Archive for February, 2010
Are You Really Accountable for Your “Word”?
Posted by: | CommentsCan you believe the first quarter of the year is almost gone? Time flies when you’re having fun! Are you noticing this year that the same actions you have taken in the past are not producing the results they used to? If you are doing the same things over and over and missing your target – it’s probably a good time to try out something new.
Well, I have a simple message for you. If you want to get more stuff done, you need to be accountable for your “word.” When was the last time you were able to check off all the items on your weekly commitment list? I’m sure you’d agree the truth is that most of us have a wide gap between what we hope to accomplish and what we actually do.
I was talking with a close friend at dinner on Sunday about the roadblocks she keeps running into when it comes to meeting and achieving important goals.
She was talking with a sense of utter desperation, telling me that no matter what steps she takes she just can’t master a meaningful goal she’s ever set for herself.
When my clients use the techniques I’m about to share with you, they get massive results. You need strategies to get control over powerful motivating levers in your life. Accountability techniques make it almost certain you’ll do what you say you’ll do. Accountability coaching is the way many executives and top performing professionals raise to the top of their game because coaches help them become answerable to their own goals and commitments.
Start keeping track of the things you say you will or want to do and see how often they get done. In reality, we are not always our “word.” But, the point I’m making here is the more we are our “word” or the more we answer to our selves, the more you’ll accomplish what you say you want to get done in your personal or professional life.
Leap Ahead Coaching
You may have heard of all or some of these accountability strategies. I didn’t realize the power of these ideas until I fully understood the psychology behind them. I now creatively leverage simple accountability techniques such as the ones below to effortlessly increase how much I get done on a weekly basis. It’s truly cool!
- Time blocking
- Accountability partner
- Peer group
Time Blocking
Just the fact you create space on your calendar for a particular activity increases the probability you’ll get the task done. If you’re true to your “word”, you’ll follow through. Time blocking increases the probability of completing that task, but it isn’t always enough to ensure every item gets done or for every person.
You’ll need to avoid distractions during the blocks of time you’ve allocated for a particular project. If you have complete focus on your activities during the blocked out time, you’ll increase your creativity and productivity with this one idea alone.
Accountability Partner
If you time block and also commit to your accountability partner you’ll be more likely to perform a specific task. For example, if you say you’ll get up at 5:00am to go swimming tomorrow morning, the likelihood you’ll get up at 5:00am and actually go down to the pool in your swim suit and jump into a pool is very slim.
However, if you’ve agreed to meet a friend at the pool at 5:00am, the probability you’ll really show-up is significantly improved because you wouldn’t want to disappoint your friend.
Peer Group
Peer groups are similar to an Accountability Partner except you surround yourself with a group of people who have similar interests. Say for example, you have a goal to become a public speaker. The probability you’ll actually stick with your goal is much higher if you involve yourself in an organization for professional speakers.
I know this might be a little scary for you, but let the community know what you’re up to. When you become a part of the community, declare your goals and intentions to key members of the community so you force yourself to be responsible for your “word.” This will be a powerful motivator for you.
Many people who desire to be public speakers start off in Toast Masters to gain experience presenting in front of audiences. Toast Masters has a formal feedback process which helps you understand your strengths and weaknesses to help you improve your presentation skills over time.
Your next step could be you join the National Speakers Association (NSA) to collaborate with other professional speakers. NSA helps you stay in tune with trends in professional speaking. You also learn successes and challenges of other presenters.
Over time, you’ll naturally begin to pick-up the skills of public speaking through osmosis, learn to market yourself as a speaker, and identify the activities you need to follow through on to make the transition into making your professional speaking dream a reality.
Here you immerse yourself into the peer group hoping the identity, talents, and mindset of the group rubs off on you.
Take note that organizations like Toast Masters and NSA create the structure for you to force you to be accountable. Your coach can help you creatively apply the “peer group” effect when formal communities don’t exist. It’s amazing how a skilled accountability coach can increase a person’s results in one session.
Being Your “Word”
These are a few of my Leap Ahead Accountability Coaching strategies to help you get “leverage” on yourself by realizing what being your “word” does to help you stand out above the crowd. You’re no longer leaving your life up to chance when you are your word. An accountability coach helps you be your “word.”
Coaching Tune-Up
Do you want my help to become the “rock star” of your dreams? I help business owners, entrepreneurs, and corporate employees get “leverage” on their life to help you:
- Double your sales in six months, which will enable you to buy the car or dream home you want.
- Get your projects done, which have up to this point been evading you so you can take them off your list and free yourself for bigger and more rewarding things.
- Get your blogging and social media plan created and implemented.
- Get the chapters in your book written which isn’t going anywhere right now.
- Focus on your marketing to generate more leads in your business and improve your cash flow.
- Raise capital for your new venture by getting your business plan done and your capital presentation completed.
- Get the promotion you know you deserve and make your family and friends proud of you.
- Get financing in place to improve your cash flow or invest in commercial property.
- And much more…
No matter what your goal is right now, I’ll help you to creatively apply powerful accountability tactics in your personal and professional life to help you be your “word.” Don’t leave your success up to chance!
I invite you to call me at (866) 323-9123 to sign-up for my Coaching Tune-Up. I’ll give you a complimentary session where I’ll help you right away to get much more done, which will increase your self-esteem and create more success in your life.
Business Leaders Discover the Value of Being Coachable
Posted by: | CommentsBusiness Leaders Discover the Value of Being Coachable!
One thing professional athletes and business leaders have in common is both of you need to find the right strategic coach to maximize your results. A growing number of business leaders such as business owners, entrepreneurs, speakers, coaches, consultants, and corporate executives find coaching to be the best way to breakthrough their invisible barriers.
Are YOU coachable? When you think of all the great athletes in basketball, football, golf, and tennis, how many of them do you think would have been successful without a premier coach?
Tiger Woods is the best golf player in the history of the game. Why does he still work with a coach?
Coaches provide feedback, support, a different perspective and accountability to lift your game to a higher level.
Most people who are truly committed to their objectives, goals, success, and their quality of life work with a coach. Great leaders surround themselves with consultants who provide expert support and who are there as a “sounding board” for them to sharpen their ideas, polish their goals and create balance to enhance their decisions.
So, why don’t we seek expert advice when it comes to living our own personal lives and running our businesses? When it comes to our own lives we struggle because we think we should be able to do it alone based on our willpower. We sometimes end up overburdening our own friends and family because we expect a level of support that they are unable to give us.
Tiger knows the value of expert advice in golf and business, but he lacks maturity in life in terms of spiritual knowledge. This makes him vulnerable to all the temptations in the world which affect all of us, especially when we’ve achieved great financial success. I suspect this will be the next area in Tiger’s life where he’ll seek out balance through an expert who understands issues of life
I mentioned above that coaches have coaches. I am a coach, but I also have different coaches I work with on a regular basis because it’s only human to have invisible barriers. I’ve discovered coaching is the best way for me to overcome my blind spots.
Invisible Barriers
- Your weaknesses
- Your strengths
- Your blind spots
The tricky thing for you to understand is that most people who desire to be business leaders already know what they want and have powerful strategies they need to follow. The challenge is they don’t know how to get it done! It’s not enough for you to know what to do. You need help in breaking through your invisible barriers to execute on what you already know you need to do. You need to be coachable! I give you the “secret sauce” below.
The most successful people in business are those who understand who they are; those who are honest with themselves about their strengths and weaknesses. These successful business people develop strategies to perform at a high level no matter the environment they operate in.
Improving on your behavior patterns is critical to getting what you want in business and life. Much of our behavior is inherent and our upbringing shapes how we respond in various situations.
Do you realize that many people don’t even recognize all of their strengths? Yes that’s right; they don’t use the power they already have at their becking call! Compound this with the fact that people don’t want to admit to their weaknesses even when they’re aware of what they are.
It’s critical for you to know:
- How you react to problems and challenges.
- How you persuade others to your point of view.
- How you act in response to changes in your environment.
- How you react to rules and procedures set by others.
“All people exhibit all four of these behavioral factors in varying degrees of intensity.”
–W.M. Marston
Assessment Tools
I can help you with assessment tools to find out where you stand. My assessments will give you the information you need to clarify your invisible barriers. The point I’m driving home here is that logical intelligence is just one factor that determines your success. Emotional and behavioral intelligence are just as important for you to grapple with to make a measureable difference in your life.
Coaching can help you to:
- Improve relationships with your family, employees, and peers
- Enable you to be a better team player
- Double your sales
- Increase your effectiveness in influencing others
- Focus on what really matters to you in business and life
- Stop doing the things which have nothing to do with your business and life goals
- Leverage your strengths
- Mitigate your weaknesses
What would Michael Jordan have accomplished in his life if he had not been coachable? I would venture to guess much less than the intensity at which he played for years in the NBA. Michael was so bad at basketball in high school, he didn’t even make the team.
“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
- Michael Jordan
How do you view failure in your life and business? Because Michael was coachable, he accepted advice from his coaches who knew what it took to be a great basketball player. I train constantly to become a premier coach for my clients. Jordan’s coaches helped him to capitalize on his strengths and mitigate his weaknesses. Michael became a premier basketball player in the NBA and his coaches are revered as among the best coaches who have ever coached the game.
Many business owners I interact with in my business, at networking meetings, and on conference calls, don’t appear to me to be coachable. But, their progress is slow. They’re dissatisfied with their progress and change their focus frequently because they can’t figure out why they’re not breaking through their barriers.
It’s not about your intellect!
It’s not about your will power alone!
It’s not about me dumping a lot of information on you.
I’m sure your already drowning in too much information.
The Secret Sauce
Coaching technologies make the difference by fine tuning your performance.
Coaching technologies can be used to find out where you are currently, your invisible barriers, and clarify your goals.
Coaching technologies can help you create your intellectual, emotional, and behavioral roadmap in your life to powerfully reach your goals.
Do You Need A Coaching Tune-Up?
Test drive my strategic coaching program right now! My Coaching Tune-Up will help you turn-up your performance in the areas which will give you the power to accomplish your specific goals. I only worked with people who really want to make progress in business or in their life.
Call me at (866) 323-9123 or click this link to sign-up today for a complimentary Coaching Tune-Up with me. I will let you test drive my strategic coaching program for free so you can experience the power of my coaching prowess.
Each month, I give away one free assessment. This is an opportunity for you to discover where you’re at right now, which will enable you to breakthrough the invisible barriers which have been in your way for years!
Would Unlimited Access to a Money Tree Improve Your Cash Flow?
Posted by: | CommentsIn last Thursday’s Turn Your Purchase Orders Into Real-Time Cash post, I laid out my Purchase Order Finance (POF) process for you. At the end of that real-time cash post, I introduced my MONEY TREE (MT) Program. Today, let’s take a look at how my MT can benefit your business.
Money Tree
Who said money doesn’t grow on trees? Money Tree is an asset-based lending program for factoring and purchase order finance. MT evaluates your business assets, your industry trends and ongoing business feasibility.
Once our financing criteria is met, you have unlimited access to quick cash advances for your invoices or purchase orders. This real-time cash program relies primarily on the credit worthiness of your customer who issues the Purchase Order.
MT enables you to fill orders or fund your payroll without waiting for your customers to pay your invoices or for you to deliver on your purchase orders. Direct payments are made to your suppliers (for raw materials) or Lines of Credit. Your domestic suppliers will receive direct payments or Letters of Credit will be posted straight to your international suppliers on your behalf.
You can use Money Tree to access unlimited cash as long as your customers and suppliers meet the requirements of MT. From this perspective, money truly does grow on trees! You can now take on large orders knowing you have unlimited real-time access to cash to deliver your product or service.
Industries Served BY MONEY TREE
- Manufacturing
- Apparel
- Distribution
- Staffing
- Transportation
- Energy
- Service
- Printing
- Technology and IT Services
- & more…
Money Tree is typically available to all industry segments, except for construction projects.
MONEY TREE transaction Types
- U.S. Supplier to U.S. Customer
- U.S. Supplier to Foreign Customer
- Foreign Supplier to U.S. Customer
- Foreign Supplier to Foreign Customer
Your Suppliers
To qualify for my Money Tree program, your suppliers must know your product and be able to produce it in time and to meet your customer’s stipulations. Your supplier must have a good business history and track record of producing and delivering goods.
Required MONEY TREE Documentation:
- Completed purchase order finance Application Form
- Your invoice to your customer
- Your supplier’s invoice to you
- Your purchase order to your supplier
- Your profit on the transaction – gross margins must be >than 18%
- Your business History
- Your most recent profit and loss (P&L) statement
- Your most up-to-date balance Sheet
- Your time frame to produce the finished goods or to deliver your service
- Credit information on your customer
- Your supplier Information
- Your supplier delivers finished Goods or unfinished Goods
How Money Tree Purchase Order Finance Works
Step1: Your Customer gives you a purchase order for goods.
Step 2: You give your supplier your company’s purchase order to fulfill your Customer’s purchase order. The gross margin between the two purchase orders should be a minimum of 18%.
Step 3: Your supplier ships goods to you (non finished goods) or to your customer (finished goods). Payments to your supplier is made directly by my MONEY TREE program immediately or based on your MT contract.
Step 4: If the goods (unfinished) were sent directly to you from your supplier, then you will finish making the product and you ship the finished goods to your customer.
Step 5: You send your invoice for your customer’s order to my MONEY TREE program for factoring.
Step 6: MT will then factor your invoice to your customer. Your advance will be issued after subtracting supplier payments, factoring and POF fees. When your customer pays your invoice, then MONEY TREE will collect advances paid to you and factoring fees. All remaining funds are forwarded to you.
POF Money Tree Examples
POF Example 1: U.S. Supplier to U.S. Customer
You are a clothing manufacturer. You have been in business for three years and your Profit and Loss Statement and Balance Sheet looks good. You received a large order, but you’re maxed out on credit from your suppliers. Your sales price to your Customer is $100,000 and your total cost to produce your goods is $75,000. Your gross margin is 25%. MONEY TREE will purchase the goods for you from your supplier, give you 45 days to produce the goods, charge you a 5% purchase order fee ($5000, 5% of $100,000) and factor your receivables.
POF Example 2: Foreign Supplier to U.S. Customer
You are importing telescopes from Korea. You do not need to receive the goods, The telescopes will be shipped directly to your Customer, which is a large U.S. retailer. The cost of the goods is $500,000 and you will sell them to your Customer for $700,000. Your gross margins are 20% (after all your import costs). My MONEY TREE program will open a Letter of Credit to your supplier and will factor the receivables. When your Korean supplier ships the telescopes, then your Korean supplier will get paid. When the goods are landed in the U.S. and shipped to your U.S. Customer, MT will factor the receivable from your customer and pay the purchase order to your supplier from the MONEY TREE funds advanced to you.
POF Example 3: Foreign Supplier to Foreign Customer
You are an international seafood broker. You are buying seafood in Jakarta from a trustworthy supplier and selling it to a credit worthy Customer in Columbia. The gross margin on your deal is 18%. My MONEY TREE program will finance the full transaction by wiring funds to your supplier of seafood for $40,000 and collect payment from the Colombian Customer of $55,000, less our MT factoring fees, insurance and inspection fees.
Complimentary Money Tree Advisory Services
- Contact me right now at (866) 323-9123 or click this link to sign-up for a free finance consultation with me to discover how my Money Tree helps you get unlimited cash to improve your cash flow.
- Sign-up for my free financing report to discover more financing options to grow your own “money tree.”
Turn Your Purchase Orders Into Real-Time Cash!
Posted by: | CommentsTurn your purchase orders into cash right away.
You have assets in your business such as invoices and purchase orders to help you get control over your worrisome cash shortages, which are keeping you up at night. You don’t need to worry anymore, because I can help you get over your cash flow hurdles!
Have you been turned down for a loan from your bank? Asset based lending such as factoring or purchase order finance (POF) is often misunderstood. You can use POF when traditional banking options turn you down. Banks traditionally focus more on your business past performance. Purchase order finance lenders look at the value of your business assets (E.G., invoices and purchase orders).
POF Defined
Purchase order finance is a financial service that enables a business to purchase raw materials or finished goods for products to be sold in a matter of weeks. It is short term financing and usually paid off within 30 to 60 days.
For example, “The San Jose, California Police Department received an order for one hundred servers, dual processor computers” The police department used a purchase order to buy their servers from Dell Computers. Dell promised to deliver the order in 30 days. Dell used POF once Dell received the PO from the police department so they would have the cash on-hand to pay their suppliers for computer parts and salaries to build the 100 servers which the San Jose Police Department ordered.
I’m making the assumption that Dell needs to use POF because they are cash constrained or they use POF as a financing strategy. This is an over-simplified example, but it gives you the ways how POF could be used to finance your transaction. I have more examples below to help you further understand how POF (or asset-based lending) can work for you.
Benefits of Purchase Order Financing
- Expand your capacity with your key suppliers
- Guarantee timely deliveries to your customers
- Take on larger orders to increase your financial bottom line
- Expand your business without increasing your debt or selling equity
- Leverage cash now to pay your suppliers, for marketing, payroll expenses, and other things you need in the short-term
POF will work for your business if you have orders from creditworthy customers, but don’t have cash right now to pay your suppliers so you can deliver the product or service to your buyer. When you find yourself in the position of not being able to promptly fill your customer’s purchase order, this can be a precarious situation for you. You may be at risk of losing the order and the profit to help you pay for critical operating expenses. Beyond your inability to deliver the product or service on time, you may lose future orders from this buyer. And that ain’t good!
You will need PO financing when:
- You need expertise to handle the financing
- You need additional working capital
- You need a quick response to an immediate sales need
- You don’t want to incur additional credit risk (domestic nor foreign)
- You don’t want your Customers and sellers to know each other
- You want the opportunity to make additional profit
Purchase Order Finance Criteria
- Management expertise and proven products
- Well developed sourcing strategy
- Bona fide and Non-cancelable purchase orders
Candidates for Purchase Order Finance
- Companies in start-up or growth phases can use your purchase order or contract from a credit worthy customer to pay for your raw materials, products, and payroll. POF is a great financing option for companies involved in Intellectual Property, Start-Ups, Services, or Consulting. You probably recognize all of these situations include companies that have no hard assets as collateral.
- Your customer must be reputable with a good credit line. And, your purchase order must be verifiable.
- Usually POF is more expensive than factoring your invoices. It’s another financing alternative for start-ups, companies less than 2 years old, and companies with the opportunity to grow. One good thing about POF for you is your company can avoid debt payments and you don’t have to give up any equity for Venture Capital funding.
The POF Process
I offer factoring and purchase order finance through my Money Tree Program. Money Tree qualifies you and your customers and suppliers, and manages distribution of funds.
The process is straightforward. You provide me with a copy of your customer order and a cost projection of your cash requirements to fill your customer’s order.
I pay your vendors or suppliers directly for goods or services you need to deliver your customer’s order. Once you’ve delivered the goods or services and they’re accepted by your customer, you then have an accounts receivable. At that point your contract with my MONEY TREE program will convert to a Factoring transaction.
International Business
Your suppliers may be located outside the United States. I can help you make payments to your foreign suppliers through Commercial Letters of Credit. Commercial Letters of Credit can shield you from the danger of importing products from foreign suppliers. I’ll give you examples of how this is done in future posts.
Call me right now at (866) 323-9123 with your POF questions and concerns.
In my next post, I will discuss the MONEY TREE program and how it can benefit your business; just one of the many resources at Donald Hunter(TM) Financial. Contact me for your personal complimentary consultation and sign up to receive a free copy of my Business Survival Guide for 2010.
Breakthrough Sales Ideas for Small Businesses In 2010
Posted by: | CommentsOn February 2, 2010, I hosted a training conference call with my sales mentor Eric Lofholm. Thank you for sharing great tips with the Donald Hunter Financial community.
Eager entrepreneurs and business owners around the planet dialed in to get some “golden sales nuggets” to help them boost their financial results.
This call was fantastic! And, I’ve made the recording available to you below! Eric touched on powerful ideas to help you breakthrough your fears around selling. I picked up a couple of “golden nuggets” on this call which will boost my sales results!
My breakthrough was in the area of getting connected to the benefits influence skills can produce in my life by linking personal financial outcomes to my persuasion abilities , which is actually a powerful business coaching technique.
What benefits would you enjoy in your life if you were to double your sales results?
As you listen to this valuable call , you will discover :
- Why a top insurance salesperson consistently out performed his peers
- How to embrace persuasion skills by changing your view of selling
- How your fear of selling can stifle your results
- Why Eric’s proprietary “Sales Mountain” process can help you produce predictable, sustainable outcomes for your business
- How focusing on three sales systems will boost your results
You can request the slides for this call by emailing me or following Eric’s instructions at the end of this recording. My contact information is always at the bottom of every post.
Complementary Sales Tune-Up Coaching Program
If you have any fears around selling, you should take advantage of my Complementary Sales Tune-Up sessions today. Increases in your sales means you’ll be stronger financially. My goal is to help you get into a stronger financial position long before you need commercial funding.
I’ve spent the past two years studying persuasion techniques, strategies, and sales processes to enable me to produce better results in my own business ventures. My sales and marketing mentors include heavy weights like:
- Dan Kennedy
- Berry Rhein
- Eric Lofholm
- Genie Laborde
- Stan Billiue
- Tommy Hopkins
- Zig Ziggler
- Etc.
I’d like to be your breakthrough business coach and help you to get incredible sales results in 2010. You can sign-up with me today for your complementary Sales Tune-up Coaching session.
In your complementary session, I will mentor you with my powerful coaching technologies to:
- Assess your personal sales goals
- Identify your limiting fears around selling
- Guide you in developing powerful strategies to enable you to generate leads online and offline on a daily basis
- Help you to breakthrough what to say, how to say it, and when to say it to increase your sales conversions
- Improve your financial bottom-line through helping you create a “burning desire” to produce breakthrough sales results
I’ve discovered through studying coaching technologies, persuasion techniques, and financial planning a powerful link between what you believe about your finances and the impact your beliefs have on your sales results. My business coaching will help you “play at a level 10”!
Are you prepared to receive the sales outcomes you’ve been seeking? Increase your influence skills and you’ll improve your business cash flow too.
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Valuable Tips to Help You Keep Your Grip On Your Cash Flow
Posted by: | CommentsKeeping a firm grip on your cash flow is critical today. One misstep can mean endless troubles for your business. For Donald Hunter Financial, I use a customized financial model I’ve developed to make sure I’m growing the key success numbers I’ve projected for my business.
Examples of key success numbers I project and track in my financial model include:
- Cash on hand (money you have in the bank)
- Accounts receivable aging (number of days my customer takes to pay my invoices)
- Sales (commissions received, advising fees, etc.)
Direct costs to generate a sale (commissions paid, loyalty programs, referral incentives, FEDEX costs, etc.)
- Indirect marketing costs to generate leads (online and offline marketing costs)
- Number of leads generated (to me this is a financial indicator)
What are the key success factors in your business? Are you currently tracking them?
Rapper Snoop Dogg once said, “I’ve got my mind on my money and my money on my mind.” You must have this Snoop Dogg-like tenacity about managing your cash flow, otherwise it’ll slip right through your fingers.
Before we get into my cash flow management systems, I want to make sure you’re not already in a bad cash position. If you’re currently having difficulties with your cash flow, you may need cash flow solutions like factoring or purchase order finance to help mitigate this problem. You can contact me at (866) 323-9123 to get help with factoring or purchase order finance. Once you’re back on track, I can help you put cash flow management systems in place to grow.
My simple tracking system below won’t help you dig your way out of a financial hole. It’s a preventive measure, meant to keep you from getting in trouble in the first place.
My customized financial model helps me compare my actual performance with my projections for the year. Comparing plans against performance on a frequent basis ensures I identify problems and develop solutions before things get out of hand.
Accounting Trends
You need systems in place to easily analyze your business trends. I look at trends for specific numbers over set periods of time and compare them to previous periods. You want to make sure your numbers don’t fluctuate dramatically. If trends are positive, then you can feel good everything is going well. You must look at your negative trends in-depth to make necessary changes and modify your course quickly to stay afloat financially.
If you need some help from a financial expert to set-up your financial tracking systems, I can coach you through setting up a workable process for your business.
Now I’ll share simple valuable tips I use in my business with you, which helps me easily control my business cash flow.
Simple Trend Tracking System
- Cash on hand: your average bank balance
- Accounts Receivables aging : average number of days until your customers pay your invoices
Cash On Hand
You can look at your average bank balance for the past 30 days to keep your eye on how much cash you have on hand. Cash on hand is “king.” With online banking, I look at how much money I have daily. I look at the average of the past thirty days to give me a snap shot of my account balances. I don’t worry about the fluctuations caused by normal bills paid and income received throughout the month.
I compare my average bank balance over the past thirty days to the same time periods in the past – six months and one year ago. If I notice a significant change not explained by fluctuations in my revenues, I know something’s happening with how I’m using cash or managing my cash receipts.
If you have ongoing trouble with cash shortages in your business or personal finances right now, take a look at what’s going on. Your business may be headed towards a financial “iceberg” and that can be quite chilling…
Accounts Receivables Aging
The second number I look at is my average number of days to receive my customer’s payments. This will fluctuate with economic cycles. When the economy is slow, you’ll typically see this number increase.
Do the same thing as I did with my cash on hand example above. Compare the average number of days your customers take to pay your invoices in the last six months to the same number from a year earlier. This number should be consistent. If you’ve improved your billing practices, you should see a decrease in how long your customers take to pay you.
A slight increase in how long your customers take to pay your invoices during slow times may be acceptable to you. A big increase at any time means that you need to take action and take a serious look at your billing practices.
These financial indicators provide invaluable insight into how your business is doing. If your trends are stable or positively increasing, then your business is in a good position to grow.
Your Customized Financial Tracking Model
To effectively manage your business, you’ll have to do more than simply compare “cash on hand” and “receivable aging.” I wanted to give you my simple system to help you keep your eye on your business cash flow, but you need a more sophisticated system in place to position yourself for growth.
You’ll want to get control over your cash flow long before you apply for a commercial loan. For the first five business owners who call me to get help with their cash flow, you’ll receive a free strategy session worth $250. You can sign-up for your complimentary business coaching session today with me to get more valuable tips on truly understanding your business trends.
Call me today at (866) 323-9123 with any questions you may have for me about how you can better manage your business cash flow.
You’ll Be In Position To:
- Identify and lock-in on your key success numbers
- Manage your cash flow with ease
- Set goals and action steps to create positive trends for growing your business
- Identify and mitigate your financial risks
- Implement your valuable trend tracking system
- Create your own sophisticated financial model for projecting and comparing actual results
You can also sign-up for my Business Finance Survival Report to the right of this post. I’m currently not charging for this valuable finance resource while I develop my curriculum for coaching other finance professionals. You’ll learn valuable financial options to help you grow your business right away.
I’m here to help you improve your cash flow. I have financial products for you like factoring and purchase order finance solutions to help you get cash to grow your business today.
Call me at (866) 323-9123 for more information on getting quick cash for your business right now.
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