In all fairness, my iPhone 3GS works very well most of the time. Recently I have spent time in California, Toronto, Chicago, Edmonton, Alberta. My home is in Florida. With all of this travel I had very little difficulty with service. My service issues begin when I near my home….within about 100 ft to be more precise. I have several iPhones since 2007 when the first iPhone was released. Since then I have had several periods of weak connectivity but overall I have not had a problem. That changed beginning late last year.

Once it was clear to me that something had changed and my phone was not the problem. I began calling AT&T.  I think having to do that should be considered as a terrorist interrogation technique.  There have been a couple people in that company I connect with who were very nice to talk to and demonstrated they understood the issue.  They also assured me the problem would be fixed.  The problem is not fixed.  And tech support actually misrepresented the action the took. I was told today that an engineer had been dispatched to my home area and found nothing wrong.  No engineer ever showed up and the most that was done was for someone to look at some screen and conclude their towers were operating properly. I never doubted that because a malfunctioning tower would be detected and fixed.

If I heard it once I heard this once I heard this at least 5 times just this week. We apologize, our towers are fine. Please be sure your software is up to date and turn your phone off and on as we sent some data or something to your phone.  There is a lot more but the bottom line is, this issue is not resolved and the discussions I had with tech support were totally not helpful.

Business Marketing 101: make sure you invest in retaining the people who are doing business with you now.

Business Problem Solving 101: Variance are solved one person at a time.

Business Relationship Building 101:  Almost nobody expects technology or any product for that matter to work perfectly all the time. It is how you handle the problem that determines whether you are building positive or negative goodwill.

My Conclusion About AT&T

1. There are indicators AT&T’s network is inadequate and Apple which is an excellent company will find alternatives.
2. AT&T continues to fuel negative goodwill
3. Markets have a way of compensating for weakness. Look at how many companies that were once huge have or are near closing their doors.

Key Lesson For Those Learning Business Principles: Pay attention to what the losers do and then …don’t do that.

Sending you energy of health, happiness, prosperity

Steve Pohlit

Business Consulting, Executive Coach
Turnaround/Crisis Management
Temporary CEO, CFO, Controller Services
International Business Resources

Social Media Services
New Digital Media, Inc.

Twitter

Facebook

Linked in

MySpace

727-587-7871

Email

About: Steve Pohlit is a CPA,MBA and has been the CFO of several major domestic and international companies.  Steve is The Managing Director of  Top 1 Coaching/Consulting of  The JT Foxx Organization. He is  an expert business coach and consultant focused on building massive business  profits and net asset value. He is very experienced with Internet marketing and social media marketing.  All articles published by Steve unless specifically restricted may be freely published with this resource information.

Answer: Traffic and Conversion!

What this means is that in order to grow your business with new customers,  there  needs to be  a stream of relevant traffic interested in what it is you offer.  Your job is to move this traffic from interested to “I’ll Take It” !

Question: How do you move people from being interested to buyers?

Answer: In my experience, people become buyers when a relationship and trust is established. Also, for professional services and many physical products, people want to talk to a person before making a final decision. Contact information including an email address and phone number is very important.

Building A Relationship On Line

The process that has worked for me has at it’s foundation a blog.  The blog has a contact capture form with a reason for people to give you that information. Their name goes into a autoresponder system for follow- up messages with value added content.  Value added content can be tips, a link to another blog article, examples of what is working and direct educational material. Each follow on email should have a signature with a link for more information and contact information.

The blog is the home for valuable content or articles that offer valuable information. This can be current news and relevant “how to” information. Offering examples of what is working is another terrific way of offering value. Marketing messages can be in the signature and the article itself can be structured so the reader understands how your offer is a solution for their interests.

In summary, the blog and the autoresponder sequence is key to building trust and establishing a relationship. Links in the blog and emails can direct the reader to a direct sales page or a contact page.

With this foundation in place and continually growing, you now have the source of material for valuable updates using social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Social Media is a major tool for helping you build your business.  I recommend you look at your social media network as an asset for your business that will continually become more valuable if it is properly managed.

Twitter

I always recommend using at least two accounts, one personal and one business. Twitter seems to regularly modify how it is enforcing its terms of service. Having multiple accounts reduces the risk of going completely off of Twitter because of an account suspension. However, if you post quality messages to valuable content plus use tweets that have no URL in them that demonstrate you are interacting, they you should not have any problems with account suspension.

Building a Twitter following and managing tweets through that network can be a significant commitment of time. I highly recommend leveraging or outsourcing a lot of this work. My company New Digital Media, Inc. has been established specifically to help you with this.

Facebook

There are three primary channels on Facebook that should be used that do not cost money. One channel is pay per click advertising does cost money. Regarding pay per click on Facebook,  my initial tests are positive. It appears advertising on Facebook is cost effective. More on this in a future article.

The first area that should be built on Facebook is your profile. There are many exceptions to the rule that profiles are to be personal. Currently I do not advise spending time building a business profile as there is a high risk of being deactivated.  Your personal profile can and should have clear links to your business.

My focus has been on building my profile and my friends list is primarily for business purposes. As I approached the 5,000 friends limit on Facebook I created a fan page. While I am not a fan of the label fan page, it is channel for expanding your network and there are no limits to the number of fans. If your goal is to build a fan page for a business (Facebook encourages business fan pages) then I recommend a build strategy that invites friends to a fan page, uses Twitter to promote your profile and fan page and test Facebook ads to build your fan page. I have seen very effective ad campaigns that have built fan pages fast so I know this works. If you build a fan page then you should have a communication strategy for developing the interest of your fans.

Facebook Groups are one of my favorites for building business since once a person joins your group, generally they are very interested in messages related to the topic of the group. For example, I have the group Build Business Profits on Facebook which ties into the theme of this blog as well as my social media blogs.  The feedback I receive from messages sent to this group as well as several other targeted groups I have built is consistently positive.

Other Social Media Sites

I highly recommend using YouTube and I have done  a lot of YouTube work in the past and will be stepping up my YouTube activity again this year. I also recommend LinkedIn  There are many other social media sites and I have some work being done on a handful of other sites. However, with the growth in Facebook and Twitter I continue to concentrate on those two. Up and coming and closely being watched is Google Buzz.

The Number One Key Success Factor

While I am always building my social media network and the network for clients of New Digital Media, Inc. the most valuable asset in social media is the quality of information offered in articles and personal communication.  With my own accounts and those of clients there is always a focus of adding value and blending with personal messages.  I have no automated messages flowing through Facebook and I am paying increasing attention to the balance of non automated messages on Twitter.

Related

My focus is having people connect with me on my offers. This is what I always advise clients as well. Consistently there is contact information with articles, contact name and email forms feeding an autoresponder with an email message sequence and published phone information.  This is fundamental internet marketing.  There is always more including search engine optimization,  search engine pay per click, squeeze pages and more. However with a consistent focus on building a relationship with people who are interested in your products and services, you will be able to stay focused on those on line tools most effective for your business.

Then there is off line marketing which is a topic for another article.

Steve Pohlit

Business Consulting, Executive Coach
Turnaround/Crisis Management
Temporary CEO, CFO, Controller Services
International Business Resources

Social Media Services
New Digital Media, Inc.

Twitter

Facebook

Linked in

MySpace

727-587-7871

Email

About: Steve Pohlit is a CPA,MBA and has been the CFO of several major domestic and international companies.  Steve is a business owner and an expert business consultant focused on building profits and net asset value. He is very experienced with Internet marketing and social media marketing.  All articles published by Steve unless specifically restricted may be freely published with this resource information.

The US Congress has already demonstrated massive incompetence in fiscal responsibility so what the hell do they think they are about to accomplish by putting a legitimate business on trial. The US Congress does not even know what they are doing yet alone evaluate what someone else is doing. Members of Congress may know how to drive a car but that does not mean they know how to manage  a car company. Haven’t they learned from the GM fiasco where we the American people have allowed our President and Congress to drive up the deficit by bailing out a company that has sunk so  deep the American taxpayers will not be repaid in full.

Damage control is now the number one priority for Toyota and they don’t need a committee that is from a Congress whose idea of damage control is to hold a politically based public view of questions prepared by people who are not even members of Congress. It solves nothing. Toyota has problems. There is an obvious quality control problem and a cultural problem. The cultural problem is obvious from their lack of aggressive communication and damage control related to defects.  The marketplace will actually sort this out not the US congress.

As for Toyota, it is amazing that in 2010 an international business seems void of sound damage control and public relations practices. There are numerous examples that serve as best practices guides when a company is involved in a negative situation. One I often point to as a great positive example is the way Johnson & Johnson handled the Tylenol recall in 1982. However, even they may have forgotten how well  and fast they recovered from that episode since more recently there is increasing evidence Johnson & Johnson did not react as fast or well to problems with certain products recalled earlier this year.

Solutions:

Companies like Toyota, Johnson & Johnson normally have policies in place that define the quality standards and quality culture of the business. They also have boards that have fiduciary responsibility to ensure executives running the business are doing their job in all areas including quality. An effective management system includes regularly addressing how the quality culture and standards are implemented and not just “dust collectors” on company shelves. Product problems do not universally mean there is a general breakdown in quality control. However, it is clear the quality related management system for Toyota and maybe for Johnson & Johnson either no longer in place or broken.

Sending you energy of health, happiness, prosperity

Steve Pohlit

Business Consulting, Executive Coach
Turnaround/Crisis Management
Temporary CEO, CFO, Controller Services
International Business Resources

Social Media Services
New Digital Media, Inc.

Twitter

Facebook

Linked in

MySpace

727-587-7871

Email

About: Steve Pohlit is a CPA,MBA and has been the CFO of several major domestic and international companies.  Steve is a business owner and an expert business consultant focused on building profits and net asset value. He is very experienced with Internet marketing and social media marketing.  All articles published by Steve unless specifically restricted may be freely published with this resource information.

——————————————-

JFK’S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60’s when DeGaule decided to pull out of NATO. DeGaule said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible.

Rusk
responded “does that include those who are buried here?

DeGuale did not respond.

You could have heard a pin drop
———————————-
When in England , at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of empire building by George Bush.

He answered by saying, ‘Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.

You could have heard a pin drop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying ‘Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?’

A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: ‘Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and
from their flight deck.

We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?’

You could have heard a pin drop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S. , English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a
French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English. He then asked, ‘Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?’

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied, ‘Maybe it’s because the Brit’s, Canadians, Aussie’s and Americans arranged it so you wouldn’t have to speak German.’

You could have heard a pin drop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Robert Whiting , an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane. At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on.

“You have been to France before, monsieur?” the customs officer asked sarcastically.

Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously.

“Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.”

The American said, ‘The last time I was here, I didn’t have to show it…”

“Impossible. Americans always have to show your passports on arrival in France !”

The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained, ”Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn’t find a single Frenchmen to show a passport to.”

You could have heard a pin drop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am proud to be of this land, AMERICA

Sending you energy of health, happiness, prosperity

Steve Pohlit

Business Consulting, Executive Coach
Turnaround/Crisis Management
Temporary CEO, CFO, Controller Services
International Business Resources

Social Media Services
New Digital Media, Inc.

Twitter

Facebook

Linked in

MySpace

727-587-7871

Email

About: Steve Pohlit is a CPA,MBA and has been the CFO of several major domestic and international companies.  Steve is a business owner and an expert business consultant focused on building profits and net asset value. He is very experienced with Internet marketing and social media marketing.  All articles published by Steve unless specifically restricted may be freely published with this resource information.

Sending you energy of health, happiness, prosperity

Steve Pohlit

Business Consulting, Executive Coach
Turnaround/Crisis Management
Temporary CEO, CFO, Controller Services
International Business Resources

Social Media Services
New Digital Media, Inc.

Twitter

Facebook

Linked in

MySpace

727-587-7871

Email

About: Steve Pohlit is a CPA,MBA and has been the CFO of several major domestic and international companies.  Steve is a business owner and an expert business consultant focused on building profits and net asset value. He is very experienced with Internet marketing and social media marketing.  All articles published by Steve unless specifically restricted may be freely published with this resource information.

If this seems perfectly obvious, then why is it that the majority of companies do not have an annual business plan detailed in financial performance terms. Hardly any business has the disciplined management system in place to manage the business to achieve financial performance benchmarks every week.

This is a summary action guide that should help your business performance excel :

1. Define the outcome twelve months from now that you expect. What are your targeted: revenue, profit and cash flow (takes into account investments in non cash assets). I recommend these goals be higher than your historical trend.

2. Define the business performance you need to achieve in the next two months by week to achieve your annual goal.

Steps 1 and 2 become the budget numbers for your business and step 2 is adjusted every week so you are always looking forward two months. Can be three but should not be less than two.

Part of Step 2 should be a cash flow projection. Again it is very important to have a budget for all these items including cash flow.

3. Once you develop your budgeted items then you track actual every week. Now you are in the position of addressing variances. Positive ones should be viewed as carefully as negative ones. You are either investing in more of what resulted in positive variances or address the cause of negative ones.

Since a CEO should be spending most of their time, meaning about 80% on marketing for growth, there needs to be a rationalized process in place where there is clear accountability for the operations in the other key areas of the business.

This process is a management system. If you are an international multi- billion dollar business or a single entrepreneur the principles are the same.

Sending you energy of health, happiness, prosperity

Steve Pohlit

Business Consulting, Executive Coach
Turnaround/Crisis Management
Temporary CEO, CFO, Controller Services
International Business Resources

Social Media Services
New Digital Media, Inc.

Twitter

Facebook

Linked in

MySpace

727-587-7871

Email

About: Steve Pohlit is a CPA,MBA and has been the CFO of several major domestic and international companies.  Steve is a business owner and an expert business consultant focused on building profits and net asset value. He is very experienced with Internet marketing and social media marketing.  All articles published by Steve unless specifically restricted may be freely published with this resource information.

The idea of the Top 1%  is primarily discussed in reference to the development of business revenue and profits. If you pay attention to the Top 1%, you will see a balance in the areas health and relationships.  It may seem obvious, but if your health fails  monetary success is meaningless. Valuable  business coaching and self development programs  provide  guidance on balance.

Attributes of the Top 1%

There are no common traits. The Top 1% includes men, women, all nationalities, all age groups all professions.  The one common attribute is mindset.  The Top 1% has a dream and they take action in a rational way that brings the intended results.

I have worked with very large companies and smaller ones.  These experiences have given me the opportunity to evaluate the difference between eagles and ducks.  Of course eagles soar and ducks waddle and quack.  Eagles have a laser beam focus on those elements of their business that make the most difference.  They avoid flying into the side of a cliff.

The Top 1% invest in self development. J.T. Foxx, a successful entrepreneur, radio host in 18 markets, and author tells his audiences he invested $60,000 in business coaching and consulting  for himself in 2009.  He has budgeted  $100,000 in 2010 for business coaching and consulting.  He is also investing in  focused training and development program for his organization.

J.T. openly discusses his vision and goal of creating a $100 million coaching and consulting company.  I know he will and that goal is likely to be achieved within the  next 12-18 months.  Note the  mindset.  Less than five years ago J.T. was homeless and he  just turned 30.

Invest In Yourself

Join me, J.T. and many more at one of the upcoming Free Events.    Email Me and I will get you additional details.

Sending you energy of health, happiness, prosperity

Steve Pohlit

Business Consulting, Executive Coach
Turnaround/Crisis Management
Temporary CEO, CFO, Controller Services
International Business Resources

Social Media Services
New Digital Media, Inc.

Twitter

Facebook

Linked in

MySpace

727-587-7871

Email

About: Steve Pohlit is a CPA,MBA and has been the CFO of several major domestic and international companies.  Steve is a business owner and an expert business consultant focused on building profits and net asset value. He is very experienced with Internet marketing and social media marketing.  All articles published by Steve unless specifically restricted may be freely published with this resource information.

No one can make you serve customers well. That’s because great service is a choice.

Harvey Mackay, tells a wonderful story about a cab driver that proved this point.

Harvey was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up. The first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey .

He handed Harvey a laminated card and said: ‘I’m Wally, your driver. While I’m loading your bags in the trunk I’d like you to read my mission statement.’

Taken aback, Harvey read the card. It said:

Wally’s Mission Statement: To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment.

This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!

As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, ‘Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.’

Harvery said, ‘I’d prefer a soft drink.’

Wally smiled and said, ‘No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice.’

Almost stuttering, Harvey said, ‘I’ll take a Diet Coke.’

Handing him his drink, Wally said, ‘If you’d like something to read, I have The Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustrated and USA Today.’

As they were pulling away, Wally handed my friend another laminated card, ‘These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you’d like to listen to the radio.’ And as if that weren’t enough, Wally told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for him.

Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination for that time of day. He also let him know that he’d be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights or, if Harvey preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts…

Tell me, ‘have you always served customers like this?’

Wally smiled into the rear view mirror. ‘No, not always. In fact, it’s only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wayne Dyer, on the radio one day. He had just written a book called You’ll See It When You Believe It . Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you’ll rarely disappoint yourself. He said, ‘Stop complaining! Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don’t be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.”

That hit me right between the eyes,’ said Wally. ‘Dyer was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly,and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.’

‘I take it that has paid off for you,’ Harvey said.

‘It sure has,’ Wally replied. ‘My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I’ll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don’t sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can’t pick them up myself, I get a reliable friend to do it and I take a piece of the action.’

Wally was phenomenal. He was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab. I’ve probably told that story to more than fifty
cab drivers over the years, and only two took the idea and ran with it. Whenever I go to their cities, I give them a call. The rest of the drivers quacked like ducks and told me all the reasons they couldn’t do any of what I was suggesting.

Wally the Cab Driver made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles.

How about us?

Smile, and the whole world smiles with you… The ball is in our hands!

A man reaps what he sows. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do
not give up… let us do good to all people.

Ducks Quack, Eagles Soar

Have a nice day, unless you already have other plans!

——————————————————————————–

Sending you energy of health, happiness, prosperity

Steve Pohlit

Business Consulting, Executive Coach
Turnaround/Crisis Management
Temporary CEO, CFO, Controller Services
International Business Resources

Social Media Services
New Digital Media, Inc.

Twitter

Linked in

MySpace

727-587-7871

Email

About: Steve Pohlit is a CPA,MBA and has been the CFO of several major domestic and international companies.  Steve is a business owner and an expert business consultant focused on building profits and net asset value. He is very experienced with Internet marketing and social media marketing.  All articles published by Steve unless specifically restricted may be freely published with this resource information.

The only asset he had when he died was the house he lived in, which was in Independence Missouri. His wife had inherited the house from her mother and father and other than their years in the White House, they lived their entire lives there.

When he retired from office in 1952, his income was a U.S. Army pension reported to have been $13,507.72 a year. Congress, noting that he was paying for his stamps and personally licking them, granted him an ‘allowance’ and, later, a retroactive pension of $25,000 per year..

After President Eisenhower was inaugurated, Harry and Bess drove home to Missouri by themselves. There was no Secret Service following them.

When offered corporate positions at large salaries, he declined, stating, “You don’t want me. You want the office of the President, and that doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it’s not for sale.”

Even later, on May 6, 1971, when Congress was preparing to award him the Medal of Honor on his 87th birthday, he refused to accept it, writing, “I don’t consider that I have done anything which should be the reason for any award, Congressional or otherwise.”

As president he paid for all of his own travel expenses and food.

Modern politicians have found a new level of success in cashing in on the Presidency, resulting in untold wealth. Today, many in Congress also have found a way to become quite wealthy while enjoying the fruits of their offices.

Good old Harry Truman  observed, “My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference!

—————————————————

This is not posted for discussion. If you agree, forward the link . If you don’t, delete it. I don’t want to know one way or the other. By me posting it, you know how I feel.

Steve Pohlit

“This November, (same-store) sales are going to be incredibly important to gauge the state of consumer spending, and thus fourth-quarter earnings and stock trajectory, and it’s also an important statement about the economic recovery,” said Deutsche Bank analyst Bill Dreher.

Comments like this from Bill and others may not be accurate.  I learned how to analyze retail performance from experts responsible for running multi-billion dollar international businesses.  These lessons helped me tremendously in operating my own retail business and in my business consulting work with other retail companies.  Consider the following:

Same Store Sales Can Be Very Misleading

Same store sales are when you compare the sales in one period, for example November, with the sales from that same location the previous year. Seems simple enough but it is not always straight forward. For example, consider one store.  What is your conclusion if the store just opened the first of  November last year or if a major competitor closed a location near you this year?  There are many variables that can affect same store sales and you have to be careful in knowing you have true comparability.

Consider 2009, the same store sales that will be reported this year are being compared to 2008 which is considered one of  the weakest retail sales periods ever. At the company level a moderate increase in same store sales this year may not be a reason to celebrate except that of course it is better than a decline.  Regardless of the results, retailers must go deeper than looking at the aggregate numbers.  They must keep “peeling back  the onion” until the lowest common denominator is evaluated and that is at the item level.

Same Store Sales Are Not A Direct Indicator of Profits

Many retailers promote heavily in the holiday season. This is part of the marketing funnel.  Hot items sold at or below cost  are used as lead generators.  The Internet has educated shoppers on finding the best deals.  This has resulted in  add on sales  dropping which means more of the sales being reported on a monthly basis have lower profit margins.

Keys To Successful Retailing In This Economy

First point is the foundation of  a profitable business in any industry is largely the same.  Companies make money when they offer what people want at a profitable price.  In retail, customers often want a shopping experience that goes beyond price. For example, a recent testimonial from a customers experience on Black Friday demonstrated the success of a much smaller retailer with this customer vs. the major competitor. While having a slightly lower price for the laptop offered, the major retailer did not have any “unallocated laptops”   at 5 in the morning even though the item was heavily promoted. On top of that the crowds there were not pleasant to navigate.  The competing smaller chain, had inventory available and a more pleasant shopping experience.  So you know who got the business and a repeat customer.

Off line, location is increasingly important as well as the overall appearance inside and outside.  Large retailers win the game store by store.  When demographics and traffic patterns change, and they always are, the store needs to change as well.

Customer shopping experience is major for building customer loyalty.  This is mostly how customers are treated by staff when shopping.  This is the one area where many retailers fail.  There are great examples of customer service but they are not the norm.  On line, ease of navigation, speed of checkout and access to customer service are key. Many retailers with web sites pay little attention to the customer service that is needed.  People have questions and at times returns or exchanges may be needed. How this is handled is key.

Have you noticed the most ridiculous new message you get when calling larger customer support lines?  It goes something like this: “Due to heavy call volume, your wait may be longer than normal. Many questions can be answered at our web site.”  I don’t know about you but when I hear that message, which I do with increasing frequency, I think …this company has problems.

At The End of The Day, Profit Must Be Made

As a business consultant and coach, I always look to the profit trends and what is the practical near term strategy for strengthening profits.  Every  business must earn a profit to survive and grow.   There is always an opportunity to improve business performance.  It requires defining the performance targets then establishing  a disciplined process for meeting or exceeding those targets.  That process always works when the process is worked.

Sending you energy of health, happiness, prosperity

Steve Pohlit

Business Consulting, Executive Coach
Turnaround/Crisis Management
Temporary CEO, CFO, Controller Services
International Business Resources

Social Media Services
New Digital Media, Inc.

727-587-7871
Email

About: Steve Pohlit is a CPA,MBA and has been the CFO of several major domestic and international companies.  Steve is a business owner and an expert business consultant focused on building profits and net asset value. He is very experienced with Internet marketing and social media marketing.  All articles published by Steve unless specifically restricted may be freely published with this resource information.