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What would you do in this business development situation? You are awarded a territory, as a salaried salesperson, in the southeast. Sounds like an easy assignment until you find out that there is a recession in progress that only affects your assigned clients. And, your only major customer is undergoing a major reconstruction and is not in buying mode. Your product is quickly becoming a global commodity. Competition is depressing the market. Sell price has quickly dropped 50%. Margins are slowly slipping into the single digits. This is the typical story of business. In the mist of it all, you have to figure out a way to produce sales, meet quota and keep your customers happy. Sound familiar? This was my situation for about 7 years. At the time, I just worked. This was the job. And, I didn't know any better. From customer acquisition to customer service, I just handled it. Looking back, I should have just quit wholly or just come back to work as a desk engineer. Business is tough and not for the faint of heart. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was learning how to really build and improve a business from the inside out. This was all good training. Not theory. But in-the-field-knowledge about how to get results. Before it was over, I received high sales achievement honors from a billion-dollar international conglomerate and produced a sales volume of $103,840,000 within a once-floundering territory. All this with no direct report staff. At one point, my regional manager quit, so I was truly self-managed until a replacement was found. Can you imagine what you would learn while under this type of pressure? What would or could you do? In 2004, I left the safety of the corporate world with nothing but a workable business philosophy. I became a business owner. That seven-year experience would prove to be the best training ground to learn about:
Things really got interesting. I was introduced to a breakthrough advertising testing technology that can increase advertising response rates as much as 300%. With this new set of skills and years of in-the-field sales experience, I was able to study most any business situation and use the skills and technology I had acquired to increase profits. Sometimes a few simple-but-effective changes are all that is needed. As a business owner, I now truly understand what it takes to build a profitable enterprise. The Truth About Most BusinessesWorking with companies big and small, I find that there are three critical components missing in most businesses:
No business owner or manager disregards these critical systems knowingly. Overlooking them just seems to happen in the course of running a business. It’s no wonder that 95% of businesses in the United States fail in the first five years. I have seen huge companies still making "new business" mistakes. So much profit potential is locked up, hidden within the business itself.
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