In one of my businesses we have just set up a new employee bonus to the management team and this has been well received.

The title of this post was to emphasise a ‘Bias’ towards a bonus rather than fixed salary to your staffs - I would recommend this as a recession beating tool.

I was not sure how the team would take it, but they were over the moon and thank us for being so generous, which is interesting because by giving them a bonus (which was a percent of gross profit) they were focused on growing the business, which would benefit me anyway.

The psychology of giving a bonus instead of a salary rise is an interesting one and should be embraced by more business owners, especially in the present economic climate. Employees might still be looking for a pay rise despite problems and things being tough, so instead of giving them a fixed pay rise which would represent yet more fixed cost to your business, give them a reward that benefits them when the business benefits.

Of course this was only announced today, so I cannot report on how well this will go and to what extent it will affect my business going forward, but if the reaction I received today is anything to go by then I expect positive results.

If your business is struggling and you cannot afford to pay your staff higher salaries, then by replacing salary hikes with a bonus scheme the employees will not be paid unless things improve. So by definition you will be paying the extra salary out of extra profits. I recommend a ‘No-Cap’ bonus, which means that it is open ended so no matter how much they increase the profits the staff get paid a percent of every part of the increase.

I am again saddened and annoyed at the Unions and their short sighted view over the company that the staff they represent work for, that being British Airways.

The unfortunate insight they have missed is that the damage they are doing, not only to present customers and the damage to goodwill, but also to their long-term goodwill. Please don’t let this icon of a company go the way the British Car Industry and Coal Industry went, which were both destroyed by the British Unions – work together with the company to make the company profitable and ensure it’s future.

If anyone is a worker for British Airways and they happen to read this article – I would like to appeal to you and ask you to re-consider your views on strike action. If the staff of British Airways strike now during the festive period, not only are you destroying peoples holidays, wedding arrangements and Christmas’s, but you are also putting a huge nail in the coffin of the company’s future – thereby jeopardising your jobs.

I am certain a huge percentage of the people who will be affected by this strike would never book with British Airways ever again and it would make me think twice about booing a flight with them too, that’s for sure.

The government has to be answerable to this situation too and I think they should step in and change the legislation on Union powers. I am of the opinion, if staff are not happy in their work or in what the company is doing, then move on and get another job with another company or in another industry – don’t be selfish.

Unions need to recognise that there is a deep recession going on right now and that the airline industry is going through a tough time – British Airways made a stonking loss of over £400 million last year and will likely make an even bigger loss this year. No company can survive these types of losses and the management must make cost savings. If the company makes a loss then it is in real danger of going out of business. If British Airways goes out of business then no one will have a job – so that will have achieved nothing, except for the destruction of the company.

There is of course the possibility of a takeover and I am sure that Sir Richard Branson is rubbing his hands together right now and contemplating this eventuality, but even with this outcome there will undoubtedly be redundancies – so I would argue having a job is better than no job at all.

There are many ways of improving Cash Flow for a business and we have given you a few ideas to do just that.

To help you see how these ideas can help your business it would be worth while doing some cash flow projections. The Cash Forecaster can be used as a management tool to identify critical costs areas of the business and how these impact the future cash-health of the business.

For example – you might like to experiment with introducing Factoring or Invoice discounting to improve the flow of cash from your customers whilst you are in expansion mode – Just because a business is making a profit it might still fail if the profits are not turned into cash – Remember ‘Cash is King’ in business!

You may have heard of the term ‘Over Trading’ – Over trading is where a business is making good sales and turnover but that it is not able to keep up with the payments to suppliers simply because their customers are late in paying the company. The obvious way to correct this is to make sure that your payment terms to your suppliers are more generous than those given to your customers. Alternatively, the introduction of Factoring will help.

Having a Cash Flow Management tool to hand will help you to explore the effect these ideas will have on your business:

1. Increase sales and in particular those involving cash payment or payment by either standing order or direct debit.
2. Reduce your direct and indirect costs and overhead expenses.
3. Consider increasing your prices and especially to your slow payers – see Bowraven’s “Profit Increase Software“
4. Review the payment performances of customers and be more selective when granting credit – start using a credit report company to check the credit worthiness of potential customers.
5. Consider up-front deposits or multiple stage payments – approach a loan company to advance the money to you and offer credit terms to customers.
6. Reduce the amount of credit given to customers and change your payments terms – i.e. reduce the time allow for customers to pay.
7. Introduce factoring or invoice discounting to accelerate receipts from sales.
8. Make sure that your sales invoices are raised as soon as the work has been completed.
9. Offer early payment discounts and consider introducing late payment charges or fees.
10. Generate regular reports on receivable ratios and aging or your customer balances and use more pro-active collection techniques – involve your sales team and make sure that any commissions are only paid where customers pay the company.
11. Consider the 80/20 rule with regards to your customer list and product lines – make sure you know where your profits are coming from. You might well find that 80% of your profits are coming from 20% of your customers or 80% of your profits from 20% of your product lines – if either of these are true consider not dealing with the 80% of customers and cancel the 80% of non profitable product lines. Be careful when do this, as it might be that certain products are reliant on others, in which case they may be ‘Loss-Leaders’.
12. Take a look at how you pay your suppliers – ask for extended credit terms. Get new quotes from other suppliers and re-negotiate prices of supplies.
13. Try to reduce your stock levels (inventory levels) and improve control over work-in-progress – make sure that you are billing work in progress on a regular basis and keep write-offs under review.
14. Sell off or return obsolete/excess stock (inventory).
15. Defer or re-stage all capital expenditure.

Planning these changes and which ones work best for your business can be done using our tried and tested Cash Forecaster.

Post by Russell Bowyer

One of the top questions and top search terms is how much is Donald Trump worth when in fact what people should probably ask is “How did Donald Trump get started?” or “How come Donald Trump is successful?”

I have found a video which partly answers the second question and probably the most important message to come across with this interview is about belief and enjoying what you do! Donald Trump is not a “The Millionaire Inside” the show was changed to suit “The Billionaire Inside“.

I always remember speaking to one of my own successful entrepreneur clients and commented to him that what he did was not a job and that it was not even work for him, but instead it was like play – he really enjoyed what he did and it was his passion and he ate slept and lived his business – hence his success.

So if you are looking to start out as an entrepreneur, then I suggest that you start a business which sells a service or product that you have a passion about. If you are already a business owner and your business does not seem like it is going anywhere, then ask yourself this question “is this my passion?” The likely answer is no if things are not going too well.

If you take time to listen to this interview with Donald Trump, maybe you might get the inspiration you need to succeed in business and you might make a change in direction that makes all the difference. The other important point to get from Donald Trump is that it is never too late to change and always worthwhile making changes to your life in order to be completely fulfilled.

Donald Trump on The Millionaire Inside – Erin Burnett 1

I came across this video which explains about the five mistakes an entrepreneur makes in business.

We all make mistakes and if we are smart we learn from those mistakes and move on. However, if we can learn from other people about mistakes not to make in what we are doing then even better – so if you run your own business and are already an entrepreneur or if you are considering setting up in business then I recommend you watch this video, as it has some good tips for you.

Five Biggest Mistakes That Entrepreneurs Make

Turn-on your television or pick up a newspaper and all that is reported right now, apart from the present swine flu problem, is the “credit crunch” – falling house prices, rising unemployment, businesses going bust, repossessions, bankruptcies and more…

So what should small businesses do?

Well this depends on whether you see this as an opportunity or a threat. There are no doubt certain businesses that will find these times more difficult than others, for example, only today there are reports about how the number of unemployed lorry drivers has gone up almost 5-fold since this time last year.

Where businesses are selling less and therefore resulting in a less of a need for transport, then transport companies will see a dip in demand and as a consequence might need to make redundancies. So I accept that times are tough and even more so for some – take solicitors and estate agents – with the dramatic fall in house sales their business income relating directly to house-sales will have fallen off a cliff over the last 12-18 months. However, take an estate agency – if they don’t already do so, the estate agent should consider moving into property rentals, as people are resorting to renting their property instead of selling.

By looking at the present economic situation as an opportunity and to start looking at ways to make efficiencies within any business you should be able to survive and along the way make more small business profits – doing nothing is not an option and will result in a business failure. You can ask your staff to take a pay cut so that they help in the survival of the business and you can then start to look at other ways in which the company can make profits from existing customers, by looking at other product lines that compliment your existing ones.

I suggest that you look at putting together a meeting with all your staff with the main or sole purpose of getting ideas from them on how to move the business forward. Before the meeting make it clear to all staff what the purpose of the meeting is and that it is to be a constructive review of the business and its activities.

The benefit of doing this with staff is that they all know the business and when you get a group of people together you end up with an “Idea Snowball Effect” in other words – one person might suggest one thing, which in itself might be a good idea, but if not it might lead someone else on to an even better idea – and so on…

You might even want to offer incentives to staff for the best ideas and for those that start producing results or alternatively, place a marker in the sand of where profits are now and then offer a group bonus based upon any profit increase whereby things improve.

Another way to move things forward is to ask your customers for ideas and feed-back. You can organise a “Client Forum” whereby you invite a number of clients in (I recommend 10-12 customers) and sit them in a room and ask them for feed-back on your products and/or services. It is amazing what can come out of this type of meeting, which can ultimately lead to providing a better service to your clients and they might even give you ideas for other products of service – thereby increasing your business profits!

Whilst improving profits – don’t forget to keep an eye on cash flows – it is all very well increasing your business profits, if you don’t get the money from your customers and keep cash in the bank.

10 ways to save money in your business and make your business a lean mean fighting machine!

In an economic slow-down it is time to cut costs!

When things are going well and saving money is not at the top of the agenda we can all let things slip and not pay close attention to cut costs. With the credit crunch still biting the majority of businesses still I though it would be good to help focus on where money can be saved.

1. Bank charges

If you have been with your bank for a number of years and many people tend to be very loyal to their banks, for some reason. Always remember this, if times get tough, the bank will be the first one to kick you out on the street, as their decision is based purely on a commercial basis without emotion. So it is always good to have a look at the competition and see what deals you can do with other banks and the bank charges you pay or save.

2. Bank loans

You might well have banking finance in the company be it a general loan or overdraft or it might be in the form of a mortgage on a business property. It is always worth while checking to see if you can get a better rate, especially right now with bank base rates being so low. The rate your are already on might not take account of the full rates reduction, so by moving lender you might get a better deal or even a very good fixed-rate deal.

3. Company credit cards

If your business uses credit cards then these will have an associated cost, be it an annual fee or the fee they charged if you use it abroad on business. Check with other banks how much they charge for a similar service, as you might be able to save some money where the cards are used in a significant way.

4. Pay-down your mortgage

Where interest rates have dropped so much your mortgage payments will have dropped by a large percentage. However, if you can afford it, why not keep your mortgage payments at the level they were before so that the capital element of the mortgage gets paid down faster.

In the long-run this will significantly shorten the length of your mortgage and reduce the amount of interest you pay over its term. Also, at a point when rates start to rise again, the amount you owe will be that much lower so the repayments at that point will be lower.

5. Review your supply chain

You might have ordered your stationery from a certain supplier for some time now and it might be that there are other companies out there that offer a better deal. There will be companies eager to get your business and might be willing to give you good account discounts to get your business.

Equally, your existing supplier might well give you a better discount if you ask them and more likely if they know they might loose your account. This saving tip applies to all of your supplies and where you are a manufacturing type business and you purchase goods to sell, then if you can source cheaper suppliers for your business, you will improve your gross profit margins.

6. Cash takings

If you are a cash business you might already try to minimise the amount of the cash you bank and instead use it to pay suppliers, employees and so on. Banks charge you significantly to bank cash so if you can limit how much you pay in this will reduce these costs. You might also want to look at other ways of banking your cash, for example the UK’s Post Office has always been a cheaper solution for banking cash, so it might pay to look around for banks that charge lower “Cash-Banking” rates.

7. Save money on your fuel bills

Even during this economic slow-down the cost of energy has remained relatively high so it would pay you to search around for a better deal. You can normally search online for Energy Comparison Sites so that you can cut your fuel bill on gas and electric. Sometimes by combining the two into one bill and by paying by direct debit will save money – so take time to speak to different companies.

8. Cut your phone bills

For some businesses the phone bill is one of the high costs and by switching supplier can reduce this cost. Look at getting a deal whereby the landlines you use are linked in some way to your company mobile phones so that calls between the office and the mobiles can be free with certain deals on the market. Consider incentivising your employees to switch to your own service provider where call-charges are cheaper when made between the same supplier and the business makes a significant number of calls to employee mobiles.

9. Accountants fees

Accounting and professional fees can be a significant cost to the business and it is always worthwhile reviewing not only the cost of this service, but also whether the accountant you use is saving you money. If you have a good accountant and tax adviser, they should be able to come up with tax-saving tips for your business and if you change the new person might see something that your old accountant has missed.

Also, try looking for an accountant that this prepared to offer a fixed fee – you end up paying too much to accountants or solicitors that charge by the hour, as you are paying for their inefficiencies if you pay them by the hour!

10. Company car policy

Review your company car policy and how often you change your vehicles and for what level of car you buy as a replacement. Also, consider the fuel type your company vehicles use – there are obviously petrol versus diesel and now you have the new types including electric cars and a combination fuel type car.

These are just 10 ways to save money in your business, but if you start to think this way then I am sure that you might well come up with your own ideas to help reduce costs in these difficult times.

A good video to watch if you are considering starting or buying a business or if you have a business and you are looking for some inspiration.

The BBC’s TV series Dragons Den has found and inspired many successful business owners and in this first video the focus is on Duncan Bannatyne – Success stories in business.

Getting the money for starting a business is a stumbling block that many budding entrepreneurs face at the out set.

The first question to answer is should I buy a business or set up a business from scratch with each route having its own complications from a fund raising perspective. If you are starting out from scratch you have the added problem that you have no track-record in business and the business itself will have not trading history.

However, if you are looking to buy a business or perhaps set up a franchise then this is a slightly different proposition in that and existing business will have a trading history and franchise are liked by banks because they are a know quantity. You do still have the slight problem that you have no business track record, but this can be overcome with a sound business proposal.

There are many ways to find finance using No Money Down principles and in addition to this there is also the Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) (Formerly the Government Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme, SFLG) to secure any loans, where you don’t have any of your own security. However, the proposal must be robust that would get a loan from a bank except for the lack of security. The EFG is for small businesses with a turnover of less than £25 million in the last 12 months and can be for existing businesses as well as start up ones, so long as they start to trade in the near future.

For a list of the banks that lend using the EFG you can visit the BERR – The Governments Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform.

The EFG will guarantee loans of between £1,000 and £1,000,000 and will only provide security for 75% of the loan and comes with a 2% premium payable to the BERR on the balance of the loan on a reducing balance basis. However, this premium has been reduced to 1.5% of the loan outstanding for 2009. EFG loans can be used to replace existing overdraft facilities or provide new finance for working capital, equipment and business expansion, with a minimum term of three months and a maximum of ten years.

Click here for a list of EFG restrictions

Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are financial and non-financial measures used to help a business define and evaluate how successful it is and are used to monitor how the organisation is doing.

Another term for KPIs is Key Success Indicators (KSI) and any business that uses KPIs is one that certainly has an advantage over businesses that don’t. What you measure you can manage and each business needs to choose which KPIs are key to the performance of the business and those performance indicators that will have a major impact on the business if they are improved upon.

So what exactly is a KPI – the best way to answer this is by way of an example:

Client Conversion KPI

A KPI that is key to any business is it’s conversion of enquiries into actual clients, so for example if you are currently getting say 30 enquiries per month and you convert 10 of those enquiries into clients, then your KPI is 10 divided by 30, which equals 33.33%.

By having this percentage you now have a target to beat, but more importantly, by acknowledging your conversion rate as being 33.33% you can take steps to look at why it is this low and take action to make improvements.

A first step might be to make contact with the 20 out of 30 enquirers that do not become clients and ask them why this is. By asking your potential clients you will find out what it is you can do to improve upon this KPI. By taking action you will get more clients from those that enquire about your products or services and improve your Client Conversion KPI.

Average Revenue per Client KPI

Another example and also one that is both relevant and key to all businesses is the Average Revenue per Client KPI. Let us assume that you presently have an annual turnover of £550,000 and on average you had say 2,500 clients in the same year. Your Average Client Sale is £550,000 divided by 2,500, which equals £220, which represents your Average Revenue Per Customer KPI.

As with the first example, once you know what the average spend of your clients is you are able to address ways in which you can increase their spend, thereby Increase Business Profits.

There are KPI’s that are non-revenue related, for example:

Employee Retention KPI

If a business has a high employee-turnover this will be very costly to the organisation. Therefore, if you can keep your employees for longer periods and thereby reduced employee-turnover you will drive down costs and save time, by avoiding unnecessary interview and training time involved in replacing every new employee.

To get your Employee Retention KPI you take the number of employees that you lost over a given period (lets say you lost 5 employees over a 12-month period) and divide this by your total employees over the same period (let’s say that this was 20) therefore, your KPI in this instance would be 25%.

Once you have your Employee Retention KPI you can take the necessary steps to change this and make improvements and one such step would be to carry out Employee Exit Interviews and ask them for reasons why they are leaving your organisation. By performing Employee Exit Interviews you will discover a lot about why your staff are leaving you and then take steps to reduce this KPI and save the company money in the process.

So to begin on the road of business success you need to start Developing key performance indicators.