SRCTec.ca – Sumas Regional Consortium for High Tech
The Sumas Regional Consortium for High Tech, (SRCTec), was founded in 2006 and is supported by key Regional strategic partnerships, including Chilliwack Economic Partners (CEPCO), City of Abbotsford and Community Futures for South Fraser.
The role of SRCTec is to actively attract technology companies to the Fraser Valley Region, which includes; the City of Abbotsford, City of Chilliwack and City of Mission, located just east of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. SRCTec has exclusive responsibilities for economic and educational development specific to the high tech sector.
SRCTec will focus on attracting investment to the Region from the high tech sector including information technology, information services and telecommunications / wireless technology based firms.
SRCTec provides a single point of contact for the high tech industry, and a doorway to the comprehensive information and resources in the Region. High technology organizations will find that SRCTec understands their business, and that the Region has a range of advantages. This coupled with development factors will assist in establishing operational and research facilities.
SRCTec is a not-for-profit organization governed by an operating Board of Directors and supported by sponsors, the community, and our high calibre Advisory Board.
My disclaimer, I used the text from the SRCTec site, also, I’m on the Board of Directors and can’t promote this initiative enough 🙂
Your Break Even Point
I’m amazed how many business owners don’t know what the break even point is in there business. They can’t figure out why they are going backwards financially.
I have found over the years that most business owners spend most of there time in crisis management, which means they are not doing what’s truly important. They go to bed at night stressed out wondering how they are going to pay the light bill or cover payroll, why, because they allow crisis to control what, when and where they spend there precious time. To compound the issue, they don’t have a good grasp of which indicators they should be watching on a day-to-day basis. These indicators are different for each business but you will find some common denominators which apply to almost every business.
One of the big indicators is the break even point, it’s one of the numbers that can eat your lunch and kiss your girlfriend and have you wondering what the hell just happened. Before you know it you’re putting locks on the doors and you are out of business. How do you figure out what your break even point is, I’ll try to keep it simple.
The Equation:
To figure out your breakeven point, take your fixed costs, divided by your price, minus your variable costs. As an equation it looks like this:
Breakeven Point = Fixed Costs/(Unit Selling Price – Variable Costs)
This calculation will let you know how many units of a product you’ll need to sell to break even. Once you’ve reached that point, you’ve recovered all costs associated with producing your product (both variable and fixed).
Above the breakeven point, every additional unit sold increases profit by the amount of the unit contribution margin, which is defined as the amount each unit contributes to covering fixed costs and increasing profits. As an equation:
Unit Contribution Margin = Sales Price – Variable Costs
You could put this information into a spreadsheet to easily make adjustments as costs change over time, as well as play with different price options and easily calculate the resulting breakeven point. You could use a program such as Excel’s Goal Seek, if you wanted to give yourself a goal of a certain profit, say $1 million, and then work backwards to see how many units you would need to sell to hit that number.
This is one of those times where ignorance is not a defense, you probably should have covered this item in your business plan…what you say, I was supposed to do a business plan too! Sorry I couldn’t help myself.
Knowing this information will help you see a bigger picture so you can spend your time on important issues rather than every crisis that arises.
Now that you know your Break Even Point, what if I told you how to determine exactly how many additional customers it would take to realize a growth objective of $100,000 with your marketing dollars. Have you heard of The Magic Formula? Until next time.
Social Media ROI
The topic of ROI is not a new one but it remains to be a stumbling block for most in the Social Media Marketing field. The problem isn’t that an ROI can’t be derived, the challenge is, most are using old ways & thinking to get to that ROI place in an environment that requires you to think differently. Using old practices does not help you get there because the rules have shifted yet once again.
I got into it with a few people on Twitter over the weekend, @CreativeWisdom @kriscolvin, @mackcollier, @thebrandbuilder and @virtualcfo. We bantered back and forth sharing our views, recognizing we could get there with similar but slightly different metrics. My conversation started with Kris & Mack, we actually started with the Quantity vs Quality of Twitter Followers topic and then we moved onto the ROI question. Then Olivier jumped in along with Leah & Scot. There is a distinct difference between ROI & Impact according to Olivier Blanchard (@thebrandbuilder), his definition is interesting and reasonable I think. He states, eyeballs are not ROI, Impact is not ROI, ROI can’t be calculated with an equation. In one of Olivier’s video’s I was able to relate to him because of my 15 years in Radio & Television, he uses F.R.Y. (Frequency, Reach, Yield) as a way to get to an ROI.
Scot Justice made this statement, “You can capture cost of Social Media by implementing a procedure where every prospect is asked about a blog then Calculate SM$ per impression then ROI”. That is an old school way of tracking and has some merit, we used a similar system in Radio to track campaigns, I would like to hear Kris & Olivier’s perspective on his theory. Talk about a hot topic with some very talented and passionate people, this would make a great panel on Owen Greaves LIVE! (I’m working on it).
I do recommend you visit each one’s website or Blog and see what they are doing and how they are doing it, contact them and ask the questions, I’ve listed them for you:
2.) Kris Colvin
3.) Scot Justice
4.) Mack Collier
5.) Leah Dossey
No they all aren’t Marketers in the traditional form but they do need to understand how obtain a form of ROI. There are many that claim Social Media Expert Status, many think they have a clear understanding of what an ROI is, in my opinion they aren’t and they don’t get ROI.
I’m certain this topic will never really go away because many will have an opinion, many will claim they have the secret formula, the list that do is very, very short. I love this kind of dialogue so I’ll keep bringing it.
Social Media A Business – NOT a Party!
Think about why you’re failing doing business on the Internet, in the Social Media Networks. If you’re posting and tweeting everyday and nothing is happening, you need to stop and ask the question, are you telling your story? It may be that your attitude towards what you’re doing is not right. This is business not a party! If you don’t believe in what you are doing then you need to find out what you do care about, FAST! Because your BRAND matters. I can’t share this any better than Gary Vaynerchuck, he is very passionate about telling your story, Tell your story, tell it everyday and you will have a business. Here is a clip that should help you get on track.
Your Passion Is In Front Of You – You're Just Not Paying Attention
There are 30,600,000 (million) references on Google for ” How To Find Your Passion”. Hard to believe there are that many experts on the topic, are you one of them…I’m not. I was thinking about this while taking a shower this morning, I know…I won’t go there. Gary Vaynerchuck said in his address at the BIG Omaha Conference, that he hated the question of, ” How do I find my passion?” the most because he didn’t have a simple answer. Maybe what I’m about to share will help you Gary, it appears to have helped me figure out my passion I’m just getting out of the starting gate. If you think this article is on track please send it to Gary Vaynerchuck and let him know I have found the motherload. 🙂
I had to stop and think for a moment, if we are creatures of habit and we tend to gravitate to things we love like events, books, movies and people, why is it so hard to figure out? I’ll take me for example to help you look at your own desire to find your passion. If you were to look in my home you would get an idea of who I am and what my family likes to do. Since we are talking about me I’ll leave the rest of my family out of it. Let’s start in my office, lets look around a bit, hmmm….lots of tech books, Business Plan Books, IT Strategic Planning, tons of sports (stats) books, Home Business, training books from my Radio & Television days and boxes of all the software I have purchased over the years.
Let’s go down to my rec room, there you will find a set of drums, two guitars…yep I’m a musician (drummer, singer) and so are my two boy’s including there Mom. In our Family room we have very little, it’s the hall of shame, all our wedding pictures and random family pics line the walls, also, the TV, WII, PS2 and the like are in there plus a small book shelf of Christian reading material.
Now you’re probably getting the picture of what I (we) are about, if I was to just use that inventory as a snap shot of what I gravitate to when I’m downtown shopping I would suggest to you I have a passion for Family, Music, Christianity, Technology and Business. As you can see there are a few things I could consider my passion, but the one that gets me more than anything is Technology & Business, it’s the first thing I look for when I’m at a magazine rack or just thinking about business & marketing, how should I position my business (passion). If you were to spend any amount of time with me you would learn that I love people, I love to help others be better than they are. If you could just see how you could be, what you were designed and meant to be, know your role in this EPIC you were born in to, your passion would become obvious.
It’s a simple process I think, but if you look closely at where you spend your time & money, what you like shows up early. Take inventory of what you tend to buy most often, what you spend your time on when relaxing because it interests you, you will most likely find that is the very thing passionate about! Try it on for size and see if you could write about it, talk about it for hours on end on video or just tell it’s story…desire can not be planted in you, you have to find it within yourself and that is the thing Gary says you can monetize. Your passion is in front of you, your just not paying attention.
Please pass this along if you feel it’s of value and leave your comments. Send it to Gary Vaynerchuck to, (I don’t know his e-mail address) I would love help him with his dilemma of answering this question. I’m either on to something here or I’m just plain wrong, you decide.
Many Blessings, Owen