Be Patient

Crawl - Walk – Run. Don’t expect it all overnight. Reserve some cash from the “good days.” Make calculated changes in your life and in your business pursuits. When I finally felt the accolades of others for what I had accomplished in a short time, I reminded them and declared that I was an “overnight success” that took thirty-five years in the making.

Not All Customers Are Your Customers

At Xtra Lite Displays we learned the hard way that you must define and stand firm on selling your product at well above your “Breakeven” or you lose. It is better to stand firm and lose a customer or distributor than to drag yourself in to losses on a continuous basis, while hoping for an improvement in the future. Not all customers are YOUR customers or permanently your customer. Plant them and pick them wisely.

At some place in time, they may be your best. However, over time, they can become a pain in the neck and demand lower and lower pricing which can sharply draw down your cash while you think you are making revenue with volume. Spain was one of those relationships. After several all-out fights on pricing, we cut them off and removed their distributorship. It was hard to do, but in the end, it gave us strength in the long run and we recouped.

Refining Your Purchasing to Your Advantage

We first found and sold our unique small plastic map cases with an Alvin company, an art supplier on the East Coast. We would continually look at our product price make up, and we like any company wanted to lower our overhead and make sure we had a ready access to our base products for quick orders. With the Alvin, whom we purchased the cases from initially, it was a problem of attitude. To them they were just selling something they sold. We found out all too soon that they were out until the next shipment from overseas which left us without the ability to sell our product at all.

We simply couldn’t operate effectively this way. So we asked them to come to a new arrangement where they purchase the cases from us at a set price. At first they were reluctant but, then they realized that a cooperative approach might work better. We made an agreement with them. If they gave us the name of the manufacturer, we would inventory the product for them and give them greater access to the product at a set price, but increased the colors available and an add-on additional larger product we would develop with the same manufacturing company in Italy.

They thought it over and agreed and then begin ordering from us, thus, removing their need to be involved with the nuisance of shipping overseas for this particular product, therefore, giving them an advantage of price and availability as well. Also, we gained the advantage of having them on hand when we needed them. When we needed to order, we would call them and ask if they needed additional inventory. In the end, both of us got what we were looking for. Therefore, we were able to make a difficult relationship work to both of our advantages.

These are excerpts from my up coming book “Imagineer Your Future - Discover Your Core Passions”

What's Does “Imagineer Your Future” contain for me?

It is for grasping the larger picture for young high schoolers ready to figure out their next move in life, people wanting to enter their own business, writing simpler business plans to get results, setting up new companies, gleaning from others their infinite wisdom. Finding out who you are before you try to launch out spending tons of money on a new business you haven't figured out yet, signing on the dotted line for a college degree that has almost nothing to do with who you are and what you will ultimately make your life happy and fulfilled. Building a micro global business from $14 to $14 million and marketing and selling products in over 36 countries around the globe.

Learn more about it or to purchase: LesLaMotte.com (https://bit.ly/2OGfect) Find the links to Amazon and Xlibris and buy today!

Available on all smartphone platforms and in Soft & Hard Cover. 182 pages in full color. Buy one for yourself, your business execs./employees and one to donate to your local library today!