Category Archives: Strategy

Anything that has to do with strategic planning, vision development, forward thinking, risk management, and business planning.

Business Clarity Questions for Small Business

Established & Growing Businesses, Management & Human Relations, Strategy, , , , ,

The New Year is a great time to plan to ramp up your business.

Getting ready for 2015 involves getting your business ready with a solid foundation to move forward. Your foundation is based on answering these 7 critical questions.

In 20 minutes, walk through the business clarity questions and answer them for your business. Make your 2015 more impactful!

Contact the Expert

Charles McFarland
Email: cmcfarland@focalpointcoaching.com
Website: http://www.charlesmcfarland.ca
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachingbusinessandartsleaders
Twitter: https://twitter.com/charlesmcf

SBS Clarity 14 Jan 2015

Guaranteed Better Than The Rest

Established & Growing Businesses, Management & Human Relations, Strategy, , , , ,

Differentiating your small business and continuing to improve your business are two key pieces of being better than the rest.

But how do you get this in motion? Where do you start?

In 15 minutes we walk through two key objectives;
1. Ensuring that you are making time to work on your business rather than in it
2. Outlining 5 key ways to differentiate your business and how to do this

Contact the Expert

Eloise Pasianotto
www.effectiveprofessionalconsulting.com

Revenue Generation

Established & Growing Businesses, Finance & Accounting, Sales & Business Development, Strategy, , , , ,

Increasing our small business revenue generation is something that most entrepreneurs are concerned with. In this video we learn why all entrepreneurs need to make it the top priority and we walk through the 4 main things that we need to focus on to help our revenue grow.
 
1. Number of leads
2. Improve conversion rates
3. Increase the price of the average sale
4. Increase the number of sales per period
 
Plus we walk through all of the tools we have at our fingertips to help improve these 4 areas. Watch it now!
 

 
Contact the Expert
 
Gary Brown
FocalPoint Coaching
gbrown@focalpointcoaching.com
 
 

How To Do A Quarterly Review?

Established & Growing Businesses, Management & Human Relations, Strategy, , , ,

How do we know if we are on track for our yearly goal? How can we ensure that our strategy is working?
 
Small business owners need to do a quarterly review!
 
Without a quarterly review we are falling into the trap of working in our business and not on it. All of our activities become tasks rather than things that will help our business grow.
 
This video walks through:
1. Why is a review so critical? What are the reasons why our quarterly review might be higher or lower than we expected? What are the reasons why we might have to tweak the rest of our annual plan?
2. Super quick overview of strategic planning
3. How to do a quarterly review. What to be analyzing and what to be considering for the future.
4. Best practices and the top things to avoid when executing a strategic plan.
 

 
Contact The Expert
 
The Small Business Solver Team
info@smallbusinesssolver.com
 
Additional Resources
 
Like the PowerPoint? how do to a quarterly review
Want a template to use for your quarterly review? Quarterly-Review-MODEL
 

Action Planning

Established & Growing Businesses, Start Ups, Strategy, , , ,

Get Started. Keep Going! This is the life of the small business owner and entrepreneur in 2014 trying to get their business ramped up or growing.
 
The number one reason why a small business owner is successful in the short term is based on how much they are moving forward.  Every time that you say the words ‘I will’, are you?  Not that you necessarily have to be on time, but you need to do it if you said you would.  Being action oriented and getting things done is critical to success.
 
The Action Planning Process includes the following steps;
1. Goal Setting
2. Action Planning
3. Implementation
4. Measure the Results
5. Assess/Reassess
 

 
Contact Information
 
Gary Brown
gary.brown@fsainc.ca
 
Like the Slides? SBS-action planning webinar

What’s Your Business Worth?

Established & Growing Businesses, Finance & Accounting, Regulations & Legal, Strategy, , , , ,

Business valuation is critical for all small business owners as there is a high probability that you will be needing to evaluate how much your business is worth due to needing a loan, going through a divorce, or selling your business either voluntarily or involuntarily.

 

When it comes down to it, the value of your business is the price that someone is actually willing to pay you for it. But if you are trying to put a dollar value on your business without this step or before this step, there are some things to consider;

 

1. Net tangible assets
2. Identifiable intangibles
3. Goodwill (transitioned and non transitioned)
4. Redundant assets

 

If you are selling your business, there are some great ways to increase the value of your small business. And there are some specific value drivers to be aware of.

 

If you are buying a business, there are some specific details you should be looking for and specific circumstances where you may buy a small business for a lesser amount.

 

Watch this video for all of the details.

 

 

Contact The Expert

 

Fabyelle Chevalier, CPA, CA
Manager – Financial Advisory Services
BDO Canada LLP
Direct: 705 726 6331 ext. 8523
fchevalier@bdo.ca

 

Like the Presentation? Valuation Presentation

Small Business Exit Strategies

Established & Growing Businesses, Finance & Accounting, Strategy, , ,

Your small business exit strategy is one of the most important parts of running your business.
 
The reality is, if you want money quickly it is better to get a job than start a small business. Starting a small business helps you in the long run financially as you are building equity and value in your business year over year.
 
But the only way to get this equity and value out of the business is having a solid exit strategy that allows you to realize this.
 
There are 6 major exit strategies to consider;
 
1. Getting the most out your business now.
2. Liquidating your business which means selling all of your assets.
3. Selling your business to someone you know.
4. Being acquired by another business for a strategic reason.
5. Issuing shares publically and getting out of the business.
6. Create a family empire with a solid succession plan.
 
One of these should be selected and planned for. The video walks through these strategies, gives examples of how it has worked, and highlights the top tip for each exit strategy that you should be focusing on.
 

 
Contact Your Expert
 
info@smallbusinesssolver.com
 
Want the Slides? small business exit strategies.
 

Benchmarking & Performance Management for Small Business

Established & Growing Businesses, Finance & Accounting, Management & Human Relations, Operations & Efficiency, Strategy, , , ,

 

What gets measured will get done.

 
Large businesses and small business alike use performance metrics with the intent to motivate their employees. However often these metrics are misguided and resulting in undesirable behaviour. They are not tied to the strategic performance of the organization.
 
In this video learn…
 
1. Why have metrics?
2. How to create your metrics that will actually help your business
3. Understand what a balanced scorecard is and what components make up a small business’ balanced scorecard
4. Learn how to monitor and implement the metrics in the most effective and efficient way possible
 
There are a lot of red flags when it comes to metrics, and if done improperly a metric can actually stunt your business’ growth rather than foster it.
 
Always remember that what gets measured will get done!
 

 

Performance management resources

 
Examples of Critical Success Factors and Metrics
 
Want the slides for this presentation? Performance Management

eCommerce 101

Established & Growing Businesses, Marketing & Branding, Sales & Business Development, Start Ups, Strategy, Technology & Online, , , ,

Ecommerce is more than the future – it is today!

It is currently a $600 billion dollar industry in Canada and the United States, with over 630 million active websites. Plus it is still growing at a massive rate of 47% annually over the last 12 years.

iDeal Advisor presents this topic with the idea of focusing on conversion rates, reducing abandonment rates, and increasing the value of your website through traffic and revenue. Throughout the video, topics are covered to help you with these three goals.

First it covers that a good landing page is critical. It needs to have;

1. Your logo, images, and branding
2. You need great copy and design pieces.
3. You need a headline that is catchy and simple.
4. A brief body of copy that is succinct and clear.
5. Testimonials.
6. A call to action. What do you want the visitor coming to your site to DO.

Second there is the new SEO (search engine optimization)

1. fresh content
2. social media
3. media releases

You can’t improve what you can’t measure. So make sure that you are using Google Analytics to understand your unique visitors, abandon rates, and conversion rates.

And finally, you need a way to nurture the leads. How do you get conversion from returning visitors or individuals who left your site.

Contact The Expert

The subject matter expert is Craig Hunt, the President of iDeal Advisor.
email: craigh@idealadvisor.com

www.idealadvisor.com

If you like this video, check out Simple Website Best Practices.

Small Business Growth Strategies

Established & Growing Businesses, Innovation & Creativity, Strategy, , , , ,

growthstrategiesGrowing your business is something that most entrepreneurs strive to do. They want to grow their business to help increase their profit, grow the value of their business to sell it at a later date, they want to hire more people, they want to help the community, they want to build something for their family, they are competitive, they never quit, and there are many other personal reasons.
 
Regardless, most small business owners are looking for ways to grow. The two that often come to mind is to grow outside of your geographical location and expand the size of the market or to create a new product. But there are a ton of other strategies to growing a business and many examples to follow. Click on the image to see them.
 
Watch this 30 minute video to find out;
 
– 12 small business growth strategies
– examples of businesses that used these strategies and how it worked for them
– draw out key takeways and ideas to use for each strategy
 

 
Expert’s Contact Information
 
Carla Langhorst
Small Business Consultant
Carla@smallbusinesssolver.com