Stop Your NO’s, Start Your KNOWS!

If you say NO to something, ask yourself, “Why did I just say NO to that?”

Start with knowing why you said no before you actually say NO, because once you say NO, that NO may have far-reaching consequences. When you commit to something by saying NO to it, and then end up finding out that you could have done it, an opportunity for that action is lost forever. Make sure that each decision you make has been well thought out.

Life has a rippling effect. When you always say NO to someone, soon they will start asking someone else, because they really wanted a yes from you. But, if every answer you give is yes and you cannot follow through with that yes commitment, soon your word will not hold any credibility, negatively impacting your life, career and business.

Remember, committing to something too fast is also never the answer 100% of the time. Knowing why you say yes or NO to something is the only way to be successful in following through with your commitments.

Do you know why you are reading this? Because, you said YES to making a difference in your life, career, and increasing the success rate of your small and mid-sized business!


http://theprofitrepairman.com/

Keep IT Simple

Your businesses is what is “IT”, with all of the information and bombardment of calls, e-mails, faxes, twitters, IM’s, texts and people, a business owner can feel overloaded and get misdirected and forget to keep an eye on what really matters to their success, THE BOTTOM LINE!

What’s the solution?

On no more than a couple of 8½x11-inch pieces of paper, have a “snapshot” of the top five to ten critical statistical metrics that determine your business unit’s success available with comparisons for your daily morning review. If you do not have this report, you cannot be proactive in management. With a daily statistical data sheet, you have the ability to spot trends, and thus, small corrections in the operations or sales can be initiated to neutralize the adverse effect of any negative component.

When you have daily statistical sheets that are simple, to the point, and full of the “most critical” metrics that you need, you can guide your business unit daily, which will lead to greater achievements of the business unit’s budget and stretch goals. Focus on managing your business unit today, so that today will be tomorrow and tomorrow will be your everything.


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It’s June 1st, How Are You Pacing On Your Year-End 2009 Goals?

Your 5/12 or 41.37% completed with the year, do your numbers tell you if you are going to make your 2009 year-end budget numbers today? If you had a twelve month pacing model in place for your business, you would have an accurate reading about this question.

A pacing model can help your business unit gauge if it is on pace to meet the goals set forth and gives a quick “YES or NO” to that pacing question throughout your goals’ time frame.

A pacing model is different than a forecasting model, since a pacing model takes your historical numbers to date plus what is pre-sold/reserved and compares that number to where you want to be at the end of your goal, which in turn can inform you if you are on pace to meet those goals in the allocated amount of time, with no variables included in its calculation (seasonality, pricing variations, external demand and supply situations, etc.).

Think of a pacing model as a macro model that tells you yes or no to the success of finishing your goal in the time allocated. By having a pacing model in place, you can determine if your current sales activity is enough today, to generate the numbers needed to make your year-end goals, even if you are less than 50% completed to that year-end. It is not just good enough to produce your numbers TODAY; you must also look forward and make sure that today’s numbers will match your goals tomorrow. By knowing if you are “on pace” or not to your year-end goals, management can make decisions TODAY if the marketing and pricing strategies in place now will be adequate to meet those goals, thus implement changes if they are not.

Stopping and looking forward is the only way a good business person can guarantee that today’s efforts will lead to tomorrow’s goal achievement.

Do you have some sort of pacing model in place for your business unit? If not, you should, how else can you make sure you will be at the 100% to goal for year-end numbers, even though you still have 58.63% to go?


http://theprofitrepairman.com/