Many times you’ll have to fight your way through an army of flak catchers to get your proposal in front of the people who matter. Flak catchers, by the way, are those people noted author and social commentator Tom Wolfe identified as the ones sitting in the outer office whose job it is to intercept incoming shrapnel, complaints, and sales pitches to protect the real decision makers inside.
There’s a great temptation to try to blow right by the flak catchers and get to Mr. Big. The problem with this tactic is that it backfires too often. You never know just what the relationship between the two may be. Many a busy executive will take cues from an administrative assistant because they work so closely together day after day. And the assistant will know just how much power they have, too, and not hesitate to use it if they feel slighted in any way. Remember how much trouble Marie Antoinette got into because she brushed off the concerns of the little people.
You have to be careful, too, about job titles. Does the Senior Vice President of Marketing make the final advertising budget decisions? Does the Operations Manager buy the production line equipment—or does that job belong to the Purchasing Manager? Maybe. Maybe not. It all depends on the company and their practices. You obviously need to do your homework and ask lots of questions as you’re working your way through the maze.
The decision influencer that will really drive you crazy is the invisible one. I don’t know how many times I’ve worked for months on a prospect, making endless presentations to person after person only to get a final “no” because there was an unidentified decision influencer I missed along the way. You just never know and unfortunately you can’t count on the prospect to offer you all the guidance you’d like to have. Ask, ask, ask.
Another source of sales insanity is the self-appointed expert. Every prospect seems to have someone on staff whose main job responsibility is to pass negative judgment on every sales proposal. They always seem to be hardest on those proposals that didn’t start in their office, too, which is an interesting coincidence.
Some product and service lines draw these experts worse than others. More than two-thirds of American homes have computers, so you can count on at least half the prospect’s employees having an opinion on your product if you sell information systems. Everybody is an expert on advertising too, of course, since everybody is exposed to it every day.
The strategy I’ve adopted to deal with all these contingencies is to make the presentation to anybody who will listen to it, whether I think they’re directly involved in the decision or not. With a complex sale, you can never be sure who’s doing what or who has the stroke, so cover them all. Since a complex sale can take time (weeks, months, or even years) to complete, it’s not unheard of for someone you’ve pitched to get promoted, transferred, or terminated before the final decision is made. So cover all your bases and make the presentation to anybody you can corner long enough to hear it.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
Closing Sales To Empowered Employees
Companies who "empower" their employees will proudly tell you that you don’t have to pitch your product to Mr. Big because any number of subordinates can make the final decision. Mr. Big will go along with anything they decide. Did you notice that Mr. Big still has the final word? To me, just saying that he will go along implies that he also has the option to not go along.
Unfortunately, at least in my experience, many of the employees who have been empowered don’t want the responsibility that goes along with the territory. Some people subconsciously feel threatened by the responsibility that comes with decision-making. They may even believe that upper management is copping out on their responsibilities by pushing decisions down in the organization. They’re much more inclined to say “no” than “yes” because keeping the status quo is almost always felt to be the safer decision. And a great deal of second guessing goes on, too, especially among those who live to please upper management and as such are mostly concerned about what Mr. Big really wants them to decide. There’s a tendency to push the decision back up the corporate ladder—or worse, not make any decision at all—if they can.
It’s not a pretty picture, but it’s one that you have to deal with constantly when you're in sales.
The biggest reason you’ll constantly be involved in complex sales is that the fabric and structure of many industries have become more complex. The Mom and Pop grocery store has given way to the hypermart. The independent local realtor is now a franchisee of a national financial conglomerate. The local lumber yard has been replaced by a big box store and the neighborhood hardware store is under siege. Waves of consolidation have swept through every industry from toy stores to funeral homes.
And with size almost always comes complexity. The management of a nationwide chain of service stations has a vastly more complicated structure than the one running your local two-pump corner gas station. There are local managers reporting to regional managers reporting to division managers who draw on the resources of the corporate marketing, finance, legal, engineering, and administrative staffs. The decision to buy a new digital sign, for example, may have to be approved by a dozen individuals. At the local sole-proprietor gas station, one person—the owner/operator—will make that decision alone.
Since creative sellers focus on the larger potential accounts, they almost by definition pursue the national organizations rather than the mom and pops in their industry. You must develop a set of tools and tactics to reach and persuade the multiple decision influencers in your prospect’s company.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
Unfortunately, at least in my experience, many of the employees who have been empowered don’t want the responsibility that goes along with the territory. Some people subconsciously feel threatened by the responsibility that comes with decision-making. They may even believe that upper management is copping out on their responsibilities by pushing decisions down in the organization. They’re much more inclined to say “no” than “yes” because keeping the status quo is almost always felt to be the safer decision. And a great deal of second guessing goes on, too, especially among those who live to please upper management and as such are mostly concerned about what Mr. Big really wants them to decide. There’s a tendency to push the decision back up the corporate ladder—or worse, not make any decision at all—if they can.
It’s not a pretty picture, but it’s one that you have to deal with constantly when you're in sales.
The biggest reason you’ll constantly be involved in complex sales is that the fabric and structure of many industries have become more complex. The Mom and Pop grocery store has given way to the hypermart. The independent local realtor is now a franchisee of a national financial conglomerate. The local lumber yard has been replaced by a big box store and the neighborhood hardware store is under siege. Waves of consolidation have swept through every industry from toy stores to funeral homes.
And with size almost always comes complexity. The management of a nationwide chain of service stations has a vastly more complicated structure than the one running your local two-pump corner gas station. There are local managers reporting to regional managers reporting to division managers who draw on the resources of the corporate marketing, finance, legal, engineering, and administrative staffs. The decision to buy a new digital sign, for example, may have to be approved by a dozen individuals. At the local sole-proprietor gas station, one person—the owner/operator—will make that decision alone.
Since creative sellers focus on the larger potential accounts, they almost by definition pursue the national organizations rather than the mom and pops in their industry. You must develop a set of tools and tactics to reach and persuade the multiple decision influencers in your prospect’s company.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Selling To Decision Influencers
Have you ever heard this sales adage: Never take “no” from someone who can’t say “yes?” There’s more than a kernel of wisdom in it, but this truism undoubtedly pre-dates the age of virtual corporations with horizontal organization charts describing the functions of an empowered workforce. In most complex selling situations, the first hurdle to overcome isn’t “no,” it’s identifying all the various players with something to say about the decision.
When it comes to identifying the people involved, I refer to decision “influencers” as well as decision “makers.” That’s because there are many people in the modern business structure who don’t have the authority to say either “yes” or “no” but whose opinions are solicited by the final decision makers. Even seemingly simple decisions often go through the influencer mill. This happens for a variety of reasons.
For one, a large number of executives today practice consensual management. The old autocratic “buck stops here” decision maker is out of sync with the latest in management theory. These modern executives believe (and rightly so) that involving more people in a decision improves the ultimate acceptance of that decision. If you’ve ever sold consulting services, for example, you know that the client staff members who are going to be affected by the project can destroy it if they don’t “buy in” early in the decision-making process.
There’s also a widespread belief that the more people involved in a decision, the better that decision will be. It’s a safety procedure practiced by decision makers who prefer to spread the risk among a larger group. Of course, decision making by committee has its downside, too. It tends to produce “safe” decisions because a group tends to grind all ideas down to the most acceptable level.
Group decisions may be safe, but they’re certainly not necessarily better. Each member of the group has his or her own agenda and will act to carry it out within the group with varying degrees of success. I’m sure you’ve heard the story of the committee charged with designing a horse. Every member added the features they wanted. One suggested the beast have four legs and another made them long and added large, flat feet for traction on soft surfaces. Another insisted on a tail to shoo away flies while yet someone else modified it to not be bushy so maintenance would be lower. And so the process went through meeting after meeting until the committee to design a horse produced instead a camel.
Here’s a scary number: 27. That’s the number of “yes or no” interim decisions that need to be made in a situation where a committee of just three people is deciding whether to buy an item with three specifications (like size, color, and quantity) and where each person has to consider and agree/disagree with each of the others on each possible combination of specified features. And what’s really scary about that number is that it does not include the final yes or no buying decision! Unfortunately, sound management practice or not, decision-making committees are often part of the complex sale.
That’s one reason I suggest eliminating as many of the interim decisions as possible when you put your proposal together. If you give the committee just one decision to make (buy or don’t buy), you’ve eliminated all of the interim decisions they have to debate.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
When it comes to identifying the people involved, I refer to decision “influencers” as well as decision “makers.” That’s because there are many people in the modern business structure who don’t have the authority to say either “yes” or “no” but whose opinions are solicited by the final decision makers. Even seemingly simple decisions often go through the influencer mill. This happens for a variety of reasons.
For one, a large number of executives today practice consensual management. The old autocratic “buck stops here” decision maker is out of sync with the latest in management theory. These modern executives believe (and rightly so) that involving more people in a decision improves the ultimate acceptance of that decision. If you’ve ever sold consulting services, for example, you know that the client staff members who are going to be affected by the project can destroy it if they don’t “buy in” early in the decision-making process.
There’s also a widespread belief that the more people involved in a decision, the better that decision will be. It’s a safety procedure practiced by decision makers who prefer to spread the risk among a larger group. Of course, decision making by committee has its downside, too. It tends to produce “safe” decisions because a group tends to grind all ideas down to the most acceptable level.
Group decisions may be safe, but they’re certainly not necessarily better. Each member of the group has his or her own agenda and will act to carry it out within the group with varying degrees of success. I’m sure you’ve heard the story of the committee charged with designing a horse. Every member added the features they wanted. One suggested the beast have four legs and another made them long and added large, flat feet for traction on soft surfaces. Another insisted on a tail to shoo away flies while yet someone else modified it to not be bushy so maintenance would be lower. And so the process went through meeting after meeting until the committee to design a horse produced instead a camel.
Here’s a scary number: 27. That’s the number of “yes or no” interim decisions that need to be made in a situation where a committee of just three people is deciding whether to buy an item with three specifications (like size, color, and quantity) and where each person has to consider and agree/disagree with each of the others on each possible combination of specified features. And what’s really scary about that number is that it does not include the final yes or no buying decision! Unfortunately, sound management practice or not, decision-making committees are often part of the complex sale.
That’s one reason I suggest eliminating as many of the interim decisions as possible when you put your proposal together. If you give the committee just one decision to make (buy or don’t buy), you’ve eliminated all of the interim decisions they have to debate.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Perpetual Change Marks Business Strategy
Nothing is so permanent as change. The customer you deal with today will not be the same one you see tomorrow. Your employees will have a different outlook on work when they get up in the morning and your vendors will come through the door with new products, new prices, and oh, by the way, new corporate owners with new credit requirements. More of your tools will have LCD screens and many of them will talk wirelessly to your customer and to each other. You can only hope they keep talking to you. In every type of business—change happens.
Some of us fight change and some of us embrace it, but we all have to deal with it. “You have to respond to the market,” says Michael Young, owner of Street Rods by Michael in Shelbyville, Tennessee. “If you can’t adapt, you’re not going to be here in five years.”
Consider your customers. Most company owners are justifiably very proud of having a base of loyal customers. If they rely exclusively on those loyal customers to support their revenue stream, though, it won’t be long before they see their sales decline. Why? Because customers change. Consider just one simple fact: twenty percent of Americans move every year. While not every one of them moves across the country and therefore out of your market area, many do. And even those that just move across the street put a dent in their disposable income with moving expenses, etc., that cut into their budget for other things—like what you sell. Those lost sales have to be replaced by sales to new customers just to stay even.
Even the customers who do stick around change. Their tastes evolve, they learn new things, they get bored and want to do or own something different. If nothing else, they get older. The baby boomers, the generation that gave us the Rat Fink and American Graffiti, has started cashing Social Security checks. How will that change their propensity to spend money on hot tubs, designer denims, or flat screen TVs? And will the younger customers who hopefully come along to replace them be looking for the same things? Not likely. That’s one reason you see more muscle cars on the street and fewer ‘34 Fords; more Hondas and fewer Chevrolets. It’s not just a change in fashion—it’s a change in the customer.
Don’t fight it
So how do you deal with change? To start with, don’t fight it—you can’t win. Instead, open your eyes to the inevitability of change, make yourself and your company ready for it, and embrace it when it comes. The first step, if you want to keep up with changes in the marketplace, is to make a conscious effort to listen to what the customers are saying to you about themselves and what they want.
“Customers are more knowledgeable,” observes Sales Manager Tom Dickinson of AP Tuning in Lebanon, PA, a company that specializes in high-performance automotive work. Not too many years ago, hot rod magazines and mail-order catalogs defined media for that market. Today, enthusiasts can learn about the sport from an ever-growing number of media outlets—everything from the Internet to entire television networks devoted to it. Enter a term like “torque converter” into Google, and you’ll get 743,000 listings. When Dickinson’s customers see somebody on TV winning races or shows with a car like theirs, they become a more informed—and generally more demanding—customer.
“It used to be that you learned about cars by talking to the guy in the next pit stall at the track,” according to Darrick Klima, also in the automotive performance business as owner of Belleville Motorsports in Belleville, KS, where they build over 100 race cars a year. “One of the bigger things these days are race car workshops and driving schools. People are spending money to become better racers because they’re spending more money on better race cars. It puts a lot of pressure on everybody.” Klima attends schools and seminars himself so he will know what his customers are being told.
Klima also spends a lot of time getting feedback from customers. “We meet change by listening to our customers,” he says. “All I do all day is talk to people who are racing our cars.” He says he and his staff listen to the drivers’ ideas, bounce them around internally, then try them out to see if they work. If they do, the new concepts become incorporated into all their products. “We have to definitely spend more time and money trying to come up with a better mousetrap.”
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
Some of us fight change and some of us embrace it, but we all have to deal with it. “You have to respond to the market,” says Michael Young, owner of Street Rods by Michael in Shelbyville, Tennessee. “If you can’t adapt, you’re not going to be here in five years.”
Consider your customers. Most company owners are justifiably very proud of having a base of loyal customers. If they rely exclusively on those loyal customers to support their revenue stream, though, it won’t be long before they see their sales decline. Why? Because customers change. Consider just one simple fact: twenty percent of Americans move every year. While not every one of them moves across the country and therefore out of your market area, many do. And even those that just move across the street put a dent in their disposable income with moving expenses, etc., that cut into their budget for other things—like what you sell. Those lost sales have to be replaced by sales to new customers just to stay even.
Even the customers who do stick around change. Their tastes evolve, they learn new things, they get bored and want to do or own something different. If nothing else, they get older. The baby boomers, the generation that gave us the Rat Fink and American Graffiti, has started cashing Social Security checks. How will that change their propensity to spend money on hot tubs, designer denims, or flat screen TVs? And will the younger customers who hopefully come along to replace them be looking for the same things? Not likely. That’s one reason you see more muscle cars on the street and fewer ‘34 Fords; more Hondas and fewer Chevrolets. It’s not just a change in fashion—it’s a change in the customer.
Don’t fight it
So how do you deal with change? To start with, don’t fight it—you can’t win. Instead, open your eyes to the inevitability of change, make yourself and your company ready for it, and embrace it when it comes. The first step, if you want to keep up with changes in the marketplace, is to make a conscious effort to listen to what the customers are saying to you about themselves and what they want.
“Customers are more knowledgeable,” observes Sales Manager Tom Dickinson of AP Tuning in Lebanon, PA, a company that specializes in high-performance automotive work. Not too many years ago, hot rod magazines and mail-order catalogs defined media for that market. Today, enthusiasts can learn about the sport from an ever-growing number of media outlets—everything from the Internet to entire television networks devoted to it. Enter a term like “torque converter” into Google, and you’ll get 743,000 listings. When Dickinson’s customers see somebody on TV winning races or shows with a car like theirs, they become a more informed—and generally more demanding—customer.
“It used to be that you learned about cars by talking to the guy in the next pit stall at the track,” according to Darrick Klima, also in the automotive performance business as owner of Belleville Motorsports in Belleville, KS, where they build over 100 race cars a year. “One of the bigger things these days are race car workshops and driving schools. People are spending money to become better racers because they’re spending more money on better race cars. It puts a lot of pressure on everybody.” Klima attends schools and seminars himself so he will know what his customers are being told.
Klima also spends a lot of time getting feedback from customers. “We meet change by listening to our customers,” he says. “All I do all day is talk to people who are racing our cars.” He says he and his staff listen to the drivers’ ideas, bounce them around internally, then try them out to see if they work. If they do, the new concepts become incorporated into all their products. “We have to definitely spend more time and money trying to come up with a better mousetrap.”
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
Monday, October 24, 2011
More Retail Selling Methods
In retailing, as in all types of selling, a customer with pricing on the mind may insist they can get by with a cheaper product even when you know they are ultimately going to be dissatisfied with it. It’s important to sell this customer the right product the first time if at all possible, because they will probably blame you for their dissatisfaction later—even if you sold the cheap product to them under protest. Even worse, they may spread the bad word to their friends. Selective memory is a powerful force for evil.
One way to up-sell them is to play up the differences between the cheaper and the better products while you stress the very small differential in their prices by breaking it down into smaller amounts. Over the life span of two brands of high performance tires, for example, how many pennies per mile does the twenty-dollar price difference amount to?
Good salespeople always have their eyes and ears open looking for opportunities to up-sell their current customers. Here are some good ways to find more of them:
● Be alert to changes. Has the customer bought a new car? Of course, that’s an obvious opportunity to start selling. But how about if they’ve moved to a new house with a bigger garage? Can’t you envision that rack full of tools they have room for now?
● Disappointment breeds more sales. Let’s be frank: if your customers won every race they entered, they wouldn’t need you, would they? So when you hear one grousing about coming in second all the time, make a few well-chosen suggestions about how they can move up a notch while you’re empathizing with them.
● What’s new? New products are coming into the vibrant performance market every day and you owe it to your customers to tell them about them! An email newsletter can do the trick—and so can a simple telephone call.
When you take the sales initiative, opportunity knocks a lot louder.
Seller Reluctance
You and your other salespeople may be reluctant to use these tactics because of expected customer resistance or even resentment. But as long as you watch how they are reacting, listen to what they’re saying to you, and don’t try to cram something down their throat, that problem won’t be nearly as bad as you think. Remember, you’re dealing with somebody who has already decided to spend some money with you, so they must be pretty comfortable with the way you do business.
The biggest obstacle to increasing your sales this way, however, is simple laziness. It’s a lot easier to just give the customer what they ask for, take their money, and say goodbye. When you do that, though, you’re actually doing the customer a disservice because you can’t be sure that what you sold them will really meet their needs. How much do they know about what they are buying? Do they really understand what alternatives they have or what the differences are between various products? Up-selling is a good way to get to know what they truly need, which puts you—the professional—in a position to make sure they buy the right thing.
When you understand it that way, you realize that you are creating value for the customer while you are bringing more dollars into your store. That’s about the best formula for business success I’ve heard since someone advised me to buy low and sell high.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
One way to up-sell them is to play up the differences between the cheaper and the better products while you stress the very small differential in their prices by breaking it down into smaller amounts. Over the life span of two brands of high performance tires, for example, how many pennies per mile does the twenty-dollar price difference amount to?
Good salespeople always have their eyes and ears open looking for opportunities to up-sell their current customers. Here are some good ways to find more of them:
● Be alert to changes. Has the customer bought a new car? Of course, that’s an obvious opportunity to start selling. But how about if they’ve moved to a new house with a bigger garage? Can’t you envision that rack full of tools they have room for now?
● Disappointment breeds more sales. Let’s be frank: if your customers won every race they entered, they wouldn’t need you, would they? So when you hear one grousing about coming in second all the time, make a few well-chosen suggestions about how they can move up a notch while you’re empathizing with them.
● What’s new? New products are coming into the vibrant performance market every day and you owe it to your customers to tell them about them! An email newsletter can do the trick—and so can a simple telephone call.
When you take the sales initiative, opportunity knocks a lot louder.
Seller Reluctance
You and your other salespeople may be reluctant to use these tactics because of expected customer resistance or even resentment. But as long as you watch how they are reacting, listen to what they’re saying to you, and don’t try to cram something down their throat, that problem won’t be nearly as bad as you think. Remember, you’re dealing with somebody who has already decided to spend some money with you, so they must be pretty comfortable with the way you do business.
The biggest obstacle to increasing your sales this way, however, is simple laziness. It’s a lot easier to just give the customer what they ask for, take their money, and say goodbye. When you do that, though, you’re actually doing the customer a disservice because you can’t be sure that what you sold them will really meet their needs. How much do they know about what they are buying? Do they really understand what alternatives they have or what the differences are between various products? Up-selling is a good way to get to know what they truly need, which puts you—the professional—in a position to make sure they buy the right thing.
When you understand it that way, you realize that you are creating value for the customer while you are bringing more dollars into your store. That’s about the best formula for business success I’ve heard since someone advised me to buy low and sell high.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Retail Selling Success Is All About Up-Selling
Back in the good old days, when retail stores had living, breathing employees who helped customers choose their merchandise, it was standard procedure for the salesperson to try to increase the size of each individual sale. They did this very effectively in several ways that can be adopted by today’s retail shop owners who are interested in increasing the top line on their income statements.
One of the first is simple up-selling, where you guide the customer to a selection with a higher price point than the one they came in to buy. In an extreme example, let’s say that the customer came to your hardware store to buy a wrench. An up-seller would make at least an attempt to sell him or her a complete set of wrenches instead. Outlandish? Maybe, but you never know until you try. And, as long as the suggestion is done quickly and without pressure, the customer won’t mind.
A good way to manage this kind of interchange with the customer is to ask them what problems they’re having while you’re getting the item they came in for. That’s also the time to get some basic information like what kind of project they’re working on so you can give them accurate advice. Then, even if they say “no thanks” to the suggestion, you can reply with “Let me at least give you a price so you can think about it.” There’s no pressure on the customer in up-selling this way.
Add-ons
Another sales-building strategy is to suggest add-ons to the original purchase. Back when men wore coats and ties to the office (is anybody besides me old enough to remember that?), you couldn’t buy a jacket in a men’s store without the salesperson offering you a shirt, a couple of ties, and a pocket handkerchief (now I’m really dating myself). The modern shop owner can and should do the same thing. At a garden center, for example, once you’ve sold the customer a rose bush you should suggest new pruning shears and maybe some long gloves.
Add-ons should be, but don’t necessarily have to be, related in some way to the customer’s original purchase. It’s also helpful if they have a lower price point. They are truly impulse purchases for the customer, although the impulse originates with the shop salesperson.
There is no reason these same tactics can’t work for service revenues, too. The garage customer that buys a set of adjustable shocks, for example, might also be interested in a chassis tune. One incentive for the customer to make the additional purchase might be that you can save him or her some money by doing both jobs at the same time. It can also save the customer something else that’s valuable—time.
Up-sell Bargain Hunters, Too
There are some situations where you might think that up-sells and add-ons aren’t possible, like when a bargain-hunting customer comes into the shop and says, “I’m looking for such-and-such, and I only want to spend X dollars.” There are several ways to deal with that kind of low-baller. The first is to call their bluff and see how serious they are about their budget by telling them you don’t have anything in that price range and offering to show them secondhand merchandise or a cheaper job. Note that you’re not refusing to meet their needs, just their price. You’re also sending them a not-so-subtle message that their expectations may be too high without telling them flat out that they’re an idiot.
Another way is to just ignore what they say about their budget and start at the high end of the market and work your way down. One advantage of this approach is that it gives the customer a chance to see options they might not even know exist. What’s more, after they’ve seen that royal banana split, it makes their plain vanilla cone look a whole lot less appealing.
Yet a third approach is to give them alternatives and let them choose. Even if Product A and Product B are both priced higher than they say they are willing to pay, it’s always very possible that their budget will change if you do a good job of selling the higher-priced options. This is also a good way to find out what’s really important to them, both in terms of what they are looking for and how much they are really willing to pay.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
One of the first is simple up-selling, where you guide the customer to a selection with a higher price point than the one they came in to buy. In an extreme example, let’s say that the customer came to your hardware store to buy a wrench. An up-seller would make at least an attempt to sell him or her a complete set of wrenches instead. Outlandish? Maybe, but you never know until you try. And, as long as the suggestion is done quickly and without pressure, the customer won’t mind.
A good way to manage this kind of interchange with the customer is to ask them what problems they’re having while you’re getting the item they came in for. That’s also the time to get some basic information like what kind of project they’re working on so you can give them accurate advice. Then, even if they say “no thanks” to the suggestion, you can reply with “Let me at least give you a price so you can think about it.” There’s no pressure on the customer in up-selling this way.
Add-ons
Another sales-building strategy is to suggest add-ons to the original purchase. Back when men wore coats and ties to the office (is anybody besides me old enough to remember that?), you couldn’t buy a jacket in a men’s store without the salesperson offering you a shirt, a couple of ties, and a pocket handkerchief (now I’m really dating myself). The modern shop owner can and should do the same thing. At a garden center, for example, once you’ve sold the customer a rose bush you should suggest new pruning shears and maybe some long gloves.
Add-ons should be, but don’t necessarily have to be, related in some way to the customer’s original purchase. It’s also helpful if they have a lower price point. They are truly impulse purchases for the customer, although the impulse originates with the shop salesperson.
There is no reason these same tactics can’t work for service revenues, too. The garage customer that buys a set of adjustable shocks, for example, might also be interested in a chassis tune. One incentive for the customer to make the additional purchase might be that you can save him or her some money by doing both jobs at the same time. It can also save the customer something else that’s valuable—time.
Up-sell Bargain Hunters, Too
There are some situations where you might think that up-sells and add-ons aren’t possible, like when a bargain-hunting customer comes into the shop and says, “I’m looking for such-and-such, and I only want to spend X dollars.” There are several ways to deal with that kind of low-baller. The first is to call their bluff and see how serious they are about their budget by telling them you don’t have anything in that price range and offering to show them secondhand merchandise or a cheaper job. Note that you’re not refusing to meet their needs, just their price. You’re also sending them a not-so-subtle message that their expectations may be too high without telling them flat out that they’re an idiot.
Another way is to just ignore what they say about their budget and start at the high end of the market and work your way down. One advantage of this approach is that it gives the customer a chance to see options they might not even know exist. What’s more, after they’ve seen that royal banana split, it makes their plain vanilla cone look a whole lot less appealing.
Yet a third approach is to give them alternatives and let them choose. Even if Product A and Product B are both priced higher than they say they are willing to pay, it’s always very possible that their budget will change if you do a good job of selling the higher-priced options. This is also a good way to find out what’s really important to them, both in terms of what they are looking for and how much they are really willing to pay.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Closing The Complex Sale
Selling the way it’s usually described is a pretty simple affair. You find the prospect, research their needs and develop a proposed idea, pitch the decision maker, manage the objections, and close the sale. Straight forward, isn’t it? Nice and linear.
But selling in the real world isn’t quite that simple. The “normal” sale is about as linear as a basket of eels. You may be able to find something that looks like a beginning, but which of the squirming bodies leads you to the other end? We all operate in the world of the complex sale.
The complex sale is easy to identify but hard to complete. You know you are in the middle of one when Mr. Big says, “I really like this idea, but I have to run it by my boss.” And then his boss, Mr. Bigger, says, “Good idea. What does production have to say about it?” And then production says, “Interesting. Can we change these widgets into woudgets—if the new assembly line we’re installing next year calls for it? Better check with the vendor.” So the vendor of the new assembly line says, “We’ll set it up any way they want. Besides, what’s a widget?” Get the picture?
There is a decision maker, but there are also multiple decision influencers. There is ultimately a “yes” or “no” decision, but there are also multiple interim decisions to be made before that point is reached. Multiple decision influencers making multiple decisions. It’s a recipe for mass confusion.
The dollar size of the buying decision doesn’t necessarily dictate the number of decision influencers involved. One of the more interesting sales I ever made was a multi-million dollar communications tower to a company in Saudi Arabia. The situation had all the hallmarks of a complex sale. The purchasing company was a joint venture operated by two other companies, one French and one Saudi, and the item I was selling was a very high priced component in a much larger complete system to be operated by a ministry of the Saudi government. The construction manager was an Egyptian subcontractor to the Saudi/French joint venture.
Even the payment wasn’t linear. The customer’s funds were coming from an insurance settlement that was still in dispute. The payment to us was to be made in the form of an Irrevocable Letter of Credit, which had to be approved by the Saudi bank, our bank, and a transmitting bank in Switzerland. There was an endless chain of meetings, referrals, studies, and opinions offered, countered, and negotiated by phone, fax, and snail mail that went on for six months and involved engineers, bankers, and various functionaries on three continents. Finally, the sale was closed after a single 90-minute meeting I held with the president of the joint venture and his construction manager. That meeting was basically a formality, however, since all the details had been ironed out in the months before.
On the other hand, I once sold a small-market television advertising package worth $300 that required four weeks of study and deliberation by an advertising agency’s media planner, buyer, and account supervisor, their client’s store manager, regional manager, and advertising director, and the co-operative advertising manager of one of the store’s vendors. The Federal Express and long-distance telephone bills were greater than our profit on that sale!
Watch out, a complex sale could be lurking anywhere out there.
Successfully completing a complex sale requires tremendous patience and perseverance, two qualities often in short supply among salespeople, who often chose sales as a career in the first place because they like the instant gratification of closing a deal. If the reason you get up and go to work each morning is to see how many sales you can make that day, I suggest you find something simple to sell—like Girl Scout cookies—and a simple market to sell it in—like sole proprietorships with fewer than two employees. Selling just about anything else to larger organizations requires the ability to navigate through a complex sale.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
But selling in the real world isn’t quite that simple. The “normal” sale is about as linear as a basket of eels. You may be able to find something that looks like a beginning, but which of the squirming bodies leads you to the other end? We all operate in the world of the complex sale.
The complex sale is easy to identify but hard to complete. You know you are in the middle of one when Mr. Big says, “I really like this idea, but I have to run it by my boss.” And then his boss, Mr. Bigger, says, “Good idea. What does production have to say about it?” And then production says, “Interesting. Can we change these widgets into woudgets—if the new assembly line we’re installing next year calls for it? Better check with the vendor.” So the vendor of the new assembly line says, “We’ll set it up any way they want. Besides, what’s a widget?” Get the picture?
There is a decision maker, but there are also multiple decision influencers. There is ultimately a “yes” or “no” decision, but there are also multiple interim decisions to be made before that point is reached. Multiple decision influencers making multiple decisions. It’s a recipe for mass confusion.
The dollar size of the buying decision doesn’t necessarily dictate the number of decision influencers involved. One of the more interesting sales I ever made was a multi-million dollar communications tower to a company in Saudi Arabia. The situation had all the hallmarks of a complex sale. The purchasing company was a joint venture operated by two other companies, one French and one Saudi, and the item I was selling was a very high priced component in a much larger complete system to be operated by a ministry of the Saudi government. The construction manager was an Egyptian subcontractor to the Saudi/French joint venture.
Even the payment wasn’t linear. The customer’s funds were coming from an insurance settlement that was still in dispute. The payment to us was to be made in the form of an Irrevocable Letter of Credit, which had to be approved by the Saudi bank, our bank, and a transmitting bank in Switzerland. There was an endless chain of meetings, referrals, studies, and opinions offered, countered, and negotiated by phone, fax, and snail mail that went on for six months and involved engineers, bankers, and various functionaries on three continents. Finally, the sale was closed after a single 90-minute meeting I held with the president of the joint venture and his construction manager. That meeting was basically a formality, however, since all the details had been ironed out in the months before.
On the other hand, I once sold a small-market television advertising package worth $300 that required four weeks of study and deliberation by an advertising agency’s media planner, buyer, and account supervisor, their client’s store manager, regional manager, and advertising director, and the co-operative advertising manager of one of the store’s vendors. The Federal Express and long-distance telephone bills were greater than our profit on that sale!
Watch out, a complex sale could be lurking anywhere out there.
Successfully completing a complex sale requires tremendous patience and perseverance, two qualities often in short supply among salespeople, who often chose sales as a career in the first place because they like the instant gratification of closing a deal. If the reason you get up and go to work each morning is to see how many sales you can make that day, I suggest you find something simple to sell—like Girl Scout cookies—and a simple market to sell it in—like sole proprietorships with fewer than two employees. Selling just about anything else to larger organizations requires the ability to navigate through a complex sale.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
Monday, October 3, 2011
How To Make Interviews Meaningful
From the hirer’s standpoint, the purpose of the job interview is to learn things that will hopefully predict the potential employee’s future success (or failure). Some things I learned while hiring hundreds of salespeople over the years:
• The applicant should do most of the talking. If you spend more time speaking than listening, you’re not learning as much about them as they are about you.
• What they say may not be as important as how they say it. Do they speak clearly and convey a positive outlook? Do they get defensive?
• Communication goes both ways, so do they listen well? How much attention they pay to your questions may reveal how much attention they’ll pay to those of your customers.
• Appearance isn’t everything, but who wants to work with a slob? To find out how neat an applicant really is, go outside and look in their car. If the back seat is full of junk, they may not be as well-kept as they appear.
• Follow-up counts, especially in personal sales. Give the applicant your phone or fax number or your email address, then a day or two to see if they send you a thank-you after the interview. If they do, it will not only show that they’re polite, but that they care enough about the job to go the extra step.
Starter Questions
The goal of an interview is to listen to the candidate talk so you can learn about them. Here are few open-ended questions to start the process:
• Tell me about your work history. Which job did you like best? Why?
• Did you enjoy school? What was your favorite subject? Why?
• Is there anything I should know about your career that doesn’t show up on your resume?
• What part of your current (or last) job do you like best? Least?
• Do you like your boss? Why? Why not?
• Describe for me the most difficult problem you’ve ever faced and tell me how you solved it.
• What do you do best?
• What do you want your employer to do for you?
• Who is the person you most admire? Why?
• Tell me what you do to improve yourself.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
• The applicant should do most of the talking. If you spend more time speaking than listening, you’re not learning as much about them as they are about you.
• What they say may not be as important as how they say it. Do they speak clearly and convey a positive outlook? Do they get defensive?
• Communication goes both ways, so do they listen well? How much attention they pay to your questions may reveal how much attention they’ll pay to those of your customers.
• Appearance isn’t everything, but who wants to work with a slob? To find out how neat an applicant really is, go outside and look in their car. If the back seat is full of junk, they may not be as well-kept as they appear.
• Follow-up counts, especially in personal sales. Give the applicant your phone or fax number or your email address, then a day or two to see if they send you a thank-you after the interview. If they do, it will not only show that they’re polite, but that they care enough about the job to go the extra step.
Starter Questions
The goal of an interview is to listen to the candidate talk so you can learn about them. Here are few open-ended questions to start the process:
• Tell me about your work history. Which job did you like best? Why?
• Did you enjoy school? What was your favorite subject? Why?
• Is there anything I should know about your career that doesn’t show up on your resume?
• What part of your current (or last) job do you like best? Least?
• Do you like your boss? Why? Why not?
• Describe for me the most difficult problem you’ve ever faced and tell me how you solved it.
• What do you do best?
• What do you want your employer to do for you?
• Who is the person you most admire? Why?
• Tell me what you do to improve yourself.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Negotiation Success Is Planned, Not Accidental
Mention negotiating to some people, and the first image that comes to mind is a table full of lawyers and accountants haggling over a billion-dollar contract. In most small companies, you seldom get involved in those kinds of deals, but you do conduct negotiations of many kinds all day every day—sometimes without even realizing it. You negotiate with suppliers, customers, service providers, even employees. You give and take over everything from delivery dates and financing terms to whose turn it is to clean the coffee pot in the break room. Perhaps the most important negotiations, though, are the ones you conduct with vendors and suppliers. How well you perform there can make a major impact on your company’s success.
Obviously, being a good negotiator can improve your bottom line. Less obviously, though, when you improve your negotiation skills you also reduce some of the stress that comes along with running a business. You’ll enjoy both wider profit margins and fewer headaches if you’re prepared for the negotiating process and ready to use your skills when the need arises. Before you begin a negotiating session, you need two things: information and a game plan.
Information is something you can’t have too much of. You need to know as much about the other person’s needs and wants as you do about your own. If you are negotiating with a vendor, how’s their business? Is this sale important to them or just routine? Are they operating under competitive pressure in the marketplace or do they have a monopoly? Is their plant running at full capacity? Is their warehouse bulging with unsold inventory? Is the rep over quota or desperate for a sale? Some of these things you can find out by asking them directly or just listening closely to casual conversation; others will take a little research in the trade press or a reading between the lines in your dealing with competitive vendors. In either case, the more you know in advance, the better off you’ll be.
Look at your own situation ahead of time, too. Get the facts and figures straight about what you need, when you need it, how much you’re willing to pay for it, and so on. The more solid information you have, the more confident you will be in making decisions—and such confidence will greatly influence the way the vendor responds to your offers.
Remember, too, that this information is as confidential as your bank account numbers. You don’t need to reveal it to the vendor unless it’s going to help you get something you want.
Successful negotiation is by definition a matter of give and take, which is where the planning comes in. Preparing a list in advance of the possible concessions you can make as well as a list of things you’d like to have in return is often a good idea. The list will help you prioritize your requests and make sure you don’t overlook any possibilities. As you’re drawing up your list, remember that negotiation isn’t just about price. Delivery schedules, payment terms, packaging and displays, advertising allowances, return policies, and many other elements can add (or subtract) value to the transaction. And nearly every one of them is negotiable, so it never hurts to ask.
You can also offer the vendor some items he or she might want besides a higher price, too. The size of the order comes to mind right away, of course, but what’s it worth to them to get a quick decision from you? Or how about payment in advance? While you normally don’t want to tie up your capital, if the price of the parts or merchandise you’re buying can be slashed below the cost of the money (the interest you would earn if you kept the money in the bank for the time it takes to sell turn the inventory, to look at it simply), it might make sense.
One of the preparatory steps I always found useful was to think through my final position—my least acceptable alternative—before I started negotiating. This might include the highest price I could afford to pay, the largest quantity I could justify ordering, the longest delivery date I could accept, and so on. I would try to include every factor that might come up and decide—in advance—the worst terms I could accept before walking away from the deal.
What we’re talking about here is my “take it or leave it” offer. I would certainly never reveal it to the vendor, but knowing where I stood gave me a scale on which to measure possible concessions that I was either willing to make or that the vendor offered as the negotiation continued. Knowing the ultimate bottom line ahead of time also kept me from making costly mistakes in the heat of the moment.
The other thing to prepare in advance is a wish list of everything you could possibly want from the vendor. Don’t keep anything off the list just because you think “they’ll never go for that.” You don’t know unless you ask!
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
Obviously, being a good negotiator can improve your bottom line. Less obviously, though, when you improve your negotiation skills you also reduce some of the stress that comes along with running a business. You’ll enjoy both wider profit margins and fewer headaches if you’re prepared for the negotiating process and ready to use your skills when the need arises. Before you begin a negotiating session, you need two things: information and a game plan.
Information is something you can’t have too much of. You need to know as much about the other person’s needs and wants as you do about your own. If you are negotiating with a vendor, how’s their business? Is this sale important to them or just routine? Are they operating under competitive pressure in the marketplace or do they have a monopoly? Is their plant running at full capacity? Is their warehouse bulging with unsold inventory? Is the rep over quota or desperate for a sale? Some of these things you can find out by asking them directly or just listening closely to casual conversation; others will take a little research in the trade press or a reading between the lines in your dealing with competitive vendors. In either case, the more you know in advance, the better off you’ll be.
Look at your own situation ahead of time, too. Get the facts and figures straight about what you need, when you need it, how much you’re willing to pay for it, and so on. The more solid information you have, the more confident you will be in making decisions—and such confidence will greatly influence the way the vendor responds to your offers.
Remember, too, that this information is as confidential as your bank account numbers. You don’t need to reveal it to the vendor unless it’s going to help you get something you want.
Successful negotiation is by definition a matter of give and take, which is where the planning comes in. Preparing a list in advance of the possible concessions you can make as well as a list of things you’d like to have in return is often a good idea. The list will help you prioritize your requests and make sure you don’t overlook any possibilities. As you’re drawing up your list, remember that negotiation isn’t just about price. Delivery schedules, payment terms, packaging and displays, advertising allowances, return policies, and many other elements can add (or subtract) value to the transaction. And nearly every one of them is negotiable, so it never hurts to ask.
You can also offer the vendor some items he or she might want besides a higher price, too. The size of the order comes to mind right away, of course, but what’s it worth to them to get a quick decision from you? Or how about payment in advance? While you normally don’t want to tie up your capital, if the price of the parts or merchandise you’re buying can be slashed below the cost of the money (the interest you would earn if you kept the money in the bank for the time it takes to sell turn the inventory, to look at it simply), it might make sense.
One of the preparatory steps I always found useful was to think through my final position—my least acceptable alternative—before I started negotiating. This might include the highest price I could afford to pay, the largest quantity I could justify ordering, the longest delivery date I could accept, and so on. I would try to include every factor that might come up and decide—in advance—the worst terms I could accept before walking away from the deal.
What we’re talking about here is my “take it or leave it” offer. I would certainly never reveal it to the vendor, but knowing where I stood gave me a scale on which to measure possible concessions that I was either willing to make or that the vendor offered as the negotiation continued. Knowing the ultimate bottom line ahead of time also kept me from making costly mistakes in the heat of the moment.
The other thing to prepare in advance is a wish list of everything you could possibly want from the vendor. Don’t keep anything off the list just because you think “they’ll never go for that.” You don’t know unless you ask!
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Attention To Business Details
Ask anybody who spends their day in a furniture finishing spray booth, and they’ll tell you ninety percent of success in a paint job comes from attention to detail. Proper sanding, masking, tacking, priming, and so on are mandatory. So is a clean gun, properly mixed paint, and the right temperature in the spray booth. Skip a step or give it a half-baked effort, and you’re going to find sags, clouds, over-sprays, fisheyes, and other ugly features in your finish coat. Your attention to detail is what matters.
The same is true when it comes to running your business. Just as a perfectly-applied finish coat depends on what came before it, a successful business depends on dozens of factors other than the ability of the company to produce eye-popping work. Profit doesn’t just magically appear. It’s the result of constant attention to the large number of details involved in running a successful business. Unfortunately, like sanding between finish coats, most of these details aren’t things many people consider fun.
How much do you enjoy bookkeeping, for example? About as much as you like root canal, right? You know it has to be done, but you’d just as soon not do it yourself. I know plenty of company owners who approach the job of keeping their books by throwing all their receipts, invoices, and bank statements into a big box. When tax time rolls around, they dump the box on their accountant’s desk and wait for the bad news. This approach is about as effective as throwing an old sheet over a sofa and calling it re-upholstered.
As tedious as it is, keeping a timely set of books will help you run a company with much higher profits. And with the availability of easy-to-learn software, you don’t need to be a CPA to master the basics. Even if you’re lucky enough to have an office manager who handles the task, it’s a good idea to personally review the results every month. Good, timely bookkeeping will help you spot profit leaks before they become floods.
If you review your books in detail, you can plot the costs of materials or labor over time to see if there are any negative trends developing. You probably have a good sense of what’s happening, but it’s never a bad idea to have the specifics in front of you before you make any decisions. You can also spot cash flow glitches and accounts receivable problems before they occur so you can take the appropriate steps after considering all the alternatives. It’s always better to talk to your banker about a loan before you’re in crisis mode.
You may also have a nice surprise in store when tax time rolls around. If your accountant doesn’t have to wade through your box of dusty documents, he or she should charge you a lot less to prepare your tax return. And who knows? Your diligence throughout the year may actually enable you to lower your tax bill by shifting expenses or revenues—quite legitimately—from one year to the next, by making a timely retirement plan contribution, or by using other time-sensitive strategies of the tax-wise. You can only do those things if you’ve paid attention to the details of your bookkeeping.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
The same is true when it comes to running your business. Just as a perfectly-applied finish coat depends on what came before it, a successful business depends on dozens of factors other than the ability of the company to produce eye-popping work. Profit doesn’t just magically appear. It’s the result of constant attention to the large number of details involved in running a successful business. Unfortunately, like sanding between finish coats, most of these details aren’t things many people consider fun.
How much do you enjoy bookkeeping, for example? About as much as you like root canal, right? You know it has to be done, but you’d just as soon not do it yourself. I know plenty of company owners who approach the job of keeping their books by throwing all their receipts, invoices, and bank statements into a big box. When tax time rolls around, they dump the box on their accountant’s desk and wait for the bad news. This approach is about as effective as throwing an old sheet over a sofa and calling it re-upholstered.
As tedious as it is, keeping a timely set of books will help you run a company with much higher profits. And with the availability of easy-to-learn software, you don’t need to be a CPA to master the basics. Even if you’re lucky enough to have an office manager who handles the task, it’s a good idea to personally review the results every month. Good, timely bookkeeping will help you spot profit leaks before they become floods.
If you review your books in detail, you can plot the costs of materials or labor over time to see if there are any negative trends developing. You probably have a good sense of what’s happening, but it’s never a bad idea to have the specifics in front of you before you make any decisions. You can also spot cash flow glitches and accounts receivable problems before they occur so you can take the appropriate steps after considering all the alternatives. It’s always better to talk to your banker about a loan before you’re in crisis mode.
You may also have a nice surprise in store when tax time rolls around. If your accountant doesn’t have to wade through your box of dusty documents, he or she should charge you a lot less to prepare your tax return. And who knows? Your diligence throughout the year may actually enable you to lower your tax bill by shifting expenses or revenues—quite legitimately—from one year to the next, by making a timely retirement plan contribution, or by using other time-sensitive strategies of the tax-wise. You can only do those things if you’ve paid attention to the details of your bookkeeping.
Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.
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