Buyer Related Quotes

Business models are about the systems and processes related to the exchange of value between sellers and buyers.

And the strangest thing about the nightmare street was that none of the millions of things for sale were made there. They were only sold there. Where were the workshops, the factories, where were the farmers, the craftsmen, the miners, the weavers, the chemists, the carvers, the dyers, the designers, the machinists, where were the hands, the people who made? Out of sight, somewhere else. Behind walls. All the people in all the shops were either buyers or sellers. They had no relation to the things but that of possession.

A propaganda model has a certain initial plausibility on guided free-market assumptions that are not particularly controversial. In essence, the private media are major corporations selling a product (readers and audiences) to other businesses (advertisers). The national media typically target and serve elite opinion, groups that, on the one hand, provide an optimal “profile” for advertising purposes, and, on the other, play a role in decision-making in the private and public spheres. The national media would be failing to meet their elite audience’s needs if they did not present a tolerably realistic portrayal of the world. But their “societal purpose” also requires that the media’s interpretation of the world reflect the interests and concerns of the sellers, the buyers, and the governmental and private institutions dominated by these groups.

Publicity is effective precisely because it feeds upon the real. Clothes, food, cars, cosmetics, baths, sunshine are real things to be enjoyed in themselves. Publicity begins by working on a natural appetite for pleasure. But it cannot offer the real object of pleasure and there is no convincing substitute for a pleasure in that pleasure's own terms. The more convincingly publicity conveys the pleasure of bathing in a warm, distant sea, the more the spectator-buyer will become aware that he is hundreds of miles away from that sea and the more remote the chance of bathing in it will seem to him. This is why publicity can never really afford to be about the product or opportunity it is proposing to the buyer who is not yet enjoying it. Publicity is never a celebration of a pleasure-in-itself. Publicity is always about the future buyer. It offers him an image of himself made glamorous by the product or opportunity it is trying to sell. The image then makes him envious of himself as he might be. Yet what makes this self-which-he-might-be enviable? The envy of others. Publicity is about social relations, not objects. Its promise is not of pleasure, but of happiness : happiness as judged from the outside by others. The happiness of being envied is glamour. Being envied is a solitary form of reassurance. It depends precisely upon not sharing your experience with those who envy you. You are observed with interest but you do not observe with interest - if you do, you will become less enviable. ... ... The spectator-buyer is meant to envy herself as she will become if she buys the product. She is meant to imagine herself transformed by the product into an object of envy for others, an envy which will then justify her loving herself. One could put this another way : the publicity images steals her love of herself as she is, and offers it back to her for the price of the product. (P. 128)

That illusion—as such a point of view was, in due course, to appear—was closely related to another belief: that existence fans out indefinitely into new areas of experience, and that almost every additional acquaintance offers some supplementary world with its own hazards and enchantments.

I used to imagine life divided into separate compartments, consisting, for example, of such dual abstractions as pleasure and pain, love and hate, friendship and enmity; and more material classifications like work and play: a profession or calling being, according to that concept—one that seemed, at least on the surface, unequivocally assumed by persons so dissimilar from one another as Widmerpool and Archie Gilbert, something entirely different from “spare time.” That illusion, as such a point of view was, in due course, to appear—was closely related to another belief: that existence fans out indefinitely into new areas of experience, and that almost every additional acquaintance offers some supplementary world with its own hazards and enchantments. As time goes on, of course, these supposedly different worlds, in fact, draw closer, if not to each other, then to some pattern common to all; so that, at last, diversity between them, if in truth existent, seems to be almost imperceptible except in a few crude and exterior ways: unthinkable, as formerly appeared, any single consummation of cause and effect. In other words, nearly all the inhabitants of these outwardly disconnected empires turn out at last to be tenaciously inter-related; love and hate, friendship and enmity, too, becoming themselves much less clearly defined, more often than not showing signs of possessing characteristics that could claim, to say the least, not a little in common; while work and play merge indistinguishably into a complex tissue of pleasure and tedium.

In a barter economy, every day the shoemaker and the apple grower will have to learn anew the relative prices of dozens of commodities. If one hundred different commodities are traded in the market, then buyers and sellers will have to know 4,950 different exchange rates. And if 1,000 different commodities are traded, buyers and sellers must juggle 499,500 different exchange rates!5 How do you figure it out?

In other words, nearly all the inhabitants of these outwardly disconnected empires turn out at last to be tenaciously inter-related; love and hate, friendship and enmity, too, becoming themselves much less clearly defined, more often than not showing signs of possessing characteristics that could claim, to say the least, not a little in common; while work and play merge indistinguishably into a complex tissue of pleasure and tedium.

Large-scale commercial exchange and long-distance trade tend to promote common standards of measurement. For relatively smallscale trade, grain dealers could transact with several suppliers as long as they knew the measure each was using. They might actually profit from their superior grasp of the profusion of units, much as smugglers take advantage of small differences in taxes and tariffs. Beyond a certain point, however, much of commerce is composed of long chains of transactions, often over great distances, between anonymous buyers and sellers. Such trade is greatly simplified and made legible by standard weights and measures.

The theory of the long tail as popularized by Chris Anderson in his book of the same name is that our culture and economy are increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of major hits (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare. 5

Here are my simple rules for identifying market tops and bottoms: 1. Market tops are relatively easy to recognize. Buyers generally become overconfident and almost always believe “this time is different.” It’s usually not. 2. There’s always a surplus of relatively cheap debt capital to finance acquisitions and investments in a hot market. In some cases, lenders won’t even charge cash interest, and they often relax or suspend typical loan restrictions as well. Leverage levels escalate compared to historical averages, with borrowing sometimes reaching as high as ten times or more compared to equity. Buyers will start accepting overoptimistic accounting adjustments and financial forecasts to justify taking on high levels of debt. Unfortunately most of these forecasts tend not to materialize once the economy starts decelerating or declining. 3. Another indicator that a market is peaking is the number of people you know who start getting rich. The number of investors claiming outperformance grows with the market. Loose credit conditions and a rising tide can make it easy for individuals without any particular strategy or process to make money “accidentally.” But making money in strong markets can be short-lived. Smart investors perform well through a combination of self-discipline and sound risk assessment, even when market conditions reverse.

Now sensitiveness to the state of mind of the public is a difficult thing to achieve or maintain. Any man can tell you with more or less accuracy and clearness his own reactions on any particular issue. But few men have the time or the interest or the training to develop a sense of what other persons think or feel about the same issue. In his own profession the skilled practitioner is sensitive and understanding. lhe lawyer can tell what argument will appeal to court or jury. “The salesman can tell what points to stress to his prospective buyers. The politician can tell what to emphasize to his audience, but the ability to estimate group reactions on a large scale over a wide geographic and psychological area is a specialized ability which must be developed with the same painstaking self-criticism and with the same dependence on experience that are required for the development of the clinical sense in the doctor or the surgeon. The significant revolution of modern times is not industrial or economic or political, but the revolution which is taking place in the art of creating consent among the governed. Within the life of the new generation now in control of affairs, persuasion has become a self-conscious art and a regular organ of popular government. None of us begins to understand the consequences, but it is no daring prophecy to say that the knowledge of how to create consent will alter every political premise. Under the impact of propaganda, not necessarily in the sinister meaning of the world alone, the only constants of our thinking have become variables. It is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the cardinal dogma of democracy that the knowledge needed for the management of human affairs comes up spontaneously from the human heart. Where we act on that theory we expose ourselves to self-deception and to farms of persuasion that we cannot verify. It has been demonstrated that we cannot rely upon intuition, conscience or the accidents of casual opinion if we are to deal with the world beyond our reach.

You could drive around the island of Tahiti in two hours, in a day, in two days. You could pass the slower cars, the pick-up trucks with their loads of mothers and kids in ragged T-shirts, the bicycles turning in lazy circles by the side of the road, the bony yellow dogs trying to cross – if you never stopped, the drive could take less than two hours, provided that you weren't entering or leaving Papeete during the morning or late afternoon traffic jams. At the other extreme, you could visit every relative living around the island – your aunt who ran the general store in Papeari, your uncle who worked at the gas station in Mahina, your countless cousins who were expecting babies or who had just given birth, your grandmother who lived with your aunt who lived with your great-aunt...this type of tour de l'ile could take an entire day or two or three days.

It is important here not to confuse publicity with the pleasure or benefits to be enjoyed from the things it advertises. Publicity is effective precisely because it feeds upon the real. Clothes, food, cars, cosmetics, baths, sunshine are real things to be enjoyed in themselves. Publicity begins by working on a natural appetite for pleasure. But it cannot offer the real object of pleasure and there is no convincing substitute for a pleasure in that pleasure's own terms. The more convincingly publicity conveys the pleasure of bathing in a warm, distant sea, the more the spectator-buyer will become aware that he is hundreds of miles away from that sea and the more remote the chance of bathing in it will seem to him. This is why publicity can never really afford to be about the product or opportunity it is proposing to the buyer who is not yet enjoying it. Publicity is never a celebration of a pleasure-in-itself. Publicity is always about the future buyer. It offers him an image of himself made glamorous by the product or opportunity it is trying to sell. The image then makes him envious of himself as he might be. Yet what makes this self-which-he-might-be enviable? The envy of others. Publicity is about social relations, not objects. Its promise is not of pleasure, but of happiness : happiness as judged from the outside by others. The happiness of being envied is glamour. Being envied is a solitary form of reassurance. It depends precisely upon not sharing your experience with those who envy you. You are observed with interest but you do not observe with interest - if you do, you will become less enviable. ....... The spectator-buyer is meant to envy herself as she will become if she buys the product. She is meant to imagine herself transformed by the product into an object of envy for others, an envy which will then justify her loving herself. One could put this another way : the publicity images steals her love of herself as she is, and offers it back to her for the price of the product.

I USED to imagine life divided into separate compartments, consisting, for example, of such dual abstractions as pleasure and pain, love and hate, friendship and enmity; and more material classifications like work and play: a profession or calling being, according to that concept—one that seemed, at least on the surface, unequivocally assumed by persons so dissimilar from one another as Widmerpool and Archie Gilbert—something entirely different from ‘spare time’. That illusion—as such a point of view was, in due course, to appear—was closely related to another belief: that existence fans out indefinitely into new areas of experience, and that almost every additional acquaintance offers some supplementary world with its own hazards and enchantments. As time goes on, of course, these supposedly different worlds, in fact, draw closer, if not to each other, then to some pattern common to all; so that, at last, diversity between them, if in truth existent, seems to be almost imperceptible except in a few crude and exterior ways: unthinkable as formerly appeared any single consummation of cause and effect. In other words, nearly all the inhabitants of these outwardly disconnected empires turn out at last to be tenaciously interrelated; love and hate, friendship and enmity, too, becoming themselves much less clearly defined, more often than not showing signs of possessing characteristics that could claim, to say the least, not a little in common; while work and play merge indistinguishably into a complex tissue of pleasure and tedium.

By pointing to the captain’s foolhardy departure from standard procedure, the officials shielded themselves from the disturbing image of slaves overpowering their captors and relieved themselves of the uncomfortable obligation to explain how and why the events had deviated from the prescribed pattern. But assigning blame to the captain for his carelessness afforded only partial comfort, for by seizing their opportunity, the Africans aboard the Cape Coast had done more than liberate themselves (temporarily at least) from the slave ship. Their action reminded any European who heard news of the event of what all preferred not to contemplate too closely; that their ‘accountable’ history was only as real as the violence and racial fiction at its foundation. Only by ceaseless replication of the system’s violence did African sellers and European buyers render captives in the distorted guise of human commodities to market. Only by imagining that whiteness could render seven men more powerful than a group of twice their number did European investors produce an account naturalizing social relations that had as their starting point an act of violence. Successful African uprisings against European captors were of course moments at which the undeniable free agency of the captives most disturbed Europeans—for it was in these moments that African captives invalidated the vision of the history being written in this corner of the Atlantic world and articulated their own version of a history that was ‘accountable.’ Other moments in which the agency and irrepressible humanity of the captives manifested themselves were more tragic than heroic: instances of illness and death, thwarted efforts to escape from the various settings of saltwater slavery, removal of slaves from the market by reason of ‘madness.’ In negotiating the narrow isthmus between illness and recovery, death and survival, mental coherence and insanity, captives provided the answers the slave traders needed: the Africans revealed the boundaries of the middle ground between life and death where human commodification was possible. Turning people into slaves entailed more than the completion of a market transaction. In addition, the economic exchange had to transform independent beings into human commodities whose most ‘socially relevant feature’ was their ‘exchangeability’ . . . The shore was the stage for a range of activities and practices designed to promote the pretense that human beings could convincingly play the part of their antithesis—bodies animated only by others’ calculated investment in their physical capacities.

I’ve seen some horrific disconnects on sales calls. Rapid-fire, fast-talking, passion-driven salespeople calling on reserved, data-seeking technical buyers. Ouch! Sometimes salespeople fail to develop new business simply because they lack the perception or relational skills that allow them to adapt to the style of the person they’re calling.

BUYER’S MATRIX Position: Roles/Responsibilities: What are they in charge of or expected to manage? Business Objectives and Metrics: What do they want to achieve? How do they measure success? How are they evaluated? Strategic Initiatives: What likely strategies and initiatives are in place to help them achieve their objectives? Internal Challenges: What likely issues does the organization face that could prevent/hinder goal achievement? External Challenges: What external factors or industry trends might make it more difficult to reach their objectives? Primary Interfaces: Who do they frequently interact with (e.g., peers, subordinates, superiors, and external resources)? Status Quo: What’s their status quo relative to your product or service? Change Drivers: What would cause them to change from what they’re currently doing? Change Inhibitors: What would cause them to stay with the status quo, even if they’re unhappy?

In a market where multiple offers are raising prices, Teri Toombs, Principal Broker at Living Room Realty, says she discourages people from overpaying for homes. But some can’t resist. Some people don’t want to continue renting. And they don’t care what that costs. An in-house poll led by Toombs’ colleague Alyssa Isenstein Krueger, Living Room found more than a few first-time buyers with cash to throw around. The Living Room agents that responded said that of 148 first-time buyers served in 2014, 42 percent came to the table with funds from friends and relatives to help grab whatever edge they could leverage. The sums ranged from up to $470,000. It’s not scientific, but it suggests a hard new reality in the market. For those without cash? Those that can’t overpay? “It’s torture. And I try my best to prepare them for what they’re in for and I see them starting to glaze over like, ‘Why is this lady saying all this? Why can’t we just start looking at houses? Why is she bringing us down like this?’” said Toombs. “With determination and being really diligent about it, they can get into a house. But they have to realize that they’re going to be moving into emerging neighborhoods.

The factors that determine activity on the Exchange are innumerable, with events, current or expected, often bearing no apparent relation to price variation. Beside the somewhat natural causes for variation come artificial causes: The Exchange reacts to itself, and the current trading is a function, not only of prior trading, but also of its relationship to the rest of the market. The determination of this activity depends on an infinite number of factors. It is thus impossible to hope for mathematical forecasting. Contradictory opinions about these variations are so evenly divided that at the same instant buyers expect a rise and sellers a fall. The calculus of probability can doubtless never be applied to market activity, and the dynamics of the Exchange will never be an exact science. But it is possible to study mathematically the state of the market at a given instant- that is to say, to establish the laws of probability for price variation that the market at the instant dictates. If the market, in effect, does not predict its fluctuations, it does not assess them as being more or less likely, and this likelihood can be evaluated mathematically.

In each case, the relative cost of postponing the purchase for buyer and seller determines the intensity of competition between the [past and future] selves of the seller. If the buyer has a lower cost of postponing the purchase (delay, making do with an interior model) than the seller (inventory, staff salaries) the buyer has the bargaining power.

Demand for a product is affected by the cost and quality, broadly defined, of substitute products. If the cost of a substitute falls in relative terms, or if its ability improves to satisfy the buyer’s needs, industry growth will be adversely affected (and vice versa). Examples are the inroads that television and radio have made on the demand for live concerts by symphony orchestras and other performing groups; the growth in demand for magazine advertising space as television advertising rates climb sharply and prime advertising television time becomes increasingly scarce; and the depressing effect of rising prices on the demand of such products as chocolate candy and soft drinks relative to their substitutes.

The search for buyers generally falls into three groups. The first group of buyers includes the obvious candidates and a handful of buyers in the core market. The second group of buyers is identified by digging into closely related markets. The third group is made up of buyers who are identified later in the process. These are probably the least obvious of the buyers and they are discovered by examining smaller niche markets that are on the periphery. The

But the value of a product does not live inside it. It is a subjective quantity determined by the seller and the buyer. The relative value of exchanged things is their relative price. This realization lifted prices into their rightful spot as indicators of human preferences and guides of humankind.

A third of all female murder victims are killed by their spouse or partner. One-quarter of women would be sexually assaulted before they turned fifty. Another third would be molested by a boyfriend, husband, or relative. We don’t need tougher background checks on gun buyers, Kate wanted to say. We need better background checks on our dates.

Yes! I reminded my buyer this was an off-market deal. She was getting in early, and P.S. her daughter had been searching for an apartment for four years! Wouldn’t she like to see her happily settled? She agreed to come up $250,000 for “a quick sale.” Just like that, the million-mile distance was slashed in half. I know I’m talking about big numbers here, but what you should understand is that I’m making the gap relative. Whether you’re trying to close a million-dollar gap or a $10 one, break it down. I basically asked each side to come up, relatively speaking, $2.50. That doesn’t sound nearly as bad as bridging a million-dollar gap, now does it?

Most active-minded practitioners would prefer to venture into wider channels. Their natural hunting grounds would be the entire field of securities that they felt (a) were certainly not overvalued by conservative measures, and (b) appeared decidedly more attractive—because of their prospects or past record, or both—than the average common stock. In such choices they would do well to apply various tests of quality and price-reasonableness along the lines we have proposed for the defensive investor. But they should be less inflexible, permitting a considerable plus in one factor to offset a small black mark in another. For example, he might not rule out a company which had shown a deficit in a year such as 1970, if large average earnings and other important attributes made the stock look cheap. The enterprising investor may confine his choice to industries and companies about which he holds an optimistic view, but we counsel strongly against paying a high price for a stock (in relation to earnings and assets) because of such enthusiasm. If he followed our philosophy in this field he would more likely be the buyer of important cyclical enterprises—such as steel shares perhaps—when the current situation is unfavorable, the near-term prospects are poor, and the low price fully reflects the current pessimism.

Demian Farnworth offers this definition: “Content marketing means creating and sharing valuable content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers. The type of content you share is closely related to what you sell; in other words, you’re educating people so that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you.”2

The Acme Company is a provider of financial services located in Cheyenne, which has been in business for 30 years and has a capitalized market value of $800 million. The Acme buyer knows this! It’s nothing novel or new or related to the project. It’s irrelevant. Here’s an excellent situation statement: The Acme Company has traditionally attracted the best and brightest talent because of its excellent brand and relationships with top schools. However, recent bad publicity over poor financial decisions, the removal of the CEO, and loss of key contacts in top schools have made it imperative to launch an aggressive plan to acquire the best talent in the industry, both at entry and senior levels. That situation appraisal explains exactly why you’ve been talking, why the project is urgent, and what the general goals are. Take a project you’re considering, have under way, or have completed, and try writing your own situation appraisal below:

There are many potential explanations for the less-than-robust performance, but IBM’s current strategy suggests that one component at least is a challenge to the traditional shrink-wrapped software business. As much as any software provider in the industry, IBM’s software business was optimized and built for a traditional enterprise procurement model. This typically involves lengthy evaluations of software, commonly referred to as “bake-offs,” followed by the delivery of a software asset, which is then installed and integrated by some combination of buyer employees, IBM services staff, or third-party consultants. This model, as discussed previously, has increasingly come under assault from open source software, software offered as a pure service or hosted and managed on public cloud infrastructure, or some combination of the two. Following the multi-billion dollar purchase of Softlayer, acquired to beef up IBM’s cloud portfolio, IBM continued to invest heavily in two major cloud-related software projects: OpenStack and Cloud Foundry. The latter, which is what is commonly referred to as a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering, may give us both an idea of how IBM’s software group is responding to disruption within the traditional software sales cycle and their level of commitment to it. Specifically, IBM’s implementation of Cloud Foundry, a product called Bluemix, makes a growing portion of IBM’s software portfolio available as a consumable service. Rather than negotiate and purchase software on a standalone basis, then, IBM customers are increasingly able to consume the products in a hosted fashion.

the most defining characteristics of bubbles that can be measured are: Prices are high relative to traditional measures Prices are discounting future rapid price appreciation from these high levels There is broad bullish sentiment Purchases are being financed by high leverage Buyers have made exceptionally extended forward purchases (e.g., built inventory, contracted for supplies, etc.) to speculate or to protect themselves against future price gains New buyers (i.e., those who weren’t previously in the market) have entered the market Stimulative monetary policy threatens to inflate the bubble even more (and tight policy to cause its popping)

What you can do: • Start by being consistent with your emails That said, don’t send an email just for the sake of sending it. Don’t compromise on quality just because you have to send something out. You can skip a week or two if your emails don’t have a strong call to action, or if you have no compelling reason to email your list. While not every email will be your best, make each email count. • Be bold and repel (on purpose) if you must Maybe your emails will inspire thought and change. Or challenge existing beliefs and myths. Your content may also raise more questions than it offers answers to. Not everyone jives with that type of content or style. But the bolder you are, the more you will attract your ideal reader and repel the rest. What wouldn’t your ideal reader do? What wouldn’t they relate to? Identify these characteristics and be as specific as you can; e.g., They are unlikely to read blogs such as…They are unlikely to identify with the term freelancer…They are unlikely to prefer quick tips over long-form content. Once you have identified these characteristics, keep them in mind as you’re working on your email content. Don’t water down your message to fit your average reader.

In an effort to help decode these buyer actions, researchers from consumer intelligence firm Motista found specific “emotional motivators” that provide a critical indicator of customers’ potential affinity to a company.2 In fact, these emotional motivators, a proxy for value, were more compelling than any other metric in terms of driving key buying sentiments such as brand awareness and customer satisfaction. While hundreds of emotional motivators were found to drive consumer behavior, the study found ten that drove significant levels of customer value across all of the categories studied. I am inspired by a desire to: Brands can leverage this motivator by helping customers: Stand out from the crowd Project a unique social identity; be seen as special Have confidence in the future Perceive the future as better than the past; have a positive mental picture of what’s to come Enjoy a sense of well-being Feel that life measures up to expectations and that balance has been achieved; seek a stress-free state without conflicts or threats Feel a sense of freedom Act independently, without obligations or restrictions Feel a sense of thrill Experience visceral, overwhelming pleasure and excitement; participate in exciting, fun events Feel a sense of belonging Have an affiliation with people they relate to or aspire to be like; feel part of a group Protect the environment Sustain the belief that the environment is sacred; take action to improve their surroundings Be the person I want to be Fulfill a desire for ongoing self-improvement; live up to their ideal self-image Feel secure Believe that what they have today will be there tomorrow; pursue goals and dreams without worry Succeed in life Feel that they lead meaningful lives; find worth that goes beyond financial or socioeconomic measures

Many people lost their livelihoods several times over in the 1990s and 2000s: first their salaried jobs, then a portion (or all) of their livestock owing to rapid privatization during the winter, and finally money invested to launch a business that subsequently failed. Some of the reasons behind the bankruptcies and losses of private entrepreneurs are clear… Upon receiving their livestock, the townspeople panicked and rushed to locate a relative or friend among the herdsmen in the countryside who would agree to take care of their livestock. The herdsmen themselves, however, had not known to prepare extra hay or fences and could provide little help to their relatives from the sedentary center. More disconcerting, many people simply did not understand that privatization signaled the end of the SF jobs and salaries, and that the livestock was given to them to enable them to subsist independently of the state. They either slaughtered and ate their share of the livestock or sold their animals to traders. Some even assumed that the livestock distributed to them was a one-time gift from the state; others thought it was an annual bonus or a reward from the state. Overall, people were confused about the distribution of animals. Purvee lamented to me: ‘No one explained to us that from now on we would be on our own and that the state would not provide us with the services and direction it had for many decades. We did not know that we now had to take care of ourselves, without any support from the state! We did not understand what privatization really meant!”… State socialism… tried to make economic production, transactions, prices, and exchanges as predictable as possible. Because the state was the main and often the only client, the marketability and competitiveness of products were not a concern for CFs so long as they met established standards. Similarly, the CFs were not worried about appealing to buyers, competing with other CFs for customers, or, in general, predicting demand and adjusting their strategies. Although the system limited (and sometimes prevented) individuals and enterprises from making a profit, it also freed people from having to search for a market and from traveling long distances with highly perishable products for which the sales outcome was uncertain. For many, the CFs were a better system than individual domestic herding of private livestock. Of course, the CFs had many shortcomings, both systemically and as individual enterprises. But in the context of post-socialist impoverishment and uncertainty, many herders missed the security and safety that CFs provided… The distinction between the haves and the have-nots was sharpened, but the distance between the two was as short as one zud, flood, or other natural disaster. Without state support, livestock was constantly under threat. For instance, without state extermination brigades, wolves and foxes regularly raided the herds. The price of a bullet almost equaled the price of a sheep, so many herdsmen could not afford to shoot the attackers regularly. Family members took turns guarding their livestock, and it was rare for a nomadic family to pass an uneventful night. Both men and women complained about the backbreaking labor and about not being able to get away from their household duties in order to see a doctor or visit a sick relative in the hospital… The privatization of SFs was a matter not only of property ownership, as Verdery revealed (2004), but also of the ownership of risk, liability, and debt against properties that were losing value. And specific to Mongolia, the new owners also most likely took on a share of the debt. Some of the economic programs instituted during socialism were never intended to generate profit; their purpose was political and ideological—settling the vast land, managing the population, and creating an illusion of prosperity and development…

Both suppliers and buyers tend to be powerful if: They are large and concentrated relative to a fragmented industry (think Goliath versus many Davids). What percentage of an industry’s purchases/sales does a supplier/buyer represent? Look at the data and map out how it is trending. How painful would it be to lose that supplier or that customer? Industries with high fixed costs (e.g., telecommunications equipment and offshore drilling) are especially vulnerable to large buyers. The industry needs them more than they need the industry. In some cases, there may be no alternative suppliers, at least in the short term. Doctors and airline pilots, to cite two examples, have historically exercised tremendous bargaining power because their skills have been both essential and in short supply. China produces 95 percent of the world’s supply of neodymium, a rare earth metal needed by Toyota and other automakers for electric motors. Neodymium prices quadrupled in just one year (2010), as the Chinese restricted supply. Toyota is working hard to develop a new motor that will end its dependence on rare earth metals. Switching costs work in their favor. This occurs for a supplier when an industry is tied to it, as for example, the PC industry has been to Microsoft, its dominant supplier of operating systems and software. Switching costs work in the buyer’s favor when the buyer can easily drop one vendor for another. The ease with which customers can switch from one airline to another on popular routes makes it hard for airlines to raise prices or cut service levels. Frequent flyer programs were intended to raise switching costs, but they have not been effective. Differentiation works in their favor.

A company can sustain a premium price only if it offers something that is both unique and valuable to its customers. Apple’s hot, must-have gadgets have commanded premium prices. Ditto for the high-speed Madrid-to-Barcelona train and the trucks Paccar creates for owner-operators. Create more buyer value and you raise what economists call willingness to pay (WTP), the mechanism that makes it possible for a company to charge a higher price relative to rival offerings.

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While I won’t go into exactly how it works here, the most defining characteristics of bubbles that can be measured are: Prices are high relative to traditional measures Prices are discounting future rapid price appreciation from these high levels There is broad bullish sentiment Purchases are being financed by high leverage Buyers have made exceptionally extended forward purchases (e.g., built inventory, contracted for supplies, etc.) to speculate or to protect themselves against future price gains New buyers (i.e., those who weren’t previously in the market) have entered the market Stimulative monetary policy threatens to inflate the bubble even more (and tight policy to cause its popping)

All the people in all the shops were either buyers or sellers. They had no relation to the things but that of possession.

The principle: The main components of a flagship device should be high-end, while other components can be mid-range or high-range, but not more than 30% of them. The device should not use low-end components that would affect its performance in some situations, especially those related to the core calculation and transport. Different companies have different abilities to negotiate with the suppliers, so the price does not reflect the quality of the materials used.

Everything You Need to Do Freelancing One must possess some basic skills to do freelancing work. For example, a good computer, internet, and browsing should be well understood. Freelancing work is mostly hired by foreign buyers. In that case, you must have English speaking skills, know how to write good English while chatting, and keep practicing speaking English regularly. How to Get Work at Freelancing? Freelancing means being contracted to other people or companies and working as a contract. To do this, you need to have some special creativity in freelancing, which you can sell to clients as a service. How You Can Get Work: First, you need to select a freelancing platform from which you want to work. Decide in which category you want to make your career. Then open an account there, add your portfolio, and post it through a blog. Then start promoting your freelancing skills and talent. You can also get work by promoting your skills on Linkedin, Pinterest, and Twitter. Search for jobs based on your skills on various job forums (Upwork, Fiverr) and others. By doing these above tasks, you will get a job according to your needs, InshaAllah. Some Principles to Be a Good Freelancer: Time-sharing: You can create a timetable for when you will do a task. For example – You can keep morning time for various practices, afternoon time for study or other research, and night time for work. It will reduce the pressure on you. Eat meals on time: Never have irregular meals, if you do you will get sick very soon. And if you get sick, you can't work. As a result, you will suffer both physically and financially. So eat food on time. And remember, "Food first then Work". Don't Embrace Loneliness: People who are freelancing have to be alone most of the time. As a result, they cannot give time to everyone and become lonely. But you should never make this mistake. You will find time for yourself outside of your work to spend time gossiping with family or friends. How to Increase Your Workload: Increase work efficiency, and present the nature of work attractively and accurately. Quality of work will help you get additional work. Keeping the client happy at work is paramount. If you want, you can provide a little more service than the client asked to do without any charge. And can request you to give a 5-star rating. Clients may be happy with you for additional services and offer more work. Never overprice your work or service unless you are a popular freelancer in the marketplace. Please visit Our Website (Bhairab IT Zone) to Read more Articles related to Freelancing and Outsourcing. Thank You.

It was widely believed by contemporaries that a reduction of interest would raise the value of land. Locke was unpersuaded. He thought other factors played upon land prices, and, even if land prices were to rise, there would be no advantage to the nation as a whole, since the lowering of interest merely ‘a little alters the distribution of the Money’: sellers of land would receive more money but buyers would have to pay more.22 Locke was concerned that cheaper borrowing would push money into the hands of City bankers, raising London house prices relative to the rest of the country.23

Legalman would immediately begin to implement the "he-we-I" evolution strategy.  At the outset, he would talk in terms of he (the seller) in discussing the property and the closing.  Then, in a relatively short period of time, the word he would subtly evolve into we (i.e., the seller and Legalman).  At that point, the seller was no longer in full control of his destiny.  Nay, it was now he and Legalman who were making the decisions.  Finally—you guessed it—Legalman, in a galling display of arrogance, would magically transform we into I (as in Legalman).  Some things in life are inevitable, and Legalman's "he-we-I" evolution strategy is one of those inevitabilities.  From that point on, it was entirely Legalman's deal.  The buyer and seller had been reduced to nothing more than bothersome but necessary bystanders to Legalman's closing.

is the strength of the songwriting. Dark Side contained strong, powerful songs. The overall idea that linked those songs together – the pressures of modern life – found a universal response, and continues to capture people’s imagination. The lyrics had depth, and had a resonance people could easily relate to, and were clear and simple enough for non-native-English speakers to understand, which must have been a factor in its international success. And the musical quality spearheaded by David’s guitar and voice and Rick’s keyboards established a fundamental Pink Floyd sound. We were comfortable with the music, which had had time to mature and gestate, and evolve through live performances – later on we had to stop previewing work live as the quality of the recording equipment being smuggled into gigs reached near-studio standards. The additional singers and Dick Parry’s sax gave the whole record an extra commercial sheen. In addition, the sonic quality of the album was state of the art – courtesy of the skills of Alan Parsons and Chris Thomas. This is particularly important, because at the time the album came out, hi-fi stereo equipment had only recently become a mainstream consumer item, an essential fashion accessory for the 1970s home. As a result, record buyers were particularly aware of the effects of stereo and able to appreciate any album that made the most of its possibilities. Dark Side had the good fortune to become one of the definitive test records that people could use to show off the quality of their hi-fi system. The packaging for the album by Storm and Po at Hipgnosis was clean, simple, and immediately striking, with a memorable icon in the shape of the prism.

To measure market needs, I would watch carefully what customers do, not simply listen to what they say. Watching how customers actually use a product provides much more reliable information than can be gleaned from a verbal interview or a focus group. Thus, observations indicate that auto users today require a minimum cruising range (that is, the distance that can be driven without refueling) of about 125 to 150 miles; most electric vehicles only offer a minimum cruising range of 50 to 80 miles. Similarly, drivers seem to require cars that accelerate from 0 to 60 miles per hour in less than 10 seconds (necessary primarily to merge safely into highspeed traffic from freeway entrance ramps); most electric vehicles take nearly 20 seconds to get there. And, finally, buyers in the mainstream market demand a wide array of options, but it would be impossible for electric vehicle manufacturers to offer a similar variety within the small initial unit volumes that will characterize that business. According to almost any definition of functionality used for the vertical axis of our proposed chart, the electric vehicle will be deficient compared to a gasolinepowered car. This information is not sufficient to characterize electric vehicles as disruptive, however. They will only be disruptive if we find that they are also on a trajectory of improvement that might someday make them competitive in parts of the mainstream market. The trajectories of performance improvement demanded in the market—whether measured in terms of required acceleration, cruising range, or top cruising speed—are relatively flat. This is because traffic laws impose a limit on the usefulness of ever-more-powerful cars, and demographic, economic, and geographic considerations limit the increase in commuting miles for the average driver to less than 1 percent per year. At the same time, the performance of electric vehicles is improving at a faster rate—between 2 and 4 percent per year—suggesting that sustaining technological advances might indeed carry electric vehicles from their position today, where they cannot compete in mainstream markets, to a position in the future where they might.

Tips for Purchasing Industrial Surplus Parts Industrial surplus equipment and parts are becoming increasingly popular as more companies turn to purchasing the components either for use or for refurbishment and resale. Industrial surplus parts are sold when an industrial manufacturer decides to get rid of these extra (or surplus) pieces, whether they are equipment or parts for putting together equipment, which can then be purchased by resellers or Industrial surplus buyers. For example: The most common type of parts sold for industrial surplus are electrical or electronics—because technology is increasing at a rapid past, it is not uncommon for the parts for electrical equipment to become obsolete when the latest model or latest technology is used. After the new model replaces the old, the parts and equipment are considered surplus. And also When we can buy surplus inventory from retailers or businesses is a great way to invest relatively little money and resell those inventory items for a significant profit. The following are some practical tips to keep in mind when purchasing industrial surplus parts. Tip: Research the surplus parts before purchasing Not all surplus parts are created equal, which is why you should never just purchase a surplus part because it seems like a good deal or because you have come across a new sale. It’s important to research the type of part, the manufacturer, whether it is used/non-used, and other relevant information. You want to be able to get more than what you paid for these surplus parts, if you are reselling, or to use the parts, if you are purchasing them for your own business; “jumping right in” could result in a waste of time, money and purchases. Tip: Never purchase certain parts without a warranty period Most surplus parts should have some kind of warranty or warranty period. This is especially true for electrical or electronic parts, which are more sensitive in nature. Do not purchase any electrical surplus parts if there is not a warranty period, as you will be risking your money. When possible, purchase other types of surplus parts only when there is an acceptable warranty period to help protect your purchase. Tip: Look for professional surplus retailers It might be tempting to look for an “underbelly” store that offers surplus parts at an extreme discount, but you should only do business with a professional retailer or manufacturer with a reputable reputation. When you choose little known surplus part resellers or sellers with poor reputations, you might be purchasing parts that are cobbled together or even stolen.

Between this class [of subaltern workers] and the class of carriers of labor power there is a somewhat vague boundary which although permeable (subaltern workers can sometimes become employers or self-employed and vice versa) at the same time implies a structural contradiction continually reproduced by capitalism in the course of its expansion. The basic source of class conflict is weakened or strengthened by other contradictions, arising from differences related to gender, ethnicity, race, nationality, age, etc (..) In the process, the subaltern workers are constantly uprooted, regrouped, and reorganized; their number, sectoral and geographic distribution or composition continually changes. Not only the different gradations of autonomy can vary, but people are also continually being absorbed into or expelled from this class. The parameters and modalities of class conflicts within global capitalism change continually for this reason. Sometimes the conflict between capital and labor is clearly visible, at other moments it remains hidden behind other, more palpably visible contrasts and conflicts. But whatever form it takes, openly or obscured, a constant battle continues between carriers of labor power and their buyers or hirers

The U.S. “war on drugs” has been relatively ineffective precisely because it focuses on sellers and not buyers. While drug buyers obviously outnumber

Oil that was drilled in Texas or Saudi Arabia, by contrast, was known as “sweet” crude because it had very low sulfur content. This made it a lot cheaper and easier to process—you didn’t need coker towers to take the sulfur out. So many of America’s oil refineries sprang up around the Gulf Coast because that’s where sweet crude was imported and processed. Very few firms wanted to install the kind of expensive equipment that ran at Pine Bend, but Great Northern had done so. When Paulson took over, Pine Bend was one of very fewer buyers in the upper Midwest that offered to buy Canadian crude. Because there were so few buyers, the Canadian crude piled up—there was an excess of supply. This meant that prices dropped. Koch could buy the sour oil at a price that was significantly lower than oil prices elsewhere in the United States. But the cheap Canadian crude was only half of the equation. When Koch turned around to sell the gasoline it made at Pine Bend, it sold that gasoline into a midwestern region where there were very few other refineries, causing supplies to be relatively tight and prices high. This made the economics of Pine Bend almost too good to be true.