BEFORE I DESCRIBE THE FOLLOWING BUSINESS VENTURE,WHICH IS THE DESCRIPTION FOR A NATIONAL/GLOBAL CHAIN OF 'DISCOUNT' CONVENIENCE STORES, LET ME PROVIDE A FEW THINGS ABOUT MYSELF THAT ARE RELATIVE TO MY PART IN IT:
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My name is Frederick Scanlin and I am a 72 year old VETERAN who has tried my entire adult life to become a successful entrepreneur, but for LEGTIMATE REASONS beyond my control I haven't as yet achieved that goal. I won't go into all of these 'legitimate' reasons here, but you can see them elsewhere on this website if you care to. Suffice it to say here, however, that the two biggest 'reasons' are my inability to 'concentrate' long enough to attend to the 'details' of a project, as well as my COMPLETE lack of verbal communication skills--both of which are due to a lifelong 'malady' that have resulted in these 'shortcomings' in my overall personal 'makeup'--neither of which, however, disqualifies me from being able to 'think' just as well as those that don't have these 'drawbacks', but which are, at the same time, obviously 'traits' that are necessary if you are in charge of the 'execution' of a business venture, as well as when you are seeking investors for it.
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Therefore, because I don't have most of the traits, characteristics and expertise that an entrepreneur should have in order to have a reasonable chance to become successful on their own, I am consequently NOT PERSONALLY QUALIFIED TO MAKE A SUCCESS OF ANY OF MY OWN 'IDEAS' FOR INVENTIONS OR NEW BUSINESS VENTURES--but I do however possess the following two 'unconventional' type of 'skill sets', which I believe will overcome my deficiencies and allow all of my 'ideas' to become successful if, IN AN ADVISOR &/or CONSULTANT type of position ONLY, I am allowed to be on the 'team' charged with making that success become a reality:
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1)I believe that I may have a '6th sense' type of attribute that allows me upon being made aware of certain people, places, things processes, concepts and any number of other particular 'sets of circumstances', to see them, not necessarily as they are in their present state, but rather how they might become in an 'expanded' way that would give them more value/worth than they are now--and then in an 'consultant' type of position, with the co-operation and utilization of other people's wisdom/knowledge/talent/traits/expertise, I am able to make the necessary 'changes' to make these things reach a higher state of being.
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Secondly, because I both COMPLETELY understand the message imparted by the following TIMELESS & ETERNAL principle, and am qualified under its 'mandates' with the ability to be to do exactly as it states, therefore allowing me to 'tap into' all of the experience, knowledge and expertise of everybody with whom I may end up 'partnering' with on any given project!!:
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A)If someone is fully aware of all of their 'limitations' in every aspect of their lives, and realizes the limitless value of the proper 'relegation' of certain jobs/tasks, it isn't necessary for the skill, ability, expertise or knowledge that is needed for them to accomplish something to be in their actual 'possession', just as long as they are both aware of which of these attributes will be necessary to successfully get the job done, and know how they can best be used to do so, and then have at their disposal those people who do actually possess those needed attributes.
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BEFORE I PROCEED, HERE IS A RECENT POST THAT I PUT ON LinkedIn in an effort TO TRY AND GET 'PARTNERS' FOR THIS VENTURE:
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"Are there anymore TRUE 'Brick & Mortar' entrepreneurs left out there like a Ray Kroc or a
Howard Shultz-the men behind the success of McDonalds & Starbucks. If you want to know what a really TRUE 'Brick & Mortar' entrepreneur is then read the first 100 pages of the following books about these men and the companies they made famous: 'Pour Your Heart Into It' & 'McDonalds: Behind The Golden Arches'.
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If, after reading the first 100 pages of each of these books, you feel that you might have what it takes to be a TRUE entrepreneur, AND WOULD LIKE TO BE A PART OF STARTING A BUSINESS FROM THE 'IDEA' STAGE TO GLOBAL DOMINANCE, then look below and see a description of the venture that will take us to those heights!!
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I am 72 years old and I am ready, willing and able to work 18 hours a day(and eat, sleep and dream about it the other 6 hours each day) to imake this venture a success--if there are any of you 'young bucks' out there that think that you can keep up with this old man and like the sound of this venture AND ARE WILLING to endure all of the negativity that will come from all of the 'naysayers' out there that will tell you that 'it can't be done', THEN LET'S GET TOGETHER AND PROVE TO THE WORLD THAT IT CAN BE DONE!!".
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THE FOLLOWING 'ANALYSIS' DEFINITIVELY SHOWS WHY SOME STARTUPS SHOULD NOT BE DENIED THE CHANCE TO BE CONSIDERED FOR FUNDING SIMPLY BECAUSE:
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1)THE PERSON(S) WHO THOUGHT OF IT(IT'S 'FOUNDER/S), FOR ANY NUMBER OF LEGITIMATE REASONS, CAN'T, WON'T OR IS UNABLE TO DO ANYTHING OF A POSITIVE NATURE WITH IT.
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2)IT HAS NO DEFINITIVE BUSINESS PLAN IN PLACE.
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3)IT HAS NO TEAM IN PLACE AS YET TO MAKE IT A SUCCESS................
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JUST AS LONG AS IT DOES HAVE:
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1)A BUSINESS PREMISE THAT LOOKS LIKE IT HAS POTENTIAL.
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2)HAS A COOPERATIVE 'FOUNDER' WHO IS WILLING TO GIVE UP A FAIR AMOUNT OF EQUITY TO SEE THEIR VENTURE SUCCESSFUL.
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3)IT HAS NO UNRESOLVABLE ISSUES RELATED TO IT THAT WOULD MAKE IT A PROHIBITED VENTURE.
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4)AND FINALLY, there is a big enough POTENTIAL market out there who will readily accept the price that they will have to be charged in order to cover ALL the costs associated with making that product/service available to them?
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IT IS A UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED FACT among the various 'entities' that invest in new business ventures, that it is the 'implementation' of an idea, rather than the idea itself, that is the most important thing in it's potential success. If this is the case, the question then becomes, in light of the following few facts, does it make any logical sense to pass over a potentially good new invention, business venture or solution to a problem SIMPLY BECAUSE THE ONE WHO THOUGHT OF IT--for any number of LEGITIMATE REASONS--CAN'T, WON'T OR IS INCAPABLE OF DOING ANYTHING OF A POSITIVE NATURE WITH IT?
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THE MANAGEMENT TEAM that is in charge of making a success of any given venture is the singularly most important 'element' in determining it's success or failure--and I would add that just how successful it becomes is, in turn, directly proportional to both the amount and degree of original, 'out-of-the-box' type of entrepreneurial expertise that is possessed/exhibited by that team, AS WELL AS, their ability to properly discern which parts/aspects of the prevailing status-quo that affects their particular venture in any way, will no longer be accepted/held up as the unquestioned way that the who, what, where, when and why of how they will do things to insure the success of their venture!!
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In a perfect world those people with ‘ideas’ for something/anything would also have all of the necessary qualities/attributes/expertise to make their ‘ideas’ a success, AND CONVERSELY, those people with the qualities/attributes/ expertise to make a success out of any kind of an ‘idea’ would also be able to come up with the ‘ideas’ that they need to be able to make a success out of. Unfortunately, this is not a perfect world and never will be.
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Having said the above, there are literally millions of people out there who have potentially good ‘ideas’ for promising new products/services/businesses in every realm of human endeavor but PERSONALLY lack the qualities/attributes/expertise to make them a success. On the other end of the spectrum, there is a vast pool of eager, hungry ‘entrepreneurs’ out there, who, although they might not be able to come up with a good ‘idea’ for anything if their life depended on it, do have,m collectively among them, every skill, trait, ability, talent, attribute characteristic or other expertise that it would take to bring to successful fruition any kind of an ‘idea’ that anyone could possibly come up with in any realm of human endeavor whatsoever.
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If the necessary time & effort were taken to somehow get these two diverse groups of people to work together for their common welfare, you would then have the basis for a 'venue' that would make it possible to never again have to pass up a potentially good business venture SIMPLY BECAUSE THE ONE WHO THOUGHT OF IT CAN'T, WON'T OR IS INCAPABLE OF DOING ANYTHING OF A POSITIVE NATURE WITH IT, as you would now be able to do the much more sensible thing of assembling a hand-picked, 'tailor-made' management team for that venture from that vast pool of eager, 'hungry' entrepreneurs out there who have all of the EXACT qualifications that you need (and in the exact degree
of expertise required) in order to give that venture THE ABSOLUTE BEST CHANCE IN THE WORLD TO HAVE EVERY POSSIBLE OPPORTUNITY TO BECOME SUCCESSFUL!!!
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Another added benefit of using this venue, which is now denied to those who invest in promising new business ventures, would be that it would now be possible to make certain concessions in the ’unwritten law’ among investors which requires that, in order to get funded, the founders of a proposed new business venture must PERSONALLY have the necessary expertise to make it a success--this venue would open a whole new world of investment possibilities to them by not now having to limit their search for promising new business ventures to only those whose founders must PERSONALLY have the necessary expertise to make them a success!!!
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THE FINITE 26 letters of our alphabet have, over the millennia, formed hundreds of thousands of words and phrases to create the English language, and still today continue to form 'new' words and phrases with every passing year. These new words and phrases however, are in reality only 'new' in the sense that none of the 26 finite letters of our alphabet have ever before been 'arranged/put together' in the exact way that they are, in order to form these new words and phrases. IN MUCH THE SAME WAY, ALL 'NEW' BUSINESS STARTUP VENTURES that don't utilize any new or untested technology to make them fully'functional', ARE ONLY 'NEW' in the sense that the various 'components' that make them up(like the letters of our alphabet)--which have been successfully used billions of times in creating every single 'man made' thing in existence--simply have never before been 'put together' in exactly the particular way/shape/manner/form that they are now being combined in order TO FORM/CREATE THE PARTICULAR 'NEW' STARTUP VENTURE IN QUESTION!!!
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THEREFORE IT IS MY CONTENTION THAT A 'TEAM' COMPRISED OF FULLY
QUALIFIED PEOPLE THAT HAVE NO 'TIES' TO THE VENTURE THAT THEY WILL BECOME A TEAM MEMBER OF, HAVE JUST AS GOOD OF A CHANCE OF MAKING A SUCCESS OUT OF THAT VENTURE AS WILL A 'TEAM' COMPRISED OF ITS 'FOUNDERS' WHO MAY OR MAY NOT BE AS QUALIFIED AS THAT 'HAND PICKED' TEAM ARE. These kinds of startups require only a few(depending on what it is, this number will vary)'skill sets' in order to make them completely successful, so 'your good to go' as long as you have access to people who are 'acceptably' qualified or proficient in the various 'skill sets' needed for that particular venture--WHICH PRESENTLY EXIST IN THE TENS OF THOUSANDS AND ARE BEING GRADUATED FROM COLLEGES/UNIVERSITIES IN THE THOUSANDS EACH YEAR!!!!
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As an example, A STARTUP which is in the retail sector will probably néed about a half dozen different 'skill sets' to make it successful:
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1)someone, 'qualified'(the better qualified the better) in FRANCHISING.
2)someone qualified in FINANCE.
3)someone qualified in pinpointing acceptable LOCATIONS.
4)someone qualified in PURCHASING.
5)someone qualified in 'negotiations'.
6)someone qualified in the various aspects of LAW.
7)possibly a few more--but any NEW STARTUP in this sector will require virtually the exact same number of 'skill sets' to be successful, and this number should be quite easy to identify by researching any successful business in this sector to see how many 'skill sets' it took them.
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A NATIONAL CHAIN OF DISCOUNT CONVENIENCE STORES:
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After working for 7 years in a store like the one described below(which was very successful until it was forced to close up to a bitter divorce between the husband and wife owners)AND CONSIDERING THE STATE OF THE ECONOMY FOR THE NEXT FEW YEARS, IT IS MY CONTENTION that there exists in this country, and possibly even worldwide, a vast potential market in the retail sector of our economy for a chain of NEIGHBORHOOD DISCOUNT CONVENIENCE / MINI-GROCERY STORES that sell convenience store products & services, as well as a few dozen other key food/grocery items, at prices REASONABLY CHEAPER than they can be purchased anywhere else(you can see a longer description on my website at http://www.discounstores.weebly.com)..
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POSITIVE ASPECTS RELATED TO THIS VENTURE:
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1)The operation from which I originally got the idea of opening a chain of full service convenience stores- which would sell all of it's products/services at discounted prices- operated profitably for 7 years until it was forced to close down due to a bitter divorce between the husband and wife owners.
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2)It is extremely 'low-tech'.
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3)It is based strictly on proven concepts/premises.
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4)It can become profitable in as little as 3 or 4 months.
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5)It has universal need/appeal.
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6)It is highly scalable.
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7)It is relatively inexpensive to finance.
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8)With the dismal present economic situation(and no relief in sight)never has the time and opportunity ever been more conducive for a chain of stores like these.
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9)Because of it's universal appeal, it will only be necessary to open a handful of
these stores in order to get a solid indication of how successful they would be if expanded on a national/global basis.
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10)It fills a potential multi-billion dollar a year ignored/unmet 'niche' ink it's sector of the marketplace whose basic concept/premise has eluded the best entrepreneurial minds in that sector, as a thorough search of the internet confirms that THERE AREN'T ANY OTHER STORES LIKE IT ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH!!!!!
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11)Lastly, these stores are tailor made to utilize the territorial method of franchising,which the early pioneers of franchising utilized so effectively in the early 1950's,that they were able to manage 1500 units with only a handful of executives in the home office!!! The beauty of this method is that the franchisee not only pays a big upfront 'fee' for his exclusive territory(city,county,state or multi-state territories),but he also pays for all the costs to open and operate all of the units in his territory!!!
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A very wise proverb from antiquity succinctly says: "NO POWER ON EARTH CAN STOP AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME". Without exception, all of the current relevant economic indicators point to the fact that our society is on the verge of ushering in the birth of a new GLOBAL ECONOMIC MODEL, whose direct, indirect and 'ripple-down' effects, ramification, repurcussions, consequences and implications, will, by necessity, mandate that the American people will have to make certain changes in their current lifestyles, as well as make other concessions in areas of their lives that, up till now, they have simply taken for granted.
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Having said that, never in modern history have the TIME, OPPORTUNITY AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS ever concurrently come together in such perfect alignment as to virtually guarantee the success of starting up a nationwide chain of retail stores based on the concept/premise of the one described on the website alluded too above. The complete absence of a retail chain of stores like this one leaves a big empty void in this segment of the retail market that can be successfully exploited by someone with the wisdom and foresight to see it for the virtually unlimited ground floor opportunity that it is.
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The only segment of the economy that has shown double digit growth for the last several years has been in the DISCOUNT sector of retail, and yet the convenience store business is the only retail sector of the economy that hasn't as yet gone DISCOUNT in some form or another, because, for whatever reason, ‘convenience store’ & ‘discount’ are just two things that have never been associated with each other. The main reason for this is that anyone who may have thought about it never looked past the several daunting surface problems standing in the way of how one might profit from selling convenience store products/services at discounted prices. After working for the guy who owned the ‘prototype’ store
from which I got this idea for opening up a national/ global chain of them, I was able to successfully discern the reasons why conventional convenience stores couldn’t sell for discounted prices and how these reasons might be overcome.
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Despite what you believe &/or what the government is telling you, the economy of this country is NEVER AGAIN going to be able to sustain any kind of long term growth, UNTIL THOSE LEGIONS OF GREEDY/EMPTY-HEADED/CRY-BABY/SELF-CENTERED BUFFOONS that we have elected to represent us in Washington begin to use logic/facts/truth/common sense when devising and implementing the laws that affect all of us in every segment of our society!! Although the following business venture will be just as successful in a good economy, it sure doesn't hurt to have it's begining in an economy that will virtually guarantee its success.
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Conservatively, there is a potential market worldwide to support 30-50k thousand stores of this kind, with each doing in the vacinity of 2 million dollars a year in gross sales, thereby making this a potentially 50-100 billion dollar a year business!!! Therefore, based on the 7 year success of my friend’s store as well as my own observations of the industry for those years, it is my contention that there exists in this country, and possibly even worldwide, a vast potential market in the retail sector of our economy for a chain of NEIGHBORHOOD DISCOUNT CONVENIENCE / MINI-GROCERY STORES that sell convenience store products & services, as well as a few dozen other key food/grocery items, at prices REASONABLY CHEAPER than they can be purchased anywhere else.
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It is also my firm belief that if we seize this moment in time, where EVERY RELEVANT factor affecting it, both economic and otherwise, are in such perfectly synchronized alignment, it is easily within the realm of realistic possibility that this retail concept will appeal to a large enough segment of the cost conscious consumer to generate the kind of volume that will be necessary to successfully overcome its slim profit margin and allow it to sustain the projected rate and extent of growth in order for it to achieve, in less than a decade, the same kind of phenomenal success in its sector of the retail marketplace that has taken WAL-MART 60 years to do in theirs!!!
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Having said the above, I believe in my heart, mind, body and soul, that, with the PROPER LEADERSHIP, this chain of stores-which in the light of our new GLOBAL ECONOMY- will be ones that the public WON'T BE ABLE TO AFFORD NOT TO SHOP AT!!!!
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It is extremely rare that a definitive determination of the chances for SUCCESS of a business
opportunity of this magnitude can be decided for the relatively small amount of money that it will cost to determine this one. Because the basic premise for this venture is one of universal want/need/appeal it will only be necessary to open up a half dozen or so units/stores to get a definitive idea on how others that might be opened will fare.
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I read routinely about promising new business ventures without half the potential of this one on which millions of dollars have been spent that, either were ’flops’ or on which more money is still needed to determine if it will even work much less whether or not any money can eventually be made on it!!! For a few hundred thousand dollars (maybe even less), by using the less expensive of the two ’business model’ methods associated with this venture (as opposed to the more expensive one of remodeling acceptable new storefront locations) of ’partnering’ with a business owner of an already open/operating store who is willing (for a mutually agreed upon percentage of the new business‘ ) to remodel and operate his business to our specifications, you can get a reliable idea in a few short months whether or not the concept/premise of this promising new business venture has the kind of potential that I claim it does.
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Once again, because this promising new business venture is offering a product/service that has universal want/need/appeal you can be pretty certain that whatever happens during the 6-8 month trial’ run with that store will be the same result that you will get wherever you open one up. Because there is room for at least 20,000 stores nationally and another 30-50 thousands globally you can multiply your profit/expenses for that 6-8 month trial period by this total number to get a ’ball park’ figure of the yearly revenue potential of this promising new business venture to help you decide if it's worth investing in.
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A NATIONAL/GLOBAL CHAIN OF 'DISCOUNT' CONVENIENCE STORES:
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Since the dawn of time human beings have been 'endowed' with a natural desire/instinct to want and seek out the lowest possible prices whenever they shop for products and services(sales,deals and bargains have been a 'staple' of the marketplace down through recorded history--a factor,by the way,whose relevance is quite obviously still alive,well and
thriving in every single segment of today's marketplace as well)which
suddenly,for some magical reason,simply ceases to exist and becomes a complete
non-issue when the consumer walks through the doors of a convenience store to
shop, at which time cost consideration means absolutely nothing at all to them
and they are ready,willing and content to pay whatever price is posted without
ever giving it a second thought!!!
Now I ask myself what 'magical' force could the convenience store industry have that would give it the power to completely nullify an ageless instinct that has existed in the hearts of the human species since the dawn of time!!! Of course the answer is that it doesn't have any such power , and a better explanation of this 'phenomenon' is that convenience store customers would love to pay lower prices if they were provided the opportunity, but the convenience store industry has done such a good job of convincing the public that convenience stores and low prices can't go together that they simply
accept it as being that way--and up until now nobody has challenged them on
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This website, as simple as it is, is designed to give you a brief but comprehensive description of the following potential multi-billion dollar a year business venture that is absolutely appropriate for the economic times that we in this country(as well as those the world over)are just beginning to feel the negative repercussions from.
Sam Walton, starting with a single store some 60 years ago, built WAL-MART into the biggest retail business in the world by doing basically nothing more than selling AT A DISCOUNT the exact same merchandise as his other chain store competitors did. Because he was able to rightly discern that if he could sell everything cheaper than his
competitors did , that, even though his profit margin would be less than theirs
was, the profit resulting from the added volume that would surely result from
offering the lower prices , would more than make up for it in the long run.
Using the exact same principle that Sam Walton did to make WAL-MART so
successful, which was basically nothing more than realizing that under certain
circumstances you can make more money by selling a lot of something for a lower
price than you can by selling a lesser amount of that something for a higher
price, we plan to build a chain of nationwide/worldwide DISCOUNT CONVENIENCE
STORES!!!
Because we aren't going to be dealing with any 'establishment' type investors
who demand a polished, in-depth status-quo/by-the-book BUSINESS PLAN before
they will even consider looking at a proposed new startup business
venture(despite the obvious fact that because of too many unknown factors/variables
they can't and won't be followed too closely anyway)we don't need one for our purposes.
The only real difference between our 'business model' and that of any other retail concept
that was able to start basically from 'scratch and successfully build a chain of national outlets, is how we will be able to overcome the major reasons/hurdles why nobody
else has ever yet attempted to open up a chain of DISCOUNT convenience
stores. Consequently, we only need to copy/follow how any of them did it
and then simply make any changes, additions, adjustments or alterations
that are particular to our business model, which will by the end of this
decade, make it possible for us to become THE WAL-MART OF CONVENIENCE
STORES!!!
While I was researching the convenience store business for the best way to take a chain of
discount convenience stores to the national level in the quickest, cheapest and
most beneficial way, I read the two books ‘McDonalds, Under the Golden Arches’ and
‘Pour Your Heart Into It' (the stories of the McDONALDS CORPORATION and the STARBUCKS CORPORATION and the two men behind their success). They provide a virtual ‘blueprint’ of what must be done to make this venture a success.
They showed conclusively that building a chain of stores like the ones described here is
many times easier than either of those two men had to deal with in building
their companies, as they practically had to create new markets to become
successful, while this venture is basically just an exercise in ‘marketing’ as we aren’t selling
anything new but rather are just selling, at a discount, time tested products & services that have been around for a hundred years or more in some cases.In other words, the blueprint for most of the work as far as setting up the ‘infrastructure’ necessary to get this venture completely ready to go has already been done for us by the other franchises in the
various retail business’s. All that we have to do is to basically copy everything that they have already set up and simply make any appropriate adjustments / changes that are unique / special to our particular venture.
WHY TRADITIONAL/CONVENTIONAL CONVENIENCE STORES CAN'T SELL AT A DISCOUNT:For whatever reason, ‘convenience store’ & ‘discount’ are just two things that have never been associated with each other. It’s possible that the main reason for this is that anyone who may have thought about it never looked past the several daunting surface problems standing in the way of how one might profit from selling convenience store
products / services at discounted prices. After working for the guy who owned
the ‘prototype’ store from which I got this idea for opening up a national /
global chain of them, I was able to successfully discern the reasons why
conventional convenience stores couldn’t sell for discounted prices and how
these reasons might be overcome.
WHY DETERMINING THIS VENTURE'S POTENTIAL IS RELATIVELY INEXPENSIVE:
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It is extremely rare that a definitive determination of the
chances for SUCCESS of a business opportunity of this magnitude can be decided
for the relatively small amount of money that it will cost to determine this
one. Because the basic premise for this venture is one of universal want / need
/ appeal it will only be necessary to open up one unit / store to get a
definitive idea on how others that might be opened will fare. I read routinely
about promising new business ventures without half the potential of mine on
which millions of dollars have been spent that, either were ’flops’ or on which
more money is still needed to determine if it will even work much less whether
or not any money can eventually be made on it!!! For a few hundred thousand
dollars (maybe even less), by using the less expensive of the two ’business
model’ methods associated with this venture (as opposed to the more expensive
one of remodeling acceptable new storefront locations) of ’partnering’ with a
business owner of an already open / operating store who is willing (for a
mutually agreed upon percentage of the new business‘ ) to remodel and operate
his business to our specifications, you can get a reliable idea in a few short
months whether or not the concept / premise of this promising new business
venture has the kind of potential that I claim it does.
Once again, because this promising new business venture is offering a product / service that has universal want / need / appeal you can be pretty certain that whatever happens during the 6-8 month ‘trial’ run with that store will be the same result that you will get wherever you open one up. Because there is room for at least 20,000 stores nationally and
another 30-50 thousand globally you can multiply your profit / expenses for that
6-8 month trial period by this total number to get a ’ball park’ figure of the
yearly revenue potential of this promising new business venture to help you
decide if it is worth investing i
HOW THIS VENTURE CAME TO BE & WHERE IT STANDS NOW: ___
7 years ago a friend of mine and his wife had saved up a few thousand dollars and were looking for a little business of some kind that the two of them could run with just one or two
other employees. What they came up with, albeit by accident, exceeded their
wildest expectations as its success for the last 7 years has proven.
For the 7 years that I worked for him I tried unsuccessfully many times to convince my friend that with a few inexpensive changes / additions that he would have the premise / basis for a chain of stores that would be successful if expanded across the entire country, but his wife wasn’t interested because she had her hands full working in
the store & raising two children, and he was more than satisfied with the
success of that one store and had no desire to open anymore.
He did suggest to me, however, on more than one occasion, that if I thought it was such
a good idea that I should go out and look for investors because the concept / premise upon
which the success of his store was based was simply selling cheaper than everyone else, which nobody could get a patent or copyright or any other kind of proprietary claim
on, so anybody with the money and inclination could go out and open their own
store based on the same DISCOUNTED PRICES. Consequently, I have spent much of
the last few years searching (so far unsuccessfully) for potential investors who
could see the virtually unlimited potential of this venture DESPITE THE FACT
that you can’t get any proprietary right to the concept / premise on which it is based. Sam Walton also didn’t have any such exclusive rights to sell lower than everybody else when he started WAL-MART, but you can see the results of his efforts AROUND THE WORLD!!!
In the last few months my friend and his wife have been locked in a bitter divorce battle, and now my friend not only doesn’t want to expand, he is actually doing things to sabotage the business so that his wife won’t be able to get it!!!
I almost had a heart attack when I learned about this because this kind
of a business opportunity only comes around once in a lifetime and because the
potential of this one is one that runs deep in my soul I realized that when this
store is closed up that without some kind of an operation like it actually being
opened up and running that I’d never be able to convince any potential investor that
a small store like this one could do 2 or 3 million dollars a year in sales AND COULD DO
THE SAME ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. This is why it is so imperative that I get some potential investors to, at least, look at it while it is still open because if this store closes up
before it can be seen by POTENTIAL INVESTORS, it will fade back into the
oblivion / non-existence from which it arose more than 7 years ago, never to
resurface again, until FATE once more brings it to the attention of some other
lucky entrepreneur.
The premise / concept on which my friend’s store is based was tailor-made to fit the
following observation: Depending on the product & / or service in question,
as well as a few other things, there are some businesses where selling a lot of
things for a small profit can be more lucrative than selling a few things for a
larger profit. In this case it is TO SELL CONVENIENCE STORE PRODUCTS &
SERVICES AT DISCOUNTED PRICES. Never in modern times have the TIME,
OPPORTUNITY & ECONOMIC CONDITIONS ever concurrently come together in such perfect synchronized alignment to virtually guarantee (insofar as something of this
nature can be guaranteed) the success of starting up a nationwide chain of
retail stores like these. Despite mediocre management and providing
only 70% of the products & services that it could have, this store has been so successful in
the last 7 years that it can’t seem to have a real slow or bad day EVEN BY ACCIDENT!!!
WHY NOW IS THE PERFECT TIME FOR THIS VENTURE
Despite what the ‘experts’ say &/or what the stock market might do, PLEASE BELIEVE ME
when I tell you that not only doesn't our country have the necessary ‘infrastructure’ in place in order to be able to sustain any kind of a stable long term economic recovery of
any significance - especially a JOBLESS RECOVERY like some are alluding to-but
absolutely won't have one until until something is done to drastically cut the
number of government internal and social 'programs',as well as to successfully
address all of the many forms of waste,fraud and abuse in both the public and
private sectors of society.
Although this extremely negative economic situation is extremely unfortunate for our country as a whole, it couldn’t be better for an investor starting up a
chain of stores like the one described in these pages which will be something
that a big segment of the public will not only welcome in time, but WILL BE AN
ABSOLUTE NECESSITY to them if they are going to maintain a respectable standard
of living as it pertains to them purchasing the kind of products and services
that this kind of store offers them!!!
A very wise proverb from antiquity succinctly says:
"NO POWER ON EARTH CAN STOP AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME".
Without exception, all of the relevant economic indicators point to the fact
that our society is on the verge of ushering in the birth of a new
GLOBAL ECONOMIC MODEL, whose direct, indirect, and ripple down
effects, ramifications, repercussions, consequences, and implications, will, by
necessity, mandate that the American people will have to make certain changes in
their current lifestyles, as well as make other concessions in areas of their
lives that up till now they have simply taken for granted. Not the least of
these is getting the best value for their money wherever they shop.
Therefore, based on the 7 year success of my friend’s store, as well as
my own observations of the industry for those years, it is my contention that
there exists in this country, and possibly even worldwide, a vast potential
market in the retail sector of our economy for a chain of NEIGHBORHOOD DISCOUNT
CONVENIENCE / MINI-GROCERY STORES that sell convenience store products &
services as well as a few dozen other key food / grocery items at prices
REASONABLY CHEAPER than they can be purchased anywhere else. It is also my firm
belief that if we seize this moment in time where EVERY RELEVANT factor
affecting it, both economic and otherwise, are in such perfectly synchronized
alignment, it is easily within the realm of realistic possibility that this
retail concept will appeal to a large enough segment of the cost conscious
consumer to generate the kind of volume that will be necessary to successfully
overcome its slim profit margin and allow it to sustain the projected rate and
extent of growth in order for it to achieve, in less than a decade, the same
kind of phenomenal success in its sector of the retail marketplace that has
taken WAL-MART 60 years to do in theirs!!!
When I was first putting together the ‘business model’ for this venture it was my intention to build this chain of stores in the exact same manner that my friend started his one
store which was to find & remodel a vacant store front location which
qualified on all four of the following mandates. To insure the success of this
venture ALL STORE LOCATIONS must qualify on the following 4 MANDATES- -most of
your regional / national chain of locations don’t even qualify on all 4 of these!!!:
1) There must be a certain number of residential households in a given distance from each store(the 'formula' for determining this will be based on the original store in Rockford,IL and is yet o be exactly figured out) .
2) The store must be big enough in square feet to meet our specifications.
3) The store must have enough parking spaces within a given distance of the store.
4) The rent / lease contract must be fair & reasonable with well spelled out stipulations concerning the property, taxes, repairs, etc., etc.
However, the more I thought of it, the more I came to the realization that this venture
wouldn’t be successful on a larger scale if it was going to be one like my friend’s was as far as the labor issue was concerned.
I had always known that labor was the biggest expense in most retail businesses, and that its many direct, indirect and ripple-down negative effects is the cause of many of them going broke.I also came to the realization that certain businesses in the retail sector wouldn’t / couldn’t be a good investment for someone whose primary purpose was to use it strictly as an investment vehicle with the intentions of being an ‘absentee owner’ and leaving the day to day operations in the hands of hourly and / or salaried employees.
On the other hand, that same business could well be a good investment opportunity with
a respectable return on the money for an investor who had plans to sublet /
franchise / ‘partner’ with a family who would then own and operate it themselves and would be able to make a respectable living doing so because they would be able to keep the
money that they would otherwise have to pay out in the form of wages, and
other aspects related to them such as sick time, overtime, vacation time,
insurance, etc., etc. There would also be the savings resulting from a reduction
in employee theft & shoplifting, as well as the money that a family can save and / or generate (that a company owned store can’t do) by picking up some of the products for the store that would otherwise be delivered to them at a higher cost. Our stores don't have the expensive prime locations that they do and unlike them they are located in areas where there are enough potential customers within a given distance of them,whereas most conventional ones aren't.
In light of the above facts, it is imperative that you would understand the importance of these stores being FAMILY OWNED & OPERATED!!! This chain of stores wouldn’t /couldn’t be successful if it couldn’t not only be franchised, but FRANCHISED EXCLUSIVELY TO FAMILIES AS WELL!!!
THIS POINT MAY WELL BE THE SINGLE, MOST IMPORTANT REASON, THAT NOBODY HAS AS YET EVEN ATTEMPTED TO OPEN A CHAIN OF DISCOUNT CONVENIENCE STORES. IT IS THE ONLY FACET / ASPECT / ELEMENT OF THIS ENTIRE BUSINESS VENTURE THAT IS SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH TO ALLOW WHAT MAY APPEAR ON THE SURFACE TO BE AN OTHERWISE IMPOSSIBLE / WISHFUL THINKING / PIE-IN-THE-SKY
BUSINESS VENTURE TO BECOME ONE OF UNLIMITED POTENTIAL.
The fact that the success of this business venture depends on the stores in the chain
being family owned & operated, once again, couldn’t come at a more perfect moment in the history of modern times, because the 20plus thousand stores that can feasibly be opened
up just in this country alone will require, at least, that many families buy /
purchase a franchise for those stores that we will be opening in new locations,
and never has there ever been such a large pool of potential buyers as the
present economic times have made available.
There are many families that still have one or more bread winners still gainfully
employed but are worried that they might be next to join those already in the
unemployment lines. Then there are those who are unemployed now and simply
can’t find a job. And, lastly, there are those who have taken a ’buyout’
package of some kind to ’retire’ early, but in reality are too young to retire and need something to do to make a living until they reach the real retirement age. There are thousands of families in all of these groups who may be interested and qualified enough to be possible franchisees of one of our (these) stores.
There are a few enlightened individuals & companies out there that are pioneering a
significant ’paradigm shift’ in the areas of franchising that will have a major impact on it. By creatively & innovatively combining / integrating the very best aspects / approaches of
a few of both the old & new franchising strategies, they are advancing a
much more liberal view / outlook as it pertains to franchising in general &
the FRANCHISER - FRANCHISEE relationship in particular - ALL OF WHICH FIT IN
PERFECTLY with our business model.
WHY BUILDING THIS CHAIN IS RELATIVLY EASY
In order to give any perspective investors the absolute
most ’bang for their buck’ at every step along the way to success in this venture we will muster up all of the original, objective, out-of-the-box type of thinking necessary to come up with every possible way to utilize to the maximum the principles upon which the
term PARSIMONY (spending less money to achieve the same - or better - results)
is based.
The competition in this segment of the retail industry is certainly not ‘asleep at the
wheel’. As a matter of fact just the opposite is true as the basic premise behind those discount stores are very much in proliferation across the country mainly in the form of cigarette & tobacco type stores. Fortunately for us, however, most of them are young, thinly capitalized, independents without the proper concept, resources, experience or inclination to expand on a national scale.
Therefore, most of our major competition will come from these many neighborhood
‘mom & pop’ type convenience stores that are in abundance across the country, most of whom either don’t know how much they could benefit if they had significantly lower prices than their competitors and/or don’t have enough money saved up to hold out long enough offering lower prices until they could build up the necessary volume to overcome the lower net profit that will result from offering those lower prices.
Although these stores can most likely be successful anywhere in this country (and probably around the world), in an effort to expand quickly & efficiently across the country, we will at first concentrate on opening stores in cities over 30,000 population and in the poorer half of the neighborhoods in those towns.
While I was researching the convenience store business for the best way to take a chain of
discount convenience stores to the national level in the quickest, cheapest and
most beneficial way, I read the two books ‘McDonalds, Under the Golden Arches’ and
‘Pour Your Heart Into It (the stories of the McDONALDS CORPORATION and the STARBUCKS CORPORATION and the two men behind their success). They provide a virtual ‘blueprint’ of what must be to make this venture a success.
They showed conclusively that building a chain of stores like the ones described here is
many times easier than either of those two men had to deal with in building
their companies, as they practically had to create new markets to become
successful, while this venture is basically just an exercise in
‘marketing’ as we aren’t selling anything new but rather are just
selling, at a discount, time tested products & services that have been
around for a hundred years or more in some cases.
In other words, the blueprint for most of the work as far as setting up the
‘infrastructure’ necessary to get this venture completely ready to go has already
been done for us by the other franchises in the various retail business’s. All
that we have to do is to basically copy everything that they have already set up
and simply make any appropriate adjustments / changes that are unique /
special to our particular venture.
THE BEST WAY TO EXPAND THIS CONCEPT NATIONALLY
Once a perspective investor shows some real interest in the concept upon which this
venture is based he should commission a national study / poll / survey to get more confirmation that this business venture indeed has the vast potential that it appears on the
surface to have. Once the results of this study / poll / survey come in and
confirm my belief that the public would indeed support a store like this if
there were one in their neighborhood it will then become necessary to decide on
the best method of national expansion for this chain of stores.
To expand nationally as quickly and inexpensively as possible I believe
it would be wise to add to the original business model of opening up and
franchising stores by finding and remodeling vacant store front locations, the
equally as effective method of franchising stores by ’partnering’ in some
mutually beneficial manner with the willing owners of already existing family
owned stores (that meet our 4 mandated requirements) who can see the potential
of ’going discount’. 7-ELEVEN (the biggest franchiser of convenience stores in the world) is using this method of ’franchising’ in the wake of not being able to find anymore good locations to build new stores on.
I believe the following ’strategy’ will work as well for expanding this chain of stores as it did for the early franchisers of the 1950’s & 60’s who employed it so well that it allowed them to manage / oversee as many as 1500 units / stores with as few as half a dozen or so key people in the home / national offices!!!
This ‘strategy’ is called the ‘territorial’ method of franchising, whereby big investors pay an upfront franchising fee to be the exclusive ‘owner’ of all the units / stores in any given ‘territory’ (i.e., city, county, state or multi-state regions). Two of the most lucrative benefits that the franchiser receives by employing this method of franchising is the upfront
franchise fee paid by the franchisee (this can be several million dollars
depending on the size of the territory) which is basically all profit to the
franchiser!!! The other benefit is the huge amount of money saved by the
franchiser because the franchisee takes on all of the costs associated with
opening & operating all the stores in his territory!!!
There are a lot of little things that we can do to endear our stores even more to our
customers, that if creatively / innovativly implemented , will set us apart from the competition. The key to the success of this operation is to find as many ways as possible to get the maximum number of people to come into each store, at which time you’ll have a permanent customer base as they’ll have no reason to go anywhere else for lower prices or better service.
Our stores can earn a little extra profit each month by offering some non-traditional convenience store type services that don’t require much, if any, extra space and little extra money. This can be done by the store owners doing it themselves or by ‘renting’ our a small space in their store for someone else to do it. A couple of examples are: 1) to
provide a place where people can come to have something put on an internet
‘auction’ site to have sold for them; 2) possible drop off sites for delivery services; 3) rent mail boxes; 4) copy machine; 5) notary, western union, money orders & Lotto; 6) pay
utility bills; 7) a small selection of liquor, beer &/or wine as local laws
allow; 8) ETC., ETC. You might consider having a car title/payday loan service
(or rent a space to a regional or national chain).
By making it part of our business model, the following 'promotion', it
will bring in enough extra customers to make up for the loss it will incur:
“to our valued customer, we realize that these are unusually rough economic times
and so in addition to our already low prices we are also going to pay the sales tax on whatever purchase’s you make in our stores!!!” We have, of course, already factored in the
sales tax to our prices, so it seems like we are giving them a lot more than we really are.
Video poker machines are popular with adults. By putting in 2 or 3 of them in the store where the customer can win ‘store credit’ (as opposed to money) to purchase anything that we sell in our stores. They don’t take up much space & can add a couple of hundred dollars or so to the stores’ bottom line each month.
Like it or not, we are living in an ‘instant gratification’ type of society and we plan to capitalize / exploit to the maximum on this ‘fact of life’ by offering our customers several daily, weekly and monthly instant gratification’ type of ‘promotions’ all of which have been ‘mathematically’ calculated / certified as to their long term odds / chances of having to be paid off, thereby allowing you to factor them in as part of any advertising / promotional budget allotted to promote the store.
One of the ‘contests’ that I believe will be very successful and which nobody else in the world is doing, is based on something that I have observed for several years. ‘SCRATCH-OFF’ card type promotions seem to be something that the public seems to like, but its downside is that it takes only a few seconds to ‘scratch off’ your card and see if you have any of the winning ‘combinations’. That doesn’t give a person much time to enjoy the kind of fun, excitement, thrill or whatever other type of satisfaction that they might
get from doing this type of activity especially in light of the fact that their
odds of winning aren’t very good - a fact that they aren’t aware &/or don’t
really seem to care about.
What I have in mind in this regard is that when a customer enters the store, they take a ticket from a machine (similar to the one that businesses use to wait on customer’s in proper order) that has 10 randomly selected numbers on it that when properly matched up with the 10 randomly selected numbers that appear on the bottom of their register receipt, they can win any possible number of prizes’ ranging from getting their purchase free to a possible $10, 000 IN CASH!!! (All of the mathematical probabilities have been properly calculated to insure that in the end the store won’t spend anymore on this promotion than is acceptable).The great thing about this promotion is that because there are several dozen possible winning combinations, it will give the customer several minutes of ’fun’ to match them up AS OPPOSED TO a few seconds with traditional scratch off promotions. I believe that the customer will find this promotion so popular that many of them will come in several times a day just to have a chance to play it!!!
One of what I believe will be these stores
biggest net producing services will be for those customers who get government
checks (i.e. SSI, Social Security and possibly a few other types). I have
notices over the years (and in several different parts of the country) that
those receiving government checks (especially those getting SSI checks - and
they number in the tens of millions) are, for the most part, broke by the middle
of the month. My idea in this regard is to do something that few if anyone else
does and that is to offer to those willing to have their checks sent to a
mailbox that we rent in our stores (at about $5 a month) to cash their checks
free of charge on the first (or third) of the month and then beginning on the
15th of the month they get $10 a day credit to buy anything in our stores. We
don’t give them credit before the 15th of the month or over $10 a day because we don’t
want to take all their money on the first of the month so that they will have enough money left out of their checks to pay other necessary living expenses. We make our money form the mailbox rentals as well as having that guaranteed ‘locked in’ $10 a day in sales for the last two weeks of every month.?
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My name is Frederick Scanlin and I am a 72 year old VETERAN who has tried my entire adult life to become a successful entrepreneur, but for LEGTIMATE REASONS beyond my control I haven't as yet achieved that goal. I won't go into all of these 'legitimate' reasons here, but you can see them elsewhere on this website if you care to. Suffice it to say here, however, that the two biggest 'reasons' are my inability to 'concentrate' long enough to attend to the 'details' of a project, as well as my COMPLETE lack of verbal communication skills--both of which are due to a lifelong 'malady' that have resulted in these 'shortcomings' in my overall personal 'makeup'--neither of which, however, disqualifies me from being able to 'think' just as well as those that don't have these 'drawbacks', but which are, at the same time, obviously 'traits' that are necessary if you are in charge of the 'execution' of a business venture, as well as when you are seeking investors for it.
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Therefore, because I don't have most of the traits, characteristics and expertise that an entrepreneur should have in order to have a reasonable chance to become successful on their own, I am consequently NOT PERSONALLY QUALIFIED TO MAKE A SUCCESS OF ANY OF MY OWN 'IDEAS' FOR INVENTIONS OR NEW BUSINESS VENTURES--but I do however possess the following two 'unconventional' type of 'skill sets', which I believe will overcome my deficiencies and allow all of my 'ideas' to become successful if, IN AN ADVISOR &/or CONSULTANT type of position ONLY, I am allowed to be on the 'team' charged with making that success become a reality:
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1)I believe that I may have a '6th sense' type of attribute that allows me upon being made aware of certain people, places, things processes, concepts and any number of other particular 'sets of circumstances', to see them, not necessarily as they are in their present state, but rather how they might become in an 'expanded' way that would give them more value/worth than they are now--and then in an 'consultant' type of position, with the co-operation and utilization of other people's wisdom/knowledge/talent/traits/expertise, I am able to make the necessary 'changes' to make these things reach a higher state of being.
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Secondly, because I both COMPLETELY understand the message imparted by the following TIMELESS & ETERNAL principle, and am qualified under its 'mandates' with the ability to be to do exactly as it states, therefore allowing me to 'tap into' all of the experience, knowledge and expertise of everybody with whom I may end up 'partnering' with on any given project!!:
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A)If someone is fully aware of all of their 'limitations' in every aspect of their lives, and realizes the limitless value of the proper 'relegation' of certain jobs/tasks, it isn't necessary for the skill, ability, expertise or knowledge that is needed for them to accomplish something to be in their actual 'possession', just as long as they are both aware of which of these attributes will be necessary to successfully get the job done, and know how they can best be used to do so, and then have at their disposal those people who do actually possess those needed attributes.
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BEFORE I PROCEED, HERE IS A RECENT POST THAT I PUT ON LinkedIn in an effort TO TRY AND GET 'PARTNERS' FOR THIS VENTURE:
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"Are there anymore TRUE 'Brick & Mortar' entrepreneurs left out there like a Ray Kroc or a
Howard Shultz-the men behind the success of McDonalds & Starbucks. If you want to know what a really TRUE 'Brick & Mortar' entrepreneur is then read the first 100 pages of the following books about these men and the companies they made famous: 'Pour Your Heart Into It' & 'McDonalds: Behind The Golden Arches'.
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If, after reading the first 100 pages of each of these books, you feel that you might have what it takes to be a TRUE entrepreneur, AND WOULD LIKE TO BE A PART OF STARTING A BUSINESS FROM THE 'IDEA' STAGE TO GLOBAL DOMINANCE, then look below and see a description of the venture that will take us to those heights!!
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I am 72 years old and I am ready, willing and able to work 18 hours a day(and eat, sleep and dream about it the other 6 hours each day) to imake this venture a success--if there are any of you 'young bucks' out there that think that you can keep up with this old man and like the sound of this venture AND ARE WILLING to endure all of the negativity that will come from all of the 'naysayers' out there that will tell you that 'it can't be done', THEN LET'S GET TOGETHER AND PROVE TO THE WORLD THAT IT CAN BE DONE!!".
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THE FOLLOWING 'ANALYSIS' DEFINITIVELY SHOWS WHY SOME STARTUPS SHOULD NOT BE DENIED THE CHANCE TO BE CONSIDERED FOR FUNDING SIMPLY BECAUSE:
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1)THE PERSON(S) WHO THOUGHT OF IT(IT'S 'FOUNDER/S), FOR ANY NUMBER OF LEGITIMATE REASONS, CAN'T, WON'T OR IS UNABLE TO DO ANYTHING OF A POSITIVE NATURE WITH IT.
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2)IT HAS NO DEFINITIVE BUSINESS PLAN IN PLACE.
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3)IT HAS NO TEAM IN PLACE AS YET TO MAKE IT A SUCCESS................
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JUST AS LONG AS IT DOES HAVE:
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1)A BUSINESS PREMISE THAT LOOKS LIKE IT HAS POTENTIAL.
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2)HAS A COOPERATIVE 'FOUNDER' WHO IS WILLING TO GIVE UP A FAIR AMOUNT OF EQUITY TO SEE THEIR VENTURE SUCCESSFUL.
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3)IT HAS NO UNRESOLVABLE ISSUES RELATED TO IT THAT WOULD MAKE IT A PROHIBITED VENTURE.
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4)AND FINALLY, there is a big enough POTENTIAL market out there who will readily accept the price that they will have to be charged in order to cover ALL the costs associated with making that product/service available to them?
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IT IS A UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED FACT among the various 'entities' that invest in new business ventures, that it is the 'implementation' of an idea, rather than the idea itself, that is the most important thing in it's potential success. If this is the case, the question then becomes, in light of the following few facts, does it make any logical sense to pass over a potentially good new invention, business venture or solution to a problem SIMPLY BECAUSE THE ONE WHO THOUGHT OF IT--for any number of LEGITIMATE REASONS--CAN'T, WON'T OR IS INCAPABLE OF DOING ANYTHING OF A POSITIVE NATURE WITH IT?
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THE MANAGEMENT TEAM that is in charge of making a success of any given venture is the singularly most important 'element' in determining it's success or failure--and I would add that just how successful it becomes is, in turn, directly proportional to both the amount and degree of original, 'out-of-the-box' type of entrepreneurial expertise that is possessed/exhibited by that team, AS WELL AS, their ability to properly discern which parts/aspects of the prevailing status-quo that affects their particular venture in any way, will no longer be accepted/held up as the unquestioned way that the who, what, where, when and why of how they will do things to insure the success of their venture!!
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In a perfect world those people with ‘ideas’ for something/anything would also have all of the necessary qualities/attributes/expertise to make their ‘ideas’ a success, AND CONVERSELY, those people with the qualities/attributes/ expertise to make a success out of any kind of an ‘idea’ would also be able to come up with the ‘ideas’ that they need to be able to make a success out of. Unfortunately, this is not a perfect world and never will be.
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Having said the above, there are literally millions of people out there who have potentially good ‘ideas’ for promising new products/services/businesses in every realm of human endeavor but PERSONALLY lack the qualities/attributes/expertise to make them a success. On the other end of the spectrum, there is a vast pool of eager, hungry ‘entrepreneurs’ out there, who, although they might not be able to come up with a good ‘idea’ for anything if their life depended on it, do have,m collectively among them, every skill, trait, ability, talent, attribute characteristic or other expertise that it would take to bring to successful fruition any kind of an ‘idea’ that anyone could possibly come up with in any realm of human endeavor whatsoever.
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If the necessary time & effort were taken to somehow get these two diverse groups of people to work together for their common welfare, you would then have the basis for a 'venue' that would make it possible to never again have to pass up a potentially good business venture SIMPLY BECAUSE THE ONE WHO THOUGHT OF IT CAN'T, WON'T OR IS INCAPABLE OF DOING ANYTHING OF A POSITIVE NATURE WITH IT, as you would now be able to do the much more sensible thing of assembling a hand-picked, 'tailor-made' management team for that venture from that vast pool of eager, 'hungry' entrepreneurs out there who have all of the EXACT qualifications that you need (and in the exact degree
of expertise required) in order to give that venture THE ABSOLUTE BEST CHANCE IN THE WORLD TO HAVE EVERY POSSIBLE OPPORTUNITY TO BECOME SUCCESSFUL!!!
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Another added benefit of using this venue, which is now denied to those who invest in promising new business ventures, would be that it would now be possible to make certain concessions in the ’unwritten law’ among investors which requires that, in order to get funded, the founders of a proposed new business venture must PERSONALLY have the necessary expertise to make it a success--this venue would open a whole new world of investment possibilities to them by not now having to limit their search for promising new business ventures to only those whose founders must PERSONALLY have the necessary expertise to make them a success!!!
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THE FINITE 26 letters of our alphabet have, over the millennia, formed hundreds of thousands of words and phrases to create the English language, and still today continue to form 'new' words and phrases with every passing year. These new words and phrases however, are in reality only 'new' in the sense that none of the 26 finite letters of our alphabet have ever before been 'arranged/put together' in the exact way that they are, in order to form these new words and phrases. IN MUCH THE SAME WAY, ALL 'NEW' BUSINESS STARTUP VENTURES that don't utilize any new or untested technology to make them fully'functional', ARE ONLY 'NEW' in the sense that the various 'components' that make them up(like the letters of our alphabet)--which have been successfully used billions of times in creating every single 'man made' thing in existence--simply have never before been 'put together' in exactly the particular way/shape/manner/form that they are now being combined in order TO FORM/CREATE THE PARTICULAR 'NEW' STARTUP VENTURE IN QUESTION!!!
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THEREFORE IT IS MY CONTENTION THAT A 'TEAM' COMPRISED OF FULLY
QUALIFIED PEOPLE THAT HAVE NO 'TIES' TO THE VENTURE THAT THEY WILL BECOME A TEAM MEMBER OF, HAVE JUST AS GOOD OF A CHANCE OF MAKING A SUCCESS OUT OF THAT VENTURE AS WILL A 'TEAM' COMPRISED OF ITS 'FOUNDERS' WHO MAY OR MAY NOT BE AS QUALIFIED AS THAT 'HAND PICKED' TEAM ARE. These kinds of startups require only a few(depending on what it is, this number will vary)'skill sets' in order to make them completely successful, so 'your good to go' as long as you have access to people who are 'acceptably' qualified or proficient in the various 'skill sets' needed for that particular venture--WHICH PRESENTLY EXIST IN THE TENS OF THOUSANDS AND ARE BEING GRADUATED FROM COLLEGES/UNIVERSITIES IN THE THOUSANDS EACH YEAR!!!!
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As an example, A STARTUP which is in the retail sector will probably néed about a half dozen different 'skill sets' to make it successful:
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1)someone, 'qualified'(the better qualified the better) in FRANCHISING.
2)someone qualified in FINANCE.
3)someone qualified in pinpointing acceptable LOCATIONS.
4)someone qualified in PURCHASING.
5)someone qualified in 'negotiations'.
6)someone qualified in the various aspects of LAW.
7)possibly a few more--but any NEW STARTUP in this sector will require virtually the exact same number of 'skill sets' to be successful, and this number should be quite easy to identify by researching any successful business in this sector to see how many 'skill sets' it took them.
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A NATIONAL CHAIN OF DISCOUNT CONVENIENCE STORES:
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After working for 7 years in a store like the one described below(which was very successful until it was forced to close up to a bitter divorce between the husband and wife owners)AND CONSIDERING THE STATE OF THE ECONOMY FOR THE NEXT FEW YEARS, IT IS MY CONTENTION that there exists in this country, and possibly even worldwide, a vast potential market in the retail sector of our economy for a chain of NEIGHBORHOOD DISCOUNT CONVENIENCE / MINI-GROCERY STORES that sell convenience store products & services, as well as a few dozen other key food/grocery items, at prices REASONABLY CHEAPER than they can be purchased anywhere else(you can see a longer description on my website at http://www.discounstores.weebly.com)..
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POSITIVE ASPECTS RELATED TO THIS VENTURE:
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1)The operation from which I originally got the idea of opening a chain of full service convenience stores- which would sell all of it's products/services at discounted prices- operated profitably for 7 years until it was forced to close down due to a bitter divorce between the husband and wife owners.
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2)It is extremely 'low-tech'.
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3)It is based strictly on proven concepts/premises.
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4)It can become profitable in as little as 3 or 4 months.
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5)It has universal need/appeal.
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6)It is highly scalable.
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7)It is relatively inexpensive to finance.
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8)With the dismal present economic situation(and no relief in sight)never has the time and opportunity ever been more conducive for a chain of stores like these.
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9)Because of it's universal appeal, it will only be necessary to open a handful of
these stores in order to get a solid indication of how successful they would be if expanded on a national/global basis.
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10)It fills a potential multi-billion dollar a year ignored/unmet 'niche' ink it's sector of the marketplace whose basic concept/premise has eluded the best entrepreneurial minds in that sector, as a thorough search of the internet confirms that THERE AREN'T ANY OTHER STORES LIKE IT ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH!!!!!
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11)Lastly, these stores are tailor made to utilize the territorial method of franchising,which the early pioneers of franchising utilized so effectively in the early 1950's,that they were able to manage 1500 units with only a handful of executives in the home office!!! The beauty of this method is that the franchisee not only pays a big upfront 'fee' for his exclusive territory(city,county,state or multi-state territories),but he also pays for all the costs to open and operate all of the units in his territory!!!
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A very wise proverb from antiquity succinctly says: "NO POWER ON EARTH CAN STOP AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME". Without exception, all of the current relevant economic indicators point to the fact that our society is on the verge of ushering in the birth of a new GLOBAL ECONOMIC MODEL, whose direct, indirect and 'ripple-down' effects, ramification, repurcussions, consequences and implications, will, by necessity, mandate that the American people will have to make certain changes in their current lifestyles, as well as make other concessions in areas of their lives that, up till now, they have simply taken for granted.
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Having said that, never in modern history have the TIME, OPPORTUNITY AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS ever concurrently come together in such perfect alignment as to virtually guarantee the success of starting up a nationwide chain of retail stores based on the concept/premise of the one described on the website alluded too above. The complete absence of a retail chain of stores like this one leaves a big empty void in this segment of the retail market that can be successfully exploited by someone with the wisdom and foresight to see it for the virtually unlimited ground floor opportunity that it is.
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The only segment of the economy that has shown double digit growth for the last several years has been in the DISCOUNT sector of retail, and yet the convenience store business is the only retail sector of the economy that hasn't as yet gone DISCOUNT in some form or another, because, for whatever reason, ‘convenience store’ & ‘discount’ are just two things that have never been associated with each other. The main reason for this is that anyone who may have thought about it never looked past the several daunting surface problems standing in the way of how one might profit from selling convenience store products/services at discounted prices. After working for the guy who owned the ‘prototype’ store
from which I got this idea for opening up a national/ global chain of them, I was able to successfully discern the reasons why conventional convenience stores couldn’t sell for discounted prices and how these reasons might be overcome.
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Despite what you believe &/or what the government is telling you, the economy of this country is NEVER AGAIN going to be able to sustain any kind of long term growth, UNTIL THOSE LEGIONS OF GREEDY/EMPTY-HEADED/CRY-BABY/SELF-CENTERED BUFFOONS that we have elected to represent us in Washington begin to use logic/facts/truth/common sense when devising and implementing the laws that affect all of us in every segment of our society!! Although the following business venture will be just as successful in a good economy, it sure doesn't hurt to have it's begining in an economy that will virtually guarantee its success.
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Conservatively, there is a potential market worldwide to support 30-50k thousand stores of this kind, with each doing in the vacinity of 2 million dollars a year in gross sales, thereby making this a potentially 50-100 billion dollar a year business!!! Therefore, based on the 7 year success of my friend’s store as well as my own observations of the industry for those years, it is my contention that there exists in this country, and possibly even worldwide, a vast potential market in the retail sector of our economy for a chain of NEIGHBORHOOD DISCOUNT CONVENIENCE / MINI-GROCERY STORES that sell convenience store products & services, as well as a few dozen other key food/grocery items, at prices REASONABLY CHEAPER than they can be purchased anywhere else.
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It is also my firm belief that if we seize this moment in time, where EVERY RELEVANT factor affecting it, both economic and otherwise, are in such perfectly synchronized alignment, it is easily within the realm of realistic possibility that this retail concept will appeal to a large enough segment of the cost conscious consumer to generate the kind of volume that will be necessary to successfully overcome its slim profit margin and allow it to sustain the projected rate and extent of growth in order for it to achieve, in less than a decade, the same kind of phenomenal success in its sector of the retail marketplace that has taken WAL-MART 60 years to do in theirs!!!
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Having said the above, I believe in my heart, mind, body and soul, that, with the PROPER LEADERSHIP, this chain of stores-which in the light of our new GLOBAL ECONOMY- will be ones that the public WON'T BE ABLE TO AFFORD NOT TO SHOP AT!!!!
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It is extremely rare that a definitive determination of the chances for SUCCESS of a business
opportunity of this magnitude can be decided for the relatively small amount of money that it will cost to determine this one. Because the basic premise for this venture is one of universal want/need/appeal it will only be necessary to open up a half dozen or so units/stores to get a definitive idea on how others that might be opened will fare.
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I read routinely about promising new business ventures without half the potential of this one on which millions of dollars have been spent that, either were ’flops’ or on which more money is still needed to determine if it will even work much less whether or not any money can eventually be made on it!!! For a few hundred thousand dollars (maybe even less), by using the less expensive of the two ’business model’ methods associated with this venture (as opposed to the more expensive one of remodeling acceptable new storefront locations) of ’partnering’ with a business owner of an already open/operating store who is willing (for a mutually agreed upon percentage of the new business‘ ) to remodel and operate his business to our specifications, you can get a reliable idea in a few short months whether or not the concept/premise of this promising new business venture has the kind of potential that I claim it does.
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Once again, because this promising new business venture is offering a product/service that has universal want/need/appeal you can be pretty certain that whatever happens during the 6-8 month trial’ run with that store will be the same result that you will get wherever you open one up. Because there is room for at least 20,000 stores nationally and another 30-50 thousands globally you can multiply your profit/expenses for that 6-8 month trial period by this total number to get a ’ball park’ figure of the yearly revenue potential of this promising new business venture to help you decide if it's worth investing in.
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A NATIONAL/GLOBAL CHAIN OF 'DISCOUNT' CONVENIENCE STORES:
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Since the dawn of time human beings have been 'endowed' with a natural desire/instinct to want and seek out the lowest possible prices whenever they shop for products and services(sales,deals and bargains have been a 'staple' of the marketplace down through recorded history--a factor,by the way,whose relevance is quite obviously still alive,well and
thriving in every single segment of today's marketplace as well)which
suddenly,for some magical reason,simply ceases to exist and becomes a complete
non-issue when the consumer walks through the doors of a convenience store to
shop, at which time cost consideration means absolutely nothing at all to them
and they are ready,willing and content to pay whatever price is posted without
ever giving it a second thought!!!
Now I ask myself what 'magical' force could the convenience store industry have that would give it the power to completely nullify an ageless instinct that has existed in the hearts of the human species since the dawn of time!!! Of course the answer is that it doesn't have any such power , and a better explanation of this 'phenomenon' is that convenience store customers would love to pay lower prices if they were provided the opportunity, but the convenience store industry has done such a good job of convincing the public that convenience stores and low prices can't go together that they simply
accept it as being that way--and up until now nobody has challenged them on
it.
This website, as simple as it is, is designed to give you a brief but comprehensive description of the following potential multi-billion dollar a year business venture that is absolutely appropriate for the economic times that we in this country(as well as those the world over)are just beginning to feel the negative repercussions from.
Sam Walton, starting with a single store some 60 years ago, built WAL-MART into the biggest retail business in the world by doing basically nothing more than selling AT A DISCOUNT the exact same merchandise as his other chain store competitors did. Because he was able to rightly discern that if he could sell everything cheaper than his
competitors did , that, even though his profit margin would be less than theirs
was, the profit resulting from the added volume that would surely result from
offering the lower prices , would more than make up for it in the long run.
Using the exact same principle that Sam Walton did to make WAL-MART so
successful, which was basically nothing more than realizing that under certain
circumstances you can make more money by selling a lot of something for a lower
price than you can by selling a lesser amount of that something for a higher
price, we plan to build a chain of nationwide/worldwide DISCOUNT CONVENIENCE
STORES!!!
Because we aren't going to be dealing with any 'establishment' type investors
who demand a polished, in-depth status-quo/by-the-book BUSINESS PLAN before
they will even consider looking at a proposed new startup business
venture(despite the obvious fact that because of too many unknown factors/variables
they can't and won't be followed too closely anyway)we don't need one for our purposes.
The only real difference between our 'business model' and that of any other retail concept
that was able to start basically from 'scratch and successfully build a chain of national outlets, is how we will be able to overcome the major reasons/hurdles why nobody
else has ever yet attempted to open up a chain of DISCOUNT convenience
stores. Consequently, we only need to copy/follow how any of them did it
and then simply make any changes, additions, adjustments or alterations
that are particular to our business model, which will by the end of this
decade, make it possible for us to become THE WAL-MART OF CONVENIENCE
STORES!!!
While I was researching the convenience store business for the best way to take a chain of
discount convenience stores to the national level in the quickest, cheapest and
most beneficial way, I read the two books ‘McDonalds, Under the Golden Arches’ and
‘Pour Your Heart Into It' (the stories of the McDONALDS CORPORATION and the STARBUCKS CORPORATION and the two men behind their success). They provide a virtual ‘blueprint’ of what must be done to make this venture a success.
They showed conclusively that building a chain of stores like the ones described here is
many times easier than either of those two men had to deal with in building
their companies, as they practically had to create new markets to become
successful, while this venture is basically just an exercise in ‘marketing’ as we aren’t selling
anything new but rather are just selling, at a discount, time tested products & services that have been around for a hundred years or more in some cases.In other words, the blueprint for most of the work as far as setting up the ‘infrastructure’ necessary to get this venture completely ready to go has already been done for us by the other franchises in the
various retail business’s. All that we have to do is to basically copy everything that they have already set up and simply make any appropriate adjustments / changes that are unique / special to our particular venture.
WHY TRADITIONAL/CONVENTIONAL CONVENIENCE STORES CAN'T SELL AT A DISCOUNT:For whatever reason, ‘convenience store’ & ‘discount’ are just two things that have never been associated with each other. It’s possible that the main reason for this is that anyone who may have thought about it never looked past the several daunting surface problems standing in the way of how one might profit from selling convenience store
products / services at discounted prices. After working for the guy who owned
the ‘prototype’ store from which I got this idea for opening up a national /
global chain of them, I was able to successfully discern the reasons why
conventional convenience stores couldn’t sell for discounted prices and how
these reasons might be overcome.
WHY DETERMINING THIS VENTURE'S POTENTIAL IS RELATIVELY INEXPENSIVE:
.
.
It is extremely rare that a definitive determination of the
chances for SUCCESS of a business opportunity of this magnitude can be decided
for the relatively small amount of money that it will cost to determine this
one. Because the basic premise for this venture is one of universal want / need
/ appeal it will only be necessary to open up one unit / store to get a
definitive idea on how others that might be opened will fare. I read routinely
about promising new business ventures without half the potential of mine on
which millions of dollars have been spent that, either were ’flops’ or on which
more money is still needed to determine if it will even work much less whether
or not any money can eventually be made on it!!! For a few hundred thousand
dollars (maybe even less), by using the less expensive of the two ’business
model’ methods associated with this venture (as opposed to the more expensive
one of remodeling acceptable new storefront locations) of ’partnering’ with a
business owner of an already open / operating store who is willing (for a
mutually agreed upon percentage of the new business‘ ) to remodel and operate
his business to our specifications, you can get a reliable idea in a few short
months whether or not the concept / premise of this promising new business
venture has the kind of potential that I claim it does.
Once again, because this promising new business venture is offering a product / service that has universal want / need / appeal you can be pretty certain that whatever happens during the 6-8 month ‘trial’ run with that store will be the same result that you will get wherever you open one up. Because there is room for at least 20,000 stores nationally and
another 30-50 thousand globally you can multiply your profit / expenses for that
6-8 month trial period by this total number to get a ’ball park’ figure of the
yearly revenue potential of this promising new business venture to help you
decide if it is worth investing i
HOW THIS VENTURE CAME TO BE & WHERE IT STANDS NOW: ___
7 years ago a friend of mine and his wife had saved up a few thousand dollars and were looking for a little business of some kind that the two of them could run with just one or two
other employees. What they came up with, albeit by accident, exceeded their
wildest expectations as its success for the last 7 years has proven.
For the 7 years that I worked for him I tried unsuccessfully many times to convince my friend that with a few inexpensive changes / additions that he would have the premise / basis for a chain of stores that would be successful if expanded across the entire country, but his wife wasn’t interested because she had her hands full working in
the store & raising two children, and he was more than satisfied with the
success of that one store and had no desire to open anymore.
He did suggest to me, however, on more than one occasion, that if I thought it was such
a good idea that I should go out and look for investors because the concept / premise upon
which the success of his store was based was simply selling cheaper than everyone else, which nobody could get a patent or copyright or any other kind of proprietary claim
on, so anybody with the money and inclination could go out and open their own
store based on the same DISCOUNTED PRICES. Consequently, I have spent much of
the last few years searching (so far unsuccessfully) for potential investors who
could see the virtually unlimited potential of this venture DESPITE THE FACT
that you can’t get any proprietary right to the concept / premise on which it is based. Sam Walton also didn’t have any such exclusive rights to sell lower than everybody else when he started WAL-MART, but you can see the results of his efforts AROUND THE WORLD!!!
In the last few months my friend and his wife have been locked in a bitter divorce battle, and now my friend not only doesn’t want to expand, he is actually doing things to sabotage the business so that his wife won’t be able to get it!!!
I almost had a heart attack when I learned about this because this kind
of a business opportunity only comes around once in a lifetime and because the
potential of this one is one that runs deep in my soul I realized that when this
store is closed up that without some kind of an operation like it actually being
opened up and running that I’d never be able to convince any potential investor that
a small store like this one could do 2 or 3 million dollars a year in sales AND COULD DO
THE SAME ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. This is why it is so imperative that I get some potential investors to, at least, look at it while it is still open because if this store closes up
before it can be seen by POTENTIAL INVESTORS, it will fade back into the
oblivion / non-existence from which it arose more than 7 years ago, never to
resurface again, until FATE once more brings it to the attention of some other
lucky entrepreneur.
The premise / concept on which my friend’s store is based was tailor-made to fit the
following observation: Depending on the product & / or service in question,
as well as a few other things, there are some businesses where selling a lot of
things for a small profit can be more lucrative than selling a few things for a
larger profit. In this case it is TO SELL CONVENIENCE STORE PRODUCTS &
SERVICES AT DISCOUNTED PRICES. Never in modern times have the TIME,
OPPORTUNITY & ECONOMIC CONDITIONS ever concurrently come together in such perfect synchronized alignment to virtually guarantee (insofar as something of this
nature can be guaranteed) the success of starting up a nationwide chain of
retail stores like these. Despite mediocre management and providing
only 70% of the products & services that it could have, this store has been so successful in
the last 7 years that it can’t seem to have a real slow or bad day EVEN BY ACCIDENT!!!
WHY NOW IS THE PERFECT TIME FOR THIS VENTURE
Despite what the ‘experts’ say &/or what the stock market might do, PLEASE BELIEVE ME
when I tell you that not only doesn't our country have the necessary ‘infrastructure’ in place in order to be able to sustain any kind of a stable long term economic recovery of
any significance - especially a JOBLESS RECOVERY like some are alluding to-but
absolutely won't have one until until something is done to drastically cut the
number of government internal and social 'programs',as well as to successfully
address all of the many forms of waste,fraud and abuse in both the public and
private sectors of society.
Although this extremely negative economic situation is extremely unfortunate for our country as a whole, it couldn’t be better for an investor starting up a
chain of stores like the one described in these pages which will be something
that a big segment of the public will not only welcome in time, but WILL BE AN
ABSOLUTE NECESSITY to them if they are going to maintain a respectable standard
of living as it pertains to them purchasing the kind of products and services
that this kind of store offers them!!!
A very wise proverb from antiquity succinctly says:
"NO POWER ON EARTH CAN STOP AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME".
Without exception, all of the relevant economic indicators point to the fact
that our society is on the verge of ushering in the birth of a new
GLOBAL ECONOMIC MODEL, whose direct, indirect, and ripple down
effects, ramifications, repercussions, consequences, and implications, will, by
necessity, mandate that the American people will have to make certain changes in
their current lifestyles, as well as make other concessions in areas of their
lives that up till now they have simply taken for granted. Not the least of
these is getting the best value for their money wherever they shop.
Therefore, based on the 7 year success of my friend’s store, as well as
my own observations of the industry for those years, it is my contention that
there exists in this country, and possibly even worldwide, a vast potential
market in the retail sector of our economy for a chain of NEIGHBORHOOD DISCOUNT
CONVENIENCE / MINI-GROCERY STORES that sell convenience store products &
services as well as a few dozen other key food / grocery items at prices
REASONABLY CHEAPER than they can be purchased anywhere else. It is also my firm
belief that if we seize this moment in time where EVERY RELEVANT factor
affecting it, both economic and otherwise, are in such perfectly synchronized
alignment, it is easily within the realm of realistic possibility that this
retail concept will appeal to a large enough segment of the cost conscious
consumer to generate the kind of volume that will be necessary to successfully
overcome its slim profit margin and allow it to sustain the projected rate and
extent of growth in order for it to achieve, in less than a decade, the same
kind of phenomenal success in its sector of the retail marketplace that has
taken WAL-MART 60 years to do in theirs!!!
When I was first putting together the ‘business model’ for this venture it was my intention to build this chain of stores in the exact same manner that my friend started his one
store which was to find & remodel a vacant store front location which
qualified on all four of the following mandates. To insure the success of this
venture ALL STORE LOCATIONS must qualify on the following 4 MANDATES- -most of
your regional / national chain of locations don’t even qualify on all 4 of these!!!:
1) There must be a certain number of residential households in a given distance from each store(the 'formula' for determining this will be based on the original store in Rockford,IL and is yet o be exactly figured out) .
2) The store must be big enough in square feet to meet our specifications.
3) The store must have enough parking spaces within a given distance of the store.
4) The rent / lease contract must be fair & reasonable with well spelled out stipulations concerning the property, taxes, repairs, etc., etc.
However, the more I thought of it, the more I came to the realization that this venture
wouldn’t be successful on a larger scale if it was going to be one like my friend’s was as far as the labor issue was concerned.
I had always known that labor was the biggest expense in most retail businesses, and that its many direct, indirect and ripple-down negative effects is the cause of many of them going broke.I also came to the realization that certain businesses in the retail sector wouldn’t / couldn’t be a good investment for someone whose primary purpose was to use it strictly as an investment vehicle with the intentions of being an ‘absentee owner’ and leaving the day to day operations in the hands of hourly and / or salaried employees.
On the other hand, that same business could well be a good investment opportunity with
a respectable return on the money for an investor who had plans to sublet /
franchise / ‘partner’ with a family who would then own and operate it themselves and would be able to make a respectable living doing so because they would be able to keep the
money that they would otherwise have to pay out in the form of wages, and
other aspects related to them such as sick time, overtime, vacation time,
insurance, etc., etc. There would also be the savings resulting from a reduction
in employee theft & shoplifting, as well as the money that a family can save and / or generate (that a company owned store can’t do) by picking up some of the products for the store that would otherwise be delivered to them at a higher cost. Our stores don't have the expensive prime locations that they do and unlike them they are located in areas where there are enough potential customers within a given distance of them,whereas most conventional ones aren't.
In light of the above facts, it is imperative that you would understand the importance of these stores being FAMILY OWNED & OPERATED!!! This chain of stores wouldn’t /couldn’t be successful if it couldn’t not only be franchised, but FRANCHISED EXCLUSIVELY TO FAMILIES AS WELL!!!
THIS POINT MAY WELL BE THE SINGLE, MOST IMPORTANT REASON, THAT NOBODY HAS AS YET EVEN ATTEMPTED TO OPEN A CHAIN OF DISCOUNT CONVENIENCE STORES. IT IS THE ONLY FACET / ASPECT / ELEMENT OF THIS ENTIRE BUSINESS VENTURE THAT IS SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH TO ALLOW WHAT MAY APPEAR ON THE SURFACE TO BE AN OTHERWISE IMPOSSIBLE / WISHFUL THINKING / PIE-IN-THE-SKY
BUSINESS VENTURE TO BECOME ONE OF UNLIMITED POTENTIAL.
The fact that the success of this business venture depends on the stores in the chain
being family owned & operated, once again, couldn’t come at a more perfect moment in the history of modern times, because the 20plus thousand stores that can feasibly be opened
up just in this country alone will require, at least, that many families buy /
purchase a franchise for those stores that we will be opening in new locations,
and never has there ever been such a large pool of potential buyers as the
present economic times have made available.
There are many families that still have one or more bread winners still gainfully
employed but are worried that they might be next to join those already in the
unemployment lines. Then there are those who are unemployed now and simply
can’t find a job. And, lastly, there are those who have taken a ’buyout’
package of some kind to ’retire’ early, but in reality are too young to retire and need something to do to make a living until they reach the real retirement age. There are thousands of families in all of these groups who may be interested and qualified enough to be possible franchisees of one of our (these) stores.
There are a few enlightened individuals & companies out there that are pioneering a
significant ’paradigm shift’ in the areas of franchising that will have a major impact on it. By creatively & innovatively combining / integrating the very best aspects / approaches of
a few of both the old & new franchising strategies, they are advancing a
much more liberal view / outlook as it pertains to franchising in general &
the FRANCHISER - FRANCHISEE relationship in particular - ALL OF WHICH FIT IN
PERFECTLY with our business model.
WHY BUILDING THIS CHAIN IS RELATIVLY EASY
In order to give any perspective investors the absolute
most ’bang for their buck’ at every step along the way to success in this venture we will muster up all of the original, objective, out-of-the-box type of thinking necessary to come up with every possible way to utilize to the maximum the principles upon which the
term PARSIMONY (spending less money to achieve the same - or better - results)
is based.
The competition in this segment of the retail industry is certainly not ‘asleep at the
wheel’. As a matter of fact just the opposite is true as the basic premise behind those discount stores are very much in proliferation across the country mainly in the form of cigarette & tobacco type stores. Fortunately for us, however, most of them are young, thinly capitalized, independents without the proper concept, resources, experience or inclination to expand on a national scale.
Therefore, most of our major competition will come from these many neighborhood
‘mom & pop’ type convenience stores that are in abundance across the country, most of whom either don’t know how much they could benefit if they had significantly lower prices than their competitors and/or don’t have enough money saved up to hold out long enough offering lower prices until they could build up the necessary volume to overcome the lower net profit that will result from offering those lower prices.
Although these stores can most likely be successful anywhere in this country (and probably around the world), in an effort to expand quickly & efficiently across the country, we will at first concentrate on opening stores in cities over 30,000 population and in the poorer half of the neighborhoods in those towns.
While I was researching the convenience store business for the best way to take a chain of
discount convenience stores to the national level in the quickest, cheapest and
most beneficial way, I read the two books ‘McDonalds, Under the Golden Arches’ and
‘Pour Your Heart Into It (the stories of the McDONALDS CORPORATION and the STARBUCKS CORPORATION and the two men behind their success). They provide a virtual ‘blueprint’ of what must be to make this venture a success.
They showed conclusively that building a chain of stores like the ones described here is
many times easier than either of those two men had to deal with in building
their companies, as they practically had to create new markets to become
successful, while this venture is basically just an exercise in
‘marketing’ as we aren’t selling anything new but rather are just
selling, at a discount, time tested products & services that have been
around for a hundred years or more in some cases.
In other words, the blueprint for most of the work as far as setting up the
‘infrastructure’ necessary to get this venture completely ready to go has already
been done for us by the other franchises in the various retail business’s. All
that we have to do is to basically copy everything that they have already set up
and simply make any appropriate adjustments / changes that are unique /
special to our particular venture.
THE BEST WAY TO EXPAND THIS CONCEPT NATIONALLY
Once a perspective investor shows some real interest in the concept upon which this
venture is based he should commission a national study / poll / survey to get more confirmation that this business venture indeed has the vast potential that it appears on the
surface to have. Once the results of this study / poll / survey come in and
confirm my belief that the public would indeed support a store like this if
there were one in their neighborhood it will then become necessary to decide on
the best method of national expansion for this chain of stores.
To expand nationally as quickly and inexpensively as possible I believe
it would be wise to add to the original business model of opening up and
franchising stores by finding and remodeling vacant store front locations, the
equally as effective method of franchising stores by ’partnering’ in some
mutually beneficial manner with the willing owners of already existing family
owned stores (that meet our 4 mandated requirements) who can see the potential
of ’going discount’. 7-ELEVEN (the biggest franchiser of convenience stores in the world) is using this method of ’franchising’ in the wake of not being able to find anymore good locations to build new stores on.
I believe the following ’strategy’ will work as well for expanding this chain of stores as it did for the early franchisers of the 1950’s & 60’s who employed it so well that it allowed them to manage / oversee as many as 1500 units / stores with as few as half a dozen or so key people in the home / national offices!!!
This ‘strategy’ is called the ‘territorial’ method of franchising, whereby big investors pay an upfront franchising fee to be the exclusive ‘owner’ of all the units / stores in any given ‘territory’ (i.e., city, county, state or multi-state regions). Two of the most lucrative benefits that the franchiser receives by employing this method of franchising is the upfront
franchise fee paid by the franchisee (this can be several million dollars
depending on the size of the territory) which is basically all profit to the
franchiser!!! The other benefit is the huge amount of money saved by the
franchiser because the franchisee takes on all of the costs associated with
opening & operating all the stores in his territory!!!
There are a lot of little things that we can do to endear our stores even more to our
customers, that if creatively / innovativly implemented , will set us apart from the competition. The key to the success of this operation is to find as many ways as possible to get the maximum number of people to come into each store, at which time you’ll have a permanent customer base as they’ll have no reason to go anywhere else for lower prices or better service.
Our stores can earn a little extra profit each month by offering some non-traditional convenience store type services that don’t require much, if any, extra space and little extra money. This can be done by the store owners doing it themselves or by ‘renting’ our a small space in their store for someone else to do it. A couple of examples are: 1) to
provide a place where people can come to have something put on an internet
‘auction’ site to have sold for them; 2) possible drop off sites for delivery services; 3) rent mail boxes; 4) copy machine; 5) notary, western union, money orders & Lotto; 6) pay
utility bills; 7) a small selection of liquor, beer &/or wine as local laws
allow; 8) ETC., ETC. You might consider having a car title/payday loan service
(or rent a space to a regional or national chain).
By making it part of our business model, the following 'promotion', it
will bring in enough extra customers to make up for the loss it will incur:
“to our valued customer, we realize that these are unusually rough economic times
and so in addition to our already low prices we are also going to pay the sales tax on whatever purchase’s you make in our stores!!!” We have, of course, already factored in the
sales tax to our prices, so it seems like we are giving them a lot more than we really are.
Video poker machines are popular with adults. By putting in 2 or 3 of them in the store where the customer can win ‘store credit’ (as opposed to money) to purchase anything that we sell in our stores. They don’t take up much space & can add a couple of hundred dollars or so to the stores’ bottom line each month.
Like it or not, we are living in an ‘instant gratification’ type of society and we plan to capitalize / exploit to the maximum on this ‘fact of life’ by offering our customers several daily, weekly and monthly instant gratification’ type of ‘promotions’ all of which have been ‘mathematically’ calculated / certified as to their long term odds / chances of having to be paid off, thereby allowing you to factor them in as part of any advertising / promotional budget allotted to promote the store.
One of the ‘contests’ that I believe will be very successful and which nobody else in the world is doing, is based on something that I have observed for several years. ‘SCRATCH-OFF’ card type promotions seem to be something that the public seems to like, but its downside is that it takes only a few seconds to ‘scratch off’ your card and see if you have any of the winning ‘combinations’. That doesn’t give a person much time to enjoy the kind of fun, excitement, thrill or whatever other type of satisfaction that they might
get from doing this type of activity especially in light of the fact that their
odds of winning aren’t very good - a fact that they aren’t aware &/or don’t
really seem to care about.
What I have in mind in this regard is that when a customer enters the store, they take a ticket from a machine (similar to the one that businesses use to wait on customer’s in proper order) that has 10 randomly selected numbers on it that when properly matched up with the 10 randomly selected numbers that appear on the bottom of their register receipt, they can win any possible number of prizes’ ranging from getting their purchase free to a possible $10, 000 IN CASH!!! (All of the mathematical probabilities have been properly calculated to insure that in the end the store won’t spend anymore on this promotion than is acceptable).The great thing about this promotion is that because there are several dozen possible winning combinations, it will give the customer several minutes of ’fun’ to match them up AS OPPOSED TO a few seconds with traditional scratch off promotions. I believe that the customer will find this promotion so popular that many of them will come in several times a day just to have a chance to play it!!!
One of what I believe will be these stores
biggest net producing services will be for those customers who get government
checks (i.e. SSI, Social Security and possibly a few other types). I have
notices over the years (and in several different parts of the country) that
those receiving government checks (especially those getting SSI checks - and
they number in the tens of millions) are, for the most part, broke by the middle
of the month. My idea in this regard is to do something that few if anyone else
does and that is to offer to those willing to have their checks sent to a
mailbox that we rent in our stores (at about $5 a month) to cash their checks
free of charge on the first (or third) of the month and then beginning on the
15th of the month they get $10 a day credit to buy anything in our stores. We
don’t give them credit before the 15th of the month or over $10 a day because we don’t
want to take all their money on the first of the month so that they will have enough money left out of their checks to pay other necessary living expenses. We make our money form the mailbox rentals as well as having that guaranteed ‘locked in’ $10 a day in sales for the last two weeks of every month.?
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