My brain is like an ideas-factory. I always thought it’s a good quality to have, but since many of these ideas take time and money, I’m getting more and more discouraged. Should I just stop thinking about new ideas?

If a colleague came to you tomorrow with a brilliant idea for a chemical formula that changes sand to gold, what would you do next? Chances are, you would test the formula to make sure that is does work. You might then file for a patent to protect your rights. Finally, you would look for buyers or investors. As you can see, an idea plus action results in profit or at least potential for profit. Sometimes, you can find ideas are too expensive to implement on your own. In this case, find partners or investors, assuming that the figures are accurate and promising, and you’re in business. If you want to keep all the profit to yourself, then you better use that cash you stashed under the mattress and risk having no savings.

Other than lack of cash, one of the most common reasons why people don’t act upon their ideas is the fear of failure. What if we lose the business? What if it doesn’t work? What if…what if? It’s easy to get sucked into Hurricane Monster Unknown. Overall, it’s good to be creative, but with no action even the best idea in the world is just a thought in somebody’s mind. Remember, once you start working on that idea stay focused and don’t get distracted by other ideas unless they are related to the main idea itself…and that’s just my two cents.

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Our sales target is a nightmare. We keep dropping the price but it seems we’re still far from reaching our goals. Any tips?

How does the offer ‘Pay nothing and get two’ sound like? Keep dropping your prices and that’s what you most likely will end up offering to your customers. Using discount to close deals may be due to one of three problems or a combination of them:

1. Your pricing strategy is too high compared to your direct competitors.
2. You are desperate to get your commission or to avoid corporate pressure.
3. You and your customers are not talking ‘value’. So, if it’s a pricing strategy, keep your price just above competition but don’t go too high. Use the difference as a reason to explain why your product is better. This approach will change the conversation to point number three, ‘value’, which is where you always want to be.

However, if desperation is the reason, push your price by 5-10% higher to give yourself a chance to negotiate without losing sweat.

If you are responsible for setting the targets, remember that sales targets are quite useless and in fact damaging to the business. Sales targets force the team to focus on the overall quota without paying much attention to profitability. Year after year, the business will pay the price thanks to shrinking profits and increasing expenses. A more useful approach is Profit Targets. When the sales team thinks profit, dropping the price will hurt their commissions and bonuses. They will think twice before giving away their own money…and that’s just my two cents.read what others have read

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