The McDowell Memo

As my consistent readers know I have been not keeping up with my blogs well this past 2-3 months. It has been a very trying and stressful school semester and personally I had started to lose my ability to stay positive. Well I am back and I am going to cover a bunch of things here and hope you can hang on. Remember please comment and comment often. What is up with all this talk of racial differences being the cause of loss of life . I guess I must be old school stupid but I don't get the race part of it. First you have a young punk that strong arms a store and when confronted jumps the officer in the car. What difference is his color ( the suspect or the officer). It's a punk being arrested. If the officer went overboard judge it on the merits not the racial "issue". Then we have Cops in NYC trying to arrest someone for selling a single cigarette. Was the cigarette black? The cops were mixed from what I saw and what difference would it make if the defendant is white

Where do you begin building a successful company? It is most times with the first and every hiring you do after that. Why is it so important to hire the right person? First , you are trusting your success, life, reputation, and finances to this person. They can not only impact you but every other employee and your family and their families. A bad hire can haunt you in several ways and we will discuss all of those and how to handle that later this month. A good hire can make your life easier , save you time, make you money and just make the world a better place. What goes into hiring a great person? You need a large pool of candidates with the appropriate education and experience You need a legally appropriate interviewing process and application You need a team of interviewers that stick to the process but ask the right questions and get the right answers You need a decision maker for each hire that will look at that person as a reflection of themselves You need a competitive wag

Today's discussion is on the changes of asking the customer to do most of the work for customer service. http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/3750381507001/customer-service-morphing-into-customer-self-service/?intcmp=obnetwork#sp=show-clips\ Willis Report Fox Business The above news clip talks about how we are being forced to use these new self service call lines, etc. I have seen this in retail with self checkouts cropping up everywhere. What do you all think? Please comment below.

Every organization is set up in some style of hierarchy to allow for communication and decision making. In a small organization it is usually a very well defined organization that everyone knows who is in charge of what and who is the decision maker. But , as organizations grow in size this can be blurred and so a different type of management organization maybe needed. We will break them down as best we can below and help you to see the positive and negative sides of each. Vertical Organization with straight line decision making- this is an organization that the bottom level employee reports to one manager , that manager will along with several other manager report to one manager, this continues until the CEO level with each person only have to report to one person above them. This manager makes all decisions in relation to the level below employee. Advantage is that you know who you report to and you know who made the decision you are impacted by. Disadvantages are if your manager

Today we will finish up our introduction to various types of business ownerships. Corporations - these are the main stay of business as most of us have seen it portrayed in news and other media. A corporation is strictly a business that has filed to be able to sell shares or portions of it's company in order to raise funds, or to get tax advantages, etc. They are incorporated in a specific state, this is because certain states are where the business is located or because the state has advantages for the business(many are filed in Delaware) . A corporation can be closely held or publicly held. If it is closely or privately held all the stock is owned by one person or a family. If it is publicly held the shares are owned by may different citizens. This is usually the case with most corps. listed on the stock markets. Corporations must file quarterly tax and other statements with the state and federal governments and are regulated by numerous restrictions Advantage is that you can

McDowell Memo:    Today we are going to discuss a breaking incident in the press. As you have seen Ferguson Missouri has had racial type riots and looting most of the weekend, I want you to think about what you would do if you were the regional or divisional manager of a company such as Family Dollar that has been attacked and partially looted or an adjoining national company to this location. Do you send in security and try to guard your property? If so should they be armed? Do you just write off what happens and claim the loss? Do you remove as much merchandise as possible, secure the building as well as possible?  Lets look at the message each sends to the community. First sending in security personnel does two things, it shows that you do not trust the local patronage to do the right thing. Plus it puts your employees at risk and should one be hurt could you justify the injury with any amount of merchandise.  Next, let's think about whether armed guards would be the right

What  is your opinion on this type of strike . It is somewhat unique in that it is in support of a displaced CEO. It also is unique in that it is being driven by the workers themselves not so much the union movement. Do we have a way to let workers have input into our hiring and firing decisions for your company? I would suggest that most do not. Should we?  Looking forward to some interesting responses on this one.  Huge protests to save 'It's a Wonderful Life' grocery boss: Workers revolt and leave shelves empty in attempt to save job of beloved CEO who 'put people before profits' A workers' revolt at the Market Basket supermarket chain has led to empty shelves, angry customers and support for a boycott Workers want return of former CEO Arthur T. Demoulas, whom they credit with keeping prices low, treating them well and guiding the company's success It's been called a David vs. Goliath story, a 'Tale of Two Arthurs' and eve

Good Morning, Today we are discussing partnerships and Limited Liability Corporations , both very popular forms of business ownership. First , Partnerships are the joining of two or more individuals in ownership of a business. There are several ways this can occur. First there are equal partnerships , this is where each partner owns exactly the same percentage of the business assets, profits and debts. Then there are percentage partnerships in which individuals own different percentages of the business asset, profits, and debts. This can be one individual owning the majority of the business and others owning smaller parts. How big can partnerships be ? Depending on state laws they could one to hundreds of partners , although the legal work for something like that would be very prohibitive. Let's talk about the benefits and disadvantages of partnerships. Equal Partnerships have no real "Boss" as everybody owns the same part of the company . You must be in agreement

What is your opinions on this move by Russia to limit US food imports and how do you think it will effect US companies?  I believe it will be a minimal impact to us but will definitely hurt the EU . They get a lot of their food stuffs from Russian imports of American raw material that is then produced into brands and shipped into the EU. This entire response from the President has great symbolic impact but really does not bring the Russians to it's knees as much as seizing bank accounts and opening new oil shipments to the EU will do.  Russians ‘Biggest Losers’ in Moscow’s Western Food Ban By Matthew Rocco Published August 08, 2014 FOXBusiness Reuters Russia retaliated against Western sanctions by banning imports of certain foods, although the impact will largely be felt outside the U.S. The one-year import ban Moscow announced this week covers beef, poultry, fruit, vegetables and dairy shipped from the U.S., Canada

So far we have discussed the meaning and what a business is, and how to set your ethical standards, today we begin talking about owning a business and the styles of ownership. First let's lay out the many styles of ownership Sole Proprietorship Partnership LLC Corporation Holding Company Conglomerate Non-Profit Co-op A sole proprietorship is where one individual owns the company and all of its assets and debts. The best example of these in my mind are barbershops. Many of you see these one man barbershops in your home town. The only employee is usually the owner and the product is of course in most instances a service (haircut). The owner here has to track all of his expenses and income and file this as part of his business tax . Although in most cases the owner roles all of it into his personal income tax and pays tax on it at the individual rate. In some states or should I say most states the owner must have permit to run the establishment and must have a taxpayer ID

Procter & Gamble to Axe 90-100 Brands in its Portfolio   From Fox Business Procter & Gamble ( PG ) chairman and CEO Alan Lafley said Friday the family-products giant plans to cut 90 to 100 brands in its portfolio, leaving behind a more efficient, consolidated company. The announcement came in a fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call Friday. While Lafley wouldn’t say specifically which of the company’s brands are on the chopping block, he said part of the reason behind the decision comes down to the bottom line. He noted the 70-80 brands the company will keep in its portfolio are ones that are “consumer preferred and customer supported,” and for the most part, leaders in their categories. Breaking it down, Lafley said of those brands, 23 boast sales of $1 billion to $10 billion, 14 with $500 million to $1 billion dollars in sales, and the rest with strong brand equities and sales between $100 million and $500 million. Moreover, combined, the companies P&G

Every business person has to have a set of core values that they will not waiver from. These give you the basis to set some lines that you will never cross. These values differ from person to person and from time to time as you learn more about yourself. But they are defined in moral or ethical points of view that you hold. For instance if you believe in free speech you would not endorse a program of censorship . Or if you are a believer in free commerce you would not support tariff or quotas . How do I find my core values ? First you have to define what a core value is, I use this definition. A core value is something that if I change this I change how I am as a person and how I view the world around me. An example of a core value for my is my religion. I am a Christian if I were to change this value I would no longer believe in Jesus or his teachings and would change my views on the rest of the world accordingly. Second you have to look to those you respect for values that you

Fox Business News: Wm announces new US CEO With today's announcement WalMart acknowledges a lack luster year here in the United States. Why is this occurring? Is it the results of a recession that has ended by official definition but is still lingering on? Is it that the numbers that the Government had brought forth were not accurate either by accident or on purpose? Could it be that the retail market is changing and WalMart's time honored methods are no longer working? I think we need to look at the possibility that it very may well be a combination of all of these. We know that the unemployment numbers are inaccurate because we have so many people that are just not looking for work. We also know that on line retail is taking a larger bite of the market each quarter. We can see where this could have an impact on the US divisions sales. But just possibly a bigger issue is in the lack of staffing in US stores, each store I have entered in the last 3 years has been grossly un

What is Business? We use this word for many things but they all have some basic essential parts. I define Business as the producer or developer of something sells it for a type of compensation. Such as an egg , the farmer using raw materials and chickens produces an egg this egg is then sold for a compensation in this case of money to the consumer. It applies to several types of “business” such as manufacturing, farming, services, government and education.   Let’s look at each of these and how it meets the “Producer” ---“Sale”-----“Compensation” model.   Let’s look at manufacturing, IBM builds a computer and sells it to Lockheed Martin to use in their products. IBM is the Producer, Lockheed the customer buys it for either money or another product (compensation). How about a service industry, Comcast (a cable company) provides a service (Product) cable service to a viewer in Chicago for a monetary fee per month (Compensation). Government is a little harder to follow but here goes

This blog is dedicated to business persons and the issues and methods they are faced with. We will be in essence teaching a class in basic business sense and contemporary issues. We will use in the news examples and common sense decision making methods. We will be starting with the most basic of terms for business as I have found many do not know the basics and therefore struggle with other concepts.  I hope you will all enjoy this blog . Feel free to copy and save for teaching/training  purposes.  Chuck McDowell