Selling Skills for a Down Economy

During periods of economic slowdown, especially during this recession, salespeople need to understand the changes that happen to the customer. In good times, customers buy things. During tough times they are more conscientious about where their money is going, and therefore, they have to be sold. Fortunately, it's not all bad news. You can still succeed in sales during the downturn, if you focus on a few key principles.

1. Understand the customer's situation - what is happening to your client's business that is having a significant impact? Take the auto industry as an example. The economy, demand for fuel efficient cars, federal bailout money, union contracts and changing buying habits, all have a huge impact on how they must adjust their way of doing business. The more you understand these situations, the better your chances are of making a connection.

2. Goals and objectives - Not yours, but those of the client. Is your client focused on reducing costs? Are they building a new plant in another part of the country? Are the introducing a new product to the market? Once you understand the things that are important to that customer, focus on the goal that you can help them reach by using one of your products or services.

3. Forget the features - Especially during tough economic times. When money is tight, the fact that your copier can produce documents with purple ink that smells like grape, and yellow ink that smells like banana will not resonate. What they want to know is whether or not they will save money to achieve their cost cutting goal. Start with the goal, show how you can help them achieve the goal (benefit), and support it with a feature when absolutely necessary.

In short, by understanding what the customer is dealing with, and helping them to reach their goals, you can still make sales in a tough economy.

Would you like to improve your sales results?

Skywalk Group can help! Click here to find out about our Customer Oriented Sales training program.

Contact Mindy Seiffert for more information and ask about our "sales stimulus" package.

Top 5 Reasons to Outsource (or Insource) HR

If you are the owner or manager of a small to medium sized business, you may wonder from time to time if you really need an HR department. That's a fair question, and one we get asked frequently. There are really two parts to that question. The first is, do you need an HR department. That question has many answers. The second is, do you have HR needs. That answer is a definitive "yes".

Many times the responsibility for human resources falls on someone's job description as an afterthought. Sometimes it's the finance person, sometimes it's the office manager. Regardless of who gets the job, they probably don't have a tremendous amount of desire to put too much focus on it.

Below is a list of reasons you may consider seeking help with all or part of your HR needs:

1. Increased time to focus on strategic issues - 60-80% of an employers time is spent on non-productive administration (Forrester Research, Inc., as reported in ProEmp Journal). As a business leader, your focus should be on the strategic needs of the business. Any time you spend on tasks that are not value added, is time that takes away from the bottom line of your business.

2. Cost - The U.S. Small business Administration estimates that the average cost to administer HR internally for companies that are less than 250 employees is $1469 per employee, per year. Outsourcing can reduce this cost by as much as two-thirds.

3. Expertise - Here are some numbers to consider. Couple the fact that employment litigation has increased by 2000% since 1995 with the fact that the average litigation costs a company $75,000. There are currently over 40,000 pages of federal employment code. The peace of mind in having a knowledgeable resource is priceless.

4. Improved productivity - Having an outside company handle your HR function can help to eliminate the time wasted by having inefficient processes. If you need to hire someone, for example, a specialist can fill that position in a fraction of the time it takes for someone doing it whenever they have a few extra minutes to focus on it.

5. It works - UPS now outsources its hiring process, employment verifications, relocation services, and new hire compliance data. AT&T is nearing the end of a 7 year deal that provided end to end human resources administration that has resulted in significant savings.


In summary, some business CEOs are reluctant to consider letting someone else handle their HR because they're worried the cost might eat into their profit margins. Surprisingly, the opposite is more often the case. Each year, many small businesses lose money due to mismanagement of HR issues.

For more information about how Skywalk Group could help your business, send us an email here

COBRA - American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)

The changes to COBRA due to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 have been very confusing and details have been slow to be disseminated. Below is a short recap of the law.

HR 1 establishes a 65% government subsidy for eligible workers towards their COBRA coverage for up to 9 months. The Treasury Department will administer the subsidy, providing employers or health plans (if they administer COBRA benefits) with a credit against payroll taxes for the cost of the subsidy. Workers who were involuntarily terminated between September 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009, with annual incomes less than $125,000 (single) or $250,000 (couples) are eligible. Additionally, the employee, not the employer, will be responsible for abiding by the salary cap that determines eligibility. Should an employee accept COBRA coverage when they are ineligible, they will have to remit the subsidy to the federal government through their tax returns.

Qualified individuals who initially decline COBRA coverage have an additional 60 days after they receive notice of the special election period to receive the subsidy. Should an employee subsequently elect coverage, the effective date of coverage would begin February 17, 2009, the day that HR 1 was signed into law by President Obama.

Employers must notify qualifying employees who declined COBRA coverage that they now have the right to choose to continue coverage.
An employer's notice must tell eligible individuals they have 60 days to elect COBRA coverage. If they do so, under the new law, the premium subsidy ends after nine months or when they become eligible for health insurance coverage from another employer or enroll in and are covered by Medicare.

Employers must use a federal government issued model notice. Notices must be sent to eligible individuals within 60 days of the enactment date of the new law, which is April 18, 2009. In addition to the regular COBRA notification the employer must also inform the employee of the new subsidy rules, qualifications and reporting obligations.
Model notices can be found on the Department of Labor's website at:
www.dol.gov/ebsa/COBRAmodelnotice.html
Employers should use the updated Form 941, Employer's Quarterly Tax Return, to report their COBRA premium assistance payments.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released guidelines on February 26, 2009, to assist employers with the task of administering these benefits. Employers can visit the IRS’s website for further details. http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=204709,00.html

If you have specific questions about how this change impacts your organization, contact Skywalk Group