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Proven programs that grow great businesses for great people who care.

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22+ Reasons Your Small Business Is Keeping You Up at Night

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Owners are often insomniac. Photo by Olivia Townsend.

Owners are often insomniac. Photo by Olivia Townsend.

News 8 reporter Harlan Schmidt interviewed me about why Austin is a good place to start a business in 2010. I told him it was Austin’s “can do & it’s ok to fail” culture. And it is also about the fact that we have a highly educated population which means we can learn from our mistakes. I would still say that.

Then he asked me what needs to be done to improve our ability to sustain businesses. After all, it is not about starting — anyone can start one. It is about keeping it going — although not necessarily growing as large as, say Dell. [Read more…]

Upgrading Your Providers for your benefit and theirs — BSC Wisdom Webinar recording

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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.

4 Parts to a Platinum Customer Profile System™

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There are 7 potential customer types you could have — Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, Lead, Concrete, and RAW (Radio Active Waste). But you should have only the best, the Platinum Customer. They give you money and a lot more.

If you aren’t satisfied with the value of your current customers, make better choices by setting up a Platinum Customer Profile™ identification system. This is more than just “target” or “niche” marketing. The four parts of a Platinum Customer Profile™ are demographics, psychographics, behaviors, and geography. [Read more…]

7 Golden Sales Rules for Small Business

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GoLocal, a great rewards program, based in Austin, Texas, to encourage people to buy locally.

GoLocal, a great rewards program, based in Austin, Texas, to encourage people to buy locally.

I have just finished a five-hour sales training session for Go Local an Austin, Texas company that is licensing its program nationwide to encourage people to support their locally owned businesses and buy locally. This is a great marketing tool for businesses and reward system for new and existing customers. Even though some of the licensees had sales experience, their questions and concerns prompted me to put together this list of sales concepts that I consider critical to success.

It starts with agreeing with the first “golden rule”. [Read more…]

Best Pricing Practices: 3 Right & 3 Wrong Ways to Price

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Price right & reap your reward. Cartoon by Roger Stewart, Porthole Productions.

Price right & reap your reward. Cartoon by Roger Stewart, Porthole Productions.

I have proposed  a topic, “Best Practices in Pricing”, for ProductCamp Austin. If you’ve never been or ever heard of it, it’s a great day of free business information for product managers, business owners, and those thinking of starting a business. Attendees select the topics the day of the event so they get to hear what they are most interested in that day.

Although the session has sold out, there is a waiting list. I encourage you to get on it. For more information on Austin Product Camp, go to http://productcampaustin.org. For information on my session on Pricing and the 39 other great sessions, go to http://bit.ly/e6chc0. [Read more…]

Why Lefties Make Better Salespeople

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Left-handers rule!

Left-handers rule!

My brother gave me a copy of A Left-Handed History of the World by Ed Wright for Christmas.  As my husband, Daniel, said, that’s much better than a previous gift of 101 Uses for a Dead Cat by Simon Bond. Others found it amusing, as a cat lover, I did not.

I am left-handed. It was interesting to read about other prominent lefties. Some of my favorites include: Queen Victoria, Charlie Chaplin, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Madame Curie, Henry Ford, Ramses the Great, and Joan of Arc. Several US presidents (Reagan, Ford, George W. Bush, and Clinton) were on the left – when it comes to hands at least. [Read more…]

Prospects Should Be Courteous

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I invited a business owner to come and talk to me about where he wanted to go with his business. I thought from what he told me about his concept that I might be able to help with his business vision and provide strategy that would get him the sales he wanted.

He accepted and he and his partners came — or most of them did.

Within a few minutes of starting our meeting, one of his partners began to get cell phone calls all of which he took. I consider that rude.

I deal only with small business owners. I know that calls can be critical and that owners feel they have to wear all the hats at first and do everything. I don’t mind if they need to take a short call or deal with an emergency.

However, if they are expecting an important call, then it would be courteous to let me know when we begin. I also think if the call is important enough to interrupt our meeting for some time, they should be courteous of my time and just reschedule. Things happen. I respect that. [Read more…]

Think Before You Buy

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A message to my neighbors in Central Austin and to any community that has had to live with the fallout from having a big box store push its way in.

Northcross IBIZ District

Northcross IBIZ District

The first spade of dirt has been turned. The bulldozers are busy. The piles of broken asphalt and dry earth are mounting up.

When I try to make my normal walk from my office at the Chase Tower around the Northcross triangle, I can’t. There is a metal fence with a plain green cloth stretched from the middle of the parking lot all the way to Anderson. I can’t see what is happening except through holes where the cloth doesn’t fit quite tightly enough to exclude me. [Read more…]

Making Decisions in Tough Times

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Everyone is struggling in this recession. I’ve given this presentation a couple of times now and received really good feedback. I help you figure out not only how you make decisions but also how your partner, boss, and customer make decisions. My premise is that if you know the motivations behind decision-making, you can achieve your goals much more efficiently.
View more presentations from jantriplett.

What’s in a name?

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Les Barker, poet & singer

When people start a business, one of the first things they try to come up with is a name. Why are names so important? Is a table still a table if you call it a chair? Comic poet and songwriter Les Barker has a piece called An Infinite Number of Occasional Tables —  because sometimes it’s a chair.

Seriously. More than ten years ago now one of our favorite clients decided the time had come to reconsider their name. They had almost 50 years of history and awards behind it. But, the name did not reflect what they did now. [Read more…]