You're hoping for a BAILOUT??

The latest recession might make people think twice about their spending and saving habits. It might even make them re-evaluate what is important in life.  What it shouldn’t do is create a fear of money.

In Dan Kennedy’s article, What to Expect, As We Transition From Recession to New Economy, (which is excerpted from his new book, No B.S. Wealth Attraction in the New Economy,) he provides some great insight into fears and the impact on wealth.  According to Mr. Kennedy, “you should be prudent about money. You can’t afford to be fearful about money.”

He talked about the effect the Great Depression had on many people who lived through it.  They started to hoard food and money and became adverse to debt.  They would rather “fix it” than “replace it.”  There isn’t anything necessarily wrong with being cautious with money; problems start to arise when a genuine fear or paranoia develops.

Most people can stand to be a little more prudent with their money, but money fears should never dictate the choices that are made.  It is not healthy and it will keep you from pursuing opportunities that will build wealth.

If you want to thrive in the “New Economy,” don’t let fear govern you. Instead, “combine the never-changing principles and forces governing the movement of money with rational thought, reasoned optimism, creative vision, sound and timely strategy, and aggressive opportunism.”

Don’t sit back and watch other people build their wealth. Put your fears aside and search for new opportunities.

To find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, visit Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

Too many small business owners and entrepreneurs have the wrong mentality when it comes to potential customers.  They become elated when a prospect calls and makes an appointment, but fail to recognize it as an “opportunity” rather than a mere “incident.”

In Dan Kennedy’s article, Think ‘Process’ and ‘Relationship’ Not ‘Sales Incident,’ (which is excerpted from his new book, No B.S. Wealth Attraction in the New Economy,) he refers to this type of scenario as “the start of work to be done, not an end result or outcome.”  Basically, his point is that if you celebrate the appointment, reservation or other event and misunderstand that this is just the beginning, you are missing the mark.  If you want to build wealth, you have to develop and cultivate relationships with your customers.

It doesn’t matter what type of business you might be in, there are always opportunities to increase your wealth.  Mr. Kennedy gives several examples in his article, including a restaurant owner who can go the extra step after someone makes a reservation, by sending that person a special voucher for a free bottle of wine if they bring a friend.  An oil change shop can even improve its process by selling a coupon book to a customer for pre-paid services or finding out about the other cars owned by family members.

When a customer steps foot in your store or office, you have to think about the long-term relationship. After all, your customers are your assets.

To find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, visit Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

Things go wrong – it is just the way of life.  If you are an entrepreneur not only should you be prepared for issues to arise, you should expect them too.

When it comes to problems and mistakes, it isn’t so much how they occurred that is going to draw attention; it is how you handle them.  In Dan Kennedy’s article, “Pressure-Prosperity Link,” (which is excerpted from his new book, No B.S. Wealth Attraction in the New Economy,) he talks about how the “world watches and responds to the way you handle these situations.  If you blame others, blame circumstances, offer up excuses, you telegraph weakness.”

If you are going for immediate sympathy and pity, then go right ahead and give as many excuses as you want.  However, don’t anticipate that you will gain respect by doing so.  According to Mr. Kennedy, “wealth is never transferred based on pity.”

The way to garner respect is not through excuse making.  It comes from taking responsibility, even if there was nothing you could have done to prevent your problems.  Don’t be one of those business owners who blames the economy, government, competition and who knows what else, for his or her circumstances.  Take ownership.

Here’s what you need to do – “step up, accept responsibility, offer no excuses, and roll up your sleeves and work.” That is how you will draw strength and respect.

To find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, visit Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

When times are tough, business is slow and sales are down, it is easy to want to bury your head in the sand.  Living in denial and maybe even in your pajamas, seems like a better option than putting yourself out there.  If you are embarrassed to join fellow business owners at a cocktail party or networking club, you have to get over.

In Dan Kennedy’s article (which is excerpted from his new book, No B.S. Wealth Attraction in the New Economy,) “When You Meet Money On Its Path, It Means You’re Walking in the Right Direction,” he talks about the “wealth attraction power of being somewhere.”

The article starts out talking about Donald Trump and how in his most difficult periods, he fought the urge to stay hidden at home.  He attended an important gala decked out in his tuxedo, even though he wanted to stay home.

To build your wealth, you need to be somewhere and be in motion.  That doesn’t mean that you have to be at an actual event, it could be that you decide to write a book or create an informative newsletter.  Being somewhere could be speaking at a local event or business group.

Mr. Kennedy ends the article by saying, “be everywhere that’s relevant, everywhere your ideal customer or clients are, and be omnipresent in those environments.”

To find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, visit Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

Buffoonery at its best here in Virginia.

Fairfax County (my home) has launched a  $1,000,000.00 TV campaign to attract businesses to Virginia.  Gerald Gordon, president and chief executive of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority was quoted in the Washington Post as saying “we’ve got the momentum built.  A lot of our competition is unable to do this now.”

What? Not able to engage in massive waste?

So, lets see–some guy is sitting around waiting to watch his favorite team play and he’s interrupted by a TV ad that says “move to Virginia and he picks up the phone, calls his CEO, and starts the move?” That’s really going to happen?

Here’s what’s actually going to happen: 99.99999999% of the eyes that view the ad aren’t even a qualified prospect for the message of the ad. Of the minuscule percentage that might actually be qualified (i.e. be in a position to influence a company to pick up and move to Virginia) how many of those will actually be ready, willing and able to move?

Here’s the great thing about ads like this. They are absolutely untrackable. So the agency that created it and the nitwits that approved it won’t ever be able to tell, one way or the other, whether it creates even $1.00 in return on investment (ROI) for Virginia. I’ll bet there’s no call to action, no unique URL and no unique, trackable phone number in the ad. Its great because neither the creators nor the approvers of this this massive waste of taxpayer money can  ever be held responsible for its total failure.

But….they’ll gather around the boardroom and pat themselves on the back and say, “look at that great ad…aren’t we smart?”

Far better to have taken that million and targeted companies that were likely to have some interest in moving to Fairfax and doing something to market directly to them.

To be out of the office on an adoption trip for a month.

Between my Great Legal Marketing conference for attorneys and the two and a half (extended by another half week due to the blizzards) weeks in China to adopt David and Leah I was out of the office for 31 days. I would have thought this to be impossible in years gone past. However with a little bit of technology, including Skype, and a great staff who understands not only what we do but why we do things and what language we usually talk to people the world kept running me.

We are working on an exciting new small-business owners Magazine for Northern Virginia and of course our Glazer Kennedy group which meets monthly continues to bring together some of the smartest entrepreneurs in Northern Virginia. We hope you will join us soon.

This is interesting and we wonder how much this contributes to the high cost of health insurance in the D.C. area.

We recently recieved an explanation of benefits form from our health insurer, CareFirst (aka Blue Cross).. it said that they had paid a doctor for a visit I had two days before Christmas. Problem was I didn’t see any doctor two days before Christmas and had never seen the doctor indicated on the form.

Spent 30 minutes on hold to tell them they paid a wrong claim. Not sure whether its fraudulent or just a mistake.

The CareFirst response: “Call the doctor yourself and tell him he submitted a false claim.”

Yeah…like we have nothing else to do.

I know, it was only a relatively small amount…but let multiply it by a whole lot. I’m wondering if anyone at CareFirst knows what their front line telephone employees are doing with their money. Hey, we all make mistakes but it would be great if they at least ACTED like it mattered that they were spending money they didn’t need to be spending.

So on Tuesday the President met with a cadre of small banks, begging with them to loan more.

Two things very interesting about this:

1.  As the Washington Post noted, these weren’t just any banks, or even a cross section of small banks from around the country. These were banks from congressional districts where Democrats face tough races this fall. You see…this has nothing to do with economics or what’s good for the American people. EVERYTHING he and the others do in Washington is political. (It was all politics, not economics, when they decided to pull the plug on the dumb idea to tax plastic surgery procedures and switch it to another dumb idea to tax tanning salons.)

But, as Harry Reid defended the bribe paid (with YOUR money) to Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson (hey Senator, here’s what I’ll give you if you vote for health care reform–we are going to treat Nebraska differently from other states and give you a permanent exemption from Nebraska’s share of Medicaid exemption…how’s that?”) …”That’s what legislating is all about.”

How brazen.

How B.S.

2. Back to the bankers. Know what their response was?: “it takes two to tango and right now there is no demand for loans. This is exactly what the small businesses I work with are telling me… ”

a. “too risky to expand”–no telling what the rules will be next year

b. “too expensive to expand”–health care reform will surely increase my costs, cutting into my profits

c. “end of recession? What end of recession?” : until the economy gets going and people are getting back to work no one is buying…so what do I need to borrow money for?

The horse trading continues in the effort to jam “health care reform” down the throats the the American public. Until yesterday the Senate proposal included a 10% tax on cosmetic surgery procedures. Nothing particularly rational about that at all…just picking on cosmetic surgeons, presumably because they “make too much money” and what they do is “unnecessary.”

Problem was that the Democrats need the support of the American Medical Society to get “reform” through. They weren’t getting it as long as the cosmetic surgeons were being unfairly singled out for tax.

So what did the wizards in the Senate do? According to today’s Wall Street Journal, the pulled the ‘ol switcheroo and decided to “un-tax” the cosmetic surgeons and tax tanning salons instead. Presumably what they do is even more “unnecessary” than what cosmetic plastic surgeons do.

I guess the salon tanning industry has a smaller lobbying force!

Here’s the problem with politics. ALL decisions are made for political reasons. There’s not a one of them who understands economics. Virtually everything that comes out of Washington comes out for a bad reason.

You cannot stimulate an economy out of a recession by taxing. The only way to stimulate spending is to reduce taxes across the board. This allows more employers to hire and more employees to go out and buy. Its a simple formula but not achievable when every decision you make is based not on what is rational but on what political favors you are buying.

I just got finished listening to a fascinating CD of a talk that Dan Kennedy gave recently in Philadelphia. It seems that prior to the talk someone had sent a “preemptive complaint letter” asking when Dan was going to “get real” and realize that the economy is “in the tank” and no one is buying anything.

Kennedy then proceeded to absolutely destroy that argument by giving example after example of business who seemed to be deliberately avoiding “making a sale” by their gross ineptitude in their salesmanship. I mean I was howling as I listened to the story about the Cleveland car tire dealership where Dan’s wife was trying to buy $1,200 worth of tires and the sales person “downsold” her right from the start to the point where she got confused about what do to and Dan told her to come home.

No sale.

As Dan points out the executives of this car tire company will be blaming the recession or blaming the radio ads that actually got Dan’s wife to go to the store but it was really the crappy sales person at the front desk who is either untrained or unwilling to learn how to sell tires.

In another story that Dan wrote recently he told of going to a men’s clothing store and picking out about $600 worth of slacks. When he went to check out he told them he needed them hemmed and they told him “great” you can pick them up in 30 days!!!

As Dan puts it, he just dropped the pants on the counter and walked out…what’s really instructive is that as he walked out not one of the salespeople who were standing around tried to stop him, attempted to make sure the pants could get hemmed in a day or two or did anything to save a $600 sale. They’ll blame the recession, too.

If money isn’t’ coming to your business its not because of the recession. People are definitely spending money on something and if its not you you must figure out why.

Are you like the tire dealer or the men’s clothes store?

By the way…if you are reading this and you aren’t getting Dan’s No. B.S. Marketing newsletter and you are running a business you are making a huge mistake. You have a choice. Will your 2010 be “more of the same” or will you increase revenues and profits and makes your goals?

Do yourself a favor and at least watch the video I have for you here.