Most small business owners facing a business crisis are caught in a classic Catch-22 situation. On the one hand, they require specialised business turnaround expertise to save their business. On the other hand, their financial crisis prohibits them from hiring the expensive turnaround specialists who offer the expertise. Typically owners have three choices: walk away, hope for help, or keep struggling. Well, no more. Sanlam's Business Turnaround Book will help you lead your business away from trouble, to success.

The most obvious strategy for staying in the black during tough economic times is to control costs. But how do you know where to cut down without compromising on the quality of your products and the efficiency of your business? When looking for ways to manage expenses, you first have to determine if you are incurring losses, breaking even or just barely making a profit. If you are losing money, it may make sense to trim enough costs to offset those losses.

Any business owner who has started up and run a business is battle hardened to some degree, because business is a hard, constant struggle, if not for survival, then for market share and growth.

With new businesses opening all the time and consumers getting more and more demanding, it's inevitable that you will have to compete with similar ventures for business. So how do you get and maintain that competitive edge? Before you start looking for ways to stand out in the crowd, analyse your competition and what they are doing. This will give you an idea of where you need to make adjustments. Here are a few strategies to help you stay on top of your game.

For many South Africans, running a business can be challenging. The first challenge is to get your small business off the ground. Once your business starts doing well, there will be technological advances and refurbishments that you would need to undertake. It is understandable that you would want to keep up with these changes. Technology is growing and changing at an increasingly fast pace and it can be difficult to keep up, especially since these improvements requires money. Here are some tips for refurbishing your business.

As a manager, entrepreneur, or business owner, you (along with your management team, if you have one) often set strategic goals for your business. While these goals are crucial to your business's success and the vision you have for your business, they are not always achieved successfully if at all. These tips are intended to help you reach those goals more successfully.

Before we can meet and exceed the expectations of our clients, we first have to determine and re-examine what their real needs are. Once we have a crystal clear and factually-based perspective on this, we can determine if our products and services are meeting the identified needs and wants of our target market. Here are some tips to help you meet the expectations of your identified target market.

These days, clients expect a lot more from the companies they work with: many of them want a more consultative approach to doing business. They expect you to find out more about their business and how you can help them achieve their strategic goals. They all have two or three “buttons” or points that are close to their hearts. It's imperative that you take the time to find out what is important to a specific client and then to deliver accordingly. Here are some tips to help you out.

It often happens that goals which management has bought into are set, but thereafter nothing much is done to ensure that these goals are reached. Here are a few tips that may help you create a greater sense of security in respect of reaching your business’ strategic goals: assign responsibility; document the expected output; allocate resources; provide regular feedback; plan iteratively; and reward your employees.

A profit margin is an indicator of a company's pricing strategies and how well it controls costs. Differences in competitive strategy and product mix cause the profit margin to vary among different companies. The easiest way to remember it, is that the margin is the difference (financially) between what everything costs and what you charge. If your margins are too low, you will never make a profit and on the other hand if you set your margins too high, you run the risk of never making a sale. This article looks at how best to increase your profit margin.

Running a successful business whether it is a small or big business requires you to put a lot of work and time into growing it. More so when your business is still starting out there are times when it will seem as if your business is not moving forward which might leave you feeling discouraged. However, you aren’t alone many small-scale businesses have a few problems which make it seem as if your business is stuck in the same place and not making any progress. Here are some tips on how you can improve your business.

The current economic crisis is a good time to take stock of your business with the view of establishing what you want to do with it, where you would like the business to be in 3-4 years time and how you plan to get there. Like most major investments, there will come a time when you need to sell and that largely entails making the investment attractive to a buyer – a business is no different. Here are some important considerations to help you improve your business.

By the midyear mark, businesses have six months of information to dictate where they need to reallocate resources and take corrective measures that will mitigate the impact of inefficiencies or ineffectiveness in the business during the second half of the year. Here are seven steps to an effective midyear review that will help you build on your strengths while eliminating any weaknesses.

In business we are mainly concerned with the “here and now”. The future is a dream, but the present a reality. The reality is that the world is changing daily. New discoveries, political decisions that affect the macro-economy (e.g. interest rates, exchange rates), as well as socio-economic consequences have an impact on people, economies and businesses. Would it not be good to have a kind of crystal ball to make the future more “tangible”? This is the area of trend analysis.

Cash flow is the number one killer of SMEs in South Africa. The announcement that South Africa’s economy has shrunk by 3.2% in the first quarter of 2019 has put further pressure on small business owners who need to manage their cash flow effectively. Daniel Goldberg, co-founder and CEO of Bridgement provides SME owners with advice on how to keep their companies afloat during tough times.

One of the biggest pressure points for small businesses is making it through month-end. Often when salaries and bills are due, SMEs face a shortfall from slow-paying clients. Some large corporates and government entities ask their suppliers to give them as many as 120 days to settle their account, when standard payment terms are set between 30 and 60 days. SMEs, relying on a steady cash flow to maintain business operations, cannot survive on such long repayment terms. Here's how SME owners can survive late payments.

No matter what kind of business you have, there will probably come a time when you have to apply for a loan or overdraft to expand your business, buy equipment, or finance some other aspect of your operations. This is when having a good credit record becomes very important. Establishing and maintaining a good credit record takes time and can be challenging when times get tough (financially). Here's how to build and maintain a good credit record to obtain business funding.

Owning a business can be stressful, especially when it comes to making decisions about assets. You will need to take numerous things into consideration, such as how often you will need to update the asset or equipment you need, how much the services or maintenance will cost, as well as what your budget for equipment is. These factors will help you to decide whether or not you should rent or buy an asset.

In today’s challenging economic environment, mentors play a key role in growing businesses, supporting entrepreneurs and enabling SMEs to survive and flourish in tough trading conditions. Business Partners Limited, South Africa’s leading risk financier in South Africa, has witnessed businesses on the verge of bankruptcy recover, and be propelled to new levels of success as a result of some guidance from a mentor.

Just like individuals draw up a list of New Year’s resolutions to steer their life in a desired direction, the small business owner should jot down resolutions that’ll make for a successful financial year. But where to start? With the basics, of course. Here are four financial resolutions that you can make for your business every January or at the start of every financial year.