We make decisions all day long. Every day.
As a business owner, you make even more decisions than the average person, and have arguably more riding on the outcomes as well.
How do you prepare to make decisions for your company? There’s no one answer. So much of business ownership is just learning as you go. New problems will crop up all the time and you have to rely on past experiences and your instincts to figure them out.
Hopefully you have a good support network and maybe some experienced employees to serve as a sounding board when you’re figuring things out. If you feel like you’re on your own, Cleaner is here to help. We strive to bring you stories that help you solve problems, make your business stronger and help you along the path to success, whatever that means to you.
In this issue, the Money Manager column demonstrates a different way of tracking business revenue and expenses that gives you a real-time snapshot of the health of your business. This spreadsheet can help you spot gaps in your spending versus revenue, which makes it easy to know whether you can go ahead with hiring a new employee or upgrading some equipment and when you should hold back and shore up your savings.
The Tech Perspective article discusses some benefits of converting your fleet to natural gas or electric vehicles. This sort of change is a big decision with lots of factors to consider — not least of which is: Do you have fueling stations near enough for this to make sense? If you do, you can save money while being more environmentally friendly, which can make a big difference for many consumers.
Hall’s Plumbing owner Chris Reynolds, featured in one of this month’s profile stories, made a decision at age 22 that changed the whole trajectory of his career. He was running a small painting business, and one day a homeowner, impressed with his work ethic, offered him a job at a plumbing company. By the age of 26, Reynolds was essentially running that company, as the co-owners health made it impossible for him to continue as he had been. Reynolds now owns the company with his wife and has turned it into one of the biggest pipe lining firms in the Sacramento area.
Not every decision you make will end up changing your life in such a big way. But little changes can still make a big impact on your business, so it’s smart to use all the tools available to try to make the right ones.
Running your own business will always be a challenge, but we’re here to help. Hopefully you find inspiration in these pages to keep learning and making good decisions to grow your business. Good things come to those who work hard.
I hope you enjoy this month’s issue.
