If you like being scared no need to wait until Halloween just flick on the television or open the newspaper.

At some point you have to decide who you are going to listen to.  Are you going to  cower in a corner  like a small child and let the talking network heads tell you what your future will be or are you going to grow up and take personal responsibility for your own thoughts, actions and destiny?

Most of the talking heads that are making noise are simply making noise. There is no real basis for their mindless chatter. They sit and stare at the little red light on top of the television camera and pontificate as if they have a crystal ball and can foretell the future. They can’t. I can’t and neither can you or anyone else.

The business reality is that people are still buying stuff and spending money. Lots of money. People are still eating at restaurants, going to movie theaters and shopping at the malls.  People are still buying insurance, houses, cars and clothing and they are still traveling to exotic vacation destinations. Businesses are still buying advertising, computers, office furniture and everything else businesses normally buy.

The bottom line is that people are still buying the stuff you or your company sells. They may not be buying quite as much or spending quite as recklessly as they were but they are still spending trillions of dollars annually.

As I survey my clients across the U.S. and Canada, I find a common theme. Those companies who are excellent at what they do, have a clear vision, a detailed plan, and aggressively go after market share are growing their sales revenues and profits by double digits.

 Those who are slovenly, unfocused, half committed and operationally mediocre are struggling or shrinking now that the easy money has disappeared.

Let’s face it. When money is easy anyone can make money. When things tighten up we find out who the real players are.

The beautiful thing about the market is that it always separates those who are performers from those who are pretenders. This shaking out process that culls, cleanses and prunes the market of business imposters is healthy.

Today’s economic climate is not a negative.  It is a great opportunity to leap ahead of your competition and become the dominate player in your market.

Are you excellent at what you do? Do you have a clear vision and written goals? Do you have a detailed written plan to achieve your goals? Are you aggressively going after market share?

Stay tuned. In part three we will talk about specific strategies that can help you become a market leader.

Be careful who you listen to

Hysteria is running rampant in the news media. Headlines like these are filling the front pages of newspapers and news magazines across the country.

 ”Economists bet housing prices will fall 10% more”

“Homebuilder Lennar Corp posts third-quarter loss of $510 million and cut its work force by 35%.”
 
“It’s going to be a distressingly long time before we get back to normal.”

“The National Association of Realtors reported existing home salesl fell in August to the lowest level in five years.”

“Nearly 180,000 homes fell into foreclosure in July, up 93 percent from a year ago.”

“Sales of new single-family homes were off 22.3 percent in June from a year earlier.”

“The National Association of Realtors reports there’s enough housing inventory for sale to last 9.6 months, more than double the 2005 level.”

“This is the largest sustained decline in year-over-year prices since 1991,” says Yale economist Robert Shiller.

“The collateral damage is spreading.”

“The second quarter, same-store sales were down 5.2 percent at Home Depot and 4.3 percent at Sears.”
 
“In July, auto sales were down 12 percent from the year before.”

“The sky is falling. The sky is falling”. NOT

Relax we have been here many times before.

When Jimmy Carter was President in the 1970s we had double digit inflation, double digit interest rates (400% higher than today)- my home mortgage was 13%- and double digit unemployment, gas lines and gas rationing. All of this led to an avalanche of home foreclosures and the collapse of savings and loans banks.

In the 1980s and again in 1991 we had a recession. No big deal just an economic bump in the road that preceded one of the greatest bull markets the world has ever seen.

If the financial hysteria doesn’t scare you how about lead poisoned toys, fish and tea from China, global warming, the melting of the polar ice cap, the bird flu epidemic, terrorist plots, the war in Iraq, the sub prime debacle. Pick your boogey man. To quote Jimmy Buffet, “It’s a scary world out there kiddies.”

In its desperate need to fill the airways and tabloids the mass media manufactures hysteria, dire predictions and over hyped crisis that scares the hell out of a jaded, uniformed and ignorant public. They do that because they know if they were to report on the low unemployment rates, low interest rates and a healthy economy they wouldn’t draw much of a crowd.

 While there is a significant correction in the bloated housing market - remember the talk of a housing bubble just three years ag0 and the stock market correction earlier in this decade - we are not headed for an economic depression. Recession maybe. Depression not a chance.

The key to your prosperity in good times and in bad is to eliminate a scarcity mentality by learn to focus on  Cultivating an Abundant Mentality. If you will do this you will position yourself to take advantage of the fear and hysteria that permeates the business landscape?

Stay tuned for part 2 next week…

The nation’s first baby boomer, Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, a former teacher from New Jersey applied for Social Security Monday, the start of an avalanche of applications from the post-World War II generation. Casey-Kirschling was born one second after midnight on Jan. 1, 1946, making her the first baby boomer — a generation of nearly 80 million born from 1946 to 1964.

In 2007 Baby Boomers represent nearly one- half of the U.S. work force. The number of workers 55 and older is growing four times faster that the work force as a whole. As the baby-boomer generation retires from the U.S. work force, companies will have to cope with the fact that Generation X’s, who were born between 1964 and 1982 and number only 44 million, will not be able to fill the talent gap.

What does all of this mean for you or the company you own or work for?

If you are an employee it means that there will be an increasing demand and opportunity for your skills. If you are a hiring manager or business owner it means you are going to find it more and more difficult to find and retain good employees.

What can you do to maximize the talent acquisition and minimize the talent drain:

• Implement extensive communication and relationship building skills training for the management team
• Institute a training program that helps employees further their technical, personal and communication skills
• Improve personal and communication skills among all employees
• Provide coaching and career path development opportunities for key employees
• Make work fun
• Provide a flexible work schedule
• Allow employees to work remotely or from home
• Learn what motivates each individual employee and provide proper motivation and management

The astute manager realizes their best customers are in fact their employees and how they treat these “internal customers” is how these internal customers will treat the external customers / buyers.