Ray Stewart

I know that it is never easy continually pushing, cajoaling, steering, developing this business that you start. Which is why mindset is so important.

I come across some without plans and goals. They seem determined to succeed and buy up every piece of information they can that will tell them how to succeed, tried and tested business strategies, strategies guaranteed to make a fortune….

But what do they do with all this information……..nothing.

They can’t be bothered, they are too busy, they don’t have the money needed, they will definitely do it tomorrow, they haven’t the confidence it will work….a hundred and one reasons to do nothing at all.

To these I say… do something, do anything…… but do it now!!

Some who have the plans but run out of steam with their business, exhausting their pool of ideas, and things start to get on top of them, a couple of ideas fall flat and they start to lose heart…..

If they are at that stage, and their goals seem to be slipping further away into the distance……..

To them I say just do something…… even something completely different… as an experiment. It can re-ignite a flicker of interest and usually is just the catalyst needed to fire things up again…but DO something.

This is where mindset and focus on goals is so important. When the choice is bankruptcy or what??? As long as the person stays focused the “what” is easy. Just do something, do anything…..and do it now!!

Can you see a theme here?

Action, preferably massive action, can rejuvenate a flagging entrepreneur, can steer an entrepreneur back onto a path, not necessarily the same path, but a path towards the eventual goals nevertheless.

I am in a priviliged position in the work I do. I come across people at all stages of their business lives and so have a good awareness of which people will succeed, or not.

I am surprised regularly by people about to start a business. When we sit down to discuss their plans, I find out they don’t have any… They have a vague dream about running their own business and a few ideas to try to get them going but…… what about in 3 months time, 6 months, 12 months or even longer down the line? No idea - we will see how it goes.

These are the people who are likely not to succeed.

I heard recently that more people spend time on planning their next holiday than they do thinking about their business. So, I ask them, “Would you go into a travel agent to book a holiday if you don’t know where you want to go?” Of course not! It sounds absurd doesn’t it.

The people most likely to succeed are those with a plan, a goal, and an absolute commitment to follow one to achieve the other, no matter what life throws in the way, nor what people around them say or do.

Commitment is what drove the likes of Michael Dell, the Ben & Jerry folk etc., onward to success. It is what drives top sportspeople to succeed; what made Paula Radcliffe overcome her demons, and all public opinion, to get back to the very top of her sport. These people are driven by their burning commitment to their goals.

Business is just the same. It is not about luck, good staff, good product or even divine intervention. It is about committing to goals and going for them.

Most people have heard the famous Thomas Edison quote about the light bulbs - “I didn’t fail 2,000 times, I just found 2,000 ways NOT to make a light bulb. All I need is to find one way to make it work.” Also, most people have heard about Winston Churchill’s speech to students consisting of just 7 words…..”never, never, never, NEVER, NEVER give up!” Who could say it better? The man who led us to Victory when all the odds seemed so stacked against us at the time.

These are examples of real commitment and as a business owner, you need to have the same.

Few businesses who know where they are going, who are passionate about their business, their customers, their staff and their suppliers, who are committed to achieving their goals no matter what….. will fail.

The decision to let go of your business bookkeeping is not one that people take lightly, after all, you are letting a stranger into the inner sanctum of your business and private life, and your finances.

So how do you know that they are trustworthy, responsible, discrete, accurate, professional and competent?

Most employees or subcontract service providers you take on are there to provide a relevant service for your business and it is quickly apparant when they cannot perform. For instance, a salesman who upsets all your customers, a secretary who can’t keep a polite tongue in their head under pressure, a worker who cannot get to grips with a process…

But bookkeeping is unique. 99% of business people don’t know the first thing about it and simply muddle through. Because it is outside of such a high percentage of business people’s comfort zone, there is a considerable positive attraction in getting someone to deal with this time consuming, tedious and mysterious side of their business. But how do you assess if they are likely to perform well, or make a complete hash of all your records?

So when looking for a bookkeeper, or a bookkeeping service, here is a simple list of questions to start with……

1. Are they experienced in their craft and able to give you current businesses to ring to test out their claims?

2. Are they familiar with your kind of business?

3. Do they have the technical ability to reconstruct the records when most were lost in that flood last year?

4. Are they answerable to a professional body?

5. If they take your records away to deal with - what guarantees do they offer about security and return of the documents?

6. If they take your records away to deal with - do they use bookkeepers living and trained in the UK?

7. Do they dictate what form your bookkeeping should take, or what package they insist on using?

8. Do they have access to fully qualified accountants to answer questions if they get stuck on some technical points?

9. Will their work withstand the intense scruitiny of an in-depth Tax or VAT investigation.

10. Are they up to date with all industry, Tax and VAT regulations about what you can and can’t claim?

11. Will they start from today, or will they go back to the start of your current financial year and bring your records up to date first?

12. Will you be able to get the reports you need from them on a timely basis?

13. Are they prepared to put their name to your VAT Return and sign it as a responsible official?

There are many more questions you should be asking but my bookkeeping bureau ticks every box that comes up.

Why not ring FREE on 0800 047 0731 or contact me on my mobile 07878 831169 and let me talk you through the service I offer you, the guarantees I make to you and the qualifications every member of our staff has to have, either as Accountants, or Bookkeepers.

Today it seems is the day our government sign the death warrant of 2,500 local Post Offices across the nation.

It has to happen the Government are screaming.  We can’t allow the losses of £3.5M per week to continue any more - these cuts are essential.

I am beginning to wonder who these people are that claim to represent us, the defenders of our realm.

They seem to have glossed over the facts that for a considerable period of time, at least 18 months now, there has been a deliberate and underhand withdrawl of services from the sub Post Offices which has put them in a completely untenable position - probably so that we shouldn’t complain when they finally shut.  For instance, banking facilities have been drastically cut back (especially for business users like me) or if you have the "wrong" sort of debit card (like me), services they can organize have been cut back (or the potential earnings from them at least)- despite the fancy adverts recently using Westlife and Wendy Richards.  You cannot even get a passport application from your local Post Office.  Our local Postmaster wants to revamp his shop to make it more user friendly, to bring  it into the 21st Century - the powers that Be say NO.  Our office isn’t under threat (yet) but the Postmaster is at the end of his tether with lost services, restrictions on activities, and the gradual removal of collections of post from there.  How mad is it that I can use a cash machine in the garage in the next village (with my wrong sort of debit card) and get cash - but my Postmaster can’t help me now.

Because of this, we are not allowed to use our Post Offices to support them as they simply cannot provide much other service than taking parcels and stamping them. 

How has this been allowed to happen?  Why isn’t anyone being held up as being accountable for this shambles and for these losses?  I simply refuse to believe that every single Post Office is losing (costing) money (with my businessman’s hat on)… where are the figures? Are they split for every single Office to justify the closure of each office?  If so, I haven’t seen it mentioned.  OR is it only because events have been orchestrated to end up this way deliberately?

We are told to get out of our cars where possible, assuming you can still afford to drive one! but what is the option.  Labour completely destroyed all the branch line railways around here 50 odd years ago.  As a consequence our bus services have to go all around every village meaning a bus trip to Leicester from here, a distance of only 17 miles, takes over an hour and a half each way.  The doctors now only open four and a half days a week - but there is a "local" walk in centre…. if you can find a bus on a Sunday to go to Loughborough - 10 miles away - yes, really local.

No-one has yet suggested a scheme to "save" all these Post Offices.  A few are being taken over by councils and they are confident a profit can be made???  Why isn’t there anyone looking at this latest erosion of services?  Is there no-one, such as Sir Alan Sugar, Sir Richard Branson, or even little old me, that could not make these Post Offices viable?

How much further will we allow the government to push us into this dark hole, where the poorest people are taxed the heaviest, where local amenities and services are being destroyed as they are too expensive, where people who have offered their lives for our benefit (The Gurkas) are being denied the right to settle here when it is open house for just about everyone else???

These are the people supposedly acting on our behalf for our own good - with a leader that hasn’t even been democratically elected by us!!  How does that work?? Maybe another post sometime for that… 

Where will it end?

I am completely baffled now by the web’s favourite search engine - google.  Just two days ago I was saying how impressed I was that my Ecademy profile had appeared on page 1 of google so quickly.  Imagine my confusion yesterday when there was no sign of my Ecademy profile anywhere on google.  Today, Friday, I am back on page 1.

The reason for this magic that would certainly impress Paul Daniels is simple. 

On Wednesday, I posted here on my blog, and on my Ecademy profile, that I had my first article accepted onto a well respected website.  I am not too old yet to be excited by such a thing and when I was invited to put a little logo wherever I liked to show my status, and for people to go and have a look if they want, I put one here on the blog and another on my Ecademy profile.

It may be complete co-incidence but posting the little logo here actually pushed my blog up to page 3 on google, however, it completely removed my Ecademy profile from visible site. 

Last night, as a test - readers who know me know how much I love testing things! - I removed the little logo from my Ecademy profile.  This morning, mysteriously, my profile is back on page 1.  Hmmmmm

Is there a moral to this little story?   You bet there is.

If you are considering paying for the services of a company who “guarantees” you a page 1 or even a number 1 listing on google - make sure you have a play with your own site first.  If such a little thing as a single small logo can have such a dramatic effect on my google positioning, you should at least have a tinker over a few days trying slightly different versions of your site and watch with interest!!

Rather than pay these companies, who rarely deliver on their promises anyway, use the money for more traditional marketing that isn’t subject to such weird, hidden and random formulas that google use to rate a site.  Make sure your site is full of interesting, useful information that is 100% customer benefit focused, and says little, or nothing, about you and your business.

It is sad but true - people are only concerned with the benefit and value they receive from using you, not what you are called, how long you have traded or how pretty and expensive your graphics are.

This week has been a brilliant week.  There is no other way to describe it and it’s only Wednesday!

Have you ever had one of those weeks where everything clicks into place? Doesn’t happen often does it!!

So far, I have interviewed several people to join the staff nerds.  The quality of candidates has been astonishing and has left me with some agonizing choices to make very soon.  I have had my first article accepted on the Ezine Articles site which has leap-frogged me into expert author status - apparantly unusual for a first article. 

I decided late last evening to attend the FSB breakfast meeting at Melton Mowbray this morning (and then found out about the severe weather warnings - you’re mad Sue told me).  It was interesting because I hadn’t planned to go but bumped into a chap who can resolve one of my pressing issues about off-site back up for the company server.  I was also picked on to make a short presentation - I know this is one area I need to work on so that I can do my company proud in future.  I won’t talk about todays too much - but I did it!  I also learned a lot.

My “Do-A-Friend-A-Favour” certificates that have been distributed  for the last few weeks have suddenly produced a flood of new business.  I now have to think of suitable ways to reward the referers for their kindness.

My standing on Ecademy has shot up over the last few days and my profile, with that crummy picture, is now near the top of page 1 on google globally.  Hurry up with the new photos Sarah!

And lastly, I don’t know why, but I feel excited for the first time in a long time about the future.  All of a sudden, my seemingly wild dreams for my little business seem to be firming up in the cosmos and are starting to appear.

Enough about me.  Sorry.  I promise to blog something useful very shortly.

Last week a good friend and colleague suggested that I consider joining a networking organization.  Over the years I have tried all sorts of these clubs and not really considered any of them worth the commitment required to maintain the membership.  The only one I do consider worth being involved in is the FSB and their local organization.  A lot can be learned at these one and a half hour sessions as well as good contacts.

However, the suggestion this time was to join Ecademy and I had to admit that I had never heard of it.  Off I went to the website and looked around.  All sorts of claims are made at the site and after a strong recommendation from someone I really admire, I went ahead and joined.  The first thing I was asked to do was to complete my profile and there are no less than 4 videos by one of the founders, Thomas Power, stressing the vital importance of getting the profile just right. 

So I started on my profile, my 50 words, my photo and logo (that photo just has to go as soon as I can have a professional one done) etc. and thought nothing much of it.  The videos say that the profile is indexed by google and that is why it’s so vital.  Hmmm I thought.  How many billions of pages are in google - what’s the point!

Imagine my surprise then when this evening, just for fun, I googled my name (UK only) and after just a few days -there it was, my ecademy profile on page 1.  Alright, it is not the global selection yet but give it another week or two and who knows??

I think this is a wonderful way of getting a jump on the competition on google.  Never mind paying specialist companies charging vast sums to get your business site listed on page 1… join Ecademy and do the job yourself in record time.

You could have a sneak peak at my profile - you don’t have to be a member to see the profile - it is a full webpage on it’s own.  Find it at http://www.ecademy.com/account.php?userid=raystewart

Of course there are many other benfits from joining Ecademy but remember that business is about people first and a site like Ecademy allows you to see the people behind the businesses before you contact them.  You will also very quickly find that people start to network with you if they like what they see (there is that profile again!) and your expertise and interests overlap with their requirements.

Go forth and network - you may enjoy it as well as finding it rewarding!!

The Federation of Small Business are claiming a significant victory in the battle to have the government rethink their radical capital gains tax changes announced last year.

Originally the government wanted to increase capital gains tax on the sale of businesses to 18% - an effective 80% increase.

Over the past few months the FSB have been lobbying (with the help of everyone who filled in the petition I referred to here on my blog on the 22nd October 2007), negotiating and cajoling the government and finally achieved some significant changes to the proposals which will benefit the smaller business owners.

There is now to be a flat rate of tax of 10% on the sales of business up to £1,000,000 in value.  I am still not clear what, if anything, will happen on sales over £1M but rest assured I will let you know via the blog as soon as I can.

In the meantime - power to the people!!!

I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

Update:- when you click on the above link there are lots of pages and information to work through but if you persevere, the actual blogging course is quite good, and well worth a look.

Hi there.

I am sorry not to have posted to my blog for exactly one month but I have been doing what I am constantly urging all business owners to do - concentrating on Marketing.

I have been preparing my first advert in a whole year about my new outsourcing service, along with the report that goes with it (download here if you are interested to read it!), researching lots of other services that could be integrated into the business, and learning even more about marketing from the experts I have had personal contact with and have come to trust.

The result of the last month is nothing short of phenomenal and the spin offs will be visible all over the place over the next few months.

Please contact me if you would like details of the marketing stuff I have been studying.  I have no hesitation in recommending it.

It does constantly baffle me why business owners are scared to put their hand up and say “Yes - I would love some help with marketing”.  Many businesses I come across are only shadows of the enterprises they could become if their owner invested time in learning marketing methods that actually work. 

I try to show the people I come across ways I have learned to use marketing as an effective tool, but there is generally some resistance.  People have their own way of doing things and are exceptionally reluctant to change, for example, the way they write adverts for the press and directories such as Yellow Pages - even when faced with overwhelming evidence that they could do so much better without spending a single penny more.

So, rather than upset those unwilling to listen, I am going to lead by example and give all the doubters real proof - by demonstration.

Watch this space!!

~Ray