool app you read about on FastCompany or Geekwire probably isn’t even in business anymore. Take an hour and wipe out the clutter.
    5. Read your LinkedIn profile: Remember that profile you updated the last time you needed a job, or got a new one? Yeah, the world has changed since then. Probably a good time to go in and make sure your professional internet presence reflects who you really are.
    6. Call some old friends: Hey guess what your friends are doing on Jan 1. Lying on the couch! Give them a call.
    7. Put all your gift cards in a stack by the front door: Maybe you aren’t like me, but I often receive gift cards that I never remember getting, then have them scattered around the house, so I forget to use them. I like to find them all and put them in one place next to my keys, so I can’t miss them when I’m leaving the house.
    8. Cook something delicious: Are you hungry now? Debating the prospects of leftovers vs a pizza? The internet makes it easy to find recipes. You can type in something like, “Easy things to cook on New Year’s” and I bet you’ll get a variety of chili and crockpot recipes that are awesome. Spend 20 minutes off the couch, go to the grocery store in your sweats and baseball hat, and then slow cook something that makes you seem like a culinary genius.
    9. Clean up your bookmarks: You have 100 articles stores somewhere that you meant to read at some point during the year. Either read it or delete it or both. Get a fresh palette of reading material.
    10. Write down the gifts you wanted and didn’t get this year: In a few months people will ask what you want for your birthday. And you won’t know. But if you have a list of “Xmas Didn’t Gets” in Evernote or GoogleDocs or whatever, you can just email it to them.

    Happy New Year everyone. Whatever you do on your own New Year’s Day, I hope it leads to a prosperous and happy campaign.

  • 5 tips for a Non-Nutritionist’s Plan for Losing Weight

    It’s almost time for New Year’s resolutions. And thanks to our 6-12 holiday parties, we’re all at our maximum weights and feel like sloths crossing a 10 lane highway.

    You can read all the web sites you want, and pay to subscribe to all the diet programs that claim they  work. But you really need is advice from someone like you, not some egg head marathon runner. So here’s what I’m attempting in 2018.

    1. When you can’t go to the gym, just walk: Here’s the easiest thing we can do. If you are going to to grocery, mall, whatever… just park far away. That’s an extra 300 yards each way that is moderately useful. Will it drive weight loss? No. But it gets you to understand that walking is good.
    2. 100 pushups are awesome. 10 pushups are better than 0 pushups: You don’t feel like going to the gym. Me either. So we’re watching TV instead. But the commercials suck, so why not roll off the couch and do 5-10 pushups. Is doing pushups really worse than watching that lame iPhone commercial again?
    3. Stop with the sodas: If you buy some ginger, lemons, limes, cucumbers, and oranges, along with a decent citrus squeezer, you really never have to buy a sugary soda again. Choose your fruits and spices and make your own flavored waters.
    4. Research some recipes: I’m not going to tell you what you should eat. But I think we can agree that any restaurant that is making the most amount of money serving affordable food to as many people as possible, is probably cutting a corner somewhere in the nutrition department. The internet is your friend. Look for the things you love to eat, and make them yourself.
    5. Air Fryers work: I love chicken wings. They’re calorie hell if cooked in oil. But an air fryer cuts out 80% of the calories. Give it a shot.

  • 5 Simple Copywriting Rules for Non-Writers

    In my career, I’ve learned there are two types of people in the business world – those who hate writing, and crazy people. Since I spend a significant amount of time writing for companies, I guess I fall in the latter category.

    I love to analyze the differing styles of writers, and the ways they work with their words in order to make a good story great. It’s essentially my version of competitive research. I especially enjoy reading articles from writers who can engage readers without clickbait headlines such as, “5 Simple Copywriting Rules for Non-Writers.”

    So this seems like a good time to share a few tips aimed at those of you who hate writing, but can’t escape doing it.

    1. You have three seconds to earn a reader’s attention so they’ll read for 30 more: If you have never had to write a sentence for a living, you probably didn’t even bother to click on the title of this article in your feed. That’s fine. You’re not my audience. But if you clicked on this link, I had about 30 seconds in the first three paragraphs to hook you into the meat of the story. If you’ve gotten down here to the bullets, I estimate I now have earned about three more minutes of your time. I’ll try to make it worth it.
    2. Never use an Exclamation Point: Exclamation Points are the lazy writer’s way to show importance about something. If you can’t make a sentence interesting enough to stand on its own, rewrite the sentence. When you are talking to someone in a meeting, do you suddenly shout at them? Of course not. No exclamation points. Ever. Got it? If you have to change the way you type to make sure “Shift-1” is harder to reach, you should do so.
    3. There is no such thing as, “very unique”: “Unique” is defined as, “Being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else.” When something is “one of a kind,” it can’t be “very one of a kind.” Don’t exaggerate for exaggeration’s sake.
    4. There’s a difference between who and that: There are many times when a person who ((not that)) has a lot of subject matter expertise, can present information on a blog that ((not who)) has readers who ((not that)) will benefit from it. Understand that “who” is for people and “that” is for things.
    5. Never use the same word twice in a sentence: This is a tough one for many companies, especially those that have precious few adjectives to describe their product’s features and benefits. Just be conscious that when you are producing content for your web properties, you should be able to write the content in a way that the content doesn’t require the same word multiple times. See, that sentence just sounded silly.

    Writing can be a difficult game, but you should never fear it. A bad writer with great ideas is still more interesting to read than someone who is grammatically correct in their description of paint drying.

    Was this useful? Kind of useful? Useless? I’d love to hear your own writing tips and tricks, as well as any grammar and punctuation rules that I’ve violated in this article.

  • So Where Should Amazon Build HQ2?

    Amazon has outgrown Seattle. It’s the kind of thing that happens when you build your company in a downtown core, rather than take over some unused farmland in a far flung suburb like Redmond. So now it’s time to find HQ2. Where should they go?

    There’s no doubt that every city from Anchorage to Yuma will make a bid. But if I worked at Amazon, with a chance to be transferred at any moment, here are my top 5 picks.

    1. Raleigh, NC: The Carolinas are fantastic. Since most Washingtonians haven’t made it that far southeast, you might not know this. But Raleigh is especially comparable to the Pacific Northwest. In fact with Raleigh you get a more educated population, more universities, and closer access to a warm beach. You’d give up Uber access to an NFL or MLB team, and day trip access to Double Diamond ski runs. But you coud still get a Daisy run in if you need it. Plus you could buy a 5,000 square foot house for a year or two of salary.
    2. Pittsburgh, PA: If a company is interested in AI, cozying up to Carnegie Mellon would be a pretty good way to do so. It would have plenty of opportunity to build a downtown campus, and still be close to New York and Washington D.C. As an employee, if you can deal with a Seattle winter, you could probably deal with Western Pennsylvania.
    3. Nashville, TN: Far enough east to give you access to New York, Boston, etc… and far enough north to keep you safe from hurricanes. Several great universities in driving distance, so there is a huge talent base to draw from. Plus, it’s great a place for distribution. Didn’t FedEx make its HQ in Memphis?
    4. Charleston, SC:  Full disclosure, I have an affinity for Charleston. I think it’s the most underrated place to live in the country. You are giving up major league sports for friendly southern living. But you’d have Clemson, USC, and College of Charleston all in spitting distance. Oh, and if you are a current Amazon employee, its another place where your mortgage payment for a monster 5 bedroom estate would be the same price you now pay for your 800 sq ft apartment in Seattle.
    5. Detroit, MI: Detroit? Detroit?! Who wants to live in Detroit? Well several decades ago, the auto industry decided it was a good place to dominate an economy. So why can’t Amazon repeat that? Easy access to New York, Chicago and Canada. REALLY REALLY cheap downtown real estate. Employees could buy McMansions for nothing. Heck, Amazon could buy entire neighborhoods, develop them and sell them to employees. Plenty of professional and collegiate sports teams to support. And you could always escape the Midwest winter with a quick trip to Florida.

    Your thoughts? If you were a current Amazonian, where would you be ok being transferred to?

    * Image used without previous permission from https://www.designboom.com/architecture/seattle-approves-amazons-biosphere-headquarters-by-nbbj-10-25-2013/