IP is intellectual property, and a surprising number of small businesses have it but don’t really know what to do with it. More important, many smaller businesses that have IP don’t protect it, and that can mean it’s going to be taken away by a competitor and used against you. Intellectual property is the result […]
Heart attack, car accident, illness, a resignation, family dispute. Most of these are unanticipated, but by no means unusual or uncommon events, fall under ‘The 4Ds’ – Death, Divorce, Disability or Departure. The occurrence of any one of them can instantly throw a business into disarray. Unpleasant though they are to consider, when one of […]
Wednesday, 22 July 2009 16:01 | Written by Wayne Moloney Recently I was engaged by a Philippine based software development company, ToolTwist, to help them define a marketing strategy for a new website management application they had developed. Their product is a software tool used by corporations to create sophisticated websites with Amazon-like functionality. While […]
Without a plan, sales reps have no choice but to do their own thing – which` may not necessarily be what your company needs them to do to achieve its sales targets. Undirected sales reps are likely to be too often found in the office or out on haphazard travel, spending time with the friendly […]
When someone makes a purchase they buy more than just a product or service. At the time the product or service is probably the most important element, but they also buy a range of benefits that can over the long-term become their reason for being satisfied or dissatisfied with their purchase and with your business. […]
Every bit of evidence indicates that for a business to thrive and grow, and to ensure that it is protected from uncertainty, it does need a plan; the plan shows that one has thought about the opportunities and threats, about the objectives and the targets, and that there is a system in place for measuring […]
1. Write (or revisit) your business plan. You may already have a business plan in place, but with the uncertain economy it’s a good idea to revisit your goals and objectives for the next six months, the next year, the next five years. Make your business plan a living document and update it at least […]
Entrepreneurs are usually so anxious to get their enterprises going that they don’t pay enough attention to planning for the long term future of their operations. This is why so many entrepreneurial businesses work satisfactorily for the first year or so but often need a complete re-think just to keep the business going after that. […]
Industry trends can change quickly and require intensive and ongoing analysis to determine just what’s happening. For instance, a sudden drop in an industry’s sales commission rates combined with a reduction in minimum order size and a big increase in outstanding debtors would indicate a shift of power to consumers and a consequent weakening in […]
Inventories are usually made up of many types of stock. There are fast-moving and slow-moving products. There are products with a high profit margin and products with low profit margins. Some products are in demand and other products past their peak. To simply look at an inventory as having a single ‘value’ can be very […]