Business & Financial

Everything Is a Path to Profit

Companies emphasize different aspects of doing business. One might work to create a better quality product. Another could push great customer service or employee morale. Still others might put high sales volume or low production costs as a priority. In fact all of these efforts are secondary to the real goal.

Why do you want to make a better product? To make more money. What will happy customers and motivated employees generate? More money. Increasing sales, cutting costs or any other initiatives within your company have the same goal. Unfortunately some executives become so obsessed with the short term objectives such as improving marketing efforts, they lose sight of the ultimate goal of improving the company’s bottom line. Once you see everything you do as a path to financial success, it becomes easier to balance different activities.

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The advantages of a buy-sell agreement are well known to owners of closely-held businesses and their advisors. First, a buy-sell agreement creates a “market” for what would otherwise be an unmarketable asset. Second, a buy-sell agreement assures that the financial security of the deceased or withdrawing owner’s family will not be tied to the future success of the business. This is particularly important to the business owner who feels that the business will likely flounder in his/her absence. Third, the remaining owners do not want to be in business with a withdrawn, and now inactive, “partner” nor with a deceased owner’s spouse or children. Finally, if properly designed and drafted, a buy-sell agreement can help fix the value of a deceased owner’s interest for estate tax purposes.

Put a mental check mark next to each of the following statements that describe you and your business:

• In order to generate income, you need to put in a certain number of hours.

• The more hours you work, the more money you will make.

• Your business makes money only when you are working.

The more check marks you’ve made, the stronger your connection between time and money is. If you’ve got a strong time-money link going on in your business, this can actually mean that you end up working a lot harder or longer than you need to for the money that you make.

You’ve heard the saying “time is money” plenty of times. I’m willing to bet you’ve said it yourself in the past few weeks. The problem is that as long as you agree with that statement in any way, shape or form, you inhibit your ability to create wealth.

Franchising is a great option to take if you’re looking for a new type of business to invest in. While it has many advantages, you must know that there are certain drawbacks as well. Remember that not everyone can successfully run a franchise; sometimes no matter how great an entrepreneur is, he or she may fail not because of a lack of skills but a franchise simply is not the right type of business for them.

I suggest that you should first find out more about franchising and decide whether it’s suitable to your needs and preferences. To help you with this, I’ve prepared a list of the pros and cons of having a franchise:

Advantages of a Franchise

• You get to have your own business in only a short period of time, usually 3-6 months depending on the type of franchise you bought

How often do you screen your calls?

I’ll guess that you screen them every time the phone rings…and if you don’t recognize the phone number, you let it go to voicemail. After all, if its an important call, they’ll leave a message right?

Maybe…Maybe not. But what’s the cost of letting it go to voicemail?

Advertising Agencies, out-of-town video producers or corporations that need to book a videographer right away often won’t leave a message. And if they do, by the time you call them back, they will have already booked another shooter.

In the past week, I’ve let two such calls go to voicemail and both actually left messages regarding the immediate need for a videographer. I checked both messages a couple hours later and when I called them back, both had already booked other videographers.

I thought to myself “Holy Crap! Really? They booked another videographer that fast?”