Are Profit Killers Lurking at Your Business?

Can you identify the profit killers in your business?

Unfortunately they creep up everywhere.

These Profit Killers also play the role of Profit Thieves embezzling YOUR time and money everyday.

Killing the chance of building a thriving business.

If cash flow is tight or goals are not being met, can you identify what is the cause?

Chances are these profit killers sit right in front of us and we are too blind to identify them.

In addition, how did those dreaded Profit Killers sneak into the schedule anyway?

It is not always easy to determine the difference between being busy vs productive.

Diagnosing where the profit killers lie within a business certainly can be challenging.

Time is the one thing that no one has a competitive advantage over another.

We all have the same 24 hours a day and 365 days a year to accomplish our goals.

The difference strictly falls on what we do within those 24 hours.

Therefore a few questions to chew on:

So what is denying goals from being achieved?
Are you maximizing your time and efficiency as well as all resources?
Could profit killers be in the form of an unproductive employee that we hang on to too long?
When looking at the great entrepreneurs such as Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett, what traits do they posses that delivers astronomical success?
Why is it that uber-successful entrepreneurs maximize their time so well?

One of the 10 Commandments states “Though shall not kill”.

Post a sign in your office, on your computer, on your bathroom mirror that says, “Thou Shall Not Kill My Own Profits”.

TOP PROFIT KILLERS AT SMALL BUSINESSES

Profit Killers can be disguised in the form of an actual asset on the balance sheet.

In other cases, profit killers come in the form of customers who are simply too high maintenance to service. Those sales from customers that beat us up on price where profitability is sacrificed.

Let’s take a look at potential profit killers roaming our businesses:

Spending valuable time trying to collect receivables
Writing off too much bad debt from customers
Overstaffed
Too much inventory causing waste and spoilage
Inventory theft: Internal or external
Mismanaged time
Inefficient system and antiquated processes
Prices too low
Hanging on to a bad hire: Unwilling to cut that toxic employee that hurts the business.
Hanging onto unprofitable customers
Ignoring technology
“This is how we have always done it”
Unnecessary meetings (that go on WAY too long)
Outdated machinery
Low morale: Unhappy & unmotivated employees
Top Heavy: Too many Chiefs burning the bottom line
Outdated facility or poor layout
Bad location
Poor marketing execution
Overlooking price increases from vendors
Production mistakes causing repairs and rework as well as unhappy customers
Poor communication – internally and also externally
Overinsured
Employee turnover
Poor employee attendance
Under bidding quotes
Over paying suppliers and vendors
Poor negotiating skills
Trying to service too much bank debt as well as choking on interest
Taking on projects and customers that fall outside of your wheelhouse