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With over 25 years of frontline experience Tom Shay is America's leading small business management expert. He's a "Must Have" for your next event.

Products or services - should your business make an effort to ask people to "shop local"?
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November 2015
Volume No. 16, Issue No. 12
Can your business be a "holiday gift" business?


Hopefully your community is gearing up for the holiday season. Unfortunately, too many small businesses think the idea of a holiday season belongs just to businesses that are in the mall or those businesses selling traditional gift items.

The idea of which businesses should be a part of holiday season comes down to how the owner of the business looks at it.

If you think someone would appreciate receiving your product or service, then your business should be thinking of how you can present your business this holiday season.

To that cause we invite you to join us on Thursday, November 12 at 8pm eastern when we visit with Jeff Milchen, founder of AMIBA (American Independent Business Alliance)

We will talk with Jeff how a community effort can keep dollars being spent locally and what that effort will do for the long term viability of your community. Here is a link to the AMIBA website.
Article of the month: Staying Involved

This month's article uses the analogy of William Dawes. You have never heard of him? He was the "other guy" that rode on the same night as Paul Revere.

Dawes participation was a one time event. Revere remained involved in the revolution. The same thing happens too many times with small businesses and how we remain connected to our customers. We let them do business with them and then we fail to stay connected with these same customers.

Successful businesses know it is a relationship they are building. That is how they are remembered; just like Paul Revere.

We hope you enjoy this month's article by following the link below.
Book of the Month: Flip the funnel

Most of us have participated at one time or another in a discussion in which someone mentioned the need to have a "funnel" for increasing sales. You put a lot of potential customers in the top and out of the bottom come a few which become your customers.

In the book "Flip the funnel" by Joseph Jaffe, the author is suggesting turning the funnel upside down.  The idea is that the inverted funnel is that now you get a lot more customers as a result.

It is a great concept and you you can use Jaffe's ideas to increase your customer base. We expect you will enjoy this book from the Profits Plus referral list.
Internet Tool for Your Business

Would you like to take a look at the future of your business? An issue for every business to be aware of is that of being able to pay bills as they come due. One of the measurements of your business being able to pay their bills is that of the "current ratio".

While you can use the free calculator on the Profits Plus website to determine the current ratio for business, the math is quite simple. You look at the balance sheet for your business. The top of of the balance sheet is your assets which are divided into "current" and "fixed" assets. We need the total of the current assets.

The second step is to look at the liabilities section of your balance sheet. It is divided into "current" and "long term" liabilities. We need the current liabilities.

Now you compare the current assets to current liabilities. You need the current assets to be bigger than the current liabilities. While there is a possibility of it being too much of a difference, you are going to feel a lot better with the current assets being considerably larger; that's the current ratio.

Having a good current ratio can surely help you sleep better as well as planning for the future of your business.
Staff Incentive for Your Business

Try asking an employee this question: "If you had a day off, all to yourself, what would you do?"

Make note of their answer because that answer gives you tremendous insight into what motivates them. The next time you want to get more engagement from your employees, try adding a component of their answer as a reward to them.

Of course, this means that each employee has a different reward; because each of us have our own motivators.

We want to recognize A Carrot A Day by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, whose book provides the basis for each month's incentive idea.
Profits Plus | tomshay@profitsplus.org | (727) 823-7205 | www.profitsplus.org

 

 

 

 

 

APRIL 2024
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Small Business

AdvisorieS

"What's your score"? is the name of the April Small Business Advisory. This provides an introduction to our return on investment calculator. It is a great way to understand how well the investment you have in your small business is working for you.

Small Business

News

Top Story

We believe Thursday, April 25 is an important annual celebration for small businesses. While the name of the celebration has varied over the years, the focus is for us to take kids to work with us.

 

This is important for the kids to see what it is we do. They definitely are not going to learn about it in school. Reading the April Small Business News you will see an example from community pharmacists that emphasizes it is up to us as small business owners to introduce kids to what we do.


Article of the Month

While titled, "If not price", the April Article of the Month is asking the question about the focus of your small business in attracting and keeping customers.

 

If there is not something very special about your business, then the only attraction to your businessis that of a low price.


Book of the Month

"The plan as you go business plan" is the April book of the month. The author is Tim Berry who has also created software on the same topic.

 

I do not agree with the concept of "fill in the blank" or "create the plan as you need it" because my experience has been that you do not have as strong as a connection and understanding to your business plan unless you do it yourself and you dedicate the time to create it.
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BOOK US

With over 25 years of frontline experience Tom Shay is America's leading Small Business Management Expert. He's a "Must Have" for your next event.

Small Business

Advisories

"What's your score"? is the name of the April Small Business Advisory. This provides an introduction to our return on investment calculator. It is a great way to understand how well the investment you have in your small business is working for you.

Small Business

News

 

Top Story

We believe Thursday, April 25 is an important annual celebration for small businesses. While the name of the celebration has varied over the years, the focus is for us to take kids to work with us.

 

This is important for the kids to see what it is we do. They definitely are not going to learn about it in school. Reading the April Small Business News you will see an example from community pharmacists that emphasizes it is up to us as small business owners to introduce kids to what we do.


Article of the Month

While titled, "If not price", the April Article of the Month is asking the question about the focus of your small business in attracting and keeping customers.

 

If there is not something very special about your business, then the only attraction to your businessis that of a low price.


Book of the Month

"The plan as you go business plan" is the April book of the month. The author is Tim Berry who has also created software on the same topic.

 

I do not agree with the concept of "fill in the blank" or "create the plan as you need it" because my experience has been that you do not have as strong as a connection and understanding to your business plan unless you do it yourself and you dedicate the time to create it.

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Profits Plus Solutions, Inc.
Tom Shay
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(727)823-7205