Love your Customers; Hate your Competitors

The attitude that your business competition is supposed to be looked at as some remote entity that is supposed to be good for all players in the sector in which you compete is not just untrue it is complete and utter bollocks.

I would go even further than that. If you love your customers -and mostly you should otherwise you shouldn't be running a business -then you should at least loathe your competition.

I hate mine with a passion.

It is not that I don't like to compete, I love competition but unless you treat your competition like your arch enemy you are not approaching your business in the correct manner.

The business world has been full of animosity between the fiercest of market players, from Coke vs Pepsi, Ford vs Holden, Chicago Bulls vs L.A. Lakers, Google vs Microsoft and in New Zealand Telecom vs Vodafone.

Everyday should be a battle against your competitor and every opportunity for you to get one up on them or make it harder for them in some way means you are doing what you should.

For craps sake they are trying to put you out of business, why shouldn't you match like for like?

Competing on price and service are two major factors that make good businesses better but advertising or telling his customers that your product or service is better than XYZ company is a great way to undermine his sales growth.

It is taken as granted that you are of course better. There is nothing wrong with yelling that from the rooftops.

If someone asks you what you think of your competitor, be honest, tell them what they are really like, warts and all.

A little bit of nonconstructive criticism pointed at your competition will be good for you and your business.

You can have respect for your competition, nothing wrong with that, taking your competition seriously is the number one rule in a competitive market but putting the boot in at every opportunity, when it is warranted, is also a requirement of good business practice-that is if you want to stay in business!

Tattoo it on your forehead.

I hate my competition!

Your competition sure as hell does.


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c Share Investor 2009

Key keeps his head while others channel Chicken Little

Nothing could be more appropriate than to say about John Key but "right man right time".

Key's financial and business experience is shining through.

The cool head approach that National are pursuing in relation to the current financial crisis is in stark contrast to the Labour Chicken Little's in opposition who are bleating to rush in poorly planned stimulus packages that simply will not work.

We all know that the US bank bailout from late last year didn't work. Obama is passing a new one in 2009. The first one wasn't planned and was rushed.

Labour playing politics with the current economic situation is nothing but more of the same petty schoolboy tactics that sent New Zealand into recession almost a full year before everyone else.

For Labour to say National must be shouting its "stimulus" intentions from the rooftops to reassure the populace is politics for the brain dead and most of us have one thank you very much.

It should be bloody obvious that National are taking the current crisis seriously.

They are taking action rather than talking. Cutting back frivolous spending that Labour has introduced (like fruit baskets daily for all MPs! and a long embarrassing list of other waste) is evidence of that and there will be more considered action introduced as the days, weeks, months and years of this crises play out.

John Key is in his element, he looks comfortable, confident and in Parliament today got the better of the opposition.

He stands out here head above shoulders from other world leaders.

Thank god New Zealand voted him in, the alternative would have been scary.

And catastrophic.

c Political Animal 2009

Scam Watch: Optionetics (UPDATE)

You may have noticed that I use Google advertising on the Share Investor Blog.

I use it because it is easy.

I have now blocked the offending advertising thanks to a reader, please let me know if you can still see them in a URL I haven't thought of.

There is one ad that keeps coming up and I must warn my readers about the company.

It is an options trading package that is over hyped, overpriced and underwhelming.

You can options trade by simply doing it yourself or perhaps buying a book and learning.

The company is called Optionetics and the ad will appear with your local URL depending on the country you are viewing this on.

Long-term readers of this blog might like to know that Philip MacCalister, he of Good Returns and a whole host of other financial websites and a rather underhanded individual when it comes to competing with me, is still spamming me with emails and the latest one was spruiking Optionetics.

Here is the link and the content of the email.

Mind you you cant expect much from a man who endorsed Bridgecorp and a whole host of other failed finance companies.

I DO NOT endorse Optionetics and would advise my readers to take a very wide berth of that company and anyone pushing it.


Related Links

Consumer.org.nz - Consumers take

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c Share Investor 2009

Long vs Short: Pumpkin Patch Ltd

In this fifth installment of the Long vs Short series I am once again going to take look at the chart comparisons for a stock from the Share Investor Portfolio and compare the 4 year return (above chart) (PPL listed June 15 2004, so I cant give you a 10 year period like other stocks in this series) to the turmoil of the last year with a 1 year return chart (large chart at bottom of post).

In this series I want to show the merits of investing, using charts, for the long-term vs short term gains or losses. I will use the longest available data to me for the long-term view (10 years )and will make a comparison against the NZX50.

In the fifth of this segment of Long vs Short I will take a look at Pumpkin Patch Ltd [PPL.NZ]

I currently hold 5000 Pumpkin Patch shares after buying 1000 in August 2006 and have added more since then to take the total to 5000 (see small chart below for detail)

Now this is one of the worst performing shares in the portfolio so I expected a poor result for my shareholding which spans about 2.5 years.

I was right!

My Portfolio
Symbol	Price	Value	Earned
PPL.NZ	$0.900	$4500	$-8200
You own 5000 [PPL.NZ] shares purchased at $2.54 [$12700]

If I had held this stock for a full 4.5 years of company listing (see large chart at top) my return would have been 60%-including dividends, tax credits and minus brokerage, the NZX is a gross index of stocks.

By comparison if I had held the stock for just one year (see large chart below) my return would have been a loss of just under 30%.

My total return after 2.5 years or so is a loss of 64% (see small chart on left) That is after dividends and tax credits are added and brokerage applied.

When I initially started this edition of the Long vs Short Series I was expecting to see the long-term return to be negative because the stock has really been hammered. If you were lucky enough to participate in the June 2004 IPO at NZ$1.25 you would still have had a 60% return after collecting the dividends and tax credits, even though the share price ended at 90c today.

Long is still winning after five editions of Long vs Short.






Pumpkin Patch @ Share Investor

Pumpkin Patch Buyback shows Confidence in the Future
Pumpkin Patch takes a hit
Pumpkin Patch ripe for the picking
What is Jan Cameron up to?
I'm buying
Why did you buy that Stock? [Pumpkin Patch]
Rod Duke's Pumpkin Patch gets bigger
Buyer of large piece of Pumpkin Patch a mystery
Pumpkin Patch a screaming buy
Broker downgrades of PPL lack long term vision
Pumpkin's expansion comes at a cost
Pumpkin Patch vs Burger Fuel
Pumpkin Patch profits flatten
New Zealand Retailers ring up costs not tills


Long vs Short series

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare
Mainfreight Ltd
The Warehouse Group
Sky City Entertainment

Related Reading

Pumpkin Patch financial data

• Summary
• Charts
• Dividends
• News
• Announcements
• Price History
• Related Securities

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c Share Investor 2009