‘Dumb Mistakes that Business Owners Make and How to Avoid Them’
The Greater Manchester Business Fair is looking forward to welcoming an US-based Profitability Guru, who has a passion for helping businesses get and stay profitable, for their next local event in July at the AJ Bell Stadium.
With almost 40 years of experience behind her and the ability to get her clients to see profits of up to $1,000,000, as well as helping people turn their business around from negative $400,000 to a business which is still a booming success 20 years on, Ruth King, 65 from Atlanta, Georgia will be providing an interactive workshop to give UK business owners the process and tools to build their wealth and achieve their business dreams.
For the past 30+ years, Ruth has been instrumental in helping businesses grow profitably through; consulting, speaking, training, her books, and Operations Manuals and she is now well-known across the US and beyond as ‘The Profitability Guru’. A serial entrepreneur having owned 8 businesses herself, one of her businesses, Business Ventures Corporation, began operations in 1981 and through this she coaches, trains, and helps others achieve the business growth and goals they want to achieve. She also spreads her knowledge globally through her books; ‘The Courage to be Profitable’ and ‘The Ugly Truth about Cash’, which were named 2 of the 37 books all start-ups should read by London based Flippings.
Now one of the most well-established business events in the area, the Greater Manchester Business Fair has been bringing local companies together to meet, learn and network in a friendly but professional environment since 2011. First held at Salford University it soon had to relocate to a larger venue due to demand and is now hosted at the AJ Bell Stadium. The event is organised by Liverpool based events company Liverpool BA, who have been holding Business Fairs and events across the North West region since 2002. Supporters and sponsors include; Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, the University of Salford, Business Connect Magazine and Elite Business.
Free to attend, the main feature of the event is a business-to-business exhibition, but there is also a strong business support focus to the day, with free seminars and workshops, a networking session at 1pm, start up support, and one to one business advice from industry experts and professional bodies.
Having been successful in helping business owners in the US and beyond to increase profits, build wealth, and for some, sell their businesses for millions, Ruth is looking forward to meeting and connecting with UK businesses and entrepreneurs and is delighted to be travelling ‘across the pond’ to speak at the at this event in July. Ruth’s talk is entitled; ‘7 Dumb Mistakes that Business Owners Make and How to Avoid Them’ – this will cover; how to price using net profit per hour, understanding that balance sheets are more important than profit and loss statements, cash flow mistakes, creative ways to steal, what reports are needed daily, weekly, monthly…
Ruth said: “My goal is to give business owners the processes and tools to get and stay profitable as well as build wealth. I’m excited to share with local businesses from around the North West and beyond ideas they can implement immediately for a better bottom line and wealth building”.
“I always ask ‘Would you prefer to find out you have cancer when it is at Stage 1 or Stage 4?’ Stage 1 of course – that’s why you get a health check-up. ‘Would you prefer to find out you are headed for a business problem before you are in the middle of a crisis?’ Of course – that’s why you get a business financial health check-up.”
“In my talk you’ll discover the seven dumbest financial mistakes business owners make…part of your business financial health check-up. If you can avoid these mistakes’ you’ll be able to spot and take care of many issues before they become major crises….and stay healthy business wise. You’ll leave with actions you can easily implement to stay profitable and build wealth.”
“Wherever you and your business is based, profit is a universal term. Although tax laws differ from country to country, the reality is that all businesses have to be profitable or they won’t survive.”
“In both the US and the UK, there are some people who think profit is a “dirty word.” It’s not and it’s necessary to survive and achieve the business goals and life that you want to achieve.”
Ruth shares below some of the Dumb Mistakes that Business Owners Make and How to Avoid Them:
- Thinking that Profit and Loss Statements are Key – A profit and loss statement gives you profits or losses for a specific period of time. Balance sheets are more important than statements, as a Balance Sheet gives you continuing profitability. You can then see whether your company is becoming more or less profitable month by month.
- Thinking Profits is Cash – What you see on the bottom of your profit and loss statement is a statement of revenues being higher than expenses (profits) or expenses being higher than revenues (losses). Your company can have a loss and still have money in the bank. It can be very profitable and be in a cash crunch. Cash is important, positive cash flow is even more important, and profits are critical. Turn profits into positive cash flow, which gives your company the cash necessary to pay its bills. Turning profits into cash, means collecting for the sales that you’ve made. The collection is cash, which can be used to pay your bills related to the sale (labor, materials, equipment) as well as part of the company overhead. Keeping track of overdue invoices is key. If a customer is late, a phone call must be made to determine when you can expect to receive payments.
- Growing Too Fast – How do you know if you may be growing too fast? If your annualized sales divided by working capital is greater than 10 (Working capital is current assets minus current liabilities) – this is the formula to determine if your company is growing too fast. Annualized sales is the estimated sales on a yearly basis. If you don’t pay attention to how fast you are growing, you can grow out of business – usually by running out of money. If you calculate this number and it is over 10, you have to pay attention to cashflow. You must estimate cash needs and make sure that sufficient cash is coming in the door to survive the growth.
- Not Tracking Billable/Revenue Producing Hours – The most profitable companies track revenue producing (i.e. billable) hours. Assuming that the company is pricing its products profitably, then the more revenue producing hours the company has, the more profit the company has. Track the number of hours used to produce revenues against the total hours paid for a period of time. Divide the two to get the revenue producing percentage.
- Forgetting that Overhead is Part of Pricing – If you just estimate direct cost and divide by a gross margin, you are forgetting overhead. Overhead and desired profit must be included in pricing. The best way to price: determine your desired net profit, then add the overhead cost then add the direct cost to arrive at a selling price.
You can connect with Ruth at the Greater Manchester Business Fair or find out more about Ruth www.ruthking.info you can also order Ruth’s book The Courage to be Profitable: Get and Stay Profitable in Less than 30 Minutes a Month on Amazon – https://amzn.to/3sbLloj
