Credit or Cash for that Purchase? Before you go purchasing that new equipment or investing in that new advertising, and going into debt, you need to figure out how long till the debt is repaid? By using your business numbers, you can figure out how many jobs you will need to just breakeven. Your goal should always be to be as debt-free as possible and today we will discuss why and how. ~~~~ The Local Small Business Coach Podcast is for Local Small Business Owners who are tired of living job to j...
Aug 29, 2019•20 min•Ep. 289
Your Strengths vs Weaknesses in Business We all have things we are really good at and some things in our business that we aren't so great at. Some will tell you to work on your weakness and make them a strength. But what if you could improve them enough to be dangerous and then have others that pick up the ball and run with it? How can you leverage your weaknesses to your advantage? ~~~~ The Local Small Business Coach Podcast is for Local Small Business Owners who are tired of living job to job ...
Aug 26, 2019•20 min•Ep. 288
Income (P/L) Statement Coaching Lessons This past week I have had multiple coaching sessions with small business owners on their Income (P&L) Statements. There have been some themes that all of you will want to keep in mind on your journey of learning more about how to read your profit and loss statement. ~~~~ The Local Small Business Coach Podcast is for Local Small Business Owners who are tired of living job to job and want to get to $100,000 in personal income. Each episode we discuss how...
Aug 22, 2019•21 min•Ep. 287
Are Leads from Thumbtack, Home Advisor, & Angie’s List Worth It? Have you thought about using a paid lead service like Thumbtack, Home Advisor or Angie’s List? You aren’t alone. Recently I had a request for my two cents on the topic to I asked for the pros and cons in a couple of big Facebook groups and in this episode, I share the feedback. Folks had some serious passion around the subject and some common themes. If you are thinking about trying them, you might want to take a listen. Tammy ...
Aug 19, 2019•17 min•Ep. 286
Bookkeeping is the Past but Key to the Future When you look at your bookkeeping numbers, you are looking at the past. Past sales, past receipts, etc. While they are the past, they are key to discovering changes you can make within your business to be even more profitable. In this episode, we go over a few examples that you might catch by looking at your numbers and hopefully inspire you to take a look at yours ! Using the Past Numbers to Identify Potential Profits & Sales By the way, don’t f...
Aug 15, 2019•19 min•Ep. 285
7 Ways to Scale Your Business Looking to scale your business? Then here are 7 ways in which you can do it. While they aren’t the only ways, they are great buckets to start with. In addition to discussing ways you can scale your business; we will also discuss 8 ways to be prepared for the growth. By the way, don’t forget to check out the - Know Your Business Numbers Course ~~~~ The Local Small Business Coach Podcast is for Local Small Business Owners who are tired of living job to job and want to...
Aug 12, 2019•30 min•Ep. 284
The Know Your Business Number Course is Ready! The more I plan out this Know Your Business Numbers Course, the more I realize how much good stuff can be included. There are so many reports, calculations, terms, you name it, that are so confusing, and I want to help make easier and help you focus on what you need for your business. So I’ve decided to release the course in waves. The first section on Gross Margin is ready to go and up and running. I’ve priced the course at an entry-level price and...
Aug 08, 2019•14 min•Ep. 283
Time to Refresh Your Batteries Are you a workaholic like I am? Rarely taking time off to just recharge your batteries? Do you feel like you just can’t take time off or you will lose money as you can’t let your business come to a halt while you are off? Honestly, you will not be your best if you are working on fumes day after day. ~~~~ The Local Small Business Coach Podcast is for Local Small Business Owners who are tired of living job to job and want to get to $100,000 in personal income. Each e...
Aug 05, 2019•11 min•Ep. 282
Where to Franchise Fees Go on the Income Statement? One question I get is where do you put the franchise fees on your income statement – expenses or cost of goods sold? Typically, the franchise will have a preferred location they want you to report it. However, you want to include them in your COGS when figuring out your gross margin as they are off the top before you do anything else. So my personal favorite location is in your COGS. So even if the franchise has you put it in your expenses, mak...
Aug 01, 2019•6 min•Ep. 281
What’s In a Name? The other day I saw a van driving down the road with signage on it. However, no one would know what they do or who they help. Let’s discuss what is in a name and a few other warning flags that this one van had that all small business owners could learn from. ~~~ The Local Small Business Coach Podcast is for Local Small Business Owners who are tired of living job to job and want to get to $100,000 in personal income. Each episode we discuss how to increase your profits, boost yo...
Jul 29, 2019•10 min•Ep. 280
Should You Include Labor Hours in Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)? Service-Based Business Owners Must Include Labor Hours in their Cost of Goods Sold in order to get a true cost basis and calculate a true gross margin on their services. Especially when labor is part of the actual service. Most importantly, solo business owners need to include labor hours too! They need to assign a typical hourly wage as if they have hired someone other than themselves to do the job. This is the only way to get a true ...
Jul 25, 2019•10 min•Ep. 279
What is Your USP | Your Unique Selling Proposition What makes your business stand out over the competition? What is the unique selling proposition that you bring to the table? Each business has something about it that customers think of. We call it your brand. But what is it that makes different than the others? You don’t want to be known as the cheapest, but you do want to be known for something. Who knows, you might even change an industry just like Dominoes did for pizza back in the day by pr...
Jul 22, 2019•7 min•Ep. 278
Gross Margin Dollars vs Gross Margin Percent A question I get asked is, “Is it better to push for gross dollars or gross margin?” In typical coaching speak, it depends. LOL There is a time and place for both. There are some large companies that are extremely successful using the gross dollar approach and others using the gross margin approach. They key is knowing both numbers so that you can make the best decision for your bottom line. Without the right amount of gross margin, with dollars or pe...
Jul 18, 2019•24 min•Ep. 277
Just Do It! | What is Keeping You from Making it Happen? When I sit down with a business owner to discuss their business, they often seek ways to grow their sales and profits. We come up with some great ideas and ways they can make them happen. So, what keeps them from taking the actions necessary to grow their business? Why do they show back up weeks or months later in the same place they were before? They fail to take action! What is keeping you from making it happen? Just Do It! ~~~~ The Loca...
Jul 15, 2019•18 min•Ep. 276
Do the Numbers Support Expanding Your Service Area? Are you thinking about expanding your business into another area? What if you had a huge opportunity in your own area? This week I spoke to a business owner who is excited to open up a new territory. We took just a few minutes and discovered that by just looking at some simple numbers in his business, that he might be better off sticking closer to home. Come learn how you too can use your business numbers to determine which direction you should...
Jul 11, 2019•21 min•Ep. 275
Are Your Customers Cheap? Why are customers so cheap? Maybe You Have a Perceived Value Problem! Maybe You Are Missing the Pain Points You Solve? Let's dive in and see what might be causing this issue. Too often we think of our customers or clients as being cheap when in reality, we have created the monster we hate. We have created a “cheap” feeling business vs a business value. Does that tick you off? It should! Afterall, are people buying $5 water, or a $1,000 cell phone and others that would n...
Jul 08, 2019•22 min•Ep. 274
The Cost of Keeping Poor Performing Employees What if you could figure out the amount of profit you are losing due to having poor performing employees? Well, there is! By using the numbers you already have at your fingertips, you can discover how much in profit and in sales are lost due to not addressing the performance issues within your company. Would it shock you to learn that some folks are losing over $10,000 to $20,000 a year? Don’t you think it is time you take a look at what you might be...
Jul 04, 2019•18 min•Ep. 273
Do You Have More Business Than You Can Handle? We all hit a wall in our business where the business grows so much, that we just run out of time. Jobs start to push back 2-3 weeks, we end up working 7 days a week and still, at the end of the day, we aren’t making the profits we should. We need to keep growing but don’t know how. We are hitting the wall on energy and time. What do you do? Let’s dive in and take a look at how you can get past this current wall you have hit in your business. ~~~~ Th...
Jul 01, 2019•20 min•Ep. 272
Can You Afford to Hire an Employee? The comes a tipping point for each business owner when they need to bring aboard some help. Maybe that new employee is so you can expand your business or maybe even take stuff off your plate. Either way, you need to make sure that your business can afford that new hire. Here we take a quick look at how to do the quick math on what you need to produce in new sales & profits to afford this new hire. ~~~~ The Local Small Business Coach Podcast is for Local Sm...
Jun 27, 2019•18 min•Ep. 271
Are You Being a Coach or a Boss? Are You Being a Coach or a Boss? A Leader or a Manager? Let’s face it, we all want to have productive, employees that do their best. Do these people need a great boss or a great coach? How about we strive for being a great coach who happens to be their boss? It all comes down to communication and how you help your team be the best they can be. Let’s discuss how folks tend to respond to being told what to do vs coached on how to do it better. ~~~~ The Local Small ...
Jun 24, 2019•16 min•Ep. 270
How Much are Your Broken Processes Costing You? Time to Figure Out How Much Money You Are Leaving on the Table! Have you ever stopped and put the numbers together to see how much in potential sales/profits you are losing by not taking a few minutes to figure out what the broken process is costing you? For example, if your employees have to keep stopping to get direction on what to do next, it could be costing you thousands of dollars a year in profits due to payroll costs. In this episode, we wi...
Jun 20, 2019•22 min•Ep. 269
Why You Need a Simple Employee Checklist Every small business owner dreams of building their business. Creating more sales and more profits. I often hear how they feel frustrated by their employees. Either the employee turnover is high, they can’t find good help or the employees just seem to always stopping and asking questions. Both of these problems can actually be helped by having an employee checklist in place. An employee checklist will create a roadmap for the employee to stay on task and ...
Jun 17, 2019•21 min•Ep. 268
RANT - Why You Need to Know Your Dang Numbers I have had several coaching calls and one on ones the past few weeks and I’ve been coming across folks that still aren’t diving into their business numbers. By having their head in the sand, they are costing themselves thousands of dollars in profits and sales. Why do you insist on working harder and harder vs just working smarter? What is Keeping You From Being on Top of Your Business? Here is the link to the latest YouTube video I mention in the po...
Jun 13, 2019•22 min•Ep. 267
The 5 Mile Radius Rule So how far do you search for business? Do you travel 5 miles? 10 miles? Up to 50 miles? What if I told you that the vast majority of your business should be coming from within a 5-mile radius? Most neighborhoods have thousands of potential customers within any 5-mile radius. The key is to focus on solving a pain point that many of the folks in that area are searching for. Too often we try and shotgun all over the place vs using a sniper rifle in a small area. By going all ...
Jun 10, 2019•20 min•Ep. 266
Using Your Profit & Loss to Determine Your Hourly Wage As a small business owner, your goal is to create a better a better life & income for yourself. But have you ever stopped and figured out what exactly you earn an hour? Sure you work tons of hours, but what exactly to you make? What if you could take your profit & loss statement and the number of hours you work, and using a simple calculation, determine what you make? This is especially helpful for anyone who pays themselves out ...
Jun 06, 2019•23 min•Ep. 265
How a Mindmap Can Help You in Your Business A mindmap is a great way for you to breakdown a process in your business that you want to streamline and improve. Having processes in place, add to your bottom line profits and sales, but it all starts with getting it out of your head & on to paper. But sometimes, your head is a jumbled mess, so mindmaps are a great way to take that chaos and start to create some sort of processes in place. But just what is a mindmap and how do you use it? By the w...
Jun 03, 2019•14 min•Ep. 264
Diving Into Your Profit & Loss Expenses In the next part of our Know Your Business Numbers Series, we will take a look at the next part of the profit and loss statement, your expenses. Your expenses are all the other costs of running your business other than your cost of goods sold. Like your cost of goods sold, your expense will be a percent of sales on your profit & loss. Your expenses will be broken down into subcategories that will allow you to track where your profits are going. You...
May 30, 2019•25 min•Ep. 263
An Expensive Lesson to Learn A Small Business Owner Learned a $10,000 Lesson and wanted me to share what happened in order to help others learn from her and her husband’s mistake. Well, technically, they didn’t make a mistake, but in trying to solve one problem, they discovered another. Both lessons are things I see and hear about all the time and in this episode, I share what happened in hopes of you learning from their situation and hopefully avoiding the same in problem and financial hit they...
May 27, 2019•29 min•Ep. 262
What Goes Into Your COGS In this week’s know your business numbers series, we will discuss the next part of your P & L Report - Your COGS. But what exactly goes into your costs of goods sold? Where does payroll go? Cogs or Expenses? Should you breakdown your COGS into categories? We will take a look at these items plus why your COGS might be lower or higher than what you actually use that month. ~~~~ The Local Small Business Coach Podcast is for Local Small Business Owners who are tired of l...
May 23, 2019•19 min•Ep. 261
Fine Tune Your Elevator Speech Leave Them Knowing the Pain Points You Solve | Whether you are at a networking event or being asked what you do for a living, you often times only have 30, 60, 90 seconds to tell folks what it is you do. Many of us, tell them the industry we are in but fail to tell them the pain points we solve. One is about 'branding' and the other is what will help them refer you to their family, friends, customers. For example, a landscaper might say they do landscaping like mow...
May 20, 2019•13 min•Ep. 260
