By Winmark Business Solutions
Bootstrapping is a buzzword that basically means generating needed funds by deftly managing your cash inflows and outflows. Improving cash flow should be a daily task, like housekeeping.
Monitoring, forecasting, and analyzing cash flows is essential to liquidity and profitability, even for the Fortune 500 crowd. A basic list of areas of concentration would include: (more…)
By Winmark Business Solutions
Maintaining and operating a business enables entrepreneurs to offer and sell a product or service they feel passionate and excited about. Unfortunately, when operating a business there is always the chance of incurring less-than pleasant experiences from your customer base from time to time. When you offer a product or service to a customer who is not satisfied, you ultimately have to face the reality of dealing with unhappy customers. When customer complaints arise there are always appropriate and effective ways of dealing with the situation in an attempt to rectify the problem and maintain the client as a future customer. (more…)
By Winmark Business Solutions
Being able to measure the amount of money you save from the green initiatives you adopt is arguably the most important step in the process, because without it you probably wouldn't adopt a green program. You need to be able to know whether your green initiatives are delivering cost savings. (more…)
By Winmark Business Solutions
The United States’ unemployment insurance system was designed with two objectives in mind: to provide a weekly check to workers who lose their jobs through no fault of their own and to promote economic stability by rewarding employers who minimize their workforce turnover. (more…)
By Winmark Business Solutions
False billing frauds currently represent the largest dollar losses in small businesses. Unlike larceny, these are not spur of the minute, minor amount crimes. These are premeditated and substantial. (more…)
By Winmark Business Solutions
A prerequisite to deriving the benefits you get from using your written business plan is to keep it current. You should treat your business plan as a dynamic document that should be kept current as your business evolves. While you might have initially created your business plan for a specific purpose (such as obtaining financing), the plan can serve you well in a number of capacities. It provides the baseline against which to measure your business's performance. It can help you to anticipate the impact of changing market and economic conditions. (more…)
By Brad Egeland
Everyone knows that this economy has taken a huge toll on just about every industry, every size company, and every type of workforce. When you see on CNN.com that there are now a record 5.6 million Americans who have been out of work for at least 6 months, you know times are difficult. (more…)
By Winmark Business Solutions
First of all, what do we mean by a "major purchase?" Among financial types (like your banker or accountant), the main consideration is usually that the item or project will have a service period of more than a year. If so, you'd want to spend at least some time studying the issue, and doing what is known as "capital budgeting." If the item will last for less than a year, it's probably not worth a detailed analysis — you might decide to just "get it if you need it." (more…)
By Janet Attard
Why don't more people start their own business?
If you answered, "lack of funds" you're right on the money.
In various ways, money — getting enough to start the business and worry about not making enough money to replace the income and benefits from a full-time job — is one of the biggest deterrents to would-be business owners. (more…)
By Winmark Business Solutions
Most of the books you can read on the subject of finding a small business will tell you that the best place to start is with a matching of your skills and experiences to some business that requires those skills. For example, if you love to cook, they'll suggest you open a catering business or a restaurant.
(more…)