Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Set Budgets & Bottom-Line Goals

Here's a reminder from Making Money Is Not Illegal, Immoral or Fattening:
"Amateurs hope they make money, while professionals set bottom-line goals and they budget. Hope is a wonderful thought, but hope alone is not a strategy for success. If you told me you had a business strategy for you to make more money this year, here's what you would know: You would know how much money you made last year, how much money you want to make this year, and an action plan with specific tactics to make that extra money.
"There is going to be no need for hoping in that at all. That is a plan that is laid out. It is not overly detailed because I'm just like you. You give me a plan with a thousand different tactics, and I'll do nothing. You give me a plan with two, three or four critical action points, I've got a fighting chance to make that happen.
"Do you know why small business retailers do not budget? What we fear, we stay away from. No one ever took the time to train the small business owners on how to budget and no one makes them budget.
"Think about the end of last month in your business, as you were getting ready to go into this month. The week before you went into this month, did you sit down to look at what you wanted to happen? Coming into the new month, did you have a pretty good idea of how much your final gross margin was going to be? How much your expense base is? Did you subtract your expense base from your final gross margin to determine if you were going to make any money for the month?"
For more information, check page 26 of the book.

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