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Cash flow is one of the biggest challenges that small business owners face. One of the reasons is because usually not enough attention is paid to managing it, until a crisis hits. Small business owners are often so focused on growing their businesses and making sales that they fail to see how their operational costs are eating into their profits. Suddenly, there are bills to pay and clients haven’t paid yet; as the business owner, you have to figure out a way to get cash in fast. However, if you are diligent about managing your cash flow, you can foresee and set up contingencies for situations like that. Here are a few tips that can help you to stay ahead of the game.

Know Your Operational Costs

Right from the start you should know what it costs to run your business on a monthly basis. Certainly, there will be some variable costs that change on a monthly basis but you should still have a rough idea of what they are so you can form a budget. If you do not capture all your expenses then you are quite likely to forget about some of them. A few hundred dollars here and there can quickly add up. The easiest way to do this is to draw up a simple spreadsheet. Capture fixed expenses such as rental costs and salaries first, and then have sections for income such as stationary, telecommunications and fuel. These operational costs should form the basis of your budget. They define your break-even point of your business. Bring in less income than that and your business will be in trouble. Always know the target that you need to reach in terms of turnover.

Define Your Payment Dates

Try not to have all your expenses payable at the same time of the month. Most landlords require that you pay the rent up front yet many insurance companies, for example, will allow you to schedule your debit orders for the 10th or 15th of the month. What this does is spread the load of your payments throughout the month. Instead of having to make sure that you have a lump sum of cash available at the end of every month, you need only a portion of your expenses to be covered then and have some more time to get in the balance of your cash before the next batch is payable. It may initially seem like a mission to split up the payment dates but it can make a huge difference to your cash flow.

Be Strict with Your Debtors

This is a trap that too many business owners fall into. They do not want to offend customers and potentially lose out on their business so they bend over backwards to accommodate them and let them get away with paying late on a regular basis. Large companies often use this tactic to help balance their cash flows. The longer they can stave off paying a small business, the greater benefit to them. You don’t have to be aggressive when chasing payments. From the outset with clients, make sure that you clearly communicate your payment terms. Ideally, small businesses should operate on a cash-on-delivery basis but in many industries, this is not possible. Try to have as short a period as possible for payment. Ideally, it should be seven or 14 days. At the outset, it should never be more than 30 days. If it is seven days then clearly state this on your invoice and when you make delivery. If after the eighth day you have still not received payment, make a phone call to find out if it has been processed. If it has but doesn’t yet reflect in your account, let your client know that you will call to confirm as soon as it does. This is a polite way of letting them know that you watch and manage your cash flow closely and that they cannot get away with delaying payments.

Make Sure You Have a Wide Customer Base

Many small businesses start with just one or two major clients. While this is great initially, think of what will happen if that big client delays payment or doesn’t pay at all. How will that affect your cash flow? It is much better to have lots of smaller amounts of cash consistently coming into your business than to depend on one or two large payments every month. To have large clients is great but make sure you can break even without their payments. That way, you will always have a strong cash flow.

The concept of leverage is one of the most important concepts in forex trading. Understanding leverage is your means of maximizing profits while managing risk. Leverage is the mechanism that can make or break you.

What is leverage? In the context of forex trading it is a form of loan or credit extended by the broker to the investor. In forex, the leverage or lines of credit available to the investor is the highest available in the investment world.

When an investor decides to enter the forex market they are given a margin account with their forex broker. The amount of leverage provided can be either 50 times, 100 times, or 200 times the initial investment depending on the size of the trade. High amounts of leverage are a necessary risk the broker must extend to the investor because the price deviations are extremely small. We will cover this in greater detail shortly.

For trades of 100,000 units or more leverage of 50:1 to 100:1 may be provided by the broker. For smaller trades, up to 200:1 may be offered. If you have little to invest then clearly you need to seek a broker that can offer you high leverage. However, remember, leverage is a double edged sword. High leverage means you can win big but you can also lose big as well.

If an investor wishes to trade $100,000 in currency they may only need $1000 in their account if the leverage offered by the broker is 100:1 or $2000 if the leverage provided is only 50:1. This is significantly greater than the 2:1 leverage offered on equities or the 15:1 provided by the futures market.

Although leverage of 100:1 and 200:1 may seem like a very risky loan on the part of the broker it is actually manageable due to the fact that most currencies only change by 1% or less during most intra-day trading. This means a $1000 dollar deposit can cover a 1% loss on $100,000 investment. If the fluctuations were greater than 1% then clearly the leverage would need to be adjusted to reflect this.

A fluctuation rate of 5% daily would mean the amount of leverage provided could not exceed twenty times the original investment, a fluctuation rate of 10% would mean the leverage provided could not exceed 10:1 and so on. You get the idea.

The huge amount of leverage offered by forex brokers is to allow an investor to realize significant gains on relatively small investments that do not grow or shrink very rapidly.

There is a notable exception to this rule and one which has important implications in terms of appropriate levels of leverage. While fluctuations in major world currency pairs such as the US dollar and the Japanese yen are normally less than one percent, much greater variation is possible in other exotic currency pairs like between the Australian dollar and the Swiss franc. This volatility exists because there is much less volume in trade. Larger fluctuations mean you need to manage your risk by using less leverage.

If there is one thing, you need to learn to acquire when you are in business, it is how to have the skill to attract clients. Nevertheless, let us go further and say that you need to learn the skill of attracting the RIGHT kind of clients.

More than any other skill or capability when marketing one’s business, attracting the right clients is one ability that can help your business to achieve its goal. And despite being economically unstable at the moment, your business will never want for profits and financial security as you will find your marketing endeavors such as your brochure printing or print brochures become more responsive to the goals you want to accomplish.

Having this skill can also provide you with enough time to not only devote it to growing your business, but more importantly to having quality time with your family and other social events. The bottom line is to attract not only more clients, but also especially those people who have the capacity to pay for what you are offering. When you learn how to attract the right target clients, you will truly have an amazing tool that can get you the leads you want, when you want it and where.

The next question now is how you figure out what your target market wants. The answer lies on the following steps:

1- Remember that being visible is not enough to get you your clients. Nor is getting your words out there. These things are not adequate to secure you the leads you need in order to grow your business.

2- Most clients and customers know what they want. They will not buy anything just because you believe they do want them. More often than not, consumers buy according to their wants.

3- Again, customers buy because they want to, not because they need it. Therefore, unless your offer matches what your target clients want then securing the right kind of clients will always be something of a dream for you. What is the solution to this problem? Keep tabs on your target clients and research on what products and services does your target client wants in the marketplace.

Next, in order for you to get the right target clients, you need start selling to those who have already signified their interest to buy your products or avail of your service. Focus on people who have said ‘aye’ to your offer, and then encourage them further so your business can gain profits in the process. This is more lucrative than trying to sell your products to just about everybody and anybody.

Then, learn to unlearn your perception of making your target clients more than what they are – people. Your target clients are people that are no different from you. Do not be afraid to approach them. They are people just like you – having the same physical functions, emotions, needs and wants. By understanding this, you will gain more confidence to talk to your target clients about your business so they can relate their needs more effectively.

Finally, learn to accept rejection. It is not you. It is the product or service you are offering them that they rebuff. When you do accept this reality, you will be able to be more honest and confident in dealing with your target clients.

Learn the developments in print brochures or brochure printing industry that help businesses in their marketing and advertising campaigns.

One of the great things about trading is compounding interest. This is really what traders should aim for if they are intent on making real profits from trading. Before anything else though, you should want to find out first if this is achievable considering your trading objective, plan and money management rules.

Interest that compounds is an ideal situation for one simple reason. You can get the most out of your investment if you opt for strategies that will compound your cash. You may, for example, be able to generate a return of investment of about $52,000 in ten years for an initial float of just $10,000. In contrast, withdrawing cash from your account on a regular basis may give you a total ten year return of investment of less than half the value of what you would have earned through interest compounding.

If handling interests in this way is so profitable, then every trader should just take this option. The option is indeed advisable but it doesn’t mean that it will fit every trader. Adopting it depends a lot on the specific trader’s end in mind. Simply put, the applicability of exponential growth depends on whether or not you decide to trade short term or long term.

There are some considerations when it comes to determining investment style and duration. In general, people who want to draw a regular, accessible income stream from trades use short term systems. Those who wish to reinvest profits to add to their capital use long term systems. The method of compounding interest applies more for individuals who have capital growth in mind.

Long term trading is advantageous for reasons other than cash growth. Usually, trading in this way requires less time, capital and skill as opposed to short term trading. This doesn’t necessarily mean though that it is the best path to take for all traders. It is perfectly acceptable to treat trades as sources of income if you don’t have any other form or type of employment to rely on.

If you do decide to take the option of capital growth, you need to be sure you have the right tools to ensure success. Even if long term investing requires less technical skill, it still requires some aptitude. If you don’t know how to handle your investment properly, you could lose out not just on the chance at compounding interest. You will also lose out on any chance to profit because you will most likely erode your capital.

The best tool that you can use to your advantage is a trading system with a reliable risk management component. With a good plan in place, you will be able to limit your chances of entering unprofitable trades, exiting prematurely and losing more than you can handle in every single trade.

It truly is a magical experience to see your account grow in leaps and bounds. If you want to save for the rainy days or for your retirement, there is no better way than to opt for interest compounding. Do this when you’ve already got a good guiding system.

Most people do not succeed on the internet because they are selling products no one desperately wants. If you want to be truly successful sell only things that people really want to buy! Sounds simple? It is. You only need to find out what people desperately want and then give it to them. Unfortunately most people online (and offline) are ignoring this basic fundamental law to sales success. So without further ado, just follow this 7 step system to profits even if haven’t made a dime online yet….

1. Go to Ebay’s ‘Hot Item Forum’ and find out what products and services are selling well.

2. Find a local wholesaler who sells the products or services that are selling well on Ebay who doesn’t already sell on Ebay (most won’t be) 3. Ask them, “If I was able to move X amount of units of your product, what percentage of your profits would you share with me?”

4. If they are interested and are willing to give you a decent share of their profits, get them to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement and a Joint Venture Contract. They are both simple documents that you can find and download from the Internet.

5. Arrange shipping with the company. Ask them to dropship the products to the people who have purchased from you on Ebay. (If they won’t do this get them to ship pallets of the product to you for you to do the shipping.)

6. Get them to provide you with a complete list of their in-stock inventory. You’ll then be in a position to offer related products to any ebay customers who purchase from you as extra backend sales. Just make sure you agree a good profit percentage on each backend product with the company.

7. Advertise the products on Ebay and rake in the cash. If you are a complete Ebay newbie or you have very limited time, go to the ‘Easy Trading Assistant’ homepage to do the selling for you if necessary. This is a proven, simple, elegant formula for anybody with a few spare hours a month to make good profits online. It requires zero technical knowledge and even a complete newbie can get started immediately. It only requires some surfing of Ebay & the Internet followed by a few phonecalls to some wholesalers. The rest is child’s play. In fact you can even use the Ebay Trading Assistant to do the selling for you.

Remember on Ebay the shipping cost is a standard extra that the bidder pays, so you should have no problem negotiating with the wholesaler a fair price to do the shipping for you. The most important factor to increasing your income is to launch what I call your own little ‘oil wells’ which bring you in cash like clockwork. The above system shows you how easy this is to do.