Reinvigorating your company’s sales efforts heading into the new year
Business owners, with the year just about over, you and your leadership team presumably have a pretty good idea of where you want your company to go in 2024. The question is: Can you get there?
When it comes to success, the driving force behind most businesses is sales. If products or services aren’t moving off the shelves, literally or figuratively, you’ll likely fall short of your financial objectives. Here are some big-picture ways to reinvigorate your company’s sales efforts heading into the new year.
Review territories and customers
A good way to start is by reassessing your sales territories. The pandemic suddenly and severely curtailed business travel — so much so that some experts believe it will never return to pre-pandemic levels.
If your company has changed its approach to and budget for business travel in recent years, review the geographic routes that your sales staff used to physically traverse. You may see efficiency gains by creating a strategic sales territory plan that’s less focused on travel and more aimed at aligning salespeople with regions or markets that contain their most winnable prospects.
Also, as always, nurture your top-tier customers. If purchases from them have slowed recently, find out why and prioritize reversing this trend. For your sales staff, this may mean shifting focus from winning new business to tending to these important accounts. See whether you can craft a customized plan aimed at meeting a legacy customer’s long-term needs. It might include discounts, premiums and/or extended warranties.
Explore technological upgrades
Too much paperwork used to be a common gripe among salespeople. More often than not, “paperwork” is a figurative term these days, as most businesses have implemented technology to track leads, document sales efforts and record closings. Nevertheless, outdated or overly complicated software can slow sales momentum.
You might conduct a survey to gather feedback on whether your current customer relationship management or sales management software is helping or hindering the efforts of your sales team. Based on the results, you can then make a sensible decision about whether to upgrade or change your systems.
Incentivize staff
One thing about sales that will likely never change is the need to occasionally or regularly incentivize salespeople to go above and beyond. After all, what allows a business to grow is not only retaining top customers, but also creating organic sales growth from new products or services.
Consider creating a sales challenge that will motivate staff to achieve the specific financial results you’re looking for. One facet of such a challenge may be to replace across-the-board commission rates with higher commissions on new products or “tough sells.”
Investigate other ways to incentivize your team as well. Examples include boosted commissions or bonuses based on:
- Actual customer payments rather than billable orders,
- Increased sales to current customers,
- Number of prospects converted, or
- Number of customers who agree to prepay.
Ultimately, be sure to align commissions or other sales compensation methods with your company’s carefully projected and clearly communicated financial objectives.
Ring in the new year
Here’s hoping your business rings in the new year with sales on an upward trajectory and a sales staff fully equipped and motivated to be as productive as possible. We can help you generate or assess realistic sales projections and identify optimal, obtainable financial objectives.
Don’t overlook taxes when contemplating a move to another state
When you retire, you may think about moving to another state — perhaps because the weather is more temperate or because you want to be closer to family members. Don’t forget to factor state and local taxes into the equation. Establishing residency for state tax purposes may be more complex than you think.
Pinpoint all applicable taxes
It may seem like a smart idea to simply move to a state with no personal income tax. But, to make a wise and informed decision, you must consider all taxes that can potentially apply to a state resident. In addition to income taxes, these may include property taxes, sales taxes and estate taxes.
If the state you’re considering has an income tax, look at the types of income it taxes. For example, some states don’t tax wages but do tax interest and dividends. And some states offer tax breaks for pension payments, retirement plan distributions and Social Security payments.
Check to see if there’s a state estate tax
The current federal estate tax doesn’t apply to many people. In 2023, the federal estate tax exemption is $12.92 million (increasing to $13.61 million in 2024). But some states levy estate tax with a much lower exemption, and some states may also have an inheritance tax in addition to (or in lieu of) an estate tax.
Make sure to establish domicile
If you make a permanent move to a new state and want to make sure you’re not taxed in the state you came from, it’s important to establish legal domicile in the new location. The definition of legal domicile varies from state to state. In general, domicile is your fixed and permanent home location and the place where you plan to return, even after periods of residing elsewhere.
When it comes to domicile, each state has its own rules. You don’t want to wind up in a worst-case scenario: Two states could claim you owe state income taxes if you establish domicile in the new state but don’t successfully terminate domicile in the old one. Additionally, if you die without clearly establishing domicile in just one state, both the old and new states may claim that your estate owes income taxes and any state estate taxes.
The more time that passes after you change states and the more steps you take to establish domicile in the new state, the harder it will be for your old state to claim that you’re still domiciled there for tax purposes. Five ways to help establish domicile in a new state are to:
- Change your mailing address at the post office,
- Change your address on passports, insurance policies, will or living trust documents, and other important documents,
- Buy or lease a home in the new state and sell your home in the old state (or rent it out at market rates to an unrelated party),
- Open and use bank accounts in the new state and close accounts in the old one, and
- Register to vote, get a driver’s license and register your vehicle in the new state.
If you’re required to file an income tax return in the new state, file a resident return. And file a nonresident return or no return (whichever is appropriate) in the old state. We can help you make these decisions and file these returns.
Make an informed choice
Before calling the moving truck to relocate in retirement, do some research and contact us. We can help you avoid unexpected tax surprises.
3 types of internal benchmarking reports for businesses
As each year winds to a close, owners of established businesses can count on having plenty of at least one thing: information. That is, they have another full calendar year of financial results to peruse, parse and ponder over.
Indeed, you shouldn’t let this valuable data go to waste. Within your company’s financial statements lies a treasure trove of insights that can help you spot trends, both positive and negative.
That’s where benchmarking comes in. It can take several forms, but let’s focus on three types of internal benchmarking reports that can be particularly useful.
1. Horizontal analysis
A relatively easy starting point is to put two of your company’s financial statements side by side and compare them. In accounting, a comparison of two or more years of financial data is known as horizontal analysis. Differences between the years are typically shown in dollar amounts or percentages.
Naturally, what you’re hoping to find is growth. For instance, if accounts receivable increased from $1 million in 2022 to $1.2 million in 2023, that’s a difference of $200,000 or 20%. Horizontal analysis helps identify such trends. It’s then up to you and your leadership team to explain what caused them and, in the case of this example, keep that trendline moving in a positive direction.
You can also use horizontal analysis to sharpen your understanding of your business’s profitability. While public companies usually focus on earnings per share, private companies generally want to look at profit margin and gross margin. Rather than analyze only the top and bottom of the income statement (revenue and profits), you may want to drill down and compare individual line items such as the cost of materials, rent, utilities and payroll.
2. Vertical analysis
Vertical analysis works its magic within one year’s financial statements. Essentially, each line item in that set of financial statements is converted to a percentage of another item — often revenue or total assets. Accountants typically refer to financial statements that have been subject to vertical analysis as “common-size” financial statements.
For example, a common-size income statement that shows each line item as a percentage of revenue would explain how each dollar of revenue is distributed between expenses and profits. Alternatively, from a profitability standpoint, vertical analysis could show the various expense line items in the income statement as a percentage of sales. This would show whether and how these line items are contributing to your profit margin.
3. Ratio analysis
Ratios also depict relationships between various items on a company’s financial statements. For instance, profit margin equals net income divided by revenue. Ratios are typically used to benchmark a business against its competitors or industry averages. But you can use ratios internally as well.
Within a single set of financial statements, for example, you might calculate total asset turnover (revenue divided by total assets). This ratio estimates how many dollars in revenue the business generated for every dollar it invested in assets. Generally, the more dollars earned, the better. You can also, of course, compare ratios from one year to the next or over longer periods.
Know your options
Many companies use a combination of horizontal, vertical and ratio analyses over time to highlight positive trends and catch operating inefficiencies. What’s important is knowing your benchmarking options and maximizing the value that your financial statements can provide. For help choosing and executing the optimal benchmarking methods for your company, contact us.
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