As long as your product is not in a specific market or retailer, it can’t be discontinued. Once you are discontinued you may never get back. You’ve got one shot. Take careful aim and hit just one bullseye at a time.
The shotgun approach may get you more distribution in the beginning, but, due to complications and idiosyncrasies in the distribution system, or due to you own underestimations of labor and oversight, your… Read More

The Advantages of Being a Small Start-Up – Part 3
In this series we have examined some of the powerful advantages of being small, undercapitalized and able to turn on a dime.
These days, with lawyers running the big corporations either in fact or in fear, more and more truly game changing concepts are coming

Listen to and Learn from your Sales Staff
In the previous post we examined some of the ways your well-meaning office, marketing, production and accounting staff may come up with “cost-saving” suggestions than can actually hurt sales.
When little things go missing or the package gets simplified in the name of production efficiency, you may hear “It hasn’t affected sales”…yet! Or, “Our sales are still strong” implying all you were doing… Read More

Distribution: The Distance between a Great Product and a Sale – Part 2
The least glamorous but most essential part of making a sale is actually getting your product to your buyer. Many great products are rotting in warehouses somewhere because their designers didn’t take the realities of the distribution system into account. Here are additional questions product producers need to consider:
6. How will you stage your product for shipment? Most products are stacked on a pallet for easy… Read More

The Easiest Way to Lose your Customer
If you think all you’re selling is a product, think again. In order to continue to do business with your new buyer, you must also sell a service. The demand for customer service increases significantly after the first sale is made. That’s when your customer sees if you stand behind your products, and how you treat their company. Here are some suggestions to forge that critical relationship that will pay off with return… Read More

Is Your Company Doing these Things?
Recently, while attending a Wine Industry Symposium, I had the good fortune to sit next to a fellow consultant, James J. Downes of BBK, an international business advisory firm. Over lunch, the conversation quickly got down to what we each thought were the biggest mistakes growing businesses make today. Jim’s list sounded strangely familiar because my own company had been guilty of several!
Jim says according to… Read More