Business Growth Strategies - 07
Stagnation in the sale and distribution of the final product results from a mental inertia or hesitation on the part of management to make decisions and execute them in action. This inertia will also express itself in other places, e.g. back-up of work, delay of orders, raw material shipments, payments, etc. Often a product will accumulate in stock and, after initial efforts to move it fail, it is ignored or forgotten. The remedy lies in establishing full awareness of the product, of all possible avenues for distribution, removing hesitation and taking active initiative. When proper attention is given and all possibilities are exhausted, even when one's initiative leads only to the movement of a fraction of the quantity, life will respond by attracting buyers for the remainder.
The son of a liquor merchant came for guidance because business had been unusually slow. In the course of discussions he mentioned a $4000 consignment of wine that had been sitting for 6 months in the cellar without a single sale. We highlighted this unsold stock as the major cause of the business slump and requested him to examine every fact relating to the consignment from the day of purchase, to look for movements of indecisiveness, hesitation, laziness, forgetfulness, unconsciousness in his own and his father's attitude, to take a firm mental decision with genuine feeling that wine stock must be sold, to exhaust every possibility for sales and report back in two days. In short, to give the product the attention it deserved. The man returned four days later and apologized for his delay. He said that in the intervening days over half the consignment had been sold and general business had increased so much that he had no time to come earlier.
A manufacturer of hand-made paper asked us to study his factory. He said that the local supply of raw materials for the paper was in abundance but he was running into continuous delays in getting his own supplies on time. In the course of investigation we came across a stockpile of drawing paper worth $5000 which had been produced about a year earlier and then the order cancelled. Since then it had been lying forgotten in storage. We gave him a similar recommendation, adding that he should take initiative to remove delays from every aspect of his production lines, including delays in his response to other companies or prospective clients. The manufacturer made a firm decision to act. The next morning a truck load of raw materials arrived. But the manufacturer's hesitation remained and he failed to make a serious effort to market the paper. A few weeks later he realized his mistake and reaffirmed his decision. Within five minutes a man came in and offered to arrange the sale of the entire stock overseas. The response of life to our decisions is immediate. Accumulation of unsold stock retards the availability of raw materials, the sale of other products and the receipt of new orders.
