Steve Davies Online


Never allow bluebirds to compromise performance
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Sales Opportunity Grid

For any company that has more than one product or service, the best sales opportunities often lie in cross-selling different lines to existing customers. To focus attention on this area and to identify the success the company is having cross-selling, the company should produce and update a Sales Opportunity Grid on a quarterly basis.

   
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Sales Compensation

In small businesses there are as many mistakes as there are different approaches to sales compensation. Whether it is paying on revenues rather than gross margin, failing to match incentives to desired outcomes or a dozen other things, mistakes in this area can be very serious.

Through bitter experience I have always backed into sales compensation by identifying what I regard as representing success in the job and then deciding what that level of performance would be worth to me financially. Then I break it down into three separate components:

   
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Monthly Dashboard - Key Performance Indicators

The role of the entrepreneur is to spot a trend from the fewest facts.  How can you spot trends if you don’t have current information at your fingertips? Suppose your third largest customer has stopped ordering from you…are you set up to notice or are you too busy?

When you started you knew everything because you controlled it. As your business grows you have to find new ways to replicate that hands-on knowledge with systems that deliver the information you used to have at your fingertips. 

How are you going to do that? 

   
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Opportunities Analysis Grid

Anything can be accomplished in business if you have enough time, money, people and energy. Unfortunately, there are too many opportunities and too few resources and if you go after too many you will fail at some of them – not necessarily the least important. 

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The Disaster Box

You can insure existing assets - your building, inventory, receivables and lost profits. You can insure your life and the lives of your key employees. You can insure much of what exists today....but you can’t insure your business against a disaster.  

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The Activity Index

In a company where business is performed against fixed-price contracts (retainers, service contracts etc), a useful tool that will give you an interesting snapshot of your business is what I call the Activity Index.

There are two components you need to identify to construct this.  Image

 
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Are you a victim of the peanut monkey syndrome?

If you aren’t prepared to pay the right amount for the employees that you need you will settle for mediocrity and one of two bad things will happen. Either the good employee that you are underpaying will leave for a better opportunity or the marginal employee will stay because they are comfortable and you don’t have the courage to fire them.

   
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