Tips to Help Cash Flow Better in Your Small Business
Inspiration and Wisdom for Small Business Owners and Woman Entrepreneurs
The flow of revenue for a small business is a make or break situation much like the necessity for the flow of water in drought infested regions of the United States. Sometimes the heavens open up and water falls easily and abundantly doing its job to moisten the land, fill the rivers and supply the world with water. Other times no rain or snow pack arrive to provide the water levels needed to survive.
Sometimes trying to collect on receivables in a small business can feel the same way as water flow. Most times clients pay on time and the flow of cash is steady and plentiful; but other times for unknown reasons reliable customers stop paying on time which causes a drought of different sorts for small business owners.
Here are three tips about the most challenging aspects of cash flow – invoicing – to help you if you face this issue as a small business owner:
* Invoicing isn’t always straightforward. The basics are simple if you have an invoicing system in place, but other commitments and interruptions can sometimes get in the way. It is essential to get invoices out on time when you are busy. This is a common problem small business owners and especially solo-entrepreneurs face. When your business is thriving and you are busy working to make money, it can be hard to stop and take time to send invoices. It is essential for a healthy cash flow to make invoicing a regular part of your work week.
* Following up on overdue invoices is essential for getting them paid. Although time is always at a premium in a busy small business, you have to commit to following up on outstanding invoices once a week. Sometimes it might take 3 to 5 pieces of communication before someone pays an invoice. Use both phone and email communication alternatively until you are paid.
* If your customers ask for more time to pay their bill, ask them to commit to paying 50% today and give them another 2 weeks to pay the other 50% if you can wait that long. You might have to do this if you are working with loyal customers. Make sure if you give them more time to pay the second half of the bill you automatically followup with them when the second payment is due.
Invoicing is just one part of business that isn’t always a top priority for a solo entrepreneur but since cash flow is the life blood of a business, invoicing and collection of revenue is vital for corporate success.
Working Hard to Earn An Equal Living
Business inspiration for women entrepreneurs
The quiet afternoon offered me an opportunity to depart from the hustle of my business to watch the movie Suffragette again. Feministic notions have always been foremost in my heart, mind and spirit. This movie touched me even deeper on its second viewing. We can only pretend to understand what it is like to walk in someone’s shoes – especially people through the ages who have fought to eliminate injustice, prejudice and inequality. Witnessingfootage that proves the struggles and sacrifices people have made on our behalf is moving.
As I listened to the news this morning about presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and how much money she earned giving private speeches, I was pulled back into the movie I had just watched. Not only were women not given the right to vote in America until 1920, but females had a hard time earning their own income to keep and spend the way they wanted to. The thought of a female running for the most important position in the land would have been absolutely impossible in 1920. As a woman business owner, I have no problem with intelligent, experienced women like Hillary Clinton or any other woman being paid well for their time and expertise.
In the culture of 24 hour news sources looking for any angle on a story to create debate and viewership, we must be reminded that some successes – like Hillary’s ability to be paid well for her time – is a great thing for women. It is one small step towards pay equality and income potential for females that will pave the road for women who follow.
We must not forget the personal hardship women faced to obtain women’s right to vote. It is no different than today when women fight to earn what they are worth and proudly share their earnings and accomplishments to inspire others.
Business Inspiration: Raising Revenue
Business advice for women entrepreneurs and small businesses
Yesterday with balmy winter winds melting the snow and soft light from the low sun in the sky seemed like the perfect day to make sales calls. My spirit longed to go outside for a mid-day, mid-winter run but my mind suggested I run after I make an hour of sales calls. My mind typically out rules my heart decisions especially when it comes to revenue production.
I made a list of 10 women to call, reviewed their websites and social media marketing sites in advance so I could catch up on what they were doing and then created questions to ask so I could have an interesting and productive phone call with them. I am always interested in talking about their business before discussing mine.
After leaving 8 voice mail messages, someone finally picked up the phone. I was so grateful to hear a voice on the other end of the phone. We talked about her recent trip to Iceland, caught up on how fantastic she did in business in 2015, discussed someone who could use her services this year and shared delightful business wisdom in our 25 minute call. I hung up remembering how rewarding it is to connect with people verbally instead of through electronic communication.
With a zip in my step after talking to this woman, I finished up 2 more calls leaving more voice mail messages, created a follow-up action plan and then put on my sneakers for a run. I had accomplished one of my afternoon goals of making an hour of sales calls and it felt good.
Today remember when it comes to revenue production let your mind out rule your heart, do some research, put pen to paper, script a dialogue and pick up the phone. In the world of a million email messages, we can’t capture the attention of prospects or repeat customers unless we act different. Set a time limit or a specific number of phone calls you want to accomplish and do not quit no matter how many no’s you get or how many voice mail messages you leave. You need to set a goal and complete it.
There is one thing that is certain – revenue will not increase because we wish or hope for it. Raising revenue and increasing sales takes a strong will, a good plan and your willingness to make the calls especially on a mid-winter day. Join us for one of our revenue focused programs this month and be further inspired.
Business Inspiration from the Iowa Caucuses
Inspiration, Advice and Wisdom for Women Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners
Having never witnessed Iowa Caucuses, I watched intently as voters packed small rooms, large spaces and outdoor venues to cast their “physical vote” for a candidate. I marveled at the visual separation of people in pews, on floors and in gym seating based on their personal choice for a candidate like Hillary Clinton. If I was a candidate, I would love to see the actual faces of the people supporting my election.
As a woman entrepreneur I have experienced my own “caucus experience” from my constituents when I host an event and see their faces in the audience or when I share information on social media and people “like” it or share it with others. In both cases there is a visual recognition of support much like the political candidates witnessed last night. It is exhilarating to look into a crowd and see supporters face-to-face or hear their accolades in person.
I always glean business inspiration from ordinary events and this morning my mind is full of creative ways business owners can experience their own caucus moments in every day entrepreneurial life. I hope they inspire you today.
* Set a date to gather your loyal fans, customers and clients at a special event to not only see and count your constituents, but to gather their perspectives and opinions. Be bold enough to ask and listen and walk away with a stronger sense of what matters to the people you serve.
* If an actual event is not a possibility for your type of business, create a customer survey to gather opinions on what matters to your clients, new ideas for services or products and reviews on your leadership. Data doesn’t lie. It can shine a light on areas of weakness and strength.
* Be prepared to communicate with customers after your “caucus” experiment to share new policies, practices or products that stem from their input. This will allow them to see you care what they think making them even stronger supporters.
Remember you don’t have to be a political candidate to experience the exhilaration, views and opinions of the ones you serve but you need to create opportunities to host your own special type of “caucus” activities to show your customers you care about what matters to them and take in the faces of your loyal supporters.
Improving Your Company’s Bottom LIne
Business advice for women entrepreneurs and small business owners
As January starts to wind down and New Year’s resolutions start fading into the distance, it is time before a new calendar page is turned to get to the “bottom” of our commitment to make changes this year to improve our lives and businesses. Whether our goal is getting to the “bottom” of why we procrastinate, shaping up the “bottom” of our physical appearance or fixing our company’s “bottom” line, we must not let up on our resolve to make improvements.
I am not a therapist so I can’t provide advice on why people procrastinate or an exercise coach to help you tone up your bottom, but I am someone who recently hosted an event where two women entrepreneurs shared strategies on improving the bottom line of a business by giving tips on eradicating expenses and revving up revenue.Here’s what they shared:
-
Eradicating Expenses – By Melissa Zomro, Small Business Development Center and Women Entreperneur
* Understand Profitability – what is the profit and the profit margin.
* First thing that should come to a business owner’s mind is what return they would expect on any purchase they make.
* Areas to evaluate:
1. Analyze your needs and do the math
2. Determine where you spend your money
3. Watch overspending
4. Cutting Utlilities expenses (going green increases the green)
5. Telecommutte – work from home
* Consider using Technology like Point of Sale technology to help you track expenses.
Light Speed – https://www.lightspeedhq.com/products/onsite
* Remember this statement – “If Cash is King, the Data is Queen”
1. Tackle your debt
2. Check for unnecessary expenses
3. Purchase in bulk
4. Track inventory closely
5. Reduce inefficiency with automation only accepting checks cuts cashflow
6. Look close at talent
7. Dial down for savings – do you really need so many gadgets?
-
Revving Up Revenue – Sally Fedrizzi
1. Create a set of GOALS
2. Figure out HOW you will make the goals happen.
3. Know your MARGINS…where you can increase them.
4. Analyze your products and services for PROFITABILITY.
5. OUTSOURCE the jobs you dislike, find difficult, or aren’t the best at.
6. Review your MARKETING STRATEGY.
7. Rewrite or review your BUSINESS PLAN to match the steps above.
* Negoitate prices with vendors or the commissions you make with vendors. Make sure you are partnering with the best vendors.
* Reformulate your business if you have to be more successful and bring in more money in 2016.
I hope today’s blog post provides you with some great wisdom on the subject and helps you improve your company’s “bottom” line this year!
Women in Business Make Life Better Tomorrow and Today
Business inspiration and wisdom for women entrepreneurs and businesswomen
Five days ago as the news broke about Syracuse native Kathyrn Smith hired as the first special teams quality coach in the NFL, I couldn’t stop myself from immediately expressing my joy in a blog post that was picked up quickly on social media. Then yesterday before a crowd of 40 women at my company’s kick-off event of 2016, I proudly announced I only see the world through pink glasses which means women’s issues are always foremost in my eye and heart and I encouraged them to see the same way.
What I have come to realize after 50 years of living and 20 years as a woman entrepreneur is that joy and passion become an essential part of your everyday life when you have a cause you believe in and fight for. Sometimes the intense feelings we have can be transformed into non-for-profit organizations, missions that fuel a new company, or flames that ignite a writing or speaking career.
Last year my path crossed with more female icons than ever before – Kathrine Switzer, first woman to run in the Boston Marathon, Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s impersonator who I met at the Women’s Rights Park and invited as the keynote speaker of my annual Retreat, and Jill Tietjen, a long time business associate who was leading the National Women’s Hall of Fame for a short time. Serendipity placed these women in my path in 2016 and fueled my ongoing desire to inspire and remind women to keep female causes first and foremost in their minds.
The Women TIES Mission for 2016, which I announced at yesterday’s special event, is “See Pink, Live Pink, Buy Pink.” By living this motto, I encourage women affiliated with me to see the world from a female perspective in all respects – business, sports, and politics; to support women and girl initiatives and to commit to buying from women entrepreneurs and saleswomen to help with pay inequality. It is a simple mission but one fueled by the extraordinary women I meet every day of my life – especially my business life. Next week Women TIES will have a major announcement about a major sponsorship of an event to back our feminist passion.
Today I suggest you write down the number one cause that fuels your life or business; then ask yourself am I doing enough to make a difference to help this cause in the way I live, operate and act? If you aren’t, what additional actions can you take to step up your contributions to your cause? Do you need to speak or write about it more? Do you need to get more involved with a local or national organization to further the movement? Do you need to collaborate with like minded people to make more of a difference? I challenge you to step up your activity in an area where your unique voice and actions can really help a cause.
In the words of Helen Thames Raley, “In today’s world….it is still a women’s business to make life better, to make tomorrow better than today.”
Thank you Buffalo Bills for Hiring Female Assistant Coach
Women’s Equality, Female Athletes, Changing the World Inspiration
Although I wear pink, promote women entrepreneurs and believe strongly in equal pay for women, I am a football fan. The Denver Broncos have been my favorite team since the early ‘80s when John Elway was playing. Back then, I didn’t have ESPN so I couldn’t easily catch up on Bronco’s news or even buy a sporty Bronco’s jersey. I did have a poster of Elway that hung up in my dorm room which I had to defend to my Jets and Giants friends.
I ended up marrying a Buffalo Bills fan and as much as he has tried to convert me to wear red, white and blue for his NFL team, I can’t shake my orange and blue colors not only because of the Broncos but because my son plays club lacrosse for the Syracuse University Orangemen. But today is the day when my head got turned and my spirit lit up because the Bills hired Kathryn Smith to serve as a special team’s quality control coach. Kathryn is also a graduate from one of Syracuse, New York’s high schools.
Sometimes people become fans because they live in the same geographic area as a team like I did when I lived in Philadelphia or when they have a favorite football player like John Elway or because the team has something special like hiring a woman to be the first full-time female assistant coach in NFL history.
Today I rejoice in the fact that I can add the Buffalo Bills to my favorite team list not because my husband convinced me or because I live in New York State but because they have a female coach who will be making a difference in sports and the world for women to follow. Good luck Kathryn! As my father the football coach would say, “Go get ’em.”
“The Ultimate High-Five” – Business Inspiration
Business advice for women entrepreneurs and small businesses
In October 2015 I began preparing for a physical adventure that was beyond my comfort zone. In order to accomplish what I hoped to achieve, I needed to train myself to push longer and harder than I had before. Every day the activity I was trying to perfect took more focus, a deeper commitment and more time on my calendar. Other things had to wait as I committed to this one new thing.
At the end of each day, I found myself literally “high fiving” myself as an ultimate act of acknowledging the accomplishment. Although it might have seemed funny to anyone who saw me do it, I learned the act of physically doing something to applaud myself worked. This positive action produced a giddy feeling that stayed with me the rest of the day and propelled me farther the next day.
Yesterday as I accomplished a new technical accomplishment I forced myself to attempt, I found myself once again needing the positive physical act of the high-five to celebrate the completion of the feat. Once again my hands clapped mid-air in a gesture of success for my eye, spirit and mind to record.
You might be thinking I’ve reached new levels of cabin fever working inside my office in a blinding snow storm for two days but I hope you take this visual as encouragement to push yourself to do something new instead of waiting for someone else to help you. It is easy to get comfortable doing the same thing for a long time or waiting for someone else to come to our rescue. What the high-five illustrates is the capability we each have to do something absolutely brand new by our own determination, grit and hard work. We have more brains, brawn and bravery buried inside of us than we give ourselves credit for.
Today consider what small or big task is standing in way of you moving forward in 2016 and then taking a brave step forward by pushing or teaching yourself instead of relying on someone else to instruct you. There are certainly times when we need other people’s assistance in reaching our goals but what the visual of the high-five can teach you is that you can take the bull by the horns sometimes and dig deep to train or teach yourself to do something new.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.” I hope you make more ‘high-five’ moments in 2016. Good luck!
Business advice and inspiration for women entrepreneurs and small business owners
Hugging my neck, comforting my feet and embracing my legs are my favorite pieces of clothing which are actually a phenomenal invention from someone who had to brave the elements. My Under Armour cold gear is essential whether I’m cross country skiing in the outdoors that sometimes can resemble the environment in the movie The Revenant or just sitting at my home based business office desk right next to large windows with 20 mph winds bashing through the glass. There is no way I could operate comfortably without this wondrous line of clothing.
Under Armour started in 1995 when Kevin Plank, then the special teams’ captain on the University of Maryland football team, noticed that the cotton T-shirts he and his teammates wore underneath their pads were always drenched with sweat. “There has to be something better,” he thought. He didn’t realize at the time that this one, simple statement would launch the performance apparel industry.
If you wonder where new trends or businesses start, sometimes they do because of simple observations and statements like Kevin’s. Two decades later, Under Armour makes the world’s most innovative performance footwear and apparel. Under Armour gear is available all over the world and worn by elite teams and athletes….and even every day people like me trying to stay warm inside and outside in Syracuse, New York.
Today I encourage you for moment to think about Kevin’s statement “There has to be something better,” and apply it to your entrepreneurial industry. Think about products or services you wish your industry had that made your life simpler, more enjoyable, easier or better. If you are a women entrepreneur and you have been in business for more than 5 years (longer than Kevin played college football), you have witnessed needs of your customers or your own that might be the next big development in your industry or the world.
Take a moment today to get warm (with our without Under Armour hugging your body) and create ten ways you as a woman entrepreneur or small business owner and your industry might provide something innovative that could make life better or even revolutionize the world. All it takes is some old fashion dreaming in some new fashion apparel.
Business advice for women entrepreneurs and small business owners
The super cold blast of arctic air finally arrived in Central New York freezing everything in its path. It is days like these that women entrepreneurs and small business owners discover it is hard to find enthusiasm to open their doors unless they are the ski areas to our south who have been praying for snow. I’ve learned after 2 decades in business that days like today can stop any warm blooded business owner in their track and make them want to hibernate until Memorial Day. Business days like today are tough when customers aren’t willing to go outside to shop or meet up for appointments.
The only way I have battled the chill a super cold January business day can deliver is to do a few of my favorite business tasks that help me focus pass today to my future. Maybe today’s post will trigger some creative thoughts and heat up your passion to work.
* List Your Business Bucket List Items: We all have bucket list items that relate to our companies. They may include going to the biggest industry conference of the year, booking a weekend away in a warm resort to work on our business plans, calling up some old customers to warm up the relationship for new business, or take a tutorial online to increase education in a specific entrepreneurial area. Today is the day to book those plans or meetings.
* Create an Event List: List all the events you plan on attending this year to improve yourself or your business. The list could include personal or corporate events. When I took a 4 day trip to New York City last October, I realized on the ride home how long it had been since I went away to learn something new and meet new people. Now is the time to make plans for special trips in the year ahead.
* Work on a three month Marketing Plan. Sometimes it is hard to plan marketing strategies for an entire year. Make the task less complicated by focusing on your marketing strategy from now until April 1st. Make a list of to-do-tasks per week to make it manageable.
* Set a revenue and sales goal for each week this month. If you don’t feel like today is the day to make COLD calls, wait until tomorrow. You can plan your script and contact list today though. If you need inspiration on the topic of making more money and you are a woman entrepreneur, join me in Syracuse for a special revenue producing program on January 26th. You can find details out on our website.
Remember when times are tough or when weather stops the world from doing business with us, we must remember we have all the power in the world within ourselves to chart an optimistic business course. By focusing our attention on new possibilities we attract unlimited options.
Women TIES 