Every day holds many opportunities for great choices and fresh starts. This spring is a great time to ask yourself, “Sow what?” What are you sowing every day to assure an awesome harvest in your business and your life? Most amazing things don’t happen overnight. They need time to germinate and grow. Does the farmer expect…
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Question: Is there a good time to convert from one accounting system to another? Answer: Actually, you can convert at any time of the year, but there is a “best time” that makes things as fast and easy as possible. If your fiscal year is Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, the best time to convert…
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It’s safe to say that most business professionals should know about customer business reviews. Whether you know a little about what it is or the benefits of doing it, customer business reviews will form the foundation of your business relationships, and help position you as a trusted business advisor and valued partner to your customers.…
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I believe that many businesses have brands that suck. I mean suck away opportunities for sales and profits! Let me explain. First, there are many companies out there with brand names that only indicate they sell printing or promotional products. Names like, “City Printing Company” or “Peoria Promotional Products LLC.” These names suggest the company…
Read MoreThe 4th of July is when we Americans celebrate our independence, our freedom. As you prepare your celebrations, let me encourage you to reflect on these two questions: Are you truly independent? Are you truly free? Most distributors with whom I speak don’t seem very independent. They seem to be bound by all of the…
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Failure is a part of success. Sometimes failure can be the key to your fortune. You may have heard the story of how an engineer at 3M was trying to invent a super strong adhesive, but came up with a super weak one instead. That weak adhesive he invented became the secret to 3M Post-it…
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About 25 years ago, we purchased a great 30,000 square foot office building on a beautiful eight-acre campus. Soon after, I met with the signage company to finalize the wording for our sign. At first it seemed like a no brainer that the sign should read “Proforma Headquarters,” but that wording didn’t align with the…
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Question: Is there one screen in QuickBooks Premier where I can look at my open sales orders and invoices? Answer: Yes, QuickBooks has a feature called “Income Tracker” that does just that. Go to “Customers,” then “Income Tracker.” The dashboard shows a current accounting of various income segments. At the top, you will see totals…
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In my last blog article, I discussed the fact that most distributors don’t really own a business, but rather, they own a job. The test to determine if you own your own business is if you can fly to Hawaii for three months and tell someone else where to send your check. The key words…
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Question: What do you know about buying groups? Answer: There are variations of buying groups in our industry—from a couple of distributors banding together loosely to companies that offer other services and approaches. To answer this question fully, I went to Jamie Coggeshall, president of AIMastermind (AIM), a group that purely is a buying group.…
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