Archive for March, 2010

Successful Turnaround – A Definition

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

What does “successful turnaround” mean?

I suppose there are many ways to measure and define a successful turnaround.

You might say that keeping your business alive for at least one year means that you have executed a successful turnaround.

You might say that keeping it alive for five years is the definition.

You might say that converting your business from a nonprofitable to a profitable company is the definition.

Or you might say that it is something else.

I am going to define what I call a successful turnaround. A successful turnaround has two elements:

1)   Your business has a positive cash flow

2)   Your business is transformed to sustain a positive cash flow

I think you could reasonably add a third element to the above definition:

3)   Your business has a well-defined plan to restructure and further stabilize

I think this last item reflects that it is not enough just to fix a few problems with the business and nudge your company back into positive cash flow territory. The fixes you implement to accomplish this may be only temporary; as a result, your company may inadvertently fall back into turnaround range. Therefore, further steps are necessary.

If—in addition to correcting your immediate problems and sustaining a short-term positive cash flow—you restructure your company according to the principles outlined in my book, How To Turn Your Failing Business Into A SUCCESS STORY In 120 Days Or Less!, you will be on the right track to stabilizing your business and avoiding the need for a future turnaround.

The primary approach during this restructuring period will be to develop a plan that will identify the core business revenue streams that you can focus on to get your company through this difficult period.

Your plan will pare back all unnecessary operations and leave only the core positive cash flow functions of the business. Then you will build back up to a stable position. Click the belowimage to see a graphical breakdown of a successful turnaround:
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André Larabie

Email: jcalarabie@hotmail.com

Website: www.andrelarabie.com

Posted in Business Management, Business Turnaround | 20 Comments »

“Six Sigma” – The Basic Concept

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Six-Sigma is a business management technique for improving the overall quality of products and processes by controlling the number of defects.

There is a very specific mathematical definition of the words “six sigma.” Rather than explain that definition, I will give you a description in more basic terms. Six Sigma refers to a place on the normal distribution curve that represents a very low probability event.

In reference to quality control, Six Sigma sets the specifications such that a failure, to meet these specifications, is a very low-probability event.

If you look at the normal distribution curve:

You will see, visually, that six sigma is located very far to the right. Conceptually, think of it this way: if you create a million products, most of them will be of average quality and when the quality is measured, they will cluster around the center of the graph.

Some of them will be of higher quality and will appear to the right; others will be of lower quality and will appear to the left. A very few will be of exceptional quality and will fall at the 4 or 5 sigma position, and conversely, about the same exceptionally poor products will be positioned at these negative values.

By specifying the minimum quality of a product or service at six sigmas, you are essentially guaranteeing that the quality is very high.

In numerical terms, this sets the bar very high for quality: to achieve six sigma, there must be no more than 3.4 failures (defects) in a million replications of a product or service.

You can read about this topic and more in my upcoming book: How To Turn Your Failing Business Into A SUCCESS STORY In 120 Days Or Less!

Available soon on Amazon.com

André Larabie

Email: jcalarabie@hotmail.com

Website: www.andrelarabie.com

Posted in Business Management, Business Turnaround | 107 Comments »

Reducing Your Business Debt

Friday, March 19th, 2010

Many business owners feel overwhelmed in the current economic downturn. Every month things seem to worsen. Obama tries to claim the economic good times are coming back because the stock market is going up or some other thing.

Smart people realize this simply isn’t true. In fact, it is ridiculous. Yes, the market is going up, but only because the value of the dollar is dropping like a ton of liquid gold. Anyone caught holding American dollars is running from them like they are infected with the H1N1 virus. They are dumping American dollars into any investment they can find–including stocks. So, of course the market is going up Mr. President, but not for the reasons you are saying. And all of this healthcare corruption isn’t helping either.

In any case, I think the economy will still get worse before it gets better. In the meantime, us business owners need to do whatever we can to stay in business until things improve. And that includes negotiating down your debt.

Did you know that you can negotiate our outstanding commercial debt down to 40% of the original amount? I show you exactly how to do that in my book, How to Negotiate With Your Creditors And Reduce Your Commercial Debt By At Least 60%.
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Here’s an article I wrote on commercial debt reduction. You can use these principles to free up working capital for your business during these difficult times.

André Larabie

Email: jcalarabie@hotmail.com

Website: www.andrelarabie.com

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How to Settle Commercial Debt With a Significant Reduction in the Amount

Commercial debt management can be one of the greatest challenges a business will face. In tough economic times, businesses are affected as much as, or even more than, consumers. An economic slowdown that causes a reduction in ordered goods and services can adversely effect a business to the point that payables begin to back up, invoices move past 90 days past due, and the possibility of not meeting payroll looms. In a perfect world, every business would have large enough reserves to weather such a crisis with very little disruption to business operations. Unfortunately, the cost of doing business in today’s highly competitive market is such that only the largest and most established businesses carry enough cash reserves to weather an economic downturn unscathed.

For the rest of the business community—small businesses, start-ups and mom and pop operations—the difficulties encountered during a recession can seem insurmountable. Debt piles up, sales drop, and many business owners consider bankruptcy as a method of managing debt. It may not be necessary to take such drastic action. Another viable alternative is to negotiate with creditors, or restructure the debt burden to allow a business to continue operating.

Debt restructuring is generally accomplished by using the services of a debt settlement company. These companies will negotiate with your creditors to help reduce your financial burden. Your creditors want your business to succeed; if you fail they lose a customer. If they feel that you are going to fail no matter what, they will press for full settlement of the outstanding amount. If, however, they believe that by forgiving a portion of your debt, they will help you to regain your financial viability and stay in business, then they will be willing to discuss possibilities. A professional debt settlement company will have established trust with numerous creditors, and this will give you leverage in reaching a deal that can restructure and reduce your debt.

When choosing a settlement company, you should consider several factors. First and foremost, just as you would when hiring any service, check out the company’s reputation and reliability. Be sure that they have a history of effective settlement and that the fees they charge are in line with industry standards. Ask for references and a list of companies they have worked with in the past and then make a few calls to check on customer satisfaction. In many ways, you will be entrusting the debt settlement company with the future health of your business.

Careful budgeting is key to regaining financial health for your business. Commercial debt reduction and management requires you to take an honest look at your expenses. Do an assessment of your market and determine if your customers can sustain a price increase. Then determine a legitimate amount to use in paying down your debt. A good debt settlement company will help you through this process.

When you have chosen a debt settlement company, they will choose the creditors to settle with or request debt forgiveness from, and those that are critical to business operations that should be paid in full. Vendors will often consider a deal for payments on the outstanding amount while invoicing current orders as normal.

Other times they may request that current orders be treated as cash on delivery until the past due amount is cleared. Because of this, if you choose to leave any venders out of the debt-restructuring plan, you will need to carefully negotiate deals with each individual vendor and then adjust your budget accordingly.

The debt settlement company will be working to restructure your debt with all vendors that you specify. Working with multiple vendors gives debt settlement companies a unique bargaining position. If they can arrange for 40% payments from 5 different creditors to a particular vendor, then that vendor will be better off than getting only 100% from 2 companies while the other 3 declare bankruptcy. The time, effort and uncertainty it takes to pursue debts through the bankruptcy courts is a powerful incentive for vendors to settle debt out of court.

Economic downturns can hit businesses hard, and although downturns are generally temporary, it takes special effort to keep a business active during such times. One good method for avoiding bankruptcy is debt restructuring using a debt settlement company to help negotiate with creditors. It is possible to settle your commercial debt for less than 40% of the debt value. Debt restructuring can give your business a chance to start over.

Commercial debt management can be one of the greatest challenges a business will face. In tough economic times, businesses are affected as much as, or even more than, consumers. An economic slowdown that causes a reduction in ordered goods and services can adversely effect a business to the point that payables begin to back up, invoices move past 90 days past due, and the possibility of not meeting payroll looms. In a perfect world, every business would have large enough reserves to weather such a crisis with very little disruption to business operations. Unfortunately, the cost of doing business in today’s highly competitive market is such that only the largest and most established businesses carry enough cash reserves to weather an economic downturn unscathed.

For the rest of the business community—small businesses, start-ups and mom and pop operations—the difficulties encountered during a recession can seem insurmountable. Debt piles up, sales drop, and many business owners consider bankruptcy as a method of managing debt. It may not be necessary to take such drastic action. Another viable alternative is to negotiate with creditors, or restructure the debt burden to allow a business to continue operating.

Debt restructuring is generally accomplished by using the services of a debt settlement company. These companies will negotiate with your creditors to help reduce your financial burden. Your creditors want your business to succeed; if you fail they lose a customer. If they feel that you are going to fail no matter what, they will press for full settlement of the outstanding amount. If, however, they believe that by forgiving a portion of your debt, they will help you to regain your financial viability and stay in business, then they will be willing to discuss possibilities. A professional debt settlement company will have established trust with numerous creditors, and this will give you leverage in reaching a deal that can restructure and reduce your debt.

When choosing a settlement company, you should consider several factors. First and foremost, just as you would when hiring any service, check out the company’s reputation and reliability. Be sure that they have a history of effective settlement and that the fees they charge are in line with industry standards. Ask for references and a list of companies they have worked with in the past and then make a few calls to check on customer satisfaction. In many ways, you will be entrusting the debt settlement company with the future health of your business.

Careful budgeting is key to regaining financial health for your business. Commercial debt reduction and management requires you to take an honest look at your expenses. Do an assessment of your market and determine if your customers can sustain a price increase. Then determine a legitimate amount to use in paying down your debt. A good debt settlement company will help you through this process.

When you have chosen a debt settlement company, they will choose the creditors to settle with or request debt forgiveness from, and those that are critical to business operations that should be paid in full. Vendors will often consider a deal for payments on the outstanding amount while invoicing current orders as normal.

Other times they may request that current orders be treated as cash on delivery until the past due amount is cleared. Because of this, if you choose to leave any venders out of the debt-restructuring plan, you will need to carefully negotiate deals with each individual vendor and then adjust your budget accordingly. The debt settlement company will be working to restructure your debt with all vendors that you specify.

Working with multiple vendors gives debt settlement companies a unique bargaining position. If they can arrange for 40% payments from 5 different creditors to a particular vendor, then that vendor will be better off than getting only 100% from 2 companies while the other 3 declare bankruptcy. The time, effort and uncertainty it takes to pursue debts through the bankruptcy courts is a powerful incentive for vendors to settle debt out of court.

Economic downturns can hit businesses hard, and although downturns are generally temporary, it takes special effort to keep a business active during such times. One good method for avoiding bankruptcy is debt restructuring using a debt settlement company to help negotiate with creditors. It is possible to settle your commercial debt for less than 40% of the debt value. Debt restructuring can give your business a chance to start over.

Posted in Business Management, Business Turnaround, Debt Reduction | 23 Comments »

Protecting Personal Assets In A Turnaround

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

Business failure is an extremely difficult situation for any business owner. This is because the small business owner is usually “closer” to his or her employees than the leader of a larger business, such as a corporation.

I am not saying that corporate managers, or large-company managers, don’t care about their employees; they do, but given the general nature of a corporation or other large business entity, relationships are usually more formal and less personal.

In a smaller companies, it is not uncommon to find numerous members of an extended family working in various parts of the organization. Long-term friends are often part of this type of business landscape—friendships exist that often formed prior to the existence of the business, or ones that were forged by years working together closely in the common effort of the small business.

This “closeness” is one of the features of owning or working in a smaller company, and it makes a business failure much more difficult for those who work in that smaller company.

In larger companies, there is more movement within the organization and employees transfer geographically, or if the location is large enough, they move to another department where they are no longer in contact with recent coworkers. The corporate environment is simply less personal and it is more difficult to forge lasing relationships.

This “close” environment in a small business makes it all the more difficult when it comes time for the business owner to make the hard decisions required by a business turnaround or a restructuring. When salaries—or entire jobs—must be cut, it is obviously more difficult to terminate a family member or friend, or to inform them that they will have to make financial sacrifices to retain their job.

And there are more family issues associated with a failing business than terminating a cousin or aunt or uncle. As a business owner, you have likely made personal guarantees to various financial institutions that have extended credit to your business operation.

If the business ends up failing, that failure can come back to roost in your personal life; those creditors can call up those guarantees. As the business owner, not only may you be out of a job, but you may also be out of a home—or worse. You could lose everything, including any money you have saved for retirement.

These are extreme scenarios, and there are laws in effect to protect these basic types of assets, but sometimes the events surrounding a failure can reach past the law to grab those assets and steal them away from you.

For example, although the bankruptcy court cannot take your primary residence, they can take many other things, including money you have saved for our children’s college education. And possibly after that money is gone, you may decide to just sell your house instead of denying your daughter or son an education.

So you did lose your house then, right? You can always live in an apartment, right? I think you see what I mean.

So there is much more at stake—with respect to assets—for you as the owner of the business and you need to protect those assets before you protect your employees. If you feel bad about protecting yourself first, don’t.

To put this in perspective, suppose you are forced to terminate a close friend. That friend can go find another job. She will lose the income associated with being employed by your business, but if she can find work with a comparable salary in a month or so, then she will only be out those several months of salary. Maybe a few thousand dollars is all.

Now compare that to what you stand to lose if the entire business fails, meaning you lose your job. In addition to the job loss, if you have signed your name to personally guarantee the debts of the business, then you may lose all of your savings and other assets. You may not be able to retire when you planned to, and your children may not go to college.

This is quite a glaring contrast to the employee who stands only to lose his or her job and possibly be forced to find work in another position, in a company that may turn out to be not as much fun as working for you in your business, or possibly in a job that does not pay them quite as well as what you were paying them.

Big difference.

Although some assets are protected from bankruptcy judgments, when you are being attacked by creditors (and maybe others who want your assets), this protection may not be enough. Besides losing property indirectly, as discussed above, you may lose property due to criminal actions against you…

You’ve just read one of the opening sections in my new book on business turnaround, available soon from Amazon.


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André Larabie

Email: jcalarabie@hotmail.com
Website: www.andrelarabie.com

Posted in Business Management, Business Turnaround | 8 Comments »

The Secrets to Extraordinary Business Growth

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Would you like to discover some of the most powerful strategies you can implement to take your business to new heights of profitability and prosperity? Strategies that will move your business far beyond your wildest dreams and way way beyond the reach of your nearest competitor?

Would you like to know the killer strategies that will allow your business to obtain many new customers in a short period of time—so many customers that they will far exceed your current customer acquisition rate? Strategies that will bring in more revenue in a single month than your business has ever acquired in an entire year, and accomplish all of this without using any more of those dismal marketing attempts—strategies that do not require ad campaigns with long hours and dismal returns, and all of this with hardly any additional effort?

Would you like to learn about business strategies that allow you to put a stop to those long hours you spend chasing new business prospects—business strategies that will have your new customers calling you and knocking at your door, crying, “Please, will you do business with me?”

If these strategies sound exciting to you, then you can find out about them in my book, How To Dramatically Increase Your Bottom Line Profits And Prosper In A Dismal Economy!

Profits Book

Available soon from Amazon.com

Get ready to learn some of the most profitable, groundbreaking ideas that will literally change your business and your entire life. Ideas that will bring you the success you have always strived for, and all the things you have ever wanted from life.

If you think this is impossible, then think again because it is not! It doesn’t matter if you are a manager, an entrepreneur, an employee, an office manager or a business owner.

It doesn’t matter what you manufacture or produce. Your product can be virtually anything. It may be physical or it may be electronic, or it may just be an idea, a concept, a vision or a procedure or methodology.

And your current business can be structured in almost any way possible—a small corporation, a limited partnership, a cooperative, a membership, a for-profit business or a not-for-profit-business.

It’s all the same when it comes to the groundbreaking strategies I reveal in my book.

Get ready to discover how hundreds of business owners, in dozens of industries, across all sectors, have transformed their operations by growing their businesses, improving their profit margins, and increasing their bottom line profits.

All of it by applying and using these proven strategies.

Some of America’s smallest companies—and her largest corporations—have applied these strategies to transform their businesses.

In this book, you will discover how large and successful American companies like IBM, Dell, Wal-Mart, General Mills, Ford Motor Company, Johnson & Johnson, General Electric, Boeing, Honeywell, Black & Decker, and many others, have transformed their businesses to take and maintain a dominant role in their particular market.

If you study this book, you will discover some of the most important techniques to make your business prosper. And above all, these techniques work for anyone and everyone.

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André Larabie

Email: jcalarabie@hotmail.com
Website: www.andrelarabie.com

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About André Larabie
André Larabie, PhD, is distinguished for his expertise in Teaching, Coaching, Business Consulting, Commercial Debt Resolution, Training, Consumer Debt Collection, Mediation and Arbitration.

André Larabie, PhD, is distinguished for his expertise in teaching, coaching, business consulting, commercial debt resolution, training, consumer debt collection, mediation and arbitration. He has owned and operated two collection agencies, a factoring organization, and a business/management consulting practice in both the USA and Canada.

Dr. Larabie has authored many college-level publications in Canada, including the following doctoral dissertations: “Starting a Factoring/Financing Company,” “The Opening of a Business College,” and “The Psychological Ramifications of Online Education.” He has published the following books:

  • How to Negotiate With Your Creditors And Reduce Your Commercial Debt By At Least 60%
  • How To Dramatically Increase Your Bottom-Line Profits And Prosper In A Dismal Economy
  • How To Reduce your Personal Debt And Start Living Debt Free
  • How To Reach Your Own Personal Financial Freedom

He is currently working on a book about business turnaround.

Posted in Business Growth | 89 Comments »