Tag: advice

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03
Oct

Building an audience for your Facebook Page

Written by Matthew Gain

This is the second in a series of three posts on creating a successful Facebook Page. In my last post I covered a few key points on what a Facebook Page is and the things you need to consider before launching your Facebook Page. In this post I will explore techniques for building content your audience will like and growing a community.

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06
Aug

3 essential accounting practices for small businesses in Australia and New ...

Written by Tracey Sharah

Saddle up, we are now into the new financial year. It’s a great time to set goals for the new financial year and review your accounting practices and systems for your business. Accounting processes document all aspects of a business’s financial performance, so here are three essential practices to get you started. Your business is a separate entity to you, so keep track of what the business spends. The business you are running is yours. If you run that business through a structure such as a company, trust or partnership, then sometimes there is a tendency to blur the lines between yourself and the business. The entity running the business owns its own assets and incurs its own liabilities, and its business activities are separate to the owners. Ensure that you are purchasing items in the business entity name. Obtain the receipt and claim a business expense so that monies you take from the business are being accounted for correctly.

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03
Aug

Risk Management: Essential to business survival, especially for entrepreneu...

Written by Liam Shorte

You’re a small to medium business owner and as such, you are a risk taker whether you accept that or not. You have foregone a stable employment income for life as an entrepreneur. You experience all the advantages of self direction and being your own boss but with the headaches of unstable income flow and business risk. According to a credit reference checking agency, Veda Advantage, over 90% of businesses survive their first year but less than 45% last 9 years or more. Risk is a small word, but it comes in many forms for a business owner to deal with. So how can you manage risk? The first step is to identify the specific risks that could affect your business, and then you can formulate a plan to mitigate those risks. Just ignoring risks by not looking for them is no solution!

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18
Jul

Do you make these 5 mistakes with social media?

Written by Des Walsh

"I’ve learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success” Jack Welch, legendary former CEO of General Electric Because social media represents a new way of doing business, it is inevitable that some companies will make mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes will generate some negative publicity for the company concerned. If the mistakes are serious enough and generate enough online “heat”, there can be damage to the brand's reputation. Various case studies show that even the biggest, best resourced companies can get social media wrong, so it should not come as a surprise that small businesses can too. Five of the most common mistakes are: Expecting instant results Broadcasting, not listening and engaging Not going where the customers and prospects are Not committing resources Not being strategic With careful planning and sensible management, these mistakes can be avoided.

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17
Jul

5 marketing tips for busy entrepreneurs

Written by Gavin Heaton

When it comes to marketing, there is always a cost. It will cost you time, or it will cost you money. If you don't have the time to invest yourself, then the choice is simple—don't do it, or pay for it. Think about it ... how many emails, conversations or pitches have you had from people in the last week? How much time and energy did you invest in thinking, deciding or acting upon it? I generally receive at least one interesting pitch per day. The rest are usually caught by my email spam filter, but one or two slip through and catch my attention. In most cases, I simply delete them from my inbox, but sometimes if the subject line is intriguing enough or if I confuse the name of the sender with someone that I know, then I will open and read. Very rarely does it go beyond this, for a very simple reason—priorities.

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28
Mar

Friends, Romans and Countrymen – Lend me your ears!

Written by James Evangelidis

Thank you to William Shakespeare for the above title (sorry I just couldn't help myself). In an earlier post on the The Pulse I banged on about the importance of asking questions when meeting and discussing issues with clients and pitching for new business. Now we visit the other side of the communication coin - listening. Listening is perhaps the most important skill any accountant or professional adviser can bring to a discussion with a client, potential client, staff member, government department, supplier and so on. When you listen ... really listen ... to the other party some quite amazing things begin to happen. Here are just three to think about:

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