Increase Your Odds to Stay in Business (Part 4 of 4)

In the first three parts of this series, we’ve shown you why most businesses fail, how to understand and control your numbers, and the 16 elements of a complete financial system. But knowing all this is only half the battle. If you’re like most owners, your time is limited, and trying to do it all yourself can quickly become overwhelming and costly. That’s where outsourcing comes in.

For those of you who rightfully feel that your time is better spent doing what you are good at, such as selling or engineering, look into outsourcing these functions.  The medium and large companies all do this.  The large accounting firms provide such services, but due to their rather steep fees, they target companies with annual sales of $40 million and up.  

There are some companies out there who provide some or many of these elements discussed and as you could probably guess, our firm developed our model around these elements so it facilitates all 16 of them.  By finding a company who specializes in this area, you will get the benefits of “economies of scale”.  In other words, they do so much of it, that they can do it not only better, but less expensively to boot.  You’ve seen this in the Costco model.  Because they are the largest retailer in the world, they can afford to operate at the low markup of 15%, and still make money.  Everybody wins.  

Finally, a great way to increase your odds of winning is to maximize your cash flow since that will be a key determinant to growth.  

Outsourcing these functions doesn’t mean losing control, it means gaining leverage. You get expert systems in place, accurate information flowing to you, and more time to focus on growing your business. Which means a stronger foundation, better cash flow, and dramatically higher odds of success. Remember: in business, like in Vegas, knowing when to play your hand and when to fold is what separates winners from the rest.