​If you need assistance with anything we’ve discussed here, let’s talk so you can reach your financial goals, growth, and revenue. Spend your time doing what you do best and make more money by having us solve your most pressing financial issues.

Focus on what you are good at

Save Time

​If you need assistance with anything we’ve discussed here, let’s talk so you can reach your financial goals, growth, and revenue. Spend your time doing what you do best and make more money by having us solve your most pressing financial issues.

Remain Calm

Remember That This Will End

​If you need assistance with anything we’ve discussed here, let’s talk so you can reach your financial goals, growth, and revenue. Spend your time doing what you do best and make more money by having us solve your most pressing financial issues.

Watch your spending!

Document, document, document.

​If you need assistance with anything we’ve discussed here, let’s talk so you can reach your financial goals, growth, and revenue. Spend your time doing what you do best and make more money by having us solve your most pressing financial issues.

Here's a critical question: What's the one thing that can make 2020 the beginning of your company's best years?

​ 

I've worked with so many companies that are literally making a fortune, but don't see the desired growth in their profit margin. Why does this happen? As the leader of your company, you are really good at what you do. But like most leaders, you probably find yourself spending too much time on the internal aspects of your company, taking you away from what you really do best.

What I do best is I find opportunities for growth, increased profits, and reduce unnecessary spending. I take a deep dive into your company's financials to give you the critical information and planning support to reach your goals.

Strategic tips overlooked by most businesses

​

​If you need assistance with anything we’ve discussed here, let’s talk so you can reach your financial goals, growth, and revenue. Spend your time doing what you do best and make more money by having us solve your most pressing financial issues.

Resources are often underutilized and not working together.

​ 

It’s easy to waste time and money on underperforming products or services or not combining products into higher-revenue packages.

TIPS:
1. Find out the profitability of each product.
2. Create packages of products of unequal desirability that include a discount.
3. Eliminate underperforming products or services unless there is a clear path to profitability.

Knowing your cash position is essential.

​

Having a budget lets a business leader see their cash position in real-time, as well as what can be expected in future months.

TIPS:
1. Review your budget vs. actual results every month.
2. Find any new knowledge about the business and implement operational changes. 

You might have a huge sales promotion or annual cost.

​

Assuming that a healthy cash position now will continue into future months by mentally averaging monthly profitability, doesn’t take into account the natural volatility of revenue and expenses.

TIPS: 
1. Track your major expenses to at least the month to manage cash flow.
2. Manage your sales promotions or advertising campaigns based on revenue.

You may want to pay yourself more based on future profitability.

The simple fact is that there is a special joy in creating a profitable business because it means that you’re offering the right product or service, and you have a keen insight into the marketplace.

TIPS:
1. Time any pay increases to begin during times of increasing profitability.
2. Assume that this increase in pay to you will be long-term and sustainable.
3. Make this decision with eyes wide-open so future opportunities won't be missed.

​If you need assistance with anything we’ve discussed here, let’s talk so you can reach your financial goals, growth, and revenue. Spend your time doing what you do best and make more money by having us solve your most pressing financial issues.

Create financials that match what you say in words.

​ 

A business leader will describe their business, and the bank or investors will verify that by reviewing the only true record of a business: the financials. Make sure they are optimized to tell the true story of your business.

TIPS:
1. Show each entity in your business.
2. Show each product or service in your business.
3. Have sufficient detail so there aren't any questions.
4. Clearly show profitability by market and product.

Document contracts and clients.

​

Investors, bankers, and buyers will need to verify that all of the contracts and other documents are in place so that they can reduce their risk.

TIPS:
1. Have a central location for document storage.
2. Be able to show that you have every contract at hand.
3. Have a copy of the employee manual and every employee contract, which may include non-compete clauses.
4. Have a copy of every worker’s tax documents.

Do you have individuals that make or break the business?

​

If there is a key person in the business that should leave the business will fail, the business has no value other than the sale of the business in pieces. Avoid this trap.

TIPS: 
1. Document that a key person in the business has a successor.
2. Have non-compete clauses in key person employment contracts.
3. Create a documented business structure that avoids creating a key person.

Discover if a financial aspect of the business may change drastically over time.

For some businesses to remain valuable long-term, they need to stay at the same location. A rising rental market will affect profitability and the company’s eventual sale value.

TIPS:
1. Make sure that any long-term vendor contracts that will significantly increase in value are included in your financials.
2. Create a tax strategy so that depreciation and amortization are optimized for both current operations and that they are included in the final sales strategy.
3. Remain aware of the overall marketplace and the sustainability of each product and service.

​If you need assistance with anything we’ve discussed here, let’s talk so you can reach your financial goals, growth, and revenue. Spend your time doing what you do best and make more money by having us solve your most pressing financial issues.

Keep a close eye on your cash!

​ 

A thoughtful cash management strategy is critical as your company becomes more complex and profitable. Keeping a close eye on your company’s short- and long-term opportunities often separates an industry’s successes and failures.

TIPS:
1. Plan for regular operational payments.
2. Have sufficient cash during peak times.
3. Plan for capital projects, new product launches and new hires.
4. Take advantage of discounts, special purchases, and business opportunities.
5. Create a plan to secure outside financing at the best terms.
6. Plan to invest funds over long and short periods to maximize returns.

Ready for an audit? Are you protected from an embezzler?

​

To create a system that keeps your company safe, important documents should be immediately discoverable with little knowledge of any “system”.

TIPS:
1. Have the supporting documentation for each disbursement (purchase order, disbursement approvals, receipts, signing authority, etc.).
2. Have supporting documentation for every contract that has been signed.
3. ConsistentlyGet very organized people for clerical work (ask if they enjoy organizing their closet!) file legal documents such as deeds of trust and title for property.
4. Make sure that every record can be easily found.
5. Have a filing system that is scalable, easily understood, and consistent.
6. Use an electronic filing system that either automatically or periodically backs up your data to an independent and off-site storage location.
7. For transparency, provide access to all necessary leadership.
8. Make it a habit to always scan paper documents into your electronic system.

Collect all of the money you’ve earned!

​

Many companies have a culture of seeing “work done” as the point that the invoice leaves the shop, but the only meaningful indicator is when the invoice is paid.

TIPS:
1. Monitor your accounts receivable reports.
2. Follow up anything that is not paid within 30 days by emailing a copy of the unpaid bill.
3. Once a bill has aged 45-60 days, email the bill again and call the client to offer any assistance.
4. If a bill has aged more than ninety days without any outreach, a specific strategy needs to be implemented that removes all objections and creates a simple resolution for the client.
5. When creating your company’s budget, have a contra-asset account for bad debt that is reasonably close to the amount your company would write off each year (usually 2-5%).

Projects are how we make money!

A very powerful tool for any financial team to leverage for operations is clear and robust recording of project expenses and revenue. This type of recording helps leadership easily determine its return on investment (ROI). As important for management of that specific project, if managed very thoughtfully, each project can provide essential insight into future projects.

TIPS:
1. Create a project with business requirements, a review of expectations, identification of each required task and effort required, resource management, regular review with the client, and a clear close-out process.
2. Each project should be clearly defined for operational execution and financial results.
3. Have a regular meeting with the project manager and financial manager to review the results.
4. When creating the project, have a point where will company bail-out if profits, or revenue, stop meeting expectations.
5. Similarly, risks should be identified at the beginning of the project and reviewed at each project meeting.

If you need assistance with anything we’ve discussed here, let’s talk so you can reach your financial goals, growth, and revenue. Spend your time doing what you do best and make more money by having us solve your most pressing financial issues.

Financials

​ 

These are the people that know how to budget, create proper books, create powerful decision support tools, work with government agencies, get your people paid, avoid fines, and generally make your life happier. Remember, every small business must have bulletproof books for at least three years in order to have any chance of getting a business loan, outside investment, or to finally exit from the business.

1. They will have expert knowledge of the newest applications to reduce costs.
2. They will get you reports that allow you to make those critical decisions with confidence.
3. They will reduce your end-of-year tax preparation expense.
4. Companies like ours will create a system but give you real control over your company.

TAKEAWAY: Not having expert help risks missed financial goals, higher risk of negligence lawsuits and even catastrophic failures that lead to shutting the business down.

Admin

​

These are the people that will take care of your business on a daily basis and are providing the critical staff and client support. They have best practices to create marketing campaigns, create correct client billings, hire the best people, resolve HR issues, how to bring new employees into the company, how to manage your calendar, how to resolve internal issues, and so much more.

1. They should be trustworthy, coachable, and competent.
2. Get people specifically trained in for HR and marketing.
3. Get very organized people for clerical work (ask if they enjoy organizing their closet!).

TAKEAWAY: Untrained business leaders trying to do it all will spend far time more learning and making mistakes than it would ever cost to have a professional complete the work. Their cost of incompetence will appear in fines and bad decision-support reporting.

Operations

​

This critical work includes scheduling jobs, precise timing of new material orders, creating high-performing project management schedules, managing those projects once they are underway, scheduling deliveries, organizing stock, and all the other day-to-day activities.

1. Competence for many of these specialized jobs take years of training, so don't assume free software will create an in-house expert.
2. Make sure there is integration with all of your operational controls and software, where possible.
3. Having detail-oriented people in these positions is critical.

TAKEAWAY: The more complex your operation, the more it is to have skilled and sophisticated operations staff. Awareness of so many theories, including queueing, scheduling, and defect tolerance will save untold headaches and financial losses.

Management

Management is one of those skills that seems effortless, and frankly, a waste of company resources until an incompetent person is placed in charge. Once a company becomes large enough, a wise leader will bring in bright, thoughtful people who can accelerate existing growth and bring new insight into the company vision.

1. Have a diverse management team, both with skills and professional backgrounds.
2. Have someone who can competently manage outside legal counsel.

TAKEAWAY: Everyone thinks they can be a manager. It's only once somebody has been a manager that they fully appreciate the massive complexity of pulling an organization together and making sure it is moving in the right direction. Get people that are smart, able to understand what's going on inside the company as well as outside the company, have the strongest integrity, and believe strongly in the company mission.

If you need assistance with anything we’ve discussed here, let’s talk so you can reach your financial goals, growth, and revenue. Spend your time doing what you do best and make more money by having us solve your most pressing financial issues.

Admin

​ 

Senior management should be leading the effort to have the following items in place well before an investment pitch (hint: a company should be run as if an investment, or exit, is right around the corner):

1. Professionally Prepared Financials and Tax Returns: Consistent with GAAP standards.
2. Clean and Accurate Financial Records: No questions are raised upon closer inspection.
3. Healthy Balance Sheet: No ticking time bombs.

4. Intellectual Property Protected: Make sure the IP can’t walk out the door.

Operations

​

A competent COO will naturally have the following in place, but during an investment round, making sure that these assets are secure is critical:

1. Capable Staff in Place: For large companies, this is the C-level management.
2. Current Technology in Place: The technology should be both current and scalable.
3. Assets: Clean titles on assets that are also in good working condition.

TAKEAWAY: Build a business that values long-serving staff, where investing in the best forward-looking technology is the norm, and that title to company assets (capital assets, machinery, vehicles, etc.) are fully documented and insured.

Customers

​

Document either that customers are loyal over time or that transient customers are rapidly replaced by new transient customers.

1. Diverse Customer Base: This provides some assurance that the loss of a specific demographic won’t adversely affect the business.
2. Increasing Sales and Profits: The presumption is that the product or service has an increasing value, which is often due to more customers becoming aware of the offering.
3. Business Relationships Transferable and Documented: A company whose main source of value is their customer base must make assurances that the customers will remain with the newly-sold company.

TAKEAWAY: A company only has value if someone wants to buy its product or service, so demonstrating that the customer base is secure, even with a change external to the company, is critical to document long-term value.

Seller

For growing businesses, the founder is very often central to the operation and the most valuable asset of the company. For a company to achieve its greatest value, it should minimize any question about whether the company will continue at the same pace without their presence, or that the founder will stay on in a limited role for a set amount of time.

1. Seller Realistic About Sales Terms and Timeframe: A “hopeful” seller will often sabotage the sale.
2. Seller Able To Maintain or Improve Business Value During Sales Process: The buyer wants assurances that any sales and revenue trends are fully transferrable.
3. Seller Motivated To Sell: If the seller isn’t all-in to make the sale, then they should consider waiting until they are more committed.
4. Business Not Reliant On Seller: If a company’s owner is also one of its greatest assets, selling the company becomes almost impossible if a successful sale mean the owner will be walking out the door.

TAKEAWAY: A buyer of a business is buying a revenue stream, and the more assurances they have that the revenue will remain as expected will drive up the sales price.

If you need assistance with anything we’ve discussed here, let’s talk so you can reach your financial goals, growth, and revenue. Spend your time doing what you do best and make more money by having us solve your most pressing financial issues.