In Step 6 of 30 Steps to Build a Better Business, adjusting your product pricing was mentioned as a possible solution for low or negative product margins. Even if you aren’t experiencing low product margins, it’s a good idea to check your pricing regularly (at least once a year), to make sure it’s in line with your particular business strategy and what the market will bear.   Make a List. Make a list of all your products and prices. If you completed Step 4 to Building a Better...

Yesterday was the first edition of Sage Small Business Solutions’ “What’s Your Problem?” Wednesday, where I invite readers of this blog and Facebook and Twitter fans and followers to submit a problem they’re having with their little business to get answers from me and anyone else in the community that can help them ‘get over the hump’. Yesterday, I received a whopping 1 question! YAY! It’s only the first week, though, so I expect that the list of questions...

In Step 5  of 30 Steps to Build a Better Business, you documented a step-by-step version of your production process. In this step, you’ll get an idea of how much that production process costs you.  Why is this important? One word. Margins.

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” That’s got to be my favorite line from the beloved Hollywood movie classic, The Wizard of Oz. I’ve heard and used the phrase a hundred times or more, but just the other day I caught the movie on TV, and got a totally new insight from the scene in which The Great Oz is exposed as just a regular man.   The Great Oz, it dawned on me, fell into the same trap that many small business owners do. Heavy emphasis on marketing, not nearly enough...

Do you remember that song from childhood, “Here We Go ‘Round the Mulberry Bush”? Oh, c’mon, you remember. For each day of the week, there was a little song and pantomime for what chore was to be done that day, like: This is the way we wash our clothes, Wash our clothes, wash our clothes This is the way we wash our clothes, So early Monday morning. In Step 5 of 30 Steps to Build a Better Business, we take a cue from that childhood song. But instead of singing about household...

I often compare a business to a living, breathing human being. Using that analogy, the infrastructure of a business is like its backbone. Without it, the business is perpetually in a slump. If your business lacks an adequate infrastructure, you’re probably constantly overwhelmed and it shows. It takes too long to respond to customer needs, to fill orders, to collect money, to understand how well your business is performing from day to day and month to month. There are some variations on...