Saturday, September 15, 2012

Howard Wallin

I've never met this fellow but I accidently landed on a page of his when researching the proper testing of a theory.  Lo and behold, here is a sales professional advocating you first test your idea with the customer before you invest a dime in anything else.  Where have you heard that before?

I also argue let sales people handle sales, and I am glad to see there is a salesperson teaching sales in Howard Wallin.    I am no sales performance expert, but he is.  Here is his website for your reference.

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China to Build a New Hong Kong in USA?

Alameda is an abandoned naval base of 1,000 acres sitting on the San Francisco Bay.  A local politician wants China to develop it.


The latest developer to tackle Alameda Point was SunCal, based in Irvine, which submitted plans to the city in 2008 calling for 4,500 units of housing, two schools, a library, 145 acres of open space, a 58-acre sports field complex, 15 miles of bike paths, a ferry terminal and other amenities, according to local media. But the company pulled out due to conflicts with the city over how the housing units could be built, according to Chen.
Despite the previous failures, he believes that if China comes in and helps to develop Alameda Point, "it can be another Silicon Valley and a free-trade zone".



Yes!  A free trade zone.  Start with that foothold and expand it to all of the Bay Area.  And then all of USA!  Back to the future!

Wanna flag?



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Home Depot Folds in China

It didn't work out.   There is a lesson there:


Chinese homeowners rarely paint houses or lay out wooden floors themselves. Rather, they prefer to hire decoration companies, which often find products with more competitive prices from local building material stores, Chen said.
In addition, the company's strengths in the United States, including its lower prices due to its global sourcing channels, have been diluted in China.
"You can always find local brands that are cheaper, and consumers in various regions have very different preferences," Chen said. "Winning the market through a price war is not going to work for a foreign retailer in China."


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Friday, September 14, 2012

Waitrose and Exporting Wine to China

At  this point in the game, the way to start exporting wine to China is to begin by importing Chinese wine here.  Build a relationship with the Chinese in the wine biz there (especially state owned/Jesuit founded wineries) by providing USA market feedback,  and in turn and in time ask the Chinese to test out USA wines.  You are on your way.

Any sales org that has a distribution channel in USA is set to work this strategy, but I know of no org trying it.  Waitrose is a big retailer in the UK importing Chinese wine, but as retailers they will never turn it around and begin exporting wine to China.  And the UK really has no wine anyway.

A state org approached me about doing a seminar on exporting ag in general and win in particular.  I sent them my seminar outline.  They never called back.  I didn't think they would.  Never mind I set up profitable export programs for two kinds of ag companies.

USA wine business is based on state subsidies and tax breaks, which led to malinvestment and overinvestment.  The process is now "last man standing."  As more and more wineries go under, the surviving ones get more business.  But the winery game was for rich people only, so it may take a while to run them down.

If anyone wants details on the China export strategy I mention above, just email me.







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Libya & The Turning Point?

I wasn't going to say anything about Libya, but then I remembered I said something last fall

Here is a history in pictures.



2007



April 2011



October 2011



9-11-2012

We need to have separation between Business and State.
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Thursday, September 13, 2012

Health Care & False Dilemma

Obamacare is actually RomneyCare, and Romney is on record within the last few days endorsing "some provisions" of ObamaCare.  People actually think there is a difference between the candidates.

Here is an article on a woman who got a scorpion sting, and her bill.  Read the debate in the comments sections, where people tear each other up, over a false dilemma - government provision vs government provision.

And then watch Dr. Long's quick video.




And then watch this on a USA doctor who takes not government funding at his hospital.



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Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Reviewing Export Now http://www.exportnow.com/

On offer from a former government trade official is a means for small business to export to China.  Essentially, pay $3000 plus 10% and they will set you up on Alibaba.com.

Wait, what?

Small business export?  Alibaba?

In his about video, the CEO insists "all small businesses know they should export..."

Well, that makes no sense.  If a small or even medium sized business wishes to expand it is far better off  finding new market in the USA.  By definition small and medium sized business has not penetrated the entire USA market, so the smart move is to look where next in USA for market, not overseas.

http://www.exportnow.com/ purports to make a China sale as easy as a domestic sale.  That misses the point.  Any time spent marketing overseas will yield less than marketing in USA.   It is a matter of opportunity cost.

As to Alibaba, too much trouble for too little return.  If someone overseas wants to buy your products, let them buy FOB USA port, prepaid.  Sell to a distributor, not try to mess with international retail tiny transactions.  And before you pay $3000 to http://www.exportnow.com/ for help, do it yourself and test out how much trouble it is to sell online in China.  Is it worth $3000 and 10%?

ZDNet has an article on one customer of Export Now.  For $3000 and 10%, the shoe distributor has ten sales in several months.   (At say $50 retail per sale, so $500, less $50).

Better to build more market in USA, and sell to a Chinese importer if and when it is economically viable for the Chinese to buy

As to Export Now, my guess is the govt official has some Obama Admin Export Promotion dollars to start up, and it does not matter if this works out or not.  That URLhttp://www.exportnow.com/ alone must have cost a fortune. The amount of promotion they are doing costs a lot. My guess is the govt trade official is going to find out how hard it is to build a business.  I think in a free market, no one would offer this service.

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Finding Buyers - Coffee - Follow Up

I promised to do a follow up on one person's effort to start up a business.  You can read "part one" here.

Now to continue, edited for some confidentiality:


On Aug 14, 2012, at 8:55 AM, Matt wrote:
Hi John,
Just wanted to let you know where I stand with contacting potential customers about my idea.  I've reached out to the 8 best prospects that I identified in the market (two large roasters and one smaller roaster, along with independent cafes).  I e-mailed initially and followed up with a phone call.  So far, no one has put me through to their buying people but I'm going to call again in a few days.

In the mean time, talking about my idea with some friends it turns out that one of my friends has a friend who imports coffee.  Who knew?

Hope all's well,
Matt

On Aug 14, 2012, at 10:01 AM, John Spiers wrote:
Hey Matt,

So if you want to step up the game, go into the shops themselves and follow either plan A or plan B.  Try about 2pm when the manager is likely there so you cn get a semi-informed response.

Plan A: Try to buy your hypothesis.  "I'd like to order a cup of...." and fill in your hypothetical cup of coffee.  

Plan B:  try out the hypothesis on the manager in the store at about 2pm:  "I believe .the problem then with most coffee--coffee house coffee or vacuum bagged coffee--is that it doesn't have a story.  Even fair trade certified just tells the customer that some coffee farmer in the jungle isn't getting jerked around on the price of his product.  What then I'd have to sell to smaller shops is the story of the bean, videos of the farmers, crafts from the kids in the village where the stuff is grown, and then give the customer a chance to respond back--videos, letters, thank yous, etc.  Make getting a cup more interactive and give the customer a reason to come back other than the coffee he's drinking.  Then I'd be selling the shop not just fair trade coffee, unique blends, or single origins, but a service that provides the store coffee and gives it a chance to offer customers the opportunity interact with where their cuppa comes from I believe if I solve this problem, you will buy from me.  Am I right?"

Either way, you'll get A response...

John

On Aug 14, 2012, at 10:16 AM, Matt wrote:
Got it and will try it, looks like I'm going to have a caffeinated next few days.

On Aug 21, 2012, at 1:44 PM, Matt wrote:
Hi John,
Just wanted to give you an update on coffee in my town.

The biggest roaster in town put me in touch with their head roaster Paul, who likes the idea but already feels confident about his companies ties to the people it imports from.  The owner of the company spends a lot of time in Costa Rica and gives back to the communities there where he has ties.

The second biggest roaster in town isn't interested.

One small roaster likes the idea but doesn't have the customers right now to support any higher margin coffees.

:/ 

My town is a small market (for as big an area as it is).  Talking about what I'm doing with friends has been good and people keep putting me in touch with other roasters they know.  My friend put me in touch with a couple of out of town shops.  Now to call them up.

Matt

On Aug 21, 2012, at 2:23 PM, John Spiers wrote:
Hey Matt,

OK... the purpose of this exercise is to find out if there is enough interest in a specific idea to warrant the next step, which would be to get samples of what you are talking about.

With samples, you'd see if there was enough orders from your customers to cover a suppliers minimum order requirement, in a workable amount of time, profitably.

If you say "back to the drawing board" it seems your sense to that question is "no."

If not, then you seem to have run that rabbit into the ground, and indeed ought to go back to the drawing board.

Aren't you glad you do not have a garage full of coffee beans you now know you would not have sold?

Assuming the above, what is on that drawing board to which you plan to return?


John

On Aug 21, 2012, at 5:38 PM, Matt wrote:
Good call on not having a garage full of coffee beans--yet.  I haven't given up yet and I'll keep reaching out to other small roasters. One coffee product I've never seen in the US is my favorite Arab coffee- a lot more complex and sweet.

 What would the next steps there be?

Matt

On Aug 22, 2012, at 9:34 AM, John Spiers wrote:

On Aug 21, 2012, at 5:38 PM, Matt wrote:
Good call on not having a garage full of coffee beans--yet. 

***Indeed, when you have a stack of orders then the arrival of beans will be welcome.***

I haven't given up yet and I'll keep reaching out to other small roasters. My background is in the Middle East and the one coffee product I've never seen in the US is my favorite Arab coffee--green roasted beans with ground cardamom.  When brewed it looks like green tea but is a lot more complex and sweet.

***An error I caution against is organizing around a resource, following Drucker (it's in the book.)  It's possible that your background and passion is one and the same, so let's continue with this line.  Now you are proceeding from a problem you experience, not from a market you suppose might be there.  The market you supposed was there you has proven to be illusory.  Now you are getting to something you find missing for yourself.  Basing a business on a felt need is far more likely than basing a business on a perceived market.  I'll note that in New Orleans coffee is often cut with chicory, another example of delicacies coming from hard times.  When sweetened with blackstrap molasses, you get cafe creole.  In any event, if coffee is a passion, then it's not back to the drawing board, it is back to those coffee shops and this time pitch Cafe Aleppo (Or whatever you call this coffee).***


John

On Aug 22, 2012, at 11:23 AM, Matt wrote:
I'm at the spice market this weekend to get the goods to make up a batch of Cafe Aleppo, thanks! ...  it had one of the best bazaars you could have ever hoped to see and these spiced red olives, mm.  Cafe Jeddah, Cafe Dubai, Cafe Sana, and Cafe Muscat don't have the same evocative ring.  Cafe Bahari? Will brainstorm on the name...

Matt

On Aug 27, 2012, at 11:35 AM, Matt wrote:
I read about a third of your book over the weekend and you really do give a lot of guidance there.  I feel less like a grenade and more like a guided missile.  You're especially right that the potential customers you talk to (coffee shops and unsuspecting friends in my case) give you all the information you need to know about your product.  I even made up a batch of Cafe Andalusia at my office without telling anyone to get some honest reactions and ideas on how to tailor a potential product for the market (Cafe Aleppo doesn't fly well).  My girlfriend did the same at her office. 

So far, I know what people would pay for the product, where they'd likely buy it, when they'd be most likely to buy it, what they like about it, how often they would buy it, who hates it...just a bunch of leads on where to look to "solve the market problem." Free!

Thanks again for all the guidance.  It's helping.

Matt

To be continued....

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Scaling Back the Criminal Justice System

Since our criminal justice system seems to be designed to process those of some African heritage and political prisoners, and fails to enforce laws when the violation comes from the state, perhaps it is time to think of scaling back, with a view to eliminating, state provision of criminal justice.

People who are learning about anarchy ask early on "Well, who is the cop?"  The answer is "you are the cop."  This is in accordance with the will of God, as we see in 1 Samuel 8.  Political conventions are replays of the scene in 1 Samuel 8.

It was not so long ago in the USA that we did not trust the state with criminal prosecutions.  Private citizens handled it themselves.  We were the cops, before there were cops:

Under English law, any Englishman could prosecute any crime. In practice, the prosecutor was usually the victim. It was up to him to file charges with the local magistrate, present evidence to the grand jury, and, if the grand jury found a true bill, provide evidence for the trial.[2]

And this...


Professor William McDonald has summarized the period: "Even after identification and arrest, the victim carried the burden of prosecution . . . [by] retain[ing] an attorney and pa[ying] to have the indictment written and the offender prosecuted."[96]  Indeed, early Americans preferred a system of private prosecution because it avoided the tyranny of government prosecutors and the expense of public-funded prosecutions.[97]  Thus, legal scholars report that private prosecutions were the dominant form of prosecution during the colonial period.[98]
Levine appears to believe that the practice of private prosecution came to an end with the ratification of the Constitution and its creation of a strong Executive branch of the federal government tasked with prosecuting crimes.[99]  Yet at the state level, private prosecution extended well into the nineteenth century.[100]  For example, the most thorough study of private prosecution in the United States—Professor Steinberg's historical review of nineteenth century prosecution in Philadelphia—reveals that direct victim prosecution of some types of crimes continued until at least 1875.[101]  Specifically, Steinberg concluded that victims routinely prosecuted cases themselves during the early- to mid-1800s:

The discretion of the private parties in criminal cases was not checked by the public prosecutor.  Instead, the public prosecutor in most cases adopted a stance of passive neutrality.  He was essentially a clerk, organizing the court calendar and presenting cases to grand and petit juries.  Most of the time, he was either superseded by a private attorney or simply let the private prosecutor and his witnesses take the stand and state their case.[102]

If you read through those articles, you'll see the context is the challenges of criminal justice provision.  With capitalism and the big business big state fascism, its natural child, the state arrogated unto itself a monopoly on criminal prosecutions.  Its rationale was the shortcomings of private provisions.  The big problem was people would initiate criminal proceedings, and then settle out of court.  Why, we cannot have that!  So let the state take over, so cases run their course.  Of course, today, the state plea-bargains most cases.  The change was to monopolize those perceived shortcomings into standard shortcomings.  Things got worse.

This is a recurring theme.  There was a crime called the Ponzi scheme.  It was outlawed.  then the US Govt set up Ponzi schemes, like Social Security.  Sometime I'll make a list of crimes that become social programs.

To this day we have private attorneys general to pursue class action suits, but the time has come to admit the experiment in state provision of criminal prosecution has failed, and we should end it.

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Tuesday, September 11, 2012

All Unemployment is Voluntary

This fellow nails it, most will sound familiar, but check out a series of start-ups he highlights. Pretty good stuff.

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The FDA and The TSA

The people at the FDA are working as hard as they can with the budget that they have to destroy medicine and small businesses in USA.  Anestesiologists are struggling with a drug shortage. What?  IN America?  Here is a round-up of the problem.  You'll note it all stems from the lack of a free market in medicine.

Here is what the FDA has to say:

There is no quick solution that solves this critical public health issue; addressing it will require a multifaceted approach. FDA plays a unique role in responding to and helping to prevent drug shortages. Today’s meeting was a constructive step in the right direction.

I doubt that.  The market would give us a quick solution.  Always does when there is a supply problem.  But we do not have a free market in medicine.  More meetings in which peoples lives are ruined while "stakeholders" sort out who gets what, and then leaves the FDA to protect those who are chosen to be the winners and destroy those chosen to be the losers is not a solution.

People pretend the FDA serves a role in making medicine safe and plentiful in USA.  It does not.  It does help fund empire by making drugs hard to get.

The opium trade is ancient and once offered the world palliative care.  Now suffering goes on so we can have empire.  This is nothing new.  Japan financed a fair portion of its empire with drug trade, by making it illegal and having a monopoly on the illegal drug.  Sound familiar?

I've blogged on the FDA efficacy before:


Let’s run some numbers:

2009 FDA had “about”(they don’t know) 8800 employees and a budget of 2.4 billion.  This means each FDA employee costs the taxpayers about $272,727 a year. Extrapolating from these facts, let’s say in 2010, they had 12,100 employees, given a budget of $3.3 billion. That is about a 50% increase, so now they should be able to inspect 1.5 pounds in a million. With their 2011 budget of over $4 billion, they nearly double their 2009 capabilities, so they can inspect almost 2 pounds per million, with 14,666 employees.

Let’s get serious:  If we believe inspections matter, we want at least 10% inspection right?  That would be 100,000 pounds per million. So we can reckon with a 2011 budget of $4 billion, and 14,666 employees, to get from 2 pounds to 100,000 pounds per million, we need to bump this up 50,000 times.  OK.. so to get where we inspect 10% of the imports (and note this is only the imports, let alone domestic inspection), or in other words let 90% of our imported food slide by uninspected, we need a FDA budget of 200 Trillion dollars (with a T) and 733 million inspectors, that is twice the population of USA today.  Better open those borders, and hire illegal aliens, if we want to get serious about food safety.

Of course, every cook inspects every meal, so we need no FDA whatsoever.  The FDA is just the TSA groping dead animals.  Why do we pretend the FDA can enhance food safety when they cannot, why do pretend cooks cannot when they do?


The FDA is trying hard to be worse than the TSA, and I suppose which is worse depends on if you are sick or you travel.

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China Ocean Steamship Corp (Cosco)

I was working in a small import company in Seattle, traveling as a buyer twice a year to China, when this occurred:

When a vessel of China Ocean Shipping Group Co sailed into the Port of Seattle in April 1979 carrying goods loaded in Shanghai, a new chapter in US-Chinese maritime relations began.

Eventually lawyers got involved.

Richard Lidinsky is among shipping-industry insiders who have taken note of Cosco's development in the US over the past 30 years. Now chairman of the Federal Maritime Commission, which regulates international ocean transportation for US exporters and importers, Lidinsky was a young lawyer for Baltimore's port authority in 1984 when he traveled in a delegation to Beijing in hopes of persuading Cosco to open a shipping route to Baltimore.

The FMC enforces some very destructive protectionist rules.  With protection, USA dominance in international shipping ended.  For the few shippers left, it became extremely profitable.  Countless jobs were lost, a few personal fortunes made.

Cosco-USA grew into a 600 person company with offices in eleven cities in USA.

"I was amazed to see the growth," Lidinsky said. "It has built up from a very small company to a major player in trade between our two countries." Cosco, he added, "understands the rules and plays by the rules".

No kidding.  And when, because of stupid, lawyer crafted, anti-free trade rules, USA is no longer a vibrant economy, China will write the rules.  It took only 30 years.

Lawyers are govt workers, and we must maintain a strict separation of business and State.

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Monday, September 10, 2012

Destroying a Way of Life

The progressives joined league with the usurers to entrap countless people, young and old, in debt for education.  One would think an education would help one avoid debt.  hmm...

Mish has a nice summary, and gets to the right solution.  Immediately end all education loan and student "aid" programs.  If schools have an endowment for scholarships, great.  But loans for education is madness.

As I said before, three daughters in or through college, no student loan debt.  It starts with homeschooling your kid, even if you also send them off to a pointless private or public school too.   Once you realize you have options and alternatives, the scales drop from the eyes, and you can get all of your kids educated without going into debt.

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Preserving A Way Of Life

Here is a fantastic story about traditional paper making in China.  Sadly, the maker is in his mid-70s, and no apparent apprentice.

If you love fine paper, the way to preserve a way of life is to build market for it in the United States.  To attract people to this work in China the paper would have to sell for probably $5 a sheet.  There is market for that.  Build that market, preserve that skill.



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Don't Bother With This Book

Anthony tips me off on a new book addressing intellectual property, knock offs and copying, called The Knock-off Economy - How Imitation Sparks Innovation.

The books observes among other things,

In the creative fields, from fashion to food to finance to font design, imitation co-exists with innovation. If the future is going to be one of more, rather than less, copying—and everything to date suggests that will be the case—this is good news. These industries show us the ways in which innovation can continue to thrive in a knockoff world.

That's been told more earlier and probably better by Bodrin and Levine. But then this:

Of course, copying can sometimes cause real harm, which is why we have copyright and patent law.

Well, stop there.  Prove it.  No one ever has. It is simply not true.  If the authors cannot get that right, are too incurious to look into that point although it is central to the thesis, then don't bother reading the book.

Too little time, too many good books.  If you want a good one on the topic read Against Intellectual Monopoly.




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Sunday, September 9, 2012

W R O N G !

Last week I predicted Hillary would emerge from the Democratic election the Candidate for President.  It didn't happen.  I am sticking to the prediction she will be the next president.  How?  Now it turns out Obama has no law license, not disputed.  Nor his wife.  The reason why is disputed.  Something, somehow,  Hillary will be the next president.  Anyone but Obama or Romney.  PLEASE!

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FDA Destroying Small Business

In the United States, after you have cleared security, and are awaiting your flight, you may buy a cup of coffee, say, from one of the gate-side vendors.  Nonetheless, TSA now approaches you and wants to put a stick in your drink, to look for chemicals for bombs.  Yes, this is after you have cleared security.

Think about it.  You are enjoying a cup of coffee, and someone walks up and demands to put a stick of something in your drink.  You would say no.  You'll at least miss your flight.  This is madness, but it gets worse.  Retaliation for being sensible is only the beginning.

Small businesses often import specialty products from the best places in the world, and Switzerland is a respected source for chocolate.    With a new law passed by President Obama, Swiss chocolate companies must reveal trade secrets, in addition to having their factories inspected, by FDA agents, if they want to sell to America.

The Government has already made toys and clothes almost impossible to import at the small business level.  This is a policy of the United States Government, both democrat and republican, to destroy small business and give big business a virtual monopoly (since they can afford to comply).  Election fraud is material in USA, so we cannot effect change through elections.

No longer do we only inspect at the borders, we inspect factories that sell to us.  This is a great way to expand the federal workforce, by placing inspectors, at taxpayers expense, living in Switzerland to inspect factories.  Does anyone think the inspections will do any good?

What happens is countries in turn demand that our factories be inspected before export to their countries.  Breathtaking waste.

There is nothing we can do about it.  People will volunteer for the false dilemma and vote for either Obama or Romney, either one will continue with more, and worse.  Who knows how this will end.  In any event, starting a business is a brave, revolutionary act in the United States.

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When Italians Visit USA


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