by Justin Grensing, Esq., MBA
Every small business owner knows that the path to success is fraught with many challenges. From managing staff, to financing, to marketing efforts, small business owners often feel overwhelmed with the ancillary yet critical activities they need to succeed at in order to pursue their love of event planning, or flower arrangement, or owning their own medical practice, etc. In a recent article for Entrepreneur, Pamela Slim discussed “How to Overcome Common Challenges and Help Your Small Business Grow,” and one of the topics Slim focused on was the concept of “reacting versus looking ahead.” Continue reading “3 Plans to Drive Small Business Success”
In the world of sales and marketing, we often hear the terms “value” and “price” used interchangeably. Specifically, many people think that the lowest price option is the best “value” because it’s the cheapest. That may be true in the narrow context of commodities – $100 for X amount of ABC grain is a better value than $150 for X amount of XYZ grain, because for true commodities, there is no difference between ABC and XYZ brands. But for non-commodity products and services, value and price mean very different things, and marketers need to be aware of the difference. 
The word “sales” often conjures up some very specific images. A man in a suit holding a briefcase going door-to-door selling encyclopedias or vacuums, for example. Or a guy hustling in a car lot. But as we know, sales is, in reality, a process. A process that ends with a pitch. The direct pitch to the customer or the final sales touchpoint is the last step in the sales process and is often referred to as “the bottom of the funnel” (BOFU). It follows TOFU (top of the funnel) and MOFU (middle of the funnel) activities that are designed to move the consumer down a pathway to a purchase. 
Requests for proposals or RFPs are very frequently used in B2B procurement processes. Essentially, an RFP involves a business or government entity trying to streamline and standardize its procurement process by requiring all potential suppliers to provide answers to an identical set of questions in order to help the procurement people on the purchasing side efficiently and effectively evaluate their options.
Supporting the local community can be expensive. Even large organizations have to be careful about how and where they lend their time – and money. Is there value – beyond personal satisfaction – in supporting local events and activities? Which ones? How can you say “no” graciously to the many requests that come your way?