Archive for the ‘break-even’ category

Strategies for Thriving in a Tough Economy

August 8th, 2022

Whether or not you believe we’re heading into a recession, or even if you have come to believe that what we have now is pretty much as good as it’s going to get, there’s no getting around the fact that we’re experiencing poor economic times. An enduring lack of consumer confidence and decreased sales threaten all businesses, but small businesses are particularly vulnerable as they often don’t have the reserves to help them survive difficult times.

Entrepreneurs who are survivors will look at this as an opportunity to improve their business practices so they can not only weather the tough times, but thrive during them. How, then, can you recession-proof your business? Thinking through the following practices and how you can make them your strategies will help ensure your business’s success in a tough economy.

1. Protect your cash flow

To keep your business healthy, cash needs to continue flowing through it. As long as your business exists, you will have expenses. But the harder times get, the harder it can be to keep the cash flowing into your business. Be more diligent in how you are spending money. It’s important to be frugal and aware of your income and expenses. By doing a line item cost for each expense, you will be able to identify areas that need greater attention. Efficient cash flow management is crucial. The sections below are all, for the most part, areas that will have impact on your cash flow, but take special note of the ones regarding evaluating your vendors, reviewing your inventory management, and keeping your personal credit in good shape.

2. Streamline your business practices

This is an opportune time to review your business procedures for effectiveness. Consider areas that can be combined into one. Consider areas that can be structured differently to reduce costs. Think about sharing resources, like administrative or payroll work, with other entrepreneurs to reduce overhead. The goal is to streamline operations so you can still provide a quality product or service, yet realize a greater profit by reducing the expenses to produce it.

3. Evaluate your vendors

If you use vendors for packaging, labeling, distribution, or in other areas of your business, this is a good time to do some price comparisons. There is a lot of competition among vendors to attract new business, so you could realize some serious savings in this area. Since no one wants to lose business during a bad economy, chances are good that your current vendors will meet the competitor’s price. If not, it’s time to move your business to the lowest bidder, just as long as you’re not sacrificing quality.

4. Review your inventory management practices

See what can be done to reduce inventory costs without sacrificing the quality of goods or inconveniencing customers. Are you ordering too many of particular items? Can an item be sourced somewhere else at a better price? Is there a drop-shipping alternative that will work for you, eliminating shipping and warehousing costs?

Just because you’ve always ordered something from a particular supplier or done things in a particular way doesn’t mean you have to keep doing them that way, especially when those other ways may save you money.

5. Focus on your core competencies

A diversification strategy is often recommended for small business success. But too often small business owners simplify the concept of “diversification” to “different”. Just adding other products or services to your offerings is not diversification. It’s potentially just a waste of time and money. Worse, it can damage your core business by taking your time and money away from what you do best. It may even damage your brand and reputation. If you have diversified out into different areas over the years to improve market reach, it might be time to regroup and focus on the core of your business and outsource the rest. Evaluate what is and isn’t working and put more effort into what started you out as a successful entrepreneur in the first place. It’s important to get in touch with your core business and make sure it continues to meet the changing needs of customers. So consider dropping the extras and focus on what you do best and which is most profitable to recession-proof your business.

6. Develop and implement strategies to get your competition’s customers

If your small business is going to prosper in tough times, you need to continue to expand your customer/client base. If you have competitors, then they have customers. So, there are already people out there buying what you sell, just not from you. What will it take to attract those customers? You’ll need to offer something more or something different. Research your competition and see what you can offer to entice their customers into becoming your customers. It’s not only lower prices or a better price/quality trade-off that gets the business. Providing better customer service is often identified as one of the easiest ways to outdistance the competition. But you need to do the research in your own market to find out what it takes to be the customer’s first choice.

7. Make the most of the customers/clients you have

They say that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. The bird in the hand is the customer or client you already have. These customers are an opportunity to make more sales without incurring the costs of finding a new customer.

Even better, he or she might be a loyal customer, giving you many more sales opportunities. If you want to recession-proof your business, you can’t afford to ignore the potential profits to be had from established customers. But remember that your customers are going through tough times too. In order to retain their business, implement measures to express your appreciation. This could be a one-time price reduction, a customer loyalty card, or a referral incentive. Whatever the strategy may be, it should be something of value to the customer and within your marketing budget.

8. Continue to market your business

In lean times, many small businesses make the mistake of cutting their marketing budget to the bone or even eliminating it entirely. But lean times are exactly the times your small business most needs marketing. Consumers are restless and looking to make changes in their buying decisions. You need to help them find your products and services and choose them rather than others by getting your name out there. So don’t stop marketing. In fact, if possible, step up your marketing efforts.

9. Keep your personal credit in good shape

Hard times make it harder to borrow and small business loans are often among the first to disappear. With good personal credit, you’ll stand a much better chance of being able to borrow the money needed to keep your business afloat if you need to. To recession-proof your business, keep tabs on your personal credit rating as well as your business one and do what’s necessary to keep your credit ratings in good shape.

There’s absolutely nothing that will make your small business one hundred percent recession-proof. But implementing the practices above will help ensure your small business survives tough times and might even be able to profit from them.

1 comment »

Posted in accounting, best practices, bookkeeping, break-even, budget, business goals, business plan, cash flow, cost, customer retention, customer service, financial management, Inventory, management, profit, QuickBooks, small business, strategic planning

Tags:

Business Profit & Loss

June 26th, 2015

Profit & Loss Dice

As a business owner you must continually focus on managing profit and loss to not only stay in business, but to grow and thrive. Profit is the money left over after paying all the expenses. A loss results from expenses exceeding the amount of sales a company makes in a specific period. Companies must manage their profit and loss statements, also known as income statements, to keep earnings positive, and expenses under control and in line with revenue.

Financial Assessment

Managing profit and loss begins with an assessment of your company’s current financial situation. Review the current profit and loss statement and compare it to the company’s last two or three years of historical data. An accountant can use this information to establish a set of performance benchmarks for the company’s average revenue and expense levels.

Analytical Tools

Have an accountant prepare analytical tools such as an income statement spreadsheet that shows every expense as a percentage of sales. This will allowing you to isolate costs that could contribute to decreasing profits. Perform this analysis for, ideally, three years of historical data. Expenses as a percent of revenue are compared for each year to reveal trends that show expenses raising or falling as a percent of sales over time. Some costs, such as the cost of goods sold, will rise with sales increases because they represent the raw materials and labor used to make the products you sell. Rent, administrative costs and some utility bills should remain the constant, regardless of increases in sales.

Explaining Expense Growth

Your accountant should perform additional analysis to investigate and explain the growth of expenses over time. This can reveal valuable information about the use of resources and their cost oversight. External factors such as the economy and rising prices also can contribute to cost increases. You need to find out which of these factors is involved in order to determine which might be controllable.

Sales Review

Next the accountant should review the company’s sales. Depending on various events and conditions, even when internal expenses have been well-managed and cut as low as possible, the company will still suffer a loss if its sales drop below its expenses in any given period. In this case, the company must make important decisions about how and why sales are generated, but may also need to consider discontinuing certain unprofitable product or service lines, selling off assets to free up capital and discontinuing investments in any projects that do not generate revenue.

 

2 comments »

Posted in accounting, anaysis, bookkeeping, break-even, cost, Income Statement, P&L Statement, Profit and Loss Statement

Tags:

Making Any Money? Can You Tell?

March 11th, 2013

Profit means making more money than you spend. Many confuse profit with income. As a result, they don’t understand why all their income isn’t getting them ahead; why no one wants to invest in their high-sales company; why the bank won’t extend their line of credit.

Let’s look at the most basic way to tell if your business is actually profitable, making money, not just recording sales.

Most small business people are very good at tracking their income. Each widget sale is recorded in a spreadsheet, and each payment from a customer or client is recorded in the checkbook. Each is totaled frequently.

Actually, that’s not what you made. That’s income, not profit. It’s what’s coming in. In order to determine profit you have to subtract what is going out from what is coming in.

(PROFIT = INCOME – COSTS)

Calculating Costs
Your business has two basic types of costs; fixed and variable. Fixed costs are costs that don’t change based on your level of business activity, such as rent. Whether you produce 100 widgets per day or 150, your rent will stay the same. Variable costs are directly tied to how many units of goods you produce. If you need $10 of screws to produce 100 widgets, you will need $15 worth of screws to produce 150 widgets. The cost of screws is a variable cost.

Fixed Costs
For the most part, fixed costs can be closely estimated at the beginning of the year and accurately projected for the next 12 months. For example, you know the rent on your facility is $5,000 per month. You may know of, or expect, a rent increase in April to $5,500 per month. As a result, your fixed cost for rent will be $64,500 for the year (3 months at $5,000 plus 9 months at $5,500).

Fixed costs include things like rent, depreciation, licenses, equipment lease payments, some taxes, and indirect labor.

Variable Costs
Variable costs are those that depend on your production level. As the production volume goes up, the variable costs go up as well. If I make lamps, I have to purchase one lamp pole, two light bulb fixtures, a lamp shade and five feet of wire per lamp. If a lamp pole cost $3 and I need enough to make six lamps, my lamp pole costs will be $18. However, if I need to make 20 lamps, my lamp pole costs will be $60. I can estimate variable costs at the beginning of the year, but my estimate will not be as predictable as was my estimate of fixed costs.

Variable costs include such expenses as cost of materials used in manufacturing, certain utilities, some taxes and fees, and direct labor.

Telling the Difference Between Fixed or Variable Cost
Some costs the business incurs, such as labor will have to be split between fixed costs and variable costs. The wages you pay production labor, called direct labor, is a variable cost. It is tied to how many units you produce. Other labor costs, such as the salary you pay your administrative assistant, are fixed costs. These indirect labor costs are not tied directly to production levels. If your production increases from 100 widgets per month to 150 widgets per month it is unlikely you would hire an additional administrative assistant.

Utilities are another cost that is split between fixed and variable costs. Your phone bill, for instance, probably won’t change much as production increases or decreases. However, the demand for electrical power, and the cost of it, will increase as production lines run longer and lights stay on further into the night because of increased production.

Income
When someone pays you that is income. Income is usually related to production levels, but is not tied to it directly.

You may produce more or less than you sell. For instance, if you have 100 widgets in the warehouse when you receive an order for 150, you only have to produce 50 additional widgets. If you make widgets for skis, you may make 20 widgets every month during the summer even though you don’t sell any, just so you have enough in the warehouse when winter arrives.

So income is when you actually get paid, not when you make the product you are going to sell. Total income is just the total of all your payments received during the year.

Break-Even Analysis
The break-even point is the production level where your income for a certain number of units produced equals your fixed costs plus the variable costs for that number of units. For instance, you have fixed costs of $500, variable costs of $20 per widget, and you sell the widgets for $25 each, so your break-even point is 100 widgets.

If you reduce your fixed costs to $400, your break-even point is 80 units. Or if you cut the cost per unit from $20 to $15, your break-even point drops to only 50 widgets.

 

Profit
Any sales beyond the break-even point are profit. In the final example above (fixed cost $500, variable cost $15 each, income $25 each) your break-even point is 50 units. If you produce 50 units and sell 50 units you will break even. Your costs will equal your income. You will have a profit of $0. If you sell less than 50, you will have a loss. If you sell more than 50 you will have a profit.

For example, if you sell 70 units your fixed costs are $500 and your variable costs are $1050 ($15 x 70), so your total costs are $1,550. Your income is $1,750 ($25 x 70) and your profit is $200 ($1,750 – $1,550).

Bottom Line
To make a profit, you must be able to sell each unit for more than it cost to make it and you must be able to sell it for a price high enough to cover both the variable cost of making it and its share of the fixed costs.

This is true whether you are selling widgets, boxcars of apples, dance lessons, or hours of financial consulting.

No comments »

Posted in , best practices, break-even, cost, cost of good sold, entrepreneur, profit, small business

Tags: