WEATHERFORD, Texas -- Meridian Associates Inc., a financial firm focused on the petroleum retail and wholesale industry, recently launched www.PetroAnswers.com, a website offering information intended to help petroleum marketers maximize their business cash and profits.
This new web-based tool is a complete information center with industry focused, cross-functional access to all of Meridian's financial resources, the company said.
The new site includes a Financial Ratios section that [image-nocss] provides practical benchmarking figures that can be directly applied to any petroleum marketer's business.
It also provides members with answers and actionable data that will assist petroleum marketers with increasing profits and managing their businesses more efficiently and effectively. A complete archive is available for downloading articles and reports that educate members on topics such as finance strategies, balance sheet management and finance negotiation tactics. Articles can be searched by keyword or viewed by popular or new editorials.
For marketers who need education without having to travel, the site provides interactive, real-time teleseminars to members, hosted by Weatherford, Texas-based Meridian's founder, Betsi Bixby.
The teleseminars are a hands-on, low-cost tool for marketers to use for one-on-one attention from their own office, she said. Today, marketers are strapped for time, and always looking for high-return education. Our teleseminars, combined with all of the PetroAnswers site tools, gives marketers incredibly low-cost, useable information from the comfort of their desk or even a car phone. The monthly teleseminars give advice on hot topics from fuel management to lowering insurance costs, to selecting petroleum-specific software. Teleseminars are also archived in audio form for later retrieval and members have the ability to drive the future topics to be covered through a request area.
Many marketers know their cash is tied up in receivables. To get cash flowing quicker, www.PetroAnswers.com includes a monthly Credit Managers huddle. This 50-minute, nonrecorded, open-microphone phone call lets credit personnel share resources and learn best practices from each other. According to Bixby, The results to date are phenomenal. One company collected five out of six bad debts within 30 days of getting strategy from a fellow-credit manager. Another got four really difficult current dealers on EFT for a $100,000+ cash result.
The site also includes a classified ads and job page. In addition to access to the website, members receive preferential pricing on other Meridian products including Meridian's workshopsFocus on Finance, Focus on Acquisitions, Focus on Practical Technology and Focus on Creditas well as on software and educational DVDs.
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