Sales | Train or bring in a “Hired Gun”
Everything is about sales these days…everything!
At times our clients ask us to attend sales or even negotiation sessions with their customers. After these sessions the feedback starts flowing. Giving them invaluable advise.
This sparked an idea at one of our round table meetings last week. Why not offer Lead Closing as a training class or even a product? Customers spend thousands upon thousands of dollars to generate leads. With so much money invested, why not use the leads to their full potential. Most business owners are good at selling what they do. After all selling is an everyday occurrence. How are you at selling to new customer, cold calls, you know people you have never spoken with before. You procrastinate these vital leads, don’t you? We understand. How do you solve it? We can help.
Call and get one our consultants on site. Let them learn about your product. After a day with our Lead Closing people you will be excited about getting out and calling on leads. Our consultants will give you the tools you need to sell to new faces.
Do you manage a staff of sales people? Do they need a ittle “pick me up”? We can show groups these skills also. Not all salespeople are born salespeople.
No time to sell? We undestand that also. Hire us to do it for you. You’ll be amazed at how quickly our Lead Closing staff can pick up a product, devleop a marketing plan and hit the street. We’re only a phone call away.
August | Mobile Device Training month
August is going to be Mobile Device Training month. We have been tossing around the idea of spotlighting a service each month. Spotlighting a product was some advice I gave a client a few days ago and thought it would work us too.
Here is just a small list of the things we can offer you. Whether it’s a Blackberry, iPhone or WindowsMobile device, we can help. These devices are huge capitol expenses, get the most out of them.
- email, home and office
- setup data exchange for tasks and calendar
- update your home or office calendar wirelessly
- sync your music, ALL your music
- update your website or blog with text and pictures
- watch TV or your favorite TIVO recordings
- take a picture then upload it to online storage for safe keeping
- update your website with camera phone pictures
- track your vehicles mileage and miles per gallon
- update spreadsheets
- send group SMS text messages
Don’t grow too fast, or do
Let the I told you so’s start.
Starbucks said today they are closing down 600 nonperforming stores. I expect the pundits will start the Monday morning Quarterbacking. I don’t think we should judge so soon.
An assumption will be made over the next few days. The assumption will be that since there’s “two Starbucks on every corner”, on of them will be closing. Now this may be the case, but I expect we’ll still see stores across the street from each other.
What does this mean to the normal small business. We can take a few things from this. While most will be concerned about expanding, That’s not my advice.
The decision to expand should be made keeping one main thing in mind. How long will it take the new location to start making a profit? No doubt Starbucks made the decision to expand on this premece. Let’s dig a little deeper. Could it be that most of the Starbucks locations closing are older or smaller stores. Maybe they are even stores that where geographically placed to out preform the older store across the street. An example of this is present here in our small town of Castle Rock, CO.
At one time the only Starbucks in town was at the end of a grocery store’s strip mall. This location was always busy. At only about 900 sq ft they had a lot traffic to move through that place. Recently a drive-thru location was opened less than 1/4 mile a way. Starbucks left the older location open. I assume knowing it would loose volume. How much volume would it have lost if they closed that location when the other opened? Probably a lot more. For some Starbucks is not about the coffee, it’s about the experience. Closing the first location would have killed the routine for some customers. Causing them to change their routine. Some changed right away and started using the new drive through location. Other customers are continuing to use the old location.
So was expanding a bad thing? Should they have closed the smaller location right after the new one opened?
The leason here is go forward with expanding your business. The new location might just replace your old one when times get lean.
Twitter | get your CEOself everday motivation
Here at the office we use Twitter to keep everyone up to speed on last minute meeting or client schedule changes. Now you can get CEOself via Twitter. The site feed is under the user ID CEOself. We will tossing out motivational quotes and thoughts every once in a while. We hope it help keep you focused on making your small business RUN.
“What is Twitter?” It’s a SMS text message based communication tool. It allows you to send text messages to a group of people…heck it lets you send messages to everyone if you like. Think of it as email, but email to any type of mobile device. You can send SMS text messages to any type of cell phone. Not everyone gets email to thier cell phone. By using SMS via Twitter, everyone gets the message.
Business Consulting | psychology for your business
Is a business consultant just a psychologist for your business? I had a client refer to me as such a few sessions ago. She was appearing to give a compliment. On the surface I took it as such, but then I began to think about it. Are we?
I personally have never seen one so the speculation beyond this point is hear say, or even some info prime time TV has given me. 
In street terms a psychologist can be a few different things, a person that crazy people talk to. It can also be someone that intelligent people go to looking for advice. However most psychologists never end up giving much advice, they just lead you down the path to what you know is right. Is a business consultant the same thing? Leading you down the path that you already knew was right?
In our day to day work flow we get so caught up in the process of exchanging money we rarely take the time to think about why we are doing it. For that matter if we enjoy this exchange. Is this exchange leading me down the right business path, the path I started on? Has your business path changed for the better, or worse?
Call us to help you work through these issues. You will be amazed at what one of our consultants can do for you. No, they won’t just keep asking you “Well how does that make you feel?”
safekeep your data…personally
These days it is so important to guard your old data. Read the story below, taken from NBC affiliate 11 in Cincinnati. A customer trusted a local retail chain with erasing the data and destroying the hardware.
When computer drive crash give us a call. Our tech will personally come out with a new drive in hand. Your old data will be transferred to the new drive. the drive will be installed and the old drive removed. At that point the decision is yours. Keep the drive or watch the tech physically destroy the drive on site.
We also have options for storing your data, online behind our secure server.
CINCINNATI — A year ago, Henry and Roma Gerbus took their computer to Best Buy in Springfield Township, Ohio, to have its hard drive replaced.
Henry Gerbus said Best Buy assured him the computer’s old hard drive — loaded with personal information — would be destroyed.
“They said ‘rest assured.’ They drill holes in it so it’s useless,” Gerbus told television station WLWT.
A few months ago, Gerbus got a phone call from a man in Chicago.
“He said, ‘My name is Ed. I just bought your hard drive for $25 at a flea market in Chicago,’” said Gerbus. “I thought my world was coming down.”
Gerbus and his wife had good reason to worry.
A total stranger … Read more →
another project almost complete
Our web guy has almost completed his latest project The project has a little bonus because it involves caffeine. Something most business people can’t live without.
Crowfoot Valley Coffee, here in our home town, was looking for a site update. The shop roasts its own beans, on site. One of the only coffee shops in America that does this. This means that Crowfoot customers get the freshest possible beans. Whether those beans are in a cup of espresso or in a bag taken home for home brewing.
Taylor, one of the managers, wanted and update to the site. An update that would bring them and internet shopping cart. The shop also wanted something that can easily be updated by actual staff at the coffee shop. All of this with out spending a penny on software. Tough task? Not really. Give us a call or drop us a line we can help you build a site that’s easy to manage also.
The Capitol Markets stink, so I’m back
The past five months have been an been a frustratingly pleasant. Pleasant because of the new colleagues I have been exposed to. Frustrating because the perception of a bad market has become a self fulfilling prophecy.
The move, back in Dec, was a strategic one. My wife’s company was in the middle of a large acquisition. She was “on the bubble”.
I started work on a project with a large indirect auto originator. Most of my post college experience was concentrated in this industry. The company I worked for relied on wholesale lines of credit for indirect lending. Losing ground on bond ratings caused them to relinquish their main wholesale line. Now 1600 of us are moving on to better things.
While I was gone your consultants have been doing just fine. As I write this I am wondering what I am going to do tomorrow. My focus over the next few weeks will be marketing. That means more 4am thinking sessions. I do my best thinking at 4am. I’ll be sharing some new ideas with you over the next few days.
…when do you do your best thinking?
11 Principles of Entrepreneurial Leadership
- Never blame. At least, don’t blame an employee in front of another. If you have to reprimand, do it in private. This sets a bad tone, and you lose respect with all employees, as such things will get around like bad gossip.
- Don’t create adversarial situations. Don’t pit employees against each other or ask them to snitch. Healthy competition is fine. Back-stabbing is like a smile, but only in that it carries a long way through the company morale, and not in a good way.
- Understand the work. Be a constant learner. Have at least a fundamental understanding of the work you’re expecting your employees to do. It makes it easier on everyone when the try to tell you why something can’t be done, or that it will cost more.
- Don’t put square pegs in round holes. Basically, assign the right work to the right people, to allow them to work optimally. Don’t be like those companies that shall remain nameless that give you a job you can’t do and beat down your spirit. You wouldn’t want that and neither would your employees.
- Lead by example. If the company approaches a problem that covers new ground, don’t expect your employees to know how to solve it. If you know how, give them a crash course and let them take it from there. And by leading, I don’t mean leading employees like a puppy.
- Brainstorm. If they still have trouble solving a new problem, brainstorm with them. Proper brainstorming requires that at least the moderator of the meeting does some legwork beforehand. Record all ideas without censorship, or you might miss the best solution, which might be unfamiliar and thus seem odd.
- Ask, don’t tell. Communicate well and clearly. In a startup company with a positive environment and healthy competitive spirit, most people want to be asked, want to be challenged. Offer up the day’s or week’s “assignments” and let people pick. That is, if you’re not such a big company yet that you need to structure everyone’s roles. Don’t count anyone out. You might be suprised about who’s capable of what. Challenges also weed out the lazybones.
- Be decisive. Have a strategy ready. If business problems crop up and employees are aware of them, they’ll be thinking abou their bills, their mortgages, etc., not yours. (Possibly unless you’re giving them incentives.) So be the decision-maker, indicate what needs to be done, then ask for volunteers or assign tasks if necessary.
- Consider profit-sharing. Bonuses go a long way towards employee loyalty, passion and creativity. Sure, there’ll still be stragglers, but a creative bonus “matrix” weeds them out. If your company is young, there’s only so far you can go with bonuses, so also consider profit-sharing/ private shares. Talk to a good accountant about the best way to implement these incentives.
- Be sympathetic. Or at least courteous. It’s only human to not always be in top form, even with incentives. Talk to your employees, understand them and give them some leeway when possible. Have some redunancy in job descriptions, right from the beginning, to allow someone to temporarily take up the slack.
- Be firm. Being sympathetic is all well and good, but you do have a business to run. Be firm when it’s necessary.
How Adding Pull Dates To Files Saves You Time
80% of what we file away, never gets looked at again. That means that at any given time, 4 out of 5 of our files are basically useless.
I can almost hear the protests now, “But this one time I really needed to find an important file … and after 30 minutes of looking I finally found it - now, I’m scared to throw anything out!”. Hey that’s ok by me, if you’ve got enough room and are so inclined - keep everything!
However, if you take that approach, you should develop a systematic approach for archiving folders you’d like to keep - but rarely access. That way, the next time you go hunting for that special file, you’ll be wading through far fewer “useless” files. Thus saving you all kinds of time.
So what’s a good approach to archiving files?
• First, when labeling file folders, include a “pull date” right after the file name. The pull date is your best guess for when that file will be removed from your “active” file drawer and archived in another location or discarded.
• Second, when your active file drawer becomes full, quickly scan your folders, removing any files with “pull dates” that have already passed - and yes this can be just as bad as smelling sour milk! But it works.
• Third, archive your folders by subject and date in another location (remember to label them clearly). Other locations can include: another file cabinet or drawer, or possibly a file box.
office/home made light box
Does your small business manufacture products and sell them online? Maybe you even sell items on ebay? Check out this link. It will show you how to build what I think is the best homemade light box. The last two images are just a few examples of the images that can be produced. Amazing.
101 Useful Resources for Online Entrepreneurs
“Every day more and more entrepreneurs are building successful businesses using the internet. There is an abundance of opportunity online and depending on the venture, there is often less cost and risk involved when compared with traditional businesses. There is also a wealth of resources available to help the online entrepreneur to run a business more effectively and more profitably, and we list many of those resources here. Feel free to leave a comment with your feedback and your recommendations of other resources.”Excellent post a must read
Note from the CEO
2007 has seen our company grow in so many different ways. I am proud to say that the goals set for 2007 have all been accomplished. As a team we overcame a lot of adversity this year. We were busy consulting without a clear vision of what it is we do as individuals. More importantly, what it is each of use LIKE to do. Some of us started out the year thinking we knew the answers to the questions, but as we close the year we are all in different seats on our boat. I hope 2008 will continue the push for honest yet soft feedback we have given each other this year.
Going into 2008 we have solidifed our product line and made this operation much easier to manage.
I can say we now have a full fledged Web Team that can take on any job. The sites we have built are getting huge hit numbers. Keep up the good work. That shopping cart model you guys have working is incredible. In combination with the interactive site software will mean huge business in 2008.
The Business Consulting Team has a great handle on everything we have to offer. Cross selling is key and makes our customer more confident in our product line.
Financial software training will continue to be a huge part of our 2008 budget. Your selling goals are huge for 2008. Use the strategies we discussed and it will be fruitful.
I will taking an indefinite leave of absence starting Jan 2008. I will be working on personal projects. Yes we can still all meet for beers, but probably not as often. :) This business was and is a dream of mine. I have spoken to each of individually and you all know just how important you are to this business. You guys no longer need me to drive this boat. I am just the first one to ride in the inner tube towed behind. I have all the confidence in world in our new Captain and her abilities. Trust her leadership. She has great vision. Be honest with her.
Merry Christmas everyone and I wish each of you a successful New Year.
Get 10 more hours of work done each week
Micheal Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing has posted some very helpful tips to getting more out of your work week. Some are common sense but there are a few that I took to heart. I hope they help you too.
- Limit the time you spend online
- Touch email messages once and only once
- Follow the two-minute rule
- Stop attending low-impact meetings
- Schedule time to get your work done
- Cultivate the habit of non-finishing
- Engage in a weekly review and preview
More details at the [site link]
Colorzilla, a great Firefox plug-in
What an incredible tool. If your using Firefox and design anything on the web, you need this. Iosart.com offers you an add-on that gives you the color specs on anything you touch in your browser. The free add-add on is called ColorZilla.
In the image above you can see the cross hairs covering the bottom of the orange “F”. By doing this, a replica of the color is placed in the box in the lower left hand corner of your browser. The color specs are then displayed.
A wonderful tool for any web designer.
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