Jim Garland's Blog

Books are a great gift for graduation,  Here are a few I recommend.

The Practical Guide to Exceptional Living- of course, I wrote it!  This book is an easy read and teaches goal setting, financial responsibility and success principles.  Available at Amazon

How to Win friends and Influence People – by Dale Carnegie, this classic is in the library of every successful person I know.

The Richest Man in Babylon – by George Clason, written in the early nineteen hundreds this fable is a fun read and teaches many lessons in financial responsibility.

Buy a book for a kid today and help them succeed.

As an entrepreneur and small business owner one of the things I monitor several times per month is how my companies are spending their money.  When doing this, we look at items and try to determine if the money being spent is an expense or an investment.  In my case an expense is money that must be spent in order to keep the business going but does not increase revenue or market share, insurance would be a good example.  An investment would be money that is spent to increase market share and profit or increase productivity.  This could be marketing, advertising, or technology that makes my team more efficient.

When times get tough too many companies immediately start to look at every dollar spent as an expense and in turn cut budgets and trim  money from the very programs that help them grow.    Looking at everything as an expense can be short sighted and hurt your revenue and growth for years to come.

Read the article below and get a better feel for what I am talking about.

http://www.smsmallbiz.com/bestpractices/When_Expenses_Are_Really_Investments.html