Four steps to increase your profits, ONE SECRET everyone ignores

You know the saying, fail to plan, plan to fail? Never has it been more appropriate to YOUR business. If the credit crunch is giving you the "heebies" read this page now!

So you survived last month end did you? Only just? I hate month ends. Well, to be honest, I used to. Not any more. I have a little secret. It won't be a secret once I blurp it our here and tell you. It's about how to use margin to save your business. If you want to know more, please comment on my blog, there is nothing like a bit of social love :)

The first thing you need for your business is an...

Increase your sales!

I would make sales my priority. If you are struggling to make ends meet, and if you have a market you can sell to, then SALES is the place to start. Read my earlier blogs on how to increase you sales. Urgent help for failing businesses is available here.

Refine your target market

Refine your sales engine. From your action plan you built from analyzing your leads, refine your marketing spend. The way to target customers is to plant your message in their scope of view. Get your adverts in to magazines that are being read by your target customers. Don't try and sell Cannondale bicycles to people who need walkers.

Create a story around your business

Every business needs a story. A reason to be "listened to" by your customers. Something that they can identify with. I use this story, often:

Four years ago, I had a small business. It was going south really fast. Then along came a good friend of mine and said the most shocking things to me. He said I didn't know how to mark prices up! My goodness! I was flabbergasted. I had run businesses - successfully, for twenty years. Here this youngster was telling me I knew nothing. My problem was, he was right. Sure I had been selling at more than my cost price. I knew I had to do that! Yet, there I was losing money.

Only three things can be changed in any business to affect the profit. I am not going to talk about those here, I just wanted to tell you the gist of the story. Yes, I applied those three changes and turned the business around in 90 days flat. That's a story for another blog of mine at More money for less work

Create a press release engine

Set up a simple system to get your message out. I use Scribefire, Blogger, Wordpress and Squidoo. Some popular social bookmarking tools such as Digg and that's it!

Once you have built a process flow then set about publishing regular content that is relevant to your customers. I am soon to release a free tool that will let you analyze your Sales Leads no matter where you are. That is step one of 5 steps to turn your business around.

Like I said before, your business needs sales first. You don't need to know how to sell, in order to sell. Just find people with problems and offer them solutions. Be nice. People buy from people.

Give people a way to talk about what you are selling. The internet has the best tools for this. Social networking delivers huge results for very little outlay.

Technorati Tags: sales, increase, profit

What your business needs is CASH

Cash will always be KING

Small Business Owners tend to avoid looking too far into the future. Month end is about as far as we can cope with mentally. Month end after month end. That's as far as we peep ahead.

WHY?

Purely because if we have enough cash on hand, we feel OK. Cash will always be KING. So, why do statistics tell us then that over 80% of small businesses fail in the first year? Is it because we lacked passion. Did we lack enough drive? Hardly! Every business owner I have met or spoke with, is a fantastically passionate individual who really knows their product.

So what's the problem with small business then?

Horse. H2O.

That's about as short as I could pen the answer to this question. Having created this tread mill we ourselves, we can tend to be the biggest know-it-all. Ain't no one going to tell me what to do. Well, in internet speak....FAIL! Do I need to explain the horse and the water story for you? No, I thought not.

So, who can help us understand how to solve our problems?

Customers are the best source of advice

You just have to understand their language. Customers are the most amazing people to me. You know, all they want is a little help.

So, if I offer to take us to a really nice pool of water, do you want a refreshing drink with me there? Ok, enough horsing around. Let's get serious now.

What can my customers tell me?

Firstly, they can tell me what they WANT and not what I think they want. Listen to what customers want. I applied this to one of my businesses in the past in particular. I was surprised to learn that my customers thought I sold a whole range of products I hadn't yet considered. This single change in my thinking (my little drink at the horse fountain) brought me an increase of 60% in turnover in high margin sales.

Get rid of your overdraft!

In 90 days this one change helped me get rid of my overdraft. More sales meant more cash for me. There is a downside to having more sales though. You overdraft is probably the biggest danger your business has

Improve your service quality

More clients meant less time for managing the business. That meant I had to improve my systems. I no longer had time for manual one on one tasks. I had to learn to delegate and keep an eye on the quality if what was delivered. Keep an eye open for my soon to be released Turnover Improver. It's free, for now.

Better systems means more time to run your business

Do you hate doing the same thing again and again? I sure do. Did you know that repetitive problems are an indication of a missing system? I spend my time helping people see where they can implement simple and effective change in their businesses. I really hate it when mistakes are repeated. repeating mistake costs MONEY!

Follow the system

There is a darn good reason society has rules.

These drivers are looking for disaster. What if they were YOUR employees? Would you know they are running your vehicles in this way?

Every mistake in business is an expensive lesson

Especially true if you just keep on repeating the mistakes. Each mistake highlights a micro system that needs implementing. It takes effort. Ignore it at your will. Listen, adapt and survive.

If you had a half decent GPS Vehicle Tracking System, you would know immediately if one of your company vehicles was driven the wrong direction on a road. You could then deal with the employee right way.

Follow the system. If there isn't a system, invent one.

Improve your cash flow in 3 easy steps

It's no secret, it's just plain common sense

Do you struggle to get final payments in from jobs you complete? Do you want to solve the problem? Do you hate begging to be paid?

Bet you answered Yes three times there!

This is a typical problem for the small business owner. Can I put it really straight to you why this is a problem we all experience?

Well, you see, one day a man who had lots of money met a man who had lots of experience. When they parted, the mane who had had lots of money, now had lots of experience and the man who had had lots of inexperience left with....you got it, lots of money!.

So there it is. Straight up like I said. It comes down to experience. as an SME, you don't have time to spend hours each day studying. If you did, we would all have Phd's. So, most of your knowledge comes from hard earned experience, doesn't it?

I must admit, I am a lazy person when it comes to repeating mistakes. I simply hate mistakes. So I make very sure I don't ever repeat them. It only takes one sting to make me learn and never forget.

How many times have you been stung, by not being paid for work you have done?

Whilst you cannot cure this 100%, you can make a 95% improvement. Here's what you must do:

How to improve your cashflow IMMEDIATELY

Implement a deposit system for all quotes issued. NO deviations. So all new quote syou issue, can only be converted to "order status" once the deposit has CLEARED in your bank.

Next, implement some milestone payments.

20% on delivery of all materials.

Finally adjust your last payment as a balance on completion of the work. You can split this into two parts. First, 10% when the job is complete. Then the final part say 30 days later, this gives a huge benefit to the client. They only pay the last amount once the job is 30 days old. Obviously by then, they would have raised any issues which you should have resolved. Final payment should be a breeze now.

The more money you collect up front, DURING the process of completing the work, leaves less money to argue about once the job is complete.

Obviously, I am talking about straight business here. If you want to operate as a crook then get the hell of my page. So this applies only to small business owners whose intentions are good.

If you liked what you read here, please head over to my blog Make more money 4 less hard work

You do NOT need to know how to sell to run your own business

Sounds a bit controversial doesn't it? But think about it a sec. You have customers. You have products they want. Running a business is really just a system for connecting the two, customers and products.

If your business is not accumulating cash in the bank, it is not a business. Sorry if that sounds a bit harsh.

A job is where you go to work, get paid, and just manage to make the month end commitments.

• A business makes CASH. Got that?

OK, I didn't mean to offend your senses here. So lighten up a bit OK? Lets look at why this is true.

You left your day job and started up this little business, you know the product well, inside out in fact. But it is seeming like a mammoth struggle to just break even.

Ever wondered where your money all went?

Here's a little secret for you. FAC. Just remember that for now. It's a little secret I will show you to use when you decide how much to charge for your products. It's a costing method, that works. In an upcoming video, I will show you how to use a simple spreadsheet to implement FAC to make sure that every single action you take, will MAKE YOU MONEY.

I once bought a business, well a franchise actually. The franchiser insisted that the way to calculate the selling price, was just to take the cost price of the materials, add the labor charge, and there you are! Your selling price! When he told me that, I realised I was in serious trouble. These guys didn't even have a system to control orders, you know, like "order entry" - ever heard of that? If you worked in a large company, you probably have heard of it. Its a simple system to control Purchase Orders. We'll discuss that later.

This small business solved problems for people. They had security concerns and I provided a simple barrier system to give them ease of mind.

Customers would call us up and ask for quotes. We would provide them quotes. They bought our products. That's is a trite boring isn't it? Well, we were selling, without having any selling "skills".

All you need to do is get in between your client and the thing they are looking for. Be pleasant, offer a good service. That's all there is to selling. Just be friendly and look for ways to help the customer.

In many of the small businesses I have helped, many have been really worried about tax year end, month end, oh my, just about everything that has an end. Every time I come across a worried business owner I know exactly why they are worried as soon as I check their bank and balance sheets. There is no cash.

You can prevent this!

Keep an eye out for my simple money making machine. It's coming soon at www.easyleadanalyzer.com. You can use it on your PC or on your phone while you are on the road. Capture all your leads as they come in, then at month end lets look at where you can leverage your marketing spend.

So don't worry about selling right now. We first need to make sure your marketing is on track. So hop over to www.easyleadanalyzer.com.It's free and you can use it anywhere!

Keep an eye out for my upcoming video that will teach you how to price right, using FAC.

Why the Top Ten Complaints in Small Business are NOT what you should be worrying about!

When I read this at first, I thought, "Yeah, those are things most people would be concerned about". The real problem is hidden. Most people won't even see it. I bet, your business has the same problem, or you wouldn't be here looking for help.

It's those month ends, right?

They're tight. Not enough money in the bank. 18hour days. No time for your kids.

Its a bit like being in a Ski lift. You never experienced a ski lift ride, when someone lets of a stinker? Last time I was in Switzerland, I swear, I know now why their cheese smells so strong. You see, when you are in that lift, and the air is so green with pong, you know someone did a dirty, but you just can't say so can you...?

Your business is like that ski lift. We all know it needs something fixed. You're just a little afraid of what it might take to put it right.

If you are spending all your time worrying about tax payments, workers compensation and the like, you are worrying about the symptoms and not the cause. The cause is a lack of CASH.

That's right. If there was more MONEY in the BANK, you would just pay those worries off and move on, wouldn't you?

Right, so now we've identified what the real problem is, the Top Concern for Small Businesses is MONEY.

What if I told you that that you can put the MONEY WORRY and all of the Top Ten Concerns for Small Business to bed, forever? You can. I have over the last 20 years developed a simple five step system to improve the bottom line in Small Business.

UP-SELL, CROSS-SELL, How can I sell more?

If you follow this link, you will find a very ingenious chap.

Richard Bennet knows whereabouts the treasure is. But it is just out of reach of the average person.

So, he built a solution to go find the gold with. Kudos Richard!

What about your business then? Do you know how to find the "treasure"?

Do you need top build a solution to "get you there"?

I don't know just how many people would shell out $28k for a big snorkel like Richard's. One would need to do some good old market research before you went off and started mass producing a custom built fix for something you don't even know there is a buyer out there.

Your business already has a market

So, you don't really want to waste time or money on custom development to get deeper into your market. Penetration they call it, the professionals in Marketing, that is. So how do you penetrate your market better? It does not matter what kind of business you are in. You CAN sell more and MAKE MORE profit. With very little effort.

Oh it's so cheesy!
The fast food chains have really perfected this trick of marketing. "UP-SELLING", or "CROSS-SELLING" as it is sometimes called.The good news is, you won't need to build a submarine to mine this potential in your market. The classic, "You want cheese with that?", has made kabillions of Dollars for the fat-food-sellers. It can make you some pretty fat profits too.

So how do I put this into ACTION?
Simple!

At very single contact you have with a customer, offer them your full service platter. Just say, "Is there anything else I can help you with?" It is amazing what customers will come out with. In one business I built up from scratch, this single piece of marketing ordinance increased my business by SIXTY PERCENT!, Yeah, 60% increase in TURNOVER!! The customers loved it. They thought they were getting really good service, just because they were listened to! That single change brought me $10, 000 per month, every month after that.

Now think about this:
What if my customers tell me they want something from me that I do not as yet sell? In my next blog, i will show you what to do. In the mean time, keep an eye on my soon to be released LEAD ANALYSER. Follow me on Twitter to be first in line for when I release this amazing little money maker. And....it's going to be FREE!!