Member Login »

Member Login »

Forgot password?

One Minute Business Checkup

What coloured day are you having? (PART 3)

finish postToday we’re talking about an ORANGE day. Every one has to work on administration in their business. It’s a part that many people don’t enjoy and often leave it up to others.

They don’t really delegate it. They simply give it to someone else and hope that it goes away. More often than not this does not lead to a good result. If you are delegating administration to others then you’ll still need to check that it is done correctly and you should also review the results and reports produced to make sure you know what is actually going on in your business.

My suggestion is that you do this on a particular day of the week. Set aside a day, or half day when you say to yourself ‘I’m having an ORANGE day today.’ This will help you focus on a job many business owners don’t like doing. So what happens when we have no ORANGE days?

A black one is just around the corner because your business will get into a mess administratively and then something major will go wrong because you forgot to do something.

May be the phone or power gets cut off
or you get a letter from the tax department
or you get an eviction notice from your landlord because you forgot to pay the rent.

What coloured day are you having? (PART 2)

finish postToday we’re talking about the SKY BLUE day. Have you heard of the term ‘the sky is the limit’ Well that’s how you’re meant to feel on a sky blue day.

This is the day when you’re working on bringing income into your business. It should be one of the most exciting things that you do. Lead generation, lead conversion and then sales fulfilment.

This should also be a really positive day and the most common way I see of this turning into a black day is when you have to deal with the customer from hell. Now be honest, we all have them and when they dominate our day it will turn black fairly quickly. A SKY BLUE day is about going forward not backward. Working out how to interact with our GOOD customers.

They are the ones who love what we do, are positive about our business and always value us by honouring their commitments with us. A SKY BLUE day is not about reacting to customers and feeling pushed around.

Get on the front foot. Think about your uniqueness. Think about why you are so much better than your competition. Be courageous. It will make you feel a lot better and that’s how you’re supposed to feel on a SKY BLUE day

What coloured day are you having? (PART 1)

finish postColour is such an important part of the way we bring vibrancy to our lives. I remember back to black and white television (which shows you how old I am) and the day when I first saw colour. Everything seemed so much more real and vibrant.

In developing our whole system called The Financial Fence® I have learnt the value of colour and as a result found that many people learn more by the association of colour than numbers and words.

So in this little series of blog posts I’m going to look at the three colours that make up the activity on the fence and associate them to the kind of day you might be having.

So there are three different types of day you may be having as a business owner:

  1. A SKY BLUE day – this is the kind of day when you’re interacting with your customers.
  2. An ORANGE day when you’re working on administration , process and efficiency.
  3. A GREEN day when you’re working ON your business rather than IN your business.

Many times you may be having a day when all the colours are merged together and you feel in a bit of a mess. That is probably a black day for you.

If you’re having one of those days then the best thing to do is take a deep breath. Count to ten. Put two of the three colours away for the day and focus on only one of them.

You’ll find this will really help you and , you know, there’s always another day to bring out the other colours and get the value from them.

Finishing Well ( Part 3 )

finish postFor those of you that follow this blog you will know that we have a particular way of talking about the balance sheet.

We talk about Capital funded by Debt and Equity.

Also, Capital is represented by the colour green because we say that this is the garden where you grow things.

So in our endurance riding example for these three posts we have been looking at finishing well.

That means making sure the horse can continue another 40 kilometres and also complete the whole season. It also means in your business that the balance sheet is in great shape to go forward to the next period.

Over my work life I have seen many profit and loss accounts being manipulated to show a great profit for the period but all this does is make the closing balance sheet a little weaker for the future.

So how would this work in practice?

I might want to show a good profit so I bring sales forward for the month but my customers are going to take longer to pay.

This means that in my Closing Balance Sheet there are some items which are not collectible in the correct period and therefore my balance sheet is weaker.

Building the right Capital into my balance sheet is fundamental to how the next period will perform from a CASH point of view.

So why is that?

The next month’s cash in a business is going to come from the Accounts Receivable not the Sales for the next period (Unless your business is completely Cash Sales).

Therefore if I haven’t finished with a correct balance sheet my business may fall over in the next period.

The overall message in finishing well is about closing out each period of your business with a sound closing Balance Sheet and not simply a successful Profit and Loss account for the period.

« Previous1 ... 2526272829303132 ... 36Next » (144 total posts)