Collision Coverage covers damage to your vehicle UP TO the book value. This coverage carries a deductible, which is what you pay before the insurance takes effect. The lower the deductible is, the higher the premium. A leasing or lending company like an automotive company or a bank usually requires collision coverage.

Comprehensive Coverage (physical damage) is sometimes referred to as Comp. This aspect of your insurance covers the damage to your vehicle from vandalism, fire, wind, theft, flood and other non-accident type causes. Comprehensive also carries a deductible.

Uninsured Motorist Protection covers you and your occupant’s injuries if you are hit by an uninsured or hit and run driver. In some states, up to 30% of drivers are uninsured.

Medical Payments (Med Pay) pays for injuries to you and the occupants of your vehicle up to a certain amount.

Property Damage Liability covers claims for property damage that are caused by your vehicle in an accident.

Bodily Injury Liability is needed when and if your vehicle injures or kills someone. It covers injury and death claims against you.

We at Woomer Insurance and Financial Services hope you have a better understanding of the key aspects of your automobile insurance.

Please call us at 919 290 6000 or visit us at www.woomerinsurance.com for a free quote on and type of insurance coverage you need for home, car and business.

Info@woomerinsurance.com is another avenue of contact.

We are also at https://www.facebook.com/woomergroup

Independent for you since 1932! We are located at 105 N. Salem St. Downtown Apex.

VTR Consulting LLC Announces New Processes for Business Sales Training and Employee Recruiting

Apex, NC – Businesses looking to improve sales training and employee retention can call VTR Consulting LLC, the only full-service sales training choice for the Triangle retail market and beyond. Headquartered in Apex, NC, Val-YOU, Training, and Retention are central to the success of the salespeople it serves..

Continually offering and customizing basic and advanced sales classes, training sessions, seminars, workshops and follow up coaching that can be of any length on any sales topic, VTR Consulting LLC is always ready to make your sales team stronger, more energized, more passionate and more efficient. A simple process and theory-driven, systems approach to the “Road to the Sale” and a true focus on creating success for both salespeople and management are at the heart of the VTR Mission and Guiding Principles. A very efficient and cost-effective desktop recruiting and interview program is also part of the VTR menu for small and large businesses.

According to VTR founder and Apex NC resident Jim Vogel, “VTR is not as expensive as the national training sources and has the credentials, depth of experience and continually updated processes that the small independent training sources often do not include. This difference of customizing every training segment to the specific business need creates the avenue of opportunity that features the best way to get sales teams growing on the same page. This unique focus allows the sales managers to concentrate on selling the business and the products because their salespeople know how to create satisfied customers. The days of boiler-plated training are over.”

Jim, a native of Detroit Michigan, is an Ambassador with the Apex NC Chamber of Commerce and is serving his second term on the Board of Directors of the Kiwanis Club of Apex as well.

The trademarked VTR Consulting LLC motto , Business Born in the DNA… Desire, Need, Attitude typifies what VTR can do to support your business goals.

Contact jim.vogel@vtrconsulting.com to schedule a FREE half hour presentation that will be customized to your greatest need or simply call Jim Vogel at 919 244 6989/ 919 533 9069. Jim is also on Twitter @salestherapist.
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Media Contact: Jim Vogel jim.vogel@vtrconsulting.com 919 244 6989

WOW! What a Festival we had. 

Historic Downtown Apex rocked for 72 hours as events, gatherings, awards, films and VIP’s became vogue along Salem Street and in the Halle Cultural Arts Center.  We declare the Peak City Film Festival – Family Style a wonderful success.

Jerry Mathers and Charlie Gaddy have quickly become the famous faces of the Festival. These two dynamic individuals, stars in their own right, and who have both set numerous longevity records in the field of news and entertainment, brought their “everyman” appeal to each event they attended.  What a pair of true gentlemen.   What do you say about well known individuals who are also extremely friendly and giving? It is rare to see as we read the daily headlines.  It is simply refreshing to have celebrities who are not self-evolved. Down the road when the Festival commits to a Hall of Fame, the first two plaques are easy. And the wall space is well worth it.

It is exciting to announce that both Jerry and Charlie will again be the faces you will see in 2010 as the second Peak City Film Festival – Family Style comes back to the town of Apex on November 20. It is not that far away.

Although a famous face is critical to the longevity of this effort, John Demers of Studio in the Woods is quite honestly, the heart. His festival vision to bring edutainment and increased family values to this community was central to its success.  It continues to need his leadership and energy as year two fast approaches.

With the face smiling and the heart beating, the hands and feet of the festival this year were the senior committee and the simply awesome volunteers who worked BEYOND hard, long and cheap to make things happen. We put you away dirty and wet… And we love you so much for your efforts!

The life’s blood of our festival was the array of film producers whose efforts were the quite the show! You created awesome and wholesome entertainment that brought passion to the screen. Thank you so much.

The body of this year’s Festival is a no-brainer. It is you. The community came out in droves, selling out night one and bringing excitement to the historic street of Salem for three days!

Finally, the soul of the festival is never ending. It continues to be the generous and committed local, regional and national businesses who opened their up pocketbooks or gave “in-kind” donations in this crazy economy to make this unknown initial event an over- the- top success!

When you look deep and think about it, it is the soul that drives the opportunity. The Peak City Film Festival, the Rusty Bucket Kids Club, and the Studio in the Woods are more than committed to being in the business of creating business for our businesses. The Mission of the Festival as it evolves over time is exactly this. If we helped sell one more pizza, one more book, one more oil change, one more bottle of soda or one more dinner, we did it to keep our local community and our local businesses growing in the toughest of times. 

Merry Christmas from all of us in the Peak City Film Festival – Family Style, to you and your family, and a Happy New Year!! Godspeed in 2010! Success every day!

I am loco for Local. The old saying, “all politics is local” is a very powerful commentary about the human being. Cave people hunted and plundered close to the shelter of the open cave. Over the centuries, need forced us to travel in chariots, covered wagons and eventually automobiles to distant lands for the purposes of success and discovery. Today, there is no need to physically travel to the remotest island in the South Atlantic. I can travel there on google earth and hit the website for gorgeous pictures and commentary. By the way that is the island of Tristan Da Cunha. I have seen the Queen Mary’s Peak. In fact I go there a couple times a month. I love it there. My travels are at Internet speed. But when I am there via the information highway (who remembers calling it that) I am a local.

So to say I am a local fan of local is very true. Most of us get it when it comes to local. Some of us are forced to accept it because of the price of bread,eggs and gasoline. But all of our livelihood comes from our jobs near our homes. Our “family” is next store or down the block or across the street. With one of five of us here who actually were born here, we bond with next store who came here from Wyoming, and we share dinner with the family from New Jersey down the street.

Here is my message. We still are not out of what I call the Great Recession. So we want our community to survive and succeed. We want our local businesses to survive and succeed. Inside 919, Carolina Business Connection, and our local Chamber exist with this sole purpose. The inaugural Peak City Film Festival and the new pilot, The Rusty Bucket Kids Club exist strictly for the success of the community. They get it. It is their vision.

Local drives our ups and downs, our losses and our wins, and it even educates our children. Our hospitals, restaurants, and grocery stores are local. Our downtowns are local. And we need to become localites and promote local every chance we can get. Because we live here. Because we work here. Because we love here. It is more than responsibility. It is more than common sense. It is about opportunity.

Support the Peak City Film Festival, the neighborhood grocery store, and your favorite hangout. Do it just because it’s local.

I want you to walk over to your refrigerator and look at the drawings, appointments, pictures and magnets that splash the doors with everything local. See I wasn’t kidding! It starts with your fridge. You have been doing it all along!

The Peak City Film Festival-Family Style is now fully dressed in formal attire and is ready to walk the red carpet!

On Friday November 19th, at the Halle Cultural Center, Jerry Mathers, the lovable Beav in the classic television show Leave It To Beaver, will make a special appearance at the Peak City Film Festival Sponsor Night during the premiere of The Rusty Bucket Kids Club Television Show!

Tickets sales are underway for the 1st Annual Peak City Film Festival-Family Style Event. Venues will be open on Saturday November 21 and Sunday November 22 in Downtown Apex!!

Tickets for admission to the screenings of the films and productions that have been entered in the Peak City Film Festival are available for advance reservation through the PCFF website http://www.peakcityfilmfestival.org and at three locations in historic downtown Apex.

These locations are:

Common Grounds Coffeehouse
219 North Salem Street
Apex, NC 27502

The Rusty Bucket
104-A North Salem Street
Apex, NC 27502

All Booked Up Bookstore
104-B North Salem Street
Apex, NC 27502

For more information call 919 533 9069 or e-mail sales@peakcityfilmfestival.org OR rustybucketkidsclub@gmail.com

Here is the thing, and it is at the heart of this commentary. Apex employment increased by 420 this morning. I counted the smiles! And our tax and revenue base increased big time as well, in what is still considered nationally as a slow jobless recovery. Mayor Weatherly, in his remarks, stated with a vein of humor, “It’s about time Walmart found us.”

All of us present at this grand opening agree. The store is drop dead gorgeous. Large aisles and well placed items typify the Walmart focus. It is a wonderful place to get EVERYTHING!

Save money. Live better. That is Walmart’s theme. This store will bring traffic from Fuquay, Holly Springs, Cary, and Pittsboro. This day is a major moment in Apex history, and further insures Apex, the Peak of Good Living, to be a player on the East Coast for real estate, industry, newcomers, and opportunity for a long time.

Without a doubt, Apex is a great place to live, play and work. I talked to Chris Welborn, the Walmart Market Manager about the first Apex community event that Walmart might associate itself with, the Peak City Film Festival-Family Style. It is a perfect match. The common denominator for Walmart, Apex, and the Festival, is family.

Check out the new Walmart! And thank them for employing your neighbor! Walmart’s presence in our town changes how we do business. And that’s wonderful news!

Don’t be confused by the location above. I am a Detroit Guy. If you know me you know I grew up in the Motor City. Persistence, passion, hope, loyalty, optimism, success, and hard work are learned aspects of who and what Detroiters are. And for me, I learned them through the Detroit sports teams and my years in the car business!

My Detroit Tigers lost last night in the most bizarre indoor setting and with the craziest result that I have ever seen in baseball. If the ump was wearing my glasses he would have noticed Inge got hit by the baseball and we would have gone ahead. Again. Lost balls, umpire fiascoes, the entire roster playing, and spectacular plays ended the twenty three week Tiger reign in First Place, ended their quest for their very first American League Central Division title and put them in coach for the LONG short flight home. It is the off season now. And nobody in town is believing it. You think I was doing a telethon with the tweets(@salestherapist), the calls and the voice messages I received during and after the game. You see, I take my Tigers very, very seriously.

Believing success this season is one thing; predicting it is another. I never said it out loud but the tiny word “choke” was in the back of my head for 163 games. Maybe it was the sweep at home by Boston in June or maybe it was the Royals home sweep in September, but it did get you thinking. This 2009 Bengal version can lose with relish. I love Leyland and the guys. They play hard and bring their lunch box to the mound and plate. But 1968 and 1984 happen too infrequently. In 1961, the Tigers won 101 ball games and finished second to NY. Those winning-losing seasons happen too often in Motown. I was not here in 1907, 1908, 1909, 1934, 1935, 1940 and 1945.

In football, we have been waiting since 1957 for the Lions to win another championship. Now all of us hope they get to the Super Bowl before we die. The Wings, awesome in the regular season most years, can fall over too. Check where the Stanley Cup is right about now. And my Pistons, with relatively few exceptions since they played in Fort Wayne, are the Pistons.

The best teams are in history. Bobby Hebert and the USFL Michigan Panthers, and the AFL Detroit Drive, exist as champions in our Detroit memories. Who can forget the Silverdome rocking with cheap beer and a full house as Anthony Carter or Kenny Lacy make huge play after play. They are still Champions down Motown Memory Lane.

Lately, you can buy a house in the City of Detroit for 11,000 dollars and there is a 20% plus unemployment rate. But you cannot find a finer community that has suffered so much over the past century. It is a resilient community. Just like the Tigers, they never give up, even in the search for success. History will be kind to Detroit. Greektown, Buddy’s Pizza, the Henry Ford, the Riverfront, and beautiful well-manicured suburbs typify what Detroit is all about.

The car business is cyclical and will be back. Quite frankly, Detroit will always be the Arsenal Of Democracy that helped win World War II. The birthplace of mass production is unique and all American.This is Detroit!

But we learn life from sports and we learned a big lesson in the bottom of the 12th last night. Ahh, but there is hope.

“We will win in 2010!!”

Did anyone see the crash test on YouTube that features a 1959 Chevy Bel Air and a 2009 Chevy Malibu? Front-end at 40 MPH. You will be surprised.

People are still driving down the road checking e-mails, texting, tweeting, and answering their phones. I bet one of two fender benders are caused by cell-phone use.

If you want residual income, use grocery and restaurant coupons; I have saved a $1000at the grocery store this year just by coupon use. Try it. You go to the store without coupons and you lose money by accident. Think of coupons as tiny paychecks.

Big names are crashing as we speak. David Letterman is lucky to have his job and still more rounds of craziness for John Edwards.

Start planning your Holiday shopping and events now!! It will be here before you know it.

I was almost run over again by a silent Prius as I stepped off the curb over at Beaver Commons. Can’t they put a beeper on those things when they go electric?

It is interesting as I offer partnerships and sponsorships to businesses for the Peak City Film Festival. The gate keepers come out like Night of the Living Dead in protective mode and everyone is in a meeting, on the phone, off-site, had to leave, etc.

I just smile. My 86 page dissertation in grad school was on bureaucratic inertia and gate keeping.

If you are a business, it is okay to say, “not this year”. It saves a lot of time and will not hurt our feelings. Actually, that kind of candor is refreshing. It keeps me from coming back; and you know I will be back…

Finally, according to the Washington Post, there have been 342,000 injuries caused by cell phone drivers.

And that statistic my friends is no accident.

The term “made in” is an interesting one. We see it everywhere,from clothes to cars. In fact with the automotive industry, the phrase “Made in Detroit” has changed over time. We now see “Made in Japan” and most recently “Made in China” as very credible partners of the U.S car business.

Being a native Detroiter, I still wish everyone drove a Ford or Chevy. But that is not current reality. Imports are the majority of what we drive in the Triangle. In fact, I was stunned when I was passed the other day, while I drove my HUMMER, by a Toyota Prius with DUAL EXHAUSTS! Times have certainly changed.

I was really reminded of that yesterday at the Final Friday Forum, the always excellent opportunity to network, that is hosted by Dancing Elephants in Cary every month.

The guest speaker, the best I have seen this year, was Gary S. Davis. He is a speaker on business networking and is the author of Networking In The South. He had recently visited China and he spoke to us about the commonality and the differences of the American and the Chinese “world view”. It was very cool stuff.

That got me thinking. At the 2009 Detroit Auto Show the Chinese had presence. Believe this, China has about 30 automotive manufacturers. Saab and HUMMER are part of this stable. According to DailyFinance.com, auto sales are up 36% from last year in China. And they will soon have a big foot print here in the US.

Chery Automobile, Tenyzhong, Geely Automotive, and Beijing Automotive will be here in the near future with good quality products that will sit in neighborhood driveways.

I will still always drive Detroit. It is my “world view”. But the Chinese people are indeed just like us only different. We are as Gary Davis said, “wired the same”.

Think of this. Although China is thousands of years old, its automotive industry is less than 20 years old. And it is building steam, and with that opportunity.

And if it helps the car business, man I am all over that. I am not afraid to line Beijing up with Tokyo, Stuttgart and Detroit. It is as inevitable as a Toyota with dual exhausts. Because this Chinese variable will make Detroit and Tokyo better. And I want Detroit thriving again. It will always be the Motor City. I love the town!

In fact, the Oakland County Schools, in a plush suburban community north of Detroit, is teaching Manderin Chinese to its students!

We live in a small world with global posture. We need to be a major part of it. Our commonalities must always overcome our differences. It is a message much larger than the Automotive Industry. And it would fix a lot of things beyond cars!

www.vtrconsulting.com

Most business will get their logo and link posted directly to the main website www.peakcityfilmfest.org; and at many sponsorship levels, preferred seating at all events and screening tickets are just part of the benefits. But that is not all. Many of the sponsors are on the festival programs, the sponsor list displays at the screening venues, the publicity posters, and sponsors will receive press exposure in multiple interviews and releases.

As one early sponsor stated, “I can’t beat the visibility I get for my contribution.” Just as “all politics is local”, the best marketing strategies are cheap and they are grassroots. Business identity is essential in this economy, and as the families in the Triangle focus on restaurants, services, and products, they are doing it close to home. First Citizen’s Bank in Apex, Woomer Protective Insurance, Sony Creative Services, and Scott Lassiter are sponsors already on board.

Being a sponsor for the Peak City Film Festival makes a lot of sense. Drop a note to sales@peakcityfilmfestival.org or call 919 533 9069 and they will send out an info packet that you can assess for yourself or your business. They have had non-business individuals, supporters of the cinematic arts, who have come on board as well; so this is open to anyone who wants to be a part of the Festival in a direct and very tangible way.

The Peak City Film Festival – Family Style will bring blended generations together to watch wholesome entertainment from shorts to documentaries.

The dates are November 20, 21, 22. All the sponsors will get the opportunity to meet the legendary Jerry Mathers of the beloved series “Leave It to Beaver”. There will be a huge Sponsors Reception at 6 p.m. November 20 at the Halle Cultural Arts Center that will kick off three days of family fun right in the Historical Town of Apex, the Peak of Good Living! See you there!