Archive for April, 2007
25
Is it one of those days for you? Did you wake up this morning feeling uninspired, wondering what the point of anything is, why bother to put on a show pretending you have a purpose? Maybe this bit of wisdom from P.T. Barnum’s "The Art of Money Getting" might help. It is talking about the importance of perseverance:
When a man is in the right path, he must persevere. I speak of this because there are some persons who are "born tired;" naturally lazy and possessing no self-reliance and no perseverance. But they can cultivate these qualities, as Davy Crockett said:
"This thing remember, when I am dead: Be sure you are right, then go ahead."
It is this go-aheaditiveness, this determination not to let the "horrors" or the "blues" take possession of you, so as to make you relax your energies in the struggle for independence, which you must cultivate.
How many have almost reached the goal of their ambition, but, losing faith in themselves, have relaxed their energies, and the golden prize has been lost forever.
It is, no doubt, often true, as Shakespeare says:
"There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."
If you hesitate, some bolder hand will stretch out before you and get the prize. Remember the proverb of Solomon: "He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand; but the hand of the diligent maketh rich."
Perseverance is sometimes but another word for self-reliance. Many persons naturally look on the dark side of life, and borrow trouble. They are born so. Then they ask for advice, and they will be governed by one wind and blown by another, and cannot rely upon themselves. Until you can get so that you can rely upon yourself, you need not expect to succeed.
I have known men, personally, who have met with pecuniary reverses, and absolutely committed suicide, because they thought they could never overcome their misfortune. But I have known others who have met more serious financial difficulties, and have bridged them over by simple perseverance, aided by a firm belief that they were doing justly, and that Providence would "overcome evil with good." You will see this illustrated in any sphere of life.
Take two generals; both understand military tactics, both educated at West Point, if you please, both equally gifted; yet one, having this principle of perseverance, and the other lacking it, the former will succeed in his profession, while the latter will fail. One may hear the cry, "the enemy are coming, and they have got cannon."
"Got cannon?" says the hesitating general.
"Yes."
"Then halt every man."
He wants time to reflect; his hesitation is his ruin; the enemy passes unmolested, or overwhelms him; while on the other hand, the general of pluck, perseverance and self-reliance, goes into battle with a will, and, amid the clash of arms, the booming of cannon, the shrieks of the wounded, and the moans of the dying, you will see this man persevering, going on, cutting and slashing his way through with unwavering determination, inspiring his soldiers to deeds of fortitude, valor, and triumph.
23
People like to eat. People like to go out to eat. According to restaurant.org, the overall economic impact of the restaurant industry is expected to exceed $1.3 trillion in 2007, including sales in related industries such as agriculture, transportation and manufacturing. In 2007, the restaurant industry is expected to total 537 billion dollars in sales.
Playing with numbers
Obviously you’re not going to become a millionaire overnight opening a restaurant in a country town in Alabama where the average household income is $20,000. In fact, to become a millionaire in a relatively short period of time operating a restaurant, you’ll have to be operating a pretty exclusive establishment and catering your services to people who think nothing of dropping five thousand dollars on a meal. In that case you need serve only 200 $5K meals per year to gross a million dollars. Your restaurant wouldn’t necessarily need to be thriving, although, if you don’t have a reputation for being the hot spot you’ll probably have a hard time getting the patrons; but to gross a million you would only need about 17 people per month to dine at your establishment.
Of course, you’ll have expenses to consider. You couldn’t operate a high-end restaurant in a low-end location. The location itself would be part of what makes your restaurant high-end, and it would obviously come with a high-end rent. Then there’s the high-end salaries you’ll have to pay for the highly sought-after chefs you’ll need to employ to justify your $5000 charge, the assistants for your chefs, the beautiful people to serve your patrons, the people to keep your restaurant shining with high class, equipment to service et cetera. So technically, even though you would be able to gross a million per year with just 17 diners per month charging $5K per meal, by the time you were finished paying to prepare the meals you feed your diners and serve them their meal in high style in a high-end restaurant in New York City, you would probably find yourself in a serious hole before too long.
Besides, it wouldn’t be easy to start a high-end restaurant in the first place, unless you have the money to finance such an ambitious project. Usually you’ll find that restaurants catering to the rich and famous are started by the rich and famous or people acquainted with the rich and famous. So if you’re thinking about starting a restaurant as a possible way of increasing your net worth to a figure that qualifies you to call yourself a millionaire, you need to begin by coming up with a realistic plan for a restaurant that is catered to regular folks.
These resources might be useful to you in finding out how to start a restaurant, the steps you need to take, the legal requirements, determining if you will start a restaurant from scratch, buy out a restaurant that’s in financial trouble and has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy, how you will finance your restaurant, what kind of restaurant would be best for you to start in the first place and everything else you might need to know about starting-up a restaurant business:
1. "How To Start a Restaurant" guide with tips and resources to help you get started in your own restaurant business - this is a pretty comprehensive resource covering everything from choosing the restaurant concept, name, location, design and layout, lighting, music, calculating start-up costs, financing, leasing, business plan, taxes, hiring an accountant, hiring a lawyer, hiring employees, food safety and pretty much everything you could possibly need information about.
2. Starting a restaurant business
Buying out a restaurant that has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy is probably the least expensive way to get into the restaurant business, but this method has several disadvantages. There is probably a reason that the restaurant has been financially unsuccessful, such as bad management or bad location. The restaurant may have a poor reputation in the area. Therefore, before buying out a bankrupt restaurant, one should investigate the circumstances of the restaurant’s bankruptcy.Purchasing an existing restaurant’s lease is another method to getting started in the restaurant business. Many restaurant owners want to sell their restaurants for any number of reasons, including retirement or they are just tired of the restaurant business. In such a case, the buyer would probably have to pay the "good will" that the previous owner earned as a result of his or her development of the restaurant’s business. The new restaurant owner would have the benefit of having an already established customer base.
Another way to start in the restaurant business is to lease an empty space and turn it into a new restaurant. This method gives the potential restaurant owner wide latitude in designing and developing a restaurant as his or her own "creation." This method requires substantial financial investment including hiring an architect, contractor, plumber, as well as purchasing equipment, making renovations, etc. Goodwill will also have to slowly be developed. Also, the length of the term of the lease is an important consideration. In New York City, there is no commercial rent control. A restaurant owner may face serious problems when, after his or her lease expires, the landlord decides to dramatically increase the rent. Moreover, the longer the lease, the easier it is to obtain a business loan.
Perhaps the most expensive way to get started in the restaurant business is to buy land and build a restaurant "from the ground up." In New York City, this method is the least common. Depending on the size, location and concept of the restaurant, this method could be extremely expensive, including costs such as purchasing the land and constructing a building.
3. Restaurant statup & growth
It takes lots of planning, capital, hard work, perseverance, and a little luck doesn’t hurt either, to launch a new restaurant that hits the mark and becomes a financial success.
4. The Ingredients of Restaurant Success
The restaurant basics you need to write your own recipe for success.
An additional resource is the restaurant resource group
Making a profit in the restaurant business is a challenge!
We know first hand, having created and operated many restaurants over the last twenty-five years. Adequate sales, experience, and capital can help, but without solid financial and operational controls in place, long-term success is not assured. That’s why the The Restaurant Resource Group was created…. to empower restaurant operators by providing these "controls" in the form of simple, yet powerful, financial and management products and services.
The below third party article might also be of some use to you:
Tips for Entrepreneurs Opening a Restaurant
As entrepreneurial enterprises are concerned, opening a restaurant is by far one of the hardest endeavors to undertake. While the rate of restaurant failure isn’t nearly as bad as it’s purported to be, restaurants do fail at a much higher rate than many other types of self starter business. For that matter, even franchised restaurants (usually the smaller "fast food" variety) have a failure rate just a few percentage points below self starters.
So what, you may ask, can entrepreneurs do to increase their chances for success?
Here are three tips to succeeding in the restaurant business that successful owners adhere to. The first of these is location. Yes, there are some restaurants located in out of the way areas that do succeed on word of mouth, but those instances compared to the instances of restaurants failing because they are in bad locations are miniscule by percentage. The safest bet is to always make sure there is plenty of traffic where you want to open up. Established areas are best, but consequently, most expensive. Don’t get in over your head with a lease that will bury your chances for success from the get-go, but don’t choose an out of the way location because it is cheap. Try to find some middle ground.
The next tip is to concentrate on solely on the things that will make people want to come in, and more importantly, want to come back. I know this sounds a little too simple, but it involves a lot more than just good food and a nice atmosphere. The key is to turn out great food, provide a great atmosphere and to have exceptional customer service, day in and day out. Whether you run a sandwich shop or a high end bistro, getting these three elements together and doing so consistently is paramount to success.
The third tip is to find and culminate good business relationships with your suppliers. Having a supply chain you can count on will allow you to concentrate on what’s important, which is running your business while at your business. You’ll need to find food distributors and a restaurant supply distributor you can count on. Food distributors that are able to deliver on time and are committed to bringing you quality products every time will help you to produce consistently good food that your customers want and eventually come to expect. A good restaurant supply company can make all the difference between having a smooth operation that allows you to run you’re back of house effectively and having to deal with subparts equipment.
Of course, there is a lot more to the restaurant business than these basics, but in the end, the basics are what separate successful restaurants from failed restaurants.
About Author
Visit CPAPC for restaurant supplies and equipments
22
Money exists as a symbol of fair trade. You have to give people something of value to get back the thing of value you want from them. Unless you’re winning money or finding money on the street, your only way of obtaining money is by trading something you have that someone wants for a certain amount of money. If you’re employed, you trade your time and your skills in exchange for whatever you get paid every week. If you run your own business, you’re trying to exchange goods or services for a fee. How successful you are at making money is determined by the value of what you’re selling. If your only skill is in washing dishes, you can expect to trade those skills for the going hourly rate at which dishwashers get paid. If you’re selling a product that is flimsy or otherwise inferior you can expect to get paid an insignificant amount of money for it, unless you set out to rip people off by charging more money for whatever you’re selling than it’s worth; and in that case, you’d only be successful if you were able to fool people into believing your product is of a quality to justify what you’re charging for it.
The point is, always expect to give something of equal value to the money you expect to be paid for it. As you try to find ways to make money, keep in mind that money exists as a symbol of fair trade. Don’t go in with a mindset of getting without giving, or getting a lot while giving a little. Find out what people want and what they are willing to pay for what they want, then give them what they want and they’ll give you what you ask in trade. Don’t cheat. Here’s an excerpt from "The Art of Money Getting" by P.T. Barnum about the importance of preserving your integrity:
PRESERVE YOUR INTEGRITY
It is more precious than diamonds or rubies. The old miser said to his sons: "Get money; get it honestly if you can, but get money:" This advice was not only atrociously wicked, but it was the very essence of stupidity: It was as much as to say, "if you find it difficult to obtain money honestly, you can easily get it dishonestly. Get it in that way." Poor fool! Not to know that the most difficult thing in life is to make money dishonestly! Not to know that our prisons are full of men who attempted to follow this advice; not to understand that no man can be dishonest, without soon being found out, and that when his lack of principle is discovered, nearly every avenue to success is closed against him forever. The public very properly shun all whose integrity is doubted. No matter how polite and pleasant and accommodating a man may be, none of us dare to deal with him if we suspect "false weights and measures." Strict honesty, not only lies at the foundation of all success in life (financially), but in every other respect. Uncompromising integrity of character is invaluable. It secures to its possessor a peace and joy which cannot be attained without it–which no amount of money, or houses and lands can purchase. A man who is known to be strictly honest, may be ever so poor, but he has the purses of all the community at his disposal–for all know that if he promises to return what he borrows, he will never disappoint them. As a mere matter of selfishness, therefore, if a man had no higher motive for being honest, all will find that the maxim of Dr. Franklin can never fail to be true, that "honesty is the best policy."
To get rich, is not always equivalent to being successful. "There are many rich poor men," while there are many others, honest and devout men and women, who have never possessed so much money as some rich persons squander in a week, but who are nevertheless really richer and happier than any man can ever be while he is a transgressor of the higher laws of his being.
The inordinate love of money, no doubt, may be and is "the root of all evil," but money itself, when properly used, is not only a "handy thing to have in the house," but affords the gratification of blessing our race by enabling its possessor to enlarge the scope of human happiness and human influence. The desire for wealth is nearly universal, and none can say it is not laudable, provided the possessor of it accepts its responsibilities, and uses it as a friend to humanity.
The history of money-getting, which is commerce, is a history of civilization, and wherever trade has flourished most, there, too, have art and science produced the noblest fruits. In fact, as a general thing, money-getters are the benefactors of our race. To them, in a great measure, are we indebted for our institutions of learning and of art, our academies, colleges and churches. It is no argument against the desire for, or the possession of wealth, to say that there are sometimes misers who hoard money only for the sake of hoarding and who have no higher aspiration than to grasp everything which comes within their reach. As we have sometimes hypocrites in religion, and demagogues in politics, so there are occasionally misers among money-getters. These, however, are only exceptions to the general rule. But when, in this country, we find such a nuisance and stumbling block as a miser, we remember with gratitude that in America we have no laws of primogeniture, and that in the due course of nature the time will come when the hoarded dust will be scattered for the benefit of mankind. To all men and women, therefore, do I conscientiously say, make money honestly, and not otherwise, for Shakespeare has truly said, "He that wants money, means, and content, is without three good friends."
20
A guy sent me an email offering to sell me his secret to making $1500 per day for $750. Let’s call him David Friday since he didn’t include his name in his message. So David Friday claims he makes at least $1500 per day. He says he has 15 websites and he makes at least $100 per day from each of his websites, and he can show me how to do the same for the bargain price of $750. He wanted me to give him $750 for a so-called powerful CD that will change my life.
I wasn’t really interested; but I sent a reply to the email asking for the links to his 15 websites. Maybe I might want to build 15 similar websites you know? Curiously I haven’t received any reply. But this is not a scam alert post.
The truth is, it is feasible to have fifteen websites each making at least $100 per day; and if you had 15 websites each making at least $100 per day, you’d be making $1500 per day. And, it’s probably more feasible to make $100 per day with 15 websites than it is to make $1500 per day from 1 website.
$1500 per day collected over a 30 day period is $45,000 per month which amounts to $540,000 per year.
I certainly wouldn’t object to learning a method by which I could be raking in half a million dollars per year (taxes not held in consideration), so I sent David Friday another email inviting him to share his information with me free of charge. I promised that, if I was convinced his system was legitimate, I would do a review of it and encourage people to buy his $750 powerful CD. I asked him to tell me what exactly he sells on each of his 15 websites, how he markets his websites, what is the average cost of goods or services on each site and the average number of sales generated daily via each site. I didn’t expect him to reply. In the first place, he wouldn’t want to divulge his secret to a potential competitor; but if he’s selling the secret anyway, what’s the difference if he tells me what he’s doing? If I write up a good review he stands the chance of selling more copies of his CDs so he’d only be helping himself by letting me in on the secret. But David Friday has not responded. Could just be because he thinks I’m wasting his time.
In the mean time, if you happen to be making $1500 per day like David Friday, I’d love to hear from you about what you’re doing to make this money. Those of us who aren’t making $1500 per day but would very much like to be making $1500 per day are willing to pay you $750 for your secret if it comes with a solid guarantee that we’ll make $1500 a day like you.
17
If lack of money is the root of all evil, can it then be argued that money is indeed the root of all evil? Could that have been the point of the saying originally, that money is the root of all evil insofar as not having any money can force people to commit heinous crimes to obtain money? People are always exploring the question of whether or not money can buy happiness. Somehow it seems more worthwhile to examine the impact not having money can have on people’s lives. It’s often pointed out that there are people who have no money who are still happy, still content with their lives, while there are people who have millions who are not happy and not content with their lives. Indeed happiness is not something you can purchase, so anyone seeking wealth because they think they can buy happiness with money might consider how much easier it will be on them to forget about trying to get rich and just focus all that energy on the quest to find happiness. They’ll probably find happiness sooner without the stresses and burdens of having to worry about money. And when they finally get the money they want, they’ll soon find after they’ve filled their lives with things, and gotten over the excitement of the new car and the new house, that the same unhappiness they were trying to run away from is still there.
So if all you want is just to be happy, it might do you good to stop telling yourself that being happy means being rich because it doesn’t and the sooner you stop telling yourself that it does, the sooner you can apply your efforts to trying to find out what being happy means for you. The real truth is that being happy doesn’t mean the same thing for everybody, and you won’t necessarily start being happy all of a sudden the day your financial fortune changes, unless, for you, being happy means being successful in business.
The reason some poor people are content and don’t seem to have worries even though they’re only just getting by, managing to pay the bills and eat, with no money left over for anything, is because that is really all they need is the security of having the bills paid, knowing they have a roof over their heads, food to eat and each other. That’s enough for some people. It’s not everybody who needs to live like Sheikh Hamad, the Foreign Minister of Qatar, who owns a $195 million dollar 20,000-square-foot penthouse at One Hyde Park in London (This according to Forbes). Some people can still be content and filled with joy even while a treat for them is being able to share an occasional Friday night Kentucky Fried Chicken Variety Bucket with their family while congregated around a folding table in a living room cum dining room in a 1-bedroom apartment in the Bedford Stuyvesant government projects in Brooklyn.
That being said, not having money to afford the things you want in life when you are not someone who can be content with what little you have as long as the bills are paid and your loved ones are all in good health and you can once in a while splurge on KFC can be excruciatingly depressing. But is it necessarily to your credit that you are unable to find value in life unless you can afford to live like a king or queen? Is it necessarily healthy to determine the worth and value of your life based on what you have and what you don’t, where you live, what you drive, whether you can afford to spend 3 nights in a luxury suite at the Ritz Carlton on Central Park South in New York City or if you’ll feel the pinch from 3 nights at the Super 8?
But we live in a society where worth and value is measured according to what you have and what you don’t by way of material possessions, whether this should be the practice or not. Yes, some people can be poor and still content, but most people want more, and that’s where the obsession with having more creates a problem of money becoming a thing that corrupts indirectly. Because not having money can make people very stressed out, frustrated, desperate, angry, jealous and fill them with a myriad other negative emotions that if left to grow unchecked and uncontrolled can lead to "evil" actions.