It happens in business, it happens in politics, it happens in life. There are those that wait for things to happen and there are those that make things happen. There are those that are in control and those that are controlled. There are those that have concluded it is easier and more enlightening to let [...]
‘Touch points’ can be defined as those customer contacts that are critical to your sales process and sales cycle. An easy way to determine these touch points is to map out, flow chart or whiteboard your sales process from first customer contact through completed sale to ongoing follow up. Some sales cycles can take many [...]
Sarah and her husband Sam run a construction supply company. They have put their life savings into their store and have stocked it with a deep and wide inventory of tools and supplies. Great care and planning went into their layout and merchandising and it is an impressive store. From a business model perspective their [...]
In traditional business, marketing is what brings your prospect to your door, gets them to call, send an email or in some cases actually buy. Sales is everything that happens after the prospect has contacted you. Traditional business is still with us though it has clearly been evolving very rapidly in recent years. Although the [...]
If you see fewer auto repair shops in your area then you are witnessing a trend that is spreading throughout the auto repair industry. The small independent auto repair shop is getting squeezed by both the dealers and the ‘backyarders’ creating shrinking margins and putting many auto repair independents out of business. The global problem [...]
Julie and Michael owned their music business for over 25 years. Like all businesses they have had their ups and downs but in general business was pretty good. They had no formal exit strategy but eventually planned to sell their business and retire. Over the years their business had grown slowly but surely; an incremental [...]
“Locally the median price has dropped about $100,000 in 2007 and is expected to drop another $100,000 in 2008,” said the central coast California realtor, “but we are in better shape than many areas.” Not too many years back realtors were knocking on doors trying to find listings because property values were shooting up. It [...]