I’m gonna go all “grouchy old man” on you and predict early that the new Magnum, P.I. series could fail. For one thing, the original show was really good because it was, well, original! It was a cool action show yet the characters were believable and likeable, they grew and developed over the show’s 8 seasons, […]
Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. A product is not quality because it is hard to make and costs a lot of money, as manufacturers typically believe. This is incompetence. Customers pay only for what […]
“Customers tend to avoid a restaurant that’s going aswamp in its own sludge.” McDonald’s Ray Kroc used to tell his franchisees and managers. He demanded that each restaurant, especially the restrooms, be spic and span, and he would totally flip out if he walked into one of his restaurants and found it anything less than spotless. If […]
McDonald’s has gone through its share of ups and downs in its history that now spans nearly 80 years. They always seem to weather whatever storm they face, and as a shareholder, I’ve got faith that they’ll eventually get back on track. And I don’t just feel confident about their stock price because my kid […]
Christmas lights have come a long way since I was a kid. In the days of old, Christmas lights were all on one circuit, so if one bulb…one itty bitty bulb… burned out, the whole strand of lights would stop working and you’d have to check each bulb to figure out which one to replace […]
In his latest book, Get Rich Carefully, Jim Cramer dedicates several pages to the praise of Whole Foods. He also works in a clever zinger, “Give a man a fish, he eats for a day; teach a man to shop for fish at Whole Foods, he’ll be broke within the year.” Ha! In all seriousness, […]
One of my favorite quotes is from statistician George E.P. Box: “All models are wrong; Some models are useful.” Indeed, no model is perfect or inclusive on any subject, and I think you should look at as many as you can on any important topic, then determine your own uses for what you find and […]
A very popular local restaurant offers over 600 varieties of soda pop. My guess is they probably only sell about 20% of those (A partially scientific guess, based on the time-honored 80/20 rule!). This suggests that the return on investment (ROI) on such a broad inventory might not be that high and that a pruning […]
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