Spreading My Pens Across the Nation and Throughout Myrtle Beach

About three months ago I gave people even more of a reason to think of me as a nerdy, self-absorbed loser. As I opened up a cardboard box of 262 pens marked with my website, social media handle, and personal slogan I know I did very little to prove to others that I am actually a normal person. But people’s doubts about my sanity couldn’t hide the ear-to-ear grin on my face of having yet another cheesy promo item to push my blog.

I happily took this picture in March right after I received my shipment of pens.

I happily took this picture in March right after I received my shipment of pens.

But you might ask yourself what I have done with my massive stash of pens. After all, my own mother called me out on what many thought was a boneheaded, unnecessary, and mildly egotistical waste of money. But while some may have shared my mom’s thinking I firmly believe that I made probably the best $94 purchase of my life by ordering those pens. You see, not only have I used them to write pretty much every single word I have written in the past 90 days I have also used them to spread the good news of my blog far and wide. Let me explain.

My mom's reaction when she heard I purchased 262 personalized pens.

My mom’s reaction when she heard I purchased 262 personalized pens.

Before making my cross country trip to Myrtle Beach I spent time in Missoula, Spokane, and Iowa City. In these three places I distributed pens to everyone I came in contact with and left them everywhere I could. When I headed out on my 2,700+ mile journey I made sure that my box of writing utensils was up front with me in the U-Haul. Every single rest stop or gas station we stopped at I would leave a pen. All hotels we stayed at or restaurants we ate at I would do the same. The trail of ten states and numerous cities we traveled through could all be traced by a pen trail. I spread my pens across the nation better than Johnny Appleseed spread his seeds.

I spread these pens all across the country.

I spread these pens all across the country.

Since arriving in Myrtle Beach I have not stopped distributing the love. As many of you know from reading this blog, I have ate at many restaurants here. Each time I receive the check I take whatever rinky-dink pen they provide me with and put it in my pocket. I then replace it with one of my Don’t Blink pens. As I always carry no less than four of my pens in my pocket I have no problem making several switches in a single day. My boss watched me do this last week as we ate at a Mexican restaurant and I am pretty sure he thought I was crazy. He tried to make it sound like he didn’t think I was completely insane by saying that he thought it was a good idea and that he might start doing the same thing with Coastal Carolina pens.

Obviously I feel way too cool for school with these pens.

Obviously I feel way too cool for school with these pens.

The best is when you return to a place and you see that your pen is still in circulation! This has happened to me at a local neighborhood hangout where the pen I left two weeks ago still gets plenty of usage by the staff as I witnessed this past weekend. Or it is pretty cool to get a random Twitter follower and upon reading that person’s bio you realize he/she is an employee at one of the restaurants you left a pen at. These occurrences all add to the great fun I have had with my personalized items.

Surprisingly, I still have a lot of pens left in my cardboard box.

Surprisingly, I still have a lot of pens left in my cardboard box.

You know the crazy thing? It seems like I still have A LOT of pens left. Despite the sense that I have given away more pens than Santa Claus has toys my cardboard box is far from empty. With that said, I wish to give my friends in Myrtle Beach the exact same opportunity I gave my friends in Missoula. If you would like one of my coveted personalized pens just let me know and I would be more than happy to provide you with the finest writing ink around. You will swear that your penmanship had never been better. So please make sure to hit me up, I have more pens than even my oversized ego can handle. Don’t Blink.

My Personal Brand: Nerdiness to a New Level

This morning I read a blog post advocating that young professionals take care to present a consistent personal brand throughout all of their social media accounts. Despite my numerous faults in life I can say that this is something that I do a decent job at. I take pride in making sure that I utilize all of my personal social media channels to give my audience different content through each one while still promoting my brand and blog.

But I don’t stop pushing my consistent personal brand at a social media level. Rather I like to take it to a different, much nerdier level. I won’t sit here and lie by saying that I don’t try to acquaint people with my brand through promotional items. Before today I had premium stationary and a clothing line (okay, one t-shirt) dedicated to my blog and social media channels. Those items helped me reach an audience that doesn’t check Twitter 24/7 or own an iPhone but it wasn’t nearly enough. With my cargo that came in today via UPS I stepped everything up a notch.

Self-promotion at a totally shameful level.

Self-promotion at a totally shameful level.

Just a quick backstory before I get right to my newest item: A quirk about me that others like to make fun of is that I always carry pens with me in my pocket. Since about the age of 13 if you ever needed a writing utensil and you happened to be around me you didn’t need to scramble. You just asked me. To this day I am constantly whipping out pens for friends, co-workers, and random people to use. But I pack them more for me than for the convenience of others. I am a compulsive writer. Even though I mentioned last night that I use my iPhone notepad a lot I also jot down ideas and notes the old traditional way as well. Also, as I am a huge journaler I use ballpoint pens to write long passages every single day. Do you get it?…I use pens a lot.

When in discussion with our promotional provider rep at Grizzly Athletics, Pete, I noticed he had an interesting proposition on his e-mail signature. Advertising the special of the month it presented a very intriguing deal. For just $94.95 a customer could receive 250 custom made pens. Of course a light bulb immediately went off in my head that screamed Personal Brand + Practical Use Item + Great Deal = No Brainer. I immediately told Pete that I wanted to work with him as an individual customer for once as opposed to purchasing on behalf of my work. Within a short window of probably just 12 hours I had provided Pete with my color scheme and art work and he submitted the order.

Look how nice these turned out!

Look how nice these turned out!

Fast forward to today and I was grinning from ear to ear when I picked up a cardboard box full of my newest personal marketing item. With 262 total pens (yep, the manufacturer threw in a few extra) I knew I had to start spreading the wealth. Upon getting back to the office I distributed the blue trimmed writing utensils to my co-workers throughout the athletic department. That managed to clean me out of about 5% of my stash. With still a plethora of high quality, personal branded pens left that would take me 15 lifetimes to draw all the ink out of I know I need to find another way to get these in the hands of more people.

Read below and I will tell you how you can get one of these pens I am holding.

Read below and I will tell you how you can get one of these pens I am holding.

With that said, I would love to give my loyal readers a Don’t Blink pen. To make the request process legitimate and to protect against randos spamming this blog in island countries you must text me if you want a pen. If you don’t know my number and are not a spammer, reach out to me over social media and I will hook you up by mailing a pen off to you.

These pens work great!

These pens work great!

Thank you to Exact Image and Pete Aklestad for doing an awesome job on my order and providing me with a great product. You won’t believe how beautiful these things write. Don’t Blink.