June’s “12 Seasons” is all about a new, fresh look at what’s going on in our business world and what our responses probably ought to be.

How, at mid-year, to improve cash, credit, clients?  Well, how about a brand new focus on those three areas:  commission three tiger-teams in your company (or your peer or presidents group) to brainstorm, research the internet, and concoct unusual or maybe untried responses.

Here are some ideas:  1-replace your prompt-pay discount with a prompt-pay rebate, payable the following month (thanks to Abe WalkingBear Sanchez for this idea); 2-ask for cash deposits on orders; 3-teach your customers inventory earn-&-turn and DSO-tracking to improve their cash-flow, and they’ll likely return the favor of prompter pay to you; 4-lease items instead of buying; 5-outsource just about everything. 

We’ll continue to publish tips like these at www.ceotools.com/blog, so please visit our weblog and other great blogs regularly for ideas.  We’re just now publishing the updated “Top 10 Tools for Financing Businesses” which might be helpful to you.

Once again, helping each other through this recession/recovery is our goal! 

With best regards, Kraig Kramers

Why not…institute “value engineering” into your products and services. Make products that give the customer more, but actually cost you less.  The classic example is improving the packaging of your product to be easier to open or extract the product from, while reducing the packaging cost (yes, it’s do-able for almost any product or service — been there, done that)!  Why not brainstorm this with your employees and your customers? – Please share your comment below to enhance these ideas!

Why not…offer customers cost-reduction by outsourcing what they do to you?  Saves them and grows your volume!  For example, if you do marketing communications, maybe you could do all of their mark-com for a customer instead of just doing their advertising. — Please provide your comment below to add to these ideas!

Why not…substitute costly services for less costly (niche into smaller, more specialized jobs)?   Maybe do much smaller jobs and create a niche which your larger competitors haven’t wanted to be in; example might be do remodeling construction instead of major projects.  Why not brainstorm this with your key people to see what might be do-able here? — Please leave your comment to add to these ideas below!

Why not…instead of adjusting price, adjust the amount you sell for the price?  For example, a pound of coffee isn’t anymore; it’s somewhere between 11 and 12.5 ounces.  Maybe you feel it’s sneaky to increase price this way, but it’s being done everywhere, right or wrong.  If the customer still perceives value, it’s probably okay.  Another idea: airlines, banks, and others have long been adding “fees” instead of just increasing price.  Again, right or wrong, it is what is taking place in the world and is now coming to be accepted.  The real question is:  how can you BEST increase your price, and still assure the customer gets a proper price-to-value deal?  Food for thought, analysis, trial, and implementation. — Please add your comment below to improve these ideas!