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In this candid conversation on Politely Pushy, Tom Fitzgerald, CFO at Earnest & Associates, sheds light on the pressing challenges and opportunities facing small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) today. Fitzgerald highlights the impending “brain drain” as baby boomers retire, taking with them invaluable institutional knowledge. He also explores the hype surrounding AI, acknowledging its potential […]

Knowledge loss. It’s the shared risk that companies grapple with as they undergo the normal ebb and flow of employee churn, leadership exit plans, and even staff reduction or layoffs. The pandemic environment–and the Great Resignation that followed–taught us many lessons about knowledge loss. According to Gartner, The cost of knowledge loss that results from […]

Customer stratification is a framework that produces an in-depth understanding of how your customers are impacting your bottom line, allowing you to rank your customers on multiple key performance factors. Without this insight, defining and deploying results-driven sales strategies, assessing their impact, and making decisions about how your sales team best prioritizes their resources becomes […]

The pressure to win business in the distribution and manufacturing sectors is fierce. For many companies, just being able to hold onto existing market share—much less stimulating growth—poses enough of a challenge. Often, business leaders aren’t aware of the multiple ways in which strategic pricing can directly help them achieve their goals–and they are equally […]

Over the last few years, distributors have had more than their fair share of challenges, ranging from supply chain disruptions and inventory issues to unpredictable consumer behaviors and labor shortages. Market indicators suggest these disruptions are here to stay, and the businesses that thrive are those that take this “new normal” into account when revising […]

Here’s what we learned recently with a client. The client was on a version-locked ERP, and we were excited to be given the opportunity to help them move to a new business management system. In about 9 months ago they were live on their new system! Despite having many discovery meetings during our sales cycle where we […]

“Know Your Customer.” Deeply ingrained in the minds of those in the financial sector, this widely held business principle is a nod to best practices centered on various analyses and regulatory compliance procedures designed to mitigate risk introduced by customers into the business model. Customer segmentation models, also commonly referred to as “customer stratification” produce […]

The post-COVID economy taught businesses a harsh lesson – without sufficient liquidity, companies cannot navigate and adapt to market disruption. As a result, businesses must find growth strategies that stimulate higher profits and yield higher returns on two of their core assets – inventory and customer base.  Many companies tend to go into reactive mode […]

In many cases, sales strategies designed to drive ambitious rates of growth in top line revenue have an underlying supporting tactic: maintaining maximum customer demand satisfaction regardless of the customer profile. This tactic is executed by a robust investment in inventory to meet the widest spectrum of customer preferences. If you think that investing in […]

Business intelligence for manufacturers is becoming more accessible as technology evolves. And today, a top business intelligence strategy–item stratification–is no longer a best-kept secret for how manufacturing businesses are growing profitably. Many in the manufacturing space are adopting both item and customer stratification as they move toward profitable growth, and this blog will cover ways […]