> It's always so much easier to pin any blame
> on "the market" or on a terrible
> competitor, than to take responsibility
> yourself.... Of course, in some cases the
> market or the competition is to blame, but
> with good planning you should hopefully be
> able to avoid such situations.... :)

In EVERY case of DotCom demise I've read about, the CEO blamed "Market Conditions."

It wasn't that they spent all their money on parties and mahogony furniture when MDF would have been fine - heck, one company even put in an indoor bowling lane - and so on, or that they wasted money on useless image advertising, or that their business model had them giving everything away and you can't make a profit if'n you never sell anything, or that people never actually wanted what these people were offering, or that they couldn't actually do their jobs.

It was always the "Market Conditions." Almost as if they expect us to believe their mis-management and wasteful and useless spending with a business model that gave things away instead of sold things, could actually work in some cases.

Anyway. About this competition thing... EVERY business who is trying to make a sale is your competition - do I spend $3,000 on a new computer, or a new plasma TV, or a new surround sound stereo, or getting my decking re-done or going to that seminar?

You aren't just competing with other businesses in the same industry or niche as you, you are competing with every other business.

Michael Ross.