Where do you want your business (or career) to be in three years?  Do you have clarity about where you are going and a timeline for when to get there?

There is a law in nature called the Law of Precession that dictates that there are steps of progress to move from one level of success to another.  These steps, or milestones, confirm that you are on the right path.

Your business and career are the same.  If you have a one million dollar business and want it to  be three million in three years—you need to be somewhere around two million in eighteen months.  If you are not, then you have to change your goal, or increase the activity to get there.  This is what the law of precession is all about.

One of the keys for the law to work  correctly is to know where you are going—in other words, having a SMART goal.  For Action, a SMART GOAL is one that is:

*  S– SPECIFIC
*  M—MEASURABLE
*  A—ACHIEVABLE
*  R—REALISTIC
*  T—TIME ORIENTATED

As people get ready for the beach, they reflect upon the most common New Years Resolution– to lose weight.  Although that is a nice goal, it is not a SMART goal.  For it to be a smart goal, they need to add how much weight they plan to lose (specific), so that they know if they are making progress (measurable), can they do it (achievable), will  they do it (realistic) and by when will they hit the goal (time).

Without this level of detail, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to gauge the progress against the goal.  Without progress, the chances of accomplishing the goal are slim.

When setting your plan for the balance of the year, keep the Law of Precession in mind and define your goals from a SMART approach.  If you do, get ready for success!

Action Tip of the Month—Profit Margins

Measurements: Lead generation, conversion ratio, average dollars per transaction, number of transactions per year and profit margin. 

You are in business to make a profit and provide an income stream to YOU, your TEAM and your suppliers.  For small businesses, cash flow is king—and your profit margins help drive your cash flow.  There are many ways to improve your profit margins—including:

*  Wasted funds—what are you doing today that is not adding value or bringing in a return.  For example, are you running advertising that is not getting a response?

*  Sack under performing customers—focus on the A clients and generate more sales (and less headaches).

*  Reduce inventory—how much inventory do you have and what is it costing you to carry it? 

*  Reduce purchase cost by starting a buying group.

Little adjustments to improving the profit margin put money right into your pocket.  Wasn’t that one of the reasons you got into business in the first place?

50 Ways to Lose Your Customers (OK, really 5)

There is a lot of discussion on customer retention—this month we will take the opposite approach, five sure fire ways to lose your customers.

1.  Try to sell them something they already buy from you (as if it were something new).  It never fails, each week I get an offer from a company trying to sell me something that I already buy from them.  Wasted marketing dollars.

2.  Be inconsistent in your delivery.  Have you ever gone to a restaurant that was great, only to be disappointed when you went back with family and friends?  I know that I have.  Inconsistency breeds a lack  of confidence in your ability to deliver.

3.  Raising prices has a tendency to drive off some of your customer base—especially those that are price shoppers.  This one has an upside and a downside.  The upside is that if your product or service is fantastic, raising prices will allow you to increase your profit.  The customers that you will drive away are the price shoppers that make up the lions’ share of your headaches.

4.  Respond slowly—a great way to loose customers.  I responded to an add for a marketing company two weeks ago—it took them a week to  call me back.  How could  a company that focuses on marketing be that slow in responding?  Obviously, I will not be using them.

5.  Perceived indifference—the most  important of the five.  You have invested good money in acquiring your customers.  Treat your “A” clients as gold by staying in front of them and reminding them how much they mean to  you.  The key to retaining clients is to make them feel special.

Rubber Compounds

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Elastomers Introduction:

Elastomers are long-chain polymers which are capable of cross-linking which is referred to as vulcanization.  The vulcanization process cross-links the polymer chains via chemical bonds creating the elastic or “rubbery or memory properties”.

Elastomers are typically descried by type or family based on the base polymer used in the formulation.  These classifications are summarized per the ASTM D 1418 standard below and more detail is contained in the summary below.

Vamac ® and Viton ® are registered trademarks of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company or affiliates.

Fluorel ® is a registered trademark of Dyneon LLC

General Properties of Elastomer Classes & Rubber Compounds:

Due to the number of interacting forces, it is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED THAT YOUR ELASTOMER SELECTION BE RIGOROUSLY TESTED IN THE ACTUAL APPLICATION, performance assumptions must be checked so that you are certain that all variables have been carefully considered.

Elastomer Classes & Rubber Compounds Class and Type Details:Due to the number of interacting forces, it is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED THAT YOUR ELASTOMER SELECTION BE RIGOROUSLY TESTED IN THE ACTUAL APPLICATION, performance assumptions must be checked so that you are certain that all variables have been carefully considered. Specific properties of the compound will vary with the formulation or ingredient used to make the compound in addition to the base polymer

U.K. Needs to Stop ‘Muddling’ on Gene Patents, Says Report

by Sara Reardon on 5 August 2011, 5:36 PM |

LONDON—The Human Genetics Commission (HGC), an independent group that advises the U.K. government, issued a plea today to health and research institutions to develop a coherent policy on intellectual property, particularly patents on diagnostic tools. The message came in a new report, “Intellectual Property and DNA Diagnostics,” launched at a press conference—the swan song of the soon-to-be-disbanded HGC. The report found that doctors and researchers in U.K. public institutions have mostly ignored biotech companies’ patents on numerous genetic tests, leaving patent-holders unsure how much their intellectual property (IP) is worth. IP owners who say their claims are being ignored often don’t even try to sue the mammoth National Health Service, according to the report, partly because they don’t know where to begin.

The HGC report made several recommendations: First, Research Councils U.K. and other funding agencies should review their licensing requirements. The Department of Health needs to find a way to monitor how IP involving biomarkers affects diagnostics, and NHS should be given governmental support in managing these issues. Finally, the report recommends that data should be gathered on what kind of impact IP has on innovation to bring clarity to what is now a heated and often confused debate on the value of patents.

One panellist at the press conference spoke of the need to minimize the nuisance factor of patents in health care. The patenting of DNA-based tests is “unacceptable, unenforceable, and detrimental,” said Gail Norbury, commissioning and governance director of genetics laboratories at Guy’s Hospital here.

The U.K. public health system has so far been able to “muddle through” by working around IP issues, said science policy expert Michael Hopkins of the University of Sussex, but it does so at its own peril. “The clock is running on multiple infringement suits. Back royalties can be claimed and those are accumulating. We can’t keep muddling.”

In the meantime, said Berwyn Clarke of the biotech company Lab21 in Cambridge, the United Kingdom should be concerned that its biotech companies might move to countries where they can more easily assert their IP rights. Because of the strength of NHS, he said, “the U.K. should be the best in world [for developing and clinically testing diagnostic tests], but at the moment it’s one of the worst [places] to develop a business.”

Hopkins says that Europe is less protective of IP for diagnostic tests than the United States. He cited a 2009 survey that found that only 4% of E.U. public sector labs have had to withdraw genetic testing because of IP claims, compared with 25% in the United States. Seven times more gene patents have been filed in the United States than in Europe. The U.S. market is so large and lucrative, and patents so much easier to enforce, he told ScienceInsider, that many U.S. companies haven’t found it worth their while to assert their rights overseas. That could change, however: “It’s just a matter of when someone gets hungry enough.”

Economist Stuart Hogarth of Kings College London agrees that companies are getting itchy to start getting some returns on their R&D investments, especially as many U.K. regulatory agencies are strengthening their evidence demands. But because IP issues affecting diagnostic tests are case-specific, he couldn’t envision a single law or approach resolving the matter.

Many hospitals and research labs devise their own “homebrew” tests, avoiding royalty payments to those who hold key patents. For instance, AstraZeneca holds a patent on a genetic test for non-small cell lung carcinoma. In the United Kingdom, Clarke said, 21 labs test for this marker, but only two use the test approved by U.K. regulators. Some “are of higher quality than others,” Clarke said, “and mistakes do get made.” Clarke, who advocates standardization of tests, suggests that NHS should be more concerned about this.

Norbury disagrees: Multiple tests, including homebrews, can be used to cross-check results, she said. And homebrew testing makes it possible for patients to get a second opinion even if hospitals aren’t willing to buy the company-backed test. She also sees nothing wrong with workarounds that evade royalties. “People find a way around things; how are you going to prevent people copying CDs?” The public health sector, she feels, shouldn’t have to worry about patent-holders nipping at its heels.

But many agree that the current system is broken. It’s time, said Alastair Kent, a panel member and chair of the HGC’s Monitoring Group on Intellectual Property, to “shed light rather than generate heat and dust.”