If you feel like all your money is falling into a black hole just to pay bills, and you keep asking yourself, 'Where did all the money go?' here is a principle of managing money you need to know.

How do you do that? With a money management tactic called INCOME PLANNING. Here are some steps you can do every week to make more money.

RESEARCH YOUR TARGET MARKET - As a first step, work out what products or services your customers desire and then offer what they want. One way to work out what your clients want is to study receipts from your past sales, and work out what product or service is the biggest seller. Question your customers about 1) why they bought the service or product, and 2) how they expected the product or service to benefit them. Now use the answer they gave in your advertising campaign to promote that product or service.

TARGET YOUR MARKET WITH PROMOTION - Promoting something in a way that will be responded to by your customers is an art. Promotion does not necessarily mean offering a reduced price. It's much more important to find out why a client wants or needs what you are offering, and exactly what they will base their buying decision on. Price may be less important to them than quick delivery and dependable service.

Find cost effective methods to promote. Collect business cards from potential customers, and send them a personal letter to let them know how your products and services can benefit them. This is one of the most personal, least expensive promotional actions you can do. A series of postcards mailed at regular intervals to potential and current clients has proven to be very effective.

Another good method to get new clients is to ask your satisfied customers for referrals. You can make it fun for your customers to participate in referring new customers by coming up with a referral game they can play, where they get something in return for a certain number of referrals who buy. Let your customers help you out. They honestly do want you to succeed in your business.

SELL AND DELIVER - Selling is easier when you are genuinely interested in your customers and want to help them. ASK them what they need. Then it becomes easier to sell them your products or services. Here's an example, a family of 4 who wants a van to cart the kids and their equipment around to sports activities is going to walk off in disgust if the salesperson is showing them 2-door sports models, despite the fact that the sports car is a good deal.

After you've sold the product, courteous, professional, fast delivery is necessary to ensure customer satisfaction. If you are in a service business, this is doubly important. Taking care to deliver exactly what you promised, when you promised it. can ensure repeat business and referrals for new business.

DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY - For each dollar you decide to spend in your business, ask yourself how that dollar is going to return $5 or more in income back into your business. Set aside a percentage of the income every week to pay for an advertising budget and then work out the most cost effective ways to reach your target market within the budget. It is no laughing matter when the income you worked hard to earn gets wasted on expenditures that fail to give you a profitable return on your investment.

REPEAT SUCCESSFUL PROMOTIONAL ACTIONS - Look back at when you were last making the most sales. Work out what successful promotions you were doing at the time that may have dropped out and do those actions again.

There is a revolutionary new money management software tool available to help you utilize your creative thinking power, time and energy on planning how to get the income up. That action gets the CASH FLOWing in the right direction. It helps you manage your money so you can put your attention back on customer service and you'll find you are enjoying your business more.

Sandra Simmons, President of Money Management Solutions, has years of experience helping company owners manage their money to achieve their financial golas. To learn more about the Money Management Software she created, visit her website and watch the FREE 5-minute demo video at www.moneymgmtsolutions.com