Going to the Bell
Posted on September 23, 2008 - Filed Under Business
Clifford: I’ll have the Grilled Stuff Burrito, a soft taco supreme, and a medium soda.
Taco Bell is decidedly not my preferred hang out. Any place that does nothing but manufacture cheap bar food definitely does not rank highly on my eateries. If you squeeze a bean burrito just right, it looks like baby pooh. So why was I lunching at “¡Yo quiero Taco Bell“?
Research.
Mentor: You need to study Glenn Bell’s model about the value menu.
A huge discussion poured forth, during one of the coffee shop conversations. We started chatting about how to effectively price a product to not only maximize sales but maximize profits. This directly lead to a conversation regarding fast food chains and their value meals.
In Glenn Bell’s case, he figured out the Value Menu. 39 cent tacos? 20 tacos for 3 bucks? Does anyone remember those party packages?
The theory: maximize revenue by selling in volume.
For my product line, I take a look at what others are doing. This guy is selling his “book” for $179. OK that’s fairly impressive. A lot of paper, a lot of forms, and a nice 3 ring binder. After all the material has been developed, how much does it take to print and store all those goodies? Packaging and shipping? Maybe $40 or $50 per “book”?
His eBook comes in at $99.95. His costs associated with selling the eBook: $2.10. Not bad for doing nothing. It is evident the author has decided to maximize profits and forsake volume.
For the average bear, paying $99.95 for an ebook is a lot. Especially in today’s market when people are resisting big purchases in lieu of the economy. Also the average bear understands that ebooks are significantly cheaper than their physical counter parts. The author must work that much harder to convince people to part with that $100 bill.
How much would his sales increase if he cut the price to 1/3? Would his sales increase ten fold?
Two hundred and forty dollars per person is what “The French Laundry“, one of the world’s best restaurants, charges. A far cry from the $5.49 I paid for my Taco Bell lunch. But the 50 people who followed me into the joint more than made up revenue that the French Laundry might see.
I couldn’t finish my burrito.
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Contest Rules on January 4th, 2008
Here are the rules for the contest
Send an email to .
30 Year Fixed Loan with Interest Only on August 8th, 2007
In our information world, it is very easy for something to slip by and never be noticed.
PageOne: Managing your life with one website
Posted on September 22, 2008 - Filed Under Business
My life is a real mess.
I’m curious: if you took inventory of the number of websites you visit for checking your finances, I think you’d be stupified. Between your banks, your money market accounts, your investment accounts - I bet it’s quite a few. For me, I have four websites to check.
Then we move onto bills. Credit cards, water bill, electric bills, car payment, wireless . . . of course each has their own website. Even though I put all these on auto-pilot, I still check the balances to make sure the accounts are getting paid. For me, I have six websites to check.
Onto the fun websites. Things like Netflix, MySpace, Amazon.com, eBay, American Airlines and the include GMail and my MobileMe account . . . how many websites is that? This fluctuates between five and seven each month, depending on if I’m selling something on eBay.
For me, that’s seventeen websites a month I check out. How many do you have?
Now, I have one.
Don’t ask me how but I stumbled onto PageOnce.com yesterday. This service, free of charge, organizes all of your data into one page. And I mean all. Of of my financial accounts, all my bill paying accounts, and all of my fun websites are all located in one place. Once I log in, I can quickly scan over one page and get current with all my accounts on all those various websites.
Of course, they have an iPhone application. I ran with that one.
When I’m across the pond, I usually put all my travel expenses on one or two credit cards. I can now pull out my iPhone and check my card balances with one click on my iPhone. I can also with one click check the status of my flight. It would be a real shame if my flight were cancelled while returning. Darn it all!
My life was a real mess.
PC World, WSJ, Washington Post, Forbes - all have something to say here.
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Tax Time Again? on January 24th, 2008
This is national “Prepare for Taxes” week.
And the answer is . . . . on October 9th, 2005
Yes, Mean Grandma left yesterday.
Altruistic
Posted on September 18, 2008 - Filed Under Business
The Big Idea has definitely had a positive impact on my life.
I never thought a time would ever come again where I would reserve time out of my schedule to watch a television show. But this show just gets me.
Donny and guests are always focused on family first. The number of people who appeared on the show and have sacrificed their family is astounding. They always want to know what they need to do to get to that next level. Donny’s response is always “Get your personal affairs in order.”
I dig that.
Last night was to be the first in a series of people who were devastated by Hurricane Ike. We all know the Federal Government moves as slow as molasses with regards to helping businesses recover. Donny hooked the people up with a local representative from the SBA (small business association) and within a week they’ll have the money to rebuild their family business.
A lady appears on the show, trying to start her clothing business. Her daughter had a liver transplant when she was still a baby and now at the age of 15 she has tumors on her kidneys and needs a transplant. They spent 15 minutes, talking about how they can get a kidney for the daughter.
I’m really glad the subject of family, of personal health overrides any talk about running businesses. I think everyone would agree that making sure your head is in order is most important before venturing out someplace new. If you can’t run from your problems, you definitely can build a business on top of them.
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Um . . . what? on March 9th, 2007
So a multi-counter offer has been received.
The Renovation Budget: Hourly Labor Rates on September 26th, 2007
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Attached
Posted on September 17, 2008 - Filed Under Business
I guess my brain just thinks differently.
Finally, some feedback from a potential buyer. He and his son spent about an hour with my property. Forty minutes were spent looking around, twenty were spent sitting in their parked car. Their topic of discussion: should we go for this house?
In the end, they decided no.
They decided to let their offer go through on a place north of my area, about 1/3 of the size and in crappy condition. So what’s the difference between this income producing property and the cardboard box they are buying?
It’s the garage. Or lack of. People do enjoy the house, think it’s absolutely great. But they are looking for a garage. I confirmed this with the real estate agent, who fields the questions from other agents. Their first question is about the garage. Or lack of. To his credit, he does convince them to come out and at least look at the property. But that’s as far as it goes.
Even if I had the capital to get a 2 car garage built, I don’t think it would be worth it. I couldn’t ask for $25,000 more on the price just because it has a garage. Properties just aren’t selling for that high in my area. And with the market flooded with bank repos, most with garages, it’s hard to compete.
But it’s nice to get some sort of feedback.
Incidentally it’s the same question that potential tenants would ask about when calling on the phone.
Maybe on the next purchase, I’m going to have to consider the garage aspect of a property. I would have never thought that having an enclosed parking space would be that important but apparently it is.
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Check back shortly on September 22nd, 2006
I'm trying to get something posted to my blog and it's going really slow.
Tax Time Again? on January 24th, 2008
This is national “Prepare for Taxes” week.
Team Cliff
Posted on September 16, 2008 - Filed Under Business
I’m happy with this Guru.com experience. This is a clever idea.
My little project is moving along faster than I anticipated. Good for me! October 15th still seems to be a feasible launch date.
Quite the eclectic bunch has joined Team Cliff. A lady from Mississippi; some dude from Canada; an indeterminate from Romania; a team of Russians and now a Ukrainian is being interviewed. Yes the Romanian is “indeterminate” because I can’t tell from the first name if it’s a guy or a girl. And the idea of asking seemed very weird and creepy to me. Personally I don’t care; he/she did a fantastic job.
Fortunately the hard work was done up front by yours truly. Everyone I hired to date has just been there to refine and improve my work. WIth the exception of the Russians. They are building software from scratch.
In a way, it’s a good thing I spent all those years learning about web programming. It has helped form the basis by which I hire people into my little team. Dozens apply to do my projects and nearly 1/3 of them are rejected. Why? Because they force me to ask myself this simple question: Do they think I’m stupid?
We all know a hamburger costs around $5. That’s a given. If someone were to try and charge you $100 for a hamburger, you’d tell them to go pound sand. Yes, they could claim the hamburger is of the highest quality, hand-crafted by 3-star chefs . . . but a hamburger is still a hamburger.
Ditto with my applications. I know how much the application should cost and about how much time it should take. Someone could claim (and has claimed) “We have a team of top notch people who will work around the clock for three days!”
Huh?
I don’t care how many people worked on building me my hamburger. It’s still only $5 and only takes a few minutes to make. My project is awarded to the person who agrees with me.
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Sage advice on November 30th, 2005
"Do something that scares you.
