Small business foundations · Ages 16+ · about 24 hours
Costs, pricing and break-even
Everything the numbers of a small business ask of you, from what the business is for to the plan for the next ninety days. What a unit costs — direct against indirect, fixed against variable, waste, fees and the owner's own hours — and what to charge for it: markup against margin, contribution, break-even, and the minimum sustainable price with every assumption it rests on stated, and a single job costed and quoted. Around that: who the customer is and what they are actually buying, turning a skill into an offer, the legal form and who pays when a business closes, registering, licenses and insurance priced as fixed costs, keeping the business's money apart from your own, reading a profit and loss and a cash forecast as answers to different questions, a budget and its variances, what a customer costs to win and what one kept is worth, capacity and stock and the processes that hold quality, and a goal a Friday can settle. One method, met five ways, in a workshop, a market stall, a cleaning round, a kitchen and a repair bench.