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Recent surveys indicate that as many as 70% of North American companies have made organizational restructuring as part of their plans to weather the current economic downturn. Many industries are reporting financial losses with auto manufacturers and distributors and retailers of big ticket household items leading the way. As a result companies are cutting staff to align their business with [...]

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Does someone in your business ever-so-often ask, "Whatever happened to (fill in the name) and how come he doesn't buy from us any more? Several surveys asking this same question were taken through the years by (but not limited to) the American Society for Quality Control, the Harvard Business Review, U S News & World Report -- even the Swedish Post Office titled "Satsa pa kunden" ("Focus on [...]

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Many years ago I was listening to a tape series on sales and marketing by Brian Tracy and he said something so simple yet so profound that it has stayed with me for all these years. It was a concept that he referred to as the law of six. The Law of Six is a law in sales that says that there are and always will be six primary objections or reasons why people don't or won't buy what you are [...]

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The cash of a business is tied up, amongst other places, in its receivables and this is the easiest place for most businesses to reduce their cash requirements. If you can reduce the average time for collection of your receivables, this will have a direct impact on the amount that you are borrowing or on cash available for other purposes. In most businesses, accounts receivable are a necessary [...]

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Why CEOs and Presidents Lose Their Jobs? In the August Mastermind Digest we wrote that it was important for leaders to be able to look well in the future. As examples of the consequences of this lack of foresight we used the recent downturn in sales and profit that Ford, GM and Chrysler have suffered due to the inability of their leaders to anticipate the future and maneuver their companies around[...]

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Have you been reading these headlines? "Investors bail out" "A new world on Wall Street" "PM blasted on economy" "Congress urged to pass $700 billion bailout" With all its "upbeat" news headlines and talk of doom and gloom, makes you wonder exactly when the sky will be falling. All of this made me think about what every one of us could do to offset the negative "vibes" coming from the [...]

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In an article on About.com, F. John Reh defines Key Performance Indicators (KPI) as "financial and non-financial metrics used to help an organization define and measure progress toward organizational goals. KPIs can ... assess the present state of the business and assist in prescribing a course of action." Informationbuilders.com describes KPIs as "high-level snapshots of a business or [...]

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Recently Ford, GM and Chrysler suffered their worst financial losses. These auto companies have been scrambling to refit their production facilities in North America to produce smaller more gas efficient cars. But this takes time. For example Ford hopes to bring six new small vehicles to North America from Europe by the end of 2012. What do you do in the meantime if your sales for large gas [...]

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Last month, in an article Breaking even - a big deal! I explained why it is important for a business to be aware of the volume at which it breaks even. How to utilize contribution accounting facilitates making decisions that can result in significantly more profit for the business. Every dollar of sales, at a price in excess of your variable costs (cost of goods sold and any overheads that vary in[...]

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Colleague Kevin Nunley is a mine of useful information. Here he suggests a number of creative ways that you can market your business in tough times (such as those that we are entering). 1) Simple Ways to Promote With Powerful Viral Marketing No doubt you have heard of viral marketing. Just like a common cold, it involves having people pass an idea or product from one person to the next. Unlike a[...]

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