During an economic slow down most businesses take time out to think about their cash flow and their spending budgets, or so they should.

I know from talking to other businesses that things are tough out there right now, and you only have to look down your own high street to see the all revealing closing down sales and empty shops of businesses, including some large retail chains, to know that things are very difficult.

However, this is not a time to hold back on your advertising though and for one of my businesses we, as a board of directors, have recently decided to up our advertising spend. In this case the business concerned is in the care-sector and we chose to up our marketing budget to 7% of our turnover, so that as turnover begins to increase so will the amount we spend on marketing and advertising and so on.

I know that newspapers and magazines are having a tough time too right now because businesses are not spending the same on advertising as they did 12-18 months ago, when in fact the opposite should be true! At a time when competition is high and customers are being selective about where they spend their money, you need to keep you business in the “Eye” of your customer and even more so when things are tough.

I noticed that when I looked at search terms on this subject there are some top searches not least some looking to see what other businesses spend, for example: “how much does mcdonalds spend on advertising”; “how much money do advertisers spend on advertising”; “how much do companies spend on advertising”; “how much bose spends on advertising”; “how much do business spend on advertising a year”; “how much sears spends on advertising”, were some of the top ones. What I don’t know is whether people are actioning after doing their research. If you were the one looking at how much McDonalds spends and you happen to be in a similar trade, then you should consider spending a similar amount as they do in order to keep up.

It would be easy for you to do some of your own research on what amounts other businesses are spending on advertising or companies within certain sectors, to give you an idea of what you should be spending too. I would suggest that the amount you spend be no less than 5% of turnover and possibly up to around 20%. However, one thing you need to take into consideration is your “gross profit margin” you make.

If in your industry your gross margin is let’s say 20% – there would be no point in spending 20% on advertising, as this would take up your whole gross profit and you might as well close up shop now. However, if your gross profit margin was say 60-70%, which is what the margins are like in the food trade, then you might wish to consider spending up to these levels of advertising, as you have a large amount of gross profit margin to play with.

In the example of the care business sector mentioned above, the gross margin in this particular business is 32%, so 7% of turnover will leave us with a net of 25% gross profit to go towards the other business overheads and profit for the shareholders.

For those that are not quite sure about what “Gross profit margin” is – it is the percentage you make on your sales over an above what it costs you to make those sales. So for example, if you sell televisions and you sell one for let’s say £500 and it cost you £350 to buy the television, then you gross profit in this instance is £150 or 30% (£150 divided by £500).

There seems to be a lot written about 3 ways to increase profit in business, but we consider there to be 7 ways to increase profits or “7 ways to grow your business“.

The 3 known ways to increase profit are:

- Increase the cost to the customer/client or in other words put up your prices.

- Increase the number of customers you cater to (and I like to add to this – of the type you want to deal with).

- Sell more often to customers you already have.

These are just three ways to increase your profits, but if you want to learn the other 4 ways and to get your hands on a great piece of “Profit Increase Software” then click this link.

When world economies are tough and during this credit crunch you need to look at every way to stay ahead of other business competition. It is “Survival of the Fittest” and for the sake of a minimal investment you could be upping your profit by tens of thousands of Pounds or Dollars, with out a huge investment.

There are many of us that go to the gym to give our bodies a work-out, but how many of you give you mind a work-out too?

I would hazard a guess that not many people give their brain a physical work-out; there are those of you that have bought the “Nintendo Brain Tease“, which is said to help our brains and our memory. However, this is not many people that even do this and what I have in mind is to change your thinking to a positive mode of thinking, so here goes my idea for a brain work out:

1. Each day you wake up make sure you “Think in a positive way”. Begin your day with a big smile and take your mind off to a lovely place, a special place you would love to be. This could be a Caribbean Island or by your favourite lake, it does not matter, all that matters is that when you think about this place it makes you feel really good. You must get a warm feeling and even better that when you think about this place it brings a smile to your face. Spend a while (the amount of time is up to you, the longer the better though) thinking about this place and relish in the wonderful thoughts and feelings that this brings to you.
2. If during the day if you get a negative thought; stop what you are doing and “reframe that negative thought into something positive”. Imagine your special place again and “wash-out” that negative though with some positive feelings and energy. Replace the negative though with something positive, so if for example you thought “My business is failing” change this to, how can I make my business successful. The brain likes questions and normally wants to go in search of answers. Keep giving your brain questions in the positive and it will find the answers for you.

3. Spend at least once a day thinking about what it is you want to achieve that day and then spend a few minutes writing this down. As the day goes ahead, cross off the tasks you achieve and “Pat yourself on the back” metaphorically speaking and smile. I defy you to smile (and I mean a proper smile) and think negatively, it’s impossible. This is your “daily positive task list”.
4. At the beginning of each week think about what you would like to achieve over the forth-coming week. Spend a few minutes writing this down and then as the week goes by cross off the tasks. As before, pat yourself on the back for achieving each of your tasks. This is called your “weekly positive tasks list”. Also smile and be happy!
5. At the beginning of each month think positively about what you want to achieve over the next month and over the coming months. This can be to spend more time with your family, make more money (be specific on this one*), book a holiday, start to write that book you have always been meaning to write, call a friend you have not spoken to in a while etc. Take a few minutes to write these tasks down and then as the months progress cross the tasks off your list. Again as before, pat yourself on the back for achieving these long-term goals. This is your “longer-term positive task list”. Don’t forget to smile.
6. If you hear a news program come on the TV that is talking about negativity, switch the channel or turn the TV off.
7. Stop buying the newspaper and stop reading negative news. Buy some good positive thinking books there are loads out there. Or listen to some positive thinking tapes or CDs.
8. Remind yourself about the importance of how “We become what we think about most of the time”, in other words, if you constantly think in the positive and keep your mind in a “positive goal oriented mode” then that is exactly what will happen to you. Your mind and your imagination are much more powerful than you probably even realise and your imaginative subconscious will always win the day over your conscious logical mind! So spend time imagining wonderful things and life will be wonderful!

9. Either print this page and put it up in your bedroom so you can read it each morning as a reminder or visit this page every day until this becomes your routine. You need to be disciplined in this, it is all too easy to read this page and think yes that sounds great and to go away and forget. Put this page into your favourites or even better, add it as your default web page when you open up Windows Explorer or Firefox or what ever web browser you use.

Please try this for a few days, a few weeks or even a few months and come back and comment here to let me know how this is going…I look forward to your comments.

* When you write down a task about “Making more money” don’t just write “I want to make more money” as this is not specific enough for your brain. You need to say things like “This week I will aim to sign up xx new clients to my business” This is a specific task, which in itself does not mention money, but relates ultimately to money in your pocket and is a specific task that is achievable.

Cash flow forecast software the bear essentials.

In preparing a good cash flow forecast for a bank or and investor you need to know what the forecasts should include. I have therefore put together a list of what you should include, as follows:

- The cash flow projection should realistically be for a period of not less than 36 months ahead. And for each of the three years these should be presented on a month-by-month basis.

- The forecasts should distinguish between the business cash flow and the business profit and loss figures. Cash flow of a business relates to the timing money is received by the company and paid out of the company and would include VAT in the UK and Europe and Sales Tax in America. Whereas your profit flows should include your income/expenditure figures net of VAT or Sales Tax and will be shown in the month invoiced/incurred irrespective of the month in which they are either received or paid. For example, if you invoiced your client in October and they took 30 days to pay you, your profit and loss would include the amount in October and your cash flows would include the same amount (inclusive of VAT or Sales Tax) in November.

- A balance sheet should be presented at the end of each period end, so in a 36-month forecast this would mean you would have three balance sheets. This is essential, not only to show to your investors or the bank what your balance sheet will look like, but also this is a good way to prove that your figures work or balance. Producing a balance sheet will make your cash flow forecasts look very professional.

- A good cash flow forecast will demonstrate the businesses breakeven point, which banks especially like to see if they are lending, so that they will be able to see the level at which your sales can drop to before your business reaches its break even point. They will then be able to see how sensitive your business is to falls in sales should your predicted sales forecast not work out.

- You should disclose within the cash flow part of your forecasts the receipts you get from business bank loans, proprietor or shareholder loans and any director loan advances.

- If your business is not a start-up business your forecasts should include an opening balance sheet position.

– Your cash flows should present within the forecasts the timing of payments for VAT or Sales Tax, whether this be on a monthly, quarterly or annual payment basis.

- Your cash flows need to take account of company tax payments within the cash forecast reports.

- Purchases and sales of fixed assets should be included and shown as a separate line on the cash flows where appropriate and any depreciation charge on these fixed assets should be disclosed within the profit and loss section of the reports.

– The reports should include the company name and of course the period to which the report relates.

There is no doubt that the recession is hitting everyone and as a result there are not many businesses that have not been affected so far. This is the time for the “Survival of the Fittest” and if you want to survive the recession you need to take action.

Most businesses are stuck with the idea that the only way to increase profits is to increase prices and some think that the only other way is to increase their customer numbers. Both of these two actions will increase your business profits if they are done in the right way, however, they are by no means the only ways in which to grow your business. In fact I have listed that there are actually 7 Ways to Grow Your Business.

When I have spoken to most business owners they usually say “We can’t possibly increase our prices!” “We will lose our customers!”. So this is out of the question as a way to improve cash flow and business profitability. Also, in the present climate businesses might be finding it difficult to obtain banking finance or business loans to help with cash flow, not only because of the banks reluctance to lend, but also the rates are not that favourable right now, despite the lowest bank base rate the country has ever seen!

Some businesses are put into a ‘Catch-22′ situation whereby they feel they cannot increase their prices for fear of losing their clients and they lack the funds to pay for the advertising necessary to get more customers. In a recession though, it is even more important to continue to advertise your services and products. However, to increase your sales and your profits, advertising is not the only way to do this…more of that later. What all businesses must do and in particular in a recession, is to make sure the advertising they are doing is working.

Is your advertising working?

So what do I mean by this? What you can measure you can manage, so for example, if you take out an advert in your local news paper, you need to train your staff to ask when enquiries come in, where the enquirer got your company details from. If your new advert is not working (as confirmed from the data gathered from your incoming phone calls), this could mean one of two things; either that the advertising medium is the wrong one for your type of business; or that the advert copy needs to be changed. If however, you are not monitoring your telephone calls, how will you know whether your advertising spend is working or not?

Let me take this opportunity to tell you about three of the 7 Ways to Grow Your Business and to introduce you to Profit Increase Software. Profit Increase Software has been designed on the basis that there are seven ways to grow your business – these seven ways do include price increases and increased customers. However, what is worth noting here is that some of the 7 Ways to Grow Your Business do not have to cost the earth to do – three of these seven ways are:

1. Increase the number of customers of the type you want to have – This is quite an obvious statement and it is not rocket science. We all know that the more customers we serve the more money we make, subject to those customers being profitable customers. “Customers of the type you want to have” means that we don’t have to take on all customers, as no business wants to deal with troublesome people or people that cost more in time than in what they spend at your business.

Well let me explain to you that increasing client numbers is not always the only way to increase profitability and in a well thought out change you can actually achieve higher profits in your business with fewer clients.

2. Increase the prices charged on your products – not always a good thing to do and especially not good in the middle of a recession. We see so many companies and mostly retailers having to apply heavy discounts to their products just to stay alive. I am not therefore suggesting at this point that you should necessarily increase your prices, however, it is worth reading my article about how I tripled my prices and made my business more profitable.

3. Increase the number of times customers come back – A must for all businesses is to capitalise on your greatest asset – “Your existing customers!”. If you maintain a customer database you can use this database to your advantage, by writing to your customers on a regular basis to entice them back to buy from you. you can use this client contact to tell them about any special offers or new products or services you have. Most business owners forget about their existing customers and try to attract more and more new ones. Let me tell you it is many times more expensive to market to potential customers than it is to people that have already purchased from you and are already a customer, assuming that their experience with your business was a good one.

There are in fact, four other ways to grow your business and these can be discovered in the manual that accompanies the Profit Increase Software. This software is easy to use and it has been written using Microsoft Excel. You will therefore require Microsoft Excel to run the software, but you only need a very basic knowledge of Excel to work it.

This software has been designed so that you can quite quickly and easily discover what you can do to increase your business profits. As an example, this software was used in a meeting with a client who was adamant that he could not extract any more profits from his business, but after three hours of
pouring over figures, using this software and brain storming ideas – we added £50,000 to his bottom line! Well, the software helped us to target where the extra profit was, which led the client on to think about how to achieve that extra profit. To date this same client is still operating the idea and making the extra profit, so his pay-back is probably in the region of £350,000, as this exercise was done back in 2002!

What is even more impressive about this profit increase is that it cost the business absolutely nothing to implement the change (well it cost them my fees) and did not involve any costly advertising or marketing. The idea was sitting right under the client’s nose, it took using this software to find it and to force the thought process required to realise that there was a very simple and straight forward way to increase profits.

As another example, this system was once used for a bakery which was having cash flow problems and they had gone to the bank for a loan to alleviate the problem. However, before they went to the bank they approached their accountant – who had luckily just purchased this system. The company was asking for help in putting business plans and cash flow forecasts together. However, the accountant spent a few hours with the client pawing over figures from the business and utilising this program. Within a short space of time worked out that they could quite easily remove the cash flow problem without the aid of a bank loan.

When the accountant and their client first played with the figures on the worksheets, they were looking at additional profits of around £80,000. However, when they set to work, the actual profits in the first year were under this amount and somewhere around £50,000. But the company did not need a loan and the cash flow problem was solved and the client was more than happy with his accountant! The bank might not have been happy though!

So if you would like to buy the Profit Increase Software click this link and get to work on surviving the recession - their might well be some extra profits sitting right under your nose too. If however, you would like to purchase some of my time to help you in this process then email me at info@in-business.org. My consulting charges are not cheap, and start at £1,495, plus VAT for the day, but if you look at the results that can be achieved here, these soon pale into insignificance when those extra profits start to role in!

See also – Are there any businesses that are recession-proof?

and: What’s the price of a new customer?

and: Cash flow is king!

There are probably many businesses that are recession-proof, but things might be different in the present down-turn as things might get tougher with falling property prices, rising unemployment and so on.

If you are looking for a business that is recession-proof try typing the term “recession-proof business” in the upper left box and then choose from the hits there. This search will turn up sites giving you their wisdom on top tips to survive a recession along with other blogs and websites telling you which businesses are most likely to survive during a recession.

I will leave it to you to decide on which of these writers know their stuff. However, if you hit on something that looks like the type of business you would like to buy or even set up yourself, then do a bit more research on that type of business.

Good luck – these are challenging times and I guess there are no guarantees, but if you run your business well, continue to advertise and provide great customer service then your business should service and continue to flourish when times come right again.

in-business is proud to present its new business to business forum launch today.

This new business forum is for business owners and for would-be entrepreneurs about to venture into the business world! The forum has the following categories to post, discuss and comment:

 - Business to business forum – for general business discussion. Click here

 - Marketing, selling and PR – For marketing advice and ideas, advertising and business press releases and networking places. Click here

 - Business administration – The legals about business and accounting software advice, tax advice and tax savings ideas. Click here

 - Online businesses – SEO, PPC and online marketing, e-commerce shopping cart and online payment. Click here

 - Start out in business – Buying a business, starting from scratch and business franchises. Click here

 - Selling your business – For business owners looking for advice on selling their business. Click here

 - Forum feedback – We also invite your feedback on the forum and ideas for new forum headers. Click here

Why not be the first to register and first to post – we look forward to seeing you online Click here

New business to business forum Click here