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It gets cold in Washington, DC.  Not as bitter cold as Chicago perhaps, but it gets pretty darn cold in the nation’s capital.  Just before Christmas 2008, I was standing at a bus stop at the West Falls Church metro station.  It was frigid!  I was bundled up in my down jacked, gloves and cap and was still shivering.  I noticed a guy with long hair, black slacks, dress shoes and a white T-shirt.  Obviously, he was freezing.  He was actually shivering in another bus shelter but when my bus came, he decided to get on that instead.  I noticed that he showed a slip of paper to the driver and then got on without paying.

After we started rolling, I asked him in Spanish, “Where are your clothes?”  He looked at me strangely and I rephrased my question in my best Spanglish, “Where is your jacket?”  He told me that he speaks English.  So, I repeated in English, “Where is your jacket?”  He told me that he just got out of jail and didn’t have a jacket.

Get out of jail FREE card

During out 15 minute bus ride to Reston Town Center, he explained to me that he was put in jail in June when the weather was warm.  He was actually admitted to Arlington County jail but was subsequently transferred to Fairfax County jail.  In the process, all of his belongings were still at Arlington.  But, even if he had his cell phone it wouldn’t do him any good because he was sure the service has been disconnected by now, after all this time.

Without going into a lot of details, he said that he had broken up with his girlfriend and went back to their apartment to collect his belongings when the landlord called the police and they busted him for breaking and entering.  Since he didn’t have money for an attorney, they held him in jail until the sentencing.  Six months later, they simply released him from jail.  Since it was a week before Christmas, he figured the judge had the Christmas spirit and decided to let him go early.

County jails cannot afford to keep inmates

Well, if you ask me, it wasn’t no Christmas spirt or gift to let the guy out when they did and the way they did.  I’ll explain…

As we approached Reston Town Center, I asked him where he was going to stay, what were his plans, where was he going to work.  He told me that he didn’t have any plans because he didn’t plan to get released so soon, it happened suddenly and unexpectedly.  He didn’t have a place to stay but he had a cousin in Reston that he was going to try to find in the phone book.  He tried to call his old workplace but everybody he knew at the restaurant has been laid off.  I asked him if he had any money and he said about $20.

So, here is my question to society and the judicial system.  WTF?

Judicial system encourages repeat offenders

You release a guy in the middle of winter with no clothes and tell him that he can go anywhere he wants on the Washington metro system without charge.  In other words, get as far away from here as you can and be somebody else’s problem.  Let the guy out with no clothes, no money, no job, no counseling, no training, no shelter, no phone and no clue.  What do you think the guy is going to do to survive?  Do you think he might be a little desperate?  Do you know what desperate people do?  Well, I’ll give you a clue…desperate people do desperate things, like robbery and burglary.  What other choices do they have?

This guy certainly isn’t going to get a job in this economy.  And, give him 2-3 days living on the street in the same clothes without any personal hygiene and I’m sure he won’t be the most presentable job candidate.  Talk about setting him up for failure … and we wonder why the recidivism rate is so high in America.

Stupid decisions by government

One of the biggest problems with government and bureauracracy is the perpetuation of stupid decisions and stupid rules.  Moreover, we have so many people in government who follow rules to the letter of the law without any consideration for the spirit or purpose behind the law.  We fail to use reason and logic in our society.  Stupid people in the government doing stupid things.

Oh, jeez … I forgot why I even started writing this article!  The judge didn’t have any stinking Christmas spirit when he let this guy go.  He could care less about this guy.  The reason he let him out was because it cost the government too much money to keep him in.  The economy is down, the housing market has collapsed, people aren’t buying, they aren’t shopping, they aren’t driving as much, people are getting laid off and all of this weakened activity is reducing the tax revenue that the government had expected to generate.  All the things that normally generate tax revenue are crashing.  As a result, we are letting people out of jail early because we can’t afford to keep them in.  Worse, we aren’t doing anything to prepare them to re-enter society, which exponentially increases the chance that they will end up back into trouble in the very near future.

Circuit City going out of business sale

Looks like Al Gore is not the only Goracle.  I predicted back in August 2008 that Circuit City would go out of business.

Later gater.

Today, Starbucks announced the closure of 300 additional stores in addition to the 600 store closures announced last year.  According to my math, that is about 900 under-performing Starbucks stores scheduled to closed.  Meanwhile, three days ago, McDonald’s reports better-than-expected profit and announced plans to open 1,000 new stores in 2009.

Who would have thunk? Well, I would…

I remember 3-5 years ago when times were good.  Well, actually it was more like 5-10 years ago when life was really good.  I was drinking $40 bottles of wine, traveling all over the world from China to Italy, buying a Mercedes one year and a Porsche the next.  I would visit Starbucks at least twice a day.  In the morning I would order my grande cappuccino along with a blueberry muffin.  My mid-morning fix would set me back at least $5 and often, I would buy for people in my office.  Then, in the afternoon, back to Starbucks for a frappucino and cookie … and another $5.  I would easily go through $300 per month at Starbucks.

But guess what, as times changed so did my habits.  I went from grande cappuccino’s to tall drip coffees.  As times got even worse, I went to making my Starbucks coffee at home and bringing it to work in a thermos bottle.  Now, I don’t even by Starbucks by the bag, I buy Costco by the bag, grind it and brew it at home.  Now, it costs me less than 25 cents to make my coffee.

Enter the McDonald’s factor and the $1 dollar meal menu.  At McDonald’s you can get a cup of coffee for $1, a yogurt parfait for $1, chicken McNuggets for $1, a hamburger for $1, large french fries for $1, etc.  What can you get at Starbucks for a dollar?  Nothing.  Indeed, you need at least two dollar bills to buy anything at Starbucks.  It makes both sense and cents that Starbucks closes almost 1,000 stores while McDonald’s opens 1,000 stores.

And if you look at the stock prices, you won’t find much surprise there either.  According to my iPhone, where I keep track of my stocks, Starbucks stock is trading in the single digits from a low of 7 in November to 9.65 as of today.  One year ago, Starbucks was hovering around 20.  Two years ago, Starbucks was trading around 35.  If you look at performance over the last 5 years, McDonald’s stock has proven to be the true and reliable performer while Starbucks shreaked across the sky like a meteor and then crashed and burned.

As I look at today’s Washington Post, the Business Section headlines were mostly gloom and doom:

• Property owner’s predicament: Investors face struggle to refinance loans for local commercial real estate
• U.S. aid goes to credit unions: $1 billion infusion sent to firm that services industry
• Wells Fargo reports loss of $2.55 billion
• Starbucks to cut jobs, close additional stores
• Allied Capital warns of default on terms of its debt
• Congressional Quarterly put up for sale
• At Davos, tough words for U.S. on financial crisis
• Toll on 401(k) savings adds years more of toil
• AOL to cut jobs, halt raises
• Wall Street bonuses fell sharply in 2008
• New York Times Co. said its fourth-quarter earnings plunged 47.8 percent
• AT&T said fourth-quarter profit fell 23.3 percent
• Legg Mason reports its worst quarterly loss
• Lockheed to freeze chief executive’s salary
• Global growth to stall, IMF says
• Spain falls into recession
• Boeing said it would slash 10,000 jobs and reports net income fell 34 percent

WTF? This is all in one day’s paper.  And Thursdays were supposed to be slow news days.

So, what does this mean for today’s economy?  Well, the products, services and companies that will likely do well over the next 18-24 months are those that provide exceptional value, low barriers to entry, consistent quality and customer service and affordability.  No wonder Toyota is doing better than Jaguar.  No wonder McDonald’s is doing better than Starbucks.

Sharing your knowledge and expertise builds credibility

One of the best ways to earn business is to offer free, valuable and relevant advice, information and nuggets of knowledge to your potential clients.  Sharing some tricks of the trade lets people know that a) you know what you are talking about and b) you are customer service oriented.

We have built an online marketing wiki page to help you learn more about search engine optimization, web analytics and online marketing.  Please give it a test drive and let us know if there are any unanswered questions or emerging trends that we need to cover.

Watch Obama’s Presidential first address to the world

This is the photo that sent Scotty Lago packing for home after the Olympic committe judged his celebration to be in poor taste.  The photo depicts an Asian woman kissing the Bronze medal worn below the waist by Olympic snowboarding medalist.

I’m  sure it was all in good fun and should not be shocking given the nature of the sport.  These are surfer, skateboard, snowboarder type kids.  The photo makes it appear as if the woman is performing oral sex on the Olympic medalist.

FBI embraces social networking and web 2.0

In a bold and progressive move, the FBI delivers a Facebook widget for Facebook, Friendster, Blogger, MySpace, iGoogle, Live and Hi5. This initiative is an effective use and leverage of social networking to ignite citizen involvement and cooperation in FBI’s ability to catch the bad guys.

FBI launches a Facebook widget for Top 10 Most Wanted

If you would like to have a Facebook widget built for your organization, contact the web designers at inQbation to explore the possibilities.

Obama seeks citizen’s input using web 2.0 social networking

Visit the Citizen’s briefing book now and share your ideas

Share your ideas on any issue facing the new administration, then rate or comment on other ideas. The best rated ideas will rise to the top — and be gathered into a Citizen’s Briefing Book to be delivered to President Obama after he is sworn in.

You may be the most creative person in the world and yet not taste the kind of success that you deserve. You may have all the talent in the world and yet not gain the recognition that you warrant. You may have come up with the best design that money can buy and yet find it rejected for reasons that are incomprehensible to you. If you find it hard to understand why the best designs fail sometimes, it’s because:

• They’re not user-friendly: Most designers don’t take the trouble to test their creations on people who are actually going to use them regularly. That’s why we have appliances that are inconvenient to use and gadgets that don’t bow to your wishes like they’re supposed to. Every finished product must undergo a testing period where all the possible glitches and errors are ironed out.
• When there’s not enough detail: Oftentimes, there are details that are obvious to the designer but completely invisible to the user. If the devil is in the detail, you’d better make sure that your design is well documented and that there are no ambiguities involved.
• When egos take over: When two or more people are involved in a project and there’s a clash of egos, you can bet your last dollar that there’s going to be some sort of confusion in the end result. For designs to live up to their potential, they must come together after leaving their egos at the doorstep.
• When deadlines take priority over quality: Even the best designers come up with slipshod work when they’re pressurized to complete the project in a ridiculously short amount of time. When deadlines precede quality in the priority list, you know there’s going to be some compromise being made in the way the final product turns out.
• When expectations run high: There’s no way to satisfy people with the highest expectations – no matter how good your end product is, they always find some fault with it. It’s hard to come up with a successful design when your client is finicky and looking for something negative in your creation rather than seeing the positive aspects of the design.
• When you try to do too much: There are many times when simplicity scores over sophistication, and a good designer realizes the truth in this. He or she understands that you don’t have to go overboard to come up with a design that meets the cut, that sometimes, it’s better to stay with the bare outlines rather than fill the entire space with clutter and confusion.

In the end, good design is all about understanding the client’s needs, translating it onto the screen, and infusing it with as much usability as possible.

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This post was contributed by Holly McCarthy, who writes on the subject of business schools. She invites your feedback at hollymccarthy12 at gmail dot com

Time to re-look at your business and marketing blueprints

Times are tough and industry after industry is falling like a set of dominos.  First the housing crisis then the banking crisis then Wall Street then the auto industry then manufacturing as a whole then the retail sector and then the commercial real estate market.  What’s next?  In short, the entire economy is tied together and is crashing like a giant tree in the forest, taking many smaller trees down with it.

But, like a raging wild forest fire, times like this also create new opportunities.  Now is the time to step back, study your business, focus on the 20% of the products and services that produce 80% of the revenue and prune your unnecessary expenses.  If you are a large business or small, every employee needs to be contributing 100%.  During times of economic recession, there is no room for employees wasting time, money or resources.

Start by looking at your client base.  Who are the best clients?  Who are the easiest to do business with?  Who are the most profitable?  Who do you like working with the most?  These are the clients you need to target, focus on and reach out to.  Focus on the target, focus on the goal, keep your eye on the ball.

Next, look at your offering.  What products and services are highest in demand?  Which ones are the easiest to sell?  Which one are the easist to make, acquire or provide.  These are the products and services that you need to be promoting.  If you offer products and services that are a pain in the neck to deliver, consider dropping them.

Third, look at your marketing plan.  Does your website reach out to your target market?  Does it feature the products and services that you have decided to focus on?  Is it search engine optimized for the key words and language that your target audience uses in their natural search vocabulary?

What’s going on with your advertising?  What works and what doesn’t?  What sources of business consistently deliver results?  Do you know?  Do you or your salesforce ask every client how they heard about you?  Is this information recorded and delivered back to the person in charge of sales, marketing and business development?  If not, it should be.

When a new client makes contact with you for the first time, one of the first questions should always be, “how do you find us?”  This is crucial information.  You need to know What channels are delivering clients?  What clients are referring clients?  If your pay-per-click advertising is not working, you need to find out why.  Have you studied your keywords that you buy?  The call to action?  The landing page?  The bid rates?

Economic recessions are the best time to analyze your business, give your website a face lift, work on that search engine optimization campaign and focus on the 20% of the things (clients and products & services) that deliver 80% of the good things in your life and business.  Eliminate the 20% of the clients that product 80% of the headaches.  Eliminate 20% of the products and services that cause you to work 80% of the time.

If you would like a FREE analysis of your business and marketing plan, we invite you to give us a call.  Lets see if we can ignite your sales performance and catapult your business, career or organization to a new level