Hawk's Eye On Business

Today, from noon to 2pm we are holding a “Grow Your Profits” seminar at Stevens Henager College.  Corey Smith of Tribute Media, Martha Sandifer of Martha Sandifer CPA, and me, Roger Hawk of ActionCOACH will be sharing tips, tricks and actionable strategies with local business owners and executives.  Areas where we will focus: 

• • What are the 5 ways to grow my profits?
  • How can I easily grow my profits by more than 60%?
  • What tools can I use to measure how well I am doing?
  • How could my beliefs about marketing be hurting me?
  • How to balance the need to pay less taxes with the need to appear healthy to investors?

There will be an additional offering of this seminar tomorrow from 5pm to 7pm at the Ground Floor in downtown Meridian, ID.  More information on this seminar is available at http://actioncoach.com/rogerhawk/promo/growprofits.

Other resources to this issue are:
Managing your Cash Flow
How Healthy is Your Business – Business Health Check
Business Calculators
Cash Flow Pamphlet
14 Most Common Business Owner Frustrations & How to Fix Them.
8 Biggest Sales Mistakes Small Business’ Make and How to Fix Them
  

To schedule a 30 minute complimentary call with Roger, visit this site and pick a time, slots are limited:  https://my.timedriver.com/67LS1       

Roger Hawk Business Coach

       Roger Hawk is the host of “Hawk’s Eye On Business: KBOI News Talk AM670” and has been coaching, teaching & consulting Businesses for over 18 years. He’s been seen in Who’s Who, Virginia Tech’s Scholar Library, Eagle informer and various social media forums. He serves on Eagle’s transportation committee, and has created numerous support tools to help Business Owners become financially successful.   

    Give your Business a Free Health Check here:  Health Check     
    For Fun, pick your top 5 Business Challenges:  Challenges              

Hawk’s Eye On Business

     Roger and Val discuss proper methods to dispose of your old computers, hardware and protection of sensitive customer data with Secure Data Sanitization’s (SDS) Founder and President, Molli Wingert.  Improper disposal of sensitive customer data such as credit card numbers, addresses, social security numbers, etc. could be punishable by fines from $1,000 – $10,000 per name.  Molli also talked about her mobile hard drive shredder for those companies who are not able to transport their hard drives off their site.  They can actually drop their own hard drives into the shredder when it arrives at their location.    

     Additionally, we discuss the sister company Molli has, Computer for Kids.  This is a company that recycles old corporate computers to be used by K-14 kids.  There is a small application fee of just $35 in order to get a computer for your child that they can use in school.  Adults in their first two years of college can also qualify for these computers.  The bottom line is that it does not take a small fortune to buy good working computers for your child’s school work.  Find out more about this program at http://www.cfkidaho.org   There are also scholarships available for families who are challenged by the application fee.  There truly is no reason a child should go without a computer to work on.  Printers are also available at a very low rate of $45.    

     Before you throw away your old computer hardware, contact Molli at:  http://www.securedatasanitization.com/#/Lobby and donate it to our school children while taking care of the environment and meeting your legal obligation all at the same time.   

Other resources to this issue are:
Managing your Cash Flow
How Healthy is Your Business – Business Health Check
Business Calculators
Cash Flow Pamphlet
14 Most Common Business Owner Frustrations & How to Fix Them.
8 Biggest Sales Mistakes Small Business’ Make and How to Fix Them
  

To schedule a 30 minute complimentary call with Roger, visit this site and pick a time, slots are limited:  https://my.timedriver.com/67LS1       

Roger Hawk Business Coach

       Roger Hawk is the host of “Hawk’s Eye On Business: KBOI News Talk AM670” and has been coaching, teaching & consulting Businesses for over 18 years. He’s been seen in Who’s Who, Virginia Tech’s Scholar Library, Eagle informer and various social media forums. He serves on Eagle’s transportation committee, and has created numerous support tools to help Business Owners become financially successful.   

    Give your Business a Free Health Check here:  Health Check     
     For Fun, pick your top 5 Business Challenges:  Challenges              

 _________________________________________________________________      
 Material on this web site is copyright © Roger Hawk and R J Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved  

   

Hawk's Eye On Business

     Yesterday we talked about setting the price on your product.  Today we talk about discounting the prices once you have set your price.  Before setting your “sale” price we need to understand what affect to the bottom line the discount will have. 

     The first step is to know your true margin on the product.  Without knowing this, you could be “Sale”-ing your way to bankruptcy. Let’s say your net profit margin is 20%.  The question is how much more product would you have to sell in order to make up for the discount in net profits?  You need to sell 100% more product because the 10% discount will come straight out of profit cutting your net margin down to10%.  

    Doulbling your sales is not enough, though because doubling the sales will only have you breaking even with the sale.  This is like saying you have to work twice as hard for the same amount of pay. 

     On the other hand, if you raise your prices 10% what impact would it really have on your business? Well, your profit would go up to 30% on each unit of product.  You would have to lose 1/3 of your customers at 30% margin to drop back to the same amount of profit you are currently making.  This may even be highly advantageous to you if the bottom 10-20% of your clients are the trouble makers who pay slowly or constantly complain without reason.  

Other resources to this issue are:
Managing your Cash Flow
Is Your Pricing Sound by Sandy Kemp
How Healthy is Your Business – Business Health Check
Business Calculators
Cash Flow Pamphlet
14 Most Common Business Owner Frustrations & How to Fix Them.
8 Biggest Sales Mistakes Small Business’ Make and How to Fix Them
 

To schedule a 30 minute complimentary call with Roger, visit this site and pick a time, slots are limited:  https://my.timedriver.com/67LS1    

Roger Hawk Business Coach

     Roger Hawk is the host of “Hawk’s Eye On Business: KBOI News Talk AM670” and has been coaching, teaching & consulting Businesses for over 18 years. He’s been seen in Who’s Who, Virginia Tech’s Scholar Library, Eagle informer and various social media forums. He serves on Eagle’s transportation committee, and has created numerous support tools to help Business Owners become financially successful.   

     Give your Business a Free Health Check here:  Health Check     
     For Fun, pick your top 5 Business Challenges:  Challenges            

 _________________________________________________________________      
 Material on this web site is copyright © Roger Hawk and R J Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved  

 

Hawk’s Eye On Business

Every day I talk to business owners talking about cutting their prices.  On the surface this may seem as a good idea, however, it rarely has the results desired by the owner.  Setting the prices in your business is an exercise that most owners make at the drop of a hat.  Carefully scrutinizing your pricing structure, however, can bring more than just cash flow to your benefits side. 

Let’s consider the product that is priced so low that customers think the product must have a problem with it.  For instance, the average price of a home in a certain neighborhood is $200,000 and the hom that just came across your radar in that neighborhood is listed at $137,000.  What’s the first thing that goes through your mind?  How about that 2 year old car that is selling on the Internet and is listed at $8500?  

Let’s also consider the price of a product so high that customers believe it is a rip off.   For instance, in that same neighborhood, would you even consider a home priced at $325,000?  Would you consider buying that same 2 year old car for $35,000?  Most likely, the answer is no. 

On the other hand, let’s consider the home in that neighborood that is priced at $180,000 or conversely at $220,000.  The car for $15,000 or $28,000 is a little closer in line with what you had in mind.  The difference is that one price is so cheap that the product is deemed worthless, one is so expensive it is deemed a rip off, one is a bargain and one is a premium.  

The next time you go through your product pricing exercise, determine these four numbers and you will quickly understand what the market will bear for your products. 

Other resources to this issue are:
Managing your Cash Flow
Is Your Pricing Sound by Sandy Kemp
How Healthy is Your Business – Business Health Check
Business Calculators
Cash Flow Pamphlet
14 Most Common Business Owner Frustrations & How to Fix Them.
8 Biggest Sales Mistakes Small Business’ Make and How to Fix Them   

To schedule a 30 minute complimentary call with Roger, visit this site and pick a time, slots are limited:  https://my.timedriver.com/67LS1  

Roger Hawk Business Coach

     Roger Hawk is the host of “Hawk’s Eye On Business: KBOI News Talk AM670” and has been coaching, teaching & consulting Businesses for over 18 years. He’s been seen in Who’s Who, Virginia Tech’s Scholar Library, Eagle informer and various social media forums. He serves on Eagle’s transportation committee, and has created numerous support tools to help Business Owners become financially successful.  

Hawk’s Eye On Business

Many businesses fail every year in America because they do not manage their cash flow appropriately.  This has nothing to do with whether the business is profitable or not because profits do not equal Cash.  It is possible to sell your product for a profit but then finance the purchase, meaning that you are a profitable business but your cash position is not equal to your profitability until the account recievable is paid off.  When Accounts Recievables get too high, the result is that the business can not pay for new inventory, pay for new equipment, pay for fixed expenses and so forth. 

So where can you find some cash laying around in your business?  Here are some areas to look: 

1. Sales and Marketing:  
   Track your marketing initiatives and stop those that are not providing a higher return than what you are spending on them.
   Negotiate favorable terms up front
   Charge late payment penalties and provide rewards for early payments
2. Accounts Recievable:
   Have minimum amount for credit purchases
   Update and track 30/60/90 day late pays with proven collection strategies
   Look into purchasing credit insurance
3. Accounts Payable:
   Pay your bills on time but not before due dates.  This avoids late payment fees while keeping cash in your hands as long as possible
   Pay cash for big ticket items.  Don’t assume revolving debts.
4. General Rules:
   Review your financial statements at least monthly (Budgets, Cash Flow, Profit & Loss, and Balance Sheet)
   Split cash management responsibilities between people.  Deposits by person A and reconciliation by person B
   Establish an adequate Line of Credit with your financial institution before you need it.

These are some general rules to live by in Cash Flow management.  There are more detailed rules to consider, too.  Mastering these will get you well on your way to a strong cash position in your business. 

Other resources to this issue are:
How Healthy is Your Business – Business Health Check
Business Calculators
Cash Flow Pamphlet
14 Most Common Business Owner Frustrations & How to Fix Them.
8 Biggest Sales Mistakes Small Business’ Make and How to Fix Them 

To schedule a 30 minute complimentary call with Roger, visit this site and pick a time, slots are limited:  https://my.timedriver.com/67LS1         

Roger Hawk Business Coach

     Roger Hawk is the host of “Hawk’s Eye On Business: KBOI News Talk AM670” and has been coaching, teaching & consulting Businesses for over 18 years. He’s been seen in Who’s Who, Virginia Tech’s Scholar Library, Eagle informer and various social media forums. He serves on Eagle’s transportation committee, and has created numerous support tools to help Business Owners become financially successful.    

Hawk’s Eye On Business

How do you get capital to start or grow your small company?  This is a question many small business owners ask themselves on a regular basis.  The key questions are who do you go to for the money and how much are you willing to give up for the money.   

     1.  Who do you turn to for money is dependant  where you are in your business.  In the very early stages of business before you have a product, you turn to what most people call he 3 F’s.  That is for Friends, Family and Fools. Friends and famiy are self explainatory but the fools fall into two categories.  People who are interested in the industry you are in and have a knowledge of that industry and people who have no clue what they are doing.     

     2.  The next stageof business is that you’ve launched your company and have built your product, your store, etc. but you haven’t atually sold anything or at least not in great scale.  This is the in-between funding stage.  You need money to promote or sell your product but have no track record of selling.  You’ve spent your 3 F’s money and have no one to turn to for more.  This is where most businesses fail, and where you have to be creative.  There’s no magic bullet at this stage.    

     3.  You’ve got your product out and you have pending orders but now you need money to scale your operations to pay for the production of your product.  Without a track record of performance and no collateral, many financial institutions will not loan money to you.  This is where angel investors come in.  At this point, your business plan has to be tight as the angels will scrutinize the plan thoroughly.     

     4.  You have your product, you’re a thriving business and can visit formal financial institutions for your next level of funding.  This is where you will need a good relationship with your banker.    

     So how much of your company do you have to give up in exchange for the money now to fund your growth?  With the 3 F’s it usually ends up that you will pay them back plus some number for interest.  The in between stage will vary greatly depending on what sources and how creative you got with the funding.  Angels will want stock in the company and will also want a voice on the board of directors or may even require a CEO of their choice be installed.  Finally, the bank institutions will be looking for normal financing terms of principal plus interest.  

Other resources to this issue are:
  Master mentor series recording of Keith J. Cunningham Author of Keys to theVault, and “Rich Dad” of the Robert Kiyosaki.
Yesterday’s podcast about the EB-5 program:  Rick Ritter on Idaho’s EB-5 Program 

To schedule a 30 minute complimentary call with Roger, visit this site and pick a time, slots are limited:  https://my.timedriver.com/67LS1       

Roger Hawk Business Coach

     Roger Hawk is the host of “Hawk’s Eye On Business: KBOI News Talk AM670” and has been coaching, teaching & consulting Businesses for over 18 years. He’s been seen in Who’s Who, Virginia Tech’s Scholar Library, Eagle informer and various social media forums. He serves on Eagle’s transportation committee, and has created numerous support tools to help Business Owners become financially successful.  

Hawk’s Eye On Business

     For help getting clarity with your Business Plan, contact Roger Hawk at rogerhawk@actioncoach.com or reply to this blog. 
     For information on the next 90 day planning day visit Massive Action Day .    

     To schedule a 30 minute complimentary call with Roger, visit this site and pick a time, slots are limited:  https://my.timedriver.com/67LS1     

Roger Hawk Business Coach

Roger Hawk is the host of “Hawk’s Eye On Business: KBOI News Talk AM670” and has been coaching, teaching & consulting Businesses for over 18 years. He’s been seen in Who’s Who, Virginia Tech’s Scholar Library, Eagle informer and various social media forums. He serves on Eagle’s transportation committee, and has created numerous support tools to help Business Owners become financially successful. 

Give your Business a Free Health Check here:  Health Check   

For Fun, pick your top 5 Business Challenges:  Challenges       

   _________________________________________________________________    

 Material on this web site is copyright © Roger Hawk and R J Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.  

Hawk’s Eye On Business

Targeting your market is the single most important thing you can do in your marketing strategy.  Screw up this step and your business will definitely suffer.  So how do you pick your target market?  It is pretty simple, think of your top customers and pick the markets they fall into.  At ActionCOACH, the things we tell our clients they need to know about their target markets are:

1.  Age – Most companies can sell to any age but for the purpose of defining your target market, it is best to get real clear on this and narrow your targets down to a 10 year age range.  You might find that although you could sell to anyone, you and your staff deal better with a certain age group.  Target them with your marketing and let the others come along as they happen.  Think of McDonald’s and how they serve kids and target their marketing toward children.  Do they not sell the adults too when Moms and Dads buy the kids a happy meal?

2.  Sex – Male or Female?  If you think of your current, best customers they will come down on one side or the other regarding sex.  This is your target and writing your marketing pieces with that person in mind will help you be more specific in your marketing.

3.  Income Level – Again, what is your ideal income level.  You can imagine that if you’re trying to sell quality and your target is looking for bargains, the marketing is mismatched.

4.  Where do they live – Are they local or do they come from a broad area to your business?  The media that you use to communicate with your target market will be influenced by this criteria.

5.  What are their hobbies – If you don’t know their interests, how are you going to know the hot buttons to write about in your marketing pieces?  You could write about the topics you find interesting, which is a mistake if it is different than your target’s interest.

In addition to the above 5 areas, breaking your targets into micro segments and creating a marketing strategy around each will also increase your marketing effectiveness.  For instance; let’s say you sell ovens to restaurants.  If you offer ovens to everyone then your message is somewhat bland and won’t hit anybody’s hot buttons.  However, if you break your marketing into segments like Italian restaurants, French restaurants, Tex-Mex, etc. your marketing pieces can address specific issues those particular restaurants have. 

For help getting clarity for your Marketing Plan in your business contact Roger Hawk at rogerhawk@actioncoach.com or reply to this blog. 
For information on the next 90 day planning day visit Massive Action Day .    

  To schedule a 30 minute complimentary call with Roger, visit this site and pick a time, slots are limited:  https://my.timedriver.com/67LS1    

Roger Hawk Business Coach

Roger Hawk is the host of “Hawk’s Eye On Business: KBOI News Talk AM670” and has been coaching, teaching & consulting Businesses for over 18 years. He’s been seen in Who’s Who, Virginia Tech’s Scholar Library, Eagle informer and various social media forums. He serves on Eagle’s transportation committee, and has created numerous support tools to help Business Owners become financially successful.   

Give your Business a Free Health Check here:  Health Check   

For Fun, pick your top 5 Business Challenges:  Challenges       

   _________________________________________________________________    

 Material on this web site is copyright © Roger Hawk and R J Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.  

Hawk's Eye On Business

I’ve heard many people say that 90% of all marketing fails which invokes my response of “how do you know?”  Did you measure the results of your marketing efforts?  Let’s take a look at the data and find out where it failed.  I believe that 90% of marketing fails because people are lazy and won’t do the work of tracking their results.    

One of the big myths about marketing is the branding that too many marketing outlets use as an excuse for their marketing strategy not working.  If your business is producing less than $10 Million you have no business running “Branding” ads.  You need ads that sell, and they need to sell now, not later.  The best “branding” you can do for yourself is proving to the public that you are a thriving business.  Part of your strategic planning must include a solid Marketing Plan.   

 To create your marketing plan, develop 10 different marketing avenues that sell right now for your business over the next 10 weeks and you won’t recognize your business in 3 months time.  Develop one avenue per week and make it as automated as possible so that your entire day is not consumed with marketing activities.  Delegate, but don’t abdicate, as many of the marketing tasks as you can in your business.  If you are a sole operator, hire a part time worker to do the low end tasks that can be done for $8-$10 an hour.  Your time is too valuable to be doing these tasks. Make sure you show the marketing task on your default calendar every week.  This is the step too many owners miss.  Once the leads start coming in, its easy to stop the marketing activities and work the business.  Life is good, until the business is completed and there’s no leads to work.  Keep your sales funnel full by automating your marketing strategies even in the “good times.”    

 A large piece of automating each marketing effort is developing a tracking method to ensure that it is done.  This could be a checklist that you and/or your staff can check off each day, week or month depending on the strategy.  Then develop the tracking system you will use to measure the results.  This also could be as simple as a spreadsheet, tally sheet or whatever is necessary to track the results of each effort.  Remember to create scripts for incoming inquiries from the marketing effort.  These scripts could be for responses via phone, walk-in, email, in person meetings, etc.  Make sure the scripts are targeted at selling the next step in your sales process and not trying to sell the end result.   

 On average, a marketing effort takes about 6 weeks to show results.  By testing and measuring each effort make sure to give it enough time to work.  One of the big mistakes in marketing is jumping between campaigns, media, etc too often.  When you have a good sampling of data, you can make better decisions to continue, modify or stop each marketing strategy.  If you stop one, start one to replace it.  Having 10 strategies pulling 10% of your leads each, will ensure that you will always have leads coming in to your business.   

For help getting clarity for your Marketing Plan in your business contact Roger Hawk at rogerhawk@actioncoach.com or reply to this blog. 
For information on the next 90 day planning day visit Massive Action Day .     

  To schedule a 30 minute complimentary call with Roger, visit this site and pick a time, slots are limited:  https://my.timedriver.com/67LS1     

Have you ever planned a marketing piece that failed miserably?  Why did it fail?  Have you ever ran a marketing piece that you didn’t keep detailed statistics of the piece?  How many leads did it generate?  How many sales and how many dollars did it generate?  How many times do your new found customers come back and buy from you again and again?  How many referrals do those customers give you and how many of them become customers.  How much do the referrals produce, etc.?  You won’t know if the piece paid for itself unless you track these types of statistics. 

though, what was the target and the offer those other companies had?  Why did some work and others in the same industry not work?  Also consider that if you have your target well defined and you have a great offer that addresses a specific need for that target, could you not write the offer on a napkin and hand it to your prospect?  Would they buy your product then?  Most likely the answer is yes.  

Roger Hawk Business Coach

 

 

Roger Hawk is the host of “Hawk’s Eye On Business: KBOI News Talk AM670” and has been coaching, teaching & consulting Businesses for over 18 years. He’s been seen in Who’s Who, Virginia Tech’s Scholar Library, Eagle informer and various social media forums. He serves on Eagle’s transportation committee, and has created numerous support tools to help Business Owners become financially successful.      

Give your Business a Free Health Check here:  Health Check       

 For Fun, pick your top 5 Business Challenges:  Challenges