Kris Kaplan on Why you must make tough business decisions in order to succeed
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Kris Kaplan on Why you must make tough business decisions in order to succeed [23:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (21)The reason I interviewed Kris is because I was trying to find out what small business owners need to do in this economy to be successful and he respond with an email that hit the nail right on the head – You must be willing to make tough decisions for your business!
He owns Kris & Co – a company that provides manufacturers of giftware products and stationery with a sales force for selling their products to retail establishments in Northeast USA and on the interview he explained the following:
Begin any change in your business by educating those who will be affected by the change – When Kris decided to become a virtual company one of the things he did was to educate his clients on the need to have meeting online in form of webinars instead of having to fly down to meetings. Changes are sometimes uncomfortable and with all things great come great effort so you need to be diligent about staying true to the changes that you make in your business. One way to do this is to make whatever changes you make in your business a regular practice so that it becomes part and parcel of what it is that makes you unique.
View your competitors as potential partners for collaboration – The saying “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” holds true for this point. Most business owners do whatever it takes to avoid their competitors because they just see them as the enemy but in reality you shouldn’t burn any bridges because you never know wherein lies your opportunity. Share information with your competitors in order to breed a cooperative spirit and get insight into best practices in your industry which in the long run leads to improved customer experience.
Make the effort to get to really know your client – The person who eventually sends you a check is your client; you need to be laser focused on being able to identify who this person is so that you can set yourself up to be in the best position to provide the solution that they are looking for. You can build relationships with new clients by piggybacking on existing relationships you have with other clients (referrals) or networking for new clients altogether by going to places and events where your potential clients hang out.
Get rid of all your unnecessary business expense – Do a detailed drilldown into every expense and ask yourself “Is there a cheaper alternative that will yield me the same results or better”, if there is, then you need to cut out that expense immediately. You do not need to keep doing something just because it’s the old way of doing it; reevaluate what your costs are and compare that to what you are trying to achieve and then decide if it’s worth it or not.
In his own words:
Retail was hit hard, down 40% in 2009 and we had to do a number of things to survive and get to this point. Layoffs, budgeting, cut spending and everything else we could. We call on over 3000 small retail stores with our team and have seen it all.
For our sales rep agency and to all the others:
- Cut all unnecessary spending, we closed our showroom, pulled out of low performing trade shows, dropped all postcard and mailing programs and turned to the web.
- Make sure everyone is revenue producing, even those that don’t write orders need to be adding value that can be measured.
- Focus on the core group of lines we represent.
- Focus on the core group of customers to help make them more successful.
- Manage our information well. There are all kinds of opportunities when we are micro managing our own business and filling in the cracks.
To our retailers:
- Continue to buy with passion; don’t dabble with a new line. If you don’t have passion for it, how do you expect your consumers to?
- Keep your inventories up of the high moving items, re-order often with the help of your reps. make those reps take inventories for you and let them manage your easy re-order stuff.
- Let go of the past, it was yesterday, if you made a bad buying decision you need to own it, put the stuff on mark down and move on to bigger and better.
- Don’t differentiate yourself with product alone; customer experience is so much more important to those wanting to spend money.
Connect with Kris Kaplan:
On his personal FaceBook Profile
On his Personal Blog
Check out his website www.KrisAndCompany.com
Question from me your host:
Do you have any questions or suggestions about this interview? I’d like to know what tough decisions you have had to make for your business? Please be so kind to leave your comments below.
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