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Upcoming Events
Workshops:
Business Boot Camp
Six individual seminars
give you the steps to long-term success.
Steps #5-6
May 22 & June 5 more info
Steps #1-6 Every
other Tuesday starting
September 25
more info
Where is the Money?
Increase Your Cash Flow. . . NOW!
Get
clear on how to manage cash flow so you'll never be short again!
Templates included too!
May 31
more info
The
One-Minute Budget
Learn
how to easily create a budget for your company. It's never been so easy!
May 31
more info Master
Builder: The Next Level For people who want
to use Master Builder as a better management
tool.
June 14-15
more
info
Vicki Suiter's
Business
Builder
Five
simple ways to ease the profit squeeze
Aug. 28 or
Sept. 12 more info
Webinars:
Are You Running Your
Business in the Dark? Gain
confidence and clarity on what your financial reports are telling you
about the health of your company.June 20
more info
Build it
Strong
Learn the three most important numbers that
impact your bottom line
profits!
June21
more
info | About Vicki Suiter
For over fifteen years, Vicki Suiter has been providing
business coaching, consulting and training to companieswanting a
betterbottom line. She helps businesses increase profitability,
reduce costs, and improve productivity. Business owners
that work with her see a marked increase in their profits, cash flows
and 'me time'!
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Dear Vicki,
This is the May 2007 edition
of Suiter Financial System's Profit Primer Newsletter. If
you're putting everything you have into your business - and not getting
enough out, read on. Vicki Suiter is committed to helping people in
business have more profit, more time and more fun. The
Profit Primer Newsletter will show you how.
Each
quarter, in First Person, we'll profile a business with
a real problem - and show how they solved it. In the Just A Minute section that follows, I will give you some
quick pointers or simple steps that you can take right now to improve
your profit, have more time and/or more fun.
Enjoy!
Vicki Suiter
Email: info@suiterfinancial.com
Phone: 415-884-0288 |
| First Person
I Was Doing Everything -
But What I Loved!
Entrepreneurs start their business with the desire to
do what they love, make a lot of money, and have more choices about how
they spend their time.
Shortly into it, they discover that
running a business involves doing a lot more than the "fun" part. There
are appointments to be made. Contracts to be negotiated. Books to be
kept. Phone calls. Emails. Websites. Marketing. Management. Soon,
running the business is taking more and more time, leaving little or no
time for the thing that motivated the business in the first place.
Pretty soon your business starts running you vs. you running
it.
That was Robin Spaan's story.
Robin is a designer who
began creating greeting cards as a hobby. After creating five thousand
designs, Robin realized she had a business and opened Moonlighting Cards.
At first,
being able to support herself as an artist was a dream-come-true. She
was selling custom-designed cards directly to bookstores, flower shops
and gift stores across the country, and was getting very positive
response.
But, like many new entrepreneurs, Robin had never
thought of how much time, effort and energy running the business itself
would take. Naively, she believed if she created a good product,
everything else would take care of itself. Of course, it
didn't.
It took about three years for Robin to become completely
overwhelmed. Instead of doing design (where her key passion is), she was
being the salesperson-accountant-warehouse manager-shipper.
"I
have to spend a whole day managing just to have a few minutes to do what
I love," she said when she called me, exhausted. "No matter how hard
I try, I can't seem to get ahead of the curve!"
I let her know
that I understood completely and that she shared a common experience of
many small business owners.
Robin picks up the story: "I knew
I needed a fresh approach, and Vicki gave me one. Instead of giving me a
lot of theory, which I'd had in a lot of business classes, Vicki spoke
to me about my particular situation. She helped reconnect me with the
reason why I started my business in the first place."
"My first
big ah-ha was that 'work harder' wasn't going to work," Robin reports.
"I thought I had to do everything myself. That if I just put in a
little more time, or worked faster I could do it all. I realized that
running the business was a full-time job. Trying to do it all, I'd never
have time to be creative."
"The best thing was that Vicki didn't
just explain how things should work - she taught me how to get them
done."
Time and again, I see how entrepreneurs don't have a
clear plan about what they want their business to look like. And,
they get themselves stuck in a corner doing too many things themselves -
not delegating. So how do you get out of this bind? The first step
is to get clarity. "What do I want my business to look like?" The
second step is to delegate. "What is really important that I do, and
what could someone else do?"
With her new clarity and renewed
inspiration, Robin was able to see that the only way for her to spend
time doing what she loved would be to have support handling the
business's order taking and shipping.
Using the tools and
following the steps she learned, Robin has since found and hired that
support person. Now, instead of being responsible for the entire
business she is the Creative and Marketing Director and someone else is
the procurement department! And how are things going?
Robin
happily reports, "Finally, I'm successful doing what I love to do!"
For more information about Robin's business, go to
http://www.moonlightingcards.com.
| | | Just a Minute!
Take these tips from
Robin's story . . .
1. Inspiration is a
great reason to start a business, but it takes more than inspiration to
run one.
The easiest way to get
from where you are to where you want to be is to plan for it. What do
you want your business to look like? Put it in
writing.
2. Expect to work hard in your business. However,
if you're working to exhaustion, something's wrong. If the only answer
you have is "work harder," you know you need to ask yourself some new
questions.
Look at the 'stuff' you
do, and determine what could be delegated to someone else. This could
be an employee or an independent contractor. If you're concerned
about quality control, write a procedure for that process, and manage to
it.
3. Part of the challenge of being stuck is that you
can't get an objective perspective. Ask a trusted advisor what they
see.
We cannot coach ourselves.
Having outside feedback can give you a completely new perspective on
your business, and help you get clear on what you want and how to get
there.
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Read more articles by Vicki, click here.
Do you know of any other business owners who would like more
profits, more time and / or more fun from their businesses? If so,
please share this newsletter with them by clicking
here.
If you would like to know more about
Vicki's coaching and consulting services, or about the workshops or
seminars we offer, please email us at: info@suiterfinancial.com. | |
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www.suiterfinancial.com 
