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News of the day - As one who feels honored when invited to speak at a conference, trade show, or educational event, I accept that there will be disagreements with what I share in a class. However, there are two things I maintain that will always be correct with owning a small business. The first is the need to understand your financials. Your accountant cannot watch your business for you. You need to be able to discuss things with your accountant. When you understand your financials you know what you need to change to make your business more profitable. The second is the need and value of staff education. Perhaps a bit crude, but my father would say to me, "No sense spending money to invite people to come and do business with us only to have them find out we aren't smart. Do something to improve us". And with that instruction, we created an ongoing staff education program. It is one of the best decisions ever made in our business. All of our staff met for one hour every other week. We met after hours. We talked about our products and services. We talked about selling. We talked about how to handle a situation with an unhappy customer. Collectively we decided about our dress code. And together, we found solutions to most of the challenges we had. Financial understanding and staff education; you cannot do well without both of them. Article of the Month - There is a season When invited to teach about inventory control for a small business, I say that the concept has been around for thousands of years. Take a look at the Old Testament and the book of Ecclesiastes. Chapter 3 tells that everything has a season; "A time to keep and a time to throw away" is just one of the couplets that could loosely be interpreted as a commentary on inventory control. The important point is that doing this is easy. We have several free tools on the Profits Plus website to help. You do not need to purchase any software, and you do not need to be hiring someone offering a monthly service of tracking your inventory and consulting you as you place orders. And if you have any questions, do not hesitate to write or call. Book of the month - The everything store Perhaps you will disagree with the suggestion of this book when I tell you the authors are Brad Stone and Jeff Bezos. However, I was taught many years ago that you cannot beat your competition unless you know what they are doing. My experience has shown that expression to be true. The full title of the book is, "The Everything Store; Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon". We hope you enjoy the book. Internet Tool for Your Business - Debt to net worth The February Internet Tool for Your Business is a measurement that you might not be paying attention to. But if you have borrowed money, or are planning to borrow money for your business, the lender is likely going to take a close look at this. The name of the tool gives an idea of what it is dealing with. How much debt does your business have? How much equity do you have in the business? A lender is going to look at the two as they consider lending you money. Within the comparison of debt and net worth, the lender wants to know that you have a lot of equity in the business. If you do, you are less likely to give up on the business should you have tough times. Each month we highlight one of the 47 free tools on the Profits Plus website; we call them "calculators". While some provide analysis by numbers and ratios, some are assessments and others are self-examination questions. Many are downloadable while others, because of the complexity of the calculations going on behind the scene, are a part of the website and allow you to print your answers. None of them require you to give any personal information nor are there any "cookies" tracking you or your information. Internet Tool for Your Business Staff Incentive for Your Business - Play ball! While we are seeing social media reminders for youth baseball, this idea is applicable to all organized youth activities. Of course, our small business sponsored a youth baseball team. The parents were our customers and we believed this was one way of expressing our thanks for their business. We hung one of their jerseys, a photo of the team, and a scorecard for their games in our business. We wanted everyone to know we were proud of our team. There is a tradition with many teams that after a game, the coach treats the kids to a visit to the concession stand. That could get expensive for a coach with many games and also in light of the coach having already volunteered so much. With each game, we created a competition among our staff. The winner got off, with pay, to go watch our team play. The person from our business would wear one of the team caps so the team would know who we were. The person attending the game was provided with sufficient money to treat the team to the concession stand. More than our business making a contribution to the community, we had staff who could know they are a part of giving back to our community and customers. 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.
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MARCH 2026
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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.
Small Business
Every time I see the logo for Target stores, I think about small businesses and the need to know which people to target as their customers. Of course, of most importance is the person who has spent any money with your business.
I ask businesses if they know how much the average person spends with their business. Most offer a quick response with a dollar amount. That answer is incorrect as they are telling me what the average existing customer is spending. The average person in any community spends no money with that small business.
Looking for new customers without any plan of how to do so is just spending money. That is why every small business needs to know how to find and use information. Find ideas in the March Small Business Advisory.
Small Business
Employee retention; is it important? Or is it easier to lose an employee and wait for the next applicant to walk in the door? The Small Business News for March shares some statistics of the expense you incur when you make the change instead of working to retain a current employee.
It is baseball season and we use the sport as an explanation of the cost of growing your business. In Boston's Fenway Park, left field has a wall that is know as the green monster.
And that is what growing your business is - a monster! You can't successfully grow your business without a plan and knowing you will have the cash on hand to pay for the growth.
Are you selling something or persuading the customer? With your employees are you repeatedly telling that employee or are you persuading them to excel?
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Ciaidini is our suggested book for March 2026. Most definitely an appropriate read.
All this plus the Internet Tool for Your Business and a staff incentive idea for your business.
