There's More! - Finding and Making the *Right* Results Moves | There's More! | | Insights into How You Can Create Higher Profits and Growth | | in Your Business -- from Great Numbers! | Feel free to forward There's More! to your fellow executives. To sign up, change your info, or leave, see ABOUT There's More... at bottom. == Finding and Making the *Right* Results Moves in Your Business == The defining skill of every great executive is the ability to maximize the profits and growth of the business he or she runs. This requires finding and taking the management actions that will *best* boost results, or in simple terms: making the *right* results moves. This is crucial--if we as executives just “do something,” and it doesn’t get our results where they need to be, someone with *better* results moves will be only too happy to take our seats. How can you find the right results moves to make in your business? The good news is that they *can* be found--there's a straightforward *way* to do that, which you'll learn more about right here. But they’re different for every business, because every business is different. Let's say that your main goal is to boost profits. A first step is to assess the impact on profits of the various results moves you could make. But some of the “popular favorite” ways to do this often have little impact. - Cutting administrative staff only makes a big difference when you're really fat to begin with--and you're probably not. (So cutting administrative staff lacks the *power* to boost profits very much.) - Beating up, er, exhorting, the sales force to "sell, sell, sell," often makes little to no difference to the customer about *why* they should buy, or buy more. (Doing this might not boost sales volume much, and could induce price cutting or worse, questionable deals.) - “Leaning on” suppliers is like cutting staff. It's often an area where much has been done, and there's little left to gain. (This can reduce Cost of Goods Sold, usually a powerful influence on profits, but often can’t be pushed very far.) Two potentially more powerful actions are: - Enhance your customer-value proposition, so that what you provide is worth more to people, and more of them want it. (This can stabilize or increase pricing, and boost sales volume, but it can be difficult, expensive and take a long time.) - More effectively *communicating* the value you already provide through improved advertising or free "buzz." (This can positively impact price and sales volume, especially if your current advertising doesn’t really “hit home.” Plus, it’s *relatively* easy.) What else can you do? Lots. We've identified almost 60 honest ways to boost profits. But our job as executives is not to find *lots* of results moves. It's to find the *right* results moves for *our* own unique, individual businesses. We've created a way begin to do that—-for executives who are running a business, or who want to maximize the results of one of their major businesses (as distinct from the CEO’s usual role of maximizing the results from a portfolio of businesses). You can download our free Action Paper “The Fortune Finder--A New Way to Boost Real Profits” which describes how to find *your* right results moves. You can also download some help with Step 1, a free Microsoft Excel worksheet for finding the inherent profit leverage of the various factors in your business--what we call their Profit Power. With these tools you can, given your constraints on budget, crucial resources and management time, take a first cut at finding the actions that will maximize profits--*your* right results moves. (The “full- blown” approach to The Fortune Finder requires more in-depth training-- our Results Masters program--but you can make a credible start on your own with these free tools.) Using the tools, and working through The Fortune Finder process with your team and your upper management will also foster a healthy dialogue --about how your budget, resource and time constraints are affecting your results (and your business’s potential), and whether any of them should be changed. We hope The Fortune Finder creates food for thought, and brings you more fruitful choices about the best management actions to take. Because every executive has the potential to create a prosperous business. A few will decide to get good at it. All the best, 'til next time... Drew Morris Founder and CEO, Great Numbers! 96 Rutledge Dr., Red Bank, NJ 07701 USA (732) 671-6660 FAX: (732) 671-6667 Please send feedback on this issue to mailto:Drew.Morris@greatnumbers.com You'll find more Results Resources on our Web site: http://www.greatnumbers.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- HELP YOUR COMPANY, COLLEAGUES, AND FRIENDS Know other executives who would gain from There's More? Why not forward this issue to them. If they find it valuable, then they can subscribe, for free. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- PRIVACY POLICY We won't rent, sell or disclose your contact information to anyone. Period. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT There's More! SUBSCRIPTIONS === SUBSCRIBING === If You're NOT YET Registered with Great Numbers!... Please click on the link below. 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You can use material from this newsletter in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution (see below), including a live link to the Great Numbers! Web site. Also, please notify us in advance as to where the material will appear (mailto:drew.morris@greatnumbers.com). The attribution should read: by Drew Morris of Great Numbers! LLC. Please visit the Great Numbers! Web site http://www.greatnumbers.com for additional articles and resources on creating higher profits and growth. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Results Masters, Great Numbers! and There's More! are registered trademarks, and The Fortune Finder is a service mark of Great Numbers! LLC. Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp.