Inventory control is rated as the second biggest source of problems for small businesses that sell products. It only comes behind lack of capital. However, the two problems are often related. Poor inventory management can tie up large amounts of cash, eating into capital resources. Good inventory management, on the other hand, can free up significant amounts of cash and reduce business-borrowing requirements.

Deciding how much inventory to hold is partly a matter of weighing up costs and benefits. It means analyzing when and where you will have a crucial need for inventory. This can be key to business success or failure. This topic is an introduction to developing systems and processes for successful Inventory Management.

Most business owners will say that their customers’ key concern is price – that customers will only buy if the price is right – and in fact actually inquire about price first before anything else. However research continually shows that the single most common reason a customer leaves a business for a competitor is Perceived Indifference. Perceived Indifference is when customers have the impression that you couldn’t care less if they buy from you or not. Almost 7 out of 10 of the customers you lose walk away because they feel you are indifferent towards them. They felt that you didn’t care enough, didn’t take time for them, and really didn’t make a difference.

Why does a tennis player need a coach,and an agent?

Because the tennis player knows how to play tennis. He doesn’t have expertise in training himself to win tournaments. There he needs to have mental and physical resilience. He needs to outwit the competition. for that he needs an advisor(coach).

It’s not enough to know how to play tennis. One needs to know how to parlay that skill into promotional income in additional to playing tennis. For that you need an advisor(agent).

So why is it different with a business owner? It’s not. Without help in areas that the owner is weak the business will remain weak and marginal.

Most of them are young men 20-30 years old. Some remain a few months, some several years,but they all leave. Some are told to leave.

He has no process for long term staff development ,nor for someone to turn the business over to.

Compare this to a CA firm’s staff development.

New recruits when hired, understand that their path is more or less as follows:

They will be trained technically to become professional accountants. Each year they will be given more and more responsibility. Regularly they will be provided with feedback as to their performance. A consistent negative performance leads to parting of the ways. The sooner the better for all concerned. Any employee who is still  in the firm after 5 years knows that he’s in line for a partnership after 10 years. That means equity in the firm, profit sharing and a solid financial future.

So why can my client not develop a similar career path for his staff and for his business?

A team requires players. However players alone do not create a successful team. All teams have good players.

A team needs a  coach to direct tactics, to motivate the players, to make changes as needed, to practice to stay sharp.

A team needs a manager to direct the strategy for the coming season or for the next few seasons.

Instead of a team let’s look at a professional a tennis player. He needs a coach to direct him and correct his errors. He needs a manager to direct his strategy in marketing his brand, to create a following to buy his label. I think we get the idea.

Similarly for a business. The business owner alone cannot do it all. He needs a business advisor to act as a coach to the owner. Not having a coach has a business doomed to mediocrity unless the business owner’s abilities are far above the average of his industry.

Unique Core Differentiators (UCDs) clearly articulate what makes your business different. They are the special things about your product or service or business that compels customers to buy from you rather than your competitors. Well-formed differentiators target your customer’s ‘hot buttons,’ real buying concerns, or key frustrations. In one statement it educates them about exactly why they should buy from you.

The best sales people are ‘canned’. They know better than to wing it through a prospect meeting. They have a systemized sales process to work with. And the most effective system is relationship selling – selling based on getting to know a customer’s real needs and fitting your product to them.

Relationship selling doesn’t involve high pressure or manipulative methods. The salesperson here is a problem solver, a helper, and an advisor to the customer. They learn to identify the customer’s needs and sell them a solution that fits the need – not just a product. It moves the emphasis from price to value as a differentiator and provides a powerful advantage over competitors.

Do you know…

How to use objections to further the sales process

How to prepare a sales pitch so that saying ‘yes’ is the next natural thing to do

How to build relationships so strong that your clients won’t think of going anywhere else

Your promotions plan will keep you focused on marketing. It’s difficult to come up with marketing ideas when you are busy solving short-term business problems. So follow good time-management principles and set time aside for long-term planning. Take a global and strategic look at your business, gather all your marketing options and rough out a schedule for the year.

First look at your marketing plan and considering your overall objectives, the nature of your business and its products and services. Map out the year, with predictable and seasonal features highlighted. Then make a list of all the marketing strategies that are suitable to your business and match the strategies to the different events in your business year, ensuring that you have at least one thing planned for each month.

You then have a promotional plan. Follow it and you will have a higher and more reliable stream of revenue into your business.

Your customers are generally only interested in product features that translate into benefits. So, whether you’re developing a new product or exploring a way to repackage an old one, it is important to think clearly about the benefits you provide. Product features are not important in themselves. Great as a product may be, customers won’t love it for its own sake. They’ll only love it for the benefits it provides.

Have you ever been presented with that golden opportunity – a chance meeting with a potential big customer? Suddenly you scored one short window of opportunity to get this person interested in your products or services. And you blew it!

You need to develop an ‘elevator speech’!

An ‘elevator speech’ is a concise, carefully planned, and well-practiced description about your company that your aunt should be able to understand in the time it would take to travel a couple of floors in an elevator.