Don't Compromise Your Standards
Those of you who know me are aware of my passion for wine… making and drinking it.
I truly enjoy a powerful, deep cabernet sauvignon aged wine. So much so that I have been driven to create my own special recipe.

Well, I just picked up my grapes, and got started in the process of turning grapes to wine. 
I realize how important it is to have benchmarks and a goal in creating a great wine.  Of course, it's even more important to have benchmarks and a goal in creating your own great business.

I realized that before I decide to spend countless hours and a least a year of my precious time, I want to get a very good idea if all my time and efforts will be worth it.  So when I go to the market to purchase my grapes, I take a little tool with me. This tool is called a refractometer.

What I do is squeeze a few grapes on the instrument and get a reading in Brix which tells me the sugar content of the grapes, and the potential alcohol content. I’m looking for a number between 22-26 Brix.  Once I find the grapes that match my benchmark, I know I’ll have a very good chance at producing a powerful, deep Cabernet Sauvignon wine.  The complete process takes 1 to 2 years including aging in oak barrels.

Now how this relates to your business is very simple. When we run the budget numbers for a client using Numbers Cruncher, we come up with a number to implement into their flat rate books.  Based on the budget, they can have a very good idea if their profits are going to be worth their tireless labor and the risk of running a service business for the entire year.

So, just as I can determine if my wine making efforts will be a waste of time or a potential fantastic reserve wine, you can do the same with your business. By using Numbers Cruncher as your "Refractometer," you can set your benchmarks and simply predetermine your potential profit dollars using your allocated overhead dollars.  You can determine if you're going to have a profitable year or a stressful break-even year.  Don’t compromise your standards from the start and settle for less than business success.

I would never start making wine if my benchmark measurement from the start was below 20 Brix.  Game over.  It's simply not worth my precious time and effort.  If the reward is not there, I would rather be Kite Surfing or writing this newsletter article than wasting time knowing that my wine is going to turn out to be average at best.

If you want to build a better than an average company, don’t compromise you standards at the start. Do it right, and profitable results will follow. 

I've got to get back to my wine….

Measure Monthly, Adjust Quarterly
 & Achieve Annual Profit Goals

Quick Software Tip
After spending a few days working on our support lines, there is one thing that I can say to all NSPG software users.  Back Up Your Data! Before you have a hard drive crash, a network shutdown, or a lightning strike, please back it up. Before you make major changes to your data like adding 20 techs, updating prices, or importing parts, backup your data.

Over the last 5 years, hard drives have become faster, larger, cheaper, and much less reliable.  Any drive outside it warranty period is suspect.  You can always reinstall your NSPG applications from your safely stored disks, but your data can be lost in an instant.

Both Numbers Cruncher and National Standard Price Guide software have backup available on the File menu.  If you're on a network, you can backup to another computer on the network.  If you're stand alone, create a backup and copy it onto a CD or thumb drive. 

Another excellent option for storing your backup files is to email them to yourself at a GMail account.  A free email account at Google gives you over a gigabyte of storage for individual attachments under 10 MB.  It's like having a free secure off site file storage facility.

Since the backup process uses zip compression, the files should be a manageable size.  Restoring the files is just a couple of mouse clicks away on the File menu.