What Do You Do?

So today when I was e-mailing out our June special to our customers I got an interesting response from one of them. It said the following:

"We are unable to purchase advertising specialties at this time of corporate consolidation."

This is a company that is made up of over 250 independent contractors that strictly work for this company. They do have a marketing department to assist these contractors and have various other staff. So, that got me thinking this afternoon. More of less, this company depends on these independent contractors to do the marketing. Now, in saying that I do have inside knowledge in this company and know they do some institutional marketing as well. However, it is some what limited, mainly magazines and newspaper.....ahh newspaper, really?

Ok, so what I am getting at is where are they spending the money and why? I served for two years on a marketing committee for a company like this when I was in real estate. The committee was made up of all types young to old. The younger agents always fought for more spending related to the internet and other items, while older agents liked glossy magazines and newspaper. The younger agents won for a few months at the end of our terms then when we rotated off it went right back to older forms of marketing.

The issue is you have no way to track who sees your message. Internet you know who is seeing it and with promotional products you know who is seeing, and most importanly getting your brand and logo in their hand. You have ways you can follow up. Second, you are depending on contractors who might or might not be making the extra money to promote and market themsleves and the company. So when does the instution need to step in, promote the company more to give back to the contractors and build business?

Am I off base? Thoughts?

The Housing Issue

Wow what a last two days. Yesterday you had a rant from Rick Santelli about the housing stimulus. For me, I think Rick or The Great Santelli as I call him, spoke for a large portion of America. I think if you own a house or not, you do not want to help out someone that was irresponsible.

Now, today I heard Joe Biden’s economic advisor, Jared Bernstein, speak in regards to Mr. Santelli’s comments yesterday. Mr. Bernstein said that this bill is there to help out homeowners that are in a bind. He also said that these people they will be helped are not irresponsible. He said these people were caught out by the bursting of the house bubble. These people were caught out because the housing bubble burst and that these people lost equity in their homes and could not refi to a lower rate.

Ok, what? Rick Santelli came back with this point. What is the difference between you and I losing value in our 401k to someone losing value in their home?

As I am an Economics major, I know from economic point of view there’s not one. They are both classified as an investment, an INVESTMENT! People lose and make money in investments everyday.

Now, let me get back to the real estate bubble. I was a Realtor for 5 years. I saw deals where people barely qualified for homes. They look out 3 and 5 year ARM’s to get into these houses. Let me also state, that in my 5 years, not one of my clients ever did a 3 or 5 or 7 year ARM. The loan officers I worked with educated my clients. So for these that took out the ARM’s , I would like to ask them, what did you think was going to change in the next 3-5 years for you to be able to refi and be able to afford this house? I want you to tell me how they were responsible?

Quote from Ronald Reagan: Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

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