Top 7 Ways To Increase Profits

1. Marketing: Don’t advertise -- until you’ve maximized use of free or inexpensive promotion. Market test every new product/service before investing in production or marketing. Evaluate your marketing efforts. Do more of what’s working, discontinue what’s not.
   
   
2. Customers: Customers don’t want money back guarantees. They want the product or service to be right. Get it right and customers become your best sales people. Get to know your customers and what’s important to them.
   
   
3. Competition: Look for ways to add value without adding to the cost. Stay at the cutting edge of your industry. Know the players and what they’re doing. Stay flexible. Differentiate your product.
   
   
4. Pricing: When you need to lower your price to get the business, try to cut your costs, not your profit. Be sure to use accurate historical financial information to determine costs.
   
   
5. Cost Containment: Discontinue services that don’t add to the bottom line. Keep operating costs as low as possible without jeopardizing outcomes. Justify every expenditure.
   
   
6. Debt: Borrow money only when you must. The additional burden of loan repayment eats into your cash flow, so be sure you have a flexible plan and budget to cover this additional expense.
   
   
7. Losses: Cut losses early. Monitor financials and operations monthly. Determine what has created the loss. Rethink your strategy. Double your marketing efforts.

Todays submission is from Marian Banker, MBA, President of Prime Strategies, and Coach to business owners who want to build a sleek, strong, stable, flexible and attractive business. Find out more about getting to Business Fitness at http://primestrategies.com. Subscribe to FREE monthly e-mail newsletter, SMALL BUSINESS LEADER, at [http://primestrategies.com/form.htm].