Five Indisputable Ways To Raise Your Bottom Line In Today’s Economy!

While consulting small businesses over the past 15 years I discovered there is truly only five (5) definitive ways to boost your bottom line profits:

1. Cut your costs

When a company endeavors to slash costs, the first place to start is with inanimate objects. A large amount businesses can shave thousands of dollars in extra fat per month. Maybe there are extra phone lines you can cancel, you may perhaps scale back your garbage can pickup, revoke client lunches, fire the cleaning lady and give a couple more hours to your sales staff to clean, etc.

Another way to “trim the fat” is employees. Small businesses need to define the slackers and remove them from the team. As harsh as that may sound, in general, companies tend to retain at least one or two too many workers for the workload they actually have. If laying people off is too extreme then i propose cutting hours of the deficient employees or at least hand out pay cuts. Other thoughts consist of cutting expenses on rent/mortgage, insurance, payroll, accounting, electric, etc. Shop and negotiate for lower payments. On a side note, beware of cutting from your advertising budget. You ought to examine your advertising and make sure you are receiving the most bang for your buck., but don’t cut it out. Advertising should in fact be increased if it’s getting your return on investment.

And lastly, you must examine your cost of goods. Many businesses overlook the bottom line price per item. Take into account the cost of shipping, storing, boxing etc. It’s a good idea to find your lowest gross margin item and discontinue it.

2. Raise Margins

Locate your highest gross margin item and focus on it. If you have a retail store put it in the premier real estate, if you sell intangibles, make remarkable new sales pieces for that item and lead with that Item.
Another way to strengthen margins is to buy right, “buy low sell high“! Buy lower sell higher! Maybe you look for sales, free shipping deals, closeouts, etc.

3. Increase Prospects/ Leads

Whether it’s pounding the street, networking, conventional marketing or sending emails to your database, find a system to escalate leads and probable clients. If you are in retail put out some new signs or banners, if you sell intangibles, network and implement database marketing.

4. Close More Sales

It’s not sufficient to catch them… you have to skin them as well. Set up a follow up system that follows up with prospects that didn’t buy. They say it takes five or six contacts before the majority of sales are completed.

5. Boost Frequency of Sales

It’s been confirmed that it’s 60-80% easier to sell a current client then a new one. Spend some extra time with your top 20% of your customers. Show them other products or get them to increase frequency of their purchase.

Bonus: Each of these steps may seem overwhelming… the secret is to takes steps forward daily. If you get stuck, you may want to hire a business consultant or business coach to get you over the hump. Their value should be worth 10 times the cost.

In the end, each of these steps individually will increase your bottom line, however if you put into action all five of these steps, you should successfully over double your bottom line!

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