The single most important thing to do in business.
Every business is many-sided and contains those issues you must consider. Here we look at just what is cash in business.
Sales
Sales are very important naturally because without sales where would you be?
You can, however, have all the sales you want and still be in a lot of trouble.
People
People are important, they do the sales and the other designated tasks but are easily
changed out.
These days with out-sourcing people have become less important aspect and more an expense.
Premises
Premises and branding and are great but one major shift of recent times is working in the cloud.
This means that your premises maybe not all that important.
I will give you a couple of examples. Amazon does not have a store on every corner, does not even have a physical customer presence, just a few big warehouses spread across countries and it the biggest sales outlet in the world.
The merging home supply companies run out of home-based businesses, thing like Meals being delivered to your home, or groceries or Meat and fruit. No shop front needed.
Millions of businesses are now run from home, not just internet businesses but all sorts of occupations.
Shared offices have become common where you rent a desk and a phone to pedal your wares.
Traditional Advertising
For over a 100 years written, hard copy advertising has been mainstream. Business category Yellow pages, for example, carried a paid advert for every business, thousands of dollars were invested for the top spot. Where are they now? Newspaper adverting carried pages of local adverts for small trades now all but gone.
Facebook did not exist and web pages were full of spiders, oh how we have changed.
Dress sense in business
Dress sense has taken a big hit. Can you imagine the boys and girls arriving at somewhere like Facebook in a suit and Tie carrying a leather briefcase and shiny shoes? It is not done. A Tee shirt and sneakers on formal days is great attire.
The notorious travelling salesman that would set out on a week-long journey crossing boundaries and be plying their wares. Staying in shabby motels and having affairs with the locals, now all changed.
Business plans
Business plans have changed and are changing as we bend to meet the demands of a new market environment. Nothing is permanent everything is malleable because we must adapt and adapt quickly to what goes on around us. You may have a nice local store, a great capture area and a steady flow of customers and out of the blue, a competitor opens the doors next door. What to do. The short answer is to target better and be different.
Online marketing
Online marketing is an absolute must, Web pages, SEO, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat etc are now all tools of the trade and the only problem is how well you use them.
So what is that single most important thing to do in business?
I don’t care if you are a home business, an online business or a corporation you all have this one responsibility.
Cash in business
The answer is control of your cash, knowing every day where it will come from and what you will do with it. This one simple task can make you or break you and remains as important today as it was 100 years ago.
Spreadsheet it forward and adjust as you go. Factor in seasonal changes, quiet days, public holidays.
Prepare for payroll, tax payments, rent, telephone, and regular billing among the ongoing expenses.
When and how you will buy and pay for the stock. You should remember that it won’t all be sold by the time payment comes.
It is always a great idea to have a separate tax account where funds are banked as they come in. The Taxman is not generally forgiving.
When you buy stock, even if you get 30/60 day term some will be left on the shelf.
Get rid of slow-moving stock by discounting or promoting to clear that dead money back to cash
Use a professional product or just an excel spreadsheet to compile a daily, monthly and Annual Cash forecast.
The past is a good presenter to the future so look for those peaks and troughs and be prepared.
Money is not a sign of wealth.
Money in the bank is not a sign of wealth it could be an adjustment in stock levels, unpaid bills or other similar events that are all part of cash flow forecasting
Cash, including credit cards etc in your daily takings, are often see as your wealth as they flow into your bank account. You only get the little bit at the end, welcome to business.
Control the cash and manage your future.
this is part of a series of blogs on small business at https://newbusinessonline.netNewbusinessonline.net
Peter Hanley
