Steve Hoffacker's Sales Quips

You and I are special today. We are the small business that the Administration loves to single out and target as needing to comply with all of their new regulations and tax proposals. We also are the ones they claim to have such empathy for. Then agian, we are the ones they expect to create the jobs and lead economic recovery to make them look good.

Isn't it nice to be so popular?

Of course, you and I are just one of the thousands of sole proprietorships, "mom and pop" businesses, self-employed individuals, independent contractors, boutique businesses, and others that make up the term "small businesses" in this country.

We may employ and provide a livelihood for just ourselves, or may have a few employees all the way up to a 100 or more. We provide a valuable service or a product for people to purchase in such quanities and frequencies that we are able to stay in business.

As important as we are to American economy for job growth, the economic output, and economic stability, it's a real shame that more people don't understand what small business is all about.

We are about free enterprise and capitalism. Profit is a good thing. Risk is a good thing. Customer relations is a good thing. Being respected for what we produce or offer is a good thing. The strength of our brand is a good thing, Being left alone to succeed or fail is a good thing.

We have the creative spirit, the ingenuity, the drive, the perseverance, and the can-do attitude to be able to pick up the pieces and start over again after a failure, to reinvent ourselves when the marketplace isn't conducive to what we have been offering, and to keep going in the face of challenges or adversity.

It would be nice to get a little respect, and it sure would be nice to be left alone by Congress and the Administration to do what we do best - stimulate the economy by buying goods and services for our businesses, putting goods and services into the marketplace for others to purchase, and offering employment to ourselves and others,

Congress and the Administration say they know how important we are, but cleartly they don't. They say that they know that small businesses are the job creators in this country and then they go right ahead and tax us, pass cap and trade legislation, place onerous requirements on us with their abusive health care package, and hand out bailouts and stimulus dollars left and right. All the while banks won't lend or extend credit, and the President wants to double exports. It's all talk.

Those exports won't happen without businesses to produce the goods to sell to other nations. An economic recovery won't happen through continued - or even new - taxation and regulation.

If government want to know what we - the little guys and gals who are small businesses in America - are all about, don't ask the unions and don't hold hearings on the Hill. Just stand back and watch. Give us the freedom to be and to do what we are capable of, and we'll show you job growth and economic expansion.

───

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. You can also listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

Labor Day weekend will be here basically tomorrow. It signals the end of summer. even yhough it doesn't end officially for a couple of weeks.

Nevertheless, many people have an opportunity for a three day weekend. If you have children in school, make it a 4-day weekend. Keep your kids home on Tuesday September 8th. Or go to the beach or mountains. Make it a family day. Make it an anti-propaganda day. Make it a pro-capitalist day.

After all, Monday is Labor Union Day. It's only right that Tuesday be Capitalist Day.

Do you realize what is going on here?

In an unprecedented move, the White House - through it's unnecessary and unconstitutional Department of Education - is appealing to school kids to shape public policy and indoctrinate them with their anti-free enterprise, anti-capitalism approach to the new United States. Unthinkable. Shameless.

Unconstitutional you ask? Precisely. Education is a state's right. The Federal government is not authorized (except by an erroneous act of Congress when they approved LBJ's HEW which would later split into today's Department of Education) and should have nothing to do with education, including funding. Maybe some goals or suggested standards of achievement. It is the right of each of the 50 states to provide education.

If anyone cares about this country or our right to be in business and be entrepreneurs we need to keep our kids out of school on Tuesday.

───

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. You can also listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2009. All Rights Reserved.

Once again we're hearing this "too big to fail" mantra from Washington. Unfortunately this concept is built upon a lie - a very expensive one.

If you embrace free enterprise - as I know many of us do - then everything is subject to success or failure on its own merits and its ability to adjust to changing markets.

When is the last time any of us bought a slide rule, typewriter eraser, 8-track tapes, or phonograph records? Carbon paper and fountain pens - while still in use - are not as practical or common as they once were. When was the last time we shipped something by Railway Express (the largest shipping company of its day)? How many of use own a manual typewriter or adding machine? How about purchasing a Rambler, Studebaker, or DeSoto?

Markets change, needs change, technology changes. Companies come and go. Products come and go. That's part of the free market economy.

Now, enter the federal government. A handful of people are now considering that some companies who couldn't play by the free market rules and just go away need to be propped up - at the expense of everyone - whether they use that product or have any interest in that company. It is now deemed "too big to fail." Who decides this? Should be the market.

Nothing is too big to fail. Do we cheer for businesses to fail? No. Should we try to keep them in business? Only to the point that they are able to cut their costs and keep an attractive, reasonably priced product on the streets that people will buy.

Will there be consequences? Sure. Lost jobs? Empty buildings? Impacts on local economies? Impacts on interstate and possibly international commerce? Can't be helped.

If the US Government spends itself into oblivion, who is going to say that our economy is too big to fail and must be saved? Who is going to have the resources to keep it afloat?

───

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. You can also listen to my free podcast messages at Steve Hoffacker's Happenings.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2009. All Rights Reserved.

2008 was the year of the bailouts. Many prominent businesses received them.

There is a part of everyone that likes found money. That's why many of us play the lotto or the slot machines. It's attractive, but it's really who we are.

We are entrepreneurs, self-employed small businesspeople. We make our own opportunities.

Bailouts are not good for this country. They're certainly not anything we need. Oh, we probably could all use some extra cash, but we'll work for it and use our businesses to achieve it.

Regardless of what type of financial issues we might be facing at any given time, we have our own abilities and business sense to get us through it. We're survivors and we're the face of free enterprise.

───

For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, sales tips, insights, or strategies, visit my website stevehoffacker.com or my other blog homesalesinsights.com. © Steve Hoffacker, 2009. All Rights Reserved.

OK, here's our chance.

For months, weeks, or days we've been saying essentially "wait until the new year." Well, we're here.

2009 has arrived. No more excuses. No more procrastination.

We have a blank canvas on which to paint each day for as many as 365 days.

We are going to have personal and business challenges, we are going to have deals that don't work out, we are going to have customers change their mind and cancel, we are going to have sellers who are not easy to work with, we are going to have lending issues. That's a given. It's part of what we signed on for.

Real estate continues to be one of the most lucrative business opportunities, and it is entrepreneurial in nature.

There's never been a better time to celebrate free enterprise.

Let's all give it our all and have a great year. No regrets.

───

For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, sales tips, insights, or strategies, visit my website stevehoffacker.com or my other blog homesalesinsights.com. © Steve Hoffacker, 2009. All Rights Reserved.

The federal government - in the wake of the automakers, Wall Street, Freddie, Fannie, AIG, Citi and so many others - has redefined the theory of supply and demand in this country.

Once the mainstay of our free enterprise system - where goods and services were produced, priced, and sold according to their ability to be consumed by a willing purchaser - the current theory has moved away from this.

Businesses start and fail everyday - often without much notice or fanfare. Only when they get very large and move into the institutional category does anyone begin to look at how they impact the fabric of American life.

Now we have government bailouts. They have redefined our system of commerce, and it needs to stop.

Our new theory of supply and demand is that the federal government (Congress and the President with our money) will supply the funds and safeguards to prop up failing, unprofitable, mismanaged businesses and that such businesses will continue to demand more and more of such help.

───

For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, sales tips, insights, or strategies, visit my website stevehoffacker.com or my other blog homesalesinsights.com. © Steve Hoffacker, 2008. All Rights Reserved.

This is republished in the spirit of free enterprise that is illustrated in the story. Thanks, Mike.

Yesterday was the 45th anniversary of that devastating day in Dallas in 1963 when President Kennedy was gunned down.

On a more positive note, I want to recall a very famous line from his Inaugural Address when he admonished us to "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country."

It's amazing how many corporations (though lifeless on their own, but run by humans), individuals, and government officials have forgotten that.

Time for a refresher course.

As I see it, when JFK tells us to ask not what our country can do for us. He is telling the AIGs, Freddies, Fannies, unions, GMs, Fords, Chryslers, banks, and everyone else standing in line with their hands out or just leaving the cashier window to suck it up, get out of line, and get back to work.

Be productive, not needy, Be a contributor, not a dependent.

And those Congressional earmarks! John McCain is right. Congress is spending us into oblivion. Even a simple but totally unnecessary (in my opinion) bailout that could have been written in a few hundred words was 451 pages and included add-ons, earmarks, and other legislation that couldn't get passed if anyone took a serious look at it.

As entrepreneurs, we have the right idea. We are the leaders.

We give back. We employ others. We move goods and services. We stimulate the economy. We help others. We provide for our families and those of our employees.

We do not ask of our country except the right to do what we know how to do without much interference or regulation.

Yes, indeed, it time for us to look out for our country or we may not have one much longer.

───

For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, sales tips, insights, or strategies, visit my website stevehoffacker.com or my other blog homesalesinsights.com. © Steve Hoffacker, All Rights Reserved.

Perseverance is a mainstay of the successful entrepreneur. Lou Ludwig featured this great quote.

We all start businesses because we want them to succeed. We embark on a real estate sales career because we want it succeed.

Free enterprise means that we all have the opportunity to start any business that we want - subject to licenses and other regulations that may apply - and also that we have the right to fail in that business. Many unsuccessful businesspeople didn't read the entire user agreement before clicking "accept." They just knew they wanted to be in business - they never considered the effort that might be required to maintain or sustain it.

There were many people getting into real estate and homebuilding in this decade up until a year or two ago (depending on the market) as entrepreneurs. This included builders, salespeople, mortgage brokers, stagers, realtors, flippers, investors, title companies, and other related individuals. However, when the entry into a business or market is relatively easy - which it was - then too many people refuse to the hard part which is sustain the business. As a result, many quit, fail, or go away.

We feel badly for them that their business failed, but we understand that this is part of the cycle of business and one of attributes of free enterprise - no guarantees. In fact less than half of all businesses started in this country make it past the first 2 or 3 years.

In the long run, real estate businesses will be stronger after some of the ones who approached it too lightly are off to something else - leaving those iof us who are serious.

Don't worry about the business or office closings. Celebrate those that remain.

───

For more information on my coaching services or sales tips visit my website stevehoffacker.com or my blog homesalesinsights.com.