Mark Hale, super sales professional and owner of Wilson Printing was gracious enough to share some marketing and sales advice with you, our loyal readers, PLUS he offers you a gift at the end!

The simple law of business is that “Business goes where it is invited”. If you are going to take your business to the next level you are going to have to stop looking at marketing and advertising like an accountant and start looking at your business like a marketer.

When things slow down, the first thing the bean counters and accountant types want to do is cut expenses. The first line item on the P&L they come to is advertising. When you cut your advertising you are in effect speeding up the downward spiral of your sales.

1. Business goes where it is invited.

If you are not advertising, you are losing business. Remember, the competition is inviting your customers to do business with them.

You only coast when you are going down hill. No company’s sales are ever really flat, they are either getting better by a little bit or getting worse by a little bit. You have to fight sometimes for small increases, but as long as it is an increase, no matter how small, up is up. When you see your sales “flat line” you should increase your promotion and marketing.

There are three things to do to increase sales:

1) Identify what your customers want now and deliver THAT. Deliver it with better quality and service than they expect. Deliver it faster than they expect.

Do a survey of your customers to find out what they want in the way of quality, service, product and delivery from your type of business.

Some things you want to ask your customers are:

• How does your product or service make their lives or business easier and better?

• Why do they buy from you?

After you talk to a few customers you will begin to see com­mon themes in their answers. You will use this information later to hone a message and develop a positioning that will make your marketing more effective.

2) Promote to your customers and prospects that you will provide what they want on a continual and consistent basis.

The more often you promote the more your sales will grow.

This involves setting up a budget for advertising and then deciding how you are going to invest that advertising money. Allocate a percentage of your sales toward advertising each week. As sales grow so does your ad budget and with it your ability to reach wider and bigger markets. For most businesses the percentage is between 7% and 15%, but what ever it is you should keep the percentage constant. You may have to adjust the percentage in the beginning to find the right percentage for your business type.

Now that you have your ad budget there are many advertising mediums you can spend that money on – radio, TV, billboards, newspapers, magazine and direct mail. I have found that the simplest and most effect medium is direct mail. It offers target ability, relatively low cost, is very effective and allows you to reach prospects frequently. As a business owner, I have found direct mail to be an effective direct response method of increasing sales.

You can send a personal letter or postcard directly to your customers and prospects for pennies.

Postcards are very effective because they;

1) Allow you to target your message and market.

a. You can buy a list that EXACTLY targets the prospects you want.

b. You can put forth a targeted message that attracts the type of customer you want.

2) Postcards allow you to put your message in the hands of prospects.

a. Postcards are very tangible; prospects can touch and hold on to your ad.

3) Postcards allow for a direct call to action and response.

BONUS OFFER!

Do you need more business? Wilson Printing is offering Money Management Solutions friends and clients a 10% discount on your first order of postcards or brochures.

Simply go to this link:  http://www.wilsonprinting.net/Printed-Promotional-Materials/postcards.html Check out the price.

When you call, tell them Money Management Solutions sent you and receive 10% off the prices on their website.

What do you do when you get your Profit & Loss Statement (P&L) from your accountant, or when you print one from your accounting software? Do you ignore it, or look at the total income and the bottom line net income and then toss it in a drawer or file folder without analyzing it? If that’s the case, then you are missing out on some potential opportunities to increase your sales and your profits.

Smart money management practices include staying in control of how your company’s income is being used and to make adjustments that are in the company’s best financial interest. There are many ways to analyze your P&L to identify some lost income opportunities; here are just a few.

1 – Pull last month’s P&L statement so you can compare it with the current month’s statement.

2 – Compare the Total Income figures and the bottom line Net Income figures. Whether you are up or down compared to the previous month, you can use the rest of the report to figure out why that may be the case. Financial management is easier when you do some analysis.

Cost of Goods Sold: Look at your cost of goods sold to see if your inventory was replenished fully or you were out of stock on some items that you could have sold.

Investigate whether the costs have gone up and you need to pass on the cost increases. You can lose sales by being out of stock as well as not passing on price increases from your suppliers. This would eliminate the strange sensation that you may have experienced when you are ‘selling more’ but ‘making less’.   And you think, “What the heck is going on here?”  So be sure to look this over with a critical eye.

If your suppliers have raised prices, you should increase your pricing structure on the products you are selling. This ensures the sales you make have an adequate profit margin built into them. Sometimes suppliers raise their costs and forget to inform you, or the announcement gets lost before it reaches your in-box, and you don’t notice the increase right away.  For example, some express parcel shippers tacked on a $20 fuel surcharge increase when gasoline prices surged to over $4 a gallon.  They did this because their prices increased, so they had to pass them on to you – their customer.

Tip: Get all of your suppliers to fax you their latest price sheets and compare these figures to the costs you have for the items in your accounting system. Then decide if you should raise your prices to pass any increased costs on to your customers.

Tip: It’s better to increase your prices a bit by bit over time, rather than increase them by a large amount all at once.  Notice how a well -known coffee shop raises its prices for coffee a nickel or a dime every 3 – 4 months and customers keep right on buying.

Advertising & Promotion: The first expense item(s) to look at are your marketing expenses. Did you cut back or increase promotion? Did you change your promotion and is working better or perhaps not working as well? Too many businesses cut back on promotion funding in tough times. That’s a big mistake. Deciding to cut back on talking to your current and potential customers can cause them to forget your company and to shop at your competitor who is still promoting.  Consumers have not stopped buying, they are just being more selective about what they buy and where they shop.

Other Expenses Lines: Compare each expense line to the matching expense from the previous month. Are expenses creeping up without you realizing it? If so you can decide where to cut back. Did previous cost cutting measures help the bottom line profit? If so, congratulate yourself.

Balance Sheet Items: If the bottom line Net Income is up, but you don’t have that cash sitting in a bank account where you can see it, it usually means that you paid out the profits to principal owed on debt. Your balance sheet shows you the credit debt (liabilities) you owe and paying those is not deductible except for the finance charges or interest.

For more of these business profit tips, check out our downloadable e-book Business Checklist to Increase Profits.  This checklist is the shortcut to an MBA on money management to generate more profits.  It costs a lot less that an MBA degree, and it’s easier to understand!

What have you learned from your P&L statement? Share it with our readers by submitting a comment.

Here is a way to get rid of the IRS and never have to file another income tax return; or corporate return for that matter! Every dime you earn would be in your paycheck; no taxes withheld. It’s within your power to make it happen!

There is a tax bill before Congress right now that would abolish the IRS and get rid of income taxes, corporate taxes, death taxes, estate taxes, etc. It is called the FairTax Act and I am here to tell you it is not only fair, it would solve our country’s economic problems overnight. Here’s a snapshot of how it works.

First I do want to say that The FairTax is resisted by a vocal minority precisely because it will do what it claims in eliminating the IRS, the more than $300 billion in tax return filing costs, and the corruption of the current system. Make no mistake, that adjustment will be hard for tax lawyers, special interest groups, lobbyists who make millions from our current tax system and those in Congress who see the current tax code as a way to get your campaign contributions to buy your votes.

What is the FairTax?

The FairTax is a retail consumption tax that is charged when you buy something new. It is a transparent tax. That means that the tax will be on your receipt in plain English so you can see it.

Right now you are paying those taxes when you buy something, but they are hidden in the cost of the item by all of the goods and services that go into making that item from raw materials to packaged product. Those are called embedded taxes because they are hidden from your view. Under the FairTax Act, you would be paying the same price for a loaf of bread but the loaf would have a lower shelf price and the tax would be added at the cash register and printed on your receipt.

Is the FairTax actually fair?

Yes, the FairTax is fair. In fact, it is really much fairer than the current income tax. You can control how much tax you pay simply by deciding what items you are going to buy.

Wealthy people spend more money on more expensive items than other individuals. The FairTax taxes them on these purchases. Tourists and illegal aliens, who pay no taxes now, would be paying their fair share every time they buy something. Someone who deals in cash and never reports it on an income tax return would now pay taxes on their income when they spend it at the cash register.

And yes, the government would still get as much tax revenue as they do now, but it would cost us a lot less to run the government. In addition your Congressional Representatives who spend millions of your tax dollars to buy the votes of special interest groups by voting for insane programs, like studying the mating habits of wooly wingas, would stop. (A wooly winga is a made up name for an animal in case you were wondering.)

The FairTax would have a positive effect on the U.S. economy.

With the penalty for working harder and producing more removed, American businesses will experience a new era of economic growth and business expansion. Hidden taxes are history, Americans are able to save more, and businesses invest more. The FairTax, as proposed, would bring U.S. companies back home as it would no longer be an advantage to have U.S. companies in foreign countries hiring workers for low wages that Americans should be doing here at home for a fair wage. In addition, other international investors will want to invest here to avoid taxes on income in their own countries, which would further spur the growth of our own economy.

The FairTax would have a positive effect on wages and prices.

Americans who produce goods and earn wages are currently required to pay significant tax and compliance costs under the current federal income tax. These taxes and costs both reduce after-tax wages and profits and are then passed on to the consumers of those goods and services in the form of price increases.

When the FairTax removes income, capital gains, payroll, and estate and gift taxes, the pre-FairTax prices of these goods and services will fall. The removal of these hidden taxes may also allow wages to rise. Exactly how much prices will fall and wages will rise depends on market forces. For example, in a profession with many jobs and too few to fill them, wages will likely increase more than in fields where there are too many employees and not enough jobs.

Workers would bring home what they earn.

It would put more money in the pockets of every U.S citizen by eliminating the income tax. There would be no deductions from what you earn to pay federal taxes, Social Security or Medicare. If you earned $100 you would get paid $100. Business would no longer be burdened with paying additional taxes on employee wages for Social Security/Medicare.

The FairTax has a positive effect on Social Security/Medicare.

Under the FairTax Act there would be plenty of money available for both these programs. Like all federal spending programs, Social Security would operate exactly as it does today, except that its funds come from a broad, progressive sales tax, rather than a narrow, regressive payroll tax.

Employers would continue to report the wages they pay to each employee to the Social Security Administration simply for the determination of benefits. The move to a reformed Social Security system is eased while ensuring there is sufficient funding to continue promised benefits.

In the meantime, Social Security/Medicare funds are no longer triple-taxed like they are under the current tax system: 1) when payroll taxes are initially withheld; 2) when those withheld payroll taxes are counted as part of the taxable base for income tax purposes; and 3) when the promised benefits are finally received.

The FairTax protects low-income and lower-middle-income families and individuals.

Under the FairTax Plan, poor people pay no net FairTax at all up to the poverty level! Every household receives a monthly prebate check that is equal to the FairTax paid on essential goods and services [groceries and medicine], and all wage earners are no longer subject to the most burdensome tax of all, the payroll tax.

The FairTax protects senior citizens.

Seniors do very well under the FairTax. Low-income seniors are much better off under the FairTax than under the current income tax system. Some people incorrectly believe that people who live exclusively on Social Security pay no taxes. They may not know it, but they are paying hidden corporate income taxes and employer payroll taxes whenever they buy anything. Under the FairTax, seniors pay $0.23 out of every dollar they choose to spend on new goods and services. Plus, seniors, like everyone else, receive the monthly prebate check, in advance of purchases, for taxes paid on the cost of necessities.

Yes, The FairTax CAN really be passed into law!

Do you have the right to vote in this country? Passing the original 16th Amendment and the income tax wasn’t easy, and repealing the income tax and the 16th Amendment won’t be easy either. That is why the FairTax has undertaken to build a grassroots movement and grassroots alliances to support the effort. But this will only happen when the American people rally behind the effort, throw off the yoke, and demand that their congressional representatives correct 90 years of wrongs done by the income tax.

What you can do RIGHT NOW to make sure this bill gets passed.

First, go to the website www.FairTax.org and sign the petition to let Congress and the President know that you want this bill passed into law.

Second, while you are on the website, look at the congressional scorecard to see whether your state congressional representatives support this bill. If they don’t, write them a letter and tell them that you think they should vote for it and that you will be watching this scorecard to see how they stand come election time.

Third, buy The FairTax Book: Saying Goodbye to the Income Tax and the IRS by Neal Boortz and Congressman John Linder. Read it so you understand what this bill actually says. The book is easy to understand. Then give it to a friend to read and ask them to pass it on.

Fourth, if you hear anyone, especially a politician, saying that the FairTax Bill will hurt the poor, or help the rich, or hurt senior citizens, then politely tell them that they either (A) have not read the FairTax Bill and understood it, or (B) they are intentionally misleading the public, so they must have a personal vested financial interest in keeping the current tax code in place.

Fifth, pass this article on to everyone you know and encourage them to join the grassroots movement to get this bill passed into law. Remember, our politicians serve us, we don’t serve them.

Sandra Simmons, President of Money Management Solutions, specializes in helping business owners and individuals manage their money to acheive financial freedom. Claim your FREE Debt Reduction Solutions Guide

© 2008 Sandra S. Simmons. All Rights Reserved.