Are you working ON your business?

Are you working ON your business, as well as IN your business?
I have come across an excellent resource for anyone in small business.  You probably know ‘Kochie’ (aka David Koch) from Channel 7’s Sunrise program.  David’s background is finance and with his wife he has written books that give family’s valuable advice on how to manage their money.  He is also the name behind a small business program and website, ‘Kochie’s Business Builders’
The website is a valuable source of information and videos from the show, on everything you need to know as a small business person.  If you are looking to educate yourself about starting a small business, or improving the performance and profitability of your existing business take some time to review the site for yourself.  You may need to seek out the services of an Accountant or Financial Advisor for your business eventually, but I would highly recommend this site as a great place to start and best of all, its free!
Most small businesses fail because of lack of capital to facilitate growth.  One of the ways capital is accumulated is through cash flow and the basic principle of making sure that your incomings are more than your outgoings.  If you don’t have enough capital in your business you cannot grow at a rate that enables you to stay ahead of the competition.  Even if you have been lucky enough to have capital available to you to inject into your business, you will still need to have a positive cash flow in order to keep operating. 
So in short, your business must be profitable to succeed in the long-term and being profitable comes down to more than just having a good product or being good at what you do.  The person who falls into the trap of thinking they have a product people will knock down their door for, will be out of business very quickly.  It is a fact that most small businesses fail because of a lack of capital, not because they don’t have something worth selling.
It is essential that you are running your business well in order to be profitable.  Next month AAWEP will host a Power Workshop for Wedding Planners .  This workshop is not about teaching you how to be a Wedding Planner (although we can do that too!), the focus of this workshop is on teaching you the 6P’s of ‘Launching a Successful Wedding Planning Business’:  Preparation, Purpose, Price, Promotion, Performance and Proposal.  Over an intensive weekend you will learn about the business of owning and operating a ‘profitable’ Wedding Planning business.
When you are in small business it is easy to become completely consumed in the ‘work’ of selling your products and/or services.  But arming yourself with as much ‘business’ knowledge as possible is absolutely essential in ensuring that you are one of the businesses that makes it beyond the first 12 months, 5 years and beyond.  As a small business owner your ‘job’ is to work both IN your business and ON your business.