business

How Important Is It To Your Business To Get…

Well? How important is it? Pretty vital right. So why do so many businesses not follow up on invoices?

We all hate asking for money and let's face it sometimes we have to ask repeatedly but in business we've earned it. If you went out for a few drinks on Friday night you wouldn't get any without having to pay first, dropping the money in next week when you get paid isn't an option. So here's my tips for getting paid:

Get the invoices out within the first 2-3 days of the month, that way even if you are dealing with businesses who do pay-runs on the 26th of the month you're in early and are more likely to get paid that if you send out the invoices on the 20th.
Send statements, they work as a reminder of what's outstanding to you without you having to phone anyone.
Use a red pen if necessary but ALWAYS be polite, there is no reason for bad blood in business and if there is some don't let it be coming from you.
Adhere to your own payment terms, if your policy is to add interest once bills get well overdue then issue a warning with your red pen (politely) prior to adding the interest.
Don't be afraid to pick up the phone, after all you've already supplied the goods or services, you deserve to be paid.
Stop supplying someone if you know they are unlikely to pay, making the bill bigger isn't going to entice them to pay you more.

Do you have any tips on what works for you?

Good Business

Support in Business is Key

BNI is hardly a new organisation in Ireland and I had heard of them before but hadn't joined. After sitting in on a couple of meetings I quickly realised how beneficial it could be. Having been a member now for about 5 months I can definitely say it was a great decision. Benefits include:

Grow in confidence to highlight your business and why you should be hired
Referrals to potential clients, rather than cold-calling these are warm referrals where the person is already told about you and usually has a need for your services / products
Accountability, it's not all about what you take but also what you give and being held accountable is good for business
Business growth is, of course, a big plus

There's many chapters all over the country and you can find out more at www.bni.ie or give me a call.

Not long before lockdown in March there was a BizExpo on in Dublin and that's where I came across ActionCOACH. Due to a special offer I had some sessions with a Coach who asked all sorts of questions that really made me think more about my business and where I was going with it. A course of 12 sessions was coming up that looked at businesses from all sorts of angles - financial, systems, teamwork, marketing, and more - which I knew would be really beneficial. With the support of a grant from the Local Enterprise I was able to sign up to the course. It covered a lot of information and while I'm only a new business I still gleaned a little nugget from each session, and banked away many more that can be used as I grow. I can also bring what I've learned to my clients so they're businesses can grow and be more effective too.

If you'd like to get the benefits of a Coach you can contact them ActionCOACH or give me a call and I'll put you in touch directly.

Throughout the last six months the Local Enterprise office has been brilliant with support both financially and informationally. They run great courses and everyone should be signed up to the newsletters which bring out information pertinent to businesses, as well as upcoming events.

Skillnet also run great courses. One I completed was in Data Analysis & Business Intelligence which was based on using Excel to full advantage for businesses. These are skills I can now bring to my clients.

Good Business

How do you say ‘Thank You’ to clients?

Saying 'Thank You' is something we are taught from a very young age, usually some of our first words. As business owners we would be lost without clients, let's face it - without them we wouldn't have a business!! But how do we let them know we are thankful?

I was having a particularly bad day one time and I thought I'd grab a coffee in a certain well-known fast-food joint before going for a hospital appointment. I really wasn't feeling up to it so I drove drive-through (I know the height of laziness for a cup of coffee). I will never forget how it felt when the server handed me my cup and said 'you have a great day and we'll see you again soon'. Just those few words, which she'd probably said a million times, meant so much and cost her nothing. That's how a 'Thank You' can make your clients feel.

So here's a few ideas to get you going:

Email or Send an actual Thank You note / card

This might seem a bit strange but let me ask you this. Remember back in the good old days when we all used to send Thank You cards after birthdays or Christmas? It's a bit like that ... except our Mothers aren't forcing us!!! But if you've got a database of client information then there really is no excuse. If that database includes date of birth then why not make it a birthday card, that way it doesn't just look like a mass-mailing.

Special Offers

How about special offers for existing clients? Time, and time again, businesses run offers for new clients forgetting where their current income is coming from. We see this a lot with the likes of phone companies ... switch to us and save. But the existing clients have to keep going with full price. It's just not fair or nice. Have special offers that actually mean something and are useful for clients.

Send a Gift

This is where you can be practical and still promote your business. What is one thing we're great at in Ireland? Drinking tea, right. So why not send clients personalised gifts like mugs. These can be done with their logo on it if they are a business too but with a message from your business, or they can be purely your business information. There's lots of options too - say your clients are all Ballet Teachers, why not give them a personalised bag for their shoes? Check out our Shop page for more ideas or get in touch if you know what you're looking for.

Send them referrals

Are your clients businesses too? Why not say thank you by sending them referrals. This is a great way of saying Thank You and it costs you absolutely nothing. There's a saying 'What Goes Around, Comes Around' and while we usually associate this with bad karma it can work for good too. If you actively help others, they are more likely to help you.

Give back

This doesn't mean literally give back to the client but let's say your client is a Nursing Home that you've just done a deep-cleaning in, why not give something back to the residents like a hamper of goodies to be shared. Or if you're a Garden Centre and you've just sold a load of plants to the Tidy Towns committee you could give back by helping out planting them or give them some extra free.

Bookkeeping

Cash Flows & Budgets

Cash Flow is essentially a forecast based on past experience and current knowledge of income and expenses. For example, you know that your electricity bill arrives every 2 months so you can look at last year and work out the average. This is inputted every 2^nd month on the CF. You may need to adjust if your business is seasonal and uses a higher amount over winter for example. Or if you consider heating oil – this generally is an expense in approximately October and January but not in May or August.

Cash Flow always starts with your current bank balance (if you have multiple accounts you may wish to do a Cash Flow on each one or add them together – just remember which you do so that your Cash Flow is as accurate as possible 😊).

When you have inputted your income & expenses then your bank balance will update across each month. What you are looking for here is if at any point it goes red – this is where you need to act. That could mean applying for loans or grants, following up more strictly on outstanding bills or look at your expenses and cut down where possible. It looks month by month.

A Budget tends to be more project focused or annually. You will have similar information as in the Cash Flow, but the projects would have more detail. Depending on your reason for doing a Budget – family expenses, holiday planning, new business plan, new projects in existing business – you will ask varying questions. Though there are some commonalities such as what income have I and when is likely to arrive, known / expected costs, etc. But then the projects / reason for doing a Budget gets pieced in so you need to ask questions like what are you trying to do, when does it need to be done by, what costs are involved, what outside support will be needed & what will it cost, what will your contingency be.

This might seem like a lot of hard and time-consuming work but in the long-run it will set you up so that your home or business runs well and you can avoid any nasty surprises!!!

Administration

5 Tips for keeping up with paperwork

Know your deadlines and plan for completion 2 weeks prior to give time for delays, etc
- Income Tax 31 October
- VAT 19^th of the month after the VAT period
  - Bi-monthly
  - Bi-annually
  - Annually
- CRO Returns – Annually on date of registration
Utilise software – finding what’s best for you isn’t always the best, quickest or cheapest way to do it. These days software pretty much does it all for you, but you still have to input the items and know how to read the reports. They have many great facilities such as Cash Flows, Year on Year Comparison, Project Allocation, RCT reporting, VAT reporting, just to name a few. They do vary in cost from €15 per month upwards but most offer a free 30 day trial so you can look around and get a feel for them first.

3. Do little and often. Block off some time each week (minimum monthly) to take care of the books. That way it doesn’t build up. Make sure this is time during the day when you would be working anyway and not Saturday evening when you should be spending time with family.

4. If you run a business where your van is your office, or even if you have a physical office, get a box and get into the habit of putting all your receipts into it as you get them. Be aware that receipts kept in direct sunlight will fade quicker and if you can’t read them then neither can Revenue if they do a VAT audit.

5. Number everything. Even if they aren’t in date order, if you have them numbered it will be a lot easier to find the one you need in a hurry.

How Important Is It To Your Business To Get…

Support in Business is Key

BNI

ActionCOACH

Support Agencies

How do you say ‘Thank You’ to clients?

Email or Send an actual Thank You note / card

Special Offers

Send a Gift

Send them referrals

Give back

What ways do you give back to your clients? Leave a comment below and let us know.

Cash Flows & Budgets

Get your FREE Cash Flow template here and get started today Cash Flow Template

5 Tips for keeping up with paperwork

What tips would you add?

Leave them in the comments below

How Important Is It To Your Business To Get…

Support in Business is Key

BNI

ActionCOACH

Support Agencies

How do you say ‘Thank You’ to clients?

Email or Send an actual Thank You note / card

Special Offers

Send a Gift

Send them referrals

Give back

What ways do you give back to your clients? Leave a comment below and let us know.

Cash Flows & Budgets

Get your FREE Cash Flow template here and get started today Cash Flow Template

5 Tips for keeping up with paperwork

What tips would you add?

Leave them in the comments below

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