Motley Fool Money - Motley Fool Money: 11.04.2011

Episode Date: November 4, 2011

The European financial crisis escalates. The U.S. jobless rate falls to a six-month low. Groupon goes public. Starbucks reports big earnings. And Bank of America cancels plans to charge debit card users. Our analysts talk about those stories and share some stocks on their radar. Plus, financial radio host and best-selling author Dave Ramsey talks about his new book, EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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From Fool Global Headquarters, this is Motley Fool Money. Welcome to Motley Fool Money. Thanks for being here. I'm your host, Chris Helen, Joining Meen Studio this week. From Motley Fool Hidden Gem, Seth Jason, from Motley Fool Income Investor, James Early, and from Million Dollar portfolio, Ron Gross. Guys, good to see you as always. Good to see you, Chris.

We have got Starbucks earnings, Kellogg's earnings, and Groupon's IPO. We've got best-selling author and radio host Dave Ramsey, and as always, a few stocks on our radar. But we begin with the big macro. We will start with Greece. A chaotic week with Prime Minister Papandreou scrapping plans for the referendum vote on the bailout agreement that he had announced earlier in the week. James, as of this taping, it appears as though the EU bailout package is going to be approved. What do you make? Well, yeah, Greece is what happens when you take a bunch of countries that can't agree on anything

and try to get them to agree about a country, which itself can agree on anything. Finally, Greece has agreed on something, which is to not do the referendum. And it looks like Pepindra will be out. The opposition does support the EU package reluctantly, but that is huge because it looks like Greece won't be leaving the EU. And investors are going to like that certainty. Well, there was no mechanism for them to leave, so that would have been a lot to make up. To back up one step, if you're late to this news, the prime minister was it? He came and he said, well, we're going to put this austerity,

stuff to a vote and the people in Greece are already really ticked off. So you ask a bunch of people, do you want your wages cut even further and your taxes to go up more? The answer is obviously going to be known. Start paying taxes in the first place. Yeah. And that's what through the markets into a turmoil. James's takeaway there is sort of right. The other takeaway is that the Germans and the French and the others who loaned the Greece all this money, they really need to stop with the shaking their fingers. It takes two to get this kind of a debt bubble and they made really bad loans. It's like given a bottle of vodka and the keys to your sports car to a 15-year-old with a learner's permit and then getting upset when they come back, you know, beat up and wrecked.

So it's one of those like, what did you expect to have happened? Haircuts need to happen, and the Greeks aren't the only ones who should have to pay for this problem. The Labor Department reported 80,000 jobs were added in October. Unemployment ticks down slightly to 9% run. Yeah. Better than nothing, yes? Better than nothing, a little less than expected.

So modest job creation in October, more importantly for me, is the upward revisions of previous months showing a nice trend. So we've got slow GDP growth, but we have growth. We have the unemployment rate coming down slowly, but jobs being created. Leads me to believe perhaps a double-dip recession is less on the table than it was before. I'm feeling a little better this week than in the previous week. For those not here in the studio, Ron has been gesticulating as he's making the points with me. He really believes.

I really truly believe it. Normally he's just picking his nose. We did, however, this week. week see that across the seas in Germany, Germany had its first rise in unemployment in 18 months. How, geez, that austerity works out great. Yeah, it does. Just getting started. How concerned should U.S. investors be about the unemployment situation in Germany? A little bit is not a problem. A lot could be. I don't think we'll see a correlation if it's just a minor, minor problem, but if Europe enters a major recession, I don't see how we can avoid one ourselves. The thing to be a little

more worried about is over here. If you look at the report, you see the construction and government employment down construction. No surprise. Stimulist money for those kind of stuff is gone. Home building, that kind of thing hasn't come back. Hiring is still okay in services and health care. But if you're one of those people out there who's saying cut government, cut government, cut government, that's probably going to keep continue happening, but you don't get to then also wind that the unemployment rate is going up. That's a very good point. Because that's a given. You can't get both. No. You're listening to Motley Fool Money? We're here. every week. But for daily analysis on the latest

money news, you can check out our daily podcast Market Foolery on iTunes. And if you want to see videos of Ron just... Justiculating. Just wildly. Just not taking his nose. We have started videotaping our podcast and our weekly radio show. You can check

all of that out at fooltv.com. It's a rare treat. Groupon. Finally went public Friday morning. The company raised 700 million from the IPO. Of a $13 billion. A billion just ain't what it used to be. shares started out at 20 and before noon had spiked up as much as 50%.

Seth? The lone Groupon maybe fan? Maybe? I was going to say, you're going to buy some shares? I'm a funky news out this week. There were pictures floating around on the internet. Is it Andrew Mason, the CEO doing yoga naked or not naked? In his underpants in front of a Christmas tree.

That all made me like him more. And the fact, he would spread. So you enjoyed the photo. I enjoyed the photo. He's so weird. I decided I liked him a little bit better. Groupon, the financials, there's some stuff actually to like there, despite the fact, even if you take away that kind of fake revenue that they're reporting before and give the revenue minus the cost, it's still growing really quickly. The gross billings and a lot of their expenses seem to be shrinking. The question for all investors is whether this happens quickly enough and whether the growth continues. And that's the thing I'm most skeptical about. If you look at their subscriber numbers, already 142 million email addresses, they've got probably more by now. I mean, that's a lot. I mean, that's a lot of, that's half of America, right? Can that keep going? I don't really know. So people are betting on

40-percentish growth here, I think, for a long, long time, and I'm not sure it comes. Ron? I feel like there's a business here somewhere. People like these coupons and really want to use them, and they certainly have meaningful revenue that'll do over a billion dollars over the next 12 months. But a $13 billion valuation at the IPO, and of course you just said it was 50% higher perhaps, I don't get there. I can't get there, unless a billion dollars isn't what it used to be. Bigger than Whole Foods right now, market cap wise, right? It's reassuring to see that Americans having lost good old fashion poor judgment when it comes to IPOs. I mean, I agree with Ron. I just can't see how this gets that far. It's worth something. I just don't think this much.

And not only was it to oversubscribe because they went above the range that they were going to price it at, and I believe they added additional shares that they were going to sell. But then the pop after the IPO shows you that it was even more demand for the supply. stock, you know, then maybe that was even anticipated. Investors are just loving this. They didn't float a whole lot of the company. Right. That's true.

When you look at the competitive landscape, you've got Google, obviously, in this space. Living Social, which is backed by Amazon, Amazon's got like a 15, 20 percent stake in that. You've certainly got a lot of local establishments hitting Groupon. But Seth, I'm curious because earlier in the week, Open Table, the online restaurant reservation business, reported their earnings. One of the things that came out was they also announced they're backing off the Daily Deal business, which they had been in. And I'm just like, does that make you... And that is a dynamic that I can't decide if that's good or bad for Groupon.

Facebook, remember, was toying with this and also backed away from its pilot project. And Yelp got out of this business, too. And I think the reason is that this is a horribly expensive thing to do. When it comes down to it, this is good old-fashioned boiler room technology. Groupon has 10,000 employees. They have 10,000 employees. The majority of them sit around calling people and yelling at them over the phone to do a Groupon, right? You're going to do this.

I don't know. I don't know what they sound like, but it's probably not that. It's a reasonable fact simulies. Probably pretty aggressive. And that's horribly expensive. So I think the reason some of these other businesses are backing away is not because this is too difficult a business, but because it probably just doesn't financially make sense. Whether that means Groupon gets everything and it makes sense for them,

whether it means they're going to flame out, I don't know. I want to share an email we got from J.T. who listens to the podcast in Amsterdam. He writes, I hear people in Amsterdam and in other locations I visit in Italy and Germany. Talk about deals they're getting at Groupon all the time. People are nuts for it. A woman who works with me just signed her and her friends up for a pole dancing class. And a few weeks ago...

They tried to do that to us here in D.C. That was big for a long time. A few weeks ago, they hired this party service that drives up in a World War II tank filled with cases of beer to come and ride them around in some field. Maybe it's because in the Netherlands, people are cheap as hell and things only go on sale in July and December, and basically no other time. So it's just different. But just wanted to share a very small slice of perspective from Europe. I am a bit fascinated by these people in my office who are taking pole dancing classes, renting tanks and all sorts of stuff. Discounted pole dance.

Exactly. Yeah. I guess we'll see if it has any real longevity. Well, that is one of the questions. When the Wall Street Journal first talked about Facebook getting into this business, one of the reasons Facebook looked like a good competitor is that a lot of Groupon's store customers were unsatisfied with the targeting they were getting. And they felt like Groupon was only a good way to sort of make a splash and get your name out a single time.

It wasn't a repeat business type situation. And they thought Facebook was much better at consistently getting their ads in front of people who were likely to take it, whereas they thought the Groupon users were just sort of these mercenaries who were going to show up, scuttle off, and never return to the business. We're wrapping up 2011 with a bunch of companies going public, and some of the more notable ones, for better or for worse, are the internet-based ones. So if I were just... I didn't notice, really?

Oh, yeah. So if I were just to... Open table. I'm not suggesting you have to buy them. I'm going to give you shares of an Internet IPO from this year. And in three years, which one do you think is worth the most? No, which shares do we keep is a question? Groupon, LinkedIn, Pandora, or Zillow?

Which are the ones that you think these are going to serve me the best as an investor? Three years from now. You're killing me. I know I am. You're a value guy. You hate this. It's free something. I want to say LinkedIn because they're actually profitable.

They've been profitable for a while, and they've just actually beat estimates the last quarter. You've been following it pretty closely for someone who doesn't hate it. You know, it comes across the screen. I read it. I think Groupon does have, I mean, not after today's pop. We'll see if that comes down. I'd have no interest here. You're forcing me for an answer.

LinkedIn. I'm going LinkedIn. You're going LinkedIn. Resources of revenue and profitable. James? I'm going to go with LinkedIn for the reasons Ron espoused. It does have free cash flow, and that's enough for me. They both give the wrong answer.

The wrong answer. You're getting this stuff for free, so there's no downside. So you pick the one that has the potential for the biggest bang in the next three. years and that's if Groupon keeps going. And if it doesn't, which I think is also a big probability that you don't lose anything. Okay. We'll lock it down. We'll visit it again in three years. A symmetry, right? Coming up, Bank of America faced off against a part-time nanny and Bank of America lost. Details coming up. This is Motley Full Money. Welcome back to Motley Full Money. Chris Hill here in the studio with Seth, Jason, James Early, and Ron Gross. Shares of Starbucks

up on Friday after some strong earnings. Ron, 10% same-store sales growth. That's pretty impressive considering the economy we're in, isn't it? Boy, they are getting it done, which kills me because I sold it $20 ago. Results better than expected. Raise the dividend, 31%. Increased the share buyback program, increasing stores in China. They've got 17,000 stores now. They've got the K-Cups. They got VIA or VIA, depending on how you really and truly pronounce it. How do you pronounce it yourself? Via, I would say. They're pretending to have Italian names for stuff, so it'd be via.

And just, I mean, in the interest of transparency, we made fun of Via. We did. We totally made fun of the instant coffee when they came out, and it's been big for them. They are really, as I like to say, firing on all cylinders. Stocks 13 times EBITDA. It's not crazy. What are they? 25, 26 times earnings. Still not crazy, especially they have a lot of growth in front of them, especially overseas. not too bad. How is their domestic growth, or is that? It seems like most of the sales are strong, but it's just amazing.

Judged by the coffee breath in this office, it is pretty good. They opened up 130 stores in the U.S. recently. When you look at the competitive landscape, I mean, Green Mountain coffee roaster seems to be sort of a different animal with the... And maybe, according to some of the short sellers out there, possibly a fraudulent animal. They're saying, not us. That's what they're saying. It's not us. We're not saying.

And then my beloved Dunkin' Donuts, which, frankly, as a relatively young public company really seems to be having a few bumps in the road in terms of like what what is Duncan Donuts is like a slum in it thing you have to have kind of a you have to be sort of anti-starbucks to really get into your expectations Starbucks has pricing power which I don't think Duncan Donuts necessarily has coffee costs are rising yeah and Starbucks can do things about that I'm not sure I think Duncan Donuts gets hurt more gets hurt more by that so what is keeping CEO Howard Schultz up in that what is the threat that is the threat that is the threat How to spend his money?

Basically, is Starbucks its own, not worst enemy, but is it all about whether or not they fall into complacency? I don't know about complacency. When you expand overseas and you go into new markets, there's always a lot to learn. And there's always some missteps there. And it's inevitable. But if they can mitigate those mistakes, I think they'll be in good shape. You're not just going into China. Like you were in the States.

You're not just going into some small town in Missouri or a medium town and giving them an improved couple of coffee. You've got to convince everyone in China that they want coffee in the first place, and that's not an easy thing to do. We saw earlier in the week Whole Foods reported earnings. Also, another company is sort of more appealing to the high end. The 1%. I'm loving it, baby. I mean, they're like James, Mr. Whole Foods 1%. Well, as we've talked about before, the bifurcated economy, these are two companies that are really sort of excelling despite the sluggish economy that we're in. Are there other companies that you think are sort of in that same category where they're maybe not immune, but immune-ish to the economy that we're in? Well, we've seen a lot of them

over the past several months that, you know, you've got your watch company. So, Movado, you've got companies like Coach and Tiffany and any others that just continue to do pretty well. Time for something I'm calling this week in retailers. I don't want my middle school daughter shopping at. Abercrombie and Fitch. and Aropostel, both reporting sales numbers, shares of Abroby down after some declining same-store sales numbers. But Seth, Aropostel, which I think is one of your favorites, up after the company, they raised their sales guidance, didn't they? Well, Abercrombie, let's hit that first because that's pretty interesting. I've got comp store sales up slightly.

What they said that seems to spook the market is it same store sales for the quarter reflected in acceleration in the trend for U.S. chain stores. Sounds pretty good, huh? Sounds good. But more than offset by a slowing trend in Europe, including negative comps for flagship stores. Japan and Canada also continue to comp negatively. I read that whole thing even though it's boring because it's very important. Investors in Abercrombie are banking on a little bit of international growth. They haven't done a lot of international expansion.

Started with these flagship stores, which are big stores in big cities designed to kind of get an area excited about your brand. If you're doing negative comps at a store like that, that's scary. Scary for investors. And not doing well in Japan and Canada, two countries probably more open to this American teenager look than other countries. Probably also scary. I think that's what sent the shares down.

Aeropostal simply said that, hey, our results are going to suck a little bit less than we thought. Gross margin is not going to be as bad as we thought, so we think we're going to earn, what was it, 27 cents a share instead of, you know, 12 cents a share or something like that. So that's about it.

By the way, wouldn't that be great if that's what the company actually said? If they actually came out and said, yeah, it's not going to suck as much. Well, the reason we have it in Hidden Gems and MDPs is because we said if it just sucks less, the stock price will go up. Plus, they sell similar products to Abercrombie and American Eagle, but they sell them more cheaply. They're much lower price. So in a weak economy, even the Great Recession, they did quite well. So, you know, we like it for that reason as well. As we head into the holidays, is there one particular retailer?

you think is looking particularly strong, Ron? I've always been a big fan of Nordstroms. They just do it right. The customer service is phenomenal. Another one-percenter. What about you? I would take that, too. Yeah, I'll take a little Nordstrom there.

I like Amazon. I'm lazy. That's a good one. Yeah, that's a good one. You can find some good underwear to do yoga in, so Seth will like me more. Heidi Whiteys will do it. Shares of Kellogg's down this week after weak earnings. James, our colleague, Austin Smith,

pointed out that among the recent missteps, a shortage of ego waffles. What is going on here? Well, even worse than that, Chris. Walshry Journal reports they cut about 1,800 people over the past few years or so. And some of these were apparently sanitation-related jobs because Kellogg's got this FDA warning for excessive levels of bacteria in their products, which is kind of interesting because usually we love cost-cutting, but the moral of the story is you can take it too far, and they obviously did. A year ago or so, they had actually closed down an ego plant because of flooding, I believe. That actually affected my family quite significantly. I didn't know it. They're also going to have soap in the bathrooms again.

In the one minute we have remaining, Bank of America has killed the $5 monthly debit card fee it had previously announced. Credit for the killing is going to Molly Catchpole, a 22-year-old part-time nanny who started an online petition against the fee. More than 300,000 people signed it. If you're starting a petition to, you know, what's one thing you want to rally public support to kill? support to kill, Ron? Anything, any reality show that has either the word Kardashian or housewives in it. That's mine. James?

A little gross, but I think it's practical in the monopoly on our American-style toilets. The Japanese toilets are a little bit cleaner. If you've been to Japan, you know what I mean. It's just a better functioning thing. Seth? I'm going to go all reality shows. I'm going to piggyback on Ron, but go further. Every single one of them.

I'm signing this. That's a good petition. All right, Ron Gross, James Early, Seth, Jason. And guys, we'll see you later in the show. Coming up next, bestselling author and radio host, Dave Ramsey, on everything from business leadership to prenuptial agreements. Stay right here. This is Motley Full Money.

Welcome back to Motley Full Money. I'm Chris Hill. My guest is the host of the Dave Ramsey show, which is heard by millions every week on 500 radio stations across America. His latest book is Entra Leadership, 20 years of practical business wisdom from the trenches. It debuted at number one on the New York Times. bestseller list, Dave Ramsey. Welcome back to Motley Full Money. Well, I'm honored to be with you,

Chris. Thank you for having me. So you've written bestselling books before about how people can better handle their money. What made you want to write a book about business leadership? Well, I end up writing about my life one way or another. You know, I mean, when I went broke, I wrote about that, and then when I recovered, I wrote about that. And so in a sense, these books are instructions from my stupidity. So I, um, I, um, I, um, I, um, Yeah, Entree leadership is, it's our playbook. It's how we've grown our business from a card table in my living room over the last 20 years to now be a major national brand. We've got 315 team members, and for the last six years in a row, we've won Best Place to Work in our hometown of Nashville.

And so one of the richest things in my life right now is just the quality of my team, the quality of our leaders here, and just the joy of working here every day in this environment that we've all created together. And I wanted to share with people how that could be done. Now, the book has tips that anyone starting a business, anyone who owns a business, can benefit from. I want to spot you up with a few of them and have you elaborate. And one of them seems like one of those sort of nuts and bolts things that just makes common sense, but is probably tough for business owners to execute, and that is have sound financial principles, just avoid debt and have a plan to get rid of it. Well, just like in our personal lives, we do stupid things with money.

Small businesses are sometimes their own worst enemy. And what happens is, you know, in the military, they teach you not to advance your army out past your supply lines. Because what happens is, of course, you know, you run out of bullets, food, and gas, and you get slaughtered. You know, so that's what happens in business, especially small business. We're very, very bad about, you know, advancing our cause, our dream past our money and or past our money. and or past our people power, our human resource. And so you've got to wait on the right people and wait on the money to come organically before you move the ship.

Another tip you have is that people matter and business owners should super serve their customers. How do they do that without serving them to the point where they're no longer making a profit as a business? Well, profit is actually the result of having some. serve them well. The way I equated is this. I like going out to eat in a really nice restaurant with my wife on a date night. And, you know, most of the time when you do that, you get unbelievably fabulous service. And one of the joys is, as a customer, I loved leaving a big tip when you get great service from a waiter or a waitress. It's just fun. And, you know, so really what it is,

profit is just a tip that you got for serving well. Your customers don't mind you're making a profit. But serving doesn't imply price. Serving implies that the people got loved on it. They got their lives changed. That they got some warm food. Whatever it is, your business is. You serve them with the business. Price is independent of that.

Another tip you have is that business owners should grow slow and steady. Yeah, I was meeting with a billionaire, which always amazes me. That's a thousand million. You know, that's a lot. And I was asking this guy, he's 72 years old. He's got a very successful business. And I said, what is one of your keys to success? You always ask people that are smarter than me and bigger than me

what their best practices are, right? And he says, oh, I read this book, the tortoise and the hair. I'm like, oh, that's funny. Ha-ha. And he goes, no, Dave, we live in a whole culture full of hairs. The whole place is ADD. You will stand out in business. You will stand out in life if you are willing to be the crock pot

amongst a bunch of microwaves. You're listening to Motley Full Money. My guest is Dave Ramsey. His latest book is Entra Leadership. It's number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Dave, you've had the chance to meet with business leaders, study them from afar. I'm curious, in terms of leadership attributes, what's an attribute that you think is overrated in business leaders and one that's underrated? Overrated is just raw intelligence and talent.

I meet people with raw intelligence and talent all the time who don't know how to play well with others. And they'll shine for a while. But, you know, nobody wants to play with them. Their relational IQ is zero, you know, and they forgot those kindergarten rules that we learned from a great book a few years ago. And, you know, you just, they don't play well with others. And I think we've overrated where you go to school or what degree you've got or what your, you know, your raw intelligence. intelligence is and we've and probably then the transverse of that is we have underrated your relational IQ.

And I think the other thing that's underrated and I see it in the marketplace all the time as a primary correlation to success is extreme levels of integrity. This idea that people win in business that don't have fanatical levels of integrity is really a false thing. They can win for a while. But the people that stick around are those. that man you can just count on them what is one thing that you know now about running a business that you wish you knew when you were starting out to take

more time hiring really oh man I was just I was just so entrepreneurial and so go go go go go and I still am that I just thought everybody was like me and if they came in and said they wanted a job that meant they wanted to work oh how dumb was I you know and so we pretty much used the mirror test. If they fog up a mirror, we'd hire them, you know. And, oh, Lord, we had so much drama. Oh, we had, we had crazies all in the building. And now we take so much time. It takes 60 to 90 days and an average of seven to ten interviews to get hired with us. We really get to know you to make sure you are relationally, culturally,

value system, talent, everything we need and that we're everything you need. So, in turn, I know you have a lot of tips in the books, but I mean, is that sort of one of the biggest red flags for business owners, just how they hire? Business in general. We have commoditized the human resource, meaning that we look at humans as units of production, and they are not. They are not. They come with so much more than that, and they also bring baggage, too, sometimes. And most times, as a matter of fact, most of us have that. you know, we cannot commoditize a human being as a unit of production.

We'll just get them in here. They'll do the work, and they make us more than they cost us, and that's it. They're a human widget. No, it just doesn't work that way. Not if you want to get to the end of your life and have this sense of, wow, that was fun. You're listening to Motley Fool Money talking with Dave Ramsey. His new book is Entra Leadership. Dave, at the Motley Fool, we focus on publicly traded companies that people can invest in, take stock,

In terms of public companies, I'm curious, what are like two or three that you really admire the way that they've done business, companies that you think people can learn from if they want to sort of start their own business? Well, this is certainly not an endorsement of stock because I absolutely have no idea about their stock. And so let me preface that with that caveat. I just watch the way they interact and sometimes admire that their marketing or admire some of the leadership moves that they've made and just the way they have grown and served

and the atmosphere of the culture that is around some of these companies. And I don't think there's anyone out there that isn't a little bit impressed with Apple. I mean, the creativity of that place. And anytime in the middle of a recession, you can get people to line up around the block to buy your stuff, you're a good marketer. And, you know, those guys are pretty incredible. I'm not much of a consumer of their products. I've got a few of their things. Certainly, we've got them all in this building here with this young crew I've got.

But that's a pretty impressive bunch of people. The Google folks, the Zappo folks, Zappos is, you know, both of those cultures are very interesting to study and how intentional they are about putting their teams together to create culture that matches. And so they're not having to do things three times and they just stick through it. So, you know, those are two that just jump out at me all the time. I want to spot you up with a few business leaders and sort of get your thoughts on them and maybe some lessons that we can learn from them. And I'll start with the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett. Well, the thing I think most of us love about Warren Buffett is not only his success and his, we can look at how he's won.

And, you know, that's always a precursor to taking advice from somebody in a given subject. But I think the thing I love about him is just the homespun wisdom. them. I love those grandma's one-liners that he drops in. And, you know, stuff like, you know, when the tide goes out, you can tell who was skinny dipping. I just love lines like that, you know, and because there's so much truth woven into them. And it indicates that in the midst of his sophistication, he also has a tremendous amount of common sense. What about Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz? He appears to be, and I don't know Howard. I don't know Warren either, but appears to be from the outside looking in a master at culture.

He seems to be the culture of the Starbucks organization is, I think, what ensures its consistency and what ensures its predictability from branding and so forth for the consumer. And I don't know if you could put enough rules and enough processes and enough bureaucratic crap in place to get that kind of consistency. I don't think it would be possible. It would be infinite. And so instead they appear to rely on this shared values that he seems to do a masterful job of, of, you know, pushing through the whole organization.

And what about Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos? The only thing I can on all of these guys, again, I hesitate to really judge somebody because I don't know them personally. But looking in from the outside, man, that place is fast moving. you know change is a way of life you are riding the tiger you better hold on to its ears I mean they are they are moving all the time we interact with them a lot of course in publishing and with all of our product line and so forth and as big as they are they still seem to be constantly changing something and most of that is good certainly that much change just keeps even the customers in whiplash mode sometimes, but they have literally

created an industry. And wow, how many CEOs? How many leaders can say that? You're listening to Motley Fool Money. My guest is Dave Ramsey. Bestselling author in his latest book is Entra Leadership, 20 years of practical business wisdom from the trenches. Clark Howard was a guest on our show a little while ago, and I'm going to ask you the same question I asked him. He's awesome. is if you and Clark Howard and Susie Ormond go out to dinner, who's picking up the tab? Oh, definitely me. Why is that? We know it's not going to be Clark.

Now, see, Clark said he would pick up the tab, but he said that he would, he imagined a scenario where you're all in New York City. He picks an affordable restaurant that he has a coupon for. So that's the scenario where he picks up the tab. Well, yeah, if we can figure out some way he gets to be cheap and pick up the tab, I'm not sure I want to eat with him if that's the case. I don't know, Susie as well as I know Clark's. I'm sure she's generous and kind. I'm sure she would jump in there.

But I'm a Southern boy, so I have to pick up the tab for the lady. Duly noted. All right, we will wrap up with a round of buy-seller hold. This is the Daily Deal Company, going public. Buy-seller Hold, the future of Groupon. Hold. Why's that? Competition.

Everybody and his brother's got another one. An ease of entry into the market. It scares me to death for them. Just 72 days after her wedding day, Kim Kardashian filed for divorce. So buy, sell, or hold, prenuptial agreements. Oh, prenupts. In those cases, buy, in normal people's lives, sell. You're suggesting Kim Kardashian is not normal people?

Out loud. I said it out loud. And finally, we have seen other business books hit the big screen. So buy-seller hold, a movie version of Entree leadership. Oh, sell. No, it's not a movie. No. Really? Not even close. You know, we had Michael Lewis in our office a few weeks ago.

He didn't think Moneyball would be a movie, and then, you know, look what happened. Well, the story of Moneyball is, yeah, definitely. No, I don't think my life is movie material. If I could get your wife on the phone, who do you think she would cast to play you? Oh, I have no idea. I don't even know enough stars names to think of that. The book is Entre Leadership 20 years of practical business wisdom from the trenches. Number one bestseller on the New York Times list.

Go out and get a copy if you haven't already. Dave Ramsey, thanks so much for being here. Chris, it's honor to be with you again. Thank you for having me, sir. Coming up, we'll give you an inside look at the stocks on our radar. This is Motley Fool money. As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against,

so don't buy ourselves stocks based solely on what you hear. I'm Chris Hillen, back in the studio with me, Seth, Jason, James Early, and Ron Gross, guys, time for the stocks that are on our radar, and we will bring our man Steve Brodo in from the other side of the glass. Steve, are you ready? I'm ready to go. All right, Ron Gross, what is your stuff? stock this week. Going back to the well on horsehead holdings, ticker symbol zinc, Z-I-N-C,

small-cap producer of zinc products. Stock's getting smacked today on disappointing earnings. It is a cyclical pay, play. It is relying on zinc prices. They've got hedges in place, selling at a discount to tangible book value, still profitable. It looks really cheap to me. Steve, a question for Ron. Sure, what's the appropriate amount of zinc in a multivitaminate? 10 milligrams per day should do you just right. I wanted to hear. Thank you. Or kill you. Is that true? You just made that.

I just made that up. Some guy to be dying. Let's do a disclaimer. Turn green or something. James Early. I'm going with TAL International. The ticker is TAL. This is a global container company that makes shipping containers.

It has a 7.5 percent yield, which has been growing nicely, and that's what caught my eye. It is a cyclical company. It's highly levered, but it has shown some fantastic R.O.E. growth, fantastic dividend growth. And you might think what kind of idiot recommends or likes of stock like this going into potential recession. But there's actually a very, very tight. demand for these containers. So if they're doing this well now, I would hope that when things finally get better, they'll be doing even better. It's not a recommendation per se, but it's something on my radar. Steve, question for James. Sure. What is your take on terrorism threats?

There was a lot of discussion about these shipping containers brought into ports and stuff like that. How might that affect this business? It is the Wild West. I don't know that it'll affect the business that much, but it's more something that would just affect our country. We do a port. We screen people when they go through things. We don't screen baggage very well. We don't screen imports very well at all. So that's something we need to work on as a country. That's aside from this wreck, obviously. Okay, thanks for making us all more scared. Seth, Jason, your stock this week.

We'll just go back to the Aero Postal. It bounced this week on that less than terrible news, but I think it has a long way to go. As Ron said, they sell stuff at a lower price point in a tight economy that can be helpful. They also have much smaller stores than those competitors, so their cost structure is a little bit different. So if and when, I think it'll be when, they get those sales turned around, the profit margins will move up much more quickly.

All right, Steve, a question? ARO is the ticker. Sure, how old is too old for me to be wearing Aero Postal? Yeah, I can't even go in the store to do any research because I just feel dirty standing here in the store. Yeah, I got to say, when I drop my daughter off at middle school, there's a lot of Aero Pustol on the campus there. 12 and under, 14 and under?

Whatever it is, I mean, let's face it. It depends on the idea. You're well past both those numbers. Yeah, if it's short shorts you're looking for, Steve, the age is, it doesn't matter. What about a gene vest? That sounds really impure. In the time we have left, something such as that you're working on in Hidden Gems.

Oh, man. More earnings? Just more earnings. More earnings. I'm actually very interested in what's going on in the RV market right now. Winnebago is one of our picks, and so is Drew Industries, which makes stuff for RVs. And Drew said that things weren't so bad in that market. Really?

Very interesting. All right. James Early. Working on my recommendation for my next issue, which is a lot of work, but hopefully it's worth it. Can you give us a hint on what it is? You don't have to... I can't give you a hint, because I have no hint myself. I have no hint myself.

Will it be a video of it? You know, I still had not done that video. And you're breaking me feel bad, but I really have to do it. So, sorry, guys. But if you are looking for video, I will put in another shameless plug for fooltiv.com, where you can see people like Ron waving at the camera. Ron Gross, something you're working on. Have I mentioned that billion dollar portfolio is open now for the first time in one year?

only five or six more days, and we are working very hard on greeting new members as they come in the door and setting them up with a plan to catch them up to our charter portfolio and get them invested if you're interested, mdp.fool.com. Not going to do it. Have you not seen Billy Mays on the TV? They died, I believe. I know, but they still right. You can't sell something that way. How about a little enthusiasm? Woo! Yeah, I mean, can we get, I mean... I want to see the passion, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to the, to James's point about the video, I mean, James is going to, what's the video?

I make money, I don't make noise. FAS 157-9. Right. So, I mean, when James finally does his accounting video, I mean, he's just going to sell the heck out of that. As I say, I make money. I don't make noise. Right. Ron Gross. James Early, Seth, Jason. Guys, thanks for being here. Thank you, Chris. Thank you to our guest this week.

Dave Ramsey. The new book is Entra Leadership, 20 years of practical business wisdom from the trenches, debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. So pick up a copy if you haven't already. You can also check out our daily podcast, Market Foolery. And again, more coverage of our radio show and our daily podcast, videos to be seen at FoolTV.com. Our engineer is Steve Broido. Our producer is Mac Greer. I'm Chris Hill.

Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.