When it comes to building a profitable business....knowledge isn't power - action is!

However gaining the necessary financial knowledge and trading analysis in the first place, to be able to take action, is often a low priority on the 'to do' list for busy owners and managers in our business. Too many business owners own great software that will help them to forecast, monitor and measure financial success but don't actually use it! 

There are a number of reasons for this:
 

• 'Baby Boomer' owners and managers are not as computer literate as 'generation X and Y', and tend to shy away from technology.

• Owners and managers with poor financial and commercial experience will not be aware of key performance indicators of a business and how to manage them.

• Lack of financial planning and forecasting means that owners and managers may show little strategic intent or direction for successful business development.

• Poor planning and time prioritisation to study and interpret data, trading reports and analysis produced by the POS software, means that decisions are taken too late to effect change and opportunities to proactively generate revenue are missed.

The combined effect of all or some these points with poor communication can result in a lack of team leadership and inspiration to achieve the financial goals for the business.
So what is the solution?

1. If you are computer shy, get over it, get training - and more training - get familiar with that computer until you overcome the fear of technology. You must be able to access the financial state of your business at any time and understand what the information it provides is telling you.

2. Make sure you have clear written strategic objectives and financial targets for your business; daily, weekly and monthly that form part of an annual financial plan.  Without this you have no road map for success or way to measure your progress.

3. Make time every day, week and month to analyse the KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) for your business. In our industry these include, number of clients, frequency of visits, average spend per head on services, treatments and retail, retail percentage to services or treatments, cost of labour, hourly productivity, available hours utilisation, repeat, new customer analysis, prebooking percentages etc...

4. Put in place a regular communications cycle to inform your team of their targets, praise, motivate them, to celebrate achievements or train and support them if below target.

Susie Santiago, Founder of the Santi Leadership Programme and a leading business mentor to our industry will be talking more about these subjects and more, presenting 'next day' success strategies to the 2009 User Group Conference on the 14th of September, book now by calling 0333 123 4410

This year Millennium Software will be donating 10% of the proceeds to Make-A-Wish foundation. They have a very simple objective - to grant magical wishes to children and young people fighting life-threatening illnesses.

Your company has the option to donate to Make-A-Wish foundation as well! We will be collecting all donations throughout the conference so feel free to talk to any Millennium organiser about donating.