Successful entrepreneurs have vision, passion and commitment. They also understand what is required to build a strong and viable business. We have identified eight essential ingredients for success. What are they? Does your business have them? Grab this opportunity to see what you may be missing! Complete a self-assessment for your business to see where you stand in each critical area and identify what you can do to make your business enjoyable, profitable and sustainable.

Not a numbers person? No problem! Learn to climb over this obstacle and discover how to transform customer and financial information into decision-relevant tools. Gain confidence to make brilliant financial choices to solidify the future of your business. The story of a business is found in its financial statement. We’ll use business ratios and industry benchmarking to gain perspective on what your statements say about your productivity, profit, cash and financial strength to determine your business priorities and a develop a plan to move you forward.

Make continuous performance improvement part of your ongoing management process. Brainstorm with peers about critical issues and then assess your business priorities. Armed with the knowledge of what drives success, select the metrics that matter for you – those that help you focus on activities that produce the desired outcomes. This valuable exploration includes: measuring lost profit and cash flow, using ratios to measuring improvements in productivity, profit, cash and financial strength, selecting ratios (metrics) that matter most and using dashboards to communicate expectations and maintain focus.

All businesses need cash to operate. Even a profitable business can run out of cash. What are the primary drivers of cash in your business? How would your cash balance change if customers paid more quickly? If you managed inventory more effectively? Understanding the cash cycle helps you identify specific actions that could improve cash flow. You may need a high-level overview of asset utilization and capacity, and a thorough review of accounts receivable collection, inventory management, and effective use of short-term credit.

What sales targets yield the profits you will need to achieve your financial goals? Learn to use information about your cost structure and your past results to develop a profit plan that aligns with your personal lifestyle goals. Play “What If?” to measure the impact of changing prices and margins, investing in assets, adding staff or other fixed costs, improving average transaction value. Compute the sales required to justify your marketing investments. (This session can include delivery of an Excel-based profit planning tool customized for your business model. It is frequently offered in combination with Driving Sales with Purpose for a 3½-hour session titled “Driving Sales and Profit”.)

Don’t just wait for the phone to ring; set your sights on growth, do the things that drive sales, measure your activities and engage your team. Explore how to leverage your clear value proposition, brand strategy and foster a culture of proactive selling that focuses your team on growing new and existing business. How many customers buying at what frequency and average transaction amount will it take to hit your sales target? Develop strategies to drive sales volume, define and communicate expectations to sales staff and use accountability and rewards that align with your goals.

Effective goals help to maintain the clarity of focus and attention needed to function profitably in a fast-moving business climate. Discover a straight-forward structure to identify your business priorities, set goals for your business, establish accountability, monitor progress and achieve more. Includes an introduction to coaching, accountability and giving effective feedback.

What type of financing should you have in place for your business? What makes your business attractive from a bank’s perspective? How you describe your most critical banking needs influences the financing arrangements your lender will offer. Learn to tell the story of your business, improve your standing with the bank and get the financial backing you need.

There is no greater loss than opportunity left uncapitalized. Do you have a long-term plan for funding your opportunities for growth? Learn how to predict your borrowing needs so you can be ready to take action when opportunities arise. This session provides a model for forecasting the amount of long-term debt you’ll need over time to fund the growth of your business and suggests alternate strategies for managing debt and equity to align with your growth plan.

Know what cash you’ll need in the short run to achieve your profit goals in the long run. A detailed sales and expense budget and monthly cash plan can reveal short-term cash shortfalls in advance, so you can plan for the best use of your credit line, manage inventory and cash collections and plan equipment purchases for maximum cash flow. This session can be enhanced for retail businesses to explore dynamic purchase budgets and open to buy.

You only have 24 hours in each day and 7 days in each week. All of your time won’t be enough to build the business value you deserve. You’ll need to engage your team. The value of your business depends on it. Even the smartest goals fall short without follow-through and leadership. How will your plans get traction? A culture of accountability and reward drives results worth celebrating. Learn to be better coach by establishing clear expectations, monitoring results and providing actionable feedback.