Gift Basket Business Blog

Open Your Books to Employees

August 28th, 2007 at 07:12pm Lorie Obernauer

Specialty Food Magazine, July 2007, includes an article by Ari Weinzweig entitled “Ten Rules for Great Finance”. The author believes that a successful business must utilize what he calls “open-book finance”. Employees need to understand that everything they do affects the bottom line. And to come to this understanding, they need to know how it all works.

I haven’t been able to find an on-line link to the article so you’ll need to get your hands on a copy of the July magazine. Read the full article to learn Weinzweig’s ten rules of open-book finance. Employees learn the basics of finance: “Sales – Expenses = Profit”. They go on to learn where the profit goes. Most importantly, they learn how small efforts on their part can add immeasurably to the bottom line.

In the article, the author tells a story about how an employee saved the company $2700 per year by noticing that sugar cubes, served with coffee in their shop, were often thrown out (they had to be discarded cause they were unwrapped). By switching to sugar packets (in paper), these could be left for others if the customer didn’t use sugar.

In addition to these types of savings, employees can also add to the bottom by using some good sales techniques. At Apex Gift Foods, we also sell floral supplies in addition to gourmet food components. I encourage sales staff to ask each customer with whom they speak whether they need a roll of tape or some other small, basic supply used every day when assembling gift baskets. These small items usually cost a dollar or two. Now do the math: if each salesperson sells an extra roll of tape at $1.00 to each customer, and he speaks to 20 customers a day, this will be $20 in extra sales. Now, multiply that by the number of sales people at Apex (five) and that equals $100 per day in extra sales. Now multiply that by the number of days in the year…well, you get the point!

Knowing how their efforts affect the bottom line is just as important as knowing how to create a gorgeous gift basket. Help your employees learn how your business works. Make them a partner in your success!

Entry Filed under: Business Tips