If you are a small business owner you likely have 4 types of employees on your payroll. If you have two of these 4 types of employees on your payroll, they are the slow kiss of death for your business. They are an expense you can’t afford! On the other hand, there is one type of employee who is a true investment and will drive the profit in your business.
Have you ever gotten to the end of your day and felt like you’ve accomplished very little, even though you were busy all day long?
One business owner recently shared with me that her business feels like a treadmill that keeps speeding up on her, demanding more and more of her. From the outside looking in, she appears successful and her business is growing continually. But she has reached the point where she is maxed out, feeling like she can no longer keep up with the demands of her growing business.
Do you ever wonder if the meetings you have with employees are effective?
See if this sounds familiar… You hold a meeting intending to motivate employees and get everyone working together as a team to do their best. You talk. They listen. They may seem interested, or at least they nod their heads in the right places, but then. . . . they go out and do the same old things and nothing has changed. Ugh!!!
2015 is approaching rapidly! Every year, I use the last month to do strategic planning in preparation for the following year. Year-end is a great time to reflect on the year’s WINS and losses, along with all there is to be learned. Then, plan the year ahead.
Over the last weekend, I got to read Profit First, the newest book from Mike Michalowicz. As I read, I thought of one client after another who could benefit from implementing Profit First in his or her business. In talking to business owners day in and day out about the challenges they face in their business, I hear a lot of the same challenges coming up over and over. Many of these challenges relate to managing finances in the business.
While I have co-founded, built and sold two multi-million dollar technology service firms, I admit they were never truly profitable. Every increase in revenue seemed to be matched with an even greater increase in expenses. Every day I checked (and still do) my bank balances. As the balances would climb and fall, so would my confidence and my spending. I lavishly incurred new, unnecessary expenses when my bank account was fat. I panicked when it was thin.
The key to growing your profits is to bring in more revenues, right? Not necessarily. While most business owners focus on growing the sales and revenue side of their business, they often miss key issues that are impacting their profitability.
To survive the critical first 5 years of business, we business owners typically try all kinds of things to see what works, to create a demand for our products or services and to find clients or customers. Then once we find those customers, we try to serve all kinds of different needs. We say “yes” to every opportunity that comes our way because we are determined to make a go of our business.
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Email: Info@PumpkinPlanYourBiz.com
