There is no shortage of software, books, seminars, and social networks for small businesses. Truly, a wide array of distractions and enticements exist for the manager’s attention and affections. In many ways, it’s similar to driving down the highway with a plethora of billboards competing for the entrepreneur’s focus and action.  As service providers to small businesses, we have to be able to sort through the sea of distractions and offer services and business intelligence applications the small business manager will truly value.

So as CPAs, consultants, software providers, and even small business owners ourselves, we must ask this question: what do owners, managers, and entrepreneurs really want and need?

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You can’t make decisions, at least good ones, for your business with bad data or data that is missing.  Many CEO’s and managers often make the mistake of managing retroactively by only receiving important data points at the end of the month.  From this vantage point, many issues that could have been easily fixed if the appropriate data had been available weekly or even daily have escalated into large problems.  It is imperative that the management of your company has the information it needs when it needs it to proactively manage your business.

The first step to getting the data you need is to sit down at the computer and create an outline of the most important data points to running your business. This data must be presented to you in a repetitive and reliable manner.  At the same time, the format must be easy to read and quickly understood like a table or graph. More...

Succeeding in business doesn’t happen by accident. It is hard work and perseverance that produce success. We often forget that it takes a LOT of effort to make a company successful. It also takes some luck and good timing. It’s been said that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity (George Allen – NFL football coach). If that is true then luck is nothing more than hard work (strong effort and accurate preparation) while waiting for an opportunity to present itself.

You’ve probably also heard that if you fail to plan then you plan to fail. This cliché is actually pretty accurate when it comes to business. But why do so many business owners and managers hate preparation and planning? Maybe hate is too strong. Let’s try “avoid”. Well, planning usually involves a lot of detail work and many managers don’t like that kind of effort. But planning is not the secret referred to in the title of this article. Planning is a necessary part of running a business. You have to do it. It’s not negotiable. If you won’t do it then you put your business in the VERY HIGH RISK category. I’m assuming you are reading this article because you want to find a tool that will help you run your company better, make better decisions or improve some aspect regarding your company. What you read below will do just that but you have to take action or what you read cannot help you. That is where planning, perseverance and effort are needed as noted previously.

Are you ready? The great secret is: More...