Financial Statement Fruit Salad Is a Recipe for Disaster
You can’t make good decisions for your business without accurate financial statements. If someone is inputting the wrong information, or putting it in the wrong locations, then you’ll have financial statements which can’t be relied upon. You don’t need to know the intricacies of how each entry is made. You do need to know enough to question if the statements don’t appear to be right.
Sometimes Revenue Is the Wrong Sales Metric
Revenue is important! The top sales executive needs to be accountable for producing the expected revenue. But the top sales executive is also accountable for executing the corporate strategy. Sometimes to do both, we have to change the way we measure (and compensate) sales people. Sometimes revenue quotas are the wrong thing.
An Overview of Traditional Financing
When you’re looking to raise funds to start or grow your small business, the usual place to start is the bank. Bank financing is a tried and true source of capital for many small businesses. Traditional financing will generally provide the most affordable, if not the easiest, access to the funding your business needs.
An Overview of Alternative Financing
With credit tight and traditional bank loans difficult to obtain, many small business owners are turning to the alternative financing industry to get the funding their business needs. “Alternative” financing can include a wide variety of options, some better suited to certain businesses than others. You should investigate each option to determine which is best for your business.
Cash Is Time Is Cash
Here is a simple economic truth. Fixed overhead continues to eat into your cash month after month. It doesn’t differentiate facile, efficient businesses from slow, disorganized, quality-challenged ones.
A Great Product Will Fail Unless You Price It Right
One of the toughest decisions for a startup is how to price their product or service. The alternatives range from giving it away for free, to pricing based on costs, to charging what the market will bear (premium pricing). The implications of the decision you make are huge, defining your brand image, your funding requirements, and your long-term business viability.
Incorrectly Pricing Your Product or Service
Most new business owners tend to undervalue what they charge for their work and services in order to compensate for not being as established as their competitors. As long as you have a top notch customer service experience and offer a product or service that’s similar or better than a competitor, you shouldn’t devalue yourself.
Profit Is Not Cash
Each month, your profit and loss statement tells you whether you earned a profit or had a loss. It does not tell you how much cash you have. You must turn your profits into cash by collecting your receivables and paying the expenses incurred to produce those revenues.
Don’t Let Your Beliefs Limit Your Pricing
As a business owner, you want your prices to be fair to both you and your customer. But your price should also reflect the value that your customers are getting. Don’t limit your pricing based on your fears of what customers will think. If you’re still offering value, then you’ll find the customers you need.
Business Travel Basics
A business trip is a good opportunity to do productive work for your business while earning substantial deductions. But it’s important to know the rules and limitations of deductions for business trips. You need to be aware of what constitutes a business trip, what things are deductible, and what you need to do to support your claims. You can combine business trips with pleasure trips, but be careful to ensure your trip still qualifies.
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