I sometimes refer to money and all things financial as the Cinderella of business. I say this mainly because of my own experience and background. Despite working in Financial Services for a good part of my early business career, I see this as one of my weakest areas, and therefore it is the area that I feel I need to put the most effort into.
Unless this is your technical skill, you too will probably identify this as a weakness, or at least one of the weaker areas. We all tend to focus on our specific technical skills and work hard at that, while paying lip service to the weaker areas.
In this section of the book, we look at some of the things you will need to focus on. In the more detailed development program, we look at all aspects of financial controls and planning from the perspective of a non-financial person.
By the end of this section, you will have a much better understanding of basic financial subjects for small businesses and some of the tools you can use to help you to gauge the health of your business, predict performance, and problem solve.
You will be able to do all the essential calculations, such as the burn rates and some of the important ratios to guide your decision making. In essence, by the end of this, you will be able to understand the language of money and talk about it with confidence, at the very least from the perspective of your own business.