Wayne Madden’s Blog

Customers are constantly speaking to your company. If the only time you are listening is when you personally meet with a customer or using an annual customer satisfaction survey, you are missing some key conversations! Customers speak up with their money. You may be tracking sales as a financial activity, but also consider that a [...]

My questions today are, who in your organization spends measurable time focused on your opportunities to compete and grow? Who listens to your customers to monitor their needs or mine new ideas? Who dedicates energy to evaluating related markets and opportunities that might exist? Who monitors your competitors’ offerings? Who is in charge of being [...]

With the foundation blocks of your business’ financial story in place, we’re ready to put together the outline or framework of that story. The framework for the story of your business takes the form of the basic financial reports you design and read on a regular basis. The purpose of this article in our “Financial Carol” series is to introduce you to these six cornerstone financial reports and discuss how you use these to begin seeing (reading) the story of your business.

With a good understanding of Direct Expenses and the purpose of Direct Expenses, let’s now focus on the remaining general operating expenses which are normally referred to as “Indirect” or “G&A Expenses," and how these expenses contribute to your business story on financial reports.

What stories do your financials tell you about your business? When you look at your P&L report, do you only see the story of your past business month, or two months, or year? Have you developed the ability to immediately recognize current financial trends that prompt relevant and timely questions? Do you regularly engage in building the story of your future with financial forecasting? This series explores how you can use your financial reports to tell the story of your business.

  (for the series introduction – see “A Financial Carol – Past, Present, and Business Yet to Come”) Your financial general ledger (GL), and specifically your GL revenue accounts, is where your story begins. This is where you ensure that you build the right foundation in terms of how you organize and track financial transactions. [...]

Author Note:  This is the third article in the series “A Financial Carol” – Reference the first two in the series – “A Financial Carol – Past, Present, and Business Yet to Come” and “A Financial Carol Chapter 1 – The Right General Ledger: Revenue” We are now ready to take a look at how [...]

Based on my coaching sessions with entrepreneur-business owners, I can tell you that culture is a significant issue to those entrepreneurs. That makes total sense. Culture is extremely personal to an entrepreneur because of how the entrepreneur sees their business and business culture as a reflection of himself/herself. The famously quoted “Godfather” business line – [...]

Does perception matter? As a leader, does the perception others have of you make a difference in terms of your effectiveness? Let’s put it this way, you as person or a leader will not be discussed or remembered in words that you write yourself. You write your own resume. You may [...]

Nothing is more frustrating for a team member than delivering results only to discover that this is not what was wanted or expected. Even worse, an employee sitting at their desk after a meeting and unable to really digest or express what it is that they understand their manager wants from [...]

One cornerstone of your management style that can make a huge difference in the way you are perceived, received, and respected is the simple act of making yourself available. This probably sounds easy, right? Is it easy? Let me give you two examples that are likely familiar to you personally. I [...]

You probably can think of a manager you have known that consistently demonstrated that he or she believed power comes from control. One or more of these phrases likely describes this type of manager: Micro-manages everything Demands to be “in-the-loop” on every decision Instructs you to not make a move before [...]