recession

Buying Companies in Recessions

By Ian D Smith

Acquisitions just don’t work. Research over the last 20 years has concluded that somewhere between 50% to 85% of acquisitions fail in the eyes of the acquirer! Do you have a process map for buying companies? Here is a six phase process that will improve the odds in favor of successful acquisitions — The Acquisitions Approvals Model.

Phase 1: Strategy: An acquisition is only one type of method to execute your strategy. If the strategy is flawed, the acquisition is flawed. What expertise do you bring to the party? Laidlaw, the largest school-bus operator in North America bought heavily into the ambulance business in the 1990s. Ambulances are not transport businesses they are medical businesses. Big mistake. The failure doesn’t start at the completion of the deal. It starts with weak strategic thinking. Output to this phase, is a description of the poster child target list –The Acquisition Profile. Not names, characteristics of attractive targets.

Phase 2: Identify Targets: Create deal flow. Ensure you are only reviewing targets that fit your Acquisition Profile. Buy companies you want to buy whether they are on the market or not! Draw up your short list of target companies and prepare your one page summary on each on how you would integrate them.

Phase 3: Assessment of Target & Value: Test your assumptions in the real world. Doing your homework, preparing thoroughly for your initial contact is crucial. Don’t offend people. Approach targets with knowledge. It involves carefully gathering facts and figures that will allow you to perceive value and build a case for a potential bid.

Phase 4: Negotiate Price & Structure: Preparation invested in phases 1 to 3, ensures the stressful phase of negotiating a deal becomes much more enjoyable and relaxed. Establish the target’s aspiration on price and have a clear business case on the perceived value of owning the target. Fine tune the post-acquisition plan as facts are uncovered. Draw up a document that summarizes the deal. Craft it in sufficient detail to allow lawyers to produce a comprehensive sale and purchase document. Don’t allow the lawyers to bottom the tricky issues!

Phase 5: Legal Completion: Due diligence and contract negotiation is key. Due diligence has many heads and although legal and accounting are standard, each deal will require additional expertise depending on the industry. Concentrate on issues key to the success of your post acquisition plan.

Phase 6: Post Completion: Recent research has confirmed what practiced successful acquirers have known for years: Learn from your mistakes. It’s the post-mortems you do after every deal that builds knowledge. (Research conducted 2008 by Heimeriks, Gates, Zollo, study of 101 companies worldwide). Of course the key is also to execute your post acquisition plan with skill ensuring that milestones are met.

Summary: Remember to ask at the end of each phase, do I want to continue? It is better to exit gracefully early in the process than complete a deal you regret for years to come. Good luck.

Ian Smith
As an experienced business leader, Ian Smith is passionate about maximizing the potential of fast-growing companies. Over the years, he has come face to face with the wide range of operational and strategic issues, and relishes the challenge of transforming sluggish or outmoded business models into robust product road maps, effective marketing campaigns and successful sales programs. He has been described as “the glue between an organization’s founding vision and its marketing and sales.”

Strategic business advisor, a Scot and world class masters athlete, Smith has covered a lot of ground in his nearly three decades in global business. Originally trained as an accountant in Glasgow, he has logged many miles as a finance director, a venture capitalist, an investment banker and successful CEO of a US based software group.

He has witnessed the life-cycle of a wide variety of companies, both large and small. Says Smith, “ambitious companies start life with passion and big ideas but often fail to realize their full potential”. This lack of success is often avoidable but it takes innovative thinking and impeccable execution. Using his unique portfolio of operational and executive experience; Smith partners with leadership teams to execute their vision. Each case is different. Support can take many forms but usually draws on his portfolio of experiences covering restructuring, acquisitions and sales leadership.

http://portfoliopartnership.com/index.html

Sales Leadership For Tough Times

By Ian D Smith

Whether you are a CEO of a start-up driving towards your first order or a regional sales manager striving to hit your 2009 sales target – sales are everything in today’s tough markets. My recent gig, leading the turnaround and double digit growth of the software group, Teamstudio over the last 7 years has many lessons worth sharing.

Sales growth starts with a compelling story. A vision to believe in! This story flows with passion through every aspect of a company, creating powerful marketing campaigns and effective sales scripts that encourage prospects to take action. Given this mindset, let me shine the spotlight on the work of David Sandler and more recently Jeff Thull to help you create a world class sales organization that will deliver consistent results. My take on their work was that Jeff’s processes were inspired by David’s tactical genius for closing deals. The essence of Jeff’s process – there are four main pillars to execute remarkable conversations with your prospects, close deals and add huge value: Discovery, Diagnosis, Design and Delivery.

Discovery

Discovery is about research and preparation. It encompasses how sales professionals get ready to engage and serve clients. The discovery process is aimed at the identification of a specific client who has the highest probability of change. No desire to change – no Purchase Orders. It allows a team of professionals, outside sales, inside sales, engineers, and marketing staff to sign off on an Engagement Strategy for each priority prospect/customer. (Clearly these are constantly evolving).

Diagnosis

Diagnosis stage encompasses how salespeople help their prospects and clients fully comprehend the inefficiencies and performance gaps. It is a process of “hyperqualification” during which we pursue an in-depth determination of the extent and financial impact of their problems. It is important to deal with each manager, one at a time. Generic value propositions will not compel action. This is a very personal and focused conversation with your prospect.

Design

Design encompasses how salespeople help the client create and understand the solution. It is a collaborative and highly interactive effort to help clients sort through their expectations and alternatives to arrive at an optimal solution. This also takes the drama and confrontation out of proposals.

Delivery

In the final phase of the sales process, the previous phases come to fruition. It allows the salesperson to execute the desired solution and deliver real results for their clients.

This approach ensures that sales conversations are set in the context of “trusted advisor”. The sales professional’s objective is to ensure that the client achieves better results. By investing in your client’s success, great things happen, such as: repeat business, testimonials, deeper long term relationships!

By embracing a diagnostic approach to selling, constantly exploring the consequences of customers ignoring priority issues and relentlessly pursuing improved performance for your customers, your sales team can become a world class organization. They will be seen, over time, as a source of great competitive advantage to their customer base.

World Class Sales Organizations Contain:

• A Specific compelling value proposition

• Engagement Strategies

• Diagnostic Questions

• ROI spreadsheets

• Costs of problems

• Harmony between sales and marketing

• War Rooms

• Deployment of White Papers

• Great cookbook metrics

• A passion for delivering improved client performance

• A relentless follow through

• The smart deployment of technology

• Mentoring of sales professionals

As an experienced business leader, Ian Smith is passionate about maximizing the potential of fast-growing companies. Over the years, he has come face to face with the wide range of operational and strategic issues, and relishes the challenge of transforming sluggish or outmoded business models into robust product road maps, effective marketing campaigns and successful sales programs. He has been described as “the glue between an organization’s founding vision and its marketing and sales.”

Interim CEO/COO, a Scot and world class masters athlete, Smith has covered a lot of ground in his nearly three decades in global business. Originally trained as an accountant in Glasgow, he has logged many miles as a finance director, a venture capitalist, an investment banker and successful CEO of a US based software group.

He has witnessed the life-cycle of a wide variety of companies, both large and small. Says Smith, “ambitious companies start life with passion and big ideas but often fail to realize their full potential”. This lack of success is often avoidable but it takes innovative thinking and impeccable execution. Using his unique portfolio of operational and executive experience; Smith partners with leadership teams to execute their vision. Each case is different. Support can take many forms but usually draws on his portfolio of experiences covering restructuring, acquisitions and sales leadership.

http://portfoliopartnership.com/index.html

Step Up Or Step Out – The 10 Must-Do Things to Thrive in Today’s Economy

By Jay Forte

We are in a period of massive change as our economy moves from the skill-focused industrial age to today’s talent-focused intellectual age. Yesterday’s manufactured products have moved offshore and have been replaced by today’s networked and thinking service economy. We made things; we now collaborate to make ideas. Everything about this process is new; everything about this process is in transition. How we hire, the future of work, how we build relationships, collaborate and manage a business are all changing. We are truly in a period of massive change. As we struggled in the move from the agrarian economy to the industrial economy (we reinvented work from farms to cities and manufacturing centers), we now struggle to move our economy from manpower to brainpower.

Many of today’s business support systems are failing because they support our previous and now outdated industrial-age structure. The new technology and intellectual age requires organizations to be more fluid, nimble and responsive. Structured, military-inspired, command-and-control industrial-age systems are now too slow and too cumbersome to respond in our speed-of-the-click world. Their structure inhibits easy and open communication, innovation and collaboration. Stuck in outdated structures, the high-tech world continues to zoom past industrial-age organizations making them more and more out of date and ineffective today. To survive in today’s period of massive change to an intellectual and networked age, build these ten must-do things into your workplace.

1. Create and maintain the best and most employee-focused workplace. Employee-focused workplaces openly value their employees and by result, attract the best candidates and retain the best employees. Employee-focused workplaces create opportunities for employees to fully develop their talents and abilities, while driving results and owning their performance. These workplaces solicit information from employees about the things that will activate their passionate performance and build as many in as they can to address employee needs, so employees can stay focused on customers and performance.

2. Hire for talent – invest in the right people. In an intellectual workplace, talents are the driving force behind each employee’s success; skills and experience were more valuable in an industrial-age economy. To succeed, organizations must be adept at defining talents (natural thinking and strengths) needed by responsibility and role, assessing candidates for good fit, and hiring the right employees. This process is more time consuming but it realizes that since your people are your profits, a commitment must be made to understand how to hire the right employee for the right role/responsibility in an intellectual age.

3. Redefine how work is done. In an industrial age, it was important to have defined roles with standard job descriptions. Employees were required to show up to a specific location (plant, factory, facility) in order to work. Today’s intellectual workplace changes this model. Today, employees’ contributions do not necessarily need to be in a specific location or in even in a defined role. Today’s workplace allows employees to work (intellectual contribution) remotely. It also encourages managers to redefine staffing into a small fixed component of workers and a larger variable component, hired by task or responsibility. This introduces the concept of “just in time and just long enough” workers – workers hired for particular responsibilities or tasks and then released. This allows an organization to acquire the best talent in a particular area without the requirement of hiring those talents in a full time role; these new roles now require limited overhead, office space and other industrial-age systems, systems that in today’s world cost money and add little value. This allows employees to step in and out of organizations, doing the things in which they are the most talented, gifted and interested. This builds a new workplace model, limits spending, space and fixed manpower in favor of greater talent matching, variable contributions and higher productivity.

4. Constantly recruit the best. With a new focus on a fixed and variable workplace, build a sustainable and robust fixed and variable sourcing and recruiting plan. Define the expectations of each role and responsibility to clearly define the talents needed in each to be successful. Network with others. Create a solid pipeline, particularly of variable, flexible employees, who can be called for specific projects or responsibilities and then released. Share the expectations and talents needed with all fixed employees to engage them in the sourcing talent process for the organization.

5. Clearly define role and responsibility performance expectations. All fixed and variable employees/contributors must be held fully accountable for performance; each role and responsibility must have clear performance expectations from which they are reviewed, compensated and retained. All employees must now have a greater sense of performance ownership and this starts will clearly defined performance expectations that define performance outcomes but allow employees (fixed or variable) to develop achievement plans. These expectations can be used to pay for performance, attract top talent and hold employees (fixed and variable) accountable for performance and results.

6. Understand your world – become a strategic thinker. Stay connected to the world around you and your business. Know the impact of the economy, regulations, demographics, social trends, technology and others factors affecting your industry and business. Know trends, facts and key indicators. Include employees in the review of business challenges, innovation and opportunities. Base your responses on the world in which you find yourself – stay current.

7. Communicate effectively, move information around, and use it to be great. In an intellectual workplace, information is both power and capital. Organizations that stay connected to their world use information to share what they know, what they hear, and what they think; they use information to activate new ideas and solutions and move ahead of the competition. Develop ways to openly share news, suggestions, ideas and concerns. Ensure information moves clearly and effectively both down and up the organizational chain.

8. Commit to an unwavering standard of excellence. Define, live and assess all performance by its ability to support and provide your defined standard of excellence. Be the best at what you do, without exception. Be the most responsive, the most innovative and the most professional in customer contact, ideas brought to market and quality at every level. Customers and employees commit to organizations that commit to excellence. As the workplace and products/services change, a guiding commitment to excellence will always insure the organization stays ahead.

9. Constantly recruit, educate and develop customers and employees. Commit to knowing the most. In an intellectual workplace, performance power is in knowledge. Successful organizations constantly educate both their customers and employees – in good times and in bad. They focus on education, thinking and developing raises the bar for all involved. Customers are as important to educate as employees because in their education, they become a greater part of your collaborative approach to products and services. Gone are the days of organizations creating products/services for customers without their input, guidance and suggestions. Raise the bar for everyone – it encourages greater performance.

10. Applaud successes with wild enthusiasm. We are in tough period as we usher in a massive change and economic transition. Successes are difficult when so much change is present. Activate your employees and customers by applauding successes in an extraordinary way. See each success as one step forward on the road to redefining business success. “What gets rewarded, gets repeated.” Applaud, celebrate and praise successes, innovation and performance; it activates the performance and encourages more. Word gets out quickly about organizations that value, honor and celebrate their employees and customers. These are the organizations that great employees (fixed or variable) want to work with.

We are truly in a period of massive change as our industrial age gives way to a new more networked, collaborative and thinking intellectual age. This requires us to be more involved in actively ushering in our new age, understanding how to succeed as we change and staying focused on value of and for our employees and customers. Now is no time for timidity. Leaders and managers need to step up or step out. Provide the clear voice, a solid strategy and an understandable view of how to impact results in this changing world. Massive change is on our agenda; learn how to use it and respond to it. And when the new age is fully ushered in, watch the horizon for the next age approaching and reinvent your plan to stay successful.

Jay Forte is a powerful performance speaker, consultant, author and founder of Humanetrics, LLC. He works with managers who want to be more successful in activating and inspiring exceptional employee performance, to significantly drive customer loyalty and improve company profitability. Jay, a CPA/financial executive turned educator, turned consultant, is renowned for producing significant results. He is a highly engaging speaker and author of the new book “Fire Up Your Employees and Smoke Your Competition; How to Invite, Incite and Ignite Employee Performance.” He has developed a new talent assessment process to help organizations attract and hire the right employees. For more information on talent-focused hiring and ways to fire up your employees, visit his new site http://www.FireUpYourEmployees.com For great business tips and information on speaking, programs and keynotes, visit http://www.Humanetricsllc.com or call: 401-338-3505.

Organizing For Effectiveness During Recession

Written By Tom Philp

In December 2008, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) announced that the U.S. economy is officially in a recession. No doubt you felt the effects long before the economists stated the obvious, and by now those effects have penetrated deep into your organization. And while the experts indicate the recession will last well throughout 2009, we know that eventually our economy will stabilize and start growing again. The good news in all of this is that there are steps that can be taken now to help your organization emerge stronger and healthier once the recession is over.

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to encourage its readers to review their organizations’ strategies, structures, and people processes. First we will identify an appropriate model of effectiveness, followed by a Gap Analysis that will allow us to determine your organization’s current condition versus its desired state. Additionally, we provide many low-cost solutions that will enable your organization to continue building a strong infrastructure for emerging healthier from a recession economy.

Defining Organization Effectiveness

Let us begin with the end in mind by identifying what effectiveness looks like in your organization. According to Cameron (1980), there are four models of effectiveness. The four models are:

The Goal Model – Organizational effectiveness is defined in terms of the extent to which the organization accomplishes its goal.
The Systems Resource Model – Effectiveness is equated with the ability to acquire needed resources.
The Process Model – Effectiveness is defined in terms of how smoothly the organization functions, especially the degree of absence of internal strain in the organization.
The Strategic Constituencies Model – Effectiveness is determined by the extent to which the organization satisfies all of its strategic constituencies, such as special interest groups.

Based on the above definitions, your organization might encompass one or more of these models, depending on the type of organization (i.e., for-profit, not-for-profit, or government) and the market it serves (i.e., shareholders, community, or special interest groups). If you are unsure as to the best fit, start by asking the following questions: When are we most effective? Is our culture more collaborative or competitive? Do we use metaphors of winning the war or eliciting supporters? Do we define success by percentage of growth, dollars raised, or resources procured? To provide a brief example, if your organization is a privately owned, for-profit manufacturing firm, then the goal model will probably best apply. Your effectiveness determines the ability by which you meet your production goals, continue to grow your sales and market share, and manage your people by identifying, developing, and retaining top performers. If, however, you are a not-for-profit, then you might identify with the systems resource model instead. With this model your effectiveness depends on securing vital resources, such as donations through programs and fund raisers, on keeping your employees engaged in the mission and values of the organization, and on remaining fiscally responsible with the funds available in any given year. With a clear definition of organizational effectiveness in mind, we can now turn our attention to the Gap Analysis.

Applying a Gap Analysis

One of the most common techniques used to assess an organization’s performance is the Gap Analysis. According to Harvey and Brown (2001) this tool is typically used to assess an organization’s response to opportunities in its environment. For the purposes of this paper, we are going to adapt this model and use it to determine the internal performance of the organization. Answer the strategy, structure, and people process questions that follow, using your definition of effectiveness as your level of desired performance. If you find that your organization is not achieving its desired outcomes, then the difference between its current state and future state is the gap in performance for which you will apply the low-cost solutions found later in this article. I have provided a few questions to get you started, but I encourage you to add your own questions relevant to your organization’s type and the market it serves.

Strategy Questions:

• Is your strategy up-to-date and relevant?
• Do you know what effectiveness looks like in your organization?
• Is your organization able to compete for its resources?
• Do you have contingency plans for various scenarios that may occur in the environment?

Structure Questions:

• Is your organization’s structure tied to its strategy?
• Is your organization structured to achieve its goals and/or meet its constituents’ needs?
• Are your teams aligned with your organization’s strategy?

People Process Questions:

• Are you currently investing in your people?
• Do you have successors lined up for key positions?
• Are your managers spending adequate time coaching others?
• Are you communicating your mission, vision, and values to keep your workforce engaged?

Low-Cost Solutions
Now that you have identified what effectiveness looks like in your organization and you understand the gap in performance as it relates to your strategies, structures, and people processes, consider these low-cost solutions that can help your organization emerge stronger from a recession economy. Most of the solutions provided below are low-cost in that they only require the time of the organization’s members.

Strategic Solutions:

Strategic Planning. If it has been a while since you have had a strategy meeting, now may be a good time to do so. Assemble your board members or executive team and talk through what is working, what is not working, and what may need to be changed. You can apply a Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) analysis yourself. Consider what products or services are succeeding right now and which ones are not. This is not the time to bury your head in the sand about your organization’s strategic performance.
Scenario Planning. If your current strategies are still viable, then consider scenario planning. With this approach, your executive team or board members consider all possible changes in the environment and develop responses to each condition based on the organization’s mission, vision, and values.
Future Search. This approach allows an organization to bring a cross-section of its members together in a large group planning meeting to explore the past, present, and future of a specific task or strategy. The outcome is a commitment to an action plan based on the organization’s values.

Structural Solutions:

Team Alignment. If your teams are not aligned with the organization’s strategic goals, production and/or customer service may suffer as a result. Make sure your teams clearly understand their purposes, roles, and expected outcomes. Remove any obstacles that may prevent them from working interdependently and achieving the highest results.

People Processes Solutions:

Coaching. Coaching should already be a part of every leader’s job, and now is the time to put coaching into over-drive and accelerate everyone’s development. Stress coaching to your leaders and managers, make sure they have the skills necessary to coach others, and hold them accountable for doing so. Influence your leaders to spend extra time with their top performers. This may seem counter-intuitive when low performers need most of the attention and help, but research shows that top performers are the first to leave. Ensuring that your company survives the recession is mission number one; ensuring that you have a high performance workforce when your company emerges is mission number two.
Mentoring. Pairing a senior and junior staff member to facilitate the transfer of learning is one of the hallmarks of development. Make sure to match up individuals who are complimentary in personality, and outline the frequency of contact initiated by the senior member.
Benchmarking/Best Practices. Many organizations like to compare themselves with other organizations as a means of determining how they are doing. Most industries have an organization that monitors trends, metrics, and benchmarks for their particular industry, such as Kennedy Information for management consulting, or People Report for the restaurant industry. Tap into these valuable resources and learn more about their products and services. There may be a small fee to join, but the information in return far outweighs the cost.
Communication. Finally, encourage all of your leaders to continue to communicate the organization’s mission, vision, and values. During difficult times, those employees who tend to stay are the ones who identify most with the organization’s vision and values and feel they contribute to its success.

Summary

Despite the current economy, now is the time to look internally for necessary changes to your organization’s infrastructure. With very little monetary investment, you can position your strategies, structures, and people processes to emerge healthier and stronger from a recession economy.

References

Cameron, K. 1980. “Critical Questions in Assessing Organizational Effectiveness.” Organizational Dynamics 9(2): 66-80.
Harvey, D., & Brown, D.R. (1991). An Experiential Approach to Organization Development (6th ed). Prentice Hall: New Jersey.

Company Overview
Tom P. Philp is President of Philp Consulting Group, an organization development firm that assists its clients in creating sustainable solutions that drive individual, team, and organizational success

For more information contact Tom Philp at http://philpconsulting.com or 918.794.6999

Upgrading Your Salesforce – A Great Time is NOW!

Written by Betsy Harper

Last Sunday I was in Harvard Square with 45 minutes to kill before meeting friends for lunch. So, I did what every garden-lover would do, and took myself over to the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow House on historic Brattle Street for a leisurely stroll in the beautiful gardens (and a quick check of the gift shop too!).

In the shop, I picked up a copy of Longfellow’s famous poem, “The Rainy Day.” I know you have heard the most famous line in the poem – “into each life some rain must fall.” “Hmmm,” I thought, “with what’s happening to our economy, stock market, my 401(k) and some companies I know, I think I’m living in a tsunami!”

There’s no doubt about it. Like me, many CEOs and managers are feeling the effects of the economic storm that’s out there. But I say, “every good poem deserves a good idiom,” and “every cloud has a silver lining.”

OPPORTUNITY IN CHAOS

Unfortunately, many managers have been forced to make drastic cutbacks in recent weeks. Not only have they done the obvious cutting of expenses, but many have been forced to make even more draconian ones. It goes without saying that the underperformers go first, but one manager I spoke with admitted he had to “cut into the bone” while letting go some of his sales team.

I can confirm this is happening as the level of calls to recruiters by candidates on the hunt is going up dramatically. (Trust me on this!) And, many of the candidates who are on the market are very, very talented performers.

TIME FOR AN UPGRADE

So here is the silver lining we’ve been waiting for . . . .

There’s never been a better time to upgrade your sales force! Savvy managers will capitalize on the chaotic economic scene and seize the moment to hire some of the top talent that is out there.

Here are the steps to take for you to potentially find yourself a rainmaker:

1. Assess: Honestly (and confidentially) assess your current team. Knowing that there are performers out there should give you the added security of taking a long, hard look at the numbers. Decide how many and who can be replaced.

2. Search: Confidentially start the search process. Be sure your network, your recruiters, and anyone involved understands that at this point your search is confidential.

3. Make Your Choice: Based on the performance metrics of your top performers and your ideal profile for your sales team, hire yourself the top talent you’ll need to get the numbers you need!

4. Make the Cuts: First, meet with each of the sales team who will be staying to reassure them of their value to the organization. Then proceed with letting your underperformers go. Ask your HR professional for help in this step if you need it.

5. Solidify Your Team: One thing is for sure: uncertainty will be with us for a while. It’s critical for you to be sure your new sales team is working at top performance levels. It’s critical that there be no “new” underperformers.

6. Beef Up on Sales Training: If you think your team might benefit from some additional sales training, call your favorite sales trainer, consultant, or sales guru and get on the waiting list. These guys and gals are going to be very busy, as savvy managers realize that now is the time to ensure their sales team is performing at 110%. It’s short dollars for the return on that investment.

All of this may not be quite as easy as “click here to install these updates” but I assure you it’s worth the time and effort. And that top performer you hire today may be the difference between your making your numbers or not!

Betsy Harper is the CEO and Managing Partner of Sales and Marketing Search, a nationwide recruiting firm based in the Boston area that specializes in recruiting top sales and marketing talent.

More valuable information on finding, hiring, and keeping top talent can be found at http://www.salesandmarketingsearch.com.

Recession – Top 5 Things to Do in a Business Recession

The recession is firmly on everyone’s doorstep ready to come into your business. If you read the news or watch television you can see that the business side of the recession is accelerating faster and faster. It seems that Money and CNN have a new story every day on how the recession is impacting businesses across the globe. The one things is they never really say much about what you can do to protect your business during a recession.

Here are the top 5 things you can do to protect your business if the recession is on your business doorstep wanting to get in.

1. Evaluate all of your expenditures across everything it takes to run your business.

Find places that you combine services, reduce services, keep older hardware, and so on. We believe in reducing things instead of reducing people in a recession if you can help it. If you do have to reduce people see if you can reduce salaries across the board temporarily so you don’t have to let people go. The worst thing that is happening now in this economy is people are getting let go so fast that they have no money to buy the things that you may produce.

2. Build an Ideal client profile and only target the people that you have a great business relationship with.

Do not waste dollars on potential customers that do not fit. This will decrease your cost of acquiring a new client during the recession. As you refine your ideal client profile contact your current clients that fit that profile and begin reinforcing your relationship with them and be sure to ask if there is anything you can do to help them utilize your product or service better or sell the products you produce better.

3. Increase your marketing and sales efforts.

This is one place that many businesses start to cut during a recession and in our opinion is a BIG BIG mistake… During a recession you need to increase your visibility because your customer or consumers mind will begin to forget about you as they are filled with news of the recession and how much they need to cut back. If they do not remember they want or need your service it is much easier for them to lump you in the OK TO CUT CATEGORY. Remember as the recession grows the cost of most advertising and other services usually decrease with the lower demand. This way it will actually cost you a lot less than you would normally spend anyway.

4. Get involved in your community.

During this time you want to be seen as a company that gives back and cares for the folks around them. This will build brand loyalty during the recession. Remember If  you are a local business then stay local. Save the people in your market because they are the ones who will most likely buy your product. Recently Dennys had a free breakfast they advertised during the SUPER BOWL. It was huge hit and gained media attention all over the country. I read the comments on some of the business BLOGS and the number one comment was how people couldn’t believe someone cared about then enough in this economy to offer something free. I bet next time those people go out for breakfast they will not be going to IHOP.

5. Keep a positive attitude during the recession.

This may sound like something you would hear from your preacher or some self help or meditation book but it is really true. You need to keep a positive attitude especially if you are the leader of an organization because it will help your workers and managers focus more on the work at hand instead of the world around them. It will also make sure that any fear of being in business or not during the recession will not trickle out to your sales team, then clients and customers. If they start to get the feeling that you are unsure of your business then they will unfortunately STOP buying from you and begin to look for someone more stable.

©2001-2009 Rapid Success Partners. All Rights Reserved.
Article written by Mark Ferguson.
Rapid Success Partners is the leader in leadership development, business marketing strategy, and Small Business Success Workshops. Transform your business, Transform your life with Rapid Success Partners.

Staggered Consumption: How To Get Customers To Keep Coming Back

Blackberries aren’t black to start with. Or sweet for that matter.

In fact, blackberries start out quite green. And quite sour. Then they turn reddish. And then black.

And that’s when the birds start to eat the blackberries.

Which brings us to the most interesting part of consumption.

And how a blackberry can teach you just how to keep customers coming back.

You see the blackberry bush keeps the birds coming back.

And it does so, by staggering the ripening of the blackberries on the bush.

So first, a few bunches ripen.

Then after a few days, a few more ripen.

And so it goes on. The ripening (and consequent attraction), unfolds in a cycle of sorts.

This is to ensure that the birds keep coming back time and time again, instead of stripping the entire bush all at one go.

That’s not the case with buffets…or your business for that matter.

Your business tends to be like a buffet. So it doesn’t really matter if you’re selling products, or services, or are a trainer. You’re going to want to run a buffet.

You’re going to want to dump all your information; all your skills; all your blah-blah Powerpoint slides on your customer at one go.

And like a buffet the customer is going to eat hungrily. Then go from hunger to greed.
From greed to indigestion.

Forty five burps later, your customer is now sick of your ‘buffet’.

This wasn’t the plan, was it?

You wanted the customer to keep coming back.

But instead of creating a situation where you staggered the consumption, you actually created over-consumption.

When in fact, staggered consumption could have been sooooooooo much better!

So how do you create staggered consumption?

Staggering involves giving out products, services and training in steps.

It’s all very fine for a blackberry bush to do staggered ripening, but how do you create staggered consumption?

If you’re selling a book, you can’t very well give out a few pages at a time, can you? If you’re doing a training program, you can’t
give out just a few bits and pieces can you?

No you can’t. Because it would be unethical.

But the blackberry isn’t doing anything unethical. It’s treating each bunch of berries as a package. And asking you to do the same.

So when we get customers to buy a book, for example, the Brain Audit, we then make sure they get the ‘rest of the package’ later.

We do this by staggering consumption.

Which means that the customer gets the book with all the pages, but then we send out additional packages; additional goodies.
So when you buy a Brain Audit book, it gets followed up with some goodies.

These goodies are in audio or notes. These goodies point out something you may have missed in the book.

They point out something to advertising and marketing out there, and show you how to identify concepts of the Brain Audit in radio
ads, for instance.

These packages ‘ripen’ as the days, and weeks pass.

iTunes does this by sending me a free download ever so often (and then I buy some iTunes anyway). istockphoto.com gives me a free image ever so often (and then I buy some pictures from them anyway).

You see, I’ve already bought into the product. I’ve already signed up for the service. I’ve already done the training.

But smart marketers know two things…

1) They know that customers take time to work things out.

That customers need time to wrap their head around a new product, or new service, or new information given at a workshop.

They know that staggering consumption is the way to go. That customers can be encouraged to use their product or service long after the product/service has been purchased.

2) They also know that consumption leads to increased consumption.

That if I keep going back to iTunes, I’ll find something I like. That if I keep going back to istockphoto, I’ll find a photo I like.

That when we help you put the Brain Audit to use with more examples, you’ll create new business that will encourage you to buy more products.

Smart marketers aren’t dopes. They know you have to give to receive. And to keep giving. And giving whole-heartedly–without
strings attached.

And blackberries don’t attach strings either…

Their sweet berries are eaten by birds, who then…um…poop out the berry seeds in where it can find soil to grow anew.

The birds keep pooping. And they keep coming back to eat some more.
Poop.
Eat.
Poop.
Eat.

That’s staggered consumption.

And it’s what you can do to ensure that customers keep coming back time after time, after time.

©2001-2009 Psychotactics Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Article written by Sean D’Souza.
Wouldn’t you love to stumble upon a secret library of small business ideas?Find simple, yet electrifying ideas, on copywriting, public speaking, marketing strategies, sales conversion, psychological tactics and branding. Head down to http://www.psychotactics.com today and judge for yourself.

The Secret to Being Insanely Creative

Article by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead; follow him on twitter.

What’s the secret to unleashing your creativity?

I’ll tell you, but it’s not what you think…

As an aspiring artist, I’ve spent a lot of time trying figure out how to be more creative. I’ve explored the traditional paths to creativity; painting, drawing, playing an instrument, creative writing, poetry, etc. I connected with creative souls; artists, and people living off the grid (away from the mainstream).

While I found this sparked my creative spirit, it only went so far. I was hacking at the branches rather than the root.

To truly tap into your creative nature, you only have to realize one thing…

You are already an artist.

You don’t have to create exquisite sculptures or breathtaking sonnets. You’re creating all the time simply by being alive. Every decision you make, every time you move, breathe, or speak you are creating. In fact, you couldn’t not create even if you wanted to. It’s simply impossible.

Just think about it: you’re the main character in your life story. Each day you develop and further the plot of your masterful performance. You interact with other secondary characters in your story that support your role. These are your friends, your lover, family and coworkers. They’re the supporting actors or actresses in your drama, and they also help mold your life’s narrative.

You can change the course of your story at any time by making new choices and walking down new paths. You can drop a secondary character and choose new ones, if they’re not supporting the story you’d like to create (except, perhaps, family members).

You constantly direct the play called your life; and that makes you a magnificent artist.  So if you’re creating your life all the time, wouldn’t it be more empowering to view yourself as an artist, rather than simply a passively living person?

I know you’re thinking, That really doesn’t help when I’m chopping celery or washing the cat… but it does. It makes all the difference.

See, when you know you’re creating artistically, you get more involved in your life. You start to live more deliberately. You wash your cat with love because deep down, you love him even if he smells terrible. You cut celery with joy, because you’re making the choice to put something healthy in your body.

So, enough foreplay; here are some practical ways to embrace your inner artist:

• Work. Are you making choices to further your deepest desires? Are you moving in the direction of your dreams? Much of our lives are spent working, so it makes sense to be conscious of the career we create. Find a career that pays you for being you. You may have to create one if it doesn’t exist.
• Money. Take a close look at where your money is going. Are you spending your money unconsciously? Are buying lattes and chasing trends keeping you from those yoga classes you’ve been meaning to take? Reevaluate how you spend to live by your own design.
• Goals. Are the goals you have ego driven, or heart centered? Are they furthering the life you’d love to create? See where you can simplify and remove the clutter to create room for authentic endeavors.
• Relationships. Are your relationships assisting you in your desires, or holding you back? Or perhaps YOU are holding yourself back. Be honest with yourself and make the necessary changes to fearlessly go with yourself (instead of against).
• Information. Are you addicted to info porn? Who’s dictating what you should think, you or the media? Consciously decide the input you accept and discard that which doesn’t serve you.
• Routine. Most of our days we’d consider normal. A random Tuesday spent watching TV game shows is more eventful than the day your spouse proposed to you. If most of our days are common, it makes sense to make the most out of them. Instead of focusing on how much you can accomplish, focus on how much you can absolutely love what you’re doing. Be there completely. While doing this, you’ll find that you naturally enjoy those seemingly tedious tasks much more (like washing the dishes). It’s amazing how much non-resistance and presence changes everything.

All life really is, after all, is a collection of stories. But you’re the only one that can create the story of your dreams. It’s your story.

So what do you want to create? A film noir or a fairytale? You can choose a daring adventure or a comedy. It’s up to you as long as you accept that you’re the artist. You’ve got the brush, it’s up to you to put down the colors you like best.

The question is: What will you create?

This article was written by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind. To learn more about how to reclaim your life, grab a subscription to Illuminated MInd

Why You Should Celebrate Your Mistakes

Post written by Leo Babauta.

When you make a mistake, big or small, cherish it like it’s the most precious thing in the world. Because in some ways, it is.

Most of us feel bad when we make mistakes, beat ourselves up about it, feel like failures, get mad at ourselves.

And that’s only natural: most of us have been taught from a young age that mistakes are bad, that we should try to avoid mistakes. We’ve been scolded when we make mistakes — at home, school and work. Maybe not always, but probably enough times to make feeling bad about mistakes an unconscious reaction.

Yet without mistakes, we could not learn or grow.

If you think about it that way, mistakes should be cherished and celebrated for being one of the most amazing things in the world: they make learning possible, they make growth and improvement possible.

By trial and error — trying things, making mistakes, and learning from those mistakes — we have figured out how to make electric light, to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, to fly.

Mistakes make walking possible for the smallest toddler, make speech possible, make works of genius possible.

Think about how we learn: we don’t just consume information about something and instantly know it or know how to do it. You don’t just read about painting, or writing, or computer programming, or baking, or playing the piano, and know how to do them right away.

Instead, you get information about something, from reading or from another person or from observing usually … then you construct a model in your mind … then you test it out by trying it in the real world … then you make mistakes … then you revise the model based on the results of your real-world experimentation … and repeat, making mistakes, learning from those mistakes, until you’ve pretty much learned how to do something.

That’s how we learn as babies and toddlers, and how we learn as adults. Trial and error, learning something new from each error.

Mistakes are how we learn to do something new — because if you succeed at something, it’s probably something you already knew how to do. You haven’t really grown much from that success — at most it’s the last step on your journey, not the whole journey. Most of the journey was made up of mistakes, if it’s a good journey.

So if you value learning, if you value growing and improving, then you should value mistakes. They are amazing things that make a world of brilliance possible.

Celebrate your mistakes. Cherish them. Smile.

How to Get Things Done with Twitter

Post written by Leo Babauta

Let’s face it: a growing number of people are using Twitter these days, spending a lot of time on Twitter, and still need to get things done on Twitter.

If you want to spend a lot of time conversing with people on Twitter, that’s great … but many people still need to get their tasks done. Let’s take a look at how to do that.

Why use Twitter to get things done? Twitter isn’t necessarily the best platform for getting things done … but if you’re already using it a lot, it might be easier or faster for you to do things while still in Twitter. Note: I don’t take responsibility for any of these services — if they don’t work well, check with them!

Here’s how:

1. Reminders. Need a quick reminder that you have an appointment, or need to follow up on something later? Follow “timer” on Twitter, and send it a direct message with a reminder time and it will ping you at that time. For example: “d timer 30 pick up Chloe”.

2. To-do list: A couple of popular to-do services are on Twitter: Remember the Milk (on Twitter) and Nozbe (on Twitter). Follow them and send them direct messages to add things to your to-do list, or to check the items on your list.

3. Calendar. If you use Google Calendar (gCal), go to Twittercal, then follow gCal on Twitter and add events by sending direct messages to gCal. For example: “d gcal meeting with paul tomorrow at 7pm”.

4. Delegate. If you’re going through your to-do list or email and find a task that’s better suited for someone else, sending that person a direct message (assuming they’re on Twitter) can be quicker and easier than sending an email or making a phone call.

5. Follow up. The same applies to following up. I’ve done it a bunch of times — instead of opening up your email program, composing a new message, typing in the person’s address and the subject line, and then writing the email … you can just direct message them on Twitter: “d zen_habits don’t forget to answer my interview questions, you berk!”

6. Accountability with goals. Want some extra motivation to achieve your goals? Announce through Twitter or on your blog that you’re going to post your progress updates every day on Twitter. For example, if you’re trying to eat healthier, you can post everything you eat on Twitter. Trying to exercise? Post your workouts on Twitter. It’s great motivation, and you can get some support and encouragement from your Twitter friends.

7. Get info or ideas quickly. If you have a good Twitter network, you can ask a question and usually get a few responses quicker than many other methods. I’ve gotten website and service recommendations, ideas for a post I was writing, restaurant recommendations, people interested in a job, and more.

8. Do real work. It’s possible to do real work on Twitter — people have written stories or posts by writing them in little chunks in Twitter. It might be worth a try. But if that doesn’t work, my strongest recommendation is to turn Twitter off when you need to do some real work. Then, when you’re done, reward yourself with 10 minutes on Twitter.

Other useful Twitter services:

• Tweetbeep: A service to keep track of keywords through alerts that you set up. You’ll get an email notification if anyone mentions you or your brand or your blog posts in their tweets. Note: It looks like this service is down right now but they say they’ll be back soon.
• StrawPoll: create a poll. Your Twitter contacts can participate in the poll by simply sending an @reply message.
• TwitResponse: allows you to schedule delivery of your tweets — very useful if you want to set up a bunch of tweets in the future.
• Zen Habits: Yes, you can get updates on the latest Zen Habits posts, as well as The Power of Less Tips of the Day, and more.
• TwiTips: An excellent blog with dozens of tips for using Twitter, from one of the great Twitter power users, Darren Rowse.