For service businesses, labor cost is the largest expense that is incurred in business operations. For many other types of businesses, the cost of labor is a large component of overall costs. Controlling labor costs so that they stay in line with what’s best for the organization is an important management function. Here are several ways to control or reduce labor costs in your business. Encourage employee retention. If well-trained employees leave, you must replace…

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Time is our most precious personal resource; once we’ve spent it, we’ll never get it back. As busy entrepreneurs, we seem to have less time than anyone else, so it just makes sense to look for ways to use our time wisely. Here is one technique that has worked for many. The Four D’s When you think about it, there are only four actions you can take against any one of the many tasks you…

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The 2021 holiday sales season will give businesses a chance to continue their online migration from 2020 trends, with opportunities for more refinement and improvements.  The key is to bring as much as possible online and integrate all of your customer touch points into an omnichannel of positive experiences. Let’s take a look at some trends in retail that we can apply to many other industries. These trends will strengthen our businesses and position us…

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If you grant credit to customers or take recurring credit card payments, the unexpected can happen: a customer fails to pay on time, the credit card expires, or the check bounces. What can a business owner do to spend as little time as possible on these items but get the cash collected?  Plenty.  Here are our ideas: Re-examine your credit policy Is there any way you can have credit customers pay up front? Perhaps you…

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While Net Profit and your cash balance are probably the first two numbers you look at on your monthly Profit and Loss Statement, don’t stop there.  There are a lot more gems you can glean if you dig a little deeper and look through the following six lenses at your data. Automation Opportunities Look at your labor detail reports as well as professional and outsourcing expenses to see what areas might be ripe for automating. …

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