Do You Know the Difference Between Cash Flow and Profit?

Do You Know the Difference Between Cash Flow and Profit?

By Unknown   14:50   Tidak ada komentar:

By Kevin Amolsch

WHY MILLIONAIRES GO BANKRUPT

"That is exactly why we cannot loan you the money you need," I said in response to a potential client explaining to me that he has over $20,000 a month going through his account.

Cash is king. If you have it, you stay in business. If you don't... you don't. A lot of money going through your account does not matter. In fact, that is not a good thing unless the money into the account is more than the money out. In this case, this particular client was doing very well financially on paper. He had a high net worth and several assets. The problem is, he set up the loans on his rentals to pay them off early and was spending all of his rent, and sometimes more than his rent, to make the payments. These rentals were profitable because income was more than the expenses, but he had no cash flow. The principal portion of your payment each month is a reduction of debt, so it is not an expense. In the long run this will prove beneficial, but it is risky. In this case, he was using shorter term amortizations to reduce his loan size quickly. All of his loans were set up as 15 year loans. Although, with the exception of a default, this is a sure fire way to speed up the loan payoff, I believe there are better ways to do it.

I made a similar mistake when I was really young. Whenever I got some cash in the bank I would want to invest it right away. After all, money in the bank is not working for me. I could earn much higher returns in other investments. I was buying houses at a rapid pace, and quickly became a millionaire. I was extremely proud that I hit that status long before my 30th birthday. The lesson I learned the hard way is that your net worth really doesn't mean much. Net worth is simply your assets minus your liabilities. All my assets were in real estate. It was easy to buy discounted properties, so I increased my net worth each time I purchased a home. I am sure you have heard the term, "you make money when you buy." That could not be truer. Although you make money when you buy, you can't spend it until you sell. My model was almost exclusively buy and hold, so I never really generated the cash reserves I needed to withstand a problem. And a problem is exactly what I got. I was a millionaire and could not pay my bills.

I am a big leverage guy. I believe strongly that you need leverage to reach your potential. You will make more money and grow faster with leverage. Although I think you need to leverage people as much as money, I am going to focus on money for this point. If you have a lot of leverage in the way of loans, you need to make money to pay it off. Companies, and frankly our Government, end up spending all of its revenue to pay off debt; and although they are profitable, they are broke.

Once I shifted my focus to cash flow I was able to rebuild a much stronger financial picture. I rebuilt much more slowly and smarter. I still love and use leverage, but I am smart about it and stay diversified. I have access to cash if I run into a problem, and I use my assets to steadily pay off debt AND produce cash each and every month.

I prefer cash over equity in a home, but I am not necessarily saying don't focus on paying off your mortgages. For many people that is an extremely positive thing.

Article Source:  Do You Know the Difference Between Cash Flow and Profit?

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The Core Ingredient Of Your Brand - Corporate Logo Design

The Core Ingredient Of Your Brand - Corporate Logo Design

By Unknown   14:40   Tidak ada komentar:

By Shelly Morrison.

Twenty years back, nobody told the evolving and existing companies to have a unique brand identity, the successful ones knew what it is to have an image that beats all - so they followed their instincts and came up with their own signature face called a 'logo'. A corporate logo is pretty much your company's first impression to your audience. It's your brand introduction. A well designed corporate logo helps brand lay a strong foundation for building a reliable and trustworthy image that helps you won over viewer's confidence and turn leads into conversion big time. Sadly, people judge a book by its cover and for your brand identity your logo is the cover. Why not use it as an opportunity in the first place?

A corporate logo should be as pleasing as your company's offerings itself. If you have all the products with the best of quality, superior locations for your stores and amazing employees to kick start your operations but if your corporate logo displays a poor quality design, your brand does not get the repo it deserves to appear reliable and with that all the efforts are just flop.

Chances are that you can achieve an incredible logo if you spend a considerable amount of time and efforts on creating a fool-proof logo design process. Each and every element of your brand logo has a science behind it. Good logos are always well thought out. Each image, font, color, shape, graphics, has a strategic plan that leads to an award winning logo. We questioned many design experts to come up with all the important answers. Turns out the most common thing among all the successful logo is simplicity and right color choice. The less artwork your logo has the more effective it will be. The last thing you want for your audience is to be confused by the complex design of your corporate logo. It's all about simplifying the message and delivering it effectively. Let's not forget the importance of colors. According to psychologists colors add meaning to designs, having the potential to convey certain messages to human brain which then perceives the delivered idea. Each color has a certain meaning that gives meaning to your brand name. For example if you own a restaurant that caters to vegetarians only, you would rather pick a design that seems friendly to veg lovers with color green instead of going with a screaming color like red or yellow.

According to consumer psychology, each color that you choose plays a vital role in delivering the meaning of your design. Each color is associated with a certain emotion, a feeling that's evoked every time a viewer comes in contact with it.

Red in Business - It displays action, high energy and demands attention
Orange in Business - It is the colors of adventure, inspiration and enthusiasm. It shows sociability and suggests affordability.

Yellow in Business- A color of mental clarity that illuminates and uplift our logical side and excites our mood.

Green in Business - A color associated with health, healing and nature love
Turquoise in Business - A Color suggesting balance and excites emotions along with inspiration of good expression- skills.

Blue in Business - A color that promotes trust, feeling of reliability and strength.
Indigo in Business - It is a color of integrity and sincerity. It suggests strong moral values and loyalty.

Purple in Business - Nothing promotes fantasy, creativity and richness better than purple.

For more details, visit:  pixelslogodesign

Article Source:  The Core Ingredient Of Your Brand - Corporate Logo Design

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Do Your Customers Scream TRUST or DISTRUST About Your Company?

Do Your Customers Scream TRUST or DISTRUST About Your Company?

By Unknown   09:31   Tidak ada komentar:

By Blaine Millet

Trust is possibly the most powerful word an organization can have today. Either you have it with your customers (and employees) or you don't. It isn't something that works on a "meter" where you have 60% trust and 40% distrust. And once you have it, you can make it stronger and deeper once you have established it with your customers. But organizations that aren't trusted also communicate this very clearly to their customers... and customers respond to it in many different ways.

When a customer has their first interaction with your business (doesn't have to be a purchase) what is communicated during that "moment of truth" with them? Is it an interaction that causes them to feel like they can trust you or one that creates uncertainty and doubt about whether they can trust your organization? This is a critical question for every business to answer... and most have no clue they are sending one of these messages to their customers.

What causes companies to send a message of DISTRUST?

Here are a few factors that cause a customer to stay suspicious about trusting your company...



Employees ignore them upon first interaction... signaling they aren't as important as other issues

The employee tells them things as a way to get their attention that the customer instinctively knows aren't true... if it's too good to be true it usually isn't

Employees make quick promises and they either don't keep them or the customer believes they can't keep them

Employees ask some "trapping questions" with the intent of making the customer feel stupid if they don't answer yes... leading them to a close they don't want

Employees already have the answer... before asking any qualifying questions


These are just some of the ways that customers immediately start to distrust your employees or company. The easiest example is the "used/new car salesperson" or the "timeshare salesperson" or "mattress salesperson" and a host of other stereotypes we have created in our mind. If you walk into one of these businesses you immediately "have your guard up" because you have been programmed to not trust these people. You know they will lie to you to get a sale so you aren't going to believe anything they tell you without doing more research.

While these are extremes, they are also reality in many businesses. Maybe not as dramatic as some of the ones I listed, but they are nevertheless ways to create distrust initially with customers. When companies do this (knowingly or unknowingly) they are starting "10 points behind" the competition because you have to "earn" your way back to zero. You have to earn your way back to the starting point where they are neutral in their evaluation of whether to trust you or not trust you.

Here's another huge issue for companies... their competitors. What if you happen to be in an industry where many of your customers don't trust your competitors? When this is the situation, often times you are lumped into the industry and "guilty by association" when it comes to trust. So regardless of whether or not you are doing the same things as your competition is doing, you are already distrusted. This is a very dangerous place to be... especially if one of your strengths is trust. Take the car dealer... what if you are one that your customers actually trust? You have an uphill battle because the industry is so polluted with unethical people... this is a much harder battle than many other industries.

What causes companies to send a message of TRUST?

Here are a few factors that cause a customer to immediately trust your company...



Every employee greets them (with every interaction) warmly, sincerely, and in a way that demonstrates interest, not sales

Employees immediately demonstrate an interest and caring for the person and their particular situation

Employees start by asking sincere questions that demonstrate immediately that they care more about the customer than the sale

They use simple words throughout to demonstrate they truly care... word like "help" and "please" and "thank you" and "resolving their issue/pain" and many others

Employees offer an experience that clearly demonstrates they care about the customer... whether or not they sell them anything or not

Leadership creates "different messaging" that causes the customer to break the "mind map" of the unethical companies to start fresh and see the difference


These are just a few of the ways that companies can create an environment of trust (almost immediately) with their customers. When an employee is tasked with HELPING rather than SELLING they come from a different place. They are armed with different tools to work with customers. And the customer can feel, sense, and recognize this difference. If you don't believe me, stop reading this as the leader of your company and go back and read this as a CUSTOMER and see if this isn't how you would feel after reading both lists again. There... now you are in the right mindset.

TRUST is so incredibly valuable today... it can make or break a business.

An example near and dear to me is when I worked for Arthur Andersen. I spent 8 years with the firm and they were incredibly wonderful years... I really loved working for this company. I left before their downfall so I wasn't there to experience the catastrophe first hand. However, when I worked for them they were one of the most trusted, ethical, and upstanding accounting/consulting firms in the world. Then something happened called Enron that immediately caused the public to DISTRUST them... the rest is history. Even when only a few were unethical, it took down the largest firm of the Big 5 because of one simple word... TRUST.

Losing trust is even more critical today and it can happen in an instant. Losing it can take your company down before you even realize it. I believe it is one of the greatest RISK FACTORS that exist for companies today more than anything else. You can have a faulty product and replace it and survive. You can deliver substandard services and immediately improve them and survive. But if you LOSE THE TRUST of your CUSTOMERS and EMPLOYEES... you are gone.

I would encourage every business leader to do a TRUST ANALYSIS of their company... starting with your customers. If you're not sure how to go about this, give me a shout and I can walk you through what this might look like for your company in your industry (B2C or B2B or non-profit). Regardless of how you do it, do it. Find out what the TRUST FACTOR is for your organization.

If it isn't where you want it to be, FIX IT IMMEDIATELY. Create a strategy and plan to remedy this ahead of all your other initiatives. This has some incredible OPPORTUNITIES embedded in it to really help you understand where you are with your customers. It will show you where you stand in relation to your competitors and it will give you a clear roadmap of what you want to address in the short term as well as the long term for your business.

Change the TRUST EQUATION and you will see some incredible rewards for your business. And the biggest area you can change to create this impact is your CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE. Once they see you truly care about them... even OBSESS OVER THEM you will see a marked difference in their level of trust from the first interaction.

And here's a bonus... CUSTOMERS TALK ABOUT THOSE THEY TRUST. They also TALK ABOUT THOSE THEY DON'T TRUST... a lot... and this is not what you want. Word-of-Mouth is more powerful today than ever in our history. What are your customers going to say to other potential customers? Are they going to say they TRUST you or DON'T TRUST you... it's a matter of survival in today's Revolution.

If you found this helpful, please share it with your friends so they can also learn from the material. It not only means a lot to me but it helps other people see the story. And if this resonated with you, please visit my http://www.WOM10.com site and read more posts like this one.

We used to get excited about moving our companies from being GOOD to being GREAT... but today, being GREAT isn't good enough... it's a commodity. Today, if you aren't on a path to move your company from being GREAT to being REMARKABLE and MEMORABLE, you don't get talked about.

My PASSION and MISSION is to help INSPIRE, GUIDE, and HELP you move your company from being GREAT to being REMARKABLE... and create Word-of-Mouth on STEROIDS so you get talked about... a lot.

I have a model that helps get you to REMARKABLE. In the core of the model is creating unbelievably incredible amazing and awesome Customer Experiences... you can learn about it in my book, "Creating and Delivering Totally Awesome Customer Experiences." With this as a foundation, you are well on your way to being REMARKABLE.

I get to SPEAK about it, WRITE/BLOG about it, and HELP leaders understand it, aspire to it, and achieve it. There are four key components to help get you to being REMARKABLE... getting talked about in the market... and ultimately letting your CUSTOMERS DO YOUR MARKETING FOR YOU.

Are you ready to become REMARKABLE? Shoot me a message... we'll have an awesome conversation!

Article Source:  Do Your Customers Scream TRUST or DISTRUST About Your Company?

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