Use National Financial Planning Month to Assure Your Future
Financial planning for securing our personal futures is a must-do for all of us. If you’re an entrepreneur, financial planning for your business is just as important. So much so, that October is designated as National Financial Planning Month, and October 5-9, 2015, marks the Financial Planning Association’s® (FPA’s®) 14th annual Financial Planning Week®! To celebrate, many local FPA local chapters are planning events. Head over to this list of chapters, find one near you and see if anything is planned that would help you out. Where your business is concerned, constructing a financial plan is a valuable exercise for any business owner. It’s essential to the day-to-day decision making of the business, even at a one-person company. Here are some ways having a business financial plan can keep you on top of your game. Money Management Every business has periods when cash is either plentiful or scarce. A financial plan takes these cycles into account, and keeps a tight rein on expenditures during the forecast low periods. A financial plan creates a “cash cushion” that allows you to take advantage of opportunities year-round, such as the chance to purchase inventory from a supplier at temporarily reduced prices. Long-Range Goals In business, putting out fires on a daily basis is the name of the game. But that comes at a hefty price, especially if you’re not spending enough time planning what needs to be done to grow the business long-term. The financial plan helps you determine what expenditures need to be made to keep the company on a growth track and to stay ahead of competitors. Trend Setting At the end of the month, do you easily recognize if the decisions you made resulted in success or failure? Enter the financial plan, which sets measurable targets that can be compared to actual results during the year. Did your increase in advertising lead to the hoped-for jump in sales? Trends in the sales of products and services help make decisions about how to allocate marketing dollars. Prioritize Expenses Conserving financial resources in your small business is critical to your success. The financial planning process identifies the most important expenditures, and allows you to postpone non-essential ones until cash is more plentiful. Even the largest corporations go through this prioritization process, comparing the cost to the benefit of proposed expenditures. Measure Progress Especially during the business’ infancy, small business owners work long hours and deal with a many challenges. At best, it’s difficult to tell whether you’re making progress or spinning your wheels. Seeing actual results provides a blueprint for the future. The financial plan helps you clearly see whether the business is, or is not, on its way to being a success. It seems that every week another story appears in the media that small business owners are unprepared for retirement. This would be the ideal time to do some serious planning, get organized and assure your future and the future of your family....
read moreThis Week in Small Business: Improve open rates, build a great small business team, and more
The Interweb has been bursting with great articles from experienced business owners on marketing topics lately. I’ve pulled out what I – and my Twitter followers – think are the best of the best. There are also some powerful insights into leadership, entrepreneurism and management. Marketing and sales The word “video” in email subject lines boosts opens by 19 percent, so why wouldn’t you be using video in your small business digital marketing? And if you need additional email help, here are seven more tips to get people to open your digital missives. I know that a lot of you have WordPress sites for your small business. Here’s an excellent article on common WordPress SEO problems. Are your social media marketing efforts falling flat? These could be some of the reasons. Understanding your customers is step one in sales and marketing. Here are the four personality types of your customers. If you’re like most of us, you’re always hunting down inspiration for blog topics. These seven ideas will definitely help. LinkedIn and Hootsuite recently did a webinar on how marketing and sales can work together for social selling. They came up with seven ways. Social media is sometimes elevated to a cure-all for every sales and marketing woe. It’s time to separate social media fact from fiction. Handle word-of-mouth advertising properly and you’ll get more of it. Micro-entrepreneurs and others participating in the sharing economy will create a huge demand for marketing, says Steve Olenski writing for Forbes. Leadership, management and productivity Teams that stay together over the long haul win championships. It’s the same in your small business. for creating world-class employee loyalty. Small businesses are the mainstay of the country’s economy, but small business owners are dropping the ball when it comes to saving for retirement. See if you relate to these obstacles. Entrepreneurs and business leaders in Memphis tell their stories and emphasize the importance of researching, networking and having cash. We all can agree on that last point, right? Social software isn’t just for marketing. You can use it in your small business to boost employee engagement. Small business owners and startup founders have to make decisions all the time. Here’s a guide to what, when and how to decide. Is your small business anywhere near a hurricane zone? If so, you’ll want these preparedness tips. Entrepreneurship, startups and innovation The jargon around startup and small business financing sometimes seems more like alphabet soup than anything related to the English language (as if English wasn’t already difficult enough). Get the lowdown on the terminology here. Check out this Periscope replay where I take a question from a caller about turning a part-time business into a full-time empire. And while you’re in the mood for video, don’t miss these 12 must-watch TED talks for entrepreneurs. Politics, government and the economy Red State, Blue State, Republican, Democrat or Independent, it doesn’t seem to matter – everyone agrees that regulation chokes small...
read moreDiscover this Creative Way to to Improve Your Small Business
Did you know that September 14 was National Boss/Employee Exchange Day? Did you do it? Did you trade places with any of your employees for a day so you could each experience the challenges the other faces? It may be one of the more impractical work-related days on the special day calendar and that could be the reason why its origins are rather clouded – no one wants to be held responsible. However, the concept behind the day is a good one, especially when you it’s applied properly. You see, there’s no way employees can step in and take over many of the most difficult tasks the boss faces – like hiring and firing. (Although a lot of employees might want to do these things…especially the firing!) Stay grounded From the perspective of the “boss” or the small business owner, it’s very important that they understand the challenges line-level employees face every day. Even if you’ve done those tasks yourself, it’s good to go back every so often and touch bases with the daily routines. In the military they have something that they call “mission creep.” Over time, more and more objectives or responsibilities will get added to a military campaign. These add up and make the successful completion of the campaign impossible. This phenomenon happens in non-military organizations as well and could easily be occurring in your small business. Employees get straddled with additional duties and no one ever tells them what they can drop in order to have time to take on the new tasks. When this is allowed to happen, eventually things get ignored or done in a slipshod manner. If you’ve been away from line-level responsibilities for some time, you may not appreciate the impact “mission creep” is having on your employees, so use the yearly National Boss/Employee Exchange Day as a way to re-ground yourself in the reality of what happens “in the trenches.” Small business cross training Let’s take this in a slightly different direction. I’m a proponent of cross training in the workplace. For example, when I go into a home improvement store I really appreciate it when one employee can help me find the paint I need as well as the landscaping items that I need. I hate it when I get passed from employee to employee just because the next thing I need is in a different department. This concept applies in virtually every business setting. The Japanese achieved superiority in auto production techniques in part because they were the first to cross train assembly line workers. When they did this it revealed upstream processes that were causing problems for workers further down the assembly line. Having cross-trained employees also makes scheduling easier and helps your operation run more smoothly when people are absent. So even though September 14 has been here and gone, plan some ways that everyone on your team can experience different tasks and responsibilities, including yourself! (By the way, for future reference, this special day is always the Monday after Labor Day, so mark your...
read moreHow to Boost Productivity and Target Your Marketing with NFC
This post is sponsored by Samsung Business. All thoughts and opinions are my own. We’ve seen computer and general digital connectivity evolve from the days when one serial cable connected one computer to one printer, to networking via Ethernet cables, to finally losing the cables altogether with Wi-Fi. At each of those evolutionary steps, it became easier for businesses to operate -New opportunities became available and productivity increased. As we look at where we are today with digital connectivity, near field communications (NFC) is changing things up in major ways for businesses and consumers. Although consumers have been carrying NFC technology around in their pockets about as long as they’ve been arming themselves with smartphones, most have been unaware of the technology. This is going to change dramatically over the next several months as merchants are being forced to start taking EMV (Europay, MasterCard, and Visa) chip cards. The October deadline This new generation of credit cards has a computer chip embedded into it that is NFC enabled. This facilitates the creation of a unique transaction code every time the card is used, which greatly heightens security. In fact, starting in October, the liability rules around credit card transactions change and businesses that haven’t updated their terminals may find themselves in a bad position if they’re hit with fraud. As consumers see new terminals rolling out at all their familiar places of doing business, they will realize that other electronic payment methods are accepted as well as the new EMV chip cards. Apple Pay, of course, is among these and on the Android side of the smart phone universe, various Samsung phones will be loaded with Samsung Pay. Samsung Pay has an interesting advantage because it incorporates technology that allows it to be used on the older “magnetic strip only” terminals as well as via the new NFC systems. We know that many business locations are well behind the curve in the process of updating to EMV terminals, so being magnetic-strip capable should prove handy for a lot of consumers. NFC in the places we go Payment technology is only one way NFC is changing the way we do business. Retailers are working with a variety of systems that communicate with consumer smart phones as they are browsing stores. This is usually categorized under the umbrella of beacon technology. Beacons in a retail setting will sense a smartphone nearby and enable marketing campaigns when the smartphone is running a certain app. The shopper can be alerted to an unannounced sale or be presented with additional information about a product. Event organizers are also making good use of this technology. They can communicate important information to attendees, such as directions or schedule updates, and then sell advertising to local restaurants, for example, that is beamed out at the end of the day. At South by Southwest in March 2015, Beacons were all the rage and used during events and networking opportunities. NFC technology also allows physical locations to map the various paths people use when they pass through their spaces. Retailers can see how well certain displays are performing and tweak aisles and displays to get shoppers where they want them to go. Beyond the traditional network NFC is clearly the next step in the evolution of the office environment....
read moreHow to Unleash the Power of Collaboration in Your Small Business
How’s the Internet working for you? At least good enough to get you to this page, right? The technical standards by which the Internet functions and a lot of the software we use to communicate online are collaborative efforts. In software development, this often goes under the label of “open source,” which has become a very popular way to swap technological ideas. And this brings us around to what I’d like to examine today. You see, September 10 is Swap Ideas Day, and the concept of collaboration can be just as powerful in your small business as it can be in the development of an Internet browser, such as Firefox. I think the origin of the proverb “Two heads are better than one” is lost to history, but its underlying truth isn’t lost to anyone who has experience in how the real world operates. Second opinions, a fresh set of eyes or a differing point of view can create whole new possibilities. In the small business world, “brainstorming” sessions are nothing more than a concerted effort toward swapping ideas with the hopes that even better ideas will be borne, which they often are. There are other ways to swap ideas in small business and I encourage you to explore them. I’m going to provide some examples of collaborations and give you a short list of suggestions (easy ones to pull off) in a moment, but first let me offer a word of advice. Sometimes we refuse to share our ideas because we don’t want anyone to “steal” them. More often than not this is counter productive. First, if you have an idea, there’s a good chance someone else has it as well. It serves your best interests to be the one who releases it into the wild. Second, your inaction on the idea is a clue that you don’t really know how to develop it. Going public can connect you with the right people to make it happen. Three corporate collaboration examples Corning – if you’ve ever gone to a potluck, you know some of their products – collaborates with its customers to develop new products. By the way, it has some very high-tech customers. Corning worked with Verizon to deliver fiber-optic Internet to areas where the housing is extremely dense, for example. Take away: Develop your customer relationships so you can share ideas with one another. Let them know you’re interested in meeting their needs. The major automobile manufacturers like BMW, GM and others are working together with tech companies, such as Intel and Delphi, to make it easier to bring advanced technologies into cars. It’s interesting that much of what the companies are doing uses open source software – Ubuntu and Linux. Take away: Associate with others in your region, industry or related industries to pave the way for all parties to work together more closely and cost effectively in the future. Reebok teamed up with Cirque de Soleil to develop inspiring exercise circuits and accessories. Reebok discovered (surprise!) that we often tire of the same old exercise routines. Cirque de Soleil came up with choreography, music and backgrounds for the new routines for use with Reebok’s new accessories. Take away: Is there a small business you can work with that can add some panache or style...
read moreHere’s a Small Biz Contest I Personally Invite You to Enter!
Not long ago I wrote about various business contests and gave you a long list of small business and startup competitions you might want to check out. But I also told you to keep your eyes open for additional contests and today I want to tell you about a brand new entry that you should enter – and it’s one that’s very personal to me: SAP’s Big Dreams Sweepstakes! Why would this contest be personal to me? you might ask. Because I’ll be working one-on-one with the winner to help solve problems and make big dreams a reality. This is a service that usually comes with a $5,000 price tag, so whoever wins is getting a great deal and that could easily be you! I offer a lot of great advice for small business owners here, but when I work one-on-one, I can give you much more specific advice and tips that I’m sure you’ll find extremely productive. And I can’t tell you how much I would enjoy working with one of my regular readers, so I’m doing everything I can to encourage you to enter. The entry deadline is October 23, and that’s just around the corner. You can easily navigate to the entry page here as well as catch up on all the fine print. I also need to put in a good word for SAP. They’ve made this possible and I think it truly demonstrates their commitment to small business. You’ve probably noticed how all of our politicians from both parties are declaring their dedication to small business and recognizing it as the lifeblood of your communities. But to me, it’s companies like SAP, who link their success to their ability to actually help small businesses in concrete ways that really impress me. When you head over to their website to enter the contest, take a moment to check out their SAP Business One software and see if it would help you better manage your business. SAP and I share an important foundational small business principle: success depends on working smarter, not on merely putting in more...
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