Simply Junior

Staff Retrenchment Isn’t The Answer
Retrenchments occur because they save money. In almost every business, wages and other staff costs are the biggest or second biggest expense. Retrenching 20% of 50,000 or 10,000 staff saves huge amounts of money. And you still have 40,000 or 4,000 employees remaining to reorganize to share the workload.

Retrenching 5 of 20 or 2 of 10 employees produces modest savings. And in a busy small business it’s more difficult for 20 staff to do the work of 25 or 8 to do the work of 10 than for 40,000 to be reorganized to do the work of 50,000.

Retain Your Staff: Reduce Your Profits
Are you prepared to work on reduced profit margins so that you can retain staff? Almost all your competitors will retrench staff, reduce prices and cut costs. But their service standards will drop. Their revenues will fall. They might maintain a 25% gross profit. But 25% of severely reduced recession revenues may be less than 20% of pre recession revenues. Your objective is to maintain a viable business for the next 2-3 years so that you can regain good gross profit as quickly as possible.

Be Ready For Intense Competition
Recessions create competition. Expect your competitors to use all sorts of tactics to frankly, put you out of business. They’ll reduce prices, extend credit lines, offer bulk discounts, target your best clients and staff and even spread misinformation about your financial viability. Don’t be surprised when this happens. Be ready for it.

It’s Bargain Time
Recession time is bargain time. I don’t advocate wanton spending merely to “snap up” bargains. But during a recession, you should also be able to negotiate lower prices from suppliers. You may even be able to renegotiate and extend current leases at favourable terms. Of course, you must have the cash flow to support such expenses. Don’t overextend just for a “good price”.

Recessions Create Winners As Well As Losers
During the Great Depression, employees who kept their jobs, even with reduced wages, improved their living standards. Wages may have reduces by 50%. But prices for commodities such as eggs, milk, meat, bread, sugar and similar staples fell by up to 80%. Many companies too, stayed in business with reduced revenues. But their expenses also fell. And they gained new clients from businesses which closed. It may be doom and gloom for many. But if you can survive you should also thrive. Make recession a positive self fulfilling prophecy for your business.

Conclusion
When your business survives the recession, it will be leaner and better focussed. You’ll have better systems, better expense control, higher performance standards, more dedicated customers and more committed staff. Put simply, you’ll have a far more effective business than you had prior to the recession. And that’s the biggest benefit of all.

Real estate brokers and agents are two different things. An agent provides their services, independently, to a broker for a fee. A broker sells property owned by others, and may offer management services. Most brokers deal in residential property, but some deal with industrial, commercial and agricultural. The brokers who deal in the latter are often times employed by specialized firms or larger corporations. A broker encompasses many area of property purchasing and has to be extremely knowledgeable. It is the responsibility of a broker to be proficient in the laws governing real estate purchasing in the market they are working in, as well as, financing options. Additionally, a broker handles title searches for properties, and general marketing.

Both brokers and agents have similar job duties. They both obtain listings of properties and do research about the current market to determine the market price for a property and decide what the property needs to be listed at, if they are working for a seller, or if a property has a favorable listing price, if they are working for a buyer. In the case of rental property, both brokers and agents have to be familiar with the region’s functionality. A property’s accessibility to transportation, they utilities available, and the job market all tie into whether a rental property will be more favorable to a buyer, or seller. The major differences between a broker and an agent is license requirements and client interaction.

In the way of licensing, a broker is required to have obtained a high school diploma, be at least 18 years of age, and pass a written examination. The thoroughly comprehensive test covers basic real estate laws and transactions. Additionally, a real estate broker is required to have 60-90 hours of in-field training as well as a length of time actually selling real estate. This time varies between 1 and 3 years. However, sometimes states will waive the experience length needed if an applicant has obtained a Bachelor’s degree in real estate, as well as completed the other licensing requirements.

As for client interaction, it is generally an agent, not a real estate broker, which handles meetings with buyers and sellers. An agent will assess a client’s needs, their budget (or desired property listing) and handle filling out contracts. It is also the job of an agent, to present potential properties (or buyers) to the client. An agent also handles negotiations between two parties. So an agent is more the face of a real estate transaction, while a broker is the wheels and gauges.

Do you know what…with all the marketing techniques available to every small business owner, all the training, all the books and all the Gurus out there telling us what to do (and what not to do) to market our businesses; there is just one tiny problem that I have come across many times in my role as a Coach/Consultant at Resolution Coaching.

And it’s this

All the resources in the world, won’t overcome the fear of being in the spotlight, with all eyes on you.

It’s the one thing that I think actually prevents small business men and women, really get to grips with sales and marketing. They know what they should be doing, they understand the strategy, they recognise that they need to market themselves and logically that its really important.

But what do they do instead? They tip-toe around the edges, spend loads of time fine tuning certain aspects of their marketing (like their website, and their brochure or are obsessed with their business cards)…until it’s too late. I know one person who spent 3 years on their website before launching it!!

But I am convinced that if you’ve never been in sales before, have never had to sell yourself before – that it doesn’t matter how many resources are thrown at you, how many manuals, books or CD’s or MP3 downloads you have. The fear of stepping up, stepping out and putting yourself, your products and your reputation on the line (with no safety net of a big corporate to clean up after you by the way) – can be a massive hurdle to overcome for some people.

Why is this?

I was listening to a superb teleclass given by Steve Chandler of Club Fearless. He was answering a question sent in by a small business owner who wasn’t making any sales. They had a fabulous product, they loved what they did – but the fear of ‘getting out there’ was stalling their progress. They wanted to be successful – but it was such a big leap from being an inspired creative person – to turn themselves into a invincible, dynamic and fearless marketer who was prepared to throw themselves into the lions den to promote themselves, (and risk others saying that they hate their stuff).

So the answer to that challenge has to be in your own mind surely? I began to ask myself the question – what is the one thing that you need, to stand on the stage/sales platform with confidence (even if that platform is the phone, the seminar, or the networking lunch meeting)?

Isn’t sales like learning to swim, playing your first recorder solo at school, or reciting a poem in class? Some of us never ever get over that initial terror of being the one that everyone is looking at when it’s show time – Some people never have the guts to go for it. Whereas others just do it anyway, regardless of how scary it is. Some just keep having a go, until it gets easier, and easier and easier. They are prepared to make an arse of themselves in the process.

So, if that’s you and you’re sitting there with the realisation that “nobody’s coming” to rescue you and do your sales for you – what are your options? And when you think again “nobody’s going to even tell me the answer to that statement” – what do you do next?

Wait – you do have actually some options….what if you

Took one small action today to move yourself forward Did something big today to move yourself forward Found a friendly audience

I remember turning up to give a talk to find a tiny audience waiting for me – but then I thought “hey cool! I can practise for the really big gig, with this little audience – it all helps!”. Or the time when only one person turned up to my new networking group. I thought to myself “Hey – cool – I get to make all the mistakes tonight and only one person will know. Fantastic!”

So – if you’re thinking “It’s just me. Nobody’s coming”. Get over it and find the courage, borrow the strength, copy someone else’s strategy, pretend. Just find it from somewhere before it’s too late.