{"id":2050,"date":"2009-06-11T13:15:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-11T18:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/06\/optimism-defined\/"},"modified":"2009-06-11T13:14:39","modified_gmt":"2009-06-11T18:14:39","slug":"optimism-defined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/06\/optimism-defined\/","title":{"rendered":"Optimism Defined"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The epitome of optimism \u2013 a headline from <a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Business\/Economy\/story?id=7812900&amp;page=1\" target=\"_blank\">abcnews.com<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Has the Recession Finally Ended?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I guess you could characterize this as \u201ctalking up\u201d the economy.\u00a0 Here is one paragraph from the article that made me laugh (emphasis mine):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Today also brought some positive news from the much-battered retail sector. For the first time in three months, retail sales in May rose, by 0.5 percent, according to the Commerce Department. <em>The sales were pushed higher by increased demand for new cars and <strong>sales at gas stations<\/strong>.<\/em> It was the largest increase since sales rose 1.7 percent in January following six straight monthly declines. While this is good news, part of the jump can be attributed to a recent spike in gas prices which isn&#8217;t helping average consumers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;Sales at gas stations&#8221; is clearly the spike in prices as the last sentence states.\u00a0 That would actually be working against consumers and the economy.\u00a0 A .5% increase could clearly be nothing more than a spike in gas prices, couldn&#8217;t it?<\/p>\n<p>My discussions with candidates has been fairly consistent &#8211; the economy is brutal and another spike in gas prices like last year would be a tremendous blow.\u00a0 Telecommuting jobs will be in even higher demand if\u00a0a significant\u00a0gas price increase occurs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The epitome of optimism \u2013 a headline from abcnews.com: Has the Recession Finally Ended? I guess you could characterize this as \u201ctalking up\u201d the economy.\u00a0 Here is one paragraph from the article that made me laugh (emphasis mine): Today also brought some positive news from the much-battered retail sector. For the first time in three months, retail sales in May rose, by 0.5 percent, according to the Commerce Department. The sales were pushed higher by increased demand for new cars and sales at gas stations. It was the largest increase since sales rose 1.7 percent in January following six straight monthly declines. While this is good news, part of the&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/06\/optimism-defined\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12,49,2],"tags":[1346,49,1345,248],"class_list":["post-2050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anecdotes","category-economy","category-hiring","tag-economic-indicators","tag-economy","tag-end-of-recession","tag-recession"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-x4","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1614,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/06\/gas-prices-and-work-trends\/","url_meta":{"origin":2050,"position":0},"title":"Gas Prices And Work Trends","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 12, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Gas prices are driving companies to adjust their reimbursement policy for outside salespeople.\u00a0 We have seen a handful of salespeople who have taken a real hit due to the fact they are on a monthly car allowance and not mileage reimbursement. Telecommuting is already grabbing a larger foothold in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Team Management&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Team Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/team-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2341,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2010\/05\/sales-departure-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":2050,"position":1},"title":"Sales Departure Time","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I do think there is an impending, colossal jump of sales talent in the very near future.\u00a0 The Herman Trend Alert speaks to this potential in their latest report: According to a new CareerBuilder survey, more than one-quarter (28 percent) of sales employers are concerned about losing their high performing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Economy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2054,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/06\/adjusting-a-sales-process-for-this-recession\/","url_meta":{"origin":2050,"position":2},"title":"Adjusting A Sales Process For This Recession","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 15, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The thought of retiring is going to be a novel idea in the near future, at least according to a new abcnews.com poll.\u00a0 In a recent survey of Americans (my bold): Half the population in this new ABC News poll thinks both job security and retirement prospects in the years\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1414,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/02\/whats-hot-in-a-recession\/","url_meta":{"origin":2050,"position":3},"title":"What&#8217;s Hot In A Recession","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"February 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"More stories are appearing that address \"recession-proof jobs\" in response to our slowing economy.\u00a0 Timely titles for sure, but one position is always recession-proof and that is sales; specifically successful sales. Case in point, Job Hunting in a Recession from The Wall Street Journal: Target critical posts. \"The safest jobs\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2173,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/11\/when-will-it-end\/","url_meta":{"origin":2050,"position":4},"title":"When Will It End?","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"November 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The Great Recession roars on during this holiday season.\u00a0 Our company is focused on sales hiring, both assessing candidates for our customers and running full recruiting processes.\u00a0 The hiring outlook is of great importance to us and a topic I try to track closely. That being said, this abcnews.com article\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Economy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2015,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/05\/do-values-change-in-a-recession\/","url_meta":{"origin":2050,"position":5},"title":"Do Values Change In A Recession?","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 6, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"That is a tough question since I think values are primarily hardwired into each of us.\u00a0 We assess this trait in sales candidates \u2013 call them motivations.\u00a0 Each person tends to have two of these motivators that drives their behaviors (some people have 3 primary motivators). We have assessed salespeople\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Assessing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Assessing","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/assessing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2050"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2052,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2050\/revisions\/2052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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