Feb 15 2012

Building Your Brand — What Names are Connected With It?

The Editor @ 1:45 pm

You know those signs on the “Ye Olde Inn” facilities, the one that says “George Washington slept here”?  Or “General Patton drank here”.  And so on and so forth.  That marketing tool of name recognition, connecting your brand with the right people, is not just for cloying historic places.  It is relevant for many industries and businesses.

Today I visited Fashion Week, where such is standard modus operandi.  Fashion designers and jewelry companies ensure their pieces are seen on the right model or actress.  They make sure the right celebrities are there in their line of fashion.  It creates that buzz for their brand.

In medicine, it is also true.  There are the “in” doctors, the ones who celebrities use for their sculpting, which catapult their trajectory of popularity with the masses.

As you plan your marketing campaign, don’t overlook connecting your brand with the right people.  Figure out how to work in a few influential people into your marketing mix.

For an in-depth understanding of what creates trends and popularity for a brand, I recommend you pick up a copy of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell.

Are the right people spotted using your products and services?

 

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Category: Cash Flow Maximization,Optimizing Operations,Strategic Planning

Jan 09 2012

Your Business Value

Randy Joy @ 3:00 pm

Money is only valuable if you spend it or rather invest it in something of value.

Here is how I define value:

1. It helps to bring you to your long term vision

2. It is consistent with your business purpose and mission

3. It gives recurring rewards

What is the most valuable investment for your business?

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Category: Cash Flow Maximization

Jun 21 2011

Where the Cash Should Flow

Randy Joy @ 10:00 am

Cash flow frees up entrepreneurs to hire confidently, knowing there will be money to pay the bills.  Investment drives large changes such as marketing placement, new technology platforms and product launches. 

Experienced entrepreneurs know that it is tempting to spend a bucket of cash, à la the late 90’s when cash infused startups spent hefty pennies on designer chairs and fancy computers. 

Don’t tempt yourself.   Use budgeted cash influxes and expenditures from cash flow.   Think water – it can be used to water a garden, or just be the flow in your toilet, gurgling to the sewer.

Be a smart entrepreneur, focused on spending money on what’s crucial to growing the business.  Make your Cash Flow flow where it can grow things.

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Category: Cash Flow Maximization,Strategic Planning

Nov 04 2010

Budget Season

Randy Joy @ 10:00 am

 

As we slide away from autumn into winter, many folks begin spending like mad, stocking up the gifts they’ll be doling out. And then January rolls around, and everyone tightens their budgetary belt, hoping to squeeze the bills they’ve wracked up into manageability.

Yet, budgets should be done before the spending, not afterwards. Yes, hindsight is 20/20, but in budgetary concerns, you have to be eagle-eyed looking toward the future.

So ’tis the season to budget wisely. What changes will be made and what successes will you and your team focus on achieving?  How will you plan for upcoming expenses?

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Category: Cash Flow Maximization,Efficiencies & Cost Saving

Jul 15 2010

Thoughts Before Actions In Hiring

Randy Joy @ 9:15 pm

High growth companies who are overwhelmed by their work loads tend to hire quickly to relieve the pain.  Even if it makes no sense long term.  Think MTA, struggling to avoid a deficit budget, firing on-the-ground workstaff, but then feeling overwhelmed on a management end, and going on a hiring frenzy for management, tipping their budget again in the wrong way. 

Today it is possible to run a $50 million company with 12 employees.   Yes, you read that correctly.  More manpower doesn’t necessary translate into more profits.  Intelligent staffing means effectiveness.  Think quality, not quantity.  Think targeted hiring, instead of  ”all staff on the deck” panicked hiring.

With outsourcing nonessential parts of the business and smartly designing systems and controls, and by sitting down and figuring out exactly what void is still left to be staffed, you can then hire intelligently and effectively.

Hiring now to stop the pain before a plan and vision is in place gives you payroll without first figuring out what role the payroll will play in your long term vision.  
  
Think things through, then, before hiring.  Or for that matter, before plunging into any added expenses or actions.

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Category: Cash Flow Maximization,Clarifying Your Vision,Leadership,Strategic Planning

Jul 06 2010

DeClutter Your Business

Randy Joy @ 1:16 pm

In the ’40′s two brothers, Homer and Langley Collyer, captured the attention of New Yorkers by having died surrounded by 130 tons of clutter, that included 25,000 books, countless bundles of newspapers, car frames and baby carriages, numerous musical instruments along with other unrelated odds and ends.  In fact, Homer and Langley’s  death is attributable to their clutter, and one of the brother’s body was only found after many days of the police digging through and disposing of the clutter.

Homer and Langley Collyer were tragic figures, busy with hoarding, instead of clearing space in their lives for families, careers and success.

In business, you especially need to be careful about creating space, because you want space to bring in customers and employees.  This does not just mean physical space, but emotional and interactive space as well.  You must learn to toss things, whether it be outdated-jammed-staplers or brochures from the first year of your operations or a routine that doesn’t work anymore.  As my mother would say, when in doubt, throw it out.

I make it a habit to organize and purge at least one item a day in my home to continually make space for good things in my life.  I try to donate clothes once a month.  Emotionally such purging and clearing away of space serves a purpose.  It helps you create a home that you love by asking you to reevaluate what needs to stay and what needs to go.     

In my business I am always looking for better ways to organize, systematize and perfect its processes.  When doing this, I must be willing to toss some preconceived notions, some favorite habits that might not be effective, some old software that never really worked but is slowing my systems.

In your business, keep asking yourself, are you cluttering up the business so badly that something might topple from its stored place to bonk you on your head?  Don’t be afraid of tossing things.  Clear out the way for success, something the Collyer brothers should have done.

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Category: Cash Flow Maximization,Clarifying Your Vision,Leadership

Jun 23 2010

The Break

Randy Joy @ 1:36 pm

When you don’t think you could go any further, when you feel you have hit a brick wall, when the bills are mounting and you don’t envision a way to get to cash flow positive – that’s when it hits you like a cold soft-serve ice cream cone on a hot day – I will go further, dig deeper-seek new knowledge and get to cash flow positive no matter what.

And that is when it happens-like the prize fighter taking an almost fatal blow, and then, in the one moment he rises up to find unprecendented strength and knocks down the challenger.

That is the sign of a champion – the ability to get up, no matter what.  A champion is willing to keep going and learning until he gets it right.

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Category: Cash Flow Maximization,Leadership

May 17 2010

Top Sales

Randy Joy @ 3:27 pm

Proving the value of your product and company is through sales.  The goal of “Sales” always has to have an $ at the end.  A sale is not good enough.  You have to keep selling your product, service or idea.  Business development is the work of making strategic partnership agreements to get many sales or distribution channels for your company.  What is your sales growth plan?

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Category: Cash Flow Maximization,Clarifying Your Vision

May 12 2010

Cash Flow Positive

Randy Joy @ 7:41 am

There is an old adage of ‘go to sleep with dogs, wake up with fleas.’
Investors know this, which is why they look to plunk down their money
into financially healthy companies.  They are not just looking for a
“Happy Company” with growth, but also one that pays its bills on time,
collects its receivables and sends timely financial reports timely to
investors.  

A company which does not know its cash position or its future cash needs
is disenchanting.   Investors are wary of what “fleas” will accumulate on
their own stellar reputations, if it were known that they crawled into
bed with a financially irresponsible company.  That is why you have to be
able to display a streamlined method of accounting reporting and
responding in order to attract investors.  Part of my job as a “business
shrink” is to help my clients know how to get cash flow positive as
quickly as possible and learn what it takes to stay there.

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Category: Cash Flow Maximization

May 05 2010

Perpetual Revenue

Randy Joy @ 5:40 pm

Perpetual Revenues (the second P in the word Happy) is the distinction of whether you have a business or not.  Money or revenue is the market’s way of telling you your products and services have value.

H- Home

A – Assets

P – Profit

P – Perpetual Revenue

Y – You

Perpetual is a very important word before revenues.  Perpetual means that those revenues will keep going indefinitely.  At the cemetery the perpetual care sticker means that the cemetery will take care of the burial plot forever.  Your revenues should hopefully be a systematic, recurring stream of income and take care of your business forever.

Without revenues you can’t pay your bills, your employees or yourself and there is no basis to whether your product has value because people are not willing to pay for it.  Once you ‘turn’ revenues and you bring your product to market and have successfully sustained and grown revenues, then you will be on the road towards perpetual revenue.

A sudden flurry of income is not good enough.  Ask yourself, your team and your customers, will this product/service still have demand a year down the line?  How about ten?  As you ask yourself these questions, you will be positioning yourself to ensure that revenue streams are perpetual, and that your business is not going to be here-today and gone-tomorrow.  

Perpetual revenue — that is what makes a business immortal.

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Category: Cash Flow Maximization,Strategic Planning
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