Time and Management: Saving a Wage Could Cost You a Fortune!

Is time management a hot topic for you? Whenever I talk to business owners they have two main concerns, making more money and attempting to work less hours in a week.

In other words getting from 80-100 hrs a week to something like 60-70 hrs/wk. As a business owner, the idea of a 40 hr work week or a business that works without me the owner is someone’s idea of a joke.

In one of our surveys we did with business owners we asked the question, How long would your business last if you were not there (eg. You were hit by a bus and in a coma in the hospital). Everyone laughs at the question.

Many times the owner of a small business ends up doing everything. So they end up working IN the business instead of ON the business. So how do we get business owners working hard on smart things insteading of working hard or thinking about how to work smart?

My #1 time management priority everyday in my business– if it doesn’t add money to the bottom line, I don’t work on it.  No money coming in, no point in making a pretty spreadsheet or spending countless hours in a meeting with an undefined purpose.

The The key time management tool for an owner is to figure out what he is worth an hour. That will determine what a business owner should be working on.

For example:

Let’s say your business brings in annual revenue of $750,000. Now you have to figure out what you are worth an hour. Since you are the owner you are the rainmaker, the person who makes things happen. The buck stops with you.

So, if you were working a normal week, and I know you aren’t. Let’s say it’s 40 hrs and you work 49 weeks. Your total hours per year are 49 x 40 = 1,960 hrs. So $750,000/1960 = $383/hr (rounded up).

That means you as the owner is worth $383/hr. So if what you are working on isn’t worth $383/hr; stop it!

Real life example — you are working late each night catching up on paperwork and doing the book keeping and you spend 30% of the week doing it. So that means it is costing you and your business over $18,000/m because you are doing those admin tasks. If you hired someone to do it and pay them $20/hr that means the cost of the person is $960. So if you hired the person and then spent that 30% generating an additional $18,000 less their $960 you are making $17,040. So stop saving a wage it could be costing you a fortune!

To your success and the success of our communities in Canada,

Greg K.

How rising Grocery costs will affect Small Business Owners and Solutions for staying in Business

Edmonton,AB- As reported this week by the Wall Street Journal and CTV, the price of food is going up and that could mean trouble for not only the consumer, but the small grocery stores who already struggle against the larger chains. Business expert Greg Kopchuk with ActionCOACH Canada has some solutions for the tough times ahead.

“When grocery costs rise, small business owners panic because they are reluctant to raise prices. They usually know their regular customers better than the average large grocery chain, and because of that they don’t want to pass the cost onto their customer. As a result it eats away at their profits. You wouldn’t believe the amount of local grocery stores that haven’t raised their prices in 5 years or more because of that reason- and that’s why 80% of all businesses close their doors every 10 years,” says Kopchuk, an expert in small business solutions.

Greg has these recommendations for small business owners:

1. Increase prices on some products and do several small increases over time. Also always watch the overheads and look for ways to reduce it. Work on getting customers coming back more often and get them to spend a little more each time. Also work on converting more people who come into the store.

2. Watch your margins and act accordingly. For instance, at a sample 40% margin a 10% increase in your price could sustain a 20% reduction in your sales volume.

3. Do NOT increase prices on the staples (milk, butter, eggs) unless you absolutely have to. Even Safeway had to reduce their prices in 2010 in order to compete with Loblaws.

4)  Make sure your store is spotless. (And by “spotless” I mean “so clean your mother would eat off the floor.”)

5) At the register, make sure customers are within easy reach to profitable add-ons—magazines, candy, chips, pop, knick-knacks, you name it. The higher the profit margin, the closer it should be to your cash register.

6) Keep all the low margin stuff at the very back of your store.

7) Finally, keep an eye on quality, customer care and presentation. If you sell the same quality of apples as the neighborhood Megalomart, why would people make a point of coming to you? If customers have to wait in line just as long, why will they keep coming to you? Finally, like I said—spotless. Your store should be famous for being clean.

Greg Kopchuk heads up ActionCOACH Canada, the #1 business coaching firm in Canada. They work with established and emerging small and medium businesses.They are the winners of the CFA Bronze Award of excellence for non-traditional franchises.

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For information on Greg Kopchuk and ActionCOACH Canada visit: www.actioncoachcanada.ca

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