Survive Recession
USA Today states that two-thirds of the 52 economists polled said the U.S. economy is in recession. Add those who believe the economy will be in recession soon, and 79% believe that the economy will contract at some point in 2008.
I recently signed books to a packed house and was asked what to do about the current economic contraction. I told the audience that while business schools tell you that one of the top reasons for business failure is under capitalization, I believe that the number one reason a business or for that fact an individual fails (regardless of the endeavor) is "the inability to sell products in quantities great enough, at prices high enough and at speeds fast enough to capitalize the business, the idea or whatever it is the company or individual's survival depends on."
Take any failure you have had in your lifetime or in business and you will see the individual or company was unable to sell its products in quantities great enough, fast enough and at prices high enough. While cash is necessary to fund any business it cannot be the determining factor! No matter how much cash the business or individual has, sooner or later you have to get your products and services funded by others through selling or you will burn through your cash.
Apple sits on 15 billion in cash because it sells its products in quantities great enough. GM burns through cash and extends its vulnerability due to its inability to get products out in quantities great enough thereby replenishing its cash needs.
Consider then that the top skills desired by employers today today are communication skills, work ethic, and personality. Why? 1) Business owners seek these types of skills due to the void of people having these abilities. 2) The business owner knows it has to get products and services out the door in order to replenish its cash needs and further expand! While the graduate looks for those jobs paying the most money, they should focus on those skills that are most needed and desired in the marketplace!
This need to sell and move products into the market becomes even more important in today's employment environment with the
If retail sales of products and services are key economic indicators of the economy itself, how important are they to the individual business and the individual household! Ask the average American how they feel about selling and you get this look of disdain yet they agree that selling is the only way to get what they want in life.
Selling is not an activity of the business but the life-blood of the business and the lifeblood of the economy as a whole. Selling is not something the business or individual has a choice to do, anymore than you have a choice to breathe or eat if you want to continue living.
It befuddles me that neither basic education levels, colleges or even advanced business schools today don't teach basic skills that are critical to the survival of the individual and that furthers the production of the company. Communication, negotiating, persuasion, and target attainment are not even taught in today's schools.
While the oil business is having no trouble selling product, a very successful, Houston Oil man, recently wrote me after reading my book, Selling the Secret to Success "No matter where you fall in the "food chain of life", you need to be able to sell yourself to others."
The only way to get through any economic contraction is to sell your way out!
John Kennedy, master orator and sales person knew it and sold America on landing man to the moon. Martin Luther King understood the need to sell with his Dream Speech. Obama's knows it the value of selling, watch his victory speech as he ignites his backers. John McCain needs to learn this survival skill or he won't close the gap by November!
This skill of selling is vital to even becoming President of the USA and I assure you it is the only thing that will ensure that your ideas, your dreams and your family's financial future survive a recession!
Posted by Grant Cardone, Author and CEO
Follow Grant Cardone on Twitter: www.twitter.com/grantcardone
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i like what cardone is writing here because it is a philosophy and attitude that the individual alone can adopt... it's not dependent on democrat or republican, inflation, recession, etc...
im in sales, and right now i can either complain about not having enough in for the month or I can just go find it and get it done... it's an obvious choice. i cant control where the dollar is at right now or why one of my mutual funds is tanking... what i can control is those things that are in my sphere of influence. and if pushing harder and holding myself to a higher level of production is what it takes i'd much rather go that route, because no matter the results at least I was the one directly causing them...
my friend has grant's book that he's talking about here and ive borrowed and read it... ican already see that what ive written above is related to what he's talking about in there... id recommend it.... look at his website http://grantcardone.com
For all of the "salespeople are crooks" crowd here lets do an experiment in survival. First, we'll get rid of all corporations and money as we know it. Next each of us, or family unit, will produce a product or two, say corn and carrots. Unfortunately, we need some sort of protein in our diets so we take our leftover corn and carrots to market. Keep in mind that theres no cash. You see a beef producer so you ask him if he wants to barter beef for carrots or corn. He says no, but he needs hay and the hay guy is a vegetarian who is close to making a deal for some watermelon, but he'll listen to what you have to say. With winter coming on and your families need for protein, do you think you can persuade the hay guy to trade with you so you can trade with the beef guy? Congratulations, you are now a salesperson. Sales, good or bad, are here to stay.
When you call a guy on a used car and you like the car, but not the price, what do you do. You haggle, which is basically selling him on why he should sell you the car. Congrats again...
If you are uncomfortable in any sales situation, say no and leave. I'm in sales and have met many a cheesy salesperson. Sales are just like any other profession, 5% of the worst give 100% a bad reputation.
Mr Cardone,
Thank you for a very very great post.
I'm a high school drop out who started her business 25 years ago. My daughter has graduated from a famous (and very expensive) American business school.
I'm currently helping her with a business plan to start her own business.
When she says she wants it to be very classy, I tell her that classy means she'll target a too-small percentage of the population. Which means not enough customers, not enough sales.
When she says she wants only one paying place to be able to control it, I tell her that only one means that long queues will turn out potential buyers and she won't be able to answer the demand fast enough. Hence she'll reduce her sales volume.
When she says she wants to sell very high quality products, I tell her that at a time when economies falter worldwide she will not be able to sell her stuff with sufficient benefit margins.
Your post confirmed what I thought. Which is that I wasted my money on that business school and I would have done better if I had taken her to work with me instead ;-)
thank you so much for writing me- yeah the business schools are for connections not educations.
I would never trade what you know for what they know, but I would love to know them. gc
"You can't make one thin dime selling people what they need. You got to sell them what they want."
Angel from The Rockford Files
I absolutely agree and love what you wrote here! You get it! Nice job.
Tell me that this isn't true Grant. This would would mean I would have to take responsibility for my own success rather than blame someone else for my failure. What happened to the American Dream! Oh, heck... I'll just have to sue someone.
You are funny----Responsibility = Control= INCOME
Yes, you are right, and the type of selling varies widely and is quite fascinating subject.
Thank you and its interesting how people have tried to turn this into a political issue. The lack of understanding on the topic of selling as a way to control the outcomes of their lives and due to lack of knowingness on the topic they then seek to make the activity wrong and then hope someone else can solve their financial problems!
I'm sorry and I know you feel you're trying to help. But to me this system you are asking us to embrace socio-economic "dodgeball".
I've had plenty of chances to make *alot* of money though I couldn't do what was suggested out of good conscience because what it entailed was preying on those who are less cunning, less driven for profit who are good people, the people who care for the old, stop and help a motorist stranded in the rain he/she doesn't know who couldn't afford good tires,....the kind of faithful, honest, working-class people that made this country great.
Unchecked Capitalism demands that we turn to "white lies", deception and exploit those good natured, hard working people, - strip them of their hopes, future, modest retirement, dignity with the expectation they mortally give-out before needing expensive medical care as a result of poisonous industrial waste, poisoned food, stress and overwork so they are not a "burden" to the dog-eat-dog Utopia.
I realize it's easier to ignore the plight of hundreds of millions of people suffering as a result of the relentless concentration of wealth cheered on by the self-centered "Haves" when you have made it into the circle but I refuse to "capitalize" in a system that is literally killing my friends and neighbors.
As far as I'm concerned, we need a better system, not lessons in cannabalism.
The corporate media and Wallstreet propagandists always try to tell us how to survive Capitalist oppression but they never help us fight back against corporate injustice or Wallstreet shakedowns.
When are we going to start fighting back? When are we going to to stop this system in its tracks and stand down this machine until it acts on behalf of THE PEOPLE for a change????
It's easy for people who could afford ivy-league educations who are "established" and safe in their careers to tell us; "Keep your chin up, partner!" as if they are doing us a favor by telling us not to fight back and not to make noise when we continue to be victimized.
They act like they are helping us when they tell us what language to use when addressing a high-power businessman. They tell us how to kiss-ass and how to keep in our anger after being crotch-kicked by middle-management a week after they lower our wages. "Dress for Success" = wear the slaves uniform so they know you are a "friendly". Your dignity doesn't matter, but your tie sure does!
The establishment and their media minions are trying to keep us at bay and engaged in a system that has, for decades, disenfranchised those of us not in the upper 1% because our compliance maintains their lifestyles and the illusion of success of the Fascist-Capitalist system.
Isn't time for true revolution????
Probably is time but I can tell you first hand that I came from nothing, with no connections and due to this skill was able to get into the 1% you talk about. It is available to everyone if I can make it as long as a person knows the skills necessary and those are not taught in schools! Possibly there is a conspiracy to make people smart on only a limited number of topics and stupid in the real world! I will save that for another blog.
We will see who is the better sales person....and then we will see whether that person delivers
what he sold!
Life as "Food Chain"; isn't thta the essense of Republicanism? The whole point is to find a way to convince others to give you what you want. Even co-opt Kennedy, King and Obama in the pitch. Sell that book. No mention of ethics, morals, conscience, or a decent respect for thge rights and needs of others. That's why salesmen have such a bad rep. Basically predators, dressed up and talking nice.
You may get what you want by "selling yourself", but you will still be stuck with that self. Will you be happy with the product you've created? 'Cause you were the first to buy it.
why so negative- is there no good in getting a product into the hands of others that is wanted, needed and at a fair price. Are all things commercial bad for you. Batman was a product no one has to go see, doesn't need to go to but because it provides entertainment people will go. Most will enjoy the movie and because of that money changes hands. Create great products that people want and they will pay you. That is not Republican nor Democratic not even American--- it is Survival.
It's that you subordinate (actually you don't even mention) any and all other values to financial "success", which becomes the very definition of "survival". After that, of course "selling" becomes the "lifeblood". It's not that sales is Bad, it's that it is almost always amoral--or, worse, permits immoral and destructive, even inhumane, activities in the name of the primary goal, financial success. In religious terms, that's called "idolatry"--and is generally discouraged, you know.
THAT'S what Republicanism has yielded: ends justify means, and the ends are personal and financial, so the means can and do become selfish and aggressive. Therefore the "Food Chain" metaphor and the need for "persuasion and target attainment" (very military, that phrase).
If you conceive the world in competitive, military terms, you get aggressive, miltary "targets" and aggressive, miltary outcomes. And an "every man for himself" (or, more correctly and more Republican, "every TRIBE for itself") free-for-all marketplace where "winners" make few or no provisions for the necessary "losers".
I know your intention in writing was rather more benign that I've implied, but I'm tired of amoral salesmen running this country, celebrating themselves and enshrining financial success as the point of life. It isn't.
Ugh, more supply-side nonsense. The supply-siders refuse to admit that in a microeconomic sense there is a limit to how much crap you can move with clever marketing before demand stagnates and that in a macroeconomic sense there is a limit to how much labor cost you can cut out of production before you are no longer sustaining your demand market.
Post-industrial recessions are always demand-side. Recessions don't happen because the supply side can't keep up with consumption. They happen because the demand side can't keep up with production. They happen when workers aren't earning enough aggregate income to consume the products of their aggregate labor. Recessions are caused by low wages and un(der)employment.
In the post-globalization economy, production and labor are largely mobile across borders, but consumption and employment are largely localized within nations. Since the purchasing power of a domestic economy is no longer coupled to its productive capacity, GDP is less relevant than inflation-adjusted real income as an indicator of economic performance.
We can't sell our way out of a recession from the supply side. The way out is for businesses to buy more labor at higher wage rates. A funny thing happens when workers take home a little more money from their jobs: they find a way to spend it.
I understand your view my friend but the reality is spanking the individual for not having discipline for so many years....
I trust your book points out the salient fact that a probable win for Dems this fall is plunging the markets?
Don't gloat yet. Too many folks see Dems as purveyors of defeat and recession...
The book points out how to get through this thing regardless of who is elected as you will be in the mix either way. You will love the book! gc
reminds me of the lyrics- what condition your condition is in.....
My book however points out how to survive and prosper even if the rest of the world goes to hell.
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