If you bought or are now thinking of buying into Visa what are your feelings?

How to make sure you have funds ready

Phone Broker - If you still have one my old phone broker would take my order over the phone and gave me 3 days to get him the money. They may or may not do this for IPO.

Electronic Transfer- If I put an order in right now 9 times out of 10 my funds will be ready to trade before the market opens the next day and I use Ameritrade.

Selling holdings- This is a tricky one, if you cannot get the cash uploaded in time and have current holdings you could sell them and hope the settlement is quick enough to turn around with the cash to buy IPO.

Just a couple of ideas……

If it is really Wednesday then you have more time to act but if it is tomorrow and not a rumor and you really wanted to get a piece of it then you better act now to see if you can make it happen.

If you missed the ticker, JPMorgan bought Bear Stearns for $2 a share with the help of some Fed financing. I would have never thought this would have happened “this way” let alone so fast but they are officially sunk.

The fed’s also dropped rates 25 basis points to help calm the market but I don’t think that is enough. Either let the market bleed or drop it enough to say something, at least 50 and many people wanted to see one full point.

For all of the investors out there be careful in the coming weeks, this is a very unpredictable time for the market.

The Bear Stearns stock is in a free fall right now losing over $27 dollars yesterday. At this point I hope the short on GS pays off because that will be one hell of a winner! Many people are saying we are in a recession just be looking at what Bear Stearns did this week and all I have to say is; When does it say we are in a recession because a company made bad decisions and they are failing?

 I just love how I and many others are taxed to death for being successful and then our money is given to LOSERS. Whatever happened to true capitalism? Companies rise and fall and new ones startup. Poor businesses ARE SUPPOSED to fail and those that do well get rewarded for doing good business by the way of profits.

I still do not understand this country and why we must keep patting the losers on the back for being stupid. Bear Stearns took to much risk or took on poor investments and they failed, it is time for someone to come pick them up for 5 cents on the dollar because that is capitalism.

And all the poor home owners that bit off more then they can chew. I do not believe even half of the people in this mess were “tricked” by the greedy mortgage people. Everyone I know dealing with an inflated arm right now did it on their own. They did it to buy more house and have a lower payment. Somewhere they thought they could flip it and sell it, some windfall inheritance would come or as many people thought, I would get a big bump in my salary or career by the time 3-5 years comes and I could afford it.

Well most of that didn’t happen and not you cannot afford the house. Those of us WHO DO THE RIGHT THING, have to to get taxed to death to bail out the people that make poor decisions over and over.

What should happen.

•  Do not use our tax dollars to bail out people and corporations that make bad decisions.
• Let the housing marketing correct itself by people losing their homes and others picking them up on the market from the banks
• Let the corporations fail, be bought out and another new one can start one day
• Lower taxes for those that make profits because of good decisions, yes we will reinvest into the market

If you are one of the financially responsible, how do you feel that your tax dollars are being used to bailout these people and corporations that made bad decisions?

The cowboy club sounded good but may not have been as marketable as the Champ since it was just straight up turkey and cheddar which represents a large majority of sandwiches in this country.

In the end Hydra wins again and although no one was really to blame for this one, Stephen was fired based on the fact that he has not raised any money in the last couple of competitions.

The next episode looks interesting as 2 people will be fired right at the beginning of the show and it looks like at some point the entire cast will be back.

On a Quiznos note, those little sandwiches for $2 are pretty small, I have known a few people to complain about the size\cost of them so I doubt they will last long. Quiznos tried something like this before and it failed. We will have an another post on Quiznos in the future as their business may be a bit shaky right now.

I look at those failed attempts and begin to think it would be easier to sell Executives crack.

Lets look at the top 5 things you can do to have a better success rate with the C-Level crowd.

1. Cardinal rule, call early in the morning or late in the afternoon. Such a basic thing to know as an account manager but how often do I see someone trying to reach an Executive at 6:45am or 6:30pm? Not often enough! You all know this rule but you become to impatient and call right after lunch. It could take you 30 days of trying on off hours but sooner or later you will have your chance. Wake up early or slide that call in from your cell phone while your kids are at soccer, just make sure you do it!

2. Do your research. Integrate things you learned about the business or individual into the call, this will make the prospect pay attention to what your saying. No one wants to listen someone that doesn’t know what their talking about.

3. Make sure your product or service can do them some good before you even waste a call. Take an issue they have and convey it so whatever it is your selling will have some value to them. The more it effects the person your calling the better chance you have of succeeding.

4. Don’t rush off the phone. Do not believe that just because you cold called them it means they want to get you off the phone. I equate it to when I was learning to snowboard, my body always wanted to fall even though I didn’t need to. It was the mind making me weak as it already was planning my failure. I had many chatty Executives go on and on so keep them on the line and talking about relevant information until you have accomplished your goal.

5. Be bold. I rarely meet a C-Level individual that is really shy. These are high powered people that will eat your lunch in a heartbeat. Now I am not talking about being cocky, arrogant or slick, just tell it like it is without all the slimy talk. Be strong and powerful with your statements and you will not only gain respect but you will have someone listening. Meek people do not well in sales.

Do you have some other tips? Post up a comment.

I do a search in my area and come across 3 dealers. They are all owned by the same place and no other dealer is in my area that carries those speakers. So I get to thinking, what a slick way to make sure you get a premium price for your product.

Now this cannot work with everything but if you are reselling a product and can purchase a “zone” then why not game it up and set up several stores. Once you set in place a great plan you should have trapped a geographic area to either buy from you or force them to drive 30-40+ miles if they want to deal with someone else.

You seen many warnings on company sites that you will not get a warranty if you purchase from an Internet reseller and you clearly know why now. I cannot really find those speakers online and I really don’t want to drive over an hour to “try” to save a few bucks so what can I do other then pay up or chose another brand?

Aggressive business so you have to love it, unless your the one buying from a regional monopoly.

I have grown tired of hearing the word recession over and over every single day. Sadly enough here I am contributing to it but in the end I hope this article offsets me using it.

If you say something enough then it is bound to happen. If you want to succeed but you are constantly talking about failing then what do you think will happen? If you are managing a department and you constantly talk about how poor the state of the company is what do you think will be the outcome?

Everyday I hear it on the news, on the radio or read it on the web. The United States is heading for a recession as if we are heading for a great DEPRESSION.  We all know how much the media loves to write about the “bad stuff” and here it is no different.

Why not call it a slow down? What if people just decided to put more money in the bank rather then shopping and traveling like crazy? That would not be such a bad thing but revenue reports would be down and everyone would fear……… a recession.

It seems everyday the people of the United States get a constant dose of how bad things are. If you own a business you will think twice before hiring someone if we are in a recession. If you are thinking about spending money on something you may be concerned about your job so you hold back spending. If you are thinking about switching jobs or starting a business you will hold back because your worried about the recession. If we are in a recession then you may not invest into that stock like you wanted to so the market falls.

The constant talk about a recession slows America down.

As a business owner and capitalist I wake up in the morning with a positive outlook. If I want to continue to be successful and move forward with my life I cannot focus on the negative things. I must pull the trigger ever single say on the items that will continue to move me forward otherwise the negative views and outlook around my life will assist in my failure.

The fact is people still need to eat; they need to buy gas; they need cloths;they will have to travel to visit family;they will continue to get educated;they need medicine;they will need some products from the lumber yard to repair their home.

This country can only slow down so much, people still have to live.

Maybe the country is slowing down and that is cyclical but we do not have to throw up a white flag and say the recession is here, lets all call it a day.

 Being in recruiting for some time I have come across more people with history degrees that I can count and nearly all of them never even ended up using them! Do you know what they used it for, to meet the basic requirement to have a degree when applying for certain jobs. If you are going to spend the time getting an education then make it useful!

This brings me to a blog I just read about Microsoft going to Washington as they seek even more H1-B visa employees. Right here we see a huge hole in our talent bank and it needs to be filled.

America needs more qualified Software Engineers. I am not talking about web developers, I mean people that write applications, help develop operating systems and those that can combine their software knowledge with some Electrical Engineering experience to work on high tech machinery.

Right here we are looking at thousands of highly professional, high paying jobs that this country and it’s corporations need. Keeping the jobs and money in this country will only help America.

And before those with history degree’s decide to light me up, I know people who have put them to use it. It was simply an example of what I have seen.

If your kids are coming out of highschool or you plan to change careers and are going back to school then keep an eye on software engineering if you want a stable high paying career.