Sales Forecasts

In every business, sales forecasting is as important as market strategy planning. Through this, you can project your sales revenue and analyze them along with market trends and assessments. However, having no available data is as hard as seeking investors. But wait, you can still do certain things to make it work. Validating sales forecast will affect every feature of your institution so you better consider doing some of the things below for validation of your sales target.

Counting actual sales be it a single customer involved with just a small amount will be helpful enough. Every piece of your sales is important because eventually, this will turn into a profitable investment with your stockholders combined. Don’t underestimate a minor contribution. Successful businesses always start with the hard time looking for money and investors.

Potential big-time investors could count as a worthy validation of your sales forecast. Early investments will help you to gradually climb up the market trends.

Demographic marketing profiles shows actuality of your sales. Consider totalling your potential customers and their possible amount of investments. You have to get the upper marketing variables.

Breakdown your forecast into different parts of the market composition. Don’t go with a block of general information. This will just confuse you and won’t help you validate your forecast, at all. For example, if you are forecasting your cafeteria business, break it down to your foodstuffs, drinks, ingredients added, employers, number of visitors, peak hours for the customers, number of customers daily, weekly and other demographics to help you create a positive validation.

Remember market limitations in dealing with your customers. Don’t go beyond the limits of forecasting your sales revenue. Your deals will get compromised if you do so.

Pattern you forecasts to previous business data and situations that exhibit the same market trends. You may have it similar with existing sales strategies on products or services that you are offering. But make sure that you’ll form it along with the successful strategies that your company has made before.

Don’t act like there are no competitors because it won’t be believable. Other business institutions aren’t just your competitors. You may be the sole business on your place or field of market but take note of your resources and investors. You should be kept updated on different market approaches. What you got used to ten years ago might not be very effective or practical this time.

Don’t merely expect your future from the past because as mentioned earlier, you should have updates. You may use your history of data as a basis to have wild guesses and intellectual approach on your sales. You must exhaust your analytical thinking and gather as much data as you can. But on top of this, you have to be accurate and realistic.

Regularly evaluate your forecasts with no fail. It’s because a missing one step of the business process might hinder you towards the success of validating your forecasts. Your assumptions must be well taken and keep track of the certain changes that occurred through time.

Dealing With Big Business

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Are you planning to sell in big businesses? But then something is hindering you because you are not sure of what to do? Don’t worry here are tips to guide you in venturing to this big corporations.

As an entrepreneur you should be aware of the products that are needed by the big businesses because there are many competitions in this kind of area.
Know how to introduce yourself to the company and prove to them that you are better than the others.
You must also have a good background in your financial account because this is business and both of you are taking risk. You must remember that you should earn your credibility so that they can trust you in this business.
Make sure that you have the capacity to provide the volume or number of products that they order. Remember that you are doing business with them.
When you already get their orders, make sure to follow up your buyers. In this way they can see that you are serious with what you are doing.
Provide also a business card so that they can have your contact number in case that they want to order. Put the basic information in your business card like your name, contact details and email address, name of the company as well as the location. You can also put some offers at the back of the business card to advertise your products.
You must also provide a company email for you to monitor the progress in your business. In this case it will not interfere with your personal email address.

These are just some of the tips that you can use when dealing with big businesses. Remember that it is a tough competition so you need to do the best thing you can to be able to survive in this competition.

Buying A Business – 6 Big Mistakes

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Purchasing a pre-existing business can be pretty risky. If you are considering the possibility of buying a business, there’s a possibility that you might commit one of the most common mistakes people make. But do not worry, you can take necessary measures to prevent encountering problems.

Purchasing a business can be your ticket to financial success or it can be your biggest investment downfall. What most do not know is that, the odds of it being a failure or success are actually determined by whether you have researched a lot about your prospect business purchase or you just jumped out unprepared.

Listed below are the common mistakes committed when purchasing a business:

Not enough research made. Most businesses on sale try to look as promising as they can be. It’s the same case when you buy a house from realtors. They stage the home they want to put on the market so that it will look very appealing to the potential buyers. You need to do further research and investigate if what they claim is true. Never take it based on face value, since most business owners will try their best to make that business look great.
Culture is not a problem. When you buy a family owned business and turn it into a corporation, chances are it may not be able to work. You need to take your company culture much into consideration and evaluate if it will still be the same once your team runs it.
Fast merger pace. In most cases, slow and steady change during a merger provides better results than a fast one. When the merging is too fast, many problems arise and could spell trouble for the business. Taking over another business is a critical and an important decision, it definitely does not need to be rushed. A slow and steady yet smooth transition will yield better results as in most business merger cases.
Frontrunners need not actively participate. When acquiring another business, it is imperative that the leader of the acquiring company needs to have his presence felt. Even after the deal is finished. It is still the leader’s responsibility to participate and perform his leadership duties.
Know the community behind. Acquiring a business needs more knowledge and familiarity of the organizational chart, you also need to know the social chart. For example, Mrs. Fields, the clerk, who passes in home-made delicacies and is well appreciated by the employees, can essentially be more significant than the VP. The new acquirer needs to recognize this.
No proper negotiations. Not all people have negotiation skills. Bear in mind that if someone sells their business, you have the advantage. You need to be aware of this and use it to negotiate terms that benefits you more. If you do not have this skill, hire someone who will do the negotiations for you. Sparing you from bad business situations over time.

Writing For Your Website

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Trying to verbalise your thoughts can sometimes be considered as a hard task. Writing it into a narrative or some composition might even be harder. Some people love it and make a living out of it; while some might dread it. There are a lot of considerations for writing, but the most important guideline out there is that you should not forget who you are writing for.

Your intended audience will largely shape how you should start and end your composition. There are already a lot of publications and websites about the guidelines in writing. However, this time, put yourself in the shoes of your receiving end – your readers. Reading from a published book, magazine, or newspaper is already hard. Not everyone has the time nor the interest in reading your composition. But with the advent of the Internet, more and more people are taking their reading experiences online; and this makes it harder for writers. Reading a printed material is very different from reading from a computer screen, much more, a mobile phone.

For those who are starting to write for the web, or who are about to, here are some guidelines regarding online readers.

Physiology of the human eye

The normal reading distance for the human eye is about 35cm. Studies have shown that reading and retention rates decrease as line length start to go beyond an average field of view of 3.67cm (six degrees of an arc).

On the other hand, the recommended OHS viewing distance for computer users is 40 to 70cm. This is equal to five mid-sized words.

However, when reading the brain unconsciously increases this length. The optimal size of a column of text has been found to be about 12 words in a line, about 60 characters per line.

Abrupt reading of texts

According to researches, readers only read about 20% of the text of an average page. Similar studies also show that readers read their email newsletters more abruptly than they do in websites.

It is quite a fact that readers do not read everything word. They just scan and pick out separate words and sentences.

F-shaped patterns

Most reading patterns of websites look like the letter “F”.

Readers usually read from top to bottom with decreasing horizontal views. The vertical movement readers make by scanning the contents of the left portion of the website serves as the stem of the letter F.

Other techniques

Use these facts to your advantage. Readers are easily lost when their eyes must pass through a long distance in a page, therefore making it hard to look for the beginning of the next line.

Use a lot of techniques to keep their interests. Highlighting keywords, changing formats, using meaningful subheadings, employing the inverted pyramid style, and using bullets and lists are some guidelines.

Get straight to the point and use only a single idea in every paragraph. Decrease the length by using short and simple words. Add credibility by doing research and including links to other sites. Avoid flashing and multi-coloured texts.

Business Mentors Wanted

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Looking for an apt business mentor is like entering a relationship; you look for certain qualities that lead to a successful partnership. In this case, you have to find someone who can understand your ideals, cater to your needs, and would want the best for you.

Step One: Identify your needs

First and foremost, you should identify the kind of mentoring your business requires. A business has several aspects, each one different from the last, so you should examine them separately.

You may come across several problems in areas such as public relations and marketing or perhaps you want to seek for leadership mentoring that can help expand your enterprise. Also, you might be pondering on selling your business.

Mentors for the said aspects (and a lot more) are widely accessible. Recognizing your own capabilities will help you further in finding the right business mentor. List the things you can and cannot do and specify if you are good or extremely good at doing them.

Furthermore, examine your business and take note of proposed ventures that may need a little boost in order to be launched. Concerns regarding operations (that are yet to be improved) should be listed down so you can discuss them with your business mentor in the future.

After acknowledging such difficulties in your business, it’s now time for you to choose the appropriate business mentor for the job.

Step Two: Find the Best Candidates

The question is where? An instinctive thing to do is to scope your own network. You may already be acquainted to somebody who can serve as an effective business mentor to you and your company. Or maybe, a friend of yours can refer a suitable colleague. By asking people from your own network, you’re already broadcasting to the world that “Hey! I’m looking for a business mentor.”

If this endeavor proves to be unsuccessful, you can also consult agencies that can provide business mentors. They can give you a list wherein you can choose a mentor possessing qualifications suited for the job in hand. You can also try to searching for business mentors via the Internet. This can provide you with a wide range of viable candidates to choose from.

Step Three: Choose the RIGHT business mentor

Finally, it’s now time for you to choose your business mentor. But before making the big decision, be sure the one you would choose owns the level of expertise you are looking for, holds experiences applicable to your company, and knows referees that you can talk to. Also, make sure to consider if you can work alongside the person.

Work between you and your future business mentor will entail intimate working relations and trust so you should feel easy and comfortable around that person. It doesn’t matter if you’ve found the perfect business mentor (CV wise) but if there’s tension going on between the of two you, perhaps it would be wise for you to think twice if that mentor is really the right one for you.

A vital yet critical factor in the expansion of a business is selecting the appropriate business mentor. Recognise your deficiencies, learn as much as possible about the problems, be open minded and accommodate ideas that can be useful in the future.

Tax Tips for SMBs

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While hiring a financial expert can make filing your taxes convenient, there are still other tips that can put to practice to make your business smoothly glide when the tax deadline comes near. These tips will provide you with ways on how you can lessen the trouble that you usually encounter when you file your taxes. Even if you choose not to do it yourself, you will still have to do certain things for to accomplish the task. And keep in mind that in the end, you will be responsible for your business.

Employing a Strategy

One of the bigger steps that a business takes towards organizing the finances is to start bookkeeping. Bookkeeping is a simple task for people who have a background. It does not require specialized skills but you must be familiar with the terms. Accuracy is the most important feature of accounting since the details in the books will be the bases for the health of the business. Make sure that the bookkeeper is honest and objective. Accounting for small businesses is usually performed by the owner but as a firm expands, it becomes more effective to hire someone else. When this time comes, listen to what your accountant has to say. He or she knows more when it comes to your finances so make sure that you hear him or her out especially when making business decisions.

Getting used to it

Tax payments are perennial payments. Learning to accept that and getting used to it is a giant leap towards easy management. It will also save you resources when you realize that it is a normal part of your business and that you have to incorporate it in all aspects of the business the whole year round and not just when the deadline comes near. Here are other advantages when you distribute your tax-related tasks to your everyday activities:

You will have enough time to finish the documents.
You get to set aside cash for the payments. This will make the expense easier since you do not have to shell out in bulk.
You will also make the most of you accountant’s skills.

Make the Most of Technology

If you are ever caught in a pile receipts, then you must make use of this impressive soft wares. Not only will you have less clutter but you can fill out your Business Activity Statement (BAS) and Annual Tax Assessment easily. If you have an Apple iPhone, you can use Genius Scan+ for easier documentation. You can take a photo of the receipts and have them kept in online storage sites that you can access anytime. There are also similar applications for other phones. These soft wares will spare you the time of looking for old receipts and give you an easy time as the deadline draws near. And since you are required to keep the receipts for seven years, you will be able to save space and ensure that the ink has not been erased by water and other materials.

Business Support Networks

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It has been said that no man is an island. Just the same, no business is an island. Although you think you can handle it all, you have to accept the fact there will always come a time that you will need some sort of support. Specialists from different areas will definitely come in handy since they have the knowledge and skills that you may lack.

Knowing the strengths of your business is one thing; knowing your weaknesses is another. The type of your enterprise, your industry, and your specific condition will dictate the right combination of support services you may need. Here are some types of services that you may find helpful for your business to be fully successful.

Looking for the experts

In the ancient times, there has been a notion that every citizen should fully develop each and every aspect of their lives. Children have to learn everything there is that can be learned. However, throughout history, people have learned that this system is quite impractical. From the agricultural to the industrial age, people have learned the art of specialization. Over the years, this has been proven as an efficient system as it saves time, resources, and energy.

With specialization, it is undeniable that there are numerous kinds of work that you cannot simply give solutions all by yourself. Usually, businesses seek help from professionals like book keepers, lawyers, accountants, web designers, public relations officers, business coaches, and advertisers. Finding a good professional services provider is not quite an easy task. However, for starters, you could ask other businesses and employees. A good recommendation from trusted colleagues shall also be a great help for you.

Consulting with peers

Almost always, the problems you are dealing right now have been already encountered by other businesses out there. Seeking support from peers will definitely help you in dealing with your problems. Use the different channels you can access to increase your network of peers. Usually, this type of help is readily available during certain events for your industry, local business support groups, and professional online networks. This will expand your horizon to things beyond your business.

However, do not forget that peer support is a two-way relationship. Help your peers as much as how they have helped you.

Seeking from other support services

The support services that you may want to avail will largely depend on your situation. Other services available in the market are financial services (from banks), trainings and workshops, federal, state and local government services.

Building the right support network

Do not forget that asking for these support services would mean engaging in numerous business relationships. Since getting support is one way to save time, be careful in choosing the right support providers as you would not want to have unnecessary conflicts with them. If you are having a hard time dealing and working with them or if you are having doubts, do not hesitate to have a change of heart, no matter how good people say these providers are.

Deductions Maximisation

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You may not be aware of it but some of the payments you make can actually reduce your taxable income. And these acts are purely legal. You need not skip certain earnings that can actually bring you to jail. Take your cue from these actual cases when you would never think these people can actually get more for what they did.

Mark Morris, a senior tax counsel in Australia talks of a police officer who can claim the payments he makes to informants through his tax payments. With adequate documentation and authorization from his service, he can actually get his money back. It works like any expense made by an employee that the business must reimburse. Especially since the police officer works for the state, it is also the state that will pay him back through the cut in his taxable income.

Another interesting way that you can actually cut on your taxable income is through the clothes you wear to work. It may seem kind of odd but if a change in wardrobe is required for you to perform your job, then you can you can actually save some money come tax payment time. Flight attendants are awarded allowable cuts when they have to buy shoes or clothes in place of the ones that they have but would affect their jobs. Electricians who work outdoors can seek cuts for the payments made in buying protective gears and clothing.

You may find these instances odd but you will be surprised to find out about the mundane things you do every day that actually allow significant deductions to your taxable incomes .

You can actually avail of laundry deductions when you have to pay more to clean protective clothing and other work-related apparel. This is applicable to employees of chemical companies and similar industries where the clothes they wear are different from the normal clothes a person wears. Since they are made of different materials of have delicate structures, you can be spared of the costs of cleaning them.
Home office costs are allowable deductions for people who work in their homes. At a normal rate of $0.26 per hour, the worker can save the costs he or she incurs for electricity and other costs for the work.
Self-education costs can also be claimed if you are taking up higher studies aimed at your current career alone.
Motor Vehicle costs can also be allowed if your company does not reimburse your vehicle costs like petrol consumption for work-related trips.

In general, allowable cuts work as reimbursements wherein the paybacks are made through the cuts in the taxable income. Allowable deductions are usually awarded to builders, cleaners, healthcare workers, electricians, engineers, hairdressers, lawyers, miners, security guards and travel agents. It you have inquiries and questions on how you can avail of allowable deductions, visit www.ata.gov.au. Just keep in mind that for transactions to be valid and authorised, proper documentation is necessary. You can also seek help and assistance from your financial advisers.

Business Advisors – How To Find Them

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Setting Up Your Pool of Business Advisers

Find people who will make your business decisions more effective. Follow the effective ways of setting up your pool of advisers.

Having finance experts give their ‘say’ on your business decisions can make a difference. So when building your pool of advisers, keep in mind the people who can truly analyse and contribute to the business. It is also important to establish harmonious relationships with your colleagues. While establishing rapport can improve the communication, co-workers must also perform professionally while at work.

Below are some helpful points to consider when choosing the members of your management core.

Ask around. Referrals still serve as the best testimonies when looking for finance analysts and advisers. You can learn from the good choices (or mistakes) of the business owners around you. Ask your friends who have hired accountants, auditors or lawyers. They can give you an idea of who to look for and who to avoid. You can also ask one of your advisers about their colleagues who may be fit for the job. Aside from having a guarantor, you can also be certain that they can work efficiently together.
Research. There are also instances when there are no available finance advisers within your reach. This is the time you can seek the help of professional head hunters and industry websites. You may hire someone that is totally new in your world with their credentials compensating the lack of familiarity. Make the most of modern technology by using social and business sites that can lead you to the perfect candidates.
Communicate. Once you have narrowed the candidates, it is time to make some calls. Set up a formal meeting with the prospective advisers. This initial consultation should be free of charge. The first meeting is the opportunity of both parties (you and your prospective adviser) to plan and to come up with schemes on how the operations will be. These include the schedule of consultations, the frequency of consultations and the work to be performed by either party. This is also the time for the owner to introduce the firm so that the adviser will have a better view of the company.
Ask questions. Aside from planning, both parties must ask questions. Some of the questions that must be addressed this early include fees and commissions (if any). Money is a sensitive topic especially during initial meetings but it must be addressed early on. It is also important to ask the potential advisers of their other affiliations. There may be cases when a conflict of interest may arise so it is best that both parties are aware. Even the fees charged by the advisers should be asked and finalized during this meeting.

Your pool of advisers will greatly help you in making your business decisions. As a result, you must ensure that you will be hiring effective and capable individuals that will contribute to the growth of the company. The future of your company lies in their hands therefore choosing them must be done critically and objectively.

Improving Cash Flow with Payment Options

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The success of a business lies in many factors – one of these is your payment options. Your systems of payment can make or break your transactions with your customer. There are a lot of times where customers would opt not to engage their selves in a business transaction upon discovering a company’s payment option. This is something you should avoid in order to cater to as many customers as possible. And as we all know, more customers means more cash.

There are innumerable points to ponder on in choosing your company’s payment option. Here is a list of some considerations to make sure that you will not only make the right decision, but the best one.

Identify how your system should work depending on your enterprise. First and foremost, consider what you do. Do you provide goods? Or services? Do you provide these to consumers? Do you provide these to sellers in the form of retails? Do you provide these to other businesses? Or do you provide these to a company?
Consider what you need and where you can acquire these needs. To successfully manage the whole system, identify what resources you should have and you should access. Should you need to visit the bank? Where would the nearest bank be? Does your client have access to the bank? Does your customer know how to make transactions in the bank? Should you opt for cheques? Would this make it easier for your customers? Would this make it easier for you?
Take note of the time that you and your customers need in order to fully carry out your transaction. Never forget that time is of the essence. No customer, nor business, is willing to allot a very long time in carrying out transactions. There are some credit card offers that automatically download statements into software accounting packages. This way, your customers can ensure that no matter how they pay, their bank statements and their accounting records are coordinated.
Make use of various technologies. How should your system work? BPAY enables businesses to transact payments through a banking facility of a financial institution. It can be conducted online or through telephone lines. This system, however, is only available to companies who are registered BPAY billers. For years, this system has worked with a number of institutions in order to provide an easier and simpler sign-up process, especially for small enterprises. Small businesses believe that this system adds credibility to their enterprise.
On the other hand, an Electronic Funds Transfer or EFT is a system of direct transferring of funds from one account to another. It can also be carried out through telephone lines or computers. This system allows an instantaneous movement of money among the involved parties. Before implementing your payment option, be sure that you know how it works.
Last, but certainly not the least, aim for credibility and customer satisfaction. The efficiency of your business and the welfare of your customers should always be on the top of the list.