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By Eugene E. Valdez AKA The Loan Doctor
In my business career as a commercial banker and business finance consultant, I have interacted , interviewed and consulted with over a 1,000 entrepreneurs. Some business owners have been spectacularly successful, others were middle of the road and many ultimately closed their doors.
Over the past 40 years, I have tried to pay attention as to why successful business owners do well. This info in conjunction with my own knowledge as lead me to create the “Top Eleven Tips For Business Health”. I deliberately created eleven as opposed to ten as the “Top Ten” concept is saturated and worn out and I am tired of it.
Many business pundits and coaches will disagree with my top eleven but that is OK, I don’t take it personal. The following are my favorite. They are not listed in order of importance. If you want your business to be healthy the Loan Doctor believes you should do all of them.
- Maintain accurate internal accounting systems and have a competent CPA as part of your external team. If you provide terms to your customers or are granted terms from your vendors, make sure your financials are prepared on an accrual basis not cash basis.
- Establish key performance indicators for your business and track them at least quarterly. ( sales per employee, % of proposals won?)
- Pay attention to your external environment: changing customer needs, new competitors, new vendors, changes in the economy etc. Armed with this info tweak your business model accordingly.
- Treat your productive employees exceptionally well, both in pay and recognition.
- Make your customers strong advocates of your business by ALWAYS going the extra mile to make them happy.
- Either get good at yourself or hire somebody to engage in high level social media marketing.
- Pick the “right commercial bank “and work at developing a mutually beneficial relationship.
- Prepare a 12 monthly cash flow budget BEFORE the new fiscal year arrives to determine if your business needs bank financing to support your working capital needs.
- Improve your overall executive skills by any means you prefer, but do it.
- Spend 15% of your average work week thinking about what you want your company to look like in the future. (New products, new markets, etc.) The rest of the 85% be a good “grinder” in leading your staff to get the work out.
- Prepare 90 day cash budgets and analyze the variances.
That’s it my fellow entrepreneurs. Stay healthy and good luck. If it all fails try meditating and controlled breathing, that’s tip 12!!
Eugene Valdez is a 40-year veteran of business/financial management and owner of The Loan Doctor, a full service business loan consulting firm based in Upland. He can be reached at 909-230-0024 or [email protected]. Like and follow him on social media Facebook, LinkedIn.
