Category: Business Advice

Girl holding a wad of money

How can I increase my profit margin?

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As author Dough Hall correctly put it, “if your profit margins aren’t rising, chances are your company isn’t thriving.” Makes sense when you think about it. If your profit margin is the actual money you get to walk away with after a transaction (your revenue minus your costs), you want to be continually improving this number.

To help you increase your profit margin, especially at a time where you’re unable to increase demand, here are 10 strategies that you can start with.

Raise your fees

This is the most obvious way to increase your profit margin as the more money you make on each sale, the wider your margin. If you haven’t raised your prices in a while, consider doing so.

Reduce operating expenses 

Think about how you can streamline your operations to reduce costs. Can you lower your overheads by reducing wasteful spending? Would you benefit from automating administrative tasks?

Upsell services to existing clients

Your clients already know and trust you, so they are going to be significantly more receptive to other offers that you have. Upsell your other services that they could benefit from and you’ll see this is a great way to improve your profit margin.

Increase the productivity of your staff

Increasing the output of your staff is a great strategy to increase your profits. From setting the right targets and motivating them to training your staff and helping them develop the right skills, you can do a lot to boost their performance.

Identify and fix bottlenecks

In which areas are processes too slow? In what areas is there waste in your business? Bottlenecks cost you money and decrease your bottom line so comb through your processes and see what needs to be improved. Examples of waste are not utilising talent, waiting for work from others, and poor communication channels.

Invest in savvier practice management software 

While cloud-based systems and software cost initially, they can save a lot of time and money when it comes to those administrative and manual tasks. If you train the right staff on the right software, things like client enquiries, relationship management, email management, invoicing, and social media scheduling become a lot less painful.

Improve inventory turnover 

Markdowns are known profit-killers, so avoid them at all costs. One way to do this is to better manage areas like inventory. Review your inventory turnover and make better decisions around purchasing, sales and marketing, and you’ll reduce the need for markdowns.

Increase the perceived value of your brand 

You need a strong brand, one that centres around the emotional and lifestyle values of your target audience. If you have a brand that connects with your audience and you position yourself as the go-to-expert, you can charge a premium for your services.

Improve your bottom line

You don’t have to make drastic changes to increase your profit margin and it’s not all down to increasing your demand either.

The best way to continuously improve this number is to make effective tweaks to your business over time. They may seem like small changes in the moment, but these all build up and pave the way for wider profit margins!

laptop with title on

How to prepare your virtual teams for the long haul

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The pandemic may have forced hundreds of businesses to convert from co-located teams to 100% virtual teams in a matter of days, but that was just temporary, right? That’s what many of us thought. For a while there, it was just about getting through the next couple of weeks and then months, but now, another lockdown is here and it’s time to face reality. It looks like working as a virtual team is for the foreseeable future, and again, we are without a playbook for when things will return to normal.

So how do we do it? How do we accept the new reality and start preparing our virtual teams for the long haul?

Step 1: Identify the most critical team problems

At first many people were working remotely for the first time, and in a time of crisis. Most businesses focussed on “making do” until they could return to normal, but to prepare for the long haul, you need to review any issues you have and identify necessary changes.

What poses immediate, serious threats to team survival? Are the team’s objectives still relevant or at odds with reality? Is your team culture and cohesion as strong as it should be? Are team members struggling due to a lack of psychological safety?

Step 2: Address these issues

To ensure that your team members are working as productively as they do in the office and in line with the current reality, you need to immediately address the issues that you identify in step 1.

For example, if the biggest issue is that your team’s objectives or work are no longer relevant to the current reality, re-prioritise their work to something that matches the new overall goal of the business. If it’s cohesion that’s a problem, try mixing personal chat threads with business ones and run a quarterly non-work-related workshop where everyone can bond on a deeper level.

Step 3: Focus on long-term care

Step 3 is the most important step in preparing your virtual team for the long haul, as without it, issues will just arise again as people start to struggle. As we said previously, people are trying to work through this crisis so you need to focus on their long term care. You need to be thinking about how you can keep them healthy and avoid these relapses.

A few ways that you can switch on your long-term care mode is to:

  • Always give clear and concise goals and work briefs.
  • Help team members know their role within the team and how this relates to the overall business goal.
  • Foster psychological safety.
  • Hold regular one-on-ones with team members to make sure they are healthy and to prevent burning them out.
  • Communicate as much as possible and make sure that each individual knows what is expected of them.

Think ongoing attention and preventative care

To prepare your virtual teams for the long haul, you need to regularly check-in on the health of your team members. If you do this, then you can identify any issues or symptoms of a struggle early; both of which will help you to give them the attention and care that they need to prevent these from escalating into bigger issues down the line.

It really is that simple: identify issues, address these issues, and make a routine to provide the support needed to prevent these issues from arising again.

United Kingdom flag

Whats happening with Brexit?

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The UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, UK Chief negotiator David Frost and EU negotiator Michel Barnier continue to offer differing messages to the public about Brexit, some are positive, some ambivalent and occasionally negative remarks about the negotiations. It is hard to see through the comments made and whether we can take them at face value as, after all, there is a negotiation going on.

Whatever the outcome there are significant changes ahead for travel and trade.

Travel

If you are traveling to the EU from the UK after the 1 January 2021 then check out the Government website “Visit Europe from 1 January 2021”. This page tells you how to prepare if you’re planning on traveling to Europe from 1 January 2021. It will be updated if anything changes.

See: https://www.gov.uk/visit-europe-1-january-2021

Trading

.Gov website

If you haven’t made your business preparations, check out the Brexit transition website: https://www.gov.uk/transition

If you trade with the EU and have not yet made preparations then here is a summary of actions to take:

We must all be prepared for changes in the way we travel and trade with Europe. Even if there is a free trade deal the key thing to remember is that there will be a UK border which will mean paperwork and border checks.

Businesses that trade with the EU must get familiar with customs declarations as these will be essential for accounting for VAT.

Depending on what contracts a business has with its customers in Europe, it may have to factor in that goods could take longer to get there, meaning extra costs and administration.

In the short term, there will probably be delays at the border, so it is important businesses map out supply chains and think about how to do things as efficiently as practicable post-transition.

Overall with still no deal on the table, specifics are still very up in the air. We will make sure to keep you updated once we know more information.

I'ts okay to say no

IT IS OKAY TO SAY NO!

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Are you saying yes to every piece of business coming your way?

Do you hear yourself saying ‘I wish I’d never agreed to this?

Are you losing money on small jobs that aren’t worth your time?

If you answered yes to any of the above, this blog is for you.

The art of saying NO.

It can be difficult to say no to work. Especially if you are running a small business. However, qualifying leads and setting expectations is vital to move your business forward. Don’t undervalue yourself and don’t take on work that will disrupt your businesses ‘flow’.

The lesson of saying no has been a long one for our Director Paul. He is a yes man. However saying yes to everything has often put us out of pocket and disrupted our business structure, leading to confusion in the practice. Last year we implemented a very strict and lengthy onboarding process for new clients. Starting with a phone or zoom call to see if we are the best fit for the business enquiring. This then eliminates anyone that doesn’t fit into our business model and indeed if we don’t fit into theirs.

Pauls Experience

“With the help of my business coach Heather and nearly 30 years experience I am finally starting to understand the importance of no. This lesson was tested to the full this week.

I have for many years worked with Sage and in particular Sage50, unfortunately the Sage50 platform is not a true cloud product. When opening 1 Accounts, one of our unique selling points was that all of our clients are using cloud based accounting software to keep their records. Using cloud based software allows us to give up to date help and advice to clients that we (and the client) can access from anywhere. This has without a doubt helped us through this pandemic as we have been able to affectively work from home and give our clients the same level of service.

This week I had to turn down a client I acted for many years ago. Despite being a great business and nice people, they do not want to move from desktop sage 50 to Xero. It was with a heavy heart that I wished them well and did not take them on.

Was this a mad decision?

Definitely not. Our service works because all of the data is live and on hand. Our business model is based around this. Our client service would not be as good, and my team would have become frustrated with software they are not used to, or ‘experts’ in. We have taken on Sage50 users in the past, and they have all, without exception, had issues resulting in all of them moving to Xero.”

The lesson of the day

Saying no is an important business lesson. Don’t bite of more than you can chew and stick to your guns. Your business has a brand, stick to it.

movie themed

How can I use webinars to win business?

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Webinar marketing is all about hosting online workshops to build a relationship with attendees and to promote and increase credibility for your business.

What’s great about webinars is that they are a win-win for both parties: attendees learn valuable content and, if you do it right, it markets or achieves a sales outcome for your business. Sounds good, right?

While webinars are a great tool to use to win business, if you don’t do it right, it can end up costing you a lot of time and effort for little reward. So this is the point of this short article. We want to show you the 3 essential steps for how to use webinars to win business.

Step 1: start with the end in mind

If you think about what you want to achieve from your webinar before you start, you can make sure that it is relevant and that it is a topic that is in demand. Before creating your webinar, explore these 4 questions:

  1. What is the purpose of my webinar? Is it just to inform clients, to stay front of mind or to sell an additional service?
  2. Who do I want there? Is it for existing clients or potential clients or both?
  3. What pain points are my audience motivated to solve? What are their biggest challenges at the moment?
  4. When will they attend a webinar? When is the most ideal time for them?

Step 2: get people to sign up, turn up, stay till the end, and to buy from you

For your webinar to be successful and for it to win you business, you will need these 4 essential processes in place:

  1. How I will get people to register – your webinar needs a catchy title and objectives that promise value and raise curiosity. You also need to pick a time and day that is best for your audience and use an email marketing tool to assist with registrations.
  2. How I will get people to turn up – streamline a process for sending email reminders to attendees (we send a total of 5 reminders to ours) and call warm prospects or people you want there.
  3. How I will get people to stay to the end – keep your attendees engaged and make them want to stay. You can do this by making the webinar highly interactive (especially at the beginning); tell them the agenda, promise something for those who stay to the end, and make it about your audience and their issues.
  4. How I will get people to buy – you need to show your audience their ‘ideal’ scenario and position your product/service as the solution to getting them there. You can do this by including case studies of clients who have had the same or similar issues and how you’ve helped them to take action and resolve them. You can also include statistics, show them the different options available to them, and have clients actually on the webinar to advocate for you in real-time.

Step 3: use the right technology

Technology can make or break a webinar, so make sure you are using the right tools. Tools that will assist you and make your life easier rather than tools that limit you. If you want to win business from your webinars, you need to be using the following technology:

  1. Webinar or online meeting software (e.g. Zoom, Microsoft Teams etc)
  2. Decent broadband and ideally a webcam
  3. Automated diary booking system (e.g. Calendly, AcuityScheduling etc)
  4. Registrant data collection tool (e.g. Eventbrite or the other event software)
  5. Bulk email marketing tool (e.g. Active Campaign, MailChimp etc)

Webinar marketing is a great way to win new business and to stay in front of your existing clients. You just need to know how to create a relevant and engaging webinar that your audience is interested in and you need to make it as easy as possible for people to remember to turn up and buy.

Is my accountant regulated?

Is my accountant regulated?

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Would you trust your life to someone who was not a doctor?

Would you be defended in court without a qualified lawyer?

Of course not. Yet many businesses trust their livelihoods to unregulated accountants.

Why does being regulated make a difference?

To be regulated accountants have to be a member of a professional body. The main professional bodies are:

  • ICAEW
  • ACCA
  • CIMA
  • AAT

In order to practice as an accountant with a professional body, you have to have a practicing licence and hold professional indemnity insurance. You also have to do continued professional development. An unregulated accountant does not have to have any of this in place.

As a member of a professional body they will be regulated by law under the Proceeds of Crime Act Money Laundering Regulations (AML) with very strict rules to comply with.

How to check if your accountant is regulated.  

When you sign up to an accountant, you will receive their terms of business (engagement letter). This will set out the basis of the contract between them and you. In that proposal there should be reference to their professional body and details of their AML procedures. If there aren’t, this should be your first red flag.

Questions to ask your accountant:

  • What professional body do you belong to?
  • Can I have a copy of your professional indemnity insurance?
  • What CPD do you do?

If the accountant isn’t regulated they HAVE to register with HMRC under the AML rules. This is the law. The link below will give you the details and allow you to check if your unregulated accountant is actually registered with HMRC.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/money-laundering-regulations-supervised-business-register

Our experience

When taking on new business, we always request hand over information from the previous accountant. Normally this is relatively easy, however for one of our new clients it has been far from it. We have been shocked by the quality and correspondence from the previous accountant. After looking through all the information, we have found out that this particular accountant is unregulated. This ultimately meant, our client cannot report the accountants actions to their governing body. Leaving them with one option, legal action.

The client put their trust in this accountant and have been left with extremely messy books, which could result in more tax and potential fines.

Make sure your accountant is regulated, this way if something goes wrong your accountant has certain standards to adhere to, ensuring your finances are kept in order.

Puzzle

How can I support my team through the current global crisis?

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As most working professionals spend a third of their time at work, it’s been a massive adjustment for the millions of people who have had to start working from home. With many other stressors and worries piled on top of this, it’s no surprise then that this has had a major impact on the health, happiness, and the wellbeing of those employees.

For a thriving business, you need thriving employees, but not many people are thriving during this time. Therefore, to keep businesses afloat during the current global crisis, it is the responsibility of the employers to support their employees and this includes their mental wellbeing. Here’s how to do just that.

The 3 Ps

1. Prioritise – the health of your team

You need to create the right conditions to help your employees feel empowered and supported during this stressful time. You can do this by:

  • Taking advice from the World Health Organization and region-specific public health authorities such as the CDC.
  • Measuring and tracking the stress of your team via surveys and then offering help to those who need it most.
  • Providing consistent and clear objectives to give your employees a sense of control and purpose.

2. Promote – positive habits

Anxiety and stress can lead to the formation of bad (and unhealthy) habits. To help your employees deal with this stress, encourage the formation of positive habits such as:

  • Making a weekly and daily plan of action.
  • Sticking to their daily routine as much as possible.
  • Self-care activities such as meditation, mindfulness, and breathing exercises.
  • Taking regular breaks to properly ‘switch off.’
  • Limiting their use/exposure to social media and the news.

3. Practice – compassion and empathy

Some of your employees may have lost loved ones or they may be suffering from anxiety or depression during this time. To support them as best you can, here is how to be a more compassionate and empathetic leader:

  • Check-in with your employees regularly and keep an eye on their energy levels.
  • Listen to how they are feeling and encourage sharing when your team communicates.
  • Pause and give yourself time to respond to certain situations rather than reacting to them.

How do I guarantee the quality of work when outsourcing?

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Do you worry about outsourcing work because you don’t think the quality will be the same as you’re getting now? Do you worry that the outsourcer won’t be in line with your company’s cultural values? Do you worry that you won’t be in control of the process and that you might end up having to do more work checking over what someone else has done?

If you are guilty of losing sleep over one or more of these worries above, then take a step back and open your mind to the possibility that outsourcing work can be a huge success. Your outsourcer may even do a better job than your staff – imagine that! To help ease your quality concerns, here are 6 things that you need to do to ensure that you get the quality you want.

6 must-dos to guarantee the quality of work when outsourcing

  • Invest more in the selection process

Since you’ll be working with the outsourcer you choose, hopefully, for the long haul, you must take the time to select this person/company and ensure that they are a good fit for your projects. Try assigning the same project to 2 or 3 different outsourcers; it’s a great way of comparing the quality of work and deciding who are the best people to work with.

  • Ask them what processes they have in place

A good outsourcer will be able to show you the processes they have in place to ensure you get the level of quality you require and minimal rework. Before you work with them, take the time to ask them about these processes so that you can understand how they will ensure a quality job is delivered on time and how you can keep in control of the process.

  • Discuss how mistakes will be resolved beforehand

Will they rectify any mistakes and make amendments at no cost? Or will this be something that you will need to do on your time? Discuss this in advance so that you both set expectations.

  • Give clear briefs

Sometimes quality may suffer because the outsourcer hasn’t been given a clear or detailed brief. Make sure that you have given them everything they need and confirm this with them before they start the work!

  • Communicate regularly

Regular communication is vital to keep you both aligned to the goals of the project, so make sure that you decide the best way to communicate and when before the project starts. Whether this is via Zoom, Slack or even WhatsApp, make sure you are getting regular progress updates from them and that you’re available if they come across any issues.

  • Treat your outsourcer like a new member of the team

You wouldn’t expect a new member of your team to deliver a top-quality job first time around. After

all, you’d take the time to go over with them exactly what your firm requires, e.g. processes they

have to use and standards they need to achieve. It’s the same when you start outsourcing.

Your outsourced team will need some time to work to your standards and your processes, so oversee the first project and provide feedback. From then on, take more of a backseat but respond promptly when they have any issues or questions, and always give feedback to help them learn what you want.

 

Should I advertise that my business is a ‘family business’?

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In an environment where trust in business is too often lacking, family businesses have the opportunity to stand out and above the rest. Why? Because they tend to work to a set of values that resonate with people; values that often result in them being committed to meeting or even exceeding customers’ needs. If you’re thinking about using your family business credentials in your brand, here are the main benefits of doing so.

People trust family businesses

A report, commissioned by the Institute for Family Business (IFB) Research Foundation, found that a considerable majority of the general public hold family businesses in high regard in terms of perceptions around their trustworthiness.

In fact, survey respondents said that they think family businesses are more:

  • Trustworthy (81%)
  • Socially responsible (70%)
  • Quality-orientated (68%)
  • Customer-orientated (67%)

Family businesses appeal to every age

Studies have shown that a company which promotes itself as a family business is more likely to attract clients across all age ranges. It makes sense when you think about it as a family business has professionals across different generations which clients can choose from.

Family businesses are more approachable

The marketing of a family business is very informal and friendly. Often, you’ll see a friendly attitude put out over social media and the website copy will be talking to clients as if they are already part of the family.

What this does is that it makes the business approachable. It makes clients feel safe and secure and they are more likely to reach out and confide in you. This is a major contributor for why family-owned businesses seem more stable, more customer-friendly, more approachable and more trustworthy.

Employees are happier and more productive

Bringing your family business into your team ethos has a massive positive impact on your employees as well as your clients. For example, research has shown that using the family’s last name in the company brand not only has a positive impact on sales but also on company performance too.

In general, the family aspect gives most people positive associations. The environment tends to be more ‘caring’ which ensures all team members are comfortable with each other. A family atmosphere also promotes honesty which helps the team to grow and not keep problems bottled up. Creating this common sense of belonging to the family unites employees and managers across business areas, and it shows in the performance of the company as a whole.

Will you use your family credentials in your branding and team ethos?

Hopefully, this article has helped to highlight the value of promoting your family business both internally and externally. Not only does it ground your brand in the public mind in a very positive way, but it also ensures that your team are happier and more productive in their roles too.

 

How do I adjust staff working patterns?

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Whether it is staggering start and finish times to reduced prolonged contact time, introducing short term working due to reduced business needs or flexible working to enable employees to meet child care commitments, a number of employers are having to think differently about how their business operates and the working patterns of their employees.

Whilst businesses should seek professional advice to ensure decisions are legal and in line with employment law such as ensuring any decision around working from home/reduced hours is not discriminatory below are a few tips on considerations you may need to make as well as tips on making different working patterns work.

Team jumping

Knowing what your employment contracts state enables you to make decisions based on what has already been agreed and understand where a ‘temporary change of contract’ may be required and therefore agreement needed from the individual (e.g. short time working).

Parents with two children

Do you need to enhance your flexible working policy to meet current and future needs of your business and employees?  Flexible and agile working has moved beyond formal agreements to reduce working hours.  Policies now need to reflect informal, temporary and permanent changes to working hours, patterns and location of work.  The should also promote a fully inclusive environment that meets the needs of the individual and business.

Two employees talking

Engage with employees to establish what their needs are and works well for them.  Where possible, involve them in the decision making process.  You also need to have a clear business rationale behind any decision that impacts working hours and/or working patterns and communicate these to your employees.

Continue to talk with employees to review success of changes to working patterns and adjust where necessary.

Traditionally, many businesses (and managers) take a time-based and ‘presentism’ approach to work and performance assessment.  With high numbers of individuals needing to work from home and many rethinking about work and domestic working patterns adjusting, a move to a more outcome based approach promotes a more productive and healthy working environment.  To help with this, managers should:

  • Set clear objectives and tasks that can be measured, moving away from a time focus
  • Agree ‘contactable hours’ where individuals commit to being visibly online and/or available for calls
  • Accept that working 9-5 is now not the norm. Many individuals may choose to start work earlier/finish later to enable them to deal with domestic responsibilities or personal activity (such as exercise)

Calendar and out of office

Utilise tools such as out of office messages, calendar’s and answer phone messages to advise people of working patterns and reduce levels of frustration when uncontactable.

agree core working hours

Having core working hours (e.g. 11:00 – 14:00) and enabling teams to arrange their working times around this gives flexibility whilst having some consistency where all employees are available for meetings.