WAYS SMALL BUSINESSES CAN SAVE MONEY

PRESENTED BY

Jill Konrath

Jill Konrath is a recognized sales strategist, speaker and author

who offers fresh strategies and practical advice for selling to today’s

crazy-busy prospects. Both her books, SNAP Selling and Selling to

Big Companies are Top 20 sales books on Amazon.

2

Being frugal is good, but in reality if saving money is your primary focus

it’s going to hurt your business. Savvy companies should be thinking

about growing sales during tough times. They should analyze where the

best sales opportunities are and channel resources in that direction. They

should look at ways they can grow their existing customer base. They

should turn their website into an inbound marketing hub to attract more

prospects.None of these activities cost a lot of money, but they keep the

company moving forward despite the tough economic times.

Harlan Goerger

Harlan Goerger has spent the last 25 years leading hundreds of his

client’s companies to expansive revenue growth. He is the author of

“The Selling Gap” and “Bypassing NO in Business” and spent 20

years as a sales leader with Dale Carnegie Associates.

3

Measure everything! Measure the productivity of your people, review

systems and processes regularly. Are they improving your business or

holding it back? Only measurement will tell you.

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Julie Steelman

Julie Steelman’s former clients read like a Who’s Who of big-name

corporate giants with Apple, Microsoft, Toyota, CBS, Sony Studios

and Universal Pictures in her rolodex. She generated more than

$100+ million in sales during her 30-year sales career. Julie is the

author of The Effortless Yes! and is known as The Sales, Success

& Bankability Mentor.

4

Stop looking for answers outside the company and use the brain trust of

the employees more effectively. Hold regular meetings to let the team

brainstorm ideas on how to streamline efforts and bring in more business.

When you have their full buy-in, they will work harder for you, thus saving

you time and money.

Sean McPheat

Managing Director of MTD Sales Training, Sean McPheat is

regarded as a thought leader on modern day selling. Sean has

been featured on CNN, ITV, BBC, SKY, Forbes, Arena Magazine

and has over 250 other media credits to his name. Sean’s latest

book “eselling® – How to use the internet & social media for

prospecting, personal branding, networking and for engaging the c-

suite decision maker” is a #1 Amazon bestseller.

5

It’s about working smart not hard nowadays. The recession has

highlighted the “fat” that many companies have been carrying. Look at

your processes, staffing and systems and see if you can outsource any of

the work that doesn’t add value. Focus on the important stuff and revenue

generating activities and anything that does not fall into that sphere must

be looked at and optimized for efficiency or cost savings

Liz Strauss

Liz Strauss is a Brand Strategist, Community Builder, Founder of

SOBCon. She blogs at LizStrauss.com and Successful-Blog.com

6

The businesses I work with all seem to be overlooking their greatest

opportunity — the people who are already doing business with them. It’s

fairly typical that we ignore the folks who already love what we’re doing

and go chasing after the folks who are ignoring us. It’s more time and

cost efficient and a stronger strategy to have an open conversation with

the people who are already helping us grow to ask them What would like

more of? What would like less of? How can we make it easy for you to

share what we’re doing? We often work hard on products and services

that our best customers don’t really care about. At the same time, we’re

also shy about inviting our best customers to refer us.

Bob Urichuck

Bob Urichuck is an International Professional Speaker, Trainer and

Author of two best selling books “Up Your Bottom Line” and

“Disciplined for Life: You are the Author of Your Future.” Bob has

been recognized as Consummate Speaker of the year and ranked

#7 in the World’s top 30 Sales Gurus.

7

I would say sell more to Up Your Bottom Line. Position yourself as an

expert in the marketplace and have buyers seeking you out.

Diane Helbig

Diane Helbig is an internationally recognized business and

leadership development coach, author, speaker, and radio show

host. She is the author of Lemonade Stand Selling and founder of

Seize This Day Coaching.

8

Think before you act. May sound simple but it is really easy to get

involved with “opportunities” that are only good for the person selling to

you! Set your budgets and stick to them. Really consider what you need

and then take the time to research the possible solutions to your own

needs. When it comes to needing people consider outsourcing. The new

business model is looking more and more like a wheel. You are the hub

and service providers are the spokes. Keeping staffing low (or non-

existent) will help you contain costs. Just be sure you have clearly defined

expectations and you monitor them constantly.

Jacques Werth

Jacques Werth is President of High Probability Selling, Inc – a

sales consulting and training company founded in 1989 . The

company specializes in sales process improvement. They have

trained salespeople, sales managers, consultants, and business

owners in over 70 industries.

9

Manage every aspect of the business for higher productivity.

Elinor Stutz

Elinor Stutz, CEO of Smooth Sale, LLC authored the International

Best-Selling book, “Nice Girls DO Get the Sale: Relationship

Building That Gets Results”, Sourcebooks and the best selling

career book, “HIRED! How to Use Sales Techniques to Sell Yourself

On Interviews”, Career Press. She provides team sales training,

private coaching and highly acclaimed inspirational keynotes for

conferences.

10

Small business owners need to review every single bill that comes in and

read every entry on the bill. Is each service necessary? Are you getting

the service or ROI you expected for each associated fee? May anything

be replaced by a similar service at lower cost or released because it isn’t

working? Whenever a request to join in on something, whatever the case

may be, give considerable thought as to possible future expense involved,

the possible reward, and whether it will produce an ROI or whether the

opportunity is actually opportunistic for the other party. Lastly, I have

found many female entrepreneurs feel guilt or obligation to move forward.

The better approach is to use analytics weighing time and cost before

jumping into a new “opportunity”. Lastly, your intuition will let you know

first whether the expense is justified. In short, use all of your senses and

scrutinize every activity!

Ken Thoreson

Ken Thoreson, Acumen Management Group, Ltd. president, is a

sales leadership professional who “operationalizes” sales

management systems and processes to pull sales results out of the

doldrums into the fresh zone of predictable revenue. His blog, Your

Sales Management Guru, has been rated in the top 10 sales blogs

in the United States

11

Hold a company meeting and begin to solicit ideas, then create a month

long theme and focus within your company where people can submit their

ideas to you. Let them estimate the savings to the company and award

several prizes for the best ideas.

Lori Richardson

Veteran Sales Detective Lori Richardson sifts through sales clues

and business practices to uncover hidden problems and assets,

then delivers creative tactics with a fresh approach so you can

Score More Sales. She is a sought after speaker, prolific blogger,

sales trainer and multi-million dollar producer, and President of

Score More Sales – a sales strategy firm.

12

Plan more and plan better.

Kenneth Darryl

Brown

Kenneth Darryl Brown is President and CEO of eWeb 2 Sales and

Profits, a sales, profit and business development company that

shows companies how to leverage the web to increase sales and

improve profitability. Kenneth was selected as one of the Top 25

Influential Sales Leaders by InsideView this year. Last year, his

show, “The Passionate Entrepreneur“ was picked as one of the

best podcasts for small business by Anita Campbell’s Small

Business Trends. Ken is called, “The Sales, Web and Profit

Evangelist”.

13

SMBs, business owners, entrepreneurs and sales professionals should

stop conducting initial face- to-face first call meeting with prospects and

do more online meetings. If you do this, you can conduct more first call

meetings and connect with more people by embracing the web. By

utilizing a web conferencing tool, your prospects share their desktop,

materials, and anything else to help you understand the prospect and

problem. Also, it allows you to share information, knowledge, a

presentation and possible solution without spending a lot of money

upfront. It really makes the sales process more productive and efficient.

It’s great!Likewise, you can conduct an online networking session.

Networking can be a costly activity and very time-intensive without

guaranteed results. It is important to focus on sales generating activities.

Why not use the web to make more connections? The technology is

there. Why not use it? Last year, my company made 1,062 connections

and over 1,470 this year. And, since it’s virtual, it is all done without

spending a single dollar on gas. This significantly impacts the bottom-line

for any company that embraces the web.

Alyssa Gregory

Alyssa Gregory is a small business collaborator and the founder of

the Small Business Bonfire, a social, educational and collaborative

community that provides small business help to entrepreneurs.

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Using technology is one of the best ways to save money in a small

business. Technology is changing the small business landscape, and not

only can using technology help small businesses save money, but it can

help them use what they have to do even more. With the right low-cost

technology solutions, small business owners can create more products

and services, reach more potential clients, and serve their customers

better than ever before — all at a reduced cost.

Sue Watkins

Sue Watkins has spent the last 20+ years developing marketing

strategies and campaigns. She also founded SMBmarketer.com

and authors the blog Smart Marketing Basics and tweets regularly

about small business marketing topics at @SMB_marketer

15

Looking at each expense, and understanding how it ties back to driving

revenue for your business. Don’t randomly cut expenses, rather prioritize

spending around those activities that drive lead generation and

opportunities back to your business.

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