Author Topic: Crowd-sourced Nuggets of widsom  (Read 2059 times)

swick

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Crowd-sourced Nuggets of widsom
« on: February 28, 2017, 07:24:18 PM »
I imagine most of us are constantly learning, improving, reading, optimizing on our path to Entrepreneurial FI.

This thread is to capture and share those nuggets you come across throughout your day that may be relevant/useful/inspiring to others.

Take the best bits out of those blogs, articles, podcasts, trainings, books, etc. and share them with us! Please link to source material, or note references if available.



ETA: I'm seeding some threads to get people interested in the subforum. I'll come back with my nuggets as I have a chance.

pianomom

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Re: Crowd-sourced Nuggets of widsom
« Reply #1 on: March 02, 2017, 12:09:06 PM »
One of the most helpful things with our business is having a cashflow projection statement. We currently have tweaked the 12 month cash flow statement from this Score page https://www.score.org/resource/business-planning-financial-statements-template-gallery. Cash is king with a business, and knowing how much you have coming in and going out is essential. This cashflow statement we use in conjunction with our P&L and Balance Sheet.

A cashflow statement is helpful both when you're starting out to see if your business is financially viable and when you're more established. If you have a seasonal business, it can help you know how much you need to earn in your busy months to tide you through the down times.

One of the biggest challenges with a cashflow projection worksheet is overestimating your income and underestimating your expenses. This will probably happen anyway, but try to be as realistic as you can. In my opinion, it's better to underestimate your income and overestimate your expenses for projections.

Our cash flow statement helps us make decisions on how much money we can set aside for business savings, if we're earning enough to hire another employee, how much we can take out of the business to pay ourselves (beyond our basic payroll income), if we project a leaner time is coming so that we can prepare, etc.

Even though we try to project out for 12 months, our cash flow statement is more accurate for 1-3 months.  We adjust it as we get new clients, lose clients, have more expenses, etc. We also keep a close eye on our bank accounts since even if we projected income coming in a certain month, some clients may pay late, we may have an unexpected expense, etc.


ketchup

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Re: Crowd-sourced Nuggets of widsom
« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2017, 01:12:39 PM »
One nugget that I think was from Tim Ferriss in The Four Hour Work Week was to double-down on your strengths, vs trying to improve your weaknesses.  Helps keep from constantly chasing new paths and sticking to what's already working.

Axecleaver

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Re: Crowd-sourced Nuggets of widsom
« Reply #3 on: March 02, 2017, 02:28:23 PM »
To build a successful business, you need to do two of three things well: marketing, sales, and delivery. Pick two and outsource the one you do least well (or get a partner).

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!