While putting together your numbers, include a capital reserve fund to spend on special projects or to be used for unforeseen emergencies. Profit can be split with key employees as an incentive. Call up your banker, a real estate broker, or one of your customers who owns several investments, and take them to lunch. Bankers can usually be counted on to want minimal, if any, input into how the business is run.
Creating a Culture of Excellence in Distribution
Use
marketing materials that
stand out, have bright company uniforms, and drive clean, professionally painted vehicles. This
pattern of interaction
also influences the efficiency and effectiveness of the company s direct and indirect counterparts. They
must want to
follow your vision, achieve your goals, and get the job done properly. And
the kinds of
people who discover the right business are often those who are willing to go to a lot of trouble to find good opportunities.
Include whatever services are offered
Others
like to get
their hands dirty and do the work, but don't know how to run a business or make money. An
essential part of
this is getting to know more about existing and prospective vendors and clients. The
main basis
for the system, since it is economic and not philanthropic in its nature, must of course be the increase in production brought about by its adoption. You
are probably working
with friends or customers who have lenders, brokers, attorneys, title companies, and escrow officers they can recommend.
Make the Accounting department a happy place to work
Then
there are ideas
that fall into the same old, same old category. Manufacturers
dictate design and
production to suppliers. Give
them an incentive
to refer you. Assembling
the various elements
of solutions requires motivating others and coordinating joint action without hierarchical authority.
Be conservative in all financial estimates and projections
Despite
common romanticizing of
earlier societies in which money is imagined to have been unimportant or nonexistent, historians have found little evidence that any society has based its business enterprise primarily on barter. You're
probably an expert
on what doesn't work: confusion, threats, lack of trust, bribes, no rules, no rewards, no praise or recognition, no direction, and lack of accountability. Why
else would you
be seeking funding? When
a business starts
generating profits and plowing them back into the firm, value can build rapidly.
It?s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure
Send
them handwritten notes
with pictures of things they are interested in or tips on new ways to make more money. Pointing
out the features
of a product to customers does not mean they will understand why the features are useful; one has to explain their direct benefit. Your
marketing program must
include materials, reasons, and requests for customers to call now. Many
mission statements communicate
what your business is about and should include a description of what makes you different from everybody else in your field.