The Business Management Blog Resource

Has anyone ever said to you, “Your price is too high and I’d like a discount.” In this article I outline two approaches for responding to this comment. One of the approaches even has the potential for you to make a bigger sale than you originally anticipated. Curious?

First, giving discounts in the right way may well be the most appropriate thing to do. Conversely, giving a discount in the wrong way can not only lose you a sale but could lose you all possible future sales from a potential client. Read on to see what I mean.

Just suppose you say “yes” and immediately give a discount. What do you think this potential client now thinks?:

• You seem desperate for the sale.

• I wonder how far you will lower your price.  Mmmm, maybe I should ask for an even bigger discount than I originally planned.

• The price you originally offered was not the real price. Are you trying to trick me? Can I really trust you?

• You don’t set a very high value on your own services if you are prepared to discount so quickly.

• You agree your price is too high. This is a problem.

• Next time I come to buy anything from you, I will ask for a discount again.

The problem with just giving a discount by itself is that you have given something away and have asked for absolutely nothing in return.  You’ve just created a win/lose situation. The potential client has “won” a discount amount and you have “lost” it. Also, just because you’ve agreed to a discount doesn’t mean you’ll get the sale, in fact, quite the opposite. You may have damaged your credibility to the extent this person no longer trusts you or wants to do business with you.

Just suppose now that instead of giving the discount you ask them, “Why do you want a discount?” The response will help you understand what is behind the request. Then, depending on how they respond, you could use one of two approaches.

Approach One

This approach is useful if money really is an issue. Instead of giving a discount, you lower the price by taking out something of value. This is a win/win choice. They get the lower price and you still maintain your price for a certain value bundle. You could say, for example, “If price is more of an issue for you, then I suggest that we take out X product/service.” (Suggest taking something out of high-perceived value). The person needs to see that in order to get the discount they have to give up some of the value from your offer. Alternatively you could ask them for suggestions for what they’d like to take out. Or maybe offer a couple of suggestions. Your potential clients need to understand that there is a price for reducing the price!

Approach Two

You agree to give a discount provided they give you something in return. In exchange for a discount you ask them to give you something which is important or of value to you. That’s another win/win choice. For example, suppose you offer consulting at $200 an hour, and someone asks for a discount. You could say, “I am prepared to reduce my rate from $200 to $180 an hour if you agree to an initial 100 hours of consulting.” The client will receive the discount and you have received a commitment for 100 hours. Another example is giving a discount based on the client buying from you by a certain date, which is an important date for you (e.g. tax year end).  The important thing is to ensure that whatever you do, it is a win/win situation and that the person is perfectly clear as to why you are prepared to give the discount.

I was once involved in a very large sale worth several million dollars. As usual, I was asked for a sizeable discount. I agreed to the discount provided the client made a commitment to purchase some other services at the same time (which they needed). As a result of being asked for a discount and the way I packaged my response, I ended up with a much bigger sale, double in fact!

I hope you’re starting to see that when people ask for a discount, it creates a great opportunity for you.

(c) Tessa Stowe

Tessa Stowe helps Coaches and Consultants stop struggling to sell, and instead attract clients like magic! Her FREE e-course tells you how: “Attract More Clients Naturally: 10 Simple Strategies That Work … Even If You Hate Selling!” Sign up now at http://www.attractmoreclientsnaturally.com

By Michael Brito

With the increased adoption of high-speed Internet across the U.S. and abroad, it has become much easier to send and receive large amounts of data without affecting bandwidth. What this means for consumers is that they can now download huge files quickly, browse multiple web pages simultaneously, and even make telephone calls over the Internet; an emerging technology known as VoIP.

VoIP stands for “Voice over Internet Protocol” and it is quite simply a way of using the Internet to make and receive telephone calls. The primary reason VoIP is becoming so popular is cost and convenience; as VoIP is significantly less expensive than typical local and long distance telephone service offered by the phone companies. Additionally, one high-speed Internet connection can serve for multiple VoIP telephone lines.

How does VoIP Work?A normal telephone line would sit there and do nothing if it werent connected to a network called the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network). This is how the traditional phone companies route telephone calls from one person to another. In VOIP service, the PSTN is replaced by the Internet as the network for routing phone calls, and is proven to be faster, more efficient and cost effective.

Using VoIP, a persons voice is transmitted into digital data that is then sliced into small fragments called packets that are sent across the Internet at lightning speed. These packets are then reconstructed and heard on the receiving phone.  Sounds like allot going on during a phone conversation, but most people who use VoIP phones dont even know they are making telephone calls over the Internet; the call quality is that good.

In order for VoIP phone calls to have the same quality that consumers are accustomed to when using traditional phone service, a certain bandwidth (the amount of data that can be sent) is required. Broadband Internet access, either cable or DSL, provides the necessary bandwidth for VoIP phone service to be found acceptable by consumers.

The Features of VoIP

In addition to making high-speed Internet access more cost-effective, VOIP service provides subscribers with significantly cheaper local and long distance telephone service.  Most VoIP providers charge between 20 - 25 per month and this includes unlimited calling to the U.S. and Canada.

Additionally, all the features that traditional phone companies usually charge for like voicemail, caller id, call waiting; three-way calling, simultaneous ring and the ability to choose your own area code are included in the price.

Another driver for using VoIP is that it is portable.  In other words, consumers can take their phone number anywhere they move to; even if it is just on vacation.

Cost savings, free features, portability VoIP is the emerging technology at the root of all these trends, and consumers should expect to see a lot more news about VoIP in the coming months and years.

Click here for more in-depth information about voip products and services or visit the voip blog to post your comments and suggestions.
Michael Brito is a freelance writer/internet marketer for a variety of consumer products. Read his marketing blog for the latest trends in online marketing.

Billy Connolly, the Scottish comedian often jokes about his obsession with “beige” people, people without character who are quite literally beige in the look and views on life.

Billy’s perspective on people could equally be applied to retail business. Retailing has developed into the hourglass environment, with the “beige” business being squeezed in the middle. Being “beige” in retailing is a recipe for failure.

Retailing growth and development today is occurring at both ends of the hourglass. At one end is the commodity retailer, the category killer, box store retailer and Supermarket environs. At the other end are the niche specialists providing a unique experience for the consumer. The “beige” retailers are stuck in the middle with no clear direction of where they are now or where they should position their business in the next five years.

Price or Experience

Consumers today are asking for the best deal or the best experience and every retailer has to analyse where they want to be when it comes to being the best. In today’s competitive market, the best price can only be achieved by one retailer. That retailer in most sectors often has a global network and is able to purchase high quality product at exceptionally competitive prices from Asia. This means for the rest of the retailers in the same sector they have no choice but to play the experience game. To do this successfully, you really need to know and understand your consumers and your customers.

Basic Questions, Difficult Answers

I recently worked with a client where I had the supervisors together to brainstorm ideas on the business. I asked if they were the “best” at what they did within their catchment area. I had a resounding “Of Course” response from the group. I asked why they said that, they looked puzzled and said “because we are”. I reassured them I was not challenging their answer, I was asking them for evidence; from a consumers perspective on why they would say they were the best. Hence, my first basic question.

“What does the best mean in your consumer’s eyes?”

Consumers are people who use what you sell, they may not be your customers, they may buy what you sell from your competition. A non “beige” business would have a clear strategy on what they believe makes them the best. It may include product range, added value services, product knowledge offered, extra consumer experiences, customer service or a mix of the above, but they need to be tangible and measurable.

The challenge is can your team qualify your business is the best, or is it just a business mantra that is quoted without any real substance to it from a consumers perspective.

Having answered that question, it’s time for the next one.

“What does the customer expect from your business and how do you exceed their expectations?”

Again a simple question, but one that needs thinking about. Plus, remember that exceeding expectations has to constantly vary with the same consumer, but at the same time be consistent. This may sound contradictive, but think about it. You need to be consistently, exceed the customer’s expectations and if you don’t you’re likely to lose that customer.

How do businesses exceed expectations, I have come across the following non “beige” business operations.

•    Airlines that offer a bottle of champagne if you fly on your birthday
•    Travel agents who gift in luggage trolley concierge in the currency of your destination
•    Car repair companies who have left bunches of flowers on the passenger seat when you pick the car up
•    Shoe retailer who gives you a chocolate with your change
•    Bed supplier who offers complimentary coffee while the consumers makes a purchase decision
•    Travel retailers who offer complimentary upgrades
•    Thank you cards offering complimentary meals sent out by retailers one week after you have purchased an item

Fighting “Beige” is a real challenge

It is easy to fall into the trap of being a “beige” retailer, the challenge is how to avoid the trap. I believe it is down to owner vision and team empowerment.

The owner of the business must have the vision of where they want to take the business and must be able to share that vision with the team.

The team must then be given the responsibility and accountability to put that vision into action.

Successful businesses have an empowerment policy. I recently had the opportunity to visit one the newly opened Cabelas stores in Texas, USA. Cabelas is an outdoor lifestyle retail experience.

I was taking a party of American retailers to look at their merchandising and display which is awesome. We were to meet the operations manager on site, but when we arrived we were advised that he was unavailable and Emily would look after us.

Emily joined us in the conference room. She introduced herself as a new team member and that she was 25. I, along with my group, felt we’d been cheated as we wanted to ask some searching questions.

Emily started by providing a history of the business, then the mission statement, she continued to provide benchmark figures and why they did what they did. This was no script, it came from her. When we congratulated her, she mentioned that our group meeting had been mentioned at the daily group session and she volunteered to take our group around as she thought it would be fun. Now that’s empowerment. How many retail businesses would that happen in?

As we left, I met the Operations Manager who asked how Emily had got on. I was full of praise.

The Challenge

With retial businesses having to reinvent themselves every four years to ensure they maintain consumer loyalty, we live in a time where throwing money at the problem, won’t solve the problem.

Businesses need to be vibrant, empowering and challenging…….not beige.

About the author

John Stanley is a conference speaker and retail consultant with over 20 years experience in 15 countries. John works with retailers around the world assisting them with their merchandising, staff and management training, customer flow, customer service and image. http://www.johnstanley.cc

Here is the good news. The hardest sale you will ever make to a customer is the first one. With the first sale, if you deliver on your promise to the customer, you establish a mutually-beneficial relationship. The customer gets what he or she wants, and you get what you want. Also, once you have received a “yes” commitment from a customer, it’s easier to continue the positive pattern of continued “yeses”. The customer finds it hard to break the affirmative sequence. You then will have the opportunity to Upsell them.

Upselling refers to when you help a customer decide to buy a little extra or “up-grade” slightly the final purchase. A car dealer, for example, might inform customers at the time of ordering about upholstery protection and undercoating. A shoe salesperson might suggest that when you buy a pair of shoes that you also use some weather protectant spray. These are usually small purchases that the buyer doesn’t have to put a lot of thought into. The bonus is they can be extremely profitable for you as the sales person and for your organization.

Following are three key tips to effectively upsell your customers.

1. Up-sell where it makes sense. Say a customer purchases an e-book from your website. Instead of trying to upsell your customer on a $3,000 seminar, ask if he’d considered purchasing a $97 teleclass that teaches the work from the e-book.

2. Use sales incentives. Once you’ve received the first sale, offer a discount on the second item. Give the customer a 10% discount off their first teleclass. Sometimes a very small price break is enough to get that extra sale.

3. Identify buying patterns. Take note of how many customers who purchase e-books also buy teleseminars. This kind of information tells you what items to pitch and when. Your grasp of market research will impress potential buyers as well: telling consumers that 90% of the people who buy e-books from you also buy seminars might tip them towards making that extra purchase.

The best part of upselling is that it’s practically effortless. Since it’s done after the customer has decided to go ahead with a major purchase, the hard part of the sales conversation has already been done. You’ve already established rapport, identified needs, summarized, presented benefits, asked for the order and handled objections. Upselling is just presenting the information in a “by-the-way” assumptive manner.

Also, make sure that you include an upsale opportunity in your autoresponder within your shopping cart. For example, someone buys an e-book. In your autoresponder, thank them for their purchase and ask them if they would like to register for the teleclass on the same subject for a discount.

So if it is so easy, you might be asking, how can I go wrong?

The 3 biggest mistakes in upselling:

1. No attempt is made to upsell. I can hear it now as I write this article. “I hate to sell”, “I don’t want to bother people”, and the ever popular “They are probably going to say no”. This upselling business might all sound a bit contrived, but let me introduce another perspective to look from assuming that you only provide top notch products and services that can make your customers life easier and more enjoyable.

If you had information or a product that could help people improve the quality of their life, wouldn’t you actually be doing a disservice to them to not offer it. You would actually be withholding valuable information from them. And here is the thing… they do have the right to say no. AND you are in business. If you don’t offer or ‘sell’ your services or products to prospects, you won’t have a business much longer and then all the people who need you won’t have access to you.

2. The salesperson comes across as being pushy. How can you avoid this? Being assumptive is the key. You’ve got to assume that the customer will naturally want your product or service. Begin the upsell with a brief benefit, and then if possible, add something unique about what you’re selling. To avoid sounding pushy, particularly if the upsell requires some elaboration, ask for the customer’s permission to describe it.

3. The upselling is made in an unconvincing manner so the customer generally refuses. This issue really links back to the objects made in number one, which is you don’t feel comfortable ‘selling’, so you don’t really make an effort. If you believe in your products and services, let the buyer see your passion. If you don’t…it is time to go back to the drawing board.

By Kelly K. O’Neil, Chief Strategy Officer, UpLevel Strategies Business & Marketing guru Kelly O’Neil is passionate about helping entrepreneurs succeed in business through her Business Mastery Success System. She is the lead author of “Visionary Women Inspiring the World: 12 Paths to Personal Power” (Skyward, 2005) and is writing her second book Guerilla Business Strategy with mega-marketing genius Jay Conrad Levinson. Kelly’s company received several awards for her exceptional work including the PR Compass award for outstanding Public Relations, The ADDY Award for Branding and recently received the Purple Cow Award acknowledging her company as one of the Most Innovative Companies in America by best-selling author Seth Godin. For more information, or to subscribe to O’Neil’s Arrive! E-newsletter filled with countless tips and resources for creating more profit in your business, visit http://www.uplevelstrategies.com

Most retail businesses take a physical inventory of stock only once or twice a year, and when the count is completed, the difference between the inventory on hand and what it should be according to purchase and sales records is called “shrinkage” (I’m going to pass on the puns for this one…).  Shrinkage is due to employee theft, shoplifting, and paperwork error, pure and simple.

Click here to read the entire article by Jim Hawkins on Windward’s Main Site

If you do not know right now which of your employees is making money for you, how much they are costing you or whether you’re operating profitably, this short article will provide vital information for you.

Employees cost huge amounts of money and the stark reality is that unless every employee pays their way a lot of YOUR money could end-up down the drain!!

But how do you know which employees are working profitably for you, especially if your employees are spread all over the country or even the world? Indeed some may be frittering away hours (your money) on wasteful activities. For all you know your money could be leaking away drop by costly drop, like water from a dripping tap.

So here are five steps you can take very quickly to switch-off that dripping tap!

Step 1: Monetise

Calculate the true hourly cost of your employee per hour. You can work out a percentage to add to your employee hourly rate that will cover all the overhead. Examples include a share of office overheads, pension and health care payments, the cost of holidays and sickness (which are non-productive for you but still need to be paid for). Build a list of all costs and include them in the hourly rate.

Step 2: Measure

What can’t be measured can’t be improved. The second step is to get your employees to use a timesheet. A timesheet records the number of hours spent on activities. The employee usually has to enter hours into a table cell in a spreadsheet or software form each day. Activities are often grouped in a project. There are many excellent timesheet systems available.

Step 3: Report

The information entered by your employees is priceless to you if you are an employer, manager or business owner. It should be gathered together to form the basis of reports. What reports? How about a report that shows the total of hourly costs of every employee working on a project. The first time we did this we had a nasty surprise - costs had crept up dramatically on one of our projects! How about a report that shows exactly what activities an employee actually spends his time on. Many very revealing reports are available if the data is collected correctly.

Step 4: Track

The reports you have should give you information in daily, weekly, monthly and annual format. This gives you the chance to see if your costs are increasing or falling. Therefore you can see the results of any changes you make.

Step 5: Confront

This is a vital step: Show the employee the true cost his time and how much each activity he is involved with costs the company. Employees are often completely unaware how much they cost the company. Of course, this step has to be done carefully, unless you have a real problem to confront. It might be good to show a group of employees the average cost of an employee hour, so that no one individual employee thinks he is being singled-out for ’special treatment’.

Summary

Tracking employee activity in this way can truly be an enlightening experience. With the right information you can stop or reduce wasteful and costly activity and focus on activities that are literally profitable.

Redland Timesheet makes it easy for employees to record their activities. Employers and Managers have a powerful but simple to use reporting system.

By Tony Radford

Tony Radford has 20 years experience in business and IT. He is MD of fast growing UK company Redland Software. He has a Masters degree in Marketing four kids and a gorgeous wife!
For further information visit: http://redlandsoftware.com/redland-timesheet.shtml

Every business knows the importance of a proper inventory. Without one, a business would not have a proper tally of its assets and properties. They would not be able to keep their accounting books straight.

Broken and lost equipment would remain forgotten and uncompensated for. And the business would not have assurance of how much property they can use to forward their businesses. Keeping inventories may take much time and effort, but every good business owner knows it is well worth its expense.

Almost as bad as having no inventory is having wrong inventory. If the people in charge of keeping a company’s inventory do not do their job well, the business in question stands to make decisions based on wrong data.

The company may have trouble accounting and keeping with the law too. Only when a proper inventory system is implemented can the business hope not to lose time and effort maintaining an accurate and dependable inventory.

You can avoid these problems with inventories if with the help of some simple tips. Inventory keeping does not have to be a back-breaking, menial job that is, more often than not, flawed. They can actually be a streamlined, organized, and beneficial activity for any company.

Inventory Keeping Tips

1. Keep Every Document That Lands in Your Hands

This cannot be stressed enough. You must keep every receipt, every document, and every transaction evidence you can get your hands on. If the transaction does not give you a receipt, you must ask for one.

Remember that every business should have receipts and cash disbursal sheets that will help you keep track of every spending and every earning. This will help you identify your possessions by purchase date and by supplier, and will make inventory keeping easier to manage and more comprehensive.

For purchases or expenses that do not issue receipts, you may at least jot down on a notebook details regarding the items bought.

You must organize these documents according to relevant categories. Store them in a safe area that allows for easy retrieval and bookkeeping.

2. Mark Them

Just as ranchers brand their cows, so can you brand your equipment as a mark of ownership. But, of course, you do not have to use searing iron to do so, a sticker or marker will do. The brand should show who owns the item, and the control numbers to identify the item in the inventory.

This activity helps deter thieves from pilfering equipment from your business. Your brand has to be permanent, though, to act as a deterrent. This activity also helps you find out which equipment have already been accounted for.

3. Keep your inventory up-to-date.

Some people content themselves with doing one high-visibility inventory and forget that they did the activity at all. Inventory keeping is a constant process. You must check the inventory and actual item existence to see if there are any missing, or damaged items that are unaccounted for.

This will verify the accuracy of your inventory. You may have to update you inventory and the branding of the items in your business.

4. Put Someone in Charge

Someone has to oversee the inventory keeping activities of a company. Do not scrimp on budget and fail to allocate resources for the activities. Remember that they are an important part of the business organization.

About the author
James Monahan is the owner and Senior Editor of InventoryHq.com and writes expert articles about inventory.

The below image illustrates how Windward’s retail POS system connects all areas of your business.

• Retail area with computerized cash register, bar code scanner and cash drawer
• Back office area for accounting and administration with option for mobile computing
• Warehouse area with computer terminal and bar code scanner for inventory management

To learn more about implementing a retail point of sale system in your business telephone toll free 1.800.663.5750 and speak to a retail professional today! wws5.com

If you would like to immediately test a system download a free demo version and start exploring now!

Free Demo Download

Stay tuned for Part Two: What Will a POS System Do for Me?

What exactly is the best-kept secret behind incredibly successful businesses? Is it keeping up with the trends? Having an excellence workforce who will make sure that your company is working in tip top shape? Or is having a loyal client base who will not only keep on going back to you whenever they need your products or services but they are also the ones who will help your company get more attention from other people through good word of mouth.

This is why a lot of successful companies nowadays just love using the loyalty marketing concept as a key strategy for them to be able to keep afloat in today’s highly competitive market. The loyalty marketing strategy is actually just based on a really simple premise which is to develop a stronger relationship with each and every one of the company’s best customers, make sure that they are always happy and satisfied with the company’s products and services because they are the ones who will most likely stick with you for the longest time. Once you have already built a solid relationship with your best clients you will now be ensured of more profitable years ahead for the company.

Highly dependent on whichever type of market place situation is the type of loyalty marketing objective that you should infuse.

For your company’s loyalty marketing objectives, here is a good start:

1.Frequency.

You must know your customer’s purchases.

This is where you should make sure that your company is constantly making an effort to improve its loyalty marketing services as well as creating a loyalty marketing service that is incredibly hard for your loyal customers to ever resist preventing the company from ever losing their valued customers.

2.Being able to build a strong two-way relationship with their valued customers.

It is important that it is deemed by the customers as a two-way relationship so that they will not think that your company is only after his or her money. Your customers need to feel that you really care for what they want and what they need thus your company should always look into further enhancing your loyalty marketing strategy by constantly researching on your customers wants and needs to be able to improve customer satisfaction with your company.

3.Being able to create and “advocate”

Loyal customers who will actually do some free loyalty marketing for you by referring your brand to new clients.

When it comes to loyalty marketing, whether your objective is to be able to keep the trust of your valued customers or to just coax them into increasing their purchasing activity from your company, it is highly important for you to be able to create a good loyalty marketing strategy that will help create a good relationship between the company and your valued customers.

The basic principle behind loyalty marketing heavily rely on keeping up with these four loyalty marketing components:

Dialogue Marketing - where you will inject loyalty marketing by making sure that the correct messages reaches the people to whom they are meant for at the right timing.

Customer Behavior Tracking - when it comes to loyalty marketing, this is a really systematic approach for your company to be able to keep track as well as store the customers’ spending as well as their response behaviors. This is actually an integration of the proper mix of loyalty marketing communications between the company and the customer.

Measurement – this is the loyalty marketing component wherein you actually plan to keep track as well as measure the company’s key performance objectives as well as the customers’ retention analysis data that actually go against your company’s loyalty marketing objectives

Customer Rewards and Benefits Programs – for loyalty marketing, this is a highly effective platform for your loyal customers to actually earn or reap rewards from your company that is actually specifically matched to every individual customer’s needs and preferences.

Loyalty brochure – this is just an added loyalty marketing component wherein your company will hand out these loyalty brochures to your customers so that they will see the freebies that they might get if they continue on to being your company’s loyal customer.

By John Morris

For more great loyalty info and advice check out: http://www.loyaltyadvisor.com

Do you sometimes wonder where your customers have gone? In a study by the International Customer Research Institute, individuals gave the following reasons for becoming “non-repeat” customers:

* 1 percent died (makes you wonder how they responded)
* 3 percent moved
* 5 percent said friendships
* 9 percent said competition
* 14 percent were dissatisfied with the product
* 68 percent cited an attitude of indifference by employees

How many times do you think that employee attitude is communicated by phone? Very often the telephone is the first and only contact that people have with your organization. Make sure that this experience is the best you and your employees have to offer so that first-time callers become repeat customers.

Smile when you answer the phone. Even if your hair is on fire or the last caller chewed you out, pause for a moment to put a smile on your face and in your voice. Believe it or not, people can hear you smiling through the phone.

Answer the phone on the first ring, certainly no later than the third ring. If people have to wait through rings four and five, they begin to think that you have closed for the day, gone out of business or just don’t care. We live in a world that expects instant gratification. Be sure you meet your customers’ expectations.

Ask permission before you put someone on hold. You may have multiple lines ringing and a line of people standing at your desk, but wait to hear the caller’s response. It is that person’s choice to hold or not. Try not to turn this move into a power play. When you come back on the line, thank the person for holding. If you have to ask the caller to continue to hold, offer to take a number and return the call.

Transferring calls should be done with care. Before you connect the caller to someone else’s extension, make sure that person is in and able to help. There is nothing more frustrating than being transferred over and over again and having to retell the same story to a multitude of different people before finding the right one.

Before you send the call to co-worker, give the caller that person’s name and number in case there is a disconnect. Better yet, tell the caller who you are and how to reach you if there is a problem. You will have an extremely satisfied customer.

Always make an offer of help. It may not be your department, your issue or your job, but if it is the customer’s problem, you need to show concern. Never tell the caller ” ‘I don’t know’” or “I can’t help you.” The best response to a problem is a genuine “Let me see what I can do or who I can find to help you.”

You will win customers and influence people every time when you use good phone skills.

(c) 2005, Lydia Ramsey. All rights reserved.

Lydia Ramsey is a business etiquette expert, professional speaker, corporate trainer and author of MANNERS THAT SELL - ADDING THE POLISH THAT BUILDS PROFITS. She has been quoted or featured in The New York Times, Investors’ Business Daily, Entrepreneur, Inc., Real Simple and Woman’s Day. For more information about her programs, products and services, e-mail her at lydia@mannersthatsell.com or visit her web site http://www.mannersthatsell.com