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THE U.S. NATIONAL DEBT…

Our Shame & Embarrassment.

Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

The U.S. national debt has become a shame and embarrassment to our country, and is now in excess of $22.2 Trillion.  Never before in the history of this world has any nation piled on so high a debt load as the U.S., and it keeps on growing and growing.  Read this page on the U.S. debt on Wikipedia, and watch this interview with Jim Rickards on the state of our economy, our national debt, and the reality of our financial markets.

The question many people have is, “So what does that mean to me?”  It means your financial future and your children’s financial future are at stake!  The value of the assets we own (with the exception of precious metals…gold/silver etc./and perhaps a few others) will not retain their value in the next economic meltdown.  Right now we are enjoying the “eye of the financial storm.” To the general public, nothing appears to be wrong.  There’s no financial crisis going on (yet), and life seems to be just plugging along just fine.  Is it…really?  If you look at the foundation of our economy, it paints quite a different picture. (Unfortunately, the foundation of the U.S. economy is debt.)  Isn’t this the same perception the public had before each financial crisis including the Dot Com crisis in 2000, and most recent economic collapse back in 2008? 

Back in 2008, our national debt was approximately $8.5 Trillion.  It took nearly 200 years of this country’s history to pile-up $8.5 Trillion in debt.  Now…Nearly 11 years later it has more than DOUBLED, mushrooming to more than $22.2 Trillion.  Still think that’s OK?  Or…Are we just plugging along with our financial and business senses buried in the sand?

Source: Wikipedia

So…Let me ask you a few simple questions:

  1. Do you believe everything is just fine financially in this country?
  2. How will you personally be impacted by this gargantuan mountain of debt?
  3. What are you doing right now to financially prepare your family and your business for the next financial crisis?

As the old saying goes, “Those who ignore history are destined to repeat it.”  We as individuals need to take personal responsibility for ourselves and our financial future, now.  We would recommend that you meet with your trusted financial advisers very soon, and have them explain to you just how they have guided you and have structured your current investment portfolio to protect you in the next financial crisis.  If they don’t include having a significant portion of your portfolio held in precious metals (gold…physical gold, not gold stocks), then in our humble business opinion, your downside is not protected.

As we always tell our readers, “Don’t rely on others (including us!)…Think for yourselves, do your own research on the U.S. National Debt,” then compare it with the guidance from your trusted advisers.  Then make your own decision and accept the consequences and responsibilities from your own choices.

GMS BUSINESS CONSULTING, INC. – provides lawyers/law firms and business professionals with Accounting Services, Business Development Services, Business Optimization Services, and Digital Marketing Services to help business professionals successfully manage and grow their businesses more effectively and efficiently.  We do NOT provide investment advice.  Contact Us  if you are interested in learning more about our services, and in particular about M.A.P. (our 3-phase business development & management solution), designed to help you strategically focus and tactically grow your business.  We would welcome the opportunity to speak with you.

info@gmsbusinessconsulting.com

707-218-3135

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Digital Marketing Your Law Practice

Today’s post on Digital Marketing Your Law Practice is not focused on addressing our current clients, rather to the professionals we’ve been in touch with for the past two years.  More specifically, this post is focused on attorneys and business professionals within medium to large law firms… 

To those we’ve been in touch with over the past two years, we know that you…your practice has a digital presence on your firm’s website…obviously…we’ve viewed your web page.

We found you NOT because our internet search led us to you, rather, one of our staff was commissioned to look at all the professionals in your firm.  This took valuable staff time researching and clicking through various links and pages to finally arrive at your web page. That is NOT how prospective clients (outside your firm/direct contacts) seeking the services you provide would likely find you.  It’s an EXTREMELY inefficient manner to find you if someone is seeking an attorney with your expertise.  You deserve better, and we can help your target market, prospective clients more easily find you…  Keep in mind, your direct buyer most likely isn’t conducting the search…  If they haven’t received a direct referral from one of their sources, then the search is being conducted by an associate.  How would they find you amongst the sea of attorneys in your location with your expertise?  Chances are they won’t.  We can help potential clients find you, AND we can help you better promote you/your practice to strategic contacts within your centers of influence.

So long as your firm permits you to independently establish a Digital Marketing (DM) Plan and supporting DM Campaigns for your practice that are compliant with firm policies and lead prospective clients to your specific web page within your firm’s website…then we can help you.  Our team of DM experts can design, develop, implement, manage and monitor laser-focused DM Campaigns focused strictly on you…your practice, your expertise, and your value-proposition to direct your target market to your specific web page within your firm’s website.  The DM Plan and Campaigns our team designs will result in an increased number of relevant, focused target market contacts contacting you, ultimately resulting in new clients for you.  And our support doesn’t stop there!

At GMS Business Consulting, Inc. we provide consulting services to help optimize how you manage, market and grow YOUR specific law practice within your firm through our Digital Marketing Services and Business Development Services.  To learn more about our Digital Marketing Services and our Business Development Services (using M.A.P.), please Contact Us…We would welcome the opportunity to speak with you.

 

GMS BUSINESS CONSULTING, INC. – provides lawyers and business professionals with Accounting Services, Business Development Services, Business Optimization Services and Digital Marketing Services to help business professionals successfully organize, grow, manage and operate their businesses more effectively and efficiently.  We do NOT provide investment advice.  Contact Us  if you are interested in learning more about our services, and in particular about M.A.P. (our 3-phase business development & management solution), designed to help you strategically focus and tactically grow your business.  We would welcome the opportunity to speak with you.

info@gmsbusinessconsulting.com

707-218-3135

GMS Business Consulting No Comments

FACEBOOK – HOW SECURE IS YOUR DATA?

Sandy Parakilas in San Francisco. ‘It has been painful watching. Because I know that they could have prevented it.’ Photograph: Robert Gumpert

Do you think your Facebook account data is stored, secured and kept private only at Facebook?  Think again!  This is not only a warning for Facebook users, this is a warning for all users of any social media platform or user of any other technology company’s software that we routinely and blindly grant permission and access to our personal data.  If you think this is just a Facebook issue…Think again.

Good Morning Everyone!  Think of all the information you post on your Facebook account or any other social media platform…  You assume that the only company who stores your account data and has access to your personal data is Facebook or the platform you’re currently using, right?  Wrong…  Do you ever wonder who else may have access to your data other than Facebook and why?   Why do they have access to it and what are they’re using it for…without your knowledge or permission?  You should be concerned.  We should all be concerned.  This ARTICLE  posted by (Paul Lewis in San Francisco – The Guardian – Tuesday, March 20, 2018) is about a former insider at Facebook who details the lack of security at the worlds most popular social media platform in the world.

We can’t adequately express our concern over data security at Facebook better than Sandy Parakilas, formerly the platform operations manager at Facebook responsible for policing data breaches by third-party software developers between 2011 and 2012.  The insight that Parakilas shares with us should be of no surprise to some of us.  However, the general public and the youth are most likely not aware of this issue that centers around data security and and privacy, and what breaches in these areas can result in further down the road, particularly in identity theft and abuse of our personal information.  Listen to this particular interview below with Christopher Wylie formerly with Cambridge Analytica (this interview is in the article itself too):

Today’s post centers on Facebook, however it has far broader implications that we’re drawing your attention to.  Daily, we download and update apps to our desktops and smartphones and post all kinds of information with a complete lack of understanding as to what we’re granting access to, and blindly granting permissioned access to second and third party organizations.  All the permissions and stipulations may be well buried in the details of the user agreement policy’s “fine-print” that we all so easily “Accept” as terms and conditions for using/downloading/updating our apps.

We’re really disappointed that the legal community hasn’t put all their brain power together to create and enforce “simple”, straight-forward options that on the one hand would protect individual users data privacy rights, and at the same time provide their clients with business opportunities to sell/share/market account users data (if granted permission by users in clearly defined options).  All that would be needed, is to REQUIRE all organizations wanting to sell/share or market their client data, to place two options before hitting the “Accept” or “Decline” options such as:

  1. An “OPT-OUT” option should be made available for personal data to NOT be stored/shared/used by any second or third party…and WITHOUT being denied use of the app.  In exchange for this option, the organization may provide a software version that has ads or they can charge a small fee to use the app w/all the updates and features.  These software options somewhat exist today with free or paid software on our smartphones.  HOWEVER… the lack of data rights is NOT spelled-out clearly and upfront, yet is buried in the details of user agreements, and if you don’t “Accept” the ENTIRE user agreement, then you can’t use the software.  This option would fairly address both sides of the issue.
  2. An “Opt-In” option should be made available for those individuals who don’t mind their data being sold/mined/shared/and marketed by 2nd or 3rd parties, and in exchange, they would have software apps that don’t run ads on their smartphones/computers or that this option allows them to purchase the app for free.

Again, these options somewhat exist today.  However, the one major component missing for the consumer is the ability to choose up-front, transparent “data privacy options” granting organizations permission as to how their personal data can be used, including storage/ sharing/ accessing/ mining/ selling/ and marketing of their personal data.  So, why not standardize the Opt-In/Opt-Out permission options?  Clearly stated data privacy options presented upfront and with transparency would allow consumers to better manage the privacy of their data privacy without denying them usage of software simply because they don’t want their data shared.  We think this is a reasonable approach.  What do you think?

Once again, this breach of data privacy at Facebook is only a wake-up-call… a warning to all of us to press companies and law makers to do a better job of securing our personal data, and give us the option to either opt-in or opt-out how our data can be used.

A second and equally important issue is, standardizing “how” businesses should secure client data…and our rights to data privacy, but these topics are for another discussion at another time…  Until then, we encourage you to read this Article from the Guardian to better inform yourself, then make a better decision as to how you use Facebook and other social media platforms and software going forward.

GMS Business Consulting – provides lawyers and business professionals with Accounting Services, Business Development Services, Business Optimization Services and Digital Marketing Services to help business professionals successfully organize, grow and operate their businesses more effectively and efficiently.  We do NOT provide investment advice.  Contact Us  if you are interested in learning more about our services, and in particular about M.A.P.(our 3-phase business development solution), designed to help you strategically focus and tactically grow your business.  We would welcome the opportunity to speak with you.

info@gmsbusinessconsulting.com

707-218-3135

John 14:15