The Coaching Blog

Is your team selling your competition?

When it comes to a purchase decision, the only choice isn't whether to go with you or your competitor.

The third, often overlooked, option is whether or not to buy at all. If, when pitching to a prospect, you only discuss the competitors and what makes you stand out, you may forget to address the biggest obstacle of all- why they should even buy in the first place. And as the average value of the sale increases, the importance of making the prospect understand benefit/payoff becomes that much more.

So the next time you're sitting across the table from a prospect, remember in their head it's not just a choice between company A and B; rather the biggest unasked question might be "do I need this at all?"

If you're not uncovering that fear with thorough questioning, and addressing it with solid USPs and guarantees, you may be leaving a lot of money on the table. Because remember, your biggest competitor might just be sitting across from you.

To your success,
Murtaza

What if you discovered discounting your prices cost you twice as much?

Here's a simple math question: If your profit margin is 20%, and you give your clients a 10% discount, how much more do you need to sell to make the same amount of profits without discount?

Answer: Twice as much. That means twice the marketing expense (not to mention the effort and time), twice the selling expense, twice the administrative expense, twice the operations expense, and probably a lot more than twice the customer service expense. In fact, by the time you're done, you'd probably have lost out on more time, more money and more resources (including staff time) than if you hadn't discounted in the first place. Now imagine a business that has a 10% profit margin and offers a 20% discount…

So why do so many businesses offer discounts? Some simple reasons are: getting more people to hear about the brand; promotion in the hope that future repeat purchases will cover short-term losses; getting rid of old stock; or simply being unaware of the implications of discounting - they don't know the numbers. There are more reasons, but the last one is lethal.

ISLAMIC FINANCE GUIDE PUBLISHED

A new 76- page guide providing an overview of the Islamic Finance Market in the United Kingdom has been published jointly by UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Treasury.

The United Kingdom has become a centre for Islamic Finance, with most banks now delivering Islamic Finance transactions, the majority of large professional services firms equipped with specialist Islamic Finance teams, and London becoming the first city outside the Islamic world to host the World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) last October.

The Guide entitled “UK Excellence in Islamic Finance” covers a range of topics including the operation and history of Islamic Finance in the United Kingdom, as well as investment opportunities in large UK projects. It covers the growth of the market, highlighting that Islamic investments are forecast to grow to £1.3trillion by 2014. The guide includes business profiles of banks, law firms and key companies such as Ernst & Young and Deloitte that offer Islamic professional and financial services in the UK. It also outlines the Islamic finance training available, providing information about relevant courses and the contact details of suitable universities and training centres.

You can read more about the guide to Islamic Finance at: http://bit.ly/18qCphm
Source: Federation of Small Businesses.

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CONSULTATIONS ON HALAL SCHEME

In October 2013 EBLEX, an organisation representing beef and lamb farmers in England, launched a three month consultation into a Halal assurance scheme for lamb. Around 95 per cent of lamb suppliers polled said that they would use such a scheme, leading event chairman Nick Allen to claim that the Halal sector clearly wants an assurance scheme, is keen to back a scheme that is workable and wants to help consumers make informed choices.

Under the proposed scheme, meat from stunned and non-stunned sheep will be labelled separately, making it clear whether the animal in question had been stunned or not. The scheme would be rum in a similar way to the existing Quality Standard Mark (QSM) scheme for beef and lamb and paid for by EBLEX, with standards ensured through regular inspections.

You can read more on the subject at : http://bit.ly/1bFcbVD. 
Source:Federation of Small Businesses.

The Coaching Blog

Growth. Improvement. Refinement.

Perfection may be impossible to achieve, but the pursuit of perfection may be an even higher state. If we reach perfection, the only way left to go is down. When we pursue perfection, we only keep growing.

Businesses stagnate because they fail to keep pushing themselves to improve. People stagnate for the same reason. Unfortunately, not improving doesn't mean no growth; it often means decline. This is where Kaizen comes in. Kaizen is a Japanese term that is used to mean "change for the best", and focuses on continuous improvement. The aim is not to transform from mediocre to world-class in one step; rather to improve through small, incremental, continuous improvements.

Can this work for you today? Businesses in every industry have successfully applied the idea of Kaizen to their own organisations, and - as long as the steps are in the right direction - the change is always beneficial. Imagine the benefit of improving by just 1% month-on-month. That's an improvement of 12.6% over the year. How would you feel if your business improved by 12%, or if your team was 12% more productive, or if you had 12% more free time?

Two powerful keys to the success of the Kaizen approach are "Incremental" and "Continuous". What small, sustainable change can you implement in your business today that will benefit you in the next 6 months?

For more posts on Team, Time, Mindset and Money targeted to building a successful business, please visit my coaching blog by clicking here.