What are we going to be covering in this 6th and final podcast in our Action Planning Course? In this final episode of our Strategy podcast series, we extend our conversation to examine a 4th criterion that should be used to evaluate all of the opportunities available to build your…
~ Thomas Carlyle
A lady walked into a neighborhood market one day and spoke loudly over the counter to the head butcher.
“Your prices these days are atrocious, Sal. Joe’s Deli across the street is selling your $10 chuck roast for only $5!”
“I know, Mrs. Haggle. I saw the sign. The thing is . . . Joe doesn’t have any chuck roast.”
So, the law of supply and demand rears its head again, some days a beautiful vision, other days an ugly hag. We’re surrounded by her mystique everywhere we go. Traffic is tied up because there are more cars than highway space. Starbuck’s is backed up because people want coffee faster than it can be made. There are no paper clips in the supply room but there’s plenty of fruitcake left in the kitchen.
Supply and demand drove markets long before economists appeared … and its jarring prevalence is unavoidable. One of my favorite examples is (more…)
What are we going to be covering in this 5th podcast in our Action Planning Course? We've all been here, haven't we? We've got a great idea to expand our business, we dive in head first so certain that it will work ... only to find that we've squandered valuable…
What are we going to be covering in this 4th podcast in our Action Planning Course? A critical part of planning requires you to carefully examine all of the opportunities available to help you build your business … and to apply consistent criteria so that you can compare each of…
What are we going to be covering in this 3rd podcast in our Action Planning Course? A critical part of planning requires you to carefully examine all of the opportunities available to help you build your business ... and to apply consistent criteria so that you can compare them equally.…
What are we going to be covering in this 2nd podcast in our Action Planning Course?First, we're going to pull up to the dumpster to drop off the the excuses everyone uses for the lack of planning.We'll see why plans in your head are only ideas and why unless they're…
My friend and colleague, Steve Fredricks, President of Turrentine Brokerage, Trusted and Strategic Advisors to Growers, Wineries, and Financiers in the wine industry, did a terrific job at this year's Wine Industry Financial Symposium, Competing in a Rapidly Changing Global Wine Market.[pullquote]The Turrentine Wine Business Wheel of Fortune is the gold standard for…
New here? Get more useful information by subscribing for free via email or our RSS feed. Let’s get started.
———————
Why is this so hard? We find ourselves entrenched in the quagmire of a lingering and painful recession … more companies than ever need stronger financial management … and yet so many of them remain painfully slow to recognize it. Sure, many have trimmed costs and are paying closer attention to nickels and dimes, but few of them have a comprehensive financial strategy.
So, in some misguided way, I guess it feels good to have some company … because the need for financial discipline was a common refrain among wine industry cognoscenti at this year’s Symposium, Competing in a Rapidly Changing Global Wine Market. The economic shock waves of the last 24 months have rocked the wine industry, dragging many of its members, in some cases kicking and screaming … into an era where professional management and greater financial discipline are demanding front row seats alongside the entrepreneurs and artisans that have reigned over the California wine industry
[pullquote]Stronger financial management is overdue in the California wine industry.[/pullquote]
Building a bridge between the financial community and the wine industry is one of the founding precepts of the Wine Industry Financial Symposium formed in 1992. Last Monday, I was privileged to lead a 90 minute workshop devoted to Practical Strategies to Improve Cash Flow, in which I shared a few “diamonds in the rough” about how to get more juice into your bank account … and how the California wine businesses can integrate Strategic Finance into their everyday business decision making.
During the preceding From Survival to Prosperity – Strategies for Transition session, (more…)
Doesn’t a lot of this jawboning about job creation make your brain explode?
I’ve never read articles by Rex Nutting before, who writes for MarketWatch on the WSJ Digital network … but a banker friend of mine referred me to his “Time to stop worshiping small businesses” article.
I’m not sure where Rex gets his information but his conclusions about the limited job creation value of small businesses is generally unsupported. After arguing, in Clintonesqe fashion about “it depends on how small the definition of small is”, he goes on to claim that while “small businesses do create a lot of jobs, but they also destroy a lot.” Citing a Census Bureau study, he claims that “once they pass their first birthday, small companies, on average, lose more jobs than they create. Many fail within years.”
[pullquote]Who says tax rates don’t matter to job creation?[/pullquote]
A recent study by the Ewing Kaufman Foundation reported an entirely different result, concluding that “80% of the jobs created in the first year are still here after 5 years.” There’s not enough detail available to comprehensively compare these disparate reports, but to debunk the value of SMB job creation requires a little more factual support from Nutting.
He also claims that tax rates don’t matter (more…)