Archive for January, 2010:
Toyota Recall: Company To Issue Fix For Recalled Cars
Here are some business news, courtesy of HuffingtonPost.com:
DETROIT — Toyota Motor Corp. plans to start sending parts to dealers in the coming days to fix a sticky gas pedal problem that has tarnished its image and led to the recall of 4.2 million cars and trucks on three continents, according to people briefed on the matter.
Toyota plans to reveal details of the fix on Monday morning, according to two dealers who asked not to be identified because the plan had not been announced. One dealer was told by a Toyota executive that the parts could arrive Thursday or Friday.
The automaker told the dealers about the plan Saturday after hearing from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that it did not object to the fix, the dealers said. A Department of Transportation official, who also requested anonymity because the announcement had not been made, confirmed that the government had no objections.
Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said the company received feedback from the government, but he would not say what that was or when it intends to start sending out parts. The company has said it plans to announce the fix next week, but Michels would not give an exact date.
Toyota has recalled 4.2 million vehicles worldwide because the gas pedal systems can get stuck. The company said the problem is rare and is caused by condensation that builds up in the gas pedal assembly.
Several dealers have said the fix involves slipping a shim into an area where springs push the gas pedal back to its resting position after a driver has eased off the gas, but Toyota has not commented on the repair.
Dealers have been in the difficult position of having no parts to fix the cars ever since the recall was announced on Jan. 21.
The recall in the U.S. covers 2.3 million vehicles and involves the 2009-10 RAV4 crossover, the 2009-10 Corolla, the 2009-10 Matrix hatchback, the 2005-10 Avalon, the 2007-10 Camry, the 2010 Highlander crossover, the 2007-10 Tundra pickup and the 2008-10 Sequoia SUV. The recall has been expanded to models in Europe and China.
Toyota said that not all the models listed in the recall have the faulty gas pedals, which were made by CTS Corp. of Elkhart, Ind. Dealers can tell which models have the CTS pedals. Models made in Japan, and some models built in the U.S., have pedal systems made by another parts supplier, Denso Corp., which function well.
“They’ve got a fix and it’s been approved by NHTSA,” said one of the dealers who was happy that parts would be coming soon.
Toyota announced late Friday that it would begin shipping new gas pedal systems to dealers as well.
Legally Toyota did not need NHTSA’s approval for the fix, but the company submitted the plan to the government agency on Thursday, and it would be unlikely to proceed without the government’s blessing.
Michels said the timetable for when dealers will be able to start fixing cars has not been finalized. It still has to train service technicians, send letters to owners of the recalled vehicles and ship out the parts.
“It does take a little time,” he said. “That is a lengthy process.”
Earl Stewart, owner of a Toyota dealership in North Palm Beach, Fla., said Saturday he had not been notified of the fix by Toyota. But he’s happy to be able to tell customers that he’ll soon be getting parts, ending a frustrating week with little information to give them.
“There’s light at the end of the tunnel if that’s the thing to get this thing behind us,” he said. “That’s wonderful news for everybody.”
Stewart said he would put his service department on duty 24 hours a day if necessary and if he gets enough parts to fix all the cars for his customers.
Toyota has said it is working as quickly as possible to come up with repairs for the cars. A spokesman said Friday that details will be released sometime next week about how it intends to solve the problem.
On Friday, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda made his first public comments about the recall. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he told Japanese broadcaster NHK: “I am very sorry that we are making our customers feel concerned.”
“People can feel safe driving in the current situation,” he added. “Please trust that we are responding so it will be even safer.”
Toyota told employees in an e-mail it is buying full-page ads Sunday in 20 major newspapers to reassure customers.
Meanwhile, Consumer Reports, an influential publication for car buyers, on Friday suspended its “recommended” status for the eight recalled Toyota models.
Toyota also has decided to halt production and stop selling the models covered by the recall until they can be repaired.
The pedal recall is separate from another recall involving floor mats that can bend and push down accelerators. The two recalls combined affect more than 7 million vehicles worldwide.
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Thomas reported from Washington.
Brett King: Would Google make a better bank?
Here are some business news, courtesy of HuffingtonPost.com:
This is not the first time this question has been asked. Jeff Jarvis started this discussion back in 2008, and covered the topic in his book entitled What Would Google Do? However, in recent times with the banking sector in so much turmoil and facing the ire of so many, the question probably is not whether a Google might come along and start a bank, but when will an Amazon, Google or Facebook weigh in to this space?
Unlikely? Sceptical? Let me challenge that thought with a simple fact. Google already has a banking license…
Yes. Since late 2007 Google has held a banking license issued by the Central Bank of the Netherlands- De Nederlandsche Bank. The license is nominated as being for digital banking services. They’re not the only ones looking at financial services to extend their brand. As of May of 2007 Pay Pal has held a banking license from Luxembourg. HP has banking licenses in a few countries, allowing it to issue loans and leasing agreements. The publisher of the online science-fiction game “Entropia Universe” has a banking license from the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority and this enables it Entropia to encourage trade of their virtual currency used in their online world. What about Apple? Well as far as we know they don’t have one…yet.
What’s wrong with your bank?
Many feel today that the big banks have got too big, have lost touch with their customers. They seem more interested in speculating on the assets they hold to create profit, than basic banking services to their customer. The criticism is often levelled that these banks feel they are big enough that if you don’t like it, they’ll just ignore you.
The fundamental issues that customers face today, however, are relatively simple to fix. For example, when you go down to your bank to apply for a loan or a credit card, they ask you all the same questions they’ve already asked before a million times before. Banks have a habit of hiking up fees without any warning, and you can’t do anything about it. When you do need a new loan or changes to your mortgage, you feel like you have to beg just to get some consideration. No matter how many times you ring the bank, you have to repeat the same story you’ve already given to the last person you spoke to.
The question at hand, however, is Would Google build a better bank? The immediate answer might be - it couldn’t be worse than what we’ve got now. The question really is how could a Google or someone like them build a better bank?
Simplicity is a service in itself
“The perfect search engine,” says co-founder Larry Page, “would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want.” This was the power behind Google’s early success obviously, but we could easily paraphrase this for banking - the perfect bank would understand what you need and give you exactly what want…
Google has built its business around ten key business principles, what they like to call “Then things we know to be true”. A number of these principles would come into play in creating a different type of banking environment for customers Google Style. Focus on the user and all else will follow, fast is better than slow, you don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer, you can make money without doing evil, there’s always more information out there, you can be serious without a suit, and great just isn’t good enough. How would this manifest in a better bank?
Are you ready?
Whether it is Google, Apple or a fresh start-up, the likelihood of a new retail financial services organization stepping into the fray over the next few years is extremely high. As Google learned with its search engine opportunity for innovation is often borne out of either customer frustrations or simply a better way of doing things. Given our recent experiences with the big banks, is it unthinkable that someone might try to innovate your banking experience?
Paul Volcker Op-Ed: How To Reform Our Financial System
Here are some business news, courtesy of HuffingtonPost.com:
PRESIDENT OBAMA 10 days ago set out one important element in the needed structural reform of the financial system. No one can reasonably contest the need for such reform, in the United States and in other countries as well. We have after all a system that broke down in the most serious crisis in 75 years. The cost has been enormous in terms of unemployment and lost production. The repercussions have been international.
Dennis Santiago: Pondering Moving Credit Card Debt
Here are some business news, courtesy of HuffingtonPost.com:
For most consumers the closest one ever gets to the world of finance will involve two things. The mortgage and one’s credit card(s). This story is about the credit card.
I’m told that one of the fairly common questions arriving in the Move Your Money inbox asks about whether it’s also a good idea to move one’s credit card account. Credit cards, or more precisely revolving unsecured debt, is a form of lending where a bank takes the extraordinary chance of extending you credit based on the statistical probability that you can and will pay your debts. The system makes it’s money on two ends of the candle. When you buy something with a credit card the merchant pays a processing fee on each and every purchase. The amount varies depending on the payment processor. This front end cost permeates all of merchandizing as any business person who takes this form of payment will attest. Your purchases then go into your credit card balance and if you pay it off immediately the system has still made it’s money from your contribution to net cash movement within the economy. If you carry a balance, the bank earns interest from it’s unsecured loan to you. These rates can vary from favorably low to strangely high. If you are late on a payment, the credit card issuer furthers earns fees and penalties from you. These are designed to hurt to the point that a rational person will tend to avoid such events to the extent possible. That’s the nominal plan.
Those strangely high interest rates are driven by the fact that credit card lending is a business that — by it’s very nature - is beset by risks. There are built-in loses that are part of the business. Fighting fraud costs a lot of technology just in case you’ve been under a Rip van Winkle blanket and haven’t noticed the extent to which the industry now goes to find and eliminate identity theft as quickly as possible. Quite frankly, I fully expect to see more of the biometric technology presently used for military security become part of the electronic money landscape at some point. Struggling economies also increase loss rates and what we’ve been going through in this country does relect in the numbers.
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U.S. Bank Issued Credit Cards
Source: IRA Bank Monitor. Amounts in $1000’s unless specified. |
Notice that the amount of unsecured credit balance outstanding really doesn’t change that much over time. It’s around $400 billion, roughly 1/2 the amount of checking account deposits in the banking system as a whole. All those commercials enticing you move your balances from one card issuer to another are about to make total sense to you. It’s a zero sum game. The issuers are trying to get as much of your credit card balance under their tent because maximizing assets under management means more interest earnings per operating period.
What will moving your balances do?
Well let’s look at the market split between big and little banks.
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Credit Cards in Larger Banks Over $65 Billion Assets
Source: IRA Bank Monitor. Amounts in $1000’s unless specified. |
versus,
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Credit Cards in Smaller Banks Under $65 Billion Assets
Source: IRA Bank Monitor. Amounts in $1000’s unless specified. |
The above means that 2/3rd’s of the interest and fees income from the U.S. credit card market goes to roughly twenty larger banks. Should that infuriate you? Maybe, maybe not. The jury’s still out for me on this one. On the one hand, those 20 large institutions are also the ones who — by necessity — are spending the most on advancing the state of the art of fraud prevention. That’s actually a mission critical “privatized” national investment being made right now. If these issues are not resolved the future of electronic money WILL (not a maybe) be threatened.
So why consider moving one’s balance? My personal worry is that twenty innovators mostly doing the same things might not be enough for such a national interest priority. Spreading the balances would tend to make the fraud solutions mission even more urgent to more banks. Necessity still being the true mother of invention, this might accelerate the process as more banks invest in alternative technology approaches to securing their credit cards. Ideally, it sparks a new contest for banks to retain credit card customers by offering them a more risk free services solution. That in turn means the cost of doing business lessens for those banks that can offer superior fraud protected cards and puts increased competitive pressure on the system to pass those improvements on to consumers in the form of better interest rates and fee structures. If you were hoping for a purely emotional argument from me on this one, it ain’t coming. I do believe the issue here is more strategic than that.
In the meantime, default rates on this nearly static balance have risen considerably in the last few years. Today’s math lesson is that a basis point is 1/100th of a percent. By September of 2009 the default rate on credit cards was above 1,000 basis points. That’s over 10 percent of these credit card loans faltering. Doubling the loss rate on your business is enough to make anyone unhappy and there’s no lack of sharing the misery when it comes to credit cards. Most notable is the fact that unused commitments, basically the amount of credit limit extended to consumers by the industry is shrinking. From a peak of $4.5 trillion in June 2008, it’s come down a dramatic 27 percent to around $3.3 trillion as of last September. That’s a real hit measuring how much the convenience of swipe to pay has been hurt in this country. These effects look to be impacting both big and small credit card issuers equally. That’s a sign that this is a systemic economic phenomenon and not an advantage to one strata versus another within an industry issue. That my friends is what the academic concept of a “credit crunch” means to ordinary folk.
10 ways to empower your communication
Yours truly GordonWebbo today wants you to read the following article, courtesy of this site:
There is so much to know about conversation that anyone, even I, could ever realize. You can go though watching talk shows; radio programs; clubs dedicated to public speaking; ordinary conversations; certain rules still apply when it comes to interaction through words. It may sound tedious, I know, but even though it’s your mouth that’s doing the work, your brain works twice as hard to churn out a lot of things you know. So what better way to start learning to be an effective communication is to know the very person closest to you: yourself.
1. What you know.
Education is all about learning the basics, but to be an effective speaker is to practice what you’ve learned. My stint as guest at every Toastmasters’ meeting I go to taught me that we all have our limitations, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn to keep up and share what we know.
2. Listening.
It’s just as important as asking questions. Sometimes listening to the sound of our own voice can teach us to be a little bit confident with ourselves and to say the things we believe in with conviction.
3. Humility
We all make mistakes, and sometimes we tend to slur our words, stutter, and probably mispronounce certain words even though we know what it means, but rarely use it only to impress listeners. So in a group, don’t be afraid to ask if you’re saying the right word properly and if they’re unsure about it then make a joke out of it. I promise you it’ll make everyone laugh and you can get away with it as well.
4. Eye Contact
There’s a lot to say when it comes to directing your attention to your audience with an eye-catching gaze. It’s important that you keep your focus when talking to a large group in a meeting or a gathering, even though he or she may be gorgeous.
5. Kidding around
A little bit of humor can do wonders to lift the tension, or worse boredom when making your speech. That way, you’ll get the attention of the majority of the crowd and they’ll feel that you’re just as approachable, and as human to those who listen.
6. Be like the rest of them
Interaction is all about mingling with other people. You’ll get a lot of ideas, as well as knowing what people make them as they are.
7. Me, Myself, and I
I know I do! Listening to the sound of your own voice while you practice your speech in front of a mirror can help correct the stress areas of your pitch. And while you’re at it you can spruce up as well.
8. With a smile
A smile says it all much like eye contact. There’s no point on grimacing or frowning in a meeting or a gathering, unless it’s a wake. You can better express what you’re saying when you smile.
9. A Role Model
There must be at least one or two people in your life you have listened to when they’re at a public gathering or maybe at church. Sure they read their lines, but taking a mental note of how they emphasize what they say can help you once you take center stage.
10. Preparation
Make the best out of preparation rather than just scribbling notes and often in a hurried panic. Some people like to write things down on index cards, while other resort to being a little more silly as they look at their notes written on the palm of their hand (not for clammy hands, please). Just be comfortable with what you know since you enjoy your work.
And that about wraps it up. These suggestions are rather amateurish in edgewise, but I’ve learned to empower myself when it comes to public or private speaking and it never hurts to be with people to listen how they make conversations and meetings far more enjoyable as well as educational.
One Of A Kind Entrepreneur Training
Yours truly GordonWebbo today wants you to read the following article, courtesy of Top-Web-Entrepeneurs-Plan-It.com:
Deadline is approaching fast.
Only three (3) days left … including what’s left of today.
Issued January 29, 2010.
Niche Affiliate Marketing System Workshop is ON! (#NAMS)
Yours truly GordonWebbo today wants you to read the following article, courtesy of this site:
For the next several days I’m attending the Niche Affiliate Marketing System Workshop (#NAMS 3) in Atlanta, GA as a speaker and eager participant. The brainchild of David Perdew, this is fast becoming one of the premier online marketing training events and I’m honored to be on the faculty.
This event will be tweeted about like crazy with lots to tips and nuggets of gold being shared in real time. I’ve set up a live stream for the tweets if you care to check in now and then to attend the event virtually.
<a href=”http://twubs.com/nams”>#nams</a>
NAMS, as it’s affectionately called, is divided in to three tracks for beginning, intermediate and advanced students. I’ll be doing a presentation on how to dominate your niche with <a href=”http://www.gordonwebbo.com/go/blogging”>blogging, followed by a hot seat workshop where I’ll review 2-3 blogs live, showing the audience how to optimize their blog to get the best results for their business.
I am just as excited about meeting some of the star trainers like Willie Crawford, Bob The Teacher and Lynn Terry, and seeing long-time friends and colleagues, like Kathleen Gage, Jeff Herring, and Ellen Britt, meeting some for the first time in person. I also get to meet one of my virtual assistants, Kathy Colaiacovo, who lives about as far from me on this continent as possible, in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Enjoy the stream. I probably won’t blog much while I’m busy with the event, but I promise to take pictures and videos to share on my return. And in the meantime, join my <a href=”http://facebook.com/blogSquad” target=”_blank”>fan page where I will continue to post business <a href=”http://www.gordonwebbo.com/go/blogging”>blogging, online visibility and social marketing resources.
Become An Internet Entrepreneur With A Mind-Reading Technique?
Yours truly GordonWebbo today wants you to read the following article, courtesy of Top-Web-Entrepeneurs-Plan-It.com:
How do you become an internet entrepreneur? By reading minds? In a way, yes. Here is how.
The Correct Way To Use Article Marketing For Your Business
Yours truly GordonWebbo today wants you to read the following article, courtesy of this site:
Its no secret that article marketing is a great way to promote your business or website. But did you know that there are critical guidelines that you need to follow in order to fully optimize the marketing power of your articles?
And if you dismiss these factors, any effort you put into using article marketing for your business will be drastically less effective? Many individuals think that you can just write articles about any topic, submit them to article directories, and have a ton of people reading them and clicking on the links in the resource boxes.
Unfortunately, there’s a little more involved in successful article marketing. So before you start writing articles, take these guidelines into consideration:
1. Choose keywords that have enough demand. In order for your article to get a lot of exposure, you are going to write these article around specific keywords and keyword phrases (as opposed to having articles about broader, less targeted phrases). It makes no sense to write an article about a keyword phrase that only gets searched for a couple times a day. The greater the number of daily searches, the better. But as a minimum, you should choose keywords that get at least 33 searches a day (this equals out to about a thousand monthly searches). There are several free keyword research tools to help you determine the daily demand for the keywords you are thinking about using.
2. Choose keywords that have less competition. Once you find keywords that get searched for enough to satisfy your marketing strategy, the next step is to see how many competing webpages there are for them. Finding a keyword that gets searched for 1000 times a day is great, but if there are 1,000,000 competing pages, chances are that you won’t be ranked high enough to get any usable amount f traffic. To properly determine the competition, you will place the keywords (inside of quotation marks) in the Google search box. Obviously it’s better to have fewer competing webpages, and I generally use 10,000 results as the maximum amount of competition acceptable for targeting a specific keyword through the use of articles.
3. Have a strong call to action. Most article marketers simply include a quick bio about themselves in the author resource box. And while this is the standard practice, it isnit the best option. Savvy marketers use the resource box as an opportunity to directly ask the reader to take action. Instead of saying something like, “John Smith has been a world class chef for several years…..”, they instead have a strong call to action like “Click here to get a free recipe to use for dinner tonight!” Using this method instead of the typical author bio will greatly increase the amount of readers clicking on your resource box link.
Using article marketing for your business can be a very efficient way to generate traffic for years to come. But if you do it incorrectly, most of your time and effort will be wasted. So take the time to write articles around high demand, low competition keywords, and be sure to tell readers exactly what step you’d like them to take next.
Entrepreneuriat Dans Un Contexte De Mondialisation Des Marches
Yours truly GordonWebbo today wants you to read the following article, courtesy of Top-Web-Entrepeneurs-Plan-It.com:
De nos jours, tout auto entrepreneur doit exercer son entrepreneuriat dans un contexte de mondialisation des marches. Voici comment faire et pourquoi.
