Your business is your mission field and a tool that can be used by God in demonstrating the truth of the Gospel. Every day of the week people are influenced by you, and the way you run your business is your testimony to them — the only testimony many of them will ever witness.  The way you operate your business, how you believe in and market your product or service, how you pay your bills, how you maintain your facility, and how you treat your employees and customers are either an indictment or a wonderful demonstration of what God has done in your life.

Those who misunderstand money will misunderstand profit.  If Christians even subtly view money as evil, they cannot properly enact the biblical principles of sowing and reaping and of stewardship of resources.  Consequently, their ability to effectively operate their businesses — their mission fields — is adversely affected.

Just what is profit?  The textbook definition would define it as the difference between revenue and expenses.  But it is really more than that.  Profit is the only business goal that must be achieved.  Profit is the only thing that can reduce debt, increase working capital, and provide the ability to expand in equipment, facilities, markets or personnel.  Profit is the grease that keeps the business moving forward.  Profit insures that new capital and credit will be available.

Conversely, businesses without profit or with profit margins that are significantly smaller than competitors, are at a disadvantage in obtaining credit or attracting new capital, meeting obligations to creditors in a timely manner, properly compensating employees and in reducing debt.  These businesses are unable to grow, expand, and touch other people with their products.

One third of all new businesses fail in the first three years.  Over three quarters of businesses fail in the first ten years. Obviously, many factors go into those failures, but the bottom line is, there simply wasn’t enough profit — without it, businesses become statistics.

Follow me on Twitter.

General Attitude

• Have a tremendous need for power, control, and approval.
• Don’t feel rich and do not flaunt their wealth.
• They are frugal bargain hunters.
• Defer gratification today to create a better tomorrow.
• Have a nose for opportunity and are good at getting and processing information.
• Independent thinkers who believe in their own decision making abilities.
• Politically conservative.

Attitude Towards Money

• Highly money motivated and prefer money over material things (they believe money can buy happiness, love, acceptance, security, etc).
• Hate paying taxes.
• Favor direct ownership of assets they can control such as their own businesses or real estate.
• Aggressive growth-oriented investors and very interested in increasing their wealth (they are willing to take controlled risks).
• A small minority favor defensive investments.
• Seek to minimize their personal financial exposure in business and investment deals (example: use other people’s money to enhance their own wealth).

Top Priorities

• Business or career success.
• Financial security for their families.
• Maximizing returns from their careers and their investments.
• Providing an excellent education for their children.

Biggest Fears

• The IRS and taxes.
• Their children ending up as failures and coming back home to live with their parents.
• Losing all of their money and power (particularly strong among people who grew up in poverty).

Follow me on Twitter.

Are there further ramifications – was this theory tied to business performance? Do we operate our business 85% of the time on autopilot and 15% in critical thinking? Are we so interested in accomplishing tasks (working hard) than we are “working smart”?

Michael Gerber touched on this in his book E-Myth, about the difference between working in our business (having a job) versus working on your business (being an owner/manager). We do the things we want to do (more comfortable with), not the things we need to do (those unfamiliar/uncomfortable), he says.

Over the years I have talked with hundreds of business owners that are just getting by. They spend more time planning their vacation (critical thinking) than they do planning the future of their company. The scores of bankers I have talked with at length about business performance – most say that between 8% and 12% of business owners have any type of financial planning process (an uncomfortable task): revenue, expenses, profit or cash flow forecasts. (May consider the Harvard and Yale studies of graduates with plans/goals – the 2% who did so – made significantly more money than the rest. Its’ all about making more money for a business owner.)

The Risk Management Association (RMA) compiles thousands of financial statements from businesses every year and develops benchmarking statistics for bankers. RMA documents that out of every 100 businesses in an industry, 25 will make between 2.5 and 4 times more money (EBIDTA) than their peers. Based on what I have experienced, this 15% rule for business ownership seems to track with what Jim Zarvos says about people. People own and work in businesses.

What is your experience? Using year-end profit for 2007, 2008 and 2009 as the reference points, is history repeating itself or do you see a break out? If profit is flat or worse, what can you do to NOT repeat the past?

Jim explained there are five steps to breaking out of the mold, to achieving your dream versus living a nightmare:

1. Vision – Develop a picture in your mind that is more exciting than what you have now. What does your business look (financial criteria) like if you could take the time off you want, make the money you want and keep the people you want?

2. Belief – You have to believe that your vision is realistic. You have to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that your vision is attainable. For example if your industry consistently has a 45% gross profit margin and 7% net profit and you set those goals for your company, then that’s most likely a realistic goal. A pipe dream will fade away without belief. Put a support system in place to maintain your belief and your momentum. Jim says, “Get a coach” and it will positively impact your ability to break through and maintain forward motion. It is lonely at the top.”

3. Pay the Price – Are you really willing to pay the price to realize your vision? Many times it means great sacrifice. One of my friends started a battery distribution business in the northwest. He was married with 3 kids and after three years of eating beans and rice, he said he could finally take a decent paycheck. He was willing to pay the price to re-invest in his business until it was adequately capitalized.

4. Setting Clear Intentions – Failure is not an option. Is your road map clearly defined in writing, with mile markers, so you know every inch of the way to know you’re on the right track? Do you have monthly financial targets that help you track your progress?

5. Align Your Thinking, Begin Action – Revisit your vision daily, review your road map (at least) weekly. Take action with smart decisions and you will see dramatic improvement in the performance of your business.

Much of what I do with clients revolves around these concepts in some way. While I have always preached how critical it is to set goals and march toward them, being a sounding board, confidant, and accountability partner is just as important. If you need help in any of these areas, please give me a call at 765-644-8887 or shoot me an Email!

Your Invoices Include?

Your invoices may be the most important documents in your business; without them, you won’t be paid. Your invoices should always include the following information:

• The amount due. While this may seem obvious, it’s essential to clearly display the exact amount of the payment due. Any confusion could lead a customer to delay payment.
• The payment due date. Along with the amount of payment due, this is one of the most important elements of your invoice. Without it, you can’t count on being paid on time and have no real method to track your accounts receivable.
• The date of the invoice. This shows customers when the grace period for payment begins and gives them a general idea of when the purchase was made.
• A description of the goods or services purchased. This lets customers know what they’re paying for. Without this information, the customer might not know what the invoice is for and not return payment.
• The customer’s information. Include the customer’s address, phone number, social security or tax ID number, and any other relevant information. When a customer sends you a payment, you’ll know exactly whom it’s from.

Preparing and sending accurate invoices promptly after a sale will help speed up the process of turning your outstanding invoices into cash.

By Dan Lacy

Business Growth Advisor

www.DynastyBuilder.com

www.DanLacy.com – blog

Five Attributes Great Salespeople Have in Common

If you ask the average person to describe salespeople, you’ll hear words like pushy, manipulative, slick, self-serving, phony, and a list of other things no mother wants her child to be. For as long as most of us can remember, the sales profession has been the butt of jokes. That’s a shame when you consider that a sales career offers high income, personal freedom, and limitless opportunities.

The reason that those uncomplimentary images of salespeople persist is simple: Four of out five people employed in the sales profession should be doing something else because they are not hard-wired for sales success. To compensate for their lack of natural talent, they try to fake it. They become the classic fast-talking salespeople, and perpetuate the image, the stereotypes, and the jokes.

Inept salespeople cause most companies to experience high turnover, complacency, mediocre production, and poor attitudes among their sales teams. These problems can all be traced back to ineffective recruiting practices and processes.

Fifty-five percent of people now selling have neither the emotional nor the psychological talent to succeed, says Herb Greenberg, author of How to Hire Your Next Top Performer. Another 25 percent are miscast, selling the wrong product or service, or trying to sell a product for which they aren’t suited.

With all that the sales profession offers, it should be easy to attract, recruit, build and maintain highly productive sales teams of the best and brightest talent. So whom should we be recruiting? What does it take to succeed in selling?

They key to success is desire. Unless the candidate has an internal burning desire to succeed, nothing else matters. But in addition to craving success, great salespeople have five qualities in common: empathy, ego drive, service need, self image and utilitarian attitude.

Empathy

According to Greenberg, “Empathy is the ability to sense the reactions of other people…to pick up the subtle clues and cues provided by others in order to accurately assess what they are thinking and feeling. Empathy does not necessarily involve agreeing with the feelings of others, but it does involve knowing what their feelings are.” The salesperson that can sift through and find the true meaning of what is being communicated is able to more accurately uncover problems and present customized solutions.

Ego Drive

Don’t confuse ego drive with desire or motivation to succeed. Ego drive is an emotional need to gain self-acceptance. Persuading others to our point of view fulfills that need. Top sales-people get their “fix” or “high” when they successfully persuade a prospect. When someone buys their product or service, it becomes a validation of self. Salespeople with strong ego drive are driven to achieve, and will work hard to produce positive results.

Service Need

Salespeople who rate high in service need have a psychological drive to serve and please others. Because of their need to be liked, they develop relationships easily and create trust quickly. This makes them a natural fit for sales positions that require them to maintain ongoing relationships with buyers.

Self-Image

This individual can accept rejections and failure as part of life without emotional damage. Someone with a low self-image is paralyzed by failure and avoids experiences that may produce failure. Salespeople with a strong self-image, however, are emotionally resilient. Rather than being crushed by failure, they are motivated by it. They can’t wait for the next opportunity.

Sales is a profession of constant rejection. The ability to not internalize rejection is perhaps the most critical factor in sales success. Salespeople who have a low self-image will avoid making sales calls to prospects that may reject them.

Utilitarian Attitude

A person with a high utilitarian attitude is likely to have a great need to surpass others in wealth. He or she understands that wealth brings security for the salesperson, but also for present and future family. Salespeople with this talent have a need to obtain a significant return on their investment of time and energy. Consequently, they will jealously guard their time and energy, and avoid situations that offer low payoff or marginal profit.

While these qualities can be subjectively observable by an astute student of human behavior, they are not easily quantifiable by interviewers. To quantify and measure these characteristics, interviewers should have applicants complete a psychometric behavioral assessment prior to the interview.

Sales organizations that are ready to eliminate high turnover, mediocre selling, and complacency need to move away from the traditional warm-body approach to recruitment. Recruiters must learn to identify, attract, and retain winners effectively. Perhaps then, the public will stop making salespeople the butt of jokes.

By Dan Lacy

“The love of money is the root of all evils,” I Timothy 6:20 — is an oft quoted passage; and while most Christians would claim to understand that this principle does not mean that “money is evil,” an alarming number of Christian businessmen and women seem to run their businesses believing that it is.

Your business is your mission field and a tool that can be used by God in demonstrating the truth of the Gospel.  Every day of the week people are influenced by you, and the way you run your business is your testimony to them — the only testimony many of them will ever witness.  The way you operate your business, how you believe in and market your product or service, how you pay your bills, how you maintain your facility, and how you treat your employees and customers are either an indictment or a wonderful demonstration of what God has done in your life.

Those who misunderstand money will misunderstand profit.  If Christians even subtly view money as evil, they cannot properly enact the biblical principles of sowing and reaping and of stewardship of resources.  Consequently, their ability to effectively operate their businesses — their mission fields — is adversely affected.

Just what is profit?  The textbook definition would define it as the difference between revenue and expenses.  But it is really more than that.  Profit is the only business goal that must be achieved.  Profit is the only thing that can reduce debt, increase working capital, and provide the ability to expand in equipment, facilities, markets or personnel.  Profit is the grease that keeps the business moving forward.  Profit insures that new capital and credit will be available.

Conversely, businesses without profit or with profit margins that are significantly smaller than competitors, are at a disadvantage in obtaining credit or attracting new capital, meeting obligations to creditors in a timely manner, properly compensating employees and in reducing debt.  These businesses are unable to grow, expand, and touch other people with their products.

One third of all new businesses fail in the first three years.  Over three quarters of businesses fail in the first ten years.  Obviously, many factors go into those failures, but the bottom line is, there simply wasn’t enough profit — without it, businesses become statistics.

1. How do I go about writing a feasibility plan to determine if my idea for starting a new business could turn into a profitable business venture?
2. What kind of legal structure should I consider for my new business?
3. How do I design a plan for financing my business?
4. How can I put together budgets that will as accurately as possible measure my start-up costs?
5. How can I distinguish my business from others and increase my sales?
6. How do I put together a winning management team when I can’t pay high salaries to attract and retain a talented staff?
7. How do I find a corporate strategic partner to assist me in bringing my invention to the marketplace?
8. What kind of business insurance should I get to protect my business?
9. How can I strengthen my sales skills as well as those of my staff?
10. What skills should I develop to keep pace with the growth of my business?

1. They are willing to learn. The greatest learners become the best teachers. Never ending improvement, as the Kaizen principle insists, should be an individual’s primary goal in life. The only failure in life is the failure to participate. There is no right or wrong ways of doing things, each providing a result that can be assessed and worked on from the learning that the outcome provides. This perfectly fits in with the following success factor.

2. They take action. I have never seen anyone being successful by doing nothing. By default, doing something has to be a move forward. Doing a lot means that the law of averages will ensure that success falls your way. 95% of the population “can’t be bothered”. To jump into the 5% of the population who are successful isn’t hard. It’s just a genuine decision to do something and persevere. Successful people work on improving their time management by learning how time works and what it means to you.

3. They mix with the right people. You can mix with the right people and you can mix with wrong people. The choice is yours. You either fall into those groups or you seek them. Because successful people don’t gloat because of the Australian tall poppy syndrome, you need to do your homework and ask people about their success. They are more than willing to tell you because if they initiated the conversation, that might have been construed as gloating. Look for a business coach and/or a mentor. Surround yourself with the best accountants and lawyers.

4. They are great net workers. Successful people go out of their way and meet as many people as they can because they know that the more people they know, the more opportunities come their way. Staying in your business or at home most of the time produces little results.

5. They have a dream. These people are the greatest dreamers. They have strong beliefs that one day they will achieve what seems impossible to most. The law of attraction means that you shall receive what you crave for if the craving feeds itself with all the other attributes of success.

6. They don’t allow dream takers interfere with their dreams. The most dangerous people in your life can also be the people you hold most dear to yourself. These can be some family members, friends, neighbors and business colleagues. Respect the opinions of those who are successful in their own right. Otherwise, you will receive pretty much the same as what those dream takers are experiencing. Most of all, respect your own intuition. Most of the time, it’s the right decision for you anyway. Remember, why engage in other people’s situations when yours is different. You have different expectations, experiences, financial and personal needs. Why live it through other people’s lives? It is one thing to have a dream, but to stick to it is the most important part of achieving the dream. It is said that the journey is far more exciting than the final achievement, so, choose to have an exciting life.

7. They have integrity. Have you seen people having a go and temporarily have a hiccup? Well, you can lose everything and rebound twice as fast if you maintain your integrity. Once you lose your integrity, it’s over. Practice the integrity that you wish other people to treat you with. Set an example rather than stoop to the behavior and reactions that you are not impressed with.

8. They are great communicators. The best tool to master is to have great communication skills. Honest, straight forward communication totally outweighs fancy use of the language which also can have another name for it. Study personality profiles and the way people process information and the results of improved communication will reap you many rewards over and over with a win/win outcome in most cases.

9. They are willing to share their knowledge. The best way to remember the best parts of your success are to verbalize them or write them down. Share it with those who ask.

10. They have a balanced life. Working too hard in any one area creates imbalance. Work out what you like the most and bring them into your life as you go. There are many tools available to assess the “perfect you”.

The book is quick to differentiate between what most people consider “wealth” and what the authors believe constitutes “true” wealth and affluence. In their minds, wealth has little to do with an individual’s level of income. Rather, it is determined by a combination of that person’s age and net worth. They refer to this as an expected level of wealth. The “wealthy” threshold begins with individuals whose net worth is $1 million or more; in 1996, this excluded all but 3.5% of America’s 100 million households.

According to the research, the truly affluent in America have seven standout characteristics common to all of them. Each factor played an integral part in the means by which these people achieved their enviable financial positions.

They live well below their means.

Contrary to popular belief, frugality is the foundation of wealth. Mundane consumption habits that are void of luxury-car purchases and fabulous yachting sprees may not impress the neighbors or the media, but then, impressing the public isn’t the goal of most first-generation millionaires. Financial independence is.

They allocate their time, energy, and money efficiently, in ways conducive to building wealth.

The wealthy know how to budget their money, and they know how to budget their time. They anticipate and plan their incomes and expenses — often as much as a year in advance. They spend significant time researching their investments. They spend time examining ways to increase their unrealized income; i.e., tax-advantaged investment accounts. They do not spend much time researching the purchase of their next luxury automobile.

They believe that financial independence is more important than displaying high social status.

The wealthy understand that conspicuous consumption and high levels of “domestic overhead” will likely impress Joe and Jane America, but these status expenses carry a highly negative correlation with one’s true net worth. The wealthy aren’t interested in status vehicles or other showy products. After all, it is much easier to appear wealthy than it is to be wealthy.
Their parents did not provide economic outpatient care.
Statistics demonstrate that the more financial assistance an adult child of affluent parents receives, the less likely it is that that adult child will become wealthy. Generally speaking, the more dollars adult children receive, the fewer they will accumulate. These gifts − whether for down payments or for a grandchild’s private-school education − will, more often than not, simply generate higher levels of consumption. After all, it’s much easier to spend someone else’s money than your own.

Their adult children are economically self-sufficient.

“The role of enlightened parents,” the authors write, “is to strengthen the weak.” They found that cash gifts from affluent parents to their adult children serve dual outcomes: They act to increase the children’s dependence upon the parents for continuing financial support, and they continuously deplete the parents’ financial position.

They are proficient in targeting market opportunities.

Finding specific niches and exploiting them is often the key to generating an above-average income. In a nation geared toward turbocharged levels of consumption, market opportunities are created constantly for those willing to supply new products or ideas.

They chose the right occupation.

Profitable industries abound. But just because a business is profitable doesn’t mean its owners and employees will become wealthy and affluent. Wealth is generated through talent, desire, and discipline. One millionaire, when asked why he thought there are four times as many millionaire entrepreneurs as there are millionaire employees, stated it this way:
There are more people [employees] today working at jobs that they don’t like. I’ll tell you honestly that the successful man is a guy who works at a job, who likes his work, who can’t wait to get up in the morning to get down to the office, and that’s my criteria. And I’ve always been that way. I can’t wait to get up and get down to the office and get my job underway.

Five Attributes Great Salespeople Have in Common

If you ask the average person to describe salespeople, you’ll hear words like pushy, manipulative, slick, self-serving, phony, and a list of other things no mother wants her child to be. For as long as most of us can remember, the sales profession has been the butt of jokes. That’s a shame when you consider that a sales career offers high income, personal freedom, and limitless opportunities.

The reason that those uncomplimentary images of salespeople persist is simple: Four of out five people employed in the sales profession should be doing something else because they are not hard-wired for sales success. To compensate for their lack of natural talent, they try to fake it. They become the classic fast-talking salespeople, and perpetuate the image, the stereotypes, and the jokes.

Inept salespeople cause most companies to experience high turnover, complacency, mediocre production, and poor attitudes among their sales teams. These problems can all be traced back to ineffective recruiting practices and processes.

Fifty-five percent of people now selling have neither the emotional nor the psychological talent to succeed, says Herb Greenberg, author of How to Hire Your Next Top Performer. Another 25 percent are miscast, selling the wrong product or service, or trying to sell a product for which they aren’t suited.

With all that the sales profession offers, it should be easy to attract, recruit, build and maintain highly productive sales teams of the best and brightest talent. So whom should we be recruiting? What does it take to succeed in selling?

They key to success is desire. Unless the candidate has an internal burning desire to succeed, nothing else matters. But in addition to craving success, great salespeople have five qualities in common: empathy, ego drive, service need, self image and utilitarian attitude.

Empathy

According to Greenberg, “Empathy is the ability to sense the reactions of other people…to pick up the subtle clues and cues provided by others in order to accurately assess what they are thinking and feeling. Empathy does not necessarily involve agreeing with the feelings of others, but it does involve knowing what their feelings are.” The salesperson that can sift through and find the true meaning of what is being communicated is able to more accurately uncover problems and present customized solutions.

Ego Drive

Don’t confuse ego drive with desire or motivation to succeed. Ego drive is an emotional need to gain self-acceptance. Persuading others to our point of view fulfills that need. Top sales-people get their “fix” or “high” when they successfully persuade a prospect. When someone buys their product or service, it becomes a validation of self. Salespeople with strong ego drive are driven to achieve, and will work hard to produce positive results.

Service Need

Salespeople who rate high in service need have a psychological drive to serve and please others. Because of their need to be liked, they develop relationships easily and create trust quickly. This makes them a natural fit for sales positions that require them to maintain ongoing relationships with buyers.

Self-Image

This individual can accept rejections and failure as part of life without emotional damage. Someone with a low self-image is paralyzed by failure and avoids experiences that may produce failure. Salespeople with a strong self-image, however, are emotionally resilient. Rather than being crushed by failure, they are motivated by it. They can’t wait for the next opportunity.

Sales is a profession of constant rejection. The ability to not internalize rejection is perhaps the most critical factor in sales success. Salespeople who have a low self-image will avoid making sales calls to prospects that may reject them.

Utilitarian Attitude

A person with a high utilitarian attitude is likely to have a great need to surpass others in wealth. He or she understands that wealth brings security for the salesperson, but also for present and future family. Salespeople with this talent have a need to obtain a significant return on their investment of time and energy. Consequently, they will jealously guard their time and energy, and avoid situations that offer low payoff or marginal profit.

While these qualities can be subjectively observable by an astute student of human behavior, they are not easily quantifiable by interviewers. To quantify and measure these characteristics, interviewers should have applicants complete a psychometric behavioral assessment prior to the interview.

Sales organizations that are ready to eliminate high turnover, mediocre selling, and complacency need to move away from the traditional warm-body approach to recruitment. Recruiters must learn to identify, attract, and retain winners effectively. Perhaps then, the public will stop making salespeople the butt of jokes.