The Hierarchy of Service Effectiveness is a model which outlines the most effective business entities that yield the best customer service result.

Fanatical, “tell your friend” customer service starts and ends with your organization and who stands at the front of the stakeholder soup line.

I am a firm believer that “he who provides the best customer service is more likely to win the customer”.   If you win the customer, you win more customers.  (See Customer Service That SUCS).  Unfortunately, certain business structures lend themselves to customer service excellence while others create an environment where customer service experiences bleed with dissatisfaction.

The hierarchy of service effectiveness is rooted in stakeholder accountability.  Stakeholders.  Stakeholder is defined as “Person, group, or organization that has direct or indirect stake in an organization because it can affect or be affected by the organization’s actions, objectives, and policies.”

While this hierarchy will give you a leading indicator on which company might best serve your needs, it also serves as a model for your own entrepreneurial ventures — the best stakeholders are your customers.

THE BEST:

Private, Solopreneur Corporation (LLC/S-Corp/C-Corp)
By far the best organizational structure to maximize service effectiveness is the entrepreneur going it alone, a sole proprietor under a corporate structure. Why? The pure stakeholder for the Solopreneur are the customers themselves.  Entrepreneurs in this environment have no one to answer to but the customer. The customer becomes the entrepreneur’s paycheck.  The customer becomes the entrepreneur’s lifeblood. The customer becomes the entrepreneurs sole-source of business transformation. Because of this relationship, the customer becomes the Solopreneur’s  number-one stakeholder and customer service effectiveness is maximized and often superior when compared against competitors

GOOD:

Private Partnership Corporation (LLC/C-Corp) with Active Managers
The second best structure is a partnership Corporation, either an LLC or a C. Corp., much like the Solopreneur, private corporations with multiple partners carry the customer-service stakeholder in high regard.  This again, lends to above average customer service experiences.

FAIR:

Private Corporation (LLC/C-Corp) with Inactive Managers/Investors/Members
A private corporation with multiple investors, including Angel and or VC investors, starts the downward transgression of service effectiveness. Why? Under this structure, the primary stakeholder, customers, is replaced by investors. The company now tries to satisfy investor demands over customer service demands. This results in a decline of customer service effectiveness as management tries to scale back costs and increase profitability; often to the detriment of customer service.  Investors demand profitability.  Customers demand service.  Investors often win.

POOR:

Publicly Traded Company
The worst structure that exists for customer service effectiveness is that of a publicly traded company. Customer service stakeholders are at the back of the line. The priority stakeholder in a publicly traded company becomes the shareholders who demand maximum profitability and earnings growth.  This constant pressure to deliver profits and earnings growth erodes all aspects of customer service experiences, including lower product quality (We must cut costs!) Poor people interaction (Outsource the call center to China to cut labor costs!) and ultimately relegates the customer stakeholder group neglected and forgotten.   Ever call a publicly traded company’s customer service line? Or a website that is public?  It’s a frustrating experience.  The worst offenders of customer service futility are public companies.

So what strategies can be deduced from this hierarchy?

• All things held equal, a company where its primary stakeholders are customers will provide above average customer service experiences.
• All things held equal, a company where its primary stakeholders are investors will provided below average customer service experiences.
• All things held equal, a company who focuses on the customer first will do better than a company who focuses on investors/shareholders first.

If I am considering doing business with the company, I, more than likely will choose the company that has my interests as their primary stakeholder basis.  If you own a company and are considering selling it, be mindful of the stakeholder change — as the stakeholders change, so will the customer service experience — and your customers just might not approve.

The opportunity in all of this is to run your company with Customers as the primary stakeholder, regardless of corporate formation structure.  Of course, this can be downright impossible in an investor owned organization — I can speak firsthand on this frustration.

Fanatical, “tell your friend” customer service starts and ends with your organization and who sits atop of the stakeholder soup line.

Cheers,

MJ

Impact Millions!

Cheers,

MJ

Ok, I get it.  You want to be an entrepreneur, but you aren’t quite sure where you want to start.  Or, you already own a business and you just can’t seem to get anywhere.  Here is a video I created with respect to evaluating business ventures, opportunities, and ideas.  If you like Baseball, you will like this video as it metaphorically associates Baseball with the act of Entrepreneurship.

Singles are good and many singles yield many runs.  However, I prefer the field where homeruns can be hit.

Getting On The Right Entrepreneurial Playing Field

Requiem For The Most Destructive Economic Inferno In History

Ehh … we didn’t start the fire therefore the gas is not socialism?  When you can’t count on any political party to represent you, you can always count on yourself.

Cheers,

MJ

“I don’t have the skills.”

BS.   It’s not about your skills, but your motivation … your lack of action.    It’s easier to be lazy.  It’s easier to sit around and play XBOX.  It’s easier to crack open another beer and watch your favorite sports team.   These are excuses; crutches of the unsuccessful that keep them propped up another day.

For example, there’s a Dad in California that was met by hard times.  He didn’t choose to do nothing.  He added to his education and did so, self-directed.

What amazes me about these stories isn’t the fast wealth accumulation, but the story behind it.  I pick these stories when they violate a typical excuse of would-be entrepreneurs … you know the excuse “I have no money”, “no education”, “no skills”, etc … in this story, neither did this guy.  But he did something extraordinary … instead of playing video games, he learned how to do it himself.

Coder’s Half-Million-Dollar Baby Proves iPhone Gold Rush Is Still On

$600K In One Month from iPhone App

It wasn’t easy for Nicholas, either. After getting off his shift as an engineer at Sun Microsystems, he worked on iShoot eight hours a day, cradling his 1-year-old son in one hand and coding with the other. He didn’t have the money to buy books to learn how to write an iPhone app, so he taught himself by reading websites.

While this is a great example of “Passengering” in the Fastlane, it still is Fastlane!  (Imagine how much $$ the Driver, “Apple” is making!)

Cheers,

MJ

“Do what you love and the money will follow”.   No doubt, you’ve heard this before, most likely from a deal-of-the-day guru or a “life coach”.  For most people, “do what you love” doesn’t work as a strategy to create great wealth.  It is another myth fostered by hypocritical gurus and so-called life coaches who are probably 3 clients away from broke.

If you were like me, “do what you love” is not an option.  Few people have the skill to make a career out of “do what you love” which is why the Fastlane is so important as an alternative.

Think about what you love and then think, will someone pay for it?  Are you good enough to make money doing it? Most likely, you aren’t.

I love to play basketball, but I suck at it.  I can’t parlay my love of basketball into a career.  I love to play piano, but again, I suck at it.  Many things I love to do, but I suck at them!  If I ever was to pursue a career in any of these “loves”, I’d need unlimited time and money because no one would pay me a dime do it.  Who wants to endure that ineptness?

Which brings me to my unfinished book.

I love to write.  The book represents a dream of “doing what I love” and that dream was made possible by the Fastlane.  If I needed an unfinished book to pay for my mortgage, I’m not sure it would.   You see, “doing what you love” for money often isn’t good enough because we aren’t good enough. Or, so many people are “doing what they love” that the marketspace for that activity/product is saturated resulting in depressed prices.

People pay to have their needs and wants solved — they don’t pay to satisfy your need of “doing what you love”.  People pay for solutions; not for your enjoyment.

FASTLANE ACCELERANT
The marketplace doesn’t care about your love of whatever.  The marketplace gives credence to those who have the power to provide solutions and solve needs.  If “doing what you love” doesn’t fill a need, no one will pay you to do it.My book and my enjoyment to write it was possible because I didn’t need the confirmation of money to authenticate if I was skilled at it.   If that sentence is too complicated to understand, you get my point.  Maybe I’m just not good enough.  Whether I sell 10 books or 10 million, my book is a testament to “doing what I love”, regardless if I’m good at it.  The Fastlane allowed “money” to be removed from the equation.  Now, I don’t need to get paid to “do what I love”.   I just do it.

If you can’t parlay your love of something into an activity that someone will pay for, it doesn’t work. Lebron James gets paid to play basketball because he is good at it.  The destination of the Fastlane is to remove the confirmation of money from your “do what you love” activity.   Because of the Fastlane, and if my ankles allowed it, I could play basketball 7 days a week.  I don’t need to get paid to “do what I love” because I can do it for FREE.

What about you?  What things do you love?  Video games?   Homeschooling your kids?  Sculpting art?  Day trading?  Volunteering for church?

If you are one of the lucky few who can earn an income from a specific activity that you love, kudos to you.  And congratulations … you might not need a Fastlane and a Slowlane just might suffice.

But for those of us who can’t transform our loves into income, there are other alternatives paved by the Fastlane.

That method involves repositioning your goals and visions into a greater end — that end will transform your daily life into something that you will enjoy.   If you can’t get paid doing a specific activity, you need to identify a specific “WHY” or “end goal” which makes your daily activity a means to the end.  What is your WHY?  Why are you doing this?  Why go Fastlane?

For me, my “WHYS” read like this …

• “I want to be my own boss”
• “I want to pay my mother’s mortgage off”
• “I want to wake-up in the morning without an alarm clock”
• “I want to someday write a book without the pressure of money”.

These WHY’s can turn your daily activities into motivation — the “do what you love” metamorphosis required to move into the Fastlane.

What are your WHYS?

MJ

Ever Get Hit With A 1000% Pay Raise From Your Boss?

The Employee-Boss Discussion that Never Happened…

Impressed at the loyalty and obvious returns you’ve provided at your place of employment, you confidently stroll into your boss’s office and demand a raise.

“I bring value to this company” you argue,  “and I’m reliable and rarely call in sick “

Your boss crosses his arms, tilts his head skyward, and takes a big recline in his big red leather executive chair as if to say “Oh, this is gonna be good”

You take a deep breath and let it ride “Therefore, sir, I’d like a 1,000% pay raise”

Your boss smiles and pauses.  He lurches forward ending his recline and hammers his hands to the desk.

“OK, what’s the joke?  I’m busy.” he snides.

You reply, “No joke.  I’m being serious.  I make $9 hour.  I want a raise to $90/hour.”

“How about this?  You’ll get nothing and like it.  Now, get out of my office, quit wasting my time, and if you do it quickly, I won’t fire you … how about that for an offer?”

You stammer out.  I guess the boss didn’t think the 1000% pay raise was doable.

Why I Love Being An Entrepreneur, And You Should Too

This scenario is out in left field.  As an employee, you’d never think to walk into your boss’s office and demand a pay raise greater than 10%, let alone 1000%.  It is preposterous and laughable.

As an employee of any company, this is the playing field you are left to operate within— of course the word “play” implies that it is fun.  To have someone dictate your value is no fun.  To have your value minimized, is no fun.   As employees of any company, this is your playing field.

As an entrepreneur, you play on a different field … a field where 1000% pay raises happen and in moments.

How?

Just recently, I tweaked some ads at my websites — I made them more prominent and placed them in better locations.  The result of this action, increased my revenue stream from that activity by 10.  It was a 1000% pay raise.  Although this increase in revenue wasn’t monumental (we’re talking about just a few hundred dollars for this example) the point is this:  As an entrepreneur, you play on a field where instant 25%, 50%, 100%, and 1000% “pay raises” are possible.

You have control to tweak your strategy, your business model, your marketing, and your processes.  Add a graphic there, remove this step, add a field there, change this color — you have control over your actions and those actions, have direct impacts on your income — they can create your own “pay raises” directly through your actions.  Of course, this road travels two ways — your actions also can create pay declines.

FASTLANE ACCELERANT
If you engage in certain “Fastlane” entrepreneurial activities, your income potential has an unlimited ceiling. However, some business activities operate within a limited scope of reach, creating a natural limitation in income.  Some ventures are “Fastlane”, while others, are not.

When I owned my lead-generation company, I can’t recall how many time’s I’ve done things — new placements, new programs, new GUI processes — actions which lead to immediate “pay raises” … you do this on an ongoing basis, 10% here, 5% there, 3% there and guess what?  Your revenue grows exponentially — your money tree thrives.

FASTLANE SIDEBAR
I remember changing the color of one of my forms and decreasing its size.  It increased my conversion by a few % and resulted in about $2,300/month in extra revenue.

I remember when I first realized the power of the money tree … I was in Vegas, oh, probably about 7 years ago.  I lost $2,000 in one day playing stupid-ass 3 card poker.  After retreating to my hotel room with my tail between my legs, I realized.  Why fret?  I lost $2,000.   On that day, my money tree made me $6,000.  I came out $4K/ahead — while I gambled (or did whatever) my money tree was bearing fruit.

The Fastlane is about creating a money tree that lives, grows, and bears fruit while you live your life.

Cheers,
MJ

It is a question all children hear; from parents, teachers, and friends.  When I was in grade school, I remember being asked this question many times.  I wanted to be an astronaut — I wanted the freedom to travel to the moon and the stars.

As I aged to my teens, that answer became “a fireman“.  I can remember being quite the pyromaniac, much to my mother’s discontent.  In high school the answer morphed into “I want to be a filmmaker”.  In college, it was “I want to be an author”.  I know I’ve answered this question a dozen different ways, dependent on my age at the time.  But one thing remained true; my answer always represented a dream - a vision of hope and promise for the life I would lead.

How about you?  What did you want to be when you were young?  How many different answers did you give?  Or, have they all been the same?

And the real question of concern, are you doing this today?

More than likely, you’re not.

My friend Rick. I asked him this question.  Well guess what?  He didn’t answer this question with “I want to be a sales representative at Verizon Wireless”.  Nope.  He answered with “I wanted to be a race car driver”.  So why is Rick selling cell phones today?  Is there any chance in hell he will actually become his dream, a race car driver?  There isn’t.  The dream is dead.  Nonetheless, as Rick stands by at his job waiting for a promotion, he wonders “There’s got to be more than this”.

Then there is Sarah.  She didn’t answer this question with “I want to be a shift manager at Taco Bell”.  Nope, she wanted to be an artist.  But today, Sarah finds herself working the graveyard shift, mopping up the floors in the dining room from slobs who have mistaken sour creme for finger paint.  As she slams the mop-head in the wringer, Sarah has a moment of disquiet, “Is this what my life has become?”

I’ve asked this question to many people, and surprisingly, no one answers with what they are doing today.  How about you?  Are your dreams and grandiose visions of an abundant life  already a forgone reality?  Have your hopes and dreams deteriorated into an idle fantasy?  Once your dreams reach the point of fantasia, it is too late.  It is sad, and it is one of the reasons why I felt compelled to write this book.

I’m here to tell you, you do not have to give up on your dreams.  They are out there, like a ship converging with an oceanic horizon, off in the distance, ready to be commandeered by you.  Unfortunately, your ship will not come to port, you have to go out and get it.  So, how do you get there?  Don’t swim, take a speedboat.

There are two ways.  The Slowlane and The Fastlane.

Most opt for the Slowlane road; it is the most obvious and unfortunately, is slow, tedious, and littered with detours.   “Get a good job, work 40 years, and one day, you will be finished rich”.  What a load of dung.  This road is so crowded, the majority of it’s travelers never get to their destination.  They stall on the road, broken down, deflated, depressed and stressed, and sometimes dead, with their dreams, dying with them.

The Fastlane is quick, exciting, not as well-traveled, carries its own brand of risks, but yet, is riddled in misconceptions.   This is the road I opted for.  It is a strategy that has given my life, freedom and reality to the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

With a Fastlane strategy…

• Grounded dreams are given flight…
• Choked dreams are given breath …
• Paralyzed dreams are given movement…
• Wilted dreams are given sunshine …

Dead dreams are given life … they have a chance to not only survive, but to become real.

• Astronaut
• Filmmaker
• Author

These are just 3 things I wanted to be “when I grow up”.  Each one, is now possible because of the Fastlane strategy.  My job is now to write - I am writing “The Fastlane to Millions”.  After this, I will turn my sights toward screenwriting.  As for the astronaut, even that is possible with the advent of commercial space travel.

The point is, if you’re living your life without a Fastlane strategy, or without a strategy that can’t transport you to your dreams,  you’re not living.  Your strategy must have the transformative power to take you to your dreams!  The Fastlane does this.

There is nothing wrong with working at Verizon, Taco Bell, or at Target.  Heck, I would have considered these jobs promotions in comparison to the crap jobs I’ve held.  But please, do not make these jobs your means to the end, because the “end”, most likely will never come.

The Fastlane doesn’t care if you have a job or not, it only cares if you have the tools to successfully travel the road: The vehicle, the map, and the fuel to drive it.  In my book, I uncover the tools of this trip so you can make fantasies into realities.

Properly driven, a Fastlane leads to your wildest dreams … and by itself, the view on the journey is quite spectacular.

So that said, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Peace,

MJ

Not Sucks, But “SUCS!”

Why sugarcoat it.  Customer service in the modern age, sucks.  We have become so inundated with poor customer experiences from the businesses in our life, we now accept crappy customer service as a standard of expectation.

Have you ever called Microsoft support?  Or tried to get a problem resolved on EBay?  Or called your health insurance provider?  Sucks.  Sucks.  And sucks.

Customer service today has become a lost art - our expectation level when we deal with businesses has become so pathetic and tumultuous that we’ve become numbed to expect nothing but disinterest.

While this is frustrating, it presents the entrepreneur a great opportunity to leverage this fact.

There is one way we can leverage customer service that SUCKS into a profitable strategy that will explode your business growth.

Understand that most consumers expect a certain level of suckiness.   This can work to your advantage and become an Fastlane accelerant in your business.

For example:

If I open my Bank of America statement and discover a $10,000 fraudulent withdrawal, my first instinct is to freak out.  After that, my second instinct is to call Bank of America to resolve the problem.

At this point, what happens immediately in my brain is I create a vision of expectations — my expectations for the call to Bank of America.   Here is what I expect, or my “expectation profile”.

1. I expect to hear a recorded message, an automated attendant.
2. I expect to press a never ending menu of buttons … press 1 for this, press 2 for that, press 3.
3. I expect to be shuttled from 1 person to the next.
4. I expect to speak with someone not fluent in English, named Justin, but sounds more like a Pradeep or Sanjay.

These are my expectations.  No doubt, my customer service expectation isn’t that favorable.  Bank of America, and 100’s of other banks like it, get away with crap service because it is now, our expectation. Anyone that has called their bank or mortgage company will know exactly what I’m talking about.

However, lets flip the scenario on its butt:  What if  I pick up the phone and called Bank of America and instead of the voice mail rat-maze, my call is immediately answered by an English speaking person … no voice mail, no press 1, press 2, no automated attendant.  Nope, I get a REAL PERSON answering the phone, like you answer your phone.  After 5 minutes of speaking to the customer service rep, my problem is addressed and resolved — and heck, I wasn’t even transferred to another agent.  I’d be like “Holy Mother of God!  Wow!!”

This would be a Superior Unexpected Customer Service event.  Or, a transformation for Customer Service that SUCKS to SUCS.

FASTLANE ACCELERANT
Violate your client’s customer service expectation profile for and turn your customers into repeat buyers and ultimately, disciples of your business.

S-U-C-S.

Superior Unexpected Customer Service.   SUCS!

Customer service that SUCS, or service that violates your customer’s expectation profile turns customers into lifelong clients, and disciples of your business — they provide a never-ending stream of free advertising.  Word of mouth is a powerful advertising tool because it is FREE and reaps infinite ROI.

How you provide service to your customers will influence how fast your company can grow.

When I owned my company, one of the frequent questions I always was asked was “How did you find your clients?” .  At the start, I had to do it the old fashion way:  Prospecting, marketing and advertising to the demographic, and cold-calling.  But after awhile, I didn’t have to pay money to attract clients to my business because they did it for me.   They became evangelists to my business.

A few examples on how I violated customer service in my web service?  I answered my customer emails within minutes … yup, you got that right … minutes, not hours, days, or weeks. I remember people would send emails just to test our response rate.  I was in business to violate my customer’s expectation profile and it reaped dividends … when you email a web business, you expect to get some canned autoresponse and maybe a personal response days later.   Also, on my support lines, I had a live person answer the phone — there was no press 1, no press 2.

FASTLANE SIDEBAR
There is a delicate balance between providing superior customer service and not allowing customers to take advantage of you.   That balance lies in the margins personal to your business.

Another example?  My hosting provider is Liquid Web.  The first time I contacted Liquid Web for technical support, I had to submit a ticket into their support system.  I was struggling with a server issue and exhausted my futile fix-it attempts.  I submitted the ticket and formulated my expectation profile … I speculated it would be a day or two before I heard back.  I was wrong.  Within 10 minutes, Liquid Web Support responded and solved my question — they provided customer service that S-U-C-S and violated my expectations.  This great unexpected support continued thereafter with  subsequent support tickets.

The result?  I’m a disciple of Liquid Web. When someone asks me personally or publicly, “What hosting do you recommend?” – I confidently respond with “Liquid Web”.  I am a customer who is now evangelic.  I pay Liquid Web in 2 forms of currency:  1) My money and 2) My frequent recommendation of their service.  The true value of this latter currency is priceless.

So how can you ensure you provide great customer service in your business, and explode your client base?   It’s easy to determine.

First, determine your customer’s expectation profile.

• What are their expectations when they deal with your business?
• How do they relate to similar businesses in your industry?
• How do they relate to your competitors?

Make a subjective call on how your customers expect service … then VIOLATE  IT.

Anytime you violate your customer’s expectations to the positive, you get a dual benefit:  One, they will use you again which translates into money for you — if you like money, having your mortgage paid, doodads, you have to keep your customer’s happy.  Second, customers who are shocked at good service will tell other potential customers.  They become liaisons to your business, literally free walking advertisements, and they don’t need to be paid.

CUSTOMER SERVICE THAT SUCS — Superior Unexpected Customer Service.

So lets review.

To provide customer service that SUCS; Superior Unexpected Customer Service; violate your customer’s expectations.  Determine your average customer’s expectation profile, and then institute a policy to violate that profile.  The dividends of this strategy result in an ever growing client base without having to pay for it.

I’m MJ DeMarco, and you can die the Slowlane, or live the Fastlane …. beware of cheap imitations.

So guess who predicted both the housing bust and the recession?

Take a guess.

Warren Buffett?
Jim Cramer?
Suzie Orman?
Lou Dobbs?
David Bach?

Actually, none of these people predicted the coming downturns.

But I did, and I have proof.  Yup, your very own MJ DeMarco.   Remember the name folks as Peter Schiff has nothing on me!

When I told my brother about my predictions, he called me out and said “Bull shit! You didn’t predict jack!”

Oh yea?

The beauty (and ugliness) of Internet forums, is that what ever diatribes you spew, they become permanent residents in the fabric of Web space.  They are digital records of our thoughts frozen in time.

August 10th, 2005

On this day I boldly made a prediction.  I created a new thread in one of my favorite forums.  It read: “And the housing bubble begins”.

If you can’t remember what was going on in the summer of 2005, let me refresh:  Housing was at an all time high and finally started to level.  People could sell houses in days, sometimes hours.  People were flipping crazy (no pun there) - they’d buy a house and hold it for 3 months, and sell for big profits, without even adding value.  Others refinanced their property every few months, withdrew the cash, and spent it like a drunken sailor.

I saw this exuberance so I wrote that a bubble was coming.

AUGUST 10th 2005

I have reason to believe the “Housing Bubble” is starting … (at least here in Phoenix)

Let me give you the reasons why….

1) Investors are liquidating their rentals in hopes to cash out.
2) Influx of sellers (Investors cashing out and home owners looking for a quick liquidation) is causing MORE SELLERS.
3) Interest rates have gone up = LESS BUYERS.
4) Higher interest rates erode investor margins on cash flowing houses forcing them to SELL.
5) Rapid appreciation have priced buyers out of the market = LESS BUYERS.
6) Salaries in PHX have not appreciated in correlation with housing = LESS BUYERS.
7) REITS in the last 5 days have lost 10% of their values and their dividend yields are at an all time low.

From the law of supply and demand — when sellers exceed buyers, prices drop. All this throws us in a direction of MORE SELLERS and LESS BUYERS.

Furthermore, when the plumber that comes over and fixes your toilet starts bragging about how much $$ he has made in Real Estate, you know its time to sell.

I believe this is the beginning of the end.

Here is the thread, or the proof.

Now this posting was met with some doubt.

• “I don’t see values going down anytime soon”
• “Yeah its great to predict the bubble will burst every year, then you can say “SEE” I told you!! IN the meantime I’m picking up houses like crazy from all the people who believe the hype, keep it up!”
• “All indications are that housing, at least in areas I work with they still look very strong for 2006 so far”

July 18th, 2006

In response to a question on the forum regarding the likelihood of recession, I responded with some observations from my environment currently occurring at that time.

July 18th, 2006

I wrote…

Inflation = Less $ To Spend
High Oil = Less $ To Spend
High Interest Rates = Less $ To Spend
Adjustable Mortgage Interest Changes Now Starting = Less $ To Spend
Higher Credit Card Costs = Less $ To Spend

Less $ To Spend for the avg consumer = Corporate Earnings Tank

Everything points to RECESSION, or at least, a minimal growth economy - I certainly don’t see a return to a bull market. When the average person doesn’t have surplus $$$ to spend, the economy doesn’t grow. We are a spending based economy fueled by consumer spending. This environment doesn’t favor consumer spending any which way.

In the last 3 years, consumer spending (and the economy) was fueled by cheap money; low mortgage interest rates, credit card rates, cash-out refis (fueled again by cheap money). Throw in the Bush tax-cuts and you have a booming economy.

Cheap money is gone and so is our little run up. There is nothing left to spurn consumer spending; job growth? Nope. Salary/wage increases? Nope. Nothing!

One year ago when everyone was praising REAL ESTATE! REAL ESTATE! BUY BUY!!! I made this post (the post show above) based on the same cause-effect scenarios.

The actual links to the Posting And Thread with the predictions.

So what is the point of this?

Buy my book!  I want to show you that I’m the man and Peter Schiff has nothing on me!   I belong on CNBC as the next guru!!

Ok ok … just kidding.

Seriously, the point is this:  Your environment always leaks clues to where things are heading - it can shine a light on both, future problems and future opportunities. I was able to forecast the future because I took clues from my environment and assembled the bigger picture, like a 50 piece puzzle.  You have to be cognizant of your environment and see outside of your little worldly bubble.  Doing so will give you insight into the future — a money making future (opportunities) and a money saving future (problems).

For example, when you buy food at your local grocery store, do you make a beeline into the store, focused on your “to buy list”?  Or did you notice that the gift card shop next to the grocery store was closed? And the nail shop was gone?  And the cleaners?  Did you notice they were vacant? Did you notice that that great new French restaurant already went out of business? Do you notice?  Or do you not worry about it, or recognize it, because “it’s not my problem”.

Now if you saw, and recognized all of the above, can you guess which sector is heading for a serious downturn that might not be a big story right now?

FASTLANE ACCELERANT
Forecasting problems, as well as opportunities, lies in your ability to recognize your environment and to identify trends.  If “it” is happening in your neighborhood, there is a good chance it is happening elsewhere.

Future problems, like opportunities, lay clues around you.  Break through the glass ceiling of your own world, stick your head out, and look around.  You might be shocked at what you can see, and what you can predict.

Cheers,

MJ