Three Step Plan to Profit
The secret to being a great chef is building great recipes, and while a master chef can certainly do his or her best to make a bad recipe better, there’s no way around the fact that adding more ingredients to an already bad recipe does nothing but make more bad food. The same is true of business. If you have a profitable and well-oiled business, it’s easy to make it grow – you just keep doing more of what you’ve been doing to make it great. You double the recipe. But if you have a bad business, and you want [Read More]
Get Off the Tools!
Are you stuck in your business? Is your business stuck at the same level? Same level of profit? Same level of growth? Have you ever asked yourself why you’re stuck? In my experience, the key reason a lot of small business owners get stuck is because they get stuck doing the same job over and over again. Most small businesses start in what I call a high performance, cheap labor business. Now, four out of five small business owners don’t get past the owner making a wage in their business. They don’t get past what I call the job stage [Read More]
Your numbers are screaming at you, are you listening?
Your numbers are trying to tell you something. When was the last time you had a good look at your numbers? Was it when you had a meeting with your Accountant last year, was it when you had to get your numbers ready to give to your bank, or when you sat down with your book keeper last month? Your financials are vital to get you bank finance, and they are vital to keep you out of trouble with the tax office. But the most important aspect of financial statements(Profit & Loss Statement and Balance Sheet) is to give you [Read More]
How do I develop a Business Plan?
A business plan can be worth as much or as little as you like. Some pay a few thousand while others pay tens of thousands, some go DIY while some (in fact the majority) do absolutely nothing! In my 25 years experience of advisory, accountancy and property development: I have never seen anyone do a plan and not benefit greatly from the process, however, I must admit that a business plan is something you create for for bank finance or investors not to assist the business growth process. I always recommend that my clients do a Profit Plan. Most plans are either based on last [Read More]
How Do I Grow My Business?
The best place to start is to know your numbers. Find out the 80/20 of your business. What 80% of customers, products & services produce 20% of your profits and results? This is the first step in taking your business to the next level. When you identify the 20% you can then use this insight to develop a strategy to move your business up a level. A business gets ‘stuck’ because the business owner doesn’t know how to take their business to the next level. Trends show that most business owners come from a technical background; they started their business [Read More]
Entrepreneurial opportunities, are they real or just distractions?
This is a great question and one that business owners face every day. When we are young in business we feel as if we need to chase down every opportunity, and we get so busy jumping from one opportunity to the other, we don’t get any real traction on most of the ideas. When we get older the opportunities seem like hard work. In my mind the key factors that separate the opportunities from the distractions are: 1. Have a plan and a vision for your business, and ask does this opportunity fit my vision and plan? 2. Do we [Read More]
Partnership Agreements – they are more important than you think…
Why do so few SME Partnerships have Partnership Agreements? Primarily: the cost…. Business owners look at the cost as an expense that they don’t really need to incur because, lets face it, the business has just started so “why spend money unnecessarily, the business can’t afford it right now!” My response to that is you cannot afford NOT to have an agreement. The cost of dissolving a partnership outweighs the cost of setting up an agreement tri-fold. Believe me when I say that the legal costs can escalate beyond belief. Secondly: a Partnership Agreement can sometimes be viewed as a [Read More]
Tips on Managing Your Cash Flow
Create an Account Application form which provides you with their business and personal details, credit references, a personal guarantee. It would be wise to spend some money here on a good solicitor to ensure your credit application is sound. If you’re going to give credit at least know who you are going to give it to Decide who qualifies for credit. You may decide only customers that order frequently and over a certain dollar limit qualify for credit. Communicate this to your whole team, especially your sales team Create a Terms and Conditions sheet which highlights your rules Set an [Read More]
How to transform your business from a job to an investment
Every business owner starts a business in order to break free from the grind and enter into financial freedom, independence and security. Yet of the 1.8+ million small businesses in Australia, only some become wealth-generating enterprises. So; what is the ‘make or break’ factor? .
Most small business owners don’t take the time to think about their business because they’re too busy doing all the work. It’s a balancing act. Every hour spent ‘on the tools’ is time they haven’t got to work on tomorrow’s business. Spend too much time on tomorrow’s business and they’ve got no income. So what’s the answer?
Are you planning to make a profit?
My best clients are already planning and anticipating next year’s expenses, revenue and cash flow. Planning for no cash flow surprises and planning to make a profit next year. They’re working on plans and strategies to improve figures and identifying the 1/2 dozen key numbers they and their team (staff) need to focus on. They’re not waiting to see what happens. What is your plan for next year?
How to Double Profit without Doubling Debt
One of the greatest daily struggles of a small business owner is having to walk the fine line between paying the bills and investing in future growth. Many times, business owners look at their sales charts and see profit going up, but they don’t see their cash flow situation getting any better. They are making more money, but still not having any more to spend! So how does that happen? Well, what we have is a problem not necessarily with overspending, but with cash flow management. In order to grow, a business needs to be able to spend more cash, [Read More]
