Extraordinary Times – Extraordinary Opportunities!

“Everyone in business should attend. Makes you re-look at your business in ways you’d never really considered. Opens your eyes to a whole new approach.”

Don’t miss this vital FREE recession-proofing seminar!

Don’t miss out! Seating is limited, so….

click here to BOOK NOW!

Approached the right way, 2009 offers excellent opportunities to grow and prosper.

That’s why Business Advisor Network and our Partners have decided to bring this vital recession-proofing seminar to your area. This is a limited opportunity!

• Be there for your chance to win a half page advertisement from Quest Newspapers.

• Your opportunity to access some of the best business minds in the country with experienced and qualified BANet partners and support providers.

Regardless of the economic climate, there are proven marketing strategies and techniques which YOU can use to improve cash flow, sales and profitability.

If you’re serious about making your business bullet proof in the coming recession, this is your chance to find out how.

Don’t miss out. Put your business in a position to weather the storm and capitalise on the opportunities which will present themselves in the coming year.

Invest just 2 hours to learn precisely how you truly can thrive when others are struggling to survive.

DATE: Tuesday 15th September 2009
TIME: 6.00pm for refreshments for a 6.30pm (SHARP!) start
PLACE: The Event Centre, 20 Minchinton Street, Caloundra.

Here is a small sample of what you’ll learn in this incredibly information-rich presentation:
• A revolutionary step-by-step approach for attracting more top quality customers – then selling more to them, more often, and at HIGHER prices!
• 3 specific strategies for boosting sales WITHOUT resorting to discounting.
• 5 powerful tools for identifying ‘pressure points’ in your business.
• 7 strategies that will massively increase profit.
• How to ‘shape’ your business to ensure it can attract and retain customers in an increasingly competitive market.
• How to attract and manage loyal staff who perform at capacity even when you’re not around.
• Precisely how to develop long-term, loyal clients who will become walking-talking advertisements for your business.
• And much, much more! Book your ticket now.

Don’t miss out! Seating is limited, so BOOK NOW

Not sure if this is for you? Just look at what the audience said after one of Brett’s recent presentations:-

“The information I gained in this session is something everyone in business should have. The only way to describe it is informative and fantastic.”

“This was without doubt the most useful session I have attended in 34 years of business.”

“Opened my eyes after 23 years of running my business.”

“Fantastic. Inspiring. I will come again and would say if you want to get ahead in life and business, don’t miss it. An exceptional night. Those that didn’t come have surely missed out. Excellent!”

This extraordinary FREE seminar will be delivered by internationally renowned business expert Brett Chamberlain.

After a consulting career spanning more than a decade and almost 700 hugely successful projects around Australia and overseas, Brett is recognised as one of Australia’s most successful and effective business-improvement experts. He is also one of the most entertaining, down to-earth and informative speakers you will ever meet. Instead of textbook theories and vague ideas, Brett will give you the powerful strategies he and his team used to make massive improvements to sales and profitability FAST!!

Brought to you by Business Advisor Network, a not for profit organisation dedicated to assisting business, with the help of its partners.

A Serious Speaker for A Serious Matter

“Great motivation but even better education. Excellent!”

“Inspiring – anyone who missed out has really missed out.”

“I have been working by candle light. I will now work under flood lights!”

“Fantastic! So logical and powerful it’s almost too good to be true!”

Register here …
Online: http://www.businessadvisor.net.au/about/Registration_Sunshine_Coast/
Email: admin@businessadvisor.net.au
Phone:   07 3105 9121

BOOKINGS ARE ESSENTIAL!

A valuable lesson we should all learn is: Before you criticize someone, first walk a mile in their shoes.Then they’ll be a mile away. And they won’t have any shoes.

Let’s look at a case study of how this applies to your business.

Our study starts with the owner of a mid-sized manufacturing company which had fallen on tough times. After a little analysis, it became clear that the main reason was a very low level of ‘repeat business’ from his customers.

When I mentioned that this lack of customer loyalty was the primary cause of his declining profitability, he said “Just goes to show you should never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers’.

Hmmm. There was certainly evidence of stupidity. But it wasn’t by the customers.

Fact is, the owner of that business was on a course to ruin, because he was ignoring two fundamental truths about customer loyalty. If you don’t want to find yourself in the same position, you MUST understand these truths.

Fundamental Truth #1 is: “The customer is the most logical beast on earth.”

In other words, no customer ever knowingly ‘duds’ themselves. Confronted with two options, the customer will ALWAYS take the option which they perceive offers the greatest value.

That being the case, we can count on the fact that our customers will NEVER leave us if they perceive that we’re offering the best ‘value’.

Conversely, we can be equally sure that when a customer leaves … it’s because they believed they were going to get a better deal somewhere else.

That might be a bitter pill to swallow … but there’s a positive side to the message. You see, if we accept that the customer is departing for logical reasons, rather than irrational reasons, then we can find out what that reason was – and we can do something to counter it.

On the other hand, if we allow ourselves to pretend that the customer left for illogical reasons, then there’s very little we can do to address the problem.

Fundamental Truth #2 is: “The customer WANTS to be loyal.”

Here’s the proof…

When we’re shopping for an item we look high and low to find the product which best suits our needs. But once we’ve found the item we’re looking for, we want to own it with a minimum of fuss. We want to buy it immediately. We don’t want to shop around for the best deal.

So … if the customer is confident that they’re going to get the ‘best deal’ from us, they’ll willingly transact the business on the spot.

Harking back to ‘Truth #1′, they’ll only ‘shop around’ if we’ve failed to convince them that they’ll get the best deal from us.

Does that means we have to convince the customer that we’re offering the lowest price? No.

In fact, ‘price’ is one of the LEAST important reasons why a customer will choose to take their business elsewhere.

According to Betsy Sanders, author of ‘Fabled Service’, there are 6 broad reasons why customers ‘defect’ from a business, as shown below.
• less than 1% die
• approximately 3% move to another location
• approximately 5% transfer allegiance to support a friend or family member
• approximately 9% switch to a cheaper competitor
• approximately 14% leave in protest at unsatisfactory product quality; and,
• a massive 68% leave because of ‘Perceived Indifference’
Take a close look at those numbers. The ‘price’ issue is a significant
factor in only 9% of cases.

By comparison, the ‘product quality’ and ‘perceived indifference’ issues account for a staggering 82% of defections.

And guess what? Both of those factors are within our control.

We might not be able to do much about customers dying, or moving, or being related to a competitor. But we CAN adjust our product to better satisfy our customers’ requirements. And we can certainly do something to make sure that they don’t feel we’re ‘indifferent’ about them.

The good news is, when we do those things – we effectively eliminate the two main reasons why our customers choose to leave.

Virtual Business Advisor

How to book a meeting with a business advisor, mentor or coach?
Find out about Government Grants for Queensland business?
Would you like to become an Accredited Advisor?
Need information on how to prepare a business plan?
Do you want a step by step guide to growing your business?
Become a sponsor or partner of BAN and connect with small business decision makers?
I wish to make a donation to help small business.

When working to improve your bottom line, focus on the “3 Keys” of “Lead, Lift and Leverage”.

The “Lead” key is all about the organization’s leadership and management. The “Lift” key is all about lifting the business’ turnover through better sales and marketing. And the “Leverage” key is about improving the business’ productivity and efficiency in all areas of the operation.

Guess where most people want us to start?

If you said “Lift”, you’re right. There’s always an overwhelming desire to see a quick increase in turnover.

That’s fine, of course, and usually easy enough to do. But it’s interesting to note that often the quickest way to improve bottom line profitability is through working in the “Leverage” area.

The Leverage key is largely about ‘reducing inputs while maintaining outputs’. In other words, it means trimming the fat, without hurting the
muscle.

In many, many cases this can be achieved VERY quickly. And more to the point, a reduction in costs is often far more valuable than an increase in sales.

For instance, let’s say your business is achieving an after-tax net profit of 5%. And let’s say your product cost is 70%.

If you reduce your product cost by just 2%, you’ll achieve the same after tax profit as you would from a 17% sales increase!

Realistically, a 2% reduction in product costs could be achieved in the time it takes to make a couple of phone calls. On the other hand, a 17% increase in sales could take months.

Why not call YOUR suppliers (and their competitors) and ask what discount you’ll get if you fix your accounts in 10 days instead of 30?

What if you collect, rather than have them deliver?

What if you arrange storage, rather than use their warehousing space?

What if you buy in bulk?

What if you refer new clients to them?

And what about your under-utilised labour and facilities?

One of our clients now sub-lets its machinery from “midnight to dawn” when the equipment would normally sit idle. The income earned means that the company’s own production is virtually free. Other clients now use their scrap to create inexpensive but attractive knick-knacks which they use as “value adders” and gifts to clients.

The moral to the story? Simply this: work on ALL 3 keys. If you focus on just one or two, you simply won’t achieve the best or fastest possible result.

Virtual Business Advisor

How to book a meeting with a business advisor, mentor or coach?
Find out about Government Grants for Queensland business?
Would you like to become an Accredited Advisor?
Need information on how to prepare a business plan?
Do you want a step by step guide to growing your business?
Become a sponsor or partner of BAN and connect with small business decision makers?
I wish to make a donation to help small business.

It’s almost a cliche. Ask just about any manager what their most important resource is, and they’ll say ‘Our people’. And in the majority of cases they’d be right.  Fact is, few enterprises can perform optimally without a team of committed people contributing consistently.

Most managers would agree with this – and would proudly point to the money they’ve spent on induction programs, on incentive systems, on skills-development programs, on appraisal and coaching processes … and so forth. Given half a chance, they’d show you dozens of ‘investments’ they’ve made in their people.

But here’s the problem. Most of those investments are ‘hard’ or systems oriented, rather than ‘soft’ or emotion oriented. And ‘hard’ investments can NEVER produce the same results as the ‘soft’ investments.

For instance, if you’re fortunate enough to be part of a loving family or circle of friends, you’d know that your relationships will see you through most challenges. Your ‘people’ will rally around when times are tough. They’ll look out for you. They’ll be loyal. They’ll do whatever they can to help. And they’ll do all of this DESPITE the fact that there’s no ‘hard’ reason for them to do so.

To my way of thinking, that means we’d be crazy to ignore the ‘soft’ systems. To get the best results, we need to work on these emotional investments in our people too. And at the risk of sounding all ‘warm and fuzzy’, I believe this comes down to simply caring about each member of our team.

When I was in the Army, that very concept was the basis of our leadership training. In an environment where rigid systems, strict discipline and ‘toughness’ were the norm, commanders were trained to believe they were RESPONSIBLE for their subordinates. To keep us focused, we were told to constantly measure our performance against five
questions. They’re all worth pondering, but pay particular attention to the first one:
• Do I take an interest in the personal welfare of each of my subordinates, as if they were a member of my family?
• Do I heckle my subordinates, or do I strengthen and encourage them?
• Do I correct a subordinate in front of others, or privately?
• Do I lose my temper at individuals, or focus on what went wrong and how to fix it?
• Do I act in such a way as to make my subordinates WANT to follow me?
Common sense, sure – but the application of these ideas is all too uncommon. We need to know our peoples’ names AND what they’re interested in or worried about. We need to know about their families AND consider and include them. We need to take the time to find out what they’re thinking – even if that means sitting in some bar until two in the morning talking with them. We need to notice the things that excite them, by observing their body language and listening to their choice of words. We need to MAKE SURE they know they’re appreciated.

Teams with high levels of ‘caring’ have team members who are more loyal, more willing to adapt to changes, more responsible to others within the organisation. These are organisations with low staff turnover, low absenteeism, high productivity, high levels of innovation.

The flip side is also true. ‘Low care’ companies fail to build a reservoir of goodwill to draw on when the going gets rough. And even before those rough times, employees don’t really care – because THEY don’t feel cared about.

This doesn’t mean we should molly coddle our team It doesn’t mean caving in to every wish. It doesn’t mean not making demands or never criticising. And it doesn’t mean not expecting them to perform at their best level. What it DOES mean is that if you want your people to care about YOU, you should care about THEM.

Think of it this way: if your people treated your customers in exactly the same way you treated your employees, would you be happy? If not, perhaps it’s time for a re-think. Perhaps the way to approach the future is to DEMONSTRATE the way you’d like your people to behave, by behaving that way yourself?

After all, a huge amount of knowledge resides in the minds of our people. When a staff member ‘walks’, so does that knowledge. And surely that’s something to care about.

Virtual Business Advisor

How to book a meeting with a business advisor, mentor or coach?
Find out about Government Grants for Queensland business?
Would you like to become an Accredited Advisor?
Need information on how to prepare a business plan?
Do you want a step by step guide to growing your business?
Become a sponsor or partner of BAN and connect with small business decision makers?
I wish to make a donation to help small business.

Start with setting time aside for the management to meet on a regular and structured basis. Make sure the timing is immutable and that all key people commit to the process. Take the meeting off line from the business or make it after hours if necessary. This meeting should be set up, say monthly, with a specific agenda to deal with strategy-only topics.

The operational plan and budget should be driven from the revenue targets in the strategic plan.

Medium or even some smaller sized companies should consider creating their own “Office of Strategy Management”. This could comprise in-house team members coupled to external professional advisors that help to coordinate the activities needed to manage the strategy.

Naturally the executive team still needs to maintain their focus on operational improvement as well. However in today’s environment planning your strategy and carrying it out is critically important.

Here are the key action points to consider:

• Develop the strategy based on where you want to be.
• Plan the activities needed to make this happen.
• Align the organisation so there is support for the strategy.
• Devise the action plans to make the activities happen.
• Monitor and learn.
• Test and adapt.

Neil Fairley – Continuous improvement Strategic Solutions.

How to book a meeting with a business advisor, mentor or coach?
Find out about Government Grants for Queensland business?
Would you like to become an Accredited Advisor?
Need information on how to prepare a business plan?
Do you want a step by step guide to growing your business?
Become a sponsor or partner of BAN and connect with small business decision makers?
I wish to make a donation to help small business.