Not All Employees Are Created Equal

By Jason Arsenault

Congratulations! You now own your own business and are making a profit (hopefully). As your business grows, one of the most important pieces of continued success is the hiring of people. It also becomes very important to measure whether you hired the right person for your business. This can be tricky, especially in a business that is dynamic. For example, in a car dealership it can be easy to calculate whether that new salesperson is adding to the bottom line. You are simply going to be able to see how many sales he/she has each month. Other positions it might not be so easy to calculate the employee’s contribution.

Let’s say that instead of a new car salesman you needed to hire someone in billing. Not only is this person going to need training on how the billing process operates, they have also been put into a customer relationship position. It is critical to the success of locally owned businesses to have people that meet with the customers of that business with the attitude of taking care of the customer. Bad experiences drive customers away from businesses to new ones. I think all of us can think of a situation where we were so turned off by an experience with a business that we promised ourselves never to return.

As business owners we have a baseline that we can start with when hiring a new employee. If you keep financial statements or sales records, we can determine where you are financially before the hiring. Going forward we can use some simple calculations to see if that employee is making the contribution we had hoped for. generate different income flows. For example a tourist business is going to generate more income during tourist season than during offseason. Just make sure you are comparing apples to apples. The formula is going to take your net income for that month and divide it by the number of people responsible for that income. For example, before the new hire you had five employees and net income of $5000 for the month, $1000 per employee. After the new hire, you now have $6000 of net income for the month, $1000 per employee—same result. Maybe we can conclude it was a successful new hire.

Employees can be your most significant cost as a business. So, you want to make sure it makes sense to move forward with a new hiring. Use a Salary Run Rate that simply takes your recurring wage expense and annualizes it. This is a way to see how much you are going to spend in salaries, and then you can determine whether this makes sense for your business to hire another employee. For many business owners, it is a great satisfaction to be able to create jobs for the local economy, however it doesn’t make sense if your business can’t generate enough income to pay for them.

There are a handful of easy ways to calculate the financial health of your business that don’t involve having to understand what the financial statements are telling you. Sit down with your CPA to learn these simple methods.

One of the easiest formulas would be a Profit for Headcount. Remember that different months

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THE DUTY OF THE MAYOR TO THE CITIZENS OF GALLUP IS TO ENHANCE AND PROMOTE: Public Safety, Health & Welfare, Quality of Life, Providing services in an honest and transparent manner; MY VISION AS YOUR MAYOR IS TO: Clean and Beautify Gallup Improve Community Pride and Morale, by 'Raising the Bar' to a new level with accountability Take a Bite out of Crime Re-establish a Community Friendly Business Development Environment Street Maintenance and Improvement Building Relationships with our Native American Communities and McKinley County; IN EVALUATING THE CANDIDATES TO FULFILL THE LISTED OBJECTIVES, I WOULD LIKE TO SUBMIT FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION, MY INVOLVEMENT IN OUR COMMUNITY, AS FOLLOWS: Created the Tony Dorsett Touch Down Football League Created the Four Corners Invitational Youth Football Championships Created the Western Health Foundation Health Fair Chaired the Rotary Club of Gallup Scholarship Fundraiser Banquet generating over $750,000 in Scholarships to our area youth Worked with Charity Invitational as Funds Development Director for years, generating over 2 Million Dollars to improve medical facilities and offerings within the medical community. COMMUNITY DRIVEN LEADERSHIP means, I do not have all the solutions..we have issues here, and I need your help to make it work. LET'S MAKE A DIFFERENCE, TOGETHER! I ASK FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION, SUPPORT AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, YOUR VOTE!

IF YOU ARE REGISTERED TO VOTE IN THE CITY, PLEASE VOTE. IF YOU ARE NOT REGISTERED TO VOTE, PLEASE REGISTER BEFORE TUESDAY FEBRUARY 4, 2020 AT THE McKINLEY COUNTY CLERK'S OFFICE AT THE McKINLEY COUNTY COURTHOUSE, MAIN FLOOR. THERE WILL ALSO BE SAME DAY VOTER REGISTRATION DURING EARLY VOTING FROM FEBRUARY 4 THROUGH FEBRUARY 29, 2020, AT THE CITY CLERK'S OFFICE AT CITY HALL IN DOWNTOWN, GALLUP. PLEASE VOTE ON CITY ELECTION DAY, TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2020! PLEASE VOTE 'IN PERSON', OR BY 'ABSENTEE BALLOT' If you are interested in 'Raising the Bar,' share your suggestions or make a contribution, call me at 505-593-3737. THANK YOU!

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Thank you!

As we enter our first year of retirement, we want to thank and acknowledge our dear family, friends, colleagues, clients, and business associates who contributed to and attended our retirement party in October of 2019, and those who wished us well through cards and texts, and otherwise added so much fun and so many happy memories to the years we spent in Gallup. We sincerely thank each and every one of you for all the contributions to our lives, large and small, especially the following:

Misty and Jimmy Tolson, Janell Griego and Eloy Hernandez and the lawyers and staff at the Law Office of the Public Defender, Jeremy and Casey Gay and family, Tara Soland and the staff at Advocate Law Center and Avenues for Children, Stephanie LaPaz-Johnson, Cynthia Ferrari, Archie Baca, Robert and Lisa Rodriquez, Lisa Knight, Deborah Williams, George Smith, and Donna and Frank Ward and the Mother and Little Sisters (our special Little Sisters of the Poor Committee), Charlie and Terry Chavez, Sherry and Rick Haskins, Dee Woods and Mike Sheridan, Donna Franklin, Dusty and Kristie Franklin, Sue and Bill Keeler, Billy and Davette Keeler and family, Brad and Kyndee Keeler and family, Larry Fullbright, Grant Foutz, the late Senator (Judge Lidio) and Helen Rainaldi, Dr. Lidio Rainaldi, Mary Ann and Duke Armijo, Antoinette Rodriquez and family, Raghida Khoury and children, Clint and Cosy Balak, Dr. Alan and Ginny Beamsley, Theresa and John Dowling, Bob and Linda lonta, Drena Welty, all those at the Mason and Issacson Law Firm, Joe and Valerie Meisch, Si Benally, Gene and Corrine Pacheco, Clarence and Louise Benally, Rick & Linda Murphy, Emerald Tanner, Brenda and Joe Milo, PreTrial Compliance Program (Tauna Whitman, Chris Sice, and staff) Pete and DeAnn Chipetti, Gwen and Sarah Wilson, Tim and Heidi Howerzyl and Henry, James Jenkins, Karen and Loren Sharp, Shawna and Rudy Piano, Marco and Elvira Amador, Mr. and Mrs. Matt Cockman, Terry and Susan Proffitt , Calvin Toddy and Gloria, Chris and Keegan Chavez, the members of the Women Investment Network (WIN), the members of the Women of Wisdom Group (WOW), George and Ann Galanis, Billy & Sharon Peel of Frame & Art, The folks of Clay Fultz Insurance, Pinnacle Bank, Flower Basket, and the folks from the UNM-Gallup Woodshop and many other friends, neighbors, and associates who were so kind and helpful to us over the years. We appreciate all of you. Thanks for the good times (and as every good divorce and criminal attorney recognizes, the bad times, which hopefully we got through together)!

- Bobbie P. Franklin and Steve F. Seeger.