Love and marriage,” goes the old song: “…You can’t have one without the other.” This also holds true for sales and marketing. Even the best of sales staffs will struggle if not supported by a well-researched and carefully executed marketing plan. Here are six ways to ensure your marketing plan is likely to drive strong sales:
1. Keep customers aware of all your products and services. Among the fundamental objectives of any marketing plan is to familiarize those who buy from you with everything you’re offering. But what often happens is that customers get overly focused on just a few products or services, which in turn limits sales. Make sure your marketing plan maintains the visibility of your total product or service line.
2. Distinguish your products and services from those of competitors. Your salespeople will stand a much greater chance of success if your customers believe you’re the only place to get precisely what they’re looking for. Your marketing plan should emphasize the distinctive value offered by your products or services and how they differ from those of competitors. A key part of this effort involves monitoring the competition’s marketing activities and responding in kind.
3. Benchmark your marketing/advertising budgets. Are competitors outspending you? If so, your sales staff is fighting an uphill battle. To find out, use competitive intelligence and publicly available industry data to determine the average marketing and advertising budgets for companies of similar size and specialty in your area.
4. Search for new markets. While your sales staff is out on the front lines, your marketing team needs to be spending time back at the office looking for additional buyers (or types of buyers). Undertake this research carefully and methodically. When you believe you’ve found a new market, adjust your marketing plan as necessary and train salespeople on how to best traverse this unfamiliar terrain.
5. Track new leads generated through marketing. A good marketing plan not only keeps existing customers engaged and informed, but also pulls in new prospects. Do you know how successful your company has been at doing so? Your sales team may be able to generate some leads themselves, but your marketing department must do its fair share. If it’s not, something needs to change.
6. Update your marketing plan regularly. Coming up with a comprehensive, viable marketing plan isn’t easy. Once they’ve got one, many businesses make the mistake of sticking with it too long, leaving their sales departments to struggle in a dynamic, ever-changing marketplace.
Review your marketing plan often, at least quarterly, and adjust it based on both hard numbers (metrics and sales results) and feedback from your sales staff. Our firm can help you identify, track and better understand the analytical data that aligns a good marketing plan with strong sales figures.
© 2019

Autumn brings falling leaves and … the gridiron. Football teams — from high school to pro — are trying to put as many wins on the board as possible to make this season a special one.
For business owners, sports can highlight important lessons about profitability. One in particular is that you and your coaches must learn from your mistakes and adjust your game plan accordingly to have a winning year.
Spot the fumbles
More specifically, your business needs to identify the profit fumbles that are hurting your ability to score bottom-line touchdowns and, in response, execute earnings plays that improve the score. Doing so is always important but takes on added significance as the year winds down and you want to finish strong.
Your company’s earnings game plan should be based partly on strong strategic planning for the year and partly from uncovering and working to eliminate such profit fumbles as:
Employees interacting with customers poorly, giving a bad impression or providing inaccurate information,
Pricing strategies that turn off customers or bring in inadequate revenue, and
Supply chain issues that slow productivity.
Ask employees at all levels whether and where they see such fumbles. Then assign a negative dollar value to each fumble that keeps your organization from reaching its full profit potential.
Once you start putting a value on profit fumbles, you can add them to your income statement for a clearer picture of how they affect net profit. Historically, unidentified and unmeasured profit fumbles are buried in lower sales and inflated costs of sales and overhead.
Fortify your position
After you’ve identified one or more profit blunders, act to fortify your offensive line as you drive downfield. To do so:
Define (or redefine) the game plan. Work with your coaches (management, key employees) to devise specific profit-building initiatives. Calculate how much each initiative could add to the bottom line. To arrive at these values, you’ll need to estimate the potential income of each initiative — but only after you’ve projected the costs as well.
Appoint team leaders. Each profit initiative must have a single person assigned to champion it. When profit-building strategies become everyone’s job, they tend to become no one’s job. All players on the field must know their jobs and where to look for leadership.
Communicating clearly and building consensus. Explain each initiative to employees and outline the steps you’ll need to achieve them. If the wide receiver doesn’t know his route, he won’t be in the right place when the quarterback throws the ball. Most important, that wide receiver must believe in the play.
Win the game
With a strong profit game plan in place, everyone wins. Your company’s bottom line is strong, employees are motivated by the business’s success and, oh yes, customers are satisfied. Touchdown! We can help you perform the financial analyses to identity your profit fumbles and come up with budget-smart initiatives likely to build your bottom line.
© 2019

If you’re a small business owner or you’re involved in a start-up, you may want to set up a tax-favored retirement plan for yourself and any employees. Several types of plans are eligible for tax advantages.
401(k) plan
One of the best-known retirement plan options is the 401(k) plan. It provides for employer contributions made at the direction of employees. Specifically, the employee elects to have a certain amount of pay deferred and contributed by the employer on his or her behalf to an individual account. Employee contributions can be made on a pretax basis, saving employees current income tax on the amount contributed.
Employers may, or may not, provide matching contributions on behalf of employees who make elective deferrals to 401(k) plans. Establishing and operating a 401(k) plan means some up-front paperwork and ongoing administrative effort. Matching contributions may be subject to a vesting schedule. 401(k) plans are subject to testing requirements, so that highly compensated employees don’t contribute too much more than non-highly compensated employees. However, these tests can be avoided if you adopt a “safe harbor” 401(k) plan.
Within limits, participants can borrow from a 401(k) account (assuming the plan document permits it).
For 2019, the maximum amount you can contribute to a 401(k) is $19,000, plus a $6,000 “catch-up” amount for those age 50 or older as of December 31, 2019.
Other tax-favored plans
Of course, a 401(k) isn’t your only option. Here’s a quick rundown of two other alternatives that are simpler to set up and administer:
1. A Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) IRA. For 2019, the maximum amount of deductible contributions that you can make to an employee’s SEP plan, and that he or she can exclude from income, is the lesser of 25% of compensation or $56,000. Your employees control their individual IRAs and IRA investments.
2. A SIMPLE IRA. SIMPLE stands for “savings incentive match plan for employees.” A business with 100 or fewer employees can establish a SIMPLE. Under one, an IRA is established for each employee, and the employer makes matching contributions based on contributions elected by participating employees under a qualified salary reduction arrangement. The maximum amount you can contribute to a SIMPLE in 2019 is $13,000, plus a $3,000 “catch-up” amount if you’re age 50 or older as of December 31, 2019.
Annual contributions to a SEP plan and a SIMPLE are controlled by special rules and aren’t tied to the normal IRA contribution limits. Neither type of plan requires annual filings or discrimination testing. You can’t borrow from a SEP plan or a SIMPLE.
Many choices
These are only some of the retirement savings options that may be available to your business. We can discuss the alternatives and help find the best option for your situation.
© 2019

Borrowing isn’t just for businesses. Many not-for-profits borrow money for major capital purchases, new program funding and even to manage current cash flow. But if you’re hoping to borrow, it’s important to understand that there are likely to be obstacles ahead, including finding a lender that offers reasonable rates.
Common hurdles
Maybe you’ve already determined that your nonprofit needs a loan and can handle the risks of borrowing. Before making the case to lenders, ensure you have a realistic repayment plan, current financial statements, collateral to secure the loan, a proven history of prudent financial management and your board’s support.
The odds of qualifying for a loan are better if you’ve already established a relationship (such as having a business checking account) with the lender. Your reason for applying also plays a big part in the decision. Seeking money to make a major purchase or to stabilize cash flow with a line of credit is more likely to be successful than applying for a loan to start a new program.
Even if you succeed in getting a loan, lender covenants may prevent you from borrowing for other purposes until your existing debt is paid off. This can limit strategic flexibility.
Nonbank sources
While plenty of banks are willing to make term loans or lines of credit available to nonprofits, your organization may not want, or be able, to pay the interest rates attached to them. Fortunately, there are other options, including:
Community foundations. Short-term loans may be available from local nonprofit foundations or funds, such as the Fund for the City of New York or the Chicago Community Trust, or from national groups such as the Nonprofits Assistance Fund. Generally, these organizations charge low interest rates — and, in some cases, no interest at all.
Board members. There are no legal obstacles to borrowing from a board member, but these loans merit caution. To avoid IRS scrutiny, the board member must charge interest at or below market rate, the entire board (absent the lender) must vote to approve the loan, and you must report the loan on your Form 990.
Government bonds. Because these bonds’ income isn’t subject to federal income tax, your nonprofit may be able to borrow at a lower-than-market interest rate. However, fees associated with structuring and issuing the bond could offset interest-rate advantages.
Good rationale
You may think your organization has a good rationale for borrowing, but that doesn’t mean lenders — or your supporters — will agree. If a large portion of your budget is tied up in debt repayment, that can affect how the public, including prospective donors, perceives your organization. Contact us for help weighing this critical decision and finding a lender.
© 2019

When you receive a personal gift from a friend or family member — even if it’s not something you particularly want — you accept the gift and thank the person. The same isn’t always true of gifts given to your not-for-profit. Gifts should be examined, and, possibly, refused.
Why? There are many reasons, from space limitations to unsuitability to your mission. It’s never easy to say “no” to a generous donor. But a gift acceptance policy can make the decision and process easier.
Nothing personal
A gift acceptance policy provides an objective way to decline a gift but still maintain a good relationship with the contributor. Your nonprofit’s staffers can explain to donors that a previously set policy prohibits you from accepting certain gifts — in other words, “it’s nothing personal.”
For example, if a donor offers tangible personal property such as an art collection, it may need insurance, special display cases or offsite storage. This could require your organization to incur substantial out-of-pocket costs. You can simply explain to the donor that your policy doesn’t allow you to accept gifts that cost money to maintain.
Getting it down
Before drafting your policy, think about the types of gifts you want to accept and which ones you should refuse. In general, gifts that conflict with your organization’s mission fall in the latter category. And gifts with certain donor restrictions (such as how they can be used) may simply be unmanageable given your mission’s scope or staffing resources.
Most organizations welcome publicly traded securities because they’re easy to convert to cash. But closely held stock can be hard to value and sell. Split interest gifts, where the donor transfers an asset to your organization but draws income from the asset or receives a remainder interest at some point in the future, can also be difficult to manage. These gifts usually require financial expertise and involve obligations to the donor or the donor’s family.
Your policy should not only describe the kinds of gifts that are acceptable, but also how they’ll be valued, managed and, if necessary, disposed of. Be sure to indicate which types of gifts need to be reviewed by your attorney — for example, real estate, because it could have property liens and other encumbrances.
Times change
Ask your attorney and financial advisor to review your policy before giving it to your board for approval. Then review it annually. Over time, your capacity to accept certain gifts may change and require revisions to your policy.
© 2019