Supply chain breakdowns continue to stymie small businesses, causing them to lose sales and profits. Whether your business has been affected or not by supply chain delays and shortages, it’s a good idea to take steps to make your supply chain as resilient as possible. 

Your supply chain starts with the acquisition of materials that go into what you sell. It includes the production of your products and services. And it doesn’t end until the customer receives the product or service you offer, as well as any help they need to consume your product. 

Here is a process to help you evaluate your supply chain and improve its resilience, to avoid future bumps in the road.     

Start with an Inventory of Your Suppliers

To evaluate your supply chain, a good place to start is to make a list of vendors. An easy way to get this vendor list is from your accounting system. Make lists from your list:

• Primary vendors that are crucial to your business. This includes vendors from which you purchase goods for resale, and can also be vendors such as your online shopping cart because if it goes down, you lose sales. These are you, mission-critical vendors. 
• Secondary vendors that provide support indirectly, such as maintenance to machines you use or vendors that provide human resource benefits. Your business won’t be terribly disrupted if something happened to these vendors.  

Once you’ve made your lists, let’s focus on your primary vendors first. If this list is large, you may want to further prioritize it by sorting the vendors you are most dependent on to the top of the list.  

Contingency Planning

For each vendor on your primary list, do some research to find alternatives. You want to develop a deep bench of suppliers who can support your business. If one supplier has trouble meeting your orders, you will be more prepared and can consider switching. You’ll need to develop relationships with these alternate vendors, and perhaps even use them a time or two to test the relationship.  

Many factors can go into selecting alternate vendors: price, quality, service, delivery time, shipping costs and methods, country of origin, location of warehouses, troubleshooting effectiveness, and much more. You know your industry best and what you need, so you can develop a table of criteria to evaluate potential new vendors. The ultimate goal is to have backup plans all along your supply chain. 

Once you’ve gone through your primary list, you can start on the secondary vendors.  

Purchasing Department

Large companies have entire purchasing departments to do this kind of work. If your business is small, you may be able to delegate portions of the list to trusted and well-trained employees. Know this type of work can take a long time. It will also be changing as new vendors spring up and older vendors retire or go out of business.  

Internal Operations Including Selling and Distribution  

Now that you’ve taken care of your suppliers, the next big step in supply chain efficiency is to standardize your operations. Take a look at your internal operational processes to ensure they are as efficient as possible. Create policies and procedures to ensure quality and customer satisfaction. 

This includes reviewing the production process as well as selling and distribution, all the way to customer service. You may have covered this while you assessed your vendor list, but if not, you can do it now.   

One example is how you get your product or service to your customers. Be sure there is an alternate method in case your primary distribution method breaks down. 

Again, this is a marathon, not a sprint. Take your time to do this project right, and it will benefit you for years to come. 

Risk versus Reward

In some cases, it may simply not be cost-effective to have a fully developed contingency solution. It may be more cost-effective to take the loss if it happens. You’ll want to evaluate the circumstances and come up with the right solution that works for your business.  

Take the time you need to improve your supply chain resilience, and your business will be more valuable and more profitable for it. 

We’re six days away from the first day of summer, and a few weeks away from the midpoint of the year. It’s the perfect time for taking a strategy check in your business to see how you’re doing for the first half of 2023 as well as to plan something fun and productive for summertime.  

Here are five business strategies to help you regroup, reassess, and rejuvenate your business halfway through 2023.  

• Celebrate Your Accomplishments

Take time to pat yourself on the back and congratulate the people around you for the goals you’ve reached and the efforts your team has made on your behalf. You might be shocked when you think about how far you’ve come. Maybe you’ve hired another team member and your team is the largest it’s ever been; perhaps you’ve reached record revenue goals; possibly you’ve solved a complex supply chain problem.

We all could use more praise and more celebrations in our lives.  Perhaps you can organize a party, or if you are not the partying type, a quiet word individually with your team can go a long way, maybe more than you know.

• Take a Vacation

If you’re feeling quite burned out, the best thing you can do is stop and take a breather. There’s nothing better to rekindle your creative juices than to get away from the business for a while.  Summertime is when most people take a vacation, so if your business is not having its busy season, this might be a good time to go away, even if for a little while.

If you’re anxious about being away from your business, you’re not alone.  In your annual planning process, plan for and block out your vacation way ahead of time.  Book the reservations with no refunds several months in advance so that you won’t chicken out at the last minute.  There is life beyond your business, and you will be a better business owner when you take regular breaks away.  

• Schedule a Mid-Year Review

How has your business fared for the first half of 2023 compared to the goals you set at the beginning of the year? Are you on track to reach your goals? Should you design a course correction or are you on track? Maybe you’re even ahead of plan!

You can make this process as informal or formal as you want. Some businesses hold retreats; you may simply need some quiet time on a weekend when all your family is busy doing something else.   

• Be Selective About the Projects You Start    

Is your plate too full?  Entrepreneurs that wear many hats would probably say “yes” to that question, so the next question is do you have to do it all at once? Ask yourself what you can afford to stop doing that doesn’t make sense. Is there a project or two that can wait? If so, decide to stop stressing about not getting it done and give yourself permission to put it on the back burner for now.

• Play Big

Maybe you’re not playing big enough. You might be busy, but are you busy with the things that will take your business to the next level? Do the thing you’re afraid to say “yes” to; the thing that you know will transform your business and get you closer to your dreams.

If you’re putting off a project that you know will pay back handsomely, then shelve everything you’re working on and start on the one that will reap the most rewards. It could be a new product or service line, a new ad campaign, a new hire, a new joint venture, new financing, or even a new partner, which is very big indeed. You likely know what it is you need to do; your gut has been telling you for a while now. Just get it started, and it will then become easier.  

Summertime is a great time to regroup, re-energize, and refresh your business. Try one of these five tips to spice up your summer as well as your business success.    

We’re six days away from the first day of summer, and a few weeks away from the midpoint of the year. It’s the perfect time for taking a strategy check in your business to see how you’re doing for the first half of 2023 as well as to plan something fun and productive for summertime.  

Here are five business strategies to help you regroup, reassess, and rejuvenate your business halfway through 2023.  

1. Celebrate Your Accomplishments

Take time to pat yourself on the back and congratulate the people around you for the goals you’ve reached and the efforts your team has made on your behalf. You might be shocked when you think about how far you’ve come. Maybe you’ve hired another team member and your team is the largest it’s ever been; perhaps you’ve reached record revenue goals; possibly you’ve solved a complex supply chain problem.

We all could use more praise and more celebrations in our lives.  Perhaps you can organize a party, or if you are not the partying type, a quiet word individually with your team can go a long way, maybe more than you know.

2. Take a Vacation

If you’re feeling quite burned out, the best thing you can do is stop and take a breather. There’s nothing better to rekindle your creative juices than to get away from the business for a while.  Summertime is when most people take a vacation, so if your business is not having its busy season, this might be a good time to go away, even if for a little while.

If you’re anxious about being away from your business, you’re not alone.  In your annual planning process, plan for and block out your vacation way ahead of time.  Book the reservations with no refunds several months in advance so that you won’t chicken out at the last minute.  There is life beyond your business, and you will be a better business owner when you take regular breaks away.  

3. Schedule a Mid-Year Review

How has your business fared for the first half of 2023 compared to the goals you set at the beginning of the year? Are you on track to reach your goals? Should you design a course correction or are you on track? Where do you need to go next? Maybe you’re even ahead of plan!

You can make this process as informal or formal as you want. Some businesses hold retreats; you may simply need some quiet time on a weekend when all your family is busy doing something else.   

4. Be Selective About the Projects You Start    

Is your plate too full?  Entrepreneurs that wear many hats would probably say “yes” to that question, so the next question is do you have to do it all at once? Ask yourself what you can afford to stop doing that doesn’t make sense. Is there a project or two that can wait? If so, decide to stop stressing about not getting it done and give yourself permission to put it on the back burner for now.

5. Play Big

Maybe you’re not playing big enough. You might be busy, but are you busy with the things that will take your business to the next level? Do the thing you’re afraid to say “yes” to; the thing that you know will transform your business and get you closer to your dreams.

If you’re putting off a project that you know will pay back handsomely, then shelve everything you’re working on and start on the one that will reap the most rewards. It could be a new product or service line, a new ad campaign, a new hire, a new joint venture, new financing, or even a new partner, which is very big indeed. You likely know what it is you need to do; your gut has been telling you for a while now. Just get it started, and it will then become easier.  

Summertime is a great time to regroup, re-energize, and refresh your business. Try one of these five tips to spice up your summer as well as your business success.    

The topic of artificial intelligence (AI) has been in the news quite a bit recently, and one of the reasons is the launch of an AI chatbot called ChatGPT. The GPT in ChatGPT stands for generative pre-trained transformer, which is a program that can realistically write like a human and interact in a conversational way. Basically, you can type in a complicated question, and ChatGPT will give you an amazingly lifelike, most-of-the-time accurate answer. 

ChatGPT was launched in November 2022 and developed by OpenAI, an AI research lab tasked with developing a friendly AI. OpenAI has both a non-profit and for-profit component in its organizational structure. 

As of this writing, ChatGPT is offered at no cost, but you must open an account and verify both your email address and phone number to access it. Once you do, the prompt is simple; just ask it a question. You can get access here: https://chat.openai.com/chat

Here is a sample answer to the question, “What are debits and credits?”

ChatGPT: “Debits and credits are terms used in accounting to describe the money movement into or out of an account. In accounting, every transaction involves at least two accounts, and each account is either debited or credited.”

“A debit is an entry that increases assets or expenses or decreases liabilities or equity in an account. For example, if you buy office supplies for your business, you would debit the office supplies expense account and credit the cash account.”

“A credit is an entry that increases liabilities or equity or decreases assets or expenses in an account. For example, if you sell goods on credit to a customer, you would debit the accounts receivable account and credit the sales revenue account.” 

“Debits and credits are used to keep track of the financial transactions of a business or organization. They are important tools for recording and analyzing financial information, and are essential for preparing financial statements and tax returns.”

Yes, ChatGPT is a touch verbose at times.  

Here is a tax example:

Question: Qualified Business Income – earnings limitations if NOT a specified service business

ChatGPT: “Under the current tax law in the United States, if you are a qualified business owner who operates a non-specified service business, you may be eligible for a tax deduction of up to 20% on your qualified business income (QBI).”

“However, there are certain limitations on the deduction, including a cap on the amount you can deduct based on your total taxable income. For the tax year 2022, the threshold for the taxable income limit is $329,800 for married filing jointly and $164,925 for other taxpayers.”

“Additionally, there may be further limitations on the deduction if your business has a significant amount of W-2 wages and/or depreciable property.”

“It’s important to consult with a qualified tax professional or accountant to determine how the QBI deduction rules apply to your specific business and tax situation.”

It can also answer these questions/requests, along with literally millions of others:

• The best recipe for lemon bars
• Write an engagement letter for tax preparation
• Comment on the elevation of the El Camino de Santiago de Compostela from Sarria to the end.
• Write an ad for marketing services.

There is a disclaimer in place, as ChatGPT will occasionally generate wrong answers. It did generate a misleading answer when it was asked a very complex tax question about the Employee Retention Credit and greater than 50 percent owner wage eligibility.  

How can you use ChatGPT in business?  It might save you time with writing initial drafts of letters, ads, speeches, webpages, or other correspondence. It can also save time on research and data analysis, but be sure to verify its answers. It can help with coding if you’re into computer programming. You can also use it for fun or for a second opinion. 

Try ChatGPT to start seeing how it can benefit you and your business. 

The topic of artificial intelligence (AI) has been in the news quite a bit recently, and one of the reasons is the launch of an AI chatbot called ChatGPT. The GPT in ChatGPT stands for generative pre-trained transformer, which is a program that can realistically write like a human and interact in a conversational way. Basically, you can type in a complicated question, and ChatGPT will give you an amazingly lifelike, most-of-the-time accurate answer. 

ChatGPT was launched in November 2022 and developed by OpenAI, an AI research lab tasked with developing a friendly AI. OpenAI has both a non-profit and for-profit component in its organizational structure. 

As of this writing, ChatGPT is offered at no cost, but you must open an account and verify both your email address and phone number to access it. Once you do, the prompt is simple; just ask it a question. You can get access here: https://chat.openai.com/chat

Here is a sample of the answer to the question, “What are debits and credits?”

ChatGPT: “Debits and credits are terms used in accounting to describe the movement of money into or out of an account. In accounting, every transaction involves at least two accounts, and each account is either debited or credited.”

“A debit is an entry that increases assets or expenses or decreases liabilities or equity in an account. For example, if you buy office supplies for your business, you would debit the office supplies expense account and credit the cash account.”

“A credit is an entry that increases liabilities or equity or decreases assets or expenses in an account. For example, if you sell goods on credit to a customer, you would debit the accounts receivable account and credit the sales revenue account.” 

“Debits and credits are used to keep track of the financial transactions of a business or organization. They are important tools for recording and analyzing financial information, and are essential for preparing financial statements and tax returns.”

Yes, ChatGPT is a touch verbose at times.  

Here is a tax example:

Question: Qualified Business Income – earnings limitations if NOT a specified service business

ChatGPT: “Under the current tax law in the United States, if you are a qualified business owner who operates a non-specified service business, you may be eligible for a tax deduction of up to 20% on your qualified business income (QBI).”

“However, there are certain limitations on the deduction, including a cap on the amount you can deduct based on your total taxable income. For tax year 2022, the threshold for the taxable income limit is $329,800 for married filing jointly and $164,925 for other taxpayers.”

“Additionally, there may be further limitations on the deduction if your business has a significant amount of W-2 wages and/or depreciable property.”

“It’s important to consult with a qualified tax professional or accountant to determine how the QBI deduction rules apply to your specific business and tax situation.”

It can also answer these questions/requests, along with literally millions of others:

• The best recipe for lemon bars
• Write an engagement letter for tax preparation
• Comment on the elevation of the El Camino de Santiago de Compostela from Sarria to the end.
• Write an ad for marketing services.

There is a disclaimer in place, as ChatGPT will occasionally generate wrong answers. It did generate a misleading answer when it was asked a very complex tax question about the Employee Retention Credit and greater than 50 percent owner wage eligibility.  

How can you use ChatGPT in business?  It might be able to save you time with writing initial drafts of letters, ads, speeches, webpages, or other correspondence. It can also save time on research and data analysis, but be sure to verify its answers. It can help with coding if you’re into computer programming. You can also use it for fun or for a second opinion. 

Try ChatGPT to start seeing how it can benefit you and your business.