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Podcast

SBM #107 – Beware of the Whale

Tagged as: 15% rule, bankrupt, customers, entrepreneur, expenses, large client, professional speaker, profit, protection, revenue, small business expert, Small Business Minute

So what’s a whale? In this case it’s not a big fish. The whale I’m referring to here is a very large customer. It’s the client that spends more with you than anyone else. Overnight it can take your business to the next level. But if you are not careful, it can also put you out of business.

Pursuing large clients is what most of us strive to do. It’s even better if the company is well known. It gives us instant credibility with prospects and within our industry.

New challenges

But let’s not kid ourselves. Landing a whale is a lot of hard work. As they say, getting the order is the easy part. Ramping up your business to manage their demands can strain the whole organization. HR, finances, and the needs of existing clients can all be impacted.

Even once the large client is up and running, you have a brand new challenge. That is to deemphasize its importance to your business. It’s not uncommon that a newly acquired customer can account for 30% or more of your business. But having any client that represents more than 15% of your business is a flashing red light.

The 15% rule

Somewhere along my entrepreneurial journey, I had read that “no client should represent more than 15% of your business!” I have no idea where I had read this, but once I understood why, I embraced it.

Why the 15% rule? The 15% rule is designed for your protection. As a client moves above 15% of your revenues, their importance to your business grows exponentially. This is because, large, and very large clients end up representing a disproportionate amount of your revenue, your expenses, and your focus. This shouldn’t come as a surprise and is to be expected. But as the saying goes, “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”, because if you do, you better keep an eye on that basket.

When you consider that for most of us, onboarding a large client requires some form of investment. Depending on your industry, it could range from hiring a few people to committing to more physical space, vehicles and equipment that could run into the thousands of dollars. As a result, the financial pressure and risk rise significantly.

The math

So let’s look at this in a pragmatic way. A healthy net profit for many small businesses is 7%, but most barely exceed 4%. So, in a million dollar business that only represents $40,000. Not a lot of money to cover increased costs.

And if we are being honest, most of us sharpen our pencils when it comes to pitching a potential whale. Granted, if priced right, this strategy should put more dollars in our pockets, but it reduces our margins.

This then results in their percentage of expenses exceeding the percentage of revenue. For example, they may equal 20% of your revenue, but because of the discount you provided, they now account for 30% of your expenses. This is normal and so long as they are a client, things should work.

But what happens if you lose that client? Losing the revenue is one thing, but now having to cover all those expenses can become a monumental challenge. Your 4% net profit won’t come close covering an extra 30% in expenses and now your once profitable business can be facing bankruptcy.

However, before it gets that far, you would try to counter the loss by cutting expenses. But reducing staff usually comes a cost of severance pay and those fixed costs, like rent, are almost impossible to dispose of quickly without paying huge penalties. This of course is with money that you may not have.

Growing our business is what keeps things exciting and if done properly can be quite profitable. But keeping your business safe is equally important. That is why the 15% rule is so critical.

So if growing your business is your goal, then you must make growing your existing clients or finding new ones a priority to deemphasize the whale’s dominance. Granted this adds more pressure to your already busy life, but it’s too easy to relax at this point. Once you’ve brought the new whale’s revenue back in line, you can take a break.

By limiting your largest clients to 15% of revenue, it also reduces your dependence on them. Should they leave, and they most likely will at some point, you will probably only face some short term pain. But with a little hustle, you can survive and get back to building your company.

For those that are interested, I’ve created a “Be prepared checklist” that is available for download by clicking here.

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Greg Weatherdon has been there, done that. As an entrepreneur, he learned not only how to get a business to the point of running smoothly, but also how to reduce the number of hours he worked, delegate more responsibility to his employees, and take longer vacations while his business chugged along like a well-oiled machine. And now he is providing the secret to success.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

ORDER HERE

SBM #104 – Inflation the destroyer

Tagged as: business, customers, entrepreneur, Inflation, margin, professional speaker, profit, profitability, sales, small business expert, Small Business Minute, struggling

Inflation is much like rust. Left unchecked it can quietly eat away at your buying power and can turn a profitable business into one that struggles and a struggling business into non-existence.

For many of us, you pretty much had to be a Boomer living in an industrialized world to fully appreciate the impact that inflation had during the 80’s. During that period mortgage rates skyrocketed to over 21% and unemployment exceeded 12% in North America.

As bad as that was, there were countries that faced 100% annual inflation back then. To put things in perspective, that meant that the price of goods doubled in a year.

The point of all this is not to provide an economics lesson, because I’d be the wrong person for that. No, this is intended is reinforce the need to be vigilant in managing your costs and pricing.

Regardless of your industry, you are probably facing cost increases in materials and wages. The latter because of the tight labour market, thanks in part to government social programs.

With all the things we must oversee as business owners, being a little more vigilant with all our purchases can become burdensome. However, with inflation starting to ramp up to serious levels, it’s more important than ever review your costs and adjust your pricing to protect your margins.

Too often I find small business owners struggle with increasing their prices because they are afraid of losing customers. Their internal dialogue usually centers around “I can’t charge them that much, that’s expensive, they’ll never pay that much!”

How is it that they won’t pay that much? Everybody is paying higher prices for just about everything they buy now. So, why should you be a martyr? Unfortunately, inflation is a perpetual motion machine that never stops.

The destructive power of inflation

What so many entrepreneurs fail to realize in a high inflation era, is that you need to keep your prices in step with the increases in your costs, otherwise it ends up costing you money and potentially your business.

Inflation can destroy your income statement in short order. When you look at the bottom line of many small businesses, there is not a lot left over after a year of hard work. The typical small business has a Net Income is way below 10% with many running in the 2-4% range. So, on a $1 million business that means your left with $20-40,000 or $10-20,000 on $500,000 and only $6-12,000 on a $300,000 business. Not much of reward for all the hard work.

Now layer on inflation at 4-7% that has recently been reported by various governments over the past few months and you will start to see the potential for margin destruction. But only if you don’t adjust your costs accordingly.

Business is not a charity

Using the previous examples, a 4% increase in inflation can wipe out the profit of most small businesses. Whereas a 7% increase you automatically go negative into a loss.

Look, nobody likes price increases, but it is a reality of our time. For the past 10+ years most of us have enjoyed a low predictable inflation rate below 2%. Even then I have encouraged small business owners to take annual price increases. Because 2% compounded annually equates to over 6.1% over a 3 year period.

Business is not a charity. You are here to make money. The more you make, the more security you can bring to your firm and your employees. The more money you make, the more you can pay your staff and yourself.

Some options

Being worried if your customers can afford the new price is noble but not realistic. There’s no point of losing money just to avoid increasing your prices. Yes, you can always offer a one time discount to your better customers as a way to ease them into the new pricing. But I stress one-time.

I also know that there always seems to be someone willing to do the job cheaper and to that I say let them. Every industry has someone who offers low pricing but it’s my experience that most don’t last long.

Alternatively, you can do what many consumer goods companies are doing, reduce the size of the product to maintain a price. Offering your customers a “lite” version of your existing product or services may be all you need to do.

Minor tweaks such as a decrease in reporting, a reduced delivery frequency or even quicker payment terms are just some of the examples. These small adjustments can be used to maintain a given price point.

Another thing to always keep in mind is if those customers are only shopping on price, you must ask yourself whether you want them as customers in the first place. Often, they are not loyal and will change suppliers for a nickel.

It has been my experience that profit margins are never high enough. So, increasing your prices to ensure inflation doesn’t destroy your company, is just smart business.

You may also enjoy Pricing for profit

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

ORDER HERE

SBM #102 Passion vs Passionate

Tagged as: advice, business, customers, entrepreneur, passion, passionate, professional speaker, sales, small business, small business expert, Small Business Minute, success

An often published piece of advice to aspiring and to lesser extent existing entrepreneurs is to follow your passion. By doing so, riches or success will surely be yours. But, as with most of these sound bites, this is rarely the case.

Let’s be honest. There’s lots of things that people have a passion for that could never support their dream lifestyle. Unless of course their dream is to just grind out a meager living.

There are plenty of examples of bankrupt restauranteurs who have a passion for cooking but couldn’t run a restaurant. What about the numerous clothing stores that couldn’t make it even though the owner’s passion was fashion?

Plenty of people have a passion for gardening, knitting, pottery, or music, but few would ever be able to or even consider creating anything more than a side hustle that adds a few dollars in their pockets. Of course, there are always the exceptions to this, but they are by far in the minority.

Be Passionate

So, just because you have a passion for something doesn’t mean you can make a business out of it. But then what would happen to all those “Follow your passion” sound bites and their perpetrators?

So instead of “Follow your passion”, what we should be promoting is “Be passionate about what you do!” To some this may be just semantics, but it’s far more than that. It’s about believing that what you do provides a better solution for your customers and not just wishful thinking.

Another way to look at it is that being passionate more closely resembles enthusiasm whereas having a passion is more emotional.

Merriam-Webster defines enthusiasm as having a strong feeling of active interest in something that you like or enjoy. The operative words being “active interest”. Emotions on the other hand, is defined as a strong feeling such as love, anger, joy, hate or fear.

Being passionate is also about continually trying to improve what you do. It’s about immersing yourself in the industry and grasping its nuances. It’s about becoming a student of your industry and the needs of its customers. In other words, to strive to be an expert.

What are you good at?

Another reason being passionate wins out over passion, is because being passionate usually means your good at something. You’ve found a niche that allows you to excel and therefore you just naturally gravitate towards the area where learning and subject matter information is easily consumed.

At the end of the day, most of us would never achieve any level of success if we just followed our passion. And having talked with hundreds of successful entrepreneurs it was interesting that most didn’t follow their passion.

As a matter of fact, I don’t recall anyone of them telling me they followed their passion. No, most just saw an opportunity that aligned with their skill set and went for it. But they were passionate about what they were doing. Being “passionate” about what you do, is far better advice than “follow your passion” in my opinion.

You may also enjoy SBM #64 Defining Moments

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

ORDER HERE

Podcast

SBM #101- Get ready for year-end

Tagged as: entrepreneur, inventory, invoices, payables, professional speaker, purchases, small business expert, Small Business Minute, write-offs, year-end

I’m always surprised at how many small business owners don’t prepare for their business’s year-end. Sadly, it’s more of a case that “they don’t know what they don’t know!” But spending some time on this annual event can potentially save you a lot of money.

As to why so many entrepreneurs are oblivious to the importance of preparing for year-end has a couple of parents.

To begin, most of the responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of the business owner. For some unknown reason, far too many owners don’t take the time to understand the financials of their business.

Being an entrepreneur requires you to have an understanding of all aspects of your business if you hope to succeed. So many owners can recite chapter and verse on the merits of social media or other online promotions but can’t read an income statement. This makes absolutely no sense to me.

The root cause for this appears to be that many owners are afraid or don’t want to look foolish by asking questions of their accountants, yet in the next breath complain that it’s bewildering and too complicated. Therefore, like ostriches, they just stick their head in the sand and leave it to their accountants.

This brings me to the second group that can share part of the responsibility – accountants . Now, as a caveat, I personally know a half dozen accountants that take the time to help their clients get a working knowledge of financials statements. These individuals also provide insight to entrepreneurs on how to manage their corporate finances in areas such as cashflow, receivables, etc. Unfortunately, they are in the minority.

Far too often I come across individuals that leave their accountants office feeling they that they are no wiser and everything they heard was in Latin. Sadly, most just sat through the meeting nodding their head pretending they understood. Now in defence of accountants, most will gladly explain anything on the financial statements, if they are asked. Unfortunately, they rarely ask their clients if they truly understand what is being presented. So, a word of advice to owners, start asking questions and don’t stop until you understand.

So, in order to help you prepare for your companies year-end the following areas need to be addressed to ensure you get the clearest idea of where you and your company stand at the closing of each and every year. This process should begin during the final month of your company’s year-end.

1.Invoices

Get your invoicing done! Simply invoicing every client for work completed during the current year could make the difference between a good year and a bad year or a good year and a great year! By doing so, you attribute all the income you have generated to the actual year that the work was done. Failing to do so, distorts the actual revenue and expenses you generated during the year.

Often, I see companies showing a loss at year-end and after a little digging, I find they should have shown a profit had they just invoiced their clients.

2.Expenses

Get all your payables in whatever accounting system or spread sheet you use. Again, these are for work completed during the current year-end period. Much like invoicing, failure to get your arms around all the expenses you incurred, distort your final financial results.

For example, failing to get all your expenses in could increase your profits for the year. Those profits are subject to taxes. Inadvertently overlooking some expenses mean that you’ll have a higher tax bill, and nobody want to pay more taxes than they need to. So, get a hold of any laggard suppliers you have and get them to send their bills to you.

3.Inventory

Does your business carry any inventory? If so, this is the time of year to do a physical count to determine its value. Inventory is an asset and can impact the value of your company. Although a company’s valuation is always important, it is even more so, if you are planning on selling it.

4.Write-offs

Have you got any bad debts? You know, those clients that are never going to pay you. So, if you’ve exhausted every means to collect and have decided that spending any more time, effort or money in trying to collect is useless , then it might be time to write off the receivable. This also applies to customers who have declared bankruptcy.

The same thing applies to inventory. If you have dead inventory sitting around collecting dust, now might be the year to blow it out at clearance prices and turn it into cash or donate it somewhere, but get rid of it and take the write-off.

Writing off bad debts and blowing out dead inventory, both serve to reduce your net income and when we reduce our net income, we also reduce our, you guessed it, taxes.

5.Purchases

In need of a new piece of equipment for the business? This might be the best time to make the purchase or purchases, especially if you’ve generated a profit.

You see most jurisdiction allow businesses to deduct a percentage of the value of their equipment every year. This deduction is an expense and serves to reduce your taxes.

However, the real intent for depreciation allowance is that the government knows that you will need to replace that equipment as it ages. In theory therefore, that allowance should be kept aside for future replacement purchases. But in reality, no one does.

So, the point of that explanation was to bring to your attention to that by buying that new piece of equipment before year-end, you may get the benefit of a whole year’s worth of depreciation expense even though you have only owned it for a couple of weeks. Depending on the item, some countries even allow for a 100% write off in the first year. You’ll need to do your own homework on this one to get the specifics for your country.

As I said earlier, the responsibility for getting your house in order lies with you, the owner. Entrepreneurs need to look at this whole year-end process as getting a report card. Some years you pass and some years you fail, but having accurate information lets you know where you truly stand.

I’m providing this information to get you thinking, but it is by no means an exhaustive list of things you need to do to get ready for year-end. Furthermore, don’t take this as fact until you check your own tax guidelines. As a matter of fact, the easiest way to get that information would be to call your accountant and ask.

You may also enjoy The Money Business

Comments, thoughts or ideas for future topics? Let me know in the comment section below

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

ORDER HERE

SBM #100 – How much time do you really have?

Tagged as: efficiency, entrepreneur, inventory, manage, productivity, professional speaker, small business expert, Small Business Minute, time, work life balance

One of the biggest challenges of a service business is managing your inventory. Now you might wonder what inventory, besides a few stationary supplies you may have, that need to be managed?

Well, unlike a manufacturing, retail or a distribution business, where you have physical inventory that needs to be stored, sold and then replenished, service businesses on the other hand have a single and very unique inventory -TIME!

Time- It’s how you get paid!

Because as a service business, your product is the knowledge that you and your staff carry around in your head. Putting this knowledge or expertise to work is how you generate your revenue and that’s usually in the form of hours worked.

It can be argued that service technicians like appliance or auto repair have inventory, but for the most part you hire them for their knowledge and they in turn they charge you for the time it takes to fix the problem. Therefore, the parts although important, are secondary to diagnostic skills the technician possess, because without those skills, there wouldn’t be a part to sell.

Similarly, sales and marketing services companies also generate revenue by the hour, however, it is rarely shown as such as most fees are displayed as a total for a given project. But all the fees are calculated as an estimate of how much time or hours are involved in executing the project by the various staff members.

Establish some balance

One of the biggest issues with owners of service businesses is understanding that their inventory is finite and that they should be running their companies with that in mind. Unfortunately, this is contrary to how many of these businesses operate. They assume that they can just put in more time and work longer hours. Although feasible in the short term, it is rarely a long term strategy. Yet so many continue to do so.

There are some advantages to managing your business based on your available inventory of time. First off, it should bring a sense of balance to a business. Balance, as in work life balance.
Secondly, it would allow you to establish realistic delivery timelines to the customer. Let’s be honest, we all think we can complete an assignment quicker than reality dictates but that just stresses out your staff or annoys the client when we are late. So being realistic can reduce the occurrence of both.

Additional benefits of managing your inventory can be significant on the financial front. Foremost, you’ll quickly understand whether you are charging enough and whether your existing inventory of hours available can support your financial demands.

Calculate how much time you really have

Furthermore, you should also discover how efficient or inefficient your organization is and where improvements can be made. Increases in efficiencies can greatly enhance your profitability. A simple metric such as revenue per hour is great place to start in benchmarking any improvements. This calculation is done by simply dividing your total revenue by total payroll hours for any given period, including your own.

So, how do you calculate this inventory? Well, it is easier than you think, and it really doesn’t matter whether your staff is making $20/hr or $200/hr as it is the exact same calculation. Earning a higher hourly rate does not give you more hours in a day, as we all get the same 24hrs.

The following example is how you calculate your total available inventory of time in a service business.

1. Assume a 40 hour work week = 2,080 hrs
2. Assume 3 weeks vacation = (120)
3. Assume 11 statutory holidays = (88).
4. Assume 5 sick days = (40)
5. Assume 2×15 mins breaks/day = (12.5)
Total available hours 1855.5 hrs

So before doing this exercise, most owners assume they have 40 hours a week or 2080 hours per year per employee that are available to them. However, after taking into account vacations, stat holidays, sick days and coffee breaks, that number is reduced by 11% to 1855 hours per year or a loss of almost 6 weeks out of a 52 week year.

This number actually gets worse if employees are required to travel to clients as in the case of a repair technician or a salesperson. You can easily lose and additional 2 hours per day which is a potential loss of an additional 13 weeks per annum. So now we are down to 33 weeks of billable time in a year or 1335 hours from a high of 2080 hours. That’s a 36% reduction in available inventory or billable time.

Once you understand how much available time you have, you can now start to make realistic assumptions and projections. Of course, the challenge to all service businesses is the ability to maximize your available time inventory and make sure it’s productive.

Hiring more people not the best option

Unfortunately, the only way to increase your inventory in a service business, is to hire more people. But realistically, that’s not necessarily the best option, especially if you have demand peaks and valleys in your business throughout the year. So, finding tools or processes to increase productivity might be a better avenue to maximize your existing inventory.

Realistically, we are all faced with slack periods where there’s insufficient demand and people are not busy. Sadly, you can’t store any unused time for future use. Because once that minute hand on the clock moves forward, you have lost that inventory forever.

So, sit down with staff and explain the impact they can have on the business by being more efficient. Then ask them where the bottlenecks are and their suggestions to get rid of them, because once that inventory is gone, it’s gone!

You may also enjoy episode #59 Quit Digging!

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

ORDER HERE

SBM #97 Think

Tagged as: Canada, entrepreneur, focus, knowledge, professional speaker, small business expert, Small Business Minute, social media, strategic thinking, think, worry

“Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think”. This often repeated quote is regularly but wrongly attributed to Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and philosopher Bertrand Russell, all big thinkers in their own right. The reason for this is that they all had similar thoughts on the on the capacity or desire of humans to think, because thinking is hard work and most shy away from it. By the way, the actual author is Woods Hutchinson, an American physician who published “Balanced Work” in an edition of The Saturday Evening Post.

As entrepreneurs we are faced with a myriad of decisions we must make on any given day and quite frankly it can be exhausting. Couple that with all our other responsibilities, it leaves little time or more precisely, the energy to think. By think I mean intentionally focusing on a problem, opportunity, or challenge without distraction for an extended period of time as we search for the best solution. This is often referred to critical thinking.

Think not worry!

This is one of the reasons I repeatedly tell my audiences that as entrepreneurs, they need to make time to think. They need to find a way or a place to mentally retreat from all the day to day noise of our businesses and concentrate on the issue. For years I have used my daily walk or bike ride to ponder an issue. This 30 to 60 minute escape effectively disconnects me from all the other noise or distractions and provides focus time needed. I do not always resolve the issue, but this diversion usually provides a fertile field for ideas from which to germinate.

Too often people confuse worry with thinking and that is a mistake because there is a big difference between the two. Worry usually has too much emotional baggage attached to it and often has negative connotations that cloud our judgement. Whereas critical thinking on the other hand, is starting with a clean sheet and an opportunity mindset. This sets the stage to evaluate the issue or issues from a 360 degree perspective. The other upside to pondering our own solutions, is that it enhances our decision making process. To seriously think requires you to draw on all your knowledge and to determine any gaps you may have. Researching these gaps then adds to your knowledge and the more knowledge we gain, the more information we have to apply against future decisions.

Another way to look at it, is thinking is like exercise for the brain. As with all exercise it builds strength, resilience, and endurance to specific parts of our bodies. The same principle applies to thinking. The more we do it, the better we become, which in turn allows you to perform at a higher level.

The impact of Social Media

Although based purely on my observations, I see a disturbing trend evolving with many entrepreneurs and, for that matter, many individuals. They turn to various forums on social media platforms to solve their every problem. To my way of thinking this is doing the individual a disservice. Relying on others to help you make a decision does nothing to enhance your skill in this all important area.

To be sure two heads can be better than one, but hundreds of opinions, not so much. The problem is the audience lacks the context of your specific situation and are better used when dealing technical issues rather than directional ones. Relying on others does absolutely nothing to enhance this much needed entrepreneurial skill set. Just remember old saying that “practice makes perfect”.

IBM – Think

Thinking was so important that for years IBM had the word THINK strategically placed above every doorway as a reminder. They expected their employees to solve problems both internally and externally for their customers. Apparently, the origin stems from an uninspiring sales meeting. Thomas Watson, the founder interrupted the meeting, saying “The trouble with every one of us is that we don’t think enough. We don’t get paid for working with our feet — we get paid for working with our heads”. Watson then wrote THINK on the easel. (Wikipedia). The word THINK has since long been an IBM trademark and they even named their laptops ThinkPads, that are now owned by Lenovo.

The ability to think critically opens our minds to our own possibilities and if done well it allows you to solve problems or envision what your future could be. By thinking through the pros and cons and all the what ifs, allows you to distill a course of action that is home grown and is tailored to your specific needs. But it cannot happen unless you make the time to think.

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Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

ORDER HERE

A year ago, had you asked small business owners what 5 things could put them out of business?, I would have bet a pandemic would not have been on their top 10 let alone their top 50 things. But a lot has changed in just over a year. According to the CFIB (Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses), it is estimated that 1 in 6 small businesses won’t survive because of Covid-19. The UK is also predicting hundreds of thousands of failures with the US expecting that number to exceed 1 million according to McKinsey.

Assuming the 1 in 6 estimate to be true, that means that approximately 83% of small businesses will survive. Most certainly won’t flourish and it’ll take a long time to recover, but they will survive. Unfortunately, with the ongoing lockdowns, just surviving is incredibly stressful, to say nothing about how exhausting it can be.

5 areas that require every owners attention

Managing the work-from-home environment is not easy for most small business owners. For many, current technology has made it possible to continue, but only after a number of implementation headaches and costs. The learning curve has been steep. Because for many, technology is just something they’ve never understood.

What we need to understand, is that most small businesses are run in an impromptu or spontaneous manner. The owners have been so busy trying grow their businesses prior to the pandemic, that the majority lacked formal processes. Most just spent their days acting, or more accurately, reacting to whatever the day had instore for them. They are more like fire fighters directing their staff on a moment to moment basis depending what fire was burning the most brightly.

To be sure this pandemic has forced a few owners to get better organized in how they structure their working days, but for many it has become quite the challenge in keeping everyone focused, productive and motivated. In episode #93 Pivot, I discussed the whole concept of pivoting, which is far more difficult than people are led to believe, but so is changing the way a company operates.

So this brings me to my question – What 3 things would put you out of business? Well if you are surviving, you can scratch off pandemic. Sadly, because so many entrepreneurs are so focused in the moment, they don’t realize there are a whole host of issues that can kill their
businesses in a heart beat. The following is a primer list of 5 pretty common areas that require every owners attention, in order to safeguard their business’s future.

“Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise, will sooner or later have to find time for illness.”

Edward Stanley, former Prime Minister of the UK

#1 Your health

Unfortunately, most of us don’t even consider what would happen to their life’s work if they were suddenly struck with an injury or worse a life threatening illness. What would happen to the business if you were laid up? Would it survive? If not, what would you do for income? How would you handle the debt? How would it affect your family? This is serious stuff and requires your attention. Contrary to what we think, we are not invincible.

The following are few of solutions that you can minimize the impact of a health problem.

First off, you should investigate disability insurance. Yes, it can be expensive and yes, it usually pays out less than you’re currently earning. But something is better than nothing.

Secondly, many health related issues are self inflicted by our lifestyle. Making time for some form of exercise should be mandatory for every owner. It can range from taking a daily walk to a full on cross-fit workout at the gym. Something is better than nothing. There’s a wonderful saying that kind of drives the point home and it is from Edward Stanley, former Prime Minister of the UK that says:

“Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise, will sooner or later have to find time for illness.”

An additional item that should be mandatory in every small business and that is delegate. By delegating absolutely everything you can to your existing staff, this will certainly relieve some of the pressure. That way, there’s a good chance that the business will survive, while you are laid up. Unfortunately, this is one of the hardest things to get entrepreneurs to do. (See Small Business Minute #18 Delegating is easier than you think)

#2 Key staff quits.

Having your key staff member quit can really ruin a perfectly good day and for some people it can take their business down.

People leave companies for a lot of reasons and sometimes there is nothing you can have do to prevent it. From career changes, to better opportunities to relocations, sometimes it’s just out of your hands. But in many cases it’s not. One of the top reasons employees leave is the lack of recognition and this is something you can control. An occasional pat on the back or some other form appreciation goes a long way. It can be as simple as a thank you for their efforts.

However, if a key employee leaves, what’s your plan? If you’re like most you don’t have one and chances are you don’t have a deep bench of trained people ready to assume that position.

Therefore one of the best things you can do is to cross train individuals. The secondary person doesn’t have to be as well versed as the key person, but they should have been given enough exposure that they could perform the job being vacated even though they may be less efficient.

Additionally, creating in depth documented processes for all positions, allows other personnel to perform those functions until such time as you can find a replacement. This will go a long way to ensure that your company will survive. (see SBM #34 Processes- Shampoo, Rinse and Repeat)

#3 Business interruption

Covid-19 aside, there are lots of things that can cause business interruptions. A flood, a fire, even vandalism can shut your business down for weeks, if not months. A closed business can’t generate cashflow, yet bills still need to be paid.

It is estimated that over 80% of small businesses have no form of business interruption insurance that would pay out a set dollar amount in the event of a catastrophe. This is different than typical commercial/business insurance, whereby the physical damage to your business is repaired. Business Interruption on the other hand can cover Gross Earnings, Profits, Extra Expenses. Certainly worth considering.

#4 Competition

What would happen if a new competitor came into your market, how would you deal with it? Being so focused on the here and now, is a great way to get caught off guard. As I’ve stated before, too many entrepreneurs are so busy just handling the daily priorities, they never have time to lift their heads up to see what going.

Inevitably, they are not even aware of that a competitor has set up shop until they start stealing your customers. By the time they do realize what’s happening that trickle of desertions turns into a flood and is hard to reverse.

One of the best ways to avoid getting sideswiped is to stay in touch with all your customers on a regular basis. Too often the only time business owners talk with their customers is when they call in an order. The thought is, “they know where we are if they need us and I don’t want to bother them.”

Staying in regular contact with customers signals that they are important to your business and can also provide you with competitive intelligence. Most customer don’t change on a whim unless you’ve treated them poorly. So, by staying in touch the fact that a competitor is circling is often shared, thereby giving you time to react. (See SBM #76 Pick up the phone)

#5 Bad debt

This one item alone has contributed to the demise of many small businesses. Aside from not being diligent in collecting receivables, having one customer represent more than 15% of your business can be potential fatal if they close their doors or refuse to pay.

When you consider that many small businesses have net incomes of less than 10%, taking a hit from a major customer can be devastating. For example if a client reneges on a $20,000 invoice and you only net 10%, you’ll need to generate $200,000 in additional revenue just to recover that loss.

When you think about it, most small business are not flush with spare cash, missing out a major payment means you can’t cover payroll, rent or suppliers.

If you do find yourself with a client that represents more than 15%, you have two choices. First grow your business to get them below that threshold or alternatively collect early and often. Don’t forget you can set the rules, so don’t be shy about protecting your company. (See SBM #20 Cash Flow, the Breath of Life).

These are just 5 areas that should get you thinking, but every business has it’s Achilles heel. Spending some time thinking about “What 3 things would put you out of business?” certainly deserves your attention. Then pick the #1 item on your list and make a plan.

Let me know your thought sand ideas in the comment section.

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

ORDER HERE

SBM #94 – Advice

Tagged as: 10 X, advice, business, crush it, entrepreneur, hollow, meme, professional speaker, small business expert, social media, success, successful

For some time now I’ve have taken issue with the advice given small business owners on social media platforms under the guise of motivation and advice. Sadly, much of this advice being spewed forth by many of these so called experts is, in my opinion, nothing more than hype to grow their popularity.

But in order to balance my opinion and for research purposes, I have spent over 20 hours of listening to the audio version of the books of some of these more popular gurus and to be honest, my opinion hasn’t changed. Listening to how we need to crush it or 10x our activity, because if we don’t, we’ll never achieve our goals, is a little much.

We all need motivation

Now granted, we all need motivation at times and Covid-19 has certainly increased the need. The ongoing pressure and changes has certainly amped up the challenges and anxiety of running a business. This increased strain can be draining and after a while can leave us feeling a little lost, worn out or just fed up.

Covid-19 aside, many of us entrepreneurs have been there over the years. Most of the time it’s nothing more than a speed bump after a prolonged period of grinding it out. You see, successful entrepreneurs are for the most part pretty positive and optimistic individuals. We have to be, considering what it takes to survive, let alone thrive. That’s why resilience is such a key characteristic of those that are successful.

But even with our higher dose of resilience coupled with a higher than average positivity and optimistic outlook, sometimes it’s just not enough, the tank is empty and were done. It’s what I like to call a “Poor Me Day”! It’s a day where we feel sorry for ourselves and wonder what the heck we got into and is it worth it? It doesn’t matter how long you been in business, Poor Me Days can happen to anyone.

The thing is, successful entrepreneurs don’t stay down long, hence the name Poor Me Day, not days. Now on the bright side, a Poor Me Day can be almost like a mental reboot, where it clears your mental cache that has accumulated bits of negative experiences over a period of time. And much like your PC, this cache needs to be cleared every once in a while. So having a Poor Me Day is ok, because once cleared, we can get back to doing what we need to do.

A witty meme doesn’t cut it when you advice

As I mentioned earlier, I do understand the need for motivation and sometimes it is the tonic we need to jolt us back to reality. But reading a pithy meme on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin, unfortunately barely qualifies as motivation.

Motivation is supposed to help us to reset our compass and get our head screwed on straight again. Reading a witty meme or a quote that is misattributed to some personality really doesn’t quite cut it.

Digging into a book or listening to an audiobook has usually done it for me. It gets me thinking. My preference is for the audiobook, especially when read by the author allows me to get a truer sense of their message and their personalities. As a bonus, I can listen to them just about anywhere.

However, what I find disturbing by the two top personalities who’s audiobooks I have just listened to, was the messaging and the tone in which it was delivered.

Let’s start with the messaging. The last thing you want when you’re down is someone telling you that you’re not working hard enough. Telling you that you’ve got to up your game and do a lot more, otherwise you’ll never make it and you’ll be nothing more than average. Or if your not prepared to give it your all, sacrifice everything and put in longer hours in order to dominate, you’ll never achieve the success you want. Really? You call that motivational? I call it bull. But unfortunately that’s the underlying theme of these books.

As for the tone, I found them to be a little too “in your face”! It’s been my experience that what most people need when they’re down, is a calming voice or message instead of someone screaming at you telling you that you’re inadequate and you’re not putting in the effort.

Nothing more than sound bites

Listening to these audiobooks let’s you hear the sheer arrogance of these authors that may not be conveyed when reading the text. I will say, if you can get by all the chest beating that you have to endure, there are a couple of nuggets of good advice, but unfortunately, there’s far more hollow advice that it makes me wonder how they’ve become best sellers.

Much of their advice really is nothing more than sound bites and lack any sound executional details. Although, I’m pretty sure I’m not their target market, it does make me wonder who actually drinks their Kool-Aid? Considering, that there’s just so many better motivational or educational resources out there that offer much better advice.

Does it help to move your business forward?

The good news for most is that many of these resources are free if you have a library card. Although they vary in selection, many libraries have digital libraries that you can download e-books or audiobooks that run the gambit from sales, marketing, social media and so on from a variety of authors.

The only minor downside for some may be that you have to do a deep dive on a subject by reading or listening for a few hours. But let me tell you, no one book will have all the answers, but many will tell you how instead of just saying you should.

So the next time you come across one of these social media posts, take a second to assess it’s true value. How does it help you move your business forward or are the authors just looking to increase their followers and likes? The choice is yours.

You may also enjoy Motivation & Inspiration

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

ORDER HERE

Pivot! Just pivot! That’s what your being told if you’re having challenges running your SME. It’s another one of those words that actually had value once upon a time. Now, it’s so abused that’s it’s nothing more than a throwaway statement by individuals who want to sound like they’re offering intelligent advice, but really aren’t. Realistically, most businesses can’t pivot.

If we’re to be honest, most individuals have a heck of a time coming up with one idea that they can get excited enough about to take the plunge. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. It’s just an idea that they’re prepared to risk their time, energy and resources on to make happen. Even then the failure rate exceeds 50% in the first 3 years and upwards of 85% in 5 years.

So my point is pivot to what? It’s so hard to have one idea let alone coming up with a second one, especially when under duress. I say duress because you wouldn’t even be considering pivoting if everything is running along fine.

No, most often a pivot or rethink is a result of a failed idea, a competitive threat or 100 year storm such as Covid-19. So I say duress because in most cases your business is heading to the ground with the power on and you’re desperate. And when things get desperate, we need a fix and in a hurry. That usually means doing something, anything to generate revenue and stop the bleeding. Unfortunately, being stressed out is not necessarily the best time to make decisions.

The news is full of stories showcasing various companies that have reinvented themselves during Covid-19. But on closer inspection of the stories, I don’t think they’d qualify as pivots as much as a survival strategy.

It’s about survival

For example, how many clothing manufacturers converted their sewing rooms from producing apparel, to manufacturing medical masks? I’m pretty sure they’re not going to continue once the storm has passed. It’s a safe bet that most will return to fashion as soon as they can. This is not a pivot, it’s about survival.

The same can be said about distillers and micro brewers who started producing hand sanitizer. This is not a long term strategy. It’s about generating some short term cash flow by utilizing existing facilities and processes. Which at it’s core is distilling alcohol. It’s nothing more than a finger in the dyke. Once demand is satisfied, then what?

“Chances are their pivot is only a few degrees off of their original idea”

Alternatively, some businesses have got nowhere to turn. Take the hospitality industry for instance. They can’t just convert their hotels rooms into alternative use. To be sure restaurants can offer takeout or delivery, but that’s not a pivot. It’s just an extension or alternative to what they are already doing and sadly won’t cover their costs. Again, it’s a just matter of generating some cashflow and of survival.

Retail is another example. Making your offering available online because of a massive drop in walk-in traffic, certainly sounds easy. But it’s a lot more involved than most imagine. Such as setting up your website, getting and managing your inventory online and establishing your payment gateway. None of it is easy and it costs money. Money that most small businesses don’t have.

Let’s not forget all the time and energy required to promote and get visible once you are setup online. That of course assumes you have the necessary skills to begin with. Granted, you can try to learn these new skills, but that takes time. In the meanwhile, you still have rent and utilities to pay.

Yes, there are companies that have managed to pivot and have found success. That just tells me that their original idea probably may not have been as sustainable as they first thought. However, these companies appear to be sufficiently versed in their industry that they’ve managed to leverage their insights and skills to offer an alternative solution. Chances are their pivot is only a few degrees off of their original idea and not a wholesale change.

My Pivot

After 8 years of running my first company, The Sales Support Company, I realized that I was working way too hard and felt like I was treading water. Even though revenues were continually growing at a nice rate, it never translated into any significant profit.

The company provided retail sales services representing some of the world’s largest packaged goods companies. I had 150 employees working coast to coast at a time before the internet and cell phones. Because of that, communicating with regional supervisors always took place after hours, so the days were long. It finally got to the point where I was just tired of trying to make it work. I was putting in endless hours, getting no closer to my goals and not making any money.

I knew the industry still required our type of service. So, I set out to come up with alternative method to service these stores. Two key criteria were, that it had to be profitable and give me a better quality of life. So, my pivot was to take what we were doing “live and in person” and attempt to do it via telemarketing, which really hadn’t been done before.

In order to find out if this idea would fly, I created Marketing Resource Group and tested the concept over the next 18 months. This happened all the while still running my other company.

Since it was a new concept for the industry, it did require a lot of convincing clients to test it. Fortunately, one by one clients began to support the concept as we were able to deliver the promised results.

More importantly though, is that this pivot was actually fulfilling my first priority of being profitable. My second criteria of having a better quality of life would be up to me, but profits would go a long way to making that happen.

Once I could see the momentum growing for our service, I sold The Sales Support Company. Well actually, it was more like I gave it away, but that’s a story for another time.

My pivot worked so well, I kept The Marketing Resource Group for 17 years before selling it. At which point we were making over 300,000 calls a year in Canada and the US.

Advantages

The point of that story is that I got to test the concept while I still had my first company. Although I was extremely well versed in retail sales and service, I knew nothing about telemarketing.

So the test phase allowed me to learn, trial, and refine the concept on my schedule. Unlike typical telemarketing organization that is script driven, our service had to be adapted to creating long term relationships. That’s why having the luxury of testing and refining made this pivot possible. Doing it overnight would not have had the same results and most likely would have failed.

A couple of advantages that I had that increased my odds at pulling off a successful pivot were:

I knew the industry and
I had a solid relationship with existing pool of potential clients that I could leverage.

As I stated before, most sustainable pivots are only a few degrees off the original idea and not massive wholesale changes. If we’re to be honest, there are far more businesses that can’t pivot, than those that can.

Sometimes that pivot can mean throwing in the towel, cut your losses and live to fight another day.

You may also enjoy SBM #82 Starting Over

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

ORDER HERE

Money, it’s one of those personal topics that many people are uncomfortable discussing. Why that is, varies from person to person.

Even inside a business that uncomfortableness exist, but that needs to change. Generally speaking, the only time the subject of money seems to ever comes up is in the heat of the moment in comments such as “Do you know how much that costs?”. Even then the word money is not used.

When I ask owners what business they are in, I usually get the expected answer such as “I’m in retail or I own a restaurant or I’m in a service business of some sorts.” These are all technically correct answers and serve to explain your enterprise to your external customers and strangers alike.

However, I would like you to consider an alternative definition that should be used internally within the organization and be at the forefront of your decision making process. What is that internal definition? Simply, “We are in the money business!”

And it matters not one bit what industry you are in. At the end of the day, you are in the money getting business. Pure and simple. You exchange your services in return for money.

The service you offer is nothing more than the vehicle you use to get that money.

This may sound a little crass to some because they don’t want to think of their business in such impersonal terms. Others are so emotionally committed to their desire to be an entrepreneur that they have fallen in love with their idea and not the business of the business itself.

Let’s be honest, the reason 99% of us went into business in the first place, is the allure of potentially making more money. To be sure, we had other reasons such as being our own boss, validating our idea or just finding a better way to do something. But at the end of the day, the majority of us were seeking higher incomes.

Focusing on money is not to say that you have to become Scrooge like. Nor does it mean caring less about your customers or how you do things. To the contrary, having higher profitability and more money gives you the ability to actually increase your service levels. The alternative means that you’re on the proverbial treadmill generating additional low margin business just to keep the doors open, which results in customer service taking a back seat to everything else.

No, it means being selective in where you commit this precious resource. It also means getting your staff to understand that their actions can impact, good or bad, the profitability and financial health of the company. But you need to reinforce that position with them. You need to make them understand that their actions have a cost associated with it.

Loving what you do is one thing, but it’s got to be profitable and the more money or profit you make allows you to build a safety net under your company. Consider for a moment, how unprepared so many small businesses were in the face of the Covid-19 lockdowns. Sadly, many have locked their doors forever.

Changing the mindset

There’s really only two things you need to know about money, where you get it and where you spend it. So, the logical place to start is to understand where you get your money.

It’s been my experience that just about every business has revenue categories. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs don’t bother to segregate their services into any formal groupings. As a result, they have no idea what percentage each product or service groupings contribute to their revenue.

But revenue grouping is only half the equation. We often hear that we should be focusing most of our time on revenue generating activities. I absolutely agree that this should be every entrepreneurs priority, with one added caveat. These revenue generating activities need to be profitable and we should be focusing on the most profitable of these activities.

Therefore, in order to determine which revenue generating activities are the most profitable, we need to be able to attribute what it costs to generate those revenue. You do so by allocating all the expenses incurred to each of the revenue groups. In doing so, you can now determine the most profitable areas of your business. In other words, what’s making you money, where you’re losing money and everything in between.

By having the ability to analyse your revenue categories, you can begin to make educated decisions. When you consider how much labour, overheads, and other expenses go into generating revenue and then to find out you lost money or only break even, it’s heartbreaking. Granted getting a nice big cheque for a project you just completed is a wonderful feeling. However, if it has a low profit margin, you are effectively just trading dollars.

So first and foremost, you need to prioritize your activities on the most profitable products or services you offer. Then you need to determine how you can increase your activity on these most profitable items.

At the end of the day your objective is to narrow your focus to those items or activities that are the most profitable and quit wasting time on marginal ones. There are only so many hours in a day available to you and your staff. If you subscribe even just a little bit to the 80/20 rule you’ll quickly determine that a lot of your energy and your staffs is wasted on low value products and activities.

I know many will say that they have to keep their prices low in order to compete. This is where you need to get your head around the fact that you are in the money business. If that’s truly the case, get the heck out of that line of business or quit offering that product. If you need to stay in that line of business, then find a way to increase the value of your offer without increasing your costs. That way you’ll you can demand a higher price, thereby increasing your profits. These decisions are well within your control.

A True Story

Many years ago, I undertook this exercise to determine where we were making our money. Although it was a tedious process, it was an eye opener. The net result of that undertaking was that I cut over $300,000 of revenue from the company by identifying low margin activities and clients in industries where, due to competition, we were unable to manage any form of price increase to make them more profitable.

This was at a time when my company had just achieved breakeven and this decision was going to be a major setback. However, as expected or maybe I should say hoped, our profitability grew significantly, and we were profitable in less than a year.

In hindsight, it made perfect sense and the risk was more imagined than real. When you consider that we focused on fewer but more profitable services and clients or labour and other expense inputs dropped dramatically, which resulted in more profits for the company.

In addition, this exercise helped us to identify and target those clients and industries where there was very little competition. Doing so allowed us to regain the lost revenue within 18 months and our profitability continued to grow.

Just to reinforce this point, Covid-19 forced many global foods companies to reduce their product offerings in order to focus on their core products. Lays, Procter & Gamble, Kraft and the Campbell Soup Company, stop producing, not just cut back many of their slower moving products because demand on their core products exceed their ability to supply. Some of these companies reduced their offering by upwards of 18%. Many of these cut products may never return to our grocery shelves because the companies realized that their profits came from their core products.

Spending money is easy, making money is hard

Another thing to keep in mind is, that spending money is easy, making money it is hard. Because of how hard it is to make money, every spending decision, whether that be on equipment or staff needs to be paid for somehow. For example, if you’re netting 10% profit on the bottom line, a $10,000 expense requires you to generate extra revenue by a factor of 10. In other words, you need to generate $100,000 in additional revenue just to cover the cost of that expense.

So before you or your staff clicks the “Add to Cart” button or slap down your credit card on supplies or that new piece of equipment, you better make sure it’s necessary. Because at the end of the day, that’s less money you’ll be able to take out of the company personally.

Money is such a precious commodity in any business. Some of the benefits of having money in the bank, is that it’s a great stress reliever knowing we have the capabilities to meet our obligations. Taking that stress off the table, then allows us to concentrate our time on more productive duties.

It’s in times of crisis that the importance of money is reaffirmed. Crisis come in all shapes and sizes. From key customers that quit buying to pandemics, each can seriously mess with your business. So by adopting the attitude that you’re in the money business, will go a long way significantly increasing your profitability and your income.

I’d like to know your thoughts if you were faced with a similar situation. So, leave your comments below.

You may also enjoy Clustering for Profits

If you found this of value, please pass this along to any business owner that you fell could benefit by understanding that they’re in The Money Business

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

You shouldn’t be the hardest working person in your company.

Many small business owners find that even after the struggling start-up years, they’re working too many hours and still managing every aspect of their businesses.

Do you suffer from any of the following?

1. Business ownership isn’t living up to the dream.
2. Endless workdays.
3. You can’t find good people.
4. Profits are less than expected.
5. You can never take a vacation.

You’re not alone. But there is a solution. As Greg demonstrates, with some time and effort, you really can Get More Life Out Of Your Business.

Order Here

1 2 3 »

Tag: professional speaker

New challenges

The 15% rule

The math

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

The destructive power of inflation

Business is not a charity

Some options

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

Be Passionate

What are you good at?

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

1.Invoices

2.Expenses

3.Inventory

4.Write-offs

5.Purchases

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

Time- It’s how you get paid!

Establish some balance

Calculate how much time you really have

Hiring more people not the best option

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

Think not worry!

The impact of Social Media

IBM – Think

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

5 areas that require every owners attention

#1 Your health

#2 Key staff quits.

#3 Business interruption

#4 Competition

#5 Bad debt

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

We all need motivation

A witty meme doesn’t cut it when you advice

Nothing more than sound bites

Does it help to move your business forward?

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

It’s about survival

My Pivot

Advantages

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

Changing the mindset

A True Story

Spending money is easy, making money is hard

Get More LIFE Out of Your Business

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