Best Practice
Lessons Learnt from Mistakes in Business
Let’s get the elephant out of the room – as business owners we are going to make mistakes. Accept it, expect it and move on the best way – learning from them to make your business stronger, more viable, more resilient and more successful.
As business owners, we are the visionary, leader, goal setter, systems developer, marketer, salesperson, accountable officer – well, let’s face it, we can be everything to our business.
What a powerful, exciting, exhilarating, scary, stressful and isolating position to be in.
We project a confident in-control persona while, on the inside, we harbour embarrassment in relation to mistakes made and fear and insecurity in relation to mistakes yet to be made.
It was liberating this morning to discuss with my colleagues at the Albany Creek Business Contacts networking meeting the mistakes they had learnt the most from in business. Here’s what they had to say:
- Not all opportunities are opportunities: the example given was a tender process to deliver exclusively to a customer. Not a bad opportunity on the face of it, however, when the customer stipulations were considered tendering for the work was just not worth it.
- Make sure you don’t undervalue your product/service – make sure you get your pricing right from the start.
- When you have developed processes in your business follow them and don’t waiver from them based on emotion: the scenario shared here was staff recruitment where one member had a detailed recruitment process however on more than one occasion didn’t follow it but rather employed on the basis of a friend/colleague recommending the person. The decision was emotively based with unsatisfactory outcomes.
- Working with family can work, and then again, it can be not a great idea. Discussion around this area centred on ensuring that there is clear expectations and understandings in relation to the work relationship.
- Referring to colleagues is a two way relationship. Colleagues had had negative experiences when referring clients to others. Their experiences demonstrated a lack of appreciation and understanding by the person referred to that, along with the referred client came the trust of the referrer that the client would be looked after and respected worthy of the personal referral.
- Be honest – even if you think the white lie is for the better. Sometimes as business owners we might inflate timeframe expectations, or discount heavily in the name of getting the customer/client. The problem is that if you can’t deliver what is promised and/or it short changes your business thereby not making it viable, this can have a major detrimental effect. It is better to be honest and explain why to the prospective customer then to create negativity in the relationship which may never be able to be salvaged.
- Making the right staff choices. The goal is to have the right person is in the right job at the right time. Your staff reflect your business, so if they are not the right person doing the right job that is the image the market place will have of your business.
- Having programs and systems to support your business and not using them. What is the point of a Client Nurture Program rolled out in your business if you are not going to follow-up with the clients. What is the point of Client Relationship Management systems if you are not going to contact your clients. Programs and systems to support your business are only as good as the people who use them.
- When building a web presence, make sure you build a personal presence. As was quite rightly pointed out by a colleague, businesses don’t do business with other businesses – people do business with other people. A prospective customer/client is more likely to engage with a business if they can build some repore/relationship with the people in the business.
- Make sure the legalities of the business are in place. Time and money can be quickly expended when something goes wrong in a business and the business doesn’t have the correct legal structure, agreements and contracts in place.
- Not all marketing programs are right for all businesses. There are many suppliers to business and their job is to sell their products and services as well. All business owners need to apply sound consumer processes when purchasing marketing systems, strategies and services to ensure the best and most effective bang for the buck.
- Read the T&Cs and know what you are buying: Again, sound consumer processes need to be followed to ensure what you are buying is what you think you are buying and that there are no nasty surprises.
- Patience and perseverance: Not everyone is the same. Not everyone thinks and behaves the same. When you are energised and think that what you are doing is terrific don’t be discouraged if you don’t get the reaction or immediate return you were hoping for. For most, growing a business takes time, patience and perseverance.
The group left the conversation on this final note – understand what is involved in running a business before you become a business owner. Running a business is not just a job – just because you are in business doesn’t mean customers/clients are going to come to you. Truly understand what being a business owner entails and be honest with yourself whether this is really what you are prepared to do. If you do not wake up excited about your business, you may wish to consider alternatives.
(Blog contributors – Leonard Whittaker (Action Cycle Learning) Rob Carmody (Australian Integrated Communications) Sally Balwin (Balanix Solutions) Kathy Patterson (Brendale Stationery Supplies) Matthew Fox (Brisbane hosting & Web Design) Kirsty Newbery (Caring Cottage) Brad Davies (Conquest Pest & Termite Control) Nathan Dobbins (Core Computers) Scott Deaves (David Deane Real Estate) De Wet van der Nest (Express Air Con Cleaning) Oriano Giammichele (GT Racing, Mobile Mechanic) Michael Manttan (Jims Car Cleaning Aspley) Anne-Louise Underwood (SMS Toolkits) Stuart Bywater (Bywater Design) Criag Chalmers (Royalty Home Services) Streten Mason Lawyers )
Albany Creek Business Contacts consists of local quality and reliable businesses who provide a wide range of services from home and residential services to B2B and commercial services. Our service areas cover primarily Albany Creek, Eatons Hill, Brendale, Aspley, Warner, Chermside, Strathpine, North Lakes. However many members will cover greater areas.
Albany Creek Business Contacts meet fortnightly on a Wednesday morning for a 7am breakfast and networking meeting.
Balanix Solutions – Taxation | Accounting | Business Advise.
Situated in Strathpine on Brisbane North, we partner with our clients to assist them in their accounting, business management and bookkeeping needs. Our clients vary in industries from professional services (such as law, vet and dentist) to the trades (mechanic, bricklaying, plasterer etc), hospitality and retail. Are clients are located in the Pine Rivers area (including Brendale, Lawnton, Albany Creek and Eatons Hill) through to Kallangur, Petrie, North Lakes and Caboolture, as well as Brisbane South, the Gold Coast and various other parts of Queensland.
Call us today … we can help (07 3264 4783)
Simple Lessons Learnt From Politics to Improve Your Business
It has been interesting watching the political scenery in Australian and evaluating their performance against how they would survive if they applied the same methodology to running a small business rather than the state or the country.
Here in Queensland we have one side of politics accused of not listening to its clients/customers (the electorate) and the other running an election campaign virtually by not providing any real stated vision or plan for the future.
If, as business owners, we applied these strategies to running our businesses, it would amount to:
- not listening to what your clients/customers want from you and operating your business on the premise “you know best”;
- having no plan or goal as to what you are trying to achieve or how you will get there; and
- spending more than you earn and not having plan to resolve this.
So what can we learn as business owners from these scenarios?
- Voters who believe that the managers of the country are not listening to their needs will go elsewhere and the same for your clients
TIP: Always listen to what your client’s needs are and if for some reason you are not able to deliver, take the time to explain why you cannot. Don’t assume that they will understand.
- Governments that don’t have a long term plan invariably lose government and small businesses that do not have a business plan invariably fail within the first five years.
TIP: If you do not have a business plan then what is it that you are trying to achieve and how will you ever know when you have achieved it? Give your business the greatest chance of survival by setting goals which can be measured and mean something.
- Government who spend more than they collect in revenue will eventually find the interest bill alone consumes a significant portion of the revenue. Lucky for government’s the bankruptcy laws that businesses and individuals face do not apply to them. But for small business spending more than the business earns is not sustainable.
TIP: Develop a good cashflow projection (not a budget) and workout how much money you expect to make and when and then do the same for what you expect to spend and when. If the revenue is less than expenditure you need to look at deferring expenditure or increasing revenue or decide that the business is not viable.
- In both politics and business being honest with your customers/clients and yourself is paramount to being successful!!!
David Balwin
FCPA | Registered Tax Agent | Business Advisor
Balanix Solutions – Taxation | Accounting | Business Advice
Situated in Strathpine on Brisbane North, we partner with our clients to assist them in their accounting, business management and bookkeeping needs. Our clients vary in industries from professional services (such as law, vet and dentist) to the trades (mechanic, bricklaying, plasterer etc), hospitality and retail. Are clients are located in the Pine Rivers area (including Brendale, Lawnton, Albany Creek and Eatons Hill) through to Kallangur, Petrie, North Lakes and Caboolture, as well as Brisbane South, the Gold Coast and various other parts of Queensland.
Benchmarking in Your Business
David Balwin
A good thing about having this budget and getting this process going is that you can then start to benchmark. Benchmarking month to month is of limited value because you can get too many fluctuations over a short period of time. But once you’ve got two or three years of history you can look at what this was for the year, year to year, and what I do, the most common thing I do is, I use sales as a hundred percent. So the revenue from sales equals one hundred percent. Every single one of these, I put that cost over the sales cost and work out what percentage of one hundred percent that is. So I want to know for example, well take a common one, salary and wages, on average, it’s going to vary from industry to industry, on average, that’s probably going to run somewhere around thirty percent. If your wages are running around fifty to sixty percent you know you’ve got a problem – I guarantee you’ve got a problem. If it’s running around ten percent, it might look good, but the question is – are you really utilising sufficiently to generate revenue. So you can be too low as well. But, what we want to do over a two to three year period, we can actually use this information to do benchmarking year to year. And what we’re trying to do is make sure expenses as a percentage of sales are either static or going in which direction? We’ve got one going that way and one going that way – as a percentage of revenue do you want expenses going down or up? You want them going down. That’s correct, the more they are going down the more profit you make. And it’s why I use percentage as opposed to dollars, is because dollars can be deceptive. If my telephone bill went from three thousand to ten thousand, and I was simply looking at dollars, what would I think? Bloody Telstra – I’ve got a problem with the telephone bill. But what would happen if my telephone bill went from three thousand to ten thousand but my sales went from one million to fifteen million. Would I be too worried? No – correct, so that’s why you’ve got to look at it as a percentage. That’s why I like percentages as opposed to dollar value. Because percentages will tell you, particularly over a two to three year period or a three to five year period, it will tell you a lot more facts about the business than straight dollar figures.
Audience
Will, David, will MYOB give you that which you’ve got there?
David
MYOB will give you that, yes. There is a budget which will do exactly that for you on a month to month – you can print it out in one spreadsheet over twelve months. What MYOB will do will let you take last twelve months figures and just bring them straight over and then you can play with them. And it will actually allow you to vary it by ten percent or vary it by percentages too – so you can play around with it. If you don’t know how, give me a yell during the week and I’ll give you a quick demo on how to do that.
Passion for Business-Why Owners Chose to be in Business
Business ownership has its good bits and it’s not so good bits. For some taking the leap into business ownership is a mighty jump off a cliff. For others, it is a natural progression. But, no matter who you talk to or which article you read, successful business owners have one thing in common – a passion for what they are doing.
Terrific – sounds simple enough. Or does it – what does “passion for what they are doing” actually mean? What is it that motivates some to be business owners and others not?
So I thought, “who better to seek the answer from than actual business owners”. Where better to find a diverse range of business owners to ask than at the Albany Creek Business Contacts.
Not a single business owner described “to make lots of money” (or to this effect) as the “passion”. Here’s what a number of them had to say:
Dan Milgate (Fit4Life Personal Training) said, “for me, being in businesses gives me more control in what I do in life. I watched what other business owners did over the years – the mistakes they made – and I am passionate about not repeating them, but rather correcting them to the betterment of my clients”.
Kathy Patterson’s (Brendale Stationery Supplies) passion is to implement her own ideas and particularly apply what she expects in customer service to her cutomers.
Nathan Dobbins (Core Computers) echoed Dan’s desire of being in control of the business. His passion is the good feeling he gets from the rewards of his hard work.
Rob Carmody (Australian Integrated Communications) said, “I had more passion for my employers business than they did, so an opportunity arose to do the leap out, do what I love doing and benefit from the rewards. I believe service comes before sale”
Scott Deaves (David Deane Real Estate) commented that becoming an equity owner has given him a renewed vigour. “I see it as an investment in the future – that is viewing the big picture of the future and working towards it”. Scott went on to say that it is important to treat people the way you want to be treated and if it doesn’t feel right then, generally, its not.
Brad Davies (Conquest Pest & Termite Control) passion is ethical conduct. “I couldn’t work for another who didn’t align with my ethics so it seemed the logical step to set up my own business where I could implement my ethics.
Alina Manttan (Jim’s Car Cleaning – Aspley) commented that going into business was a necessity, however, now they wouldn’t have it any other way. Securing employment was difficult so working for themselves was the logical thing. She and her husband Michael found the right business for them and are not looking back. Alina, also mentioned that the personal growth gained from business ownership has been rewarding.
Dave and I here at Balanix Solutions gave up the corporate world in favour of business as we are passionate about balance. Being later in life parents, we wanted flexibility and choice which employment could not give. The name Balanix comes from “Balance”and “Fix” and it is our motivation to work with clients to bring balance between their life and business as well as balance for us.
And for the last word, Andrew Gallagher (Lollyworld) contributed, “previous employers have taught me everything I didn’t want to be. Although running a business has its challenges, ethically I am happier in business. It allows me to be nice in the way I do business and to operate in the way I want, providing customers with the highest quality of products – that’s important to me and drives my passion”.
Share your passion for business in the comments section of the Facebook post of this Blog at www.facebook.com/balanix .
Albany Creek Business Contacts consists of local quality and reliable businesses who provide a wide range of services from home and residential services to B2B and commercial services. Our service areas cover primarily Albany Creek, Eatons Hill, Brendale, Aspley, Warner, Chermside, Strathpine, North Lakes. However many members will cover greater areas.
Albany Creek Business Contacts meet fortnightly on a Wednesday morning for a 7am breakfast and networking meeting.
Balanix Solutions – Accountant, Business Advisor, Bookkeeping.
Situated in Strathpine on Brisbane North, we partner with our clients to assist them in their accounting, business management and bookkeeping needs. Our clients vary in industries from professional services (such as law, vet and dentist) to the trades (mechanic, bricklaying, plasterer etc), hospitality and retail. Are clients are located in the Pine Rivers area (including Brendale, Lawnton, Albany Creek and Eatons Hill) through to Kallangur, Petrie, North Lakes and Caboolture, as well as Brisbane South, the Gold Coast and various other parts of Queensland.
Call us today … we can help (07 3264 4783)
10 Must Dos to Engage Prospective Customers
Woody Allen once said, “70% of success in life is showing up.”
Whether we are presenting your self and your business one-on-one networking, presenting your business’s elevator pitch to a group, presenting your business in a showcase presentation or presenting your self and your business to a large audience at a conference, on social media or YouTube, here are the top ten must dos, generated by the business owners of the Albany Creek Business Contacts group, to position your self to maximise your success.
- Plan for Success. There is no point turning up to an occasion if you haven’t thought about why you are there and what you wish to achieve from being there. Even if posting a video on line, why are you doing it, what is the message you wish to convey, what do you wish to achieve, how do you know if it was worth the investment? Make sure you are clear on how you are going to differentiate your business from your competitors – know what you are going to say.
- Dress for Success. Dress appropriately for the occasion. Make sure cloths are ironed and presentable (eg, not ripped, have stains or droppings on them). If appropriate, wear your business’s uniform and/or a name badge.
- Avoid the Scatter Gun Card. Nothing disengages others than to have someone bombard and thrust business cards at them and then move on to the next unsuspecting victim. Make sure you present your card and engage in conversation with the person you give the card to. Isn’t it better to get 3-6 follow-up prospects than 50 “not a hope of anything”?
- Remember, it’s not just about you. Don’t dive right in to a marketing pitch about your business as soon as you are introduced to your audience (no matter whether a single individual or a large group). Take the time to find out about your audience and listen to what they tell you so you can tailor your response to solve their needs. Make eye contact and use positive body language to show you are genuine.
- Communication is person to person. As rightly pointed out in the discussion, there is no such thing as business to business communication. Communication is person to person. It is about how you connect with others and make them feel. If they don’t buy you then they won’t buy your product.
- Dumb down the Jargon. In every industry there is jargon, acronyms and common language. What might make sense to you and others in your industry may not mean the same to your audience (an example used was an event where the author was referring to QTC – the audience had a number of interpretations at their finger tips such as Queensland Treasury Corporation, Queensland Theatre Company, Queensland Turf Club and so on). Make sure you use a language and style your audience will understand.
- First Impressions can deceive. OK, hands up if you didn’t immediately connect with the person you are married to/is your partner? Our first impressions of our audience are not necessarily our lasting impression. Sometimes, we just don’t connect instantly. Seek common ground – find commonality through discussion to enable a relationship to be established and hopefully grow. Try the 3 Rule – within 3 seconds find one thing about the audience; in 30 seconds find out another thing and in 3 minutes determine how you can relate to the audience.
- Leave them wanting more. Remember, you don’t have to give everything to your audience in your first encounter. The intention is to tickle their interest sufficiently for them to want to know more. If possible, establish another meeting/appointment before parting to give another opportunity to build rapore and hopefully a long standing relationship.
- Honesty is the best policy. If you want your audience’s respect then you must show respect and honesty. Spin might sound good at the time but if your business can’t deliver then your reputation is shot. If you can’t solve their problem, say so – if possible refer to a colleague who can (hopefully they will return the favor).
- Turn Up. Don’t forget, you have to be in it to win it so put yourself and your business out there!
(Primary contributors to this blog – Andrew Gallagher, Lollyworld – Sandra Gilliman, Streten Mason Lawyers – Kirsty Newberry, Caring Cottage – Scott Deaves, David Deane Real Estate – Dan Milgate, Fit 4 Life Personal Training – Oriano Giammichele, GT Racing Mobile Mechanic – Leonard Whittaker, Action Cycle Learning)
Balanix Solutions – Accountant, Business Advisor, Bookkeeping.
Situated in Strathpine on Brisbane North, we partner with our clients to assist them in their accounting, business management and bookkeeping needs. Our clients vary in industries from professional services (such as law, vet and dentist) to the trades (mechanic, bricklaying, plasterer etc), hospitality and retail. Are clients are located in the Pine Rivers area (including Brendale, Lawnton, Albany Creek and Eatons Hill) through to Kallangur, Petrie, North Lakes and Caboolture, as well as Brisbane South, the Gold Coast and various other parts of Queensland.
Call us today … we can help (07 3264 4783)
