3 Steps To Help Income Catch Up To Expenses

Everywhere we turn these days someone is talking about the recession. While the economy has affected many business large and small, not every business’ slow down is a result of the external economy. There are several factors that may be affecting an organization’s financial picture, and many of them involve their most powerful resource- Human.

The state of the current economy has allowed for certain things to happen and get blamed on the economy, but there are a few things that should be considered first.

Sales attitude. You have to be able to visualize and believe that the sale can be made and that the contract can be secured. Too many people are going in with a defeatist attitude that may be overt or subconscious. If you believe that because of the economy people will be less likely to buy, then you are allowing yourself some room to not attain your goals by leaving it open that it’s not out of your control. Another down side of this problem is that if you don’t believe the potential client’s decision was result of your presentation then you don’t have as great a need to adjust and improve how you are presenting.

What you can do:

• Know and understand the value you are pitching. In a recession people may not buy as many things, but they are more welcoming to value
• Keep track of the feedback and responses that are coming at the end of presentations/meetings and make necessary adjustments
• If you are the leader of a sales team, take a few meetings with them- This will give you an idea of how your product or service is being presented

 

Staff behaviors. When business is booming everyone should be working at maximum capacity to meet client needs. When things get slower everyone should still be working just as diligently to get things booming again. This often means that there may be some additional duties for members of the team. You have to establish the importance of this to your team and make sure they understand why that is important to the organization as well as their job security.

Productivity over convenience. There are times when the work load may be more than the staff can handle. As the leader of an organization you need to be able to notice the difference between those times and when you are operating based on habits. When the workload is more than you have staff to handle an option is to use outside companies. You may be sourcing out your printing, copying or packaging during peak times, but when business slows, paying an outsider to do work that can be done by staff already on your payroll may no longer make sense. As a rule, you should only outsource things that cannot be done in-house for less. Calculating this also includes personnel costs.

I’m just saying though…

Dream Big… Live Bigger…

DrJudiC