Cash is King!

Cash flow management is the #1 challenge of any small business. We can never say it often enough: cash is the lifeblood of your business. Does this seem too obvious? If it does, think about the ways you preserve your cash.

Do you:

• Check every invoice for accuracy and its pay date?
• Protest bills that come in higher than quoted?
• Avoid paying bills earlier than they’re due – unless there’s a good discount for paying early?
• Pay bills on time to avoid penalties?
• Keep your overhead as tight as possible by saving energy, using equipment until it officially dies, and utilizing every inch of space to avoid moving?
• Negotiate costs and discounts for tangibles and services, then establish a slower payment plan in writing?
• Use long-term loans instead of short-term loans to slow down cash outflow.

You should have answered “yes” to each of these questions. Without a cash balance, you’re running the business without a safety net. And you’re increasing your chances for going out of business or bankruptcy.

No business planning is more important than weekly (or daily) cash flow checking and projections.

Don’t “look the other way” when it comes to your cash. It’s too important. If this task seems overwhelming, contact us for a free 1-hour consulting appointment at http://www.elwellinc.com/. Together, we can get a grip on your money.

Twitter: it's as easy as playing chess (not!)

If you're not a twitter user, it's impossible to understand it's power. I know...the concept of  "Followers" seems crazy. When you hear the stars brag about their 3 million+ Followers (Oprah, for example), it seems like a groupie thing...a "so what?"  Maybe it's easy for the stars to get Followers, but it's sure not easy for real people like us.

My reason for participation was/is to get "popular" with a big group of Mom Bloggers who would help me announce a client's online promotion on twitter, blogs and facebook. My reasoning was that each Mom Follower would broadcast the promotion news to her own Followers...and that all the Followers and their Followers' Followers (you get it!) would come to the client website (or facebook page) to enter to win 1 of 40 prizes (2 of these are $1,000 cash!).

Here's the hitch: you have to figure out how to reach your specific target (e.g., Moms who blog). First, you have to "follow" people so they'll follow you back (only about 50% do). But if you follow more than you get followed, you look unpopular on your twitter page (called a "timeline" for some reason). So to attract more Followers, you have to "tweet" several times a day and hope that enough people are interested enough to follow. The best day to get Followers is Follow Friday (#FF) where you thank all your new Followers for following and then decide who you want to follow for the day.

Whoa! I'm even confusing myself!!

Meanwhile, does anyone want to follow me? Just go to http://www.twitter.com/. In case the link doesn't land on my twitter page, just search for @ellenZelwell. Happy tweeting!