Valhalla Business Solutions - Business Management Consultants

Sales Management Consulting Specializing In... Sales and service Systems, Managing younger generations, Management protocols Coaching effectiveness

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

What Organizational Issues Do You Have?

Management Consulting Companies today can add so much value to a corporation, small business and teams within an organization. Some of the biggest issues in management today stifle companies from growing and furthermore attracting the right talent to their organization. This only translates into poor product to the customer.

Here are some of the issues that exist in businesses today...

Wasted expense
Improper Pricing
Goals
Communicated Vision
Values
Expectations
Consistency
Complicated Vision and Values
Infrequent Communication
Development

Management consulting companies take these issues head on, specifically Valhalla. The issues listed are problems Valhalla addresses head on.

Wasted expense- as a business owner or leader in your department, when was the last time you spend time auditing your credit card processing bills, telecoms, employee time sheets, insurance premiums, 401k, etc. Often when reviewing these monthly fixed expenses there is an opportunity to save as much as 30 percent on their monthly expenses. As important as this is, leaders accept it as an acceptable ongoing expense. Those opportunities to increase capital are critical, especially during economic downturns.

Improper Pricing- this is a direct result of not understanding competitor pricing and not managing your fixed costs appropriately. Management consulting companies work with thousands of companies and often can add immediate value to pricing based on revenue goals and reducing your fixed costs.

Goals- If you don't know where your going, how do you build a plan to get there? Truth is your can't. Organizations usually do one of two things. They don't establish goals or establish too many goals. When there are know revenue goals, strategy goals, timeline goals, etc. Your team has no chance of meeting the expectations that so frequently fill a leaders mind. On the other hand some companies establish too many priorities or goals and handicap growth and productivity because each employee is an expert nowhere.

Communicated Vision- Many times a company will have a vision, mission statement or sometimes both. Countless times as management consultants we walk into an organization and ask an employee the company vision and no one knows what their company cares about.

Values- Have a core to how you do business, something that sets expectations for your team without saying a word.

Expectations- many companies have too much room for discretion amongst their team. They often call it empowerment, etc. However this never seems to be the result. So often each and every issue that comes up in a organization requires the person handling it to make a educated decision. While this sounds great and often they take care of an issue appropriately, the door to inconsistency has been let in the door. Meaning every time the same problem arises it requires a new solution and worse yet the customer gets a different solution from the time before.

Consistency- this falls hand in hand with expectations. Management consulting companies help establish the proper systems to deliver what your customer deserves.

Complicated Vision and Values- So often companies will have a well thought out way of doing business, lists of ideals, etc. Yet if you were to ask anyone in the company what they are, would they know? The answer is no, the lists can be so long that employees don't read it or recall any of the information. Management consulting drives home the most important ideals, keeps it simple and helps managers cement it into a way of life with their groups.

Infrequent Communication- Management does not communicate with their people enough. Why? There is no expectations for managers on how to manage. So often a manager is put into a role and asked to do it his/her way. Which is great, however you may have 200 managers and they are all doing it different. Can you guess how consistent of a product your people are delivering in all 200 locations? Management consulting companies assist organizations on implementing management communication standards. This keeps messages flowing consistently to all levels of companies.

Development- How often as an organization do you have to recruit talent outside your organization? Organically developing your staff can be the most beneficial revenue producing strategy you can have. The more educated your team members are, obviously the better asset they are. What is your strategy for developing your people?

Management consulting companies provide a unique niche in today's business world. They address entire organizational problems such as the issues listed above or can address specific areas for development. As a leader, if you care about your organization and your people, hire help. Before you even hire your next employee, take the time and analyze what revenue opportunities am I missing short term and long term by not hiring a management consulting company?

Labels: Coaching Teams, development, economic crisis, effective manager, knowing your customer, making money, management, management expectations, Restaurant Management, revenue, Sales Coaching, team goals

posted by Valhalla Business Solutions at 6:49 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Financial Management Consulting

This day and age much of how a company cuts costs is by laying off workforce. It is a frightening time for so many individuals, corporations and even local municipalities. The last thing anyone wants to do as a leader is let go of people who have been such a large part of a team. Financial management consulting can help avoid ever getting to this type of situation. Specifically in new companies, there is an opportunity to set up their business for success and potentially avoid massive layoffs in the future. For a new business establishing a defined organization chart with detailed job descriptions. This may seem simple, but simple does not define easy to execute. Financial management consulting helps define organization charts, job descriptions and lastly the appropriate pay for the job description. Again this sounds easy, but we see many organizations pay way too much for positions and often pay for positions that shouldn't even exist. Financial management consulting focuses on other business needs beyond their biggest expense, employees! Their are investment strategies, distribution strategies, and cost saving strategies that must be implemented regardless of the businesses age.

Labels: banking, Coaching Teams, corporate responsibility, corporations, development, diversity, economic crisis, effective manager, Restaurant Management, revenue, Sales Coaching

posted by Valhalla Business Solutions at 3:30 PM 0 comments

Friday, April 17, 2009

Valhalla Introduces New Saving Money Program

Budget CC Program

Save money immediately on expenses

Analyze utility statements
Analyze telecom statements
Review advertising and marketing budgets
Review bank statement fees
Review credit card processing
Insurance
etc.

Marketing Solutions
Immediate cash flow
Budget Analysis

Valhalla is an expert in saving clients money, beyond the sales, service and management expertise, Valhalla brings an immediate value added feature to businesses. Truth is businesses can become complacent with their fix costs. Since they have already budgeted for the cost, they don't take the time to save themselves money and reallocate their budgets towards revenue producing strategies. Valhalla brings a team of experts to analyze and diagnose cost saving techniques which will immediately have a monetary benefit.

Labels: Coaching Teams, corporations, cross sell, diversity, economic crisis, economy, effective manager, revenue, Sales Coaching, Saving money, Small Business CEO

posted by Valhalla Business Solutions at 6:35 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Setting Revenue Goals-Basic

Set appropriate revenue goals (net income should be considered)
Establish goals per employee

Set appropriate revenue goals (net income should be considered)

When setting revenue goals you must first look at your revenue for previous year. If you have revenue of one million dollars, this years goal must be larger. A good rule of thumb is to analyze the growth you had between your last two years. If you grew by 10% this should give you an adequate barometer of what might be feasible in the upcoming year, especially if your organization did this by accident. 10% is a great number to start with every year. It means your making a commitment to grow your business at a pace that which will outlive your competition. This does not always guarantee a significant growth in net income, however it speaks volumes about the fiscal health of the business. It also sends a message to investors that growing your business is a priority.
Net income needs to be factored, setting an expense budget is critical. Use last years growth in this category as well. For our organization we always make the gap between revenue growth and expense growth at least 10%. If we have revenue of $1,000,000 and expenses of $500,000 for 2008, our 2009 goals could look like 15% revenue growth and 5% budget growth ($1,150,000 revenue, $525,000 expenses)

Establish goals per employee

Average your expenses per employee. What does each employee cost (salary, health care, retirements, etc.) Set goals appropriately, where can you cut costs, can you add an employee? Adding a resource sometimes can be the fastest way to reach your new revenue goals. However you can run the risk of diluting your work forces effectiveness. This can't be your only strategy.
Break down how much revenue is produced per employee. How much will each revenue producing employee have to produce to make the new goals? Account for added staff. How much revenue will have to be produced per day per employee? Now analyze your most profitable products you offer, which has the highest retention and the greatest opportunity for cross sell.
For example lets take the goal from above ($1,150,000) and pretend its a printing company with 10 sales employees. Their highest profitable product is marketing consulting. The company averages $4000 of revenue for each marketing consulting project and average a cross sell of 3 prints per marketing project. How many marketing projects would each employee have to produce to make the entire revenue goal? (29 projects/year) How many is that a month? (2) Now if you set the cross sell goal of 3.5 what would you average per project? Setting these goals sets your employee to have a foundation to ensure you make your revenue goals.

Labels: employees, management, Restaurant Management, revenue, Sales Coaching, sales process, Small Business CEO

posted by Valhalla Business Solutions at 3:50 PM 0 comments