Time Warner’s (TWX) Fortune  Magazine spoke with Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who contacted 20 Apple stores around the country in the past week, found that there were no iPhones in any of the stores. It appears that AT&T is also low or out of inventory.

Is it a supply and demand problem, a marketing ploy or some other plot cooked up by Steven Jobs? Fortune writer Philip Elmer–DeWitt reports Munster as opining the odds of what is really going on:

• 20% chance Apple is dealing with some kind of production or manufacturing problem.
• 80% chance that Apple is clearing inventory and has a new version of the iPhone coming earlier than anticipated

If it is the latter and you happen to be searching for an iPhone right now, you might want to wait.

Regardless, it appears that Jobs, who is famous (or notorious, depending on your viewpoint) for turning any changes or additions in Apple products into huge public relations events, isn’t actually trying to engineer some sort of marketing ploy in this case.

By the way, Apple.com  is still promising to ship within 5 to 7 business days. So if ya gotta have it, you might want to check them out.

So what is Google Alerts?

As Google itself puts it:

“Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.”

Why use it?

Well, because by using it you can:

• keep current on a specific competitor or industry
• monitoring a specific keyword or keyword phrase, e.g., your company name
• follow a developing news story
• monitor the Internet for negative information about your company
• get the latest on that celebrity you’re in love with

How’s it work?

You create an account in Google Alerts and enter the word or words you want monitored.

As Google spiders the web, each time it finds a reference to the query or topic you request you will be sent an email with the details.

In essence, Google becomes a sort of spy for you. You can make certain no one, particularly competitors, are using your protected trademarks or copyrighted materials.

Even better, it allows you almost instantly know when your company, web or products and services are mentioned in a news story or anywhere on the Web.

Particularly when you’re battling a reputation problem or have concerns that competitor is up to dirty tricks on the Web, it’s a great way to identify the source of the problem information and address it. In fact, if you’ve got a public relations department or use an outside PR agency, make sure they are using it and responding to negative information on the Web.

Check it out at Google Alerts  and save yourself a lot of time and effort monitoring information that might be vital to your success. 

 I recently came across this website– The Useless Information Highway.

 It’s a site that brings loads of…well…useless information from around the world.

Check it out. But only do it when you’ve got some time to kill. You’ll probably find yourself browsing through story after story.

Starbucks was testing the offer in a few stores and, to the best of my knowledge, it hasn’t expanded the offer to all of its outlets. But whether it keeps the dollar coffee offer or not, at least doing so was in line with their core competency, i.e., serving coffee.

Over the years, Starbucks has gradually strayed from what made it unique– serving up coffee in a variety of ways, usually grounding the coffee beans on location.

I assume as a cost savings, they began to use preground coffee beans. Unfortunately, this cut back on the rich coffee aroma that would usually great visitors.

They also took it upon themselves to begin crowding their shops with CDs and books, usually of an eclectic variety that had limited appeal.

Okay, so accuse me of a degree of reverse snobbery on the “eclectic” comment. However, for all their attempts to turn CDs into a profit center, their stores have averaged CD sales of approximately two a day. I’ve no idea how book sales have gone, but I’ll bet neither Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Borders are feeling threatened.

Basically, attempts to expand their product offerings beyond their core competency and attempting to cut costs with preground coffee have failed.

This is pretty much true of any business that fails to protect and nurture its core compentency. Starbucks is not a CD and book channel, it is a coffee shop that’s customers have certain expectations when they walk in the door.

One of which is that they will smell coffee, and not ham and egg sandwiches. A friend of mine told me a while back that he had stopped frequenting a certain Starbucks because, as he put it, “It smells like a Waffle House when I walk in.”

Nothing against Waffle House, it’s just…well…Starbucks shouldn’t smell like a Waffle House.

Luckily for Starbucks, the friend has found another Starbucks locale more to his liking. So, at least in his case, they didn’t totally lose a customer.

Regardless, the fact that its average store sales are flat or declining means they’re losing business. Some of that is due to economic conditions beyond their control. Hence, part of why I think dollar coffee is a good idea.

Starbucks knows its got problems. They canned CEO Jim Donald and brought founder Howard Schultz back to resuscitate the company.

But Schultz recently made a bad move in an attempt to “regain the soul of the past.”

He shut down all 7,300 US stores at 5:30 pm on February 25 to retrain store employees in the complexities of making coffee and selling it. It was a move intended to garner attention and send a message that the “old” Starbucks was returning.

Unfortunately, Dunkin’ Donuts took advantage of the three hours closing, offering a 99-cent latte. Dunkin’ attracted a lot of coffee drinkers, 80% of whom indicated they would return to Dunkin’ soon.

So the three hour closing didn’t quite go as planned, although it did attract plenty of press.

Will it bring back lost customers? We’ll have to see.

At least Starbucks is focusing on what it does best– coffee– and hopefully not searching for ways to expand too far beyond coffee making. By refocusing on its core compentency, they’ve got their best shot of regaining the edge they once had in the coffee shop business. 

It’s no big secret that Google and other search engines see local search as one of the next big steps in search engine results. Toward this end, Google has been working to include local businesses at the top of specific geographic search queries.How’s this work?

Well, let’s say you decide that Japanese sounds good for dinner tonight. And let’s say you are in Dallas, which, as you probably know, I am. So you do a search in Google for “Japanese Restaurants Dallas.” This is the image that appears above (yes, ABOVE) the search results:

The cool thing for the restaurants appearing here?

The map and the listings appear at the top left of the search engine results page (SERP), prime real estate and generally the first area of the screen that a viewers’ eyes land on.

The cooler thing for the restaurants appearing here?

It didn’t cost them a dime to appear there!Really.

And it won’t cost you anything to list your business.You can read Google’s own blog on the subject for more info.The blog doesn’t explain how to get listed, so here’s what you do:

1.       Visit https://www.google.com/local/add/login and set up a Google Maps account. Not only can you add address, telephone and other information, but you can include a link to your Website.

2.       You’ll next have to verify your address. To prevent anyone from posting fraudulent listings, Google will verify via snail mail (yes, snail mail), by sending you a postcard.

3.       You will receive a PIN on the postcard. You’ll need to log back into Google Local/Maps and enter the PIN.

4.       The next time Google updates the listings, you’ll be included. Be aware that it may take 3-4 weeks before you appear in the Map listings.

This is an unbelievably simple way to get listed at the top of the search engines for local listings. If many of your prospects are local, doing this will give you a leg up on the competition, unless, of course, they’ve figured out how to do this also.

So get the jump on the competition and do it, now. 

 Cuban claims it is for reasons of crowding in the locker room and the fact that anyone with a blog could try to get in claiming to be a reporter. This from a guy who makes profuse use of his own blog.

The Society of Professional Jounalists are protesting the ban, in part because the ban actually seems to be targeted at Tim MacMahon, a blogger who works for the Dallas Morning News. MacMahon, in addition to his blogging duties, also gets quotes from players for use by Morning News beat writers.

This move confuses me. Not only because Cuban himself is an ardent blogger but because he once famously claimed that any publicity is good publicity when commenting on rape allegations against Kobe Bryant.

And it seems that the move is in retaliation for something McMahon wrote on his blog, more than anything else.

But maybe the confusion is all part of Cuban’s plan. After all, he’s getting plenty of publicity out of this incident. Cuban is a sharp businessman and marketer, so maybe this is just another means of generating publicity, be it good or bad.

Why?

Well, among other reasons, without a plan you can easily lose sight of your goals, fail to follow through on necessary components of building your business or even blow your budget before you get out of the starting gate.

Sure, some businesses manage to become successful while operating by the seat-of-their-pants, but most who attempt to do so, fail.

Another key reason, and the most important for many start-ups, is that if you seek funding from financial institutions or investors, they are going to insist you have a business plan before they will give any consideration to investing in your business or lending you money.

Using Third Party Resources

Do a little research and you will quickly find that there are plenty of online resources offering help with business plans. You’ll also find dozens of software programs available, as well as individuals who will prepare your plan for a fee.

However, even if you hire someone to write the business plan, it will still fall to you to gather the necessary information to create the plan. And the more input you have into it, the more likely the plan will be viable and succeed.

What it comes down to is a business plan is of such importance that you can’t just trust some software to put it together for you or turn someone else loose to write it. You need to be fully involved in creating it, otherwise it might be missing some key information.

Maybe you’re concerned that you can’t structure and write a business plan without help. Or, if you are seeking financing, you are concerned that you can’t write convincingly or eloquently enough. Regardless, you still need to be a major part of its development and creation.

Moreover, neither a professional writer nor a piece of software is likely going to imbue it with your personal knowledge, expertise and passion (yes, passion).  It’s your baby. And only you can make it succeed.

Now here’s the good news. Even if you’re grammar and spelling is terrible, you don’t need to hire a pro to write it for you. You don’t even need to buy any software to help you write it.

Why?

Because I’m going to tell you everything you need to do to create a plan on your own. And once you’ve followed my instructions and created your masterpiece of a business plan, you’re going to do two things to insure it is as good as it can possibly be.

First, you’re going to run it through your word processor’s grammar and spell check program. Yes, I know these programs aren’t perfect, but they’ll help you clean up a few problems sentences here-and-there and catch most spelling errors.

Second, you are going to hand it to someone (preferably several someones) you trust to read and comment on it. This individual needs to be someone that has no problem telling you if they don’t understand something or if some section doesn’t make sense. I’ve found that most spouses are more than up to the job of critiquing your work, but if you don’t happen to have a spouse, seek out a trusted friend or relative.

Just remember this: the business plan doesn’t need to be a work of art, even if you plan to use it to obtain financing. It just needs to lay out the steps, and the necessary tools, that will lead your business idea to becoming a viable, profitable enterprise.

The “Must Have” Sections of Your Business Plan

Look at a dozen different business plans and you’ll see hundreds of varying categories and sections. That’s because business plans can be as expansive or as concise as you want them to be.  There are mini-plans that are only 3-4 pages long. And there are fully developed plans 40-50 pages long, including appendices.

The actual length is not necessarily important. The contents are, and at a minimum, your business plan should have at least eight main sections: Cover Page, Executive Summary, Company Description, Management, The Market, Competition, Marketing Plan and Financial Statements and Projections.

Cover Page. The cover page should be professional in appearance, providing the company name, contact information and, especially if you intend to use it to raise capital, an appropriate confidentiality legend and agreement. After all, you don’t want someone who sees it to steal your idea, do you?

Executive Summary. Considered by many to be the most vital section, I personally believe the marketing section is more important. Regardless, the executive summary serves as the introduction to your business plan. And although it comes first in order, it is generally the last section prepared, as it summaries the entire plan.

An effective executive summary generally covers:

• The company’s origins.
• The product or service and its uniqueness or competitive advantage.
• The company’s goals.
• The market potential for the product or service and how it will be marketed
• A three- to five-year summary of key financial forecasts, especially for sales and profit/loss.
• The management team and its track record.
• The financing required to grow the business.

Company Description. This should convey a sense of the history of the company, e.g., what has lead to its creation, and its goals. You should also include a summary of the company’s short and long term principal objectives.

Management. The management section of the plan identifies key members of the management team, as well as their individual responsibilities, together with relevant experience and accomplishments. If you are a one-person operation, this is going to be all about you, so push your qualifications and skills to emphasize your ability to make the business succeed. Be sure to include resumes stressing accomplishments and relevant track records in an appendix.

The Product or Service. If the company is selling a product, this section describes what the product is or will be. It should show why it can penetrate an existing market or develop a new market. If the product is still in development, explain in detail where the project stands and what remains to be done in order to bring it to market.

Do the same if a service is going to be offered.

If there is an opportunity to offer multiple products or services, discuss each one in detail.

The Market. Whether you are trying to convince prospective investors that the company’s market is viable or just need to identify the marketplace for your own purposes, you need to carefully research the market you will be introducing your product or service into. Is it large, growing and receptive to your products or services? Or is the market small, even stagnating, in which the case the ability to carve out a niche will be important.

Competition. Who are you going up against in offering your product or service? The competition section of the plan identifies competing products and services. Compare your product or service with the competition. How will you differentiate your product or service? Will your price or quality be different? What has made them successful or unsuccessful? What will make you successful?

Marketing Plan. In my opinion, this is the most important section of a business plan. If you don’t know who your prospects are or how you are going to reach them, you’re toast. Of all the sections, the marketing section should be the most detailed, describing the company’s marketing plan and strategy in as much detail as possible.

HINT: Most people don’t realize that potential investors and financial lenders also view this as one of the most important, if not the most important, sections. If they are going to give you money, they want to know how you are going to earn the money to pay it back.

Financial Statements and Projections. The body of the plan should include a summary of the key aspects of the financial forecasts. It’s advisable for these forecasts to appear in more detail in appendices. These may include total cash requirements, a breakeven analysis, the time frame for positive cash flow and the anticipated growth in sales and profits.

The financial forecasts appendices should have balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow projections for a three- to five-year period. Ideally, you want to present information monthly for the first year and quarterly in following years. The projected income statement is probably the most important projection.

Make sure you sufficiently communicate the basis of your assumptions, you can’t just grasp them out of thin air. They must be realistic, logical, and attainable.

This the one section where you may need to get outside help. If you’re not familiar with financial statements, you should seek help from an accountant, bookkeeper or other reliable source. You also can find software that will help you with your financial projections, some even helping you to create charts and graphs, which always tend to wow an audience.

And if you think there’s no way you can pull together believable numbers, much less any numbers, for financial statements and projections, you’re wrong.

If you are starting a business in a field you’ve worked in the past, you should have a reasonable grasp of the realistic financial potential of the business. And if you don’t, you can turn up information on the Internet on how businesses such as yours are doing financially.

Pulling It All Together

Once you’ve developed a first draft, as suggested earlier, pass it around. Get opinions on it from trusted individuals. If someone is willing to read it and mark it up while doing so, tell them to have at it. Be prepared to take it through several drafts before settling on a final version.

You can also visit an area Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) office and get feedback on your plan. In fact, it might be a good idea to visit a SCORE office while you’re developing your business plan for input from professionals who’ve often gone through this process themselves.

A well developed business plan is important for anyone starting a business. It is all important for you if you are seeking funding from a third party source, since they won’t even look at you if you don’t have one.

More to come.

Later,

Jones

You see, not so long ago Hyundai and Kia were inexpensive econoboxes. And they had a bit of history of lacking a bit in the quality department. Quite a bit in fact.

To their credit, Hyundai and Kia’s engineers zeroed in on the problems and started building cars that have become known for being relatively inexpensive and high quality.

But there’s the problem. Hyandai wants to take its lines upscale. It wants to compete with the likes of Cadillac, BMW and others in the $30,000+ price range.

In fact, Hyandai chairman Chung Mong Koo believes it is critical for the companies’ growth that they do so. And the pressure has been on their stateside executives and their marketing departments to make it happen.

So far it hasn’t.

Part of the problem may be unrealistic goals for the sale of Kias and Hyundais.

Last year, Kia sold 305,000 vehicles in America, well shy of its target of 350,00 for 2007.

Kia believes it can sell at least 370,000 cars a year in the US, a belief that has prompted the company to build a plant in Georgia that will open in 2009.

But both lines experience significant price resistence as their top end vehicles approach the $30,000 range. The two brands sell well in the $12,000-$25,000 range, but for years American executives for the company have been telling Seoul that neither of the brands is strong enough to push much beyond that range.

Chung and his executives believe otherwise and apparently feel their American execs just can’t handle the job. As a result, Kia’s American operations have seen management shake-ups four times in the past three years; most recently when Len Hunt, president and CEO of Kia Motors America, was shown the door on February 8.

Hunt wasn’t alone. Kia’s vice-president of marketing, Ian Beavis, was booted at the same time.

Things haven’t been much better at the U.S. division of Hyundai either, where they’ve gone through four top execs in five years.

To add insult to injury, Hyundai  and Kia aren’t long on the niceties of letting executives go.

Hunt and Beavis got the news at the airport as they were about to fly to an annual dealer meeting. And Hunt’s predecessor, Peter Butterfield, was reportedly fired during a dinner meeting with dealers at the Bellagio in Vegas, right before the dessert came.

All this turmoil kind of makes you wonder why anyone would want to serve as executives in either of Hyundai’s American operations. But of course, there’s always someone who thinks they’ve got the answers so there’s no end of people lining up for the job.

Maybe I should get in line.

Because I think I know what Hyundai should have done to enter the upscale market. And it may not be too late to do it.

Korean automakers have sometimes been accused of stealing a page from the playbooks of their Japanese counterparts, particularly Toyota. This is an instance where they need to followToyota and Nissan’s lead.

You see, when Toyota and Nissan decided to enter the luxury car market, they didn’t introduce those vehicles as Toyotas or Nissans.

Instead, they smartly rolled out new brands for their high end offerings– Lexus and Infiniti. They both started marketing the lines months in advance of their release. I still remember the anticipation many had as they waited for Lexus to finally roll out its first two models.

Today, Lexus is one of the auto industry’s legendary success stories and remains a top end luxury line with nice, fat profit margins.

 And while Infiniti has had its share of marketing problems along the way, including the infamous ads which did not show the vehicles, it’s generally regarded as a success, albeit not on the Lexus scale.

So there’s Hyundai’s answer. Both Toyota and Nissan had the smarts to know that their product lines would butt up against price resistence and snobbery if they released luxury market vehicles under their established brands. After all, what millionaire or Yuppie (remember them?) wanted to be seen driving a Toyota, no matter how luxurious and grand it might be?

So how do you circumvent this problem? You create a new brand.

You make a big deal out of how you’ve got a separate team of engineers working on designing and building the line. You make sure that word leaks to the press about innovations and design elements not seen in your other lines. And you don’t call it a “Hyundai” or a “Kia.”

Instead you find a name that has a degree of familiarity with Americans, or at least sounds like it was created by an American. No offense to Hyundai’s Korean roots, but those upscale buyers (even in the lower echelons of upscale) want a name that sounds exotic, yet somewhat familiar.

Infiniti really nailed that one, simply taking the word “infinity,” dropping the “y” and adding the “i.”

Even Lexus sounds vaguely English, like a Latin word that had survived and made it’s way into the American lexicon.

So, Hyundai, you truly want to go upscale? You’ll need just a bit of patience.

I’m thinking you can do with about a three year lead time, intoducing a new brand some time in 2011. Follow the Toyota/Lexus game plan and you just might find yourself busting through that $30,000 ceiling.

Oh, and if you need help with the name and the marketing, call me. I took four years of Latin in high school and I’ve already got a few ideas for a brand name for you.

And I haven’t hit my own blog in several weeks now. So, sorry. If you actually missed me, great. Send me a few bucks and I’ll never go without blogging for that long again.

But things are lossening up a bit and I’ve stuck a post-it on my monitor that says “Blog.” That’s all it says, but that’s enough of a reminder.

Besides, every time my daughter comes near my computer (she prefers mine to the one she and her sister are supposed to use), she’ll take it upon herself to remind me once she sees the note.

I do have a lot of info I want to pass on. First up is my take on where Hyundai went wrong in its efforts to break into the luxury/high end car market. And if they happen to wander by my blog, it’s not to late for them to try out my suggestion.  

Then I’ll (finally) start getting into marketing advice that you can either use, abuse or ignore.

Since my buddy Steve keeps asking me about how he can prepare a marketing plan (without paying me to do it), I’ll spend a few blogs explaining the necessary elements of a marketing plan, why I think a marketing plan is more important than a business plan and give you some pointers on how you can develop your own (without paying me to do it).

I’m also considering doing a series on “great moments in marketing mishaps.” No, I won’t start out with the whole New Coke debacle. In fact, it’s been commented on so often, I’ll probably stay completely away from it.

In all probably I’ll start that series with the story of another cola, one which I personally prefer to Coca Cola, especially if it comes in a glass bottle.

In fact, after you read what I have to say about this cola and their failures on the marketing front, maybe you’ll call them and suggest they talk to me. Really. It always helps if the person pulling the marketing together truly loves the product, right?

So, check out the next blog, which should be coming up in, oh, say, 30 minutes or so. 

What follows is what you might refer to as a “fuzzy definition.”

“Fuzzy” because what’s consider new media now may soon be looked upon as being a part of some other category of the Marcom Matrix.

Or it may even be that at some point in the near future, someone with the clout to make the idea stick will decide to add a whole new category to the Matrix.

So there really is no bright line rule as to what constitues new media.

However, the current generally accepted media that comprise this category are custom published magazines, video/DVD, CDs, and the Internet. Social marketing is probably  the newest entrant to this category, although some might argue that it falls under the aegis of “Internet.”

I wouldn’t doubt that at some point the Internet might come to comprise its own category in the Matrix, but that’s for much smarter people than me to decide. For now, there’s a certain symmetry to having six components.

Besides, if another category is added, someone is going to have to redraw the damn thing.