I’m reviewing budgets with clients right now, and I see one mistake over and over again. It’s a basic math error, but it’s hitting owners right in the wallet! Most of us were taught that Profit = Sales – Expenses. That’s wrong. Or at least it leads to wrong thinking! Let me explain. When new…
There’s nothing that makes me feel more like a failure than when I don’t know if I’m going to have the cash to cover payroll. Vendors can wait, you can negotiate with bankers, even landlords will give you some leeway. But when your payroll is late you are affecting the lives and families of your…
My client called because he was going to have to skip his paycheck this week. Something that hadn’t happened in a long time. “Brad, I used to be able to keep track of my business in one spreadsheet. I had my pipeline on one tab, and my income on another tab and my expenses on…
I’ll never forget looking at her Visa bill. I was sitting in a business owner’s office. She knew that her business wasn’t right, and hadn’t been for a long time, but how bad was it? They were barely making money in the good months, and bleeding in the slow months, and this had been going…
We’ve been talking this week about the value of building a budget for your business — today we will do it. If you didn’t download my magic budget spreadsheet, you should do it now. My budget spreadsheet builds your profit and loss statement for the next year by predicting the sales and expenses for each…
When I was starting my business, everyone told me: give up your job, give up your life, and work like hell. That was my introduction to entrepreneurship. The problem was that, at that time, I was a single dad with three young kids. Working 100 hours of the week (even if I was free to…
Business is coming back a bit can you feel it? The sales cycle has quickened for most of my clients. The hesitation and “putting things off” that was common even a few months ago is waning. But it’s not all cheers of good times are here again. There’s a shadow waiting in the wings- tightening cash flow. Two…