Business

1. How to be a better consultant and provide the best service to your clients? How to improve the client understanding of their situation?
2. What is your value proposition? How does the value proposition affect pricing? Who is your customer? How to get revenue? How does branding fit in the marketing plan?
3. What are the taxes owners need to consider so they can stay out of trouble?
4. What are deductible business expenses?
5. What is the difference between employees and independent contractors?
6. How does product mix affect management decisions? What are the analysis tools?
7. How is gross margin calculated for different industries? In the professional service industry? Manufacturing industry? Food service industry? Property ownership industry? Retail industry?
8. What is Rule of 10?
9. What is the art and science of the quoting process?
10. Why are financial systems important to a company? What is the different levels of financial department roles?
11. What are cash basis financial statements? What are accrual basis financial statements? Why use accrual basis financial statements?
12. What are the steps in the financial statement process? How timely and accurate do financials need to be? What are the software applications for this process? What are the roles of internal and external people in the process?
13. What is KPI? What is Dashboard? What is the use of KPI and Dashboard in management information?
14. What is the difference between Management and Owner in the small firm? What are the terms for Management & HR?
15. What is an organization chart? How is an organization chart used? Why don’t entitles have organization charts?
16. How is executive compensation designed?
17. What is a management system? What are some of the alternative systems?
18. What is an employee systems? What is the position description? Hiring and recruiting processes? Training and development process? Performance reviews? Promotion and career path processes? What are termination and retirement processes?
19. What do we set compensation in the business model? How do we calculate compensation? How do we compensate sales people? How and when is compensation communicated?
20. How much cash is in the bank? What is liquidity? What are the terms for cash management?
21. What is the cash flow cycle? What are operating cash requirements? How to turn around cash problems? What are the operating steps to enhance cash flow?
22. When do cash funding options come into play? What are the internal and external options?
23. What is technology system? What is inventory management? What is customer management system? What are the CRM system options? What is risk management?
24. What is insurance? What is self-insurance? When is insurance a moral obligation?
25. What is Market Position? Who is the competition? How to analyze the competition? What to do with the Internet as competition? What is the size of the market? What to do with this information?
26. How to profile your customer? What tools and questions are used in evaluating customer factors? How does target vs. reality affect market position?
27. How do you identify your weakness?
28. What is the difference between a strategic plan and a business plan?
29. What are the steps for the 3 year plan? How to use of charts for the 3-year plan?
30. What is the propensity for risk avoidance?
31. How does modeling for strategy connect with Firm modeling approaches?
32. What is the right exit strategy?
33. What is the annual business cycle? What is special about Q4? What are the steps in Year-End Planning?
34. What are the key factors for yearend expense planning? What is the IRS planning? What is the Financing and Transaction planning? What are the key factors for yearend bonuses planning? What are the key factors for holiday planning?
35. What is budgeting? What is the format for a budget? What is done with the budget? What are the terms for budgeting?
36. What is the current revenue profile? What are the issues for budgeting revenue?
37. What are KPI determined in the budget process?
38. What is capital structure? How does capital structure relate to risk and value creation?

Nonprofit

1. What is a fundraising in nonprofit? What is the fundraising calendar?
2. What is the interplay of tax and legal for nonprofits? What are the taxes that nonprofits can be subjected to?
3. Why are nonprofits owned by a state?
4. What are the variety of legal issues for nonprofits?
5. Can a nonprofit own a business? Can the business subsidiary profits flow profits flow to the nonprofit parent?
6. What does the Grant Wheel cycle look like?
7. How does an organization find foundations interested in their mission?
8. What is a letter of intent? What is letter of intent follow-up? What does letter of intent look like on the Grant Wheel?
9. What is full proposal? What is the follow-up for the full proposal? What does the full proposal look like on the Grant Wheel?
10. Grant received or rejected – now what? What should we do for grant reporting?
11. Why are financial systems important to a nonprofit?
12. What is the need for reporting to the board on the financial statements?
13. What are the needs of the fundraising unit? The program unit? The executive director? The Board?
14. What are the issues in financial record keeping? Issues in financial reporting? In use of financial information?
15. How do bylaws control the composition and activity of the Board?
16. What are the two primary ways that Board function?
17. What is the required to maintain a healthy functioning Board?
18. What are the different types of Committees? How are committees formed? How do Committees interact with the board?
19. What are the titles of Nonprofit Leaders? What are the personality types of Nonprofit Leaders? What are the skill sets of Nonprofit Leaders? What is the salary range of Nonprofit Leaders?
20. What is the leader’s role in Mission? In Financial Management? In Human Resources? In Strategy? In Fundraising?
21. What is the leader’s relationship to the Board overall? To the Board Chair? To the Committees?
22. What are the ramifications of a weak board and a strong executive? The ramifications of a weak executives and a strong board?
23. What is Founder’s Syndrome? How do you mitigate the effects of Founder’s Syndrome? Can Founder’s Syndrome cured? How do you prepare for life without the Founder?
24. What is the donor lifespan, and how do major donors fit in? How does an organization find major donors? What are the best practices for cultivating major donors?
25. What role do major donors play in different types of nonprofit organizations?
26. How can an organization engage donors, and what should the expectations be form both the standpoint of the nonprofit and the donor?
27. How can an organization identify planned giving prospects? How does a nonprofit organization begin a planned giving program?
28. What motivates Individual Donors? How are Individual Donors Cultivated?
29. What makes the database choice so important? What is the purpose of a Donor Database? What are the uses of a Donor Database? How should an organization choose a Donor Database? Why cover Mission and Strategy together? What are nonprofit and business value propositions similar and different? How can we help the client see the interplay between value and funding?
30. What is Mission Creep? What is mission Drift? What is an Environmental Scan? What is Sunsetting?
31. What is the importance of Strategic Planning to the nonprofit industry? What are the elements of an effective Strategic Plan?
32. What is program evaluation, and why is it important?
33. How can an organization ensure it is using the correct measures?
34. Who are the organization’s stakeholders, and what data do they want to see?
35. How can evaluation data be used to track and adjust for changes in client demographics or societal trends?
36. Why should an organization review industry data or compare itself to other organizations performing similar work?
37. What are the standard employment laws and regulations to which a nonprofit must comply?
38. How should volunteers be recruited, oriented and trained? Is it more important to hire a person with a passion for the mission or a person with the right skills?
39. How are interns in a nonprofit different from interns in a corporation, and how should they be trained?