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To say that Covid-19 has thrown businesses for a loop would be an understatement. Yelp recently reported that, of the more than 160,000 U.S. companies that have closed since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, 60% are now shut down for good. With businesses across the country struggling to keep their doors open, scaling your company in this economy might seem like a pipe dream. Not necessarily, says Charles Gaudet, CEO of growth consultancy Predictable Profits: “While we are in a challenging environment, you will find companies in every industry having their best year yet. Those succeeding are adapting, looking for the opportunity and using data to make fact-based decisions.”  If you’d like to join the ranks of companies that aren’t letting Covid-19—or future crises—stand in their way, take these three steps to scale your business now:  1. Identify where your growth will come from.  In a strong economy and with a strong product, sales practically make themselves. These...

By Jennifer Barnes, the CEO of Optima Office, Inc, which provides accounting and HR services, from CFOs to bookkeepers, on a part-time basis.  In the first quarter of this year, a U.S. Chamber of Commerce study found 80% of small business owners felt comfortable with their cash flow, but by April, that number had dropped to only 59%. On average, businesses have 27 days of cash flow. Because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, many companies shut their doors. For a business, running out of cash while trying to pivot through this volatile and highly competitive market can be devastating. Here are seven tips for improving your business’s cash flow during this difficult time:  1. Leverage automation within your current systems.  If using an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, make sure your accounting team is trained on all its automation features so they can spend less time on manual data entry. This frees them up to focus on more value-add tasks that help grow your...