Recent Blog Posts
Knowing Your Product
Not knowing your own product/service can damage your company and lose you customers. The simple fact is how can you sell your product/service with confidence and be able to guarantee your customer that your product/service does what you say it can if you don’t know your own product? On top of that, your company can be sued if you tell your customer your product/service can do one thing but it can’t. That is false advertising and can get you in a lot of trouble.
The Maumee Valley Chefs’ Association Awards Dinner
The American Culinary Federation’s local chapter, The Maumee Valley Chefs’ Association, would like to invite all interested area residents to a night of exquisite dining at their Annual Scholarship and Awards Dinner. This dinner will be held on Sunday, April 14, 2013...
Habit or Goal – Resolutions work best with Habits
Being three months into the new year with our resolutions, let’s talk about those goals you may have set. Most goals are a fixed point desire like, lose 30 pounds; learn to speak French; achieve 10% profit; reduce expenses by 5%. Business and Personal goals all need to be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-sensitive. So, why is it that we often don’t achieve by December what we set out to in January? After years of personal experience, watching other people, having some success and some dismal failures, I’ve come to believe that the underlying foundation is creating habits.
How do you create habits that help you reach your goals?
Simply put, the goal is what we want to achieve by a specific time while the habit is the skills and techniques that will keep us on the path to achieving the goal.
A resolution could be lost without habit creation!
If It Only Takes an Extra Minute
It only takes an extra minute to do it right or fix a problem but it will take a lot longer to fix it if you let it go. That goes for the simplest of tasks. They can easily pile up. But what can you do to combat this?
Getting Rid of the Winter Blah’s for Increased Productivity
Does your staff look like they had a role in The Walking Dead? Has the winter left your office ravaged by colds, flu’s and other viruses? If so, your staff may need a little springtime motivation to get that productivity level back to where it needs to be.
Increasing productivity and motivation may not be as hard as you think it is. Sometimes, just a little sun and spring cleaning can do the trick. Read on for some suggestions to try today!
Lead, Follow, Or Get Out Of The Way
Lead, follow or get out of the way. Failing to know which to do is probably one of the most annoying and frustrating things I have to deal with on a constant basis. It is usually one person on the project that is suppose to lead, follow or get out of the way that fails to do so and the whole project gets FUBARed. It is mainly due to them not understanding their role or accepting their role on the project.
A while ago I was meeting with Janet, an employee of a client. We were to go over some final details for their website. Janet had been appointed by the owner as my main and only contact. She knew the business inside and out and would be able to get me the information I needed to do my job except for one area. That is where Brad came in. The whole time I had been working with Janet, Brad was there, waiting to push her out of the way. He couldn’t accept that for this project his role was to follow Janet’s lead and give information about his area in the company. At every turn I would get “his version” of information for the website. It was very frustrating to not only me but to Janet too. If she didn’t give him the time of day to say his input he would run to the owner. Wasting everyone’s time.
It’s Not too Late to Make a 2012 IRA Contirbution
If you haven’t contributed funds to an Individual Retirement Arrangement for tax year 2012, or if you’ve put in less than the maximum allowed, you still have time to do so. You can contribute to either a traditional or Roth IRA until the April 15 due date for filing your tax return for 2012, not including extensions.
Generally, you can contribute up to $5,000 of your earnings for 2012 or up to $6,000 if you are age 50 or older in 2012. You can fund a traditional IRA, a Roth IRA (if you qualify), or both, but your total contributions cannot be more than these amounts.
Note: IRA contribution limits increase in 2013 to $5,500 ($6,500 if age 50 or older).
Traditional IRA: You may be able to take a tax deduction for the contributions to a traditional IRA, depending on your income and whether you or your spouse, if filing jointly, are covered by an employer’s pension plan.
Roth IRA: You cannot deduct Roth IRA contributions, but the earnings on a Roth IRA may be tax-free if you meet the conditions for a qualified distribution.
Saving for retirement should be part of everyone’s financial plan and it’s important to review your retirement goals every year in order to maximize savings.
Irresistible – The Hierarchy of Recurring Revenue
Last week, I had a discussion with a business owner about the pros and cons of putting all business revenue received on the tax return – this is the error that many business owners make when they don’t record and report all cash payments thinking they are saving taxes when in reality they are short changing their future business value.
I told her the story of a young couple I’d worked with that wanted to buy a local pizza shop that was in a active neighborhood with over a hundred regular customers that had “super pizza ” memberships – think like a loyalty card at a coffee shop. The sale price was three times the gross revenue and the business was barely profitable on paper. When the couple took their dream business plan to the bank for funding, the first, second and third bank all said “NO” because it was overpriced, the cash flow wouldn’t support the loan and it was barely profitable. That was when I met them and they explained to me that the owner told them he always took cash out of the drawer as he needed, “It wasn’t a problem”, well it was.
One of the biggest factors in determining the value of your company is the extent to which an acquirer can see where your sales will come from in the future. There are 6 recurring revenues that get future buyers excited and learn your sellability score here.
Do or Don’t Do. There is no Try
“Do or don’t do. There is no try.” said Yoda to the young Luke Skywalker and this is aptly appropriate to small businesses. We use the word “try” because we like the way it sounds. I tried to make the goal, but I missed; I tried to sell the extra service but the customer wasn’t interested; I tried to lose weight, but I just have a weird metabolism. Notice that “tried” is almost always accompanied by “but”.
Most of the time, when someone says “I’m trying” or “I tried”, they may not want to say “I failed when I did what I was asked” or “I started, stopped and never got back” or “I don’t know how to do it”. Who wants to acknowledge failure? Leaders need to allow for failure and use it just like an engineer would to test a product until it fails.
Help your inner Yoda have a great Monday, get off your “but” and “Do or don’t do” today and see what happens. Here are six simple tips for leaders to use to get the “try” and “but” out of their businesses.
Stressful Concerns Your Staff May Have
Many staff members would describe their work as stressful. Stressful staff members cause employers billions of dollars every year in absenteeism, high turn-overs, insurance costs, and lower production levels.
If you have noticed your staff feeling gloomy lately, don’t wait until it’s too late, take action now. Here are a few items that cause your staff stress and ways to help counteract it.
- Curb the constant interruptions
- Abolish uncertanty
- Pave the way for clear direction
- Keep your staff informed