When Tulane University Professor Jeffrey Barach ran for a seat in the U.S. Congress, he asked a noted political consultant what it took to run a successful campaign.
The consultant replied, “One word: ask!”
Candidates must have the ability to ask for money, votes and help. “So, also, with leadership,” adds Barach. “Commanding is a form of asking. When a leader personalises a vision, he or she is asking others to share it.”
Yet, asking is hard for many people. For example, some sales people fear asking for an order.
How is the fear of asking overcome? A successful college fund-raiser once advised Barach that people cannot ask for donations if they think the would-be donors are doing them a favour.
Of course, in a sense they are and fund-raisers should be grateful and solicitous. But they also should recognise they’re offering donors an opportunity to do something for themselves.
“The solicitor has to believe that the donors’ gift solves a problem for them,” Barach maintains, “or the tone of voice will not be right.”
The same principle applies to selling anything. A student in one of Barach’s summer courses sold knives, mostly to college girls as part of their hope chest.
His classmates criticised him for hawking expensive knives to young women with low incomes.
He countered that they were great knives,and the smaller sets were a good value, although he agreed that he shouldn’t sell them his big ticket ($200) sets.
Later in the summer, however, that student told the class that he had come to believe that the larger sets of knives also were a good value,that his customers would appreciate them in the long run.
What amazed him, he added, was that as soon as he came to that conviction, his sales of the larger sets increased radically.
Monday, 26 January 2009
Saturday, 10 January 2009
Re: Use or Lose your local businesses -Farnham Herald - Friday 9th January
I have a huge amount of empathy for those retail businesses of Farnham who are struggling to make ends meet. Walking through the Woolmead today I noted that over 1/3rd of the retail units were empty. As a Farnham man that hurts – I want to see Farnham businesses doing better and trading strongly.
The logical question to ask is why has this happened? You could blame the commercial landlord for not being more flexible as regards rent payments – probably set at a time when trade was booming – but contracts are a two way thing and the retailer knew the value and timing of the payments when they signed the lease.
Unfortunately it is more than likely that it is the business planning that has gone astray. One of three things can have happened here. Either the business failed to plan, or it made a plan but set assumptions that were too bullish for the current economic climate, or perhaps it failed to monitor adequately their trading situation against a well constructed initial plan.
It then begs the question what kind of advice are these businesses getting? From my experience business owners need good advice from someone they can trust and perhaps the current professional advisors were just not up to scratch or were not listened to. Perhaps the business owner did not even ask for advice on the assumption that “they knew best” or they were too frightened to ask.
Now is the time to make a business as efficient as possible with a robust plan to beat the downturn. If a business gets the basics right now it will emerge a much stronger beast on the way back up. And guess what the best way of getting the business basics right is… getting some good advice!
Alex Warren – Yellow Brick Road Consulting Limited
The logical question to ask is why has this happened? You could blame the commercial landlord for not being more flexible as regards rent payments – probably set at a time when trade was booming – but contracts are a two way thing and the retailer knew the value and timing of the payments when they signed the lease.
Unfortunately it is more than likely that it is the business planning that has gone astray. One of three things can have happened here. Either the business failed to plan, or it made a plan but set assumptions that were too bullish for the current economic climate, or perhaps it failed to monitor adequately their trading situation against a well constructed initial plan.
It then begs the question what kind of advice are these businesses getting? From my experience business owners need good advice from someone they can trust and perhaps the current professional advisors were just not up to scratch or were not listened to. Perhaps the business owner did not even ask for advice on the assumption that “they knew best” or they were too frightened to ask.
Now is the time to make a business as efficient as possible with a robust plan to beat the downturn. If a business gets the basics right now it will emerge a much stronger beast on the way back up. And guess what the best way of getting the business basics right is… getting some good advice!
Alex Warren – Yellow Brick Road Consulting Limited
Monday, 5 January 2009
Credit Insurance for the New Year?
What is Credit Insurance?
The consequences of one of your customers becoming insolvent and you suffering a bad debt can have serious financial impact on your business. Credit insurance companies not only advise you on who it is safe to deal with on credit terms and up to what level, but also in the event of your customer becoming insolvent, or you suffering protracted non-payment , they typically indemnify you for 90% to 95% of the amount of loss, depending on the cause of that loss, but this percentage is negotiable in many cases as you can chose to take on more of the risk.
Other Benefits of Credit Insurance
There are numerous other benefits of taking Credit Insurance from one of the many Credit Insurance Companies amongst Yellow Brick Roads' connections. One of our providers has 160 offices in 40 countries and 4,000 experts in all aspect s of credit management. This global network has constantly updated information on over 52 million companies worldwide. Their expert risk underwriters, who will be based in or near your customer’s home country use that information to establish an advisable line of credit and to alert you to any changes that may affect that cover.
Many Credit Insurance companies also seek to recover the amount of your loss, and contribute to the cost of that recovery in proportion to their liability for the loss. To help recover the loss the major Credit Insurers have a worldwide network of collectors, lawyers and insolvency practitioners each well versed in local law.
What does Credit Insurance cost?
This will vary widely on a case by case basis. For ballpark figures you can expect to pay between 0.1% to 0.6% but these figures will change with the economic situation.
Why use Yellow Brick Road?
Yellow Brick Road works effortlessly for its clients. It has connections within leading Credit Insurance Companies as well as specialist brokers.
Yellow Brick Road Consulting Limited
13 Jubilee Lane
Farnham
Surrey
Surrey
GU10 4SZ
08447 706320
http://www.yellowbrickroadconsulting.co.uk/
http://www.yellowbrickroadconsulting.co.uk/
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