According to the Reserve Bank of Australia, consumers are making more payments with cards than ever before, which is raising total payment costs for merchants. Smaller merchants also face notably higher card payment costs per transaction than larger merchants.

This means that your local café is paying more of their income in fees than a large chain store which turns over a lot more money and can get fee reductions.

Businesses are allowed to pass on surcharges to customers to cover merchant fees but the amount cannot exceed the fee amount.

Brisbane woman Fiona Edmunds says every Australian should start paying in cash. See why below -

I have a $50 banknote in my pocket and I go to a restaurant and pay for dinner with it. 

After an unlimited number of payments, it will still remain a $50 value which has fulfilled its purpose to everyone who used it for payment.

BUT if I come to a restaurant and pay digitally via card, the bank fees for my payment charged to the seller could be up to 3 per cent or $1.50. A similar percentage is imposed on every other transaction using that original $50 if the holder pays via tap-and-go.

Payments made by the laundry shop owner, the barber and so on. Therefore after 30 transactions the initial $50 will exist at only $5 and the remaining $45 has become property of the bank.

While this is a simplified example and fees vary wildly between banks, the principal is sound.

With each subsequent purchase, banks and credit card companies take a small cut from the original $50 until with enough transactions, eventually, it all becomes theirs.

Use it or lose it folks... cash is king!

Who knew selling eggs at the garden gate could void your home insurance?

Apparently not many people, including the Victorian homeowners who have found themselves at the centre of an insurance nightmare that should prompt everyone with a side hustle to check their coverage.

It seems having an Australian Business Number (ABN) registered to your home address may render your home and contents insurance invalid if you have not declared the business to your insurer. And that applies even if the business is unrelated to any cause of property damage or loss.

Victorian homeowners Justin Uebergang and Verity Metcalfe found out the hard way when an electrical fault sparked a blaze that burned their home to the ground last year.

They were stunned when their claim was rejected because their insurer found there was an ABN registered to their address. The company said the couple had not declared they were operating a business from home when they took out insurance, and they would not have offered them cover had they known of this additional risk.

For their part, the couple said they didn't consider it relevant as no part of the business took place in the house and the fire was not related to the business.

The case has been picked up by a no-win, no-fee law firm, and recent reports on the ABC about the dispute have sparked waves of concern, particularly from the many people who have started side gigs during the pandemic.

Before long, stories emerged of people who had called insurers to check their status only to find policies withdrawn, including a man who operated a mobile bike repair business registered to his house, a couple who parked a food truck in their yard but did not cook any food on the premises, and a pensioner selling eggs from home.

With inflation spiking, the number of Aussies trying to make a bit of money on the side is only going to increase. In the past financial year, more than 165,000 new businesses were registered in Australia, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, with the overwhelming majority - 84 per cent - non-employing businesses, often people monetising a hobby.

And what about the millions of Australians who have been working from home on and off during the past two years? Legal eagles say that WFH is regarded differently to operating your own business. And while some consumers may be scrambling to see the difference - particularly for sole traders working on a laptop - it only matters what your insurance company thinks. So, it's always best to check.

Consumer law advisers have said home office-based businesses that take up less than 20 per cent of the home's floor space, with no clients coming and going, may not be considered as high risk as operations that:

• Produce goods.

• Use specific or specialised machinery.

• Engage in activities that may increase the risk of incidents such as property damage,           fire, theft etc.

• Are visited by customers.

The Insurance Council of Australia has underlined the importance of declaring any business or commercial activity no matter the size or type, as each insurer assesses risk differently.

Another issue is garden-variety ignorance. People may have taken out home insurance years before starting a microbusiness, and have forgotten the terms. To address this, some insurers have begun proactively flagging the issue in home and contents renewal documents.

It's also worth remembering that people operating a business from home may also need additional small business insurance protection including public liability, product liability and professional indemnity insurance.

In the meantime, as the case makes its way through the legal system, former Wallaby and new independent senator David Pocock has taken up the issue, writing to Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones to ask for the issue to be examined. Stay tuned.

I urge you not to get caught up in all the drama and negativity that is passed off as 'news' these days and instead put your concentration and energy into your business future. Plan a bright and positive future and actively work towards that. Implement the strategies I teach in my books and remain ever adaptable to the changing environment around you and thrive during the toughest times and truly excel during the greatest times.  

I wrote about this on 7th Nov 2010. When I moved to QLD I tried an accountant who was recommended to me. He truly was not fit for the job, so I sacked him (as did the person who recommended to me) and moved onto another. I then had a great relationship with the new accountantcy firm for almost a decade and they were incredibly helpful with my Not For Profit charity orgainsation.

But the last couple of years they have really slipped. A lot of work from me continually chasing them up. A lot of time (many months) wasted trying to get them to submit to the ATO and for me to get my tax refund. I have made complaints to the directors and have been given many, many apologies. I stated, 'I don’t want apologies, I want service and results' but they didn’t improve.

This year, enough was truly enough and I have given them the sack and moved on to someone truly exceptional, giving beyond the service I have ever had before but as he says is necessary for adequate tax planning and ….. leaving me incredibly grateful that I made the move.

A couple of valuable lessons to come from this – what is your accountant doing for you? 

If it’s just the bare minimum, why accept that? If your accountant is not helping you with forward planning, developing tax minimisation strategies, keeping you abreast of any changes to financial legislation that affect your business, help you identify business goals, and the targets, budgets and cash flow forecast to achieve those goals, then they need to step up or you need to move onto someone better.

The business lesson out of this is – What is the lifetime value of your customer? For an accountant, a mid size business is probably worth about $10,000  ayear and you should expect to keep them for a minimum of 10 years or longer, if you’re clever.

Given that through my business interests and Not For Profit entities I was paying more than $10k a year, keeping me as a client for 20 years or more equates to close to $300,000. If they understood that, then they would have done a lot more to keep me as a client.

Please don’t let that happen to you in your business. Sure there are some customers or clients you should let go (the ones that drain all your time and energy for little return) but if you understand the lifetime value of your good customers and how much you have to spend to attract another good customer like them, then perhaps you’ll be prepared to go out of your way to look after them and not risk losing them.

I started my last post with - I was recently reminded by one of my past clients about  something I use to say frequently – “we need another recession so we can get University Educated people back working in McDonalds” I’ve been saying it for over a decade now and although very much tongue in cheek, the message is now resonating for so many people who understand what it means.

For more than a decade it has been getting harder to find good employees. I have had many business owners complain to me that the people they employ these days think they are actually far better than they are, believe they should be paid much more than they are and within months of starting work think they should be running the place or at least hold a management position. Getting none of those things, they leave and go start the same cycle somewhere else.

2022 however has been a completely different story. As a result of covid we lost some of our migrant workers but new ones never arrived. The tourist and hospitality industries that use to benefit from backpacker labour, found there was none. Some locals opted for a tree change and left the city for good to locate in regional areas. Many city workers who had the luxury of working from home for over a year decided on mass not to go back and work in the city and face the ridiculous commute each day (and who can blame them?)

As a result, so many businesses in so many industries are now desperately short of ANY workers, yet alone qualified ones. So what does that actually mean? Well, nothing probably explains it better than my recent trip to Darwin.

With less than a dozen people ahead of me in the que to get a taxi, I waited 47 minutes to get one. There were multiple signs all around the taxi ranks stating Due to a shortage of staff, wait times for Taxi’s can be considerable – what an understatement.

When I arrived at the Hilton Hotel, most of the employees were wearing Trainee badges and there was a large sign up saying Due to a shortage of staff we may not be able to offer 5 Star service – big call for a 5 star hotel.

Literally every single shop without exception had a sign in the window for staff to start immediately. Many stores had signs up inside apologising for delays due lack of staff. So employees really have the upper hand, free to pick and choose where they work and to a certain extent, what they get paid. Some of the wages being paid to some of the least capable people is truly astounding.

I faced that problem earlier this year when trying to find the right person to become a prominent member of my new business venture. I advertised a good package, which was predominantly working from home. The people applying were far from stellar, so I then increased the pay by 10% and offered a 4 day work week. I honestly thought that would have been a major incentive. Everyone’s looking for lifestyle, so surely a 3 day weekend and working from home is a major part of that? Apparently not so.

No one seemed to understand that getting an extra 48 days off a year equated to almost 7 weeks off per year – on top of the 4 weeks annual holiday they get! What is the value of that – effectively another 14% pay increase. Not one applicant seemed to understand yet alone appreciate that. Out of more than 50 applicants, less than half were properly qualified, less than half of those had any experience and literally not one of them was worth interviewing.

The service industry seems to be suffering the worst and through my stays at various hotels and doing seminars at various hotel function rooms, I have come across some incredible people and have asked their bosses how they found and kept such great staff?

Talking with the COO of IBIS hotels, he informed me this current staffing crisis is the greatest he has ever seen, Australia wide. He said the incentives they have introduced to keep the great staff they have has resulted in a 65% increase in staff costs! But as he says, “what’s the alternative? You simply can’t run a hotel without staff”

The problem is so bad, most hotels around Australia are running at just 50% capacity simply because they don’t have enough staff to take any more customers than that.

So what can you do? It has to start with a frank and open discussion with your current employees. What is it they like about their job and what do they dislike. What can you do to challenge them more, give them more responsibility? Acknoweldge them more? What incentives can you offer other than just paying them more?

People want to feel like they’re making a difference. People want to have an enjoyable experience. People want to feel like they matter. What can you do for your staff to make them feel like they are getting that working for you? Once you work that out you are well on the way to having happier and more productive employees and a better business overall.

If you are facing a situation where money is the deciding factor and others are prepared to pay more for your people than you currently can, what about looking at some sort of profit sharing arrangement? I cover how a very successful company did this on page 35 of The Rhino Retailers. It would be worth reading that part again.

This fully engages your staff and gets them working towards a common goal, knowing that if they can improve the profitability of the business above where it is now, they will get a small percentage of that extra profit.

Don’t look at it as costing you money, look at it for what it is – an incentive to get the most out of your staff. They will only be taking a small part of a profit you would never have made, if they hadn’t contributed.

I was recently reminded by one of my past clients about a something I use to say frequently – “we need another recession so we can get University Educated people back working in McDonalds”

Now I understand we are entering the ridiculous ‘Woke’ period where everyone overreacts to everything and starts telling you what you meant by what you said – even though they are completely wrong. I’m sure ‘woke’ people want to get upset by my comment and say “you want a recession?! – you want people to suffer!”

No I don’t want people to suffer, never have never will but I understand recessions are a completely normal part of the economic life cycle. Just like summer leads into autumn which leads to winter, then spring and then back to summer again, the economy endures similar cycles. A recession is as normal a part of that, as are economic boom times and everything in between.

The simple fact is recessions are necessary. They are a chance to ‘clean house’. They are the times that separate they wheat from the chaff, wipe out the businesses that should not survive and position the good ones better for the good times ahead.

Recessions reset the price of things. We can’t continue to have housing prices increase the way they have been. If they did, within just a few years it would become impossible for the average person to ever own a home. It would take 2 or maybe even 3 generations to pay off a mortgage (which is actually the case in Japan and has been for decades).

We should have had a full blow recession by now anyway, we were due for one and all the market forces were trending that way. The only reason it hasn’t happened is because of unforeseen, never before attempted, major quantitative easing (QE) payments of unheard of figures, the Government injecting over $5 trillion into the US economy!

Now the argument can be made we needed the first QE to soften the fall, especially off the back of the Global Financial Crisis but 4 more all of increasing size has led to a truly artificial environment and led to even greater inflation on the back of everything else that has been happening domestically and globally over the last 2 years.

This artificial boom time, created from pumping trillions of dollars (which don’t actually exist) into the economy has created possibly the greatest staff shortages seen since the mid 1960’s which has led to a whole host of other issues for businesses, which I will write about in my next post.

Start setting your business up for tough times ahead and be grateful for them. They will wipe out much of the dead wood out there (often referred to as zombie businesses) and make for a stronger business coming out the other side.

If you haven't implemented all the strategies from my book The Rhino Retailer into your business, do so now and enjoy a far better business, one able to survive and even thrive in the tough times ahead.

Following on from my previous post I talked about the continually increasing number of physical book sales year on year for over 11 years, in particular how to type books. These are sought after far more than any other type of book. No surprise when you consider 40% of the searches done in YouTube start with “How to…” So how can you as a business owner capitalise on this?

Well, in order to succeed in business you need to stand out from all your competitors. You need to get noticed and build trust, as trust is the number one barrier to making a sale. So how do the most successful business owners position themselves, build massive trust and succeed – by being the author of a book!

Think about it – authors are perceived as the experts in their field. People are drawn to the expert. People are prepared to pay more for the expert – you know this, you’ve done’ it yourself. And when you are reading a book you make a connection with the author and a bond of trust created. You’ve done all that without having left your home or having to make cold calls. 

A book is the single greatest lead generator bar none. It is the ultimate form of establishing you as the expert, building trust and leveraging your time.

Now this has to be an actual physical printed book. Not an ebook, That won’t gain you any real attention or credibility. It needs to be a physical book and as well as being sold online (and through your own website), it needs to be on the shelf in book stores.

You have the ability to produce a book just like my book The Rhino Retailers and position yourself as the go-to authority, gain massive attention, build trust, drive traffic to your website and do far more business than you ever have been. Have a look at this 4 minute video below to learn more.

Did you know that book sales have increased year on year since 2011? Which is incredible really given that was the greatest year for sales of Kindle e-Readers and people touting the reign of the paper book was dead. I wrote a post back on the 6th April 2011 where I vehemently denied the death of the printed book was possible and am very happy to be proven correct.

Sales of books during Covid skyrocketed and although they have dropped significantly since then, they are still in excess of pre-covid figures. As I stated over a decade ago, the printed paper book is not going anywhere – it is only the way we purchase it that has changed.

Each year, more books are purchased online. Amazon proved the model but many bookstores, chains and independents, follow a similar model. As the trend continues more bookstores will eventually close but not all of them. It simply isn’t possible. Too many people still have the desire and even the need to obtain the book they want immediately and can only do that at a bookstore.

The bookstores that remained in business have seen an increase in business with the increased demand for books over the last 11 years. Books will always have a presence especially as far as presents go. You can’t wrap an ebook and give it to someone but you can wrap and gift a physical book.

What the official sales figures also tell us is that Non Fiction books are outselling fiction books by 2.2:1. Meaning those books (especially How to type books) outsell fiction by more than double.

Sure the internet provides plenty of information and places like Youtube show lots of videos explaining answers to many questions but the internet is also full of so much misinformation and so many sites that contain information that is just plain wrong. So where do people turn for trusted information – a book. That’s what they use to do and that is what they are now doing again in record numbers!

I have purchased the publishing company that published my first book. A very exciting time giving me the ability to help so many business owners in a much bigger way!

The biggest issue facing all businesses as always been marketing. How do you get found? That one simple question is the bane of nearly all business owners. It has been since commerce first started thousands of years ago.

Today we have more ways of getting noticed and more experts telling you they can get you noticed but the reality is, it has NEVER been harder to get noticed online or offline. The market is truly saturated and only becoming more so each year.

Studies conducted when radio reached its peak and nearly ever home had one, stated that advertising on it, combined with print ads in magazines, newspaper and billboards, plus all the direct marketing advertising in your mailbox, meant the average person was exposed to literally 1,000 ads per day. Medical professionals expressed concern about how that affects adults yet alone brain development of young children.

Well, with the invention of television and the internet, that has gone up ten fold! You can be exposed to anywhere between 3,000 – 10,000 ads in a day! That seems almost impossible but it’s the truth. 

There are simply more and more people doing what you do, then ever before and more and more people clamouring for attention – and over 90% of them are failing miserably!

The less than 10% who are getting noticed still struggle as customers have been burnt so many times now (in ever new and inventive ways that didn’t even exist a decade ago) that they simply don’t trust the business or the business owner and so are reluctant to risk purchasing from them.

So how do you get around those problems? Simply by establishing yourself as the go-to authority in that industry and have customers or clients come seek you out.

How do you do that? Well it just so happens I am running a 3 day seminar in March describing that in great detail. This will be the best 3 days you could ever devote to your business.  Go to www.BestSellerEvent.com to find out more.

Yes I’ve had quite a break away from Blog writing – about the same length of time that Covid was with us. I saw no point writing at that time as everything was Covid related, all news was about Covid and everything that happened in business was blamed on Covid. The after effects will be felt for years to come and many more business will suffer and some will still fail.

I will continue to add additional insights here at times to help business owners through the interesting times ahead. In the meantime, make time to read through all of the previous blogs. It is remarkable to see history repeating itself. So much of what I wrote about in 2009 happened again in 2019 and is, or will, be happening again soon. You can best protect yourself against future angst by learning how we dealt with it in the past.

Since my last post in 2011, everything has changed as a result of it. I moved interstate and started the flying museum as I wrote I would, and that has been an incredible journey of its own. I have reached so many tens of thousands of people through my unique experiential educational collection and incredibly glad to have done so.

As a result of that I like to travel to other flying museums and see what they are doing and how they perform as businesses (Not For Profit Businesses but businesses all the same). Australia has very, very few flying museums - only 4 really, so I find myself looking overseas. My latest trip took me to the USA and wow, how things have changed since I was last there.

I always looked at the States as the ideal when it came to incentive based behaviour. You always received great service in the USA. Why? Because they are dependent on tips and how well the staff treat you directly reflects how well they are tipped.

Well I can honestly say in the 4 weeks I was there I never saw ANY exceptional service at all. In fact we barely saw any service! Everywhere we went we were given the absolute minimum required by staff, yet 15-20% tipping was still expected.

I was dumbfounded. Poor service could possibly be expected in New York city perhaps but not in country mid west or Upper New York state - but it was everywhere.

Is it a generational thing, the new ones coming through just don’t care perhaps? I’m not into generation bashing. I abhor simply making blanket statements about an entire group of people based on gross generalisations but many business owners really whinge to me about how the kids leaving school now and entering the workforce have no people skills or concept about service.

That simply can’t be true and even if you are experiencing that, what training are you providing to instil those skills in them? You see the lesson I took from my trip to the States is that even the Yanks can’t provide good service – so how far out from all competition will you stand if you can?!

Now I need to be clear here as all businesses think they are providing great service – just because they say hello to the customer or whatever – but they aren’t. What you need to do is offer truly outstanding service.

How can you go absolutely way above and beyond what is expected of you in your business? When you state that you’ve got the best quality and service, or the best after-sales service, ask yourself – how? What makes yours the best? What makes yours better than all the others? 

Is it because you’ll actually send a staff member around to the customer’s house to check on it afterwards? Is it because you actually followed up with a phone call, or you go through a checklist with them, and if there’s any problems, you send someone out to their house to rectify those problems? Is it because the customer can bring it back in to you and you work through a workshop or seminar on how to use a particular product you’ve sold? If no one else in your industry is offering home delivery, can you do that?

If it’s not any of those things, why can’t it be? Why can’t you create it? Why can’t you look at what everyone else in your industry is doing – or not doing - and do the complete opposite? That will make you really stand out and generate so much more business as a reuslt. 

So I have taken a long break from posting blogs, due to winding down my consulting business to work on building my unique Not For Profit education venture over the last 7 years, inspired by the trip covered in my previous post.

I am amazed at how much has changed in that time. The book distributor for The Rhino Retailers ceased trading last year. That in itself is a business case worthy of a future post, for the lessons learnt would apply to many business owners.

What that means is that my book has not been available in bookstores for quite some time now and technology has moved on an amazing amount in just 10 years since my unique business book was first published. So the knowledge remains the same, the tips, techniques and strategies still work and if implemented in your business will make a phenomenal difference but some of the technology I referred to in my book just isn’t in use anymore. In it, I had mentioned creating DVD and CD products and talked about going to video stores! Of course, all these things have pretty much gone the way of the dinosaur, and all the information they would have contained is now available online.

However, this book has just way too much valuable information for it to simply not be available or not of any use. So, I have updated the book! I removed the old references and made it completely relevant for all businesses throughout the next decade.

Yes, you read that correctly, I wrote ALL BUSINESSES. It doesn’t matter if your business is a traditional brick and mortar retail store or completely online – the proven tips techniques and strategies in that book will work for you. Why? Because regardless of whether it is from a physical store or an online store, you are selling to people and people have proven to behave a certain way, to certain stimuli. Their behaviour, the way they think, act and react can be very predictable, if you know what you are doing – and my book shows you what you need to be doing.

I also have access now to a new book distributor, actually the largest in Australia. I debated putting the revised book back in bookstores but eventually decided against it.

This book has had a great run. It was selected to be business book of the month with Borders Book stores. It was used as a required course text for students of Advertising and Marketing Communication at the University of Canberra. It sold well and has helped countless businesses be much better.

It was written to help business owners. It was deliberately kept short and easy to read, as business owners don’t have the time to wade through large volumes of text and then try and discern what bits they should use. The book has very easy to implement strategies that will make the biggest difference to your business in the shortest time and it is needed now more than ever.

So, I have made the updated version available now as a download. Instant access to an incredibly powerful resource for any business owner. Somewhere on this website is a button for you to click on and get access to this book immediately. Take advantage of it if you haven’t already – and remember, reading it alone is not enough to change your current financial situation. You must act on what you read and implement those strategies in your business to make it the wealth generating machine it should be and start living the lifestyle you deserve.

I have written many times about the importance of taking major holidays, time away from work (and in fact away from your home country), forcing you to create a business that can operate without you.

Continuing to practice what I preach, this year I travelled for three full weeks around the south island of New Zealand, ending up in Omaka over the Easter weekend for their biennial airshow. There I witnessed movie director Peter Jackson's incredible World War One flying aircraft collection in action. The Kiwis certainly know how to put on an air display. So unique that they attract visitors from all over the world for this one event!

It just goes to prove that any business can do something different from the competition and really stand out. Krispy Kreme showed us you can turn the humble donut into an experiential treat and I feel the same thing happened at this airshow. It wasn’t just putting some aircraft up at various times and having various re-enactors around the place, it was about making a fully immersive experiential adventure – entertainment and education combined, easily the best way to learn.

I was so impressed by the entire weekend that I am inspired to do the same in Australia. We are fast approaching what will be the only centenary of WWI we will see in our lifetimes and a lot of attention will be focused on Anzacs and Gallipoli but not of our extensive involvement in the war in the air and just how much that shaped our country immediately after that war.

This will be a worthwhile, though exceptionally time consuming, commitment that needs to be done simply because no one else has done it. Looks like I know what I’m doing for at least the next decade - it's always good to have a purpose.

My interactive flying museum will serve as a remembrance to those who have fought and fell, not to glorify war but to remember it - for those who forget the past are destined to repeat it. 

On 17 February 2011, REDgroup Retail (including the Borders, Angus & Robertson as well as Whitcoulls chains) were placed into voluntary administration with Ferrier Hodgson appointed as administrators. The immediate aftermath of the announcement saw the closure of 48 Angus & Robertson stores and a Borders store, with the rest to follow.

The day after the announcement, customers of the surviving stores were informed that gift vouchers could only be redeemed if they also spent an equivalent amount in cash. After the 3rd of April, unused vouchers became void.

Today, RedGroup Retail announced that 16 of the 25 remaining Borders stores in Australia were to close within two months. The handling of the administration prompted 25 franchised Angus & Robertson stores to sever ties with RedGroup, rebranding themselves as independents.

This is an incredibly sad turn of events that some are saying was inevitable. Some are blaming it on the fact that Borders came out with their e-reader, called Kobo, too late. Yes, it came out a couple of years after the Kindle reader, of which sales have been incredible but I can’t see that fad lasting, yet alone bringing about the demise of a chain of physical bookstores.

Digital is NOT going to replace paper completely anytime soon. Books are just too good, too abundant and too convenient to just be replaced in the same way the computer replaced the typewriter. The ONLY advantage an e-reader has over a book is that you can store multiple (hundreds or even thousands) of books on one. So what?

With the increasing popularity of the iPad and other tablet like devices, people will definitely download books to their tablet or computer and the need for an e-reader will no longer exist.

More than that, physical book sales should remain strong. It’s just the way we obtain physical books in the future that may change. I assume more people will purchase books online. Amazon will continue to grow stronger through its ability to offer such a large selection of books and have them delivered in a very short time.

So although I’m sure physical bookstores will dwindle in number over the years, for at least a couple of decades to come they will still exist and do well as many people still enjoy going to bookstores. They enjoy picking up a physical book and looking it over. They enjoy the immediacy of it, see it now, buy it now and read it now.

Perhaps in the future book stores will only exist in shopping centres or malls and at airports but they will exist. For it will be a cold sad day that when you go to get on a long haul flight you have no option but to download a book on your tablet or laptop and read that only for as long as your battery remains.

A funny Monty Python rant from their movie “The Holy Grail” where John Cleese's character poses the question and eventually is given –

sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order….

But here’s a quote I came across that is 2065 years old and truer today than it ever was

“The budget should be balanced,

The Treasury should be refilled,

Public debt should be reduced,

The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled,

The assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt.

People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”

Cicero – 55 BC

So what have the Romans (and all of civilised history) ever done for us? They have given us plenty of knowledge that comes from hard earned experience that would enhance our future if only we weren’t so quick to forget the past.

Those who forget the past are destined to relive it, so don’t you forget yours. Look at what has happened to your business in the past, take steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again and don’t forget the lessons that taught you.

2011 is here and smart entrepreneurs need to be prepared. Whether it’s finally developing a social media strategy, working to create a better corporate culture or finally releasing that great new product, the start of a New Year is the time to spur businesses into action.

We’ve compiled 10 of the best New Year’s business resolutions from Australia’s top entrepreneurs to help you organise yourself and your business in 2011.

I’m going to acknowledge all those people who contribute with 10 thank you’s per day. I’m also going to show gratitude and recognition every day. I will focus on employees as the mainstay of new economic resilience.

Unconventional success doesn’t happen with conventional action.

Ruslan Kogan – chief executive, Kogan Technologies

You should allow your customers to interact with your website as much as possible. This is the best way to find out exactly what your customers want so that you can give them exactly what they want.

Your website should integrate with social networks like Facebook and Twitter to allow this sort of interaction.

As small business owners and entrepreneurs, we are too focused on making our businesses work and grow that we lose sight of the fact, that at some stage, in the future we need to replace ourselves.

The next step in the growth of our baby is to have somebody else do the role we are doing now. That way we can take our business to the next level as we turn our gaze to growing our business rather than running our business.

So your New Year’s resolution should be to put in place the program that will replace the “you” in your current role, so you can move on to the next one.

I want my primary business (Elephant Property) to become even more heavily systemised so that not only can it function, grow and flourish without me, but so that it can also do so without any of our other primary team members (primarily my two business partners who are both young mothers themselves).

I want our business to focus on properly educating our clients upfront so that they understand the way that we do business, what our “non-negotiables” are and what we can be flexible about.

There have been times in the past where we’ve compromised and taken on a client that wasn’t agreeable to our way of doing business and the result is never mutually beneficial. Being more open and honest at the commencement of the relationship will mean that neither our time nor the clients' is wasted.

I want our business to find more reasons (and to seamlessly systemise them into our business) for our clients and customers to tell people they’ve never experienced dealing with (in our case) a property management company like ours before.

One of the best lines I’ve heard this year is, “Don’t let better get in the way of perfect”. Many business owners wait for the perfect timing, perfect solution, perfect opportunity rather than actually jumping in the water and launching their idea.

Being first to market is extremely important.

Take the opportunity to have a break. Leave the laptop at home, head off for a time, and recharge the batteries.

Before you barrel back into the office and get buried in BAU, operational tasks, and your inbox; spend a couple of days doing some clear thinking about the six months ahead. It’s a great opportunity to do some ‘blue-sky’ planning now that you’ve had a few days out and the phone isn’t ringing off the hook like usual.

Pull out your business plan, review how you’re tracking, and refresh your goals and targets for the second half.

Reinvigorate your team, make sure they’re clear on their goals for the second half, and energise them toward a huge finish to the FY. Clear the decks of annoying tasks you’ve delayed, clear your email, clean your desk, and kick off with a fresh run at it.

Don’t let the January holidays turn into an excuse for getting no sales over the line – ramp up hard when you and your staff return from break.

Hal Pritchard – chief executive, Everten Online

I think there has been a shift recently from just cheaper prices to a combination of requirements. Customers want fast shipping. They want greater range of choice. They want better customer service and they want more options like gift wrapping and split shipments.

In January I will spend some time sending out questionnaires to my customer base asking which of these are the most important, whether they would be willing to spend the extra to have them. From there we will draw up an implementation list.

I think I need to talk and get together more in 2011 with other online retail owners and discuss our strategies. Online retailers need to help each other out and produce a united face or focus about what we are doing. Have ordered quite a few products online during the Christmas break I think by talking together we can give each other ideas and promote good sensible business practice if we share our experiences.

Customers are likely to appear price-focused for at least the next 12 months. Don’t forget though that what they are really after is the best value, not necessarily the cheapest price.

Think about ways in which you can offer your customers more value than your competitors. Perhaps it’s expert advice; the easiest purchasing process or fastest delivery; a superior product range; a loyalty program that offers them added benefits; or even a payment option that they prefer.

Well what do you think? Is the above statement true? If so, then does it really matter what you do in your business?

The answer is – if you have the right quality of products and services and you support your customers and enough people already know that, then experience shows, that just about any publicity can be good publicity.

In fact some businesses go out of their way to generate bad publicity, knowing it is far easier for that to go viral.

Take a look at the iphone debacle that occurred at the start of the year. The alarm didn’t work.

This on the back of the antenna problem with the release of iphone 4 mid 2010. Neither of these so called major problems as had any affect on sales or share prices for Apple. In fact whilst all the news about the alarm glitch was making the news for the 3rd day in a row, Apple stock prices hit an all time high.

Getting media attention is great, even if it is bad. Media attention is so hard to get and is continual getting harder, but it works and in this case it worked very well.

So how much of a coincidence was it that on 1st Jan 2011, a day when over sleeping wont affect most people, that the alarm didn’t work? I am not saying Apple did it deliberately, but it has only helped them if they did.

The news has been full of gloom and doom all month with the lead up to Christmas as all retailers are suffering a slower sales period than previous years. Gerry Harvey of Harvey Norman claims this is the worst period of retail sales in 20 years.

And how do the majority of retailers deal with that? – They discount. And I tell you now that is going to cost them more dearly then they realise.

I have written extensively about discounting and the real damage it does to business, not just in the short term. I have written eclasses on the subject, several blog posts which you can find going back through the years and I have even be asked to write articles on the subject for business websites and magazines.

Discounting simply doesn’t work so why is everyone doing it?

Simple – as a short term plan in order to pay suppliers and staff, retailers offer discounts knowing that although it will affect their profit, it will increase their immediate cash flow and get them out of a short term bind.

But how long can this last?

Smaller businesses see the majors do it and think that is how it must be done so they do the same. This has created a culture where customers now expect this.

It damages your profit far more then the percentage you discount by. It can also hurt your reputation or the reputation of the product as people perceive its true value to be much lower. This can have massive long term affects on your profitability.

The day after Christmas, the boxing day sales begin with the majors announcing up to 70% off. This is a dangerous game that you cannot afford to play, so don’t.

To get a real idea of the damage to your business please read the following article I wrote for ‘My Business’ magazine back in mid 2009. Even if you have read it before, please read it again now to be clear in your own mind and not follow this insanity.

You can get the article by clicking on this – CLICK HERE

There are far better ways to generate cash flow in your business and maintain profitability (or even increase it). It simply requires a systematic approach and improvement to the way you do just a few things in your business. Follow the steps in The Rhino Retailers and impliment those simple strategies in your business and you wont ever have to discount.

…A column written by Barnaby Joyce published in the Canberra Times this week.

Certain things paint an indelible image in your mind. This happened to me lately when my mother-in-law told me that whilst doing meals on wheels in Winter there was always a place you could find pensioners… in bed. This was not because they were ill but because they could not afford the price of the power to stay warm any other way.

How completely self-indulgent and pathetic we have become that in our zealous desire to single-handedly cool the planet we have preferred those who can afford the power bill over those less fortunate to avoid privation. How pathetic we are that South Korea, using our coal, can provide power cheaper to their citizens after an 8,300 km sea voyage, than we can with power stations in our own coal fields.

You cannot reduce power prices without increasing the supply of cheap power. No other nation has an earnest desire to feed you before they satisfy their own. It is a fluke of history that you are here in this nation but luck is easily lost with bad management and naive aspirations.

Oh yes, and aren’t the solar panels doing a great a job? In Canberra last week it was revealed that they would add $225 to the average electricity bill, and that the Government’s proposed carbon tax would raise them by a further 24%.

It is just that the poverty creep is making its way up the social strata, though I doubt it will reach the most affluent group, The Greens. Bitterness on my part I suppose but I represent a party that caters for the poorest electorates. Now what other lunacy are we considering, none other than shutting down the Murray Darling Basin so you can have a diet that suits the misery of the Winter nights’ temperature in the unheated house...

Yes, we have become so oblivious to the obvious because the loudest voices are not necessarily the neediest. We spend… sorry, borrow... for school halls that do not make students more competitive in competency. No school hall taught a student a second language or a higher level maths. We borrowed for ceiling insulation and burnt down 190 houses and 4 installers died.

We borrowed towards aimless $900 cheques as we decided that somehow imported electrical goods to Australia would reboot the US economy. We borrowed so much that we are now 170 billion dollars in gross debt. We are told not to worry about gross debt, its net debt that counts. Well try that out on your local bank manager. Try paying him back what you think you owe him, because of what you think others may owe you. Not surprisingly he will direct you to what is noted on your loan statement.

It is funny how the people who try to assuage our concerns with the net debt myth can never clearly identify what are the items that make up the difference between the figure on the Office of Financial Management website as Australian Government Securities outstanding and their miraculous net debt figure.

Since the election, the Labour-Green government has borrowed an average $1.6 billion each week. Every fortnight that amounts to three new major public hospitals or the inland rail from Melbourne to Brisbane. Not bad going for a country that cannot keep its pensioners warm.

Whilst we are waiting we are merrily selling at a record rate our agricultural land, mines and now the hub of commerce the ASX, so that when the day of reckoning for our children comes they can try and get out of trouble by working fastidiously for someone else and hoping they feed them. The average foreign purchase of agricultural land over the past two years is 2.7 billion a year, or more than 10 times that of the average of the previous 10 years.

So when is all this going to change? When are we going to shake ourselves out of this dystopia that we are inflicting on others less connected but more affected by the self-indulgent political delusion. What is our current solution to the very real problems becoming more and more apparent at the bottom end of the lucky country?

I am meant to be in Los Angeles at the moment, enjoying all it has to offer for 10 days before boarding a luxury ship and heading down the West Coast of Mexico for 7 days stopping at a few ports along the way.

However, the ship had a fire in the engine room on a previous voyage and the cruise line has had to cancel the next 8 cruises and refund all 24,000 passengers. On top of that, they will reimburse anyone who had non refundable airline tickets to get to LA and back.

So you can see this is going to be a costly exercise for them. I’m sure they are insured and the insurance will cover a large portion of this, but think about the long term effect this unfortunate incident has on this cruise line and its profits, for years to come.

So what have you done to protect your business and your income? I hope at the very least you have insured your business and its premises. You would be surprised to find out how many have not.

The wisest advise I was ever given going into business was “If you can’t afford to insure your business, you can’t afford to be in business.”

At the time I really didn’t give it that much thought. The premises I was leasing had 3rd party liability in case someone was injured when they visited me, but the products I was selling were idiot proof. I had gone to a lot of trouble and expense to ensure it was so. Yet when I found out just how cheap it was to insure my business, I went ahead and did – and was so glad I did.

The idiots, they say, are getting smarter (or stupider depending on how you look at it) and no matter what you do to idiot proof something, the idiots will still find a way to around that. With one electrical product we supplied, 3 people did substantial and expensive damage to their personal property by misusing the product.

We knew that even if you mistreated the product, it would not have caused the problem. Even if you deliberately went out of your way and did 2 things wrong in a row, it still could not cause the problems we were seeing.

We removed the product from sale and had an independent expert conduct a thorough investigation. His conclusion after a solid week of testing was – In order to make this unit malfunction, the user had to deliberatly do 3 things wrong in a row. They had to mistreat it 3 times in direct contradiction to the instructions, all at the same time, to make that unit faulty.

Who would do that? It defies all logic. There is absolutely no reason for anyone to do that, yet at least 3 people did.

If I’d had to pay out those people for the damages they caused to their personal property at that time, the business would have been broke. And even though I was able to get all 3 of them to admit they had done those 3 things in a row, had I gone to court it would have cost me more in legal fees then if I was to pay them out!

So even if you’re not in the wrong, it can be a very expensive exercise.

Protect yourself from the idiots. Get insurance now. If you already have it, make sure it covers you completely. And look into loss of income insurance as well so you have some income to pay bills even if you are no longer able to work.

The following article is from Trent Leyshan and covers in detail a difference very few business owners know and are losing a lot of money as a result.

Telling is not selling, because the conversation only flows one way — from your lips into the other person’s ears and out the other.

Telling fails to provide your customer with an opportunity to buy-in to the conversation. Moreover, the salesperson hasn’t taken the time to acknowledge who the customer really is and what they need or really want, if anything at all. In essence, the salesperson is only communicating to the customer’s stated need, which is usually the tip of the iceberg.

You will never see who they really are until the customer trusts who you are.

In the early stages of your relationship customers don’t possess enough confidence in you to reveal too much about who they really are, so it’s up to you to help them. This is best achieved by engaging the customer in meaningful conversations and making what’s important to them important to you.

A ‘telling’ conversation is about you, not the customer. It’s about what you want — to sell something and get paid. The customer is the means to your end.

Have you ever been out for coffee with someone you just met and all they did was talk about themselves the entire time? How did this person make you feel? Were you excited to meet with them again? I bet you left the exchange feeling somewhat drained of energy and totally disinterested in this person. Salespeople, like acquaintances, are much the same.

Every customer has three simple words blazoned on their forehead: I AM IMPORTANT!

Selling should always be about first seeking to understand and then to be understood. It’s also the art of exploring and understanding what’s beneath the surface and really driving the customer’s needs or desires.

Understanding what’s most important to your customers is not as hard as you may first think. It’s simply a matter of asking them. But you must then try to hear and feel what they’re really saying. Ask questions and genuinely listen to your customer’s response, before hijacking the conversation and launching into your sales spiel. Pause before you respond and actually think about your response before pulling the cord and ripping into telling them what you think they need.

When you believe in yourself you don’t need to boast about how good or big you are. You don’t really have anything to prove — it’s there for all to see. So shut up and listen to your customers! Make them feel important. You will be amazed at what you will learn from them and where it will take both of you.

Following on from the last blog which spoke specifically about family businesses, this post is to highlight the hidden value of your business and how to increase that.

What thought have you given to you leaving your business? Regardless of whether you want to do it in 1 years time, or 40 years from now, you need to start thinking about it now and exactly what you want to happen.

Will you pass the business on to your children (will they even want it)? Will you sell it or will you just close the doors one day and walk away?

Regardless of what you want to do with your business, you should be building it as though you were going to sell it, as the process you will go through to do so, will actually make the running of your business much simpler and will increase your profitability. 

I will write more about that in the next post.

According to the MGI Australian Family and Private Business Survey 2010 from accounting firm MGI and Melbourne university and RMIT, despite the fact a large chunk of business owners have selling on their mind, the survey shows 66.1% said the business was not yet ready to sell.

Many business owners don’t have up to date books, they don’t have accurate accounts and that definitely affects the sale of the business, especially these days. Nowadays, the banks want to know what you want to buy and they get involved ascertaining what it’s worth, whether you can run it and whether you can repay the loan over a period of time.

“They will knock back finance accordingly. That has made it harder for borrowers and harder for buyers.”

According to the study, only a small proportion of owners have set a retirement age or date when they want to leave their business.

“The majority of owners continue to view it as an event rather than a process that requires medium to long term planning.”

Understand now your business is a huge asset (if run properly, otherwise it can be a huge liability) and it can and should be your big cash out when you are ready to move on.

I have seen far too many business owners work for decades in a business and then just shut up shop. These people had simply bought themselves a job and have nothing to show for it when they leave.

Your business can and should be sold for many times more than it is currently generating. That is your big cash out. That is your reward for the risks you took and the effort you put into starting a business. That is what makes building your business truly worthwhile. The more value you build in your business, the more you can sell it for.

This may be hard to understand at the moment, especially if you are working longer and harder than ever before and only just managing to stop from going under but there are many simple yet effective steps you can take to increase the profit in your business and actually reduce your workload and increase the value of your business. The next blog will concentrate on some of those strategies.