Let me give you some background on the discussion I was having with my sister and her friend.
The guy, my sisters friend, is thinking of starting a new business. His idea? Grocery home delivery, you make the list, he buys the food and delivers it, all for a small fee. Small because it's only $25 which I personally don't see bad. This is where the problem starts, out of curiousity I began to ask about how he plans to go about doing this. I was curious if he had considered the pros and cons of this kind of business and pointed out a few cons as example. Now they consider me to be a negative person simply because all I can see are the bad things that can happen.
Now my question is, am I being "negative" for wanting to avoid problems before they happen by considering any possible problems and try to have a possible solution if they were to happen? Is that not what a business person does before he opens a new business? Is it not the purpose of opening a business to keep it open and so one must avoid problems as much as possible to help keep the business going? OK so it's more than 1 question, but I just can't seem to understand why am I being negative when wanting to avoid problems by considering they could happen and try to have a solution for it.
Here's an example, I asked what vehicle will he consider using for the deliveries? He said he has 3 vehicles at home that he can use. Now I know for a fact that he own an almost new Ford Expedition withexpensive rims and great stereo system and even a dvd player, he also own a Lexus and a Motorcycle. Does this sound like the kind of vehicles you would use in a delivery business? Why not get a used old van, after all 3 vehicles, all expensive you think he could aford a cheap van. Now I'm negative for thinking that bad things can happen to new vehicles. I personally wouldn't want scatches and dents on these kinds of vehicles while going to the supermarket, say 4 or 5 times in 1 day, everyday when I could have a cheap van that I wouldn't mind it happening to. Everyone knows these things happen in supermarkets, am I being negative? I feel I'm being cautious.
Another example, how will you get the right product in a store with many varieties of a single item, like colgate which has about 15 different pastes? This is a place where people look for specials and don't usually by the same thing twice and probably don't even look at the name with the extras. But you want to give good service and avoid mistakes in order to keep customers happy and the business going, otherwise what's the point of the business.
His attitude towards this business is just put out flyers, hope to get some people to bite, use his car and get whats on the list and if it works great and if it doesn't oh well. All I wanted was to help make this a permanent idea and not one where you wish upon a star and hope it works. I guess I see things different, I believe that a business owner wants his business to grow and last long and avoiding problems by having solutions ahead of time is the way to go. By my own account, by what I have witnessed myself and the conclusion I reach, a person who just wings it is usually a person looking to make quick money, a scam artist, a person who's only motivation is to get as much money as they can as quick as they can without consideration for the customers that end up liking and depending on them and when the idea falls, move to the next one and forget about the customer. I just don't get it.