It doesn’t matter whether you’re a sole trader, self-employed, a small partnership or a small limited company, we’ve all fallen into these or similar traps:
the spaces have been left so that you can enter your own notes when you print it out
- Being so busy delivering one job that we forget to spend the time getting the next job
- Being so pleased to get the order at a price we can live with that we forget to arrange terms of payment that we can also live with
- Having a client so important that when they change their requirements, probably implying we should have noticed, we accept the extra work without negotiating a ‘Change Order’
- Being so busy that we don’t prepare or send our invoices at the earliest moment
- Being so busy that we don’t chase payment of our invoices, because ‘we don’t want to appear to be grasping’ (If you think about it, getting the cash is the real result we want from being in business)
- Thinking that all that there is to running a business is delivering a perfect job and that’s it
- Omitting to rigorously set aside the cash to pay the VAT, Sales Tax, Corporation Tax, etc etc etc
- ‘Promising’ a delivery or completion date which really isn’t actually possible
- Being so fixated on doing a job ‘to the best of our ability’ (on reviewing the final draft we say ‘I’ll just do this bit again’) because we think ‘this is the way to get more business’
- Being arrogantly confident even though all our business comes from only one or two major customers
- Being above the risks of disaster planning or business continuity planning because ‘It won’t happen to me’ or ‘I’ll deal with it next year as I can’t afford it this year.’
- I’ll do it this way because everyone else does it this way, (Only dead things go down the river with the current, only living things can swim against the current.)
- Employing staff, there must be a better way so work it out
- Renting an office, there must be a better way so work it out
- Listening to the advice of people who have never created or run their own business and using their own money
- Listening to the advice of ‘professionals’ who’s real profession is to take money off you rather than to address you’re real needs
- Thinking that advisers from big organisations know the right answer
- Dealing with ‘Bullies’, you’re much better off if they’re looked after by your competitors
- Taking a decision by accident, without really noticing it and then you’re lumbered with the ongoing consequences
- Realising that you’ve built yourself a treadmill and you haven’t had time to work out what you need to do to get off it
- Being continuously told off for bringing work home or doing work whilst on holiday
- Forgetting to check that one of your team had done what you’d asked, only to be forced into taking emergency action to rescue the situation
- Failing to communicate effectively with the people in your team
- Omitting to keep an effective rapport with your most important customer
- Organising your business in the standard way, because it’s always been done that way, rather than looking at how it might be better organised to achieve your personal aims and objectives
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Monday, 31 December 2007
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
Step 1. Why start with Cash Collection
I have distilled all the critical elements of my learning, my training and my experiences with hundreds of companies, both large and small into the best collaborative software I’ve ever seen, in order to make life better for you.
You Need The Knowledge…. But You Also Need…
My aim is to provide you with dynamic, yet simple to follow instruction combined with a software toolset which allows you to implement and achieve the desired results:
- To make your business easier to run
- To make your staff more effective
- To simplify your business processes
- To sort out your filing. so you can find what you’re looking for
- To make you and your business a success
The “Pathway to Success” One Step At A Time…
I’ve called it the “Pathway to Success” and I, with my selected team of Business Mentors, will take you through the whole process one step at a time so that at the end you too will say, “I didn’t realise it was that easy.”
The Seven Steps…
There are just seven steps in the whole program and you can deal with them in the order you choose.
- Improve your Cash Collection
- Improve your Office Admin
- Increase your Sales
- Improve Operations and Delivery
- Set up Key Performance Indicators and Information
- Delegate confidently and successfully
- Formulate your exit strategy
You Should Start with Cash Collection…
We recommend you start with Cash Collection as that frees up your business so that you can handle the additional growth and be able to do you what you want to do:
But also…
You are going to be provided with the support that you and your staff need in order to achieve the results we achieve. We work with you and your staff as if we are you, we stand in your shoes to help your staff achieve the results you want, and we keep you informed at every step of the way.
Here’s 4 Good Reasons Why You Should Start with Cash Collection
Playing ‘Catch Up’ Will Seriously Damage Your Business
Strictly from a maths calculation – if you get a bad debt and your net profit is (say) 7% and your unpaid debt is £3,000 then you need to create £42,857 of additional sales to replace the lost money. What a waste, you now have to generate £42,857 more sales fast, just to stand still..
Going to Court Will Cost You Dearly…
Don’t think about suing them for the money, it’ll take you so much time, it’s expensive, it’ll cost you more in lost sales, you’ll take your eye off the main game – developing growing your business. So don’t lend it to them in the first place, get your money in now Even if you won your case in court, you’ve still got to get your hands on the actual money and if they’ve gone into liquidation, forget it the official administrators costs are huge and will normally see left with 10p in the £1. That’s £300 after all that effort, less your solicitors fees etc etc.
There is NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT than banking the cash…
As a business owner you are in business to provide a service and when it’s done to send the invoice and bank the cash. In fact the service is not complete until the cash is banked. There is NOTHING ELSE; we are all in business to bank the cash. There is NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT than banking the cash. There is no benefit to you or your staff, your family or your suppliers in providing the most wonderful service from the most innovative idea if you don’t bank the cash. There is no purpose in going through all the rigmarole and risk of running a business if you don’t bank the cash.
Why Take The Risk? - Leave The Cash Lending To The Banks…
When you set up your business did you include in your business plan, as one of the unique services you provide “lending cash to anyone we do business with” no, of course not, so why are you doing it? Let alone exposing yourself to even more risk, to the risk that finally they don’t pay you. Do you even know enough about your customers to be satisfied that lending to them is a viable financial risk?
So What Will The First Step Do For You?...
Now let’s see, if you could get your invoices paid by the due date then the probable results are:
Ø A weight off your back
Ø Something else you don’t need to worry about
Ø A better bank balance
Ø Paying your suppliers earlier
Ø Moving on to the next stage in your development
Ø Increasing your marketing spend and creating more sales
Ø Opening a new office in a new area
Let alone the simple ones of reduced bank interest and reduced invoice discounting and invoice factoring charges.
This means that we’ll have solved the first critical headache for you – cash. This also means that cash will not be a constraint on your business in the future.
Stories along the way
Before we get going I’d like to share with you some of the common traps and pitfalls that I have seen business owners, possibly similar to yourself, fall into and some situations which you may find yourself in right now…
The companies supplying this company lost out big time…
1. One company I knew well, appointed a new financial director because they were having a hard time. Could you guess that the first thing he did was to tell all the suppliers that he was only going to pay them 50% of their debt and if they didn’t like it to forget about ever doing business with them again. Those the company had already paid didn’t have any problem with this edict, did they!
Ignorance is not Bliss…
2. Then there was the one who had been told by the Group Board that if they didn’t improve their return on capital, at the time 7.1%, they’d be closed down. The directors said that they had 17 days outstanding debtors whereas looking at the accounts, the debtors on the accounts when compared with last years’ turnover showed 35 days.
The directors explained that they ignored inter-company indebtedness. On reflection, they decided to ask the associated company to get finance locally, the debtor days did come down to 17 days and they improved the return on capital to 9.6% almost immediately. And saved the company…. And their jobs! What’s your debtor days?
Set Firm Terms of Payment and Stick To Them or Else…
3. Then there was the one, as recently as last week, where the director stated very simply, ‘I only pay on statement and never pay any statement where not all the invoices are in the file.’ That doesn’t sound like they are adhering to anyone’s terms and conditions.
If you do accept this treatment and this additional risk, have you allowed for it in your charges, have you added on the costs of the interest incurred, the costs of additional personnel and administration required, and the very real question that they may not be paying you because they don’t have the money.
What is Assumed vs. What Is Real May Be Poles Apart…
4. A few weeks ago I was talking to a Business Owner and he assured me that his debtors were fine (he’s been telling me this for two years) finally I said OK show me the accounts for last year, what was your sales turnover so your average sales per day were £X. “Fine and what were your debtors at the end of last month?” £XXXX (definitely four X) the result showed 200 days. He had assured me it was supposed to be 60 days. That was a huge amount to be funding!!!.
You Need To Be Smarter Than David To Take On Goliath…
5. AND then I was talking to a business who didn’t realise that they had moved out of the domestic market, with payment at the end of each job, into the commercial market. They had agreed the rate for the job but not the terms of payment. They negotiated a great contract and suddenly were looking at funding a debt for £3000….. and no one knows when it might get paid…. I moved like lightning.
So, what can you do to ensure this doesn’t happen to you…
Well, the first You need to do is identify where your business is right now in terms of unpaid invoices and debtor days. Call us on 01273358000 or email getthecashin@yoolaa.co.uk or look up http://www.yoolaa.co.uk/ and sign in for the free copy of Cliff Jenkins’ eye opening Report entitled "Pathway to Success - Ultimate Cash Collection".
You Need The Knowledge…. But You Also Need…
My aim is to provide you with dynamic, yet simple to follow instruction combined with a software toolset which allows you to implement and achieve the desired results:
- To make your business easier to run
- To make your staff more effective
- To simplify your business processes
- To sort out your filing. so you can find what you’re looking for
- To make you and your business a success
The “Pathway to Success” One Step At A Time…
I’ve called it the “Pathway to Success” and I, with my selected team of Business Mentors, will take you through the whole process one step at a time so that at the end you too will say, “I didn’t realise it was that easy.”
The Seven Steps…
There are just seven steps in the whole program and you can deal with them in the order you choose.
- Improve your Cash Collection
- Improve your Office Admin
- Increase your Sales
- Improve Operations and Delivery
- Set up Key Performance Indicators and Information
- Delegate confidently and successfully
- Formulate your exit strategy
You Should Start with Cash Collection…
We recommend you start with Cash Collection as that frees up your business so that you can handle the additional growth and be able to do you what you want to do:
But also…
You are going to be provided with the support that you and your staff need in order to achieve the results we achieve. We work with you and your staff as if we are you, we stand in your shoes to help your staff achieve the results you want, and we keep you informed at every step of the way.
Here’s 4 Good Reasons Why You Should Start with Cash Collection
Playing ‘Catch Up’ Will Seriously Damage Your Business
Strictly from a maths calculation – if you get a bad debt and your net profit is (say) 7% and your unpaid debt is £3,000 then you need to create £42,857 of additional sales to replace the lost money. What a waste, you now have to generate £42,857 more sales fast, just to stand still..
Going to Court Will Cost You Dearly…
Don’t think about suing them for the money, it’ll take you so much time, it’s expensive, it’ll cost you more in lost sales, you’ll take your eye off the main game – developing growing your business. So don’t lend it to them in the first place, get your money in now Even if you won your case in court, you’ve still got to get your hands on the actual money and if they’ve gone into liquidation, forget it the official administrators costs are huge and will normally see left with 10p in the £1. That’s £300 after all that effort, less your solicitors fees etc etc.
There is NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT than banking the cash…
As a business owner you are in business to provide a service and when it’s done to send the invoice and bank the cash. In fact the service is not complete until the cash is banked. There is NOTHING ELSE; we are all in business to bank the cash. There is NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT than banking the cash. There is no benefit to you or your staff, your family or your suppliers in providing the most wonderful service from the most innovative idea if you don’t bank the cash. There is no purpose in going through all the rigmarole and risk of running a business if you don’t bank the cash.
Why Take The Risk? - Leave The Cash Lending To The Banks…
When you set up your business did you include in your business plan, as one of the unique services you provide “lending cash to anyone we do business with” no, of course not, so why are you doing it? Let alone exposing yourself to even more risk, to the risk that finally they don’t pay you. Do you even know enough about your customers to be satisfied that lending to them is a viable financial risk?
So What Will The First Step Do For You?...
Now let’s see, if you could get your invoices paid by the due date then the probable results are:
Ø A weight off your back
Ø Something else you don’t need to worry about
Ø A better bank balance
Ø Paying your suppliers earlier
Ø Moving on to the next stage in your development
Ø Increasing your marketing spend and creating more sales
Ø Opening a new office in a new area
Let alone the simple ones of reduced bank interest and reduced invoice discounting and invoice factoring charges.
This means that we’ll have solved the first critical headache for you – cash. This also means that cash will not be a constraint on your business in the future.
Stories along the way
Before we get going I’d like to share with you some of the common traps and pitfalls that I have seen business owners, possibly similar to yourself, fall into and some situations which you may find yourself in right now…
The companies supplying this company lost out big time…
1. One company I knew well, appointed a new financial director because they were having a hard time. Could you guess that the first thing he did was to tell all the suppliers that he was only going to pay them 50% of their debt and if they didn’t like it to forget about ever doing business with them again. Those the company had already paid didn’t have any problem with this edict, did they!
Ignorance is not Bliss…
2. Then there was the one who had been told by the Group Board that if they didn’t improve their return on capital, at the time 7.1%, they’d be closed down. The directors said that they had 17 days outstanding debtors whereas looking at the accounts, the debtors on the accounts when compared with last years’ turnover showed 35 days.
The directors explained that they ignored inter-company indebtedness. On reflection, they decided to ask the associated company to get finance locally, the debtor days did come down to 17 days and they improved the return on capital to 9.6% almost immediately. And saved the company…. And their jobs! What’s your debtor days?
Set Firm Terms of Payment and Stick To Them or Else…
3. Then there was the one, as recently as last week, where the director stated very simply, ‘I only pay on statement and never pay any statement where not all the invoices are in the file.’ That doesn’t sound like they are adhering to anyone’s terms and conditions.
If you do accept this treatment and this additional risk, have you allowed for it in your charges, have you added on the costs of the interest incurred, the costs of additional personnel and administration required, and the very real question that they may not be paying you because they don’t have the money.
What is Assumed vs. What Is Real May Be Poles Apart…
4. A few weeks ago I was talking to a Business Owner and he assured me that his debtors were fine (he’s been telling me this for two years) finally I said OK show me the accounts for last year, what was your sales turnover so your average sales per day were £X. “Fine and what were your debtors at the end of last month?” £XXXX (definitely four X) the result showed 200 days. He had assured me it was supposed to be 60 days. That was a huge amount to be funding!!!.
You Need To Be Smarter Than David To Take On Goliath…
5. AND then I was talking to a business who didn’t realise that they had moved out of the domestic market, with payment at the end of each job, into the commercial market. They had agreed the rate for the job but not the terms of payment. They negotiated a great contract and suddenly were looking at funding a debt for £3000….. and no one knows when it might get paid…. I moved like lightning.
So, what can you do to ensure this doesn’t happen to you…
Well, the first You need to do is identify where your business is right now in terms of unpaid invoices and debtor days. Call us on 01273358000 or email getthecashin@yoolaa.co.uk or look up http://www.yoolaa.co.uk/ and sign in for the free copy of Cliff Jenkins’ eye opening Report entitled "Pathway to Success - Ultimate Cash Collection".
Well you’ve got a business, so what are you going to do now?
For SMEs. Essentially every small business starts small, that is with one person doing everything – getting the business, doing the work, getting the money in and doing it all profitably.
This however is a treadmill, if you want a holiday then your income stops, if you’re ill everything stops, and normally the worst case is that you have under-estimated the time required to do the work and have to drop everything else in order to finish that particular job.
This means no new work coming in, no pipeline is being built, no other invoices will be going out and then if your customer is not happy or if they just don’t get round to paying you, you’re deep in the mire.
If you have a second income in your household, then whilst this situation may be embarrassing and painful, your partner will cover you, at least initially.
This scenario of under-estimating the amount of work involved (otherwise known as I could do this better and it me won’t take very long) is very common and is the cause of most of the complaints about (and we’ve all heard them):-
‘you love your business more than you love me’
‘you spend more of your evenings with your business than you do with your family’
‘do you really need to bring your work on holiday with you’
‘are you still working’
‘Your dinner’s in the dog.’
I’m sure you know what I mean, so what can we do about it, how do we solve the problem?
It’s simple really, you’re only doing step 2. Well I’m sorry but there are four other concerns and the route to the solution starts with No.5. Organise it Effectively.
In any business the sequence is:
Get more sales
Deliver the service efficiently
Get paid promptly
Check your profitability frequently
Organise it effectively
If you organise effectively then all the hours available to you and anyone working with you become more productive.
This means that taking the case that you’re putting in sixty hours of work and half of them are not chargeable work, then if we do the admin work in half the time fifteen hours then you save fifteen hours and you can do what you are doing now in only forty five hours.
This is crucial, because if you can do become more productive, then for the same amount of criticism from your partner, you can really start to grow your business.
Why do you want to grow your business?
Unless you grow your business to a size large enough to be properly organised you will never comfortably be able to have a holiday, as you will not be able to delegate the work or the responsibility to anyone else.
Unless you grow your business to a good size you will not be able to realise its proper value when you want to pass it on to someone else.
Unless you grow your business to a reasonable size you will not have put in place disaster or continuity planning for your own business and you will not be looking after your customers as you would like, and more importantly, as they would like.)
Let’s get started.
Call us now on 01273 358000
email gettingstarted@yoolaa.co.uk or
have a look at http://www.yoolaa.co.uk/
This however is a treadmill, if you want a holiday then your income stops, if you’re ill everything stops, and normally the worst case is that you have under-estimated the time required to do the work and have to drop everything else in order to finish that particular job.
This means no new work coming in, no pipeline is being built, no other invoices will be going out and then if your customer is not happy or if they just don’t get round to paying you, you’re deep in the mire.
If you have a second income in your household, then whilst this situation may be embarrassing and painful, your partner will cover you, at least initially.
This scenario of under-estimating the amount of work involved (otherwise known as I could do this better and it me won’t take very long) is very common and is the cause of most of the complaints about (and we’ve all heard them):-
‘you love your business more than you love me’
‘you spend more of your evenings with your business than you do with your family’
‘do you really need to bring your work on holiday with you’
‘are you still working’
‘Your dinner’s in the dog.’
I’m sure you know what I mean, so what can we do about it, how do we solve the problem?
It’s simple really, you’re only doing step 2. Well I’m sorry but there are four other concerns and the route to the solution starts with No.5. Organise it Effectively.
In any business the sequence is:
Get more sales
Deliver the service efficiently
Get paid promptly
Check your profitability frequently
Organise it effectively
If you organise effectively then all the hours available to you and anyone working with you become more productive.
This means that taking the case that you’re putting in sixty hours of work and half of them are not chargeable work, then if we do the admin work in half the time fifteen hours then you save fifteen hours and you can do what you are doing now in only forty five hours.
This is crucial, because if you can do become more productive, then for the same amount of criticism from your partner, you can really start to grow your business.
Why do you want to grow your business?
Unless you grow your business to a size large enough to be properly organised you will never comfortably be able to have a holiday, as you will not be able to delegate the work or the responsibility to anyone else.
Unless you grow your business to a good size you will not be able to realise its proper value when you want to pass it on to someone else.
Unless you grow your business to a reasonable size you will not have put in place disaster or continuity planning for your own business and you will not be looking after your customers as you would like, and more importantly, as they would like.)
Let’s get started.
Call us now on 01273 358000
email gettingstarted@yoolaa.co.uk or
have a look at http://www.yoolaa.co.uk/
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