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.