Gail Birks Askins is the owner of CMA Enterprise Incorporated, an organization development consulting and strategic management firm in Miami, Florida. She has been featured in numerous South Florida Circulars for her consulting and business concepts as well as her contributions to the business and civic community where she has received many accolades. Ms. Birks Askins serves on several community boards in South Florida and is a director on the board of a local bank in the region.
Ms. Birks Askins holds a bachelor's degree in economics and finance from Tennessee State University in Nashville, Tennessee. She is a 1999 graduate of the Executive MBA Program at Florida International University and has completed post-graduate work in the area of industrial psychology and personnel staffing and administration. Ms. Birks Askins is a certified mediator and arbitrator for the Florida State Supreme Court. Her other educational credits include, but are not limited to, the following: certified total quality management training, certified self-directed workgroup training, advanced sales training and management credit training.
Everyone has dreams. It is what we do with them that matters. This independent study guide is designed for those who dare to put their dreams into reality.
Whether you are an entrepreneur or working for an organization in a sales capacity, Marketing for Greater Profits will have something for a seasoned professional that sparks an idea that confirms a strategy or adds to an approach being facilitated to close a sale. If you are new to sales or entrepreneurship, it might just give you the start needed to strive for that brass ring previously thought to be unreachable.
The U.S. Department of Commerce reported that approximately 20,821,900 firms existed in the United States as per the 1997 Economic Census Statistics Series Company Summary. Gross Receipts totaled $18.6 trillion and they employed in excess of 103.3 million people. Average gross receipts totaled $891,000. Nearly 5 percent or 1,050,400 of all U.S. firms identified reported gross receipts in excess of $1 million and employed and they estimated 95,700 employees.1
You might be asking yourself what is the significance of these numbers to the topic of Marketing for Greater Profits? EVERYTHING!! Businesses who continue to earn in excess of that $1 million milestone, whether publicly or privately held, started with a clear strategy to bring their goods and services to market. Their goal was to build client confidence through relationships and a positive track record. But the most important phrase in that last sentence is "clear strategy". As a user of this guide, you must determine your clear strategy by first identifying who you want to serve, what you want to serve them, how you are going to serve them and your on-going plan to keep their loyalty. That is what makes profits grow, your reputation soars and the competition shiver in their boots.
Having a sound marketing strategy is what will set you apart from the pack and make your dream a reality. With that in mind, Marketing for Greater Profits is designed to serve two purposes. The first is to provide some helpful tips to the user in terms of marketing strategies that have been tested. The second purpose is to give the user the opportunity to formulate a strategy that fits his/her company’s mission.
This guide is meant to give its user a practical foundation to proceed with greater confidence into a marketplace that can sometimes be very cold and unfriendly.
If you are a dreamer, then this book is for you because you understand that in order to see the big picture, you must first assemble all of the pieces to the puzzle. Your true commitment to your dream to successfully close the sale is making sure that the strategy to present your wares to the marketplace has a strong foundation and you have thought of most of the avenues essential to ward off any resistance.
The guide stresses an entrepreneurial philosophy to marketing and probes the user’s mind on the good, the bad and the ugly of trying to sell one’s goods and services. More important, understanding that setting the course of action can come easier by taking a few minutes to build some roads (and off ramps) that create opportunities for productive and mutually beneficial business relationships.
