1. Download a cash flow forecast template here: BizLaunch Free Tools
2. Develop a monthly sales forecast – look at your historical numbers and take your planned marketing activity over the next 12 months into consideration
3. Estimate your cost of sales – look at historical percentages and any changes that may affect your costs
4. Determine what portion of your sales you project will be cash, 30, 60 or more days. Look at what’s taken place over the last 12 months and any steps you plan to take to improve the collection of your receivables
5. Include any other sources of cash inflow: owner’s loans, bank loans, sale of assets etc
6. Estimate your projected operating expenses based on the last 12 month’s actual expenses and any new expenses you may incur. Some expenses may even come down take this into consideration
7. If you plan to buy any new assets or incur any capital expenditure, include this.
8. Include any extraordinary payments or loans
9. Insert your opening bank balance and the template will do the rest
10. If you still have questions email: Andrew@bizlaunch.com

Important: Keep your cash flow forecast up-to-date and look for money long before you need it

The post Create a Cash Flow Forecast for Your Small Business by Following These Simple Steps appeared first on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Experts, Tips and Advice | BizLaunch Small Biz Blog.

When it’s time to start staffing your small business, you may be a little out of your league. While you’ve been interviewed more times than you can count, you’ve never been the one conducting the conversation. Who you hire is critical to your business’s success, so it’s important that you do it right the first time around. Use this as a guide for your hiring process.

“Entrepreneurs must boil down their staffing plan to a handful of people who can get the company’s product or service to market.” – WallStreetJournal.com

Hiring Checklist

Before you begin the hiring process, it’s important that you lay out exactly what you want and what you can give. This will help you to run productive interviews, and be able to assess them quickly and easily. Your hiring checklist will be referred to, and most likely edited, multiple times during this process.

You want it to be specific and realistic.

• Positions: What positions do you need filled? What can you do without for now?

• Expectations: What do you expect from each position? List specific job duties, necessary knowledge, experience levels etc.

• Pay rates: This is when it’s critical that you are realistic. How much can you actually pay?

• Medical Benefits: Some companies don’t offer them – as it has become more common place, you can decide whether that is something you can provide at this time or not.

• Social Environment: Startups have a reputation for being an exciting and social work environment. What does your company offer – Happy hour on Fridays? Catered lunches once a week? Flexible hours?

Finding Employees

This will be the tough part – finding employees you can trust with the life of your small business. However, when you’re clear in what you want, you can be sure to find the right people. To do this, you can turn to a variety of sources

• Referral: Ask close relatives, friends and old co-workers. “According to a recent Mercer survey, more than 70% of HR professionals and recruiters believe that employee referral is the most effective method of recruiting.” – inc.com

• Networking: Were you impressed by co-workers in the past? Did you meet a promising young business person at that last networking event? Get communications flowing with anyone you think might be the right fit.

• Niche Sites: Post on sites that recruit for your business niche. This ensures you’ll get applicants that are truly interested in the positions.

Interview Process

Once you’ve found your applicants, it’s time to get talking. This process is critical to deciding whether or not the candidates will be a good fit for your business. To be successful, you should go into the interview knowing what you want to come out of with.

• Your expectations: What do you want to get out of it? This way you’ll know how the candidate stacks up to what you want.

• Start with general questions: Get to know the person. They should be a fit for the job both on their resume and in personality.

• Job related: These questions will vary from person to person, but remember to be specific.

Post Interview Assessments

Upon completing your interviews, you’ll need to assess and refer to other sources.

• Background check: Consider running background checks, depending on the candidate and your personal beliefs.

• Second opinions: If you have a business partner, bring potential candidates in for a second interview to get another opinion.

It’s important to remember that hiring is a long process, which can take several weeks. But, knowing what you want for each position will significantly cut down on time spent interviewing. Plan accordingly, be specific, and you’ll be fully staffed in no time.

Bio: Jessica Sanders is an avid small business writer touching on topics from social media to telemarketing services. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including payroll processing for lead generation resource, Resource Nation.

The post Your Go-To Basic Hiring Guide appeared first on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Experts, Tips and Advice | BizLaunch Small Biz Blog.

The post Season’s Greetings appeared first on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Experts, Tips and Advice | BizLaunch Small Biz Blog.

On Thursday, November 10th at 2pm Eastern Time, learn how to be in control of your critical information and protect your business against the growing threats of identity theft and fraud.

This Webinar series, sponsored by Deluxe®, is a multi-part interactive Webinar series designed to address these topics and provide simple, actionable tools to protect and enhance the efficiency with which you run your business.

In our first class, Identity Theft & Data Breach Protection, you will learn:

• The New Reality: Information Does Not Equal Power
• How to Think Like a Spy and apply critical thinking to the power equation
• Manipulation Triggers thieves use against your employees and defense techniques
• Interrogation Tools to uncover fraud before it erodes your profits and net worth
• Fraud Hotspot Best Practices: Shredding, Check Fraud and Computer Security
• Trends in Data Theft: Smartphones, Tablets and Social Media
• Holiday Identity Theft Prevention Tips: Personally & Professionally
• Interactive Q&A

This webinar is hosted by John Sileo

John Sileo’s identity was stolen from his business and used to embezzle almost a half-million dollars from his clients. While the thief covered his crimes using Sileo’s identity, John and his business were held legally and financially responsible for the felonies committed. The breach destroyed John’s corporation and consumed two years of his life as he fought to stay out of jail.

John chose to fight back and speak out, becoming America’s leading professional speaker on identity theft and information control. John is the award-winning author of Privacy Means Profit (Wiley), and has recently appeared on 60 Minutes and Fox and Friends. His satisfied clients include the Department of Defense, Blue Cross, Homeland Security, the FDIC, Pfizer, the Federal Trade Commission and corporations, organizations and associations of all sizes.

Click here to sign up for this free webinar!

The post Controlling Your Businesses Critical Information (Webinar) appeared first on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Experts, Tips and Advice | BizLaunch Small Biz Blog.

The post Small Business Expo appeared first on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Experts, Tips and Advice | BizLaunch Small Biz Blog.

One day I had a hole in my shirt and didn’t want to throw it out. I had been crocheting a lot in my spare time, so naturally, I decided to cover the hole with a crocheted chick. I liked the texture and look of it. I happened to be in a designer consignment store one day in Port Credit, Mississauga, ON, and was chatting with the owner, who expressed interest in my creation. I came back another day to show it to her and she allowed me to sell more clothes with crocheted designs on them on consignment in her store. Now I have clothes and accessories in 7 stores in the GTA, an online website, and can be found at craft shows such as the Distillery Art Market at the Distillery Historic District in Toronto, ON. I sell kids/babies, women’s, and men’s clothing.

Most of my original designs are inspired by nature and wildlife. My part-time work and study in environmental/biological sciences has inspired me to green my business, and so I have developed an eco-line for which I  use 100% organic cotton shirts for my crochet appliques. I currently use acrylic yarn for my designs, which is machine washable and dryer friendly. In an effort to conserve and be more eco-friendly, I have been experimenting by making my own yarn out of old clothing. I will be continuing to look for or develop more eco-friendly yarn.

Click here to visit Katnip

Tell us your story. Send an email to: andrew@bizlaunch.com

The post A Small Business Story appeared first on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Experts, Tips and Advice | BizLaunch Small Biz Blog.

Moneris invites you to Ready To Serve – Tips and Insights on how to make your restaurant a success

Thursday, May 26 8:30 – 11:00 AM (Breakfast served from 8:00AM)
TIFF Bell Lightbox – 350 King Street West.

Join Toronto’s premier Chef Corbin (Dinner Party Wars, Restaurant Makeover) for an informative session on topics related to running your restaurant business.

Learn about:

• Maintaining successful work & life balance
• New payment technologies for the restaurant industry
• Fraud trends and PCI compliance for restaurants
• OrderIt.ca – a success story
• New integrated solutions for restaurants

Registration is free & limited to the first 100 restaurateurs. Register today at moneris.com/readytoserve and be entered into a draw to win an Apple iPad®

The post Tips and Insights on how to make your restaurant a success appeared first on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Experts, Tips and Advice | BizLaunch Small Biz Blog.

Wednesday May 18th, 2011

Here is a link to today’s webcast. It starts at 8.00am PST or 11.00am EST. Click the link to watch it live!

http://yellowpages.webcastinc.com/vancouver/

The post Watch today’s live webcast appeared first on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Experts, Tips and Advice | BizLaunch Small Biz Blog.

It’s a debate that will never have a clear winner, but the question is a valid one:

Are entrepreneurs born or made?

Is it possible to create entrepreneurs through education and training, or do they have to be born with some innate essence, some drive that makes them do crazy things like launch businesses with no guarantee of success?

Certainly, there’s no easy answer, and likely the solution is to accept that both the idea of nature and nurture play into entrepreneurship. For me, as a pre-entrepreneur, I was very risk-averse. I couldn’t imagine throwing all my time and money into a business with such a high failure rate.

But then I found myself starting a business. No one was more surprised than me. As my business grew and I had both successes and failures, I learned how to be a better entrepreneur, and I wore the crown proudly.

Now I wonder if I wasn’t born with some sort of pre-ordained destiny to run one or more businesses in my lifetime. I certainly wasn’t the child who was negotiating deals at the lemonade stand, but as I’ve come into my own as an adult, I realize that being an entrepreneur plays a large role in who I am.

Training, of course, plays no small role in the success of entrepreneurs. We need to know everything about running a business, and resources like BizLaunch provide us with the tools we need to do our own marketing, managing, accounting and sales.

Entrepreneurs are a thirsty bunch when it comes to learning, I believe. That’s why there are so many magazines, newspapers, websites, blogs, conferences and webinars aimed at small business owners. We know that to stay ahead of the competition, we have to keep learning every day.

So what’s your take? As an entrepreneur, do you consider yourself born that way, made into one, or some combination of the two? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments!

Susan Payton is the President of Egg Marketing & Communications, an internet marketing firm specializing in marketing communications, copywriting and blog posts. She’s written two books: 101 Entrepreneur Tips and Internet Marketing Strategies for Entrepreneurs, and blogs for several sites, including The Marketing Eggspert Blog, as well as Mashable, Small Business Trends and Lead411. Follow her on Twitter @eggmarketing.

The post Creating Dialogue: Are Entrepreneurs Born or Made? appeared first on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Experts, Tips and Advice | BizLaunch Small Biz Blog.

Order Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You this week and take advantage of the special offer.

Click here to find out more

The post Built to Sell: Create a Business That Can Thrive Without You appeared first on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Experts, Tips and Advice | BizLaunch Small Biz Blog.