In this issue
Business Marketing Tips - Email Marketing
Article - Why Profitable Businesses Can Go Bust
Recommended Reading - Get to the
Top on Google
Business Tools - 33 Days to Online
Profits
Business Marketing Tip
There
are hundreds of ways to promote your business.
You can do it on line or off line or a combination of
both. Much
will depend on your budget and the time you have available. Test as
many methods of marketing as you can and see what brings you
best results. Website
marketing is not a one off exercise.
You need to constantly work on it, fine-tune it, discard
methods that are not working and implement new ones. If
you haven't done so already, try Email Marketing:
Email Marketing
Your
first step should be to send an email to your existing clients
announcing the arrival of your website. In your message, you can
even ask them to forward your email onto their friends, family
and colleagues.
If
you are starting a new business and don’t have any customers,
send an email to people you know who may be interested in your
offer.
The
next step should be to send your announcement to an opt-in email
list. Opt-in email
lists contain people or businesses who have requested to receive
information about a certain topic(s).
There are many companies who can provide you with these
lists. For more information visit:
www.prospectshop.com.au/email_lists.html
www.4webmarketing.biz/email.htm
www.ezemail.biz/list_power.html
www.ezemail.biz/list_consumer.html
www.webfirm.com.au/email-marketing-australia/
Under
no circumstance should you EVER send unsolicited email (spam) to
people you either don’t know or who have not requested to
receive your information.
Article - Why Profitable Businesses Can Go Bust
If a business is selling plenty of products or services and
buying labour and parts at the right price how is it possible
for it to go bust?
Cash is more often than not the reason why so many businesses
fail. Profits can’t be spent until they are collected. Obviously
it’s important to sell at the right price and create the maximum
amount of both gross profit and net profit. If you don’t focus
on collection though you’re business won’t last very long. Cash
is the lifeblood of any business, and if it isn’t flowing at the
right place at the right time, this can cause real headaches for
the business owner.
Getting cash into the right place at the right time, means
having it in your bank account for more of the time, and not
that of others. There are many places your cash can be other
than in your bank account, such as
· Customers who haven’t paid you yet
· Suppliers you have paid too quickly
· Stock – surplus or slow moving
· Work in Progress – work not invoiced
· Plant and Equipment that could be leased
· Excessive overheads
Let’s briefly discuss some of the above and how you could get
the cash moving back into your bank account quickly.
Customers who owe you money are more important than those who
don’t! It’s much easier to get money out of customers you have
already sold to than new ones. Many business owners feel
uncomfortable about debt collection. If this is you, get someone
else to do it. It may seem expensive but it’s much more
expensive to have your cash funding other people’s businesses.
To employ a part time Accounts Receivables clerk could cost as
little as $200 per day. If done properly it could put much more
than that in working capital back into your bank account.
Suppliers often get paid too quickly. You’ve heard the term ‘The
squeaky wheel gets the attention”. Many bookkeepers will get a
cheque signed immediately for a demanding supplier or worse
still, as soon as the invoice comes in. This can play havoc with
your cashflow. You need to use up all of the available terms and
negotiate better ones if you can. It can pay huge dividends to
spend a bit of time investigating other suppliers and better
payment terms.
It may seem strange to consider stock as cash but it is. Just
think of it as fifty dollar bills piled up in your stock room.
Do you have any methodology behind your stock purchasing? Many
businesses buy when the sales representative calls in or if they
get offered a discount. You should buy stock when it suits you
and your needs not those of your supplier. Discounts can also be
a big trap. Ask yourself why are they discounting? Do they know
something you don’t? Is there a new product coming up that will
supersede the existing one? You need to measure the cost of
having that stock sitting around sucking up your precious
working capital against the discount being offered. It may be
tempting to swap cashflow for potential increased profits but if
it’s going to cause you cashflow problems perhaps it’s not worth
it.
Work in Progress can be a real hiding place for cash. If you
have hundreds of jobs on the go at once, it can be very hard to
manage them all to a point where they can be invoiced. There can
be all kinds of hold ups, such as slow parts delivery, labour
problems, getting access to job sites etc. If you are trying to
do this manually, or in your head without any process, it can
cause you real headaches and cashflow problems. A simple job
management system can save lots of headaches. With a
computerized system you have all of the information in one place
about each and every job. You will know what work you have done
for whom, who worked on it and for how long. You will know what
parts were used as well as being able to compare what you quoted
on the job to what actually occurred. This puts you in a strong
position to tighten up your quoting skills. One issue many
contractors face is never quite knowing how much labour they are
invoicing, compared to what they are paying for. With a good job
management system you can see this very quickly and clearly.
This puts you in a position to ask the question of labour hire
“What were you doing with the rest of the time?”.
If you do a very quick estimate of how much money you have in
outstanding customer debts, suppliers paid too quickly, excess
or slow moving stock and work not invoiced, you may find it’s
worth spending a little time and money getting these four areas
sorted out. It could put tens of thousands of dollars back into
your bank account, not just today but for the future. It could
really reduce your headaches and sleepless nights worrying about
cashflow. It could also reduce greatly your interest bill.
Sue Hirst, Director
CAD Partners Pty Ltd
Cad Partners (CFO On-Call) is a team of Financial Controllers
who can review your accounting systems, advise on how you can
improve your cash position and profitability. Please feel free
to call us on 1300 36 24 36.
www.cadpartners.biz
Recommended Reading
Get to the Top on Google: Search Engine Optimization and Website Promotion Techniques to Get Your Site to the Top of the Search Engine Rankings - and STAY THERE
Written in a clear, non-technical, style by a leading expert
in SEO (search engine optimization), GTTTOG explains techniques
and strategies proven to return higher search engine rankings
and sales. It addresses all aspects of search engine marketing
and includes an assessment of the impact of Web 2.0 on Internet
search strategies.
Click here
Business Tools
33
Days to Online Profits
The
step-by-step, day-by-day guide to finally making real
money online in 33 days or less for almost any product
or service you sell.
Click here
Till next time ... Ivana Katz
Websites 4 Small Business
www.web4business.com.au |
