From a business perspective, it’s really important to understand exactly what this time of year signifies.  It’s the selling season.  There are 12 weeks till Thanksgiving.  At Thanksgiving it turns into the Christmas holiday season.  I have always said, and have proven this as well, that you can do business at any time of the year.  One of my long term clients I signed on Christmas Eve, for example.  But the Christmas selling season from Thanksgiving through the end of the year on December 31^st, isn’t traditionally the best time of year for most businesses other than retail or food focused ones. 

So the next 12 weeks of business actually offers two different points to keep in mind:  The first point is that it ends the year and may make the difference between profit and loss.  Some of those sales may fall into next year and it will give you a good start to the new business year.   The second point is that we all know what is going on in the economy.  The cable news networks bombard us with economic news round the clock, 24 hours.  This is the economy.  It’s the “new normal” as one noted economist recently said.   

So let’s get going.  Not tomorrow or the day after but today in reviewing your prospecting and sales plans for the balance of the year.  There is business out there.  You just have to work harder and smarter in the next 12 weeks to get it.

But there is something to be said for reflecting back on the way people use to do business before we had all the technology we use today. I am all for progress, innovation and making business more productive and profitable. Thanks to modern technology I have been able to streamline my work and live where ever I choose yet talk to CEOs, presidents and business owners across the country, from New York to Hawaii, every day.

But somehow, along the way of all this technological progress, we have lost or forgotten our business social skills. People don’t build or maintain relationships as they once did. They don’t get to know each other as they once did. Business people don’t build relationships in such a way that they know who they can depend on and truly trust. Lifetime customers and lifetime employees are becoming more and more rare.

So much is based on speed and bottom line. An email, a Tweet, a Facebook post are all characters on a page. Although you are communicating with words we are also dependent on those words providing accuracy with intent, emotion and involvement from the reader on the other side. This can, and often does, lead to misinterpretation. In business, misinterpretation can be costly.

Consider today how to improve your business by starting to make more personal contact either by phone or in person – or even by Skype on the internet. Have lunch with your business associates. And yes, I understand how social marketing may now be a more important part of your business these days. But it’s not instantaneous like a one-on-one conversation is. It is a different sort of conversation and way to communicate. And depending upon what business you are in, social marketing can be more of a public relations tool than something where sales are easy to track. You need to recognize which forms of communication are best for business and determine how much time, money and attention you wish to give each.

For many business people, including yourself perhaps, break down the barrier, the isolation that comes with email, Twitter, Facebook . Tell someone it is “good to see them” or that you will “be looking forward to the phone call“. Build those relationships that will make your business stronger. We are all seeking and looking for those great relationships in life that will bring us success.

But in this uncertain, volatile economy there are so many different opinions as to what is actually going on that if you listen to each one your head will spin and you may become a manic depressive.

For some sectors of the business community business is good. Even very good. For others, it is not. Whether your business is good or not, don’t lose your confidence in your ability to make business happen. Remember you are the one who built the business. You are the one with the vision and concept of what you want your business to be. You are the one who directs your employees to help them be successful and make it happen every day.

There is no question the economy is in a tough spot and probably will be for at least a few years. So you may need to revise and update the vision you have for your company, without compromising its core foundation, to be successful and profitable in this economy. Because this is the economy.

I have said it before and I will say it again, there is business out there you just have to work harder and smarter at getting it. You need to do a better job with customer service, prospecting, training your employees and most importantly, do what leaders do – lead. And never lose your confidence because failure is not an option.

You can’t run your business in an organized, efficient way if you don’t understand that there is an order to the universe and most things in your business can be looked at from a mathematical perspective.  There are some easy things to understand.  For example:  What percent of income tax you have to pay.   How many days it takes to receive a delivery.   Or checking an invoice to see if it was added correctly or how much sales tax needs to be added to the total. 

But you can also use mathematics to understand sales.  Such as:  How many prospects do you need to get an appointment?  How many appointments to get a sale?  You’ll find that the numbers usually stay constant so once you work this formula out and you know what your average sale is all you have to do is state the goal you want and look at how many qualified prospects you need to see to reach that goal. 

You can also determine with mathematics the ratio of people that you need to the amount of work you have coming in.  How many hours it takes for a certain task.  Or how many trucks you need to deliver your product.  Or how to schedule your employees based on the business load and number of hours you are open for business.

Do you know how to read your profit and loss statement?  Or do you just toss it in your file cabinet?  Do you know what the percentage of labor is for administration, sales or production?  Have you compared this financial statement to the last one and the one before that?   Have you asked why labor is, for example, up 5% over last quarter? 

Do you see how valuable all this information is?  Success and profit isn’t made on a yearly basis.  It is made day by day.  Your numbers help to tell you what is going on or what isn’t going on, depending upon how you look at the numbers.

Although math may not have been your favorite subject in school, it is the pathway to understanding and operating a well-run more efficient business.

Because of inflation and additional costs and taxes, it is important to grow your business every single year. If you don’t grow your business, if you don’t grow your profit, because of rising costs you will be going backwards financially. Soon you will go from the profit column to the loss column.

You need to be careful and understand exactly what it means to grow your business. When you grow your business you also grow your expenses. You need one more: One more employee. One more computer. One more round of office supplies. One more delivery run or route. One more benefit package. Maybe even a larger office. When you add up all the one mores, even though your volume has gone up, your profit can go down.

When you think about growing your business, look at the whole business and understand what the increased volume will cost you. Determine the optimal level of business you need to do to increase the profits you are looking for.

In the previous blog post I talked mostly about how employees answer the telephone at your business and all the things may they do that put your company in a negative light. What I didn’t mention and what you need to think about is what your behavior is like when you call another business. How do you talk to the person that answers the phone? How polite and business-like are you? Even if the person answering the phone is the most annoying person you have met on this earth you still need to be professional, respectful and clear with your communication. And sometimes, even patient and understanding. Think about the words and the tone you use when recording a voice message.

When using the phone for business it is a two way street. It’s all about effective communication. It’s how they communicate with you and how you communicate with them.

Always represent yourself well. Make certain your employees are doing the same.

If you do, it’s just one more business tool to ring up profitable sales with.

But do you maximize the potential benefit of the phones in your business every time you or someone in your company says, “hello”? Or do you just take your business phones for granted?

When someone contacts your business, the person that they are talking to is the person that represents your business and will make a lasting impression on your customer or client. Like the saying goes: First impressions count.

When answering the phone at your business that first impression happens over and over and over again.

I have contact with businesses every single day from New York to California, and even occasionally Hawaii. What truly amazes me is how companies answer their telephone. Whether it’s a real live person answering the phone or an automated voicemail system most of the contacts that I make in a single business day are enough to convince any one that they don’t want to do business with that one particular company all because of how the phone is answered.

Here is what I consistently find:

- Employees who can’t take a message correctly. This leads to business people returning the call and not being prepared for the call or knowing the reason for the call. Or for that matter, ever getting a message regarding the call.

- Employees who don’t have a pen and pad to write a message down.

- Employees with poor listening, writing and multi-tasking skills which causes you to repeat the message multiple times and they still don’t get it right

- Employees with poor use of the English language and/or are chewing gum/eating a snack when answering the phone.

It doesn’t matter what the size of your company may be. It happens at companies of all sizes.

Suggestion: Have one of your business-minded friends or relatives call into your company. Discuss the goals of the call or what feedback you would like from them prior to the actual call. Instruct the caller to leave a business oriented message. Then compare results on both sides of the message taking process.

Let’s also consider voicemail messages which so often we get connected into. On the voicemail, as part of a message, some business people will say: I will call you back at “my convenience“ or “when I can“… What?! You’ll call me back at your convenience?! I see, you are the important one. Do you realize what sort of message that relays to your caller? The caller may want to do new business or have continuing business with you but when they hear that message the impression it leaves with the caller may be: But gee, you must be too important or uninterested in my business to make me a priority.

Also, with voice messages make sure the messages are always up to date. We lead busy business lives but to listen to a message that is so outdated is unnecessary, such as: I am out of the office on vacation and only have limited voicemail and email till my return on (fill in the date). … But that was two weeks ago and you’ve been back at work for a week.

Or, calling and consistently getting a full voice message box. Are you so busy that you can’t retrieve and empty your messages a few times per day? What does they say about how you will respond to the caller’s individual needs? What does it say about your organizational skills?

Oh, and one more thing, be careful what callers hear or listen to when placed on hold or are waiting to be connected. What one listens to on their iPod or when driving the car may not be appropriate for business and that includes radio stations as well as individual musical artists. What does the music or infomercial say about you and your company? You always need to be thinking about this.

Don’t lose business because of the phone. It may have a costly ring to it.

You can’t just show up, do tasks, work through the day, sit at your desk and expect to succeed in this economy. You must be involved in every single aspect of your business. Really know and be aware of your business. Becoming every day more and more conscious about your business and what is really happening. Not to micromanage your business. But to help your employees see your vision, embrace your vision, know what is expected of them and to understand how their job fits into the big picture of a successful business.

Within each of your company’s departments — sales, marketing, manufacturing, shipping, accounting, account receivables/payables, customer service — sit down with each person responsible for one of those departments discussing with them expectations and challenges and ask how you can help them to better succeed. If you are the person responsible for everything block out a regular weekly time in your schedule to think through every important aspect of your business.

In today’s economy, all business people have to work longer hours and harder than they have ever worked to succeed. To be creative, inventive, resourceful and inspired every day. Finding true success, means to balance the business person, the prospector/sales person with the visionary elements inside you.

When you are in business things can be moving along at a positive, steady pace and then all of a sudden everything changes course with the unexpected. For example, you get a call from a client with an unexpected problem or you find out that your competitor is going after your business by undercutting the price or a prospect that was ready to sign on with new business suddenly decides to put everything on hold or you suddenly need to go out of town to make a presentation and you‘re not sure you can pull it all together in time on such short notice. There could be a thousand other things in your business day that have the potential to knock you off balance. All because you didn’t see it coming. Or you have no control over a situation.

To be in business means to expect the unexpected. This is just a normal day in business. Step back. Look at the problem from all angles. Find solutions. And move on. Because tomorrow there will be many successes and even a few challenges along the way to solve. Always know you can solve the unexpected problem just by taking the time to think it through to its logical conclusion.

As a CEO, company president or business owner, you should have at least an outline of a business plan for the next six months stating goals you want to accomplish, looking at sales projections, analyzing costs and clearly thinking through what needs to be done to survive, prosper and keep secure the vision you have for your business.

But are you so busy that you’ve forgotten how important goal setting is for your business, for each employee, department as well as for yourself?  Take a few minutes and review the goals you have set for the year.  See if you are reaching them.  Do your goals need to be revised or updated?  If you are not reaching the goals, why?

Goals are just marks on a piece of paper unless you are tracking and analyzing them to make sure they are being met.  Don’t get a surprise six months from now and find out that your business is in financial difficulty because you didn’t have the time to analyze the goals you set.  Or, worse yet, you never found the time to determine or set any goals.  The reason for setting only a six month goal is the volatility of the economy. In this type of economy you need to constantly update goals and expectations because the marketplace is so uncertain.

The first half of 2010 is now behind us.  What are your goals for the second half of 2010?

It doesn’t matter what you did in the first half of the year even if you had a great profit.  Now it matters what you do going forward.

Though you may be enjoying the summer weather, now is the time to start planning for  the rest of the business year.  No matter what season it is or what month of the year there is always business out there.  Without planning it is unlikely that you will reach your goals.