Google Sites login demo

We have begun using Google Sites more extensively to collaborate with clients. Often clients have difficulty understanding the initial login process. This five minute screen cast walks the user through receipt of the invitation email, setup of a new Google account or use of an existing Google account to access sites within the axiomcpa.com domain.

Company Histories at Funding Universe

I stumbled across an invaluable resource that entrepreneurial and business geeks will fall in love with. The web site Funding Universe has an incredible list of company histories that are well researched, concise and packed with details such as dates and names as well as financial and operational statistics.

The histories include both public and private companies. Each entry is followed by a "Further Reading" section that includes bibliographical information useful for anyone wanting to do further research. I could easily spend hours on this site. Here are some interesting things I learned during the past 30 minutes.

The employee leasing industry was started in large part by four guys sitting in a Bradenton, Florida garage brainstorming how they could help small businesses cope with taxes and paperwork. The founders of Staff Leasing, later to be renamed Gevity HR, grew the company from $0 to $26 million in four years by methodically calling on businesses street-by-street. In the morning they would call on all the businesses on one side of the street. After a short lunch break they would spend the afternoon calling on all of the businesses on the other side.

Tropicana founder Anthony Rossi was a cab driver, machinist, chauffeur, grocery store owner and failed restaurant chain operator before he entered the fruit business. Further, his decision to sell orange juice wasn't so much a brilliant business idea as it was a way to use the smaller, less attractive oranges he couldn't sell in fruit gift boxes. The innovation didn't stop there. Once orange juice became the big seller Rossi built a cardboard box plant to insource packaging and built a glass factory to make his own bottles. When he couldn't expand his trucking fleet he bought a ship to send 1.6 million gallons of orange juice to New York every week. During a devastating freeze in the U.S. that killed much of the orange crop he put packing equipment on a ship and anchored it off the coast of Mexico to take advantage of cheap produce prices and insure his supply of fresh oranges.

Just be careful. You may find yourself spending a lot more time than you expected at Funding Universe.

Move Update

Over the past two weeks we have been moving to our new office location. It has been an education and in spite of the planning and preparation I am still overwhelmed at the level of disruption a physical move has on a business. Our new space is larger, more convenient and overall we love it. However, productivity has taken a hit and I am still behind on email and client correspondence.

On the lighter side here are ten things I learned during our move.

1. Rolling too many office chairs up the truck ramp can be hazardous to your health.
2. The guy who invented furniture dollies is a GENIUS.
3. An elevator looks smaller when filled with a desk, two chairs, a filing cabinet and every trash can in the office.
4. Free shipping supplies from Fedex = free packing supplies.
5. Buy more boxes, just more...don't ask me how many.
6. You can spend a lot of money getting a bathroom ready for its first client visit.
7. If you label nothing else label the box that has the coffee in it.
8. Don't expect the post office to understand how important they are to your business.
9. Your car may stubbornly continue driving to the old location for a few days.
10. The people you work with will make or break a move. Keep them fed and happy.

If you are in the area stop by. We'd love to see you and this time there's no parking validation required!

Communicate and collaborate

This post is the fourth in a series of four that started with The ride's not over (so get busy). We've talked about embracing the current business climate as an opportunity to build a stronger business. We've talked about the need to develop new products and services. Last time we addressed costs and making them sustainable so that your business is profitable EVEN THOUGH revenues may be down. Today I will talk about the missing ingredient that keeps small businesses from becoming medium sized businesses and medium size business from becoming larger companies. You must communicate and collaborate.

When times were good companies could afford to be stingy with information. Sales were good and profit margins thick. Ample cash allowed companies to ignore blind spots and leave problems unsolved. Today those blind spots create cash flow emergencies. Those problems are keeping you from breaking even. Now is the time to ask for help and get more heads around the table than just your own. What do you have to lose? Nothing. What do you have to gain? Potentially everything.

There are three areas I think you should seek communication and collaboration. 

1. Employees. Study Open Book Management and start to implement it in your business.  OBM is a simple, straightforward, common sense way to manage your company. It says that the best companies are those where employees pay attention to the financial statements, understand how they are created and how their particular job function affects those financial statements. Small businesses have a unique opportunity here. It is much easier to communicate and collaborate with 5, 50 or 100 employees than it is with 500 or 5,000.
2. Customers. Eighty percent of your revenues come from 20% of your customers. You should be talking to those 20%, asking them what they think about your business, where it is going, how competent your staff is, why they choose to do business with you. You should also get your customers to talk to each other. Getting your best customers in the same room is powerful. We've done it a few times but we need to do it more often. I'm always surprised at the unexpected but productive outcome.
3. Advisors. Ask your banker, your lawyer, your CPA and your financial planner to donate an hour of their time to listen to your story and offer help. If they won't do it fire them. This happens all the time with our clients and the results are amazing. There is always more than one option; there is always a connection you don't have and an introduction you need; and yes there are always opportunities for those donating time to get something back besides money. Think outside the box.

There is a lot you can do to build a much stronger company than the one you had three years ago. Start by addressing your products and services. Are they relevant? Is there an untapped market among your existing customer base? Are there products that can lure new customers to your business and build them into ideal customers? Next, make sure your spending is in line with revenues. Can you break even given your current level of spending and current level of income? Finally, leverage the power of numbers by getting more heads around the table than just yours.

Make costs sustainable

I'm a day late with this post. There was just too much going on last week, but here we are. This post is the third in a series of four that started with The ride's not over (so get busy). Things are not going to get better all by themselves. You need to accept that and embrace this time as an opportunity to build a stronger business. That involves developing new products and services to address changes in your market and customer base. It also means making costs sustainable.

You need to make sure that your overhead can be covered at current revenue levels. If you can't turn a profit in this market, after a year and a half of dealing with the recession, you really need to make big changes. You can make those changes now and have a profitable year or you can struggle to make ends meet hoping a recovery will save you. It won't. 

When cutting costs the first thing you must do is separate your cost of goods sold from your overhead. Without this distinction you can easily shoot yourself in the foot, and you'll never be able to calculate your break even point. That's a topic for another day, but for now just know that you need to be able to classify your costs into these two categories.

Cost of goods sold are the costs related to delivering your product or service. In a manufacturing company these costs are raw materials and labor required to produce finished goods. In a retail environment these are the costs to buy product as well as the costs of packaging and in some cases sales floor labor. The thing to remember about costs of goods sold is that they increase as your sales increase. Rent does not go up if sales go up so it's not cost of goods sold.

Everything that is not cost of goods sold is overhead. Rent, utilities, insurance, manager payroll, phones...the list goes on but you get the idea.

Now take a hard look at each overhead item and ask yourself these three questions.

1. How would business change if I cut back or eliminated this item for the next 3-6 months?
2. What actions could I take to make sure those changes actually benefit my business?
3. What is the earliest date and time I can make these changes?

Note that you can make changes to EVERY overhead item. The hard part is determining how those changes can actually benefit your customers and your business as a whole. Here's an example.

A retail store is spending $4,690 a month in rent. The only way to reduce this cost is to find someone to help share the space but the space is not easily divided. They call one of their best speciality suppliers and make the following offer. Pay $500 a month for an exclusive spot in the jewelry section where the supplier can setup their own display, staff it with a sales rep when desired and split the retail profits 50/50 with the store owner. The supplier will also be responsible for maintaining their own inventory.

In this case the retail store is able to lower rent by over 10%, increase sales staff at no cost, recognize a one time cash increase of about $1,500 as inventory that sells does not have to be restocked, and they strengthen ties with one of their best suppliers. The vendor gets exclusive access to the store's customers, is able to introduce new product in a controlled environment, does not have to deal with expensive returns of unsold inventory, realizes higher profit margins on sold product and strengthens ties with one of their best customers.

Making costs sustainable isn't just about cutting. It's about making strategic choices that lower costs AND benefit the business. Too many companies get caught up in an either/or mentality when they can actually find a both/and solution with a little help.