The Economy (yawn), Referrals, Housing and Juan Pollo
Economic News
This back and forth with things looking good then looking bad then looking… whatever, is really exhausting and soon you just stop paying attention until someone on the ‘Gram goes all caps. But I’ll do my best to keep you informed with the relevant stuff.
Existing home sales far exceeded expectations: up 8.1% vs. 0.9% expectations.
Existing home sales are sales where the contract has been signed – the house is in escrow – but the deal hasn’t closed.
I think the market is catching up on itself. Folks have been holding out to list their house or buy, but some can’t wait any longer.
Mortgage rates averaged 6.88%. Ouch.
Yes, contracts are up, but the number of contracts compared to last year is down 24.1% nationwide.
So activity is up, but down from a year ago. Yeah, we pretty much knew the ‘down’ part.
Consumer confidence is down for the second straight month; two months does not a trend make, but you know the Fed: that’s good Bad News.
New unemployment claims were lower than expected at 190,000 vs. 197,000 expected. Bad Good News: can we fire people already??!! No, because the help wanted signs are still out which is really NOT what the Fed wants to see.
The Fed wants to see a 2% inflation rate. LOL!
Durable goods orders for January were down 4.5% vs. an expected decrease of 3.6%. Good Bad News.
Manufacturing is slowing down more than expected. The Fed likes that.
Speaking of home sales… California has more single female homeowners than any other state.
The total was 856,479.
Florida was not far behind at 854,279. And then everybody seems to trail off.
Incidentally, California was also number one for single men at 601,849 also followed by Florida.
Here is an interesting tidbit: nationwide, single woman homeowners outnumber single male homeowners by 33%. My sense? They are just better savers; men like their toys.
In California it is 42%.
The biggest gap? Maryland at 51%.
I guess single guys should start dating women in Maryland. Is home ownership a question on Tinder or Bumble or…???
Only two states had more single male owners than female owners:
North Dakota with 13% and South Dakota with 6%.
Bits and Pieces
A homeless population count has come up with 161,000 in the Golden State.
Over the last three years, the state has spent $10 billion on the homeless problem.
The California state assembly is proposing Assembly Bill 935 that would ban tobacco sales to any person born after 1/1/2007, or 16 years old today. For ever.
You already have to be 21 to buy tobacco products.
All in all, that is a good thing; it’s an unhealthy product that is very addictive.
But smoking marijuana is fine… ?
On the other hand, the state better plan on weaning itself from the revenue generated by tobacco sales.
Because if one source of revenue goes down, the state just isn’t going to cut programs.
Regardless, Sacramento is certainly smoking something…
Evidently Apple Wallet is making an impact. Why? The guys who created Zelle are putting together a digital wallet just like Apple Wallet and PayPal.
I am a user of Apple Pay and find its ability to seamlessly pay by double-clicking the iPhone side button pretty slick. The downside is that you often walk away without a paper receipt, which my kids will say is archaic.
Sales 101 – Referrals
At a lunch with a business owner friend of mine, I was reminded of a sales lesson. We were talking about folks selling their business, and in our conversation it came up that a company, we’ll call it Jones Transportation, had sold recently and that the owner, Bob Jones, had done quite well.
I commented that I had been trying to get a meeting with Bob Jones for years; I dropped in, dropped off Girl Scout Cookies (a very good way to get a face-to-face meeting by the way), left voicemails, sent letters, and so on.
My friend said “You should have told me; we are really good friends and I could have made the introduction.”
As an aside, I have lost more customers and prospects to acquisitions than I have to the competition.
Regardless, I am generally pretty good at asking for referrals, but there is a way to do it. So, two things.
Thing #1: So why didn’t I ask my friend about this prospect?
First, my friend was never a client; he was a prospect that developed into a friendship. I generally made it a habit, albeit inconsistently, to ask clients for referrals but never friends and rarely prospects. I don’t know why.
Thing #2: NEVER ask the generic “So, do you know anyone that could benefit from doing business with me?” – it makes you sound like you had your final company training session on Wednesday.
Instead, ask “I am looking for an introduction to Jones Trucking, Covid Foods and Zip Manufacturing. Do you know any of these companies?” The beauty of this is that you can do it over an email, and if they know these companies, they’ll tell you. Really. Unless you suck.
Which brings up another point. If they are not willing to vouch for you, you better find out why.
At any rate, the easiest referral from either a client or prospect is to simply ask about the adjacent business. Odds are good they know their neighbor.
Juan Pollo & Albert Okura
If you don’t come into the Inland Empire, you probably haven’t even heard of Juan Pollo; it is way better than El Pollo Loco.
I have eaten at Juan Pollo restaurants since 1987 and in spite of my inquisitive nature, never investigated the company because all the banks I worked for would never finance a restaurant that didn’t have the name McDonald, Jack or Wendy’s in it. At any rate, in January, I learned that the owner died through a lengthy write up in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, an Inland Empire newspaper. Owners pass away all the time and that wasn’t really the surprising part; after all, he founded the restaurant in 1984 – almost 40 years ago. What was surprising is that the fellow was the grandson of Japanese immigrants and that he was the one that had the vision, along with the cooking style of his brother-in-law Armando Perra, that started the restaurant. Albert provided the impetus and Armando provided the recipe from his home town in Chihuahua, Mexico. Albert’s uncle helped with seed money.
And this is how family businesses get started. Before you know it, you have 25 restaurants, and your two sons are running the enterprise.
You also end up owning the town of Amboy. Look it up.
The other point is that the passing of Mr. Okura made the Weekend Edition of The Wall Street Journal. It really is unusual for a national paper to notice someone in the IE, so for the WSJ to highlight the business and the acumen of an Inland Empire businessman is fairly exceptional. And that’s a good thing for the area.
Next time you are out here, order some Juan Pollo to go.
At a meeting earlier this week, the icebreaker question was: What is the best piece of advice you have been given?
For me, it was from my boss: Just Do It.
And I don’t think that was stolen from Nike, because I heard that in 1988.
And it’s popular corollary:
GOYA – Get Off Your Ass.
So, start the week right and just do it! And feel free to share with me the best piece of advice you have been given. I’d like to hear it.
