Small Office, Home Office Information

by Stuart Livesey

Maybe it’s overkill and overly expensive for small business

There’s no doubt that the new Apple iPhone looks great and I would love to be able to justify one or two for our small business but despite all the hype and all the spin that Steve Jobs came up with at the launch there remains a lot that hasn’t been said about the Apple iPhone.

20 Things We Don’t Know About the iPhone is something you should read before rushing in to buy one of these toys for your small business.

A hat tip to Home and Small Office Computer Guide for the link to the story.

by Stuart and Toni Livesey

It’s been another busy week for us and we are certainly looking forward to the weekend. It’s also been a week where the weather here in Queensland has finally remembered that it’s summer so things have been a little hot these last few days.

Hopefully this last week has been as productive for your small business as it has been for ours.

We’ll leave you this week with three links to sites that you might find useful.

The PC Decrapifier - if you’ve bought a Dell PC or laptop that has come with a whole lot of rubbish pre-installed then you may find this tool rather useful. Some of the comments on the site suggest that it might be useful for other brands of PCs and laptops too.

Compendium of idea generation methods - if you need to do a little brainstorming with the staff of your small business but don’t quite know how to encourage them to get into brainstorming mode then here is a huge list of ways to get people to think.

Get Projects Done - if you need a way of keeping everyone in your small business on the same page when it comes to the projects your working on then this tool might be useful. We haven’t tried it yet but we will be looking at it over the weekend.

And that’s it for this week - the beach sure is looking good on Sunday

If you happen to be into cars then check out Aussie Motoring over the weekend - there are some interesting classic cars in there as well as plenty of information on the current crop of new vehicles.

by Stuart Livesey

One of the big attractions for me in entering into a home based small business was the fact that I could stop living by the clock. My work day in and day out had been governed by the clock for 30 years and to be free of it was a dream come true. Suddenly I was my own master.

But just lately as the amount of business that Toni’s small business attracts has continued to grow I find myself going back to the clock to cope with the workload. These days I find myself assigning blocks of time to the tasks in front of me each morning.

Somehow that clock that I once disliked so much has now become a valuable tool.

Does that mean that somehow I’ve failed?

by Stuart Livesey

It might look like a toy but it really is an incredible tool for small business

Yep it’s a jigsaw puzzle and Toni gave it to me for Christmas. It’s been at least 25 years since I did a jigsaw puzzle and I have to say I am having a blast. I’ve been working on it every day since December 26 and, as you can see, it’s really coming together but it hasn’t been easy.

Ok, so why is a jigsaw puzzle a tool for small business?

It’s a tool for small business because it teaches you to look at problems from every conceivable angle. In the puzzle I’m doing some pieces went together with no problem at all … but I looked at other pieces for days before I realised that I was looking at them from the wrong angle.

Turn a piece upside down and suddenly you begin to see where it fits in the big picture. Assemble a few of the pieces and suddenly you see the even bigger picture. And it goes on teaching you those lessons.

As you can see I’m getting close to finishing the puzzle and the closer I get to the end the harder it’s becoming. I have to spend more time searching for the right pieces, I have to spend more time thinking about which way the pieces are going and I have to spend more time thinking about what I’m seeing in the puzzle and on the pieces.

Perhaps you think this whole deal about a jigsaw puzzle is a little simplistic but I challenge you to buy one and try it for yourself. You will be surprised at how something as simple as a jigsaw puzzle can change the way you look at the challenges you face in your small business.

A thousand piece jigsaw puzzle is only going to set you back about $20.00 and you will be surprised at the positive impact it can have on your business.

by Stuart Livesey

The danger of blue chip companies borrowing money - and how we little guys may suffer

Over the last 12 months Toni and I have been working hard to eliminate debt. Our credit cards have been destroyed (there is life without credit cards - and it is quite possible to do business on the Internet without a credit card) and our debts are being ‘retired’ and it really is working for us.

Meanwhile, down the street at the big end of town debt is rising at an alarming rate. Recently one of the largest brokers in the US suggested that corporate America should be doubling its level of debt and cutting its cash reserves.

Now how can any business survive if it does that? The more debt you have the more drain there is on future income and there is little value to a business in interest payments.

Any small business that followed advice like that would never survive - yet that is exactly what big business is being told to do. And sadly, small business ultimately relies on big business.

Queensland’s Sunday Mail today published an interesting piece about the private equity mania - it’s an interesting look into a possible future and it should send shivers down the spine of every small business person.

You can find Debt Bubble Worries Regulators by following the link.

by Stuart Livesey

Ok, so the holidays are over and it’s time to get back to the hard work. While I’m not a fan of trying to divide the life of your small business into the old year and the new year the end of a calendar year does provide a point where you can look back at the things you’ve done in the last 12 months, reflect on what has worked and what hasn’t and then plan ahead for the next 12 months.

That’s certainly what Toni and I have done and it has been interesting to compare where we were 12 months ago to where we are now. Toni’s business certainly has grown in those 12 months and we’ve learnt some valuable lessons.

Along the way we have lost one or two customers because we couldn’t meet their expectations. We have also dismissed a couple of customers who had unreal expectations and made unreasonable demands on us. And we have picked up plenty of new customers who are quite happy with what we produce for them.

We’ve also decided to diversify our business to prepare for the years ahead. We will soon be opening a small online store selling some specialty products and we’re sure we’ll have plenty of lessons to learn and share with you in the months ahead.

So we wish you and your small business well for the new year and hope it will be just as interesting for you as it will be for us.