Small_Business_Ownership

Small Business Owner Presentation Donna Bonfiglio-Knoll University of Phoenix In today’s increasingly competitive market coupled with expected growth year over year by your stakeholders; has forced entrepreneurs such as yourselves and those lenders who finance those ventures to redefine and redesign how they think, act and lead. I sat where you are 10 years ago, when my husband and I were looking at developing a business plan for a multi- site medical practice. The number of decisions and thoughts that are going on at the time can be quite overwhelming. Here are some things to consider as you make those decisions: • Do you have your own financing' • Who will you be accountable to if the money is borrowed by the bank' • How should you set up your business and does your company need a fictitious name permit so you can trade under that business entity. • What and when is the break even point' • What are the capital needs of your business and the start-up operating costs for at least the first 6 months after opening your doors' • Did you do any marketing demographics to make sure your service is needed where you are putting the business' • Are you a for-profit or not for-profit company' • Are you publicly or privately held' If you were anything like us, we knew we had the operations expertise to deliver the service but not a clue how to fiscally manage the business. I remember my husband saying why I went to medical school for over 12 years and not one class dealt with human resources or building a medical practice. So let me give you hope that you can learn, hire or ask the right questions to get your business off the ground successfully. Since the audience is diverse lets first look at financing. You will have a responsibility to the bank, possibly key stake holders and most certainly those employees you hire. In our case we borrowed the start-up capital from the bank and the first six months from our parents. We elected board members and structured the business as an S-Corp to protect our personal liability from the practice. We humbled ourselves to know we didn’t have the legal, accounting and business savvy to set the stage for the long term success that a practice requires to be our lifetime income source. We hired outside accounting and legal services, which I will tell you was the smartest thing we ever did. It was upfront cash that we didn’t have but we had less surprises with our taxes, lease agreements and patient billing. Depending on your business you may need to answer to a board of directors or maybe even deal with a union. Why do you need financial reporting vehicles is quite simple. It analyzes your performance compared to your business plan and strategy. It helps identify if you are on the timelines you set forth in your business plan, it helps you manage proactively by identifying issues before it becomes a crisis. It helps take the emotion out of evaluating the “real” performance of the business. Your passion, time and effort is involved in building a business and sometimes its difficult to separate from how you think it is going verses what do the numbers say. I know my current CFO always says the numbers don’t lie, but it will impart you the knowledge to do things differently. This is a quote I read in Steven Covey’s book, the height of insanity is doing the same thing time after time and expecting different results. The financial statements also keep you in check. What I mean is that you can make 20% above your revenue expectation, but if you spend more money in medical supplies, hiring of staff and underestimated the cost of managing the building, the bottom line may be under your business plan margins. The Profit and Loss statements allow you to adjust future decisions that will get you where you are going. If my revenue stream is 20% under plan it may be that I have not done enough marketing or promoting of the practice. You may have to brainstorm low cost grass roots ideas and maybe even print advertising. Sometimes you need to spend money upfront to yield you the long term ROI you are looking for. I hope these insights have helped you in your preparation to achieve your dreams. Let me leave you with a quote by one of my favorite writers, John Maxwell. “It is better to work smart than hard”. Do it right from the start and it will absolutely increase your odds for long term financial success. References Lee, H. W. (2005). The factors influencing expatriates. Journal of American Academy of Business, 6(2), 273-279. Retrieved January 29, 2005, from ProQuest database. McShane, S. L., & Von Glinow, M. (2004). Organizational behavior: Emerging realities for the workplace. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.