Why small business owners must understand their financial statements on Small Business Trends
Over the years of coaching small businesses, Adam Sonnhalter has learned that most owners don’t understand the financial aspects of their businesses. He explains why in his guest article on Small Business Trends, Why Small Business Owners Must Understand Financial Statements. Don’t miss it.
Why Is Everybody Using ROI to Sell?
Given my background in finance, I always bristle when I hear someone mention the phrase ROI (Return on Investment), particularly when it relates to a sales situation. The term ROI has become one of the hot buzzwords in the past several years and everyone is using it to“negotiate” when they’re buying something for their business. In most…
Why Do Financial Statements Strike Fear In The Hearts of Most Business Owners?
We are a society fascinated by numbers. People will quote sports stats of their favorite stars (everything from batting averages to quarterback ratings to field goal percentages), how much their favorite actress made for her latest film or how many characters they can text per minute on their blackberry. So why with all this focus…
Who’s In Charge?
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. My partner and I are 50/50 owners in our business…UGH! While most partnerships start out with the best of intentions (i.e. we want to split profits down the middle), setting up the ownership of the company can often mess with those good intentions. One of the keys for…
Who’s Your Market?
This is one of the age old questions of business. If you have an idea for a new business, who will buy your products or services? If you have an existing business, who has actually been giving you money for your products or services? Let me say that again, who has actually paid you…
Where Did All My Cash Go?
Where Did All My Cash Go? We hear this all the time from small business owners. They look at their Profit & Loss statement (a.k.a. Income Statement) which shows all this activity in their business, and yet their Balance Sheet (and checkbook) show little to no cash! So where did it all go? How can…
When Does Customer Service Start?
Does customer service start once someone becomes a customer or does it start upon first contact with that person? A common frustration I have as a consumer, whether it be in business or my personal life, is when a company whose product or service I’m considering purchasing is not very responsive. I’ve found this to…
What’s Up with the Noise in Your Small Business?
Are You Aware of the Noise in Your Business? We had a going away party last night for a small business member of our BNI referral group who is moving to LA. One of our members was nice enough to host the event at her house. After a couple of hours someone asked her if the planes…
What Does It Mean to Be An Entrepreneur with a Small Business?
What Does It Mean to Be An Entrepreneur? If you’re a small business owner and you don’t subscribe to Inc. Magazine, stop reading this and go get yourself a subscription and then come back here! OK, welcome back to the new subscribers, now we’ll all be on the same page. The reason I feel so strongly…
Vision and Leadership
Why is it that so many owners of small businesses can’t tell me about their vision? They are actually unprepared and uncomfortable discussing the subject. Hey! Ms business owner, what does your company look like in three, five or ten years from now? Paint me a picture, get me excited about where you and your…
Things aren’t always what they seem when it’s your small business
Is Perception Reality? Jack and I had lunch with a client today who has a passion for magic. He made a comment that perception is reality, which is something I’ve heard and said hundreds of times, but today it struck a different chord. Maybe it was the couple of tricks he showed us that gave it…
Targeting your Customer Base
Who’s Your Market? This is one of the age old questions of business. If you have an idea for a new business, who will buy your products or services? If you have an existing business, who has actually been giving you money for your products or services? Let me say that again, who has actually paid…