The February BSC Wisdom Webinar and Work Session focused on Providers — how to choose, evaluate, and manage them better for both of you. Attendees added some great ideas from their own experiences. Check it out here: https://bit.ly/WisdomWebinar-UpgradeProviders-2-17-22.
6 Ways to Improve Your Sales Projections
Measure sales carefully to be profitable.
Your sales projection formula is key to more accurate financial projections and to the success of your business.
Sales projection formulas are always wrong. Here are six ways to improve them.
Sales projections are wrong because…
- Sales projections are not supposed to be right. They need to be relevant.
They’re a snapshot. They are a specific point in time, based on relevant data and criteria and are defensible within limits. They give you an idea of what to expect each week or month or year. Improve your sales projections by making sure you don’t accept the projected sales numbers without question — including your own numbers. The answers you get from salespeople in terms of what they think will close have to be reasonable and with some sort of basis not just hype and hope. [Read more…]
The Right Stuff: Success Traits That Encourage Funding & Sales
Do you have the right stuff to attract money, customers, and employees? It’s more than just having a good product or service. It’s about who you are and how you think.
Take this little 50 question self assessment and see.
Business Owner’s Success Traits Assessment
Don’t second guess yourself. Choose the answer that you most agree with.
The questions are based on the traits we have found are invaluable to building a successful business along with thoughts of experts E.M. Prince, author of 3 Financial Styles of Highly Successful Leaders, and Bernstein and Rozen, authors of Neanderthals at Work.
This is not meant to be statistically significant, just to get you thinking about your style of small business management from the 40,000 foot view.
Bosses Who Blab Can Kill Their Business
Do you know a boss who talks too much? Artwork by Matt Devicious.
Bosses who talk too much or blab can hurt their businesses more than any cyber security leak ever could. The results can be disruptive enough to kill sales, drive away staff, prevent being granted a patent, or potentially kill the company.
They can also be harder to stop because frequently the boss doesn’t realize they’re doing it.
Big Mouth Examples
Here are eight of the worst blabbermouths and what happened (or could have happened) to their businesses. See if you recognize these or maybe you are guilty yourself.
• Sharing Secrets
The food manufacturer responded to a simple question from someone she just met by revealing her secret way to solve a major production problem. She was too proud of what the company had done to keep quiet about it. Good product but the idea of protecting trade secrets was foreign to her. [Read more…]
Business Owners Hierarchy of Needs
What motivates business owners? It depends on where they are in the owners’ hierarchy of needs.
You’ve probably heard of Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”. He identified how a person’s needs dominate motivation and behavior and that there is a specific order in which they should be met.
His theory suggested that the basic needs (physiological, safety, love and belonging) had to be met before the individual will desire and pursue higher levels of needs (esteem, self actualization, and self transcendence).
If a need is not met, the individual will feel tense and anxious. Although people may have several needs at any time, one will dominate their actions. [Read more…]
What a CFO Can Do to Improve the Sales System
Role-playing dice have nothing on the role-playing CFO when it comes to improving the sales system.Photo by cal-harding from flickr.
What can a CFO do to improve the company’s sales system? What do they even know about sales? You’d be surprised.
If you’re the CFO and CEO, the following applies to you. If you’re both of these plus the Director of Sales and maybe even the Chief Salesperson, you still need to include the tasks below in order to improve the results of your sales system. [Read more…]
7 Ways to Have a Strong 4th Quarter Finish
Still time for 4th Quarter growth in your business. Photo by ItzaFineDay.
You deserve to have a strong 4th quarter finish. It’s time to harvest what you have reaped all year.
If you still need to sew some seeds to accomplish goals, we recommend the following: [Read more…]