Steve Hoffacker's Sales Quips: December 2010

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

Photography displayed is original composition and artistic expression of Steve Hoffacker, and as such is copyrighted. Photos are as taken and have not been cropped or enhanced in anyway.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

This post by Ron and Alexandra shows how they can use the natural color of flowers (orchids) as a great way of accenting the interior space.

Kodachrome - long the staple of the color film industry and photo enthusiasts, and made famous in a Paul Simon song - is no more.

There are other versions of color film, but the standby has gone bye-bye.

Today in Parsons, Kansas, not far from the Oklahoma border, in Dwayne's Photo, the last roll of Kodachrome fim will be processed and printed - for all time.

Kodak stopped making the chemicals used in the processing a year ago and felt that they should last through the end of 2010. That has happened, and there will be no more Kodachrome film developed. If you shot Kodachrome film - or have unused rolls of it - and have it just sitting around in the basement, freezer, or a drawer someplace, it will do you no good. There is now no way to get those slides or pictures from them processed.

Over the 75 years that Kodachrome was manufactured and processed, it was a solid part of Americana.

Now it is another memory.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

Photography displayed is original composition and artistic expression of Steve Hoffacker, and as such is copyrighted. Photos are as taken and have not been cropped or enhanced in anyway.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

Photography displayed is original composition and artistic expression of Steve Hoffacker, and as such is copyrighted. Photos are as taken and have not been cropped or enhanced in anyway.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

Playing fast and loose with the Constitution for years, and really stretching any connection to the Constitution such as basing health care on the commerce clause when the health care bill specifically ignores interstate commerce, the 112th Congress will commence their session with the reading of the entire Constitution aloud for all of the Members of the House.

Of course that doesn't mean that they'll understand it - only that they will have heard it - and only for those who attend.

Then each time a bill is introduced, the Member must cite its Constitutional authority for that specific measure.

This is great in concept, but the legislators actually have to know what the Constitution says and what it allows them to do - very little actually - before this will work.

I expect a lot of bending will be done and that most of what is introduced will be for the "general welfare" even though that is a very minor concept and not specifcally covered in any of the specific powers of Congress.

Give them an A minus (A-) for effort - we'll see how it works.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

Ethics are important if you're a Realtor. They're important in business and in relationships. They're not all that important in Congress. Ask Charlie Rangel - do whatever you want, trample all over the ethics (whatever they are since the public is not allowed to know what they are) and get scolded. Big deal.

Do you know what the ethics are for House Members? Of course not - because they are not published. They are referenced as an appendix in the House rules. They are not available to the public but appear to be pages and pages - not a simple list of 10-15 items.

My suggestion is to refine them into a simple one-page list and publish it on the Congressional website. Let us know what Congressmen and women are allowed and expected to do. Then we can hold them accountable since they don't police themselves very well.

Speaker-elect John Boehner said that "The American people have every right to expect the highest standards of ethical conduct from their elected leaders, and it is important for members of both the majority and the minority to work together to ensure that such standards are observed and respected at all times within the institution."

He has appointed the ranking member  of the ethics committee in the 111th Congress, Jo Bonner from Alabama, to lead the committee in the 112th.

We'll have to see if they can deliver or if it will be a continuation of window dressing. A great start would be to scrap all of the vergahge and adopt my suggestion.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

The current Administration and the outgoing 111th Congress have played us for fools. They create distractions like illusionists and while we are watching what they want us to watch, the real act is accomplished without our notice.

America is great because its people are great. We have the know-how, the freedom, the persisitence, the ingenuity, and the desire to rise to the top and stay there - until enticed and entrapped by our government to slack off and be cared for.

It's almost time to think about filing our 2010 federal income taxes. What? You didn't get that booklet in the mail with all the forms in it? You won't.

There are many more changes for this year, but here's the biggest, most thoughtful change for us as salespeople and business owners. In 2009, when gas was a $1 or so less a gallon than it is now, we could deduct 55 cents per mile for business use of our car to attend trade shows, conferences, seminars, appointments, and the like when we itemized our decuctions.

However, now that gas is over $3 a gallon in most areas and heading even higher, we can only claim 50 cents a mile.

Isn't that thoughtful of Congress and the IRS?

Flat tax anyone?

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

Never mind the cold. Ice phishing must be doing very well right now.

As if my inbox wasn't already stuffed with legitimate messages, and then the normal drivel of junk mail, this is the season for all of those "start your own business" offers that are coming in from around the world. I've received a dozen offers already today.

So happy that they are impressed with my resume - but if they had bothered to read it instead of just mentioning it, they would notice that their offer is quite unnecessary.

Nevertheless, this is just a new twist in the ever amusing and entertaining world of professional phishing.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website stevehoffacker.com, or go to my other blog homesalesinsights.com for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2010. All Rights Reserved.