Practical Tools for Control, Survival and Success

As a business owner, you must wear many hats. Marketing manager, director of operations, head of human resources are but a few of your roles. But the one role you can never delegate is that of financial manager. This two-day financial management program is designed to take the mystery out of the numbers and give business owners practical financial tools and perspectives to help them make better business decisions.

In this hands-on workshop, you'll discover how to…

· Overcome Common Business Problems · Understand Your Financial Position · Use Tools to Take Active Control
· Make Effective Pricing Decisions · Evaluate Cost Patterns 

You'll take the "Fiscal Physical" and assess exactly how to go about controlling your finances, no matter what your financial background. As a business owner or manager of an independent business, you put huge amounts of time and effort into running the company. But how do you make sure you're not just running in place? "Practical Tools for Control, Survival & Success" will give you the insight to stay financially healthy.

The emphasis on the first day will be to determine and evaluate the current financial position of a business utilizing income statement and balance sheet ratios. On the second day the focus will be on charting a course for the future – developing an operating and strategic plan. Concepts presented include a cash flow vs. profits comparison, growth analysis, income statement and balance sheet case studies, and dealing with financing sources. 

You'll leave with a process to evaluate the performance of your business and a strategy to implement change. Along with other owners and managers of small businesses, you’ll analyze actual business problems and situations. And together, you’ll find useful solutions in a stimulating exchange of ideas.

Get Control of Your Business

This comprehensive program helps business owners, managers, and advisors improve their financial skills by educating them with proven techniques in a unique format that is clear and easy to understand.  Basic financial concepts are reinforced through hands-on case studies and class participation.  The program content focuses on implementing financial tools to evaluate the current position of the company: financial statement and ratio analysis, pricing and cost controls.

Chart A Course for the Future

This session is designed to follow day one (above) - and provide business owners, managers and advisors with sophisticated, yet easy to understand, tools to take positive control of the business for the future.  Prior attendance at Fiscal Physical Day One is not necessary to benefit from this program.

The program content focuses on implementing financial tools to develop an operating and strategic plan.  Concepts presented include cash flow vs. profits, growth analysis, balance sheet case studies, estate planning, and dealing with financing sources.

The Cup Theory: Know Your Costs and Manage the Creepers 

In earlier parts of Profit Mastery® participants learned how to use financial statements to give a picture of the past. Break-even is the tool that lets owners and managers gauge the results of changes in costs, volumes or pricing. With break-even analysis, they’ll gain a method to analyze the present and make better decisions about the future. For example: is bigger always better? Maybe yes and maybe no. By using the tools of cost and break-even analysis, participants will be able to make crucial decisions about the profitability of individual locations and products, as well as evaluate specific criteria for opening and closing locations (or departments).

Topics Include:

Using break-even analysis to control costs | How cost patterns affect profits 
Expansion planning techniques | Pricing strategies | Case study and practical applications

Ratio Analysis: Your Roadmap To A Bigger Bottom Line

When you don’t know where you are, it’s difficult to chart a future course.  This presentation takes the audience beyond the basics of financial statement analysis in a sophisticated, decision-relevant format.  Working through a real-life case study with the instructor, participants together explore the specific techniques of strategic financial analysis to learn how to solve the problems that cause financial distress, and not just the symptoms.  Participants will learn about financial ratios and how to use them to analyze their company’s financial performance and to create change for the future.  After this presentation, participants will understand what financial statements really tell them about their business and have the expertise and confidence to take action.  No prior financial expertise needed.

Topics Include:
Accounting: basics and beyond | Understanding your financial position
Determining and communicating the financial impact of different cash flow patterns
Understanding financial ratios and using them to analyze their company's financial performance 
Gross Margin: margin analysis |  Return on investment (ROI): asset management techniques and strategies
Industry comparison analysis: how does your business measure up? 
Tools for active control | Case study and practical application

For Improved Profits, Manage Your Cash Flow

Ever wonder why cash goes south when your sales hit the roof? Or if there are ways to predict and control for fluctuations in cash due to seasonal patterns of business? Or why net profits don’t necessarily translate into cash? This presentation cuts straight to the bottom line with a discussion of why you need cash flow analysis, how to do it, and the impact it can have on the way you run your company. Working with the instructor, participants will build a profit plan and cash budget on a step by step basis.

Topics Include:
Review of developing a cash budget | Identifying key patterns of cash flow
Determining and communicating the financial impact of different cash flow patterns
Short-term vs. long-term cycles | How the definitions of cash flow have changed in the last decade
Net profit vs. cash flow | Cash forecasting as a management tool | Cash flow: three definitions

The Sponge Technique:
For Efficient Growth, Manage Your Balance Sheet

While growth and recession get measured on the income statement, they get paid on the balance sheet. Without carefully managing your business' balance sheet to take positive control of growth, you can fall into the "Financial Gap." This unique presentation allows participants to assess their current survival position as well as get acquainted to the “Sponge Technique”, an innovative, realistic strategy to wring much needed cash out of a balance sheet.

Topics include:
Understand the effect of growth on the balance sheet | Project the "Financial Gap" 
Determining the asset needs of the company | Key issues of financial leverage and debt structuring
How to find the money needed to pay for growth

Valuing Your Business - What's It Really Worth?

Everyone wants to know what their business is worth for a variety of personal and professional reasons. This program outlines the most common methods of valuation as well as the most common reasons for valuing a company.

Determining the value of a business is a process that can be confusing, time-consuming, and expensive. The goal in this presentation is to demystify some of the key issues relating to valuing a company. The concepts of worth and value are discussed along with the importance of cash flow. This discussion highlights the issues involved in valuation and gets participants on the road to develop a process, including retaining and coordinating with the right valuation professional.

Topics include:
Uses of business valuation | Basic overview of revenue rule 59-60 | Valuation methods
Key terms in the valuation process
Identifying financially troubled companies | The valuation process

Succession Planning - Ensuring Your Dream Survives

A closely-held business is a unique entity and it requires skillfully addressing the key issues - both financial and non-financial - to smoothly and successfully transfer the business to future generations or outside entity.  The succession planning process consists of a series of decisions with the goal of transferring assets to heirs with a minimum of costs.  It is a dynamic process with two basic components.  The first is to accomplish stated desired and objectives in your transition plan and the second is to minimize the cost of the transfer.

This program explores the issues and steps (both financial and personal) that must be addressed and provides both a checklist and a roadmap to assist in the process.  Spouses and next-generation members are encouraged to attend this program.

Topics include:
Becoming familiar with estate planning tools | Understanding the important estate planning issues
Identify your particular estate planning objectives
Identify issues important to you which need further discussion and clarification
Learn how to construct an estate planning team to assist you | Know how to begin the estate planning process

How To Get What You Want From Your Bank

Using the financial analysis techniques learned in earlier sessions, participants now have the tools they need to create an adequate picture of the past (financial statements), the present (break-even) and the future (cash budgeting and financial gap). How to package that information to get results is the next step.

Almost all companies have needs for additional capital at one time or another. There are many sources of funds for both debt and equity. Regardless of the source, a business owner must tell their story in a way that makes sense and get results! Learning the secrets to this process is the topic of this presentation.

Taught by instructors with years of experience in the banking and financial services industry, this session covers changes in the industry and how they can affect participants’ success in obtaining financing. Attendees will also learn how to properly package and communicate information to increase their chances with funding sources.

Topics include:
Understanding the loan approval process | What lenders & investors look for in a loan request
Putting the package together | How to determine and communicate your company's financing needs
Keys elements of negotiating rates and terms