Leaders are using the economy as an excuse on a daily basis. Don’t believe me? Just ask your managers why now it’s okay to lay-off those employees who haven’t come close to meeting their performance objectives over the past several years. Perhaps your company could have avoided lay-offs if the entire team had been operating on all four cylinders. This is just one example of how companies are using the economy as an excuse for poor decisions. Here are some others.
Poor planning
You can blame employees for a lot of things. However, at some point you have to take responsibility for what is in your control. Here’s an example. Have you ever heard of a fast food restaurant that sells only pizzas, at an airport location, running out of food at 3:00 PM? According to those employees staffing the counter, this is not an uncommon occurrence. So who is to blame? Certainly not the people who are popping the frozen pizzas into the convection oven.
This is a planning and inventory problem. Not an economic problem. However, if you look at this company’s declining earnings and recent interviews you will hear them say that business is down because less people are going out for pizza. Maybe less people are eating their pizza because there is no food to be had. Is this really the way to increase profits in a down economy?
Creating new expectations
Everything appears to be on sale these days. It has gotten to the point where people will not make purchases unless there is a discount associated with the price. Is this really the fault of the economy? Or have businesses created an expectation among customers and clients that has created this new reality?
What if you were to offer a product or service that people felt was worth the purchase price, regardless of what this number was? What would that mean in terms of increased revenue and profitability? In spite of the economy, people are still purchasing luxury vehicles and are patronizing restaurants where they perceive the experience is worth the money spent. Customers are choosing cool electronic equipment over cheaper less innovative products.
Stop blaming the economy and start looking at your offerings. Are they appealing? Are you creating “must have” products and services? Are you providing consistent service? Are people invested in your product or service? Or have they moved over to you because you are the cheapest guy in town?
Improving your people
Companies used the excuse that there was no time to invest in performance improvement programs when the economy was humming. Now many of these companies have nothing but time on their hands. Would this have been the case if they had provided training for their leaders on how to effectively manage through periods of change?
These organizations can emerge from this recession even stronger than where they were before the decline. How? By preparing their organization for the recovery. This means investing in the training and development of managers and those individual contributors who are on the front lines with customers.
It certainly is a heck of a lot easier to blame the economy for the decline in your business. But by doing so, you will miss out on the opportunity to build an organization that can sustain itself and thrive in any economic climate.
About the Author:
Roberta Chinsky Matuson is the President of Human Resource Solutions (www.yourhrexperts.com) and has been helping companies align their people assets with their business goals. She is considered an expert in generational workforce issues. Roberta publishes a monthly newsletter “HR Matters” http://www.yourhrexperts.com/hrjoin.cgi which is jammed with resources, articles and tips to help companies navigate through sticky and complicated HR workforce issues. Click here to read her new blog on Generation Integration http://generationintegration.typepad.com/matuson/. She can be reached at 413-582-1840 or Roberta@yourhrexperts.com.
Category: Planning & Management
Here’s a tough question: What’s the one thing nearly all business owners consistently overpay for?
The answer is pretty surprising: Postage costs. Stamps, shipping charges, even the time it takes to go to the post office can all add up, costing thousands of dollars or more each year, depending on the volume of mail you ship. Most business owners don’t know exactly how much it costs to mail a particular parcel- so they end up “over stamping” and overpaying- often by quite a bit. Postal stores and shipping providers have overhead costs to meet, too- you pay for these when you’re charged to ship an item.
You can avoid overpayment- and create big savings- by using a postage meter. A postage machine, or digital mailing system, can calculate postage costs precisely, so you’ll never overpay, and can be used in-office, saving you trips to have packages shipped from other providers. Here’s a quick guide to using a postage meter:
How meters work
Postage meters are leased, and work similarly to a parking meter. You “fill up” by making a payment, and postage charges are drawn against your balance. Most meters allow you to “refill” when necessary, and some calculate monthly charges and send a bill- similar to paying for electricity costs. In addition to paying the postage charges, you’ll also need to lease the equipment. You can choose machines with advance features (scales, document feeders) or a simple stamp machine that just prints postage stamps on your outgoing mail.
Features
Mailing machine equipment can be very simple (a stamp machine) or very complex- some machines fold, collate, stamp, and stack bulk mailings containing several different printed pages. If your business sends large bulk mailings, you could benefit from such a machine. Machines can also be fitted with equipment to ship packages- you’ll weigh the parcel and arrange for the pickup online in a few simple steps. No matter which features you need, you can take advantage of cost savings- with a postage meter, shipping costs can be calculated down to the penny for each mailing, so you’ll never overpay.
Costs and billing
Equipment leasing costs can range from less than $20 a month to hundreds for sophisticated equipment designed to handle large volume mailings. You’ll pay for the postage machine equipment (the meter) as one bill, and pay postal charges according to current rates. Some meters only allow you to “pre-pay” postage charges, while other companies allow you to “pay as you go,” where you receive a bill for both postage and meter use costs at the end of a specified period of time. Pay-as-you-go options usually carry additional charges or fees.
You’ll generally sign a lease contract that specifies your terms of use for the meter. Longer term lease contracts can be significantly less expensive- if you’re willing to commit to a longer period of time using the equipment, you’ll get a better monthly rate. You can also choose to purchase a maintenance or service contract that covers repairs or part replacements over the life of the machine.
Get BACK IN BLACK (BI-B) and back in business by gathering- and using knowledge of your lost business – lost trades. The 5 step program for sales managers and directors shows you exactly how. And you’ll see what a difference it could make to your profits if you start to convert lost trades to future actual trades. For more information on Business Intelligence Systems handling lost business visit: http://www.lost-trade-systems.com or you might want to read a newly published book: The Lost-Trade System.
Step 1 – Decide on strategic use of using knowledge of lost trades to improve future performance. Making a smart strategic decision to change your workflow and your daily sales work starting by converting your lost trades to future won trades is now critical to the success of an organization; however the management of sales leads is often very haphazard. If you’re spending a great deal of time and money acquiring sales leads only to fail to maximize on their potential. If you are losing countless deals and money you need to make a strategic decision and act now. And some of the most successful sales organizations in the financial sector have been doing exactly this for years.
Step 2 – Capture your lost trades (leads) effectively. Registering lost trades should be as natural as capturing an actual customer trade. Start capturing your lost trades in an Excel spreadsheet posted on the company intranet or by using a relational database and a web interface. About 75% of sales managers are using Excel spreadsheets – So Excel could be a core base for lost trades or enquiries that did not result in margin and revenue. Although using Excel spreadsheets should be a popular method for handling lost enquiries and storing this information, 68% of those who use it on a daily basis are unhappy with its performance. In order to move business forward, sales organizations should – on sight – find a solution to modernize and streamline their daily processes in a way. Believe me; the value of this lost trade database will only grow over time.
Step 3 – Start benchmarking your looses versus your actual trades. To drive business forward, retain customers and create sales, it is essential to understand what business you did not have – your lost trades – and compare it the business you did had, and visualizing long run loosing trends, using appropriate metrics. Using this ‘two ledger’ approach will give sales reports detailed analysis of what needs to be done, this will allow you a detailed insight into the strengths and weaknesses of your teams performance, and to make informed business decisions. Ex: You will spot leaving customers before it happens
Step 4 – Create knowledge of lost business data to create new business. Use the information supplied by the graphs of long run losing trends to create knowledge about which of your customers are about to leave, which product are underperforming and which competitors are stealing your business to identify future areas to improve upon. Use this knowledge to take action to get back in black in step 5.
Step 5 – Take action daily based on your new knowledge to maximize your sales revenue and even reach for higher sales targets. It’s easier to maximize existing opportunities if you have an accurate record of all enquiries from customers – Both your actual trades and your lost trades – You will in light the ‘dark side of the sales moon ‘and use these as sales leads that have reached a positive conclusion, retaining customers and cross-selling or up-selling. Manage these opportunities effectively using the right methodology and technology in your daily work in sales, and you’ll see what a difference it could make to your profits.
About the Author:
Jesper Thorlund is an economist, BI advisor and systems developer. He has been working with business intelligence and data warehouse solutions for more than 12 years as a consultant in major financial and govermental institutions. He publishes and lectures on the strategic use of business intelligence and founded Lost Trade Systems – A BI Research Company, which specializes in bringing new insights and value to businesses by working methodically with lost trades. He co-authored the bestselling book Business Intelligence, From Strategy to Data Sources (2008), available as Business Analytics in English in the SAS Press Business Series, August 2009.
Categories
Planning Ahead
BusinessAdvicePro: Long range plans, not yours, not anyone else’s, should be taken seriously. Long range plans NEED to have the flexibility to change or you should be ready to wipe them out completely. I personally feel long range plans are extremely difficult to make, too exact plans anyhow. Thus – if anyone asks me about plans, my most regular answer during the past 5 or 10 years has been – you mean something in the longer term than 3 hours? No idea. I can’t put myself to do such plans. Of course I know that I’m interested in learning about business and marketing. I’m doing that, most likely 3 more hours. But after that? Well, probably, probably or most likely also tomorrow and next week. Most likely. But it’s far from a plan, it’s an idea, a possibility. This is of course an extreme example but you get the point.
Max Gunther on planning ahead [BusinessAdvicePro]
YoungEntrepreneur: The results are in from our latest YoungEntrepreneur.com poll! This time we asked you “How Do You Stay Motivated?” and you responded with some great answers.
The top seven results are:
#1) Read Inspirational Material
“Read blogs like TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Mashable, ReadWriteWeb and get myself excited over others success. I would tell myself “I can be like that person too and I want to be like him/her” Read books like “The Art of the Start” by Guy Kawasaki, “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne.”
#2) Passion / Strength From Within
“I think what keeps me motivated is the strength from within, knowing you are doing what you really are passionate about. I do connect with other blogs but in the end I just write what I feel is very inspirational to me without worrying what others think.”
#3) Picture The Future
“Picture my future if I continue to work for someone for the next 10~20 years. I will NOT have the freedom to decide when I wake up, when I go to lunch, when I get off work, when I get a vacation, how much money I make, where I live. Most importantly, I do NOT get to decide how big my computer monitor is. ook at my current financial situation and tell myself “this is not the way I want to live my life for the next 10~20 years””
#4) Review Your Vision / Goals
“I stay motivated in a couple of ways. Reviewing my vision, revising my business plan and setting new goals always gives me the push that I need to continue on my journey as an entrepreneur.”
#5) Listen to Inspirational Material
“Listen to podcasts about starting a startup. I’m a loyal listener to Andrew Warner’s Mixergy interviews. He does great interview with people who have already been through the trenches. Andrew does a good job at controlling the pace of the interview and tries to get as much information as possible for the listeners. Check it out at blog.mixergy.com”
#6) Surround Yourself With Positive / Accomplished People
“Surrounding myself with positive people or consulting my fiancee also helps a lot when I doubt myself.”
#7) Look For Small Measures Of Success
“When in the early stages of starting a business, I keep myself motivated by looking for other measures of success other than profits (ie: hits on a website, learning something new, etc…).”
“Like some of the other guys mentioned, I use small incremental targets.. and I take care to give myself a mental pat on the back.”
How Do You Stay Motivated? – Entrepreneur Poll Results