You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM six forty.
KFI AM six forty Bill Handle Here. It is a Thursday morning, October thirty of.
Tomorrow being Halloween. Quick word that a week from Saturday.
Neil and I are broadcasting his show from two to five at the Wild Fork Store in Laguna Neguel and it's all about meats, frozen meats and desserts, but mainly frozen meats.
And man, what a store.
It is, hundreds of different kinds, and we're going to be doing thanksgrilling where we're going to have all kinds of grilling apparati there and chefs and samples for everybody, and I mean samples, not costco size samples.
Samples.
Also Zelman's is going to be there handing out samples, and so please join us. Good and Miguel the Wild Fork Store and we're out there, I think in the parking lot where we're gonna be able to yell at people and bring your appetite and bring your friends and family and yeah, with all that stuff, Okay, let's do it. Time for Joel Larsguard on a Thursday, host of How To Money Sundays from twelve to two pm My social addresses at how to Money. Joel, Good morning, Joel, Hell Joel,
Oh there you are. Hey, Yeah, well let's go no for you, you know, it's that's why he's here.
He's he's cheap. What he's cheap? But good right, what you pay for you know?
All right?
Joel.
You know I've been talking to people, I've been talking about this and discussing email on the radio. That's something extraordinary is happening and I don't understand it. And the stock market is at an all time high. It seems like every day it's hitting new levels, especially over the last week, week and a half. At the same time, consumer confidence is low and it's dropping. And unemployment, I mean,
look at the employment sector. First of all, no one is hiring or very few people are hiring, and they are laying off people by the tens of thousands, soon to be the hundreds of thousands. Has this ever happened and put all the connect the dots on this one for me?
Yeah, that's a good que I mean I think there was probably there was really was a similar reaction kind of in the heart of COVID right when the stock market it took a massive dive and the things in the overall economy were looking not so great. And then the stock market continued to it started to shoot back up dramatically, and people were like, wait a second, Like
we're not out of the woods on Main Street. There's a lot of uncertainty, there's a lot of difficulty in the labor market, and just like, well, can I actually my business function the way that it used to? And yet we saw the stock market crews to new heights pretty quickly. It was like such a short recovery time.
And I think we were seeing kind of like obviously just not the exact same thing, but something similar happening right now where people on Main Street are feeling more uncertainty and the job market is it's certainly not what it was a few years ago, and the stock market roaring to new heights, up something like forty percent since April, and it's kind of tough to square everything in your mind. And that's why I think we're hearing more calls of
this being a potential bubble. Is there a bubble in stocks? I think it's a worthwhile conversation to have. I just think it's also a really hard discussion because especially as individual investors, but really nobody knows.
It's hard to predict the future.
So could the stock market see a significant decline from here over the next year, Sure, it's it certainly. Could Could it continue, you know, soaring over the coming year, Yeah it could. It could be up fifteen percent, it could be down twenty percent. It's really really hard to predict, which is why the boring it's are so much. Even if we are in a time of overinflated stock prices, like staying the course still makes sense for most people.
At the same time, though, I'm having a hard time understanding, for example, the employment world. And I use my daughter Pamela as the poster child of employment. She is a computer nerd and has some extraordinary skills, and she's because she can't get a job because all the entry level, lower level jobs, of which where you start it doesn't matter what your skill set is, they are all disappearing
and they're gone. And she's starting her master's degree. And as I told her, you're now unemployed with a bachelor's you're going to be unemployed with a masters in computer technology. And so it's gotten to the point now where you're an expert also on cannabis.
I mean, she knows an addition of being a pothead, she knows this stuff cold.
And I go, you know, you have to go door to door to cannabis stores and get a job at one of the or you're gonna have to go to a fast food place.
You'll still be employed. But instead of making a.
Six figure income with your skill set at a major corporation, you're going to make thirty thousand dollars and you'll still be employed. I mean that's the way it's going. And I mean she's devastated, and you know what do I say you are? Yeah?
I mean I feel especially for younger people who are entering the job market now, and I don't know that it's quite as bad as graduating into the teeth of the Great Recession back in eight oh nine, where like the employment sector was incredibly locked up. I do think we're part of it too, is like, what did we experience recently. What we experienced recently was a job market where employees and workers had so much of an ability to jump ship, get paid a lot more. There were
a lot more job openings versus job hunters. And we've seen that dissipate and so I don't think again, it's as bad as we've seen in slightly more distant history, but it's cold conso right for somebody graduating and saying like, hey, I've got this degree, I'm well prepared. I would make a great employee. And AI is stealing some of those entry level jobs. And just the general economic concerns are causing many employers to, you know, be more careful about
when they're hiring and who they're hiring. It does make me think of just some other something I saw recently, which I think is good advice, is that people should be and I think you and I talked about this, actually, Bill, people should be maybe consider more part time work or contract work, because that might get your foot in the door at a place where you're interested in working and that employer is not making quite the.
Same commitment to you.
But so there's something about, especially in today's environment, getting your foot in the door, having a job in a place where you're interested in working and where you think there's room to grow. And I do think at times it is this mix of like a difficult employment economy and also maybe really really high expectations.
From certain young young workers.
I was talking to an older lady in my neighborhood the other day, and she was like, man, I just see this unwillingness, like this desire for young people they graduate college and they're like, yeah, I want to work from home five days a week.
Yeah, yeah, you know there are some of that.
Yeah, we got the entitlement titlement issue going on too, and that's something else to talk about that we're going to over the next month, two months, six months, all right, Joel, this headline I kind of find interesting. Customers are feeling discount fatigue. And as I asked just before we went to break, how can anybody feel fatigue getting discounts?
Explain that one to me.
Yeah, it's a good question.
I think I see this from multiple angles, and I do think that there is a certain amount of just there's so many sales now, right, there's Prime Day, and now Prime Day is twice a year, and it's like Black Friday is no longer a single day. It's now kind of a seasonal event and it basically kicks off here as November starts, and it you know, runs through
the beginning of December. And so it used to be like a few days that you had to pay attention to and now retailers are like around every major holiday and their own concocted holidays, they're coming up with different ways to try to entice you to buy stuff at a discount.
And I it's I think it's harder than ever.
You would have thought that the advent of the Internet, we would have it'd be so much easier to price shop and say is this actually is this deal actually a deal? There they're you know, the one I'm getting in my email inbox or the one that my favorite
website is trying to get me to click on. And it's actually harder in so many ways to know whether or not a good price that you're being pitched is actually a good price, or if it's if it's actually more expensive than it was let's say three weeks six weeks ago, and they're making it seem like it's a deal, and so much of that comes down to MSRP, whether or not it's it's legitimate or not. And so it's oh, it's sixty percent off, but what you know, what are
they actually charge for it? Most time, maybe it's actually more only more like ten percent off. So I do think it's getting harder and harder for individual shoppers to know whether deal is a deal, and it feels like they're getting inundated with quote unquote deals.
All the time.
Yeah, and the other side of that coin, and I am guilty of this. I am looking at a product and there are different brands basically does the same thing, and I assume that the more expensive one is the better one, and that's automatic, and I will go for that.
And I've been told over and over again I'm a moron for doing that.
Well, I do think one of the things that this recent survey that kind of talks about deal fatigue points out is that people are making decisions based on value
and quality a little bit more. And I think that points to something else where those the Chinese sites like Timu and she and We've been inundated with stuff and you buy it and it looks so good on the app or on the site where you're shopping, and then it comes to the mail and you're like, oh my gosh, the sizings way off, the materials terrible, and it was really cheap. But this belongs straight in the trash. It
wasn't expensive, but it wasn't worth anything. And I do think that's A really important thing for people to consider, especially as they're making purchases going into the holiday season, is not just the price, but how much actual use
am I going to get out of this product? Like, for instance, I bought one of those kind of pop up tent saunas because I was like, I would want to get in do I like the idea of like getting into sauna before I get into bed, kind of nice and relaxing, And it's fine, but it's kind of cheap. And so really what I need to do if I'm into it is to get a full fledged sawna. Put my money where my mouth is and spend a couple thousand dollars really to get something that I'm going to
use regularly and enjoy. And so I think maybe thinking about the longevity of items that you're buying and not just how to get the absolute lowest price is also it's really worth considering I personal.
Story, just as everybody knows around here. I have just remodeled my house and it's really nice. You'll never be invited to get to go to it, by the way, Joel.
Good to know.
And I bought outdoor furniture, and so I'm looking at outdoor furniture, and I go to Costco and there's a full outdoor set for two eighteen hundred dollars. By contractor who had nothing to do with it, said would you like this to still be here next year?
And I said yeah.
He goes, you're going to have to spend some real money for outdoor furniture that's still going to look good five years, eight years from now. And I sucked it up, per what you were talking about, and frankly, I didn't know you could spend that much money for outdoor furniture.
And that's good.
Outdoor furniture costs insane amounts of money, more so than indoor furniture because of course what it has to deal with with the weather, with the sun.
And he talked me into it.
I spent some real real money about to go to Costco, and I didn't.
And that's that's the old the buy once, cry once sort of way of thinking about things. And I think we should probably all be more prone to thinking that way, even about.
Something as simple as our wardrobe.
It's like I used to buy the like fifteen to twenty dollars pairs of jeans, and I was like, man, these things like they're misshapen. They don't last very long. And then I like stepped up my game and I bought jeans. Were like, you know, sixty seventy eighty bucks. I'm like, I wear I wear jeans every.
Day and stop there, Joel, you can stop too much hair. Yeah, Costco fifteen dollars shirts are fabulous. The Kirkland jeans are wonderful. Really, yeah, they're they're frozen. To try it out, they're frozen. Burritos are incredible. It's let me tell you, try it out. Fifteen bucks for a shirt and you'll be surprised. Okay, all right, yeah, give it a shot. I'm all for saving money.
I do want people well.
It is I mean, this is I mean it's actually good quality stuff.
It is not garbage. Especially the breath signature box briefs are excellent too.
Yeah.
Yeah, they just did that. Although again, now I'm gonna talk about my underwear. All right, Okay, underwear story. I just I used to buy du Luth underwear actually was given to me by a friend of mine, and those are twenty bucks a pair, and I bought a couple of them as they wore out after months and months of the elasticity going and I ended up going to Costco and buying the Haines six pack for less money than a single pair of underwear costs with the louth.
I'll tell you there's a difference. Now, is it worth that much more?
No? And then that's part of the formula is how long is it going to be worth?
How good is.
It versus expensive inexpensive? But I'll let you figure that out. Just remember Costco clothes, Costco burritos. We'll catch you next week, Joel and Sunday morning, twelve, two pm right here on KFI. All Right, DEI as the president came into power. I mean he first of all campaigned anti DEI, and the first day he came into power, Uh, the executive direction started flowing against anything and everything DEI corporations, schools, and
it went straight down the line. Someone I've known for a very long time, Heather Cox, who is the co founder and president of a company called Certify. My company is with us and Heather. I've known Heather almost since she's been in diapers. By the way, so I just wanted to embarrass you that.
Way, Heather. That's okay.
So first of all, talk.
About what the company does, and what you know your involvement with corporations, because that's what this is about. And then we're going to come back and probably talk about how DEI has a you your company and explaining there are a couple aspects of this that are being conflated by the government and by private business. So tell me about certifying my company.
So the certify my company. We are a boutique consulting firm and we work with underestimated entrepreneurs, small, local, diverse businesses and help them get the certifications they need to prove that they have the ability to do the work
with large companies, mostly Fortune one thousand. We work with the Fortune one thousand companies and in the whole sphere there to ensure that their supply chain reflects their customer base and it gets the most value out of it by diversifying who they work with.
Now you we talked many, many times about this, and you help minority companies do this, primarily women owned companies.
Do I have that right?
Well, it's women, ethnic minorities, LGBT better than people with disabilities, so it's across the gamut. We do all the different demographics.
Okay, but this is these are what Theronald Trump would say, DEI programs that you are basically helping get certified to certify my company.
So the major.
Corporations hire those companies, employ those companies. And this is what's the fascinating part is do you need the certification you go to Amazon for example, and here you are a minority company. Is that a different process than just here's a company and I want your business?
Well, yes and no. So you do not need any of the certifications to do business with these organizations. What's the certification? And there's many certifications out there which would be too long to give into. There's many certifications. So let's say I want to get Women's Business Enterprise certified through the Women's Business Enterprise National Counsel, the gold standard
across the country. I get certified through the organization to prove that my company is owned, operate, and controlled by one or more women. That gives me a path to meet with companies who are looking to work with all different types of business to cast the why does net possible to find the best possible supplier with the best value for their business units? So there's no guarantee in there. No one's saying like Oh hew, there's a woman owned business.
We're gonna get her the contract, even though she's not as good and more expensive. That is not how this works. And I think it's hysterical that anyone would think that's how it works.
You know. But when I hear what you say, you are pushing a women's or a LGBTQ owned company to well, as Trump would say, and I agree with him, because you want to step up. You do want an advantage over a company that just walks in and says, hey, I can sell you pencils at this price, versus one of your clients that say I can sell you pencils at.
This price and I am minority owned.
Right. Well, look, all things being equal, there is oftentimes an advantage to working with a diverse owned business. First of all, all corporations want to make sure they're reflecting their customer base, right, I mean, look what happened with Target versus Costco. Okay, we everyone wants to see who they're selling to and who they're working with. So we're not saying you have to work with us because there are women own but if you're you have to go
through the procurement process. Right in any company that has a procurement process. It's not going to matter. I'm not going to say, oh, you get ten points more because you're women owned. It comes down to who gives the best service the best value, and there's always some other differentiators in there, and so it's not that you're going to get a bit, you're gonna get some over a competitor who's not women owned. There's going to be other
differentiators in there. So it's all things being equal. But what happens is people can't even get in the door because so many of these people who are doing the buying, they are just going to the same people over and over and over again.
Okay, but again I'm going to go back to.
The argument is that is if you give there's an advantage that you give your companies that I, for example, want to sell the same product at the same price, that you have an advantage. Your clients have an advantage over me because these companies have a program which I thought was kind of neat to help people organizations that heretofore didn't have a door that could be opened up. And I think that's the argument, why should your people get any kind of a break over mine?
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