BUSINESS BLOG

"I only have a small business, I don't need a budget." "I don't have enough money to budget." For many small business owners, the word "budget" is something for the bigger company - maybe they'll have one when their business "grows up." What is a Budget? The simple explanation is a budget is a plan for how you will manage all financial resources and all expenses for your business. The basic equation that you want to demonstrate in a budget is as follows: (estimated )Sales minus (estimated) Expenses = Profit (or loss) How to create a Budget If this is your first time to work on a budget for your small business, you might work from the perspective of having to list cost of goods or services plus all of your operating expenses to start the process. How much does it take to operate your phone line? What is the cost of other utilities? How about the cost of a company vehicle, or what is the cost of transportation if you're using your...

If you're a small independent business owner it could serve you well to take a birds eye view of your entire money making process for your business. 1. Looking at this year's activity and make sure you've identified your most profitable customer - profile the characteristics that help you identify similar customers in the marketplace so that you develop your message specifically to target the customers with the characteristics you've identified as those of your most profitable customer. In my promotional products business I want relational customers vs. transactional customers. All of my marketing and sales efforts are designed to attract the client that is looking for a trustworthy, reliable promotional products distributor with great ideas. The customer that wants a cheap transaction with no loyalty on either side of the table is probably not my customer and I'm not offended when they don't want to buy from me. As I've been doing business over the last...

When building a new business, you're under immense pressure. You have so much to do and expectations are high, both from yourself and from the people around you. This means that you need to set goals to track your progress, maintain your motivation and keep yourself accountable. But doing so can be risky. This is because if your goals are too big, they can crush you under the weight of unrealistic expectations. And this may defeat the purpose of having a goal to begin with. However, like many things in life, there's a trick to this. And not all goals are equal. The secret lies in setting a goal that will motivate versus one which will defeat you. Are you in this position? One where you keep agonizing over what you have done and if you have achieved enough? Are you struggling to maintain your entrepreneurial momentum? Setting the Right Goals Setting goals is important in maintaining entrepreneurial momentum. But setting the wrong goals and having the wrong vision can lead to dem...

The idea of a successful home based business can be your reality after you've determined that you have these qualities: 1) The ability to work alone 2) The ability to generate lots of ideas 3) And the patience to learn After you've done your research on how to start your own home based business, you should be ready to be a home based business owner. Here are 5 kinds of home based business ideas worth thinking about: 1) Open your own home based business as a bodywork/massage therapist: Check out the yellow pages and find out where you can learn to do massages. Sign-up and take the course, and then set up shop in some small corner in your home. You can make customers come by appointment only. The better you are, the higher the pay. 2) Desktop publishing home based business: Have you done the companys posters, banners and streamers? Do you love making business cards and newsletters on your computer? Put a sign out and announce that youre open for business. 3) Computer tutor ho...

When you start your program to purchase your "ideal" company, you quickly realize that your ultimate success will depend on two primary skill sets: 1) Your ability to FIND viable companies that are for sale, and 2) Your ability to effectively qualify the potential acquisition investment once found. This article is about only step one, how to creatively find viable companies and one's that are able to be purchased. Assuming you have clearly defined your business purchase criteria and you have decided to pursue only companies that are "officially" for sale, versus attempting to find and contact company owners who might be willing to sell, you will need to explore as many ways as you can to find companies for sale as possible. As a business buyer you want to use the best means possible to position yourself to get the first shot at your most promising acquisition candidates and to do such in as cost effective means as possible. Often the more "creative" yo...

So you're there at that webpage again. Looking at all the smiling faces and all the people telling how they started with five minutes a day and no money down and now they have a vacation home in Aspen. Is it real? Can average Joes and Janes really make it that big? Yes and no. I have personally met many average people who have made many hundreds of thousands of dollars each in home businesses. Some of them had impressive educations and backgrounds. Some were pretty unimpressive before. I've met a tattoo parlor owner, a bouncer, a college coach, and a homemaker. All of them have made multiple six figure incomes. They were average in terms of their education and work background, but there are also some things about them that aren't average at all. Did they have to train for years and listen to a home correspondence course of hundreds of CD's? No. Did they go get another degree? No. Did they just get lucky? I don't think so. The reason I don't think so is because t...