Barbara Nuss, Author at America's SBDC

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Prepare for Profits – 2025, Part 2. 8 Ways to Fight the Profit Pinch

December 30, 2024

By Barbara Nuss, CPA
Founder, Profit Soup

In our recent blog, Prepare for Profits – 2025, Part 1: Your Cost Structure May Never Be the Same, I shared my thoughts about how policy and economic changes might impact cost structures in 2025. I stressed the importance of monitoring your 5-Line P&L. This “Part 2” continuation lists 8 things you should do today to help fight the profit pinch in 2025.

1. Accelerate Equipment Purchases

If you have the financial capacity to act early on purchases you would make in 2025 anyway, you might consider stepping up now.

2. Forecast Your Cash Flow

Talk to your accountant about forecasting cash flow under multiple scenarios so you can plan to have adequate cash reserves or credit lines, Establish a cadence for comparing actual results to budgets by the 15th of each month.

Prepare for Profits – 2025, Part 1 Your Cost Structure May Never Be the Same

December 23, 2024

By Barbara Nuss, CPA
Founder, Profit Soup

Many entrepreneurs recall being caught off-guard when pandemic-inspired business interruptions, labor challenges and supply chain disfunction wreaked havoc with cost structures. How could you see that coming? Nobody could. Not the case today. Astute planners contemplating their goals and budgets for 2025 are already factoring in how pending National policies could impact their cost structure.

What Does Your Crystal Ball Say?

A few key uncertainties have me wishing for a crystal ball. One that could see through the post-election politicizing of important topics. I’d know how to predict the cost impacts of changing labor policies, possible tariffs, housing supply and demand, and deportations and immigration’s effect on labor supply. Unfortunately, I do not have such a crystal ball, so I will do the next best thing; guess, and hedge my bets by paying attention and staying nimble.

5 Powerful Steps to High-Impact Financial Coaching for SBDC Advisors

July 19, 2024

By Barbara Nuss, CPA
Founder, Profit Soup

Some SBDC advisors are confident supporting clients with operational issues, marketing and brand strategies but struggle with conversations about financial goals and KPIs. Like the clients they support, not all advisors have strong financial backgrounds. But armed with a structured approach and some basic foundational knowledge, all SBDC Advisors can positively influence financial discipline and results.

The best financial coaching leads advisors and clients to collaboratively create insights, goals, and action plans that improve financial performance.

An SBDC advisor who has a solid framework, a curious mind, and collaborative spirit can outperform one who relies on subject matter expertise to solve problems for their clients. When the measure of success is improved financial performance, it’s the process, not the advice, that influences results.

Here is a 5-step coaching framework that works for any problem-solving process, including financial coaching. The key is to have a robust supply of thought-provoking, open-ended questions that guide the client to discover issues and solutions.

Big financial mistakes and how to avoid them

April 23, 2024

By Barbara Nuss, CPA
Profit Soup

What must you get right to be financially successful? At Profit Soup, we LOVE numbers. You probably expect us to say something like this:

“To avoid financial problems, study your numbers.”

Academically, it’s a sound approach. Realistically, you cannot build a profitable, sustainable enterprise without a skilled and passionate team living out a selling culture with efficient operations.

Financial statements and KPIs represent the voice of your business, giving you feedback on how well the team is managing the important business functions. Having a sound, regular financial review routine is an important function of a profitable enterprise. It points you to problem areas you need to investigate, such as rising costs and timely price adjustments.

What Does a Successful New Business Have in Common with Liam Neeson? A Very Particular Set of Skills

March 4, 2024

By Barbara Nuss, CPA
Profit Soup

“… I can tell you I don’t have money, but what I do have is a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career.” Liam Neeson, Taken

The particular set of skills all business leaders need won’t make them action movie heroes, but experience shows us they will become the fastest to grow sales and profits. The best thing about this particular set of skills is that it doesn’t have to take a very long career to master them.
Businesses grow faster when they have a command over what we call “Breakeven PLUS.” They must understand how their costs change as sales grow and master a small amount of math.

What’s our evidence? We hear it from many clients who use our online training to onboard new franchisees and network members. We’ll use one franchise system that conducts water damage restoration services as an example. Their goal was to help new their owners become comfortable with the numbers side of the business. They discovered an added benefit when they required the Breakeven PLUS training for all new franchises. By learning to set growth goals with the volume needed to meet their profit goal in mind, owners were more intentional about sales and profits and grew faster.