Business Management - Marketing/Sales

A company’s prices must at least cover the costs incurred for producing, distributing and selling the product. Fixed and variable costs together comprise total costs. Generally, the price a company charges for its products must at least cover the total production costs at a given level of production.

When I was in junior high in the early ’80s, my school put on a play called “The GIGO Effect.” It was a musical all about computers. I decided to adapt this message as a metaphor for your sales efforts. What I mean is, if you take a half-hearted approach to new business development, PLEASE do not be surprised when your results are less than stellar.

It used to be that the topic of print brokers vs. printers generated the most heated discussion in an audience of print buyers.  I think I’ve found the newest debate trigger for this crowd: “Printers as MSPs (Marketing Services Providers).”

There are multiple problems that can lead to lackluster blogging results, but usually there are two culprits: weak content and a lack of consistent publishing. Here are seven ways to ensure your blog has a fighting chance of being read.

Products with little competition or those that are highly differentiated are less sensitive to changes in price, or inelastic. Even if a company owns a monopoly in a product category, however, there are often substitute products available that will increase the elasticity of the monopolized product.

Why is it that sales come so easily to some, while for others each little order is like giving birth? My guess is that those who seem constantly to be opening new accounts have their sales antenna out.

I am flummoxed. (Great word, huh?) Lately I have come in contact with several businesses and individuals who have very rude e-mail etiquette. The biggest complaint that I have is a lack of response. How is YOUR e-tiquette?

Twitter is largely a waste of time for the average small business—with just a few exceptions. People often Tweet my posts, sometimes hundreds of times. A small percentage of those Tweets came from people with tens of thousands of Followers. You would think a Tweet that reaches, say, 50,000 people or more would generate a lot of incoming traffic, right?

Nope.

For example, one article was Tweeted by a person with 57,000 Followers; less than 700 people followed the link to read the article. That’s a 1.2 percent ROT (Return On Tweet, a metric I just made up).

Every time—and I mean, every single time—I ask a print sales rep how he/she got into the large account they now service, it always results in some bizarre story that turned out well for the lucky party.

These blogs on planning are boring. I’m bored writing them. I’ll bet you are bored reading them. Maybe the best way to demonstrate strategy is to write a detailed action plan for one of the strategies from the previous blog.