Small business startup advice – SmallBusinessVoodoo.com

No matter how many times you revisit, you will always find new ways to improve your cash flow.

Before you digest the following cash flow suggestions, have a quick reminder of the first 10 cash flow recommendations.

OK, so here are the next 10 ways to improve your cash flow:

11. Trim inventory – Speak to your suppliers and ensure that you have the best ‘just-in-time’ service in place. Recheck inventory control systems to ensure you are holding the absolute bare minimum inventory. Reinforce with regular manual checks.

12. Trim stock holdings – Similar to inventory, recheck current sales levels against stock holding. Consider sidelining slow moving lines.

13. Renegotiate payment terms with suppliers – Unless you are negotiator of the year, there is always a little bit of slack to be reigned in with your suppliers, Read more »

Amid the madness that was Alistair Darling’s Pre Budget Report 2008 earlier today, a ray of hope as £7bn is set aside to help bolster the small business coffers through the impending recession.

The prime focus of the Pre Budget Report 2008 with regard to small business was to ease cash flow concerns which undoubtedly will bite ever deeper as the recession takes hold through 2009.

Pre Budget Report 2008 Key points:

- The planned 1% increase in corporation tax from 21% to 22% in 2009 has been deferred.  Marginally helpful but only if your small business happens to be turning a profit of course.

- Small business will be allowed to pay off VAT, NI payments and corporation tax over a longer period, although it is not clear Read more »

Explain RSS and how do you use an RSS feed reader?

RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’ and although it does exactly what it says on the tin, you’re probably still none the wiser.

To explain RSS is simple. RSS is a bit of software that records all new information posted on a website or blog and makes it available to …well anyone that wants it via an ‘RSS feed reader’.

Can’t I just go straight to the website itself and have a look?

Good question and the answer is of course that you can. But to explain RSS a little further, let’s suppose you had 10 websites that you visited regularly to see if anything new had been posted. That’s 10 URLs to type in, 10 websites to hunt around looking for new stuff and then possibly 10 or more new articles to either read all at once or to manually bookmark to read later. That’s hard work. Read more »

Overplanning can be as damaging as no planning.  The small business planning process must balance between planning and doing.

Hans von Bülow the virtuouso concert pianist was due to visit the Konzerthaus in Vienna to play Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. His beloved Steinway piano was enroute. But there was some concern that it wouldn’t fit through the stage door.

To damage the Steinway trying to get it through would be a disaster. So the bright young floor manager suggested that they build a full size replica piano in the workshop and use it to test whether the Steinway would fit through the stage doors.

A week later, after some expense and effort, the replica piano was ready for testing. Stage hands were assembled, management looked on anxiously, though none as anxiously as the bright young floor manager. Problem was they couldn’t move the replica piano because it wouldn’t fit through the workshop doors…..

Read more »

Don’t wait for a recession to bite.  Constantly seek ways to improve your cash flow as part of your ongoing business systems.

I have listed 10 ways to improve your cash flow, all of which can be easily actioned.  Some will be obvious to you, some you may not have considered. It makes no difference as such information bears repeating.

1. Chase overdue invoices – Don’t drift, chase the day after they are due. Don’t be afraid to ask for payment, it’s your money after all. You’ve kept to your side of the agreement. It’s now their turn to stick to theirs.

2. Invoice accurately – Apparent errors on the invoice provides one of the most common excuses for paying bills late.  So take away the temptation and get your invoicing right first time.

3. Send out invoices promptly – It is important to Read more »

If you were always told as a kid that To Give Is To Receive then your parents inadvertently prepared you well for one of the key small business sales techniques.

Small Business likes the the idea of selling. We pride ourself in our small business sales techniques. Honing our persuasive selling skills. Bowling over objection after objection. Channelling our prospect into the appropriate corner and nailing him. Ah, the sweet smell of victory. A sale. And nothing given away. Perfect.

But small business sales techniques don’t need to focus around selling at all.  Just for a minute, put the selling mauals down and think about this:

Stop selling and start giving.

Small Business is not very good at giving things away. Things of real value. We hand out pens, keyrings, Read more »

Employee appraisals time comes round so fast and is such a thankless task. I’ll tell you why.

You are a small business. You have no HR department. You get frustrated with how much effort you have to put into employee appraisals compared to how much you get out. You’re doing all the work and not the employees that it is designed to help.

Don’t worry, you’re not alone and I’ve got a suggestion for you that will take the pain away.

You see, your employees will never be as passionate about your small business as you are. Not even the really motivated ones. Unless you give them half the company, why should they be? It’s just a fact Read more »

Question: How is a blog different from a website?

Answer:

A blog is a website but a website isn’t necessarily a blog.

Blogs originated as personal timelines with bloggers telling the world what they got up to on a day by day basis. Blog is actually derived from the term “web log”.  So we were treated to insights such as how Johnny’s latest science experiment on his guinea pig had gone and why Samantha was feeling a little bit low that morning because, well, just because she was. Timeless classics.

Thankfully for small businesses, things have stepped up a pace and small business blogging is now Read more »

photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Small business blogging – creating blogs – is the single most important activity you should be engaged in to promote your business. Period.

Wait a minute. Before you click off muttering under your breath that the poor fool’s lost it, just give me the next couple of minutes to scrape my reputation back off the floor.

Let’s suppose I asked you:

- How would you like to inject some personality into your small business communication?

- How would you like to know who your most loyal customers are?  By name?

- How would you like instant feedback from your customers about literally any aspect of your business?

- How would you like to add a completely new income stream to your small business?

- How would you like to know Read more »

EIB Loans For Small Businesses…

Alistair Darling proudly announced last week that £4bn has been earmarked for lending by the European Investment Bank to the UK’s small and medium sized business sectors over the next four years as part of a European initiative to support SME’s through the current credit crunch.

His performance reminded me of the old yarn about a company chairman who stood up at the annual general meeting and announced: “Last year I had to report that the company was standing on the edge of a precipice. This year I am delighted to announce that we have taken one giant step forward…………” Read more »