Last week, Frank Belzer appeared on Region on the Move to be interviewed by Cindy Skowyra regarding his upcoming seminar at the Expo. It was a great interview during which Frank made several points, one of which was that, today, you can focus on cutting costs or growing sales. Cutting costs will not help you grow sales and may hurt. Growing sales may eliminate the need to cut costs.

Ask around. You’ll find local companies that doubled their sales from 2006 to 2007 and doubled them again 2007 to 2008. By cutting costs? or selling more? Think about it.

How much do you have to cut costs to earn over $100,000?

How much more would you have to sell to do the same?

Which question is easier to answer?

Today, one of my fan’s got yelled at. A business owner that he knows has plenty of leads, but can’t them convert to customers. This was actually the second time that this owner raised the issue. The first time, my fan said, “Call Rick”. The guy didn’t like the fact that I said that he would have to change. This time, my fan said, “I already told you to call Rick.” That’s when the guy read my fan the riot act. I wonder if he’s thinking about cutting his ‘marketing’ budget so he can invest in learning why he can’t sell?