Update 11-11-08

In the news...

Starbucks profits down 95%
McDonalds profits up 75%

Circuit City files for bankruptcy.

These are misrepresentations for how bad business really is.

Starbucks coffee is not that great. Almost everyone that I know that went to Starbucks wasn't for the coffee it was for the experience. I've always said that when people either find another place to meet up and sit down that has internet access. Starbucks would be finished.

They are a niche store with a bad product. Great service and great atmosphere, but that won't carry you in hard times because its a luxury.

McDonalds is taking their customers because they are offering the same product at cheaper prices and it taste better.

But McDonalds is a lawsuit waiting to happen. My major complaint with McDonalds is that their coffee is TOO HOOOOTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!

A friend of mine owns a McDonalds and he tells me that the temperature is predetermined by corporate. I told him that I purchase coffee from McDonalds and it was still hot one hour later.

Circuit City was just another electronics company without a niche. They would setup next to or near Best Buy stores hoping that they would get carryover from people price shopping at Best Buy.

Good concept, but they didn't count on Best Buy working on it Brand/Shopping Experience. Best Buy has paid close attention to the entire experience from the parking lot to your first step into their store.

Their experience is so tremendous to most that their conversion rate is very high. Most people will not shop around unless its a very high price item.

The market isn't as bad as they would like us to believe. Every business that I've been exposed to that is in trouble had a flawed business from the start.

BONUS!
I've decided to add this section because of the theory that a job is security!

I've been a small business owner since the age of 21. I just turned 40 this past August. I haven't worked for anyone else but myself since then.

Over the years I've dabbled in some network marketing companies. Some failed and one was a major success, but they ended up filing bankruptcy in 2003.

The reaccuring theme that most people would say to my wife and I when we would recruit people was that they needed a job for security. We would try to tell them that no job was secure and that the only way to ensure job security is to own your own job.

We would tell them that when you work for someone else your future is in their hands and if they needed to save money or make job cuts your job was on the chopping block.

Now that we are seeing layoffs and job cuts I really don't hear people expressing that a job was security. They just blame the economy.

This simply comes down to MINDSET! Regardless of what situation people find themselves in they can't clearly see that it isn't the economy, it isn't the job, it isn't how much money you have, its the MINDSET of the individual (you!).

I would like to recommend a website for anyone looking to get the right MINDSET for success.

http://www.incometoday.net