Do you ever find yourself thinking that for the amount of time and effort you’re devoting to your business, there should be more cash in the bank on any given day? There could be multiple and varied reasons for this situation, such as pricing issues, underlying cost structures, or the existence of too many non-revenue generating activities, but one culprit is often cash flow management.

Cash flow management requires the same diligence and pro-active approach as managing other aspects of your business, such as monitoring, adjusting and predictive planning.

Monitoring can be as simple as visiting your business bank account online on a daily basis. Review for any automatic transfers that are set to occur, whether they are deposits or withdrawals. It may be helpful to prepare a printed list of the monthly transfers you have set up, and then simply check them off as they pass through your account.

Adjusting would involve contacting customers whose accounts are past due; or paying your suppliers on their due dates rather than your current method of paying them 10 days before the due date. You may as well have that little bit of bank interest…

Planning can involve one of my favorite tools – spreadsheets! The trick with cash flow planning spreadsheets is to make them as easy as possible to manage so that you don’t get drawn into a non-revenue generating activity. For example:



Keeners can assign days of the month to the columns to add more precision in to the process.

Do you have any cash flow techniques that you’ve found useful? If so, we’d love to hear them!

Posted by Angela Hilland at 10:15 AM 0 Comments

Tags cash management  cash planning  cash monitoring  women entrepreneurs  woman owned business 

The WECM recently launched our Facebook page so I’ve been doing a lot of reading on Facebook fan pages, creating value for fans and enhancing the client experience online. In one of the more controversial and intriguing articles by Augie Ray “What Is the Value of a Facebook Fan? Zero” Ray suggests that the number of fans you have is less important than what you do with them. The key to making Facebook fans valuable is in how you activate your brand, engage fans and drive revenue for your business. He says “It is what companies do with fans that creates value, not merely that the brand has fans.” It is the age old “quality over quantity.” Ray goes on to say, “…the operative question isn’t “What is the value of a Facebook Fan?” but “How do I make my Facebook fans valuable?”

As marketers and entrepreneurs, it isn’t enough to be a fan or to have fans; we have to think of creative ways to activate our fans to enhance their brand experience.

What are you doing to engage your Facebook fans? How are you enhancing their brand experience? What have you tried that worked well and what are some of the lessons learned? Do you have pictures and videos to help fans feel engaged with you and your brand? Is your Facebook page all about promotion or are there elements that create value for your fans. What keeps your fans coming back?

Posted by Michele McClymont at 9:38 AM 0 Comments

Tags online brand  marketing  Facebook fan  women entrepreneurs  woman owned business 

Like a broken record, I am always telling my clients that they need to know what people are saying about their business and that they must be involved in the conversation – regardless of whether it is positive or negative. As a business owner with so many responsibilities and demands on your time, how can you possibly stay on top of your on-line brand?

Google alerts is one tool you can use. You select the words and phrases that are relevant to your business and Google will let you know if and when it finds a match. You identify how often (daily, weekly, as it happens) you want to receive the e-mail advising you of the results. When you receive an alert, you will know what is being said and whether you should respond. It is quick, easy to set up and free! More importantly, it enables you to stay on top of what is happening with your online brand.

Posted by Michele McClymont at 10:56 AM 0 Comments

Tags brand  marketing  Google alerts  entrepreneurship  woman owned business 

As part of a Grade 2 math assignment, my son Ethan and his classmates recently held a jumble sale at school. Each of the kids brought in items that they would like to sell. The ‘inventory’ was displayed on their desks and students from the rest of the school came by to browse and purchase. As a business advisor and entrepreneur at heart, I spent a lot of time with Ethan discussing items that the other kids would like, how much they might be prepared to spend, and how he would attract them to his desk (it was a fairly competitive landscape with each desk containing an assortment of items). We went over how he would display his merchandise and practiced making change for various size sales.

I couldn’t wait to pick him up from school that day to find out how it went. As soon as he saw me he had a huge smile on his face and said, “Mum, guess what happened today? I sold all of my things at the beginning of the sale!”

“That’s great Eth!” I replied enthusiastically. He then went on to tell me that since his things had sold early in the sale, he took the money he made and went around and bought items from his friends which he then took back to his desk and sold at a profit! I don’t know whether Ethan is a born entrepreneur or whether he absorbed the concept of profit from our dinnertime conversations, perhaps a little of both. I do know that I was a really proud mother and that when my daughter gets to Grade 2, we will talk more about margins and maximizing profits.

Posted by Michele McClymont at 8:22 PM 0 Comments

Tags entrepreneurship  profit  women entrepreneurs  woman owned business   

More and more we are seeing interest and action around the questions of the disparity between men’s and women’s participation in high growth enterprise.

On June 8, the inaugural ‘We Own It’ Summit was held in New York City. Presented by Astia, Kaufman Foundation for Entrepreneurship, Ernst & Young, Microsoft and a coalition of 24 investors, academic institutions and entrepreneurs, more than 230 delegates attended this very important inaugural session.

The goals of the summit were to create networks across a number of sectors in order to identify the impediments to growth of women-owned enterprises and to take action in effecting real change.

Recommendations included:

• gathering relevant information from sources which have been studying this phenomenon
• emphasizing success stories
• creating a network of stakeholders
• promoting the message of the economic importance of diversity in growth enterprises
• creating action that will lead to more successful women entrepreneurs and investors in high growth business enterprises

I’m really excited by this movement to develop and support women’s business growth. We’ve grappled with this challenge at the Centre for a long time. There is now a growing body of literature to study the issue, but, more important, we are seeing some action on the part of governments, academic institutions, service organizations and investors, at least in the US.

Here in Canada, a taskforce is developing a ‘Blueprint for Economic Growth’ which outlines action strategies to support women’s enterprises. We’ll be discussing this wonderful initiative on our web site in days to come, meanwhile, to find out more, and to support the action strategy, check out the website at www.telfer.uOttawa.ca/womensenterprise

Posted by Sandra Altner at 4:06 PM 0 Comments

Tags Blueprint for Economic Growth  ‘We Own It’ Summit  woman owned business  women entrepreneurs