Casual Articles - Business

Eliminate Car Payments Forever
Hi Curious;Did you ever wonder how people get to be partners with property owners that they hardly know? Or partners with business owners that they hardly know? Or partners with home owners that they hardly know?Ray Kroc, the man bekind McDonalds, did not invent the hamburger. What Ray Kroc did was to take a concept and apply it to the hamburger business. He franchised his product and multiplied his effort and became extremely wealthy. The original McDonalds was in California and Ray Kroc sold them milkshake machines. He took their product mix, applied his franchising idea to that product and the rest is history.There are items that need new ideas to launch them 'up a notch'. You can be that person to bring a new concept to the table and be successful. Think about it. Imagine if you could be a partner with all kinds of owners, in all kinds of properties, in any part of the country.What would it mean to you if you didn't have anything invested in all those properties but retained control of the assets of all those people. You can buy stock in properties but that would require money. Listen, ideas are what make people rich.Bill Gates had an idea that would make it possible for there to be a computer in every home after the CEO of I

e to nine separate trains of thought - the average and oft- quoted number is seven. Our plan is for you to keep your eye on the ball, you want to limit the balls to those you can keep your eye on.

Step 2: Establishing the measurements

Your next step is to establish a measurement scale for each critical factor. Some of these measures will be quantitative; some qualitative. Sales is an easy one: dollars of revenue measured against budget. Leads generated is also easy - how many? You can further break down sales by product and leads by sources, or you can stick to the consolidated numbers. Choose the measure which best reflects your understanding of howthe issue affects your business.

Everything is measurable, you just need the right system. How can you measu

Franchise Work Vehicles Should Have a Flag on Them
If you own a franchise and have company vehicles, be sure you have a flag on it. First let’s discuss the American flag. Franchising is the epitome of the free enterprise system. It’s what makes America great. The entire United States government is a franchise system. The federal government grants powers to states to govern exclusive territories. They have the power to tax. They give royalties to the federal government in the form of tax revenue. Each state consists of counties. Again, counties are assigned geographical territories and have certain rights and powers. Each county has cities with charters and taxing authority (limited). Think of it this way: Franchisor = Federal Government; Master Franchisee = States; Regional Directors & Area Reps = Counties; Individual Franchisees = Cities; Customer = The PeopleSo you see, franchising is the American way. It’s what makes up America. Although, over the years, men with egos and power have perverted the system, it is still a good method of controlling vast territories. It was designed to deliver life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to its customer’s, the people. Franchising is a great tool and it opens possibilities to each and every citizen in our country. Realizing this and what we are doing h

Here's a curious question: Do all your daily efforts push your business towards your objectives?

For most businesses, the answer is no - executives and employees spend a fair amount of time doing things which don't really make the business more successful. When you stop to consider it, there are only generally a limited number of areas - like sales or product development - which make your business succeed. With insight and analysis you can select these things, the critical success factors.

Guaranteed: your business will succeed or fail depending on how you approach your unique set of critical success factors. Understanding these factors and paying 100% attention to them is a sure way to add power to your efforts and jump start towards a new level of performance. Here's how.

Step 1: Identify your critical success factors

The first step is to identify your special set of critical success factors. You may have thought this through in the past; you may think you know them intuitively. When asked "What matters?", many executives reflexively say things like sales, customers, people, or product development. These are all good answers, and they may be correct answers, but you will want to think deeper and broader.

Below is a list to start you thinking. It is set in no particular order and contains only the most obvious factors. Review the list and circle areas you believe are critical to your enterprise. You may have to add other, more specific or subtle factors to the list to describe the critical influences on your business' success.

Distribution - this could be direct sales, telesales, third- party sales, etc.
Lead generation
Customer satisfaction
Referrals
Research
Product development
Production, including quality, costing, run-rates, etc.
Sufficient investment capital, sufficient working capital
Customer support / technical support
Quality assurance
Sales process / sales life cycle
Market research
Customer education
Sales compensation
Recruiting
Personnel retention programs
Expense management
Intellectual capital development
Training
Marketing communications
Logistics
Employee equity
Executive leadership
Training and development
Corporate goals / strategic objectives
Values and beliefs
Mission/purpose
Individual accountability
Productivity & effectiveness metrics
Internal communications
Strategic and tactical planning
Executive team
Board of directors/advisors

Be specific when you identify your factors. Don't say "people" when the issue is recruiting, employee satisfaction, training or compensation. Don't say "marketing" or "sales" when the issue is lead generation.

Test your assumptions by imagining a decline in a particular factor. How would that impact your business? Now imagine an improvement in that factor. How would that impact your business?

In selecting factors, limit your list to no more than seven. Why seven? Cognitive theory suggests that human minds are efficient at juggling from five to nine separate trains of thought - the average and oft- quoted number is seven. Our plan is for you to keep your eye on the ball, you want to limit the balls to those you can keep your eye on.

Step 2: Establishing the measurements

Everything is measurable, you just need the right system. How can you measur

What is a Classified Ad and What Not?
The most inexpensive form of advertising, classified ads can help you sell your property, automobile, antique collection, used vacuum, or anything you choose. Writing a classified ad that actually sells your product is something is a special art.Read on to learn how to write classified ads that sell.A sale is completed through four different stages – awareness, interest, desire and action. Some marketers boil this down to a single word formula called AIDA formulaAwareness – awareness that you have something to sell that the prospective customer may be benefited.Interest – the prospective customer gets interested in your product.Desire – the prospective customer feels like buying your product.Action – actually ordering the product and writing the check.The third and fourth steps really are not in your control, but doing the first two steps – awareness and interest – correct can motivate the customer buy from you.Thus with the little number of words, you have to create awareness and interest in the minds of your customers, on your product.If your classified ad creates awareness and interest in the minds of your customers and he or she rings you up, your ad is a success.Keep in mind that classified ads a

> Step 1: Identify your critical success factors

Test your assumptions by imagining a decline in a particular factor. How would that impact your business? Now imagine an improvement in that factor. How would that impact your business?

Step 2: Establishing the measurements

Everything is measurable, you just need the right system. How can you measu

Bad Customer Service Turned Around
It’s all in who you know... Or can get to Know!Yesterday I had a customer service issue that warranted my immediate attention. I had ordered a product that I desperately needed that was now about 6 weeks overdue the original back ordered date. I had made numerous calls to both the local and the national vendor over the past few weeks and had received different answers every single time. I had gotten the run around from corporate, from the local vendor, tried to make complaints on line and their server was down, and had left phone messages that had gone unreturned. I had been strung along, lied to and ignored. I was livid by the time I got them on the phone to let me know that it would now be another 10-14 days.I told the woman that I trained in customer service and sales and that I also wrote and spoke nationally about companies. I told her that I was able to get this organization that I’m ordering through to cancel them as a vendor, but that I heard they had been very responsive towards some of the hurricane victims which I applauded. But that their service was unacceptable and that I was appalled they’d let someone fall through the cracks like they did. I asked what they were going to do for me to help ease my annoyance. She came back to the phone te

Test your assumptions by imagining a decline in a particular factor. How would that impact your business? Now imagine an improvement in that factor. How would that impact your business?

Step 2: Establishing the measurements

Everything is measurable, you just need the right system. How can you measu

10 Questions to Help You Find Your Dream Career
Some people have always known what their dream career is but some haven’t quite worked it out. Dissatisfaction with your career cannot always be fixed with a promotion or a pay rise. Sometimes we actually don’t ‘fit’ our chosen occupation. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to be a landscaper but have wound up as an accountant. Perhaps you would love to be a nanny, but found yourself working as a receptionist. There’s that saying about the square peg and the round hole. No matter how nice you make the round hole appear, it’s still round and you’re still square…not literally.By taking some time to answer the following questions, you may start to see a picture form around a particular theme that may turn out to be your dream career.1. What aspects of your current job or day-to-day activities do you thoroughly enjoy?2. What do you naturally do very well?3. What do you love to do when you have spare time?4. What do you daydream about?5. Is there a charity, cause or value that you feel strongly about?6. When you think back over your life, are there problems or issues that have persisted over and over again?7. Name 4 important lessons you have learned?8. List 4 of your greatest successes in life and what made it a succe

Values and beliefs
Mission/purpose
Individual accountability
Productivity & effectiveness metrics
Internal communications
Strategic and tactical planning
Executive team
Board of directors/advisors

Test your assumptions by imagining a decline in a particular factor. How would that impact your business? Now imagine an improvement in that factor. How would that impact your business?

Step 2: Establishing the measurements

Everything is measurable, you just need the right system. How can you measu

A Salesperson's Credibility = Perceived Similarities + Perceived Differences
It pays off for us to be perceived by our prospects and customers as being credible, because we get better results.Credible salespeople are believed. Their word is their bond. If they say a product or service will perform, the customer agrees quickly, and a deal is made.Non-credible salespeople can’t seem to get any traction with their prospects. They’re hung-up on way too often, and tossed, unceremoniously out of office doors.So, what makes us credible, according to research?Two things:(1) Customers need to be able to identify with us, to see, in essential ways that we’re alike. Joe Girard, the self-professed world’s best car salesman, shares the secret of his success. When he chats with a potential customer, he says, more or less, I’m just like you are, so why not give me your business? He creates identification, and this goes far to put people at ease. If he’s a follower of NLP, he’ll probably mirror a customer’s gestures and facial expressions and even posture, to nonverbally and unconsciously support his claim.(2) We need to seem different in a one or more crucial ways. Expertise is partly what customers find credible, so they want us to more know than they do, of a pertinent nature, and they want us to seem organized in wh

e to nine separate trains of thought - the average and oft- quoted number is seven. Our plan is for you to keep your eye on the ball, you want to limit the balls to those you can keep your eye on.

Step 2: Establishing the measurements

Everything is measurable, you just need the right system. How can you measure your effectiveness in sales compensation? You could establish a compound metric which includes total compensation as a percentage of sales revenue, juxtaposed against goal attainment.

Marketing communications is also difficult. One way to measure this is to subjectively assess the quality of your marcom pieces; you could also measure whether you have the total complement of marcom pieces you require. Or, measure whether prospects respond to your marcom efforts. Most likely you will combine all three to get one measure.

A final example is measuring your efforts in the area of your Board of Directors / Board of Advisors. Measures include: do you have one? Are all the board seats filled? Is the board effective for your intended purpose? Measuring the Board factor would likely blend each of these.

Step 3: Setting the baseline

Once you've established a measurement structure for a factor, the next step is setting a baseline.

Each factor should be set against a normalizing scale ranging from 1 to 10. Subjectively this can translate into non-performing(1), poor (2-3) , mediocre (4-5), good (6-7), great (8-9), and outstanding (10).

If your sales run-rate is $10 million, determine whether that is a 1, a 5, or a 10. Your answer depends of course on whether you consider performance against budget, performance against stretch goals, or performance against "home-run-out-of-the-park" goals. If your baseline for Board of Directors is two unfilledboard seats - is that a 5 (mediocre) or a poor (2-3)? Only youcan decide. Although this ultimately is a subjective process,you want to make it as objective as possible.

Step 4: Set new goals

Next, create a "gap" between where you are - your baseline - and your target for that factor. You already have a sales plan, so your gap exists between your current revenue and your budgeted revenue.

You may consider your baseline a 5, and your target an 8. Implicit in this 1- 10 scale are judgements about your intentions: will reaching your budgeted revenue put you at 8 (almost great) or 10 (outstanding)?

Where do you want to peg your efforts? If you've assessed your employee training at a 4 (mediocre), are you shooting for a 7 (good) or a 9 (great)? You can see from this how your measurement structure and goal system will impact how you allocate your company's resources and energy.

Step 5: Closing the gap

You now have a baseline and a target for each factor. Between them they define a factor gap - your challenge is to close it. Each gap becomes the focus of a meditation which asks the question: What will close the gap between our current level of this factor and our desired level? What possible actions will raise that measurement?

You may have intuitive responses to these questions, and when appropriate, trust your gut. If need be, back that gut response with research - but only when cost effective.

(Sometimes the most cost effective research is implementation, particularly in simple matters.)

Use any idea generation process you are comfortable with. Develop several possible initiatives to rais

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If you want to increase quality and dramatically save costs in production, then, yes, the road to perfection is definitely worth the driving time.

Recent studies have shown that industrial supervisors are working at less than 60 % of their potential. Basic management skills training is guaranteed to change all this and at such little cost.

Remember that nothing is free. If you need to buy product A in order to have product B free, then product A was overpriced in the first place

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