Looking at Business Profits and Losses

By: Adam J. Heist

You will be focusing on what your prospect worries about every single day. Frame your discussions around your understanding of these, and you become a “trusted advisor” rather than just a sales person. You can learn to analyze the data that you get just by reading through the company’s website. There you can get a really thorough financial breakdown, more thorough than in the 10-K report filed with the SEC.

Then when you meet with an executive, you can get the conversation to revolve around his specific challenges. “It looks like your penetration strategy has yielded solid results. How are you dealing with the challenges of your top line increasing 36 percent year over, while gross margins tighten?, instead of dealing with generalities. You force your mind to study a group of five or so metrics. In this case, you have the balance sheet. Break it down into five categories: the fixed assets, the net working capital, the long term debt, changes in goodwill and intangible assets and leverage. You can define leverage as the total assets divided by the total equity. The trend in top line growth is one thing they obviously want to see this trending up.

Most all CEO’s watch the sales numbers closely. The fact of the matter is many Wall Street analysts look for growth on the “top line” as much as they do on the bottom line. The trend in gross profit margin is a way to quickly see how the company is performing relative to its internal productivity and the market is to look at the gross profit dollars as a percentage of revenue, or gross margin. . Ideally, this trend should at least match the percentage increase in top line growth. You can also look at the operating profit margin to get a quick view of how the company is performing.

While the gross margin number tells us market conditions and the direct labor productivity of the company, the operating margin tells us the general overhead productivity of the company. Increasing interest expense puts an additional earnings debt on the company. Companies that incur debt to acquire businesses or invest in businesses need to make sure that these investments return more than the company’s cost of capital. Net margin needs to be analyzed within the confines of the entire business. If operating margins stay the same year over year, but net profit margin increase, something happened in between that needs to be analyzed.

Article Source: www.superfeature.com

Protect Yourself Against Identity Theft

By: Jon Arnold

It seems like you can hardly watch the TV news or read the daily newspaper anymore without seeing a report of identity theft or seeing the topic of identity theft coming up as a very hot topic. Although identity theft is not a well-known type of crime, it is one of the fastest growing and insidious crimes in the world today.

Let’s look at a typical case of what happens with identity theft. Very simply, someone opens an account, like a Visa or MasterCard, or perhaps at a major department store, using YOUR name, YOUR social security number, YOUR date of birth. This is all information that supposedly, YOU would be the only one that would know, so it appears legitimate. The address is frequently not your address, but with the frequency that people move these days, a different address seldom throws up a red flag. Since you have good credit, the new account is approved, and the new credit card is mailed to “you” at the address provided on the application.

Now what happens? The thief may repeat the process and open 2-3 or even a dozen or more new accounts. Having the cards in hand, the thief goes out and charges those cards to the hilt, purchasing things like a plasma TV, a high-end computer system, top of the line digital camera, even a late model used car, and much more.

A couple of months down the road, you get a call from the collections department with American Express, Citibank Visa, your local department store, and sometimes even ALL of these. They want to know if there is a problem with your new account, since you have not made any payments to date. Huh? In the vast majority of cases, this is your first indication that you have been a victim of identity theft.

It is not a pretty picture. The lender is going to assume that you are just trying to fabricate a story so you can enjoy all the new toys you bought without having to pay for them. And most of those creditors will get fairly hostile with you, and in the meantime, they are more than happy to start reporting your huge delinquency to the credit bureaus so that your previously sterling credit rating starts going to the dogs in a hurry.

The good news is that the error can be resolved … eventually. But it is going to take months and even years to get your credit rating restored to where it was before, as well as a significant amount of your time and possibly even legal fees. You see, those lenders who approved “your” new account don’t want to take responsibility for merchandise that was purchased and will probably never be found again. The ONLY thing they have to allow them to track it down is your social security number and date of birth, so since that is the only thing they have, they hound you like a pit bull. Unfortunately, they also take the attitude of you being guilty until being presented with irrefutable proof that you are innocent and a victim of identity theft.

Do not take a lax attitude about identity theft because it can happen to you, and I can guarantee that it is significantly less fun than a root canal. There are many steps you can take that will help guard you against identity theft, and you are highly encouraged to take those steps as soon as possible.

Article Source: www.superfeature.com