Toyota recall
By Charles Martin | February 3, 2010
C’mon guys!
Why do you stupid Americans make it so easy for the Hothead?
This wholesale bailing on Toyota as a country has got to stop!
First things first:
The fact that we all of a sudden buy American cars because Toyota has a massive recall is call for an examination of our complete process of capitalism. GM up 14%. Ford up 25%. Toyota down 16%. Whatever the numbers -… so, tell me, we RUN to the domestics we wouldn’t buy in November because Toyota stumbles? This wreaks of NFL+NBA+MLB+Olympic Over-board American competitive overload. The yanks don’t build em so hot – and that’s OK last year (and oh btw, we won’t buy them so much they’ll go bankrupt), but when the guys from across the Pacific stumble, we run into the streets to our nearest Chevy dealer? C’mon!
Are we living in 1949? The war is over. Ike is coming on stage. We hate the Japs.
Are you kidding me?
Toyota still builds a great car. Have you seen the clips on mega-TV of Toyota City? They BLEED Camrys. When’s the last time we had a good clip on TV of Detroit? And don’t blame Toyota or other foreign jobs (as my dad would have called them). Detroit sold us a bill of goods for more than 20 years, maybe 30 and Toyota is to blame for their demise? You bought Toyotas and Nissans folks! Not the country of Chile!
In fact, their AMERICAN Toyota jobs will be effected if this recall continues beyond it’s apparent nadir. You shouldn’t wish it so badly. Toyota jobs mean mega-more in a 12% unemployment economy.
Let’s all take a breath and relax. After all, we all know someone that gets into a 10 cent accident and it becomes a hundred-thousand dollar or million-dollar ordeal and if you listen to the media, they are saying it’s gonna be a bloodbath! So, if some accelerator pedals stuck – or are sticking (and my mother-in-law could be a candidate with her crashed 08 Camry) – how many will result in death and dismemberment? Probably 1%, maybe 2. According to the folks that know the details, it will MAYBE kill a few folks. MAYBE. I’m sorry for those that may suffer but it’s not going to amount to much.
I remember when the crappy saddle gas tanks of the Chevy pickup trucks of yore (and of my teenage driving age) blew up daily. I remember the Pinto. And I can top that — I DROVE A PINTO! We didn’t run FROM the Pinto. We bought one! The Pinto was an embarrassment for Ford, but they continued on just fine.
Transpo Secretary’s Lahood’s remarks today were uttered like a cranky old man says things to his college-aged daughter — “Stop driving that thing and call Bubba to fix it before he goes to lunch!… and tell ‘em I sent cha!”. But CNN + friends caught it as per usual and put it into rewind. It was a stupid remark but please people. RELAX.
Go down to your local Toyota guy, hopefully a great guy like Paul Lunsford at South Coast Toyota, and just get the damn thing fixed. Slowly. Smart. Just like you drive Sunday mornings when I’m behind you on the way to Starbucks… like there’s no friggin rush.
Tell ‘em I sent cha.
Topics: Big biz, Greats in business, politics | No Comments »
Resetting the home-based worker environment
By Charles Martin | January 20, 2010
Working at home like I have for over eight years is no picnic. If you’re in my boat, you know it’s a big uphill climb — every day. For sure, there is lots of upside. But we pay for the freedom as well. Our psyche pays too.
Thinking today about how the home-based crew — me and you — want 2010 to be as awesome as any cube worker, I thought I’d reach out and look at some loopholes for getting your hitch moving.
It’s January. Wherever you live in the recent weeks (in the USA), that means sub-zero temps or torrential rains. That means as you turn away from CNN or whatever your morning grind is, it’s doubly harder to focus on the work at hand. There are also other January distractions like tax prep to deal with. But you gotta keep your motor runnin’.
Break up the day in more parts. Instead of the steady lunch at 12, go out at 10 and see a client that you would have seen after lunch. Then do lunch back at your home office (after all, one of your resolutions was to save money right?) Then go out again before the witching hour (4 to 5 when your cube worker friends begin to head home) and do another pitch or tweak on an ongoing deal.
Remember that time flies. If you think January is a long slog, just wait until it’s August and you have the finish line right smak in your headlights. Don’t delay anything becuase “you have time”. Whatever your professional goals are, they need to be prodded again and again as each day comes about. So, see this:
Break up your projects in more parts. If you are trying to get a big client on the hook work strategically instead of like the US government . You get my drift. I always try to be focused on the details in these things. Stay with it in very small pieces so you don’t get overwhelmed. If you think it takes six calls and two meetings to create success, then do eight calls, three emails, a tweet once a day, and then jettison the meetings altogether. (i’ll never be pro-meeting if I don’t have to). The trick here is spreading out the work and volume so it seems, in your mind at least, that you’ve done more. This is why social media is the call of the day. It’s a mico offering of your thoughts and ideas. This will ultimately propel you to feel more comfortable with what you’ve accomplished. It will show when you ultimately have to meet the client and make the final request for the order.
This isn’t just for salespeople btw. No matter your project — mom working on school function, teacher with deadlines, student working on a big test, speaker getting ready for a conference – it’s all the same. Today’s world and the success we see by others is done more bit by bit than grandiose plan. People are led to believe they are overworked but actually you just “feel” that way mostly. I can take apart your day and fine literally hours of free time. I’ve done it. Then all kinds of excuses ensue but basically you’re just a bad organizer.
If your one of the ones out there that the clock just hates, then work on things in a matter not relegated to time in minutes but in days, weeks, and months. You’re still going to have to meet your goals, but bigger objects on the wall may just help you.
Stick with your big plans for 2010. I am.
Topics: Greats in business, Mind and Planet, Sales Acumen | No Comments »
Sometimes “normal” is good enough
By Charles Martin | January 4, 2010
I liked this post on NPR. The last line strikes me in this, the first business day of the new year. With all of my notes on the near future and what I’d like to accomplish, I have to remember that what Ben says is true: ”… sometimes, just normal is good enough.”
It’s good to appreciate the “stuff” you already have and the accomplishments you’ve already made. Don’t let the new year stress you out. It’s your race. No one else’s.
Topics: Mind and Planet | No Comments »
Notes for the new year
By Charles Martin | December 29, 2009
Notes for the new year:
- Change morning routine completely. Feed the cat backwards. Delay the first coffee. Not check my bank balance before 8. Read the daily business digest and reflect on how it works into my future.
- Choose and complete my fourth marathon. Maybe with Johnny Lassig?
- Break PR of 3:58 and make it 3:43.
- See Jamie Cullum in concert.
- Kiss my wife more.
- Kiss my kids more.
- See Pat more.
- Hug people more. Even the stranger.
- Say I love you all the time. Even to the mailman.
- Shed some lb’s. [see marathon note]
- Increase my net worth by 15%.
- Increase my true friend base by 100%
- Shed friends that aren’t true but be available to them.
- Live by Charles’s rules all the time and admonish myself when I don’t.
- See Lars hit a homer over the fence this year.
- See Auge find his athletic prowess and where it will serve him best – for now.
- Build an Advisor List. The outer edge of my inner circle. Have a secret motion or handshake. We’ll go places afterward.
- Attend a perfect wedding in May. Where else? Maui. …Perfect.
- Buy a junk car to undo and rebuild with Lars. Yes, put in my driveway under my carport. Yes, who cares.
- Take boys to Washington. Pull strings so we meet Obama.
- Eat less sugar.
- Eat more good stuff.
- Drink way more water. [see marathon note]
- Drink less Stella. [sorry girl]
- Go on set with @bcbcbc and have a meaningful job when I’m there.
- Finish my plan for the biggest, baddest family “event” and execute it in Summer 10.
Stay tuned.
Happy new year everyone! Your readership is very much appreciated and not without notice.
Topics: Mind and Planet, Read this, World Travels | No Comments »
What Matters Now
By Charles Martin | December 15, 2009
Here is a link to a very good e-book by Seth Godin and friends. Read it and pass on!
Topics: Greats in business | No Comments »
It’s the small stuff
By Charles Martin | December 14, 2009
As we approach the end of this long chapter called 2009, let’s remember it’s the small stuff that makes it worthwhile.
Diamonds are small for a reason. Grains of sand make a mountain.
Our kid’s dumbest act or sound or saying is the thing we laugh the longest about.
We forget this as urban-freaked humans in our new Audi Autos in our Giganto Homes with every bell and whistle. We forget that just having what we have is enough. Sure, send this to me when I get off track. I’ve accepted the fate. And boy it feels so aswesome.
Everything that probably didn’t go your way this year was due to the big stuff. Yes, you know it. Don’t deny it.
I hear people tell me “I can’t be unemployed (take a chance), Charles”. I hear people tell me “I MUST drive a big, nice, car and have a magazine-ready home, Charles”. I hear people describe their rocky marriages and relationships and I hear “…it’s about the money, Charles”… “I don’t have the lifestyle she wants me to have, Charles”, or “I have to put 99% of my paycheck in the bank or he/she’ll kill me, Charles”…
Balance is balance and I’m here to guess a lot of us don’t have it. Underspending is a disease too. Check your facts Jacks. Under. Over. It’s all the same.
BS on all that crap about the big stuff.
What if.
What if you went all out in 2010 and made it about everything BUT the big stuff.
What if you decided that you couldn’t add any cumulative “fun” purchases over $2,500 (physical product — not education, healthcare, or the sort) to your life in 2010. Cars, boats, cigars, poker, drugs, jewelry, men, women, alcohol, big vacations… the like.
What if that meant you tried to trick yourself into just finding out if it was possible. Even if you have a million, billion dollars in your accounts right now, can you pare back? Can you test the waters and see if you are still the same person after you’re stripped naked? I doubt some of you can muster it. It’d be fun to find out though.
There’s a lady next door that does night nurse nanny work. Her current client is an average mom with so-so means that has twin newborns. One may never leave the hospital. One lives with machinery tied to him. You say and I say “boy, I’m thankful for my perfect kids…” But are you? I say you have probably taken them for granted before. I know I have mine. Gosh, how sad, but how human.
Praying and thanking through prayer is fine if you do that sort of thing. But what do you do in your physical life to show the world that your 3×3 space on the planet is being used worthwhile? Humans surprise me sometimes with their tally of their gifts to the planet. It eclipses rock star levels. Hit me when I get that high. I try to stop when it gets heady, but in case I don’t hit me.
We SAY we are thankful and we probably feel like we are. We SAY we are ready to strip it bare. But in reality it all goes by so fast that we forget and motor on comparing labels again. Our most cherished moments in life are the ones when we are young and when money wasn’t on our radar because we didn’t deal with it. Like my kids are now. Free and easy. Everything pops up on the table and we dig in. Just like the cartoons they watch on TV.
We simply forget that the only SURE thing is death and it’s a-coming. And before that we need to stop and throw our love and energy around and make a difference in a stranger’s life. A stranger can be your mother in law that you think you hate. It can be the lady with the twins. It can be that person standing at the freeway exit. I’ve been on the receiving end of charity and I don’t take that for granted — or I try not to. And in every case it changed my life.
Do it silently. Do it loudly. However you do it, just do it!. So many of us aren’t prepared and so many of us aren’t that bolted down in reality. Me included. But I try. I try real hard.
The Treehouse gang will announce something in Q1, 2010 that will take place when school is out next year. It will strip all our defenses bare. All of our worries and inconsistensies will be tested as we embark on something powerful, but scary and mega-fun at the same time. The unknown is to be known. The reality of the world will come into more focus. Our stereotypes are to be exposed and changed. Our understanding of the world we live in sharpened. Can’t wait to spill the beans!.
We humans have to change in big ways or we don’t change. I hope you are able to bolt 2010 down and get what you want out of the rest of your life. There are some of you that will embark on new marriages, hopefully a few new babies will be born, and new college and new jobs will begin. I will be there cheering you on because I love and care about you.
It’s the least I can do.
Make the most of it.
We will. You will. I will.
Stay tuned and finish out your 2009 with a bang!
Topics: Kid Stuff, Mind and Planet | No Comments »
Are you unemployed or just not interested?
By Charles Martin | December 9, 2009
Here’s an interesting one from someone that is usually pretty lenient on others.
Since 2006 we’ve had a service put up lights in our front yard for the Christmas season. It’s not a company really — just Bill and his crew. They did a marvelous job and Bill would always call a few days after Thanksgiving and schedule us. Then, a few days after New Years, he would come back and neatly put everything away. He was affordable and it’s my favorite part of the holiday.
Seems after many calls Bill sold his business to a guy who doesn’t want other business. I can’t imagine buying a list of Christmas light customers and then not calling them but that’s what he did. Apparently Bill got new employment as a cop in a city far away. He didn’t bother to send out an email or call when he handed us off. He said he would have the new person call me, but two days have passed.
Since the new guy hadn’t called, I needed a new service. Craig’s List is chok full of unemployed people that think putting lights on houses and trees is an easy and doable thing. They cut and paste pictures from those ads you see on TV with the mega-watt houses in millions of lights. Sure.
I called one that looked ok. “He’ll stop by at 3 to 3:30″, his wife said. ” Today”? “Yes, today. He’s coming by from his job”. [Seems he has a "day job".] uh oh. Time came. Time went. Called. “oh ya… he was actually near you at 2 so I called and called and your phone rang 25 times… no answer!” in a gruff voice. I said “sure lady”. I Hung up.
The next guy I found was out of an ad driven by what I thought was a more formidable company in NorCal. They had a crew doing work down in LA. Found more info — they are a window washing company with some good real photos of their Christmas light work.
“He’ll come around 10 ok?…and then… “hey Mr. Martin, this is Trevor… I’ll be an hour late…” Trevor showed up. He looked around for about 90 seconds and said “It’s a decent job. It’ll be $800″.
wwwwWHAT?! “oh ya… I just booked a $3200 job he said smugly…”
See ya Trevor.
Back to Craig’s List.
Ring.
“Hello? [loud TV in background]. “ya… saw your ad on Craig’s List…” “Oh ya… hold on”.
[screaming at kid for his phone not ringing properly]
“Hey this is joe”.
“Hey joe – saw your ad… – [interrupts] — “ya… can you shoot me your address by email so I can check a picture of your house on Google Maps before I waste a trip out there”?
“Well joe I can assure you I have a nice job. Been done 3 years in a row and there are lots of lights to do but nothing really on the house. It’s all yard…”
“Oh – well can you give me the address and I’ll call you right back after I check it out on Google…”
“NO!. Goodbye Joe”
You see, guys number 1 and 3 were guys trying to make a buck while working other jobs at something that doesn’t make the grade or they are doing this until something better comes along since they’re laid off. I can understand wanting to make a few extra bucks. We all do it. It’s a great idea. But do something you’re talented at and if you have never worked with the public, then stay away from the idea. And your wife doesn’t equal customer service. I saw an ad that was so misspelled that my 6 year old had him beat.
Guy number 2 isn’t working in reality. That CORPORATE gig at $3200 is fine but how loyal are they? I looked forward to Bill’s call. I have a nice house and I’m motivated to keep it looking great. Trevor was all of 25. He didn’t get it. He also revealed his overhead and then I saw a $500 markup. Your markup can be whatever the market will bear and if that’s $500 then you’re doing well my man. You’re not getting it here. I offered a much lower but nice number and he laughed at me. Cool.
Ron is going to help me. He took care of me in one phone call and answered another email in 2 minutes. He’ll be here tomorrow. Stay tuned.
The unemployed are not always employable.
Topics: Big biz, Mind and Planet | No Comments »
Reversing mistakes
By Charles Martin | December 8, 2009
I take no credit for this dialogue about reversing mistakes in conversation, but I think it’s really useful. If you’re not hooked up to Harvard Business Review’s once in a while blog report, you should jump on. I hope you do.
Topics: Big biz, Greats in business, Mind and Planet | No Comments »
Rembering it IS you
By Charles Martin | December 2, 2009
I was reminded that a deal wasn’t working out yesterday because it was ME.
I might not have done anything directly and definable as “wrong”.
But it was ME that couldn’t get past the roadblocks. Roadblocks in our dealings with others are personality based usually. We all bring the last 99.999% of our lives to every meeting/phone call/contract. Sometimes that frequency, that flavor, that culture, that sound – loud or soft — isn’t what others want to hear.
You want to blame others for it not working out.
The control is yours. Make it happen. Rise above if it doesn’t.
Be humble.
Fail openly.
I did. You can.
Topics: Mind and Planet | No Comments »
Just breathe
By Charles Martin | November 16, 2009
I’m a runner. Most of you know.
The key to success in running is good breathing practice.
I started boxing class with the folks at @scubagrove’s Cypress Park Boxing Club in LA and again, breathing came up as the main force in my success.
@cooler_guy sent me a post today from Peter Bregman. I forgot how the Harvard Business Review has such great bloggers, but also hadn’t seen Peter’s stuff before. One I like a lot is something I wish we could all master and it’s on breathing before you speak and before you berate.
There are a few colleagues of mine in particular that have a constant fight going on with someone and I bet if they were able to just “breathe”, they’d have fewer of them in play. They’d be spending their time where it’s more valuable. I call this practice “rising” but you can call it what you want. Try it. You’ll be glad you did.
Topics: Greats in business, Mind and Planet | No Comments »