I don't know if it is just me, but everywhere I turn, I am seeing examples of businesses using technology to innovate their business. At one time it was in shows and movies but it was hard to tell if it was real or make belief. But now I am seeing commercials, articles, and ads of businesses using technology as their competitive advantage. By advertising their innovation to their customers, they are letting their customers know that they have a competitive advantage of choosing them over their competitors. This could be your company as well.

At The Business Solution www.thebusinesssolution.com we build those kind of technological solutions. If your company is thinking, or wants to take it to the next level, contact me at our website. I will discuss the pros and cons of your options with you and then you can decide how to proceed.

Contact us even if you only have an idea that you want to discuss with us. It might be the best contact you made this year! 

I am pleased to announce the launch of www.whatwouldkeithdo.com . On this website I will post common business issues or scenarios and how I would handle them. Most time the solution will evolve around technology, because as you know I love solving business problems using technology. You are free to comment and discuss my answers to the questions as well as feel free to ask questions and I will do my best answering your questions.

Just getting started so there is not a lot of activity yet, but keep your eye on it as over the next few weeks I will be adding more and more.

So here is to doubling your sales and running your business with less stress! 

From June 2009 BusinessWeek

Coca-Cola use to operate like ants in a colony when it came to stocking product in their 12,000 merchant stores. Each morning the drivers would come to the warehouse to receive their instructions and would then do their rounds to the store and at the end of the day return to the warehouse to check in with the boss. The drivers were on their own for the day and one of the problems associated with this model is that they could not adjust during the day to changing needs.

Solution

They now use smart phones and cloud computing to stay in constant contact with the boss and the warehouse. At the end of each stop they complete and online survey that gives the company a complete picture of sales trends and relationships with the store manager in real time. This allows Coca-Cola to react in real time to changeing condition.

Coca-Cola may be large but you will see small business jumping on this trend in the near future as small business is more open to change, are more flexible, and last but not least, are looking for a way to be competitive with the big companies.

To get the job done, you need the right tools.

Jay Abraham says that “You need an innovative product or service and a great marketing system, everything else is just details.” So you have an innovative product or service. You have read books and articles on marketing; maybe you even have a marketing coach. Does this mean that your sales have gone up or that you have doubled your sales? No. You need to take action; you need to implement the marketing plan and to do that properly you will need software tools to get the job done. If you think you already have the software tools that you need because you use Outlook, some accounting package, or you have a few Excel spreadsheets, is your business growing as planned? If yes, read no further, if no, you need the right tools for the job.If you want to double your sales, you need to be concerned with the Sales Life-Cycle. There are 5 very important stages in the Sales Life-Cycle, with each one being just as important to the success of your business. If you are not good at or on top of even one stage, it can be the difference between being profitable or going out of business.

Pre-Sale - Driving traffic to your door.  Advertising and marketing, educating prospects on what you have and why they should purchase from you. This stage is where you are filling your sales funnel.

Sale - Determine what the customer needs or is looking for.  Discuss with your customer what you have to offer. Close the sale. This stage is where you are converting your sales funnel leads into a sale.

 Process Sale - Once the customer and you have an agreement, you have to come up with your end of the bargain. You will be manufacturing the part, doing the service, or getting the product for the customer.

 Delivery - Giving the customer what they purchased. This needs to be in the condition and time frame that was agreed upon. Also at this time you need to receive payment for the order.

  After-Sale - Following up that there are no problems with the sale. Cross selling customer on complimentary product or service.

 Bottom LineMake sure that you excel at each stage of the life-cycle. Make sure that your software system seamlessly follows the transaction as it goes through each stage. Make sure that nowhere in the sales life-cycle is the sale lost in cracks. Make sure that you have a customer for life. Measure and tweak! 

Keith Narsansky, CMA is the Software Architect and Business Process Engineer at The Business Solution. www.thebusinesssolution.com

Okay, so now that we all agree that time are tough, let’s do something about it. Now is the time to be active in getting business. Sure there may be some challenges, but we are not called The Business Solution for nothing. Let’s talk solutions.

Managing Customer/Prospects - Direct Mail Campaign

For some businesses sending out a direct mail piece is a lot of work. We have a customer who has regular Open Houses and it use to take 2 weeks to prepare the address labels for the mail out. You might ask why so long? Names are in Outlook, names are in Trade Show spreadsheets, names are in Invoices, and names are in Get the picture? Once names were typed into a label program they had to go in and look for duplicate names and addresses that were missing. It was a very time consuming job, now with their new system it takes 40 minutes (and this includes time to load and watch the printer print out the labels). Not only is it fast, but now they have one central database to manage all their customers and prospects.

Managing Opportunity and Sales Life Cycle

So what is the problem? If you only have a few names in each stage of the sales life cycle it is easy to stay on top of it. But what if you have 100’s or 1000’s? You need to know who to mail out to this week. You need to know who to call this week. You need to know who you have a sales meeting with. You need to know who to create quotes/proposals for. You need to know which sales prospects you are trying to close. You need to know who to invoice and who/where to ship products to. On top of all this knowing, you have to do the work to get and complete the sales. If you are a manager or an owner, you want to see how sales are going. You want to make sure no one is falling through the cracks. You need to make sure you have enough product or service available to fill the order.To have evenly distributed sales throughout the year, you need to have lists at each stage of the Sales Life Cycle (Sales Funnel). Every week you would have a number of leads to follow up on; a number of prospects to follow up on; a number of sales to close; and a number of sales to process. There is so much to know and do. Fortunately, with a good CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system the “knowing” part is automated so it is a click of a button to send this week’s list out for direct mailing or email blast. Click a button and get your call list. Click another button to turn quotes into invoices. Click another button and send orders to the shipping department for shipping.So what happens if I don’t have a good CRM system? You spend too many hours each day/week manually creating lists and labels then copying and pasting or rekeying into the next stage of the sales life cycle. You are wasting valuable time that could be used to make another sale.

Bottom Line – A Two Step Recovery Program

#1. I am not going to be passive and wait for sales to come to me. I am going to actively go after them.

#2. I am going to use a good CRM system to do all the grunt work so I can focus on getting the sale and filling the order.