General concepts

Hello,

I would like to review with you some concepts that are recurring when we evaluate the current situation of any businesses. Understanding what these concepts mean, and how they are applied, is of importance and I recommend you to review them before starting a more detailed evaluation of your own business.

I would like to talk a littl about the following topics (one by one):

a) Return on investment
b) Contribution margin
c) Break-even point
d) Cash flow
e) Competitors
f) Evaluating people´s performance
g) Decision making
h) The minimum formal controls for any businesses
i) Finding root causes
j) Giving credit to uncertain clients
k) Clean or organized businesses
l) AIDA and the purchasing decision process
m) Fixed and variable costs
n) Data and information control methods
o) Scenarios, speculations, trends
p) Distribution channels
q) Sales: the soul of every business
r) Building selling prices
s) Retaining clients
t) Differentiation
u) Offer and demand

I also apologize to those who study business adminstration deeply: these will not be long and deep discussions.

As always, we will try to keep everything very simple and understandable to everyone. If we try to get into the details we will lose focus. We are not dealing with large and complex organizations here. We are dealing with smaller businesses, where what is really important is maintaining the business alive and prosper in the short and long term.

Have a good reading everybody.

Generic questions post

Please feel free to post your generic questions here.

Administrating a small or mid-sized business

Many people ask me how they should administrate their small or mid-sized busines, be that a small laundry shop or a factory with a few dozen employees.

When they ask, in fact, the are looking for what they should do, what they should control, how to control their businesses, how to anticipate, how to avoid running in circles controlling the day-to-day operations or how to avoid keeping trying to extinguish the "fires" that arouse and really manage their businesses.

In the first area of this blog, I would like to share with you four things:

1. Basic administration concepts (so we can all " be on the same page").
2. Show you the most important business administration aspects.
3. Help you identify, in your business, the two or three most important tasks you have to focus on (and these two or three activities will be distinct as you progress).
4. Help you to better control your progress as your business gets better.

Please, feel free to post your comments or make questions.

If your questions are not related to none of the topics, you can place them under "generic questions".

Before we start, I would like you to accept this: you must always be focusing only on two or three activities at a time. Never let a sea of information make you think that "all" is important, because that will bring you caos.

Believe me, I have suffered the consequences myself for thinking that way.

An airplane, as a business, has a lot a buttons and lights, but if you take your eyes of what really matters at a certain time the plane can fall...

Let´s start!