“But then the masses wake up. They become suddenly aware of the fact that inflation is a deliberate policy that will go on endlessly. A breakdown occurs. The crack-up boom appears. Everybody is anxious to swap his money against “real” goods, no matter whether he needs them or not, no matter how much money he has to pay for them. Within a very short time, within a few weeks or even days, the things which were used as money are no longer used as media of exchange. They become scrap paper. Nobody wants to give away anything against them…. It was this that happened with the Continental currency in America in 1781, with the French mandats territoriaux in 1796, and with the German mark in 1923.” From The Theory of Money and Credit (1953), by Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) (emphasis added by the author). Appendix 1 has more of this quote, and is recommended reading.

A proper understanding of this chapter is critical. The inflation argument rests on whether you believe a government can generate inflation through monetary debasement. I believe most people seriously underestimate the danger of this kind of inflation.

Negative real interest rates normally result in currency weakness. Why is this? It’s because investors are selling the currency to purchase what they perceive to be a better store of value. The following chart shows the 96 percent loss in purchasing power of the U.S. dollar since the Federal Reserve Bank was established in 1913.

Money Supply

The following chart is from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and shows a sharp rise in the monetary base beginning with all the government bailout activity in 2008–09.

It would be a mistake to believe that the United States is the only country expanding its money base. Look at this chart of the world’s twenty largest economies.

Inflation bulls will look at these money supply charts and say something like, “It’s just a matter of time until inflation really kicks in.” While I agree with that statement in the long run, we must not forget to look at the next factor: velocity.

The Velocity Factor

M1 is defined as all currency in circulation plus checking account deposits and checkable deposits in banks, credit unions, and other depository institutions. The M1 multiplier is the ratio of M1 to the adjusted monetary base. This ratio measures the velocity of money in circulation. Here is the graph of the M1 multiplier from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis:

The adjusted monetary base chart shows that money is going into the banking system, but this chart shows that it is not being loaned out. This could happen for a couple of reasons. Banks may have tightened their lending standards and could be using the money to rebuild their capital base. Also, borrowers could be reluctant to acquire new debt in the midst of a recession. In any case, money velocity should increase before there is a rise in the inflation rate.

Can a Central Bank Create Inflation?

The crux of the entire inflation/deflation debate rests right here. Clearly, monetary expansion alone will not create inflation when there is a large amount of bad debt in the system and the banks are using bailout money to recapitalize (credit deflation). The question then asked is, “Can the government force banks to lend, or can the government bypass the banks altogether?” Let’s review what Ben Bernanke said in his famous 2002 “helicopter” speech:

Like gold, U.S. dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply. But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. By increasing the number of U.S. dollars in circulation, or even by credibly threatening to do so, the U.S. government can also reduce the value of a dollar in terms of goods and services, which is equivalent to raising the prices in dollars of those goods and services. We conclude that, under a paper-money system, a determined government can always generate higher spending and hence positive inflation.

The conclusion that deflation is always reversible under a fiat money system follows from basic economic reasoning.” Ben Bernanke: “Deflation: Making Sure ‘It’ Doesn’t Happen Here,” November 2002

So what is Mr. Bernanke saying? I believe he is highlighting three key things:

• Japan did not try hard enough to get out of their deflation.
• You can bypass the banks when you need to.
• Velocity—and inflation—will take place when people see that you intend to continually devalue the currency by creating more and more of it.

What Will Cause Money Velocity to Increase?

1. Healthy economy—renewed bank lending with sound loans
2. Bank lending forced by the government (e.g., socialism)
3. Debt monetization—people fleeing the currency because they are seeking a store of value.

I am not aware of any instance where the following formula did not eventually work:

Debt monetization = Currency devaluation = Higher inflation

Of course, critics will argue that Japan followed this course of action and did not have an inflation problem. The Japanese economy has been caught in a Liquidity Trap for the past 20 years. A Liquidity Trap is defined in Keynesian economic terms as a situation in which neither lower interest rates nor increases in money supply are able to stimulate the economy. During this time, the Bank of Japan lowered interest rates to zero in addition to its quantitative easing policy. My response to the “Japan” argument is that inflation (and asset bubbles) did occur, just not so much within Japan. The yen carry trade (borrowing in yen and investing the proceeds in all sorts of things all over the world) resulted in inflated stock and bond markets globally as Japanese investors sought out investment alternatives outside of Japan.

Others may be inclined to point to the United States. In the early 1980s, when Fed Chairman Paul Volcker slew the inflation dragon, gold peaked at $850 per ounce in January 1980 and then fell like a rock. But we must ask this question: “How did he do that?” He did it by raising interest rates to 20 percent while inflation was running at 12 percent. This resulted in a positive real interest rate of 8 percent! At that point, it made sense to sell gold (and just about anything else) and put the proceeds in savings or government bonds.

I believe it is helpful to take a look at what happened to the U.S. dollar in the 1970s and early 1980s when real interest rates went from -4 percent to +8 percent:

When Richard Nixon completely removed the United States from the gold standard in 1971 and real interest rates were negative, the dollar declined 30 percent against the currency basket through the 1970s. However, when Paul Volcker started dramatically raising U.S. interest rates in late 1979, the dollar started shooting up and almost doubled in value against the basket by 1985. Of course, the dollar declined once again when the Fed cut rates in the 1984–87 time period.

History clearly shows that raising interest rates well above the inflation rate will reverse the inflationary trend and attract money back into the currency. However, does anyone have the political courage to raise interest rates significantly in this environment? I believe that it is doubtful because of the fragility of the economy and the financial system.

Be Aware of the Deflation Head-fake

A review of monetary history shows that there have been instances when a period of high inflation, or hyperinflation, was preceded by a period of deflation. One example that comes to mind is the Weimar Republic (Germany, pre-World War II).

Are we in such a period now? It is impossible to know for sure, but a loss of confidence in the currency would make such a scenario very likely.

A Matter of Confidence

It is important to realize that confidence in paper money can be here one minute and gone the next. Here is what happened to the U.S. Continental dollar in the 1700s. These dollars were issued to help fund the American Revolution.

Here is another example from Weimar Republic Germany that shows how quickly money can become worthless:

In conclusion, I make the following observations:

• Money velocity and inflation expectations can change very quickly, especially when there is a sudden loss of confidence in the currency.
• I believe Ben Bernanke when he says he can create inflation through currency debasement. What he does not mention, however, is that a loss of confidence in a currency is virtually impossible to control.

One closing note to this section: most people incorrectly believe that there was deflation throughout the Great Depression. While it is true that prices went down early in the Great Depression, they went up after gold was confiscated by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. Here is the chart of inflation rates during the Great Depression. As you can see, deflation was prevalent early in the Great Depression, but inflation took hold in the second half of 1933 after gold was confiscated and the dollar was devalued.

1. What excites you most about your book’s topic? Why did you choose it?
   My passions are investing and monetary history. I am especially concerned about inflation and our money’s decline as a store of value.
2. How long did the book take you from start to finish?
   I would say at least two years (part-time).
3. What aspect of writing the book did you find particularly challenging?
   Even though I am knowledgeable of the subject matter, it still took hundreds of hours of research to write the book.
4. What surprised you the most about the book writing process?
   Primarily, the amount of time it takes to write a book.
5. Did you have any favorite experiences when writing your book?
   It was good to be able to talk with various people and get feedback on what I wrote.
6. What do you hope your readers will gain from reading your book?
   I hope they will gain an understanding of how money works and what they can do to help themselves and their families financially.
7. What projects are you currently working on?
   I am working on developing an inflation-related website that will be helpful to people.
8. Is writing your sole career? If not, what else do you do?
   No – my main job is working as a senior investment manager with one of the country’s largest pension funds.
9. Did you do any research for your books, or did you write from experience?
   I used research and 30 years of accumulated experience in writing Inflation Nation.
10. How did you come up with your title?
    A great deal of thought went into it and I changed the title several times. In the final analysis, I decided that Inflation Nation was a title that people could identify with.
11. What books have influenced you the most?
    Dying of Money: Lessons of the Great German and American Inflations – Jens O. Parsson and Tomorrow’s Gold: Asia’s Age of Discovery – Marc Faber.
12. Who was your publisher and why did you choose them?
    I self-published the book through Lulu.

Did you learn anything from writing your book?

What’s the hardest part of writing a book?
The hardest part for me was the time commitment to doing the research and then writing a book that both investment professionals and non-investment professionals would learn from and use.

What are your current projects?
I am working on an inflation-related website that will help people with their investing.

How long does it take you to write a book?
It took me over 2 years to write Inflation Nation.

As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?
I wanted to be a farmer (like my dad).

Author John Warrilow, Built to Sell

Q: When did you start writing, and what inspired you to write?

A: Studying small business for 15 years allowed me to see the statistics: 97% of all businesses are small businesses; 50% of all small businesses want to sell their business in the next 10 years yet 1% of all small businesses successfully change hands each year. I personally tried and failed to sell my business in 2004 before ultimately selling it in 2008.

Q: How long did the book take you from start to finish?

A: 6 weeks to write. 6 months to edit

Q: Where do you write?

A: I have a loft in a funky warehouse in the west end of Toronto. I have a huge boardroom table I spread all my notes out onto like some sort of mad scientist.

Q: What’s the best thing about being a published author?

A: Your mother in law knows what you do.

Q: Who are some of your favorite authors?

A: John Grisham.  Jim Collins, Seth Godin, Malcolm Gladwell

Q: Do you hear from your readers much? What kinds of things do they say?

A: I hear from my readers through my blog BuiltToSell.com/blog They tell me I’m providing equal helpings of reality and advice.

Q: What are your current projects?

A: Promoting the book. Moving my family to France.

Q: What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

A: Teaching my kids new sports (hockey, baseball, skiing, soccer) Adventure endurance races Ironman triathalon, Marathon. 24 hour spa escapes with my wife.

Q: How did you come up with your title?

A: Brainstorming with my friend and mentor Ted Matthews.  There was an old fast Company article called Built To Flip and it always sat with me as a good title. I guess I was inspired by that.

Q: Is there a message in your book that you want readers to grasp?

A: Most businesses (99%) are no sellable. Follow the 8 steps in the book and you’ll turn your business into something sellable which puts you in the top 1% of all business owners. Once you sell your business, you’ll how freedom over your time, and money. It’s worth the sacrifices and effort needed to follow the 8 steps.

Q: What’s the hardest part of writing a book?

A: The 6 months between submitting the manuscript and seeing it in print. Once you write “The End” you want the book immediately, but it takes months of editing and layout and printing. The waiting is brutal!

Q: If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

A: I’d find a way to shorten the cycles of editing per above.

“If you tell me, it’s an essay. If you show me, it’s a story.”

—Barbara Greene, children’s author

Whether we’re aware of it or not, as humans, we tend to follow certain patterns of trust and decision-making. Success-Story Marketing—using customer, beneficiary, or member stories to advance an idea, product, service, or cause—caters to some of the fundamentals of human behavior:

• We trust what others say much more than what a business itself says
• We look to others to determine how we should act
• We love to hear about other people

In Friends and Strangers We Trust

Think back to the last time you tried a new restaurant or watched a movie. How did you choose where to eat or what to watch? You probably saw newspaper advertisements, and maybe even interviews with stars of the show. But chances are, you really picked the place or the movie on the recommendation of a friend, family member, or coworker. If not one of those, then it was likely due to a good review in the newspaper or online from people you trust as authorities on cuisine or cinema.

And what about your latest electronics or vehicle purchase? Maybe you talked with others who have brands and models you’re considering, consulted Consumer Reports for ratings or checked online sites with customer reviews. Likewise, you probably wouldn’t select a realtor, babysitter, financial advisor or any other important service provider without some sort of positive third-party endorsement.

When it comes down to it, information put out by the actual companies, providers, establishments or vendors matters the least when it comes to decisions about where to spend your time or money. The business itself is good for details like specifications, how something works, or pricing. But most of us don’t truly believe the benefits espoused by companies–unless they are verified by other trusted sources. Just about everyone else is more credible than the business itself.

The following survey (graph contained in the published book) by Bridge Ratings and University of Massachusetts, published on eMarketer.com, breaks down trusted sources of information.

As expected, someone you know personally tops the list, with “strangers with experience” a close second, and the media falling in behind. Comparatively, advertising (vendor-produced promotional materials) scored a 2.2 on a scale of 1-10. Advertising has its place in creating awareness, but clearly it must be backed up by other sources to get buyers to make a purchase. Customer stories perfectly fill the “strangers with experience” category, providing the third-party validation that buyers, donors or others need to make a decision about products, services or an organization.

The ‘Like Me’ Factor

As teenagers, we begin rebelling and expressing our individuality–by looking and dressing just like all our friends or the celebrities we admire. According to Robert B. Cialdini, author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, that’s because the actions of others help us decide how we ourselves should act. He calls it “social proof,” or the “like me” factor. “The principle of social proof operates most powerfully when we are observing the behavior of people just like us. That is why I believe we are seeing an increasing number of average-person-on-the-street testimonials on TV these days…As a rule, we make fewer mistakes by acting in accordance with social evidence than contrary to it.” People perceive less risk when others have successfully gone before them.

James March and Johan Olsen named a similar concept the “logic of appropriateness.” They  say decision-making results from following a set of rules consistent with an identity.[1] In other words, people ask themselves, “What would someone like me or an organization like this do in this situation?” If it’s our nature to emulate others, especially people or organizations we admire, then customer stories provide a model of behavior for audiences–even more so if the featured customer has faced similar challenges or is in the same industry as the reader. In fact, the more the story sounds like the prospective customer’s situation, the more relevant and valuable it is in the decision-making process.

We Love to Hear about Other People

People are also people oriented. On a personal level, we want to know what our neighbors are up to, or our favorite celebrities. Human interest stories in the media are always the most captivating. The same goes in business. Even when you’re talking about products and services, readers are more engaged when there’s a human element. Products and services don’t function on their own; rather, people interact with them. People encounter challenges to overcome, become heroes, find solutions, and ultimately triumph. Following the basic journalism rule, “people love to read about people,” customer stories provide the perfect framework to capture the human elements of just about any situation.

Stories Make it Stick

Stories play a starring role as one of the “six principles of sticky ideas” in Chip Heath and Dan Heath’s popular book, Made to Stick. Sticky ideas or concepts leave an impression on audiences, helping them remember and understand. The Heaths assert that stories provide both simulation, the opportunity to imagine scenarios, and inspiration, which comes from seeing others’ successes and being moved to act as a result. At the same time, stories provide the opportunity to integrate three other Made to Stick principles of sticky messaging:

• Concreteness – A way of making abstract concepts more concrete and understandable, such as how technology works.
• Credibility – The opportunity to provide a level of detail, which is more convincing than a lack of specifics.
• Emotion – Again, providing specifics gets people emotionally engaged in a way that generalizations do not.

The 3 Roles of Storytelling

With the science of stories behind us, let’s talk about the practical aspects of using customer stories to help persuade audiences to buy a product, try a service or support a nonprofit:

• Credibility
• Education
• Validation

Credibility: A Real Company with Real Customers

As the graph on trusted information sources indicates, it’s hard to establish credibility in buyers’ minds without third-party evidence. Otherwise, it’s too much of a leap of faith for them. And the need for evidence seems directly proportional to the price tag, perceived level of risk involved and importance of the decision to the buyer or company. We don’t need nearly as much information or validation to make a decision about which ice cream to buy as we do about which car to buy.

In recent years, the need for credibility has only accelerated. In the ‘90s and 2000s, the business world saw a number of shake-ups that have left buyers understandably leery about the companies they choose to do business with. In the early part of the new millennium, quite a few major companies were discovered to have unethical or illegal business practices. Enron was the most high profile of the bunch, with irregular accounting procedures bringing the company to bankruptcy in 2001. Its accounting firm, the once prestigious Arthur Andersen, fell soon after. And then there was Tyco and WorldCom.

About the same time, the high-tech bubble burst after many heady years, resulting in countless corporate casualties. Companies were open one day and closed the next. They would spend years developing a product, with no income, until finally they had to close their doors. Venture capital firms and banks couldn’t keep throwing money at businesses taking too long to reach a profit.

After all that, buyers are still hesitant about the products and services they choose. Will the company be around next month to create new product releases and provide adequate product support? “The need for documented customer successes has been largely driven by the technology sector,” says Steven Nicks, Partner and Co-founder of Phelon Group (www.phelongroup.com), a firm that focuses on customer retention, referability, and repurchase. “In the late ‘90s, we saw people making major technology purchases that didn’t pan out, so in subsequent years people demanded to hear from those individuals who had already successfully deployed the solution. And for the savvy tech company, it was a way of gaining credibility and a competitive edge.”

While having real customer stories doesn’t ensure a business won’t go under, it does demonstrate that an organization has actual customers using products and services–and seeing results. That goes a long way toward establishing peace of mind for audiences, whether they are potential partners, customers, funding organizations, employees or donors.

Education: Show, Don’t Tell

Marketers and business owners put a lot of thought into how they communicate about their offerings. But as much as they detail how their products and services work for users, there’s often a gap between those descriptions and readers’ understanding of how they will actually work in their environments–all the more so when the products or services are complex. Remember the lesson from high school English class, “Show, don’t tell?” You have to show readers what you’re talking about, descriptively and in context, rather than just telling them that your product or service accomplishes this or that. Mark Twain put it another way, “Don’t say the old lady screamed—bring her on and let her scream.”
Buyers have a lot of questions. How will services be delivered in our environment? How is this vendor different from others? How long does an implementation take and who’s involved? How will a product generate time-savings in our workflow? What can we expect in terms of ongoing support? What does the vendor do that gets the results we want?

Customer stories answer many of their questions. They are especially effective when they mirror the reader’s situation. A growing manufacturing company wants to hear how another manufacturing company like it reduced production time. A small business needs to understand how a search engine optimization firm increased Web site traffic for a similar business. Customer stories offer the perfect opportunity to show a product or service in action for a customer, making them very valuable marketing and sales tools. It’s just the type of information buyers are looking for as they learn about a solution or organization.

A survey by KnowledgeStorm (www.knowledgestorm.com) and MarketingSherpa (www.marketingsherpa.com) shed light on the role of case studies, particularly in IT purchase decisions. The survey, with results published in How Technology Marketers Meet Buyers’ Appetite for Content, asked nearly 4,000 B2B marketers, and technology and business professionals, what buyers want and what marketers deliver. The survey revealed that buyers expect you to educate them. In fact, 84 percent said they want content that educates them and expect vendors to provide it.  Customer stories provide critical education about how solutions actually work in real environments.

Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants, by Jay Conrad Levinson and Michael W. McLaughlin, stresses the importance of customer stories in helping prospects understand exactly what it would be like to work with a consultant. “These documents can answer the number one question clients ask consultants: ‘How will your team work with our team to achieve the results we need?’ Case studies also clarify approaches, strategies, and resources that you have successfully employed on other projects.”

Validation: Demonstrating Results

Everyone has competition, whether it’s another organization like yours or the current arrangement in prospective customers’ environments. In Selling to Big Companies, author Jill Konrath points out, the status quo is often your biggest competition. Even if companies have problems to resolve and opportunities for improvement, they “just have so much on their plate that they can’t add one more thing–no matter how worthwhile it seems.” Therefore, you have to demonstrate that the short-term pain of making a change is worthwhile in the long run.

Likewise, with so many options out there, buyers are cynical and believe another solution just like yours is around the corner, maybe even at a lower price. “The only thing that seems to counteract it is real customer stories with actual, tangible, and measurable results,” Konrath says. Customer stories provide that critical validation that gets prospects’ attention at multiple points in the sales cycle. Seeing clear results at other organizations like theirs helps buyers more easily make the decision to purchase and eliminates risk in their minds. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t create detailed brochures and Web sites. They certainly provide important information for decision-makers. But for ultimate impact, you have to back them with real customer stories, results and quotes.

Findings on Customer Story Effectiveness

Customer stories and anecdotes are powerful for just about any type of organization. But because they have typically been more a marketing staple of high-tech companies, the small amount of research available tends to be related to technology purchases. The survey, How Technology Marketers Meet Buyers’ Appetite for Content, revealed intriguing findings on the role of customer stories:

• 67 percent of those surveyed often read case studies (customer stories) in the buying decision–putting case studies as the #2 choice just behind white papers in terms of desired content.
• Buyers like objectivity–Customer stories, articles from industry journalists, and analyst reports are all frequently forwarded by buyers. The study indicates the perception of objectivity makes them of interest to the broadest number of individuals in the IT decision process.
• Buyers need to solve a problem–When they start the search for a new technology, nearly 72% of respondents want to find “solutions to solve a current problem.” Customer examples show very clearly how a solution solves a specific problem.
• They want it targeted for them!–Nearly 82% of technology buyers prefer information targeted to their industry. Customer stories are a key way to demonstrate real-world successes with specific industries and types of problems.

Similarly, when TechTarget (www.techtarget.com) and CMO Council (www.cmocouncil.org) took a closer look at the inner workings of how information technology (IT) buyers make purchasing decisions in its 2007 Technology Buying and Media Consumption Benchmarking Survey, they found an interesting gap between case study use and effectiveness. Twenty-eight percent of IT buyers surveyed use customer case studies in technology purchases. But when used, they had a 75 percent rate of effectiveness. The survey pointed out that customer stories showed the greatest gap between effectiveness and actual use of all the marketing communications it asked about. That led the survey writers to predict that they are poised for increased use in the future.

Minimize Live Reference Calls

It’s clear that third-party validation is critical. Many businesses turn to their best customers to serve as live references on calls with prospects. Yet, there’s only so much you can call on busy current customers to participate in these activities, and they may not be available right when you need them. When you create a written customer story, you document the details of that customer’s experience once, and then that story often replaces a live reference call. In fact, by reducing reference calls, you can look at customer stories as effective relationship management with your most valued customers.

KnowTia, maker of OasisCRM software (www.oasiscrm.com), saw a significant drop in the need for live reference calls when it began documenting its customer stories. Before, the company regularly arranged calls between prospects and current customers. “In the first year of using success stories, we only had one live reference call,” said Jeffrey White, Vice President of Sales. “Those stories give prospects the detail they need to understand other customers’ experiences without having to talk to an actual current customer.”

By capturing stories on customers that are just like your prospects, those “strangers with experience” serve as compelling examples to your audience, giving them the confidence to buy or support your products or services.

By Stuart Nachbar

{mosimage}Before becoming a writer, I spent ten years marketing Web-based job posting and resume tools to college and university career centers. This put me in contact with career counselors at all types of schools each day ranging from community colleges and trade schools to national research universities. For the most part, career counselors are very thoughtful and resourceful people, but they are too often underappreciated and underutilized.

Based on past experience, I venture to guess that only one-third of most graduating college seniors venture inside their career center before they have received their diplomas. That creates a strong market for career books at the bookstores; approximately 1.5 million people received bachelor’s degrees last year and probably 1 million of them did not know what they wanted to do.

Lindsey Pollak’s Getting from College to Career, 90 Things to Do Before You Join The Real World is one book targeted at this market, though the author’s intentions appear to be broader, to get the undecided student to act faster.

Pollak, who took a round-about approach to becoming a writer, starts by using herself as an example. She originally decided to apply to law school because that was what she was told that graduates “do” with a liberal arts degree then, she backed out and networked, first into a Rotary-sponsored scholarship to a graduate woman’s studies program, then later into a writing position on a woman’s business Web site.

If this book sells well among recent graduates, it will be because the reader will consider Pollak more of a peer counselor than a career counselor; she hasn’t done what any other bright college student couldn’t do. Although Pollak is a Yale graduate, I’m sure all of us know non-Ivy Leaguers who got a similar start in their working lives.

Pollak provides numerous tips that are easy to follow; some are obvious such as visit the career center or err on the side of cautious conservatism in dressing for an interview, but some are more interesting because they address the Millennial job seeker. For instance, Pollak does a good job explaining how to use social networking tools such as MySpace and Facebook to advantage, as well as how they can become a job seeker’s downfall. She also does a good job explaining practices of e-mail etiquette. She has also touched on the increased importance of community service to students, colleges and universities as well as employer attitudes towards Millennials in the work place. I wished she had spent more time on these subjects; that would set the book apart from the other titles that share the same shelf space at the bookstore.

The major weaknesses of Getting from College to Career are structural: tips are not organized chronologically, and I found myself reading tips meant for students after I read tips meant for recent graduates. I don’t know if the Millennial reader will have the patience to thumb through the book like that. Pollak’s Web site:www.GettingfromCollegetoCareer.com is similarly unstructured.

I also found too much discussion of career coaching, which is a service better utilized by more experienced workers and not students or recent grads; they would be better off working with a college career counselor. I also wished there were more anecdotal stories like Pollak’s personal tale; the targeted reader would relate better to them while they can see how the tips are best put in practice.

But College to Career is not Pollak’s first book; this is her third and she writes numerous pieces on Millennials in the job market. I believe this book is more of a springboard into more detailed works and online services to aid current students who are undecided about a major and career, graduating students who have made their choices and entry level/under-employed workers who want to reconsider them.

Stuart Nachbar operates http://www.EducatedQuest.com , a blog on education politics, policy and technology. He was involved with education politics and economic development for two decades as an urban planner, government affairs manager and a software executive. His first novel, The Sex Ed Chronicles, about sex education and school politics in 1980 New Jersey, was published this past fall.

{mosimage}Gene McVay: Top Gun Management is a concise book that presents some tools and principles to help leaders achieve excellence at all levels from new managers to heads of state.

Lauren Smith: Gene, why did you write this book?

Gene McVay: The time comes when consummate leaders who take companies or institutions to great heights of achievement are replaced. The new leaders with polished educations tend to be more talented in bean counting and squeezing extra nickels out of consumers. I wanted to expose managers to the wide spectrum of management responsibilities using my own personal experiences and quotes from great people who have been tested in the past.

Lauren Smith: Tell us a little about your background.

Gene McVay: I literally grew up barefoot in the hills of Arkansas. From a poor but very happy boy with few prospects, I eventually ran for governor against current presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee. Along the way I worked in factories at Western Electric and General Motors. I became an Intelligence Analyst at The National Security Agency before being commissioned in the Air Force and attending pilot training.  I soon became a global qualified aircraft commander on the 325,000 pound C-141 Starlifter after which I flew fighters for 25 years and won many top gun competitions. I was the first Air National Guard Colonel selected to command a three billion dollar multinational provisional wing.  I retired from both the federal government and the Air Force at age 54 completely debt free. I now give back to my state and nation by serving in several nonprofit organizations including national boards of veterans’ organizations.

Lauren Smith: There are a lot of books on business and leadership out there, what makes your different?

Gene McVay: Top Gun Management takes the reader into the poignant human world of an old veteran as he relates principles that propelled him upward through the ranks to power and respect. Within the pages dwell not perfection but persistence and compassion. Many will never soar to the very top, but they can enjoy the journey and unashamedly be able to look themselves in the mirror with contentment when the battle is over. There is no world leader who would not garner something from this book that would help him or her achieve greater success.

Lauren Smith: What are some key lessons you hope the reader will learn from your book?

Gene McVay: I think readers will learn about real communication. They will learn how to mentor and relate to their employees and colleagues. The will learn how to improve the effectiveness of every single employee. They will learn about motivation. They will learn not to accept mediocrity. They will never conduct a meeting the same way again. They will learn the concept of Noblesse Oblige. Perhaps most of all, they will learn compassion.

Lauren Smith: What is the biggest mistake leaders make?

Gene McVay: Leaders make “Custer” decisions that are recognized by their subordinates, yet the subordinates do not feel they have the freedom to communicate with the leader.

]]> http://redhotbookreview.com/2010/01/05/top-gun-management/feed/ 0 http://redhotbookreview.com/2008/12/04/the-big-gamble/ http://redhotbookreview.com/2008/12/04/the-big-gamble/#comments Thu, 04 Dec 2008 06:00:00 +0000 admin

The Big Gamble: A Friendly Financial Guide

The Big Gamble by Jose Roncal and Jose Abbo was endorsed by Donald Trump, a man who needs no introduction. Trump was an appropriate choice for an endorser because he inspires inexperienced investors to think big, but also think smart. That’s been a constant theme throughout all of the seasons of The Apprentice and his numerous business advice books.

This book reads very much like the Donald’s books too, minus the Donald’s anecdotes. It is an excellent tutorial in personal financial management and wealth-building for a non-financial person. It does not overwhelm you with economic theories or statistical tables. It is an excellent guide to help you ask the right questions when you speak with a broker or certified financial planner, and you want that person to do the quant work for you so that you can build the right portfolio.

The Big Gamble is not a guide to picking stocks or bonds. It is more elementary, it explains the differences between a speculator and an investor. A speculator, in a basic sense, takes larger risks and looks for short-term gains, and bites harder in bad times than an investor, whose financial strategy is more long term. The authors also point out that some investments once thought to be long term holds are now considered to be speculative, because fund managers turn over their portfolios more frequently, and their desire for a quicker exit drives the market.

The authors also take a unique position: that some investments that were once thought to be safe, such as blue-chip stocks or U.S. Treasury bonds, are not. Blue chip companies—and they cite General Motors as one example—and often in cyclical industries, and they can always decide not to pay dividends in hard times. Government bonds are secure, but they do not provide adequate cash flow to be more than a buffer in bad times. They do not offer enough of a return to ensure a financially secure retirement.

Roncal and Abbo also drop a hint: that all investors must become more speculative, as long as they are prepared to take calculated risks. They start by using the analogy of the professional gambler who knows the math of his games, versus the high-stakes fool who believes he is a high roller, but has no clue about what he is doing. Then they talk about entrepreneurs such as The Donald and Richard Branson who have taken very daring, but calculated risks that have paid big. But they also add that these entrepreneurs have put themselves on the hook for major debts. Not every investor or speculator is equally confident.

They also talk about the economic signals that show “the next big thing” and when potential bubbles are about to begin. I have read several stories about the collapse of Bear Stearns and other financial institutions in recent months, and I have to say that Roncal and Abbo make the clearest and simplest explanation as to why the collapse happened. I wish that I had read this book before these stories appeared in the business press. For more visit their Squidoo lens at http://www.squidoo.com/thebiggamble.
Contact Stuart Nachbar at http://www.EducatedQuest.com , a blog on education politics, policy and technology or read about his first book, The Sex Ed Chronicle, a novel on education and politics in 1980 New Jersey, at http://www.SexEdChronicles.com .

Reviewed by Stuart Nachbar

I did not grow up exceedingly rich or exceptionally poor, but my parents wanted to make sure that I knew the value of a dollar. While they never told us about their personal financial downturns until I reached high school, they made it quite clear that if I wanted anything they considered beyond their means—a car, for instance—then I would have to save up for it.

{mosimage}The Love and Logic Institute’s family money guide, Millionaire Babies or Bankrupt Brats, is a book that my parents would have appreciated. This is a very detailed book that helps parents and their children together in lessons about managing and spending money. It is well balanced on concepts of values and basic personal finance for children, and it emphasizes the need to help children make their own choices, since they will eventually be on their own. There are also games, as well as lessons, but I wondered if the games might be better taught in the classroom where children could see not only the consequences of their own actions, but the consequences of their classmates’ poor decisions.

There has not been a better time for Millionaire Babies or Bankrupt Brats to become available to parents. We are living in an economy where parents will be increasingly forced to tell their children why they cannot afford to buy the current fashion statement or the coolest and latest in electronics. Parents might allow their son to have the latest version of the John Madden football game, but tell him to live with the two year old edition of Guitar Hero. Millionaire Babies or Bankrupt Brats helps parents provide a better answer than simply “no.”

Curious to learn more about the publishers, I checked out their Web site at www.loveandlogic.com. Millionaire Babies or Bankrupt Brats is one of a comprehensive series of parental help guides, some books and some in audio, that have been produced by this Golden, Colorado-based company over the past 31 years. The publishers also support their products with considerable online content. However, Millionaire Babies or Bankrupt Brats is quite unlike their rest of their offerings.

First, Millionaire Babies or Bankrupt Brats is meant to be a lifetime lifeline; other products are more age-specific. The authors, Jim Fay and Kristan Leatherman, apparently intended for parents to refer to the book from time to time during the entire time their son or daughter lives under their roof. There are two problems: books age and become dog-eared and weather-beaten and, financial times and concepts—especially access to credit— frequently change, so parents have new options that would be uncovered. I hope the authors develop online materials to support this book or develop a market program to attract parents to later versions in print.  Millionaire Babies or Bankrupt Brats appears to be like the career classic: What Color is My Parachute? It can be a title that sells for decades, but is constantly revised to draw repeat buyers.    

Millionaire Babies or Bankrupt Brats is 450 pages long, more pages than any other title by this publisher. Because of the page size and page volume, the book resembles a thick computer manual. People judge books by their cover, and Millionaire Babies or Bankrupt Brats does not have good visual appeal. However, a smaller book would have been a thicker one. Age-segmented personal finance books and tools would look less intimidating; however, their markets would be smaller.

Millionaire Babies or Bankrupt Brats is well written and has many good insights and ideas. However, it looks like a daunting book for parents who do not like to read.

 
Contact Stuart Nachbar at http://www.EducatedQuest.com , a blog on education politics, policy and technology or read about his first book, The Sex Ed Chronicle, a novel on education and politics in 1980 New Jersey, at http://www.SexEdChronicles.com .

Reviewed by Stuart Nachbar

Two decades ago, I worked as an urban economic development professional in a good-sized city, interacting between a business community and city government. It was not the easiest job I ever had, but in some ways, it was the best.  I developed many communications, organization and political skills that I regularly use, as well as resources for the stories I write today.

{mosimage}I didn’t have a primer, a written guide for my work, to help me along, but sometimes I wish I did. There were many types of public-private partnerships back then, including school-business partnerships, but the work was trial and error; you have to have the right mix of volunteers and career professionals to made things go smoothly—and that was my hardest challenge.

Today, there are more anecdotes about successful public-private partnerships and more information to help business people and educators along, but I’ve just read one of the few “how to” books that is reader friendly. Most anecdotes are major media stories or academic studies, but give you little direction as to how you—as a new person charged manage a partnership—can succeed.

This “how to” book: Facing the Future Together: Forming Successful School-Business Partnerships is written by Jim Leatherwood, a former teacher, school counselor and administrator who has formed 50 school-business partnerships throughout his career, most notably in California. Leatherwood organizes Facing the Future along 12 commandments for a successful partnership, eleven “do’s,” with one “don’t”: don’t ask for money right away.

Leatherwood has done an excellent job in helping each actor, businessperson and educator, in the difficult job of relating to each other and understanding each other’s needs and as well as their levels of patience. That is important: businesspeople cannot be expected to understand educators and their jargon in little time, nor can educators expect businesspeople to treat a partnership as a “good cause.” Both have vested interests and need incentives to succeed, such as quality workers, more modern technology, or job relevant academic coursework. Both also need accountability measures to take to their superiors to justify and sustain their relationship. And both don’t have the patience to read a lengthier book than Facing the Future.

Leatherwood has included “nitty-gritty” suggestions for details, such as chamber of commerce endorsements and partnership certificates. These details might seem trivial at first, but they are quite important, because they make both sides feel committed and confident their participation will bear fruit.  These details symbolize the importance of success, even to the most altruistic of parties.

Facing the Future is reader-friendly, but is missing a couple of important sections that would make it stronger, albeit longer, book. The first is research; both educators and businesspersons need to know the organizations that might have similar programs, and whether these programs are working or failing, and why. Research also helps both sides understand past failures and pessimism; that was one critical issue I had to address in my job. The second is succession planning; the persons who coordinate these partnerships don’t stay on the job forever. They move on, and a new executive must be hired. Advice on writing an effective recruitment ad for the internet or professional association media would also be consistent with the intentions of this book.

With the passage and continued support for No Child Left Behind and the rising concerns over the competitive standing of our students versus students in other nations, school-business partnerships are not going away. They will become more important as our economy gets better.

Facing the Future should give the newest entrants to the field a head start.

 
Contact Stuart Nachbar at http://www.EducatedQuest.com , a blog on education politics, policy and technology or read about his first book, The Sex Ed Chronicle, a novel on education and politics in 1980 New Jersey, at http://www.SexEdChronicles.com .