Archives for June 2016

Michael Gerber pointed out in his landmark book,The E-Myth, that knowing how to perform the tasks of a business doesn’t always equate to knowing how to perform the management of a business. More than one company falls afoul of this, especially when it comes to financial management. Experts and technicians are never trained on this important tool, nor are many otherwise successful and experienced managers.

If you can’t hire a financial manager, your best bet is to become a knowledgeable one. Here is our list of the five best financial management resources that can be used to develop your skills in this vital area.

Small Business Finance Blogs

• Kabbage’s Small Business Blog features multiple experts and authors and is brought to you by the leading online lender for small business funding. They offer posts on a variety of topics from business loans to financial management, all of which are informative and solidly actionable.
• NFIB Small Business Blog has a financial topics section. Run by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, it is maintained by experienced professionals. It serves its membership by offering a variety of resources from surveys to studies and presentations.
• American Express Open Forum is another multi-topic blog run by an important national brand. You’ll find specific and actionable financial advice among other useful posts about organizing your time wisely, promoting your business with modern technology, and training new hires.
• Zero Hedge offers a unique approach to the personal finance articles shared within the context of financial news. It’s honest, hard-hitting, a little bit snarky…and it addresses developments and events that will impact the financial health of your company.

Small Business Finance Podcasts

• Smart Passive Income might seem niche at first since it’s aimed towards people who are trying to use the internet to develop streams of income, but the topics discussed in each episode can be easily applied to brick-and-mortar or home office businesses.
• Rich Dad Radio Show, produced and developed by business and personal finance guru Rob Kiyosaki continues to build on the financial advice given in the best-selling book by the same name. The podcast delivers extremely detailed advice on the strategic side of business finance management.
• Steve Bragg’s Accounting Best Practices is an accounting podcast for accountants, but it is also highly relevant for those who are looking to immerse themselves in the financial reporting aspect of managing a business.
• The $100 MBA gives us ten minutes of education on a variety of business topics every day. You’ll find focused small business finance topics on the roster, along with industry expert interviews on marketing, management, technology and more.
• Entrepreneur on Fire delivers a double-whammy of finance advice for business owners. He shares updates almost every day that ranges from topic pieces to expert interviews across the business news spectrum. He also speaks transparently about his earnings and how he keeps things organized.

Small Business Finance Videos and Vlogs

• TED Talks Business delivers the same inspiring content that has taken the Internet by storm over the past five years but is specifically centered around business topics. The financial section of TED Talks includes great advice, some for novices and others for more experienced professionals.
• MIT Financial and Managerial Accounting is a series of free business finance classes made available to the public online. Unless you already have a degree in accounting, it is definitely worth spending the time to work through these insightful videos.
• YouTube Finance and Accounting Channel has its fair share of informational gems. When trying to figure out which video to watch, the trick is to look at the total number of views. The most popular (and probably helpful) videos are the ones that have numerous views and are frequently shared.
• EHow Small Business Videos are go-to if you are seeking simple, beginner-level advice. Their videos cover everything from home construction to business finance. Even though most advanced topics are not discussed here, anything you need that is at a more basic level can certainly be found.

Small Business Finance Books

• Small Business Cash Flow addresses the problem we pointed out in the intro to this post: business owners know how to create a product or deliver a service, but don’t always know the details of other aspects related to running a business. This book covers the cash flow and finance side of that issue, in a language and style that a business owner can easily understand.
• Financial Management 101 offers a simplified series of explanations for topics that many small business owners find confusing or intimidating. This book takes the mystery out of financial statements, reports, investing, taxes and other more complicated aspects of financial management.
• Accounting for Small Business Owners offers an interesting overview as well as instructions related to the basics of accounting for small business owners. Whether you are new to business management, or just to the financial reports and requirements, this book is among the best places to start building your base of financial management knowledge.
• Finance Your Business is an anthology written and published by the folks at Entrepreneur Media. It is go-to for insights into the pros, cons, ins, outs and best practices of funding a business for start-up or expansion.
• Small Business for Dummies is, like its series mates, the definitive entry-level guide, but this book is specifically geared towards all things small business. The chapters on business financial management are extremely detailed and the book is filled with mentions of additional resources. The Dummies series also offers a small business finance toolkit.

It has been proven that reading in a topic for one hour a day will make your knowledge base world-class in just seven years. Since your knowledge base of business finance is one of the most important driving forces for your company, don’t you owe yourself the time to do exactly that?

For entrepreneurs, it is essential to have a deeper understanding of the many kinds of financial assistance that they can opt for whenever their business needs it. For instance, there are so-called microloans which an entrepreneur may consider at the time it is difficult for him or her to obtain conventional business loans from a financial institution such as banks. What personal loans are for individuals, microloans are for small businesses.

Indeed, it is worthy of note that microloans set in order to satisfy the need for minimum amounts of financing so to assist business owners in creating jobs in their regions. Take in mind that financial institutions like banks do not really prefer to make loans that are below fifty thousand dollars mainly because the cost to service the credits overshadows the profits. Even though the definition might differ a little hinging on the organization that makes the microloan, pretty nearly, microloans share the following attributes: