but first, bill moller tackles the numbers. what the jobs data could be telling us about tomorrow's election. that's next, after this "in the know" message. w election is tomorrow, and if job creation is a key component to which party will do best tomorrow, a lot of people are paying attention to the numbers that just came out on friday from the bureau of labor statistics. let's talk with brent schutte. he is the market strategist for bmo global asset management. once again a split decision: we have the unemployment rate ticking up 1/10th, but job creation also up. > > sure. this number was actually a little bit better than the ones that we've commented on in the past. 184,000 private payrolls were added in the month of october. the household number, which is used to calculate the unemployment rate, was also up, but more people were coming back into the labor force, so you actually had the unemployment rate tick up by 1/10%. > > it's funny how, statistically, a lot of people would say it's not that significant this change, but

bill moller takes a look at what is ahead for congress and the president, next. w the election is, obviously, over. let the heavy lifting begin. the president and congress now have a lot of work before them, not the least of which is that darn fiscal cliff that comes up at the end of the year, which, by the way, is less than 2 months off now. let's talk with author and finance columnist gail marks jarvis. you've been assessing the work ahead, and it's all about taxes and spending. you can't avoid it now. you've got to start making some decisions it seems. > > and the clock is ticking. so even though we may have this happy time after the election where we're feeling relieved, that relief isn't going to last long, because come december, the end of december, a huge change comes upon us. taxes are automatically going to go up about $500 billion, and the government is going to start slashing spending. they don't have a choice, unless congress steps in and takes action to stop it. > > we've seen by their past behavior that that's not likely to happen. there are economi

that's next with bill moller. why do we buy one brand of bread or cereal or a car over another ? is it quality? reputation? price? maybe it has something to do with our psychological and emotional needs. let's talk about this. "empathetic marketing" is a book by dr. mark ingwer. he's a consumer psychologist. 85% of all consumer decisions, he says, are made based on a emotional factors. so it's not the rational choices we make. explain how emotion has so much to do with our buying habits. > > firstly, it's not simply what i say, it's proven by neuroscience. there is so much data to identify that what we are doing actually is unbeknownst to us. it is very similar to how we connect to people. it all comes down to something that we call empathy, feeling a deeper connection. and that is ultimately what differentiates good marketers, good products, good services from the ones that... > > so it's the subconscious connection we have with a product it sounds like. > > absolutely. it's like people, people you spend your whole life with. how quickly you made that decision. sometimes it's no

bill moller on what you can expect - next. maybe tomorrow the outcome of the election today. but we can make some informed judgments about the impact each party would have not just on the u.s. economy, but on our personal household economies. for a fact-based, non-partisan assessment, we turn to jim cahn. he's the chief investment officer for the wealth enhancement group. there's bound to be some short-term churn in the markets, but long-term, what is the impact on our personal portfolios from the two parties? > > thanks for having me here. i think we assign a little bit too much weight to the presidential election in terms of how it's going to impact the economy. the economy seems to be on an upward trend, and regardless of whether obama wins or romney wins, i think our portfolios are going to be getting a little bit better in years ahead. obviously, the two candidates have different tax policies. those tax policies, depending on who wins, may impact some year-end decisions, especially around tax planning. > > let me ask you about the fiscal cliff that affects potentially bo

analysis with bill moller is next. before the big election next week are now coming out - things like consumer confidence, jobs added by private sector employers, and the surepayroll small business scorecard for october. it just came out. michael alter is president and ceo of surepayroll. who should be smiling from your numbers - romney or obama? > > from our numbers, governor romney should definitely be smiling. we're seeing a continued deterioration of the small business economy. we're seeing month-over-month hiring continue to fall. we're seeing the average paycheck continue to fall. where we are seeing growth is in temporary or contract workers. > > let's backfill some of the numbers. hiring: what happened there? > > hiring we saw it fall 0.1% month-over-month, and it's clearly down for the year. > > you call it the pay index, but that's essentially what small businesspeople are paying their employees. what happened there? > > the average paycheck fell 0.2%. so, the take-home pay was hurt in the month of october. >

learn how to protect yourself next, with bill moller. recently 2 east coast storms in 2 weeks. the weather can really wreak havoc, not just with lives of citizens, but also with the smooth operation of businesses. companies protect themselves, of course, with insurance, but more & more companies are implementing disaster recovery systems. let's talk with curtis peterson. he's vice president of operations for ringcentral, a cloud business phone system provider. and curtis, a business insures the hardware, but the point is they also need to back up the software, and that's what disaster recovery is all about. > > it sure is. and it's really backing up both. it's making sure that the hardware and is protected, and specifically the data on the systems is retained during any of these types of disasters that you mentioned. > > hurricane sandy took out a lot of businesses along the east coast and their systems. do you know what happened to maybe an actual business that did or maybe did not consider disaster recovery? > > yes. there are several businesses that did good planning for dis

but first, some optimistic views on the housing sector are next with bill moller. w the housing wreck - that's what got us into this mess, and it'll likely be the housing recovery that'll fully and finally get us out of this waning recession. to track the improvement we always look at the numbers. and each month, realtor.com pumps out national and regional housing data. the october figures just went to press, so let's talk with matt laricy about them. he was named among the country's top agents by realtor magazine. good for you. and you're also an agent with americorps realty. > > that's correct, yeah. > > so tell us, are you optimistic? you sure sound like you're full of energy and forward-looking optimism. > > i think the market is coming back. overall, the housing inventory is down about 17%, which is showing that people are out there buying and there's not as much on the market as there was before. the average market time is now about 97 days, which is down 11% from prior. and the median price overall is $189,900. which has flat-lined - it's about the same as i

moller. then later in the show, how some traders hope to make money on the fiscal cliff. if you are worried about your money, don't miss this! we will be right back. the merger of globalization and information technology has transformed how companies must now compete. old jobs and ways of doing business are obsolete. when you're fighting competitors across the globe for market share a company and its employees, have to be agile, nimble and work harder than ever. best-selling author jason jennings has been heralded by usa today as 1 of the 3 most in-demand business speakers in the world. he has new book, "the reinventors: how extraordinary companies pursue radical continuous change." adapt, grow, change - or perish? is it that stark? > > is that stark. if you take a look at the list of the original fortune 100 companies - you may find it surprising - only 2 are left. these are the companies who had the capital, they had the people, they had all the resources, and they couldn't survive. absolut

that's next with bill moller. i think the most common dream is to run your own business, and many times it's a restaurant, even though restaurants have the highest failure rate of all small businesses. but we're going to talk about a restaurant that is so fantastically successful, its customers stepped up to pull through and help the business get through the recession last year as it faced bankruptcy. now it's among the top 10 busiest independent pizza joints in the country. nick sarillo is the founder of nick's pizza & pub. you were featured in inc magazine's cover story, the nbc nightly news, you have a mantle full of awards, the head of zappo's endorses your methods. but when we think of a pizza joint, this is not a little storefront place, these are big operations. > > yes they are. 350 seats. 9,000 square foot. we have 200 team members in our company. we have 40-something people working on a busy shift in one night. > > you think of the big companies - google and apple - that they have this culture of passion

that's next with bill moller. you've got the perfect idea - you just need an investor. the government figures there are around 250,000 angel investors out there, all looking for people - maybe like you - with good ideas. they want to write checks and bring your idea to life. you have one, you really believe in it. so what do you need to do to get an angel investor to actually invest? let's talk with janet tavakoli, she's an investment risk analyst, and you're also the president of tavakoli structured finance. most people who knock on your door, do they end up blowing it when they pitch you? > > they do bill, because they walk in unprepared. they may have a product, they may have an idea, but they haven't yet gotten the patent. they don't have a business plan. they don't know who their competitors are. they don't know who their target market is. > > do they sometimes make big promises - "oh, it's going to be a billion-dollar seller." > > yes. in fact i had one game app developer come to see me who didn't have a patent on his product, he had outsourced the work to the ukr

that's next with bill moller. e have been signs that key elements of the economy are picking up. small businesses, they're the backbone of the employment picture. what about small businesses owners? what are they seeing? there may be no better measure of that than the surepayroll small business scorecard. the data just came out for november. michael alter is ceo of the company. give us the soundbite version of what we are going to talk about. > > the headline to me is we're in the winter, we should start to see it get colder across the country, which may or may not have happened, but it is clearly frozen for small businesses. > yikes. all right. not a good soundbite. let's start with hiring, what is that doing? > > hiring is falling month- over-month by 0.1%. so, it's not much of a change, but it's certainly a change in the wrong direction. > now pay has been flatlining. is that continuing? > > pay continues to be flatlining, and that is why i say i think small businesses are really frozen. you see little change in the hiring and you see pay flat. > also this other statistic is t

bill moller joins us for some helpful tips on applying for scholorships. that's coming up next. w expensive college has gotten? the middle class is being priced out. parents have to plan early, they need to hustle for any means to bring a college education within the budget. ben kaplan is an entrepreneur. he's been through the process. he's got a model that really helps families make it. he wrote the book 'how to go to college almost for free,' and he runs the company cityofcollegedreams.org. let's talk scholarships. doesn't every parent hold this dream that there's got to be a scholarship out there for their perfect kid? > > that's right. great to be with you bill. you know, that was the dream actually of my parents not too long ago. i had grown up and played competitive tennis. always assumed i could go to school on a tennis scholarship. i got an injury in my back and needed a different way to pay for school, and i discovered there are corporations, foundations, associations, community groups that all reward different scholarships. and the key is, this isn't just for those wit