When Is It Better To Give Than Receive in Business?

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time to share visual for business sponsorship. 5 tips to decide if your business should be a sponsor

With the holidays approaching, the question of how much your business should give to sponsor worthy causes comes to the forefront – and may provide a basis to create a sponsorship budget for 2015. Maura Raffensperger, founder of Your Chief Simplicity Officer, and a proud Elite Member Sponsor of the National Association of Women Business Owners, Ventura County (NAWBO-VC) knows this dilemma well after 17 years in business. “Like many business owners, I am frequently asked to sponsor non-profits;” says Maura, “It used to be hard to say ‘No’, but I have found answering five key questions makes the decision easy, and creates a ‘win-win’ for both of us.”

Maura offers these 5 tips to help simplify your business sponsorship decisions:
    1. The organization aligns with your values.
      NAWBO, for example, is ‘a cohesive community of women business owners sharing best practices and support for each other’ which is a great fit for my mission statement and business and personal values.
    2. The organization has a written sponsorship policy.
      What do they expect of you? Are there multiple types of sponsorship? Pick the best fit.
    3. There is a responsive contact within the organization for sponsors.
      In a non-profit, this person may change every year. Do you know how to contact them? Do they get back to you? Ideally, you would like to build a relationship with this person.
    4. You will take advantage of most, if not all, of the sponsorship benefits.
      You may think they just want your money, but they want your participation, too. If your sponsorship includes seats at a banquet, for instance, they want to see those seats filled. You can be creative, and offer the tickets to clients, employees, or a student who might benefit, but it is your responsibility to make sure there is not a lonely empty table with your company name on it.
    5. They want to recognize you – make it easy for them.
      Respond promptly with their initial requests for your logo and company description, so they can add you to their promo materials and website.

You are free to publish and repost this content as long as long as you attribute to Maura Raffensperger and link back to this post.

As part of my sponsorship of NAWBO-VC, I am the title sponsor for their November 20th meeting and I would love to see you there. Click here for more information and to register. Use Promo Code MAURA to receive a 10% discount on your (non-member) registration – if you register by Monday, November 17!

Filed Under: small business marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

Accounting – The Rodney Dangerfield of Your Business

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Business reportIf you are a typical business owner, you complain mightily about email, but you completely ignore your accounting, hoping it will go away if you don’t think about it. Like Rodney Dangerfield, it just gets No Respect!

Look, you don’t need to do the accounting; your job as business owner/CEO of your business is to make sure it gets done. But there is more to it than handing it off – you do need to review the reports on a monthly basis. Why? Because the reports tell you if you are making money, and what brings in the most profit. They can provide an early warning that an area of your business is in trouble, giving you the chance to make changes before you begin hemorrhaging money.

I have many clients who hire a bookkeeper and never look at the reports – and have no idea the bookkeeper may not be producing reports that give you the info you need to make the decisions that will make you more money. Start by sitting down with your bookkeeper monthly, and asking them to walk you through the reports. If the information is not clear to you, or too difficult to see easily, ask for it to be provided in a different way – you are the boss, after all. The goal is an easily scanned report that will give you the key data you need without taking a lot of your time. At a minimum, you should be able to answer five questions:

  1. How much do you need to make each month to break-even? [This should include your salary]
  2. What percentage of your net income is provided by each product or service you offer?
  3. Who are your top grossing clients or customers? [Important not only so you can thank them, but also to minimize risk – if one client provides 80% of your income and you lost that customer, your business would probably fail]
  4. How much money do your customers owe you? How long do they take to pay you? Are any payments overdue?
  5. If you have inventory, what is the cost of your inventory? What is its average turnover time?

Your call to action is to calendar a monthly time to review your financials.

By the way, did you know that another comedian, Bob Newhart, was an accountant before he got his break in comedy? He didn’t like accounting either, but I’ll bet he reads his P&L report regularly!

Filed Under: business management, System Development Tagged With: , ,