7 Step Consulting

Big Week, Big Project

We’ve got a big project going on at work. I’m exhausted. Has really kept us all busy — which is good. I really enjoyed my job this week. Wasn’t too bad.

True, I wish I and we had made more progress towards our goals. But every step counts. And it definitely wasn’t boring.

Winning Proposals

It doesn’t matter how skilled your team is, how amazing your product is, or how stream lined your operations are. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got the cheapest and highest quality production facility or factory in some third world country. It doesn’t matter how glitzy and shiny your marketing is, or how many people are drawn in and become interested in your product.

None of it matters if you have a poor proposal package in front of your client.

This applies across the board. Whether you are a manufacturer of a product trying to win over a major client like Target, K-Mart, or Wal-Mart… or a retailer trying to prove your worth to a major manufacturer of a product you want to sell, say Rolex watches.

Your proposal is a key part of winning the business. You can take the executives out to lunch or out to play a round on the golf course, but the proposal is often the key point of the whole day.

To type up a winning proposal, you’ll need quality proposal software.

This even applies to start ups that are pitching venture capital or angel investors. It’s called the elevator pitch. You’ve got to have your proposal down — why your deserve your investor or customer’s money. Why they should buy from you. And quality software will help you develop a really slick, impactful proposal.

Access Commerce offers a software suite that will help many businesses respond to proposal requests. I think the product would work great for something like a manufacturer with excess capacity (looking to find projects to use up capacity) or for insurance companies where each quote is going to be different. Go take a look at the Access Commerce software, consider it for your business. I give it a thumbs up.

How many trade shows do you go to

Are trade shows big in your industry, or is your company better off just sitting off to the side developing the new industry-changing software?

Admittedly, I haven’t been involved in too many trade shows although I have been to a few. My general experience is that they are hot, poorly ventilated, and a lot of standing. I’m not in sales, so I haven’t seen any big push in my income thanks to a trade show.

I’m sure it would be different in a different industry.

Help Managers with Employee Reviews

As a consultant, you may be brought in to an organization to help with turnover and retention. Perhaps the client is a call center and experiences 300% turnover every year. That’s a lot of work just hiring and releasing that many employees. Wouldn’t it be better if turnover was 30% per year? Or 10%?

One way you can help your client is to pitch employee appraisal software like Manager Assistant.

Key to Winning Business: Setting Expectations

It’s a classic part of quality business sales. You’ve got to set proper expectations.

You’d much rather under promise and over deliver. End result? Happy, somewhat surprised, pleased customer.

Over promise and under deliver? Very unhappy customer.

Over promise and just meet the expectation? Moderately satisfied customer.

Setting expectations of simple things like when you will call and then doing so can be huge in business. Keep it up.

Find great, inexpensive webhosting

If you want to run a blog like this one, you are going to need web hosting. A quality web host will have great support, a variety of server options, and perhaps come with some preinstalled software (like the Wordpress blog tool that I use).

Looking for a quality host? Try Top10Webhosting.com.

Hit a Goal, Have a Party

We hit a goal today in my office, and plan to enjoy quite the little shebang in the future related to it.

Does your office celebrate together? Are they typically happy hours, or something more refined?

Do spouses come? I’ve always wondered about this … because what ends up happening is your primarily talk about work during the “fun event time”. This leaves your spouse to sit and hear the same old complaining you do when you come home.

But nonetheless, looking forward to a little social event.

Who will solve our energy problems?

Gas prices are going through the roof. The price of a barrel of oil is sky rocketing. Congress is looking to see if speculators are responsible for the price of oil going over $135 per barrel. I heard on NPR this morning that an analyst for Openheimer said the price should be about $70 per barrel — more than half of the current cost! That’s crazy…

So since oil and gas have gone up, the price of everything else has gone up, up, up. We’re using a significant amount of corn for ethanol production regardless of the fact that if we used all of the corn in America it would only produce 15% of our oil needs. Excellent math there.

Food prices are up. Some people are growing gardens in the back yard, or at least trying to. You can pick up lawn and garden accessories to help you achieve significant gains in your family’s personal food production in the back yard. I for one know we are going to start a garden next year — it’s a bit late in the season for us and we are going to start anew next spring. Should be interesting and I know we’ll make mistakes… but it is a really cheap way to save money over the long term.

Of course there are business and consulting opportunities available to help consumers and businesses deal with the increased energy prices. If everyone starts to grow a garden in their backyard, can you help launch a product to make them more successful? Or maybe you could consult with a large farming company to help them cope with decreased demand due to higher prices.

With every recession there are opportunities. With every boom there is risk. You’ve got to learn to roll with the punches.

Got a bar in your basement? You’ll need bar stools.

A lot of people recently bought huge houses during the housing boom. Maybe you built a new house with a really nice basement. You’ve got the huge tv, comfortable chairs, and a fully stocked bar to entertain your guests.

It stands to reason then that if you have a bar, you might need someLeather bar stools. A bar is pretty useless unless you can sit and enjoy it.

Sick? Please Stay Home

Many companies are starting to adopt new policies on sick leave. If you’re sick — stay home. At first this sounds like an opportunity to do whatever you want and call in sick all the time. Good luck with that. HR isn’t stupid and will probably release you if that’s the way you come at things.

However, this policy can really benefit an office. Just think about it. If you’re sick, it’s best to stay home and not get the rest of the office sick. I’ve worked in places where a person comes in sick (or brings in their sick child — pet peeve of mine) and slowly you will see the whole office go out sick, one by one.

So stay home. Do us all a favor. I’d rather not join you at the doc in the box office.