"How To Grow Profits by 30% or More in 90 Days or Less"  A Six Part Mini-Series:     Lesson 1 Author Steve Pohlit www.stevepohlit.com Copyright 2006 All Rights Reserved.This article may be republished and redistributed without restrictions with this resource box.

Introduction

I appreciate your interest in this information and respect your time… the most valuable asset we have. What you are about to receive is a result of actual experience with more than 50 companies in 5 industries. Actual implementation of this program has resulted in profits growing by tens of millions of dollars. If you follow the steps in this mini-course and apply them to your business you will achieve the stated objective of growing profits by 30% or more in 90 days or less. 

A mini course is viewed by some as a teaser for a more comprehensive book, manual, or consulting project. I don’t have a book or manual finished to sell you and while I am always interested evaluating new clients, you will be able to take action to achieve improved business performance immediately with the information in this series. 

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.  Let’s get started:

Lesson One:

Jake Steinfeld in his latest book “ I Have Seen a Lot of Famous People Naked and They’ve Got Nothing On You!” adds dimension to the cash is king principle. Jake talks about cash not being a leader but a follower. It follows, action.

Steve’s Law of Growing Profits Part 1: The Way Only Way To Grow Profits Is To Grow Gross Margin Faster Than Your Fixed Costs!

See this is isn’t hard. I’ll bet you knew that.

Steve’s Law of Growing Profits Part 2: You Must Know Your Starting Point, Your Destination and Schedule Your Arrival Date.

You gotta love Mark Joyner. In  Simpleology 101 he starts with the Law of Straight Lines which is simply the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. I love that lesson. It reminds me to stay focused on the exact steps required to achieve the defined goal.  (I encourage you to visit http://stevepohlit.simpleology.com/ ).

Your First Assignment:

The goal of this first assignment is to take a snapshot of your financial condition today and project where your business will be in each of the next 8 weeks. We track the cash position as the primary measurement of financial condition. This is called the 8 week cash flow forecast and financial flash report. When done right it will guide you on the actions you must take to achieve your profit growth goals. Remember the title of the series: “How To Increase Profit by 30% or more in 90 Days or Less” This is how you do it.

Step 1: Measure your starting point!

Open an excel spreadsheet and use three columns for each of the next 8 weeks. The top 25% or so of the spreadsheet will be your cash inflow projection and the bottom 75% of the spreadsheet will be your cash outflow projection. The labels of your cash inflow worksheet can be Cash Sales, Credit Card Sales, Collections on Accounts Receivable. (Sales on account or sales where you invoice a customer on terms are not cash sales.) Adopt the labels to fit your business. The labels on the cash outflow will most likely include payroll, rent or mortgage, utilities and operating expense. They can also include the purchase of product if you have a  manufacturing or retail business. You know where you spend money and if it is spent weekly, monthly or at some other interval.

The starting point for your schedule is your available cash right now. For the record (this is fundamental) available cash is what you can spend right now and that has not already been spent but the check simply has not cleared. I cannot tell you how many times I have worked with highly educated and experienced financial professionals and when I work with them on defining available cash I get the answer… well our bank balance is $xxx.xx. Then when we analyze what checks have been written and are still outstanding we get a different answer.

In summary your assignment  is to determine your available cash and your near term cash flow (the next eight weeks.)  Note: if you don’t do this or are not interested in doing this but want the results, call me.

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

I’ll meet you at the next lesson which will be in your email in about a week.

Be well and prosper,

Steve Pohlit
www.stevepohlit.com