With the economy on the mend, a lot of people in the material handling industry are expecting good times without having to make any changes in the way they do business. Unfortunately, that means the continuation of one particular practice that played a major role in getting the economy in trouble a few years back.

When the “dot.coms” were flying high, they experienced rapid growth by the simple method of offering impossibly low prices and constant expansion into markets about which they knew nothing. They operated at a loss for years on end, promising investors that it would all turn around when they had achieved sufficient market share. Eventually, of course, this “lose a little on each deal but make it up in volume” business model blew up in their faces. The balloons popped, one by one, and the economy followed them down the tube.

In the material handling industry, this discredited business model is still very much in evidence. Too many companies have played the merger game, getting themselves involved in markets that they know nothing about. Too many have played the numbers game, moving money from one pocket to another to make themselves look good for one more quarter (this is called managing for stockholder value), totally forgetting about long-range planning.

Worst of all, too many companies have bought into the concept of forgoing profits in pursuit of market share, with the idea of becoming profitable once the competition is eliminated. It’s called “buying a job,” meaning submitting a bid that allows for little or no profit. Theoretically, this has two benefits. It gets you the job, which makes your sales figures (if not your profits) look impressive. More importantly, for some people, it prevents your competition from getting the job.

But let’s look at the downside. Without profits, you have no money to invest in research and development, capital expenditures, etc. Your growth is all on paper, and will disappear as soon as you run out of money to buy jobs with.

With minimal profit margins, you have neither the money nor the inclination to service the sale after it is made. The result is an unhappy customer, and that is never good news for the long term prospects of your company.

Finally, let’s say that your strategy of underbidding the competition works, and your nearest competitor goes bankrupt. What happens? Somebody buys his assets for 25 cents on the dollar and opens a new business. Since his initial investment was so low, he can undercut your prices. You haven’t eliminated competition, you’ve made it worse.

Profit is not a dirty word. Nobody — least of all the customer — benefits when profit is eliminated from the economic equation. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be looking for efficiencies that will allow us to keep prices down while maintaining a reasonable profit margin. Of course the customer benefits from lower prices, but the economy in general and the material handling industry in particular will be much healthier when we all admit to wanting our fair share. If you’re satisfied with a 3% profit, I suggest you buy a government bond. It’s safer.

Profit Shouldn’t Be a Dirty Word in Material Handling is a post from: egodrivendevelopment.com

Angel assets are an up-and-coming part of the financial order, similar in significance to venture capital in the Seventies, according to experts in the field. Angel groups are starting to be viewed with importance by the present financial companies.

An important angel investor group is the Band of Angels, a formal assemblage of 100 current and former high-tech executives who put in their time and money into fresh, progressive startup companies. Band members have established reputed companies like Symantec, Logitech, and National Semiconductor.

Angels are characteristically high-net-worth persons or “cashed out” entrepreneurs who are involved in nurturing other entrepreneurs and are vigorously associated with the ventures they support, both pre-funding and post-funding. Recently, a growing number of angels have come together to develop angel groups, with a view toward putting together capital and investment proficiency. There are an estimated 200 such angel investor organizations in the United States.

Angel investor groups have emerged as important participants in offering equity capital to early-stage ventures. Angels have developed from investing as individuals and at times fashioning informal groups for particular investments, to forming official groups with vigorous venture-capital-like procedures.

With the venture capital society becoming more complicated, angel investor groups have also changed according to the needs of the new situation. A majority of present day angel investors are highly enlightened about investments, due to the presence of experienced angel groups who have common performances.

Any individual angel investor can obtain an immense advantage from the group’s expertise if he decides to become a part of a considerate group of angel investors.

Angel Investor Groups is a post from: egodrivendevelopment.com

A call to customer service can be an infuriating ending to a frustrating experience. You’re upset and looking for empathy, but all you encounter is disappointment. Could Company X have done something differently? Probably, but if you follow these tips when dealing with customer service, you’ll be in the driver’s seat for the next dispute.

1. Be prepared.

Seems basic, right? Unless you’ve called Company X several times, you’re probably not familiar with their required information. Have every tracking number, account number, itemized statement, and order number before you call. Customer service representatives are held responsible for torturous call-handling metrics designed by masochistic management. Length of call, resolution (if the customer calls back to the company within an allocated amount of time), and randomly monitored calls are measured stringently. Bottom line: they want to help you quickly and completely, lest a superior crack a whip.

2. Be nice.

Customer service representatives speak with upset, irritated, and/or irate people all day. Every day. You may not agree with a credit denial, but screaming “the customer is always right, (expletive)!” will not help. Be pleasant and the rules may be malleable. Be another unpleasant customer and the guidelines will be set in stone.

3. Know when to call, know when to write.

If you need to request a price quote, add/remove a feature, or ask for explanation of a bill, e-mail is the most efficient route for your correspondence. For repair concerns or credit requests, call customer service. Repair specialists will need to troubleshoot and get access information should a technician need to be dispatched. Credit requests can be handled via e-mail, however, it is easier to reply with a “credit denied” form letter than to deny credit to a real, live person.

4. Get on record.

If something is not working properly, call the company immediately. If there is a cable, satellite, or phone outage, Company X will only be able to diagnose and correct the problem if they are notified a problem exists. This also establishes a record of communication should you need to request a credit or refund at a later date.

5. Be persistent, but not obnoxious.

Many companies have guidelines for dispensing credit that require denial the first time for any request that is not a previously-reported “out of service” issue or a known billing error. The second time a credit request is made, these guidelines can be relaxed. If you have followed the “be nice” tip above, you may be rewarded with your credit request.

Following these five tips will help you get what you want in the most efficient manner possible. Stay tuned for the next installment to find out how you can aggravate the customer service experience and actually delay resolution!

Battling with Customer Service: How to Win the War, Part 1 of 2 is a post from: egodrivendevelopment.com

If you feel stuck, here are 6 great ways to find your ideal career:

1. Brainstorm on a sheet of paper – I’ve talked about this before and it’s a strategy I use all the time. Take a pad of paper and write down at the top your objective in question form. Then, simply list out 20 answers to your question. For example, you could write “What should I be doing with my time and life?” Then stay seated for a half hour to an hour coming up with answers to that question. The key to this exercise is coming up with 20 answers – don’t quit until you have 20 answers. You can repeat every day until you get the answer you seek.

2. Ask 3 close friends – Sometimes our friends know us better than ourselves. While meeting with one of your friends, mention you are at a crossroads in your life and career. Ask what they think you’d enjoy doing. You might be surprised at how easily they can zero in to your strengths and abilities and report a perfect job area.

3. Ask your boss and coworkers – much like your friends in the example above, your boss and coworkers most likely see you in a way you do not see yourself. In fact, they are likely most familiar with your strengths and weaknesses in the work environment. Compile all the answers you get from them and see if there are any common threads you can explore.

4. Call a headhunter – If you are searching in your career, it’s likely you have a resume. Sometimes you can catch a headhunter or recruiter during their slow times and meet with them to pick through what you might be good at. I’ve done this at different times in my life and the people seem open to talking with people. After all, if you don’t get paid, they don’t either. The ideas I get are usually good.

5. Take a career assessment test – There are several sites on the Internet you might be able to take one of these tests for a fee. But using my ‘headhunter’ tip above, many headhunters have this software and don’t mind you taking the test in their office. I’ve taken these tests two times in my life and they usually take an hour or two, but they are thorough. They ask you to answer a series of questions about what you are good at, what you like to do, what you prefer doing over what you don’t. If you take one, you will likely see some new exciting areas to explore in your life.

6. Keep a journal – Do you keep a journal? If so, read through, looking for common threads in your writing. Keep your eyes peeled for trends and activities you like as well as don’t like. In fact, finding examples of what you don’t like and what frustrates you is almost as important as finding what you do like. For example, if you hate an overwhelming boss, you’d probably like a self-directed position. If you hate nosy coworkers you’d probably prefer your own office.

Discovering what you really want to do with your life is the most important decision you can make. We spend 1/3 or more of our lives at work. So figuring out the right career is important to keeping that 1/3 of our lives happy and productive.

6 Ways to Pinpoint Your Perfect Career is a post from: egodrivendevelopment.com

2. Classified Ads: These are great for work from home businesses. Think about it. Where do people go when they are looking for a job? That’s right-the classifieds. The only downside to classified ads is that you have to resubmit them quite frequently. Once you find which classifieds bring you the most traffic you can concentrate on them and weed the others out. So it is really more time consuming in the beginning, and doesn’t have to be later on when you get the hang of things.

3. Free article submissions/ezines: The best way to inform others about your product or service is to write an article about it. In your authors resource box, you can tell readers about yourself and where they can go to check out your product or service. This is also an excellent way to get free links to your site if you have one. There are a lot of webmasters out there who are looking for good articles they can post on their site. If they post yours, that is another site that is doing the advertising for you. All for free.

4. URL Submissions: Probably the quickest and easiest thing to do to advertise your site. Just type “Free URL submission” in your search engine. When you get a list just enter the URL you are promoting and click submit. That’s it. It only takes a few seconds and your done. Just set a day aside once every 3 months and do this.

5. Forum Posts: Put your product or service website in your signature file when you sign up on some forums. It will be displayed every time you make a post. Try to look for topics that you have some knowledge on, and can give a relevant answer too. Do not spam anyone, you will get kicked off the forum and you will get a bad reputation. Get involved asking and answering questions that pertain to your area of business. Forums are great because once you make a post it stays there forever. It will get moved to the archives eventually, but someone could still find it if they were searching the archives. Yes, there are many people who do.

6. Traffic Exchanges: Probably the most time consuming way to advertise for free, but definately the most effective. Most forums I have visited have said in many posts that they received a lot of their profit from traffic exchanges. If you don’t want to spend the time surfing for credits, you do have the option of buying them. I would look into a program that lets you surf multiple websites at once like crazy browser. There are others and they are free to download. That way you can just spend one hour a day and get all your surfing in at once.

7. News-groups: Become involved in a group that has to do with your kind of business. You can usually mail the group once per day, but I would encourage you to find something fresh to talk about each day. People will tune you out if they see the same message all the time. Remember to never Spam anyone. Only join groups with the same interests as yours. In other words, don’t sign up for a recipe swapping group when you are advertising shaving cream.

7 Ways To Advertise Your Business For Free is a post from: egodrivendevelopment.com

Proper orientation determines how fast the new employee can be productive and efficient in his or her new job while giving you a good opportunity to make your new employee an efficient part of your team.

Below are 15 suggestions that will help you deal with your new employees during their first few weeks to help make sure that they get started on the right track.

1. Have a induction policy for welcoming and training new employees. Don’t just leave it to whoever is available. Human resources should cover the HR side of the induction with a trainer (if you have one) or a senior manager or supervisor covering the more hands on part of the job. Either way the following is a minimum of what is required.

2. Give your employee a warm welcome. Don’t just point them to the area they work and let them get on with it. Nothing makes a new employee feel comfortable more than a warm welcome.

3. Give them a brief description about your role as a supervisor. Knowing who’s in charge and what you expect from them will make them more comfortable with you as the boss.

4. Give your new employee a welcome tour of the whole department or, if the site isn’t too big, the whole site. Make sure they know how to get to the bathroom, emergency exits, cafeteria, etc.

5. Give them a brief summary about the company, its history as well as its mission and objectives.

6. If possible demonstrate your company’s products and/or services, paying particular attention to the products relating to the area in which the employee will work. This will make them more secure and confident with the work that they are going to be doing.

7. Explain to your new employee how the company works particularly if the company has any unusual working practices or a different structure than the norm. Again, this will help familiarize them with the company.

8. Tell your new employee about the company’s competitors and what is being done to make sure that the company is staying ahead of the competition.

9. Explain in detail your new employee’s responsibilities and describe their job functions. Don’t leave it to the other employees to teach them the basics unless there is a trained member of staff whose job it is.

10. Let your new employee be aware of what you and the company expect from them. This includes proper work ethics, productivity, teamwork, and appearance.

11. Explain the specific conditions and requirements of employment, including hours, pay, pay periods, holiday pay, sickness provisions, pension, medical benefits, lateness etc.

12. Be very clear about the safety rules, policies, procedures and regulations. Explain and show proper use of safety devices.

13.Introduce your new employee to his or her co workers along with a brief description of their jobs and responsibilities.

14. Outline opportunities for promotions and other opportunities.

15. To give them time to acclimatize give them a work buddy, a friendly experienced worker, to show them the job and work with them for the first week of two.

Covering all of these basics will help new employees settle in and they will be more efficient able to be contribute much more quickly compared to employees that are just left to their own devices.

15 Steps On How To Welcome Your New Employees is a post from: egodrivendevelopment.com

The problem is, most Translation service companies will charge you pretty huge dollars for a high quality article. Of course it is very annoying for you to pay pretty huge dollars just to the translation company just to translate a full article. That’s why you need to find affordable yet high quality translation service on the internet that is ready to give you 24/7 service every time you need it.

Translia.com is what I’m talking about. They have several professional translators that are able to translate many languages around the world in affordable price. Their quality is very qualified and they can give you guaranteed satisfaction. You can give it a shot by visiting their website at translia.com and upload the file you want to translate and the translator will reply you immediately with the high quality result.

Online Translation is a post from: egodrivendevelopment.com

Trying to shorten the sales cycle, I asked naively, “Why does the customer want to buy? What are they trying to accomplish?” Rick couldn’t tell me. I asked if he thought the salespeople knew. He said no. I gave him an assignment: he had to find out “Why,” “Why now,” and “What’s it worth.” Otherwise no demo.

In other words, no compelling reason to buy…No demo.

So Rick took a risk, and is rapidly moving to a fully-paid trial implementation.

Sure, long-term objectives and plans still matter, but I’ve been getting more and more inquiries focused on “what to do now.” Entrepreneurs and executives alike are demanding help on how to improve revenues and profits right away.

How do you make the quickest difference? Focus the bulk of your energy on revenue generation. In other words, sales! And don’t do it the same old way either, because — as you may have noticed — it isn’t working that well.

Here are five ways for your sales force to bring in more business in short order. There are no magic bullets, but just last week I taught one of these techniques to a client (#2) and he used it to close a deal the following day! Use one or use them all. Each technique will have its own effect, and each will multiply the power of the others.

1. Sell return on investment, and sell it to the CFO.

Sales people are complaining that while the pipeline may be full, the deals are taking too long to close. Perhaps that’s why the pipe is so full! What are the reasons for this? Companies have money, and in many cases they have needs. But many people are so scared THEIR customers aren’t going to buy THEIR wares, they are loath to spend any money themselves. The result? They are only willing to spend money when they absolutely see near-term financial payback, and the CFO is killing many deals.

The solution? Sell the return on investment. Sell the payback. And sell it to the CFO. Arm your salespeople with two things: A series of case studies that document the returns from using your product, and a well-defined ROI process worksheet. Work with the CFO to build the ROI case so that he or she owns it. This is the only way they come to believe it. Make it their idea and instead of killing your deal, they will help you close it.

2. Forget USP. Determine your Usage Cases

Instead of focusing on why your product is the latest and greatest, clarify the ways in which potential customers will use your product to solve specific problems and produce tangible results. Then, instead of touting the “benefits” of your product–which often fall on deaf ears, anyway–engage your prospects in conversations about what costly and quantifiable problems they now have, and how they might use your product or service to alleviate those.

And, as sales guru Mike Bosworth says, don’t tell them your offering IS the solution. You’re a sales “guy” and they won’t believe you. Instead, ask them if your possible solution might help them. If they believe it does, they have accepted your solution as truth. Then get them to tell you, in real dollar terms, what fixing that problem is worth.

3. Increase Sales Training. Use the 10% solution.

But don’t expect any one salesperson–even your superstars–to be 100% at every part of your sales process. They almost never are. But there is a way you can raise the level of every person in your sales organization—immediately.

Use this process adopted from W. Edwards Demming’s principle of optimization. Break your sales process into as many discrete–but meaningful–steps as you can.. Cold calling. Letter writing. Setting appointments. Identifying pain. Writing proposals. Presenting. And so on. Find out who in your organization excels at each step, and have those reps explain their methods and mindset to the rest of your sales force. Do all the steps at once in a marathon session, or one step at a time. Either way, the results will be amazing.

4. Use the 80/20 Rule. And get rid of the bottom 20.

There’s no room in today’s world for mediocre producers. Hold each member of your team accountable for reaching two kinds of performance benchmarks: results measurements, which include not only revenue, but perhaps new accounts and repeat business, and action measurements, which might include prospecting calls, appointments, and new contacts.

Not every sales person will be a superstar, but every one should pay their own way–and then some. Salespeople who aren’t producing not only cost you money, they drag down the performance of your whole organization. You may not pay them very much, but why pay them anything? I suggest you do both yourself and them a favor, and let them go. Don’t worry about having an empty desk: that warm chair was an expense your company doesn’t need.

If you feel it isn’t fair to “dump” them, or if your sales cycle is too long to measure short-term revenue results, give the problem reps a 30-day plan to increase their level of activity in specific ways. That’s long enough to see an improvement if there’s going to be one.

5. Track your results and work harder

Most entrepreneurial sales organizations fail to analyze their efforts. They have no idea how much effort–or money–it takes to create a new customer. The only indication they have of whether salespeople are “doing enough” is based on the revenue numbers. The answer? Track both activity and results, and use the statistics your garner to quickly raise performance. Break your sales process into a series of meaningful steps, counting each time a rep completes one. Calculate averages and set a benchmark. And while you’re at it, analyze the percentage of deals that close whenever you complete that step. That knowledge can dramatically improve your sales forecasts.

Once you establish benchmarks–this one’s a no-brainer–RAISE THE BAR. Yes, that’s right, because the fact is, revenue isn’t coming in fast enough. Do everything discussed above to improve your sales effectiveness–then do more of it. Just working smarter isn’t going to cut it. You’re going to have to work harder as well. And anyone who doesn’t want to? See number 4 above.

I’ve developed a unique Sales Audit Process based on the work of W. Edwards Demming. This program is guaranteed to produce an immediate 10-25% improvement in your company’s sales, or more. If you’d like to find out more about how you can increase sales right away, call me at 858-951-3055, or visit http://www.paullemberg.com/contact.html and send an email with details about your company’s sales situation.

5 Ways To Beef Up Sales…Immediately is a post from: egodrivendevelopment.com

Restaurant owners, perhaps more than any other business owners, rely on their equipment to ensure that they will be open for business each and every day. Because most kitchens are limited in space, there is usually only room for one piece of each major type of equipment. If an ice machine or oven goes down, it can cause problems that will affect the entire operation. Restaurant equipment is made to endure the ravages of everyday use, but will eventually break down often enough that it will need to be replaced. While replacing a piece of equipment in and of itself seems simple enough, like most things in the restaurant business, it isn’t. Restaurant owners often rely on their equipment dealer to determine whether a new piece of equipment will meet the growing needs of the establishment. They may also rely on the equipment dealer’s product knowledge to determine what will and won’t work in their particular setup. With most large scale restaurant equipment costing thousands of dollars, considerations of this nature are rarely left to chance.

A good equipment supplier not only carries a wide selection of products for the restaurant industry, but can also provide information on how those products can be used to streamline kitchen areas for maximum efficiency. Restaurant owners have long known that while anyone can sell equipment, only the best equipment dealers are able to sell the right equipment that will help restaurateurs by adequately addressing their individual needs. Finding a resource for information along with a competent and reliable supplier of equipment is never an easy thing to do. Most restaurant owners who establish a good working relationship with a credible equipment supplier will maintain that relationship throughout the life of the business.

Finding the Right Equipment Supplier Paramount to Success in the Restaurant Industry is a post from: egodrivendevelopment.com

Facebook is a social networking utility that connects people together based on networks. Networks can be based on a wide variety of things and based on the information you provide in your user profile when you sign up for Facebook, you can connect to a wide variety of networks and meet a number of people that are similar to you. Many people have used Facebook in order to meet a lot of great people and if you are interested in using the internet to meet people then Facebook might be the website you’re looking for.

Considering the small bit of history mentioned in the preceding paragraph, it should come as no surprise that the founder of Facebook was a student at Harvard University. A man by the name of Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook and ran it for a very long time as a hobby project during his time at University.

There are many different ways that a person can get security but the one that has specifically been created to meet the demand for security is what is known as a Facebook proxy.

Now that facebook has become so popular, two of the three initial creators have dropped out of university and dedicated themselves full time to improving and maintaining Face book layouts and all of its facilities. Today the Facebook website is used by people from thousands of University campuses across the English speaking world and is also enjoyed by a number of different companies and religious groups as well.

In terms of total users,
Facebook has approximately 18,000,000. This number places it amongst the top social networking websites in the world; not bad for a website that was started as a hobby project by a Harvard student. This 18,000,000 number is reputed to contain multiple accounts; in other words there is an assertion out there that there are not actually 18,000,000 people using the Facebook service but that many people have more than one account on it.

To end on a high note in this game of statistics, here is something that you might find very shocking. According to web traffic numbers and taking into account the 30 billion page views Facebook gets on a monthly basis, it is now the 7th most visited site within the United States.

Facebook info is a post from: egodrivendevelopment.com