economic recession Archives by Mark Murnahan

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Impending Economic Apocalypse

Have you heard the latest message of doom? Did you listen to it and soak it all in? The recession we have all talked about is not over, and there are a lot of very bright people saying that it is about to get a whole lot worse. Of course, bad news travels a lot faster than good news. So we must ask, what is the good news?

If you own, manage, or work for a company with under 500 employees, please pay attention. If you want to avoid economic apocalypse, I welcome you, too.

I have some words for you that I believe you really need to hear. I may not tell it just right, but I believe very strongly in what I am going to share with you. If you are too busy to read this, my blog has a “play” button, so at least listen to the audio version.

The economy is what you make of it. I mean “you” as an individual, and I also mean “you” collectively. I know that it may seem awkward for me to call intelligent humans “pack animals”, but let’s face it … we live, work, and operate as a herd of sorts. We make good decisions in groups, and we make bad decisions in groups. Not so differently than a herd of gazelle, when we sense danger, we run. We run far, and we run fast.

The things we envision, whether it is greener pastures on the horizon, or a pride of lions sneaking up on us, each lead us to take actions as a group. Some of us lead, and some of us follow, but when the herd makes a move, it affects us all. When we adapt a defeatist mentality as a group, we quickly create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Today, we see the lions in a large scale in the stock market, and we see them on a smaller scale in our cities and small towns. It makes me question who is standing up for our herd, and to our herd, with a voice of reason, and possibility? I mean the possibility to stop running and resume peaceful grazing, even in our somewhat wilted and dangerous prairie.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Observed

Whether you like this example or you despise it, it is relevant to today’s market condition in America. An example of a self-fulfilling prophecy that recently occurred was in the ammunitions market. Americans heard a rumor that due to political unrest, potential legislative changes, and supply prices, that the cost of bullets would rise during the months of April and May 2011. What did gun owners do? We flocked to stores and bought up every bullet for every gun we own, and even guns we don’t own.

We heard the same things about gold and silver. The rush on silver has skyrocketed the price of silver to astronomical highs, while gold has become precious enough that if you have any gold fillings in your teeth, you had better sleep with your mouth closed.

These are not good signs. They are signs of people collectively fearing economic collapse, and chaos. Is this ridiculous or just nature? Actually it is a good mix of both. It is what happens when nature becomes ridiculous, but yet, it is nature, after all. So it is actually very “normal”. When it becomes completely ridiculous and out of control is when a big enough section of the human herd runs scared, and scares the whole bunch of us to run off a cliff.

Politics Schmolitics … Who Cares?

I don’t want to introduce formal political ideology here, because it is far beyond “who did this”, or “who said that”. If I talk politics, a whole lot of you will love what I have to say. A whole lot of you will hate what I have to say. Many of you will hate me just for the country I live in, or the style of my hair. Let’s face it, we each have a lot at stake, and we each have something to gain by working together.

This running of the human herd, not just in my country, but worldwide, has come to a point of complete turmoil. It is like an economic terrorism with every participant being a little bit of a terrorist in their own way.

The big question today is about how to calm the herd. How do we put things back in a comfortable place where we are not all scattering every time we hear another potential cause for alarm? This should matter above all others, because it ultimately relates to our survival, and the future of our society. That is not an alarmist speaking, but rather a number-analyzing businessman with a very good view of the business environment.

Sure, maybe some things are messed up. Maybe things will be different for a while. Should we really let speculation destroy us, or should we collectively change the speculation? I welcome your words, but don’t answer with words alone. Learn to embrace the control you have, and use it for action.

Maybe the Mayans, Hopi, I Ching, Nostradamus, and other predictions and promotions of the “2012 phenomenon” forecasting the end of humanity are spot on. If the end of the world is coming, wouldn’t it be be worse if it came and went, and the only result we saw was the loss of trust and friendship of every person around us, because we were the gazelle who didn’t stop the one beside us and say “Stop! Snap out of it! You’re scarier to the herd than the lions!”

Precautions Are Fine, but Paranoia Grows Exponentially

Go ahead and buy a few non-perishable foods, buy some more gold, silver, and ammunition. Heck, these are good things to have, anyway. I have enough guns and ammunition to start my own war, and I don’t have plans to stop eating anytime soon. Everybody has a certain level of security that makes things feel “right” for them. I have been just a touch on the extreme side of caution all of my life, so that is just “normal” for me.

When precautions become so extreme, and promoted widely, that it scares the herd, it is worse for each and every one of us! Sure, there are websites currently projecting a 4,000 point drop in the stock market by Summer 2011 when corporate reports come out. There are websites speculating that the U.S. Federal Reserve will collapse, USA will come under Martial Law, and banks, utilities, grocery stores, and all other businesses will cease operations while the U.S. dollar implodes. I would not even begin to start listing all of the doomsday projections I have seen lately promoting such a “flash point” in the world’s economy. Many of them are even quite persuasive and well-researched, but is that what you really want to believe, and hasten?

If you really want to start living under those conditions, just start believing it, acting like it, and then we can collectively make that happen, without fail.

How Can You Slow the Herd?

This is where you have a chance to stop your running and make a stand. If you own a company, work for a company, or buy from a company (and we all do), you have the power of choice.

Small business makes up the lion’s share of our economy. Small businesses, then, really do make up the herd (the masses), and the lions (the biggest segment of the economy) all at once. If you reach out to just one small business to make your purchases, and you spread the word to do the same, we can collectively stop the running. If you own or manage one of those small businesses, and you spread the word to other small business people and their employees to stand up and work together, we can make a monumental impact. When these things happen, we influence business and economy on all levels.

If we all stop spending, or keep spending fearfully, as if the economy is doomed to collapse, it really will. On the other hand, if we begin using our purchasing power wisely, and grow the strength of small businesses, we have the power to slow the herd before more of them run off the cliff.

Impending Economic Apocalypse in Summary

There is a whole lot of gloom and doom, but there are also websites and people who say that we can prevent complete chaos before it hits a flash point. Yes, I mean this website, and I mean this person, and I am not alone.

You can call me crazy, and you can keep stuffing your dollars into a coffee can buried in your back yard and see how well that will work for you. Maybe you will think that I am a radical on the side of positivity, and that you really don’t hold the power that I suggested above. The fact is that if you keep neglecting small business, and if small businesses keep rolling over and letting fear win, fears will come true.

You are right if you think that you, alone, do not have that power to slow the herd, and help small business stop operating from fear. I don’t either … no, I am just a small businessman who listens to small business people every day. I have over 20 years of marketing experience, and I know how to spread the word about growing a business, but this time, I am not just talking about a single company or a small handful of clients. I am talking about standing up as a complete herd to stop the stampede of failure.

I do not know it all, but what I know, without a doubt, is that if something important is promoted in a convincing way, to enough people, an exponential growth happens. That exponential growth can happen for our benefit, or for our demise. We are the ones, each of us, who choose to grow a more productive and peaceful herd.

Do You Want a More Peaceful Time in Business?

The way I see it is that we each must choose one of two outcomes, but when we chose, we should be committed to that decision. The overall choices as I view them are as follows:

A.)We can all be cautious, keep running like gazelle from the lion in the prairie, and fulfill the prophecy of an economic doomsday. This is what you can expect when small businesses continue to operate with fear, and stop making smart decisions about their future growth.

B.) We can form a pact to stop running scared and remind the others to “Stop! Snap out of it! You’re scarier to the herd than the lions!”

I cannot slow a herd with a few words from just one guy at a computer in Topeka, Kansas, USA. For that, my fellow herdsmen, I rely on you. I hope that you will see the lions of economic failure as a real hazard, but that you will also see the value of not running from doom, and begin preventing it.

If you really want disaster, just for the drama, give yourself a moment of reflection about those who will be here, and who tried our best to benefit others. If you keep running and stop trying, we will no longer share in your misery, nor appreciate your words. We are the people who speak with our deeds, and listen to yours. Yes, we are the people

That is how I see it. My name is Mark Aaron Murnahan, and I am glad we had this chance to meet. I hope that you will share this with the herd beside you, and help stop the stampede. Please add your comments here and get to know me.

How many people are in your email address list? How many friends do you have on Facebook? How many people follow you on Twitter? Don’t you think that between the bunch of you, and their friends, that we could start fixing things for all our benefit?

You may share this with the short web address: http://wb.gy/fix or by using the sharing links below.

Photo Credits:
Thompson’s Gazelle by fwooper via Flickr
Thompson’s gazelles, Masai Mara, Kenya by Paul Mannix via Flickr
Serengeti 2007 by Tony Young via Flickr

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Your Recession is Yours, My Recession is Mine

I talk to a lot of people. I have some amazing friends, with amazing perspective. The wise ones are not afraid to talk about recession, and brainstorm ways to improve their respective place in this recession.

You are a bit scared, right? I hope so, because you should be. If you have just consumed a small fraction of reality over the past couple years, you have certainly noticed something different about people’s spending habits. Lines at restaurants are shorter, and lines at homeless shelters are longer. Let’s not sugar-coat it. Shit hit the fan and business is harder to come by these days.

One of my long time close friends is a well-informed Magna Cum Laude Princeton University graduate of economics with his MBA and a bunch of letters at the end of his name. He is a top-level economist and one that many other number-crunchers rely on to evaluate major business decisions. He is about as scared as it comes. Me, I lost squillions since recession started in 2007, and I got sick of being scared. Instead, I made a plan, and I continually work with my plan.

Improve the Future You’ve Got

This is not an uplifting “rah rah, go get ’em” sermon I am here to give you, but rather the cold hard truth of where things stand, and ideas to improve the future you’ve got. Ahh, but there is the key! If you note that I said “the future you’ve got” I mean that the future is something you already have. It is not some unrealistic thing that lives in some other dimension and never comes to pass. Time keeps marching on, and every day marks another day into your future. You do have a future, and if you are too freaked out about today, the future gets pretty blurry. In any case, your future will get here, and you are the one who makes all the tough decisions on how it will look.

I understand that it gets harder to envision your future when you are still fighting today. I have seen the future become blurred, too, but I have made a plan. I made a flexible plan, and one that can be amended as needed. I keep my eyes moving, and I always look in all directions. It is tricky and requires constant attention, but without a plan, results would be pretty bleak. Don’t you think?

If you feel like you are alone in the recession, stop feeling that way. Not just because I said “stop feeling that way”, but because you know it is true. You see it all around you. There are two divergent ideologies on the topic. One says the sky is falling and we are all doomed, and the other talks in ambiguous Wall Street phrases about improved economic indicators and tries to influence a stronger market by helping people feel safer to spend money. Reality is somewhere in the middle, and your economic reality will come from the actions you take.

Owning Your Recession

Let’s face it, you own your recession, and the sooner you realize it, the better. Sure, it has affected most of the people you know, but there are still people thriving in a bad economy, and I will give you some reasons why. It starts with making good decisions, having confidence in your decisions, and taking action on your decisions. That is a lot of decision making, and many people are more comfortable making the decision to “wait and see what happens” and to follow the same course. Getting ahead means getting uncomfortable, and if you are in business, you must understand that fear affects success in more than logic.

I can own up to my recession, although it is not all my doing. I still know that my decisions have everything to do with where I am and where I go from here. I will give you an example. In 2007 and 2008 I watched some huge suppliers to my company kill thousands of jobs and shut down some of their operations. One of my suppliers of network services laid off 5,000 people in a single day. I knew my industry very well, and I knew in advance that I should have sold off or severely downsized one division of my company. Instead, I wanted to be a hero to my clients, so I took a “wait and see” approach. It was not long before the “wait and see” kicked me squarely in the ass.

You will not catch me seeking sympathy, but I saw my corporation’s annual accounts receivable drop by over half a million dollars in a single month during 2008. As the CEO, I knew that it would eventually hit my personal economy pretty hard, so I made sacrifices. I cleared out $250,000 worth of cars from my garage, I suspended a six figure per year auto racing budget, I downsized my home by over 3,000 fewer square feet, and I worked harder and for less money than I had in many years. It made sense to cut certain things that I did not require, and it made sense to kick myself back into gear. I made many sacrifices!

Making the Right Sacrifices

I write a lot to help people regain vision for their business and personal lives. In fact, I wrote three books last year and a whole lot of blogs. You surely cannot knock me for dedication. So much of what I write is aimed at helping others to grow their market and regain the market they once enjoyed. I know I make some people very uncomfortable, and I am pleased for that. If you are comfortable with how things are, you have less reason to do something brilliant. On the other hand, if you get sick of being scared, like I did, maybe you will come to make the right choices to build upon your own economy.

Maybe you never read any of my biographies or ever heard of me before, but from the time I dropped out of school at age 15, I have built multiple very successful companies. Something I have learned well is the value of sacrificing unnecessary comforts today in return for a better tomorrow. Sure, you can say that tomorrow never comes and that you should seize the day, but isn’t that the same thing your credit card issuers count on? If you work harder, try harder, create a solid strategy, and do more for your future, you are the one who collects the interest.

The Wrong Sacrifice

I could bang my drum and toot my horn all day and night, and you can still call it all “bullshit”. I can give you good ideas and direction, but you can still call me crazy. A lot of good thinking has been called crazy. Christopher Columbus was “crazy” for saying the world is round, and Albert Einstein said “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”

Crazy is relative to your own sense of reality. I was crazy to leave school at 15, but less crazy as I earned millions by 25. Something which cannot be denied and is based on solid math is that effective marketing will grow a business. Effective marketing can get you the job you want. Effective marketing and reaching the right people with the right message is what creates opportunities, from meeting the right spouse to becoming the head of a political party. So how can you possibly abuse and neglect your marketing when it is the one quantifiable thing which can lead you to your goals?

My Murnahanism for Today: “If you want something, it mostly requires asking the right people. You should place quality first, and quantity second, but success usually requires both. If you keep asking the wrong people, refine your efforts. When that fails, you probably need to ask more people.”

If you want a better economy for yourself, do something different. As I have said before, “Do Shit They Will Remember” and note that sometimes you must “Choose Logic Over Emotion“.

If you want more, market more, and market better. Of all the sacrifices I ever made in business, marketing has never been in the list. It has always been the one thing that mattered most. Recession is actually the best time to market your goods, because your competition is running scared, too.

I wrote of sacrifices I made to create millions of dollars in business from my 6th grade education (I left at 15, but I failed a few times first) in my book “Living in the Storm“. This is not my evil plot to shake you down for the huge $2 royalty I make per book, but if you have a hard time understanding the sacrifices it takes to grow a business, you should consider reading it.

Accepting your own recession and doing more to improve it does not mean everything will be amazing again. However, if you are not doing more to market yourself or your business, you are accepting what you have and that will become less as others keep moving forward.

Photo credit to Eric Pouhier via Wikipedia

The Economy: It Can Happen To Anybody

Millions of Americans and people throughout the world are in need of your compassion NOW.

Oprah Winfrey and Lisa Ling Broke My Heart

A few days ago I took just a moment away from my computer to watch something that caught my attention on the television while I walked from the coffee pot to my desk. It was an Oprah Winfrey episode with special guest Lisa Ling visiting with people who lost everything they had and were living in tent cities. It truly took my breath away and I sobbed through the whole thing.

The ways that this episode of Oprah affected me changed my life. The impact I felt was so profound that I have not been able to get it out of my mind since. She was talking about people who have lost everything that they worked so hard for in life, and sadly, that even includes friendships. So many of the newly homeless and people in despair lose touch with friends, and even family. They no longer have an email address, a cell phone, or a mailing address. They have been crushed. Their spirits have often been broken, or at least very markedly bent.

How Oprah Affected Me

After watching the episode, I had an awakening of my own spirit. It reminded me of things that we all try hard to forget, and hard to avoid. I cried as I saw a man talk about how it touched him to go and clean out foreclosed homes and throw out a little baby doll and know that it was probably some little girl’s best friend. At the same time, he had 15 homes per day to clean out, often with the majority of people’s worldly possessions left behind. It all had to go to the dumpster, regardless of the value. Even the organizations like the Salvation Army could not take things, because they had run out of room.

This all got so hard for me that I wondered what this world will look like if it all continues at this rate. Will we all live in tent cities while our vacant homes rot away in the legal possession of banks that are of proportionally little value? If this is how it is going to go, I simply cannot understand the world today.

It Could Happen To Anybody!

Financial hardship can hit anybody. We can believe we are immune, but what happened to these people can happen with little notice. It is frightening, it is humbling, and depending on how one deals with it, the hardship will either polish a person brighter than ever or grind them and bring deep despair.

The psychological affects are profound. In hard times, it is common that people will tuck themselves into a shell of solitude and feel like everybody can see their shame. It is described as a feeling of being marked with a big symbol to show that you are beneath others around you. There becomes a huge feeling that you do not want to burden friends. It gets to a point where it is the emotional equivalent of the injured animal that wonders off in the woods to die. In a way, it is kind of like dying. Things change profoundly in the heart and spirit of those facing these hardships. Nobody wants to burden their friends. At the same time, it is shocking just how true it is to real friends that it is not a burden at all. Most people will want to help in whatever way they can … even if it just a hug. Perhaps not surprising, a hug can actually go a long way to help a friend.

Care About Those Around You

If you know somebody who lost their job, or who may be facing hardship like Oprah has described, reach out to them. Let them know that you care. What lies ahead is very uncertain, but one thing is clear. We must all come together and care for each other.