Wealth and Wisdom

Today I came across a few articles/posts that I thought you would enjoy and find useful.

Jeffrey Gitomer is one of my favorite sales experts. His books are fantastic and his weekly ezine is always full of great sales advice. If you are not a Gitomer subscriber I highly recomend signing up. I also recomend all of his books. They are the gold standard if you want to become a better salesman.

This week he wrote a timely article: The economy is falling. The economy is falling. In it he points out that while the economy stinks this is in contrast to the amazing boom we experienced over the last few years. It just means that the available business is reduced and that the low hanging fruit are a bit higher. He has 8.5 things you can do to thrive in this downturn.

Small Business Trends is hosting a Webinar on reducing business overhead. While I usually recommend entrepreneurs focus on making more money-you can’t cut your way to profits-expense control is still a vital part of any successful business. In most cases it should be part of your daily life, a habit you develop so you can focus on other vital parts of your business. Go to10 Strategies for Reducing Business Overhead Expenses – Webinar for more information.

Merlin Mann of 43 Folders had a great post on priorities. I always enjoy his writing as he makes me think differently and see things from a new point of view. While I don’t always agree with him I look forward to his posts.

Today Merlin talks about priorities. I like his view that something either is a priority…or it isn’t. There are no shades of grey. Our challenge in time management is that we try to prioritize our tasks. Task 1 is more important than task 3 which is less important than task 5…and then wonder why we have a high priority task on our list for weeks at a time. The answer is that it wasn’t a true priority.

Read his entire post Mud Rooms, Red Letters, and Real Priorities.

Unless you do one of three things you are expendable:

• Product creation
• Sales / marketing
• Production profitability

Other jobs are importatn but are they necessary? No. There is a reason these three roles pay the most-often more than the president makes!

This becomes more critical in a down economy. The underperforming salesman is vulnerable. The receptionist is at risk. Projects managers get laid off. In other words if you are in sales/marketing, product creation, or profitibility you need to make some changes now. Find ways you can help increase sales or reduce expenses. Wait a second, I’m just the receptionist. How can I do this? Just off the top of my head I can think of several ways:

• Be a shining example of good chear when you answer the phone.
• Ask to take on inside sales responsibility.
• Find ways to save money on office supplies.
• Never waste your time reading magazines or surfing the internet. Fill your time with work.

Are you in one of the three golden jobs? My question is…are you the best? The top salesmen will rarely get laid off. The bottom performers will be among the first to go. If you aren’t at the top of your game you need to become the best. Read books on your chosen field in your spare time. Spend a few hours and identify your highest value taskes. Do those and ignore the low value items.