Thursday, August 18, 2011

Yesterday, we started with some hopefully helpful tips to get you through budget season.
Today, we focus on expenses.

Set aside three hours where you won’t be interrupted with your business manager. Go through every single line item and ask lots of questions.

Classify each line item three ways for 2012 budget.
Increase (how much)
Static (continuing at same level)
Decrease (possible deduction or cut)
Estimate new totals and get a rough cut of expense line totals.
Examine operational efficiencies that you can create to cut expense.

Review every single contract you have:

Vendors: everything from cleaning to power
Talent:  know when every contract comes up and the likely outcome of negotiation.
Barter:  if you’re like us, that hits our expense line.  What do you really need in 2012?
Examine promotion (both sales and programming) and research.
What do you really, REALLY, need?

Tomorrow, we’ll look at budget planning....