Wednesday

Welcome to Business 101

A Quick Overview

All too often people make the transition from task based or technical job functions to management without really understanding what their business does. That was certainly my story. So I learned as I went along. I went to seminars, questioned my peers and managers, listened to audio courses, read a lot of books, and banged my head against my desk for long hours trying to make sense of it all. The “how” was easy. The “why” is what drove me crazy because so few people seemed able to explain it. I truly wanted to leave things better than I found them, and to improve the “how”, you must understand the “why”.

This writing is the compilation of years of personal study and experience. Its intention is to help you understand business as a whole, and provide some answers to these questions:

1. What is our business for?
2. What does our business do?
3. How should our business be organized?
4. What is the objective of each part of our business?

I believe everyone needs grounding in business 101 if they hope to help shape their business, and provide the very best for our friends the customers. I hope you enjoy what I have to say, and learn a lot along the way.

Upcoming Topics

The Basics of Business - Grasping the Concepts

  • Why Businesses are in Business - People helping People
  • Why People Buy Things
  • Why People Get Help
  • How People Find Solutions
  • How Business is Organized to Help Provide Solutions
  • The Two Ways to Grow a Business: More Money In or Less Money Out
  • Top 3 Ways to Shrink a Business
  • Basic Measurements - How do we know if we are succeeding?

    Basic Business Cycles: Day to Day Operation

  • Daily Business Cycle: Sales, Orders, Fulfillment, Support
  • The Sales Cycle
  • The Operations Cycle
  • The Roll of the Orders Team
  • The Roll of Customer Service

  • Growing the Business: Increasing Sales

  • Increase the number of customers
  • Increase the average value of each sale
  • Increase the frequency of sales

  • Growing the Business: Lowering Costs

  • Understanding Variable Costs
  • Understanding Fixed Costs
  • Reducing Costs

  • Introducing New Solutions

  • Finding New Ideas
  • Creating New Solutions
  • Commercializing New Solutions

  • Are We Succeeding? Finance 101

  • The Balance Sheet
  • The Profit & Loss Statement
  • Cash Flow Projections
  • Sales Forecasts
  • Success Rate Metrics
  • Cost of Failure Metrics
  • Budgeting

  • A Deeper Look at Each Department

    Core Competencies
  • Sales
  • Orders
  • Fulfillment (factory)
  • Customer Service
  • R&D
  • Marketing

  • Cross-Functional Business Segments
  • Strategic Planning
  • Quality Assurance
  • Human Resources
  • Finance
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