More Money for Less Work

Follow the system

grollsta — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:07:02 +0000

Five things to do when you hit a problem

It happens to all of in SMALL BUSINESS. An employee ruins a job, requiring re-work. A client rejects a job. Your infrastructure fails – state electricity etc.

The first thing to to when you have a business problem.

First, you have to admit you have a problem. Sometimes this is the single biggest factor in businesses self destructing – owners refuse to move with change.

Occasionally though, you get a whiff that tings are not quite kosher. You need to dig further and find out why. Get to the root. Once you have got that in hand – step two awaits you. Some of the less obvious things could be the profit not matching what the job was quoted to bring in. You won’t see this unless you have measures in place to check.

Define the problem

The second thing to do is the get some scope on the problem. Has it impacted your business in any other areas?

Analyze the problem

The third step will get to the nuts of why things have gone pear shaped.

Implement change

Now that you know where the trouble lies, you can complete step four. Put the checks and balances in place to prevent the problem happening again. This might need some lateral thought. Here’s a quick exmaple of how this can be effectively implemented.

I once had a small business with about eight staff. It was growing, but was hampered by the staff showing what I can only call a “don’t care” attitude. It’s not that they weren’t well treated. I had them all on salary raises, they could use the company vehicles after hours, they even stayed in a house I owned and paid me low rent. They were nice chaps, all honest, but sometimes a little, well, how can I say it…thoughtless. The job that tipped me over the hedge as it were, was one that should have made me a grand in less than an hour’s work. One of my team ripped some bushes out in the garden, as he was asked to. In doing so, he broke off a water supply point, letting a jet of high pressure council water 5m into the air. The garden was quickly drowned. Ok, that cost me more than my profit on that job. It was time to put my money where my mouth is.

So what did I do? I realized the team was not feeling any loss that they incurred for the business. They should have realized the business was there to feed them and their families. People can be a tad selfish at times though. That blinds them to what they really need to know.

I went back and calculated the costs for the teams mistakes in the last month. I was astonished to see that the amount more than covered three salaries. It would be plain stupid not to do something permanent about it. Firing the monkeys was not a solution, labour laws saw to that. I had to motivate them to change. So, apart from giving them a stern warning, I put a new process in place.

I gave them a bonus for any job completed early or on time. Per employee. In cash. This didn’t cost me a cent. I immediately re -costed my quoting system to cater for this based on the expected impact.

Did it help? The next day the team was back at the office a bit early, with outstretched hands, waiting for their daily bonus. There were a few days they did not get the bonus. Like th day the one chap climbed on my Renault Kangoo’s roof to wash the vehicle. He left his boot prints in the roof seams. They sorted the problem amongst themselves in a very sort space of time.

The final step

Lastly, step five.

Measure. Yes, measure what you do over the next month. Have the changes you made actually brought a positive difference? if not, analyze again to see why not. You want quantifiable improvement. Month on month. year on year.

Your business exists to make CASH. If there is none left in your bank at month end, hop over to my blog, Save my Business and see how you can increase your cash in five easy steps.

Technorati Tags: business, problems, money, profit, staff, employees

Work smarter not harder

grollsta — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:07:48 +0000

eeeeyuuuuwwwww its such a cliche ain’t it?

Small Business Help

But just think about it for a moment please. If you are running your own small business, you need to know this. It will save you time. It will make you money. And I am not going to charge you for it.

So how did you spend your month end last month? Worrying about VAT returns, employee benefits, tax deductions? Can you see yourself getting to your month end, writing a single cheque to cover your outgoings, sitting back and enjoying looking towards the next month.

How to remove the Top Ten Concerns for Small Business

How often have you been to your GP with a cold, he gives you a script, you collect some antibiotics and off you go a few hundred dollars worse off. Two weeks later, the antibiotics are finished, and you’re feeling better. a day or two more and SNIFF! You have a cold. AGAIN! You know what the problem is? You had your symptoms treated. The cause is still there. So you will keep on catching colds. Look I am not a Doctor ok! But I have had enough colds and antibiotics to have experienced repeat colds.

Small Business Debt

Yeah that’s right. The oh so nice to have overdraft, which you bank offered you when you were in a tight spot and you needed to float a large order. Years later, that overdarft is still there and you’re battling to get it paid off.

Using my simple five step process, you can get out of overdraft and keep your cash in the bank!

One of my heroes in business, whose books have taught me a lot, said once that “unless a business has cash, it’s not really a business”. As a Small Business Owner, you want to see money left over in the bank after all expenses are paid. There isn’t any sense in having nothing after working so hard. That would be just the same as having a job.

Your business exists because there are people who want what it sells. Forget whatever the reasons were that you thought your little business should exist for. It’s about MONEY IN minus MONEY OUT and that’s it! Nothing more.

The trick is to find more people who want what you sell.

If you want to know how, have a look at my blog over at The Profit Genie

Yeah right!

grollsta — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:26:16 +0000

Really? Can I make more money for less work?

Maybe.

Well actually, in your case, it is entirely possible. So you are a small business owner, or maybe you’re just thinking about going on your own. NO MORE BOSS! NO ONE TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO! Um, well, I might just have a surprise there for you.

My blog here, is about what most of us deal with every day. We work hard, long hours. But, at month end, we often ask just “why” are we still doing this. You may even think, “When I had a boss, he had all the worries”. Which is where we are wrong. He had you to worry about the work getting done, so he could take it easier.

Look, this is going to take a while to teach you. It cannot be done overnight. If you are sitting there reading this, worrying about your month end, let me tell you at will take at least 90 days to fix this mess. If you want to have month ends that are waxed, with no worries, then pay attention.

Drive and passion is all you need

You said that – right!? The fact is, your customers are going to tell you what to do. Month ends will become really scary. Ok, I don’t want to send you off heading to the Valiums. It’s not really that bad. The truth is that 99% of us enter business on our own with little more than an idea and loads of passion for what we do. That alone, is clearly not enough to succeed.

So…can I earn more?

You can earn whatever you set your mind to earning. What you need to do first is to understand a little about the “mechanics” of your enterprise. We’re going to have to peek under the hood of this little engine, your business. Mind if I tag along?

Why people will buy from you. Find out.

Your customers are your next best customers! I will explain this later.

For now, you want to earn more. You don’t have more hours in the day. You don’t have more money tp pour into the business either. So how? Well, the answer is right under your nose…

Your existing customers. Yes them! They can tell you a LOT about what you should be doing. Lets look quickly at where they are coming from.

Where my leads are from?

Yes. You need to know exactly where each and every single lead came from.

What advert drove them to your business?

Which magazine?

What PPC campaign?

So here is a task for you. For one month, keep a record of every customer who calls you and note the following:

Name -

Phone number -

Advert source -

Product/Service wanted -

Dollar value of quote

Quote number -

Invoice Number -

Or, simply head over to easyLeadAnalyzer, it’s free to use. Oh, and it will work on your phone too!