Everyone talks about increasing sales and developing new customers, but the Duthcess County Economic Development Corp. did something about it by holding a forum of successful entrepreneurs who told success stories that others in the crowd of 25 business people might apply to their own endeavors.
The panel was moderated by DCEDC President and CEO John MacEnroe; and featured speaker Tom McQuade, president of Associated Aircraft Group; Jason Page, general partner of Page Park Associates; Neal Johnsen, vice president of sales at Stanfordville Machine and Manufacturing Co.; and Lisa Morris, senior director of business development and marketing for The Chazen Companies .
But the first tip came from Cathy Maloney, DCEDCÂ director of business development, saying, “If someone did something successful in a different industry than yours, there is a distinct possibility you can massage that idea and make it work for you business.”
McQuade gave the ultimate lemonade-from-lemons story, talking about his early days as a business consultant when a long-time donut shop and breakfast café faced competition from a Dunkin”™ Donuts opening right next door. “We declared war,” said McQuade, playing on the local-versus-national-Goliath theme, making buttons for waitresses and offering to exchange a dozen Dunkin”™ donuts for “real donuts” and to give free refills to any Dunkin”™ mug. The campaign in Portland, Maine, made it on television as far away as Boston and both the original donut shop and the Dunkin”™ store business soar. And both are still there today.
Morris spoke about the need to imbue all employees with a zeal for sales. She said that any employee from top executives to custodians can hear of leads for sales and that successful businesses have prepared their employees for picking up on those leads and reward them for doing so.
She also spoke about long-term return from doing good works for partners or the community. After hurricane Katrina, when she was working for a company that made “flood doors” that had protected key equipment for ATT, an architectural firm that did not have such protection was facing ruin. They could not get up and running again due to a lack of computers. So Morris mentioned this to her boss who gave her authorization to spend $8000 equipping that firm with a new array of computers. Besides the publicity and gratitude, she said, about a year later the architectural firm selected the company to provide a half-million dollars of flood protection equipment for a client. ?“Think broadly,” said Morris. “When you are doing good, you are also branding your company.”
Other tips included owning up to mistakes, apologizing to unhappy customers even if the mistake was not your fault and offering to make it good somehow.
And, said McQuade, “The Internet is just for getting leads; it won”™t sell your product. You have to go face to face with your customers and make it hard for them to say no.”
