Coffee?, I Don't Need Your Stinking Coffee
Have you heard that Starbucks was closing 600 stores?
Here are some future headlines.
Google To Downsize!
Oil Companies Profits Slip, Shed Staff.
Wal-Mart merges with Target, bullseye.
All big public companies grow and then pop. Starbucks is just the latest balloon. I do not drink coffee, never have, never will. If I did, the last place you'd find me sipping a cup of Joe would be at Starbucks. I read this article by a one-time Starbucks fan. His article just verified my thoughts. Starbucks got rich giving the customer an experience. When the experience started to effect the bottom-line, the experience got cheaper.
Big companies love to be successful. Everybody wants a piece of the action. Employees are happy. Managers are happy. Stockholders are happy. Customers are happy. For awhile, anyway.
Time is the killer. Because as each year passes by, everybody wants, MORE.
In business MORE does not and cannot make everybody happy. Businesses tend to focus on giving the stockholders MORE. MORE value for their investment. This happens naturally when MORE customers come on board. But, when the numbers start to flatten the MORE has to come from somewhere else.
MORE can be created by making LESS. LESS costs means MORE profit. Or MORE can be created with higher prices. However, these options tend to make employees and/or customers not so happy. Which means the two entities that made the companies great, employees and customers, are LESS happy.
Everybody wants and usually deserves MORE. We just have to remember our want for MORE will usually mean LESS for somebody else.
I do not begrudge anyone to have all that they desire. I've been on both sides of the MORE/LESS equation. There is a line in a song, "What goes up must come down". Nothing lasts forever. Things only last as long as stockholders are willing to support them.
Now, I must go for a Vanilla Chia Latte.
Have you heard that Starbucks was closing 600 stores?
Here are some future headlines.
Google To Downsize!
Oil Companies Profits Slip, Shed Staff.
Wal-Mart merges with Target, bullseye.
All big public companies grow and then pop. Starbucks is just the latest balloon. I do not drink coffee, never have, never will. If I did, the last place you'd find me sipping a cup of Joe would be at Starbucks. I read this article by a one-time Starbucks fan. His article just verified my thoughts. Starbucks got rich giving the customer an experience. When the experience started to effect the bottom-line, the experience got cheaper.
Big companies love to be successful. Everybody wants a piece of the action. Employees are happy. Managers are happy. Stockholders are happy. Customers are happy. For awhile, anyway.
Time is the killer. Because as each year passes by, everybody wants, MORE.
In business MORE does not and cannot make everybody happy. Businesses tend to focus on giving the stockholders MORE. MORE value for their investment. This happens naturally when MORE customers come on board. But, when the numbers start to flatten the MORE has to come from somewhere else.
MORE can be created by making LESS. LESS costs means MORE profit. Or MORE can be created with higher prices. However, these options tend to make employees and/or customers not so happy. Which means the two entities that made the companies great, employees and customers, are LESS happy.
Everybody wants and usually deserves MORE. We just have to remember our want for MORE will usually mean LESS for somebody else.
I do not begrudge anyone to have all that they desire. I've been on both sides of the MORE/LESS equation. There is a line in a song, "What goes up must come down". Nothing lasts forever. Things only last as long as stockholders are willing to support them.
Now, I must go for a Vanilla Chia Latte.
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