Recessions, boom years, credit crunches… they are all a natural part of our lives. An integral part of the huge economy we are all a part of. You can’t have a boom time without a bust time. They follow each other like night follows day. Life constantly cycles. All the recent noise the experts have been making about global warming for instance. It is a proven fact that every 10,000 years or so our planet goes through an ice-age. We can’t fight it, we can’t stop it. There were no cars, aeroplanes or huge factories belching stuff into the atmosphere that caused the last ice-age and changes the politicians propose aren’t going to stop Mother Nature going through her cycles of life.

Recessions come and go every few years. They are nothing to be afraid of; they are just a normal part of business life. It is always sad when a business folds. The owner of that business will blame the recession, competition, changes of tastes, any manner of factors rather than own up to the fact that they allowed their business to fold. It folded because they wouldn’t, couldn’t or simply didn’t see the need to change and adapt as the world around it changed and adapted.

The worst thing you can do for your business at any time, let alone in tough economic times, is just to carry on regardless as if nothing has changed. Things are always changing and you need to constantly adapt and tweak your business in order for it to evolve and stay profitable.

A business that doesn’t change over time will certainly die and it will be solely the business owner’s fault.

It doesn’t mean that you have to drop all the traditional values of excellent service and quality products, just that the way you present your business, the way you market your business, the way you conduct your business all need to move on constantly.

A small company has a huge advantage over a large one in any trading conditions simply because it can act immediately to conditions around it. There is no waiting for a board meeting, for a committee to assess and report, for backers to be swayed. A small company can see an opportunity and jump on it without delay.

It is no good for a small local computer shop, for example, to try and under-cut the likes of Dell or PC World when supplying hardware items. But a small business can easily find small niches that the big players never spot, or are simply not geared up to support. Have you ever tried to get PC World to repair your 6 month old computer? Well, they can’t. They send them away for several weeks to another business set up for that purpose. Most business people though are completely dependent on their computer and the thought if it being sent away for weeks is unthinkable. So, step in the small business who loves fault finding on machines. They will come to your office, fix your fault and have you up and running again within hours.

Pundits have forecast the demise of the good old English Pub at least twice in recent years but most of us still have a Pub within easy walking distance. The first death knell was cheap imported alcohol from the EU when the borders were opened up. There were experts showing people driving over to France on a day trip coming back loaded with cheap booze for their own consumption. Vans overflowing, trailers packed solid. It would be wrong to say this didn’t have an effect on Pubs because it did. People chose to stay at home and drink their cheap imported alcohol instead of going out. But did it kill the Pubs? No. Most of them adapted to this new scenario but devising ways to lure people out of their homes and back into the Pubs by changing the way they operated.

The second death knell was the smoking ban. Experts said it was an infringement of civil liberties, people only went to the Pub for a social drink and a smoke and now they couldn’t do that they would boycott Pubs. Again, the forecast disaster never happened. Pubs fought back with smoking areas to keep the smokers happy and again used other means to bring people into the Pubs, not least, those of us who don’t smoke and couldn’t tolerate going into a smoky Pub before the ban. Food also now features in most Pubs, quizzes, hog roasts, bbq’s, slave auctions, charity nights, darts teams, function room rental etc. Some of which they did before, but some of which they could now pull in a whole new audience for.

Can you see the differences here?

Even when times are tough and competition fierce, there are still opportunities for entrepreneurs to find and exploit for the benefit of their business. You will find some of these methods here to help you through the current trading conditions.

Remember…

Your business will only die during a recession if you do nothing different.

Your business will only die, regardless of any current boom or recession, if you do nothing different.

~Ray

Good Ideas Urgently Required!

I am about to take out an advert that has become an annual event for me.  A client once asked me to support the local scout group by having an advert in their Christmas post directory to raise funds for them.  Being an old scout myself I didn’t hesitate and I have done it each year since.  The problem is that the directory goes to some 5,000 homes in the area but isn’t a publication that I would normally use as relevant to my prospective target clients.  This is proven by the lack of substantial response from my advert each year.

I am always telling you here to make sure that every £1 you spend on marketing earns a profit so… the challenge this year is to formulate an advert that will have such an irresistable call to action that someone receiving this directory in their home around Christmas will be motivated to respond.

This brings me to where I will really appreciate some feedback from you.

I have so many things in my head after all these years as an Accountant, having lived and worked through many ups and downs in our ever changing economy, that I simply can’t decide which aspect of business to focus the advert on to help the most people.  I have so many possibilities they are blowing my mind.  I will really value your opinion as to which area of accountancy, bookkeeping, business, marketing, tax, cash flow or even tips on business survival in a recession might be of real interest to a householder/business person over the Christmas period.  Compelling enough to get them to visit the web page I am setting up and ask for the report I am going to write specially for the advert.

I am sure you will appreciate that I cannot write the report until I know which area the ad will focus on… a real conundrum!  I have a really talented young designer waiting to put the advert together, I have the website registered, I have the ideas… I just need your help with the focus!!

The list above isn’t all the possibilities, you may have a totally different area or topic that you feel will be of interest to the most people that isn’t mentioned so please let me know.

I am really looking forward to hearing from you about this.  I will give a very public thankyou and a small prize for the best suggestion that becomes the one I use… as well as making sure that each of you get a copy of the report when it is written of course!

~Ray

This is the amount of time an average small business owner like you spends on bookkeeping each week. That represents some 7 hours out of each week that you spend doing completely unproductive bookkeeping.

Time is one thing in the universe that is fixed and runs continuously, ruthlessly, every single moment of existance. Do you continually struggle to complete all your tasks each day? Do you often find yourself wishing there were 25 or 26 hours in each day as you never have enough time?

You may not think the time you spend on your bookkeeping amounts to that much, after all you only spend a few minutes here and there. But…What about the time when the bank statements come in and you try to tie them up? What about the VAT return and the time you spend going through the figures because you can’t see why you have to pay so much? What about the wages for your employees? What about getting everything together for your accountant each year, or the time spent trying to file your own Self Assessment Return?

Imagine how much extra, productive, work you can accomplish if you stopped wasting that valuable time each week?

Imagine the joy of finding an extra hour each day - you could play more with your children, play more sport, go out for a meal, fit in an extra customer visit each day, actually get around to writing that book you have always felt was within you, write more articles for your website, spend more time on your marketing effort to gain much better results…

You can find this extra time just by removing bookkeeping from your daily tasks. Instead, base your business decisions on up to date, accurate information. Dazzle your bank manage by giving him monthly reports. No longer be involved with any aspect of VAT or wages - have it all dealt with for you by your allocated, professional, fully qualified bookkeeper.

If you would like to save up to 20% of your time that you currently spend on bookkeeping, please ring me today on 0800 047 0731 and I will get things set up straight away.

~Ray

p.s. between now and Christmas, you could free up some 63 hours that you may have spent unproductively on your bookkeeping - would that be of interest to you?

This is a guest post…

The upcoming London Olympics is not only a great opportunity to showcase human kinetics but also a great opportunity for global business venture. The said sports gathering will make chances for business-oriented individuals– I am one of them–to explore global business potentials. So for now, I am constantly monitoring this event by browsing the Internet. I always to search about London Olympics as well as about globalization or global emerging markets and internet marketing business.

the 2012 olympics
I use Google search engine for search, I usually type keywords like “ lo2012” to update sites which bear london olympic information– like this one below:

“Over 7.7 million tickets will be going on sale for the london olympics in the summer of 2012. I hope with that many people, they will have a very good plan for transportation. I found out that each ticket that you purchase will also include free travel on public transportation in London for the day of that olympic event, to encourage spectators to use the public transportation system and take in all the sights & cultural events going on throughout the city. This is a good plan as long as the public systems can handle the large crowds. If so, then things should work out well.”

emerging markets
Because I also want to know more about emerging global markets, I also search about these using keywords like “ emerging markets forecast”. And luckily, I usually get useful information like what I have just retrieved below:

“The way that the world markets are structured means that we actually need the world markets in places such as India and China to develop in business skills such as manufacturing, design and joint venturing. The world markets?are split up in to different areas or zones and?as the richer economies continue to innovate we see the other (less rich) world economies taking on tasks such as co development and low cost manufacturing. This contributes to the overall cycle of the generation of goods and services and the consumption of those same products. “

internet marketing idea
And since Internet marketing is very essential for global business I also search for additional information about it using keywords like “internet marketing idea” and retrieve useful ideas just like what I have below:

“Have you ever heard of affiliate programs? These are forms of Internet advertising that rewards the affiliates for generating traffic to the advertiser or for other transactions. The advertiser pays the affiliate to place a link on their site, and the affiliate sends web traffic to the advertiser in return. Simply put, it is about paying commissions to individuals who help you make sales. It’s that simple. However, Internet affiliate marketing has its ups and downs. It could be draining if you are not prepared with updated information and the technical how-tos. But this article’s core objective is to reach out to you and not to badmouth affiliate marketing.”

I hope this strategy will help for my global business success.

There have been a few questions recently about certain types of expenditure and whether or not they are tax deductible so I thought I would put them publicly here in case anyone else was also wondering.

As a rule of thumb, an expense has to be something directly incurred in the running of your business.  You need to be able to prove that you spent the money wholly, exclusively and necessarily in connection with the business.

A few examples of acceptable expenses are, goods for resale, marketing, vans, wages, business telephone bills, business premises rent, rates, light/heat, repairs and insurance, business insurance, business bank account charges and interest, professional fees and subscriptions etc.

A few examples of expenses that are strictly not deductible are any private expenditure such as personal drawings, prescriptions, weekly food shop, private school fees, nursing home payments for Mum, lottery tickets, gambling losses etc.

There are lots of expenses though that if there is some business use of private things a proportion can correctly be claimed against tax.  For example, home telephone, mobile phone, gas/electricity if you work at home, clothing, laundry, computers and equipment, software, use of private car, mortgage interest if you raised money for your business etc.  You need to keep really clear records of these expenses and be able to justify why you feel that the proportion you claim is actually business use, and your explanation can withstand sceptical scrutiny by HMRC’s finest.

Lastly, there are some weird expenses that the tax office select for special treatment.  The main one is entertainment.  If you invite an overseas buyer over to seal a deal, any expenses connected with that are deductible.  However, if you take a supplier out for a meal to get a cheaper price (for example), although the business may benefit, the expense is not allowable.  The same applies if you are trying to woo a new customer from the UK, nothing you spend on entertaining them is tax deductible.   If you are on a business trip yourself, you can claim all reasonable expenses whilst you are away including food and drinks, hotels, travel etc.  But if you are just out of the office for a few hours, you cannot claim any food as subsistence as you would have to have eaten anyway.

There are also expenses approved by the actors union Equity which relate to members and include things that other business couldn’t claim such as hair do’s, stage clothing and makeup etc.  But only people in the performing trades can use these variations in the normal rules.  TV presenters, DJ’s, actors are all examples of people in the arts and media that this applies to.

This was never meant to be an exhaustive list and there are a myriad of other expenses that people incur which their accountant will take a view on - just ask.  If you would like to contact me for any specific advice on what is or what isn’t allowed, please ring, email, text, write and ask - all details are on the contact page.

~Ray