The entrepreneur is an opportunity seeker, he has dedicated time and effort to build his company. He wants her to obtain profits, profitability and growth of her wealth. The company is the source of their lifestyle.
Your own quality of life is linked to the success of your business.
A millionaire client, of peasant descent, used a phrase that, according to him, had changed his way of doing business and enjoying life. He made a lot of money with roadside restaurants, those that serve truckers, road merchants, tourist buses and travelers, on the main roads of his country. The phrase is this: It is better to sit on the mezzanine to think, than on the bottom to break. In your country, "breaking" means working in the fields.
I heard that phrase from Lalo, my client, many times more than 20 years ago when I gave him advice on his business. I also invite you to “ sit in the mezzanine to think ” at least once a week, alone or with your team.
I leave you a series of questions for one of those sessions:
1. Are you satisfied with the profits that your business is generating for you right now?
2. Do you know if your company is in a healthy financial situation that allows it to continue growing?
3. Do you have a strategy to increase sales by 50% in the next two years?
4. Are sales stagnating or can't you adjust prices?
5. Do you know where the profits of the last six months were invested?
6. Do you think that profit margins have decreased?
7. Do you feel that fixed expenses and financial expenses are consuming the profits of your business?
8. Do you know what is the operational and financial balance point of your business?
9. Do you need to invest more money in your company; But this does not produce enough profit to do it with its own funds, so you should go to bank financing?
10. Do you really trust the financial information that your Accountants must give you each month?
11. Do you use financial information to make decisions and for management control?
12. Do you really have effective financial control tools for your business and to control the results of your company and your people?
13. Where would you like to have your company in 5 years?
14. Where would you like your company to be in one year and in 5 years?
15. If you could double your earnings in less than a year, would you feel satisfied?
16. Have you seen companies in your same line of business that have grown spectacularly and you would like to know how they have done it to achieve that and more?
17. Would you like to take your company to the next level of growth?
18. Would you be willing to follow a series of steps that lead you to double or triple your earnings, even if sales do not increase 25% annually?
These questions are not to delegate to your administrator or your accountant. In one of those "mezzanine seats" do it alone, yourself, honestly. Do you really know your company? Do you have management control tools to make sound decisions?
Then meet with your administrator or manager, your financier, and your accountant. Agree with them: You must have timely and reliable information to:
Learn more about the finances of your company.
Know the status of the situation and the results of your business.
Know more, know more, control more.
It does not seem ironic to you that companies are created to produce profits and that this is what entrepreneurs spend the least time in their day to day.
