Silver Linings

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my personal opportunity philosophy borrowed and adapted from Napoleon Hill author of “Think and Grow Rich” and student of many of this century’s early success stories including Andrew Carnegie.

Reading an article on Bloomberg today, I found more evidence that this philosophy is true.

There, almost buried beneath dozens of stories about the bad economy, slumping housing prices, and falling consumer spending was an article about one toy manufacturer who is enjoying a banner year in spite of (or maybe because of) the changing economic conditions.

Lego A/S, the company that makes Legos, is enjoying a record sales gain this year as parents who are presumably cash strapped are looking to buy toys for their children that will last according to the head of the company’s America’s unit.

According to Soren Torp Laursen, Lego’s total sales growth will top its August projection by 12%, stating that the company has experienced an “exceptional” year in the United States and the UK.

“We braced ourselves for fairly tough conditions because the macro-economic picture was not looking very good,” Laursen said yesterday. “Much to our surprise, our demand actually started to accelerate as the market conditions became powerful.”

All 3 companies who manufacture snap together blocks for children are enjoying great years.  Chris Byrne, a New York based toy analyst noted that building sets typically do well in a down economy because families that already own building sets can add to them. 

“Parents and kids already have an investment in the property,” said Byrne. “You add a new set to it and the whole set becomes relevant and new again.”

While toy sales will fall 5% this year overall, it’s projected that building set sales will increase 30%.  That’s a bit of a silver lining in a year when retailers are seeing the largest decline in Christmas spending by consumers in 4 decades according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.

To paraphrase Hill, every storm cloud has a silver lining, but, to identify that silver lining and then capitalize on it requires study and action.  Lego A/S was able to meet rising consumer demand for its product by increasing its manufacturing operations.  Had they continued to do business as usual, they would have missed a great opportunity to add to the company’s bottom line profits.  The company identified the opportunity and then took action to capitalize on it.

To get positive results in a changing economic environment, different behavior is often required. 

Put another way, as the great motivational speaker Zig Ziglar says, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while somehow expecting to get a result that’s different from the results that you’ve always gotten.

As much as the economy has changed already, I believe that greater economic change is still ahead.  With this change, I believe that there will be opportunities to improve your personal financial situation, but different behavior will be required.

Here’s a holiday question for you.  In this climate of extraordinary change, how does your personal financial situation look when comparing it to one year ago?  Have you survived these changes?  Have you capitalized on them?

If no, you can explore some new possibilities here:  www.usawealthmanagement.com

Happy Holidays.

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