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If you feel like all your money is falling into a black hole just to pay bills, and you keep asking yourself, 'Where did all the money go?' here is a principle of managing money you need to know.

Earnings must be greater than expenditures!

How can you accomplish that? With a money management tactic called INCOME PLANNING. Here are 5 steps that you can control to make more money in your company.

IDENTIFY WHAT YOUR CUSTOMERS WANT - First, figure out what products or services your clients want you to make available and then offer that to them. A simple method to figure out what they want is to study receipts from your past sales, and figure out what service or product is selling the best. Question your customers about 1) why they bought the service or product, and 2) what benefit they expected to get from the purchase Now use their response in your advertising campaign to promote that service or product.

PROMOTE TO YOUR MARKET - Promoting something in a way that will be responded to by your customers is an art. Advertising does not necessarily mean offering a reduced price. It's much more critical to find out the reason a customer needs or wants your service or product, and what they will base their buying decision on. Price may not be as important as fast delivery and dependable service.

Find inexpensive, but effective ways to promote. Collect business cards from potential customers, and send them a personal letter to let them know how your products and services would be of benefit to them. This is one of the most personal, least expensive promotional activities you can do. A series of postcards mailed every 30 days to current and potential customers can also be very effective.

Another good method to get new customers is to ask your satisfied customers for referrals. You can make it enjoyable for your clients to refer new business by coming up with a referral game they can participate in, where they get something in return for a certain number of referrals who buy. Allow your clients help your business out. They really do want you to do well in your business.

SELL AND DELIVER - Selling is less difficult when you are genuinely interested in your clients and want to help them. ASK them what they want. Then it becomes easier to sell them your services or products. For example, a young single person who wants a 2-door convertible sports car is going to walk off in disgust if the salesman insists on showing them 4-door sedans, even if it's the deal of the century.

After you've made the sale, fast, courteous, professional delivery is necessary to ensure your customer's satisfaction. If you are in a service business, this is doubly important. Taking care to deliver exactly what you promised, when you promised it. can mean repeat purchases and referrals of new customers.

DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY - For each dollar you decide to spend in your company, figure out how that expenditure is going to bring $5 or more worth of income back into your company. Set aside a percentage of the income every week to fund an advertising budget and then work out the most effective ways to reach your customers within the budget. It is extremely disheartening when the income you worked hard to earn gets wasted on purchases that fail to give you a profitable return on your investment.

REPEAT SUCCESSFUL PROMOTIONAL ACTIONS - Take a look back in the past to when your sales were highest. Work out what successful promotions you were doing at the time that may have dropped out and put those actions back in.

There is a revolutionary new money management software tool available to help you focus your creative thinking power, time and energy on planning how to get the income up. That gets the CASH FLOWing in the right direction. It helps you manage your money so you can put your attention back on servicing your customers and you'll find you are enjoying your business more.

Sandra Simmons, President of Money Management Solutions, has years of experience helping business owners manage their income to reach their financial goals. To find out about the Money Management Software she created, watch the FREE 5-minute demo video on her website at www.moneymgmtsolutions.com