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Leverage Your Strengths Fire your Weakness

Guest post by: Gary Silverman

Article Overview: Now is the time for your New Year’s resolutions. We can easily rattle off the personal changes we will attempt to make for the new year. Things like, I’m going to exercise more, eat healthy, drink less, quit smoking, allow for more family time, make better use of my time, etc. Have you taken the time to set objectives or “resolutions” for your business? We are entering the age of efficiency. Banks and credit card companies are cutting off risky business, secondary finance companies are rethinking their business model, car manufacturers are cutting dealers and products, airlines are cutting routes, and on and on. What is your plan for 2009?

Leverage Your Strengths Fire your Weakness

If you are a manufacturer will you continue to produce and stock low volume or low gross products? Wouldn’t it be wiser to replace that capacity with your popular items? Maybe you can stimulate greater volume by cutting the price which will lead to higher revenue. Maybe you can better service the market or increase your accounts. If you are a retailer, limit your selection of marginal items that need to be marked down to move each season and tie up cash. Don’t replace slow moving items with new slow moving items. A simple look at your inventory reports and you will spot the dogs. You can either replace these dogs with other inventory or better yet, just carry less inventory. It is in your best interest to have the flexibility to react to trends in the marketplace and be on the cutting edge. In order to do that you must have the liquidity which comes from having a smaller inventory. If you are a sales organization perhaps it’s time to eliminate some management or re-draw sales territories. If you eliminate the ineffective or low productivity sales people or management you will be lean from a personnel standpoint and the remaining staff will have greater earning potential while you pocket a portion of your savings. Years ago territories were constantly being divided up. The end result was better coverage, more face time with your customers and increased sales. Now we are faced with the reverse model. Five territories can be converted to four with one less two legged overhead monster. Pay plans can be structured to take a portion of #5’s pay and divide it amongst the survivors. The house keeps the rest. The advancement in communication technology and order delivery will provide a seamless experience for your customers. Blackberry’s and iPhones will insure immediate response to your customer’s requests. Next, take a look at the staff and line structure of your organization. Many companies have taken things in house and created departments and personnel to handle the load. Could some of these departments be outsourced to specific companies that can do it for less? I recently met a relocation manager for a rather large building materials and paper producer. His job was to handle the Real Estate transactions for the personnel transferring within the company. I wondered why he was still there as they weren’t hiring nor moving people around. he was handling an average of one transaction per month over the past year. Why did he still have a job? How many people work for you that were a product of better times. Do you still need them? I realize I am contributing to the current economic difficulties by making these recommendations but I am more interested in “business survival than the individual” All of the jobs lost will be regained when the time is right. If we lost over 1 million jobs this year that shows we have the potential over the next 2 years to recreate those same jobs and more. But once a business is lost it is gone forever. Kick into survival mode and throw yourself the first life preserver. E-mail me at gsilverman2@mac.com with any questions you may have. Happy Holidays 2008.

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Article Tags: advancement in communication technology, best interest, blackberry, cutting edge, end result, face time, increased sales, inventory reports, iphones, line structure, liquidity, monster, personnel standpoint, popular items, productivity, sales organization, sales territories, seamless experience, survivors, these dogs



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