Posted on Oct 25, 2011 in Small Business
The Minority Business Development Agency, also referred to as MBDA, is an agency operating within the United States Department of Commerce that’s primarily responsible for the promotion of growth and competitiveness of the country’s minority-owned businesses.
The MBDA has constituted the Minority Business Enterprise Centers (MBEC) Program wherein it aims to assist minority-owned business establishments by supplying them with electronic and one-on-one business development services for a reasonably nominal fee.
The program is designed and created to provide a vast range of services to its clients, including initial consultations, and identification and resolution of specific business issues that could somehow lead them towards the right direction, which in their case is towards the improvement and growth of their business in the marketplace.
In addition, the Minority Business Enterprise Centers will have to provide clients with advice and counseling in the fields of business assessment, strategic business consultancy, access to capital and markets, preparation of financial packages, business planning, information and management, marketing, assistance, engineering, production, identification of probable business opportunities and construction assistance.
The MBDA has designed the MBEC program to provide clients with management and technical assistance, and at the same time prohibit them from offering the clients with loans and financial aid.
The MBDA will get into cooperative agreements with eligible applicants and will provide funds ranging from $155,000 to $400,375.
Institutions or organizations will be considered qualified for run a Minority Business Enterprise Center if they are of the following:
a) Nonprofit organizations
b) For-profit firms
c) State and Local governments
d) Native American tribes
e) Educational institutions
The Catalog of Federal Assistance has outlined that the beneficiaries of the Minority Business Enterprise Centers include Americans, Native Americans, Aleuts, Asian Indians, Asian Pacific Americans, Eskimos, Hasidic Jews, Puerto Rican, and Spanish-Speaking Americans who owns small businesses.
The Department of Commerce, the primary agency funding the MBEC program, is the country’s principal agency accountable for ensuring the expansion and advancement of the economy and technological advancements through vigilance in international and domestic trade policies.
The MBEC program is very much essential to the Minority Business Development Agency and the Department of Commerce because it enables them to realize their objectives and mission as an agency and an institution.
Posted on Oct 19, 2011 in Small Business
In this economy, you are likely looking for new ways to bring money in the door, and countless sales gurus are knocking on your door telling you how this or that new-fangled technology can make all your business dreams come true. But sometimes, the answers to our greatest challenges are sitting right underneath our noses.
Case in point: the fastest, cheapest, and most effective way to bring in more profit is to focus on current and previous customers. They’ve already proven their interest, and to some extent you’ve already gained their trust.
Therefore, many of the simplest marketing ideas for small business owners like you, who don’t always have a huge budget for high-tech marketing, focus on leveraging this micro-segment of your market base. Let’s pick up some of that money you’re leaving on the table.
1. Stay in Touch
First off, you absolutely, positively need to be staying in touch with your current and past customers on a regular basis. Don’t just shrug this off-yeah, everyone’s saying it, but are you really acting on it to the full extent?
It’s crucial to build different systems for storing client and prospect information and then following up with them. And there are plenty of platforms for doing it these days.
How to get their information?
Simple ask during initial form-filling. Offer discounts or information packets on your website in exchange for email addresses and get them on an automated mailing list. Set placards in your place of business, offering an immediate discount to those who text your system.
Restaurants, especially, can fill up on a slow day by simply sending out a text message with a surprise discount!
Follow-up communication channels range from telephone numbers to email addresses to text messages to mailing addresses to social media, and most of these communication channels can be automated for your convenience (though I strongly advise against automating telephone calls).
Now that you’ve got their info, send them news about your business, industry goings-on that might affect them, alerts about promotions, or reminders about annual checkup dates.
It just depends on your business and your imagination.
2. Make Them V.I.P.
Create some kind of V.I.P. membership for people who frequent your business.
Entrance can be free or paid-depending on the value of your offer-but either way, people like feeling like they belong. You can see this idea used in businesses in almost every industry, and even a small-town sports bar can capitalize on the idea by giving cards to their regulars and offering a special price on certain drinks for members.
Reward people for being regulars, and they will reward you back!
3. Give Them Something for Nothing
Many entrepreneurs despise marketing ideas for small business that encourage giving promotions, discounts, and freebies because they are obsessed with making a profit on every single transaction. Big mistake!
Instead, think of the lifetime value of every single customer.
How much does a customer typically buy over a year’s time? How many years do they keep coming back? And how many of their friends and family members end up coming in to your business as well?
Isn’t it worth breaking even sometimes to recoup the lifetime value of the average client?
Getting a break-even price or event taking a loss can be a great way to get people in the door, buying from your company, and you can make a lot of money on the back end or from future buys after you establish a relationship.
Dirt cheap oil changes. Free tooth whitening kits from dentists. Happy Hour restaurant specials. All marketing ideas for small business owners who want to leverage this powerful principle.
4. Tell Them What They Can Buy
You’d be amazed at how much more money you can get off your current customers and prospects if you just ask for it-too many businesses don’t do enough to educate their clients about what it is they have to offer.
Don’t let people who are there to buy just make their purchase and walk out the door-what if they wanted something more?
Always have a process in place to educate people about what else you have available-other packages, variations, upsells, crossells, and related services are great profit-building and value-adding mechanisms for any business.
5. Plug Your Profit Leaks
How much money do you leave on the table just by letting people slip through the cracks?
Think about all those times the phone rang but no one picked it up fast enough. Or all those times the person who answered the phone was in a bad mood or didn’t know the answer to the question asked.
Posted on Oct 11, 2011 in Small Business
When you are trying to sail towards a destination that is directly upwind, the priority in yacht racing is speed first, then aiming your boat as close to the wind direction as possible. It is better to sail slightly further at higher speed than it is to sail the shorter distance at slower speeds towards your upwind destination. This is especially true in light winds. With the better speed, you’ll cover the longer distance in less time than it will take to cover the shorter distance at slower speeds. The result is getting to your destination sooner.
When operating your business, especially when revenue is tight and other resources are limited, your priority should be cash flow first, then profit. Profit is an accountant’s calculation and what you pay taxes on. Cash flow is the life-blood of your business. You need positive cash flow to keep your business moving forward. Once you have positive cash flow, you can work on improving your profit. Let’s examine both profit and cash flow in more detail:
Profit is the difference between income and expenses. Profit does not account for asset purchases, the repayment of loan principal or increases in working capital demands. And profit is affected by non-cash items such as depreciation. Depreciation is a way to account for the loss in an asset’s value over its economic life. Depreciation expense does not require a current outlay of cash, though it does reduce profit. Profit is a myth-a number on a financial statement-until it is turned into cash. Cash you can use to pay your vendors, your employees and yourself.
Cash flow describes the ebb and flow of cash due to internal operations. Booking a sale and sending an invoice is only part of the process. Your customer has to pay the invoice for the cash to flow in. Your business pays its operating costs for things like inventory, raw materials, subcontracted services, freight, marketing, sales commission, direct and indirect labor costs and taxes with the cash it has received from customers paying their bills or from the cash you have in the bank from loans or investments. You also pay your employees their wages and other benefits with this cash. Cash flow is affected by cash transactions such as investments in brick & mortar facilities, equipment or other fixed assets. Cash flow is also affected by the cash sent to and received from external sources, such as lenders, investors and shareholders, e.g., obtaining a new loan, loan repayment, stock issuance, and dividend payments.
When cash flows out faster than it flows in, your company may run short of cash. In the short term, your business does not have to generate profits as long as it has cash reserves to operate with. Companies that are profitable run into difficulties when they run out of cash due to rapid expansion or slow collections from their customers. With inadequate cash reserves, your company can’t purchase any more of the products or materials it needs to make sales to your customers. Sales decline and cash receipts decline further.
It its simplest, managing cash flow means delaying outlays for as long as possible, and avoiding any unnecessary outlays, while encouraging those customers who owe money to pay as soon as possible. If your company is generating a profit and expansion is done in a controlled fashion, your company’s cash reserves will build up over time.
Careful inventory management is also a vital part of cash flow management. Inventory or raw materials sitting on your shelves is cash sitting on your shelves. Strike a balance between having too little inventory, which can mean missing out on sales due to an out-of-stock position, and having too much inventory. Avoid carrying excess inventory that could become unfashionable or outdated. It may be better to take a loss on some old inventory and generate cash flow than to leave the inventory sitting on your shelves.
Companies go out of business not because of a lack of profit, but because of a lack of cash and other valuable resources. If your company runs out of resources, like cash, personnel, raw materials or inventory, you are out of business. This is why understanding and monitoring your cash flow is so important.
