Author: John Beagle

How many times have you heard “Too expensive” or “Can’t you do anything about the price?” when trying to close a deal? It can be an uncomfortable situation for anyone to be in, but if you know what to say and are prepared, you can stay firm on your offer while maintaining your pride.

Martin Limbeck, an international sales authority dubbed “The Porsche of Sales” and author of NO Is Short for Next Opportunity: How Top Sales Professionals Think, says next time this happens to you, be ready with a stock phrase to fire back with. The key is to say it swiftly, clearly, firmly and resoundingly he says.

Limbeck’s 20 favorites:

– The other offers are cheaper and they deserve to be.
– Discounts are the first signal of bankruptcy. Are you sure you want to go down that road?
– Quality comes at a price and that price includes me.
– If you pay 100%, you get 100%. If you pay 90%, that’s what you get.
– If competence is too pricey for you, then wait until you try incompetence.
– Cheap dreams lead to rude awakenings.
– What would you advise your own salespeople to do if they were constantly under pricing pressure?
– I can assure you, nobody is paying less than you are today.
– Thrift is good, but quality is better.
– Lowballing is not a sport I play.
– You’re also buying our blood, sweat and tears.
– Go with the cheaper option and things will really get expensive.
– The price is a reflection of our experience.
– How motivated would you be working for $10?
– If you want to haggle, try the flea market.
– This is not a yard sale.
– Cutting the price means cutting the quality, and that is not an option for us.
– The grass is always cheaper on the other side.
– Discounts don’t fit in our budget.
– If I give you a discount, you may as well give me a donation receipt.

Limbeck says take your pick but be careful: not every phrase is appropriate for every customer or every sale. He says they all have to be delivered with a smile and a slight twinkle in your eye.

“Wardrobe malfunctions don’t just happen to movie stars like Jennifer Garner. They can happen to anyone, at any time — on a job interview, while delivering a speech, or while conducting an important meeting  – which can mean disaster for a business person if not handled in a professional and appropriate manners. While Jennifer Garner handled her recent spanx reveal in stride, continuing to walk the red carpet and conduct interviews, not all of us could handle it that well. If a zipper, button, or flap of a dress coming undone should happen to you, revealing too much, while you are trying to reveal your most professional self, here are some tips from Diane Gottsman, a national modern manners and etiquette expert, sought out industry leader, accomplished speaker, author and the owner of The Protocol School of Texas, to handle the wardrobe malfunction with grace.”

Some of Diane’s tips on how to handle a wardrobe malfunction or other embarrassing moments in a professional manner include:

–          Just be yourself. Embarrassing moments happen to all of us and the way you handle it is what sets you apart from the rest. Jennifer Garner handled the spanx situation beautifully. Responding to an embarrassing moment with a genuine smile and a shrug is endearing and is prone to make others like, and admire you even a bit more because you are human.

–          You have two choices … you can feel uncomfortable in an awkward situation and make it worse by over reacting, or you can attend to the situation the best way you can under the circumstances and pull it off with grace and humility.

–          Embarrassing moments show your true character. Blaming someone else for tripping you, or screaming at friend for not telling you that you have toilet paper on the heel of your shoe only exacerbates the situation. Saying, “I’m sorry for tripping into you – I hope I didn’t’ hurt you” versus “It was the cracked sidewalk’s fault” is more palatable to those who are watching. It happened, you were embarrassed, it’s over, move on.

–          Stop reliving it. Be easy on yourself. It’s not necessary to continue to talk about the awkward moment, bringing attention to it throughout the evening. If you spill a glass of liquid at the restaurant dinner table, place your napkin over the spill, attend to a fellow guest that got wet, apologize and allow the wait staff to take it from there. You can certainly make a light joke of it at the end of the night, and send a dry cleaning gift certificate the next week, but don’t dwell on it.

Diane specializes in executive leadership and etiquette training, with clients ranging from university students to Fortune 500 companies, and her seminars cover topics ranging from tattoos in the workplace to technology at the dinner table and the proper use of social media. Her advice is backed by a Master’s Degree in Sociology with an emphasis on adult behavior.  Visit http://dianegottsman.com/ and http://www.protocolschooloftexas.com/

There is a poll at LinkedIn that begs the question, “What happens to your business if the Internet connection goes down?”

At the time of this publication, 25% of those polled, including my business, said “My business shuts down completely.”

Only 11% said there would be no impact. Or put another way nearly 9 out of 10 businesses will be impacted by an internet outage.

Is your business ready for an internet outage?

 “…nearly 9 out of 10 businesses will be impacted by an internet outage…”

Most internet outages occur in the wee hours of the night in the form of planned maintenance. However there are unplanned times when routers and other infrastructure devices need to be restarted to clear a conflict. Those outages often only last a few minutes. However sometimes when the ISP is having problems it could take hours.

Every outage costs nearly 90% of business surveyed. While a 10 minute outage is difficult to gauge, when it gets into an hour, internet outages could cost thousands of dollars per hour for SMBs. Outages lasting days could bankrupt any SMB.

Common types of internet outages:
1. Electric Power Failure
2. ISP failure
3. Company network hardware failure
4. Company network administrator error
5.  Computer Viruses blocking internet connection

Some solutions to internet outages:

1. Have backup electric generator or relocate temporarily
2. Utilize multiple ISP service providers or relocate temporarily
3. Have backup equipment programmed and ready to swap out
4. Utilize only properly trained and certified network administrators, provide for 24 hr service
5. Keep all connected devices running the latest virus and spam filters

While no company can be completely prepared for an internet outage, every company can be better prepared.

Using IT Consultants and Managed Service Providers to Help Control Your PCs

By Eric Townsend

As a small business trying to manage your own technology, you likely have had days when you are battling the forces of evil: hardware repairs, crashed operating systems, and data loss.  Managing all this plus running the business, keeping the books, planning marketing campaigns, and dealing with HR is enough to send you over the edge – and send your margin over the edge as well.

And the thing is, IT has become more than just a laptop to send an email.  The day of having your system crash and simply losing your email is long over.  Now if a PC goes down you can lose your supply chain, or your customer data, and all of this can affect business continuity.

Gary Bazelon, President of Trek Freight Services concurs: “Today, the PC has become even more important than the phone. Everyone—from accounting to dispatch to sales—uses their PC all day to get information to and from our customers. Losing a PC for one hour can mean losing thousands of dollars of revenue. I’d buy an insurance policy against PC downtime—the productivity gains are that important.”

One way small businesses are getting smart is by working with IT consultants and managed service providers who use remote monitoring tools to watch over your PCs.  Rather than hiring a single person in house who has a limited skill set, IT consultants and MSPs give you more people with a wider skill set, who actually cost you less money that a full-time equivalent.  In addition, MSPs work 24×7 and can access your system anytime – not just Monday – Friday, 9-5.

With remote management capabilities, a technician can run antivirus on one system, diagnose a second, and reload an OS on a third at the same time.  They not only get more work done more quickly, they can also manage multiple PCs per technician, which saves you time and money.

PCs with remote management capabilities allow your service provider to monitor, manage, and repair a wide range of problems remotely.  This greatly reduces maintenance and management costs, and increases your staff productivity.  Matt Freeman, the service manager at Integration Technologies, a managed service provider inHawaii, uses the remote management capabilities in PCs with Intel vPro technology, and he says, “If a PC has Intel vPro technology, it cuts our repair times approximately in half. With 2,000 workstations to support, that adds up and it’s a pretty big deal. vPro has a force-multiplier effect.”

In addition, PCs with remote management capabilities mean you’re back to work much faster.  This matters both from a productivity standpoint and a cost standpoint. As Matt Freeman continues, “The fact that we can repair problems faster with vPro is a significant selling point for our customers. We do a cost-benefit analysis for each proposal, and where it makes sense we’ll monetize the time they save through less downtime. A lawyer, for example, may bill at $200 per hour, so it can add up.”

Stopping Problems Before They Happen

Perhaps the best part of these remote monitoring tools is the ability to push out security patches at night – even if a PC is not left on.  “Security is a peace-of-mind issue,” explains Gary Weitzel, a legal administrator at theIndianapolislaw firm, Tabbert Hahn Earnest & Weddle LLP. “When I leave at night, I know that if a security patch needs to be pushed to our PCs, it will happen and the systems will be secure and ready to go in the morning. Intel vPro increases our peace of mind.”

These are just a few ideas that can help your small and medium business get smarter about their IT.  But you might also take further advantage of a relationship with an IT consultant or MSP.   Sure, they can provide your infrastructure and answer your technology questions, but they have multiple customers across multiple industries and because of this, they’ve got lots of insight and opinions if only you ask.

Eric Townsend is the director of MSP and SMB marketing for Intel Corp. For more than 18 years, his work has encompassed tools across the computing spectrum—from devices to services to software. Eric has worked with companies in industry verticals including healthcare, retail, manufacturing, and services, and believes strongly in the efficiencies and value created by Managed Service Providers and the technologies they deploy.