Results Blog

What Should You Do With Your Cash?

David Panitch — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:58:59 +0000

I know...this is a trick question or at least one with a multitude of answers. But what I am talking about is a business that has a significant amount of cash sitting on the sidelines. You can probably tell by my use of the word "sidelines" that I don't think that is where it should be.

It is one thing if you only have enough cash to make your next payroll, but if you have considerably more than that then you should be considering how to best leverage that cash. Here are some things to think about:

Is it time to acquire another business? This could be a direct competitor or a complementary business that over time will help increase your revenue and profitability.

What about stepping up your marketing efforts. We all know that marketing happens over time and in many cases takes some money to make it happen. Marketing when business is slow will help fuel future growth. Marketing when business is booming will help to sustain the boom times.

Adding a salesperson is another great idea. There are a number of excellent sales professionals out in the market today. If you have the cash, you will likely give your new hire an adequate amount of runway to become successful.

The point is don't have your money sitting out of the game when utilizing it will provide your company with the needed growth to flourish during these difficult economic times.

Outstanding Customer Service - Golf Galaxy

David Panitch — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 13:51:31 +0000

I know I just wrote about not playing too much golf this season, but I didn't say NO golf! Long story, short. I own a Taylor Made R7 SuperQuad driver. This is the one that has four removable weights in the back of the head. Well, I've had it for two years with no perceived need to change the weights until Monday night. So, I got the weight removal tool out and started to switch out a couple of weights to alter my tee shot just a bit. The last weight that I inserted wouldn't go in all the way, which allowed the weight to rattle whenever the club moved. Pretty annoying and most likely, unsafe.

On Tuesday I went into my local Golf Galaxy store and went to the club repair area. Now, I must mention that I didn't get the club at Golf Galaxy. Without hesitancy, the club repairer started working on the driver. He was not able to fix it with the weights that I had with the club, but he went to their used club rack and found a similar club and removed the weights with the sole purpose of fixing my club. He solved my problem without ever asking if I bought the club there or not. I need to add that there was NO CHARGE for his work.

Do you think that I'll be back to buy from Golf Galaxy...you bet I will and I hope you shop there, too!

Great service is alive and well, you just have to look hard for it.

I Hope That Your Golf Game Suffers This Summer

David Panitch — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 16:03:59 +0000

It would be a good thing if your handicap when from 15 to 20 this summer, it would mean that you were working and not playing golf. I love golf, I really do. But I love a productive society even more. If you are working more on your business and less on your golf game this summer, that's a good thing. Remember not too long ago when you had very little work to do and plenty of time to work on your short game? Well, from the indicators that we are seeing, those days are over.

Now I'm not saying not to play golf. I just think that this summer will prove to be a time to get your business moving forward and invigorate all of your employees to do the same. This is a time for optimism, perhaps guarded, but nonetheless optimism. Share your optimism with your people. It will become infectious and will help to propel your company forward. The time for hunkering down is over.

So dust off or create your strategic plan. Get your people involved with the execution of your plan and make it happen. If you need help with the creation or execution of your plan, please feel free to contact us. This is what we do for our clients.

Are you recovering?

David Panitch — Wed, 12 May 2010 04:01:15 +0000

If you're tired of all the doom and gloom, then jump on our bus! I can tell you that the glass is (more than) half full at Results Technology Group. I hope that it is where you are, too. While we are certainly not a huge economic indicator, we do have clients that are doing better in 2010 than they did in 2009. Now I know what you're thinking...2009 was dismal, so big deal if they are doing better than that lousy year. Good point, but they are doing better! They made some difficult decisions focusing on the survival of their organizations in 2009. Now they are investing in growth. Let me hear about your growth prospects. The more people we can get on the bus, the better.

Do you have goals for 2010?

David Panitch — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 18:12:12 +0000

You're probably nodding your head, which means that you either have already created meaningful, measurable goals or you know that you should.

We help people within our clients' organizations create SMART goals. These are goals that have certain important characteristics. SMART is actually an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reasonable, and Time-based. While we know that it is not possible to create every goals with these characteristics, if you approach your goals with these key elements in mind, you should get closer to creating goals that can be achieved.

As 2009 comes to a close, we believe that it is critical to every person's future success to create written goals. Don't be like the majority of people each year who toss out new year resolutions like they are confetti. Take your resolutions to the next level and create solid goals. You'll be amazed what you can achieve.

We wish all of you a healthy and goal-filled 2010.

Do You Care What Your Customers Think About You?

David Panitch — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:02:10 +0000

I've heard a number of people complaining about all this new technology. Blogs, Forums, Facebook, Twitter,etc. The biggest complaint is that they just don't want to give their customers another way to complain about their company. They say, "how would I even go about defending my position." The answer is "how do you defend your position today if you don't even know what your customers are saying about your company?"

This is quite a problem for most small businesses. Who has the time to check all of these different avenues of information, let alone respond to each comment made about your company? The answer may be easier than you think. What if you had a way of "automatically" asking your customers about your products or service? What if there were opportunities for you to turn a bad situation into a good one? How many of you are surveying your customers on a regular basis?

There are some excellent tools available that will allow you to both survey and just reach out and communicate with your customers on a regular or event-based frequency. One such tool is Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This robust CRM tool will automatically send out e-mail questions to your customers based on either time or events that occur, such as every 60 days or after they place an order. This would allow you to quickly solve an issue if it pertains to a specific event or interaction that a customer had with your company. There are other CRM solutions that can do the same thing, too.

Another great tool is a survey tool by QuestionPro. It is a fairly sophisticated surveying engine that is built for everyone from the novice to professional surveyor. The key here is to develop a methodology and process for analyzing the data that you receive from the respondents. One of the worst actions you can take is to send out a survey and then do nothing with the responses. Your customers expect that a survey, especially a negative one, will begin a two-way communication regarding the issue. Don't start a survey without planning for how you will manage the response side of the equation.

The bottom line is hearing what customers have to say about you is very important. It takes guts to listen, but it is even more foolish to cover your ears and think that they are not talking about you. They are and it is easier today than ever before to spread good and bad news- quickly!

Hug, don't strangle your customers

David Panitch — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:12:49 +0000

It's always a good thing to "hug" your customers. We all know that without customers (or clients, if you are in the professional services sector) we don't have a business, but do our customers really care? You can tell that they care if you hear from them on a regular basis (buy from you, too!). If you are hearing from them and all they want to do is gripe about your company, then you better take a deep hard look at what you are doing to cause this negative feeling. All of this is pretty basic common sense.

But what about everyone talking about getting closer to your customers. Hold your customers close to you. Pay more attention to your customers during a recession. Is there something called "getting a bit too close to your customers?" I think that there is. Let's hug, not strangle your customers.

How many of you are getting e-mails from vendors on a more regular basis now? What about the notification in a variety of media outlets about the latest and greatest sale ever!! I think that businesses need to think about the frequency of their (touches) communication with their customers. Hearing about a special offer just for me EVERY day is a bit much...no, it is actually annoying. We hear you. We know you are struggling, so are we as consumers. We can only buy so much and so often.

If we promise not to forget about you, will you promise to remind of about you only once a MONTH, not every day. It would sure reduce some of the e-mail that I get and I may even pay attention to what you send me, rather than just hitting the delete key before I can even read the subject line.

Remember, touching us consumers too much, becomes annoying and some people might even say too desparate. Keep providing great products and services and we'll be loyal. Just ease up on the hugging.

Website creation on a shoestring budget

David Panitch — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:53:36 +0000

If you are not a web site developer and you don't have a few thousand dollars to hire one, then you should check out www.squarespace.com. These guys have taken both the building of a web site and hosting it to a new level of simplistic elegance. The Results Technology Group's website was developed through this fantastic service. Now a bit about service (which you know I love to write about). I had two instances to ask a question of the folks at squarespace and in each instance I received a clear response within 15 minutes. Now when I say clear, I mean that it was in clear English and actually answered my question. I cannot say enough good things about this service. Hey squarespace! Keep up the great work.

Google Apps are very compelling

David Panitch — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:15:40 +0000

In doing some research for a client, we dove into Google Apps. If you haven't looked at how Google can help the corporate world, I'd suggest that you do. In a simple comparison of utilizing Microsoft Exchange with Share Point services (Microsoft Small Business Server) vs. Google Apps, the total cost of ownership for an organization with less than 50 users leans heavily towards Google Apps. The ability to sync with Outlook, share/collaborate on most any document, store up to 25Gb of mail, and interact with everyone's calendars creates a strong argument for Google Apps. At only $50 per user per YEAR, it is very cost effective. There will be those that argue that it is still not Microsoft Exchange and we agree, but does everyone really need Exchange?

Hey America! Haven't we made enough cuts?

David Panitch — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:58:03 +0000

I am hard pressed to think of a company that has not made some sort of cuts over the past 6-12 months. Now I'm not saying that these cuts didn't need to be made, I just think that organizations need to start thinking about how to start focusing again on the growth side of their business. We know that we can't cut our way to growth.

We'd love to hear about any investments being made in the growth of a business. Please share your stories here.