Author Archive
Cash Flow Consultants Shatter Business Rearview Mirrors
Posted by: | CommentsWhen cash flow consultants coach you to get your cash flow back on track, the first thing they should do is shatter your business rearview mirror. You need to stop driving your business looking backwards at what happens to your cash flow and retracing your financial missteps over a thousand times.
Face the real truth about your business books. Do you have the financial management discipline not to burn up money you shouldn’t spend on crap that’s not really important to your business success each month?
Is your cash flow up one month and down the other? You don’t want wide swings in either direction with your monthly cash flow from operations. Wide swings in cash from operations will be too hard on your cash flow. Driving your business this way will be the cause of your business crash and you may not be able to get your business going again. Below I give you coaching cash flow solutions that’ll get your business growing.
Cash Flow Consultants Teach Financial Driving Lessons
Consultants want you to have tight control over your cash. It’s all about you being discipline. Financial coaches know if they’re not firm with you that you won’t be financially accountable for how you manage your finances to drive your business like a business instead of like an irresponsible teenager.
You’ve got to budget. Budgeting your business expenses is the one thing which helps to smooth out your cash from operations. Cash flow planning helps you to plan in advance when money will go out the door. With sound cash flow planning, you’ll never be caught breaking the cash limit and not being able to make payroll or pay your business loans.
You need a strong cash flow consultant to coach you to plan for expenses, create strategic plans, and lay out your financial roadmap to be successful. That’s how financial coaches help you grow your business.
Cash Flow Projections Enables Timing
Timing is the key to smooth cash flow. Through cash flow forecasting you know when you may need outside capital or cash flow financing for investments in equipment, inventory, company expansion, etc.
You’ll be in the driver’s seat looking through the front window of your business and seeing everything that’s coming up months in advance instead of looking in your rearview mirror trying to see what you passed up last month. Trying to figure out your cash flow problems after the fact is like looking in your rearview mirror. You will have already driven by your business opportunities and chances to grow.
If you find yourself looking backwards, then it’ll be almost impossible to raise investor capital or get debt financing because investors and lenders never help you when you need them once you’re in trouble. Lenders and investors want to see your roadmap to the future. Stay out of financial hot water with budget forecasting. Financial forecasting will keep you looking forward through your front window at where you’re growing.
This financial coaching cash flow solution advice is the same coaching I give my business coaching clients. It’s a huge step in getting your business on a growth path. My coaching is for you to get yourself out of reaction mode and get yourself to be proactive about growing your business. If you struggle with cash flow in your business, the only way you’re going to be able to drive to where you want to be in your business is with sound financial management best practices and financial coaching from a cash flow consultant to steer you in the right direction.
Download my Financial Strategies Report for more driving directions on your financing options.
Business Plan Consultant: The Scary Nightmare To Avoid
Posted by: | CommentsA business plan consultant can be worse than a nightmare if you don’t choose one wisely. The business plan you want to pay for is the one that you can be successful at. You want a business plan that takes advantage of your strengths and minimizes your weaknesses.
Your first meetings with a business plan consultant shouldn’t be about the business. It should be all about you. If it’s not, then your worse nightmare may just be about to happen. The best business consultant is also a business coach.
A coach should focus on your inner and outer game. Let’s face it, you may not be facing reality in your ideas about how successful this business of yours could be. A great coach will recognize inner game issues like this one and coach you through a reality check.
The following inner game tips will help you recognize whether your business consultant is helping you to create a generic business plan without you in mind or one that’s especially designed around you to guarantee your success.
What Should A Business Plan Consultant Do?
Your consultant must start with understanding where you want to go. She needs to nail down your business vision for success. Nail this first tip and you’ve solved 50% of your business planning challenge.
Your business coach should mentor you to answer questions about what is your purpose in life. Because if you can get down to the root of what’s really the thing that’ll drive you, then that’s when you’ll be most satisfied and successful. Success is not just measured in terms of dollars. Happiness is far more valuable for most entrepreneurs than if you feel like you’re just not doing what you want to do in life.
The truth is starting your own business will be the most challenging thing you’ve ever done. If your vision doesn’t keep you engaged and energized about seeing your vision to completion, your passion for working hard won’t carry you through to the finish line.
Your Business Plan Consultant Should Recognize Your Patterns
Your business coach should then walk you back to the beginning. She needs to trace back how did you get to where you are today. Now this is very important because you want to make sure you don’t repeat failure patterns in your life, which could sabotage your dream.
More importantly, your business planning coach needs to know your strengths because strengths are what you want to cultivate and rely on for getting more success in your life verses focusing on improving your weaknesses. The biggest problem I see as a coach is people often don’t know their real strengths and how to apply them effectively and efficiently.
Your Business Plan Consultant Should Create Your SWOT Analysis
Now you should know what your business vision is you want to make happen and what truly drives you to want more responsibility in your life. The key is you’ll know your strengths and weaknesses after you’ve done tip 1 and tip 2 .
Now the third tip is for your business coach to guide you through developing a personal SWOT analysis: your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. SWOT should be a key step in the process of creating your business plan. A business SWOT analysis should come later in the planning process.
Opportunities should support your business vision and mission. Opportunities are revenue generating actions you should take or decisions you need to make to get you closer to your business vision. Coaching comes in where you’re getting ideas and strategies from your business coach to capitalize on your opportunities. Remember, sometimes you may not know much about how to do what you’re consultant is suggesting. As your coach, she should give you the step by step plan.
Threats are the areas of where you want to go that may be scary for you to deal with. Threats can be simple areas of life such as your business and personal relationships. Entrepreneurs must deal with challenging relationship issues before you take on the additional stress of starting your own business. Threats can also come from within you. Then threats can be external such as the overall economy. Your business planning coach should uncover threats for you to steer you past any roadblocks that may get in your path towards making your business vision a reality.
To discover more coaching tips about what your business plan consultant should do for you and avoid getting yourself into a possible nightmare scenario, call or email me for more information.
Don’t Become A CFO If You Can’t Be A Secret Agent
Posted by: | CommentsTo become a CFO who can quickly get to the root cause of your business client’s wants and needs requires you to become a secret agent. You’ll need accounting experience for sure and an MBA could be a plus. The main thing is to think like a secret agent and become a CFO who possesses tricks and tips that’ll help you break through any challenge that you’re financial coaching client will face.
Maxwell Smart Agent 86 and his female side kick Agent 99 in the 1960s sitcom Get Smart never failed to save the day. You have to become a Secret Agent on several levels who coaches the CEO to avoid financial missteps and how to get his business out of financial hot water.
What Does It Mean To Become a CFO Secret Agent?
You’ll have to be like a fly on the wall in your financial coaching client’s life. Reading through the lines and hearing what’s not being said is critical to influence the CEO and board to take action which will keep them alive in business.
Once you become a CFO, you’ll be the Secret Agent for coaching your clients through financial strategy, setting up accounting systems and policies, financial reporting, and financial relationships with bankers and investors. Mel Brooks was the original author of the Get Smart story. Brooks described the premise for the show they created in an October 1965 Time magazine article:
“I was sick of looking at all those nice sensible situation comedies. They were such distortions of life. If a maid ever took over my house like Hazel, I’d set her hair on fire. I wanted to do a crazy, unreal comic-strip kind of thing about something besides a family. No one had ever done a show about an idiot before. I decided to be the first.”
You’ll need to coach your executive clients to plan how they can be the first at something like Mel Brooks did with the Get Smart sitcom to help them grow a business. You’ll need to help them think out of the box during and after your coaching sessions and get into your clients head and understand what they want and how best to help them get it.
In financial coaching the most important thing is that you ask the right secret agent questions so you don’t give your business clients misleading financial advice.
4 Questions You Need To Ask To Be A Financial Coach Secret Agent
The two questions you must be able to get to the bottom of to become a CFO who’s able to uncover your business coaching client’s goals and mission include:
What does the CEO want and what’s preventing him from getting it? In this article I give you 4 questions I use to quickly find out what financial coaching clients want.
1. What do you want to feel? They might want to feel different in that situation where they might be presenting a new plan or strategy to the board of directors or investors.
2. What do you want to do? What action do you need to take? Or what action do you want to get yourself to take in that situation?
3. What do you want to have? There might be a specific thing they want to have. Or a specific situation they want to have externally.
4. What do you want to be? Or who do you want to be more specifically. What identity do you want to take on? Who do you want to become. What role you want to take on. What do you want to achieve in who you’re becoming.
You’ll need to be like a secret agent at asking these 4 questions to become a CFO who hears what’s not said and who sees what’s not obvious. These questions are different ways to ask “what do you want.” What do you want is the key question.
While your coaching client is talking you can get a much more specific idea of what realm of their business is this wanting happening in. Is it happening within them emotionally in terms of what they want to feel in this situation? Is it happening in terms of what they need to do behaviorally speaking? Or is it something they want externally. Or who they want to become.
Once you get a sense of what area your financial coaching client really is focused on then you can ask them the specific question your client is focused on for his wants. Now there’s probably going to be an answer to all of these questions at some level and that’s great, but you’ve got to have a place to start.
Look for the first area that the CEO really is focused on. Get the answer to that first. Then you might expand it depending on what you’re really trying to create financially with your client.
Remember, the first question is what do your business clients want and the second question is what’s preventing them from getting it. Next time I’ll give you some secret agent financial coaching tips to become a CFO who can drill down even more on what’s preventing your business coaching clients from getting what they want.
Financial Management Training Coaching Certification
Posted by: | CommentsFinancial management training can be learned in a MBA program if you want to sell your “soul” to get another degree. If you desire to learn more about financial management training, but you don’t want to sell your “soul” or volunteer to spend the rest of your life in “debt hell” just to get trained, this article will teach you about an easier way you can get financial coaching certification.
There’s a food shortage of ideas and strategies in business today like we haven’t ever seen in our lifetimes. Financial training is the missing ingredient in the mix. Businesses are struggling to manage their financial fundamentals and looking for ways to produce more sales to avoid starvation for their families and workers. It’s impossible to grow a business unless the company has tight control over cash and well crafted projections for how to grow their sales and what it will cost to do so.
Financial coaching certification trains you to take on a leadership role in becoming the “right hand” of the CEO to lead business men and women out of their financial bondage.
Overview Of Financial Management Training
Financial management training prepares you to become the financial leader for businesses and entrepreneurs. Your goal should be to get certified in helping a business to create the foundations for robust accounting and management. Your coaching and leadership comes when you develop accounting policies and procedures and implement accounting systems to keep track of every check that’s written, credit card that’s used, and other ways the company has used cash or credit during the month.
How you setup the way cash is handled and collected can spur growth if done properly and if not managed wisely you could “bring the company to its knees”, and then people will starve. It’s your job to setup systems to account for assets such as equipment, inventory, and real estate. Another key cost control function is you setup and manage processes around how the company Pays bills and making sure you take advantage of discounts and avoid late fees.
5 Key Steps to Financial Management Training
1) Provide accounting and financial guidance – help the company to design policies to control cash and collections, and costs
2) set up key tracking and reporting technology – ensure the company has software tools setup and functioning properly like QuickBooks and procedures for entering transactions as they occur
3) manage their business resources – ensure assets like equipment and inventory are tracked and are held in optimum quantities, employees are paid fairly, and compensation systems and payroll accounting is accurate and lawful
4) preserve cash – it’s your job to ensure when the CEO needs cash, your financial leadership during planning and strategy development cash is available to execute on the CEO’s plan from beginning to completion
5) Shepard THE firm’s growth – in business nothing always goes as planned. It’s your job to make sure you identify trends early on and anticipate the need for additional resources, measuring and tracking effectiveness of company sales and marketing programs, business credit ratings, and more.
Coaching Certification For Financial Coaches
This certification training program Includes in-depth training on financial management and what it means to be the “right hand” of the CEO. You will be trained in financial communication and leadership skills. Your certification will prepare you to coach CEOs and board members on financial management best practices.
You’ll be prepared to coach the CEO and board members in understanding financial impacts of their decisions.
You’ll be trained to be the CEO’s and board’s financial coach showing them How they should interpret financial trends in accounting reports. Your coaching certification gets you ready to represent CEOs and the board with bankers, lenders, and equity investors.
As a financial coach, you’ll be involved in human resource decisions and coach management on financial requirements for scaling up the companies resources during high growth times. Financial coaching certification will train you to coach CEOs and their managers to make wise decisions about employee compensation and independent contractor agreements.
Financial Coaching Program
Financial coaching certification gives you the opportunity to practice coaching business owners and entrepreneurs in a safe environment where you’ll learn the practices of financial management and leadership with support of experienced financial management trainers.
Every week you’ll have new assignments to prepare you for financial coaching. You’ll learn from doing it and seeing what works and what doesn’t work. You will receive invaluable weekly feedback from the business owners and entrepreneurs you coach.
One unique part of this certification training is you will have exchange coaching sessions with other financial coaches and you’ll hold each other accountable for your coaching assignments. You’ll have a daily partner to keep you on track and focused on executing your financial management training goals.
At the end of the coaching certification program , you will have met a high standard for excellence and CEOs can expect that you will deliver superior financial leadership for their companies.
To learn more about this financial coaching certification program you can call or email for more information or questions.
Get on my interest list for How To Become A CFO complementary webinar to spend time talking with an experienced trainer about how this financial management training coaching certification program might meet your specific situation.
4 Keys to Financial Coaching Communication for CFOs
Posted by: | CommentsFinancial coaching communications begins by acknowledging that people communicate differently and it’s your job to coach your business clients so they understand this fact about themselves and the people they communicate with in business. Your financial coaching will coach Chief Operating Officers to be more affective with bankers, investors, customers, and their suppliers when communicating about financial matters.
Mastering the 4 keys to communication below will help you be far more affective as a financial coach. You will be more powerful at enrolling more financial coaching clients because you’ll know what it is you need to do so CEOs and board members understand your value and what you can offer their business.
4 Financial Coaching Communication Styles For CFOs
Your client’s primary communication style will usually be one of the following or a combination of two of them. You need to learn to coach from all 4 perspectives because the more you can put business clients at ease, the easier it’ll be to work with them on preserving cash, making investments, and growing their businesses.
- Dominant CEOs: They will be all about the bottom-line. Less details and getting straight to the point will work best for this style of communicator. Your Financial coaching should coach clients to give this type of communicator the facts that are necessary for them to make a rapid decision and no more details than that or you’ll risk frustrating them and loosing rapport.
- People Oriented CEOs: This person is all about getting to know you and wanting to know who’s involved and what was said. They look on the bright side of things and they focus on their power to influence others. Financial coaching helps your client realize the potential financial downsides of their behavior and decisions and put their optimism in proper place.
- Steady minded CEOs: Change and making rapid decisions isn’t usually welcomed with open arms with the slow paced communication style. Financial coaching for this style is to give this type of communicator time to ask questions and get comfortable with you or they may shut down. You may need to meet with them several times before they settle on a financial direction.
At the same time, their inflexibility can cause the firm problems in crisis and pivotal financial negotiations.
4. CEOS who play by Rules and Regulations: To get this person to take action and move forward, they need to know the boundaries. This communicator wants detailed facts and figures before moving forward. Financial coaching is to help them feel comfortable that they’re following all the rules and no policies or procedures will be violated. Ensure you come prepared to answer questions regarding financial charts, reports, and your financial analysis.
Many financial coaches naturally focus on the details and rules. That’s what makes finance work. Realize this fact and adopt the other financial coaching communications styles so you can be more effective in business communications.
Keys to Financial Coaching For CFOs
These 4 communication styles you encounter are the keys to successful CEO financial coaching. As a financial coach, you need to first know your primary communication style.
Then coach your client in realizing how they primarily interact with others. The most valuable thing you can do as a financial coach for your clients is to coach them so they understand each of the above distinct communication styles.
When you and your clients can flexibly communicate with bankers, board members, investors, and customers who have different styles of relating than your own, your communication effectiveness will rise to new levels.
As you become a more agile communicator and coach your business clients to do the same, you and your CEO clients’ financial bottom-line will increase dramatically.
Call today for a complementary financial coaching session to learn how you can more effectively coach your business clients to respond to the financial urgencies of their companies bottom-line.
Donald R. Hunter, MBA, CFP
Certified CFO Coach
How To Become A Chief Financial Officer
The Forgotten Secret to Growing a Business Organically
Posted by: | CommentsGrowing a business organically means getting back to the basics. So today I’m going to have some fun. I’m going to take you back to first base if you will.
The forgotten secret is people enjoy doing business with people they know, like, and trust. So old fashion relationship-building is the focus of this article. Is it really “old school”? Or is it the tried and true thing that still works.
And reminding you that what I’m going to share with you may be the most innovative thing you can do for your company right now. Go back to the basics.
Back to the Basics: Growing a Business By Leveraging the Power of Organic Reciprocity
Here we go. Now you can’t expect that a successful business relationship will develop overnight. Be patient. A truly trusted relationship needs unswerving nurturing over a period of time. I’d say usually it’ll take at minimum one whole year.
Be strategic. Ensure your time and energy is well spent.
First look at your sphere of influence and map it out. Don’t hold back. Put every name you can think of on your sphere of influence map from the guy you speak with at the local grocery store to your dentist.
Then look at other business owners, entrepreneurs, and professionals who you could help them grow their business. If you can’t offer them any value, there’s no sense in you wasting their time and your time.
Now I currently run three mastermind groups every week (types listed at the bottom) for no direct compensation and give oodles of my expertise, insights, and advice without expecting anything in return. After 30 days and sometimes longer, members of my masterminds start referring me to people they know I can help. You know I’m demonstrating my value. That’s because my fellow mastermind members come to know I’m not a selfish person. I’m there for all of us to win.
What I discovered is most people really didn’t know how to refer me because they didn’t really know what I did even though I’d tell them. Now demonstrating what I do for them leaves nothing left to mystery.
Win-Win Is What’s In
A fruitful relationship is a two-way street. From the list you made of your contacts when you simply mapped out who’s in your sphere, brainstorm what you can offer them and in return, how they might be able to help you. Growing a business through win-win relationships is the only way to succeed in the long-run.
And in the long-run, the only way your business relationship will grow into something special is if both you and your colleague receive what you want from your association. Right? A relationship won’t grow unless your outcome and their outcome produce a combined outcome which is mutually beneficial.
Get In Rapport
Rapport can happen fast when you discover a common interest you have together. Like you share love for riding horses or jamming on your musical instruments on the weekend. It’s simple. Treat them like a friend. Anyone who’s interested in helping me be successful is definitely my friend you know.
Keep track of the simple things they share with you. If your partner tells you they’re going on a cruise. Then make sure you remember to spend time with them asking about what they did on their vacation. They’re excited. Right? If their a social media buff, go straightway on their Facebook page and comment on their photos and videos.
Go Even check on their FB page when their on vacation because some FB enthusiasts post things all the time. And what better way to show them you care about what their up to in their life than to show them some real love when their with their family and friends. Wouldn’t you like your co hearts to make you feel important too?
You know consistency is the “numero uno” thing when growing a business relationship. You’ve got to nurture your associations like you like to be nurtured. “Do unto others as you’d like them to do unto you.”
So reach out and touch your contacts at least once a month. whether you send a short and sweet email, or an invite to an event which you know will be of value for your referral partner. And if you can work in your schedule handwritten notes, it would set you apart from all of their other business contacts because anything handwritten is so rare these days.
And you know if they get a personalized email from you, it’s much more likely to be read than from your email marketing program: Constant Contact, AWeber, One Shopping Cart, or the mother of them all, Infusionsoft. I’m not down playing marketing automation because computerization is one of the best ways to grow a business. But I am saying to be personal and show you care about them and their success too.
So be the first to help to grow someone else’s business. Dr. Ivan Mesner who founded Business Network International coined the phrase “givers gain.”
So learn about them. So you can give first. Leverage the power of reciprocity. Play detective until you figure out how you can become an ambassador for them. Be on the look out for how to deepen your business relationship with them by being interested in them, their business goals, and what their company is all about. Ask them who would be their ideal customer.
If you know someone who could use their product or service, offer to make an initial introduction. It’s better for you and them to properly make the introduction because it shows all who are involved you care. Don’t leave them out to dry. You know I’ve gotten referrals sometimes. And when I contacted the lead, it was worse than a cold call.
Do it right. You can read my friend’s Joanne Black’s excellent relationship building book: No More Cold Calling. Her book is all about growing a business through growing relationships. Joanne will whip you straight into relationship shape.
So you see. I do what I preach. I just gave a little bit of love to my friend Joanne. And we’ve never done business together. But if I had the need to call on her, she’d be their for me I know.
Grow Your Business Through Testimonials
A great business relationship can also be your best fan you know. Your relationship that works well provides you with a live testimonial. Right? And whether or not you do business with each other, Invite your business buddy to join you on your important prospect appointments. Your relationship provides you with a live testimonial. And you provide your friend with an introduction to a company they could do business with in the future.
Now this kind of close business relationship with a friend is invaluable. It has the power to spontaneously create new business relationships through your unique connections in your combined business networks.
I say business growth through relationships should be a large part of every business plan. Wouldn’t you agree with me?
Whether you prefer to network and create relationships today with social media like Facebook, Linked-In, MySpace, and Twitter or you join in an organization that facilitates business-to-business alliances, you are in a growth mode if you’re doing it effectively. And both business networking approaches can be a fantastic way to streamline your relationship-building system. It’s a way for you to quickly connect with like-minded people.
So take the time now to create and follow through on a structured plan for growing your business through building and nurturing your relationships because if done the right way, it will be both profitable for you and your business connections. What I’m simply saying here is you should pursue a philosophy of “collaboration over competition” you know — good old Berny Dohrman founder and Chairman, CEO Space.
Donald’s Mastermind Groups
- Sales Scripting Mastermind: Members bring their sales scripts and receive complementary coaching – six members
- Coaches Start-up Mastermind: It’s about coaches coming together to build their coaching practices and growing their businesses. We have a weight loss coach, business coach, business and finance coach, and more – currently five regular members.
- Business Growth Mastermind: It’s a face-to-face meet up mastermind I’m launching in September to help business owners, entrepreneurs, and start-ups grow a business through getting their business strategies straight. And with strong financial planning, leadership, and management.
Let me know if you’d like to explore having me lead a Breaking Through Your Inertia Mastermind for your team. It could include a corporate team as well. My masterminds are proven to deliver what members want and need each week.
3 Keys to Equipment Leasing
Posted by: | CommentsThe 3 keys to equipment leasing are knowing the differences between capital leases and operating leases and the importance of proper accounting. To ensure you’re accounting accurately for equipment leasing, you need to first understand the types of leases available in the marketplace.
As I’ve recommended to you on many occasions, you should lease long-term assets rather than buy them. You know it’s easier on your cash flow. So use your cash instead to hire an employee to operate your new gadgetry.
And I say to lease instead of purchase because leases offer you more flexibility in adjusting to frequent changes in technology and your operating needs. And you account for lease payments like you would interest payments on a loan.
Now equipment could include hard assets like computers or forklifts. It could also include the software which is installed and running on the computer. At the bottom of this article, I give you a list of the types of equipment leases people search for everyday on Google.
Capital Lease
A capital lease is one in witch you will own the device at the end of the lease. You’ll have a “dollar buyout” at the end of your lease.
Operating Lease
In an operating lease, the owner transfers only the right to use the property to you. It is a short-term, cancelable lease. And it’s A type of lease which the contract period is shorter than the life of the equipment, and the leasing company pays all maintenance and servicing costs for you.
So an operating lease is the same as you renting the machinery. At the end of your lease, you’ll return the equipment or swop it out for a new one.
Importance of Accounting for Equipment Leasing
I first covered the types of leases so you’d know the difference. And now I’ll cover how to account for these different types of leases in your accounting records.
Capital leases go on your balance sheet as and asset. So you’ll reduce the long-term liability for your equipment or software by the payment each month. That means that each month, your long-term liabilities will decrease by the monthly payment but your short-term liabilities will increase by the same amount — ready for your accounts payable.
Then you will expense the equipment leasing interest on your income statement. And you will reduce your cash by the principal portion of your payment. This transaction will be performed each month until your capital lease has ended.
The reason I make the distinction between the interest and principal portions of your equipment leasing payment is many times your leasing company won’t break out the interest and principal. The invoice you receive from them just states your total monthly payment.
You need to be able to calculate and breakout the interest and principal portions of the equipment leasing payments. So you can do proper accounting each month. And so you know when your lease has ended.
Yes, I’ve heard some companies like Dell Computers will just continue to send you a leasing bill each month unless you notify them that your equipment lease has ended. That’s right, big companies get away with “murder” at your expense.
Now at the end of your lease, contact the leasing company and let them know you plan to purchase your gadgetry (usually for $1) and to send you proof that you own the machinery.
Operating leases are expensed on your income statement and they are not included as an asset on your balance sheet because you don’t have the risk of ownership.
But in the case of a capital lease, you are responsible for some of the risks of ownership. For this reason, the lease is recognized both as an asset and as a long-term liability (for the lease payments) on your balance sheet. And you get to claim depreciation each year on the lease asset and you can deduct the interest expense portion of the payment each month.
For more information and assistance with equipment leasing, you can call or email me.
And for financing approaches for equipment leasing, you should take a look at my Financing Strategies Report which describes various loan programs and how you may use the funds.
Short List of Leasing Programs Thousands of People Search for Everyday (Hey Google I’m not “keyword stuffing”, I thought it would help clarify my visitor’s leasing options)
- Commercial equipment leasing
- Copier lease
- Dental equipment leasing
- IT equipment leasing
- Forklift lease
- Lease medical equipment
- Lease office equipment
- Leasing kitchen equipment
- Manufacturing equipment leasing
- Photography equipment leasing
- Restaurant equipment leasing
- Small Business equipment leasing
- Software leasing
- Used equipment leasing
- And more
Your Small Business Coaching Growth Strategy Wake-up Call
Posted by: | CommentsSmall business coaching can be helpful for you in crafting your critical business and financial decisions. And not having a good grasp on the financial side of your company can lead you down the wrong road towards crashing your business straight into a deep ditch.
Business owners who excel have a growth strategy. Get a business coach who’s a financial growth expert you trust on your team to help you really understand your company from an opportunity perspective.
After you read my brief example below, answer this question. Does this confused business owner have a growth strategy?
My business coaching for you is you’re either growing or declining in business and there’s no such thing as status quo or equilibrium. So choose growth. You need to be actively pursuing a growth strategy at all times.
I attended an accounting seminar in Oakland, California, on Wednesday, and I want to share with you how getting stuck on erroneous beliefs about how you should make investments can be a train wreck for your profits.
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot
be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”
- Leo Tolstoy 1897
The above quote is a perfect lead in to small business coaching by telling you about a man who had a glaring limiting belief about how to make financial investments. This particular gentleman at the seminar contradicted the speaker on several occasions when she gave very good advice. The financial expert’s name is Sandra.
Sandra’s advice in this instance was don’t pay cash for your long-term assets like business equipment. She said to everyone that you should finance or lease your investments instead. Here’s the reason. It’s that using cash when you shouldn’t’ can cause unexpected shortfalls in your cash flow months after you’ve spent your “doe.” Use your cash instead to hire an employee to operate the equipment you lease or purchase.
Well this gentleman was stuck on how it is better to save-up money to buy a piece of equipment for his business. I didn’t get his name or the name of his business. But he was really adamant about not paying any interest at all. His philosophy sounds good. Right?
And he led several other business people in Sandra’s financial training seminar astray with his “fearful mindset” because he was so emphatic about not paying interests and making monthly payments on a business loan. This guy’s idea does sound somewhat appealing. Right?
And since he was so unwilling to listen to Sandra’s small business coaching, he never learned why his belief is so terribly flawed.
Small Business Coaching Advice
Saving to make investments to avoid paying interest can lead you straight into bankruptcy court. Here’s where the gentleman is flawed in his thinking.
Let’s say that you want to buy a piece of equipment which is a $20,000 machine which will help you generate more business. And it takes you 40 months to save up to purchase the machinery.
To make it simple for the both of us, I’ll begin my small business coaching example at the beginning of the year. Starting January 1, 2011, each month you put $500 into an account for the purchase of this $20,000 device. So you will be able to purchase this contraption at the beginning of May, 2014. That’s 40 months times $500 equals $20,000. And let’s assume for simplicity sake you won’t be earning interests on your savings account.
Now here comes the flaw in this gentleman’s thinking. If you had financed the equipment on January 1, 2011, you would have been able to generate more sales during the 3.4 years it would have taken you to save for the purchase of the $20,000 equipment.
And now let’s say this $20,000 shiny gadget would have enabled your company to make an additional $200,000 increase in sales per year. Well because of your limiting financial belief that you should save up for buying your machine instead of financing your purchase, you would have lost the opportunity to earn more than $650,000 in cash.
And in three years and four months, the price of your apparatus probably would go up and the business opportunity to increase your sales may no longer be available to you because your competition will have locked down the market.
This story about limiting financial beliefs illustrates the power of small business coaching and how financing or leasing equipment at the point you identify the growth opportunity can help you grow your business faster and more profitably. Even if you were able to save the $20,000 in half the time by saving $1,000 per month instead of $500, you still would have lost a significant amount of money by not making the investment on January 1, 2011. And the amount of interest on the $20,000 loan to purchase your equipment would be minute in comparison to the income potential of making the purchase straightaway.
What Are the Financial Misconceptions Limiting Your Business Growth?
Again, my small business coaching for you is you’re either growing or declining in business and there’s no such thing as status quo or equilibrium. You need to be actively pursuing a growth strategy at all times.
Who do you rely on for small business coaching and great financial ideas?
I want to share this business owner’s story with you because I see how business owners and entrepreneurs get influenced by great sounding ideas about how to bootstrap their way into a venture or save to make investments, but they don’t consider the opportunity cost of capital. That is you could be generating greater profits right away through leveraging other people’s money.
Sign-up for a complementary Business Growth Opportunities coaching session to help you make better financial decisions for your company. I can help you:
- analyze your growth opportunities
- perform budget forecasting
- improve your business credit
- provide your best financing options
- and more…
It’s true that confused business owners really do pass up huge opportunities to earn thousands of dollars each year because they won’t listen to expert financial advice. Does that sound like you?
So you must face the tough realities in your business and maintain a growth mindset to be successful. And the SBA reports that 90% of businesses fail in the first five years. Remember, your business is either moving forward or falling back. There’s no such thing in business as status quo.
Check out my Business Growth Strategies Report for great ideas on how financing could help your company grow.
Your Small Small Business Coaching Growth Strategy Wake-up Call
Posted by: | CommentsSmall business coaching can be helpful for you in crafting critical business and financial decisions. And not having a good grasp on the financial side of your company can lead you down the wrong road towards crashing your business straight into a deep ditch.
Business owners who excel have a growth strategy. Get a business coach who’s a financial growth expert you trust on your team to help you really understand your company from an opportunity perspective.
After you read my brief example below, answer this question. Does this confused business owner have a growth strategy?
My business coaching for you is you’re either growing or declining in business and there’s no such thing as status quo or equilibrium. So choose growth. You need to be actively pursuing a growth strategy at all times.
I attended an accounting seminar in Oakland, California, on Wednesday, and I want to share with you how getting stuck on erroneous beliefs about how you should make investments can be a train wreck for your profits.
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”
- Leo Tolstoy 1897
The above quote is a perfect lead in to small business coaching by telling you about a man who had a glaring limiting belief about how to make financial investments. This particular gentleman at the seminar contradicted the speaker on several occasions when she gave very good advice. The financial expert’s name is Sandra.
Sandra’s advice in this instance was don’t pay cash for long-term assets like business equipment. She said to everyone that you should finance or lease your investments instead. Here’s the reason. It’s that using cash when you shouldn’t’ can cause unexpected shortfalls in your cash flow months after you’ve spent your doe.
Well this gentleman was stuck on how it is better to save-up money to buy a piece of equipment for his business. I didn’t get his name or the name of his business. But he was really adamant about not paying any interest at all. His philosophy sounds good. Right?
And he led several other business people in Sandra’s financial training seminar astray with his fearful mindset because he was so emphatic about not paying interests and making monthly payments on a business loan. This guy’s idea does sound somewhat appealing. Right?
And since he was so unwilling to listen to Sandra’s small business coaching, he never learned why his belief is so terribly flawed.
Small Business Coaching Advice
Saving to make investments to avoid paying interest can lead you straight into bankruptcy court. Here’s where the gentleman is flawed in his thinking.
Let’s say that you want to buy a piece of equipment which is a $20,000 machine which will help you generate more business. And it takes you 40 months to save up to purchase the machinery.
To make it simple for the both of us, I’ll begin my small business coaching example at the beginning of the year. Starting January 1, 2011, each month you put $500 into an account for the purchase of this $20,000 device. So you will be able to purchase this contraption at the beginning of May, 2014. That’s 40 months times $500 equals $20,000. And let’s assume for simplicity sake you won’t be earning interests on your savings account.
Now here comes the flaw in this gentleman’s thinking. If you had financed the equipment on January 1, 2011, you would have been able to generate more sales during the 3.4 years it would have taken you to save for the purchase of the $20,000 equipment.
And now let’s say this $20,000 shiny gadget would have enabled your company to make an additional $200,000 increase in sales per year. Well because of your limiting financial belief that you should save up for buying your machine instead of financing your purchase, you would have lost the opportunity to earn more than $650,000 in cash.
And in three years and four months, the price of your apparatus probably would go up and the business opportunity to increase your sales may no longer be available to you because your competition will have locked down the market.
This story about limiting financial beliefs illustrates the power of small business coaching and how financing or leasing equipment at the point you identify the growth opportunity can help you grow your business faster and more profitably. Even if you were able to save the $20,000 in half the time by saving $1,000 per month instead of $500, you still would have lost a significant amount of money by not making the investment on January 1, 2011. And the amount of interest on the $20,000 loan to purchase your equipment would be minute in comparison to the income potential of making the purchase straightaway.
What Are the Financial Misconceptions Limiting Your Business Growth?
Again, my small business coaching for you is you’re either growing or declining in business and there’s no such thing as status quo or equilibrium. You need to be actively pursuing a growth strategy at all times.
Who do you rely on for small business coaching and great financial ideas?
I want to share this business owner’s story with you because I see how business owners and entrepreneurs get influenced by great sounding ideas about how to bootstrap their way into a venture or save to make investments, but they don’t consider the opportunity cost of capital. That is you could be generating greater profits right away through leveraging other people’s money.
Sign-up for a complementary Business Growth Opportunities coaching session to help you make better financial decisions for your company. I can help you:
- analyze your growth opportunities
- perform budget forecasting
- improve your business credit
- provide your best financing options
- and more…
It’s true that confused business owners really do pass up huge opportunities to earn thousands of dollars each year because they won’t listen to expert financial advice. Does that sound like you?
So you must face the tough realities in your business and maintain a growth mindset to be successful. And the SBA reports that 90% of businesses fail in the first five years. Remember, your business is either moving forward or falling back. There’s no such thing in business as status quo.
Check out my Business Growth Strategies Report for great ideas on how financing could help your company grow.
Blog Comments Policy On Donald Hunter Financial
Posted by: Donald Hunter, MBA, Broker, Certified Financial Planner | Comments (1)I’d like to encourage you to engage more with me and this forum by leaving blog comments on Donald Hunter Financial. But it really concerns me because I’m seeing lots of blog comments that don’t relate to the purpose and intent of my finance, financing, and growing your business marketplace.
What I’m seeing is that there is a variety of ways in which you view and use the comments feature on my blog.
I’m here for you to talk about scaling up businesses fast for profitability not body parts. You should go somewhere else for that kind of conversation.
Blog Comments Policy
I’m okay with different approaches you may have when you make comments. You know it’s up to you how you want to be recognized for what you say. However I want to communicate to you where I stand:
1. I cheer when you comment on my blog articles. Your finance, financing, and business knowledge, experiences, and insights are important to my blog readership as what I write. They can add greatly to the perspectives and facts that I put forth.
If you want to remark on what I write then you’re more than welcome. Whether you’re an upstart or an expert, feel free to express your thoughts on any theme I write about. You can ask for more information or clarifications too.
2. You should know I remove spam right away. My spam filters automatically catch the majority of automated spam comments. I don’t put up with unrelated advertising or remarks which don’t add to my conversation topic. By design, the usual Facebook remarks like “great sharing” and “I love it” will be rejected by my spam filters straightaway.
3. You know your relevant links in comments are actively encouraged. If you leave a statement on my blog and want to point to a link on your own or some other site that is relevant to the subject then you should do so. This adds to the overall discussion and uplifts the dialogue. And it helps you get answers quickly to any questions you may have about any topic about finance, financing, and growing your business.
If someone comes to my blog and likes what you say in your commentary I’m happy to allow you to provide that information for them. And you know it helps you attract more visitors to your own site too.
4. Okay now. You know irrelevant links are not encouraged. If you leave a comment with a link in it that has no relevance to the blog post you’re commenting on that it will be deleted immediately.
This is a silly trend that I see happening increasingly on blogs. If you engage in this nonsensical link building practice I would encourage you to think about the impact that this has upon your online reputation and your company.
Now I don’t want to come off as being “heavy-handed” with my blog comments policy. And I also don’t want to waste anyone’s time who reads your remarks and receive no real value. This is not Facebook.
But there’s a fine line in how you moderate comments and I want to be open regarding my position. I hope by me outlining my policy, you’ll feel much better knowing your comments will be read by others who visit Donald Hunter Financial when you add your point of view which adds to the finance, financing, and growing your business conversation going on here.
Online Personas
I want you to know when you comment on blogs, it’s like you’re visiting the blog owner’s castle when you submit your “two cents.” Comments have the ability to build up or tear down your reputation. They are a permanent record of who you are and what you stand for.
So be sure to carefully ponder what you want to say. And my recommendation for you is to make sure your words add value not only to the blog you’re visiting but also to your own online persona.
Peace out.
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