June 4, 2009

F GM- By Garrett Mostowski

If you are smart enough to interpret those letters then you should be laughing right about now. If you are not laughing at the letters or my opening statement then you need to read this article and hopefully by the end you can understand. I am completely serious.

GM finally went bankrupt and it seems that the world is shocked. I am not. I have seen firsthand the trash that works for GM and it was only a matter of time before that work force ran them into the ground. Fat, lazy and unproductive are all words I would use to describe the GM workforce as well as unintelligent, ignorant and hick. I might use those last three to describe their management teams as well. Don’t even get me started on the union. There are always exceptions to my insults, but obviously not enough to save GM’s sorry Arsch (that is Deutsche for rear, if you don’t know what Deutsche means you probably work for GM and need to keep reading).

Bizwhizkid.com is dedicated to helping young entrepreneurs. Therefore all you young entrepreneurs need to get out a pen and pad so that you don’t end up like GM. I am going to give you the three most obvious ways to avoid bankruptcy and run a successful company. It isn’t rocket science but I am guessing that  a mass influx of GM workers are going to be needing a job soon and if they, by some miracle, decide to start their own company then they are going to need this advice.  

The first obvious way to avoid bankruptcy and run a successful company is to hire workers that are educated, disciplined and healthy. Everybody hates the fat kid for a reason. He/she is fat and lazy and the skinny kid knows instinctively that he will be that way his whole life which means that the skinny kid must subsidize the fat kid for his whole life. The negative externality of obesity is obvious from a young age but GM just couldn’t seem to catch the concept. Allow me to lay it out. Fat people are not productive and productivity equals profitability which means unproductivity equals loss. It is easy as pie. I understand some medical conditions for being obese, but for the most part obesity shows a lack of discipline, which is never good for your company, just ask GM. Education is a non-dependent variable in this equation. Just make sure that when you hire a worker that they are not complete morons or you might end up with losses. That is a no brainer, no pun intended.

The second obvious way to avoid bankruptcy and run a successful company is to make sure that each worker you hire has the opportunity to be productive and take an active role in your establishment. Have you heard the stories of GM workers being paid to sleep all day or just sit in a room? I know I have and that is why I wrote this article. I wonder why they went bankrupt? Your worker’s wage depends on how productive he or she is during a day. If he/she makes you 20 dollars an hour then you should pay him/her probably about  15 dollars an hour. Labor is capital just like inventory, land and money. It only makes sense that you would make a profit on your workers. Just make sure that Karl Marx does not catch you.

Finally, the third obvious way to avoid bankruptcy and run a successful company is to never fear the thought of firing workers. If a worker is hurting you then you should hurt them. Business is not about favors, it is about service. In business we serve each other through millions of different ways. If your workers are sleeping all day on the job and acting like Arschloch’s (take a guess at what that means in Deutsche) then you probably need to rethink your workforce. Duh. Use your head and you should be fine, but don’t ever forget the idiocy that anchored down GM.

 

Peace,

 

Garrett Mostowski

 

 

P.S. if you are a GM worker and this pissed you off, please don’t leave a nasty comment. Instead, just walk to your mailbox and pick up your unemployment check and then write me a thank you letter for spotting you some cash while you are out of work.

June 2, 2009

3 dimensions of sales you should pay attention to

Sales equal income.  If you want to stay alive in business, then you have to sell.  If you want to thrive in business, then you have to sell a lot.  In the new venture setting don’t expect anyone to make sales for your business.  YOU have to get out there and bring home the bacon.  So with that inspiring opening, here are a few areas to concentrate on before your next sales meeting:

Image – Your customer analyzes everything you do; so don’t make an ass out of yourself (and ultimately your company).  As a salesman, you are the touch point between the client and your company.  For best results, make sure you are CLEAN, CONFIDENT, RELAXED, and POSITIVE.  These external qualities are sure to bring you better results, but they can only be achieved by changing your internal SELF-IMAGE.  Those who ARE the best, think they are the best.

Knowledge – Knowledge is power.  Know your industry, know your product, but most of all know your customer.   Your robotic manufacturing company won’t sell ass if your client is Amish International.  Make sure the solution you are selling solves their problem.

Motivation – As a salesman you control your own destiny.  Obviously, that creates a firm pressure to perform.  But it also creates an equally large opportunity to succeed.  Have the drive to make contacts, do the research, practice your pitch, and read sales books. If you have the fire everyday, nothing will stop you.

May 28, 2009

Advertise This Article Please- By Garrett Mostowski

Alright I have had enough. After Mitch’s shot at Bush’s Baked Beans terrible ad campaign (see the Mitch’s post entitled “what kind of business should you start”) I am unable to dam up my feelings any longer. Someone has to say it. I thought maybe I could sit back on this one but it has been far too long and given the current economic downturn and our great Fuhrer Mr. Obama taking control of industry I fear that my days of free speech may be coming to an end. So I apologize in advance for all of you that I offend, but I must release this truth once and for all before it is too late. Ladies and gentlemen, today I declare that marketing is a joke. I hope that statement turns your stomach like a hot bowl of Bush’s baked beans.

If you are studying marketing  and you read that don’t waste your time trying to argue because you won’t win. Instead, do us all a favor and go change your major so you can actually contribute to society. Marketing and advertising have become a joke and so is your future if you want to pursue a career in either field. Remember, bizwhizkid.com promotes business entrepreneurs not incompetent, lazy morons that cannot handle quantitative reasoning or conceptualization in any other field.

Of course I do not mean that you can’t get a job in advertising. There will always be jobs and there will always be opportunities to succeed. Marketing is so important in the process of exchange and within the economy in general. Marketing promotes efficiency, consumer loyalty, competition and product differentiation. All of these things are necessary for a fully functional and healthy free market economy and they are provided by marketing and advertising. So why is marketing a joke?

Marketing is a joke because it has turned into a rent seeking activity. For the sake of your time and mine I will not write down my proof of this. However, there is a list of 10 fortune 500 companies whose marketing budget exceeds the annual budget and earnings of several other famed companies. What is wrong with this? A marketing budget so large is produced by a mini bureaucratic establishment found within the walls of an entrepreneurial establishment. The problem with this is that you are mixing profit maximizers with budget maximizers and that means that entrepreneurial profit seekers are weighed down by bureaucratic rent seekers that could not achieve success anywhere else.

These phony bologna bureaucrats are the reason that more attention is placed on the advertisement than on the actual product. When attention is taken away from the product and placed on the advertisement I have to wonder two things. First, how good is the actual product? Second, why am I supposed to buy this particular product. Take GM for example, they will file for bankruptcy by the end of the week most likely (by the way watch for their stock to plummet before the news of bankruptcy and then watch it almost double after the news has settled, if you buy and sell stock and you like a lot of risk join me and try to double your position, I am all in) and their marketing and advertising budget is nearly twice that of their closest competitors. Yet GM is broke and they are nearly bankrupt…hmm.

GM is just one example but I could seriously write a book on the correlation between weak companies and large marketing budgets (Coca-Cola and Pepsi are what we call outliers in this study even though their ads suck). Instead of making you read to much, I just want to let you know that marketing and advertising are ruining some companies and saving some as well. However, the general consensus in the mind of Mostowski is that Marketing is a joke, for the most part.

I have seen those kids that go into marketing and it really is pitiful. The marketing major is kind of like that last team created in pee-wee baseball for all of the kids that did not get picked by any coaches, or all of the kids that never play put onto one team. Give me a break and actually do something with your life. Needless to say when companies draft these kids they go bankrupt or see a serious downturn in their performance.

The correlation is strong but not strong enough to suggest causation. However I have reason to believe  that large marketing departments cause a negative downturn in many companies performance. They act as a leech, slowly sucking away profits and revenue to cover their costs. Do me a favor all of you entrepreneurs and beware of the rent-seeking marketing major. They are out there and they are hungry for your cash flow. Remember this though, some leeches are used for medicinal purposes and the most wise will always recognize a need for their service. Be smart with your company. Keep the vision. Evaluate your costs constantly. Don’t be afraid to dismiss a service. Never let anyone tell you that you absolutely “need” something. You are smart enough to know your needs…maybe.

May 19, 2009

Mostowski’s Family Recipe

Here it is, my secret formula. The Mostowski Family recipe is sacred, so please do not take it lightly. I cant believe I am doing this. Please, enjoy. 

The first ingredient in the recipe is luck. Yeah, I said it, just plain luck. If you think you have some kind of overwhelming control on your destiny do me a favor and try to make your hair grow faster too, see how that works out for you. You need luck. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in his book ,Fooled by Randomness, (report coming soon to bizwhizkid) describes the role of randomness in our lives. Understand that the unpredictable will happen and the worst can always come up, so pray for luck.

            The second ingredient is culture. Let’s face it no one is equal. The fat kid in gym class is the fat kid for a reason. Its called bad luck. Ignorant people assume equality and entrepreneurs are not ignorant. So, if you disagree with variable number two just stop reading now because you wont ever succeed at entrepreneurship and that is a fact. Certain people from certain cultures are more entrepreneurial than most and it derives from the cultures overall entrepreneurial spirit. Canada is slumping for a reason while India continues to “mysteriously” boom. Here is a little insight, Canada is full of rent-seeking bureaucratic lazy assholes, while Indians are busting their balls each day in the market place to climb the economic ladder of success.

            The third ingredient is higher education. Canadians aren’t smart. That is why they will never be more than a joke on this planet. But don’t just go to get a degree. The degree that you get isn’t worth the paper they print it on. Human capital is the most important resource at your disposal. Grow it through books and seek counsel. Heck, read what I have written. The more knowledge you obtain the more you will understand that you have to be open to globalization and “aliens.” Successful people come from the far East Coast or the far West Coast. That is where the money is at, not in the hands of ignorant, flag-waving hicks who do not know the difference between church and state, but seem to hate anyone with a different color of skin. Racism is over, and if I had my way, illiterate southerners would be gone with it.  Hitler had a good idea with ethnic cleansing, he just targeted the wrong people.

            The fourth ingredient is to think global. The Mitch was right when he wrote, “drop the lawnmower.” There are only about 100 yards to mow in your town, but I can think of about 6 billion people on the planet that all have too many needs to satisfy. Canadians mow lawns, Indians build computers. Be an Indian, build a computer.

            Finally, you need to act. There is a big difference between action and reaction. A reaction is what you do when someone orders you to perform a task but acting is free. If you are a U.S. citizen you are born free to act, so do it. Otherwise you will turn out worse than Ben Affleck did as an actor.  Always understand that reacting will never get you anywhere in life ever, it will only keep you in the same harbor. However, if you act you may end up places you never knew existed. Acting is not for the theatre, its for the marketplace. Be an entrepreneur and go act.

May 17, 2009

What kind of business should you start?

That is the question.  In fact if you come up with a great…say billion-dollar business idea, be sure you send it our way (or Mark’s way).  Seriously though, a solid idea is the foundation of a successful business.  The greatest of the great are dirt cheap to start, have little competition, are scalable, in high-demand, and of course extremely profitable.  If you have an idea that meets these five criteria, you better keep it between you and your dog (unless your dog likes beans, in which case you should just start a bad ad campaign instead).  But for those who need a spark in the business ideation department, ask yourself these two questions:

What are you good at?

A quick self-assessment exercise before going on.  Take out a pencil/pen. 

Write your name with the “wrong” hand.  If you’re a righty, write your name with your left hand.  If you’re a lefty do the opposite (If you’re ambidextrous…you win?).  Now write your name with the “correct” hand. 

Now, did you feel the difference? 

Whether it is math, jewelry making, or potato farming, whatever you’re good at should be like writing with your correct hand.  You should feel completely comfortable performing this task.  This is a good starting point for ideas.  If you are better than 90% of other people at some skill that creates value for others, then sell that skill!

What do you know?

Is it cars, computers, marketing, kids, anything? List everything that you feel knowledgeable about.  Just brainstorm.  After you get ten or so subjects down on paper, rank them.  Start at number one and ask yourself, “What business could I start right now using the knowledge I have in this area?”  If you need more knowledge (say you know a lot about medicine, but can’t practice it without 10 years of further schooling) then see if there is another angle you could work (for instance, selling pharmaceuticals to doctors).