The Need For Speed

Apr 11, ’12 6:51 AM

Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Business Planning, Getting Things Done, plan cash-flow

Money is the lifeblood of any business, start-up or 100 years old. Considering implications for your cash-flow should be at the heart of every decision you make in your business.

Whatever makes you money now has to be prioritized over anything that has the promise of money in the future:

If you can send an invoice today, don’t wait until tomorrow.
If you can call the client today for the next order, do it.
Make sure your accounts department is aware of these priorities.

There is a real ‘Need For Speed’, when it comes to getting your money in. It is easy to do all the exiting things first and get into the habit of letting the admin side, especially your cash-flow management, slip.

Once the cash is gone, so is the business.

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VIDEO: How To Plan Your Small Business Cashflow

Mar 23, ’11 11:33 AM

Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories How to ..., plan cash-flow

I know from listening to many readers of my blog, and small business owners, that cashflow planning is something that can be intimidating. I made this video to show just how simple and uncomplicated cashflow planning can be. There’s no need to make it complicated or time consuming, cashflow planning is vital for small business success, but it can also be incredibly easy. Give it a try, and let me know what you think of the video!

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How To Make This Recession Work For Your Small Home Business.

Nov 17, ’09 6:08 PM

Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories plan cash-flow

On my blog I often talk about not spending money, bootstrapping and cash-flow planning. However a recession can be a excellent time to spend money too, providing you have the cash to spend – here are some tips on how to spend & save at the same time:

Always ask for a better price, no matter what, always ask. If the supplier knows you are ready to buy for the right price they will cut you a deal.
When buying from big corporations always pay late, their money collection procedures are very transparent. Use this to pay late, complain about anything and everything, so you can justify delaying payment. They’d do exactly the same to you if they could – so no false sentiments here. Just make sure you have the money when it is time to finally pay.
Get better payment terms by negotiation. Promise to buy from one supplier for better payment terms, like 60 or 90 days.
Get better payment terms by non-payment. Some utilities companies get panicked if you don’t pay and they will offer you a monthly payment plan, take it.

You can easily find out how far you can take these games, by finding out how companies collect their money. Just one thing don’t do it to fellow small business owners, they need their money just as much as you do. Given the fact that small business can’t get credit, while the big boys can, let them play bank for you for a while.

This is no time for modesty, it is time for survival and we all know cash is king – so keep it as long as you can. – ST.

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The Week Ender: Credit Crunch – See It Coming?

Oct 26, ’08 12:49 PM

Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Comments, The Week Ender, plan cash-flow

Credit Crunch, the new scare word of our times. But what does it mean for your business? How can you minimise the effects of it on your business?

In the final analysis the effects are financial, your cash flow is going to stop you will run out of money – that is going to be the problem. So before you can decide what to do about it find out how it would affect your business. Planning your cash flow is the easiest way to see the effects of the credit crunch on your business. You need to ask yourself questions like:

Is my bank going to call in a loan/overdraft facility?
Is my turnover going to decrease?
Can I decrease my fixed costs in my business?

These and other more business specific questions will get you started. Using this information and inputting it into a simple cash-flow model will help you to predict what your businesses future looks like. In the coming years cash is everything, and I don’t mean cash as in ‘money coins and notes’, I mean cash in the liquidity sense of the work – your businesses ability to pay it’s bills and your wages. Nothing is more important than that.

Some people will tell you to get your accounts done and have a look at the numbers. Forget it, it’s all done and dusted – it’s the past. You need to look into the future and get ready for the lean times. Start planning for the above scenarios, but them into a cash-flow and you can see what your problem could be. Having this knowledge will empower you to plan your way out of it, before it is to late.

It is better to make some redundancies and cost cuts now, before the whole business runs out of money. –ST.

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Do you have concern for your business or only for yourself?

Apr 25, ’08 4:12 PM

Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Employment, Entrepreneur, Failure, Green/Eco-Friendly, Outsourcing, avoid growing pain, be eco-friendly, be successful, bootstrap, do a reality check, find funding, outsource effectively, plan cash-flow

I had an interesting conversation about my view that management control over employees is a myth. I have believed for some time now that an office is often a total waste of money and completely unnecessary. Most of the time I’m told it’s OK when you work by yourself, but not if you have employees, as they need to be supervised and somehow “controlled”.

I have now been working for almost ten years from home, and most of my staff works from home too. Apart from being an eco-friendly way to work, it saves people time and frustration to travel in and around London to come to an office, where we all sit in cubicles or offices. In the days of broadband internet, Skype and OnlineOffice, there is no need for an office, even to have meetings.

Offices, like cars are are often nothing else but status symbols – what other reason can there be for a small business to have an office? If that is true then how is the office helping with your business, it’s a big expense. Seriously, if you do not have clients coming thru your office doors several times every day, why have the office. Even if you have, do really all your people need to be in the office every day? I guess not!

We are in an economic downturn, what is more important – your ego or your business – ask yourself that every time you walk into your office. I’m sure there a good reasons for some micro businesses to have offices, even so I currently can’t think of any, but I’m convinced in most cases a healthy bootstrapping and outsourcing mentality would be more beneficial for your business.

Unless the first business goal is to feed your egomania, you need to have a good hard look at your cost structure to survive in these times. — ST.

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No Business Plan Needed To Start Small Business!

Jan 13, ’08 1:28 PM

Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories do a SWOT plan, plan cash-flow, plan your business, start-up in business

Two professors, Julian Lang and William Bygrave, from Babson College in the US have found that the business performance of businesses started, with or without business plan, was unaffected.

This finding is not entirely surprising, since I believed for a long time, that getting too hung up about business plans can be a great waste of time, especially if you are not in a position to evaluate all variables that make up small business success.

I still believe cash-flow forecasting, SWOT analysis and a simple business goal sheet are helpful as far as business focus is concerned. A full business plan however, in my opinion is often a waste of time.

Some people plan and plan, but never start a business, why is that? If you are looking for problems you will find them. ST.

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Are you working in or on your small business?

Nov 22, ’07 11:18 AM

Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories be successful, plan cash-flow, plan your business

Don’t get confused about what you, the business owner of your small business or start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants, should be doing? You need to do both of cause!

Unfortunately working in your business, like answering the phone, writing bills, doing the wages, talking to customers and so on is all that most business owners do. Research shows that most believe that this is all their is to do! That is very wrong and also the reason why many businesses fail.

Working on your business means to looking at it from the outside, remembering all these little customer comments, imagining a new type of technology to be employed in the business, changing the way you advertise, in other words making changes to the business, the whole business:-

that will improve performance,
enhance external communication with clients,
improve the clients experience,
cut costs out of your business,
and many other aspects of your business.

That is in reality the most important part of what a business owner should do – plan the future. Working in your business, will make sure you you can pay your bills next week or even next month. Working on your business is all about still having a business next year or the years after that – that has to be the most entrepreneurial thing you can do.

Have a vision for the future – work on your small business – have a future! ST.

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Small Business Maxim: What If?

Nov 14, ’07 4:32 PM

Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Start-Up, bootstrap, do a reality check, handle problems, plan cash-flow, plan your business, start-up in business

I remember my years as a physics student in university, we were told about “Thought Experiments” great physicist made – Newton’s Apple, Schrödinger’s Cat or Einstein’s Train. So these guys were sitting in their chairs and really just ask on question: “What If……?”

Entrepreneurs are not unlike the physicists or philosophers, they ask themselves – consciously or unconsciously – the same question:

What if …. I could make cubic eggs?
What if …. I could make that cheaper?
What if …. I could make it easier to use?
What if, what if, …….

This has got to be the most entrepreneurial question even. Often finding the answer is not the problem, finding the question is.

So, how can you cultivate an environment conducive to “What if….?” questions? Look outside of your box, read books from other business entrepreneurs, try and see how they made a change work for them, read your wife’s Cosmopolitan – your husband’s Mens Health magazine, look at other industries, ask your kids what they like, be interested in anything and ask yourself all the time, what if…..?

Your customer calls to complain about the last order – what if? Your assistant is unhappy with the coffee-machine, what if? What if, applies to all aspects of your small business or startup business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants:

Customer Care & Support;
Sales;
Marketing & PR;
Accounting & Credit Control
especially Business Planning, and so on ….

It just does not end, you may not be the next Einstein, but I bet you, you will get some pretty good answers from yourself, if you bother to find the right “What If….?” question.

Some “What If …?” questions get me regularly quite excited, and keep me awake all night with excitement about the possibilities – so go forth an “What if…?” – a little, or a lot for that matter! ST.

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WinWeb's Free Accounting Software For Every Small Business.

Nov 11, ’07 3:32 PM

Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Accounting, Office - IT, WinWeb, bootstrap, plan cash-flow, plan your business, use online IT

With our recent launch of OnlineOffice 4, we have kept our promise to supply our online accounting software to every small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants free of charge forever.

But not only that – lets face it, if you want free accounting software, you could try the open source arena or other suppliers, even Intuit offers a watered down version of their accounting software free of charge – but a whole raft of other benefits can be gained by using our award winning product:

Free 24/7 live online support – so when you work after 5 pm, we are still here to help and you do not have to pay for it;
All future software updates are free of charge as well, so you will never have to pay for new or updated accounting software;
Data backup and security included – while we all know nothing is ever absolutely safe, we back all your data up continuously and our investment in security would be unobtainable for small businesses, because of cost and complexity;
All the benefits of online software (SaaS) – means you can access your accounting, write invoices and plan your business from anywhere at anytime.
Online technology is eco-friendly – no shipping, no packaging, no manuals (help text in software) and our ClimateByte Technology.

All you have to do, is sign up for our free 30 day trail of OnlineOffice, or our free LiveNet and you will have free accounting for your small business, forever.

Let’s face it, nobody makes any money doing their bookkeeping. At least with WinWeb you don’t have to spend any money, not to make any money. ST.

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Q & A: What should I do when my bank cancels my overdraft without warning?

Nov 11, ’07 11:55 AM

Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Accountants/CPAs, Entrepreneur, Finance, Home Business, How to ..., Outsourcing, Question & Answer, SOHO/SMB/SME/Micro, Self-employed, Small Business / SOHO, avoid growing pain, be successful, bootstrap, do cost cutting, do credit control, find funding, grow your business, handle problems, lower overheads, outsource effectively, plan cash-flow, plan your business

This question is hard to answer, because there are no simple answers here and the outcome of this situation could easily be fatal to the business and if you are personally guaranteeing this money – and you probably are – this could potentially be very serious for your personal life too.

The things that you need to do, in my opinion are:

Find out why? If the reason given are not satisfactory, you will need to get legal advice.
Try and extent the deadline? If that is possible reduce the overdraft as soon as you can, or negotiate a stepped reduction of the O/D limit, ie. by month or week.
Try and change bank, ASAP.

People often believe it is somehow always their fault, if the bank changes their attitude towards them, that is not always the case. Banks will always try and make you believe it is, but in reality they my have new internal guidelines for handing out money – banks can get into “cash-flow” problems too. So – don’t automatically assume it is always your fault.

Banks may have the right to recall a loan or overdraft, but I’m not sure if they have the right to damage your business by doing so – especially if the reason for the recall is not your doing. So if it comes to the crunch, get legal advice. This is one of the reasons why I hate these, IMO, often legal but still unreasonable arrangements between banks and clients.

Many years ago someone made the the loan, O/D – umbrella analogy and it goes like this:

When the sun is shining your bank gives you an umbrella;
when it is raining, they need the umbrella themselves.

It is best if you do everything possible to not need banks in the first place, by bootstrapping, outsourcing, planning your business and keeping your fixed costs as low as possible.

Remember sometimes, attack is the best defense even with banks, they may need their money, but they do not need bad publicity either. ST.

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