Delegate the right task to the RIGHT PERSON in the right way.

I have delegated to the wrong person – someone who just wasn’t the best person to get that job done.

I have delegated in the wrong way.  For example I have allocated work (“here’s some work to do”) to people and thought that was delegation. Or I have abdicated work (“I don’t know, do this however you want – take over).

When you delgate the right task to the right person in the right way, it works.  You have to tell them what result you want, what tools and resources are available to them, what done looks like, and how and when to report progress.  It’s best if you tell them you believe in their ability to do it and ASK them to take it on.

Empower people to take responsibility for jobs, tasks, and parts of your job so you can do even higher value, leveraged work.

Do your salespeople REALLY want to win?

We want salespeople who hate to lose.  We want salespeople with ambition – lots of it.  

We want salespeople who will do the work and do the right thing when nobody is looking.

We want salespeople who do not give up easily at all.

We want salespeople who want to win and are willing to do the work to make it happen.

Is that each member of your team?

What decision can you make that will eliminate 1000 other decisions?

It could be a strategy.

It could be a person.

Don’t make 1000 decisions when one will do.

What decision can you make that would eliminate 1000 other decisions?

BE = FC/GPM

Breakeven = Fixed Cost divided by Gross Profit Margin.

For example, if you fixed costs, costs you have to pay every month even if you sold nothing, (rent, utilities, phone, insurance, and everyone in the office, payments you committed to, marketing, etc) were $55,000 a month, and when you sold something your Gross Profit Margin was 40% (revenue – direct expenses BECAUSE you made that sale – direct labor, materials, sales commission, etc.) then your Breakeven would be $55,000 / .4 = $137,400.

You would have to do $137,400 in business to break even – you make nothing.

So to lower your breakeven and be able to make money more easily, then you would need to lower your fixed cost or increase your gross profit margin by either raising your prices and/or lowering your direct costs.

So, using the above example, what if we lowered our fixed cost from $55,000 to $48,000?  $48,000/.4 = $120,000.  We lowered our indirect costs by $7,000 and start making money with $17,400 LESS in sales each month.

What if we now increased our Gross Margin by 3% to 43%?  $48,000 / .43 = $111,627.  Now we start making money each month with $25,773 less in sales.

It’s easy to see that this goes the other way.  Hire one or two more employees, and finance a truck, and add a few more expenses, and pay too much for direct expenses and your profit vanishes.  

As the leader, you are responsible to figure this out.  Nobody else can or will do it – not even your accountant.

You got this?

The Diamond Cutter

So you spent years building the business, and you got the top-line sales up, but you still are not making a profit.  

Now you need to be a diamond cutter.  A diamond cutter starts with a rough stone and takes bits away and polishes it to make it more valuable.

So what do you do?

Optimize conversion rates and performance of departments. Improve key KPI’s.

Get better at selling.

Eliminate costly mistakes.

Remove restraints.

Tweak your prices, especially on things you aren’t making money at – or stop doing those things.

Remove unnecessary expenses.

Get rid of things you do not need.

Spend less dollars than you take in.

Carve the diamond out of what you have.