Fellow Investor,

Welcome to another edition of PowerTalk, where we bring you insightful conversations with key business people and other subject matter experts that take you behind the scenes and in the know. As always the goal is to arm you with an informed perspective and data points that lead to better investing decisions.  

I’m your host Chris Versace, Editor of the investing newsletter PowerTrend Profits - be sure to check out ChrisVersace.com for more on that and be sure to sign up for my free weekly e-letter while your there.

Joining me this week is NY Times best-selling author Daniel Pink. You’ve probably read his best selling books Drive or A Whole New Mind or caught him on CNBC, CNN or another network. Today we’re going to talk about his new book - To Sell is Human.  Not only is it a great read, but Dan brings together an astonishing amount of data and presents it in a clear and crisp fashion. Whether its talking about how we are all salespeople in one form or another or how technology -- smartphones and the Internet for example - are changing the role of sales and sales people, Dan addresses it all. He even has rechristend that famous Alec Baldwin saying in the hit movie Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross from “A - Always, B - Be, C - Closing” to “Attunement, Buoyancy and Clarity.” All that and we also touch on what all of this means for companies like Tupperware (TUP), Herbalife (HLF), Nu Skin (NUS) and Avon Products (AVP) among other sales organizations.  

As always, we cover a lot of ground so let’s get to it and remember to pick up Dan’s new book -- To Sell is Human at a bookstore near you or download it from Amazon or Apple’s iBooks.

Fellow Investor,

This week’s PowerTalk interview is with Patrick Sweeney, President and CEO of dwinQ, a social media product placement company.  He’s also the author of RFID for Dummies and a frequent speaker on technology’s impact on business and life.

Be it Facebook (FB), Instagram, LinkedIn (LNKD), Google+ (GOOG), Twitter, Pinterest or any other one you can name, social media is changing how we communicate and interact with family, friends, co-workers, products and brands. It’s making for some big business.  Research firm BIA/Kelsey forecasts U.S. social media ad revenues to reach $9.2 billion in 2016, up from $4.6 billion in 2012 - that’s a compound annual growth rate of 19.2%. Impressive but again that’s just in the U.S and social media is part of a global shift in behavior that is  a cornerstone of my Always On, Always Connected PowerTrend.

Patrick explains how dwinQ is showing companies like Disney, Cadbury, Vail Resorts, and Heineken how to leverage social media to build their brands and enhance their customers’ experiences.  He also shares his perspective on a number of companies being impacted by social media - companies like Costco (COST) and Amazon.com (AMZN) as well as Facebook (FB) and talks on the multiplier benefit associated with sponsored events and social media marketing. 

It’s a fascinating look at how social media and technology are combining to change the way companies do business. 

Fellow Investor,

This week’s PowerTalk interview is with Keith Bliss, Senior Vice President at Cuttone and Company, one of the largest floor brokers on the NYSE.   Keith is an old friend of mine, and he shares what he sees from the trading floor these days.  He starts the conversation off by saying 2013 is shaping up to deliver a lot more of the same for investors as 2012 – mixed economic signals, political battles and all.

We also cover why the U.S. equity markets are still the best place to put your money, how to put ETFs to work for you, the risks investors face in 2013, the looming debt ceiling crisis and how you could be affected if Washington doesn’t get a deal in place, taxes, unemployment and more!

Finally, we take a look at the potential threats that Keith believes could derail the markets and the economy in 2013, including energy costs, politics and currency wars. 

Sincerely,

Chris Versace

Fellow Investor,

This week’s PowerTalk interview is with Gary Shapiro, President and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, an industry trade group boasts more than 2,000 members – from startup entrepreneurs to Google.  Gary is also the author of two books – The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream and the upcoming Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World’s Most Successful Businesses, due out on January 8^th.

These days consumer electronics make up what I call “the new fabric of our lives”, with the average American family having 25 consumer electronic products.  In fact, data shows that 3 out of 4 holiday gift givers plan to buy an electronic product this year.  Gary takes us through some of the big products of the season.

We’ll also talk about what to expect at the widely anticipated Consumer Electronics Show coming up in January.  It’s the world’s largest annual trade show with 3,000 exhibitors and over 160,000 people from various parts of the electronics industry in attendance.  This year’s hot topics are expected to include new “Ultra HD” high resolution TVs, wireless healthcare (a key driver of my Living Longer Lives PowerTrend), touch and gesture technologies and automotive consumer electronics.

Gary’s 20 years of experience with consumer electronics have given him some fascinating insights into the role technology and innovation plays in driving our country and our economy forward.  The interview is a wonderful talk on how consumer electronics have come to permeate every facet of our lives, so let’s get too it.

It’s a fascinating interview that provides serious insights into a company with plenty of room to run – and a clear plan for exactly where they want to go, and how they are going to get there.

Sincerely,

Chris Versace

Host and Executive Producer, PowerTalk 

Press Contact:

Alberto Rojas

arojas@eaglepub.com

Welcome to PowerTalk, where we talk with CEOs, COOs and other key business people at public and private companies as well as other subject matter experts.

This week we’re talking with Smith & Wesson President and CEO James Debney, who is leading the company to impressive new growth. Smith & Wesson is in the perfect position to profit from my Safety and Security PowerTrend.

In the interview we cover:

• how Smith & Wesson is profiting from strong firearm sales and shifting gun ownership demographics
• the growing demand for firearms, as evidenced by the chart below

• their strategy for continuing to improve margins and grow earnings
• Plus how they plan to increase market share

It’s a great conversation with James so lets lock and load and get right to it!
In case you missed it, click here to listen to last week’s PowerTalk interview with Mobile Payment expert Matt Jacobson.

For more on Chris Versace and PowerTrends, click here. Or visit www.ChrisVersace.com

Press Contact:

Alberto Rojas

arojas@eaglepub.com

Welcome to PowerTalk, where we talk with CEOs, COOs and other key business people at public and private companies as well as other subject matter experts.

This week we’re talking with someone I’ve known for some time -  Matt Jacobson, Venture Partner at Acta Wireless. Matt’s expertise is in mobile. mobile payments and mobile commerce.  In the interview we cover:

• how people are paying with their mobile devices – be it with PayPal, Square, their Starbucks mobile app, Google Wallet and a host of others.
• the Cashless Consumption PowerTrend shift including the companies offering payment apps as well as companies like Verifone and Ingenico that make the point of sale equipment.
• Plus integrated mobile commerce like couponing and Apple’s Passbook offering.

As you’ll hear, Matt thinks we’re in the early innings of mobile commerce and a lot is going to happen…. Click here to play the interview

Fellow investors,

I recently spoke with Bahram Yusefzadeh, Chairman and CEO of Red Lambda, and William Ronca, EVP - Global Sales, Marketing and Business Development at Red Lambda, about the use of Big Data and Cyber Security. In information technology lingo, big data is a loosely-defined term used to describe data sets so large and complex that they become awkward to work with using on-hand database management tools. Difficulties include capture, storage, search, sharing, analysis, and visualization

Yet Red Lambda has harnessed the power of big data to move Cyber Security from being reactive to being proactive. As I say, you react with a good defense, but to be secure you have to be proactive and Red Lambda is using that to differentiate its solutions from others including Sourcefire (FIRE), Symantec (SYMC),  Fortinet (FTNT) and others. With cyber attacks hitting institutions of all sizes - from Google (GOOG) to Northrop Grumman (NOC) the stakes are high as we increasingly move into the digital world and migrate more of our data into the cloud be it with Apple (AAPL), Google, Amazon.com (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT) or others.  

Listen up.

Press Contact:

Alberto Rojas

arojas@eaglepub.com

Hey everyone,

I recently spoke with Stephen Candelmo, the CEO and one of the founders of Klaggle. Your probably wondering  much the way I did when I first heard that word a- what's a klaggle? Well Stephen sets us straight on that as well as tells us not only what the company is doing but how it's solutions will change the way we shop and find content online. In short, Klaggle could one day be a verb much the way we use "Google" as a word - "I'll just google it" could one day be "I better klaggle that."

Big implications for movies, music, books, and other online shopping experiences so watch out Amazon, Best Buy and HH Gregg, but it doesn't stop there and as you'll see, it has implications for news, magazines and more.

Give it a listen.

Press Contact:

Alberto Rojas

arojas@eaglepub.com