March 2011
6 posts
Your Associates Don’t Listen To What You Say, They...
As I type this my wife and 21-year-old daughter are in Vienna, Austria and I am in my office working. Our daughter is doing a semester abroad in Prague and my wife is visiting her for spring break and they are doing a three day trip to Vienna. You may be wondering why I am sharing this with you as I doubt you care for a status report about my wife and daughter. The reason I am telling you this is...
How to Compensate Sales People
Since graduating from college in 1976 and immediately going into outside sales selling roofing products in the state of New York, and then moving into sales management in 1979, I have seen a wide variety of sales compensation plans. I have seen an even wider variety of theories about compensating salespeople published in trade journals and newsletters published by consultants and at conventions....
Terminations
One of the dirtiest tasks that any manager has to do is terminating someone who reports to him or her. Most managers do anything to avoid a termination because they find it so unpleasant. I, on the other hand, dread layoffs. Laying off a good person due to a slowdown in business that is not their fault is the task I find most unpleasant. After 35 years in business, terminating people who deserve...
The Small Order Problem
Following up on my previous post on customer profitability, just as many business owners and managers don’t know that some customers are unprofitable because of too many transactions, many aren’t aware that small orders are eating them alive. By this I mean that most businesses have a large number of small orders that generate less gross profit than the cost of processing the order. As I mentioned...
Do You Really Know Who Your Most Profitable...
Most businesses evaluate their customers by looking at a ranking of who buys the most from them. Some, more enlightened businesses, look at a ranking of who generates the most gross profit among their customers. While I agree that it’s more important to evaluate your customers on gross profit than revenue, neither is the best way to ascertain who your most profitable customers are.
Most computer...
Toxic Customers and Suppliers
What do I mean by a toxic customer or a toxic supplier? Let’s examine toxic customers first. Most of us who own businesses grew up hearing that the customer is always right. While that is correct most of the time there are exceptions. Do you have customers that are always “shopping” you against your competitors for a better price? Have you found that almost always those same customers pay late?...
