Find a Profitable Need to Fill

To find a need to fill is the single most important decision you’ll make in your entire business, and that decision will impact everything you do in your business.

Finding the right need to fill is the difference between struggling day after day to make a go of your business and having a business that takes on a life of its own.

Take Your Business to the Next Level With Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning isn't something reserved for just big companies. In fact, even Solopreneurs working from home need the benefits that come from holding regular strategic sessions.

Every month, Jennifer and I schedule at least one ½ day strategic planning session. This is a time when we leave our home office and go "off-site" (usually to a coffee shop!) and work ON our business.

Turn Trade Show Leads Into Gold

Many companies use tradeshows to generate customer and distributor leads. However, more than 95% of companies exhibiting are missing a huge opportunity to supercharge their leads.

Tradeshows can be expensive. By the time you add up the costs for the booth space, the booth display itself, transportation, having employees out of commission during the show, food and so on, it can be thousands of dollars to display at a tradeshow.

The Difference Between The Pro And The Amateur

Not too long ago, we renovated our home office. It was simple stuff…fixing up the walls in preparation for painting, fixing floor trim, putting up shelves…easy stuff. My wife Jen and I put together out budget, bought our supplies and got to work on what we thought would be a pretty straight forward day. Once again, I was about to be reminded of the parallels between amateur home renovations and companies doing CRM projects.

Now, when it comes to home renovations, you need to understand that despite our willing nature and hours of do-it-yourself TV watching, we are amateurs.

Why CRM Implementations Fall Short Of The Gold

Why do companies spend the time and money to implement a Customer Relationship Management system? The reasons vary, but near the top of the list you’ll almost always find:

1. Generate more sales.
2. Get control of their contacts with a central database.
3. Reduce operating inefficiencies and costs.

Companies get sold on how slick everything fits together and the flashy reports that will give magical insight into their business. CRM demos are designed to give maximum WOW factor and all of the scenarios used in the sales presentation are tailored to show off the CRM system at its very best and completely side step any product deficiencies. Those selling CRM systems get good at selling the “sizzle”.

Is Economics Killing off Small Business?

I've been noticing a disturbing trend in CRM that could have a major impact on small business...the move to eliminate single license versions of products.

Case in point: FrontRange has officially dropped their GoldMine standard product. The option available to new users is to buy their GoldMine Corporate product which comes with a 5 license minimum.

And FrontRange isn't alone.