3D Consolidated Financial Services

09/23/2017

The most-looked up words in the Merriam-Webster's dictionary give us a peek into the most confusing words in the English language.

01/01/2014

Happy New Year! May this year bring you success and prosperity!

07/25/2012

True leadership…

Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs was legendary for obsessing over details as he micromanaged Apple to greatness. But attention to that level of detail is not the way to go for most mortal managers, says J. Keith Murnighan, a professor at the Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. He thinks most managers would be better doing nothing.
Of course, Murnighan is not really advising managers to literally do nothing. But in his new book, "Do Nothing!: How to Stop Overmanaging and Become a Great Leader" (Portfolio Hardcover, 2012), the professor of management and organizations at Kellogg suggests that the most successful leaders delegate virtually all the regular work to their staff.
That approach, he says, will free up their own time so they can facilitate and orchestrate everyone else's performance. The net-net, as they say in management speak, is that it will not only improve morale, but it will also result in a better product and a less stressful life for the leader.
[25 Great Leadership Quotes]
For most hard-charging leaders, though, disengagement itself is fraught with challenges, Murnighan says.
"Doing nothing is not easy for people who like their work and are driven to succeed," Murnighan says.
Part of the problem is that people get promoted for being good at what they've been doing, not necessarily because they have shown signs of being good managers. They need to learn how to let go.
"Successful leaders must shift gears and, literally, do less of what they used to do, even though they were good at it," Murnighan writes in his book.
The rub, he says, is that they feel so comfortable using their old, established skills that they often have a hard time changing.
But doing nothing creates all sorts of benefits, Murnighan says. It results in a more satisfied workforce, a better end product, lower turnover, more time for planning and more relaxed managers.
"People on your team will reveal skills that you never knew they had, and they will accomplish things that go far beyond your estimate of their capabilities," he writes.
Reach BusinessNewsDaily senior writer Ned Smith at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter .We're also on Facebook & Google+.

Read more: http://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com/legal-hr/2012/07/06/surprising-quality-that-makes-great-boss/?intcmp=obnetwork

07/18/2012

True Sales…

How to Turn a Relationship Into a Sale
by Keith Ferrazzi | 9:05 AM July 11, 2012
Comments (44)


Sales teams that focus on relationships quickly learn the value of providing personal and professional value to clients rather than focusing solely on the sale.

The impact of relationship building with your customers may surprise you. Ferrazzi Greenlight's study of 16 Global Account Teams (PDF) showed that these strategic, relationship-focused teams grew their accounts at least twice as fast as regular transactionally-focused account teams. This happened despite the fact that the relationship-focused teams worked on the company's largest, most mature accounts — the most difficult to expand rapidly because they were already so large.

Why? People do business with people they know and like. And people like people who focus on their success. That means a sales call is a success if it advances your customers' cause and builds the relationship, not just if it closes a transaction.

This won't be news to most salespeople, who excel at building relationships. What can be hard for many sales people is turning the ongoing conversation of a relationship into a transaction.

The good news is that transactions often happen as a matter of course when sales teams focus on building great relationships with generosity.

Generosity Without Expectations of Tit for Tat

One of the things I advise salespeople to do is to be prepared with five packets of generosity and no expectations. Do the homework required to go into each meeting with a list of five ways to make the person you're meeting successful. That's what's going to arrest people's attention and make them willing to develop a closer relationship with you.

What kind of homework? I'm not talking about the usual research on the company and its need for what you're selling. Research the person! You're looking for personal reasons to care. Find a way to introduce something that leverages your shared interests. Failing that, fall back to some deeply-held personal interests of your own. Talking about them will make you human, not just a sales person pushing a service or a widget.

The direct result of focusing so intently on generosity, or even of a single email ping to renew a relationship, is to advance the relationship. But think of it as good sales karma for which you may be rewarded.

Recently, as part of coaching a sales team at a major consulting firm, I gave them several relationship-building missions beginning with a generous remembrance on email. The results were telling. Your mileage may vary, but in this case:

One CIO called back immediately, and a week later initiated a dialog about the consulting firm's services.
A senior VP of a global 500 food manufacturer returned the personal message and followed within a week with a request for proposal on Value Chain Transformation.
Another partner was rewarded by being invited to keynote at a conference for a major retailer's top executives.
One managing partner credited the outreach with producing a 750k deal.
Imagine the power of offering five packets of generosity. Mind you, they're not all personal. At least one should be purely professional, even if not related in any way to what you're trying to sell. For example, find out what the analysts say the company's goals or "big bets" are and what they have to achieve, and find a way to help the individual serve that cause. Maybe they're breaking into eTail, and you can introduce a well-known eTail guru.

I've always said that one or two of your generous offerings can and should be transactional in nature. "I'm going to send you our really informative new collateral to help sell our solution internally."

Become a Trusted Advisor.

Essentially, the key is to stay focused on your customer's success. David Skok, a Partner at the venture capitalist firm Matrix Partners, advises his portfolio companies to focus on adding insights and value related to a prospect's business "until they start asking questions about how you can help them with that business." Wisely, David advises retaining the trust you've developed by recommending your product only when it's a great fit for their situation.

The bottom line is that you have to believe in "the ask." It will be difficult to feel good if you're selling snake oil. But if you believe the ask is generous, with low barrier to entry but huge opportunities for return, the ask becomes just another piece of generosity.

And Yet, the Path from Relationship to Transaction Can Be Hard.

After so much authentic concern for the success of your customer, sales people can hesitate, reluctant to appear to be capitalizing on the relationship and somehow tarnish it. But if you have truly built a great relationship, you can be exploratory about it. During a lull in the conversation, just ask: "You know what I do. How can I be of service to you?" The open endedness of that question will let you see if the ripeness is there for the transaction. If they reply "Tell me a little bit more," they've opened up the whole dialog about your products. Leaving it open ended gives the client the opportunity to shape the discussion so that they'll never feel pushed. And your relationship earns you the time to go deep, which can be required to differentiate today's complex solutions.

The transition can even be abrupt. A banker in London whom I met with the other day had five kids, and I was so intrigued about how an affluent individual sets the right tone in raising kids that I asked too many questions about it. "I'm being self-indulgent, and I apologize. I know we only have 30 minutes, and I want to make sure we had some time to talk about your needs as it relates to our services." It was an abrupt apology and shift to make sure we spent some time on why I came and why the banker had originally signed up for the meeting.

Moving from relationship building to selling boils down to asking two questions:

1. Have I been truly generous to this individual, and earned enough trust that they're ready to listen to my "ask"?

2. Do I 100% believe in the value of the solution I'm offering? If the answer to those two questions is yes, you'll often find a transaction further deepens your relationship with your customer.

Business cost management, cost avoidance, funding, and working capital services.

06/05/2012

Cash flow: Understanding cash flow
If you're opening your own shop, no doubt you plan to make a profit. But how will cash flow toward your till? In a steady stream, or in floods followed by trickles?

Knowing how to do a cash flow analysis is an essential skill for every business owner; it can be the difference between being able to open a business and being able to stay in business.

Cash flow analysis provides a means for you to conduct a periodic check on your company's financial health. A projected cash flow statement estimates what the stream of money will be in coming months or years, based on a history of sales and expenses. A monthly cash flow statement reveals the current state of affairs.


A cash flow budget is your core tool for maintaining control of company finances. For example, you can show profits in a company, but still be short on cash if a customer is late on payments. While you can usually cut costs, you can't always generate income or sales. You need to know where the money is, where it's going and how to get more when you need it.

Click link or copy address to browser for more:

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/biz/green/19991129a.asp

A worksheet for helping small business owners calculate their cash flow.

05/30/2012

Small Business News: Cash Flow Tips and Basics

By Small Business NewsMarch 4, 2011In Small Business News Comments

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The key to small business success has always been cash flow. With enough cash flow a small business can expand on its own with less need for credit or outside investment. Good cash flow gives small business owners and entrepreneurs the luxury of controlling the best use of their resources. It also lets them know when it is time to grow or to alter their business model meeting new demand or bringing in new customers. A challenging economy has made attention to cash flow even more critical. Here’s a look at the landscape and how small business owners can and should respond.

Trends

Cash flow is the key. If there is any legacy left behind for small business to really deal with after the recent economic recession, it is probably not just the credit crunch. If anything, according to this recent article on small business issues emerging from the recession, it is cash flow trouble, with suppliers demanding payment more quickly and customers holding back payments as long as possible, that remains the key challenge. How are you responding? Bloomberg Businessweek

Don’t make a move without boosting your bottom line. One way to respond to interruptions in your cash flow is to alter your business model, perhaps with new products or services that will boost revenue coming in your door. A few words of caution from CFO Ken Kaufman, however. Make sure any “pivot” your business makes results in more cash flow. It’s a simple but important principal while trying to remain in the driver’s seat in your business. CFO Wise

Improving your existing cash flow with tough changes. Of course, expanding or altering your business model isn’t the only way to boost cash flow. A disciplined look at your existing system may show many places where efforts can be made to boost cash flow dramatically. Check out this important post laying out five tips that will increase your cash flow and make the necessary changes now. Open Forum

Tips

Positive cash flow key for your success. The key to small business success is to develop a positive cash flow. And the best way to do that is to put systems in place in your business to guarantee that regular payments come in on time. If you haven’t got a system in place, don’t sweat it. It’s never too late to make the necessary changes in your business to bring your small business to positive cash flow success. Succeed As Your Own Boss

Do you want better cash flow in your business? Check out some of the simple tools in QuickBooks that allow you to manage cash flow for your small business. You may already be using QuickBooks as a simple bookkeeping software in your small business. But did you know that tools like the Accounts Receivable Aging Summary report can help you do so much more. Peter MacDonald of Baseline Business Services explains. Oakville Business Network

How to get your customers and clients to pay. In the end, though it may sound obvious, the best way to manage cash flow in your small business is, well, getting your customers and clients to pay you. Getting them to pay you on time would be even better. If this sounds easier said then done, please visit Katy Cowan’s post for some straightforward tips that should bring in the overdue payments…NOW! Creative Boom UK

Techniques

How cash flow figures into start-up. It should be little surprise that a “cash is king” mentality is key in the start-up world where a fledgling business goes from nothing to positive cash flow based on nothing more than the ability to deliver a product or service and grow based on the revenue created. Businesses with little or no credit or outside investment have no choice but to take this route, but even start-ups with a firm financial backing must take this position sooner or later. memeburn


Surviving the slump. Though simply cutting back on spending is not a long-term strategy for small business survival, it can be an important short-term approach to the problem when a market is drying up or simply going through the doldrums. Not surprisingly, managing cash flow is an important part of this strategy and should be considered a priority especially when times are tough. The Daily Dose

Global

Online banks launch platforms to aid with small biz cash flow. A New Zealand-based bank may serve as the model for a move to serve an expanding market of small businesses in need of cash flow. As many times as cash flow and credit needs among small businesses have been discussed in the media, it is amazing that banks have taken so long to see the opportunity here. This story may serve as both a resource for small businesses and a wake up call for the banking industry. nzherald.com.nz

Could house loans be followed by business loans and credit? This post on the banking situation in Australia poses the question of whether banks in an effort to compete for a small business market will be entering the business credit and loan niche soon. One place that loans and cash flow are definitely connected is in the area of timely payments by customers and clients and to suppliers. Credit availability may make your customers more willing to pay you in a timely fashion and make you in turn more willing to pay suppliers hence more cash flow for everyone.

02/20/2012

Despite some improvements, the economic climate still makes it hard for many small businesses to qualify for loans from bank and financial institutions. But there are some alternative lending providers that are willing to lend businesses money—even those with less than perfect credit.

02/05/2012

A balance sheet is a statement of your business' worth, and while these numbers change on a daily basis, it’s important that every small business owner knows and understands them.