Your ability to do accurate costing for your products and services, and then to set proper prices for what you sell, can make all the difference between profits and losses, success and failure. The name of the game is "profit." Everything you do in your business, every number that you calculate and consider every point of focus and concentration must be aimed at generating profits of some kind.
Become a Numbers Person:
Most entrepreneurs are not "numbers" people. They have little patience for the details of financial statements and accounting. In order for you to be successful, you must master the numbers in your business. You can hire bookkeepers, accountants, and financial advisers to help you, but you can never abdicate the responsibility of fully understanding every penny and every dollar that comes in and out of your business.
Determining Your Costs:
Often the person who makes the fewest mistakes in business is the one who succeeds the most. You don't have to be an entrepreneurial genius to be successful. You just have to master what you are doing.
One of the entrepreneurial successes is to offer a high margin product or service of some kind. It is to produce, acquire, sell, or distribute a product or service from which you earn high profits on the sale of each one. In this way, you have a substantial cushion built in to protect you from losses.
Direct Costs:
These are the costs of good sold. If you make a product or buy it from a manufacturer or distributor for $5, including all costs of shipping, transportation, insurance, and delivery, and you sell the product for $10, your cost of goods sold is $5. This is fairly easy to calculate.
Indirect Costs:
These are the costs that are not attributed to all of the products or services that you sell, not any specific ones. Indirect costs can be costs of salaries, rent, telephones, utilities, marketing, advertising, shipping, delivery, and many others.
Fixed Costs:
These are the costs that you incur each month whether or not you sell a single item or generate a single dollar of revenue. Your fixed costs include salaries for your permanent staff, rent, utilities, many operational costs, and the costs for outside services, plus your own personal income from the business.
Variable Costs:
These are the costs that increase or decrease depending on your level of business activity. These costs are incurred only when a sale takes place. They can include costs of good sold, sales commissions, delivery costs, and other costs that can be attributed, directly or indirectly, to the cost of each product or service you sell.
Semi-Variable Costs:
These are costs that are partially fixed and partially variable. They can include part-time labor when you are busier than normal, additional utility, telephone, and mailing costs, and additional costs for outside services.
Sunk Costs:
These are expenses that you have incurred that are gone forever. They can never be recovered. They are like an unattached anchor thrown overboard that sinks to the bottom of the ocean and is irretrievable.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The Seven Methods of Time Power
There are seven methods that you can use to help develop the habits of time management. The more you think about and practice these methods, the more rapidly you will program yourself to be efficient and highly productive.
First:
Remember that your self-image determines your performance. You always perform on the outside in a matter consistent with the picture you have of yourself on the inside.
Practice visualizing and imagining yourself as you want to be, not as you may have been in the past. You can actually change your self-image permanently by repeatedly visualizing yourself as someone who is highly efficient and effective.
Second:
Remember that it takes about twenty-one days of practice and repetition to form a new habit pattern. It has taken you your entire lifetime to become the person you are today, with the time management habits you have at this moment. It takes time and commitment to change, and for your subconscious mind to accept the new habits.
Third:
Promise yourself that you are going to become excellent at time management. Promise yourself that you are going to be punctual, and that you are going to concentrate on your most important tasks. Then, promise others that you are going to be more effective and efficient in the future.
Fourth:
In developing the habits of time management, start in just one area where poor time management is holding you back. Don't try to change everything at once. Change just one habit or activity where you know that improvement could be very helpful to you.
Fifth:
Launch your new time management habit strongly. Never allow an exception once you have decided that you are going to become excellent in a particular behavior. Never let yourself off the hook.
Sixth:
Use the “trial and success” method rather than the “trial and error” method. The trial and success method requires that you learn how to succeed by failing, and then by learning from your mistakes. Analyze your reasons for poor time management. Ask yourself, “What are the obstacles to my operating more efficiently in this area?” Take some time to reflect on recent behaviors.
Seventh:
You must absolutely believe that you can and will become excellent at time management. The Law of Belief says that “Your beliefs become your realities.” The more intensely you believe that you can and will become excellent at time management, the more rapidly this belief becomes your reality. If you hold to your belief long enough and hard enough, it will eventually materialize as new behaviors with regard to time.
First:
Remember that your self-image determines your performance. You always perform on the outside in a matter consistent with the picture you have of yourself on the inside.
Practice visualizing and imagining yourself as you want to be, not as you may have been in the past. You can actually change your self-image permanently by repeatedly visualizing yourself as someone who is highly efficient and effective.
Second:
Remember that it takes about twenty-one days of practice and repetition to form a new habit pattern. It has taken you your entire lifetime to become the person you are today, with the time management habits you have at this moment. It takes time and commitment to change, and for your subconscious mind to accept the new habits.
Third:
Promise yourself that you are going to become excellent at time management. Promise yourself that you are going to be punctual, and that you are going to concentrate on your most important tasks. Then, promise others that you are going to be more effective and efficient in the future.
Fourth:
In developing the habits of time management, start in just one area where poor time management is holding you back. Don't try to change everything at once. Change just one habit or activity where you know that improvement could be very helpful to you.
Fifth:
Launch your new time management habit strongly. Never allow an exception once you have decided that you are going to become excellent in a particular behavior. Never let yourself off the hook.
Sixth:
Use the “trial and success” method rather than the “trial and error” method. The trial and success method requires that you learn how to succeed by failing, and then by learning from your mistakes. Analyze your reasons for poor time management. Ask yourself, “What are the obstacles to my operating more efficiently in this area?” Take some time to reflect on recent behaviors.
Seventh:
You must absolutely believe that you can and will become excellent at time management. The Law of Belief says that “Your beliefs become your realities.” The more intensely you believe that you can and will become excellent at time management, the more rapidly this belief becomes your reality. If you hold to your belief long enough and hard enough, it will eventually materialize as new behaviors with regard to time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.jpg)
