Doors Floors and More

Cited: Reuters

McDonald’s was helped by a new summer drinks, Smoothies, in the United States and longer hours in Europe to beat Wall Street forecasts for July as well as lifting their shares higher than ever. According to McDonald’s, global sales at restaurants that had been open for 13 months rose 7% in July which is better than analysts expectations for an increase closer to 5%.

The strong sales show McDonald’s is succeeding in reinventing its menu and image, winning new diners in a weak economy that has hurt rivals, analysts said.

“Over the last several years, they’ve been very successful at improving the quality of their food,” said Stifel Nicolaus & Co analyst Steve West. “They’ve really invested in their brand.”

While U.S. high unemployment persists, the fast food company’s appeal to families and retirees has helped it steal market share from chains like Burger King (BKC.N) and KFC, which is owned by Yum Brands Inc (YUM.N).

“McDonald’s has more broad-based appeal. They’re not as exposed to single white males,” West said, noting that group has been particularly hard-hit by the economy. “McDonald’s is appealing to soccer moms. They’re appealing to high-end consumers.”

U.S. sales, which account for about 35% of the company’s business, benefited from the introduction of Real Fruit Smoothies and Frappes from its McCafe line of drinks.

A record-setting heat wave in parts of the country and an extra Saturday in July also fueled the 5.7% rise in U.S. same-restaurant sales, said Edward Jones analyst Jack Russo.

Shares of McDonald’s were up 1.5% at $72.85 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Earlier in the session, the shares reached $73.33, an all-time high since the chain went public in 1965 at $22.50 per share. Burger King rose 1.1% while Yum gained 1%.

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EUROPE, ASIA ON THE RISE

In Europe, same-restaurant sales rose 5.3%, led by gains in France, Britain and Germany. McDonald’s has been renovating restaurants and extending hours in the region, which was the largest revenue contributor last year at 41%.

Same-store sales rose 10.1% in the Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa area. The company said Japan, Australia and China were standouts. Nearly 8,500 of McDonald’s 32,500 restaurants are located in that region, which contributed nearly 20% of its revenue in 2009.

McDonald’s plans to double its network in China to more than 2,000 outlets by 2013.

System wide sales rose to 6.8% or 8.3% on a constant currency basis.

McDonald’s said last month that the U.S. roll-out of espresso-based coffee and other high-margin drinks like Frappes had exceeded the company’s goal of adding $125,000 of sales per unit.

By expanding its business in the beverage area, McDonald’s was seen as attacking the core business of copy shop chain Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O). However, both companies appeal to different customers where beverages are concerned.

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My Take: The one thing I like about McDonald’s is it their community conscience. They hope local schools get kids desks and other school furniture they are in need of like whiteboards Canada. They also help needy kids and kids who have terminal illnesses. The one thing I do not like about McDonald’s and that they used too much lettuce on their big Macs!

I have even seen some of the kids meals come with tooth brush and toothpaste to help encourage the kids to brush regularly. That way they don’t have to go to Virginia dentist and get cavities taken care. I do not know if this is true or not but I heard recently that McDonald’s help a kid who had a cleft palette by paying a South Riding VA cosmetic dentist to repair it.

So, McDonald’s has improved sales with new drink “Smoothies”. That is great because they spend some of those millions of dollars on people who really need it. And yes, I do you think macula once while with their delicious french fries.

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Cited: Reality Times

“It is the most effective sales program I have ever seen.” Says Hilton head developer David Brown, it is better than good. Read this incredible good news, especially if you’re a homebuilder, builder/developer, developer or lender fending off commercial foreclosures!

Brown needed to sell his five models. He hired an internet marketing company to help him, then challenged them to design a program around a ‘call to action.”

The company, SaleAMP, suggested the developer give new home buyers what resale real estate thrives on: the opportunity to make an offer- but to do it quietly, fast and with internet marketing thrust at full throttle.

Here are the rules set by SaleAmp. They care, because they get paid profits for performance, a novelty in itself.

• Establish a thirty-day offer window
• Limit inventory
• Keep it publicly quiet to the local market to protect the perception of a distress sell
• Do not use traditional media or an auction house
• No MLS
• No absolute pricing
• No buyer’s premium
• No heavy marketing costs and no intense management
• Employ every internet marketing tool available
• Implement at supersonic speed

Hello, “stealth” auction.

“Within 30 days, we had 22 offers, sold the five models, plus two more homes. We had visitors from New York and California who flew in just to see what we were selling. It was unbelievable,” Brown said.

The results: Brown is opening a second development within a few weeks, something he said he would have never done, if the program had not worked so well.

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Amy Garcia, marketing director for The Reserve At Lake Travis in Austin, Texas, and The Boardwalk at St. Charles Bay, Texas, agrees with Brown. She credits SaleAMP’s real estate internet marketing prospect capture and delivery systems with a forty percent increase in sales of lots and cottages.

“If we get the right offers, we accept the offers. If the offers come in too low we call the buyers, explain that the offers for the properties were too low, and encourage them to raise their bid. If they choose not to, we offer them lower priced lots. We keep two or three units in the offer inventory all the time. It costs us nothing, is totally flexible, easy to control, and requires no management.” Garcia says.

Internet auctions for real estate are nothing new, of course. What seems to be driving sales while protecting property pricing integrity and brand is the stealth approach to online auctions?

This approach gives developers with distressed or pending foreclosure inventory a fast, low cost way to test the market and generate sales without publicly conceding or implying desperation. In less than two months developers could have enough sales to support a request for a forbearance agreement. Lender with foreclosed assets may also move in this direction as a fast way to determine pricing and disposition alternatives. Traditional auction houses already have internet auction capability. So do major real estate franchises. It would be reasonable to assume that online real estate auctions will continue to grow and to become fairly common place in the days ahead.

But Paul Kirchoff, SaleAMP’s Founder and CEO, a former Dell Computer marketing guru, says that the key to any marketing program, whether it be an auction or not, is not the program or event. It is the traffic driven to it.

“It is exciting to design innovative programs like the stealth auction that work, for sure, but the real key, assuming the product is saleable and priced right, is getting traffic to the event. Without it, your auction landing page is nothing but another billboard on a back road to nowhere,” Kirchoff said.

For sure, SaleAMP is not the only internet marketing service out there.

The following key word Google searches were conducted on October 31, 2009. The results were surprising.

• Online real estate auction – 42,800,000 pages
• Online shopping center auction – 5,930,000 pages
• Orlando shopping center auction – 170,000 pages

The bottom line is that there are now real auction choices developers and lenders. They can conduct traditional, online or a combination of both.

Brown believes the stealth auction, or as he calls it, the ‘best offer bid’ will be the dominant new homes marketing strategy in 2010 and beyond.

He could be right or he could already be losing ground to yet unknown technology now being designed somewhere. Who knows?

Of those homeowners who are looking to buy, 85% of them shop on the Internet first. In fact, few people know they are even looking to buy. Another thing, most have not contacted her real estate agent and do not plan to. And stealth sellers are doing more than just drawing traffic, they are selling homes!

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My Take: The only problem I can see with this is the integrity of the seller. If the seller has no integrity, you do not know what you are really buying or the Internet. If you’re buying a house or property as an investment, you will probably have the money to fly to the location to see the house or property. There is not much you can tell from the picture of a home with custom wood entry doors.

Those exterior wood doors could be hiding a disaster area and you would not know it until you went to move it. However, you would definitely be surprised if you found bifold interior doors. I think it is a great idea to sell property online. But they need to have some kind of safeguards or regulations to ensure that people do not get scammed or cheated. Otherwise, people are going to purchase something they think is good, only have to put out more money to repair it.

If it is an investment, the extra cost could cause them to need a commercial loan workout just to keep the investment going. I am sure that nobody would want to have to contact commercial loan specialists following an Internet scam like that.

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