From Greg's Head: PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook

Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook™ page of the PKF Texas website.

As a CPA, I get to work with lots of organizations of all sizes and types and yet I am perplexed by a fundamental fact that I see at most organizations. At a time when corporate strategy and budgets could be aligned to drive an organization forward, I see few instances when both work together in concert.

As budgets go, most are probably pretty accurate on what they report, the inflow and outflow of cash and a report detailing the background on each. What they lack is the intersection of other non-financial performance benchmarks that are necessary to supplement your budget and give you a Balanced Scorecard that can assist you in driving your company to the next level. A study conducted by the Harvard Business Review over 10years ago is still valid in this area.

Three key non-financial areas that you can consider include:

Your Human Capital experience. The training and learning programs you have in place.
Your relationship with your customers.
Agreement on your core internal processes.

As easy as this sounds, many companies struggle to gain consensus in just one, let alone these areas. By bringing these areas into focus you can begin to set your balanced scorecard for driving operational and financial success.

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

As a business owner, you need to be aware of how your team members’ skills (or lack thereof) might affect productivity.

Consider conducting a skills audit of your team. The purpose is to identify the key competencies of any employee or group of employees as it relates to their job role.

The steps include:

Identify the key skills and job requirements for each role
Have the employee rate what their competency is now with each skill
Score each skill where you want them to be
Analyze the gaps and work with the employee to create an action plan to address any and all issues

Conducting a skills audit supports the Marcus Buckingham approach of using a person’s skills where they lie. This method has proven to be effective in both small and large companies.

The skills audit process can be done close to your annual review time, so both you and your employee can begin a dialogue about goals, growth within your firm and any needed training.

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Around the world business executives all believe that the number one business issue within their organization is the customer relationship. And these same executives will tell you that they value innovations and support process improvements that enhance the customer experience.

However, a recent study commissioned by Microsoft and conducted by Forrester Consulting suggests than many executives are saying one thing but actually doing something else as it pertains to investments in IT and the human capital experience to enhance customer’s interactions with their organizations.

In the survey, 55% of the respondents said that the top business issue was customer relationships. However, this same group indicated that only 32% believe that, customer relationships were a top priority for IT spending within their company.

How does this match up with your own organization?

Have you laid the groundwork to take your organization forward only to pull back on the reins at the critical moment of project approval and selection?

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

One of the most important things you can do as a leader in your firm is to provide adequate and timely feedback to your team.

Timely feedback gives you and your team members the chance to begin a dialogue about areas of success and areas that need improvement. Relationships are built one conversation at a time.

If feedback is negative, phrase your conversation in such a way that it is constructive encouragement rather than blame or judgment.

Begin on a positive note, find something that was successful. Sandwich the negative feedback between positive points.

For example:

“John, I’m really glad you got that report to me on time. I’ve noticed that you have missed several important conference calls recently. How can we work out a schedule so you will be able to finish your work and still be able to join in on the calls? I was glad to see you help Tina yesterday. Thanks.”

When giving feedback, remember to be an active listener. By doing this, you will be able to judge how well your comments are being received and understood. A great resource for this kind of communication is the book, Fierce Conversations, by Susan Scott.

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Does your business strategy deliver on its promised financial value? A recent HBR study suggests that over 1/3 of respondents indicated that they failed to hit the mark. Do you vacillate between a better strategy, when you need better execution? Or, do you press for better execution when you need a better strategy?

How do you avoid these pitfalls? By viewing strategy and execution as being joined together at the hip, you can control the process and have a better chance for success. The study suggested seven rules for successful strategy execution:

Keep it simple
Challenge Assumptions
Speak the same language
Discuss resource deployments
Identify priorities
Continuously monitor performance
Develop execution ability

Within my own team at PKF, we have utilized these same seven rules using guidelines from Patrick Lencioni’s material and we have very pleased with the results.

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Waste elimination is one of the most effective ways to increase profitability in businesses. To eliminate waste it is important to fully understand exactly what waste is and where it can be found.

There are six common causes of waste in an organization. They are:

Overproduction – You’ve heard of 'Just in Time', well overproduction the result of 'Just in Case.'

Waiting is a cause of waste when the material flow is poor, production runs too long or the distances between work centers are too great.

When transporting goods, there is an opportunity for damage/loss to occur and quality to deteriorate.

Inappropriate Processing - Are you using the right tool/process for the job?

Unnecessary inventory will occur as a direct result of overproduction and waiting.

Defects – They cost money either now or later and their costs come directly from the bottom line.

Audit each of the issues and estimate the cost to your company of each waste. Then use a Force Field Analysis to make a plan to address each area. The Force Field Analysis process was detailed in an earlier EP from June 2007.

If would like a full white paper detailing the Force Field Analysis, send me an email to gregshead@pkftexas.com

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

How good is your strategic plan? Do your link your strategy to your budget? Most organizations don’t and then they wonder why they don’t accomplish their objectives. As I visit with business executives one interesting thing keeps coming up. They indicate that they succeed in spite of themselves. My response to them is, “Are you really succeeding?” Or, are you just lucky. Lucky that your customers need you or the products you represent.

Recently some best practices in strategic planning were released by The Hackett Group in their book The Strategy Gap. This book highlighted eight planning best practices of high performance organizations.

Good plans answer key directional questions.
Good plans typically address three activities.
Good plans-and organizations-are focused.
Good plans include all aspects of the business.
Good plans link strategies to activities.
Good plans are measureable.
Good plans include assignments to accountability.
Good plans include the recording and monitoring of assumptions.

The key of course is to get Senior Management, Operational Management and Line Management all working on the same things in concert with each other.

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Good budgeting is paramount organizational success. Jack Welch suggests the real world situations can be addressed if organizations are willing to tackle two key questions during the budget process: “How can we beat last year’s performance?” and “What is our competition doing and how can we beat them?”

Most companies have some type of strategic or tactical plan that tries to answer those questions. But the real difference is how many also link their budget to the answers to those same two questions? If you plan only addresses costs and revenues, you are probably going to come up short on the outcome at the end of your year. Your plan was not a good one. You need something else.

Budgeting needs to be linked to your strategies and organizational goals. Otherwise your competition will be getting the jump on you.

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

The real challenge of successful CRM processes is not the software, but rather the people who are going to be a part of the process. Too many managers assume the software will solve all their problems and help them become the next great success story in Fortune or the Houston Business Journal.

Sadly, the most important aspect of your company, the knowledge and experience of your key employees and their managers is sometimes left to chance during the implementation of a CRM project. Leaving such a critical component to chance, means you will have no chance at success. The hard lessons learned through experience, your industry cycles, your customers buying needs can’t always be factored into the CRM application you ultimately select. The CRM software is but one tool experienced managers can draw upon to be successful.

One of my favorite management books is “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” by Patrick Lencioni. It’s required reading for all our PKF consulting personnel. One of the key points is “…It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it’s so powerful and so rare…” Part of the formula for success in the CRM arena is getting everyone on the same page and rowing in the right direction.

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

As we roll into the second quarter of calendar 2008, I thought I might take a moment to focus on some interesting research about sales, and new customer opportunities. Here is some recent research on the topic.

More than 70% of sales leads are never followed up, while 43% of those not contacted purchase what they inquired about within 13 months. Source: Cahners Publishing
Companies that retain 5% more of their customers can boost corporate profits a minimum of 25%. Source: Bain & Co.
Over 80% of generated leads are never followed up or are dropped or mishandled. Source: Abderdeen Group
An 11% reduction in dropped/lost leads, combined with a 1% improvement in lead to order conversion rate, can increase gross profit by 136%. Source: BtoB Magazine

It’s pretty clear from this research data that successful companies that are finding new business have established a process for the recording, distribution and follow up of sales activities within their organization. Most people call this Customer Relationship Management or CRM and the related activities. The activities and the attitudes your employees take in these processes is critical to having a successful CRM program.

How successful are you?

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

There have been several high profile cases of fraud in the news in recent years. How do you take the steps to reduce the opportunity for fraud in your organization?

The most common methods of discovering fraud were tips and by accident, followed closely by internal audits, investigations, and internal controls. Tips from employees, vendors, and customers made up over one-third of the discoveries.

The most effective method of reducing fraud in your organization is by creating a culture of integrity and high ethics among employees at all levels. This is initiated by the senior executives/owners setting the tone at the top. Create the expectation that fraud will not be tolerated. Develop a code of ethics and conduct that employees are required to sign and adhere to.

Review your antifraud processes and internal controls and develop a strong oversight process. These two activities go hand-in-hand in sending a strong message to potential perpetrators that you are doing everything you can to reduce the opportunity for them to commit fraud upon your company.

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Ask any four people in an organization about their budgeting process and you are likely to get four different answers. Some of those answers would include: “We did it last year,” “its part of the manager’s bonus calculation,” “We are trying to control expenses,” “It shows us our cash flow.” Truly successful organizations know that budgeting is one of the significant foundations for developing a high performing organization.

See if this sounds like your company: Round 1 of the budget process starts with departmental levels submitting their guesses for obtaining next year’s financial results. Senior management usually knows what they want these numbers to be, but they don’t share it with the first line department heads. The first round is usually returned with changes. Now armed with better financial information the departmental manager can guess at the numbers their superiors want and budget for it. Then the departmental budgets are consolidated and submitted further up the line for a second round of guessing.

The problem with this process is that we now have a numbers guessing game going on, instead of a business plan. And we have given the departmental managers a way out of their estimates since the estimates weren’t theirs anyway.

Budgeting should be part of a performance management process. Budgets need to be linked to corporate strategies. How well is your budget and corporate strategy linked?

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Companies around the world are now “going green” for a number of reasons. No matter the size of your contribution your business can make a difference. Consider putting together an internal committee to advise on activities that would make sense for your business.

It may seem obvious, but many companies do not recycle plastic water bottles, cans, office paper and newspapers. And recycling programs can include more than just paper and plastic. Many nonprofit organizations will gladly accept electronic equipment, including older computers, printers, copiers and fax machines.

Contact a local recycling center that will remove useful parts and then break down the rest of the materials. The centers also can safely remove hazardous materials.

Companies can minimize costs in their workplace by encouraging positive habits, such as turning off computers and power strips when you leave for the day or an extended portion of the day. Energy is still burned when a power strip is turned on.

By implementing just a few initiatives you can improve your environmental footprint, and you may be surprised about how well it aligns with your overall strategy and positively impacts your business.

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

With the recent release of this season’s hurricane report, now is a good time to assess your company’s disaster preparedness. Can your company survive if it’s hit by a tornado or have an IT meltdown?

Having a disaster recovery/business continuity plan is critical to protecting your organization, should a devastating event occur.

The plan should take into consideration the following: personnel, internal and external communications, technology issues, facilities, electronic payment systems, liquidity concerns, financial disbursement and manual operations.

Make sure you take the time to review your procedures at least annually, if not every six months.

The Small Business Administration has several comprehensive documents on their website, sba.gov that can assist in the development and implementation of your plan.

Being prepared for disaster is something you can’t afford not to do.

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

A major research study by Harvard Business School professor Marco Iansiti and Keystone Strategy Inc., proves that information technology can confer a competitive advantage. Companies in the top quartile of Iansiti’s study reported average compound annual revenue growth rates almost seven percentage points higher than the growth rates of peer companies in the bottom quartile.

Iansiti based his conclusion on data from 161 large manufacturing enterprises in the U.S., Europe and Japan. The companies were rated on the effectiveness of their use of IT in 40 business processes within five key functional areas, including finance and operations, sales and marketing, and partner and supplier management. The rankings were based on the breadth and depth of their IT use in each area.

The study’s conclusion: there is a direct correlation between an organization’s IT capability and its financial performance.

Iansiti’s study does more than document the superior performance of organizations with more advanced IT capabilities. It goes a long way toward explaining why they outperform. “IT enables managers to handle more complexity,” he says. “And when managers can handle more complexity, they can scale up their organization.” In short, IT doesn’t just make growth possible—it makes it manageable.

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

We are evolving toward one world of business—a diverse yet unified global market, with customers, partners, and suppliers who work together across cultures and continents. The global workforce is always on and always connected.

As a business investment, technology has the flexibility and capacity to adapt as your people increase their own capacity and output. More specifically, we believe you can amplify the impact of the people in your organization with a business productivity infrastructure built on the 2007 Microsoft Office system.

Three key solutions form the core of this system:

Pervasive messaging, workspace, voice, instant messaging, and conferencing capabilities simplify how people work together.
Forms, documents, records, and Web content management and search technologies streamline the management of information and processes.
Reporting; analysis; scorecards; dashboards; advanced analytics; extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL); data mining; and data warehousing technologies improve business insight and drive business performance.

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

When you don’t have the budget to bring in a full time business consultant, consider using your existing professional services resources, such as your accountant or lawyer, as a trusted business advisor and consultant.

They can see an overall picture of your business may be able to pinpoint the root of an issue because they are removed from the situation. Talk to them about what exactly you are looking to accomplish.

Also, they often have the advantage of a diverse client base that can be excellent referral sources.

When you want to take your business to the next level, you have more resources at your fingertips than you may think.

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Want to outdistance your competition? Then give your people the information technology tools, infrastructure, and support they need to do their jobs well.

That is the main message from a July 2007 study of more than 1,300 business executives at companies in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. The study sponsored by Microsoft Corporation and conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), examines the effects of "people enablement" from several angles.

Among the conclusions the study reaches are:

The more a company empowers its employees to make decisions, the more likely it is to perform better financially and competitively.
True enablers use technology to improve collaboration, encourage risk-taking, and optimize decision-making.
Companies categorizing themselves as "true enablers" are three times more likely to be more profitable than their competitors.
Compared with other types of firms, companies described as "true enablers" have a higher proportion that are more profitable than their competitors.

The study clearly shows that there is a positive correlation between a higher degree of enablement and corporate performance.

What Does "Enabled" Mean?Enablement refers to the organizational structures, informational technologies, and other resources that make it possible for employees to make decisions.

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

In today’s fast paced marketplace, you can’t afford to get passed by your competition.

Customers usually know the difference between the companies they purchase products or services from. The ability to be pro-active and not reactive when analyzing your competition is important.

Competitive intelligence can help you anticipate trends that are unique to your business or industry.

It can also give you the ability to plan and make strong moves that address both strategic and tactical goals.

If there are areas of your company that need improvement, look to firms who have successfully overcome the same obstacles as a model.

Knowing about your competition can help you chart the course for the success of your business.

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

When all things are equal what sets you apart from other companies in your industry? Often it is the positive perception of your firm in the marketplace.

Have you received a glowing testimonial from one of your clients lately?

Gain permission to use this testimonial as a part of your proposal process. Testimonials carry much more weight than just a list of companies you do business with.

Your clients can be some of your biggest advocates supporting you in the marketplace.

Potential clients can see the quality of work you will do for them and that there is an outside source willing to confirm your reputation.

If your clients are happy, it will attract others who want to be associated with excellence.

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Most economists would agree that we are in, or soon to be in some type of economic recession. Based upon past results one of the first areas that seem to see the budget axe is advertising budgets. However a recent research study by Forrester Research would suggest that Interactive Marketing that delivers results probably won’t suffer this time around.

One the key reasons for this is that Interactive Marketing target the decision to buy, versus brand awareness. Two areas that seem targeted for investment include: Search marketing and email marketing.

Past history suggests these types of media get cut in tough times. But something has changed since 2001, social applications actually work. Forrester suggests that they work because: 1) Well-designed social applications are effective; 2) They’re cheap; and 3) They motivate consumers in the middle of the funnel.

As a senior executive at your organization you will probably be involved in these types of discussions. Make sure you get Interactive Marketing with results.

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

When you’ve got a strong, established team, how do you continue to grow and take the team to the next level?

Take a look at what you’re currently outsourcing, writing for example. Imagine the difference that skill set would make if you could bring it in house with the right person.

If a well balanced team fits together like the stripes on a beach ball, which color are you missing?

Decide what skills would make the most difference to your team and company, and then set out to hire the “superstar color” that has those skills and more.

To ensure a good fit with your successful group dynamic, consider having your team and top candidates take a personality assessment. It is an unbiased way to single out the candidate who will fit best with your group.

Bringing in a superstar who complements the existing skills of your team can make your capabilities grow exponentially.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

To provide effective technology and productivity tools for mobile and dispersed workers, companies need to deploy, maintain, and support mobile PCs and devices while maintaining a high level of security. By providing a more secure and seamless way to exchange information, Microsoft mobile solutions can help employees be as productive outside of the office as they are when they're at their desks.

Mobility adoption can start with people accessing e-mail on handheld devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), or editing documents on a mobile PC while on the go, but companies are realizing it does not stop there. Mobile connectivity helps remote workers more securely access vital data and intellectual property (IP) assets. Mobility is opening frontiers in communication, corporate information access, data synchronization, document collaboration and sharing, the network, user settings across hardware, and more.

Today, doctors send prescriptions electronically to pharmacies from their mobile PCs or handheld devices, insurance companies manage claims through electronic forms instead of paper-based processes, and services are conducted using devices that upload customer information from the field.

Mobility is helping to improve business productivity and processes, and companies are learning how to create a competitive advantage by helping to give their workforce the ability to:

Save time and increase productivity by quickly and easily accessing information when workers are away from the office, to capture ideas and thoughts from anywhere.
Respond better to customer requests with access to e-mail and vital business information when workers are away from the office.
Automatically synchronize files when their mobile PCs, Windows Mobile powered Smartphones, and PDAs connect to the corporate network.

Improve sales cycles and forge closer relationships with customers and partners through anytime, anywhere access to information that can help them improve responsiveness, complete a sale, or simplify a process for partners.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Manufacturing has always been an area with a strong need and ambition to integrate data from the shop floor to the executive suite, and back, to improve operations and increase innovation. Until recently, advances in manufacturing software were highly dependent on proprietary investments by the manufacturers themselves. Now off-the-shelf software has developed to the point that common infrastructure software, from Microsoft, can be used to drive the development of innovative solutions from the factory floor to the supply chain to the master production schedule. We've seen the rapid maturing of software for manufacturing over the past six or seven years.

What's more, the pace of software innovation will accelerate over the next 10 years. The increasing sophistication, interoperability, security, and usability of software will enable manufacturers to transition from rigid, process-based solutions based on costly, custom-developed proprietary technologies, to role-based solutions using familiar, centrally managed platforms. These applications will give workers the ability to configure the interface and the application to fit the way they work, enhancing productivity. Using these role based activities will create an empowered workforce.

The Value of an Empowered Workforce will show that:

People will lead and innovate, collaborating with suppliers, engineers and product designers using shared platforms to exchange ideas.
People will drive operational excellence. Manufacturers can excel by focusing on operational excellence-running their businesses more efficiently than the competition and at lower cost.
People will strengthen value chain partnerships. Agility requires working closely with suppliers and industry partners to reduce time-to-market, manage inventory and share financial responsibility if markets shift. And,
People will build customer relationships. Manufacturers' employees must have the tools to meet their commitment to serve customers well.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

With all the buzz in the workplace about mobility, Microsoft has developed Enable Your Mobile Workforce—a broad mobility solution that encompasses not only traditional handheld devices, but also infrastructure software, team collaboration tools, and line-of-business applications.

By giving your employees access to the near real-time data and vital information they need to do their work while on the go, your company can see many potential benefits, including:

Greater worker productivity by decreasing time lost while on the road or telecommuting.
Greater efficiency by replacing manual, paper-based processes and increasing the speed at which people can make business insights.
Increased customer satisfaction, because workers can respond to customers quickly, even when they are away from the office.
More security and protection for mobile applications and devices through new hardware-enabled data protection.

In addition, organizations can take advantage of scalable and flexible solutions that adapt to their business needs as they grow. Companies have realized that mobile solutions can be used to drive a competitive advantage and are making mobile workforce enablement a technology priority.

Companies are evaluating the mobile needs of all their information workers, not just those in the field. And mobile solutions have grown far beyond accessing e-mail remotely. Core business applications are becoming mobile and are broadening the reach of mobile applications in companies.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Social networks are everywhere. From facebook to LinkedIn, they are they hottest way to communicate for the next generation. The question is how can you make a social network work for you and your business?

The application of social networking in the business world is evolving, and it’s worth jumping on the bandwagon. Right now, Linked-In is the go-to site for professionals, offering the opportunity to expand your online presence.

To begin building your online network, set up a profile and search for colleagues, friends and networking partners. The main purpose of LinkedIn is to be introduced to other professionals through the people you know.

Linked-In can also be used to find potential clients, service providers, subject experts, and partners who come recommended. You can post, distribute and search for jobs. And find business opportunities.

Don’t add everyone to every social networking site you join. There can be some overlap, but to use each network efficiently, target who is a part of each of your networks.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Do your benefits stand out in a crowd?

These days there are a number of unusual benefits you can offer to attract and retain quality talent. Companies across the country are offering everything from pet insurance to a concierge service or housekeeper.

Survey your employees to find out which benefits would make the most impact. You might be surprised by the answers. Maybe they would like part of their child care or advanced education costs covered. Small things like free sodas or snacks can make a big difference.

Companies like Google offer a wide range of benefits to their employees including allowing pets at work.

Not all unusual benefits will be right for every company, but be aware of what can be offered and know your employees wish list. To compete in a crowded marketplace, making your benefits stand out can only help your company in the fight for talent.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Companies are discovering the value in having information workers do their jobs outside of the office. Work is no longer tied to a set, physical location. Communicating with others and accessing and working with information while away from the desk is improving the productivity of all types of professionals from consultants, sales representatives, and installation technicians to physicians, administrators, and store managers. Worldwide, 80% of companies are projected to start allowing their employees to work from home. According to research conducted by Gartner, "mobile workforce enablement is a top 3 technology priority for CIOs …"

Most mobile adoption has been driven by individual departments and point-specific solutions that assist, for example, sales and field service employees. At this time of year our friendly UPS and FedEx drivers benefit greatly as well as us consumers with this technology. As mobile technologies become more reliable and wireless standards develop, companies are growing more interested in deploying integrated, organization-wide solutions that will drive positive business results and measurable ROI for the entire business.

This increasing demand has led to rapid growth in mobile software, ranging from more secure mobile e-mail, mobile instant messaging (IM), and mobilized corporate applications like customer relationship management (CRM) programs. When it comes to hardware, mobility has seen great adoption via mobile personal computers, as 75 percent of organizations now support wirelessly enabled mobile PCs.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Globalization, connectivity, regulation, and demographics are reshaping the landscape for manufacturers. In this new world of work, the ability to create, share, and act on information from a myriad of internal and external sources can help manufacturers compete more effectively and operate more efficiently amid rapid change and relentless pricing pressure.

People are the critical factor to success in this environment. Only people have the agility and resilience to identify and act on new information quickly to meet challenges or capitalize on new opportunities.

By surrounding people with powerful tools and the right culture, manufacturers can bring innovative new products to market more quickly and mobilize a network of suppliers in deeper, more collaborative relationships. Software amplifies the ability of people to more rapidly adapt to challenges. In addition, software enables employees to take advantage of opportunities more quickly, to better understand customers based on insights derived from both data and communications, and to build better partnerships because they have the ability to collaborate more readily.

Furthermore, empowered people can drive operational excellence by constantly improving products, streamlining practices, and sharing knowledge. And they can work responsively with customers to build high-value relationships to drive business growth if they have access to the software and solutions that empower people to take the manufacturing business further.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Companies who offer flexible work options are in high demand across the country.

Have you thought about a flexible work policy for your company?

Things to consider include:

Examine which positions in your company can have varied hours or can be performed remotely.
Put into place a series of checks and balances to ensure work is being done in a timely manner.
Switching from desktop to laptop computers, providing cell phones and subsidizing access to the internet from home that allows remote access for your employees.

When considering implementing a flexible work place policy, the most important feature is the demonstration from the top down of the commitment to the plan. Your employees have to know that they are encouraged to utilize the plan.

For more information about flexible work place initiatives in Houston visit houstontx.gov/flexworks.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Every year around this time, people begin to make personal resolutions but have you thought about resolutions for your business?

Evaluate your insurance coverage.

Every company needs insurance to protect against losses from unexpected events.

When was the last time your company’s insurance coverage was evaluated? Prepare a list of your business insurance coverages, policy dates, premiums, and payment terms.

Consider obtaining bids from various carriers or visit with different brokers for opinions on recommended coverages and to seek more favorable payment terms.

In the event of misfortune, a thriving business could end unless adequately protected.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Every year around this time, people begin to make personal resolutions but have you thought about resolutions for your business?

Plan for cash!

Management’s ability to get a firm grasp on cash inflow and outflow is imperative to a company’s ultimate success or failure.

Two of the best tools to help accomplish this are the preparation of an annual forecast and a zero-based budget.

Traditional budgets start from previous year’s spending and adjust each expense item up or down.

A zero-based budget starts at zero and forces the preparer to justify every expense. You may be surprised how much fat has crept into your expenses as you go through this exercise.

Consider which tool will work best for you and start the year off right!

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Every year around this time, people begin to make personal resolutions but have you thought about resolutions for your business?

Take the time to analyze your expenses.

Profits generally increase though increased sales, decreased expenses or increased profit margins.

Review the detail of the company’s expenses and consider which costs might be reduced. During this process, evaluate your current vendors.

Does your business rely too much on certain vendors? Are there new, reliable vendors that could provide your company with the same or higher quality products and supplies at a more competitive cost?

Strategic thinking requires management to envision an ideal business outcome, work backward to determine the steps required and then develop a plan to get there.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

The people throughout your business can drive it to greater success, but only if they have the tools and information they need. Software that's ineffective, obsolete, or difficult to connect to the other tools you use can become obstacles that stand between you and success. I recently came across a study from Forester that addressed the concept of Information Workplace and its hope for the future.

In this study, Forrester notes that today's information worker relies on a disjointed set of office productivity, content collaboration, and portal tools. Forrester defines the "information workplace" of the future as being more simple, yet richer than today's tools by incorporating contextual, role-based information from business systems, applications and processes.

A gap has emerged between what they have now and the vision of the future that’s possible today. Challenges include:

Dreamers lacking tools for brainstorming
Problem solvers lack tools for sharing best practices and managing work
Doers need tools to automate exception handling

Do you know where your Information Workplace resides?

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Microsoft believes in a simple equation: the right people + the right tools = business success. But not everyone agrees. Some say that information technology (IT) has become so common that it confers few advantages on businesses that invest in it. Such arguments, however, focus on superficial measures. As a result, they arrive at ambiguous and sometimes contradictory conclusions.

In a new study, the Harvard Business School and Keystone Strategy examine how businesses deploy IT systems in areas that have a strong impact on business performance. They concluded:

IT fuels revenue growth. Companies in the top 25 percent of IT capability grow revenue 6.8 percent faster than that of their peers in the bottom 25 percent.
IT helps employees be productive. Firms in the top quarter of IT capability enjoy 23 percent more revenue per employee than firms in the bottom quarter.
IT makes managers more effective.

Their study also reveals a simple truth: The single IT investment that makes the biggest difference in increasing employee productivity is an optimized combination of information access, security, hardware maintenance, backup/recovery, and messaging systems. In short, if you’re ready to make your business more people-ready, the first place to look for improvement is your core IT infrastructure.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

The people who work for your organization and the partners they work with are the driving force behind your business's success. In today's marketplace, success depends on quick and intelligent responses to problems. To help ensure business success, you need to equip your people with the right tools to respond quickly to change, access the information they need to make critical decisions, and focus on strengthening and expanding profitable business relationships.

The days are long past when you could store information about each business partner on an index card.

As innovation becomes more of a preoccupation, its focus is changing. Gone are the days when an innovation was acquired from experts outside the company and then installed like a new piece of equipment.

While it's possible that a shotgun approach to innovation spending will lead to a positive outcome, it's highly probable that it also will result in wasted resources. Better to precisely target the effort.

Effective innovations that deliver a solid ROI aren't imposed from outside. Rather, they grow organically from within the organization.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Businesses don’t garner insights or make decisions. Businesses don’t close deals, invent new products, or find new efficiencies. People do. Strategies, organization, motivation, and leadership all set the stage for business success. But to see results, you also have to give your people the right tools, information, and opportunities—because success ultimately comes down to your people. We call businesses that foster a winning environment a “people-ready business.”

One of the key ways that people drive business change is through impacting their organization’s business processes. The ability to rapidly and continuously design, develop, and adapt your business processes in an agile fashion is a huge business advantage.

Nevertheless, all organizations, irrespective of industry, share a need to improve processes in a number of key areas, including:

Customer satisfaction and retention
Faster time to delivery
Improving employee productivity
Trading partner interactions
Administrative efficiencies and costs
Flexibility, adaptability and streamlining of the disparate technologies that support business activities

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This is the last in our series on Information Management from Microsoft and PKF Texas. The challenge most companies face is separating business software and processes from the people who make the business successful. Every business must expand its customer base, create new practices and products, devise efficiencies, and identify and adapt to change. Business situations that require effective business information management are numerous. Imagine if your company were able to:

Reduce product development cycles and remove collaboration and process blocks among teams.
Provide informed responses to rushed Request for Proposals from customers and prospects.
Make more effective sales and marketing decisions, and respond faster than your competition to marketplace changes.
Provide customer representatives with information they need to respond quickly to customers' questions at call centers and in stores.
Use customer data from the company's CRM and other systems more effectively, to provide the right information to customers at the right time.

Software does not do these things—people do these things. When integrated business information management tools are in place, people can be empowered to make better decisions and drive results within and beyond your organization.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This is the fifth in our series on Information Management from Microsoft and PKF Texas. When people can easily and quickly communicate insights and knowledge with peers, customers, and partners, they drive business success. Give your people the tools they need for:

Quick publication. With Microsoft SharePoint Server you can easily create and publish Web content directly from familiar applications or e-mail. Personalized, dedicated SharePoint sites make data storage and sharing easy.
Dynamic and frequent collaboration. Reduce travel costs through the use of online meetings and team workspaces that help groups to better collaborate on or off the corporate network.
Effective communication. With the integrated platform, your people can easily find and communicate with peers, partners, and customers in multiple ways (such as e-mail, phone, and instant messages). With team profiling tools, personnel can take advantage of people networks, both inside and outside your organization, to connect and share knowledge.
Partner and supplier connections. Windows SharePoint Services helps you achieve tighter integration and high-value connections with your partners and suppliers through the easy creation of more secure extranet sites. This integrated approach can streamline shared business connections and reduce the time spent on administrative matters.

Secure sharing. Through the use of team profiles and rights management, information can be more securely shared across organizational boundaries with external customers, partners, and vendors.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This is the fourth in our series on Information Management from Microsoft and PKF Texas. Information, once found, must be organized and managed to be used effectively. When data, facts, and figures are assembled in a coherent manner, they become knowledge and insight that your team or organization can use to drive the business forward. Effective data management requires:

Sorting and selecting. A Desktop Search that offers visual page previews with detailed summary information to help reduce the time people spend interpreting search results.
Customizable, up-to-date searches. Retrieve your information on demand with saved searches that organize and quickly display up-to-date information
Integration with applications. Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft Office applications smoothly incorporate data regardless of its format, to help your people transform information into knowledge.

More secure access. Protect your company's intellectual property and abide by regulatory compliance efforts with defined rules for storage, access, and distribution of documents and e-mail. You decide whom you want to have access to your business insights.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This is the third in our series on Information Management from Microsoft and PKF Texas. Effective business information management requires providing the tools and access to an organization's people, helping them to make better decisions, be more productive, and achieve greater success. These tools and processes help people to find, use, and share information quickly, easily, and more securely.

The beginning of the information process typically begins with access—quickly and smoothly connecting people with the right information—which can dramatically impact an organization's productivity. To provide adequate access, make sure that your people have:

A single interface that is integrated across the desktop, corporate network, and Internet, reducing the time spent looking for information.
A smart search that quickly finds relevant results with business-specific search capabilities—across line of business applications, databases, and more.
An intuitive search. Effectiveness is maximized when people use a familiar user interface, integrated into all familiar Microsoft Office applications.

A secure search, such as the one users can expect with the Windows Vista operating system, which offers improved protection from viruses, phishing, and other malicious software.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This is a second in our series on Information Management from Microsoft and PKF Texas. Organizations generate more and more information that is increasingly valuable, but also increasingly hard to locate and use in a meaningful way. Knowledge workers spend 15 percent to 30 percent of their work days looking for information, and at least 50 percent of online searches are not successful. The number and complexity of information sources are growing constantly, which results in people storing more data in more places. This creates inconsistencies and confusion.

As a result, the return on information for enterprises is lower than it should be. The growing complexity of business information makes it increasingly difficult to structure, organize, and process the information to improve business insight. Compounding this issue, people have an increasing amount of data on their computers, much of it stored and organized poorly. Often, when this data is placed on corporate networks, there is no unified process for filing and retrieving it.

In the next few weeks we will provide some solution insights for Information Management.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This is the first in a series of discussions on Information Management from PKF Texas and Microsoft. One of the major issues organizations face today is managing data, whether in terms of volume, location, format, or context. The complexity of these factors makes it increasingly difficult and time-consuming for your organization to find, use, and share information effectively. Also, as companies try to do more with less because of intense competition, organizational structures are becoming more complex, including virtual, flat, and distributed environments. Within these structures, business information can be stored in a multitude of places—server folders, intranets, e-mail, personal computers—increasing the challenge of locating critical information efficiently.

As a consequence, businesses need search and information tools that help them to be more productive, make better business decisions, and achieve greater business success in order to compete.

Over the next few weeks we add some additional comments to this very important area of your business.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Customer connections are the moments that define your business. Your people strive for those moments and your customers tell others about them. Through their talent, knowledge, and passion, your people transform interactions into the impression that your company is committed to delivering greater value than your competitors. Building connections creates lasting value for your organization through increased customer loyalty.

In the short term, customer loyalty benefits your business through revenue growth as a result of repeat and referral business. In the long term, closer relationships with customers give your organization a window of insight into your customers’ needs and preferences. With the cost to acquire new customers typically much greater than the cost of retaining existing ones, and profitability found to increase as much as 25 percent for every 5 percent increase in customer retention, there’s never been greater pressure or opportunity to invest in and foster the right customer connections.

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More news from PKF Texas! PKF Texas – The Entrepreneur’s Playbook has been awarded a 2007 Practice Innovation award in the impetus technology from Practical Accountant. We are honored to have been recognized for the 7^th time in 7 years.

All of my readers helped us win this award because it’s you who read the scripts every Friday. Our traffic spikes when the scripts post, so thanks for reading!

I hope you’ve received useful information from these tips. If there are topics you would like to see, let me know. I’m always on the look out for great material.

The Practice Innovation award winners appeared in the September issue of Practical Accountant.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

In today's highly competitive business environment, companies must achieve alignment, integration, and optimization of its people, processes, and technologies to remain competitive. Although competitive strategies are increasingly based on business data analytics, extracting insight from large volumes of information presents a growing challenge.

One of the most critical organizational challenges is to align performance management objectives with strategic goals. Providing integrated business intelligence (BI) tools that are available to your employees at all levels is crucial in an increasingly knowledge-driven economy.

How well your people work together to make decisions is a key element in determining your business success. Your people are your key differentiators in the marketplace. Giving them the right tools to make the right decisions at the right time is a great way to drive business performance.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Similar to corporations, owners of limited liability companies have limited personal liability for the debts and actions of the LLC but can be taxed as either a corporation, partnership, or, if owned by one person, as a so-called disregarded entity. Owners of LLC's are called "members".

As with corporations, each member's liability is limited to their financial investment. To form an LLC, one must register under a state LLC statute, file articles of organization, and comply with state requirements that are a condition of its limited liability status. There are many things that must be considered when contemplating LLC status. Some questions to consider include the number of owners, the desirability of limited liability, whether losses are expected in the initial years, other sources of income to the owners, simplicity of formation, and flexibility of structure. Usually, owners form their businesses as LLC's because they want the tax-transparency of an S corporation and the flexibility of a partnership with the limited liability of a corporation.

Due to complexities in every situation, please be sure to contact your tax advisor when making entity selection.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Last week we talked about the pros and cons of S Corporations. This week we will continue with some additional information. S corporations have the same liability protections as regular (C) corporations. The biggest advantage of an S corporation is that S corporations are tax-transparent. With few exceptions an S corporation is not taxable on the income it earns.

Companies that expect to generate losses in the early years should consider using tax transparent business forms, such as S corporation so that owners who are active in the business may be able to apply the company’s losses against income from other sources.

Due to complexities in every situation, please be sure to contact your tax advisor when making entity selection.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

A corporation formed in the US can elect to be taxed as an S corporation. S corporations are organized in a single state, and ownership is in the form of stock. There can only be one class of stock issued and no more than 100 shareholders. Shareholders can include only individuals and certain estates, trusts, and other S corporations.

To form an S corporation, you must file articles of incorporation with the secretary of the state in the jurisdiction of the organization, adopt bylaws, elect a board of directors, hold organizational meetings, and keep minutes. In addition, an S corporation election must be made with the Internal Revenue Service.

Tune in next week for the final segment on S Corporations entity selection. Due to complexities in every situation, please be sure to contact your tax advisor when maxing entity selection.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Last week we talked about the pros and cons of C Corporations. This week we will continue with some additional information. To form and maintain a C corporation, you must file articles of incorporation with the secretary of the state in the jurisdiction of the organization, adopt bylaws, elect a board of directors, hold organizational meetings, and keep minutes.

To minimize the amount of income that is taxed twice, closely held corporations often try to pay out most or all of their earnings in a tax-deductible way such as salaries or rent -- assuming the amounts are reasonable. The IRS and taxpayers frequently disagree on the definition of "reasonable"

Due to complexities in every situation, please be sure to contact your tax advisor when making entity selection.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Last week, we introduced KPIs. Here is an example of one type of KPI.

One of the paradigms that you need to discuss with your management team is the concept of revenue minus expenses equals profit which is limiting and one dimensional. Entertain the concept of people times process equals profit.

For example, sales now becomes a function of y dollars being derived from x number of sales calls. Therefore if x number of sales calls produce y dollars of sales then an increase of 1 more call per person per day should produce what amount of additional sales per month?

KPIs will help you track and improve these types of concepts and will have a dramatic and instant impact on your business.

Now imagine you are on the golf course, it’s Friday afternoon and you get an updated KPI report on your iPhone. You see that all of your KPIs are moving nicely in the right direction. It won’t bother you at all that you just put that brand new $4 golf ball in the middle of the lake!

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Any sports fan knows there are statistics that coaches use to evaluate and improve the team’s performance. The same principle can be applied to your business using Key Performance Indicators or KPIs.

So how do you start? Identify the area of your business that has the most possibility for improvement. Focus on particular areas of concern and don’t try to track too many indicators at first.

For example, you may be tracking gross revenue each quarter. But what is that really telling you? How are you obtaining growth or, more importantly, what is causing a decline?

To answer those questions spend time with your management team. Brainstorm and agree on the top two or three KPIs that are contributing to your success or decline. Using a force field analysis can be helpful. Then determine who will track the measurement and distribute the information on a daily or weekly basis.

Next week, we’ll discuss a sample equation that demonstrates the process for a sales KPI.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

C corporations are organized under the laws of a US state, and ownership is in the form of stock. There is no limit to the number of shareholders or the number of classes of stock. Articles of incorporation must be filed with the state.

An advantage of C corporations is that shareholders are usually protected from liability for corporate debts. Also, shareholders who provide services to the corporation are eligible to receive tax-free fringe benefits, such as health care benefits, group term life insurance, and may participate in company-sponsored retirement plans.

Disadvantages in using a C corporation include double taxation and administrative requirements. Profits of a C corporation are taxed to the corporation when earned, and then taxed again to shareholders when distributed as dividends. Tune in next week for the final segment on C Corporations entity selection. Due to complexities in every situation, please be sure to contact your tax advisor when maxing entity selection.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Previously we talked about a recent study Forrester Consulting did for Microsoft on customer relationships and innovation.

During those studies some additional thoughts on innovation arose.

Half of all managers surveyed chose cost reduction above all other benefits when asked to choose from a list of key innovation benefits.
Innovation is primarily valued as a way to boost operational efficiency and enhance customer relationships.
Companies may be missing the growth possibilities offered by strategic innovation.
And while innovation may be a key benefit, most companies don’t tolerate failed innovation projects, which may also be limiting strategic innovation.

Ask yourself, what was or is our most strategic innovation project at my company? The answer may surprise you.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Last week we talked about a recent study Forrester Consulting did for Microsoft on customer relationships and innovation.

Related Forrester research on innovation discovered a similar bottom-line orientation: Half of all managers chose cost reduction as a key reason to innovate. Further, only 41 percent of respondents listed innovation as one of their top two strategic priorities, well behind customer relationships (75 percent) and operational excellence (52 percent). Business managers may perceive the value of innovation, but they do not yet see it as part of a strategic approach.

Because customer interactions are valued so highly, they are outsourced less often than is commonly believed. Spending on IT and human capital is not yet fully aligned with the high priority placed on customer relationships. What would your answers be to these questions?

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Why don't companies invest more in customer relationships and take a more strategic approach to innovation?

According to a Forrester Consulting report commissioned by Microsoft, 55 percent of business managers rate customer relationships as their most important strategic priority. But that doesn't always translate into spending on IT and human capital. Only 35 percent of those managers chose customer relationships as the top reason to invest in human capital, and only 32 percent named customer relationships as their top basis for IT spending.

That raises a question: If customer relationships are so important, why don't more companies make it their top IT spending priority?

Next week we will have some follow up comments on this study.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

The adage “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” has never been more true than now in this age of global business.

By strategically aligning yourself and your company with key groups both in and out of your industry, you make connections that can take your business to the next level.

A good place to start in Houston is the Greater Houston Partnership. It encompasses world trade, economic development and various local chambers of commerce. Members are provided access to key demographics, such as the Indo-American, East End, Brazilian and Hispanic chambers of commerce.

Encourage your employees to serve on committees where they can meet other members of the business community and promote your company. The staff is well equipped to help decide which committees you and your employees can join.

Allow your employees to attend luncheons and seminars that are of interest to them. You never know who they might meet or sit next to that can help your business or provide a referral.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This tip is brought to you by Ty Freyvogel author of Seize the Century!

Key relationships a business owner must not overlook are the relationships with your service providers.

Think of your service providers as honorary employees. They can be anyone from the package delivery guy who stops by every day to the materials supplier who keeps your warehouse stocked.

Show them you appreciate what they do for you and that you care about them and their company. You never know when an emergency might arise where they can help you.

For instance, staying close to your banker assists in keeping your finances secure. If you have a good relationship with your banker and they notice unusual transactions in your account they can and should alert you to a potential problem.

It never hurts to be on the top of a service provider’s relationship list!

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

In the competitive market for talent, you can’t afford to only promote your company when you are recruiting entry-level and experienced professionals.

You also have to promote your city and what makes it different from others recruits may be considering.

What advantages does your city have over others? Lower taxes? Cheaper average gas prices? Unique social scene?

Houston, for example, has one of the lowest costs of living of major cities in the country. That is certainly attractive to recent graduates just starting out, as well as experienced professionals looking to relocate from more expensive cities like Los Angeles or New York City.

For next generation talent, where they live is just as important as their job. So don’t just sell your company, sell your city too.

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Good news for fans of PKF Texas – The Entrepreneur’s Playbook! The Association for Accounting Marketing has honored PKF Texas with a Marketing Achievement Award for the PR campaign associated with PKF Texas – The Entrepreneur’s Playbook.

Thanks for listening to the spots on the radio, on The BusinessMakers website, and reading the scripts here. They have been a great success and I hope you’re finding the tips useful.

If you ever have topics you’d like to see covered let me know!

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Due to technical difficulties, last week’s PKF Texas – The Entrepreneur’s Playbook didn’t run on KPRC 950 AM. The entry from 5/26 ran. Rather than repeat last week’s script here, I thought I’d just post this message. Technology is great when it works isn’t it?

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This final segment deals with the implementation process of Force Field Analysis.

Have your group identify three tasks from your total list of positive and negative ideas to implement over the next three to six months.

It doesn’t matter if all three tasks increase the positive influences or reduce negative influences. It can be a combination of both. The point is to get an agreement on the ideas that will yield the quickest and greatest results.

Identify a “champion” who is most qualified to supervise the improvement initiative and therefore will be held accountable for the results of each task.

Consider the tasks necessary to complete the project and develop a plan to achieve those tasks.

Clear any obvious obstacles such as lack of time for implementation, resources needed, etc.

Establish deadlines and times to meet to discuss progress over the next month.

Make this project a priority for the manager in charge.

Finally, establish a time to meet in three to six months to gauge the company’s success on the implementation of your improvement initiatives.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Last week you heard about how to find 15-20 ideas using Force Field Analysis to enhance the positive influences of an issue. You will go through the same procedure to reduce the negative influences.

Be ready to hear the soft issues about the item at this phase of the analysis. Soft issues may include lack of time, lack of support from management, not enough training, etc.

These soft issues generally do not surface in day to day conversation, but can be critical.

Keep in mind to listen to all the ideas that are presented.

After identifying five negative influences and three to four tasks to reduce the negative influences, you should again have 15 to 20 ideas for improvement.

Next week you’ll hear about how to implement these tasks.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Last week we detailed the theory behind Force Field Analysis.

With your management team together, start by identifying the positive influences of an issue.

Keep the number to five. There may be more, but for now you are only trying to get a consensus on the main influences.

Encourage everyone to contribute and listen to all the ideas that are presented.

Once everyone agrees to the top positive influences, identify three to four tasks that will enhance or improve each positive influence.

Again, you may have more tasks but get the group to agree to the best three to four tasks per item.

At this point you should have 15 to 20 ideas that, if implemented, would enhance the positive influences of that issue.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This is the first in a 4 part series about a management technique called Force Field Analysis.

Gather your management team together for a few hours and try “Force Field Analysis”.

It’s a brain storming method for developing improvement ideas and initiatives for the issues you have in your business. The theory is this:

For each issue your company faces, there are already positive influences that if enhanced, will help the company improve.

There are also negative influences that keep the company from improving.

With the Force Field Analysis, the management team can identify those influences as a group and then try to remove or reduce the negative impact and enhance the positive impacts already in place.

If you are able to increase the positive influences and reduce the negative influences, the company will inevitably improve with regard to that issue.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Before we know it, 2007 will be half over. How do you think this year’s financial results are going to stack up compared to previous years? By reviewing the results and analyzing the details in your business from 2006, you should have a firm grip on what did and didn’t work.

Perform an assessment to see what issues would take your business to the next level or keep it from moving forward.

With everything you have to do on a daily basis, how can you make time to do this type of analysis?

Take an afternoon to work “on” your business and not “in” your business.

Get out of the office if you have to.

Identify one or two things that if improved or changed you know would have an impact on the profitability of your company immediately.

Next week we will begin a 4 part series which details a good way to do this, called a Force Field Analysis.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

IT departments routinely perform many tasks well. Sadly, setting accurate project budgets is not one of them.

“It is something that historically they have never been very good at,” says IT Governance Institute. According to Institute, cost overruns from 20 percent to as much as 100 percent are practically standard.

Fortunately, organizations can increase the accuracy of their project budgets by using a variety of proven, simple, and mostly free techniques.

One of the most common mistakes IT organizations make is not allocating adequate time for budgeting.

IT often forgets to account for important expenses on projects.

Of course, every project has unexpected expenses, which become easier to anticipate over time. Veteran managers learn to increase their budget projections if they are working with unfamiliar technologies or an inexperienced project team.

After work on a project has begun, managers should revisit their initial budget regularly. At a minimum, project managers should revise the budget if stakeholders impose new requirements.

Finally be aware of the law of estimated fact. Which is when giving an estimated range, people tend to always remember the lower end of the range not the range.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Houston is a booming international marketplace. International expansions can be particularly tricky. Over the last few weeks you’ve heard about some common surprises. Here are more:

If all I do is export product to another country, things are easy.

Maybe, maybe not. Venturing abroad , even simply to export, requires making sure that you have not triggered tax responsibilities in other countries. What if you have sales people or employees working temporarily in the other country? These can cause tax in the other country. You must also look out for "value added taxes" in other countries. These taxes are similar to sales taxes, but are assessed and paid at every step in the economic chain, not just in retail sales. Often, a business can be responsible for these taxes even if not responsible for income or other taxes.

This all sounds too hard. Where can I find help?

The US provides many resources to support venturing abroad . One of the best is the U.S. Department of Commerce through their Export Assistance Centers. There is one of these centers in Houston They provide one-on-one assistance and counseling and also sponsor programs to assist exporters and potential exporters with their operations overseas. Better yet, their help is usually at no cost, or for only a nominal fee.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Houston is a booming international marketplace. International expansions can be particularly tricky. Over the last couple of weeks you’ve heard about some common complications and surprises. Here are two more:

You can setup business in a foreign country and get going quickly if you need to.

Wrong. Setting up a business in many foreign countries can be a complicated and lengthy process. In the US, legal entities can be created and ready to operate in as little as a week or less. In many other countries there are very bureaucratic and cumbersome processes for creating new entities so that it can often take weeks or months. And you often cannot proceed further until your company is formed.

I only have to worry about audits by the tax authorities.

Wrong. Many foreign countries require so-called statutory audits. These audits are performed by outside certified accountants, primarily to support tax reporting and collection. In some countries, auditors may be required to certify that the company’s taxes are all properly reported and paid, and may be subject to sanctions from the tax authorities if problems are later found.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Houston is a booming international marketplace. Any business expansion has pitfalls. International expansions can be tricky. Last week you heard the first of several common complications and surprises faced by international entrepreneurs. Here’s another:

If you don’t have a hybrid – get one.

Hybrids are foreign companies that can be treated as corporations in the foreign country and partnerships in the US. They are important because the US differs from many other countries in that here corporate business profits are taxed twice - first to the corporation and second to the owners when the profits are paid out as dividends. That’s why so many US businesses are run as partnerships or subchapter S corporations. Unlike the U.S., many foreign countries do not have this double taxation. Generally, those countries exempt shareholders from dividend taxation under the principle that the taxes on that income have been paid once, and that once is enough. Therefore, partnerships are not as commonly accepted as a way to do business in many countries. Hybrids can help US entrepreneurs operate effectively in the foreign country and use taxes paid there to offset their taxes in the US.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Houston is a booming international marketplace. Even small and medium-sized businesses are willing to look to foreign markets for customers and business opportunities. Any business expansion has pitfalls. International expansions can be particularly tricky. This is the first in a series of some common tax and business surprises.

If I earn the money outside the US, I do not have to pay US tax on my income.

Wrong. The US is unique among nations in that we tax our citizens and companies based upon their worldwide income. The US will tax your foreign-earned income sooner or later. Either when it is earned, or when you bring it back home.

Tax systems around the world are pretty much the same, except that they have different tax rates – so I want to find the country with the lowest tax rate.

Maybe – maybe not. Many other countries use a territorial tax system. Under this system profits will only be taxed to the extent that they are earned in the country where the corporation is located. The amount of your income that gets taxed is just as important as the rate of tax.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This is the second of a two part tip brought to you by Susan Ward of Cypress Technologies and PKF Texas.

In our last segment we covered the first two rules for effective search engine optimization or SEO. Here are the final three rules to keep in mind:

Give each page an appropriate title that includes the key word or phrase at least once. Many sites use the business’ name as the title of each page. This is limiting because when conducting a broad search people don’t necessarily look for a specific company.
Put the keywords or phrase you've chosen in the page title tag, meta keywords, and meta description. The meta description is an HTML tag to describe the webpage’s contents. Make sure the meta description is as appealing as possible, because some search engines use this description in the results pages.
Be sure your chosen keyword or phrase is repeated throughout the content of the page. Don’t overdo it, or your page may be rejected as spam, but repeat it enough times the search engine's software will consider the phrase relevant.

Applying these basics of SEO will give your website a better chance of showing up on those first couple pages of returned results.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This is the first of a two part tip brought to you by Susan Ward of Cypress Technologies and PKF Texas.

In the age of Web 2.0, many people talk about Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, but there are those who are still unsure of what this means for their website.

SEO is the process of choosing targeted keywords and phrases to ensure a webpage is well placed when returned in search engine results. The goal of effective SEO is to have your pages listed on the first or second page of results. Most people won’t look much further than that for information.

To do this, there are five basic rules to keep in mind:

First, remember that each page of your site is a separate entity. You need to apply the basics of effective SEO to each individual page.

Second, Choose appropriate key words or phrases for each page. The specific phrasing matters. There are online tools such inventory.overture.com, where you can enter search terms and view the most popular phrasing of that term.

Tune in next week to hear the last three rules of SEO.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This tip is brought to you by Susan Ward of Cypress Technologies and PKF Texas.

We often think about what we want to communicate to our potential customers, but how often do we focus on the communication from our potential customers?

If a potential customer has sought out your company, more often than not they are a pre-sold customer and have already made the decision to use your company.

When you provide a phone number or email address on your website, in an ad, or other printed material, be prepared to receive communication from and respond promptly to potential customers. If you do not, you may lose that customer to a competitor.

Small businesses may face the challenge of having a person available to answer every phone call or email in a timely manner. This can be easily overcome by an automated response thanking the customer for their communication and providing a timeline as to when they can expect to receive a response from you.

When you lack the bandwidth due to being a small business, creativity is the key to the development of your future customer base.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This tip is brought to you by Susan Ward of Cypress Technologies and PKF Texas.

Do you have an advisory board for your business?

Some think advisory boards are only for large, or public companies. There are many advantages for companies of all sizes to have a board.

Your advisory board will serve as a sounding board, a source of ideas and expertise – to give you honest advice. Approach retired executives, or influential people in your community to serve on your board.

The board should meet on a regular basis, usually quarterly. Also, be prepared to be completely open with your board. They cannot function and advise properly if information is held back.

An advisory board that meets regularly gets to know you and your business. They can provide the management expertise to avoid common business mistakes and set your business up for success.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Many midsize companies spend more time on accounting than they need to. Here are some of the most powerful but least utilized automation features available in today’s accounting systems.

Prepare and Distribute Reports Automatically
Managers usually rely on a standard set of financial reports. Rather than have accounting staff prepare, and distribute those reports, you can configure your accounting package to prepare and distribute reports automatically.

Make Recurring Payments Online
Paying the phone bill each month is a time-consuming chore. But if your financial system supports online bill paying, you can process recurring payables automatically.

Receive Automatic Notice of Impending Problems
The best time to find out about a financial problem is before it happens. Using the alerts technology available in many accounting systems, you can warn appropriate managers of potential trouble. You can instruct your software to notify the credit manager any time a customer comes within 2 percent of their credit limit.

Transfer Data from Spreadsheets Electronically
To save time and reduce errors, use the import functionality available in most accounting packages to download financial data from spreadsheets.

Automatically Reconcile Ledgers and Account Statements
Reconciling general ledger reports is such tiresome work that some businesses unwisely neglect it. Let your software automatically reconcile sub-ledgers to the GL.

Finally, whenever you automate with your accounting software, make sure to record the details in writing and share them widely. Too often, only a few insiders understand how an automated process works.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

For those businesses ready to commit to knowledge development, there are loads of tools to facilitate speedy information sharing and creation. Depending on your needs, you might choose to use one or all of the following:

Portals. Portals take advantage of technologies like SharePoint and their virtual team sites are ideal for structured, process-oriented tasks requiring document creation and versioning.
Blogs. Found on either company internal, or external Web sites. Blogs can also give employees that might not normally be called upon, the opportunity to espouse ideas in an informal environment.
Wikis. One of the newest arrivals on the scene is the wiki, a Web site to which anyone can add, modify or edit material simply by clicking on an “edit” button. Wikis can also help manage open, unstructured business collaboration, such as in an engineering or RAD (rapid application development) environment. Wikis are different than blogs and portals in that information presented in those tools remains static.
Mash-up: The term originated in the hip-hop world to refer to remixing songs, but now “mash-up” can also describe the practice of combining applications or tools from different sources. Like using Outlook and Dynamics NAV CRM for sales collaboration purposes.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

You developed an idea to sell products or services on the Internet. Now, the next most important step is selecting a domain name.

At the cost of a few dollars a year, the right domain name helps your business develop a recognizable online brand. It promotes name recognition among your customers and keeps them coming back to the right place.

When you set up a standard account with an Internet Service Provider (ISP), you’re allocated an e-mail address and, in most cases, a Web site at the ISP’s domain. The e-mail address and the URL belong to the ISP. If you switch service providers, you will have to change both of them.

A domain name that you register and control essentially makes your Web site and e-mail address portable. You get the flexibility of being able to change your hosting service without having to also change your Web and e-mail addresses.

And remember a good domain name should be short and memorable.

It’s estimated that there are 112 million registered domains with .com. You can register a domain name with a domain registrar. Annual costs to register a domain are set by each registrar, but are typically less than $50 annually.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This tip is brought to you by Rebecca Ryan, of Next Generation Consulting, Inc.and PKF Texas.

A company’s vision and value statement tell the overall goals and priorities of an organization.

By having a concise vision and values statement you let your employees and clients know the high level of service you expect to provide, and the foundation on which your company is built. Post this information on your corporate website so everyone can easily access it.

The vision and values statement also give your employees a sense of meaning and purpose as to their roles within the company. If they strive to fulfill the company’s vision and values, they will feel like they are more connected to the organization. And that will produce better financial results. It all goes back to the mantra, that if the employees are happy- they work harder and the company sees results with an improved bottom line.

This may seem like a minor thing but it sets the tone of your business, and guides the strategy, ultimately providing a road map for success.

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This tip is brought to you by Rebecca Ryan, of Next Generation Consulting, Inc.and PKF Texas.

Work related learning is an important source of fulfillment for the next generation of employees.

Classroom and other formal types of learning and training are important. However, the work environment, and the job itself, provide the foundation for work related learning.

Some factors that contribute to interesting and fulfilling work related learning include:

Access to the latest tools and technologies,
Input on the development of training programs,
Opportunities for formal learning and development, and
The potential for interesting and exciting projects

These types of tools allow your employees to find their niche and develop new sets of skills and expertise. Providing this type of learning environment enhances the overall capabilities of both the employees and the company.

To read and comment on the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook, visit my blog, fromgregshead.com. PKF Texas--Where People are the key to our future.

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PKF Texas’ Entrepreneur’s Playbook is moving! The BusinessMakers Radio Show has found a new home on KPRC 950 AM. The show will air Saturday mornings from 8:00 – 9:00 am.

The show will still be streamed from www.thebusinessmakers.com and the PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook will still be posted on my blog every Friday before the show.

The first show on the new station was this past Saturday (1/20). I went into record a new PKF Texas Entrepreneur’s Playbook with Russ and John last week and was thoroughly impressed with the new studio. Everyone is excited about the move to KPRC.

So tune in Saturday mornings to hear me, “One Take Jake” give the latest best practice tip and to hear Russ and John interview the most fascinating entrepreneurs from around the country.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

With almost everything in life, complexity is usually not a good thing and simplicity is better. In software, complexity sometimes means both higher costs and less ability to keep the system up to meeting the ever-changing needs of the business. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) can be a measure of complexity in your IT area.

No business stays the same. You face challenges including, customers demanding new ways of doing business. Challenges include governments setting new regulations. Challenges include companies changing to gain competitive advantage. As is often said, the only constant in business is change. When systems are complex, it means that the company is less able to respond to these challenges. “Systems are often an obstacle to change”, says Olin Thompson of Lawson Software.

A direct benefit of a lower TCO is the pure economic benefit of spending less. Actually, that dollar could be used more effectively elsewhere in the business, for a purpose that offers a higher rate of return.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Unless you have been living under a rock these past few years, you probably have heard someone talk about Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) and its impact on internal control reporting at their business. Long before the creation of SOX legislation, the concept of developing and adhering to, strong internal controls was well known. But, many organizations didn’t give it as high as a priority as they should have.

History has shown, that focusing on internal controls is not just for public companies that are required to comply with federal and state regulations. In fact, there are benefits for privately held and not for profit organizations as well. Internal controls include, but are not limited to:

Segregation of duties;
Approval limits;
Authorizations; and
Programmed Controls

But from our perspective the most important control is the tone at the top towards compliance as set by the CEO. Without proper support from the CEO, internal controls will take a back seat to operational needs. Make sure your executive management team supports the development and implementation of effective internal controls. If you don’t, you be wasting more than time and money. You will wasting a chance to impress your customers, investors and employees with solid business practices that improve your profitability.

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This is a supply chain logistics tip from Bruce Hoard of Microsoft and PKF Texas.

Growing and midsize companies are among the many organizations that are increasingly using the outsourcing capabilities of third-party logistics (3PL) firms. In the distribution area in particular, executives are choosing to hand over such key business process applications as order processing and transportation management to outside experts rather than build out expensive infrastructures that are not compatible with their core competencies.

It’s a smart idea, but takes a lot of work—and trust—to implement. Trust is always a major issue when it comes to outsourcing sensitive company data, as the failure of so many storage services providers a few years back made painfully clear. Even when trust does exist between 3PLs and their customers, it still makes sense for customer firms to insist on being able to monitor every step along the product manufacturing and distribution path.

Most organizations want visibility into the operations of that 3PL. They will want to know how much inventory they have, and, if they’re doing order fulfillment. In addition, how many orders are they fulfilling, and their timeliness. If you know what’s going on, you can provide your customers with better service.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This best practice tip is brought to you by Phillip Harper, writer for Microsoft and PKF Texas.

In our last segment on the question of when to add staff, we reviewed 4 key areas that suggest a positive answer. But two other issues rise when you make that decision.

Full Time versus Temporary

Once the decision to hire is made, the question is whether to hire a full-time employee, a temporary worker or a subcontractor.

If the work is part of the core service of the company, it makes sense to hire [a full timer], Harper says. But if it's more of a secondary thing, or not as important to the customer, it's better to subcontract because you could reduce expenses.

In the case of entry-level support personnel, some companies use temps to cover short-term needs and then end up hiring them for full-time positions. The try before you buy scenario.

Competition with big businessesWhile it can be true that small companies have difficulty competing against major corporations in the area of benefits, workers interested in emerging businesses may have other areas of greater interest to them. Some folks may be looking for real world experience and the increasing pool of skilled workers on early retirements can add depth to your bench very quickly.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

I am often asked on when, and how does as organization begin to look for new employees to join their company. In addition, the economy is pretty hot right now in Houston, so finding good employees can be a difficult challenge.

Entrepreneurs trying to navigate their ship through the economic waves may not have spent much time wondering about whether to add new employees. However, as the economic recovery continues, they may want to start thinking about it.

But it raises a simple question: How can a small-business owner know when it's time to add staff?

Phillip Harper suggests, “You need to add workers if:

The amount of overtime pay is increasing. Aside from spending issues, your workforce may be nearing burnout
Your backlog of sales is (or may soon be) growing.
Your business’s billing multiplier has risen above the norm. To get the billing multiplier divide your net revenue by your direct labor costs. Check your industry average against your actual results and make adjustments accordingly.
Your debt is at a level that allows you to assume additional risk.

Solid advice on all fronts.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

One of the most important steps any entrepreneur should take is to protect the intellectual property of your company.

Securing an intellectual property attorney is the first step. The attorney will be able to provide the advice and the resources needed to file a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office.

Trademarks protect words, names, symbols, sounds or colors that distinguish your goods or services from those manufactured or sold by others.

Some of the benefits of registering and protecting your intellectual property include:

Notice to the public of ownership of the trademark;
The exclusive use of the trademark; and
The ability to pursue legal action concerning the trademark in the court system.

Taking the time to protect your intellectual property will safe guard you in the future from other companies trying to infringe on your rights as an entrepreneur. For more information about obtaining patents or trademarks, visit www.uspto.gov.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

If exporting internationally is a part of your business, you have most likely heard about changes to the federal income tax laws repealing many exporter benefits. Despite the repeal, there are still several tax benefits available for exporters.

One export benefit called Interest Charge – Domestic International Sales Corporation or IC-DISC, is still available to closely held export companies.

IC-DISC is an export incentive vehicle which effectively allows exporters to defer a portion of their export income from current federal income taxation.

There are several key ways IC-DISC can help your business depending on how much of your income is export-based:

It can minimize double taxation on a portion of export income
It can reduce your overall effective tax rate
It can help you redeploy cash into your business to create wealth

To learn more about IC-DISC and to see how it may apply to your Company, download the white paper from www.pkftexas.com/ic-disc.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, this is a continuing series of inventory control tips by Jon Schreibfeder. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Last week we talked about forecasting for inventory management. While most distributors use an average of past usage, we’ve also discovered that an average of past usage is just one element of a good forecast formula.

In fact, comprehensive forecasting considers four elements:

A weighted average of past usage
An optional trend factor
Possible collaborative information from customers and/or salespeople
Identification of the proper time frame for the forecast, also known as the forecast horizon

Accurate demand forecasts are a critical factor in achieving effective inventory management. If you do not have good estimates of future usage, you are forced to overstock in order to maintain a high level of customer service. This is the equivalent of adding "fat" to your warehouse.

It costs a lot of money to maintain this excess inventory, money that probably could be put to better use. In today’s competitive environment you must be "lean and mean" to prosper and maximize your company’s profitability. You need to develop the most accurate forecast of future demand possible for every stocked product in your inventory!

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, this is a continuing series of inventory control tips by Jon Schreibfeder. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Competition continues to increase, as new distribution channels evolve and existing channels expand. Twenty years ago most distributors existed on "market islands". They may have had a few competitors, but they knew how these other firms conducted business.

A number of developments including the Internet, dynamic data processing capabilities, and faster, more reliable transportation have drastically changed the distribution environment. This "buyers market" has forced many distributors to lower their profit margins in order to remain competitive.

Lower margins are not the only result of this increased competition. Customers are in a position to demand more value added services and greater product availability.

The result: Distributors have to provide better material availability and more services with fewer profit dollars. They have to do more with less. In order to accomplish this goal the estimates of future usage of stocked items must be as accurate as possible.

One of the most common methods distributors utilize to forecast future demand of products is to average the usage recorded over the previous several months.

But is that the best way to forecast demands? Stay tuned for our next segment next week on inventory management and we will provide more tips on inventory forecasting.

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, this is a continuing series of inventory control tips by Jon Schreibfeder. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Inventory is the largest and probably the most important asset of many distributors. If you don’t have the right amount, of the right products, you cannot provide service to your customers. Therefore, it’s crucial that you develop the right set of tools that help you monitor the performance of your inventory investment. Two of these tools include: Customer Service Level and Gross Margin Return on Investment

Customer Service Level is calculated by:

Number of line items for stocked products shipped complete by promise date
Divided by: Total number of line items for stocked products ordered
The goal is to be at or near 100%.

Gross Margin Return on Investment (GMROI) is calculated by:

Gross Margin$
Divided by: Average Inventory Investment
The goal is to have a GMROI of 160 % or better

Without meaningful analysis ratios like the two above, can you tell if you are making progress with your inventory management?

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Community involvement should be a key aspect of every company. It gives employees a great opportunity to give back to the community.

Poll your employees to see which organizations they care about. Maybe several employees have been personally affected by heart disease or Alzheimer’s. If the employees have a say in which organization you choose they will be more willing to support this type of initiative.

Most charitable organizations have a walk or run in the fall or spring. Participating in and raising money for the walk or run is an easy way to get involved.

Several ways to ensure a successful fundraising campaign include:

Create a taskforce to handle communications and logistics.
Set a high, but reachable company fundraising goal
Provide incentives for reaching personal fundraising goals. For example, if everyone donates $10 have a “jeans and sneakers” day, or for the top fundraiser in your firm, provide an extra vacation day.

Your company benefits by bonding together to support a great cause, and the community benefits from your willingness to support a charitable organization.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This tip is brought to you by Rebecca Ryan, of Next Generation Consulting, Inc.and PKF Texas.

An important factor in becoming a Next Generation Company is creating and sustaining a good work-life balance for all of your employees.

If your employees know you respect and value their non-work life, they will be more willing to provide the level of service necessary to run a successful business.

Make sure you listen to the wants and needs of your employees and look for ways to incorporate these in your corporate strategy. Everything from providing gym memberships to onsite child care facilities can show your employees that your firm supports and values their personal lives.

By putting into place policies and procedures providing a good work-life balance, You will be able to reduce turn-over, provide higher quality work to your clients, and ultimately attract and retain quality employees.

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, this is a continuing series of budgeting tips brought to you by Ventana Research and PKF Texas. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on SuperTalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Does your company have a “quality” budgeting and planning process? A quality process is one that:

Aligns the budget to your corporate strategy
Promotes accuracy
Increases organizational agility
Deepens operation insight for everyone involved and for the company as a whole

To gain a leg up on your larger, entrenched competitors, you need to allocate your budget resources to your strengths. Accuracy is important. But in this case, we are talking about wider participation, and increased communication among functional silos.

Because of our constantly changing world managers should think contingently about their areas and the impact of events on their budget.

And finally, if your company is growing rapidly, executives in mid-size companies may not appreciate that not everyone is working off the same page the way they used to.

By budgeting and planning more effectively, mid-size companies can recapture the agility they had as a smaller organization and overcome the advantages that their larger competitors enjoy.

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

As much as we don't like to talk about it, sometimes the world experiences a disaster. In the wake of a major world event, people's needs change, and manufacturers are challenged with shifting production quickly to address customer demands.

By integrating closely with suppliers, manufacturers have a higher level of agility and can efficiently react to changes, instantaneously. The bottom line? Competitive edge is in the hands of manufacturers with a level of agility that enables them to shift with the global marketplace.

Globalization, declining margins, and shorter product life cycles are pressuring manufacturers to transform their traditional supply chains to demand-driven, adaptive supply chain networks. Creating a collaborative environment to work very closely with suppliers and partners is essential to maintain an edge.

Manufacturing companies must be agile in a shifting global marketplace

How can manufacturers achieve this agility? Consider the following:

Reduce time to market.
Integrate supply chain.
Share costs.

Customer demands in manufacturing get resolved fast with supply chain integration tools

For example, consider the following uses of technology in the supply chain:

Effective and accurate inventory accounting.
Tracking products during manufacturing.
Precise parts selection.

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This tip is brought to you by Thomas A. Kayser, author of Mining Group Gold and PKF Texas.

Communication can be one of the most misunderstood and misused tools in business. How do you effectively communicate with your employees and not waste time in meetings? Effective communication does not just happen.

Every meeting should have an agenda with time allotted for each topic. There should be a facilitator, timekeeper, and a scribe.

The facilitator plans the meeting, prepares the agenda, and keeps the group on task during the meeting.
Planning for meetings should include answers to the following questions:

· What is the purpose and desired outcome?

· Who should attend?

· What is the agenda content and topic flow?

The time keeper reminds the group what time it is and if they are exceeding the time allowed for each topic.

The scribe is responsible for keeping meeting notes and action item assignments.

In practicing these simple techniques you will be more effective with better results.

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

This tip is brought to you by Rebecca Ryan, of Next Generation Consulting, Inc.and PKF Texas.

Can your company be considered a next generation company?

Next generation companies work to put in place policies and procedures to ensure their employees come first. They look at what motivates their employees and adapt to meet the needs of both the talent and the marketplace.

These are a few questions you should ask yourself in order assess how your company can provide a better work/life balance for your employees.

· What are you doing now that makes the most difference to your staff?

· Which current practices should you maintain and enhance?

· Which should you abandon?

· What new practices should you implement?

Because of the shrinking talent pool, companies are facing greater pressures to change their policies and practices in order to compete for and to retain talent. Have you thought of forming an internal taskforce to provide a forum for your employees to voice their preferences? Allowing your employees to have a voice will ensure they are more engaged and committed to delivering the results needed to run a profitable business.

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, this is a continuing series of budgeting tips brought to you by Ventana Research and PKF Texas. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on SuperTalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

The electronic spreadsheet was a breakthrough because it automated the most time consuming part of manual budgeting and eliminated errors caused by purely arithmetic processes. In theory, spreadsheets should allow organizations to collect detailed information from every individual with budget authority and roll it up into a consolidated view.

In reality, two decades of results has shown that numerous issues routinely occur making it difficult to achieve ideal results. Common problems include:

Broken links or formulas
Consolidation errors
Using the wrong data
Using the wrong/incorrect formula

By removing the spreadsheet barrier, expanding participation and focusing people’s efforts on thinking and analyzing on the right level of detail rather than spending time on the mechanics of communicating number back and forth, companies are to get more out of the process. Dedicated budget and planning software can do more than make the process strategic and accurate.

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook 1 Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, this is a continuing series of inventory control tips by Jon Schreibfeder. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Separate your “stock” from your “stuff”.

When you stock material you are making a commitment. A commitment that an item will be available in reasonable quantities for immediate shipment or delivery to customers. Most distributors’ warehouses are filled with two things: “stock” and “stuff.” Stock is the material you intend to have in the warehouse. These are the items that you anticipate your customers will want. Stuff is everything else. You have got to separate the stock from the stuff in order to have effective inventory management . Our goal is to liquidate the stuff and arrange the stock items in the best way to facilitate filling customer orders.

To determine which products you should stock, we suggest you sort the items in a warehouse based on each product’s “annual hits.”

Annual hits represents the number of times each product was ordered by customers, transferred or used in an assembly during the past 12 months, regardless of quantity. Why do we rank products based on hits, instead of the total quantity or material value ordered?

Annual hits more fairly represent that actual expectations of your customers and not the hoped for, or budgeted sales of your sales and marketing personnel. Track items based upon the number of annual hits and compare this to the quantities ordered. Once you start eliminating products with few annual hits your own the way to improving your cash flow and achieving effective inventory management.

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, this is a continuing series of budgeting tips brought to you by Ventana Research and PKF Texas. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on FM Newschannel 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Many executives at mid-size companies feel trapped in the middle, bigger but less agile as an organization that they were previously, but smaller and without the resources of large organizations.

By budgeting and planning more effectively, mid-size companies can recapture the agility that they had as a smaller organization and overcome the advantage of their larger competitors.

Agility is as much about seizing opportunities as reacting to disappointments. When markets are hot, companies that can decide to apply more resources sooner are more successful than those who wait. During downturns companies that trim spending sooner do well, but those that understand where best to cut resources do even better.

Agility is one of the most important reasons small companies are able to compete effectively against giant corporations that have far more resources. People associate survival of the fittest with Darwin. However, what Darwin actually wrote is “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent…it’s the one most adaptable to change.”

Agility is knowing the right answer sooner, not later.

Agility is being able to make the right decision sooner, not later.

Agility is being able to implement the action plan in a concerted effort sooner, not later.

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Attracting and retaining talent for your company roster is one of the hottest topics in boardrooms across the country. In order to successfully compete for quality talent, companies need to take the steps to set themselves apart from the fierce competition in today’s crowded marketplace.

Participating in the Houston Business Journal’s Best Places To Work program is a proven method for setting yourself apart. It demonstrates to the marketplace a commitment is being made to emphasize and nurture a positive corporate culture, and serves as a morale booster for firm recruitment and retention.

Potential talent along with prospective clients want to align themselves with companies on the Best Places To Work list. What attracts and retains talent will ultimately attract and retain clients as well.

The champions who make Best Places To Work a reality, are the company’s employees – not the media or public. There is no better advocate for your company than you own employees!

The Houston Business Journal’s 2006 Best Places to Work awards ceremony is scheduled for Oct 12 at the Hyatt Regency Downtown. If you want to know how your company can benefit from such an award, sign up several of your key employees to attend this event. Visit houstonbusinessjournal.com for event details.

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, this is a continuing series of inventory control tips by Jon Schreibfeder. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on FM Newschannel 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

How accurate are your inventory stock balances?

Accurate Stock Balances Are Needed for Success
– No computer system will replenish inventory with the right quantity of the right item at the right time in the right location if the quantity in the computer system does not agree with the quantity physically in stock.

Maintaining Stock Level Accuracy is Difficult
– Not all material related transactions are properly recorded
– Material is put away incorrectly
– Damaged material is mixed with good stock
– There is a lack of warehouse security

A lot of distributors try to make up for stock level inaccuracy with more sophisticated computer software. Every Employee Must Know the Cost of Bad Inventory Mgmt.
– Inventory is valuable
– Paychecks result from the sale of inventory
– If inventory is lost, stolen or destroyed, it must be paid for with net profits
– Management must lead by example

Assuming a 4% net profit, it takes $2,500 in new sales to make up for a $100 material loss. If $100 is lost per week, a branch needs $130,000 in additional sales each year just to break even. If your employees have not bought into concepts of Inventory Control (Controlling what is in your warehouse) and Inventory Management (Managing your inventory investment to maximize net profits), you will have difficulty reaching your financial goals.

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

Do you know your corporate financial DNA?

Are people asking for a Benchmark Report on your business? As your company grows, are you treading water? Are you ahead or behind of your competitors? Success leaves clues, so do you know where to look?

If you know your corporate financial DNA, you can adapt to changing business demands more readily. There are several areas that make up corporate financial DNA. These include but are not limited to: revenue growth, operating income margin, percentage cost of good sold, days sales outstanding, days in inventory, and days purchases outstanding.

Corporate DNA must be combined with performance metrics to drive success.

No matter what metric you use, make sure it is easily understood by many managers throughout your company. Use the metrics to reward performance of your employees. Also, make sure your corporate DNA relates to shareholder value.

Look back at your successes. What did you do right and how can you apply that to the future? Success is measurable, but it takes the right combination of people, process, and technology to become effective. Make sure you map SCM initiatives to financial performance gaps and link gaps to SCM Business Processes and Strategies.

Studies have shown, that for certain industries, using your corporate financial DNA to improve performance in reducing your Days Sales Outstanding from the median to the 1st quartile has a bigger impact on your cash flow than increasing sales from median to the 1st quartile.

Make sure you know the comparison between your corporate financial DNA and your industry. If you do, you can implement improvement plans to put money in your pocket.

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on Supertalk 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

If supply chain management, or SCM, has so much potential, why does it often fail to deliver a return on capital? Recent studies have shown that return on capital is down thirty percent for 1,500 manufacturers, distributors and retailers. Is the hype driving us all to move in a direction that we believe will help our businesses? Or it is something else? It is something, or a process that seems so simple, but elusive to most businesses.

There are several reasons SCM can fail but three key reasons are consistently found:
First, SCM project managers often lack access to C level executives. C level personnel are crucial for success and must be involved in any SCM project. The C level person must be engaged in the oversight and management of the SCM project. If they don’t, they have shirked their responsibilities and the SCM will have to battle priorities and commitment from others.

Second, SCM project managers don’t necessarily speak the language of finance. In order to be successful, they have to have the tools to communicate information effectively. They don’t know the key elements of their Corporate DNA. Corporate DNA being defined as the metrics by which you measure success beyond the software implementation.

And third, SCM cannot be done in a vacuum. You must take into account entity wide issues. Getting departments to work across company lines and getting input from the appropriate key people sounds easy. But as many SCM project managers will attest to, getting this cooperation is much more difficult than one might expect.
In short, everyone has to be active and committed to an SCM project for it to be a success.

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, this is the first in a continuing series of budgeting tips brought to you by Ventana Research and PKF Texas. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on FM Newschannel 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

With all the advances in technology, software and collaboration tools, one might think the budgeting has risen to new and more effective higher levels. However, recent research has shown that executives in mid-sized companies have not focused on the potential benefits of more effective budgeting and are unaware of possible solutions that can be quickly implemented.

Questions to Ask About Your Budgeting and Planning Process

Is the process strategic? The CEO of you company has a strategy, but how well does the financial budget reflect it? Is you budget realistic or just update of last year’s amounts by a factor of inflation?

Is it accurate? Are the budgets as accurate as they should be? Does the budget process itself create systematic errors?

Does it increase your company’s agility? Does the company respond quickly to changes in the environment or changes in the competitive landscape? When things don’t go as planned does the company have a coordinated response?

Does it provide deeper insight? What assumptions are being made in forecasting? Can you drill down to ascertain consistency, assumptions, etc?

Does your budgeting and planning process improve process quality? How quickly can you prepare your budget? Is it consistent from year to year and department to department? What tools are you using to help in this effort?

We recommend that you start to improve your budgets by looking at three key areas:
1) Making strategy explicit;
2) Increasing collaboration
3) Optimizing resource allocation.

With this focus, you can improve your budgeting process and your results.

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, this is a continuing series of inventory control tips by Jon Schreibfeder. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on FM Newschannel 97.5. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook page of the PKF Texas website.

What is Effective Inventory Management?

“Effective inventory management allows a distributor to meet or exceed customers’ expectations of product availability by maintaining the amount of each item that will also maximize their company’s net profit.”

Effective inventory management is the result of outstanding inventory control and inventory management. What is the difference between “inventory control” and “inventory management?” Inventory control involves managing the inventory that is already in your warehouse, stockroom or store. That is, knowing what products are “out there,” how much you have of each item, and where it is.

Inventory management involves determining when to order products and how much to order, as well as identifying the most effective source of supply for each item in each stocking location. Inventory management includes all of the activities of forecasting and replenishment.

The most common question we are asked is “where do we start?” The answer is: You must begin with inventory control. Unless you know exactly what inventory is in your warehouse and that material is in usable condition, you can’t accurately determine when to reorder products.

Stay tuned for future segments on effective inventory management.

Posted In Guest Spotlights , PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, This is the first in a series of inventory control tips by Jon Schreibfeder. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on FM Newschannel 97.5. Audio files can be found at the PKF Texas Radio/Television page.

How do you achieve Inventory Control? Where do you begin?

First, you have to understand the problem. I’ve worked with distributors throughout the world. These firms have distributed nearly every type of product imaginable. Despite the variety of locations and industries, I’ve found they typically have very similar inventory-related problems:

They have too much of some products.
- Results in excess inventory and dead stock and leads to decreased turnover and profitability
They experience stock outs of other products.
- Results in backorders, lost sales and an overall decrease in customer service.
They don’t know what is in stock.
They can’t find material in their warehouse.

As a result, many distributors don’t have control of their inventory. So, to get control, you need a plan for effective inventory management.

Stay tuned for future segments on effective inventory management.

Posted In Guest Spotlights , PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, this is a series of business tips offered by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on FM Newschannel 97.5. Audio files can be found at the PKF Texas Radio/Television page.

Is your company on the Best Places to Work list? If your employees were surveyed today would you be on the list?

In Houston’s fast paced economy, human capital is the number one issue executives should be talking about. What are you doing as a leader of your company to encourage a positive environment that attracts and retains valued employees?

Appreciation for your employees needs to be demonstrated from the top down. If the leadership of your company shows appreciation for employee accomplishments, it will be infectious throughout the company. It can be as simple as acknowledging interim successes of a project or giving a gift card to someone who went the extra mile.

Taking the time to let your staff know they are valued will make a world of difference in both the morale of your company and your bottom line.

Share you own business insights by sending me a note.

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Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, this is the third in a series of business tips offered by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on FM Newschannel 97.5. Audio files can be found at the PKF Texas Radio/Television page.

This is a good time of the year to take a look at your budget and forecast for 2006, and compare your performance to your expectations. If you do not have a forecast, it’s not too late to prepare one for 2006.

How do you use a forecast to take your company to the next level of performance?

The secret may be a “flash report.” A flash report will keep you focused on the key performance indicators that will drive your forecast. For example, if your goal is to improve cash flow and increase sales, a report would track your daily or weekly sales, along with the daily cash balances of your business.

Track a few items in your business and see how it works for you. Over time, I think you will find you can keep your finger on the pulse of your business by using a flash report on a regular basis. Remember you can’t manage what you can’t measure!

Share you own business insights by sending me a note.

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, this is the second in a series of business tips offered by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on FM Newschannel 97.5. Audio files can be found at the PKF Texas Radio/Television page.

In this ever more fragile economy, managing your cash flow may prove to be one of the keys to your Company’s survival. Customers will delay payment in an effort to preserve what little free cash they have. Unfortunately, this can be prove to be extremely painful for your Company, and may lead to your demise.

As an owner/entrepreneur, you are faced with many financial terms. One of the key terms you should become familiar with in managing your business is “Days Sales Outstanding (DSO).” You can calculate DSO by dividing your total annual revenues by 365 to get your average daily sales. Then, take your monthly accounts receivable balance and divide by the average daily sales to get your DSO.

Did you know that a properly designed and implemented cash management process, allowing you to track and collect overdue accountings can have an immediate impact on your cash flow? For example, a three-day reduction in your DSO balances (a very reasonable and achievable target) will generate $5,000 in cash flow for every $1 million in revenue. Thus, a $10 million dollar company should be able to generate $50,000 in cash flow by having a well designed and operating cash management and collection program.

Posted In PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook 1 Comments Permalink

Note: Running most Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, this is the first in a series of business tips offered by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker's Radio Show on FM Newschannel 97.5. Audio files can be found online at the PKF Texas Radio/Television page.

According to Fortune Magazine, “Blogs have become a force businesses can’t ignore.”

With all the buzz about business blogging, perhaps you’ve already considered whether this tool would be a good fit for your business.

What is a blog? Well, a blog is simply an online journal. Web log = blog. More than that, blogs are conversations among human authors, not marketing departments. They are part of online communities where information is shared and commented on.

Ask yourself: Do I have something to say? Can I make it interesting and relevant? Can I keep talking about it?

Two great resources to look at if you’re thinking about blogging are problogger.net and lexblog.com. These sites were excellent guides during the development of my business blog, fromgregshead.com.

A blog can be a useful communication tool for the technology minded entrepreneur. The possibilities are endless and you limited only by the information you provide to your audience.

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As many of you know, I was featured on the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show several times, and now they have asked me to present a series of best practice business tips to air during their Saturday morning show on FM Newschannel 97.5.

I am going to be the voice of PKF Texas’ Entrepreneur’s Playbook.

The first tip from the Entrepreneur’s Playbook will air this Saturday – July 1. Each Friday, I will post both the written and broadcast versions of the current tip here in the blog.

Here is a list of some of the topics The Entrepreneur’s Playbook will cover:

Blogs
Inventory Control
Profit Enhancement
Human Capital
Cash Management

As someone who writes a blog with a technology focus, it is always interesting to see how technology plays a role in different industries. The amount of time that went into recording and mixing these spots, as well as the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show, is commendable. Thanks to John Whiteside and Russ Capper who helped make me “One Take Jake.”

Let me know what you think about the Entrepreneur’s Playbook and especially using the blog for broadcast clips. Were the tips useful for your business? Are there any topics you would like me to touch on? What are your own best practice tips? I look forward to your interaction on my blog.

Posted In Week in Geek , PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Comments Permalink

From Greg's Head

From Greg's Head

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook™: Is Your Corporate Strategy and Budget Aligned?

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Skills Audits

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Are Customer Relationships a Top Issue?

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Giving Feedback

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Do You Need a Better Strategy?

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Waste Elimination to Increase Profitability

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Budgeting Should be Linked to Strategy

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: A Budget Should Tie to Organizational Objectives

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: The Real Challenge of CRM

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Why is There No New Business?

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Prevent Fraud in Your Organization

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Preparing Budgets - Why?

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: It's Easy Being Green

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Business Continuity Planning

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Proof of IT Value

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Demands of a Global Market

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Professional Services Resources as Consultants

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Success Depends on Enablement

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Competitive Intelligence

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Client Testimonials

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Don't Axe Interactive Marketing

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Bringing in a Superstar

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: People Ready Business--Competitive Advantage for Mobility

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: People Ready Business--The Value of an Empowered Workforce

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: People Ready Business--Enable Your Mobile Workforce

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Social Networks

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Unusual Benefits

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: People Ready Business-Mobility in the Workforce

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: People Ready Businesses--Amplifying the Ability of People Through Software

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Flex Initiatives

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Business Resolutions - Insurance

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Business Resolutions - Cash

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Business Resolutions - Expenses

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: The Information Workplace

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: IT Drives Growth

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Innovation Leads to Success

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: People Ready Business

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Information Management Part 6

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Information Management Part 5

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Information Management Part 4

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Information Management Part 3

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Information Management Part 2

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Information Management Part 1

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Increase Customer Loyalty

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook Receives Practice Innovation Award

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Business Intelligence

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Limited Liability Company

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: S Corporations Part 2

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: S Corporations Part 1

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: C Corporations Part 2

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Key Performance Indicators Part 2

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Key Performance Indicators Part 1

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: C Corporations Part 1

PKF Texas - The Entreprenuer's Playbook: Strategic Innovation

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Customer Interactions

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Customer Relationships

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Who Do You Know?

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Relationships with Your Service Providers

Promote Your City

Association for Accounting Marketing Honors PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook

Last Week's BusinessMakers Radio Show

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Force Field Analysis: Implementation

Force Field Analysis: Identify Negative Influences

Force Field Analysis: Identify Positive Influences

Theory of Force Field Analysis

Work "On" Your Business Not "In" Your Business

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Get a Grip on IT Budgets

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Misconceptions of Expanding Internationally Part 4

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Misconceptions of Expanding Internationally Part 3

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Misconceptions of Expanding Internationally Part 2

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Misconceptions of Expanding Internationally Part 1

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Search Engine Optimization Part 2

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Search Engine Optimization Part 1

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Let Your Potential Clients Communicate with You

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Advisory Boards

PKF Texas - The Entreprenuer's Playbook: Hands Free Accounting

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: New Knowledge Management Tools

PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook: Domain Name