This is No Time to Despair

I try not to watch the news too much. I say that, but the truth is, I do get a bit daily. I think the media really distorts reality and, to a large part, creates a new one. It is sprinkled with enough truth to make it totally believable to most, I'm afraid. The "reality" they are feverishly working on obviously has a lot of truth in it – the economy. But they don't tell everything – only the seriously bad news.

So, how are we supposed to combat all of this? I am a perpetually optimistic person (which happens to annoy a lot of people, I think). Even I have to actively seek out and locate reasons to stay optimistic right now, in terms of the economy. I thought this week I would share some of what I found:

Love the attitude at www.bobsmusiccafe.com.
WHAT IF THEY HAD AN ECONOMIC DOWNTURN AND NOBODY CAME?

It has been well-documented that in every prior time of economic stress, only those companies who engaged in aggressive marketing were able to prosper...

Follow this link to read the rest. He ends it with a fantastic quote from the great P.T. Barnum!
Small businesses (any company up to 500 employees, per the SBA) are VERY important to our economy – yeah, that's YOU...
Some stats on small firms:
- Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
- Employ about half of all private sector employees.
- Pay nearly 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
- Have generated 60 to 80 percent of new jobs over the last decade.
- Create more than half of non-farm private gross domestic product (GDP).
- Hire 40 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer workers).
- Are 52 percent home-based and 2 percent franchises.
- Made up 97.3 percent of all identified exporters and produced 28.9 percent of the known export value in FY 2006.
- Produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms; these patents are twice as likely as large firm patents to be among the one percent most cited.
If you want even more great stats and can stand to drudge through a government report, you can check it all out here and here.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census and International Trade Administration
People are still buying stuff – but are they buying from you??
Ten Things We're Still Buying by Lauren Sherman

Consumer spending may be at an all-time low, but there are plenty of things people can't seem to live without...

She really goes into detail about a good number of niche markets. Read the rest here and see which segment you fit into best.

Okay, now send me the love right back! If you've found anything else to be optimistic about regarding the economy, I'd love to hear about it and share it with my staff and my database! There's quite enough bad news being reported - we need the good news!! Email it to me at joy.gendusa@postcardmania.com.

Love,
Joy

Non-Masterminds Missed Sam Horn!

My marketing Monthly Mastermind Group is getting ramped up, and for a limited time we are offering everyone a special Charter Member price along with two free months. This month's presentation:

How To Create a Unique and Powerful USP (Unique Selling Proposition) For Your Business

Sam Horn, author of POP!: Create the Perfect Pitch, Title, and Tagline for Anything was our guest. Any business can benefit from powerful slogans and taglines that are unique; that make a company stand out in a crowd. Jerry Garcia said "It's not enough to be considered the best at what you do. You must be perceived as the only one who does what you do." During the call, Sam Horn provides half a dozen techniques that you will be able to use right away to create a powerful slogan or tagline for your business.

This month's presentation, along with past months' as well, are available for download in the Members' Area. To get access to these, and also participate in the upcoming Q&A call with me and my partner, Jerry Dyas, click over to JoyGendusa.com and sign up. Remember, the first two months are FREE!

This is No Time to Despair

Non-Masterminds Missed Sam Horn!

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