They see a bunch of numbers on a sheet of paper and groan about how they wish they’d paid more attention to math in school.

But cash flow in a small business is about much more than math.

It tells the story of your business and can be adjusted by simple actions any small business owner can take to move the business from failure to success.

The problem as I see it is that in the US we don’t raise business owners, we raise employees. So it’s no wonder many small business owners who have a passion for their business have no idea how to make it financially viable with a healthy cash flow.

Shouldn’t your business be different? You can learn the key tactics to improving cash flow in your small business by picking up a copy of my book Small Business Cash Flow : Strategies for Making Your Business a Financial Success today. It’s available in paperback and Kindle versions in the amazon store.

For a full chapter overview, click here.

Have you ever had that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach that your small business has extended credit to the wrong customer?

It’s happened to plenty of small business owners and is becoming more frequent because of the impact of the economy.

Someone who had previously been a consistent payer all of a sudden disappears into never, never land. What in the world can you do when this happens?

According to Michelle Dunn, author of  The Guide to Getting Paid: Weed Out Bad Paying Customers, Collect on Past Due Balances, and Avoid Bad Debt, you open up the lines of communication and give them a call. Your job is to collect the money you are owed.

In this interview, Michelle shares a ton of tips you can use to 1) make sure your company has prepared properly for the day a customer doesn’t pay their bill, and 2) techniques you can use to get your money when it happens.

Just click the player to start listening (or you may download and listen later).

Michelle advises every business to find a collection agency before you need them — that’s the same way I feel about you having a small business accountant and attorney. And it makes a lot of sense. You’ll learn why about half way through the interview.

In addition to the tips and techniques Michelle shared when we talked, you’ll find her book full of useable forms that you can put to work in your business.

Here’s my video review of Michelle’s book.

If you can’t see the video, click here.

To get you started, hop on over to Michelle’s site and pick up your free copy of a credit application you can start using right now in your small business.

And don’t forget to listen to the interview!

It’s no wonder important tasks fall by the wayside. If you look at all the things you need to do to maintain your blog, it can be really daunting. But the thing that’s really cool is that you can put your blog list building on auto pilot — so to speak. And to get the most from building reader engagement, it’s important you pay attention to the list building tips detailed in the new digital ebook List Building for Bloggers.  

This book is written by Phil Hollows who is the CEO of FeedBlitz, an email and social media automation service. Phil has been providing services to bloggers for quite some time and he’s seen the good, the bad, and (yes) the ugly.

What’s really neat is that List Building for Bloggers is written for small business owners like you and me. It’s not some corporate focused guide that’s been adapted. So the list building tips and techniques are those that we can really use to improve our blogs and interaction with our readers. Yay!

The book is a comprehensive guide that will help you make the most of your email list whether you’re a newbie or seasoned blogger. It covers all the steps you need from A to Z  — from getting your list up and running to making sure you are in compliance with CAN-SPAM to growing your list and using autoresponders.

So you might have this nagging voice in the back of your head about the whole “email is dead” thing. Well, I’ve never believed that and neither should you. Phil really brings that point home in the book and he hits it right out of the gate in Chapter 1 – Why Aren’t Email Lists Extinct in the Age of Social Media? Here’s a snippet of what he says about it.

It’s this basic: Email is the perfect complement to your blog and other social media channels. You can use your email to link back to your blog of course. But it can also link back to your Twitter account, Facebook page or LinkedIn profile. It can invite people to “like” an article, for example. Or to retweet on Twitter. If you consider your blog as the hub of a “hub and spoke” marketing system, your subscriber emails are mini-hubs. They too can link back to your other content and social media spokes.

And here’s the kicker. Everyone must have an email address to sign up for any social network. See, I told you email is not dead.

At the end of every chapter, Phil includes a list of action steps you should take to put the list building tips from that chapter into action. I’ve been making changes on this blog and through my email list service as I’ve been reading the book and I’ve already seen improvement in terms of both reader subscriptions and engagement — that’s in just a few days. It works.

So far I’ve found a bunch of little tweaks I can make that will build into big improvements. When you get a copy and implement what you learn, you can too. There’s way too much content in this book to cover the whole thing here, but I can tell you right now that two of my favorite chapters are Chapter 9 – Mailing List Underperforming? 13 Optimization Tips to Use Now! and Chapter 23 – The Top Ten Email Power Tips: Two Weeks to Email Heaven.

Don’t wait a minute longer. Click here to get your copy of List Building for Bloggers right now.

You have a credit approved customer that has been doing business with you for a couple of months now. They have been paying on time and placing steady orders. Suddenly you receive a check with a deduction on it. It might just be a negative number listed on the check stub or maybe the check is just for a bit less with no explanation.

Deductions can impair your cash flow and take up valuable time, so you want to always address them right away. The more time you let go by before addressing any deduction, the harder it will be to get paid back if it is not legitimate.

When you receive a payment with a deduction, research the deduction immediately.

If you need to provide paperwork to the customer regarding the deduction, call them and tell them it is coming and ask if they need any other specific documentation that you can include. Mail the paperwork and use certified mail with a signature, or use a flat rate priority mail envelope. When you receive notification that they have the documents, call them right away to find out the status. Do not get caught up in the fax or email game of sending the documentation two or three times – this is a stalling tactic. Stay on top of the situation and resolve it as quickly as possible. You also can fax or email the documents for quicker resolution. Make sure the customer sends the payment immediately – do not allow another 30 days or any more time to pass.

If you have a customer who takes frequent deductions, you will want to note this on their account and maybe re-evaluate your credit terms with them.

You can incorporate something into your credit policy in regard to deductions and make sure your customers are aware of this policy. You can ask that all deductions be approved and be required to have accompanying documentation to support them when they are deducted from a payment. This way if these things don’t happen or you have a customer over 120 days past due who sends a check with deductions, you have something to fall back on. Some customers who are having financial problems will take deductions on old invoices as they pay them in order to appear less delinquent.

Michelle Dunn is an award winning author and columnist frequently featured in the Wall Street Journal, CNN and Forbes. Her newest book, “The Guide to Getting Paid, weed out bad paying customers, collect on past due balances and avoid bad debt”, is available now on Amazon. You can find Michelle online at MichelleDunn.com & Credit-and-Collections.com

You can listen to my interview with Michelle Dunn here. It was a great discussion!

I think it will be a handy resource for newbies and for people who have been online for a while. What I really like about this book is that at the end of every chapter, there is a Putting Your Ideas Into Action section. Yes!! Nothing will ever happen until you take action on what you have learned.

There is a ton of good advice in this book from getting found in the search engines to using affiliate marking to creating content for your website. It is pretty loaded with good stuff. Take a few minutes to watch my video below and if it sounds good to you, pick up a copy and put it to work.

If you can’t see the video, click here.

So what do you think? You can get your copy of Get Rich Click! here.

The author, Mark Ostrofsky recently appeared on The View. Here’s a snippet of that interview.

Get your copy of Get Rich Click! here.

And while you’re waiting for it to arrive, you can get stated by picking up a copy of my free Passive Income Guide.

You are probably like most small business owners. You set big audacious goals and then fail to reach them. In other words, you are like most of the population! All that really does is set you up to fail. But if you could set those goals and reach them, wouldn’t that be awesome? Well you sure can.

A while back, I posted some tips from the book The 1% Solution. This book will help you  make amazing changes in your business.You will discover the secrets of the winners — that you don’t have to set big audacious goals and fail to reach them. All you have to do is make one change at a time — change 1% of what you are doing — to achieve your goals.

I had the opportunity to interview the author, Tom Connellan, a few days ago. I had a blast talking to him about how small business owners can use his concepts to win in business. I’ve posted the interview below. Take a few minutes to listen in — and make sure you listen all the way to the end, Tom has an amazing guarantee for you. Enjoy!

Listen to the Interview with best selling author Tom Connellan using the player above.

It’s always comforting to hear from others who walk in your shoes about something you are considering. Here’s a comment from Betsy Gordon who is president of the Equipment Locator Vendor Services (a company with four employees). “Within an hour of starting The 1% Solution, I could feel the stress and pressure melting away because I knew I’d found my guide for making it through any challenge including the tight economic times we’re in right now.”

Get your copy of The 1% Solution here.

What do you think? Please leave a comment.

I’ve talked before about how I feel about taxes. After all, everybody likes the benefits that come with paying taxes, it’s just the burden of recording and filing that’s such a pain. Paying taxes for your small business means you are (typically) making money — which is the whole point, right?

It helps to have some “inside scoop” on the confusing maze of tax issues and tax breaks to ensure you get all the tax deductions you deserve in your small business. So I was happy to receive a copy of the newly updated book, Lower Your Taxes (Big Time!) to review.

It’s a big, meaty book with helpful tips like how to deduct your fun, how to turn your vacation into a tax deductible write off, and fringe benefits available to small businesses like yours (and tons more great tips!). Written by a former IRS attorney, this book is packed full of good tips you should know. Take a look at my quick video review below for some additional information.

If you can’t see the video, click here.

I think the author of this book, Sandy Botkin (CPA), has hit it out of the ball park with this Lower Your Taxes (Big Time!) book and highly recommend that you pick up a copy today. You can get it from Amazon by clicking here.

Have you read the book? What do you think?

Back then he was a big advocate of the UnMarketing concept. In other words, don’t sell to your prospects and clients, engage them.

Scott has done a lot over the years to spread that message — which should be universal for all small business. As I’ve said before, people want to buy but they don’t want to be sold to. Follow that message and you’ll surely have success. So I was thrilled when Scott got his book deal for UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging. That way his message can spread even further.

And then last year, Scott was a keynote at Blog World Expo. His talk contains all sorts of wonderful, common sense nuggets you can use to improve the UnMarketing approach in your business. It would be worth your while to spend the time to watch the video below. (Note: Scott’s talk begins at about 19 minutes in, so you should fast forward to get to the goodies.)

If you can’t see the video, click here.

There are some really helpful tips in that video for interacting and engaging prospects and customers, plus some handy DOs and DON’Ts. And don’t forget to pick up a copy of Scott’s book UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging to have as a helpful guide.

What do you think of Scott’s keynote? Do you have the book?

In looking at the Men’s Downhill in the 2006 Winter Olympics, for example, Tom found that the difference between a Gold Medal and no medal was 1.08 seconds or .9%.

No matter where he looked, he found pretty much the same thing. The difference between a Gold Medal and no medal averaged a shade under 1%.

In his new book, The 1% Solution for Work and Life, Tom shares his research findings about exactly what the very best performers do that make this incredibly important difference.

“The key”, he says, “is that winners have a structure for making the necessary changes and the losers don’t.”

The 1% Solution for Work and Life: How to Make Your Next 30 Days the Best Ever gives them the missing structure.

Tom recognizes that most of us aren’t going to compete in the Olympics. But because the tools he advocates are not based on opinion but on solid research and testing, they produce results for anyone willing to take certain steps that leave behind old habits and beliefs, replacing them with the proper structure.

“The real discovery,” he says “is that there are just a few key actionable ideas that you need to improve yourself in whatever you do. You don’t have to compete with other people. You just have to focus on being better today than you were yesterday.”

His examples land like a velvet coated sledgehammer! His book is chock full of simple, easy- to-understand tools and techniques that teach you how to make a difference. Here’s a sample of five actionable ideas from the book that make it easier to power up and get your work and life going on a higher level.

• Be 1% better in 100’s of things. There’s no way a company can be 100% better than the competition. But it can be 1% better in 100’s of things. A company that executes better on 100’s of things will smash the competition every time.
• Pick one thing to change and stick with that change for 30 days. The time frame works because research shows that it takes between 21 and 30 days for the new way to become a habit. You can even change a negative emotion, a facial expression, or voice tonality as a small initial change.
• Be better today than you were yesterday. You may never be the very best in the world at what you do, but you can be better than you are right now. The Olympic motto is Citius Altius Fortius which translates into “swifter, higher, stronger” not into “swiftest, highest, strongest.” That means working at getting better every day.
• Use the Power of Yet. “I’m not a millionaire” is different than “I’m not a millionaire yet.” Each resonates within the body in a different way. Think of your body as an electromagnetic field and you’ll find that even something as small as simply adding “yet” to a statement, changes the way your body feels. Try it with different statements. Ask friends and family to try it.
• Know that even positive change feels uncomfortable. Clasp your hands together. Note which thumb is on top. Now take your hands apart and put them back together again – this time with the other thumb on top. How does that feel? If you used words like “weird”, “awkward”, ‘strange” or “uncomfortable”, that’s normal. Realize that when you make a change – however small – that’s the initial (and normal) response. At about the 21st day, that feeling goes away; this is when the new habit gets locked in.

It’s easy for people to identify many places and ways they can make improvements in their life, but because they lack a structure for making improvements, the improvements seldom last.

The 1% Solution for Work and Life: How to Make Your Next 30 Days the Best Ever gives you the tools to make improvements permanent.

If you can’t see the video, you can watch it here. Get your copy of Best iPad Apps at amazon.