1. Cash is King

When times are tough, as a business owner, you need to carefully examine every expense going out each month and avoid any additional debt. Also, look for ways to increase cash sales to save money on credit card processing fees.

2. Budget your Business

If you do not already have a tightened budget in place, now is the time to reassess your current budgetary plan and adjust it to the current market. Go through your inventory and decide if all items or services you provide are gaining the necessary profit to justify having them.

3. Put Your Performance in Perspective

Survival should be the main focus when times are tough. You need to look at your business performance objectively and make any necessary decisions to increase your chance of survival. You may need to sell off assets or consider taking on a silent partner who can provide crucial working capital to help you make it.

4. Detail Out Your Debt

List all debt out in exacting detail; determine what debt can be paid off quickly and which debt is longer-term. Pay off short-term debts as soon as possible, which will allow you to put that money back into your business.

5. Assess your Accounts

You need to asses all your various accounts such as your merchant account for business, your business bank account and any credit card processing accounts in order to determine if you are getting the best value and service for your money. See if you can switch any of your accounts to ones that charge fewer fees or have better interest rates.

6. Increase Your Insurance Deductibles

If you are really struggling to meet your monthly financial needs, you can increase your deductible on any insurance plans you carry which will lower your monthly premium.

7. Be Proactive with Your Problems

When a financial problem arises, be proactive and take action immediately rather than procrastinating or pretending the problem is not as big as it really is. Contact utility companies or your loan holder and discuss payment programs that will keep your business up and running before your problem becomes a catastrophe.

Times are tough for everyone, but smart business owners will find ways to cut costs maximize their profits and ride out the financial struggles until their business is once again on top.

We use waterfall charts to visually explain what happened or in the case of a forecast - what will happen.

Example, if recurring revenue was $1M in January and $1.3M in April, a waterfall chart explains what caused the change.  The verbal explanation would be “The revenue started at $1M; then grew by $500K from new sales; declined by $400K from disconnects; and grew by $200K from re-rates.  The end result was $1.3M revenue in April.”

How to create a waterfall? It sounds scary, right?  Wrong, the waterfall is just a stacked bar, where the bottom bar has no pattern or area.

First - set up the data.

• The columns B-F are the categories you are trying to explain
• The rows 18-21 are the stacked bars
  • Row 18 shows the starting and ending revenue
  • Row 19 shows additions to revenue
  • Row 20 shows subtractions to revenue
  • Row 21 shows the blank bar
• Row 23 is just a running total to make sure everything is adding up

Next - calculate the blank bar (this is the hardest part)

• The blank bar in column C “New Sales” is calculate B18-C20+B19  …  B18 (Starting Revenue) -C20 (Subtractions in the Column you are Calculating) + B19 (Additions from the Prior Column)

• The blank bar in Columns D & E use a similar formula.  C21-D20+C19 … C21 (Blank Bar from the Prior Column)-(Subtractions in the Column you are Calculating)+(Additions from the Prior Column)
• Copy the formula in D21 to E21 … the formula in E21 will be D21-E20+D19

• The Running Total sums row 18 to row 21

Last Step, insert a stacked bar chart:

• Highlight rows A17:F21, click “ALT+i” then “ALT+h” to insert a stacked bar, then click next twice

• On the Titles Tab, add the Chart Title and the (Y) axis Title

• On the Legend tab, uncheck the “Show Legend” selection box

• On the Data Labels tab, check Label Contains “Value” selection box, then click Finish

Your chart will look like this … there are just a few more steps to clean up the chart and make is look snazzy.

• The light blue bar is the blank bar and it needs to be on the bottom
• Double click on the light blue bar to bring up the “Format Data Series Menu”
• On the Series Order Tab, click “Move Up” until the light blue bar is the second from the top in the Series order

• Then click the Patterns Tab, and select Border None and Area None

• On the Data Labels Tab, unclick the Label Contains “Value” selection box

Your chart now looks like this:

Next, change the scale so the numbers are in $ thousands

• Double click on the (Y) axis to bring up Format Axis menu
• On the Scale tab, select “Display Units: Thousands”

• On the Number tab, select Category = Currency; Decimal places = 0; and Symbol = $
• Click OK

• Next change the color of the Plot Area
• Double click on the Plot Area to bring up the Format Plot Area menu
• Select Border = None & Area = None

Your chart now looks like this:

The next steps are optional

• You can change the width of the bars by double clicking on any data series to bring up the Format Data Series Tab
  • On the Options Tab, change the Gap Width (I used Gap Width = 30)

• Change the color of any data series by double clicking the data series to bring up the “Format Data Series” menu
  • On the Patterns tab, select the desired Area color for the bar
  • I use red for drops & green for additions

  

• I manually added arrows using the draw menu to make it easy to see which bars were additions and which were drops.

The final product looks like this:

Click here for a free template - waterfall chart in excel.

My yellow lab, Wrigley, was diagnosed with cancer two and a half years ago. The vet gave her 4 weeks to live.  She had numerous tumors all over her body and it looked pretty bleak.   But I wasn’t giving up that easily … I researched herbs that have been known to cure cancer and tumors, and came up with a formula that I hoped would help.  After a month her tumors had shrunk.  After two and a half years, she appears to be normal.

I shared the cure with my friend, who’s 9 year old Rhodesian Ridgeback was diagnosed with bone cancer. He was given just one week to live. Nine months later, he is running around like a puppy again. The vet did a scan and the cancer had completely stopped in one leg and in the other, healthy tissue started growing back. My friend shared the cure with her very surprised vet.

We have two other dog owners that we shared the below cure with, and their dogs are doing fine.  It might be a coincidence, but if you are like me, you just want a chance to help you dog.

If you give this a try, let me know the results. I hope it helps.

Super Secret Dog Cancer Cure:

1 - Kyolic Aged Garlic Extract
1 - Quercetin 500mg
1 - New Chapter Turmericforce
2 -New Chapter LifeShield Immunity Mushrooms (Reishi, Shiitake, Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps, Maitake, Poria Cocos, Mesima, Coriolus, Chaga)

I am including links to Amazon, below … these are the best prices I have been able to find

Answer: Comments in PowerPoint decks can be hard to find if you don’t want to print. Another way to see all comments is to

1. Click on the Review Tab
2. Click Show Markup
3. Click Previous or Next to scroll through the comments

Click Start, then Run, and enter cmd … This command will get you a list of filenames in sorted order: DIR /B /ON *.* > filelist.txt. The /B switch gives a Bare listing (filename only) and /ON means sort by Name. You will have to delete the name filelist.txt itself from the list.

If you’re using Vista, this task is much easier. Select the files in Windows Explorer, hold Shift, and right-click them. Choose Copy as Path from the menu. Paste the list into whatever editor you prefer. You get the full pathname for each file, but a simple find/replace will clean that up if necessary.

To make this work, you need to be in the Classic Pivot Table view see this blog post for instructions on how to convert to the classic pivot table view: http://businesstoolsblog.com/2011/05/display-pivot-tables-with-the-row-labels-side-by-side-instead-of-in-one-column/

In a standard pivot table the row labels after the first row label are blank, like this:

If you want the row labels to appear on each row of your pivot table, so it looks like this:

Right click on the pivot table and select “Field Settings”

Then select the “Layout and Print” tab; check the box next to “Repeat item labels” and click “OK”

Your pivot table will now look like this:

Formatting this way is great if you need to use the data in the pivot tables for additional analysis.

My guess is that your pivot table looks something like this:

And you want them to look like this, with the Labels in separate columns:

Just right click on the pivot table and select “PivotTable Options”

Then check the box next to “Classic Pivot Table layout” and click “OK”

Your Pivot Table now looks like this:

Is my marketing team fully versed in social media and deploying new strategies for reaching clients, customers and investors?

If the answer is “yes,” you will have a robust online presence in which your company is creating an image for itself on Facebook and Twitter and using these tools and more to network and push your company into niche markets. If the answer is “no,” you’ve got a blackout on your hands in which a large percentage of the population has no way of seeing you. Familiarize yourself with the world of social media.

Is my IT department optimizing the latest Internet utilities and office tools such as cloud services?

The ability to store, backup and synchronize data over several departments will not only save you money on hardware and software costs, it will lend added security safeguards to your company files and make your office run more efficiently.

Is my web team using search engine optimization to bolster our online reputation and prestige?

If your web team hasn’t employed any SEO practices, you need to have a serious meeting with them because they are way behind the times and it could be permanently damaging your business. In-house SEO is crucial, as it optimizes your website for search engines and makes you rise to the top. You may also need outsourced SEO. There are many great online marketing companies that specialize in just this thing. You don’t to let anyone go, but they need to be on the same page.

Ask yourself these questions. If the answers are “no,” or you don’t know the answer, it’s time to dig a little deeper into your company and get more hands on with your employees and your business strategies.

Reducing overhead entails making a commitment to economizing, maximizing efficiencies, and working to realize small cost-cutting measures on a large scale. The first place to look, of course, is at your physical plant – your office, store, or factory where business takes place. Here are a few options to consider:

Downsize Space

Perhaps your business has grown smaller and leaner over the years. Perhaps you’ve reduced desks and filing cabinets by going digital in the past decade. For whatever reason, many business owners find themselves with more office space than they truly need. This space translates into a good amount of overhead. This winter, then, you may want to think about your downsizing options. One great way to do this is by moving unneeded furniture, files, and equipment into storage units that usually cost far less than rent on a square foot level.

Go Green

Even if you don’t consider yourself an environmentalist, going green this winter can help you save substantially on your office’s utility bills. Energy efficient light bulbs reduce your electricity consumption, intelligent thermostats can regulate the temperature in a way that promotes cost efficiencies, and motion-controlled lighting systems can insure that the power is turned off whenever the office is empty. While all these products are more expensive upfront, they promise to deliver savings after just a short period of use.

Telecommute

Having employees telecommute can help achieve either of the above objectives. If the telecommuting occurs on a rotating basis, you can remove a desk from the office and make it easier to downgrade your space. If it instead takes place on occasional days and at an office-wide level, you can save yourself the utilities costs for those days. Telecommuting also reduces gas expenses and, studies show, can increase employee satisfaction.

These are just a few of the ways you can reduce overhead and save some money this winter. When money is tight it’s only natural for businesses to seek out any efficiencies or redundancies they can find. The office space itself is always a great place to start.

Talk to artificial intelligence. No, this is not a euphemism. If you have Siri on your smartphone, use it to organize your day so that when you get out of work you can optimize your free time. Plan tomorrow’s meetings, schedule business lunches, send texts and emails while you’re in the bathroom. Or, if you want a more entertaining to jaunt into the world of AI, have a little chat with Cleverbot. It’s not Watson, but it may be a bit more conversational.

Read an article that is the complete polar opposite of your work. If you work at a financial institution, read an article about solar flares. If you work at a marketing firm, read an article about native bark. Develop software algorithms? Read about word associations. The idea here is to stimulate your mind and creativity and give yourself a break from your normal focus. Sometimes it’s necessary. Ever hear the phrase “a watched pot never boils?” This applies to utilizing the mind too. If you sit at your desk waiting for the right idea, it may never come. Feeding your imagination helps to sharpen your critical thinking skills.

Take a stretch/meditation/yoga break. Clearing your mind and rejuvenating your body is an important part of getting through your workday. Stretching, meditating, striking a yoga pose, or even going for a quick jog are all great ways of clearing the cobwebs and finding a synergy between your mind and body.

Take a nap. You don’t have to go George Costanza-style and build a bed underneath your desk, but a midday power-nap can be the difference between a productive afternoon and a miserable descent into delirium. The human mind does not function well when sleep-deprived, so you should not entrust it to handle complex operations off five hours of sleep. Simply grabbing 15 minutes of shuteye can recharge your batteries and set you back on track.

Work isn’t necessarily supposed to be fun, but that doesn’t mean you have to feel like you’re going to lose it. No matter what industry or line of business you’re in, it’s critical that you practice mind-soothing techniques to maximize your productivity and streamline your work ethic.