Are you caught in the Stockholm Syndrome?

You too can increase profits without necessarily increasing sales!

How?

The “Profits Leak Detective Newsletter” offers regular tips and strategies to help you identify and plug those leaking profits.

You may never have known you have them.

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BONUS free report “7 Clues to a Profit Leak”, valued at $47.

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Are there some clues or symptoms that are telltales saying that a

bit of drilling down into your business might pay some dividends?

Possible leaks could be anywhere.

This report provides 7 clues that should put you on alert for a profit leak.

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"Adam, over the past six years, I've had the pleasure of 'bumping into you' on at least three business and marketing related forums. Your contributionsto discussions have always been courteous, astute, incisive and practical,delivered with good humour, and based upon 'real-world' business experience. You are clearly an experienced business professional who actually knows what he is talking about. I wonder if your clients know what a gem they have in you? As one business professional to another, I salute you.

Good Wishes,
John Williamson - The Wealth Coach
www.thewealthcoach.com
www.retaildisplaysecrets.com

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I just LOVED "7 Clues to a Profits Leak".

Steven Walker - Profit Improvement Advisors
Calgary, Canada

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You will be proud how your protégés are proceeding! We have expanded the business to Katherine and Alice (Tennant is also on the list). T he catering side of the business is far less stressful and is actually profitable, now that we only take the good jobs.
We will never forget the assistance you gave us in re-inventing our business!

Karen Sheldon

Managing Director

Karen Sheldon Catering

Darwin, Australia

+++++++++++++++++++

The chap is Adam Gordon whom I have known for many years. He is a former resident of Darwin having lived here for perhaps 25 years, is an excellent communicator and has a very good appreciation of small business, business plans and all that goes with it. In fact Adam is regarded as a business guru.

Charles Wright, QS Services, Darwin, Australia

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Thanks for the catch-up the other day. It's great to be working with a legend in the small business community.

AJ Kulatunga, BLKMGK ICT

Darwin, Australia

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The 7 Clues is a great.

What I like the most in the Seven Clues report is that it clearly explains that accounting is merely a subset of proper financial management and

that only the business owner can practise financial management. The accountant does the accounting, and in doing so supports the business owner's financial management. And the business owner uses the accountant's information, but relying on the accountant to do full-blown financial management is short-sighted.

The report nicely "grounds" an otherwise complex topic which many business owners are afraid of touching, so they often move ahead in blissful ignorance. The water hose and the soggy soil under the leak makes an excellent and easy-to-comprehend example, upon which the financial management concept is nicely built.

Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan, Organisational Provocateur Dynamic Innovations Squad
Personal and Firm-Wide Performance Improvement for Management Consulting Firms

Vancouver, BC Canada

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You have played a very important role in my development in business.

You were there with the right information at the right time, I thank you for that.
By adding the next level of systems, and marketing knowledge that you brought to the table we able to identify our objectives, acknowledge the gaps in our business and put in place the planning so as to achieve those objectives. Within 5 years we achieved 9 of our ten stated objectives. In that same year we won the NT Telstra Small business of the year"

Greg Haigh
Director - Trade Group
Regional And Northern maintenance services
RANms

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Recent newsletters include:

How well do you know your market?
How turning away customers leads to profits
How to create Superior Value
How to win against your competition
Do you need to make changes to your business?
"Our customers are costing us too much!"
Why competition is good news
What makes a web site effective?
Most businesses have one, but...
How to improve your quotations
How to raise prices without losing sales
Is your business resilient?
How to develop a new product in your niche
How big is your profit gap?
How discounting destroyed value
Benchmarking for best practice
From all customers to some customers
How to take the guesswork out of growth
Should your USP be based on logic or emotion?
How to triple your quotation success rate
How to dramatically improve your quotations
How to make more effective decisions?
How to develop your USP
Do you want to make better planning choices?
Are youmaking these mistakes in planning?
How to use SWOT properly
Does your sales conversation balance the scales of justice?
The perils of profitless cash flow!
So what is more important, cash flow or profit?
Are you getting value from your pricing?
Do you report to yourself monthly?
Follow the money trail!
Performance also counts!
Get more bang for your buck!
Without measurement there can be no improvement!
Where would your business be without customers?
Using your monthly report to improve your profits
Just who is your customer?
And what do you know about your customer?
How branding can increase your profits!
Can branding make you more money?
How to balance the value equation
Tilting the balance in your favour
How to pin the tail on the donkey
Are you groping in the dark with your real cost of labour
Mastering core marketing principles
Building a 5P marketing plan
Profit leaking processes
Should you be trying to increase or decrease cash flow
At times it is folly to hasten
5 steps to create your future
What will be the X-Factor in 2009
Lies, damn lies & statistics
How to use a squad profit leak detectives
Confidence leads to action
Increase sales - so easy to say
So you want to know how to increase sales
Is selling a necessary evil?

Are you caught in the Stockholm Syndrome?

And what does it do to your business?

Way back in 1973, four hostages were taken in a botched bank robbery at Kreditbanken in Stockholm, Sweden. By the end of their captivity, six days later, they actively resisted rescue and afterwards refused to testify against their captors. Allegedly they even raised money for their captor's legal defence.

It is thought that captives begin to identify with their captors initially as a defensive mechanism, out of fear of violence. Small acts of kindness by the captor are magnified, since finding perspective in a hostage situation is by definition impossible. Rescue attempts are also seen as a threat, since it's likely the captive would be injured during such attempts.

The behaviour is considered a common survival strategy for victims. It became known as the Stockholm Syndrome.

Industries can become like that, with individual businesses expecting that they need to conform to an "acceptable" pattern, not to step out of line or be different in any way, trapped by their environment.

And if times are tough, and a business is in survival mode the tendency to do so is reinforced: small businesses tend to pull in their horns, to hunker down, to survive. And in doing so, lose any chance of being different.

Have a look at the industry you are in. Do businesses operate in a common pattern and conform in everything from the way they advertise, the package of services or products they offer to how they promote and price their products and services?

All very well, but what does it do to your business? You do compete, don't you?
If you do compete, but are not different in any way, then ultimately the only way you can compete is on price. And if you compete on price, there is only one way prices can go, and that is down.

What does that do to your margins, and to your profits?

Competing on price alone is nothing but a giant profit leak.

You can get more for your product or service if you are different, if you are unique.

If you set yourself a target of being significantly more expensive than your competitors, what could you offer to your customer that gave them every reason to choose you rather than your competitors?

Before you say it can't be done, let's look at a few examples:

Bottled water - putting aside that you pay more for this than you would for an equivalent amount of petrol there are so many different brands on the market, from those in a simple plastic bottle to Perrier with its attractive packaging and social cachet. Yet it is only water. Why would you pay so much more?
Butchers - you can go to your local supermarket and take your choice from the shelf, pre-packaged and ready to go. Or you can go to your local butcher and pay a lot more for your meat. What makes your butcher different is the level of service, the fact that they will cut exactly what you require, the value-added gourmet cuts they have available.

Flash drives - you know, those little USB thumb sticks you can use to store and transfer data on your computer. They used to be comparatively expensive, now they're ridiculously cheap, but you can still get some that cost $200 or more. And those expensive ones are on back order, and come with a loooot more capability. For which you pay.

Cars - cars are about transport or are they? You can pay (I think) around $3,000 for Tata's new car in India to anywhere from about $50,000 to $1 million plus. Once you get above about $50,000 the price starts to jump in increments of $20,000. Once you get up to the $500,000 level it seems to jump in increments of $100,000. Why? Niche markets willing to pay a price.

Just to rub it in, the best and most expensive products don't discount and usually have a waiting list.

Coming down from the stratosphere of exotic cars how could you define your uniqueness? What makes you different? If you were to double or quadruple your prices, what would be the reason to choose you?

Is it the level of service, speed, ease of use, cost reduction, simplicity, appearance, emotional benefit, freedom from pain, attractiveness to others? You can find, or create, something - "Because we're number two, we try harder" (Avis Rentacar).

So throw off the Stockholm Syndrome, break free from your captivity, and compete by being different, by being unique. And charge a price accordingly.

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