Tariffs, inflation and…Adjusting your prices Okay so we’re not importers who’re directly impacted by tariff costs. But the cost of doing business has probably increased since you last adjusted your prices. The result has almost certainly been real erosion of your bottom line. Over the last couple of years we’ve seen all manner of our […]
What to offer…vs. what we’d take So you’re in a unique position. An attractive four unit nursing home prospect has put their business up for bid. Luckily you just happen to have a friend on the inside who’s provided you with the incumbent’s pricing. And to your glee, you find it’s ten percent above what […]
Hot, hot and…Not so hot So how hot does that final rinse really have to be? Of course we understand that public health standards require 180F. But we also know that occasionally that temperature can aggravate conditions like water with high total dissolved solids. There the rapid flash drying it allows can cause the solids […]
Bananas and…Pealing challenges So your nursing home chain just announced they’re opening up their business for bid. They say it’s got nothing to do with dissatisfaction with you – they just want to be sure they’re getting the best deal available. And the buyer even says they hope your proposal will top any others. So […]
Our angels and…Listening to them While it’s certainly not a regular occurrence, once in a while we have the pleasure of experiencing an account we lost a few months ago coming back hat in hand. The question is how to handle it. It’s certainly understandable that with our still raw feelings our darker angel side […]
More paperwork…we don’t like We all dislike writing service reports. They take too long to prepare and the chef who we need to sign off is too busy to do much more than scribble his name. What’s worse, he’s unlikely to pay much heed to the suggestions you’ve made about problems that are beyond your […]
Those pesky…WATCH principles How soon we forget – or more correctly overlook some of the lessons we learned as newbies. Take the principles of cleaning where we learned that cleaning effectiveness was the result of achieving the ideal balance between its five foundational ingredients of: water, mechanical action, time, chemicals and heat. We learned that […]
Sales objections and …Service problems Sometimes we have to wear our sales hat and other times not. But where’s that dividing line? Ironically in some (admittedly rare) selling situations we may not have to. And just as oddly there are those non sales situations where we better have it tightly fastened and ready to use! […]
Who’s the …salesperson now? Listing the most essential skills to be successful in our business is challenging. Of course there’s product knowledge and the need to fully understand the application of your products. And who would dismiss the criticality of knowing how to trouble shoot all manner of results and mechanical problems? But maybe the […]
It isn’t easy or…even always pretty! Being an effective manager takes a pretty broad range of skills. First and probably foremost it requires extensive knowledge of the task that’s being overseen. Then it relies on having the ability to communicate in clear language to articulate the actions being directed so that associates understand exactly what’s […]