Business Its About Cash

Any business, no matter how large or small, requires funding. Once the capital to launch the business has been secured, the new business owner then faces the need for regular turnover in order for the business to perpetuate itself. While this may seem obvious, it can be a tougher task than originally anticipated, especially in the early days when the business may have little or no initial reputation. The new business owner can then be put in the position of having to pay wages or order business items, but not having the access to business capital to be able to do so. Some entrepreneurs take it upon themselves to fund the beginnings of their businesses using their personal credit cards. Whilst this may seem like a perfectly logical solution, it can cause more problems than it solves. Sorting paperwork for the tax period can become a nightmare and result in difficulties for both the business owner and the business itself.

A far better method is to apply for a business credit card, which is designed specifically for business funding. A business credit card keeps the accounts of the owner and the company separate, making life much easier when it comes to business management. Most business credit cards offer an online facility enabling you to keep track of business transactions, as well as reducing the paperwork involved at the same time. A business credit card also offers legal protection against unsatisfactory goods and services, ensuring that the company does not have to spend, where the spending is unwarranted.

Business credit cards also offer an effective way to manage a company’s cash flow. People can be paid and items can be bought without the money immediately leaving the business’s cash account. This is especially useful during times of restricted cash flow or when waiting for a customer payment to clear. Of course, the credit borrowed will have to be repaid, but careful management will allow repayments to be met monthly, and for the business to function normally.

In addition to the benefits of credit, small business credit cards come with a list of incentives and advantages that are designed specifically with the small business owner in mind. This can take the form of things such as 0% APR for a fixed period and also involve deals that can save the business money through discounts and incentives. Perks such as petrol discounts and Airmiles are very common these days, but the wise business owner can shop around to take advantage of deals that are pertinent to his or her company. These may take the form of cashback on certain products and services or even discount on hotel accommodation. If there are recurrent payments to be made, these deals can be taken advantage of and factored in to the decision of which business credit card to choose.

Finding the right business credit card need not be as difficult as it first appears. Yes, there are a plethora of business credit cards out there and, yes, each comes with its own set of advantages. However, if the owner has a good understanding of exactly what the business needs in terms of credit and perks, then the rest is just a process of elimination. Aside from old-fashioned research, there are other tools available to help the business owner select the card that best suits their business needs. Internet comparison sites are invaluable resources that condense the main ingredients of each card and display them in an easy-to-read comparison format.

A business credit card may not be a card that takes care of itself, but then neither is a business; both require attention and care. However, both can offer valuable returns and, if handled wisely, offer the opportunity for expansion and development.



By: Hannah Callen

About the Author:

Kansieo.com

Those of us who are in business know how important the impression we give others is. We also know that we are under constant scrutiny by those we are engaged in business with and how the slightest oversight in how we present ourselves to them can make all the difference between successful business interactions and failures. It is extremely important in business to look professional at all times and this includes making sure the materials we use in our work have a professional look to them as well.

Most businesses prefer to use company letterheads for most business correspondence. There is a difference between personal stationary and stationary that is designed specifically to be used for business corresponding. The cutesy baby animals and flowery stationary that many women favor for writing personal letters is not the look you want for your business letters. Unless you operate a zoo, or run a flower shop, then such stationary might just work for you. For most other types of businesses though, polished, professional grade business stationary is the way to go for the professional impression that you want to give your business contacts about you.

Should you create your own personalized business stationary or order your personalized business stationary through a supplier? The advantages of working with an outside supplier far outweigh those of doing it yourself. Business stationery requires a professional look, so, why no leave it to the professionals? How much time and money you have to create your own personalized business stationary versus having to spend a bit more to have the work done for you is as personal a decision as choosing the design of the stationery itself. Both varieties offer you personalized business stationary that looks very professional and makes an impressive professional statement about you and your business.

Certainly, by working with a professional company you will save time and will have a professional looking product. The amount of design choices may be increased if you go it alone, however, you do need to factor in the work that is involved in making your own business stationery. There are many computer programs and websites that help make the job somewhat easier, but it will still require time that you may want to be instead spending on other work. Although making personalized business stationary yourself is generally cheaper, you will still have the expense of either buying paper for your office printer or in taking a template of your business stationary design to a firm for printing.

Ordering your personalized business stationary through one of the ample online suppliers of business stationary is much easier than making them yourself. You may have a few less design choices than what is available in many of the computer programs for making personalized business stationary. However, many consider the savings of time and labor in having them done for them worthwhile despite a few less design choices. As is often the case through online suppliers of goods and services, many discounts exist that just cannot be found offline. Many online suppliers of personalized business stationary will also offer you samples of your design choices before you make large purchases of them.

If cost is not a major factor, you may want to consider buying custom made personalized business stationary. More expensive than purchasing personalized business stationary from many online suppliers and of course making them yourself, the advantage (if you can afford it) is having the expertise of a design firm behind the designing of your personalized business stationary. You can work closely with them in designing just the personalized business stationary that gives the professional look you desire while still having someone else completing the task of pulling it all together into a final product you will be proud to use for all your business correspondence.

Because your business contacts are definitely paying attention to such details, your business stationary is very important. Not giving your business stationary the attention it deserves could result in a less than desirable impression on business contacts and less business from them.

Choosing premium paper for your personalized business stationary is of utmost importance as well. Remember that your goal is to look impressive and professional at all times. Cheap paper results in an equally cheap impression that others will be using to judge your business fitness by. You are encouraged to search online and through local resources to find the best deals on supplies of premium paper or suppliers of business stationary that use only premium paper, as there is nothing wrong with saving money where you can. Try not to fall fall into thinking that the quality of the paper that you use for your personalized business stationary is of little significance, and therefore the cheapest is the route you should take.



By: Brian Jenkins

About the Author:

Caffeinated Content

Every business owner starts a new business believing in its potential and anticipating that hard work will lead to success. In reality, only 3% of people working hard ever experience success and there are a lot of hard workers in the other 97% too.

How you start your business plays a big role in how your story plays out. To give yourself the best chance to succeed, you must avoid making these five common startup mistakes.

MISTAKE #1: Not being clear about who you really are and why starting your own business is the right choice for you at this time in your life.

Everyone’s life has a purpose. Are you clear on yours?

Starting your own business may have been your dream for a long time or it may be something you’ve just been thrown into due to changing life circumstances. Regardless of how you got here, congratulations on deciding to follow a new and exciting path!

Being a business owner can be a very rewarding experience, if you know who you are, what your strengths are, and why you went into business for yourself. To experience these rewards, you need a specific, detailed plan for making your dreams a reality.

The first critical step is to understand success is not something you achieve; it’s something you are… every day, regardless of your life circumstances.

MISTAKE #2: Not being clear about what success looks like. What do you want and need to receive in exchange for the effort required to create and build your own business?

Building a business takes time and effort.

What success looks like is different for every person who starts a business. For some it is staying small and having more control and freedom, for others it is building a large business that employs many people and can possibly be run by others. For still others it is all about building a business, large or small, that can be sold for profit down the road.

Define what you need to take away, when all is said and done, to be fairly compensated for the time, effort and expense you’ll have put into your business. Only then will you be ready to put together a strategic plan for getting where you want to go.

MISTAKE #3: Starting a business without having a strategy for building it over time so you are rewarded for your effort in a way that is deeply meaningful to you.

Every successful business needs a plan; not everyone knows how to go about putting such a plan together.

Your business plan supports your long-term goals so think about this aspect next. You may have many great ideas for products and services to offer through your business. But just bringing your ideas to life is not nearly enough.

Build it and they will come is a myth born in Hollywood; your business exists in the real world. There are many ways to enter a market and position a business for growth and each has unique requirements and challenges. What doesn’t work is creating a product or service and expecting it to take on a life of its own.

Also, if you went into business because you wanted more freedom and then the business ends up owning you, it won’t have served your higher purpose or better good well at all. Ultimately, you’ll be left feeling unfulfilled in a way no amount of money can ever make up for.

Having a solid business strategy can keep you from ending up on an unproductive, painful path with a bitter outcome and more debt than you ever thought possible.

MISTAKE #4: Believing that building a strong brand is something only a big business needs to do.

The smaller your business, the more important a strong brand is to you. And, the stronger your brand, the more powerful and valuable your business is, regardless of its size. The tougher the economy or your competition, the greater the need to get this right if you want to be a success story.

Most people mistakenly believe a brand is your look, logo or tagline. Well-educated business owners know better. (And that’s why they do better too.)

MISTAKE #5: Believing that the key to business success is nothing more than mastering the marketing.

A real business, whether it’s an online or bricks-and-mortar entity, requires much more than great marketing. If you don’t have all the other critical components working equally well, prepare yourself now because your business is doomed to failure and will be very short lived.

Despite what you may have seen and heard there’s a lot more to it than customers, conversion and content. Marketing is important, but it’s only the start of a critical relationship needed to fuel your business success.

Mistakes that guarantee startup failure are easily avoided by properly directing the thinking that goes into planning the new business before it is launched. If you are struggling with where to start, and aren’t sure about how to best direct your thinking, work with a mentor or business coach on your front end planning to ensure you’ve put the basics in place. That’s how great business success stories are created.



By: Linda M. Lopeke

About the Author:

Caffeinated Content – Members-Only Content for WordPress

I have read, over my business career, well over 10,000 different articles and lists about how anyone can be successful with a small business be it an independent business or a franchise. Many well intentioned and intelligent consultants I have come across professionally believe that a great idea with a great marketing scheme and superior desire can make anyone successful. Do yourself a favor and tell the next person spewing this nonsense that they are absolutely wrong!

The success or failure of the vast majority of all small businesses has little to do with the desire, marketing scheme or the great idea that created the business. While these three items must be present in every successful business, solid fundamental management principles will allow a small business to prosper and succeed. Every successful company, be it a small, medium or large business, uses the same set of management principals. The size of the business determines the individuals principals used and the sophistication of the principle. As an example, a small business normally has informal and perhaps even unwritten employee hiring guidelines. A medium sized company has a legally approved, comprehensive employee manual with employee hiring guidelines as a separate section. A large global business has an entire department writing several employee manuals in several languages with employee hiring guidelines based upon legal and social issues in each country. However, the common sense management principal that all companies should have a fair, consistent and applicable employment program must be used by every company.

As I have spent the vast majority of my career with small and medium sized businesses, here is a simple and select set of management principles that every small and medium business should follow to ensure success and profitability:

 

A good accounting department with timely monthly financial statements provides the basis for all management decisions. Any business owner or officer who believes purely in his or her “gut” feel, is running what will be a failed business. Regardless of the business size, every owner and senior executive must have valid data to confirm the decisions their “gut” tells them to make. Your financial statements are a factual record of your business history and we must all clearly understand our history so we do not repeat the mistakes of the past. How can you determine whether your recent marketing campaign is a success unless you see and evaluate the financial results? We have all heard stories about the marketing campaign that brought many new customers to the company but killed the company because the advertising expense was greater than the profit margin on the new sales. A business owner does not need an accounting degree but should know enough to understand and participate in the financial information review.

Running a small business based on the cash balance in the business checking account also violates this management principle and will severely inhibit the growth and success of the business. Unless you want to remain a “mom and pop” business forever, good accounting information is a requirement.

 

Standardize and automate all routine functions. Have you ever noticed that most successful business people have a routine for most of their daily functions? They have staff meetings at the same time, they want all reports in a specific format, they want all PC’s and software to be the same in the office and they want the external phone calls to be answered with a specific greeting. By standardizing all routine functions, successful business people do not have to think about or manage these functions. They can concentrate their time and efforts on managing non routine situations.

This same principle also applies to your business. I personally know a company that, 10 years ago, had a credit department with 15 employees and 3 managers who made many decisions daily. Today, that company has doubled its sales and now has a credit department consisting of 5 employees, one manager and a set of software programs that manages electronic payments and even sends out reminder letters and emails to customers.

 

Review and analyze the Balance Sheet before the Profit and Loss Statement. Your monthly P & L tells you whether you were successful last month from your operations but your Balance Sheet tells you what shape your business is in and what you can do in the future. I have seen a company that doubled sales one year and closed their doors less than six months later. I have also seen a business that went bankrupt even though their P & L’s showed reasonable success. The company Balance Sheet shows how the company uses its daily operations to fund the long term success of the business. Analyzing Fixed Assets, Accounts Receivable, Long Term Debt and Retained Earnings will give us the long term view for our company. It is not as exciting as analyzing our new customers and product offerings but is necessary for the long term.

 

Business Planning and Budgeting will allow you to slow down the daily business fires and take advantage of opportunities. There are an unusual number of small and medium businesses that do not work hard at either annual or strategic planning and budgeting. Most are too busy fighting fires and struggling to keep up with daily business activity. There is no time for planning and budgeting in their 80 hours work weeks. We have all been in this position. The unfortunate issue here is that the fire fighting and long weeks will never slow down or cease until some planning and budgeting is put in place. The need for planning and budgeting becomes more intense as a business grows due to your inability to “manage by walking around.” The planning and budgeting can start simple and will grow naturally as the business expands. This management principle will allow all employees to see the vision and the focus of the business which will start to reduce the daily fires that pop up.

The greatest advantage of planning and budgeting is that it allows every business owner to evaluate quickly and easily how an unexpected opportunity might be of benefit to the business. I have talked to many business owners who stumbled across a sudden and potentially great opportunity such as a competitor for sale, a good supplier needing a partner, a potential new customer that would immediately double sales or a potential new product that would require an entirely new set of tools and equipment. These opportunities happen to all business owners regularly but many also go away quickly. Those companies that have a good plan and budget in place can evaluate these opportunities quickly and easily to determine if the new opportunity fits into the company’s long term plans. These companies also have the ability to quickly approach a bank with solid financial proformas if additional capital is needed. 

 

It isn’t a sale unless you collect. Most small and medium businesses spend way too much time in the sales process and far too little time with the collection process. Most companies are willing to pay a six figure salary to a salesman who can generate tremendous sales for the company and, at the same time, put an entry level accounting clerk in charge of collection with little or no oversight and procedures. The company borrows more and more money to increase sales while an accounting clerk with no customer service experience struggles to collect. The sales department in every business must have a part in the collection process and the company must have a strong, fair and customer oriented collection process to ensure that a sale really means money in the bank.

This process must always start before the sale is made. Collecting information up front to determine whether the potential customer is able to pay and ensuring the potential customer clearly understands the credit terms and payment requirement will benefit all parties. All good potential customers will appreciate this process because we all enjoy dealing with quality companies. I have never found any company that was unwilling to pay for quality products and services when everyone understood the terms and requirements.

The credit department must also have a good set of processes and procedures to ensure that the payment process flows smoothly and efficiently. Supplier employee turnover, cash flow issues and other unexpected issues stop or slow down the payment process. The credit department must, in a customer oriented fashion, work to keep our cash flowing.

 

Run the business as if it your grandchildren will take it over.  Every business is a living and vibrant organization that has many similarities to our children. Your business starts out as an infant and learns to crawl and eventually walk. We would never make a decision for our child that does not take into account the child’s future and we should not do this with our business either.

Working with a supplier who has inferior quality but the cheapest price might be a great short term cash solution for our company but will eventually run off our customers and destroy our business. How many times has a business lost all its records because it decided it couldn’t afford computer backups or a fire alarm system on its warehouse? Have you hired an employee before you had them take a drug test? I even once jumped at the chance to hire a salesman from a competitor because I thought he would be able to bring over many customers. Unfortunately, he cost too much and didn’t bring over any good paying customers at all. There is no such thing as a good short cut for efficient management principals and the long term success of your organization.

 

Hire the smartest and best people. How many of us have hired our friends, the salesman we thought was a bargain, the bookkeeper who spoke the best during the interview or the manager we thought was most like us? Many small and medium sized businesses are littered with employees who were hired for these reasons because small businesses can’t afford high wages and all the fringe benefit packages that large companies can afford. We tend to hire the best we think we can get.

We need to set our expectations higher and use our planning process to find perfect employees. The first issue is that your company must have a good annual plan as well as a logical 5 year plan on where the company will be. Your company can then lay out what employees will be needed during this 5 year period. Now that we have defined what employees and what responsibilities are required, we need to find the individuals who meet these requirements and not just who we can afford today.

I have always tried to hire people who are smarter and have more experience than I have at the specific position. Any owner who believes he is the smartest individual in every area will never be able to hire the right people. A company will never be greater than its weakest employee so we must always hire the best.

The last company I worked with laid out a plan showing they were going to need their first CPA in 5 years. After 3 years, they told me they hired this CPA and were very surprised because this individual had other job opportunities with large national firms who were offering huge benefits. However, this small firm could offer professional growth and responsibility not available at the larger company. The vast majority of good employees prefer to have a more responsible position with a smaller company with a grand future than a less responsible position with a large company.

 

You can grow yourself out of business. Cash is king in business and those who recognize this fact will succeed and prosper. I have seen far more businesses that grow too fast with no good business plan and are forced to close their doors or find a quick buyer. Companies that are struggling watch their cash daily and doing what they need to keep the doors open. However, those companies doubling their sales see huge profits on their monthly financial statements and get caught up in the emotion and success. They watch their Accounts Receivable double, their Inventory double because they must buy much more product, their employees double because they must take care of these sales and suddenly they do not have the ability to make this week’s payroll because they have no cash in their checking account. Their company literally grew itself out of business which many small and medium business owners have trouble understanding until they have lived through it.

 

The culture of every business is as important as its mission. As mentioned earlier, a business is a living and breathing organization. The culture of every business is as important to the overall success of the company as the products and services offered. The owner of the business cannot delegate this function and must be involved. There is no right or wrong here as the business culture is a reflection of the quality, morals and ethics of its owner. A successful company’s culture is not a constantly changing but evolves based upon the growth and expansion of the organization. Constantly changing a company’s culture is a sure way to close a business.

A company with a strict dress code, time clocks that are strictly enforced, and many processes and procedures is no better than another company with no dress code, few processes, and telecommuting for employees. The only difference is the type of employees they retain and the way they do business.

 

Your quality competitors are essential to your long term success. You can stop laughing now because this is really a fact that every successful company understands. This is an unusual concept but one that great businessmen and women all embrace. Competition is a wonderful concept in every free market economy and quality competition makes us all better. Quality competitors push us to come up with quality improvements, quality products and services and ensure that we have a quality customer oriented operation. We have all seen businesses spring up offering a 50% price reduction for a cheap knock off of our products. Our sales drop and we spend time and effort away from our core business chasing this situation. They stay in business for a short period of time and accomplish nothing more than causing our customers to question our industry. Quality competitors push us all toward greatness and there is plenty of room in every industry for multiple organizations.

 

 

Outsourcing reduces costs and improves your weaknesses. Many individuals hear the jokes about the language issues at large company call centers in India or the Philippines and tell themselves they will never make that mistake. However, that might be one situation that is not really a mistake. A good IT programmer in the U.S. can cost upwards of $100,000 annually with payroll taxes, fringe benefits, etc. That employee in India with the exact same intelligence, skills and experience can cost as little as $30,000 annually.

The management principle here is that we should all concentrate on our strengths and outsource everything else where feasible. No business person thinks twice about using an outside tax accountant to do our Federal and State taxes. This is a highly technical area that changes constantly. Most of us also have an outside legal firm. Why do we primarily limit our use of outsourcing to those two areas?? Today, there are professional payroll firms, employee leasing firms, credit and collection firms, IT and Web programming firms and marketing firms. These companies work with many business organizations, stay on top of industry best practices and can better stay on top of the technical changes in their area of expertise.

The only area of any company that I advise against outsourcing is the area that is crucial to the success of your company. Never allow the core of your success to get outside your control. As an example, if your company has a proprietary marketing scheme or a customer database or an engineering method or a production process that is key to your success, do not let it out of your control.



By: Mel Luigs

About the Author:

Caffeinated Content

Small business grants are not just given away by government agencies or private institutions for helping you start your business. There needs to be a particular interest in your project in order for them to provide the funding that you need. And it’s not enough to have a good idea in order to obtain finance for it; you need to have a well made business project to convince them of your eligibility.

No Credit Or Income Requirements?

Though there is no need to reimburse the money on government grants, claims that state that there is no credit or income requirement in order to get approved for a government grant are far from being truth. Truth is that the requirements for approval are not present in the same sense as on private or federal loans but there is still a qualification process.

You may wonder then, what is needed in order to qualify for a government grant. The idea is that you’ll need to show that your business project is viable, and thus, you’ll need to show that you can be trusted which implies having a fair credit score and the ability to generate a proper income to show proof of the business viability.

Presenting a Viable Business Project

What you need to understand is that prior to requesting a government grant, you’ll need to prepare a presentation of your business project. This obviously implies having a project and not just a mere idea. There must be certain degree of research done with market analysis to prove the viability of the business and the income generation capacity.

Though the money doesn’t need to be returned, the government agency is interested in investing the money in a project that will endure in time and that will keep generating job positions and revenues thus boosting the economy and the welfare of the nation. The particular requirements of each government grant need to be consulted with the government agency that provides them.

Getting Approved For a Government Grant

The key to getting approved for a government grant is to present an appealing business project that shows great feasibility and relates to those fields that the government is interested in promoting. If you don’t meat the requirements for a government grant approval, there is not much you can do about it. Yet, if you do qualify, it is important to be well informed prior to applying in order to take the proper steps and avoid getting declined due to bureaucratic reasons.

If you can’t qualify for a government grant, don’t despair and use the opportunity to consult about government business loans that are sometimes offered with subsidized interest rates and very affordable payments.

Business Grants

One of the best places to research the availability of business grants and loans is the Small Business Administration, an agency of the federal government with a mandate to help business, especially small business succeed. Despite what many people tell you, the idea that the government is just sitting around with a pile of money waiting to give out to you or any other small business is just plain wrong. The idea of obtaining a small business grant, for many small business owners, is great.

Your chances of obtaining grants for your business dramatically increase if you have a non-profit organization. This isn’t to say that assistance isn’t available at all, just that grants are probably a long process when and if you happen to find one where your small business fits. While the Small Business Administration does not have any monies to provide directly for business grants and loans they can direct businesses to a number of government agencies and departments that do provide this type of assistance.

Even though the category of Business and Commerce may be what appears to have the largest selection of resources for business grants for women, consider the other categories as well, according to where your business falls. There are many types of grants offered by the Governments and other financial institutions that include individual grants for personal necessities, business grants for starting new business, education grants for funding education and many more. There are two main types of financing available for small businesses; small business grants and small business loans.

You’re not along if you need small business grants and loans to get your business started. If you want to avail of free government business grants then you need to locate a program that provides grants to start up businesses. Government’s Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) provides a listing of Government grants and other types of assistance that you can receive.

The downside of grants is that business grants for women are not widely available. So, are there any grants available to you as a small business owner? New business owners and existing business owners are eligible to apply for business grants.

Small business administration grants are provided for small businesses that are already in operation. Small businesses always play a significant role in the economic growth of a country and that is the reason governments are always ready to offer financial resources to facilitate small business. This type of service offered by the government is only obtainable to businesses that barely needs a financial support but can not apply for a loan because of inadequate security.

There are indeed many grant and loan programs for small businesses, including many that are administered by state or local government, rather than the federal government. Having pointed to the drawbacks, there are many genuine government grants for both small businesses and individuals available, and these can be substantial. That’s you’ll actually be able to access whatever grants, services and resources are available, because the nonprofit organizations are the ones who work with indidivuals and provide “service delivery.

First, let’s take a look at what type of grants are available. The allure of these so-called small business grants is understandable. If you are interested in looking for a company that can provide you with small business administration grants, you can try searching through the World Wide Web for information.

If you are considering starting your own home business in the near future you should consider researching small business grants and loans now. Federal Grants provides detailed information on Federal Grants, Federal Pell Grants, Federal Government Grants, Federal Grants For Small Business and more. Small Business Loans provides detailed information on How To Get A Small Business Loans, Minority Small Business Loans, Small Business Bad Credit Loans, Small Business Government Loans and more.

To conclude, small business loans are usually awarded to all kinds of businesses to help them to begin and to succeed in their trading. The government is more than willing to help out businesses especially with the economic condition that still remains volatile and unpredictable and with the need for more economic development.



By: Smith & Chen

About the Author:

Caffeinated Content