We’ve all been there – we swear we are going to make a reasonable, manageable and livable budget. And then we swear we’re going to live by it. Forever.
But the best laid plans of mice and men…
When we don’t live within our budgeted means, we feel as if we’re being attacked. In fact, however, […]
Archive for May, 2007
Contracts are the fiber of our business world. In fact, almost everyone makes contracts everyday.
But do we know what we’re really reading, what we should expect to see and statements we should look out for? Not many people truly do. As a small business owner, you will need to use a contract of some sort in your business transactions.
Let’s start at the beginning. A contract is an agreement on the fundamental terms of a business deal that may or may not be informally or formally written down. Sometimes just a handshake or a letter of confirmation about a transaction can carry as much weight as a formal contract. Therefore, you must be conscious of both oral and written communications in any business negotiations between you and clients or subcontractors, or between two other parties.
A contract does not have to be printed on stiff paper with gilded edges to be binding. Nor does it have to be packed with legal jargon. A contract can be any form of document that spells out the terms of a sale, including:
It’s an age-old question one never really knows the answer to: how long should you keep your tax records?
The length of time you should keep a document depends on the action, expense, or event the document records. Generally, you must keep your records that support an item of income or deductions on a tax […]
In any business, it is possible to have the most superior product or service and have excellent sales, but if the wrong price has been set, the business will ultimately fail. We price products in business to make a profit. Obviously, profit depends on variable and fixed costs, selling price and the number of items sold.
Anyone who runs a business knows that price is the center of all commerce. From oil and airlines to cola and TV, everything is about price, even if it doesn’t appear so on the surface. If you can raise prices, you can affect profits substantially. If you can’t raise prices, you feel like your business is under attack, regardless of what is happening with cost, quality, or service.
Seems like an easy answer: raise prices in line with what the market will bear, and maybe even mark it up a bit. But what if there was a more of a psychology to setting prices that ensures you will make a profit?
Starting a project with a new customer is more than just a win for your business – how you manage that process, in combination with the end result, will be a key factor for referrals and ongoing business. Essentially, how you guide your customers once they’re on board can be more powerful than any […]
Getting Things Done, also known as “GTD,”is a time and activity management method, and the title of a book by David Allen.
GTD posits that a person needs to move tasks out of the mind by recording them somewhere. That way, the mind is freed from the job of remembering everything that needs to be […]
When you use part of your home for business, you may be able to deduct expenses for what the IRS deems the “business use of your home.” If you qualify, you should be able to deduct a percentage of many of the costs of running your home, such as utilities, rent, insurance, depreciation, mortgage […]
It’s a fact: customers are any company’s most valuable asset. Marketing and selling to customers, then, requires a skill at cultivating relationships beyond the basic tools marketers have traditionally relied on.
Most important, customers are your scarcest resource. You can’t really replace one.
To compete effectively today, an organization must truly understand its customers and treat them as individuals. In order to do that, customer differences must be understood. Based on a customer’s value, a company can determine how much time and investment should be allocated to that customer from both a marketing and service point of view. The key to keeping each customer is determining that customer’s needs.
If a company acknowledges that each customer is unique, then it makes sense that some customers are more valuable than others. The concept of lifetime value (LTV) has emerged as an essential analytic discipline for companies that balance short-term financial goals with long-term customer strategy. Customer strategists Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D., define LTV as the net present value of the future stream of cash flows a company expects to generate from the customer.
Yet, as a small business owner, you may not have the level of data required for such an advanced analysis. Using a simpler formula, LTV is still a highly valuable metric. In the following report, we’ve provided details on the specifics of customer value and how defining it to understand your customer landscape can help your company reap more profits, reduce costs and strengthen customer relationships.
The special report is only available to PREMIUM Members.
We’ve all been in this situation. You’re interviewing someone and you’d like to ask them a personal, harmless question to establish a connection. Easy enough, right?
Think again. Over the years, it’s become clearer that there are “no ask” zones when it comes to interviewing questions. Ask, and you may find yourself in the courtroom.
Illegal […]
You’ve decided to start a business and work from your home. Perhaps you are planning to add an extension to your house to make room for your home office. Before you do anything, better get the OK of your local government first.
Part of the process of legalizing your business involves checking with your city […]
