If ever there was a timely business book, “Save Your Small Business: 10 Crucial Strategies for Surviving Tough Times or Shutting Down and Moving On” by Ralph Warner and Bethany K. Laurence is certainly it. Touted as a roadmap to small business survival, Warner and Laurence provide simple, no-nonsense steps that can make a big difference in running, saving, or, if necessary, closing your small business. Running a small business has always been difficult, but these days it can be brutally agonizing, if not downright terrifying. This guide can provide you with the information to turn today’s bad economies, or tomorrow’s bad economies, into opportunities so that in good times your business is poised to prosper.
The book begins by saying it will be your small business partner and recommends you create a business survival plan, prepare a current profit and loss statement and cash flow analysis, and establish an advisory board. He delves into chapters that will give you the tools to help you decide whether it makes sense to continue, hibernate, shut down, or sell his business and offers some strategies he can implement to get your business back on track.
Chapter One: Can You Save Your Business? This chapter covers topics such as short-term and long-term planning, selling your business, hibernating your business, and saving your business. It also discusses some special considerations for retailers, services, construction, restaurants, wholesalers and importers, and franchises.
Chapter Two: Don’t ignore the bad news. They cover why you can’t wait, cutting costs, changing directions, quitting, and selling. There are also strategies for determining how much to cut spending and moving slowly to reverse the cuts.
Chapter Three: Control your Cash Flow. This area can be one of the most important, especially for small businesses. Topics include: keeping paying your bills on time, creating more cash and what not to do, such as using merchant cash advances, maxing out credit card limits, and borrowing against your home.
Chapter Four: Minimize liability for your debts. Are you personally responsible for business debts? Liability for joint property debt. What can creditors do if you don’t pay? Prioritize debt payments, including payroll, taxes, utilities, and more.
Chapter Five: Focus on what is really profitable. Face it, the goal of a business is to make a profit. This chapter discusses how to get a quick profit plan on paper, make money in a service business, and make money in retail or manufacturing. It’s a short chapter, but if it makes you think about making a profit, it’s done its job.
Chapter six: Innovate with little money. This chapter addresses invention, copying, serendipity, and making innovation a continuous process. This chapter may inspire you to think about the next great gadget that every home should have. Depending on your business, this may be what you need.
Chapter Seven: Identify your customers. Before you can create an effective marketing plan, you need to know who your potential customers are. This chapter is about how to aim for the bullseye and how to complete the target. Topics include current customers, need, price, access, and experience.
Chapter Eight: Don’t waste money on ineffective marketing. If only we knew which of our marketing efforts are producing the best results. This chapter helps you determine things about your marketing, such as: Marketing the right products or services to the right people, not spending a lot of money on advertising, asking for long-term customer support, encouraging customers to recommend your business, using paid listings effectively, marketing on your own website, and making a “try to stay in business” sale.
Chapter Nine: Handle layoffs fairly and keep your best employees. Laying off people is often one of the most dreaded tasks for business owners. This chapter provides guidance in this area by discussing: Making a smart layoff plan, layoff logistics, and keeping the great people you hire. Some very good advice for this unfortunate part of the business.
Chapter ten: Don’t work too much. What? If your business is flooding, you need to work harder, right? This chapter addresses the issues of the importance of a sensible schedule and how to work less and earn more. Priorities and delegation are the keys the authors talk about.
Chapter Eleven: Work with your best competitors. The four areas covered in this chapter include: Treating Competitors with Respect, Doing Business with Competitors, Working for Competitors, and Working with Competitors.
Chapter Twelve: How to close your business. Most people don’t want this to ever happen, but the reality is that it does happen. This chapter offers some good strategies if you decide it’s time to close the deal and do something else. Topics include things like building a closing team, discussing contractual obligations, dealing with landlords, collecting invoices and selling inventory, notifying and paying employees, liquidating assets, notifying creditors and customers, paying your debts, pay taxes and dissolve your business entity. . This is not a pleasant subject, but unfortunately it is important if you find yourself needing to go in this direction. The book provides guidance in the process.
Chapter Thirteen: Debt Management: Bankruptcy and its Alternatives. Introductory chapter on these topics with some good advice, but you will need more resources if you choose to go down the road of bankruptcy, or better yet seek the advice of a qualified professional.
Appendix A provides guidance on preparing a profit and loss forecast and cash flow analysis. Sure there are more comprehensive references on these, but these brief basics on them will get you started and at least help you figure out where you are.
“Save Your Small Business” is a good guide for the struggling small business owner and also provides information for the small business owner who doesn’t want to fall on hard times. Educating yourself about business is crucial to small business success. This is one more title from Nolo that will help small business owners survive, but also liquidate and go out of business with less pain if that is the path to be taken.