Andrew Capelli's (acapelli) Blog

The picture, above, is of my dog, Beau.  Beau is a Puggle- a "designer mutt" resulting from a Pug dad crossed with a Beagle mom.  My wife, kids and I love Beau very much, but he is a challenging pet, due to his personality.  Among his quirks, he has a tremendous sense of self-entitlement.  He be...

Last week I attended a conference for real estate lawyers up at Boyne Mountain Resort in Boyne Falls, Michigan.  The setting was beautiful, the event was well-run, I made some great connections and I learned a lot.  One of the best lessons, though, occurred at dinner one night when I was waiting ...

Celebrating the 4th of July last week, my neighborhood is still proudly decorated with American flags (and the neighborhood kids are still sporadically setting off fireworks!).  And even though I don't like all of the television commercials, the coverage of the upcoming presidential election is a...

A typical summer Sunday afternoon, I was home with the kids yesterday, monitoring their comings and goings while my wife was out running errands.  When she got back she told me about an odd encounter at one of the local upscale markets she had visited: Like many "fancy" grocery stores, a vendor h...

In between appointments yesterday, I received a call in my office.  The call was from a salesman I had met the evening before at a networking event.  This gentleman works for a local sales training company.  I had heard of the company, as it advertises on a sports talk radio station I listen to i...

Recently I took my daughters to our city's library- a trip we make at least a couple times a month.  We were chatting in the car and I missed the street, so I pulled down the next road to turn around.  Since we'd never been on this particular road before, we drove down a bit to check out the hou...

A couple weeks ago I emailed an old acquaintance of mine.  He works for a local mortgage brokerage, so, being in the title industry, I wrote to ask if he’d like to get together for lunch.  When I got a response, the reply was brief and to the point: “Good to hear from you!... Do you have any clie...

Last week I responded to a request from Stewart Title's corporate headquarters in Houston.  One of Stewart's newest Business Development Officers had been invited to speak to a group of Realtors, and he was looking for sample PowerPoint presentations he could use as a template.  So, I sent one I ...

Today I participated in a conference call with some of my Stewart Title colleagues from across the United States.  I was very impressed!  Stewart is insuring the title-work on some very large (in terms of dollar amount) commercial properties.  The call started with team members on the West Coast ...

Last week I attended an event put on by Lori Williams of Your Legal Resource, a Michigan-based business.  The topic was "Growing your business without selling: Client retention and relationship-building strategies for professionals."  The speaker was another Lori- Lori Jo Vest, co-author of the b...