Packing
&
Shipping Training
Videos
Manuals
Services
Software
Don’t take too long to relax after the holiday rush, since January is prime time to prepare for the New Year. The first task you may want to approach is the business plan. It is wise to have several business plans that are updated on a regular basis. Most successful businesses have a one, three, five, and a ten-year business plan. To get started on this new year’s plan, finish your financial statements from the previous year as soon as possible so that you can get started.
Getting
Started
Take your partner(s), major supervisory employees, board members, a consultant,
or other persons whose opinions you respect and trust to a location away
from your store, if possible. Tell the employee(s) at the store(s) not
to call unless it is an emergency. Plan on at least one day, preferably
two. Write a meeting agenda to get an idea of the time that may be necessary
and to make sure that you cover everything. Don’t be so strict in
adhering to the agenda that you stop a good conversation on an important
issue. However, the agenda is helpful to use to curtail a Chatty Cathy.
Provide each attendee with an agenda and with copies of the financial statements from last year. It’s a good idea to provide financial statements that show a two-year comparison so that all can see how the business changed last year.
Assign a person the task of taking notes of the entire meeting, as you would at a board meeting. If your business is a corporation, this can be one of your board meetings. The secretary can type the notes after the meeting and distribute these to each attendee. Everyone should have a note pad, too, to take his or her own notes.
As business is discussed, a budget should be set for sales, costs, and expenses. Use these numbers after the meeting and do a projected income statement to make sure that everything meets your objective. If so, enter and use these budgets. Most accounting software programs allow you to enter your budgets so that you can monitor your progress monthly.
Financial
Statements
Take each section of the financial statements, especially the balance
sheet and the income statement, and go over each account individually.
Try color graphs, too, since the visual impact is greater for many people.
Our graphs dissect each area of the business individually (cost versus
profit), in addition to showing comparisons among locations. Graphs that
show the overall performance of major areas and the company as a whole
are helpful, too. Excel® is a wonderful program for making this easy
to do.
As a note for your analysis and for setting your accounting system for the new year, reasonably establish an account for each profit center and its related direct cost of goods sold. I have seen some stores that simply have an account for packaging and one for shipping. Somewhere in these two accounts were other profit centers for money orders, a stuffed animal line, copying service, etc. It is difficult to see what profit center is making or losing money when your accounting is set this way.
You may want to consider taking each profit center and analyzing it in detail. As an example, lets say that you have under your packaging account: sales of boxes only; unbreakable packaging (paper or peanut packed); bubble wrapping of an item in an unbreakable packaged box; foam-in-place packaging, custom box packaging, and crating. You could do an analysis from your monthly report of the sales of each of these, even though these are under one category on your financial statements. This is how we have been able to tell the differences in our stores. Also, we could see the drop or rise in sales of one type of packaging, custom box making for instance, when employees change at a store.
Once you have your agenda, financial statements, graphs, and any other sorts of analyses ready, have your meeting. Discuss how can each account be improved.
- How did the past year compare to the expectations of the business plan and the budgets? What caused any discrepancies?
- Can you cut cost anywhere?
- Can any cost cutting considered potentially hurt the product sales or service?
- Is a profit center not generating enough income for the space or time to maintain it?
- Should a profit center be added?
- Should prices be lowered or increased on a product or service? Why?
- Is the company generating enough income to use in investing activities? If so, what are your best options?
- Should a loan be taken to expand? If this is the case, you are in the process of developing your business plan for presentation to a lender.
- What promotions can be done this year to improve income on different products and services?
- What are your competitors doing that you don’t?
- How do your competitors compare to the products and services you provide?
You could decide at this point to shop your competitors and what specific information you want. Also, you could do a general shopping of your competitors beforehand to present at the meeting.
Employees
Employees always should be a focal point since they can make or break
your business. Some issues that you may want to consider follow.
- Is an employee possibly hurting your business? If so, has a review been performed with this employee to discuss the specific concerns with him or her?
- Has an employee proven to be a great asset to your company? If so, discuss this year’s raises, any promotions, and any additional responsibilities that can be given to develop this person’s skills and motivation.
- What problems exist with personnel benefits? Should you consider a different health and/or dental plan benefit? How are your other benefits such as holidays and vacations helping or hurting the company?
- Discuss an ongoing training program and how it will be implemented.
- Discuss new ways to audit on a regular basis.
Operations
What are current problems with operations, and how can it be improved?
Perhaps you can change the store layout to help the traffic flow to different
areas of the store. Maybe a change can make work behind the counter easier.
Is an additional customer table needed?
If you find that your store is not as clean as it should be, a daily checklist can help greatly. A mandatory checklist also can alleviate any problems you may have with the shelves staying cleaned, stocked and rotated.
Are your product and service standards where these should be? You can improve. Whether it's that tracers aren’t done on a timely basis or that you have too many damage claims, decide on a method for your company to operate at its best.
Sales Goals
This is an article alone. Basically, decide on the sales goals and how
these will be achieved.
Follow-up
One of the problems that I have seen with these meetings is that there
is no follow-up after the meeting. Make sure that this wasn’t wasted
time. Decide specifically how each task will be done.
- Decide when each task will be done.
- Decide who will do each task.
- Decide when each change will be evaluated for effectiveness.
As the notes of the meeting are typed and distributed to each participant afterward, all of the above should be made clear. Attach the projected income statement for the year, too. It goes without saying that if the budgeted numbers didn’t work to your satisfaction, you will have to revise the plan first. A word of advice: If you are one to perform a task, and you report to the owner or upper management, make sure that you inform him/her/them when it is done before the due date. Never make a supervisor have to ask you whether or not an assignment has been completed. This same rule applies for evaluating a change.
Make plans for a future meeting to discuss the business plan and to make any alterations to it. Try to do this at least once a quarter.
Last but not least, keep your focus day by day on your overall goals, and don't let the small stuff upset you and your plans for prosperity.
Fran Scarborough
Suggested Readings:
Other Articles: