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Our 25^th Year of Useful Information For Your Business and a

Couple of Laughs to Make Your Day Brighter!

How Do Buyers Decide? ....................... and what are they looking for? Buyers are looking for:

2. A better perceived value in buying what you have. Notice I did not say a lower price. I said better value.

4. The buyer must like you, believe in you, have confidence in you, and trust you. But it begins with liking you.

5. Lowest price. But if you present the first four elements, price will go away as an issue 60 to 70% of the time.

Buyers are looking for comfort, not just a deal. Your job, besides having a great product, is to have a great reputation. A great reputation reduces the perceived risk. (Little Red Book of Sales Answers)

Robo Repo - Pay Up or Stall Out ....................... Car buyers with lousy credit have a new digital repo man to worry about. Sekurus, a Temecula (Calif.) technology firm, is racking up sales of its On Time device, a $250 under-dash gadget that disables a car’s starter if the owner falls behind on loan payments. It’s main customers are car dealers who cater to subprime borrowers. On Time also has two nagging features: a light that starts flashing three days before a payment is due and a beeper that joins in on deadline day. Sekuras says that car owners appreciate the reminders and that emergency codes can be used to keep drivers from being stranded. However draconian, the system seems to keep people on track. While 27% of auto subprime borrowers nationwide fall behind on payments and 15% have their cars repossessed, according to CNW Marketing Research in Bandon, Ore., only 3% of those monitored by On Time become delinquent. Some 1,500 auto dealers use On Time with their borrowers, many of whom buy cheap used cars at dealerships that issue loans with interest rates as high as 25%. Sekuras, which sells about 100,000 units a year, is starting to see growth in sales to new-car dealers, too. CNW says subprime loans for new cars are rising, accounting for 13% of all new-car loans, up from 9.6% in 2000. (David Welch in BusinessWeek)

Popular Baby Names compiled by the Social Security Administration: Ranked in order!

• $190,980 - What a middle-class family will spend on average to raise a baby to age 18, not including college or lost wages from a parent who stays at home.

• $138,095 - What a stay-at-home mom should be earning each year, based on the median national salary for the various jobs she performs, from cook to day-care teacher to psychologist. (Newsweek)

Wisdom of Larry the Cable Guy.................... (LaFree)
1. A day without sunshine is like night.
2. On the other hand, you have different fingers.
3. Remember, half the people you know are below average.
4. He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
5. Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm..
6. The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese in the trap.
7. Support bacteria. They're the only culture some people have.
8. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
9. Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.
10. If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments.
11. How many of you believe in psycho-kinesis? Raise my hand.
12. OK, so what's the speed of dark?
13. When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
14. Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.
15. How much deeper would the ocean be without sponges?
16. Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
17. What happens if you get scared half to death, twice?
18. Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?
19. Inside every older person is a younger person wondering, "What the heck happened?"
20. Just remember -- if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.
21. Light travels faster than sound. That's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Development.................................. Most successful people have had at least one significant coach or mentor in their lives. What does a good mentor do that a role model doesn’t? Well, what did they do for you? I’ll bet they were people who saw you not only as your were, but also as you could be. They had a vision for you that was probably bigger than you had for yourself. They weren’t blind to your faults or shortcomings, but they didn’t focus on them. Instead, they helped you believe in your own strength, ability, and potential for growth. Great mentors are convinced that we have greatness in us - and they wind up convincing us, too. (Learning Journeys)

Marketing........................................ Does your current marketing have style - or substance? The ideal answer is that your marketing has both. With its style, it conveys your identity and captures the attention of your primary audience. With its substance, your marketing makes essential points and motivates your audience. See to it that both style and substance are obvious and that the product or service always has the starring role. Marketing is not a dog-and-pony show, or an entertainment medium. Its purpose is pure selling and it should therefore be loaded with substance. The readers and the viewers remember the substance. Checks get written, credit cards used and orders placed because of the substance.

His Name is Carlos ......................... (As told by Rich Karlgaard, Publisher, Forbes Magazine)

As a Forbes reader, the odds are you have a great job. You manage or influence lots of people. Herein lies a problem facing every manager. Not all employees like their jobs. How do you lead them?

Nancy Ortberg of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, spoke of how her mentor, Max De Pree, former CEO of Herman Miller, engaged his workers. “ Max had a rule for his leadership team. Every Wednesday they were to bring a brown bag lunch and go down to the factory floor, where the furniture was being made, to eat. They were to sit and listen for an hour to get to know the names of the workers on the floor and to learn about the obstacles workers were facing as they did their jobs, as well as to hear about the ideas they had for future designs.” Ortberg herself was at one time an emergency room nurse. One night she witnessed an astonishing leadership act: It was about 10:30 p.m. the room was a mess. I was finishing up some work on the chart before going home. The doctor with whom I loved working was debriefing a new doctor, who had done a very respectable, competent job, telling him what he’d done well and what he could have done differently. Then he put his hand on the young doctor’s shoulder and said, “When you finished, did you notice the young man from housekeeping who came in to clean the room?” There was a completely blank look on the young doctor’s face. The older doctor said, “His name is Carlos. He’s been here for three years. He does a fabulous job. When he comes in he gets the room turned around so fast that you and I can get our next patients in quickly. His wife’s name is Maria. They have four children.” Then he names each of the four children and gave each child’s age. The older doctor went on to say, “He lives in a rented house about three blocks from here, in Santa Ana. They’ve been up from Mexico for about five years. His name is Carlos,” he repeated. Then he said, “Next week I would like you to tell me something about Carlos that I don’t already know. Okay? Now let’s go check on the rest of the patients.”

Ortberg recalls: “I remember standing there writing my nursing notes - stunned - and thinking, I have just witnessed breathtaking leadership.” Go out and commit breathtaking leadership yourself.

What’s Under The Pillow .............................. Is the Tooth Fairy an economic prognosticator or just penurious these days? For the 6- to 10-year-old set, losing a tooth this year is less rewarding than it was in 2006, according to the latest poll conducted by Securian Dental, a corporate health plan provider. While the gifts range from 25¢ to $20, the survey of nearly 1,000 Securian customers found, the average under-the-pillow payout is just $1.71, down 15% from last year - 17%, adjusted for inflation. Indeed, calculated in real terms (chart), the amount is the lowest since 2000. The 2007 number is puzzling, says Marty Weiland, an operations analyst for Securian, because the average “usually reflects” the health of the economy, which has been chugging along. “Maybe the Tooth Fairy didn’t invest as well as the general public,” he says. (Dan Macsai in BusinessWeek)

□ Average Tooth Fairy Gift, Inflation-Adjusted: 1998 - $1.58, 1999 - $1.61, 2000 - $1.50, 2001 - $1.73, 2002 - $1.84, 2003 - $1.73, 2004 - $1.73, 2005 - $1.88, 2006 - $2.05 and 2007 - $1.71.

1. Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.

3. Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know “why” I look this way. I’ve traveled a long way and some of the roads weren’t paved.

4. When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra.

7. One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young.

10. Long ago when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today it’s called golf.

Finally, If you don’t learn to laugh at trouble, you won’t have anything to laugh at when you are old.

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2.	Michael	Emma	7.	Christopher	Olivia
3.	Joshua	Madison	8.	Andrew	Hannah
4.	Ethan	Isabella	9.	Anthony	Sophia
5.	Matthew	Ava	10.	William	Samantha