Joe Merchant - What Every Business Owner Needs

Are you attempting to locate a business that won’t be badly affected by the present economic downturn? Everyone else is! So, grant me the privilege of sharing just one essential piece of advice with you.

Purchase a liquor store.

Liquor stores are amazingly recession-proof, perhaps even more than any other sort of retail business. With experienced management on your part, you can sustain solid profits from your liquor store, even in really tough times.

People will keep on buying alcoholic beverages, even in difficult times. Liquor sales remained strong in the recession of the mid-1980s, and they are holding quite strong in the current climate. People still regularly buy wine, liquor and beer, even when times become really tough. But let me add the following thought:

Right now, people are economizing. The days are in the past (or at the very minimum, they’re on pause) when most buyers wouldn’t give a second thought to paying $40, $50 or more for a bottle of wine to have with their dinner, but don’t concern yourself over this, that trend puts you in a great place keep your profits solid, because:

The liquor business allows you to adjust and adapt to customer purchasing patterns. You can offer an extensive variety of exceptional lower-priced products that appeal to customers today. If you are a particularly creative merchandiser, you can fill your stores with an interesting variety of well prices wines, beers and other alcoholic beverages, so your customers always get great value for their money and always feel satisfied. After all is said and done, they can keep having fun with the adventure of buying and drinking new products, while saving money as well! Just remember that you need to shop carefully for these products, while remembering to:

Supercharge your profits with low-cost, effective marketing. You can receive a $30 profit on a case of inexpensive priced Chilean wines, vs. $10 on just one bottle of more costly French wine - and the marketing expenses are identical for both selections! With good quality low-priced marketing (through sales flyers in community newspapers, or via an email newsletter that you send out to your preferred customers), you can sell quite a bit more products in these difficult times. Your customers will value you as an individual and the superb value which you deliver. You can build your perceived value even more by following this next strategy:

Use great service and advice to increase sales dramatically. More customers these days are looking around for alcoholic beverages that are inexpensive, yet still really good quality. (This can be summed up with the simple word, “Value.”) This spells opportunity for you, the proud new owner of a thriving liquor store. You can become a student of wine yourself, hire experienced salespeople or just order prudently from the well-priced wines that you see reviewed in famous trade journals. Just don’t forget to lure in customers with some creative marketing strategies, such as sending your customers classy email newsletters that include specific discounts for selected products.

There are no small retailers, only retailers with small ideas! If you’re looking for a flexible, resilient business that will bring in solid profits in the current recession, and make even more money when the current recession goes away - look no further than a liquor store!

Richard Parker is the President and founder of the Diomo Corporation - The Business Buyer Resource Center. His inspiring materials, seminars and consulting have assisted thousands of business buyers with achieving their life-long dream of buying a business.

When you’re learning about something new, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the huge amount of relevant information that is available on the internet and other resources. This informative article should help you focus on the central points. If some of the facts and tips about how to find perfect credit card wallet are out-of-date. You could imagine that how it will that affect your actions and decisions. Make sure that you don’t let important card wallet information slip by you. Of course, it’s impossible to put everything about how to find credit card wallet into just one article. But you can’t deny that you’ve just added to your understanding about card wallet, and that’s time well spent. Go to corporate gifts for more information.

Some people may be confused of what is credit card wallet. I would like to explain a bit more. Credit card wallet is a separate wallet that you can use to put your credit card in. You may carry credit card wallet together with your purse. The main objective of using credit card wallet is to help you manage you credit card easily, because they are kept separately. Particularly if you are the person who uses more than one credit card, so you need extra wallet to keep them.

Having separate credit card wallet has pros and cons. That is when you have credit card wallet, it means that you can carry them every where, especially when you shopping. However once you get there you see lots of goodies at “special prices” and since you have your credit card with you, you start spending. This is the problem that many of credit card owner have as they can not control themselves when they have credit cards on hands. Refer to corporate gifts for more information.

Therefore, this could come to your consideration first of all to decide whether you should have separate credit card wallet. This is a very important step as it concerns to your financial status and spending.

However, if you decided to have a credit card wallet, consider to read the following paragraph below about how to choose good quality and suitable credit card wallet. There are many factors that you should consider when buying credit card wallet. As credit card is very important property and they should be protect in very good quality wallet. Firstly, you have to look for a wallet that could contain all of your credit cards. I believe that many people have at least two or three credit cards. You have to consider the wallet that has number of slot enough to contain all of your credit cards. You may also choose the wallet that had spare slots to contain additional credit cards that you have in the future.

The other important factor is the quality of the material and characteristic of the wallet. Most people prefer to buy two fold wallet and leather wallet. I can confirm that they are the best type that you can choose as a credit card wallet. However, in case if you have very limited budget, you may choose wallet that made from other material such as canvas. In summary, the first think that you have to consider id whether you want credit card wallet, the pros is you can manage you credit card easily and the cons is you may have to be careful when you spend because you can carry them every where. Visit corporate gifts for further information.

LuK Africa annually produces more than 700 000 light and heavy duty clutches and 1,6 million clutch facings. It dominates both the original equipment and replacement clutch markets inside South Africa and is a vigorous and successful exporter. Now this efficient, customer-focused, people-driven company is proving itself to be one of the star performers in the LuK worldwide group and is poised to achieve growth through participation in OEM’s export programmes and certain niche requirements from within the Group. Go to mission directed work teams for more information.

LuK Africa has firmly established, long-term and purposeful philosophies which have enabled it to progress remarkably well through some challenging times in the industry. Talk with the people at LuK and you quickly learn there is a participatory management style which encourages communication, involvement and fair reward for the inputs.

It is a very people-driven environment which you can see and feel as you go through the factory in Port Elizabeth, or the sales and marketing offices in Edenvale.

Watch Len Terblanche driving a quality audit meeting and see his determination to find productive solutions; or look at a gathering of one of the mission-directed workteams and one can soon see this is one of those refreshing companies which follows its declared mission with eagerness and enthusiasm for the best reason:

These are proven recipes which work and work well for all.

The end-product is a culture spread through the company at all levels which is customer-driven and people delivered. The Customer is King, says the mission statement and the whole reason for the existence of the enterprise. Paramount values are quality of the products produced and the level of service offered, and pricing is a key factor - so competitive pricing is achieved through cost effective manufacturing.

People Factor

The people factor at LuK Africa is endorsed in its mission statement which emphasises responsibility and commitment, communication and involvement, rewards for performance, and encourages an environment of openness, honesty and integrity. Both locally and globally LuK Africa employees have excellent opportunities for training and improvement in a committed employment equity company. There is also constant interchange of personnel and expertise between the Germany-based global owners and the PE plant.

The LuK Africa people are encouraged to be creative and constantly interrogate new and better ways of doing things. Yet they’re also reminded to revert to the fact that LuK Africa is part of a global company which already boasts world-beating technology in the clutch sector.

“Don’t re-invent the wheel”

“We make full use of our global company expertise,” says Len Terblanche, “we make it a practice not to reinvent the wheel if the solutions already exist within LuK somewhere else in the world.”

Benita Fourie, Personnel Manager, gives comprehensive background detail which shows too that the people route is a purposeful one at LuK. Refer to work teams for more information.

“We have made sure our people have readily picked up the cultures and philosophies which have been carefully structured and put there for them by leadership in the company they are there to achieve very clearly defined goals,” says Benita.

One of the best examples of this carefully structured process, is the implementation of “Mission-directed work teams for World Class Competitiveness” since September 2001.

Key Strategies

This modern-world industrial HR philosophy operates on the premise that world-class organisations across the globe have had to introduce and apply key strategies with their people to get to the new paradigm levels of quality and productivity which enable them to compete with the rest of the world. Some of these “key strategies” include:

A focus on simultaneous improvement of quality, speed and cost effectiveness;

The establishment of close links with customers and suppliers;
A drive for both linear, continuous improvement as well as non-linear breakthrough improvements in the workplace;

The elimination of all forms of waste and the creation of a “value flow” pulled along by the customers;

The application of leadership practices that promote teamwork, continuous learning, participation and flexibility.
Continuous Improvements

The mission-directed work team route has been measurably successful, and Len often points with pride at the favourable productivity, price and quality improvements achieved since the programme was introduced.

“Over the last 18 months we have seen continuous improvement of quality, speed and cost-effectiveness at all levels and in all departments here. There were immediate, visible results in the workplace which have been sustained, and more and more our leaders and teams are better-equipped with tools and skills which make them able to implement world-best workplace improvement and leadership practices.”

Quarterly Bonuses

And LuK has ensured that this sort of progress is rewarded; constantly. The quarterly Productivity Bonus Scheme gives a one-amount-fits-all payout to each employee at the end of every third month.

The scheme is complex but transparent and the various indices involved in the calculation are posted through the factory for all to see, and all to monitor as the end of the quarter approaches. Improved work performance, more energy, better ideas, more care and pride in workmanship - all of these can impact positively on the result, and everyone works harder and harder to improve the quantum of the actual payout.

Come the cut-off point at the end of the quarter and the total bonus amount generated is divided by the number of employees, the amount is announced and the payout is included in that week’s pay packet - it’s invariably a very, very happy day for all throughout LuK Africa. Visit work team for further information.

Advertising in the sky (also known as aerial advertising) has become a very successful means of getting a message across to a local group of people quickly. Usually a banner is pulled behind a single engine plane over a beach or sporting event. This huge exposure of a product, service, coming event or the like means more people are likely to investigate further.

Billboard ads are also flown over crowds of people. These can be as large as a roadside billboard but are much lighter. These are pulled by planes or even helicopters for helicopters can pull a greater weight. If the plane can handle it and the budget allows, some even pull a banner behind a billboard ad. It usually contains additional information like an address or webpage.

Helium balloons attract attention when they are attached to a store or shop. People will drive over to see what is so important. When the ad leaves the ground, it is sometimes attached to a hot air balloon, or blimp. A few companies, like Goodyear, have made blimps the hallmark of their advertising and have become famous doing it. However, this is usually very expensive and probably cost prohibitive to most companies.

Half way between helium balloons attracting attention and blimps, consider using remote controlled balloons. Some contain a message on the side, while others lift a message below them. These balloons are filled with air so, though light, then can come down without difficulty. Being unmanned means they don’t have to lift the weight of the pilot so they can be smaller and still do the job.

The balloon has a small pusher prop in the back and the angle of this is adjusted by the remote control. When the propeller is raised, then the rear of the balloon goes down and the nose goes up, and vice versa. Left and right control works the same. In this way, the balloon can be controlled like a slow moving model plane. If the balloon has an advertisement on the side, it can be flown over a group of people as many times as is needed, then returned to the feet of the controller.

How large are these remote controlled balloons? The size varies from about six feet to nearly twenty feet. Without the fuss of helium or hot air, launching them is safe and inexpensive. Naturally wind could cancel a flight since controlling them is very delicate.

What are the costs of aerial advertising? One company offers six foot balloons displaying a company sign or logo for $1500. Sizes go from thirteen to seventeen feet and prices from $4000 up to $7000. Of course, a pilot is not needed for this type of ad; the owner can fly it any time he wants when the conditions are right. You can be confident that people will remember this type of advertising.