I just read an article in the newspaper about the rising price of rice due to higher fuel costs. Check out the article here. http://origin.mercurynews.com/valley/ci_9036860
Now they’re saying there’s a world rice shortage and major suppliers like Costco and Sam’s Club are going to start rationing rice! You have to be kidding!! What’s next a shortage on the air we breathe? Oh we already have a shortage of clean air to breathe. We also have a shortage of gas and water. What don’t we have a shortage of?
We’re using less gas in the
How is this affecting your business? Have you raised your rates or implemented a fuel surcharge? Are you afraid to raise your rates because your clients may disappear? It’s a fine line that you have to walk to keep your business going but also charging enough so you can stay in business. If you can’t cover your expenses then it’s not worth trying to keep your customers happy by not raising your rates.
I don’t remember anytime in my lifetime that things have collapsed so fast. We kept hearing how wonderful the economy was but the only ones reaping the benefits were the huge corporations and the richest one percent of our population. Everyone else slipped further into debt and now the proverbial shit is hitting the fan. Foreclosures and bankruptcies are at record levels and still increasing. With the prices rising faster than the temperature in July in
Make sure you’re charging your clients enough to keep your business afloat. If you’re living on credit or running your business on credit stop right now and do what you have to so you can stay in the black. It’s a scary time right now and nobody’s going to be around to bail you out.
The top story in our local newspaper the other day was about slumping home sales. The headline was:
Marin home sales plummet
Record low since data first tacked in ‘88
Sounds horrible doesn’t it? It sure made me read the story even though I have no plans to sell my home anytime soon. Everywhere we look the media is talking about slumping home sales, foreclosures, bankruptcy, and corporate layoffs. Doom and gloom sells newspapers and keeps people glued to the local news on television so why not scare the hell out of everyone every chance you get. Homeland Security sure perfected the art of scaring the hell out of us after 9-11 with their color-coded terror alerts.
Now take a look at the second paragraph of the story in my local paper:
But the median single-family home price climbed to $990,000, up 5.9% from $935,000 in January 2007. The median single-family home price was $835,750 in December 2007.
That’s one heck of a but…
The median home price increased 5.9% in one of the worst years in real estate history. And the median price increased over 16% in just one month.
So why does the headline scream doom and gloom? I’m pretty excited that the median price of a home in my county is $990,000 because the town I live in is always significantly higher than the median price. My house is worth well over a million bucks but my stomach was churning when I read that headline. They did their job and got me to read the article.
The article goes on to explain the overall sales declined in December, which is one of the slowest months in real estate, but they don’t tell you that little fact. The media focuses on the negative and scaring the hell out of us. My neighbors are thinking of selling their house and renting because word on the street says our home values are going to decline 25% this year. Since my neighbor told me she was thinking about selling two months ago her home increased in value at least 16% but she’s still thinking about putting the house on the market. She only paid $300,000 for her house 10 years ago and it’s worth over a million today. Even if her house dropped 25% in value this year, she’s still way in the black. Plus home prices in Marin County are always very stable and have never declined 25%, even over a 10 year period. We are consistently in the top 2 or 3 most expensive counties in the country.
So the media has successfully done their job and caught our attention. Their "shock value" headlines have us all thinking in the back of our minds that the real estate market is collapsing. They planted that negative seed in our subconcious mind that is making intelligent, rational people make irrational decisions about their homes. For some reason we keep reading the newspaper and magazines and watch the news, which are full of negativity. We’re completely addicted to the doom and gloom and we can’t stop. It’s really sad that the media is exploiting human nature and scaring the hell out of us just to sell more advertising!
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The media is pounding the “[tag-tec]recession[/tag-tec]” word into our heads. Turn on the television or radio and you’ll hear it. Pick up your newspaper or any business-related magazine and you’ll see it. The internet is full of the "R" word. Technically we’re not in a recession but we sure feel like we are. The media grabs our attention by constantly screaming doom and gloom at us.
The [tag-ice]economy[/tag-ice] is tanking. [tag-tec]Gas prices are soaring[/tag-tec]. Foreclosures are breaking records every day. [tag-ice]Housing prices[/tag-ice] plummet. [tag-tec]Unemployment[/tag-tec] jumps. The war will never end. [tag-ice]Global warming[/tag-ice] is melting the polar ice caps. Murder rates soar.
Watch your local news tonight. The first 15 minutes will be full of doom and gloom stories. Then you’ll see the weather which will be full of extreme weather stories and huge storms. The sports will follow with story after story about athletes that were caught cheating or breaking the law. They’ll squeeze in your local team’s results but the majority of the time will be focused on negative sports news.
Feel good stories rarely make it in your local news except at the very end of the newscast. One cute story about firemen rescuing a cat from a tree or a local girl scout troop that sold more cookies than last year will end the newscast. Katie Couric experimented with focusing on positive news when she became the evening news anchor at CBS. That experiment lasted only a few weeks as the ratings plummeted to last place.
So if the media is pounding the “[tag-tec]recession[/tag-tec]” word into your client’s heads, how are you going to get them to spend any money? If they’re watching the news, they’re scared to death and afraid to spend any money.
You need to focus on the positive and be the bearer of good news. Now is the time to be communicating with them. Give them some good news. Lift their spirits. Send them a joke. Give them a great deal. Do something. Do anything to lift their spirits. Now is the time they need to hear something positive and they’ll remember you for a long time if you’re the one that lifts their spirits.
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