15.08.2010 11:57:49

It has been around one month with the iPad. Has it lived up to my expectations? Well, the easiest way to measure that is by asking my wife. Her comment is: "Have you got that thing with you again?" It is true. There have been very few times when the iPad has not been close by. It has become another device that has made our lives one where work rarely escapes us. But then again, this one is different. It does not seem like work. Looking at the past month deeper, I have actually been more productive.

I am a voracious reader of many websites and I use Google Reader to aggregate the RSS feeds associated. I use Reeder app as it is one of the better readers around. I am surprised at the many moments in the day when you have a few minutes spare. For example, I don't watch a lot of television. If I do, it is usually a show that the rest of my family is not watching. Commercials are a great time to catch up on a little reading or email.

I use the inbuilt email client. It works quite well. As I use Gmail I can also use Safari to browse to my Gmail as well. I have all of this synced via Gmail and so I can go to any computer or my iPad or even my dumb old Nokia phone and read my email and it all just works. The same with my calendar Google calendar syncs with the iPad calendar. Oh, And there is contacts, it all just works.

I also use Mind Maps a lot. iThoughts app is a great solution. It exports complete maps in many different mind mapping tool formats.

I won't bore you with the other apps ranging from TV guides through weather apps and Google Earth which is just mesmerising. The World Cup has been easy to follow via an app and my eBay addiction can be dealt with as well. TweetDeck and Soobees for FaceBook feed the Social media needs. DropBox allows me to share files and I can keep track of website and notes via EverNote.

The 3G access via Telstra has been faultless, but the Telstra app for keeping track of your usage is rubbish. The wireless connects easily. Skype and GotoMeeting look after the communications side of things.

I have paid for Pages from the iTunes store. I had a couple of weeks of trying to work via Google docs. That was somewhat successful but you have to be connected on the net all the time. The main limitation is the Safari browser. It does not support the needed functions, maybe later.

With no network access the iPad is limited. You can do things on some of the apps and obviously work on documents and presentations, using Keynote. But like the few minutes that I have now waiting in KL for colleagues to pick me up, wireless or 3G access would be good. 3G roaming is very expensive so it is a last resort thing you would do.

On the accessory side, I have bought a photo like stand from the Apple store and a keyboard which mounts the iPad in portrait mode. On second thoughts, I should have gotten the Bluetooth keyboard as the iPad in landscape mode just looks better to work with.

So would I buy an iPad again? Yes. Would I have the 3G version? Yes.

27.04.2010 22:46:23

I am a geek. Cannot help it. I have been like this all my life and probably always will be. I have so wanted an iPad that it is not funny. I am waiting patiently for the release in Australia as I want it to have Australian 3G support etc. Of course, I have been trying to figure out how to justify this purchase from a business perspective. Why would having an iPad be better for my business? Maybe like yourself, I have read the first day reviews and continue to follow the Blogs and reviews that are still coming. It is a big ipod Touch. That has basically been the flavour I have been seeing.

So what does that mean? Well the big difference revolves around the lack of a filesystem as we would know it in computers. You cannot load up a file and go to your folder and double click and bingo start editing your favourite word processing type document. You also may expect a USB port? Wrong, there is the Apple Connector for connecting to a PC or Mac so you can sync it up. In fact when you get one you, you may expect to start it up and enjoy the fun. Wrong, you connect it to your PC or Mac and do a Sync with your iTunes account. After a pretty long effort like this you can then play with your new toy. So far you are not impressed? Me also. So why do I still want one? This is an incredible piece of industrial design. The screen is so clear. It is pretty light and very thin. It is way cool! It is a true Cloud Computing device. It does have a browser. So I can use Safari to surf the net. And I am hoping I can use Safari to access Google Docs. Once I have that in place, I can do email via my GMail account. I can use Google Docs for documents. I can use the really cool graphics to show customers and clients images as well as Google Docs presentations. I am now excited once more and convinced that this will be a productivity tool and a great presentation tool for my business. Bring it on !

01.03.2010 20:05:23

One of the problems in marketing your business is measuring the success of the campaign you  have been running.

The most important measurement is your sales. Have sales increased? Have the products or  services you have been marketing been requested more often?

Basic Rule #1: ask your customers. Simply asking customers and recording the results on a  sheet of paper and colating that information at the end of the week. Ask: "How did you here of us/this product/etc?"

In previous posts I have spoken about the various marketing channels. You can read more on this here. If you want to measure the performance of some of the  channels, there are great tools available. The power of tools that are free or cheap on the Internet is truly amazing.

Newsletters: using Electronic Direct Mail to communicate to customers regularly is well  documented. Using a tool such as ConstantContact or MailChimp makes your EDM much easier to  manage and it also comes with great reporting. You can see who opened the email and also what links, within the email, they clicked on. You can see if they reopen and reread the email as well. These are great tools to give you an insight into what interest your customers.

Your website: Google Analytics is a great tool for looking at the performance of your  website. One great innovation is the Site Overlay. Here you can see a percentage indication  of what parts of your website visitors are clicking on. You see your website with an overlay  of statistics. Apart from that you also get the number of people coming to the site, what  pages they are looking at, how long they spend on your site and also if they are coming  direct to the site or via a serach engine or referred from another site.

Here is a simple marketing campaign and you can see how you can measure at various steps.

The campaign consists of a direct mail letter sent to your prospect via a mailing list you  have rented. The letter invites the prospect to come to your website, to a specific landing  page, to get more information and download a guide or article of interest. The download  process collects the prospects name and email address and asks them if they would like  further information. This allows you to market to the prospect in the future at the cheaper  cost using EDM instead of posting letters.

The true measure is the number of email addresses you gain for your database. But maybe you  dont get that many and you would like to understand where the process could be improved? I  will assume that you have implemented Google Analytics on your website already.

• The first measure to look for is increased traffic to your website in the week following  the physical mailout. You may see a general increase or you may see a spike.
• next is to look at the traffic coming to the landing page you have setup. If the traffic  is mostly direct, then the URL on the letter you sent would be the most likely driver.
• If the above two have not happened, then look at the content of your letter. Did it engage  and generate interest? Did it generate enough interest to make the person look up the site  on the internet and put in the URL you sent them? Have another person review the letter,  preferably somebody who does not work in your business or in your industry.
• Use the Site Overlay on the landing page to see what people clicked on in regards to that  page. Did the message on the landing page drive further interest, enough for somebody to  exchange their email address for that information?

For more information on Google Analytics look under Business Solutions on the Google  homepage.

31.01.2010 13:50:02

Does this sound familiar? You have started your business and have a number of staff. Everyday is busy but there is that nagging fear of "what will happen if I am not around today?"

You are not alone. At InFormGroup we talk to businesses in the same situation regularly. Two things come up in discussions. It is difficult to get staff that you can rely on and secondly a lot of what is done each day is learned process and there is a lack of documentation to help staff through situations that may arise in the day. The first topic is for another day, but lest look at the latter.

"I just do not have time to document what we do". As a business owner myself, I would agree. But somewhere along the way a time comes when it is important to document things. If that time comes and you dont have the capacity to do the documenting, what would happen?

The usual example is" What would you do if you were hit by a Bus?" Well most likely I would be dead and so I dont really care ! But lets assume you survive but you are in intensive care in Hospital. How will your business run? Usually a family member steps in and helps. But how does that person know what has to be done?

If the staff have been with you for a long time, you may get by. What if the staff are relatively new?

A simple answer is an Operating Manual and it does not have to be Biblical in size to be of value. Here are some things to start you off:

* List your suppliers, contact names and what you normally order and when
* List your most valuable customers. They can be contacted by the family member and usually will be very helpful to that member in making sure the products and services outstanding is understood so they can be delivered.
* make sure all of you staff details and contact numbers are available so your stand in can find the person they need quickly.
* Make sure another family member can access and authorise Bank Transactions. You need to pay staff and your bills.
* Write down common tasks that are done each day: before business starts and after close of business

Apart from the above an Operating Manual for your business would outline different business activities that are done each day. Things like: Quoting, scheduling of jobs, invoicing, collections, newsletters you produce, handling incoming stock, delivering orders..... the list goes on and is specific to your business.

The main thing is to do something and do it today. Who knows when the Bus could hit!

25.08.2009 18:16:25

Small Business Week starts in early September and I have been asked to speak to a group of business owners at breakfast. Luckily, mornings are my best time so the 7:00am start is okay.

At this meeting I am going to explore what it takes to run a balanced business. What do I mean by that?

The simplest way to think about it is to picture a diamond like below. In each corner we have Customers, Finance, Employees and Operations. Now imagine that the line joining the corners is elastic. If you spend a lot of your time concentrating on the financials of your business you could see that the "elastic" is stretched further in that direction. That puts pressure on the other parts of your business.

Practically speaking, you could have the best Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet by cutting back on staff levels, training for staff, capital expenditure on business systems and process design. But, is it possible that maybe your customers could suffer with Service and your staff may look for other opportunities and in the long run you are less efficient because your processes and systems let you down? When you look at the P&L in 6 months time, it may not be so good.

Conversely, you could focus a lot of energy on staff. They could be the best rewarded people and be really well trained. But, they may not be customer focused and may be less effective because your systems and processes dont allow them to succeed.

I think you get the idea. Obviously we have limited time and money and as such focus on a particular aspect of the business moves things along. But, long term focus should be in a balanced way.

 

02.08.2009 13:54:11

There is a lot written about Twitter and I have to admit I still cannot really see how it brings real results. Another new media medium is Facebook Fan Pages. This is more akin to the classic web page but is on a "directory" that has a huge audience. To understand more have a look at the information on the Facebook website.

To get started follow the instructions to setup the page. Then you have a number of options to advertise your business. Firstly you become a fan of the Fan Page. This advertises the page to your connections on Facebook.

Another method is to purchase advertising on Facebook itself. These are the ads you see on the right hand side of a Facebook page.  The targeting here is very good. You have the ability to specifiy age, sex, location as well as many other snippets of information. This information is gathered at time of registration by Facebook users.

26.07.2009 21:12:38

 

Finding photos for brochures or websites or even blogs can be time consuming. Filckr has a section devoted to photos that can be reused as long as you attribute the photo to the author. You even get a useful little URL link included so you can past that under the photo. To find this look in Flickr for Creative Commons. In fact Creative Commons is a movement that helps people to get recognition for the work they do. In Flickr I did a search for business and found thousands of interesting images.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajawin/ / CC BY 2.0

 

20.07.2009 20:52:29

Here is a list of what is around the web for our favourite time of the year:

Advanced Guide to capital gains tax concessions for small business 2008-09
This guide explains the capital gains tax (CGT) concessions available for small business

Changes to super for individuals
Provides an overview of changes made to super co-contributions, concessional contributions caps and income tests as a result of the 2009 Federal Budget

Individual PAYG payment summary schedule 2008-09
Information on the PAYG schedules for filling in tax returns

Reporting requirements - changes for the 2009/10 income year
These changes are for the reporting of payments made in the 2009-10 income year. They include:

• the reporting of reportable employer superannuation contributions
• the inclusion of the pension or annuity indicator box
• the inclusion of the lump sum payment A ‘type’ box
• the reporting of exempt foreign employment income
• the removal of the ‘other income’ label.

What is new in e-tax 2009?
Changes to pre-filling in 2009 include:

• an enhanced Alerts service. This year, in addition to notifying you when additional information is available, if you register to receive your alert by email, you will also be advised of the type of data
• private health insurance rebate details 
• rental property address details from 2007-08 rental property schedules 
• pay as you go (PAYG) income tax instalment amounts 
• reminders of letters that we have sent to you throughout the year in relation to: 
• your work related expenses, and 
• the need to lodge a schedule of work related expenses (SWE). 
• family tax benefit (FTB) claim status information has been removed because FTB claims are no longer administrated by the Tax Office.

05.07.2009 17:56:15

Here is a list of some of the Software as a Service Financial Systems available on the web today. Like all applications, these have their strengths, focus and weaknesses. Also, there are quite a view Invoicing systems available today. The main issue is how do you get that data easily into your financial system. Some do all aspects, like Saasu:

Saasu -  This is probably the closest you will get to an online system of the same calibre as MYOB and Quickbooks. It does all of the regular accounting modules you would expect. It allows private branding of your systems as well as invoices,statement and the like. Can be free if you do less than 15 transactions per month.

Invoiceplace -  As the name suggest it does invoicing. The twist on this one is that there is an inventory management module. It is pretty limited in that aspect. Payments can be received by PayPal and other payment gateways are coming. The invoicing module allows resending of invoices and statements.

Winkbill -  good customisation allowed for templates. Reminders, Invoices, Statements with a Dashboard to give you an overview. Payment gateways are a bit limited.

FreshBooks -  the usual plus a Contractor module aimed at making it easier to work with contractors. They can do timesheets and these can be turned into expenses. If you have a lot of contractors, it is worth a look.

Cashboard -  Invoicing, time tracking, projects and estimates are the focus for this site.

As you can see there are plenty of companies doing this today. The main features to look for are:

• GST and understanding of ATO rules
• different currencies (most sites are US based)
• ability to download transactions or an API into you main financial system

What would I choose? For my money Saasu covers the bases and has the best upto date modules for ATO compliance.

29.06.2009 14:34:01

It is that time of the year again. We are all madly working to close the FY books, bring in outstanding creditors and pay debts in advance for next year. These things are all good and keep our financial team happy as well as help business health.

But what are you going to do next? We all know things are not going to stop, so operations is going to be top of mind. Apart from that, what about your Business Plan?

Hopefully your Business Plan is not sitting in a draw somewhere, is it? Even if it is get it out and dust it off. Look through the plan and have a look at what is relevant today. Most likely things have changed somewhat. Priorities, Goals and Objectives change over time. Maybe things have changed so much that a complete review of the Business Plan is needed.

Here is a quick and easy way to overcome the Business Plan problem. Even if you do not have a business plan doing this is a great start. Have a think about the next year for your business and write down the following headings:

• Business Focus/Scope

• Revenue/Income

• Costs/Expenses

• Resources

• Facilities

• Goals

Business Focus/Scope: This is the business activities you are going to focus on for the next year. It may be establishing a new line of products or another outlet. It may be focusing on an aspect of your business that you want to improve. Put down at least three bullet points but no more than five.

Revenue/Income: This is your expected Revenue for the year. You should also put this down as a monthly or quarterly guide. Also think about the “mix” of the revenue if you have multiple income streams.

Costs/Expenses: Same as you did with revenue. Highlight costs associated to Mix so you can check those.

Resources: Bullet point your staff numbers and functions. You may have 30 staff made up of 2 Shift Leaders, 3 Apprentices and 25 Tradesman. What other resources will you need? Salespeople, administration, bookkeeping. Bullet point these.

Facilities: list the facilities you will need for the year ahead

Goals: These should be your Goals for the year. Be careful to make sure they are SMART. They should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Driven

Now do yourself a favour and think of the year PAST this one. In other words, what would these headings and bullet points look like in another years time?

 

This Business Plan should fit on one page. So on doublesided printing you have this years and next years plan. If you laminate this and keep it in your work folder, diary and even post it on your wall, you have a handy reminder of what you are trying to do that year.

 

You might even refer back to your Business Plan or create a new one. If you need help in creating a plan please contact us at InFormGroup.

 

 

Business Planning

03.06.2009 16:47:51

I just read a good article in NETT magazine. It was written Peter Quinn of Quinn Consultants. Essentially he is saying that if payroll tax was abolished then a business could employ more people. A side benefit is that the Government would not have to fund unemployment for those folks.

"In 1992, the payroll threshold was $500,000 and based on average wage of $30,617 per year a business could emply 16 people. The threshold today is $625,000 and based on an average wage of $60,595 and also Superannuation guarantee, a business can employ on 9 people"

If payroll Tax was abolished would you employ more staff?

01.06.2009 14:23:53

Have you been caught by this? I almost was, once. A company sent an invoice to me for around $200. But it was not an invoice, in very small print and grey letters it was spelled out that this was an offer to be put in some directory. The "invoice" referred to a publication I had advertised through recently.

Obviously, these guys get on the lists for publications etc and then send invoices as if they represent the advertising you have commissioned.

My instant reaction: " Oh bugger, I must have forgotten to pay that". But, I checked the records and sure enough I had. I then reread the "invoice".

I took the matter to Consumer Affairs and gave them copies of the invoice. they contacted the company who issued it and I have heard nothing since.

As the article says, with more pressure on SMEs at present, these scammers are very active.

Beware!

03.05.2009 14:58:33

Need a loan?

Maybe not the thing you want to think about in today's world. But business has to go on and for a lot of SMEs raising capital for projects or new business is an ongoing problem. The Victorian Government has put together a good website for finding information and suppliers of loans. You fill in some simple questions on the website and then get a comparison table back with the supllier, interest rates and the monthly payable amount. To see more have a look at the website.

theBizWiz

http://www.boulterassociates.com.au/
http://www.informgroup.com.au/

25.04.2009 01:32:40

I like marketing and especially the use of technology as a marketing tool. The other day I needed some ink for my HP 3 in 1 Fax/scanner/printer. Of course, I needed it then. For many months I have received a weekly email from a supplier Inkman. I had purchase a toner cartridge for my laser from them. The emails were not that annoying but I mostly deleted them without reading them. But when I needed the HP ink I looked up the website and checked their prices. I ordered some with next day delivery. I also raced down to Harvey Norman and bought some ink to get by that day.

In marketing there is a model called AIDA. Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. Well, the weekly emails created awareness. They generated some interest but generally no desire and the only action was the deletion of the email. What was the secret ingredient missing?

Timing. the marketing material presented did not raise my desire so that I could order the ink BEFORE I needed it. So timing raised my desire level and so I was pushed into action.

Thinking about this more I can see a case for weekly emails from suppliers of necessary products and services. But how would that equate to suppliers of more complex solutions or services. What about Legal advertising in local papers? Does that work the same way?

03.04.2009 15:40:12

Microsoft View of Manufacturing in the future.





theBizWiz
http://www.boulterassociates.com.au/
http://www.informgroup.com.au/

03.04.2009 14:17:13

Legal structures, Tax, keeping records, employees, GST and where do I get help?

These are all issues on the mind of anybody starting a small business.

I have a family member looking at doing this, in fact I have three little entrepreneurs as well as myself.

No wonder nobody goes to bed around here and the Electricity bill is so high.

The checklist available form the ATO is a great place to start.

theBizWiz

http://www.boulterassociates.com.au/

http://www.informgroup.com.au/