In Step 12 to Building a Better Business you looked at ways to speed the rate of cash coming into your business. In this step, we’ll discuss ways to slow the rate at which cash leaves your business through expenses. Here are some options to consider: Pay With Checks – The same reason you don’t want to accept checks from your customers is the same reason you want to pay with them whenever possible. Checks take longer to process, which means you hang on to money in your bank account...

If there’s one thing that is a constant concern for most small businesses, it  is the availability of cash. Day to day fluctuations in cash flow can limit a business’s ability to respond to needs and opportunities as they arise. The obvious way to ease short-on-cash woes is to sell more, so you can earn more revenue and bring more cash into the business. But, another equally important, yet less obvious way is to increase how fast you receive cash into your business. Think about it....

There’s a clothing and shoe store near my house that I always go to everytime I want to splurge on something nice for myself. The store is small but well laid out, and I can easily get to everything in the place without assistance. The sales staff are helpful without being intrusive, and they remember me whenever I come in. They’re usually wearing clothes that are available in the store, which makes me relate to them more, because the clothes in the store reflect my personal style. The...

When you’re a business owner, having good alliances is like having a team of people who are personally invested in seeing you succeed. In this sense, allies should be businesses that can help you in your quest for that most valuable of resources – customers. Think of other companies that your target customer may go to for products and services that complement or enhance what you offer. If you’re a restaurant, you might want to form an alliance with a nearby movie theater or hotel. A camping...

“Economic success comes not from doing what others do well, but from doing what others cannot do, or cannot do as well.” – John Kay Chances are, your business doesn’t offer a completely original, never-before-seen product or service. Chances are, there’s somebody out there doing the exact same thing that you’re doing or doing something very similar. And if there isn’t somebody doing it now, chances are, there will be soon. By showcasing how your business...

The easiest way to get a feel for who your ideal customer is, is to look at who your current and past customers have been. From your Customer Management System, you may have some basic customer information available, like: address, age, gender, marital status, etc. Take at look at the data you have available and see if there is a pattern or commonality among the people who buy from you. If you find that the people you are attracting as customers are not the people you’re intending to attract,...