Tips of the Day

Two tips seen recently on how to communicate that struck chords with me:

1. When you leave your number on someone's voicemail or answering machine, speak it slowly, and then slowly REPEAT it. Put yourself in the shoes of the person listening to your message. They may not have pen and paper quite yet. They have to hear it, understand it, and write it.
2. Take the time to edit subject lines in replying e-mails. Most peole have huge e-mail volume, and being able to scan for the thrust of relevant communications on the fly makes a difference.

Posting from a Blackberry

This is a case of thinking somthing would be a nice idea and then finding out others have thought the same and made it possible. This is typed as an email on my Blackberry and sent to an email address set up in Blogger. Before you know it the post appears on the blog.

In case I'm not the last person to learn this the Blogger guidance is found in the Help section of the site under 'How do I post via email?'.

What Would Google Do?

I'm mid way through a book - "What Would Google Do?" by Jeff Jarvis - and as a good book should be it is massively thought provoking. Jeff examines Google, how it does what it does and the business model it uses. In doing this he demonstrates how the internet is challenging and destroying traditional business models and providing opportunities for those willing to learn the lessons.

The recurring theme is how much is a business willing to give away in order to attract customers so that it can sell to a few the premium products or services it is really good at?

Jeff Jarvis has a blog, Buzzmachine, that has a focus on the publishing and media industries.

Feeding the Sales Funnel

The key to acheiving sales is to make sure that each layer never goes empty - it really is that simple. You should always know how many prospects are in each respective layer. New opportunities are put in the top and worked through the funnel until they either become a sale, or become a disqualified lead.

Knowing that it can take weeks or months to walk prospects through the funnel process, you better have multiple prospects at all the layers of the funnel. So the bottom line is pretty straightforward. Make sure that you have action at all levels in the sales funnel and you'll never be desperate for a deal to close again.

But how do you manage that? Have you got software tools that facilitate and measure the lead to sales process?

Mamut One

Mamut have announced the launch of Mamut Business Platform and introduced Mamut One as the company’s primary offering to its more than 300,000 European customers. Mamut One is the first offering based on Mamut Business Platform combining the power and advantages of business software applications together with web-based solutions. Mamut Business Platform provides all users with the right information on the right device, anywhere, at any time, without any additional investments in infrastructure.

Mamut One is designed to simplify use and management of software and services for small businesses by introducing increased functionality and accessibility. Mamut One is a complete business solution including software applications, web-based services and knowledge all integrated and managed with a single sign-on solution.

Sage 50 2009

The latest Sage 50 version (Sage 50 2009) was released in the latter part of last year and has brought an improvement in two areas that may have been a source of user frustration in previous versions. The new version:

• Makes it easier to fix basic mistakes
• Includes an improved bank reconciliation system.

The Correction option is reached via the File-Maintenance menu, which includes an Error Checking routine and the option to correct errors.

When you open the Bank Reconciliation routine an enter a statement date, all the unmatched transactions up to that date are displayed in the upper half of the screen. The previous balance appears in the lower window and as you reconcile each statement entry, it moves to the bottom window. Up and down arrows allow you to move the transactions around to match the bank statement order and you can group several transactions into one item (or ungroup them later). By changing the period dates, you can also go back and do a retrospective bank rec. The application also has an e-Reconcile option that can download electronic bank statements and carry out automatic reconciliations.

Top 10 tips for a recession proof business

With the UK economy now officially well into the worst recession in living memory it seems timely to reproduce a Top 10 Tips seen recently for preparing a recession-proof business:

1. Always work to a Business Plan and always have a Plan B that caters for a downturn in business.

2. Don’t wait until things are getting really bad before putting alternative plans into action.

3. Ensure your businesses cash management is as good as it can be - e.g. make sure the debt collection process achieves prompt results.

4. Make sure the financial record keeping process is providing prompt and accurate figures.

5. Have a good relationship with your bank.

6. Revisit the businesses tax position and make sure that all is being done to ease tax cash flow.

7. Understand and be in control of all costs.

8. Know what is going to be said to customers, suppliers, bank etc should difficulties arise.

9. Ensure all employees have up to date contracts and understand your options if numbers need to be reduced.

10. Understand your market and price properly. Don’t give profits away.