"How To Grow Profits by 30% or More in 90 Days or Less"  A Six Part Mini-Series:    Lesson 6 Author Steve Pohlit www.stevepohlit.com Copyright 2006 All Rights Reserved.This article may be republished and redistributed without restrictions with this resource box.

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Since the beginning of this series there has been one goal which is to provide you the direction on achieving 30% more profit for your business in 90 days or less. This is the last lesson in this particular series. About five weeks have past since the first lesson which means there are about 7 more weeks before you are at the 90 day mark.
 
In this lesson we will review some very important items that must be in place for this management system that I have named “The Profit System” to work for you long term. You will also receive several major bonuses for following the lessons.

One more item before we review the detail in today’s lesson. To operate a business in the elite category, the category where your company is consistently achieving above average sales, profit and market share growth, you must be committed to the goal and have the discipline to do what it takes to achieve the goal. I am a big fan of imaging the result you want to achieve and then developing and implementing a plan to achieve that result. These six lessons form the foundation of your plan to accelerate revenue and profit growth.

Steve’s Law of Achieving Elite Business Performance ..Part 1: Define the revenue and profit performance you want in measurable terms. Monitor actual performance of “The Profit System” vs. goal at regular intervals. Continue taking action to achieve and exceed the goal.

There are limitations to what can be taught in a mini-course. So I have decided to further develop this series into a more comprehensive program that will have more detailed explanations, industry specific examples, additional spreadsheets for your analysis and in-depth guidance for certain areas of your business where you may not have the most experience.
 
This product has not been finalized. However, as a subscriber to my six week mini-course, you are invited to pre-register for this training course that will include information in the form of a physical manual, CD’s and more. I will also guarantee you will be able to buy this program at a 50% discount from the introductory price. All you need to do is register for advance release notification and you will automatically be entitled to the discount should you order the physical course. There is no obligation so Just Click Here to register.

If you have been reading this material carefully, you will have noticed the following comment included with each lesson….

Your comments are encouraged and welcomed. I would be pleased to answer your questions once you have completed evaluating all six parts of this series. There is a link for the additional information I will need in preparing to address your questions at the end of the course.
 
As promised here is the link for your questions: Click Here

Lesson 6 -  “Must Have’s”  To Make It All Work

The following must be in place for your business to succeed long term. These are components of your infrastructure – you foundation of doing business. You are correct in asking the question as to why foundation was not addressed in Lesson 1. My answer is that you would not appreciate the importance of the following items if I began discussing them at that point. Not discussing them first in no way diminishes their importance in your business. At the end you will also learn  “The Holy Grail” of Making Extraordinary Profit In Your Business. I call this the Holy Grail because it is the formula nobody talks about but is the truth. For you it is disclosed. Why? Because: I want to. Is this the Holy Grail for elite profits?  Yes!
 
Foundation Business Points:

Your Team: Hire the best to complement your weakness. Make sure you have the best financial person you can find. Make sure you have the person in place who can carry on in your absence. Make sure you have the best marketing team you can find. A team that is committed to the principles of direct response marketing with your current customers and prospective ones is invaluable.

Information Systems – you need all the performance information on your business and have it available at the transaction level. Make sure you know all the access codes and make sure all data is regularly backed up and stored off site. By the way have you ever tested your back-up and recovery plan? Have you ever tested your ability to monitor the email of an employee who has left?

Internal Controls: the system of checks and balances in your business often ignored by privately held companies and when they are ignored profits are eventually compromised.

Sarbanes-Oxley: If you are a privately held company, this may not appear to be of major concern. However if you are privately held and you want to apply for a loan, an increasing number of lending institutions are going to want to know how you are in compliance with the principles of the act. If you have a solid internal controls environment you have little to be concerned about.

Contingency Planning:  Ask yourself if you were in an accident that would take you out of your business for 6days, 6 weeks, 6 months, how would your business do in your absence?  Most people do not think in terms of contingencies. Well what if? Are you prepared? Is your family prepared?

Steve’s Law of Achieving Elite Business Performance ..Part 2 Structure your business to achieve your business objectives when you are not there. Then make sure you are not there enough to verify your structure is working.

The Holy Grail of Elite Business Performance

The Holy Grail of Elite Business Performance is not a formula. It is a state. A position where your business, without you, serves it’s markets and operates at consistent efficiency and optimal profitability … customers are happy, employees are happy and you and your family are happy and secure.

Following “The Profit System”  is the route to The Holy Grail of Elite Business Performance. Is it the only path? Probably not! But when I learn of one better, you will be the first to know. The Profit System is an integrated management system with the appropriate level of discipline considering your industry, your business and your business targets. The Profit System always places people priorities first.

Helpful Industry Specific Tips:

Transportation (Long Haul): The number one key success factor in this business is managing the profitability of each customer for each outbound and inbound route. An excel spreadsheet should be used to calculate revenue per mile, cost per mile and profit per mile. Revenue should break out fuel surcharge. Asset based carriers should have an affiliated logistics company that nets profit percentages in the high teens minimum.

Retail (all retail including: apparel, convenience stores, restaurants, mass merchadising, grocery, drug stores, etc.) : Same store sales is the starting point then go deeper into category and sku. Sales, margin, in- stock position and turnover are key. Retail businesses can immediately benefit from the principles of Local Retail Marketing. For more information please visit www.localretailmarketing.com

Manufacturing: An accurate sales forecast linked to the lead time of materials required to produce the final product is a major success factor. It is called materials requirement planning. Profit dollars should drive the priority of production. If you have excess materials or product shortages, those are indicators of breaks in your forecasting process, vendor performance, buying process or possibly problems in all of those areas.

Reminders:

You have seen this before but here it is again: a list of the typical meetings that occur under the "The Profit System" method:

Weekly Cash Flow and Financial Flash
Weekly Sales Meeting
Weekly Operations Meeting
Weekly Meeting on Staffing
Bi-Weekly or Monthly Meeting on Accounts Receivable
Bi-Weekly or Monthly Meeting on Inventory
Quarterly employee review and pay for performance update

Depending on your business some meetings that are scheduled for bi-monthly or monthly can be held weekly. In some crisis situations, a meeting on certain issues is scheduled daily. Depending on the industry, other meetings may be necessary. For example: a real estate meeting if your company is building or adding new locations; a meeting on maintenance if your company has a lot of equipment like my trucking company clients; other than liquidity, sales and operations there are no absolutes to The Profit System. You define the meetings based on the key success factors of the business.

A final point on meetings: at every meeting someone must be assigned to take the minutes and issue them within two days of the meeting. The minutes are designed to document the decisions made during the meeting on actions that are to be taken to strengthen business performance. Those actions should be documented, have a person assigned who is accountable for the action and have an agreed upon due date for completion. Then the first thing done at the start of the meeting is to review the minutes of the previous meeting and the status of the implementation of action steps. Hopefully you are beginning to see the built in accountability of The Profit System

Your Lesson 6 Assignment:

1.   Update your 8 week cash flow and financial flash to add a new week. This is a rolling cash flow statement and you must update it every week. At this point in the process the target profit should be clear to all management personnel and that it is stated in dollars and as a percentage of revenue. You now have nearly all the tools you need to achieve profit that is 30% or more than the trend before this course started. Furthermore, you have been guided on how to achieve that within a 90 day period. If you are not on track there is something that you are missing and you need to go back to the first lesson and begin to figure out what is wrong.

2.   Distribute the minutes from the previous week's meetings within 24 hours of completing the meetings. The meetings you should be having weekly are cash flow and liquidity and sales. Meetings that generally are scheduled for once every two weeks or possibly monthly depending on your business include: inventory, accounts receivable, staffing, fixed assets, maintenance. Note any meeting can be scheduled to occur more or less frequently depending on the significance of issues affecting the business. There are no exceptions to scheduling the meetings on cash and liquidity and sales every week.

3.   Assign one person as being accountable for scheduling meetings, sending out reminders and accumulating minutes from the meetings. Be prepared to part company with a valuable employee who will not participate in The Profit System process. You will find that this person who you thought was indispensable really was not doing the job you thought.

4.   Review and modify your 12 month forecast of revenue and profits based on current trends. It is important to “set the bar high but achievable.” In most cases the plan is higher than the base pay for performance plan. Note the number for your eight week cash flow and financial flash should be consistent with a calendarized 12 month plan.

Shameless Plug: Running a business is hard if you do not have the experience in setting up a disciplined management system that addresses the key success factors for optimizing profits. You should have a clear sense by now from working these lessons, that my experience is extensive. I can save you a lot of time and jump start your business profits. You will realize a high return on your investment in my work.

This is Steve Pohlit and my number is 727-587-7871. Email Contact  

Remember to register for the in-depth Profit System course Click Here. There is no obligation and you registration will lock in a discount of 50% from the price of this course. Click Here Now!

Be well and prosper,

Steve Pohlit, Business Consultant
www.stevepohlit.com

PS I have recently developed another mini-course: The Roadmap To Internet Profits. It is a six lesson course also. You are invited to register at www.theprofitexpert.com

Final Comment: I have enjoyed the opportunity to offer this course. Candidly parts of it gave me fits. Mostly because of formatting issues with the email system that sends out these lessons. Nothing wrong with that system. I am still becoming used to the nuances of that technology. Other challenges were finding errors in spelling and grammer after a message had been sent. Those errors are for the most part a result of my focus on providing you valuable content and I don't spend enough time on quality control of my writing. As to the content, please take a few minutes to tell me about your reaction to this material.

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