A Great Read on Branding

Have a read of this article I received via LinkedIn that talks about the importance of branding your business either at start up or as soon as possible after you start your business.

I found the most powerful comment was the first sentence in the "Pick Your Niche" section which says "You cannot be all things to all people" .

Too often business owners, particularly in the early start-up stages of their business, say "yes" to any customer that calls and later find out that this customer takes up too much of their time (usually unpaid) because they are not in line with the niche the business is actually marketing to.

Take the time to work out your brand and niche and once you have done so make a promise to yourself to "stay the line" - it may terrify you the first couple of times you have to say "no" to a potential customer because they do not fit your niche but the long term benefits (and profitability) to your business will far outweigh a "little scare" in the early days.

It will also free up more of your time to work on the 2,367,985 things you have to do when you first start your business - thankfully small business owners have worked out how to have 25 hour days and 8 day weeks!!!!! 8=)

Christmas Ideas for Marketing Your Business

Just back from another brilliant NABEC breakfast where today we were given ideas on ways in which to set up displays for events you may be holding by Rebecca Zajac of 3 Piece Events (formally Impilo Designs).

Rebecca provided examples of really effective, low cost ideas to make your events stand out from the crowd and with Christmas around the corner and end of year events almost upon us, your customers leaving an event you hold saying "Gee wasn't that set up beautifully!!!" can only mean more business for you into the future.

Thank you Rebecca - some great ideas!!!

We also had a presentation from Bonnie Hart of TAFE SA on how to reduce the wording in notices you send out so that they are quicker for people to read. She provided an example of one business that calculated a saving of over $500,000.00 just by cutting back the amount of words and punctuation included in notices going around the business!! These types of savings are well worth having a look at.

Len Harakos of Elite Signs also provided examples of signage he can create for your business and my good friend Mick Tucker from Mick's Motorcycles Gawler was also there, so it was a great morning all round.

Here is a link to the NABEC Functions Calendar - check out the presentations they have on offer - the ideas you come away with are fantastic for helping you grow your business.

The Importance of Reconciliation

I have just been reading this article and it highlights the importance of regularly reconciling your bank statements.

It appears that the accused has attempted to embezzle money from the business account by transferring funds into their personal account.

A competent bookkeeper would quickly pick up these transactions when reconciling bank statements and could bring this type of fraud to your attention immediately.

It also highlights the benefit of using contracted bookkeeping staff instead of a permanent employee - if the person committing the fraud is the same person as that who is entrusted with reconciling your bank statements, then the crime could continue for some time before being detected.

A sub-contracted bookkeeper, on the other hand, would quickly detect any "unusual" activity and the business owner could begin investigations immediately.

Officially "Qualified"

After almost a year of study I am now the proud owner of a Certificate IV in Financial Services (Accounting) which is now hanging proudly from my office wall!!!!

The reason I was so keen to get this qualification is because the long awaited Tax Agent Services Act 2009 was passed through Parliament earlier this year to provide a Code of Professional Conduct for tax agents and Business Activity Statement services.

What this means is that very soon (believed to be around February 2010) there will be a minimum level of education required by bookkeepers before they can charge to complete Business Activity Statements for customers.

My Certificate IV in Financial Services (Accounting) now means that I will be eligible to provide these types of services, so I am chuffed!!!

Obtaining this qualification has also meant that I am able to become a Member of the Association of Accounting Technicians. This Association (also known as AAT)is still relatively small in Australia, but an Accountant friend of mine who migrated from the U.K. several years ago informed me that businesses in Britain and Europe will not look at bookkeepers these days unless they are AAT members and he envisages that the same thing will happen in Australia with the introduction of the Tax Agents Services Act.

Well, after receiving my Certificate IV, I sent off my application and yesterday received my "Welcome" package from the AAT to say my membership has been approved, so I had to go out and buy another picture frame for my Membership Certificate!!!!

A good week all round!!!!

Much Appreciated

Many of you know of my involvement with Living with Wildlife, who have been a long time bookkeeping customer of mine and in more recent times I have also become a Director in their business.

Living with Wildlife recently conducted a Working with Venomous Snakes refresher course for staff from the New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture & Forestry because New Zealand is having a increasing problem with people trying to sneak snakes into the country to keep as pets.

Often the attempt to sneak the snakes into the country is via shipping containers, so Living with Wildlife thought it would be a good idea to have a shipping container available for the Kiwis so that they could train at finding and capturing the snakes in a more "real life" environment.

A couple of calls were made and Grant Lucas, Operations Manager at P&O Trans Australia (SA) Pty Ltd was happy to provide us with a shipping container for the duration of the course absolutely free of charge!!!!!

Thank you so much Grant - as the "bean counter" of Living with Wildlife these types of savings are always appreciated, but more importantly having the container for the Kiwis to work in so that their training was more "real life" allowed us to provide a much more tailored course to our customer's needs.

The feedback we have received from New Zealand has been fantastic and the training in the shipping container has been mentioned numerous times, so it had its effect on the trainees.

We found Grant Lucas and the staff at P&O Trans Australia (SA) Pty Ltd fantastic to work with so if ever you need shipping containers for the movement of your freight give them a call.

Common Causes

You may recall an earlier blog post where I sang the praises of Mark Priddle from the Australian Technical College - Northern Adelaide and the wonderful marketing seminar he presented for NABEC members.

Mark was good enough to present another Effective Marketing workshop for NABEC members tonight and it was fascinating to hear that all the business owners there had similar issues that they have to work through regardless of what industries they are in.

The people in attendance were Lorna from Ladybird Carpet Care, Gordon Marshall, Remedial Massage Therapist and Stuart Miller and his wife from Jaikom IT Services and I was smiling hearing that we all have very similar issues that we have to deal with in our businesses, even though the businesses themselves are very different in nature.

Where are the most effective places to market your business at the most cost effective price? What low or no cost promotional tools are out there when you are running your business on a shoe-string budget in its early days? What services are available to you as a small business for little or no cost that will help you grow your business?

What was obvious was that it doesn't matter whether you are providing quality carpet cleaning services, remedial massage therapy, solutions for your IT problems or bookkeeping services, these types of questions are constantly at the forefront of your mind.

Fortunately there are people like Mark Priddle around who get great satisfaction out of helping businesses deal with these issues and there are organisations around like NABEC that can provide you with this information at a price that does not mean you have to mortgage your home to be able to get access it.

Thanks again Mark and NABEC - another great night!!

The Importance of Backup!!!

A discussion with a new customer of mine yesterday has got me thinking about how much time people put into thinking about having a "backup" for their business if ever they cannot run the business themselves.

Take the time to think about not being able to run your business for any reason (health, holidays, other commitments, anything else you may think of) and then answer the following questions -

Who will look after the day to day aspects of your business in your absence?

Who will know where all your business documents are if an enquiry comes in and you are unavailable?

Who will be able to service your customers until your return?

Who will be able to assist your family with sorting out all the aspects of your business in your absence (remember, one of those "anything elses" could be your death!!!)?

Since speaking to this person yesterday I have had time to reflect on the above questions and when I think about it, in many cases the answer is "no-one"!!!!

People think of the term "back up" nowadays and only seem to think about making sure that everything on their computer is also on a flash drive or CD - when you think about it this term can have many different contexts in the day to day running of your business and is worth having a good think about.