Posts Tagged ‘work smarter’
Monday, April 19th, 2010
At some point in your business, chances are that you are going to face the possibility of bringing on additional help so that your company can grow, or so that you can take a vacation, a day off!
It is at this point that you must confront the question that most business owners face; are you better off hiring employees or independent contractors. This is an important decision for the future of your business and one that should not to be taken lightly.
You can expect to pay 25 percent more when hiring an employee over hiring a subcontractor to perform the same work. You have to match the employee’s Social Security and Medicare tax, pay for workmen’s compensation insurance, liability insurance, and provide benefits. A lot of extra work and additional cost go out the window when an employee can be classified as a contractor.
Over the next five weeks we will look at the pros and cons of employee vs independent contractor and where a business’s position is legally.
Tags: business finances, emplolyees, employee, getting things done, hire, independant contractor, small business, woker, work smarter
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Monday, April 12th, 2010
Debit or Credit? You are probably asked this question every time you are at a checkout counter after reaching for plastic. So which should you use? There are advantages to both, but your choice should be credit as long as you are disciplined in paying off the balance right way. Here are some advantages of a credit card.
- If you pay the balance off each month you can get up to a 40 day free loan (float), the time between when a purchase is made and when you actually pay your bill. Good for your company cash flow.
- You have the option of withholding payment should you be unsatisfied with the quality of a purchase.
- The Fair Credit Billing Act means you have zero liability for fraudulent purchases, poor quality or damaged merchandise, or for merchandise that was never delivered. With a debit card the purchase is taken out of your checking account and is not returned until the transaction in question is resolved. This could severely impact your cash flow.
- Credit card users are not required to pay any amount that may be in dispute.
- You don’t run the risk of overdraft fees, as you can with a debit card. So if you’ve had problems avoiding those overdraft fees, paying just one annual fee to a credit card company may be less expensive in the long run.
- Credit cards allow you to improve your company’s credit score, because you’ll build a history of paying on time.
Still choose debit; then make sure you have a discussion with your banker about not allowing charges to be accepted if funds are not available in the company checking.
Tags: balance, Banking, business, business finances, Cash Flow, Credit Card, Debit Card, Overdraft Fees, small business, work smarter
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Monday, April 5th, 2010
Last week we talked about priorities. So when trying to have a little more balance in your work and life I have a really good suggestion.
Think about things that are important to you. Try and incorporate them into your business so that you are spending time in your business doing things you love. For example, if you love baseball, maybe supporting a little league team can let you enjoy your love of baseball with your work. Think of how much more fun work would be! And suddenly work is not so bad.
If you love working with people, does your business let you do that enough? If not, think of things you can do that let you interact more with people. The sheer act of more contact will make the business so much better. Trust me!
Let me know one thing you want to do with your business that incorporates something that is important to you. I am all ears.
Tags: business coaching, work life balance, work smarter
Posted in Business (including coaching) | No Comments »
Monday, March 29th, 2010
Now it’s time to budget for the costs that happen now and then within your company. Are you planning something different this year that you have not tried in the past? For example:
- Are you planning on an intensive marketing campaign to go with the increased sale you have budgeted?
- Are you planning on purchasing new equipment this year? If so the depreciation will be an adjustment to your costs.
- If you have budgeted increased revenue for the year, will you need more office staff? Will you need a bigger sales force?
- With increases in employees also comes an increase in consumables like office supplies, gasoline for the delivery vehicles, cell phones, and yes even more coffee for the break room.
- An easy way to estimate these types of costs is to take the cost in each category from last year and divide by the number of employees. Now take the amount spent on each employee and multiply by the amount of total employee budgeted for this year. Once you have this number you can tweak the numbers to keep your margin in line with your projections.
Tags: balance, Budgeting, business, business finances, Business Resolution, company vision, goals, small business, Well planned budget., work smarter
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Saturday, March 27th, 2010
With almost every client I coach, we inevitability lead to talking about this one. For some, it means carving out enough time from their busy family life to actually work, especially those who work at home. For other, it means actually stop working and go home and enjoy the other side of their life.
The magic key? Priorities. If you family is your priority, you may not be able to grow your business as fast as you may want. If you want major business growth, some part of your personal life may get short changed. There are many ways you can minimize this, but the first is to decide what you really want.
I grew up in the era of women thinking they could have it all. We were wrong. Our moms had their family; many of our daughters have their careers. We tried to have both – and almost killed ourselves. So when looking for work life balance; look no further than what you really want today from your life. It might (and probably will) change down the road, but for today you need to be content with your choices.
Next week we will talk about some ways to try to have a little more of both…
Tags: balance, business coaching, work smarter
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Monday, March 22nd, 2010
The next step in the budgeting processes is to estimate the operating costs of the company. Let’s start with the costs that are recurring. You should already know or have a good idea what these costs are.
- These are the cost that you would pay, no matter the amount of business you have.
- Look through your check register and credit card statements.
- Another good place to refresh your memory is to refer to the invoices from the previous year.
- Look for items like subscriptions, office rent, utilities, and office staff wages to name a few.
- Now distribute the costs based on the time span you have chosen for your budget.
Tags: Budgeting, business finances, Business Resolution, company vision, goals, small business, Well planned budget., work smarter
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Monday, March 1st, 2010
Budgeting gross profit for retail is probably the least completed of any industry, but still extremely important.
- As with the production industries, companies that resell tangible items must know what price the market will bear for their products. Determining a sales price can be any method, from an in depth market study, to a simple exercise in shopping your competitors.
- Next you will need to know how many of your products you will be able to sell in each of the next twelve months. Again what the market will bear.
- If your company is in resale, your cost of goods sold is the price you can obtain inventory, plus any carrying costs. Carrying costs can be interest to finance the inventory, the warehouse to hold the inventory and freight to transport the products to the warehouse.
- To determine revenue take the number of units you will be able to sell each month times the market price you have determined.
- For the cost of goods sold the calculation is the number of units sold each month times the cost to product one unit.
- Now subtract the monthly cost of goods sold from the monthly revenue to obtain the gross profit.
Tags: Budgeting, business finances, Business Resolution, company vision, goals, small business, Well planned budget., work smarter
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Monday, March 1st, 2010
This week we are going to cover calculating gross profit for companies that manufacture products.
- As with the service industries, companies that produce tangible items must know what price the market will bear for their products. Determining a sales price can be any method, from an in depth market study, to a simple exercise in shopping your competitors.
- Next you will need to know how many of your products you will be able to sell in each the next twelve months. Again what the market will bear.
- Step three is determining how much it costs to produce the products you sell. This will include materials, full burden (taxes and benefits) labor, depreciation of equipment, supplies, full burden support labor…. This list can be much longer depending on your industry. You can find industry information at a site like Prime Industry Reports.
- If your company is in resale, your cost of goods sold is the price you can obtain inventory plus and carrying costs. Carrying costs can be interest to finance the inventory to the warehouse to hold the inventory and freight to transport the products to the warehouse.
- To determine revenue take the number of units you will be able to sell each month times the market price you have determined.
- For the cost of goods sold the calculation is the number of units sold each month times the cost to product one unit.
- Now subtract the monthly cost of goods sold from the monthly revenue to obtain the gross profit.
Tags: business finances, Business Resolution, company vision, goals, small business, Well planned budget., work smarter
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Monday, March 1st, 2010
Budgeting gross profit for products, services, retail or projects each have different requirements. Let’s start with services this week.
- In the service industry your time and your employees’ time is what’s for sale. Once you know what the market will bear for your services you can attach a billable rate to yourself and each employee.
- Next you will need to know how many hours are available to bill out. When calculating this number consider things like travel time, company meeting time and any other functions that might need to be performed by yourself or employees that cannot be charged to your customers.
- Now that you have total billable hours and rates for yourself and employees put the two together for each month. This will be your total gross revenue on a monthly basis.
- Cost of Sales is the next component of gross profit. How much will you pay each person? You can incorporate payroll taxes and benefits in this number or these costs can be included with overhead. I would suggest that you follow what is typical in your industry. You can find industry information at Free Industry Reports, or for more in depth information Prime Industry Reports.
- To finish calculating your gross profit, subtract the monthly cost of sales from the monthly total revenue.
Tags: Budgeting, business finances, Business Resolution, company vision, goals, small business, Well planned budget., work smarter
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Monday, February 1st, 2010
Last week’s resolution was “I will do better at managing my business finances”. This week let’s address the resolution “I will work harder and longer on my business this year”.
How many business owners are just locking the office door when the rest of the town is watching David Letterman? They collapse into bed only to have the alarm ring, in what seems to be only ten minutes. They stumble into the shower, throw on clean cloths and try and wake up in the drive-through lane at Starbucks. Does more of this sound like a good resolution?
So then how do we get more work done for your businesses? I propose that we take last week’s resolution and combine it with this weeks, to get; “I will work smarter on my business this year”. “I will spend my time doing what gets me the most business and in turn the most profit.”
How do you make your money? Creating works of art, fixing leaky pipes, adjusting crocked spines or finding new and better way of distributing products? What you don’t make money at is doing your own payroll and bookkeeping, or being your own advertising and personal department. All too often business owners believe that their time is free. “I can do my own adverting or bookkeeping to save money.” But what are you really giving up? More revenue from the new customers you could have found, time at home with the kids and spouse or maybe joining the bike club you see on the way to work every Saturday morning. We all have a limited amount of time, are you investing yours with the greatest return?
Tags: business finances, Business Resolution, goals, small business, work smarter
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