Business Archives - Page 19 of 52

Best Time to Hold Business Meetings is When?

Studies show there is no best time to hold a business meeting. However, acceptable times for having meetings can depend on the culture of a corporation, career type, work group, or country. The key to finding the best time is what will work for the group who is meeting and for the type of activities that are expected to be carried out in the meetings. If the meeting activity requires information sharing, then this can be done at a leisurely pace if desired or accomplished at a quicker pace to prevent too much irrelevant discussion. If the meeting requires a significant amount of participation, such as problem solving or idea generation, then a time when people tend to be most active and ready to work creatively would be preferred.

Early morning is often considered good for high participation meetings as people are much fresher and more ready to discuss ideas. Also participants have not yet encountered any problems with their regular work day that may distract their concentration. In contrast to early morning, if the desire is to keep meetings short, scheduling time later in the morning or just before lunch break will often keep people from going off-track as they do not wish to miss their lunch break. A pre-lunch meeting should be no longer than one hour.

Lunch meetings can be beneficial as they often save people some time by combining eating with getting work done or information shared in a group setting. Lunch meetings should include light, low-fat, and low-sugar foods containing both carbohydrates and proteins to boost alertness during meeting and decrease the sleepiness factor for the afternoon. Consider small sandwiches or salads containing chicken or turkey. No alcohol should be allowed in the meeting. Instead serve water or tea which is better for participants than sugary soft drinks.

Meetings held too early in the afternoon may conflict with people’s lunch schedule which could mean no shows or late comers. This time can definitely relate to their inner clocks, according to some studies many humans are wired for more restful functions from 2:00-4:00 PM. Some countries even encourage restful activities sometime after lunch. Since this could mean nap time to some, if a meeting is planned for mid-afternoon, it should be on a highly participative topic to keep people interested and not a meeting requiring lights-out such as presentations or viewing videos. Whereas, late afternoon meetings may be a more relaxed time as many will have much of their daily work already done and off their minds. However, if the meeting is too close to quitting time people may be thinking about what they need to do after work rather than concentrating on the meeting topic. Participants may get irritated if the meeting goes past the designated stop time as this may make them late for personal plans. If a hurried meeting where little time is wasted is desirable, then late afternoon might be a good time to plan the meeting as long as the agenda is adhered to and the meeting ends on time.

Other things to consider when holding a meeting is how long the meeting will be. Most informational business meetings can be covered in 30 to 90 minutes depending on the number of people sharing data and whether a question and answer period is allowed. Participative meetings may be one to two hours typically. However some meetings may require more time due to complexity of the issue to be discussed, urgency of the problem to solve, or needed training or change management to present to group. If a meeting is longer than an hour, a short break during the meeting should be planned. For meetings where participation is low, a break should be every 45 or 60 minutes to allow group to leave room for 15 minutes or stretch for 5-10 minutes. For high participation meetings like problem solving or idea generation, the breaks can be a little further apart and should be planned at logical changes in meeting activity or topic.

Since there is no best time to hold a business meeting, always plan a culturally acceptable time when people are most ready to work together. The key to finding the best time is what will work for the group who is meeting and for the type of activities that are expected to be carried out in each meeting, such as information sharing or a more participative process.

Will Your Business Benefit From a Blog?

Blogging has been around for quite some time now. It is rapidly becoming the another alternative for getting news. It has evolved from being a venue for ranting and raving about a subject or sharing personal goings on to a tool used by business to share information with employees or customers to replace the newsletters.

If you are considering a blog for internal company communications, then think about what you want the blog to represent and the type of information you want to share. Plan your blog before you being to investigate tools to use for it or assigning someone to maintain it. Otherwise you may select the wrong tool and have the maintenance person using too much time on a “part-time” assignment. Also, if the blog is to replace a current company newsletter in print or via email, you better do a poll to make sure the employees are willing to check the web rather than have paper they can read at break or direct delivery to their desk via email. If no one is willing to go to the blog to get the information, it is a waste of time and money to build a blog.

If you are considering a blog for external communication, typically to existing or potential customers but you could include suppliers too, then you need to consider the information to be shared as well as your presentation. Should the blog have a consistent look with your other brand and marketing tools? Should it be part of your website or stand-alone from it? Is it mainly a marketing tool, a training program, for information sharing, or some combination? Who will provide the articles/posts for the blog and how often? If you plan to use the blog to replace a newsletter, how will the current readers know when the blog is updated? Will you send an email to notify them of updates or just inform them of your planned frequency of post so they can check for themselves? Will you use Twitter or another social network to communicate your blog as a part of your marketing campaign?

If you are a small company or independent consultant considering a blog, do you really need one? Perhaps it might be better to partner with another consultant or company to share responsibility for a blog that would benefit both of you. If you want to write primarily to share information, but do not want to build your own blog, consider guest posting on an independent blog that already exists which provides posts with the type of information you wish to share. You can review the candidate blog to see if they have more than one person doing their writing. If they do, look for a contact and send an email suggesting your topic and asking if they would like a guest article or post done by you. This saves you time in building a blog and searching for an audience. This will build your confidence in your ability to provide data for the blog in case you decide later you need your own blog, and then you will already be prepared for the hardest part of blogging.

Before you build a blog, ask the questions above for the type of blog you are considering. Then decide if your company really needs a blog.

Problems Faced When Looking For Investors For Your Business Idea

Venture capital firms, business angels and investors are people who make money out of investing in upcoming or established businesses in exchange for a share of the company. Finding a good investor to back your business idea can be a great help, specially if you still control most of your business, but it’s also considerably more difficult than finding a small business bank loan and other types of finance. Investors have very clear ideas about what they expect of their investment, and you will need to be able to prove that your business idea has a high likelihood of being very profitable. If you are getting ready to raise money for your business, the following are some of the most frequent problems you may face:

Being unprepared

This is often the worst problem a new entrepreneur may find when trying to sell his business idea to investors. You may know your product and have a strong feeling that it’s going to work, but you’ll need numbers to back your intuition to prove it to any investor. Investors are often entrepreneurs themselves, and know how to recognize a great business idea and a suitable person to make a profit out of that idea. They won’t put money on a business if the management (that’s you) doesn’t seem prepared or doesn’t know the target market intimately. A solid business plan and the ability to sell that business plan to another businessman are the key requirements to get your idea considered. Make sure you can answer uncomfortable questions, such as quoting data about your competition and showing an understanding of your audience and why your product is perfect for them.

Asking for too much, or offering too little

Investors often want a quick return on their investment, so if you are asking for a lot of money to launch your idea and you don’t expect to be profitable for a long time you should expect a hard negotiation ahead. You may be offered less money than you were after, or asked for a larger percentage of your business in exchange for it. Asking for a £20.000 investment in exchange for a 5% of a company that isn’t going to make any money the first year is just not going to work, no matter how good your idea is. An investor will think of ROI, and that means they want to own enough of your company to make a profit on your investment. Be prepared to negotiate, and remember that even if your business idea is great, the investor is also incurring a risk by trusting you and is understandable to want something in exchange for that.

Attitude, business management skills and dress codes

If the investor thinks that you are not really a good business person they may hesitate to provide you with their financial backing, no matter how good your idea is. If you come across as a great engineer but cannot show that you are also great at managing and sales you may be harming your chances of receiving funding, or you may find out that your investor actually wants to take an active part on your business instead of just letting you manage everything. Consider your meeting with the investors as a job interview, and as such aim to give an impression of security, professionalism and good business manners.

This often means wearing professional attire (yes, a suit, even if your business is an innovative ecological farm for casual artists) and being able to talk about your product in business terms, not only about its features or why it’s so great. If the investors see you as too young, too casual or too crazy they won’t invest because you’ll be seen as risky. If you can also show your experience as an entrepreneur without lying or being too obvious you may greatly increase your chances of success.

Truck Wash Business Case Study

Often smart entrepreneurs look for out of the way businesses, things out of the mainstream but businesses, which have a good customer base and steady incomes. This is an extremely interesting story. I had always considered the mobile truck washing efforts to be very profitable and believed that fixed truck washes were a big waste of money. That was until one year when a new franchisee joined our team from Oklahoma City. I run a franchise company called the Car Wash Guys; http://www.carwashguys.com. Turns out the franchisee was formerly employed by Blue Beacon Truck Washes the largest chain of truck washes in the US. They do about $138,000,000 per year with 80 truck washes and the company is very closely held. Tim our franchisee was a truck manager for them and before buying into our franchise and started washing cars in OKC even though he knows truck washing best. He had a two-year non-compete with his old company, which we have honored in OKC. He has tons of experience and had indicated to me that the business is sound and we should really get into it. Later that year I sold a franchise to a person in WA State who owned car washes (5) and he made a deal with a truck stop on an Indian Reservation, he never started the plan, but the numbers we ran on the spreadsheet looked great and very profitable.

Even as a serial entrepreneur, I had never considered the fixed site truck wash business, as the mobile truck wash business seemed so much more efficient and so little over head; http://www.truckwashguy.com . So even with all this knowledge on the team we still did not enter that market. One of our competitors in the car washing industry bought up two

truck washing chains for a total of fourteen truck washes and proclaimed it more profitable than his other car washes by 5 times as much money. They now own nearly 100 locations of truck and car washes nationwide. After looking into it some more a franchise buyer who owned Fuel MAN, an East coast Fuel Card for fleet owners approached us in South Carolina to use the Truck Wash Guys name and develop a truck wash mid state. At that point we decided to start working on the details. Then a franchisee in OH made a deal with a truck stop between Columbus OH and Pittsburgh, to operate a 24 hour truck wash and de-ice business. He thought how easy this is and now so we have made deal in WV at a truck wash as well. Our Ohio Franchisee at the time took on another partner in WV.

Still reluctant to fully dive into the subcategory of full service truck washes we found our Ohio Franchisee going full guns to put together a deal with Pilot Truck Stops. Pilot Truck Stop has the most Truck Stops on the Planet and sells 8% of all the diesel fuel in the United States. So we planned a pilot program at pilot. Our temporary set up is a trailer unit, which sits at the truck stops and washes made sense. We then worked on plans for a building to submit them to the Building dept. for approval, meanwhile the deals in

OH and WV and SC were suddenly in the works. We figured if our deal with the truck stops worked well, the Truck Stops will get more traffic and fuel sales while we generate

revenue and a percentage of the total take for the truck stop for the privilege of working there. We are so use to washing trucks and have on our team a gentleman who sells simonize truck wash and has been in the car washing and pressure washing equipment business for 20 years. By using the fuel man fuel cards as currency on the east coast and name recognition of Pilot we figured we could move into this industry and pick up the slack.

There is a shortage of truck washes across the country and also a shortage of oil change facilities for trucks. A franchisee could be trained by our truck wash prototypes and probably on the top performing franchisee in our mobile truck wash

division; then quickly set up in their own markets. Pressure Washing companies which specialize in fleet truck washing should in fact consider this type of strategy for moving into the fixed site truck washing business.

If you study entrepreneurial companies you will in fact see that many companies fall into markets due to opportunities which present themselves, it is amazing the opportunities which exist out there and how fast companies can grow when they can handle the demand of those markets. Think on this.

Tools To Consider Buying For Your Woodworking Business

Starting a home based wood working business will require a plan. This plan should show you to get through the initial startup in a cost-effective and timely many. Part of this plan should also include a list of tools you will need to help make your home based business profitable as soon as possible.

Some of these tools can either be cordless or corded. The cordless type will be portable in that they can be used anywhere. Cordless tools will not require an electrical outlet except when the batteries need to be recharged. It should be noted operating cordless tools in a cold environment will mean the batteries having to be recharged more often. You will have to recharge the batteries in a warm environment to speed up the charging process. Using corded tools will be less expensive to purchased and will operate in colder environments more efficiently.

Some tools you need to consider to purchase during the start-up of your wood working business are many. They can be or cordless or corded. Many will require no power put just your muscle power. Here are some to consider.

1. Hand Held Circular Saw and Chop Saw.

This is hand tool that can used to cut wood and is very portable in both cordless and corded versions. Circular saws are also used to cut masonry and metal. These types of saws are often called shop saws and use special circular blades that cut through these materials. When using a chop saw get the proper training to do so and use proper personal protective equipment such protective eye ware and gloves. Not properly using such a tool can lead extreme personal injury.

You likely will never need a chop saw in you woodworking business. However a hand-held circular saw will be useful and are very safe to operate.

2. Impact Driver

These are high torque tools that can often do the work of the common more effectively with regards to speed of getting the job done. These are very popular tools used the construction industry. Carpenters, plumbers and electricians prefer the impact driver over the drill driver. However there will a number of applications the drill driver will be more useful especially if need to use the hammer drill setting of drill driver.

3. Reciprocating Saw

This tool is another portable tool that can be used to cut through wood or metal with the proper blade. The cutting action is accomplished by a push and pull action or the reciprocating action of the blade. Proper use of this tool is required as serious personal injury can result. Always remove the battery when changing the blade on such a device. If the tool is corded always unplug the device when changing the blade or making any other changes to the devices. before handing over the device to another person use its locking feature.

Starting up a wood working business will require the purchase of a number of tools Choosing a proven wood working plan should contain a list of the tools needed to help you start profiting with few problems and in a timely manner.

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Setting Reasonable Expectations for Your Home Based Business

Today’s home based business owner is bombarded with claims of getting rich quick and being able to turn a relatively small amount of money into a huge windfall in a small amount of time and while these things are completely possible there is something to say for setting reasonable expectations for your home based business. What does this mean exactly? Well, what it means is that you understand that your own home based business and the success that you achieve will be dependent upon several factors and these factors include, how much experience you have, how many people you know that respect your opinion, how much money you have to build and how confident you are that your business is a good and valuable business for others to have.

These items are not all inclusive of what I am referring to but they should give you a good idea of what I am suggesting here. Now of course you can earn a nice income without having a large advertising budget and you can turn a home based business into a million dollar empire but what you don’t know how to do is make that happen.

There are lots of gurus online that will tell you that you need a system or that you need a program or that you need a funnel. They will tell you that you need a list and all of these methods are valid, all of these methods have worked for people in the past but the question is do they work for everyone? And what’s more important, will they work for you?

I have seen people throw thousands of dollars into the next best thing or the best software, system, even lists only to end of thousands of dollars poorer and I have seen others spend practically nothing and simply use their connections to generate thousands of dollars.

The question I had to ask myself was what made those people so successful? The answer I discovered was very simple, they set reasonable expectations for their home based business based on their own experience and understanding of what they were involved in. They believed that their home based business had value and they made a decision that they were going to build their business with that mindset and not get sucked into all of the added hype.

The reality is hype is going to happen and that is with most home based businesses because hype sells but at the end of the day those that the most successful are the ones that have set reasonable expectations for their home based business.

Starting a Homemade Pasta Making Business

Starting a Homemade Pasta Making Business

The first thing that you should know if you are starting a homemade pasta making business is the basic process of making fresh pasta. This kind of pasta is made from fresh ingredients and has a shorter shelf life compared to the commercially made or dry pasta.

Manufacturing fresh pasta is better because the business owner can tailor fit it to the consumer’s needs and demands in terms of the shape, size, color and flavor of the finished product.

Below are some suggested steps in starting a homemade pasta making business, categorized into: Initial Stage, Regulatory Compliance and Marketing.

Initial Stage

• Create and perfect your own recipe that you think will sell and will come out the same way every time you prepare it. Have your family and friends taste them and ask for feedback.

• As in any business, when you are starting a homemade pasta making business, prepare a business plan which would contain the goals and business projections that you have set. This will guide you in the actual running of the business and to help you gauge if the business is doing good or not.

• Purchase your ingredients and supplies like bags and packaging supplies. Decide on how you intend to package your homemade pasta. You could pack it in a freezer-safe bag where the consumers can freeze it, refrigerate it or eat it immediately. It could also come in cellophane bags. You could search online for bulk suppliers for these items. You will be able to save money and will help create a professional and consistent look. Design your own labels on your computer and print them out or you could ask a professional designer to create them for you and order your labels in bulk. Make sure to include the cooking and serving instructions in the labels.

• Purchase equipments that you don’t already have to make the preparation of large batches of your recipes a lot faster and easier.

• Determine a wholesale price list for all your products. Factor in all the cost that you will be incurring in producing you homemade pasta like the ingredients, facility cost, packaging and labor cost. This should be drawn up in a spreadsheet form which would include the retail as well as bulk prices for each of your product. This information will be useful to your future retailers because it will show the proof of the profit they will be making if they sell your homemade pasta in their stores.

Regulatory Compliance

• Since you will be starting a homemade pasta making business and producing a food product, you need to get in touch with your local and state health departments to inquire about permit and licensing requirements.

• Make sure that you could sell the products that are produced from your home kitchen because different states have different laws regarding homemade food products. These information are available online from your state’s Department of Health website or you can ask for a copy. Try to check on local zoning laws if operating a business from your home is allowed. As of 2010, only 13 states allow the operation of home-based cooking business and they are: Alabama, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia and Utah. So it is important that you check into these before starting your business.

• Most states allow the sale of homemade food products at farmers’ markets and flea markets without the necessary state licensing and inspection. They allow the sale of these products at these places only. Before starting a homemade pasta making business and deciding to sell your products in these venues, make sure that your state does not have any label requirements, like this label for example, “Made in a home kitchen and not inspected by the (insert state) Department of Agriculture.” The label should indicate the product name and the ingredients that you used and check the cottage laws of your state about the requirements of home labeling.

• Most of the home based cooking operations are either sole proprietorship or partnerships. If you plan to make your business as a source of livelihood, a DBA (Doing Business As) license would be the best route if you will name your business. As of 2011, the registration fee is between $25 and $35. The DBA registration is not required though if your business name contains your legal name. Your state may also have other food processing licensing regulations which are peculiar to your homemade pasta making business.

Marketing

• Your main competitor in the homemade pasta business is the commercial pasta. Therefore, it is not a good idea to compete with these manufacturers in the supermarkets and groceries because this is not the right avenue to sell your products. You must do the traditional and tried and tested marketing strategies to attract your customers like posters and handing out flyers. Make your business be known in your community by giving out samples of pasta dishes with your fresh pasta or give them for free at community gatherings or meetings. It is also good to custom-made your fresh pasta during these events in order to cater to the individual needs of the customers. If you are into making healthy pasta, you can try selling your products at your local health stores.

• Other possible places to sell your products are the local farmers’ markets, craft fairs and flea markets. A lot of people like the taste of homemade goods like fresh pasta but just doesn’t have the time to prepare them themselves. You can give them that homemade taste that they are looking for. During holidays and special occasions, many people love give local and homemade food products as gifts.

• You can also market your food products by creating your own brochures, catalogs and price lists and offering your products at retail outlets that sell local products. Draw up a list of your target retailers in your community with the name and contact information of the person who is in charge of purchasing.

• Try to ask if your local Italian restaurants purchase pre-made pastas because this could be a possible joint venture between your business and their restaurants.

• The internet is also a good venue to feature your products on a national scale. If possible, you could build your own website to help your business grow.

Hope these steps will help you in starting a homemade pasta making business.

Where Does Social Media Fit Into a Business Marketing Plan?

According to The Social Media Examiner’s recent Social Media Marketing Report, “The number-one advantage of social media marketing is generating exposure for the business, indicated by 85% of all marketers, followed by increasing traffic [to a website] (63%) and building new business partnerships (56%)”. With 65% of the marketers stating they are relatively new to social media, many questions arose as to how to implement it effectively without “wasting” a lot of time.

Let’s take a look at the overall Internet Marketing plan of a business to think about incorporating social media into that plan.

How are your potential customers finding you?

Traditional advertising such as word of mouth, TV, Yellow Pages, News Paper ads remain somewhat effective to get traffic to your business. Many of you have discovered that using the power of the internet through the search engines is making those methods nearly obsolete. Social media is an outstanding method to find people interested in what you offer and get traffic to your business.

An essential piece to marketing on-line is a Website & a blog. Most of you reading this will find that “old news”. The design, optimization, and content of the website and an informative blog will certainly be the hub of your internet marketing plan. Yet there is more to consider. You want people to find your website, visit it, stay for awhile and become a loyal customer.

The first step of an internet marketing plan is to ask yourself these questions: Have you carefully completed your market Research? Do you know if people are looking on-line for what you are selling? If people are searching on-line using the internet do you know what words they use to locate what you are selling or providing? These terms are known as your “Key Words”. It is important to have completed the “keyword research” to know if they are searching on line for a solution that you are providing.

The next step would be Search Engine Optimization, SEO – Designing the site and its content so that it is found by the search engines. This is not an exact science nor is it magic – experts in the SEO field understand specific things need to be in place so your site gets found. Having your site reviewed often brings to light details that are easily added to affect your search engine ranking.

Local businesses need to be maximizing their listings in Google Places, Yelp and other local map applications to get found quickly, locally. An optimized listing provides legitimacy and validates the content on your website increasing search engines recognition of your site.

Paid on-line advertising is another option. “Pay per click” ads through Google and Facebook are available. PR, articles, and blog posts drive significant traffic as well and many resources are free. The links back to your site from these resources again, legitimize your site. They “vote” for and provide validity of the authenticity of your website. These are just a few of the useful tools that can increase the number of potential clients to your site.

Social Media fits into this piece of the marketing plan by getting your message out there, increasing your visibility and building a following of people interested in your services.

Blogging, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and local networking groups are just a a few of the many social media options out there. Choose your plan carefully Map out the possible services and gradually incorporate those that make the best sense into your plan. Start with one piece. Gradually add in the other pieces.

“Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs were the top four social media tools used by marketers, in order.” according to the Social Media Examiner.

Blogging is easily updated keeping content fresh. It is used to inform, educate and entertain opening the door for clients to interact. Build your expertise, talk to followers using the known words that engage – give them what they are looking for, solve their problems, offer them solutions and educate them. Here is where you want to make sure you “capture” their contact information – what do your customers need that will entice them to give you their contact information? Provide it to them, and follow up.

With the analytics available on-line, you can test and determine what works within your marketing plan. What pages are holding their attention? What pages are the ones they leave from? How long do they stay? What interests them?

Building relationships– encouraging loyal, returning customers through social media significantly adds to your overall marketing approach. It has been said it is cheaper to keep a customer than find a new one. This is the phase in which profits are made.

What is your business mindset?If you strive to be helpful and known as the local expert willing to educate your potential customers, you build trust and loyalty. As a consumer, what keeps you returning to your favorite businesses? It is these strategies that keep you prominently in your customers mind.

Follow up. Stay in touch. If you don’t have a way to get information to your customers through email, it is time to implement that plan. Email is an excellent, inexpensive way to do this.

Social Media is one piece of a strong marketing strategy implemented over time. A social media marketing plan is designed with your client and your business in mind. Where do your potential customers go to find information about the products or services you offer? If they are on-line – you should be as well. With a few tools and a great plan, you just might find this your favorite way to interact and relate with your customers. It is another dimension to networking. See you on-line!

Truck Wash Business and Incentives for Higher Profits and Efficiency Considered

One of the most consistently growing sectors in our economy after the 2008 economic crash has been surface transportation for moving goods and services. Maybe that’s why Warren Buffet bought a railroad company or why FED EX is doing better with its ground freight than with its airfreight division currently. Although things do change over time, the trucking industry has been constantly hiring new drivers every month, about the only sector expanding throughout the economic recovery. So, maybe a good business might be one that is involved in that sector? Let’s talk about the truck washing business.

Yes, the truck washing sector is a decent business model if done correctly, I’ve been involved in on-site mobile fleet washing and fixed site truck washes in my career. The trick is to be efficient with the labor and process because, last time I checked trucks still don’t wash themselves, or drive themselves, and until Google figures that one out with autonomous self-driving trucks and fully automated truck washing systems to talk to each other via the Internet, well, we still have a good business strategy our here.

If you want your wash teams, employees and managers to run your business efficiently then you need to consider performance pay, bonuses, and incentive money. Yes, I know, Friedrich Winslow Taylor already made that abundantly clear well over 100-years ago. Now then, how much should you pay your hired help? Well, first there are minimum wage laws right? So, that ought to be a good starting point for a base pay for the washers, then pay them a bonus of the revenue over the minimum number of trucks which need to be washed based on average price charged to break even.

To do this, show them your real costs to break even. The bonus percentages are based on each hour worked and divided by each workers total hours – thus, different people get different bonus checks based on the hours they worked. Next, tell the workers that the only way in hell they are going to increase volume is by improving quality, speed (getting the divers out fast), repeats and referrals. This way they are overly nice to EVERY DRIVER and ask them to be sure to tell everyone to come in to your truck wash.

As you prune the “stand-around” lazy workers, your team will only have the best hard-working people and this will permeate what is expected of anyone new hired to replace the dogs.

What about management bonuses at truck washes?

Okay so, why not tell the manager that he gets a base pay, salary plus a bonus of the increased volume over last year’s same month volume, plus an efficiency number based on labor costs per unit. Let him know that the only way he’s going to get that done is to have the best kick-ass employees work more hours, and those who suck to take a hike and to go out and get new business, sell accounts, make calls to other companies to bring their trucks in, he’ll be more aggressive.

You need to think about the implications of all of this, and what formulas you might use to determine percentages. Remember your objectives are more efficient operations, saving costs, higher profits and more sales and volume – right? Okay, that’s the mission and that’s the goal – so use employee incentives for higher profits and greater efficiency. Please consider all this and think on it.

How To Start a Wood Working Business From Your Garage

Starting a woodworking business from your home could be an excellent way to earn an income. With right business plan and woodworking training system you could reach your financial goals with little or no woodworking skills.

As we all know financial times are tough in many areas of Canada and The USA. Their seems to be no stability working for various companies. Even if you employed the income you receive is poor. Consider starting a home based business that will create products that you can sell with very little effort. This home based business will be fun and easy to start.

Consider starting a business constructing and selling wooden furniture. Many people are often interested in purchasing wooden furniture for their homes. Good quality wooden furniture always has a way of being sold. Home owners will pay top money for this type of furnishing. This type of furnishing looks good and gives the customer a product that indicates that their money was well spent.

With proper business plan and correct construction method you might even be able to make money in your spare time building furniture and related products.

Of course you will need a place to work such as your garage. You could even construct a shed in your backyard to start your woodworking business. Constructing a shed, made of wood, could be a way of starting your woodworking business. After successfully building a shed in your backyard you could have people paying you to build a shed in their backyard.

There are a number of resources that will give you step-by-step instructions with regards to construction of various woodworking projects including numerous backyard shed plans. Types of sheds to consider are the pent roof shed and clerestory style shed.

The pent roof style shed is simple to build. It is a mono roof shed, which consists of a one piece roof sloping in one direction. It can be attached to your house or barn, giving it increased structural strength

The clerestory style shed ideal for use a place to work. The roof of this shed consists of row of windows which allows natural light to beam inside of the structure. Because of the roof its structure will mor complicated to build when compare with the pent roof style shed. However designs can be found on the internet that will help the construction process less problematic.

This type of business will require that you purchase various tools if you do not already own them. Their a number hardware stores likely in your area that will help you purchasing the tools needed in starting your woodworking business. You will also likely be able to purchase used woodworking tools in good working order.

Best Regards