Shopping for Credit

Just as you shop around for the best deal when you are buying goods and services, you should shop around for the best buy in credit terms. Look for the lowest interest rates but keep in mind that you may be required to pay for other services too, such as life insurance to cover the amount you are borrowing. The cost of these services and other conditions of the lending agreement will vary from lender to lender.

 Sometimes the cost of borrowing may not be the most important consideration. For example, even though the interest you pay on credit card or department store charge accounts is high, you may actually be able to save in the long run if you sell them  to buy things you need but don’t have the cash for, while they are on the sale.

 My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures

Demand for Labor

Once an assessment of the organization’s current human resources situation has been made and the future direction of the organization has been considered, a proposition of future human resource needs can be developed. It will be necessary to perform a year-by-year analysis for every significant job level and type. In effect, the result is a human resource inventory covering specified years into the future. These pro-forma inventories obviously must be comprehensive and therefore complex. Organizations usually require a diverse mix of people. That’s because employees are not perfectly substitutable for one another within an organization.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Promoting Sales

First stage marketing strategies should focus on sales promotions that will attract immediate customers and selling methods that will ensure repeat business. First stage companies can also benefit from sales and promotion activities, but with a focus on short term rather than long term benefits. Ideas include:

1. Invite a local newspaper to write an article on some unique aspect of the company.
2. Invite television reporters to cover a special event sponsored by the company (fund raising drive, a banquet honoring an employee, or the introduction of snappy new product).
3. Start a charity book collection drive at local schools.
4. Sponsor a young people’s athletic team.
5. Sponsor a civic band or float in a local parade.
6. Donate materials, space, or services to community theater groups.
7. Sponsor a paper, glass, aluminum, or plastic recycling drive.
8. Get behind a social cause.
9. Donate used computers, office equipment, etc., to local schools, hospitals, or welfare agencies.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Writing a Marketing Plan

• Use a direct, professional writing style. Use appropriate business and marketing terms without jargon. Present and future tenses with active voice are generally better than past tense and passive voice.
• Be positive and specific. At the same time, avoid superlatives (such as terrific, wonderful). Specifics are better than glittering generalities. Use numbers for impact, justifying computations and projections with facts or reasonable quantitative assumptions where possible.
• Use bullet points for succinctness and emphasis. As with the list you are reading, bullets enable key points to be highlighted effectively and with great efficiency.
• Use “A level” (the first level) and “B level” (the second level headings under major section headings to help readers make easy transitions from one topic to another. This also forces the writer to organize the plan more carefully. Use these headings liberally, at least once every 200 to 300 words.
• Use visuals where appropriate. Illustrations, graphs, and charts enable large amounts of information to be presented succinctly.
• Shoot for a plan 15 to 35 pages in length, not including financial projections and appendices. An uncomplicated small business may require only 15 pages, while a new business startup may require more than 35 pages.
• Use care in layout, design, and presentation. Laser or ink-jet printers give a more professional look than  do dot matrix printers or typewriters. A bound report with a cover and clear title page adds professionalism.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Conducting an Interview

Have a plan and follow it. You should devise and use a plan to guide the interview. Significant areas to cover include the candidate’s:

• College experiences
• Work experiences
• Goals and ambitions
• Reactions to job you are interviewing for
• Self assessments (by the candidate of his or her strengths and weaknesses)
• Outside activities

Follow your plan. Start with an open-ended questions for each topic—such as, “Could you tell me about what you did when you were in high school?” keep in mind that you are trying to elicit information about four main traits—intelligence, motivation, personality, and knowledge and experience. You can then accumulate the information as the person answers. You can follow up on particular areas that you want to pursue by asking questions like, “Could you elaborate on that, please?

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Off-the-Job Training

Off-the-job training covers a number of techniques—classroom lectures, films, demonstrations, case studies and other simulation exercises, and programmed instruction. The facilities needed for  each technique vary from a small, makeshift classroom to an elaborate development center with large lecture halls, supplemented by small conference rooms with sophisticated instructional technological equipment.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Availability of Warranties

In countries where consumer rights are protected, the seller makes the written warranty terms available to the prospective buyer before the sale. The text of the warranty is often displayed next to the product, or on the package in which the product is enclosed. Warranty terms can also be collected in notebooks in the department that sells the goods and may even be microfilmed, so long as the prospective buyer can readily use the microfilm reader. The maker of the warranty is required to make the text of the warranty available to sellers in forms that sellers can readily use, such as providing copies of the written warranty with each product, or on a tag, sticker, label, or other attachment to the product, or on a sign or poster. These warranty requirements also cover catalog and door-to-door sales.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Cause Marketing

This is one category of nontraditional marketing. It refers to the identification and marketing of a social issue, cause, or idea to selected target markets. Cause marketing covers a wide range of issues, including literacy, physical fitness, gun control, family planning, prison reform, control of overeating, environmental protection, elimination of birth defects, child-abuse prevention, and punishment of drunk drivers. It is an increasingly common marketing practice that is for profit-seeking firms to link their products to social causes.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

 

Effective Market Segmentation

Market segmentation is a means to an end: to identify and profile distinct groups of buyers who differ in their needs, preferences, and responsiveness to an organization’s marketing programs. Effective market segmentation should provide answers to six fundamental buyer-related questions for each market segment:

1. Who are they?
2. What do they want to buy?
3. How do they want to buy?
4. When do they want to buy?
5. Where do they want to buy?
6. Why do they want to buy?

More often than not, the answers should be expressed in a narrative form documented with quantitative and qualitative research.

From a managerial perspective, effective market segmentation means that each segment identified and profiled satisfies four fundamental requirements. Each market segment should be:

1. Measureable. The size and buying power of market segmentation can be quantitatively determined.
2. Differentiable. A market segment is distinguishable from other segments and responds differently to different marketing programs.
3. Accessible. A segment can be effectively reached and served through an economically viable marketing program.
4. Substantial. A segment should be large enough in terms of sales volume potential to cover the cost of the organization serving it and return a satisfactory profit.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

 

Sales Territory Design

After the number of sales territories has been determined, the sales manager can address territory design questions. He can then strive for the ideal of making all territories equal with respect to the amount of sales potential they contain and the amount of work it takes a salesperson to cover them effectively. When territories are equal in potential, it is easier to evaluate each representative’s performance and to compare salespeople.  Equal workloads tend to improve sales force morale and diminish disputes between management and the sales force.  While considering these questions, the sales manager should take into account the impact on market response of practical territory structures and call frequencies. Obviously, it is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve an optimal balance with respect to all these factors. The sales manager5 should constantly strive for the proper balance, however.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.