Small Business Success

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This is your Monthly Herrmann Advantage Consulting Small Business Success Newsletter. Here you will find useful information to sustainably grow your business that can be used by you as your needs require. Scroll through and enjoy the helpful hints, suggestions, and processes we share with you.

Please forward and share this with others in your professional network. Helping each other is how we all win!

Follow the string

The cost to provide your product or services is also called a Value Stream. A Value Stream is:

The sequence of all activities needed to design, produce, and provide a specific good or service.

All the time, materials, and information as well as all direct and indirect labor necessary to deliver your product to your client.

It includes all Cost of Goods Sold for that product or service as well as its share of your indirect costs and other expenses. In other words, it is the end to end cost of what you do for your customers and it must BOTH provide a profit AND cover the expense of the activity. The below image illustrates this. Each point in the process is a step in your process that must be accounted for.

It takes a lot to build, much less grow your business during these times. It can be done.

It takes new ways of doing business, new processes, and new methods.

It takes guidance and innovation. It takes a strong and thorough understanding of your FULL business operations.

It does you no good to sell more if your processes can't manage the increase. Ensuring that your business processes are complete and efficient is an excellent activity toward creating business success. Using simple process mapping tools to identify the steps in your processes and then measuring those steps in terms of time, material, and money, helps you make those processes efficient and profitable.

You must also have the time and resources to manage the delivery. That primarily means a workforce. At some point, you may exceed the reasonable capability of your workforce to produce or deliver error-free and profitable. You must understand when it makes sense for your business to hire more workers and what those workers will be doing. Can you keep those workers gainfully employed and appropriately engaged in your business's operation, and what do you need to make a decision about hiring more workers?

Understanding what it costs you to deliver your product and services is also a key step. By looking at all of the steps in that delivery, everything you can think of, you can determine what it costs you to deliver what you do. By understanding your cost of product or service delivery, you can ensure that your customer transactions are profitable. You know your product or service pricing is accurate and market competitive.

Your customer service and retention must be at the top of their game to handle the increase. Is upselling a part of your customer transactions? Have you determined benefits and features for your product or services that make upselling a good idea? Do you contact your customers and ask them if you are adding value to what they do? What have you done to help your customers be successful?

Your inventory and cash must be managed to ensure you have sufficient amounts of both. I call it inventory by big-box warehouse. Some buy large quantities of inventory because they believe it is cheaper to do so. They don't understand that this practice ties up your cash, and you need cash to operate your business. Further, inventory is subject to damage and spoilage. Excess inventory can become unusable and, as a result, becomes a cash loss to your business. Understanding your inventory management – from office supplies to raw materials- helps you understand your cash. Taking control of your cash management ensures that you have the money to stay in business.

You must also clearly understand the other parts - Marketing, Sales, Finance. Making certain that these are supportive of the vision you have for your business helps you succeed. Having a Business Roadmap that guides your efforts and measures your results is an important step.

You have to look at your entire business, not just the revenue-producing parts. That's where my expertise comes in. My clients routinely see significant increases in revenue, profit, and business value because we look at the entire business.

Our Clients have experienced great successes. Below is an example of one such engagement.

It's always good to share what our clients say about us:

"During these uncertain times of the pandemic- which included times of radical change within my business, Don's coaching was very valuable to me as we moved the business in the right direction, and kept me focused on the bigger picture every step of the way. I would recommend Don for his 1) ability to probe for what is really important, 2) his ability to listen carefully and then provide suggestions for actions that were apparent but only became very clear after discussions with Don, and 3) for his ability to stay focused on what is most important and sticking to my overall goals I'm working towards. He made sure before we dove into the hard things that the foundation of my business was strong and capable."

Emily, Green Bay Doulas

Copyright © 2020 Herrmann Advantage Consulting, LLC, All rights reserved.

If you want to know more, contact me for a confidential no-obligation in-person or virtual conversation.

https://www.herrmannadvantageconsulting.com/contact/

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Herrmann Advantage Consulting, LLC · PO Box 1952 · Little Chute, Wi 54140 · USA