There was a piece on CNN about a woman who lost her white-collar job and reinvented herself as an advisor to other white-collar unemployed. Her primary service is to advise them to create a household budget and reconcile their checking accounts. Her fee? $1,000.

           Bookkeepers-PLUS offers the same service and the difference in the fees is a big, fat zero That’s right. We offer this service for $100 instead of $1,000, – and we include the budget form, advise on completing it, and training on reconciling a checking account – yup, for 100 bucks!

           Who do you know who is white…or blue, or gray-collar; unemployed…or employed…who needs a household budget, who doesn’t reconcile their accounts, or both? Have them call Bookkeepers-PLUS. We’ll help them write the story of how they rode out the economic storm.

Rather than start out in precisely the same hole, I told them that this report was the problem, and that the report had to go away if the problem were to go away.

Their response? “Why didn’t Joan tell us that?” After which they offered me the role.

Most often, your staff will try to give you what you tell them you want, whether or not it’s what you need. And since many employers don’t like to be second-guessed, most staff members won’t say anything.

So who do you know who doesn’t know if they know what they’re asking from their staff? They should call Bookkeepers-Plus. We don’t know either, BUT WE’LL FIND OUT and set them straight.

Just ask those audio tape manufacturers and business forms printers.

OOPS, you can’t ask them because they’re all gone!

Two of those traditional printers became potential clients.

One of them would not accept that their $2,000,000 of equipment should to be sold for $200,000, nor that they needed to rent out most of their space for half of what they thought it was worth. That business no longer exists.

The other accepted those harsh realities, cut their rental costs dramatically and took the measly $200 grand they got for the presses and invested it in new, technologically-relevant equipment. They’re doing much less business than they once did, but they’re making as much profit as ever, instead of losing $300k a year!

Mature businesses should call Bookkeepers-Plus so they can be sure to GROW OLD!

Over 5 million manufacturing jobs have left the United States over the last ten years, with the majority of them to the Far East. The reasons seem obvious:

Lower labor costs and Fewer regulations

Most predict that the trend will continue unabated, BUT

I PREDICT that the trend will reverse!

In fact it already has begun.

Am I nuts? That may be a topic for a broader discussion, but in this narrow context, hear me out.

1) The differential in the labor costs has narrowed dramatically. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2002, the difference in average hourly labor costs was over 48%. By 2009, that margin had diminished to under 21%.

2) For better or worse, domestic regulations have lessened significantly in that timeframe, while the global international atmosphere has led to a dramatic increase of controls in most foreign markets.

3) US manufacturers have come to realize that they failed to consider certain less tangible factors; factors that nonetheless impact the bottom line. These include:

• Timeliness and delays in getting products back to the US, and thus to the marketplace.
• Reduced control of the complete process, resulting in inferior products, products that do not match the intended specifications, and overwhelming, sometimes devastating recalls.
• The marketing value of the Made in U.S. label, especially when compared to the negative P/R of a foreign label on products like American flags, clothing products for the NFL, NBA, and MLB, etc.

There are other factors, as well. But at the end of the day, the fact is that a net of almost a half-million of these jobs has returned during the last two years. That may be no more than a dent in the 5 million that left, but the tide has shifted and the numbers will increase in favor of domestic production over the next decade.

Mark my words. You heard it here first.

“This economy is killing me. We’ve got people canceling right and left and trying to get people to buy anything isn’t happening — things better turn around fast.”

I hear statements like this all too frequently. Although we might agree with the sentiments, talking this way can worsen the situation. The person who asked, “How’s business?” could have been a prospect. Not too cool!

So what’s wrong with telling the truth? A lot! No one (I repeat no one) wants to hear doom and gloom — especially not someone who might want to do business with you.

Could there be anyone worse to share the misery with than a potential prospect? By even thinking negative thoughts, forget saying them, you put yourself in a mental state of failure. You subconsciously tell yourself the odds are against you, and you are doomed to fail. Both positive and negative energy are contagious. Your actions reflect your thoughts and people will detect your outlook. Ask yourself whether you’d rather deal with someone who acts desperate to stay afloat or someone who is convinced of the benefits of his product or service? From someone who complains about the economy or from someone who makes any economy work for him and his clients?

People want to do business with winners. The average person, including businesspeople, takes great security in doing business with successful businesses. If you’ve ever purchased something from a person or company that has gone out of business, you know what a pain that can be. Minimally it’s going to cost you extra time calling or physically running around to find another service agent. Worse is when you find out that the product can’t be supported at all. There are two simple yet powerful ways that you communicate that you’re a winner or not, that you’re thriving or struggling in this economy: verbally –your choice of words and nonverbally – your choice of dress.

So, better ways to answer “How’s business?”:

“Our new marketing campaign is really taking off” or “Our new marketing campaign is bringing us lots of new customers.” (You don’t have to mention that your “new marketing campaign” is you making dozens of cold calls each day.)

“We’re growing market share?”

“Even with rising costs, we’ve been able to maintain our current pricing.”

Hopefully you can also say, “We’ve seen a lot of enthusiasm about our new products.” If you can’t, solicit positive responses from your customers. Once you have obtained some glowing kudos, share them on a regular and consistent basis with customers and prospects.

Why go through this bother? Because people are innately followers. Prospects are drawn to successful businesses and typically follow the positive experiences of others. Successful businesspeople take responsibility for finding positive messages and passing them along.

These positive messages will also cheer you up and help you create your own economic boom.

How you present your business can be equally as consequential as how you run your it.

On the plus side was dinner at a Ruby Tuesday outside Savannah, Georgia. Our server was either in a bad mood, or just basically nasty. She failed to bring our side dishes or drinks with the meal, and when I asked about them, she virtually snarled at me, commenting “Well, I ordered them! What do you expect me to do?” (I suggested she go get them.) A few minutes later, the manager was going from table to table checking how everything was. I questioned whether he really wanted me to tell him, and he made it clear that he did. His reaction to my description? He thanked me profusely for the feedback, tore up the check, insisted on packing up some desserts, and gave us a $50 coupon that is good at any Ruby Tuesday restaurant.

Basically, for a cost of about $75, he turned a P/R disaster into a positive marketing opportunity. Good choice? You betcha.

Not so positive was a stop at the iconic South of the Border just south of the North Carolina border on I95. In case you’ve never driven there, you’ve missed roughly 200 billboards starting about 150 miles away in any direction, heightening your anticipation until you arrive at this 350 acre tourist trap. You have a choice of dirty restaurants, souvenir shops filled with an amazing assortment of junk, something of an amusement park, and a spooky motel. They have been in business for over 60 years and is a $40 million enterprise. This reminds me “It’s all about marketing!”

More humorous than anything else was a billboard for an Econo-Lodge motel in North Carolina. Draped across the billboard was a banner excitedly suggesting “Get Crabs Here!” Who’s their Marketing Director?

Well, I have some Bad News and some Good News.

The Bad News is that it’s no longer enough to MEET expectations. We have to EXCEED them.

The Good News is  - THAT’S EASY TO DO!

Today’s reality is that most people are used to being underwhelmed by products and services. New products that don’t work, or at least don’t do what they were promoted to do. Items that are received damaged or broken. Customer service people, retail clerks, and tech support who don’t have the right information, but act like they do.

So why is this Good News? Because the bar has been set so low, that it is well within our capabilities to perform at a higher level. Even an “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” goes a long way, particularly if you DO find out.

So, who do you know who has gotten used to bad service?

Have them contact Bookkeepers-Plus (www.bookkeepers-plus.com). We’ll EXCEED their expectations showing them creative ways to do the same for their clients.

Today, I’ll tell a Cash Flow story.

There’s this lawyer, see, who is pretty busy and seems pretty successful. Anyway, he has a client whom he billed about $4,000. By standard business practice, the client would have at least thirty days to pay - and, frankly, when it comes to lawyers, a pretty high percentage of their collections stretch much longer than that.

The lawyer immediately starts hounding the client for payment, and when the client offers to pay half now and the other half in 35 days, the lawyer goes ballistic! Has this hissy-fit about how he’s not a bank, needs the money, and so forth. Even when the client offers to pay extra (an amount equivalent to almost 20% interest), the lawyer wants no part of it.

Final outcome? The client offers to pay-in-full that day – BUT, the lawyer has to take  25% off the bill and has to take a credit card for payment. So, rather than wait 35 days for the last $2,000, the lawyer gave up $1,100 of the $4,000 bill! That’s an annual rate of return to the client of 575%! No wonder it was my advice to take the deal, eh?

The lawyer either is a schmuck, or manages his cash flow so badly that he has to offer deals this bizarre.

So, who do you know – and professionals are prime candidates – who would like to pay me a small fee in order to save thousands of dollars every year –  and have better Cash Flow?

The positive image is that they are skilled, talented people.

The negative is that they often don’t have a clue about how they’re making money…IF they’re making money. I have shown several photographers how to take their skills to their clients – and MORE THAN TRIPLE THEIR INCOME! 

Who do you know who’d like to make an extra $50, $75, $100 thousand every year? Have them contact me and I will give them the tools and structure to make it happen.

So I got this new client, compliments of a CPA firm, who needs his books made current. When was the last transaction recorded in his checkbook? December 28, 2009!

Could the CPA get this done for him. You Betcha. So why on earth did they recommend that he call me?

Because I can do it for around a third of the cost!

You see, the CPA has to charge higher fees. And they don’t look good charging so much for straight bookkeeping, so they often do as little as they must in order to get a valid tax return. Better than that, they try to get the client to a good bookkeeper instead.

My fees are lower, so the client pays less … AND tends to get more benefit since they can afford to have me glean more information – and that has value in managing the business.