Small Office, Home Office Information

The number of people who expect something for nothing that you, as a small business person, will bump into in the life of your small business is unbelievable. Or as one person put it on Twitter today:

The sense of entitlement for a person getting financial value who has no intent of ever becoming a customer is astonishing.

Over on Web Worker Daily one of the questions raised in a post about surviving in 2009 is whether or not some clients are really worth the effort.

That’s an interesting question and one that Toni and I are pondering right now as we look at those who are making us money and those who are just a drain on our time and resources.

We’ve actually reached the point where we’re ready to let one of our long-term customers go simply because they have become a drain on our time and they’re not going to like it when we increase the rates we charge them for the work they expect us to do for them.

In many ways it will be sad to see them go but sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day to deal with clients who want everything done very cheaply because times are a little tough and then don’t appreciate what you have done for them.

So does your small business have customers that you should really let go or are you going to put up with them for another year?

Well last Friday I made a bold statement and declared that we were heading out to enjoy some fun time at the Business Hervey Bay’s regular monthly get-together that night but sometimes things don’t always go according to plan in even the best-run small business and our plans went out the window.

Friday lunchtime one of those websites that had been put back a few days was suddenly back on the immediate agenda and the owner wanted it online just as quick as we could get it there. So instead of partying Friday night we worked and by lunchtime Saturday the webssite for an absolute beachfront cafe in Hervey Bay was live and everyone was happy.

We always like to keep our customers happy and we’re prepared to work hard … and for long hours … to keep them that way because happy customers who aren’t ignored or left on their own once they’ve paid their account will keep on coming back for more.

If you want to succeed in your small business that’s what you’ve got to do.

This coming week we’ve got some more hours to put into two e-commerce sites and I’ve got a couple of days search engine optimisation work ahead of me for one of our media clients in the US. It should be fun.

by Stuart Livesey

I had an interesting conversation with a friend on Twitter yesterday about why it’s so hard for businesses to sell goods and services to those involved in small business and home office type businesses. And it is hard, many have tried and most have failed despite being very talented at what they do and despite offering a service that is real value for money.

I think my friend and I both came to the same conclusion. So many small businesses … and especially those who work from a home office … set up their business with very limited financial resources. Their budget is so small that they really can’t afford anything other than the very basics and what they can pick up for free.

The sad fact is that you have to spend money to make money. That’s not to say that you won’t succeed if you start out with very limited resources … it just means that your chances of achieving the success that you want are reduced. Shoestring budgets tend to break very easily and once your budget is broken you run a very real risk of seeing your small business fall apart.

If you start with limited financial resources it might only take one or two clients to miss paying you and your small business days could be over.

It’s another beautiful and crisp winter’s morning here in Hervey Bay. The sun’s shining, the birds are singing and I’ve got some the Concerto for 2 Horns by Telemann playing while I wrestle with some HTML for a client.

At the moment it’s getting the better of me so I thought I would take a break and share this article with you. There’s a very important lesson for any small business tucked away in there. While many small business people seem to think that to succeed they need to be passionate about making money perhaps it’s more important to be passionate about the product they produce.

So what are you really passionate about?

I think I lost a potential client just a little while ago. He knows that his small business website has some major problems … it’s four years old and only has one page indexed in Google. I put together a 9 step programme that would cure all the sites ills but all he wanted was a quick fix.

I didn’t seem to be able to help him see beyond that quick fix and help him understand that it would only cure one of the problems and still wouldn’t guarantee that his site would hit the front page of Google for the terms he was aiming for.

I should have found a better way to explain the problems and the solutions. How good are you at helping your small business clients see beyond the quick fix?

Some competitors are close … round the corner … down the street … up the road … maybe even next door. They’re close geographically speaking … but they may be so far behind you that you’re not even close to them.

On the other hand some competitors are far away … in the next state … across the country … on the other side of the planet. Geographically speaking they’re a long way from you … but they could be right up there with you.

Whether they’re near or far they have things to teach you … to remind you of … to help you with and that’s what this competitor of ours did for us today. He might be a long way from us but he’s quite close in other ways and he reminded us today that “past performance is indicative of future behaviour”

Every small business has something to teach other small businesses whether they’re near or far. Thanks John for reminding us of something Toni and I knew but were on the verge of forgetting.

Friends can be great fun to be around. They can be supportive, encouraging, caring out of business time … but don’t always expect them to be that way when they’re engaging your small business.

You may just find that your best friends are going to be your worst customers and can do the most damage to your business.

by Stuart and Toni Livesey 

This morning we went to see our accountant - it’s one of the four times each year here in Australia when small businesses have to lodge various returns with the Taxation Department - the Australian version of the IRS.

It’s also a good time to take the temperature and judge the health of a small business and what better and more objective person to do that than your accountant. Today, after looking at our business it was nice to hear our accountant tell us that our small business is in very good shape. Our turnover has increased every quarter for the last six … and next quarter is looking pretty good too.

So how did we manage to reach this point? Well we wish we could say that all we had to do was wave a magic wand but success for a small business … and especially ones that start their business from a home office … never comes that easy and some of our early quarters were downright dismal.

So what did we do?

1. We never gave up - even when we were both ill and very short on money we just never gave up.

2. We set out to provide the best possible service for our customers and we made sure that “the best possible service” was a hell of a lot better than ANY of our competitors were providing.

3. We kept … and still keep … our overheads screwed right down. We don’t drive a flashy car … we don’t go on expensive holidays … and we don’t play the game of keeping up with the Joneses.

4. We spend some money on promotion … in the right places but we rely on word of mouth from very satisfied customers. We spend lots of time talking to people and showing them that we really are the most experienced people in our field, both here in town, and on the Net. A considerable amount of our income still comes from clients that are overseas

5. We listen to what our clients want and we provide what they need. We don’t spend their money on things that they really don’t need. We  go to them rather than expecting them to come to us.

6. We work at times when our clients want us to work … if they contact us on a Saturday with urgent work then we do it … we don’t put them off till the weekend is over. Sure that sucks when the weather is perfect and beach is just 10 minutes away but what do you want? Do you want a nice day at the beach and a so-so business or do you really want your business to survive and grow?

Every client has our mobile phone numbers and they know that they can call us day or night.

6. And we don’t play at running a business … we just go ahead and do it.

That’s what has helped us achieve what we have so far. As you can see, there really is no magic wand in there … just a lot of hard work. If you can match what we do then the chances are that you will succeed in whatever industry you’re working in and your small business will grow.

That’s our manifesto for success in small business put in the hard yards and you will succeed

by Stuart Livesey 

Now that’s an old saying that’s probably been round for many centuries and it’s certainly one that’s always stuck in my mind. My maternal grandparents were wheat farmers back in the day when horses pulled the equipment so I’m sure that saying was firmly embedded in their minds too and it’s a saying that should be etched into the minds of every small business person today.

 And if you don’t understand that saying then let me suggest that it’s all about working hard when the work is there whether it’s on a day you would normally work or not.

The weekend that’s just gone was a long weekend here in Queensland and in a tourist centre like Hervey Bay, where we live, that means three days with plenty of tourists about. Now here in Hervey Bay most tourist related businesses - especially the cafes - have been doing it tough for the last nine months. The weather hasn’t been the best, interest rates and increases in petrol costs have all combined to keep tourists away but last weekend the weather was incredible and the tourists came in quite decent numbers.

On Monday every cafe along the tourist strip was packed with customers all day … that’s every cafe but two. Two of the smaller cafes … cafes that have been a little short on customers lately … remained closed and missed out on that bonanza.

Of course, they’ll be open today when all the tourists are long gone .

I guess the lesson for all small businesses is that we need to be prepared to work when the work’s there.

Toni and I worked right through the weekend too; we had planned on taking a couple of days off but early on Saturday morning one of our overseas clients contacted us with some urgent work and we wanted to make hay while the sun was shining … so we worked.