Rich Sweum's Blog

Richard Sweum : Business Planning is Critical to Success and Failure. Every Thanksgiving week I dust off my previous years business plans as well as the business plan that I created for the current year.  Typically, the last time that I have used/reviewed my current years business plan is July or...

Richard Sweum :  Thanksgiving Week… a New Business Plan Cycle. The week of Thanksgiving provides a mental and emotional conclusion to the previous year.  It’s a time of reflection, evaluation, and provides a little bit of business downtime (who really can do any work on the Wednesday before Thank...

Richard Sweum :  Would you really be better off if you had sold in 2007? “If I could turn back time!”  I can’t believe that I know the melody to the chorus of a Cher song, crazy…what is crazier is that I can actually remember watching the Sonny and Cher Variety show on our 19” B&W TV that got 5 c...

Richard Sweum :  Grading our economy on a curve! I’m old enough to have gone to public school when many teachers still graded on a curve.  I found a great deal of comfort in knowing that as I sat in the fat part of the curve, short of an “A” there were many kids in my class who were looking to th...

Richard Sweum : In honor of service, Veterans Day. Veteran’s Day.  It has been said, always show more kindness than appears to be due, because it is likely that the one in need of kindness needs more than they make known.   Most Vet’s you run into don’t seem to need any affirmation, there is a qu...

Richard Sweum : Instruction—National Trends, do they Trickle Down? We have heard it many times before, real estate trends are as local as your neighborhood.  I have a friend in southwest Washington and he keeps asking me when home prices in his area are going to start going up.  He reads the head...

Richard Sweum :  Obamanomics and the impact on housing. I am not sure if I have heard anyone use that term before, so I’ll claim it as my own until proven otherwise.  I have already submitted a few words to Websters for inclusion in the English language, and a couple are actually under considerat...

Richard Sweum : Jobs, Jobs Reports and Surfing! I had the good fortune of attending a pretty darn good university, Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma Washington, during the late eighties and early nineties.  Thirty years removed, one of the things I appreciate about the experience is that it g...

Richard Sweum : the ups and the downs of Housing when natural disasters strike. Painful and tragic.  Knowing that so many peoples’ homes were destroyed, not to mention livelihoods that are forever gone, sad, very sad.  To even consider looking for a silver lining before all of the dead have been ...

Richard Sweum : Happy(?) Halloween and the Economic take-aways. Growing up, Halloween was a big deal.  I trick-or-treated from 1969 to 1980, and have a smattering of memories from the holiday events, some of which have lessons built in to them.  I know, way to ruin a simple holiday with life less...