Serial entrepreneur and Financial Times columnist Mike Southon says: “Many companies fail because they get their sales wrong – probably more that for any other reason, including finance Companies with excellent products, able people and good-looking marketing plans: none of these matter if real live customers are not persuaded to write out real live cheques.”

He continues: “Business owners can all too often be haunted by the myths that prevent people from doing sales excellently – that sales is somehow flashy and dishonest. It is time these myths are replaced with the truth, that in the modern business, everybody sells. The sales role stretches across the entire team, from technical people to the ’sales cornerstone’ at the heart of the operation.”

Mike Southon, who has thirty year’s experience of sales across a range of business environments, co-founded his own business in 1984 and was responsible for growing the company to 150 people before selling it to what is now Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. Since then he has been in charge of sales in seventeen start-up ventures.

In 2002, Mike Southon and Chris West (Innovation and Intrapreneurship Advisor; and Marketing practitioner) collaborated to produce the best-selling book ‘The Beermat Entrepreneur’, an advisory guide for entrepreneurs and start-ups based on their ‘Beermat’ methodology for entrepreneurs which has received rave reviews:

“In professional partnerships we like to think we don’t have to sell. This is a dangerous illusion – luckily Mike Southon and Chris West are here to show us how and why it needn’t be hell. Inspiring and motivational” says John Beevor, BPE Solicitors.

The Beermat Entrepreneurs have since rolled their methodology to thousands of small business founders, corporate managers and business students across the UK, France and America. Chris West says: “Marketing is the driving force of every small business, but many entrepreneurs are unsure how best to go about it. You don’t need a huge marketing budget to get results, there is a plethora of inexpensive but ingenious ‘tricks of the trade’ that are guaranteed to pay dividends.”

Chris adds: The afternoon session of the ‘Sales and Marketing Workshop’ is designed to demystify this essential area of business enterprise, telling you everything you need to know about researching and identifying customers, creating an impressive marketing strategy, building marketing campaigns, and increasing consumer awareness and – therefore – sales. We’ll be providing the delegates with crucial insights into online resources and the UK media.”

The ‘Sales and Marketing’ Workshop on 22nd April 2010 is for business owners and managers both with and without experience of sales and marketing, who want to make more money, become a better marketeer, and who are not afraid to challenge their current strategies. Lively and interactive, this workshop will leave you with ideas and tools you can use immediately to move your sales and marketing processes up a gear.

First aid is the manner of providing primary care for a sudden injury or illness. It lessens and reduces the pain of injuries and damages brought about by a variety of accidents. First aid safety trainings must be attended to by corresponding representatives. First aid is part of workplace safety services and must be strewn all over the company’s premises. There are even a set of rules for companies to abide by when it comes to first aid. Some of which are:

Employers should provide enough first aid facilities for treatment of sudden injuries especially those which are inflicted within the workplace.

First aid facilities compose of first aid kits. The number of kits should be enough for the number of employees currently in the workplace.

In Australia, first aid is symbolized by a white cross on a green background. First aid kits must have that symbol with the words “FIRST AID” written in bold.

These first aid kits serve as immediate treatment therefore they must be checked at all times. Employers should make sure that the contents are restocked as needed. Dates on the contents must also be checked. Expired and old contents must be thrown out and replaced with new ones.

There should be at least one First aid kit on each level of the workplace. Work vehicles should also have first aid kits.

First aid kits should be located in convenient areas and areas where there is a higher risk of accidents.

First aid is part of a safety management system that works for the benefit of the employees and employers as well. It maintains workplace health and safety where people can work to their maximum potentials.

One of the answers, of course, was that these organisations were built on systems. Although often far from perfect the creation of systems was what allowed these organisations to grow from small to large. Just the other day a new Costa Coffee shop opened up locally. I was in there enjoying a cup of tea and happened to be sitting near the manageress, who was doing some paperwork. Being nosey I took a few interested glances at what she was doing because, again, I was fascinated at how this organisation operates. I was thinking about how Costa can go into new premises, kit it out to look like their brand, train the staff and once open they immediately operate just like all the other Costa coffee shops. The atmosphere works, the staff are polite and efficient and it’s clean. Costa is just one example of many organisations that operate slickly, effectively and most importantly, profitably. How do they do this? What this manageress had was a load of checklists. Everything was totally organised. There was absolutely no making it up as they go along. People knew what they had to do and had a system for doing it. One of our coaching principles is to ’stop reinventing the wheel’. What this means is to stop making things up as you go along and instead create standard operating principles for your organisation. How important is this? It’s the difference between growing and stagnating. It’s the difference between increasing profits and losing money.

Small businesses are often too flexible. There are far too many circumstances where no one knows what to do and so the manager or owner has a constant stream of ‘how do we deal with this?’ questions. This, in turn, often leads to micro management, which lowers morale because most people don’t like being micro managed.

The way out of this is to do the thinking up front and create processes. Who are the best people to do this? Usually, it’s the people who do the work and not the manager or owner. Of course, they can have input and, ultimately, decide what is put in place but people will be far more willing to use a system when they have designed it and not just been told to use it. Take this quick quiz by rating yourself, on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being weakest and 5 being strongest. I am aware that most successful businesses have standard operating procedures for everything and I have developed these for my business. As such it runs highly effectively and profitably. My current rating 1 2 3 4 5 I spend a significant amount of my time working on my business and not just in my business, which results in constant improvements. My current rating 1 2 3 4 5 I am clear about the business I am building and have an up to date business plan. My current rating 1 2 3 4 5 If you are rating an average of 4 or above then congratulations, you are amongst a very small group of highly focused people! A coach will challenge you on what’s next for you! If you average around 3 you are no doubt focusing on your business and want to move forward. There are areas that need improving and working with a coach could help give you that extra focus. If you average 2 or below then you may have the desire to succeed but need help to get there. By just drifting you’ll more than likely end up tired, burned-out and disillusioned. A coach can help you get on track and develop the skills you need to move up a level. An exploratory coaching session is FREE. Contact John Dashfield to book your session.

You may be hearing some of the most promising news that’s come along in months, however. Yes, the bleak outlook that companies had just a few months ago is transforming into a positive, though cautious, attitude. While economic experts have noted a five percent growth in the economy, your segment may not fall within one of these industries. Regardless of whether your industry is included or not, Integrated Business Planning or Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) remains a necessity not only to surviving an economic downturn but also succeeding, both now and in the future.

One of the few perks of a recession is that it eliminates underperforming players, practically wiping the slate clean for your company, helping it to gain a better foothold in the market, and effectively evaluate business initiatives and goals. This downtime is key to winning customers and ensuring you have systems robust enough to weather any other potential storm along the way. With a well-positioned Integrated Business Planning, or Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) process in place, flare-ups can be dealt with immediately, and issues can be managed without constant monitoring. Not only are short-term solutions presented, but long-term tools for surviving another economic downturn are addressed as well.

Key Points to Remaining Successful

In terms of weathering this or any other recession, management is the glue that keeps the company together. When management spends excessive amounts of time addressing daily issues rather than focusing on the big picture, however, a lapse in meeting market and customer demand occurs.

With so many factors in play, what can management do to ensure the company beats the competition and identifies ways to deal with the eventual uptick in business? Following are three key points to remaining successful:

1. One way to weather the storm is to make preparations that are specific to your business. Luxury items, for instance, are taking longer to rebound in the market; and while people are finally cracking open their wallets, these funds are usually spent on lower-priced items.

How has the recession affected long-term consumer expectations? Part of Integrated Business Planning involves an in-depth evaluation of your business model, including asking:

• What are our differentiators? Should they be streamlined to meet the changing business landscape?
• Why do we sell this product? Are we known for our prices? Are we fooling ourselves if we think we can make money on this particular item?
• What are our strengths? Do we focus on higher-quality products with lower prices?

Point blank, to succeed, you must always emphasize your strengths – even though the easiest answer may not be the best solution to your problem. The only way to gain an accurate picture of your current and future situation is to assess your strengths and weaknesses honestly and identify core competencies that set you apart from the crowd.

2. Another solution to surviving an economic downturn is to introduce stress through technology. Technology can provide data models that identify gaps in plans or aggregate data from multiple sources that save the company time and money. These are important tools for successfully surviving an economic downturn. During this period of introducing new technology and evaluating new processes, it’s possible that the company may either lose or gain market share.

Over time, your Integrated Business Planning processes will mature, helping you and your team pinpoint supply and demand goals, understand financials in greater depth, identify acquisitions, and improve cash flow management.

3. It is the responsibility of executive management to take the time to challenge themselves to think differently about their business. Oftentimes, however, cultural factors within the work environment can prevent positive breakthroughs. It falls on the shoulders of the management team to challenge pre-existing notions and beliefs about the business. Sure, the economy will change, but nothing is guaranteed, which is why having the proper Integrated Business Planning tools in place ensures the company will continue to profit and push ahead.

Strategic Integrated Business Planning, if implemented in every element of the company, should address the following:

• In terms of our competitors, leads, and sales, where are we?
• What are our future goals, and where do we go from here?
• How will we get to that point? What strategy do we have to address these goals?
• Who are our customers? In which market or region will our products/services fare best?
• What do we sell? Will our services and/or products change at any time?
• How will we triumph over our competitors? What makes us different?

Emerging Victorious from a Downturn

Winning (and, for the time being, surviving) in an economic downturn means that you must evaluate your bottom line with open eyes and honestly assess the situation. In many cases, the outlook may still prove bleak, but times are getting better. Integrated Business Planning and preparation ensure you have something to fall back on when the storm gets too rough. Addressing both the short- and long-term issues that plague your business in a downturn through various Integrated Business Planning tools also ensures you’ve evaluated all aspects with a mind responsive to change and growth.

Evolution of S&OP into Integrated Business Planning

Sales and Operations Planning is evolving into what many companies are now calling Integrated Business Planning. It is no longer just a process for aligning product portfolio plans, demand plans, and strategic plans.

The key driver of this evolution is the benefits companies realize from integrating ALL company processes into an Integrated Business Planning process that the executive team uses to manage the business.

The key differences between S&OP and Integrated Business Planning are:

• Greater financial integration across at least a 24-month planning horizon resulting in improved information for decision-making and greater accountability.
• Financial performance metrics.
• Inclusion of strategic initiatives and activities in the monthly IPC management process, reinforcing that one primary management process is used to run the business.
• Improved modeling and simulations to help develop contingency plans for changing operating and financial parameters.
• Easier translation from detail information to aggregate and aggregate to detail enabling more quicker, more timely simulations and greater granularity of information for operations and finance.
• Improved decision-making through an integrated reconciliation process to keep decisions at the lowest practical level.
• Improved trust throughout the management team with one process, clear accountabilities, and commitment to the behaviors required to ensure the Integrated Business Planning process is effective.

The very first thing you need to do is to show off a big optin page at your website to collect your subscribers’ email addresses and names. On the whole, visitors will not effortlessly give their names and email addresses. So you need to reveal your anti-spam message clearly near your collection of email address and name. This will boost your visitors confident in signing up to your list. By the way, you need to offer excellent quality freebies to attract them. The freebies can be software, ebook or audio.

The second thing is to email them with very good quality information during the initial emails. Do not flood them with promotion of products. Prove your expertise to your new subscribers and gain their trust in you. Tell your subscribers about yourself and let them be very comfortable with you. Build a strong link with your list and constantly ask them for feedback. With this knowledge, you know what your subscribers want. It is much more useful comparing using expensive keyword research tool to search for what is the hottest item. Have you come across a hot item recommended by an expert which you are not interested?

The third thing is to give free stuff to keep your list. Just imagine your daily or weekly emails are nothing but just promotion? The next thing you know is that most subscribers would just get away from you soon! However, you don’t want to make it a website with tons of freebies to over pamper your list. Freebies seeker don’t buy. Buyers buy and you received money. You can balance out your emails message by giving 60% of freebies and 40% of selling quality stuff. This is like a sale funnel to keep your loyal subscribers and let you freebies seeker go away.

Lastly, what you have just read is just the tip of iceberg. Come on down to my website whereby I will show you more solid stuff. Stop hanging around websites showing the same old spinning articles. Most guru will never tell you this, ever! See you inside now.

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