Saving your way to prosperity

Posted on March 25, 2009 | Filed Under K&R Success StoriesK&R WorkshopsSelling | View the Print Version

Times are tough.  The stock market is at 1997 levels.  Unemployment is high.  Sales are down.  You need to manage your business results for 2009.  What do you do, and why?

If we were playing the television game show “Family Feud” (or Family Fortune, if you’re in London), the number one answer is…  Stop spending!

How about it?  Can you save your way to prosperity?  While careful spending is always a good practice independent of the economic conditions, will it make you or your company successful?  Probably not.

Let’s look at the economics of earnings.  The big number isn’t the cost line.  Well, the big number shouldn’t be the cost line – too many people are losing money at the moment.  The real leverage to improve your business results is in the revenue / profit line. One method to improve revenue and profit is to do more with what you have – make the most of the opportunities that still exist.  Through the use of effective negotiation skills, you can take those same opportunities, and get better results from them.  So, in the balance sheet of a difficult year, do you spend to improve the “big” lines (revenue and profit), or do you slow spending to affect the “little” one (cost)?  We think you should do both – but don’t decide based on an arbitrary fixed rule like “no outside spending!”  Use the same good business judgment that has made you successful in the past.

One of the popular K&R services is a series of consulting engagements to alter the outcomes of negotiations that are in progress right now.  We delivered a set of these for a client near the end of 2008.  In that K&R Opportunity Workshop we worked on 22 identified sales opportunities.  Prior to the session, only 2 of the opportunities were expected to close.  All, of course, were in the “forecast” to close, but experience shows that a forecast is more often a wish than an accurate prediction.  As a result of the workshop, eleven of the opportunities were closed by year-end, and our client beat their revenue and profit targets.  We helped them make the best of what they had already.

In a typical two-day K&R Negotiation Workshop session, where we focus on immediately applicable skills, 10-15% of the attendees use something they learned in the session in a real negotiation – before day 2 is over!  We consistently receive feedback that the attendees will use the tools and techniques within 30 days, and we have documented cases of increased revenue and profit that average 10%.

Contact us – we can help you improve your results.  (td)

Comments

Leave a Comment

If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Comments

Recently


Categories


Archives