Business Tips June 2011

Planning the Fall Season

The month of June is the time to start planning your business for the Fall season.
I always recommend that you split your year into two seasons. The Spring season is January through June and the Fall season is July through December.
This way you can use the most current information and business trends to make your plans.

The first thing to do is plan your sales for the Fall season.
On a spreadsheet put down your monthly sales for the Spring Season.
Put down last years monthly sales and this years monthly sales.
By comparing these sales you will get your sales trend for this year.
Then list your monthly sales for the Fall season last year.
You can then apply your current sales trend percent to your last year Fall sales to get your monthly sales plan for this year based on your most current sales trend.

You need to be optimistic but realistic about your sales plan. If you're trending down then you need to plan lower sales for this Fall. But give yourself some room for optimism. If you want to get back to even sales or an increase you need to have solid plans as to how you are going to achieve this. Increased sales will not happen unless you plan to make it happen.
My Blog posting for April has more information on planning sales.

After planning sales you need to plan what level of inventory you need to carry.
I always suggest using Turnover as a guide to what inventory dollars your sales can support.
Turnover is simply how many times in a year you sell ( or turn) your average beginning of the month stock level at retail.
For example:
Total yearly sales $300,000
Average beginning of the month stock level at retail $100,000
Turnover rate 3
That's a very good turn rate and should be your goal, but you may not be able to achieve that
right away. Accept a lower turn rate( closer to 2) .
You can figure your six month turnover rate by using your six month total sales divided by your average beginning of the month stock level at retail and then doubling that figure to get your turn rate on an annual basis.
This part of the planning process also plans your purchases for the season. This way you'll be prepared when you go to the CHA Show to make purchases based on factual information.

My Blog post for May deals with more information on planning stock.

I also suggest you look at your expenses based on your new sales plan. If this is out of balance then look for ways to reduce your monthly business expenses.

My Consulting Company has affordable programs that can help you with your planning process.
For more information on this please access my website www.sandywoodford.com
A link to my website is at the top of the blog homepage.

Sandy