Train your accounting staff to do these things daily to help increase company sales and boost the bottom line.

Train your accounting staff these methods to help increase company sales and boost the bottom line All employees in a company can help the sales function.  This includes accounting and finance personnel who see various documents every day that may help their sales and marketing department. Here are some ideas your accounting personnel can be aware of  and remember to try every day that will boost the sales and marketing effort. How accounting/finance personnel can help boost sales:

1. Research sister divisions of current companies for potential future sales,
2. Send sales announcements sent out free inside and outside (relevant stickers) company mail
3. Update shared system data (buyer names, contact information)
4. Research family groups (groups of companies, common owner):
5. Research competitors through SIC Codes (search similar potential customers using free library access online)
6. Follow-up with customers from switchboard complaints (prioritze customer complaints, problems)
7. Notice and forward daily mail leads (forward mail inquiries to the sales department)
8. Analyze customer incoming payment checks (contains lots of info, corp office, bank used, who signs checks)
9. Help with sales mail campaigns (flyers, brochures, etc.):
10. Issue regular sales reports to the company reps (track sales and shipments, report regularly to sales department)
11. Issue historical reports (sales history, prior customers, old leads to followup),
12. Track price increases by customer,
13. Forward customer feedback to sales/marketing, good or bad:
14. Thank customers on their anniversaries (help sales acknoledge customer loyalty)
15. Report timely payments to sales to further pursue these types of customers (timely payments, more sales deserved)
16. Report margins, high to low (categorize customer earnings/potential)
17. Report negative GP (gross profit) customers ASAP,
18. Report customer credit references to sales,
19. Report credit references to sales that are negative or potentially negative, and
20. Represent the company well to customers; when speaking with customers directly, be cordial, helpful and respectful regardless of the complaints

Reasons for price increases can also advertise your company's best attributes!

All companies must raise prices at some point; otherwise they die a slow death.  The time to raise prices is an individual decision, but it becomes more difficult and destructive to cash flow, new opportunities, and long term growth, the longer a firm delays.  It is far easier to raise prices selectively, a small amount annually rather than trying to catch up with one large jump after several years.  The big increase is more difficult for the customers to accept. Raise prices in small increments; they are easier to swallow and will generally be ignored.  Increasing your prices is easier to do in small increments.  Try small annual increases of 2% or 3% rather than a very noticeable one time jump of 10 -15% after five years.  Plan to do this automatically as part of the budget.  Unless material cost increases force an earlier decision, make it a normal course of your business and do not shy away from this management action.  Get your customers used to it and be resolute about its implementation. Announced or not, do not procrastinate; raise prices.  Many companies do not talk about their price increases; they just raise them.  Some post notices and some do not.  Some buy new menus, put new stickers on the old ones on New Year's Eve or publish new rates at the back of their edited manuals or brochures, and wait for their customers to remark.  It is worth the explanation to mention, when asked, that you did not raise prices for the past three years, or you held off as long as possible, but your company could not wait another year.  Customers forget they have benefitted from your delay.  They forget you saved them money year after year.  For this reason, stand fast.  These customers will be the first ones to complain even after years of holding prices down.  Hold your ground, emphasize the positives of your decision and go forward.  Otherwise, you will slowly go out of business. Write down your reasons for raising prices.  Write down what costs have gone up that the customer may not know about.  Write down the item increases you absorbed and swallowed as a business owner, that customers take for granted.  Regardless of when you raise your prices or why, prepare a listing of reasons that also indirectly remind your customers why they return to you year after year.  You do not have to publish, drawing attention to your increases, but have these reasons written up to remind all of your employees.  Train your people about how to respond when asked.  Have the lists available and make them persuade your customers to nod in agreement and be glad they buy from you.  Give them some reasons on this list.  Remind them how good your products are and how indispensable your service is.  Here are some ideas on how to announce your price increase plans in a persuasive manner. Suggestions for persuasive price increase arguments:

• Food Menu:  We increased prices this year because the organic grain fed beef prices we pay has risen sharply over the past couple of years.  It is the only beef we buy, because it is the best available superior product on the market and it remains the only choice we reserve for our customers.  We decided three years ago to use only this highly regarded selection of beef for our menu entrees.  We have held back reacting to these rising costs, but we must pass these costs on starting in January.  When our customers order beef selections from our menu, they know, after serving them for 17 years in the metro area, we will bring only the best available to their table.
• Metal Prices:  Due to stainless steel cost increases incurred over the past eighteen months, we are providing you, the customer, a ninety day notice that we are forced to increase prices $75/ton effective March 1st.  We have used our mills in Brazil now over 12 years and have experienced no quality problems with these sources.  For this reason, we did not wish to take on the risk of placing large, irreversible, six-month orders with questionable mills found elsewhere throughout the Far East.  We cannot risk delivery failure to our customers, so we will not place them in a future shortage position.  We take great pride in having never failed at mill deliveries over our 15 years in the market.  Our customers come first and they buy assurance from us.  They deserve premium service and we are happy to continue to provide it.
• Consulting Fees:  Please note that our firm's professional consulting prices will rise slightly in January of next year due to our board's decision to further restrict selecting candidates who only possess masters' degrees, in addition to 15 years of applicable and appropriate work experience.  Staying with that hiring criteria after twenty-five years has made our firm the oldest, most experienced and most highly awarded consulting firm located here in the tristate area, now proudly owning a seasoned staff possessing over 890 years of engineering and business experience that you expect and can count on.
• Tax Preparation Fees:  Our fees for tax preparation will increase an average 7% on January 1^st, due to a number of costs associated with procuring personnel expertly acquainted with the new tax regulations passed this past month in Congress.  Our staff was increased by three new people, well versed in farm subsidies, depreciation methods, accelerated depreciation methods and the newly adopted rules covering research and development, passed in Congress.  This appears to be certain to save money for our existing clients who manage large expensive on-site R&D programs.  We appreciate your continued support.  Be assured, our qualified and well educated staff aims to cut your tax bill and will beat it to death before asking for your final signature.

Ask your office supplies company for your YTD purchases arranged highest $ item to lowest!

Ask your office supplies company to accumulate all of your purchases for the year (or last year) and list those items purchased from high to low dollars spent.  The top five or six items that show up will more likely comprise 30-50% of all your purchases.  You might want to exclude copier paper and bid that out separately if it makes up a large amount of the dollars on the list.  It is normally a large expense, as well as printer and scanner cartridges, toner and other inks. Try these actions to start cutting office supplies expenses:

1. YTD Purchases List:  Ask for your list of purchases from your vendors, highest dollar amount to lowest.  Tell him to dump it in excel and send it to you.  Compare it to your office supplies expense account balance to ensure you got what you requested.
2. Suggestions/Alternatives:  Look to the largest items making up the biggest dollars and ask your vendor for suggestions to cut these item costs.  What are cheaper methods to buy these items?  Maybe you tell the vendor you want to be notified when these specific items are on sale.  Tell him the last thing you want to do is go elsewhere, but you can no longer afford this excessive cost.
3. Substitutions:  Request lists of cheaper substitutions for items that do not matter.  The dealer has high priced name brand items and then he has his store brand.  Tell him you want him to go down the list and offer his best and cheaper substitutions to these items.
4. Volume discounts:  Ask what items can be purchased in different volumes to cut per item costs.
5. Cut shipping costs:  Ask for a break on shipping costs or ask for free freight or delivery.  Make sure not to run out of supplies or else you become desperate and always pay more of the company's funds for last minute deliveries.  Take the slowest delivery method.  You do not want to pay for expedited service at any cost.
6. Larger purchases less frequently:  Ask what can be accomplished by ordering quarterly versus monthly.
7. Go to the market if no response:  If you do not get a good response, take the list, blank out the actual dollar amount of individual items and give the listing to two or three competitors to get bids.
8. Curtail spending in-house; make managers responsible:  Require a manager to sign off on all purchases and ask the requisitioner to show the total YTD purchase amount before ordering.  This is a pain and makes people pause before buying everything they want.  This extra effort will cause a person to think twice before bringing the request.
9. Put a bounty on cutting costs:  When that person assigned to office supplies has cut costs, give them a bonus, incentive or award to encourage their great diligence in cutting company costs.  Tell everyone around the guy that he/she is being rewarded for cutting costs and will be given an undisclosed amount of money.  Remind everyone this is not an exclusive program; anyone can make more money if they start thinking about the bottom line.
10. Limit what can be bought:  Define the list of office supplies, throw the catalogs away and limit options.  Do not allow the sales personnel to distribute catalogs to all of your departments.  Ask the sales personnel to prepare an approved list of supplies; that is the only group of items that can be ordered without more signatures down the aisle.  Tell the person who distributes mail to junk the catalogs before they are distributed.

Hang service calendars with telephone numbers / last service dates on all your equipment.

Print easy to mark laminated page size calendars and hang them off of your copiers, faxes and other large office equipment in order to track service calls and repair dates, using grease pencils.  There are several reasons why you want to keep track of the work required for these machines.  If you have new equipment that requires frequent maintenance, this may be the proof you need to demand a new replacement machine, especially if it is under warranty. Many companies call their vendors without considering what other service might need to be done with that unit or others.  No one keeps track of the time wasted on equipment that may need to be replaced.  Record your repair times and frequencies, and tell the service guy to note briefly, what he did on the machine he just repaired again. Here are a few ideas to get more done with fewer costly service calls.

1. Copiers, printers and other office equipment:  Before calling to arrange necessary service for a well-used copier, consider getting all your units serviced at the same location in your firm.  Ask the vendor, before confirming his call, for a special price for checking, servicing and cleaning all your units while he or she is visiting your firm.  Get this price first before scheduling the visit.  Once the service is finished, request a sticker be applied to the outside of all the units indicating the name and telephone number of the service company to call, plus the entry of the last date of service.  If they do not have this available, make your own service calendar, with each one listing the name and telephone number of the service company.
2. Machinery repairs:  If you have service on company equipment, in‑house or contractor provided, hang the machine's calendar on the outside with the service representative's office and cell phone numbers, so anyone knows how to contact help.
3. Forklift repairs:  This is a calendar that can accompany or hang off the forklift to tell maintenance when service is due and whether the unit might need to be turned in for a newer model.  Your forklift drivers will tell you this without a calendar.  The reason you do this is because no one remembers all of the repairs that are done and which should still be under warranty.
4. Company vehicles:  All autos and trucks owned by the company should have a calendar or service schedule kept in the glove compartment that indicates when service is due on the unit.  This should be found with the registration, insurance coverage and any help numbers in case of an emergency.  It is better to hire the service done outside and have the vehicles called in to get service reports done on time.

Expand market leads; trace your current customers' SIC and NAICS classifications to discover sales opportunities!

Use business classifications to find potential customers:  In order to target your marketing efforts, you might try tracing current customers through their declared federal business classifications and categories (SIC and NAICS codes).  SIC or Standard Industry Classification codes were established in 1937.  The newer codes, (the NAICS codes, North American Industry Classification System) were established in 1997. These are categories are not chosen or assigned by someone else, but by the firms themselves.  Companies are asked by government agencies to choose one or more codes that describe their activities.  For example, for less than $100-$200, you can quickly buy a listing of every company that has ever had a federal contract in your state or area of the country (available through the freedom of information act - governmental activity).  Most companies have, at one time, worked for the federal government; so many times, the listings are fairly long and worth reviewing.  You can buy this information off the internet and download the database with a credit card.  These lists generally will entail five to ten years of history (the longer period the better because more are included if they did at least one job). As an alternative, find a current customer, and then sort through his code group to discover more:  Find, within this governmental database, a few of your current customers, and notice the classification category names under which they declare their business.  Sort the list by this classification and then within this group, sort all of those other participants within city or zip code, which makes it easier for your representatives to create target lists to call on.  This is one idea which may or may not work for your company, but for the very minimal cost, it will at least tell you other potential companies in the same market segments or industries some of your current customers operate. Try using SIC or NAICS Codes to identify sales targets - buy a list and start searching:  A second list you might want to purchase is a SIC code listing.  This is the governmental code by which all companies categorize themselves.  The secret is to obtain the listing (excel or a sortable database format), and find several of your current customers within that listing, note their SIC codes, then look for other companies in your marketing area within those categories; more than likely they are more apt to buy your goods or services versus other nonrelated categories.

What can salespeople offer to customers? Discuss the options, and write them out!

When a new sales person starts with your company, he is likely to ask before going on the first sales run, "What do I have to offer or what can I do on behalf of the customer?"  He may ask thoughtfully, "Why should a customer want to do business with us?"  If this happens, everyone on your staff should automatically know how to answer these questions.  If they do not, you have work to do. If you get unclear answers or more stares than normal, discuss these answers and get them down on paper for your firm.  Writing this list down helps to train everyone in your organization as to what is available and why customers should do business with your company.  Everyone will have ideas, but none know all of the benefits.  If you do not already have this list prepared, do not be surprised how uninformed and unprepared your employees are, especially your sales staff.  It is most important to get started.  Start asking! Start your discussion and encourage all employee answers, regardless of their accuracy.  Discussing and clarifying this for all your employees will enhance your customers' experiences with members of your organization.  Take the time and brainstorm with all your sales people. Ask them what they offer your customers to get them into the door or to get to a 'yes' for their next order.  Some will come up with great ideas that you will want all of your representatives to try.  You and your employees need to hear and learn all of the options.  How else will they convey them to your customers? To get started, ask the question, "What are we as employees allowed to provide or give to a customer?"  Ask all your sales people and see what answers come back.  Watch how your people view their job and what they feel they can or cannot give customers.  See what they currently think they are allowed to give to their new prospects and what they are not.  You will get a lot of answers that you can expand upon, approve or disapprove.  You want this documented to ultimately train all sales personnel.  Your firm will come up with its own list, but here are some to get started.  As you run across more, get them on the master list and have it distributed to everyone.  This written list is to be used as a checklist of the tasks one will use to bring in a new customer. What am I allowed to offer or give to customers?

1. Product or Service Samples: Never forget to include the most important thing a sales person can do for the customer:  give him samples of your product or service.  You might think your particular business cannot provide samples but think again.  Review the benefits your customers receive when they do business with you.

• Food snacks from food manufacturers (amounts small enough but also tasty enough hopefully to cause the customer to want to buy more)
• Production or manufacturing samples (to demonstrate capability, skill and craftsmanship; leather goods, small metal parts, plastic parts, etc.)
• Music with a radio, stereo, iPad (free music is the sample to help sell the device; it makes your equipment immediately useful)
• Software with purchase of a computer (free software carries a high perceived value for most buyers who may justify buying the hardware if software gets thrown in; they now think and regard the transaction as one in which they did not pay for the software and they are happy)
• Oil changes, free maintenance for a period of time after buying a car (this may convince those who dread working with mechanics or anything involved in the repair of the vehicle)
• Perfume samples (small samples that entice the person to want to continue the experience; enough product to cause them to buy the regular bottle size)
• Lotion bottles (small samples to lure the customer to buy the normal sized bottle)
• Sofa cleaning for free to demonstrate capabilities of good carpet and furniture shampooing capabilities.
• Car wax sample kit, not large enough to wax a car, but enough to clean an area to demonstrate capability and provide a brilliant shine.
• Complimentary cleaning supplies, (throw in spot cleaning sponge samples, furniture oil samples, marble cleaning samples for countertops, etc.)
• Hygiene products (toothpaste, mouth wash, soap, acne medicine, etc.)
• Car wash given away with an automotive detail job or a gas fill-up (50 years ago, a punched card full of gas fill-ups would get you a set of drinking glasses at the gas station)

2. Product or Service Examples: You need to convince a customer your firm knows what it is doing, can easily do what the buyer wants, and has proof of those capabilities.  You need proof (pictures, slides, samples) of past performance.  You need visual or actual examples of what you have already done well, to hand to the customer.

• Tell the buyer about others who benefit (customer examples): Given that you have permission to mention a customer's name, you need to mention well-known companies for which you have worked.  If you want to win a lawn care contract for a business, show them the contract you have with the well-known local country club where you have been a vendor for six years.  Give a lawn-care customer a $10 discount for a month in exchange for posting a great in-yard lawn-care sign (Beautiful Landscaping Job by ABC Co.).
• Tell the buyer about contracts bigger than his (show capability): If you wish to secure some manufacturing contracts, mention those that you have had with customers far larger than the one in question (larger normally is impressive although not always).
• Convince the buyer by showing him (demos help sell): Show photos of products you have made (i.e.  Wedding cakes your firm made, tuxedoes your firm designed, lawn furniture your company made from the customer's blueprints, vintage cars you successfully restored, heavy industrial cranes you manufactured).

3. Patents, copyrights, associations, industry awards, certifications or pertinent sponsors that provide support for your firm's capabilities: Think hard because there are a number of things that can be listed here if you dig.

• Patents and Copyrights: If you have any patents or copyrights, get copies or original copies of these to put into frames for display in the lobby; when your buyers show up and must look at something while waiting.
• Association Members: You probably have members of industry groups on your company's staff that might impress potential buyers with their associations.  Take a polling of your managers and accumulate all of their accomplishments in an attractive company resume (i.e.  25,000 industry hours, 300,000 automotive engineering hours, 14 engineering schools, 21 engineering masters’ degrees, etc.).
• Independent Endorsements: Endorsements come directly or indirectly from a variety of sources.  Consider some of these examples.  If you are endorsed by the Sierra Club, get the benefit of mentioning this where you believe it will benefit your firm throughout your literature.  If the local softball team buys your doughnuts, have their picture on your bakery wall.  If the local doctors' association endorses your exercise gym and nutrition center, mention it and put their endorsement on your wall.  Hang a photo of the heart doctor using your company’s patented treadmill.

• Quality Certifications: If you are ISO 9000 certified, print this on your literature; show your certificate on your website (which can be printed) or display a copy on the wall in your front lobby.  Put the ISO logo on your company exterior wall.  Find out the most important of the certifications in your line of business and obtain them either directly or by hiring outsiders, coupled with these awards.
• Industry Awards and Contests: If you have won awards in your industry or achievements in your industry's contests, display and discuss them with your potential clients.  If you worked at cost with the local universities, display the plaques they have given to you (feature photos of them on your literature) and get photos of the items you either manufactured or made for these groups.
• Major Public Contracts: If your firm laid and poured the first highway north of town, bring the photo-book of progression pictures for this impressive project.  If your greenhouse provided all of the flowers for the local ballpark, take lots of pictures to display this recognizable ballpark enhanced by your flowers, shrubs and trees.
• Known Landmarks in Your Photos: If your construction company built a few of the impressive buildings in town, bring photos of them being built; your buyers may never have seen this so you are sure to impress them with this display.  If your firm built some well-known billboards, take photos of them and their locations which might trigger recognition by your buyers.  If your company provides all of the bread to a school district, show photos of the bread being delivered outside the school cafeteria.
• Key Personnel or Personalities: If you had the local university dean on your company board, mention him and his role and tenure with your firm, especially if he carries important weight in the community.

4. Benefits a customer receives need to be fully displayed in brochures and literature: A company should have printed descriptive brochures or pamphlets describing your products or services which lists a full array of benefits that the customer's purchase brings to them.  Your literature might feature the attributes, but it should fully stress the great benefits a customer derives from the purchase (i.e.  financial happiness, less stress about life insurance, more sex appeal, softer and more manageable hair, safer home security, less constipation and a more 'regular' life, beautiful smile, more muscular legs, tight rear end, happy and contented dog, cat or fish, comfortable relaxing sofa, chair or bed that ensures ability to relax, faster or more attractive car, an expensive coat that is made to provide more warmth, powder to stop foot itch, etc.)
5. List of specific company FAQs (frequently asked questions): This list should be comprised of all of the most important questions you have received from your customers (mail, telephone, email).  Have your sales personnel (inside and outside) submit these questions.  Assign one person to accumulate them and have your sales manager and his designee provide clear concise and informative company answers to these questions.

• your products and features, services offered, hours of operations.
• what is covered under warranties.
• where to buy service parts.
• where to call for service after hours.
• what to do in the event follow-up service is needed on the road.
• out of town, 24/7 customer service help lines.
• email addresses for assistance.
• websites for more information or manual downloads.
• help with operating the product or replacing service parts.
• where to get a catalog.
• how to download coupons.
• where, restrictions on returning products, etc.

6. Free manuals, guides or instructions: You can provide your customers printed guides or manuals when they purchase your products, or elect to tell the customer that all of the company's manuals are listed for free download on the company website, regardless of where the customer is located.  No matter what, give the customer a manual in the form he selects.
7. Free shipping: Your sales people might be allowed in some cases to offer free shipping or delivery depending upon location.  Tell them what can be negotiated without them having to get permission or an exception.
8. Free installation and setup: You might allow the sales representative to provide or include in-home 'free setup and installation' when the customer reaches a sales dollar level.
9. Free reusable shipping containers: Sometimes products might be sold within a reusable container that holds some perceived value for the customer after the sale.
10. Free advice related to the customer's product purchase or service: In some industries, your firm needs to offer further related information to enhance the customer experience with your firm.  You may need to do this in order to stand out or differentiate yourself from the rest of the competitors.

11. Free market information/leads: Your sales people may know market information that might help the customer expand his own sales, so providing leads throughout the year may be the one point of differentiation that your firm can use to increase sales.

12. Cost Savings/ Product Improvements: If your manufacturing company offers to make parts from specifications provided by potential customers, you may have seasoned and sharp engineers on your staff who can offer cost cutting ideas to reduce costs on the design.  Give them value when they present a blueprint to your firm.  If you perform a service and notice your customer wastes money or could save money buying a different item, material, process or providing a different service, offer this information to your customer as part of the service you provide.  Tell the customers you do this to show them options.  They can take the advice or they can ignore it.  It is doubtful they will leave you once they become dependent upon your good ideas, especially if any of them result in substantial cost savings or an improved product for their marketplace.
13. Order Information - Quantities, Times and Pricing: You would be surprised how many companies are not well served by their internal operating systems.  Unless they are big enough to hire IT personnel, they may not have very sophisticated reporting, especially information provided to your buyers.  You can help fill in this gap by offering to give a customer his purchasing history by part number when he needs it and when he asks for it.  Offer this service to your customer.

14. Availability for your client to your discounts as a buyer: Your firm has availability of discounts with outside vendors your client does not.  Go through the vendor names you pay each month and list their products or services you buy every day at prices cheaper than those your clients are offered.

15. Free Fast Replacements For Rejects Or Free Immediate Repairs: Depending upon your industry or product, consider free replacements for a period of time after purchase, or a guaranteed turnaround on repairs (repair within 24 hours, 2 business days, one week, you pick the reasonable time frame to settle down irate customers).

16. Free Demonstrations: If yours is a business that can allow the potential customer to try your product, keep one or two around for demonstration purposes.

• Lawnmowers: Let a customer mow part of a lawn.  Turn the machine on and let them push it or allow them to see how easy it is to ride and steer.
• Automobiles: Everyone knows how hard it is to turn down the opportunity to drive a new car, and once over, how much harder it is to not buy the car if there are great interest rates, easy financing and the sales person is a good one and has matched you with your dream car.
• Kitchen mixers: If you sell kitchen appliances, ask a potential customer who has shown interest to mix something with your $399 mixer that performs 39 different functions, all laid on a demonstration table in the store in the front of housewares.  Make sure to put something good to eat in their mouth at the end to try and seal the deal.
• Knives: If you are selling kitchen knives at a demonstration table, allow the customer to see how they work.
• Sweepers: If you sell sweepers, demonstrate your lighter push model versus your heavier and awkward competitor's model.  Let passersby sweep up dirt on a carpet and make sure they try both to see the difference and the ease of your model versus that of your competition.
• Gel Insoles: If you sell gel insoles, let customers put one in their shoe to try so they feel the comfort.  They will want this great feeling in both shoes.

17. Pricing specials for repeat customers on newer models: As a salesperson, you might use your knowledge of a customer to sell another product sometime in the future.  The one advantage he has in coming to you is the special pricing you can deliver to him as a repeat customer.  Here are a couple of examples.

• Computers: If you, as a sales person, sold a new computer to a customer three years and a new far superior model has come out, invite that customer to come in for a demonstration because you can offer a repeat customer a special deal.
• Automobiles: If you sold a new car to a customer three years ago and a newer model he might like has arrived, send him a postcard and give him a special deal if he will come in and test drive a new model.  Of course, if he likes the new model, you can give him a superior trade-in value on the old car which you know well because it has been serviced at your dealership the entire three years.
• Appliances: If you sold appliances to a customer a number of years ago and can get his attention, you can try to convince him of the energy savings the new models provide if he is interested to come in and browse.  Of course, if he chooses to do that, you can offer him the store's best pricing for a preferred customer such as himself or herself.

Tell customers when to order; offer free email reminders to check stock and place orders!

Why remind your buyers when it is time to reorder?  Your buyers purchase hundreds of items and forget to check stock, do not know their own reordering system very well, get delayed and forget until the last minute or normally wait until items run out or when someone in their own firm reminds them.  They get yelled at and you can help.  Offer assistance by sending a reminder.  Try to get this set up in your organization to enhance your customer service; it will pay off handsomely. Get your IT people to setup an automated email reminder system that your sales personnel can offer and use to notify buyers it is time to check stock and place an order.  Once designed if not already a feature in your system, have the IT people train your sales personnel to take an order and then teach them how to offer and implement this free service.  Before hanging up after placing a new order, your sales representative can offer the customer an automatic email as a reminder for reordering the same listing of products in a defined period of time that the customer chooses.  Tell that customer that this email is optional and can be stopped any time he requests it to cease.  Remind him he is in control of it at all times. For example, if your customer orders 30 items of 3 different parts every 90 days, offer a reminder to be sent to him concerning these particular three parts in about 80-85 days (ahead of schedule) as a reminder to re-order.  Remind him the service is available to him at no cost, can always be ignored and more importantly can be modified any time as he wishes just by asking. Your automatic email reminder will do several things for your buyer.

• Check stock: The email he gets from your company will act as an early warning for him to check stock for the items you provide so he does not run out.
• No obligation: It will remind him he is under no obligation to order.
• Split orders: Tell him he can split the order if he wishes because of change in sales or demand.
• Ignore order: Tell him he can order less or none at all.
• Discount reminders included: Tell him if he does respond, you will follow up to ensure that the order placed is what he wanted, plus you will let him know of any quantity discounts which may be available on larger orders at that time.
• Track other items as needed: Tell him if he wishes, he can assign you to buy any number of products that he currently has to track.  Even if you do not offer these products, you can do it at his current cost (arranged with the vendor) plus a 10% or 15% markup for handling fees.  He may or may not do this but you must offer more service than he can obtain elsewhere.  If the buyer believes you can eliminate a headache so he can concentrate on more important purchases, he may jump on your offer.  Just ensure you make money for handling these purchases for him.
• Order more than currently due: Make sure to tell him it is easy to increase his order at any time he chooses.
• Set up items as needed: Tell him you will set up all of his items with the dates he specifies to remind him to check stock.
• Service offered as a benefit: These benefits should be available within his own system, but may not be, so offer this valuable service to him.
• Service optional: This should be a function that his own system provides, but many companies lack good internal systems, so ask.
• Buyer becomes dependent: Tell your buyer he is under no obligation to buy.  Let him know your firm will send emails regardless if he buys or not.  You just want the opportunity to provide a great product or great service, and you want to do it on time for him.
• Setup the email/phone alert service he controls: Setup an email system that reminds him it is time to order.  In that email offer him the opportunity to place the order "as is", change the quantity, and enter another date in the future, either one time or to be repeated, or enter requests to be reminded about other specials via email.  Give him the option to see his previous orders (order history) to review when he forgets items or quantities.

Add "Total Potential Sales" fields for every customer in your system regardless of actual sales. You need to have an estimate of your total market size.

If you do not know how large your market is, you need to know.  If you have 60% of the market, you are unlikely to grow much and have a lot to lose.  You are less likely to spend on new capital and improvements to retain a 60% share.  If you have .5% of the market, you have the whole world in front of you.  You can justify spending money on new equipment, research and development and pursuing new channels of distribution.  Your current market size helps to dictate where you can go and where you cannot.  For most businesses, your potential market is far bigger than you most likely imagine. Most businesses are not selling to every potential buyer out there.  Many of your customers are not giving you 100% of their business.  For a business to grow, you must start with the information that you know.  Without any market knowledge except your own sales history and good record-keeping by your sales representatives from their sales calls, you can start the process of market estimation.  Try these steps to get started. Steps to define your market size, one customer at a time:

1. Add IT Fields to help define market share and potential: Ask your IT programmer to install a few new fields into your customer database.  The first will be populated by an unknown field that you find is unique to your industry such as number of trucks, number of stores, number of buyers, number of regional offices, etc.  This field will be specific to your industry or market and will help serve to estimate all of those customers you are currently not serving.  Leave it blank for now.

2. Your percentage of the buyer's purchases: The second field is the percentage representing your share of the buyer's purchases.  You most likely will never have more than 50-75% of any buyer's purchases if the buyer is sharp and he knows he must protect himself in the event one supplier drops out or tries to hold his orders up in exchange for price increases.  Be safe and assume you will normally not receive more than 50% of any one customer's orders.  You want to lowball this guess.  When the buyer says he has three vendors, enter 33%.  If he says he splits the market between you and another unknown, enter 50%.  If he says you have it all, enter 75% to be safe because nearly all buyers must protect themselves.  For new customers that you have no firm orders from yet, the percentage entered into this field will be 0% until you get an order.
3. Find the highest sales levels for all your customers: Have the IT guy scan the entire sales database for all the years of sales history for each customer.  Extract the highest historic sales dollar amount for every customer regardless of the year that it occurred.  Pick this biggest recorded entry and use it to represent 50% of that customer's market potential for the next year.  If you are currently doing $100,000 this year with that customer but did $375,000 three years ago, use $750,000 for that customer's total market value ($375,000 / 50% = $750,000).  Until you know the customer's potential purchases have dropped, you must assume they have sought out other suppliers and you are getting less, until you are told otherwise.  As you well know, vendors do not call you up and tell you they are shopping elsewhere; finding that out is up to your sales representative if he is sharp, awake and can get the information out of the buyer.
4. Use a ratio, key industry indicator to guess the customer's size - Field 1: Try to determine how large the customer's potential purchases are even after he declines a comment.  Ask him but let up if he feels uneasy in disclosing this.  He may be instructed by a paranoid supervisor not to disclose total purchases information.  Ask him if he cannot tell you the total dollars, whether he can tell you what percentage he is giving you today.  If he remains noncommittal, use other statistics to derive a number.

• Count Locations: Count the number of stores the company runs that buy the products you sell and use an assumed average purchase dollar amount per store.
• Use Number of Employees: Use the number of employees the company has; there might be a ratio between headcount and potential purchases.
• Count Service Vehicles: Count the number of service trucks that are employed by your customer and compare to other existing customers.
• Percentage of Purchases: Ask what portion of the customers' business is affected by your products or services and use other customers' ratios to extrapolate potential purchases.
• Use Truckload Extrapolation: If he will not give a dollar amount, ask how many times per month or quarter that he might order a truckload (assuming you know the average value of a truckload).
• Compare to Competitors: Watch for sales data in the news media and compare this potential customer's sales revenue to one of your existing customers already well defined and researched in your database.

5. Gather all sales trip data and update database fields: Use all of the information gathered from your sales representatives' sales calls after they ask customers how much of your product or service they are currently buying outside of your company.  Purchasing agents do not normally lie about these facts so their estimates will be close enough for your database for now.
6. Create market value for each customer, sales or not: Enter your best estimate for the total market value into each customer's record.  Enter the percentage of their business you reportedly have, plus the annual estimate of their total purchases.  If the buyer is giving you $50,000 per year and he says you have about 25%, believe him and use $200,000 as an annual amount.  Ask him at the same time what other companies he uses; ask him who your competitors are for his business.  If the buyer tells you he has given you all of his business at $100,000 but his firm is large and the number seems out of sync with his company's size, enter his total purchases as $200,000 and assume you have only 50%.  It is highly unlikely you have 100% of a customer's business and thus safer, to assume you have no more than one half.  As your sales grow and disprove each record's assumptions, update the records.
7. Update individual market estimates as sales rise above 50% maximum levels: When your sales for a customer surpass the 50% level of the estimate you made earlier, have the representative ask how big their current market is.  You will get better responses if you talk about your preparation to review cost savings, changes in processes and potential cost savings for the customer if your firm is awarded more and more of their purchases.  Remind them larger purchases may allow price cuts for the volume increase if they can present larger orders to your firm to fill out more of future production time.  You want to know how large the potential is for a current customer because getting more sales from a current customer is far more lucrative than starting over with a new sales lead.
8. Enter all potential customers regardless of lack of sales order history: When your sales representatives run across more potential customers, enter those customers into your database with their market estimates and have those customers with no sales orders appear on those sales representatives' sales order reports with buyers' names and telephone numbers.  They need to show up on the sales order report repeatedly in order to remind everyone of the potential of this customer.  Who are you not selling to?  If you do not write it down, it will fade from memory.
9. Review monthly results and assign someone to gather and update records: Review the monthly results of each customer and adjust the market percentages those buyers claim they have given your firm, which will create a new higher market estimate for this customer.  Assign a person to do this every day.  This is your market so do not ignore it.  Do this on every customer after sales calls.  Instruct your sales personnel to politely ask about the customer's total purchases or what their current purchase percentage represents?  (i.e.  Are they currently buying 20% from you?  30% from you?  50 % from you?).

10. Publish This Estimated Market Size Report Monthly for Criticism/Review: Publish an Estimated Market Report ($000s) or ($Ms) each month showing the actual YTD sales from each customer and the potential sales that are not being received.  Sort this listing by the largest dollar amounts of the current customers first.  Sales managers can accompany their representatives on some of these calls to see what can be done to obtain more business and if the potential market is really there.

To find problems, define and run exception reports to resolve problems more quickly.

Many company employees run numerous reports and when necessary, dump that data into a spreadsheet to spend hours manipulating it multiple times.  They do this week after week deriving various sorts and lists of exceptions and data problems.  Some of this work is necessary but most is not.  There is definitely a part of this that begs to be automated.  Examples of this data manipulation your employees do every day, include running entire reports looking for inventory details, all-inclusive sales transaction lists for the month, every transaction comprising accounts receivable or a complete listing of all of the company's 14,000 employees. These employees diligently dump this data into spreadsheets and try to find bugs, errors, answers to management's questions or maybe they are just trying to clean up the database, which is never finished in a growing business.  Ask yourself how much of this is wasted effort, and can it be cut down with exception reports?  Try a different approach to get to the answers more quickly, with less cost. Decide the specific problems, exceptions and abnormalities you wish to track and define them in the form of designed reports.  For some people this is already being done.  Many small companies still waste a lot of time running reports that do not help to efficiently support the growth of the firm.  For this reason, stop and review the most critical pieces of information that you need to run your business, ask how it is being derived and how often.  You may be surprised at the manual manipulation that is being done that should be automated. Run lists of only the exceptions you need to find.  This will speed up review and cut wasted time culling through thousands of good data entries.  Design reports to list only those items that fall outside the normal parameters of what you are seeking.  Shorter reports allow you to get to the problems much faster and speed up the correction process.  Here are some examples of these types of reports you might consider having written by your programmer (internal or IT vendor). Examples of various useful data exception reports:

1. Old invoice cutoff: Run a listing of only outstanding company billed invoices now over 60 days old (you pick the cutoff time period).  Include a page break between each customer, include all invoice and purchase order detail, the customer's email or fax number, email address and the name of the AP person who pays your invoices.  With different pages, it may be easier and much faster to assign and pass out past due invoice reports to a number of staff so you may double up on collection efforts thereby bringing in cash far more quickly.  By including a page break, each report can be scanned and emailed or faxed directly to the customers' AP in charge of paying your firm.  Stress to the group involved with this collection effort that they are essentially collecting their paychecks.
2. Excess inventory cutoff: Run a listing of any inventory over 90 days old, sorted by location (i.e.  Warehouse A, warehouse B, store 101, store 102, department 29, department 30, etc.) or cost level (over $100.00, under $100.00, $.01 to $1,000.00, $1,000.01 to $5,000.00 --- you pick the categories).  Once these reports are run on a regular basis, mark down this inventory to move and notify purchasing to reduce future purchases at this point.  Mark the products 'overstock' and distribute the lists to the sales department to begin moving.  Announce improved or increased incentives to your sales personnel to find buyers for this 'stock with whiskers'.  Make it worthwhile to turn this inventory back into cash.  Do not regret the overstock; just do not make the same mistake twice.  Make sure to lower the buy level trigger that resides in your system for the next purchase.
3. Product sales cutoff: Run a list of only those items you sold that generated less than $20.00 net income, 20% gross profit, 10% net profit or 8.5% net income (you pick the net income cutoff percentage or dollar amount).  You decide between percentage return and dollar return.  It will depend upon your business and internal requirements to cover fixed costs in your industry.  $10.00 items may generate 75% net profit every day of the week for your firm, but it will do no good if you cannot ever cover fixed costs.  This is the reason net profit percentage cutoffs may not be the only solution.  You may have to develop a combination of net profit percentages with dollar bottom levels.  It is your decision, specific for your company.  Design the report and run it for review on a regular basis.  Your goal is to isolate low profit items for targeting.
4. Sales order minimum cutoff: Run a listing of all the sales personnel who generated under $100,000 of net sales this month, $50,000 of gross receipts this week $250.00 of receipts today (you choose the dollar and time period cutoff).  You may wish to cut the report by net income produced by sales person if that is more applicable for your business.  Make sure to have this report available for the sales person to run himself at any time.  The question to answer is “Who is failing.”
5. Customer data exceptions: Run a listing of all customers without a buyer's name, telephone number, fax number, email address, zip code, city, state or whatever basic customer information you need for your analysis.  Instead of dumping these databases into excel and sorting this data over and over again, have the report run that automatically pulls out these exceptions much more quickly and more methodically.  You want the best customer information can you get.
6. Vendor data exceptions: Run a listing of all vendors without the company's valid and current W-9 on file, seller or contact's name, telephone number, fax number, email address, zip code, city, state or whatever basic customer information that you need for your analysis.  Instead of dumping these databases into excel and sorting this data over and over again, have the report run that automatically pulls out these exceptions much more quickly and more methodically.
7. Customer Sales and Net Profit 'Laggard" Exceptions: Run a listing of all customers that generated under 20% of net profit.  Within that group determine which had the largest sales dollars and have that report generated automatically in order to develop a strategy to improve these margins on these larger accounts.  It is this group of accounts that is dragging down your overall weighted average net profit-return percentage.  Begin analyzing what is causing this account to be lagging behind the rest of the pack.  Does this customer need some products raised in price?  Does he need a cost analysis and review?  What is costing an excess amount of money that is dragging down net profit return?  In this group of low net profit percentage high sales dollar companies, run this report often and analyze the details on these higher dollar accounts before attempting to go in and raise prices without considering the consequences.  Consider all of the other alternatives; obtaining cheaper material costs, streamlining the production process, eliminating extra costly steps that add no value or speak to the customer and suggest cost cuts that can help avoid a price increase.
8. Last purchase dates exception reports: If customers are known to buy from your company every three months, you may want to develop a report for your sales people that will list all those customers that have not placed an order for more than 90 days.  If that time frame is 6 weeks, have the report cutoffs for one month and one half (i.e.  2 months, five days, two weeks --- you decide the reminder cutoff time).  Have these reports available to be run personally by the sales personnel at any time.  You may want to also develop follow-up reports to mail out 10% discount coupons to these missing customers to be used on their next in store purchase or other promotional ideas for those missing customers.  The most important thing is running these reports because customers are missing for a reason.  You need to find out why they have not returned.  Your product or service is deemed not worthy.
9. Absent customers from the monthly sales list (Lost Sales): Run the list of customers that did not show up for the month.  If you will enter a dollar amount that should be the normal dollar amount expected from a customer and have an exception report pick up that customer name and the shortfall for the month, it will be easier for you to see who is dropping off or which customers are displaying problems with reduced orders.  Your sales team needs to investigate what is happening; where your customers are going and why?  Try coupons, a phone call or survey to find what went wrong.
10. Unscheduled production machines list (Lost Sales): Run a listing of production machines that are not running because of lack of sales.  Forward this to sales and put a bounty on incoming purchase orders to keep these machines operating.  This generates a level of overhead absorption even if those sales revenues are bid at breakeven.  Your goal is to keep machines operating at all scheduled times to recover capital investment.
11. Out of Stock Items / Products Listing: If you religiously keep track of all the times you are out of stock for various products you normally carry (inside sales and customer service feedback), you will know the lost sales you are experiencing because of poor purchasing knowledge or a misunderstanding of your potential market.  You will want to provide this list of missed sales to purchasing or production scheduling to adjust to larger market demand.  What sells and what does not?

Search for unclaimed property; help yourself, your company and your customers!

Unclaimed property held by the States:  All the 50 U.S. State governments held an accumulative $56B of unclaimed property at the end of 2012.  This huge amount represented checks issued to individuals and companies within those respective states accumulated (interest free) over the past few decades that were for various reasons undeliverable.  By law, returned checks are to be forwarded to each state to be held and disbursed until rightful owners apply for their refund.  Those owners can be living individuals, the deceased, companies (profit and non-profit) and most importantly you. Who do these funds belong to?  Who might have monies held by your state?  You, someone in your family, or a deceased relative of yours may have funds held by your state.  Your friends may have funds held.  Your company may have monies held at the state level that you or your firm's representatives need to claim.  These state agencies also may have property that is held for you, waiting for your official claim. Where did this money come from?  These funds could be the result of a class action lawsuit where thousands of ex-customers are awarded dollars long after they have moved from an old address and changed to another utility, bank, credit card company or credit union.  Monies could have been received from a real estate settlement where the title company mails a check back to a participant but does not have a current address for the person or firm previously involved.  Funds could be sent to you due to overcharged insurance rates or premiums.  There are a number of sources from where these monies flow in to the state. Do your customer a favor:  One thoughtful thing you can do at your business within your sales department is teach your sales people to look for these funds for their customers, at no charge.  Walk into your buyers' offices and show them they can be a hero in their organization by letting their management know of money sitting waiting to be claimed.  Your salesmen can also notify new potential companies about their unclaimed funds.  Let them know they have monies owed to them at the state capital and leave them smiling at the end of your sales call.  This provides a great lead-in towards selling a new customer. Instructions for successful searching for unclaimed property: 

1. Google or search your state and the words "unclaimed property". For example, in Indiana, search "Indiana Unclaimed Property".
2. Click on the state website that holds a search engine.
3. Enter your company's name.
4. Vary the spelling for common misspellings to ensure the check is not held under a slightly different name.
5. Some of the states allow you to search by street so try this also.
6. A company named "The Cleaning Company" may be listed under "the", "cleaning" or maybe "company". Try all variations.
7. Some search engines will find too many so you must practice searching to get an understanding how the state's search engine works.
8. Be sure to search unclaimed property for your individual name.
9. Be sure to search unclaimed property in each state where your company has physical offices.
10. Be sure to search for unclaimed property for you in each state where you have lived or owned residences or properties.
11. Search in every state the person has lived or the company has offices or locations.
12. Search with as few letters as possible to find the name of relatives. (i.e. Jo…smith for Joseph Smith.)
13. Try individuals' last names first without a first name, then add the first letter of the first name until you begin to receive results.
14. Search for all previous maiden names.
15. Search deceased people; estate representatives or legal heirs will have to claim these funds.
16. Search common misspellings because many of these entries were hand typed into the system years ago.
17. Review all similar names that do not have addresses or towns listed in the results. Look for recognizable sources such as your bank or ex-bank, your credit union or ex-credit union, an old 401K fiduciary institution, apartment complex or real estate company where you might have lived for a potential missed deposit, a familiar utility company name where you may have left a deposit.
18. Search non-profits for last donations.