First Impressions Make a Difference

What kind of first impression do you make with your potential customers? Grade yourself on the following items. Give yourself a “1” if you are really good or a “0” if you need to do some work in a particular area:

1. Your personal appearance: Are you always dressed appropriately and professionally? To your prospects, you represent your business 24/7.
2. Your attitude: Remember it’s not your aptitude but your attitude that determines your altitude. Your attitude is the single most important skill that you possess when dealing with people. Have you checked your attitude recently?
3. Your body language and tone of voice: People will believe your body language and tone of voice before they believe the words you say. What are you really “telling” your prospects?
4. Your greeting: Are you (or whoever answers the phone for you) professional and do you greet the caller with a smile in your voice? Do you let the caller know you are GLAD to help them? What about when you are face-to-face with them?
5. Your voice mail: Do you update your message frequently. Do you return calls promptly? Do you make it easy for your prospects to get in touch with you (i.e. automatically transfer your business phone to your cell phone when you are out of the office rather than make them wait or have to dial another number)?
6. Your business card: Do you include your logo, benefits of doing business with you, and all contact info? Is your card easy to read (remember those of us over 40 can’t always read fine print). Tip: Heavy card stock and raised lettering give a more professional image.
7. Your niche: Do you know what differentiates you from your competition? If you don’t know, how will your prospect?
8. Your 30 second commercial: Do you have one? A great format to use is the following: Hello, my name is ___. I’m with __. I help people by (primary benefit you provide). Give your memory hook or tag line. Repeat your name and company name to finish.
9. Your handshake: Is it a firm (not crushing) thumb to thumb shake? Or is it kind of wimpy, wet, or patronizing?
10. Your marketing materials: Are they professionally done and do they focus on the benefits (not features) that you provide? Do you consistently use your business identity on all materials (i.e. your logo, fonts, colors, slogan, etc.).
    
    Your first impression may be the determining factor in whether the prospective customer does business with you or your competitor. Did you score a 10?

Understanding Your Business Financials

One key to understanding what's happening in your business is to understand the numbers. As a business owner, it is certainly important to me to see if my business is profitable or not - but even more important is to see trends that are happening in the business. With QuickBooks (one of the most widely used accounting packages for small business), I can quickly see if we are profitable for the year by creating a Profit & Loss Standard Report with the Date box set to "This Fiscal Year-to-date." But even more important to me is to see the trends for the year. With a simple click of a button (changing the Columns box from "Total Only" to "Month") I can see what has happened month by month up to the current month. By reviewing this report on a regular basis, I can quickly spot trends (i.e. expenses increasing at a higher rate than income over a period of time could indicate a need for re-pricing).

Another report that I think is beneficial for looking at trends is QuickBooks' Profit and Loss Previous Year Comparison report.With this report, I can easily see how my business is doing this year compared to the same period last year. If you want to look at several years together, you can create the same Profit and Loss Standard Report discussed above and change the Columns box to "Year" and set the "From" and "To" dates to the years you want to view.

If you find that these are reports you want to review on a regular basis and you don't want to re-create them every time you want to see the data, then simply memorize the report with a unique name. To view again, you can go to the Reports tab or Report Center and click on memorized reports.

Other reports that I view on a regular basis include:

• A/R Aging Summary report: This report shows all your outstanding receivables and, with a click of a button, you can drill down to see the invoices that make up the totals.


• Unpaid Bills Detail report: This report shows you all your unpaid bills by vendor in due date order.


• Sales by Customer Summary: This report will help you identify your best customers (you can sort by total and arrange by highest to lowest total). You could use this report if you want to make sure you are spending your time on the customers who are creating the revenue or to periodically reward your best customers.


• Unbilled Costs by Job: If you assign a customer/job name to expenses and leave the billable box checked, you can pull these expenses into that customer's invoice. This report shows you a list of expenses you have coded as billable that have not yet been billed.


• Profit and Loss by Class: If you are using classes in QuickBooks, this report will let you see income and expenses by those classes. It will also identify income and expenses that don't have a class assigned.

We will talk about other QuickBooks features and a variety of tips and resources to help your business in future postings.

Why Do We Blog?

I teach classes on starting and running a business in community colleges all over North Carolina. Over and over, I see people getting started in business who may know their product or service, but don't have a clue about how to run a business. From developing your record keeping system to marketing to hiring your first employee, running a successful business takes a great deal of time, energy, expertise, and luck! The purpose of this blog will be to give some tips, tricks, and resources that may help you to be successful.