Consultative Selling/Mac Hanan 26-28

28 ...the consultant's contribution can be a matter of life or death.

The president's letter tells you the official reasons why. It may also indicate corporate priorities into which you can tie a PIP's business fit.

The income statement also lets you learn if total earnings are growing by giving you the information to calculate profit margins/ If you divide annual net income by annual sales for the past three years, you can see if margins are shrinking even if sales volume has be rising. This tells you that business is being bought rather than sold and that your profit improvement projects must be structured to help restore income.

If you divide the cost of goods sold by total sales, you may see additional evidence that profit improvement is needed if cost as a percent of sales has been rising over the past three years.