Erich Stauffer

Category: Management

  • Forbes Gets Jeff Bezos

    I’ve written on Amazon before and about CEOs I admire, but until I read Forbes’ April 2012 article on Jeff Bezos entitled Jeff Bezos Gets It, I didn’t realize how much I admired the man behind the company. Bezos seems to embody Steve Blank’s ideas of customer development by making the customer first in all business decisions.

    Out of Jeff Bezo’s Top Ten Maxims, a third of them center around the customer. Number 2 is “Obsess over customers,” number 5 is “Determine what your customers need and work backwards,” and number 9 is “Everyone has to be able to work in a call center [for humility and empathy for the customer]”.

    Credit: Forbes

    It’s not just Bezo’s customer-centric approach to business that has my admiration, but his culture of innovation and his data-intensive decision making that make me so fond of his way of doing business. Forbes’ writes, “Data reigns supreme at Amazon, particularly head-to-head tests of customers’ reactions to different features or site designs. Bezos calls it ‘a culture of metrics’.”

    Forbes’ continues, “For Bezos a data-driven customer focus lets him take risks to innovate, secure in the belief that he’s doing the right thing.” Bezos is quoted as saying, “We focus on what is going to be good for the customers. I think this aspect of our culture is rare.” Rare and profitable.

    I’ve joked that Amazon has two departments, one that creates ideas on how to make money and another that says, “Yes.” From Amazon Web Services to Lab 126 Amazon has continued to create new revenue streams beyond the giant retailer that it has become. As an Amazon Associate, I get to piggyback on that success.

    Forbes’ spends some time putting Bezos on a pedestal where Steve Jobs once stood, calling Bezos, “the corporate chief that others most want to meet, emulate and deify,” but in my mind I’d rather keep those two separate as Jobs tended to make products for customers, Bezos tends to make products because of them – and those are two completely different ways to run a business.

  • The Harvest: A Simple, Step by Step Strategy for Making $300 Per Week Trading the Foreign Exchange

    A simple, step by step strategy for making $300 per week trading the Forex.

    Most people believe that it is our natural right as human beings to benefit from our hard work. In days past, farmers would till the soil, sew the seed, wait for rain, weed and tend their crops and then late in the fall when the time was just right, harvest what was hopefully a bountiful crop.

    Believe it or not the Foreign Exchange, as with any market, can operate the same way. If we prepare correctly, sew properly, tend our crops and then harvest in a timely fashion, every week we can enjoy a small bounty of what has become an almost four trillion dollar a day currency market.

    Here’s what one reviewer had to say, “I am new to the Forex market and read eleven books on the subject over the past two months. This book is great!!! The advice, the content and the step by step instructions are clear and to the point. I did not apply the techniques to a live account yet but in my demo account I am 11-4 with a total profit 320 pips(10 trading days).
    As great as the book is the real value for me was the author. Cecil responded to my every email (3 or 4) within two hours.
    I cannot believe the book is only $0.99. Talk about an undervalued commodity!”

    Here’s what another reviewer had to say, “I am very pleased I bought this book. There is so much phoney material in Forex and you never know what you are going to get. This book is short but has real substance. The trading method Cecil Selkirk describes is easy to understand and truly helped me. His strategy is simple and straight forward, I was able to make exactly $300 the first week, just as promised. I recommend this book to anyone who is tired of all the hyperbole out there in the Forex world. Its true he does offer an indicator package for sale at the end of the book, but its only $3.00! And it includes three great indicators and an excel calculator for position sizing. When I wrote him a question about his strategy he wrote me back within 24 hours AND he sent me the indicator package for free. No up selling, he really is just an intelligent guy trying to help others. Really a great strategy and a great, easy to read book.”

  • Trading in the Zone: Master the Market with Confidence, Discipline and a Winning Attitude

    Mark Douglas uncovers the underlying reasons for lack of consistency and helps traders overcome the ingrained mental habits that cost them money. He takes on the myths of the market and exposes them one by one teaching traders to look beyond random outcomes, to understand the true realities of risk, and to be comfortable with the “probabilities” of market movement that governs all market speculation.

    Mark began coaching traders in 1982, and has continued to develop seminar and training programs on trading psychology for the investment industry, as well as individual traders. He has been a frequent speaker at seminars across the world, as well as in the U.S., teaching traders how to become consistently successful.

    If you are like most people, after your first few losing trades you set about to learn better market analysis. After your next string of losers you learned about risk management. But there’s still one more challenge to conquer&emdash;yourself.

    That is the major premise of this book. If it sounds like wishy-washy psycho-babble to you, I’ll only say that I would have agreed — four months ago, before I quit my 20-year technology career, obtained a Series/7 license and joined a professional day-trading firm. I now believe most people would lose money if you gave them 50/50 odds on whether or not it was going to rain tomorrow.

    In other words, successfully forecasting the market is not enough. Why not? Well, this book explains why not. It has to do with one’s sense of self-worth, one’s moral judgment of money, one’s work-ethic, one’s tendency to focus on good news while ignoring bad, and other things.

    “Zone” was recommended to a friend of mine by a professional floor trader who told him, “I wish I had read it before starting two years ago. Don’t place another trade until you do.” Well said. Does this apply to investors as well as traders? Oh, absolutely! If you have ever said to yourself, “I’m not selling that stock while it’s down, I’ll wait until I have a profit in it,” then for the love of money, read this book.

    Finally, read “Zone” before Douglas’ earlier work. If you still want more then read “Disciplined Trader” for a general review plus a deeper exploration into the author’s philosophical and meta-physical theories.

  • Trading for a Living: Psychology, Trading Tactics, Money Management

    Trading for a Living Successful trading is based on three M’s: Mind, Method, and Money.

    An eminent futures trader explores crucial factors in the markets that most experts overlook–time, volume and open interest–and describes little-known indicators to profitably track them. Covers all the popular technical approaches to futures, options and stock markets including Elliott Wave, oscillators, moving averages, Market Logic, point-and-figure charting. Explains why most traders sabotage themselves and how to avoid doing the same.

    Alexander Elder, M.D., is a professional trader, based in New York. He is the author of several best-selling books: Trading for a Living, Come into My Trading Room, Entries & Exits, and Sell and Sell Short (all with Study Guides). He also wrote Straying from the Flock: Travels in New Zealand. Dr. Elder taught psychiatry at Columbia University. His experience provides him with unique insight into psychology of trading.

    Here’s what one reviewer had to say, “Despite the over-promise of the book title and the second half of it discussing mostly technical tools, the book is quite well written. There are plenty of bright ideas, some with originality that can be attributed to the author’s M.D. and psychiatrist background.”

    Elder begins with a chapter on psychology. Mind as he refers to it. In my experience, success in trading has less to do with understanding “the madness of crowds” and more to do with developing discipline. Read Mark Douglas instead.
    Next, Elder spends a lot of pages giving the reader a rundown of the most common price patterns and technical indicators. Which is fine if you don’t know them, but has all but the most neophyte readers skipping over great gobs of the book.

    Next, Elder trots out his two pet indicators and tells you about them. I have used them and they’re about as good as any others that you probably already know about and have already used. In other words, I wouldn’t buy the book just to get a peek at them.

    Lastly, he goes into money management. Elder has said himself that he wishes he had devoted more time to this section. Once again, unless you are a complete beginner, you won’t find much meat here either.

    Elder likes trading off moving averages and looking for divergences in certain indicators. Well, I have been trading a fair number of years and am here to tell you, you can do better than that. Much better.

    If you’re a beginner, try reading Nison and DiNapoli/Boroden. Their material is far more effective and will have a much greater impact on your bottom line.

  • Technical Analysis: The Complete Resource for Financial Market Technicians, Second Edition

    Already the field’s most comprehensive, reliable, and objective guidebook, Technical Analysis, Second Edition has been thoroughly updated to reflect the field’s latest advances. Selected by the Market Technicians Association as the official companion to its prestigious Chartered Market Technician (CMT) program, this book systematically explains the theory of technical analysis, presenting academic evidence both for and against it.

    Using hundreds of fully updated illustrations, the authors explain the analysis of both markets and individual issues, and present complete investment systems and portfolio management plans. They present authoritative, up-to-date coverage of tested sentiment, momentum indicators, seasonal affects, flow of funds, testing systems, risk mitigation strategies, and many other topics. This edition thoroughly covers the latest advances in pattern recognition, market analysis, and systems management.

    The authors (Charles D. Kirkpatrick II and Julie R. Dahlquist) introduce new confidence tests; cover increasingly popular methods such as Kagi, Renko, Kase, Ichimoku, Clouds, and DeMark indicators; present innovations in exit stops, portfolio selection, and testing; and discuss the implications of behavioral bias for technical analysis. They also reassess old formulas and methods, such as intermarket relationships, identifying pitfalls that emerged during the recent market decline. For traders, researchers, and serious investors alike, this is the definitive book on technical analysis.

    About the Authors

    Mr. Kirkpatrick has been a hedge fund manager, investment advisor, advisor to floor and desk traders and portfolio managers, institutional stock broker, options trader, desk and large-block trader, lecturer and speaker on aspects of technical analysis to professional and academic groups, expert legal witness on the stock market, owner of several small businesses, owner of an institutional brokerage firm, and part owner of a CBOE options trading firm. His research has been published in Barron’s and elsewhere. In 1993 and 2001, he won the Charles H. Dow Award for excellence in technical research, and in 2009, he won the MTA award for his contributions to technical analysis. Educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, Harvard College (A.B.) and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (M.B.A.), he was also a decorated combat officer with the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam. He currently resides in Maine with his wife, Ellie, and their various domestic animals.

    Julie R. Dahlquist, Ph.D., received her B.B.A. in economics from University of Louisiana at Monroe, her M.A. in Theology from St. Mary’s University, and her Ph.D. in economics from Texas A&M University. Currently, she is a senior lecturer, Department of Finance, at the University of Texas at San Antonio College of Business. Dr. Dahlquist is a frequent presenter at national and international conferences. She is the coauthor (with Richard Bauer) of Technical Market Indicators: Analysis and Performance (John Wiley & Sons). Her research has appeared in Financial Analysts Journal, Journal of Technical Analysis, Managerial Finance, Applied Economics, Working Money, Financial Practices and Education, Active Trader, and in the Journal of Financial Education. She serves on the Board of the Market Technicians Association Educational Foundation, on the editorial board of the Southwestern Business Administration Journal, and as a reviewer for a number of journals, including the Journal of Technical Analysis. She resides in San Antonio with her husband, Richard Bauer, and their two children, Katherine and Sepp.

    Reviews of the Book

    This is probably the best book on technical analysis in the market. It takes you through all the indicators and oscillators you ever heard, plus some you may not be aware that exists, it talks about every pattern you know about (head and shoulder, rising wedge, symmetrical triangle, double top, and so on), it also talks about candlestick charting. Not even that but it gives you the percentage of being on the winning side if you use one indicator or the other so you can understand what are the most reliable indicators and oscillators. You will find a chapter in Fibonacci sequence and Elliott’s Wave Theory and it will give you an unbiased opinion about their rate of success.

    The book it’s extremely comprehensive, I found information here that I didn’t find in any other book in technical analysis. It’s also very long, over 600 pages so it will take you a while to read it and a few good months if not years to experiment with these indicators and apply the information for your day to day trading. I think this book it’s a very good investment and I highly recommend it to anybody interested in technical analysis. If you want a “shortcut”, if you want to see the opinion of a guy who red and “digested” this book and many others over years I recommend a website you can access for free on internet. I don’t think I am allowed to put a link here but you can google “babaro22” and you will be directed to this guy website that gives you amazing buy and sell signals in real time. He’s not a day trader, no penny stocks, no individual stocks actually, ETFs only, you’ll get a buy or sell signal every 3-8 weeks. I may be biased since I made a killing using his system but I think it’s worth giving a try.

  • Forex Made Easy: 6 Ways to Trade the Dollar

    This Book is a Good Introduction To Forex

    It was a nice introduction and isn’t portrayed anywhere in between it’s covers as being anything else. It has information to expose you to the forex market since so many are not familar with it. Much more detail and specifics are learned through forex sites, brokers etc etc but it was a good book for one interested in learning about what it is and it touches on the ways that it can be done.

    Anything worth doing is worth doing well and there will always be those that “don’t get it” and those that “don’t want to get it” and those that “don’t want other’s to get it” so don’t let the reviews here keep you from reading this book or taking control of your destiny.

    No book, system, software or package of any kind for any subject will meet the expectations or the needs of all the people all the time but if you read, study, practice, listen, and expose yourself with time, patience, persistence and positive thoughts then you will get something out of it. My entire family will be retired within the next 2 or so years as long as the written plan and goals continue on track.

    The foreign currency market is the largest financial market in the world, and foreign exchange trading is quickly becoming one of today’s most high-profile, potentially lucrative markets. One problem is that books on the topic are complex, technically dense, and difficult for Forex novices to grasp.

    FOREX Made Easy is the first book to approach the topic in a detailed yet accessible style, gradually and deliberately moving from simple to complex in easy and natural language. Author James Dicks–founder of the popular trading software 4X Made Easy–draws upon his trading knowledge to give readers only the information they need, from setting up a workstation to trading electronically.

  • Plans

    “In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower

    It’s easy to get caught up in the notion that a sound business plan and a strong marketing strategy will ensure your success in business. We’re taught in business school and in the media that if you want to be successful, you have to plan, but how often do things go according to plan?

    Business Continuity Plans

    Its wise to plan for various environmental or social events that could seriously impact the ability of your business to continue on afterward. Is your data backed up? Have the backups been restored to test? Would you be able to function if 30% of your staff became ill? How long could you remain in business without electricity?

    When I was a business analyst, I was responsible for helping department heads create business continuity plans that outlined what their department would do in the event of a disaster. Hundreds of pages were printed, placed in a plastic tub, and never touched again. In the event of an actual disaster, the plans were not what mattered, it was the act of planning.

    As an Internet Marketer and Technology Consultant, I help business owners create a plan for how they are going to use the web to market their business, be more efficient, and lower costs. We create a roadmap for how we think things will go, but things don’t always go as planned. The key is to know how to pivot and planning helps with that.

    Does your business have a disaster recovery plan for business continuity? Do you know what your company would do if a single workstation, a server, or the entire building went ‘down’? These are the plans that are above and beyond baseline data back-up, which you should be doing anyway. If you’re not doing that, stop reading this and back up your data! It should always be in at least two locations with one copy preferably stored off-site.

    Disasters such as earthquakes, fires, and floods are all too common in today’s world, but sadly, business continuity plans are not. Be prepared for not only a loss of data, hardware, and facilities, but also the risk of a pandemic where a third to half of your work force either can’t come in or are sick. How would your business continue to function? Would you still be able to serve your customers? What sort of steps are you taking to prepare for a scenario like this, or worse?

    It’s easy to create a plan, the hard part is executing it. One trap a lot of people fall into is creating the structure around innovation or a new project in the hopes that once the structure is in place the new product will almost make itself. “After [that] it’s just ‘plug and chug’,” they say. Executors know that you have to do the plug and chug part too even if that means hiring or outsourcing to do so. The ‘plug and chug’-level work should be a matter of following procedures in a well-defined structure. The creators, designers, and innovators at a company usually like to create the structure, but have trouble filling it in. Either learn to get around this psychological gap or find someone else to finish/maintain the job for you.

    Business Plans

    Business plans are important because they summarize both your vision for the company and your blueprint for the company’s operating success. The business plan is a written guide that details the start-up and the future direction of your company. Who should write the plan? You, the entrepreneur. No one else knows your business idea and goals better. Yes, there are services that can do the work for you. However, you must present this business idea to bankers or other investors. Therefore, it is best if you are very familiar and comfortable with the plan.

    Although there’s no set format, a good business plan typically includes:

    • Cover page—Identifies your business
    • Table of contents—Organizes information for the reader
    • Executive summary—Provides a “big picture” view of the plan, highlighting the factors that will lead to success
    • Business background—If it is a brand-new business, include your background and skills
    • Marketing plan—Relates the business’s marketing strategy
    • Action plan—Summarizes how you will create and deliver your product or service
    • Financial statements and projections—Illustrates how the business will perform financially based on the plan’s assumptions
    • Appendix—Includes statistical analyses, marketing materials, résumés.

    Business success requires the ability to adapt to changing situations. Nothing ever goes as planned (SEE Business Continuity Plans). The world of business is full of surprises and unforeseen events. Using the habit of adaptability allows business owners to respond to circumstances with the ability to change course and act without complete information. Being flexible allows us to respond to changes without being paralyzed with fear and uncertainty.

    Problems are a regular part of business life. Staff issues, customer misunderstandings, cash crunches- the list is endless. To achieve business success, look at both sides of the coin. Every problem has an opportunity. Being opportunity focused makes the game of business fun and energizing.

    Marketing Plans

    When creating a marketing plan, keep in mind the four P’s of marketing:

    • Product—What good or service will your business offer? How is that product better than those offered by competitors? Why will people buy/want it?
    • Price—How much can you charge? How do you find the balance between sales volume and price to maximize income?
    • Promotion—How will your product or service be positioned in the marketplace? Will your product carry a premium image with a price to match? Will it be an inexpensive, no-frills alternative to similar offerings from other businesses? What kinds of advertising and packaging will you use?
    • Place—Which sales channels will you use? Will you sell by telephone, or will your product be carried in retail outlets? Which channel will economically reach your market?

    Regarding “Price”, I recenly got an email from a customer who told me a story about a friend of his who confided in him, his friend said, “I was desperate. I had to sell out my women’s apparel store, so I did a lot of expensive advertising at 50% off. I was going broke so in total frustration one day I said ‘Oh, #@& it, doubled my prices and sold right out!” I liked the story enough, but it didn’t really sink in until I ran across a similar story the next day.

    In the book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, author Cialdini tells the story about a turquoise jeweler out West who, in the peak of tourist season, couldn’t sell her jewelry. The owner had priced the jewelry reasonably. She had placed it in a central display location. She’d even asked her staff to point it out to browsers. Nothing worked. Finally, the owner gave up and decided to sell the jewelry at a loss. On her way out of town for a business trip, she dashed off a note to a member of her sales staff – “Everything in this display case 1/2”. When the owner arrived back at her shop she was surprised to find that all of the turquoise jewelry had been sold. Puzzled, the proprietor asked her staff what happened. She had misread her hastily-scrawled note (deciphering the “½” as a “2”), and doubled the price of each piece rather than cutting it in half, making the jewelry seem better and therefore worth paying for. The logic from both of these stories follows that, “If it’s expensive, it has got to be good.”

    A marketing plan should summarize your findings about the key target buyer description, market segments the company will compete in, the unique positioning of the company and its products compared to the competition, the reasons why it is unique or compelling to buyers. Determine specific goals, set a deadline for these goals to be achieved, then write them down. The old saying, “Its not real until its written down,” is true here. Next, share these goals with your employees and any invested partners. Get everyone on the same page so that they can all help work towards the goal.

    Determine which tools can best help you meet your goals and how they will be used. These can include, but are not limited to, the web, direct mailings, email newsletters, hosted events, relevant trade shows, outdoor or print advertising, or social media. Next, create a plan for use of each tool. Projects are best not left open-ended. In the same way you assigned a deadline for the goal as a time restraint, the goal should also have a financial restraint. Work with your team to create a budget that reflects your vision and achieves your goals. If you end up under-budget, that’s one more thing to celebrate when you achieve your goals.

    The easiest and hardest thing to do sometimes it to delegate responsibility for implementing each part of the plan. More than likely you won’t be able to do all aspects of the plan and so you’re going to have to divvy up the responsibilities. Make sure there are built in accountability measures to check performance. Monitor the results of your team members progress and the goal in general. Beware of project creep. Weekly meetings to remind those involved about the plan and its deadlines may help. Lastly, don’t be afraid to make adjustments as necessary. Being an agile company may be what sets you apart from your bigger competitors.

  • Lean Startups

    Indianapolis Lean Startup Circle

    James Paden, VP at Compendium and Mentor at Indianapolis Startup Weekend, spoke at last night’s Indy Lean Meetup about the difference between bootstrapping and lean startups. While both conserve cash whenever possible, their goals are different. Lean startups aren’t opposed to accepting funding, they just shouldn’t take it until after some customer validation has occurred.

    From Iteration to Execution

    As you can see from this chart, in lean startups, the process starts with customer discovery, then goes to customer validation. The arrow back to customer discovery indicates revisions until a product/market fit is established and the process can move over to customer creation and eventually company building. While the goal of bootstrapping is to build without incurring debt, the goal of lean is to learn from short, iterative processes (the discover and validation phases) AND to build the company as fast as possible.

    The Lean Startup

    As Matthew pointed out on my book recommendations page, The Lean Startup by Eric Ries is a great book to help your startup get started right. But what I didn’t realize until attending last night’s Indy Lean Meetup was that lean was a part of the agile method.

    The premise of The Lean Startup is to, “Apply lean thinking to the process of innovation.” After reading this book, the next time you go to make a new product or start a new company, you’ll be asking yourself, “Can we build a sustainable business around this set of products and services?” and you’ll start to look at customer requests/desires differently than you may view them today. Using innovation experiments explained in the book, you’ll be able to determine whether a new product or service is required or simply a tweak to any existing product, but Ries warns, “Stated customer feedback is not always an accurate reflection of actual need/desire.”

  • Foreign Exchange Rate Economic Indicators for GBP, USD, EUR, AUD, & CAD

    Foreign Exchange Rates for the Pound Sterling, US Dollar, Euro, Australian Dollar, and the Canadian Dollar can all be partially predicted if you know what to look for. Want more exchange rate forecasts?

    Pound Sterling

    Be on the lookout for the the latest edition of the Rightmove house price index, which can give indications for whether or not the Sterling is going to be moving positive or negative in the future. FXwords has a complete list of UK economic indicators.

    US Dollar

    Michigan Confidence survey seeks to understand US consumer attitudes and expectations about the US economy by gauging how consumers feel the economic environment will change. The survey’s Index of Consumer Expectations is an official component of the US Index of Leading Economic Indicators.

    Euro

    The OECD Leading Indicator measures the economic outlook for the Euro-zone as a whole. According to FXwords, it is “one of the most respected international economic research institutions, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) releases the Leading Indicator for early signals of economic expansion or slowdown. It takes a number of indicators known to precede changes in growth to serve as a short term forecast of Euro-zone developments. The OECD Leading Economic Index focuses less on how much economies change, but rather on the direction they are moving.”

    The Pound Australian Dollar

    Australia’s Westpac Consumer Confidence index, officially called the Consumer Sentiment Index, measures the level of consumer confidence and is an average of five indexes measuring different aspects of consumer fiscal health. According to FXwords, “This is one of the few indicators that are entirely expectation based. Households report their views on current buying conditions for household items and where they feel are the “wisest” places to invest savings. Views on future political policy (taxes, politicians, government) and economic conditions (wages, inflation, unemployment) are also surveyed.”

    The Pound Canadian Dollar

    Canada’s Ivey Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) is a monthly measure of the change in purchases by corporate executives. A headline value above 50 indicates an increase in purchases from the previous month and a value below 50 indicates a decrease, which can be a good economic indicator. FXwords has a complete list of Canadian economic indicators.

    Risk Warning: Trading foreign exchange on margin carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. The high degree of leverage can work against you as well as for you. Before deciding to invest in foreign exchange you should carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite. The possibility exists that you could sustain a loss of some or all of your initial investment and therefore you should not invest money that you cannot afford to lose. You should be aware of all the risks associated with foreign exchange trading, and seek advice from an independent financial advisor if you have any doubts.