by Chris Hunter | Nov 9, 2015 | Buying a Business, Selling a Business
Buying or selling a business is a time-consuming and often stressful activity. Vendors usually feel they’ve got less from the sale than they wanted, while purchasers often feel they’ve paid too much. About the best thing both parties can do is to be...
by Chris Hunter | Jan 17, 2016 | Direct Mail
by Chris Hunter | Jan 24, 2016 | Marketing Strategies
by Chris Hunter | Dec 24, 2015 | Cash Flow Management & Modeling, Financing
Budgeting is part of good management. No business can expect to succeed unless it has a plan for expenditures that is related to its revenue estimates. Companies that spend more than they earn won’t be in business long. But businesses generally have a number of...
by Chris Hunter | Jan 31, 2016 | Trade Shows
by Chris Hunter | Jan 2, 2016 | Training Programs
For the budget-conscious small business, training isn’t always a priority when it comes to dividing up the company purse. Many financial directors tend to question the cost of team development when considerations like company promotion and retaining clients are also...
by Chris Hunter | Jan 2, 2016 | Training Programs
In today’s business environment, plenty has been said about the importance of keeping team members well educated and equipped with enough of the latest industry work practices, tricks and procedures to bring maximum value to employers. Popular belief says that...
by Chris Hunter | Nov 16, 2015 | Change Management, Family Businesses, Leadership
The family business is an important part of any national economy. In the U.S. something like 90% of all businesses are either owned or controlled by a family. It’s about the same in Canada, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand. And they aren’t all small...
by Chris Hunter | Nov 16, 2015 | Family Businesses, Leadership
The family business is often the basis of a family’s wealth. It generates the funds that feed and clothe two or three generations concurrently, and can also be something that is a source of pride and to which all family members have a deep emotional attachment....
by Chris Hunter | Mar 20, 2016 | Microsoft Excel Tips - Part Three
by Chris Hunter | Nov 9, 2015 | Business Plans
To plan the future of your business you need to be aware of where your industry is going and track the trends that are taking place. Industry trends can change quickly and require intensive and ongoing analysis to determine just what’s happening. For instance, a...
by Chris Hunter | Apr 2, 2016 | Management & Motivation
by Chris Hunter | Dec 26, 2015 | Coaching & Soft Skills, Leadership
It has been demonstrated across a number of industries that team performance can be enhanced through the application of external coaching. The members of a team will collectively “lift their game” and productivity increases are the norm. However, the...
by Chris Hunter | Mar 20, 2016 | Microsoft Excel Tips - Part Three
by Chris Hunter | Dec 26, 2015 | Coaching & Soft Skills, Communications & Performance Reviews
by Chris Hunter | Jun 6, 2017 | Microsoft Excel Tips - Part Three
by Chris Hunter | Jan 24, 2016 | Marketing Plans, Marketing Strategies
Successful marketing is about planning, execution, and always a bit of luck. Sometimes this luck involves finding a “gateway” that leads to an entirely new area of marketing opportunities that hadn’t been previously explored. One of the classic...
by Chris Hunter | Mar 20, 2016 | Microsoft Excel Tips - Part Three
by Chris Hunter | Mar 20, 2016 | Microsoft Excel Tips - Part Three
by Chris Hunter | Mar 20, 2016 | Microsoft Excel Tips - Part Three
by Chris Hunter | Mar 20, 2016 | Microsoft Excel Tips - Part Three
In generating a financial statement that includes quarterly data that is created by summing three months together you will want to use the COUNTBLANK function and not a SUM function. See the screenshot below for an illustration.
by Chris Hunter | Mar 20, 2016 | Microsoft Excel Tips - Part Three
by Chris Hunter | May 26, 2021 | Microsoft Excel Tips - Part Three
Whether your Microsoft Excel workbook has three sheets or 50, knowing what you have is important. Click here to read more.
by Chris Hunter | Jan 26, 2016 | Pricing
B2B marketing is never easy because you’re usually dealing with somebody that has costs very much in mind. However, even more important than getting something at the right price is making a purchase that delivers real business value. Value isn’t just about...
by Chris Hunter | Feb 9, 2016 | Computer Hardware
by Chris Hunter | Jan 23, 2016 | Customer Satisfaction, Customer Service Strategies, Market Research, Marketing, Marketing Strategies
Executives from departments that don’t normally have interaction with customers — IT for example, have learned that getting the customer to tell them what the business should do makes it much easier for the business to justify the costs of doing it. As one...
by Chris Hunter | Dec 27, 2015 | Compensation, Employee Recognition & Rewards
by Chris Hunter | Mar 27, 2016 | Performance Management
Everyone’s heard the expression “What you can measure you can manage”, but just having measurements isn’t the full story. You need to have the right measurements, and then be able to interpret them and use them to develop effective business...
by Chris Hunter | Mar 27, 2016 | Business Plans, Change Management, Ethics, Leadership, Management & Motivation, Values
by Chris Hunter | Feb 2, 2016 | Coaching & Soft Skills, General - Marketing, Selling Skills, Selling Skills, Web Sites & E-Marketing - Part 2
by Chris Hunter | Nov 25, 2015 | Business Plans, Cash Flow Management & Modeling, General - Entrepreneurship, General - Personal Growth & Leadership, Leadership
You’ll recognize the familiar way to tell an optimist from a pessimist. Give each a glass of water filled to the halfway point and ask them to describe it. The optimist says the glass is “half full”, the pessimist says it’s “half...
by Chris Hunter | May 14, 2018 | Job Descriptions
Good article defining the job description purpose and templates. Click the link above.
by Chris Hunter | Mar 20, 2016 | Microsoft Excel Tips - Part Three
by Chris Hunter | Feb 2, 2016 | Web Sites & E-Marketing - Part 2
Everyone in business today has heard of the Internet and World Wide Web and most of us are wondering if we should get on the band wagon and have a website for our business. And, if so, just how do we go about it? This is the first article in our two-part series What...
by Chris Hunter | Feb 2, 2016 | Web Sites & E-Marketing - Part 2
Everyone in business today has heard of the Internet and World Wide Web and most of us are wondering if we should get on the band wagon and have a website for our business. And, if so, just how do we go about it? This is the second article in our two-part series What...
by Chris Hunter | Mar 26, 2016 | Customer Complaints, Customer Service, Customer Service Strategies, General - Operations, Selling Skills
Losing a major client can put a big dent in the cash flow of your small business. It can take a long time to recover that lost revenue stream. You may find a new client, but new clients typically purchase less than clients with whom you have an established...
by Chris Hunter | Jan 1, 2016 | Retention
It can be a costly blow to lose a key team member in a professional services firm. There’s the possibility of their taking some business with them, of course, but also the cost of sourcing a replacement and the expense to the firm of getting the new person up to...
by Chris Hunter | Mar 24, 2016 | Business Development, Change Management
A computer whiz who offers his services to businesses needing I.T. advice says on his website: “When I was employed at IBM I was an employee. While I was unemployed I was a consultant.” His tongue-in-cheek inference is that consultants are between jobs...
by Chris Hunter | Nov 22, 2015 | General - Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property
IP is intellectual property, and a surprising number of small businesses have it but don’t really know what to do with it. More important, many smaller businesses that have IP don’t protect it, and that can mean it’s going to be taken away by a...
by Chris Hunter | Aug 29, 2019 | Coaching & Soft Skills, General - Personal Growth & Leadership, Leadership
You’ve probably heard this meeting advice before: Set an agenda and send it out ahead of time. But if the purpose of your meeting is to tackle a complicated problem, it’s better to have the group decide on the agenda together. Plan to spend 10%–15% of your meeting...
by Chris Hunter | Dec 24, 2015 | Financing, Start-Ups
by Chris Hunter | Nov 11, 2015 | Company Structures
by Chris Hunter | Jan 26, 2016 | Networking
You’re terrible with names. You forget someone’s name within ten seconds of their introduction, and it embarrasses you. In fact, it’s possible you won’t even approach someone whose name you have forgotten. As a result, you will miss out on a...
by Chris Hunter | Nov 30, 2015 | Borrowing Basics
Getting an unsecured business loan is nearly impossible these days unless you are tremendously wealthy, a multi-national organization or don’t really need the money. The one exception would be a government bailout. Thus, collateral does matters. However, banks...
by Chris Hunter | Dec 27, 2015 | Compensation, Employee Recognition & Rewards
by Chris Hunter | Dec 27, 2015 | Compensation, Employee Recognition & Rewards
by Chris Hunter | Jan 17, 2016 | General - Marketing, Marketing Strategies
Marketing methodologies developed back in the 1960s and 1970s are now so far out of date that they would bankrupt any business using them. In those earlier times marketing consisted largely of coming up with a showy, big-budget commercial and buying as much expensive...
by Chris Hunter | Jan 1, 2016 | Retention
by Chris Hunter | Nov 29, 2015 | Bookkeeping & Accounting
A survey found that in the two years ended March, 2004 businesses in Australia and New Zealand lost more than $456 million to fraud. Some 45% of respondents to the survey had experienced at least one fraud during the survey’s two-year period and the average loss...
by Chris Hunter | Jan 30, 2016 | Selling Skills, Selling Skills
by Chris Hunter | Feb 9, 2016 | Computer Hardware
Wireless connectivity (Wi-Fi) is really useful. You can be sitting in a hotel lobby that’s a wireless “hot spot” and use your laptop without having to find a place to plug in a cable or telephone connection. That’s the good part, but from the...
by Chris Hunter | Jan 17, 2016 | General - Marketing, Marketing Strategies, Selling Skills
For most automotive businesses women make up anywhere from 60 percent to 80 percent of their customers. This indicates that a massive shift has taken place within the past ten years. Women have an incredible amount of purchasing power and are directing a growing...
by Chris Hunter | Dec 30, 2015 | General - Human Resources, General - Operations, Legal Issues
Ever since Orwell’s classic novel “1984” was published there’s been a growing sense that Big Brother may indeed be watching us. Walking along a city street, driving on a freeway, or even sitting at our desks there’s an increasing chance that someone could be looking...
by Chris Hunter | Jun 5, 2017 | Microsoft Windows Tips
by Chris Hunter | Dec 26, 2015 | Coaching & Soft Skills, Leadership
by Chris Hunter | Jan 17, 2016 | Direct Mail
How often do you get a piece of “junk” mail? Twice a week? Every day? It’s so common that for many people their unsolicited correspondence even outnumbers the bills they receive. Yet direct mail is still a powerful and valuable advertising medium. Major users include...
by Chris Hunter | Jan 31, 2016 | Web Sites & E-Marketing - Part 1
by Chris Hunter | Jan 23, 2016 | Customer Relationship Management, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Service Strategies, Market Research
Being able to write a good questionnaire is essential if you’re going to become involved in business development or conduct research for your firm or for a client. You might already know the questions you want answered, but getting the right answers in a useful...
by Chris Hunter | Jan 30, 2016 | Selling Skills
There are some people who always seem to know everything. They can answer almost any question on any subject and convince you that their knowledge is superior than yours. Further interrogation will usually prove that their knowledge is less than comprehensive and that...
by Chris Hunter | Jan 23, 2016 | Market Research, Marketing Strategies
by Chris Hunter | Nov 8, 2015 | Image
Business cards are a small but very important marketing element. They are a big part of the first impression you make on someone you meet for the first time, and every time they look at your business card for your contact details they are reminded of that impression...
by Chris Hunter | Jan 9, 2016 | Branding
Business cards are a small but very important marketing element. They are a big part of the first impression you make on someone you meet for the first time, and every time they look at your business card for your contact details they are reminded of that impression...
by Chris Hunter | Nov 8, 2015 | Image
A survey by mailing services company Pitney Bowes revealed that less than a quarter of small firms were actively working with staff to enhance their company image. For example, only 25 percent of the participants said they were focused on improving their employees...
by Chris Hunter | Jan 11, 2016 | Branding
A survey by mailing services company Pitney Bowes revealed that less than a quarter of small firms were actively working with staff to enhance their company image. For example, only 25 percent of the participants said they were focused on improving their employees...
by Chris Hunter | Feb 9, 2016 | Computer Hardware
Every PC in your office has information on its hard drive that could be damaging if it falls into the wrong hands. Confidential client information, taxation returns, bank account details, HR records — the typical computer in an accounting firm is a repository of...
Chris’ combination of academic credentials, career experience and temperament ideally suit his calling as a business development advisor. Clients say he has a mind for business and a heart for service.