Steve Hoffacker's Sales Quips

Today the President, in Disney World here in Florida, announced a new initiative to streamline and speedup the vacation visa process to allow tourists to come to Disney and other places throughout the country. According to his consultant on this, the head of the US Tourism Bureau, every 35 new tourists equals one new job.

The President seemed delighted to be announcing this, and it seems - until we know more - that it has merit.

On the other hand, the President yesterday refused to allow the State Department to issue the necessary permit to allow the Keystone Pipeline to proceed. I'm hoping that Congress has the last word on this, but it definitely seems to be at odds with today's announcement.

How can you build a pipeline which doesn't exist and not create jobs to do it?

I heard someone say that only 5,000 jobs would be created and that's why the President opted to reject it.

One hundred jobs or 100,000 jobs - that's missing the point. Job creation - temporary and long-term - are important but only part of the benefit.

With a pipeline comes more oil into this country. That creates a trickle down hiring and renewed opportunities for millions of Americans. People back to work, production up, inflation down. We have heard so much talk of domestic energy and reducing the dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

Could it be that we are only interested in energy as long as oil, coal, or gas are not involved?

Could it be that we are only interested in jobs in the already prominent services sector?

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

Steve Hoffacker - Sales Trainer, Author of Sales Books, Commercial Real Estate Broker, Marketing Consultant, Sales Coach, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Podcaster, and Teacher. - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2012. All Rights Reserved.

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

Steve Hoffacker - Sales Trainer, Author of Sales Books, Commercial Real Estate Broker, Marketing Consultant, Sales Coach, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Podcaster, and Teacher. - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2012. All Rights Reserved.

Vice-President Biden and President Obama celebrated the loaning of over a half-billion dollars ($529 million) to a start-up all-electric car manufacturing company that Biden said would "pave the way to thousands of American manufacturing jobs."

What's the problem? All the manufacturing, all the employment, all the ancillary expenditures are occurring in Finland. Supposedly all the money has already been spent in the US on engineering and design work in the US before sending all of the work to Finland for production. Is anyone holding them accountable? Is anyone auditing the expenditures?

With the lamest remark I've heard in some time, Herik Fisker, founder of the Fisker car company, said there was no manufacturing facility in the US capable of doing the work. My question is how hard did he look? Give me a few days, and I'd come up with some options for him - including creating a new business in a shell of a former manufacturing facility. A half-billion dollars could go a long way in equipping a plant. There are thousands of empty plants across America. Free enterprise doesn't always give you a turnkey business. You have to work at it - unless creating US jobs was never that high on the agenda. If that was the case, there should have be no loan.

The loan was from the Department of Energy, and I question why they have this amount of money and this type of discretion when we are looking for ways to cut federal expenditures. No new American job were created and there is no economic multiplier effect for manufacturing of these cars. Therefore, this was a total waste of our tax dollars - especially if they default.

This was another very poor decision by the DOE and another reason they need to be abolished. If Fisker really needed that kind of startup money he could have tapped his partner Al Gore.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website or go to my other blog "Steve Hoffacker's Home Sales Insights" 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, Podcaster, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Can you believe the distorted thinking of Harry Reid and the others like him in Congress? In just over 53 weeks we won't have to watch or listen to his antics anymore.

The American Dream has several components, but one is the right to open a business and be in business for yourself - and to fail at that business if the market doesn't support it.

This is irrelevant to harry Reid.

He maintains that government jobs are far more important than private sector ones. Of course, he puts his spin on it to say that "it’s very clear that private sector jobs have been doing just fine, it’s the public sector jobs where we’ve lost huge numbers." If that's the case, we can certainly stand to lose millions more public sector jobs - and the last time I looked, the reason we had 14 million (or whatever the real number is) Americans unemloyed is not because we don't have enough government slots for everyone. It's because the private sector is struggling.

True, public sector jobs continue to drain the treasury, true most public sector jobs generate no revenue to pay for their existence, and true, public sector jobs mean votes and support for the Administration.

If the answer to full employment in this country was just to hire everyone as a teacher, fire fighter, or police officer, we'd be at zero unemployment in no time. Not eveyone wants to do this, not everyone is qualified to do this, and we have no money for it.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website or go to my other blog "Steve Hoffacker's Home Sales Insights" 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, Podcaster, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved

Starbucks has announced that they are going to help create jobs - they can't really do this unless they open more stores and hire more workers - by funding a project called "Jobs for USA" through Opportunity Finance Network. This Network is  a nonprofit that works with nearly 200 community development financial institutions to provide loans to small businesses and community groups. Loans. Loans don't always equal jobs.

Starbucks is allowing customers to donate $5 to the fund in exchange for a red, white, and blue wristband marked "Indivisible."

I guess people are free to contribute as many $5 contributions as they like.

To me, Starbucks would really be helping out if they matched all or part of the contributions. Say dollar-for-dollar or $5-for-$5 up to a certain amount. At least put in $1 for every contribution. Putting out a jar for contributions is easy. Seeing that the money actually does something and being part of the cause other than just the collector would demonstrate more of a commitment to the program.

Of course Starbucks really could create jobs the old fashioned way.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website or go to my other blog "Steve Hoffacker's Home Sales Insights" 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, Podcaster, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Depending on what it is, there usually comes a time when the answer is obvious - it's impllementing the solution that is trickier.

In America today, we know we have a jobs issue. No one - and I really believe that not a single person - would argue otherwise. This is extraordinary to get such total agreement when identifying and clarifying national issues. All agree that we have an employment problem in this country - too few jobs due to a multitude of reasons, too many unemployed for a variety of reasons, and many underemployed - also for numerous reasons.

The President, Congress, and people from coast-to-coast - employees, employers, and seld-employed - agree that employment issues persist.

The issue then is resolving them. Even here, there is widespread agreement and consensus on what needs to be done. We need less government regulations. We need more economic stability so that companies will feel comfortable investing in machinery and human capital. We need money to flow back into the marketplace. We need free trade agreements with new markets. We need to reinvent jobs domestically. This isn't a complete list, but it will get us started.

Standing in the way are endless discussions - rather than decisiove action or leadership - on how to solve the issues that we already have essentially agreed on, labor unions insisting on keeping wages and benefits high, and the President's insistence on dumping billions of dollars into the mix to pay for hiring or retaining short-term government workers at the state and local level and to raise taxes to pay for it.

Until free market economics really are taken seriously, this issue is not going to be resolved even though many know the answer. The solution is simple. Courage to do it is much harder to summon.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website or go to my other blog "Steve Hoffacker's Home Sales Insights" 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, Podcaster, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

There are many instances where our government is taking on free enterprise and trying to dismantle it.

There's the bailout's for auto companies that should have been allowed to fail.

There is the Boeing relocation and expansion to South Carolina.

Now, there is the implicit drive to hire illegal aliens or pay migrant workers what the government says they must get.

In the most recent move, the Department of Labor, a department that I would schedule for dismantling and elimination as a cost-cutting move, has mandated that companies must now pay "imported" or guest workers a wage that they determine - a wage higher than that currently offered and one that is not related to market conditions. There is no way this can be Constitutional, but that has never stopped the Administration and its minions from doing this - or attempting to do it.

Palm Beach County claims to have more workers than any other Florida county on work visa and permits - some 1,500 and principally in the hospitality industry.

The "rest of the story" is that not only do visiting workers have to be paid more, but any US worker in the same position must also be increased to the new wage.

The real question is are these people agreeing to work for the wages paid? Thought so.

This is a back-door attempt - as so many of the Administration's policies are - to control wages in this country.

As the Administration will soon find out if their ill-conceived plan is allowed to progress, companies will layoff workers rather than pay more out in wages. The alternative is to raise prices. Neither result is desirable.

Anytime the government interferes or meddles in the free market, the outcome is not pretty.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website or go to my other blog "Steve Hoffacker's Home Sales Insights" 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, Podcaster, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Notice how many times the President wants something passed immediately - Stimulus I, Stimulus II, Stimulus III, Cap and Trade, Health Care, Card Check, debt limit increase? Notice also how all of these measures have been real fuzzy on the details? To put it the words of Nancy Pelosi on the Health Care bill, "we have to pass it so we'll know what's in it."

Generally, when the President wants something passed immediately, we should not want it passed at all. It is not in our best interests to support his proposals when they "have to be passed immediately."

Even if his jobs plan was worthy of consideration, why announce in July that it will be released in a major address in September and then implore immediate passage? Seems like that argument went out the window with the delay in even bringing it to us.

Notice also that with all of the hype and build-up for his speech unveiling his plan, that there was a little zinger hidden in the speech. He said that his plan was not intended to be the silver bullet. Then why all the hoopla over it?

Come back to us when you do have it figured out. We already know what's necessary, but when you agree with us, come back with your "silver bullet" package.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website or go to my other blog "Steve Hoffacker's Home Sales Insights" 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, Podcaster, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Stimulus III, or if you prefer the President's Jobs Bill, does nothing but attempt to authorize another $447 billion to exacerbate and prolong an ongoing issue. It seeks to "give" cities, counties, and school boards money to retain or rehire layed off teachers, police, fire, and public works employees. Cities, counties, and state governmnets have spent much of 2010 and 2011 wrestling with how to cut budgets because they don't have the money to fund swelling pension expenses that resulted from years of real estate growth and boomtimes.

Most cities and counties have finally come to terms with hiring plans, job cuts, physical plant, and other issues - including having teachers contribute up to 3% toward their pension plans - and now the President dangles a big juicy carrot in front of them that says they can relax or put off these tough choices for a couple more years. The feds are going to step in and make it all better with our money.

The President's jobs plan is nothing but a way to fund union jobs and shore up his voting base. Teachers, fire, police, and municipal workers - all union - is what is targeted for relief. No jobs created here. Just rehiring laid off or terminated workers or expanding programs temporarily.

The construction he talks about is code for government funded, and union operated, publics works programs.

If we want real job growth in construction, we need housing construction, not infrasturcture construction and maintenance. The later is paid for only through government money and lasts only as long as the money does. The former is generally local in nature, employs local workers, and adds to the local economy through the purchase of supplies and serbvices from local vendors - plus the consumer.

We are a long way from housing construction returning to any great degree in many areas of the country, but that traditionally has been a bellweather indicator of economy health.

Small, non-union businesses such as retail, service, assembly, and manufacturing are also what we need to carry us out of the economic slump we are in. The thing about jobs - permamnet as opposed to seasonal or temporary - is that they are directly tied to production or output. That's why funding public employment will not add one productive job. There has to be goods or services produced that a consumer will purchase in sufficient quantity to justify the existence - and expense - of that job.

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website or go to my other blog "Steve Hoffacker's Home Sales Insights" 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, Podcaster, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved. 

The government is on an anti-free enterprise attack. These actions belie anything positive the President can say tonight about job formation. Clearly this Administration dislikes private sector jobs unless they are union jobs.

I have posted and commented about the horrendous situation at Gibson Guitars, and the AG Eric Holder defends his actions even though there is no defense.

You may remember as well how the EPA got most of the remaining incandescent light bulb manufacturers to turn out the lights.

Now, the Labor Department is attacking the homebuilding industry, beginning a probe under the Fair Labor Standards Act with the likes of DR Horton, Pulte, KB, and Lennar. They have requested employment and payroll records for the past 2 years. Something about overtime pay and teenage workers. They also are looking at all subs used in the past year. I don't recall the past 2 years being a particularly robust period for homebuilding.

The list of what they want to examine is long, and there are no specific allegations. Again, you ask, how can this be?

Fortunately, the NAHB is attempting to stay out in front of this, but I'm not sure what they can do against this Administration that is targeting private sector employers.

Can the major realty firms be far behind?

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For more information on my coaching and educational programs and services, visit my website or go to my other blog "" for additional sales tips, insights, and commentary. Listen to my free podcast messages at "."

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

© Steve Hoffacker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.