Is your business successful?
- HOW SUCCESSFUL IS YOUR BUSINESS?
Take a moment to evaluate your past business operations and its current status as you attempt to reach your next level of business objectives. For example, have you accomplished your original goals and objectives when you first started your business? If your goals and objectives have not been reached, you need to take some time to evaluate your business. As business owners, the majority of our time is spent putting out fires and we are often too busy to analyze where our business is progressing.
Remember, for every one hundred business enterprises, only twenty-five percent who survive the first year are able to celebrate their tenth business anniversary.
- WHAT CONSTITUTES A TRUE BUSINESS PERSON?
It is a person who creates a new business or buys an existing business in the face of risk and uncertainty. In addition, it is a person who is trying to achieve profits by identifying business opportunities and who assembles the necessary financial and staffing resources to capitalize on those opportunities. Finally, it is a person who possesses managerial and organizational skills.
III. ARE YOU A PROSPEROUS BUSINESS PERSON?
A successful business person is one who has control over most of his or her own destiny, who takes the initiative with bold and creative ideas and who is a risk taker with leadership vision. A successful person owns a business that is financially strong with a steady cash flow. And a successful person is not afraid of seeking assistance or advice from professional consultants or advisory boards.
- BUSINESS EVALUATION
To evaluate your current business, identify your business’s strengths and weaknesses and compare them with the following recommended business practices:
- Provide demand products and/or services
- Provide a unique or rare product or service
- Provide a product or service which will not be obsolete
- Provide a product or service which is superior to its competition
- Provide excellent customer service
- First serve your target market
- Provide informed and professionally trained staff
- Control and evaluate all expenditures
- Possess an excellent cash flow and profit margin
- Collect, in a timely fashion, all accounts receivables
- Limit the number of accounts payables
- REASONS WHY BUSINESSES FAIL:
- Selling wrong or obsolete products or services
- Product selling prices are either too high or too low
- Poor cash flow, not enough cash at the end of the month
- High expense ratio in comparison to sales
- A low or non-existing profit margin
- Poor business location and lack of parking facilities
- Wrong target market
- Poor geographical location for the business
- Poor and ineffective advertising efforts
- Lack of additional financial resources
- Poor managerial and organizational skills
- Incompetent staff
- Nonexistent or inferior customer service
- Poor business name, slogan, and brand.
