How might you know that you are at a point of diminishing returns?

Cool beans is a locally owned coffee shop that competes with two large coffee chains, planeteuro and frothies. alicia, the owner, hired two students to count the number of customers that entered each of the coffee shops to estimate what percent of people who are interested in coffee are visiting each shop. after a week, the students found the following results: 589 visited cool beans, 839 visited planeteuro, and 1,290 visited frothies. the students were surprised that cool beans had 139 visits on monday which represented 59% of all people who visited one of the three coffee shops on mondays. how many people visited one of the three coffee shops during the week?

Eliza works for a consumer agency educating young people about advertisements. instead of teaching students to carefully read advertisement claims, she encourages them to develop a strong sense of self and to keep their life goals and dreams separate from commercial products. why might eliza's advice make sense?

Robert black, regional manager for ford in texas and oklahoma, faced a dilemma. the ford f-150 pickup truck was the best-selling pickup ever, yet ford's headquarters in detroit had decided to introduce a completely redesigned f-150. how could mr. black sell both trucks at the same time? he still had "old" f-150s in stock. in his advertising, mr. black referred to the new f-150s as follows: "not a better f-150. just the only truck good enough to be the next f-150." this statement represents ford's of the new f-150.