Does your small business have trouble with Debtors Control ?

Is your Cashflow suffering because you cannot get paid by your customers ?

Is your Office Administration more about chasing Debtors than it is about running an efficient business ?

Does your Debtors Clerk (often yourself or your partner, as the small business owner) dread the monthly (sometimes weekly)grind of ringing Debtors and trying to get them to pay their account ?

There is a better way:

Outsource your Debtors Ledger

By outsourcing your Debtors control to a Professional Debtors Service, you not only take away a huge source of time wasting and frustration in your business, but you will save money, have better cashflow and can concentrate on running a more efficient business.

Debtors Control is not always about Debt Collections.

Efficient Debtors control is about a relationship with the Debtor to find the cause of the debt being outstanding.

Hardline Debt collection, while sometimes necessary, in general alienates the Debtor from the Creditor, making it unlikely that they do future business, so now the Creditor (you) not only has a bad debt, but also has less future business.

By working with the Debtor to identify causes and possible remedies, a Professional Debtors Ledger service can maintain ongoing business between the two businesses.

When the Debtors Ledger service is also part of a Business Consultancy and Assistance company such as the Inca Group then a win-win situation can be developed, whereby the Creditor gets improved Cashflow from better Debtor control, and the Debtor gets the same, through understanding the financial implications to their supplier, assistance with running their business and with their own Debtors Ledger. The Ripple effect is obvious.

This Win Win situation is good for immediate Cashflow and long term sustainable business.

Business Relationships

Whether you have realised it yet or not, Small Business is about relationships, not about the products.
Understanding the requirements of each other and working together so that you both get what you want is what makes a good and sustainable  business relationship.

As businesses get bigger, those personal relationships are given less weight and it can become a situation of Big business trampling on Small business.
However this model is not sustainable, and the big businesses soon find they cannot get any small business suppliers, which can become a significant issue in New Zealand, bearing in mind that the large majority of businesses are small (less than 50 employees).

So if your Debtor Ledger is causing your business major problems then pass it over to a service that is made to do specifically that, so you can get on with running your own business well.

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Auckland Small Business Help

Active accounts keeping allows a business to see the real financial status of the business and thus make much better decisions.

Services that can be dealt with in house or by outsourcing include:

• GST Returns
• Accounts Payable
• Accounts Receivable
• Wages
• PAYE
• Cashflows
• Data Entry
• Assessing office systems
• Typing
• Secretarial & P A Duties
• Other administrative requirements

Most New Zealand small businesses use  MYOB or QuickBooks and some training in the use of these packages can make a big difference to office efficiency.

Professionally trained staff  providing accounting and administrative support, frees up time to be spent on core business.

Many Small Businesses require only a few hours a week with their book work and it is often done “by the Wife”.
A good accounting service will work hours to suit your requirements, and at locations to suit, at the business office or at theirs and be much more efficient at the skilled tasks, thus keeping costs to a minimum.

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Auckland Small Business Help

Do you sometimes wonder why you have a web site, when it just seems to sit there like it was asleep, costing you website hosting fees but not bringing you any business ?

There are millions of web sites on the net that do just that.
Some are very nice looking sites and may have had a lot of effort put into building them to look pretty, but obviously no thought to “Getting Traffic”.

Others have just been slapped together in order to have a “Web Presence”.

One thing I learnt a long time ago is that you can’t judge the performance of a site by the way it looks, or from what you think, it must be judged on how effective it is at performing it’s role, ie how the users find it’s use and effectiveness at providing them the solution they were searching for when they came to the site.

So that brings up the first point, ….

What is the Role of your web site ?

• Is it a Brochure for your product or service ?
• Is it a shop, i.e. make sales ?
• Is it to collect leads ?
• or is it just an overview of your company ?
• or maybe a combination of all above.

Each of them is equally valid if that is the purpose of having the site, however often the purpose has not been properly thought through and the problem is that each purpose has different design requirements.

Spend some time thinking about the purpose of your site.

Does each page add to the process of achieving the site purpose ?
Does each page have its own “micro purpose” which either supports the main site purpose, or achieves a separate outcome. eg Main site purpose may be to contact you, while one page’s micro purpose may be to collect signups for newsletter, so you can contact them.
Can you guide your visitors through a particular path that will lead to your desired outcome (contacting you or signing up)

It is very important for website optimisation that you have a clear understanding of what it is you are expecting your website to do for you.

If the Design aspects are addressed, the next issue of website performance is getting Targeted Traffic to your site.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Your web site is of no use to you if nobody can find it. This is where the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) aspects of your site become important.

Some businesses, presumably with deep pockets, choose to ignore  SEO and pay for direct advertising such as Google Adwords pay per click PPC (the sponsored ads you see on the right hand side of search results and often embedded into sites) these cost you money every time someone clicks on your ad. A well targeted PPC advertising program can work very well, however poorly targeted advert may bring lots of irrelevant traffic to your site, costing you money and not resulting in sales.

Alternatively, by careful use of words and choice of key words and phrases, by having good quality content on your site and by submitting your site to the search engines, you can have your site “Organically ranked” high on the search results for particular words or phrases relevant to your product or service.

This then becomes continuous  “Free” advertising (apart from the work you put into the site- which you should do anyway) or if combined with PPC  focused around your keywords, will result in more targeted prospects and a better conversion rate.

eg if you search Google for “Business Turnarounds Auckland” this site should be on the first page of the results.

To a small business with little advertising budget a first page placement for specific keywords is invaluable.

Keywords

The Key to SEO and site optimisation is very careful keyword selection.
The Keywords or phrases are Critical, as it can be a total waste of time optimising for certain words that nobody is looking for. You may get to the top of the search results for that word, but if no-one is searching for it then you will not get any traffic to your site & consequently no business.

Once your collection of key words has been defined, it is then a matter of ensuring your keywords are used in the right places, often enough, without overdoing it from either the search engine’s point of view, or for a person reading.

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Content

The next basic requirement is the content of your site. Is it useful, is it original (not copied from somewhere else on the net), is it authoritive, ie can it generate some credibility that you can answer the visitors problem, or do others see your information as being credible and useful(shown by having a recognised high ranking site linked to yours).

Traffic

Put enough original content on your site, with the relevant key words, and the supporting settings in behind the pages, submit it to relevant search engines and create links to it from other relevant sites and your site should at least get indexed(ie end up in the Google search results), which is your starting point.

From that point you can start refining your site and the content until you get onto the first page of Google results for your chosen keywords or phrases.

If you chose your keywords correctly, and they are being searched for, then getting your site onto the first couple of pages of search results should begin to bring visitors to your site.

Links

Links are a powerful part of getting a good spot in the search results. Links to your site indicate that other sites find your site useful enough so as to recommend it to their visitors. The more links TO your site, the better it is likely to rank, however the relevancy between the sites also plays a part, as does the rank of the linking site.

ie a link from a highly ranked music site to a plumbing site may not carry much weight, even though the music site may have a high rank, since there is probably not much relevancy between the 2 sites.
Whereas a link from a lowly ranked building site may carry more weight as there is an implicit assumption that the building site thinks the plumbing site is relevant.

Other technologies such as Social Networking sites (Facebook, Twitter) provide other opportunities to create links back to your site, to distribute your site to prospects to drive traffic directly to your site and to reach a wide audience for very little cost, as well as helping improve ranking by creating links to your site, so are well worth assessing as to how they might fit into your business marketing plan.

Site Conversion Effectiveness

Getting traffic to your site is only the start of the process, as now it is up to your site to convert those visitors into qualified prospects and get them to take some action, whether that is to ring your office, leave their email address and contact details or buy directly from the site.

Before your visitors are willing to give you anything (money, name, contact details etc) they must Trust you and believe what they see on the site as being true & not “Photoshopped” .
Look at your site from the point of view of someone that knows nothing about you and has an inherent distrust of being scammed.

• If you are making sales of some sort (as opposed to just providing information)
  Do you tell them who they are dealing with- who are you, who will they be dealing with ?

• Do you tell them the qualifications / experience that you have that shows you will be able to solve their problem ?
• Do you provide examples of how you have solved problems for other clients ?
• Is what you say believable. – If the product or service is truly unbelievable, can you provide contactable references so they can check for themselves.

People have an inherent distrust of sales situations (which is what a company web site ultimately represents) since most have been taken advantage of at some point in their life, so your site must present them the information that they want to know in a non salesy way that builds trust and credibility.

Obviously the site is also a convenient place to collect visitor information, which must go into your database for followup, and future marketing efforts.

• Do you provide reassurance that if they leave their contact details, they are not going to be SPAMed by you or anyone else ?

Be sure to check out the Website Tools menu above for some useful resources

If all this sounds just too much work for you (& it definitely requires skill, knowledge  and persistence) then there are people like myself who can either show you how to do it, or do it for you.

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Auckland Small Business Help

Does your business rely on your Marketing efforts in order to bring in business?

If so, are you an expert marketer ?

There’s an old marketing proverb that goes “You can’t sell a secret”

If your business relies on marketing then the whole business is only as good as the marketing, and if you are not telling anyone about your business or product, then how do you expect them to buy it ?

If you are not good at marketing, then it makes sense to outsource to someone who is.

Fortunately there are many low cost marketing activities that you can undertake yourself, or outsource to an expert and get good results within a very short time.

These activities are generally Direct Response marketing such as Newspaper adverts, Internet adverts, mailbox fliers or Postcard drops etc.

Done correctly these can be very effective, however a business’s most valuable asset is it’s database.

If your business does not currently keep a track of your customers, then begin doing it immediately.

Your existing customers are your best prospects, as they are already familiar with your business and its’ products, so all it takes is for you to make them an offer that they cannot refuse and your turnover will immediately increase. The key is to recognise the lifetime value of your customers and then design an offer that will be very attractive to them and still make you money in the long run, through either repeat sales, upsells or cross sells, or through referrals of new customers.

Web Site

Another important tool in your marketing is your web site.

For most businesses, there should not be any expectation to make a sale directly off your web site, unless you have products that are saleable on a site.

Your Website is your customers window into your business and a brochure for your products.

Your customers will make judgements about your company based on how they find using your website.

That does not necessarily mean you need to have a flashy site with all the bells and whistles, as if the site is too slow because of all the add-ons then the prospect can quickly get frustrated and move onto another site.

Good sites are about providing quality information and solutions to the problems that the prospects have, not about how pretty they are.  So in ugly website with lots of good content may perform better for the company than a pretty one with little in it.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Your web site is of no use to you if no-one can find it. This is where the SEO aspects of your site become important.

You can choose to ignore  SEO and pay for direct advertising such as Google Adwords pay per click PPC (the sponsored ads you see on the right hand side of search results and often embedded into sites) these cost you money every time someone clicks on your ad.

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Alternatively, by careful use of words and choice of key words, by having good quality content on your site and by submitting your site to the search engines, you can have your site “Organically ranked” high on the search results for particular words relevant to your product or service.

This then becomes Free advertising (apart from the work you put into the site- which you should do anyway)

eg if you search Google for “Business Turnarounds Auckland” this site should be on the first page of the results.

To a small business with little advertising budget this is invaluable.

Other technologies such as Social Networking sites (Facebook, Twitter) provide other opportunities to reach a wide audience for very little cost and are well worth assessing as to how they might fit into your business marketing plan.

Be sure to check out the Website Tools menu above for some useful resources

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Auckland Small Business Help

Many business owners are subject to business stress at some point through their business career. Stress can be challenging especially in the present business and world economic times, but there can be a number of other challenges that can impact on the business such as:

• Debtors not paying
• Staff issues
• Cash Flow challenges
• Creditors
• Business partners
• Spouses
• Asset repairs
• Client degradation
• Family
• Economic pressure
• Supply chain constraints

These all culminate to put stress on to the business owners that can cause calamities at times.

Signs of physical stress:

• Lack of sleep
• Reduction in food
• Relationship conflicts
• Irritability
• Head aches
• Back pain
• Chest pain
• High blood pressure
• Heart disease
• Heart palpitations
• Decreased immunity
• Stomach upsets
• Anxiety
• Restlessness
• Worrying
• Depression
• Anger
• Insecurity
• Lack of Focus
• Forgetfulness
• Social withdrawal
• Drug and alcohol abuse

Business Consultants see these symptoms on a regular basis and attempt to ensure that the environment can be changed constructively and not destructively on the business.

Change management processes and procedures assist the management and administration of the business to mitigate the risks with quality turnaround management processes.

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Auckland Small Business Help

“As prescribed under the Companies Act”

The primary rationale’ is that under a (VA) an administrator is appointed by the Directors or Creditor to give life to the business by allowing the Administrator to review the financial position of the company and determine if it can trade out of it’s present position.

• The Administrator takes full control of the business under the Act.
• The Administrator takes control of secured assets and negotiates with the secured creditors to move the Company forward.
• The Administrator ascertains the unsecured creditors and has meetings to determine if there is opportunities to move forward.
• The Administrator provides reports on the business to all parties and the Companies Office on it’s investigations.
• This process does not guarantee survival but it has the ability to give the Company a chance of survival.

Voluntary Administration can be an alternative to Receivership or Liquidation of a business in financial difficulties.

More about Voluntary Administration on the NZ Companies site

What is Turnaround Management ?

Turnaround Management Involves the formulation and implementation of a strategic plan and a set of actions for business renewal and restructuring.

It involves the identification of the major issues causing the problems and a structured plan for overcoming or mitigating the issues.

Then it becomes a role of the management of the implementation of the plan until such time as the issues no longer exist or the business is so profitable that they become insignificant.

Causes of Stress

• Acts of God
• Poor Vision and understanding of the Market
• Poor Strategies
• Poor business Model and Execution
• Lack of expertise, experience or education, weak management
• Market circumstances, weak economy
• Business economical reasons, earning crisis
• Management level arguments
• Fraud, insufficient financial controls
• Overly optimistic sales projections
• Financing problems, liquidity crisis, excessive debt burden, under capitalisation
• Operating cost levels too high
• Very strong, successful competitor
• Insufficient Resources, underinvestment

The solutions to these issues will depend upon the individual business and business owners.

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Auckland Small Business Help

Some small businesses will  run better if the owners or managers are removed from the areas they have little expertise or experience in and those functions are outsourced to those that have the relevant skills. This leaves the owners or managers free to concentrate on those things they can do well. Services such as “Business Now”  are available from business assistance companies such as Inca Group or through a network of associated businesses :

Services Include:

• Stress management

• Change Management

• HR Management

• Financial Management

• Business management

• Finance Options

• Personal finance

• Plant and Equipment finance

• House finance

• Vehicle finance

• Truck and Machinery finance

• Commercial land and building finance

• Business capital finance

• Fraud investigation

• Risk management

• Communication management

• Systems and procedures

• Management support

• Marketing strategies and procedures

• Customer management

Depending on your staff capabilities, some services need to be outsourced while others can be handled in-house, thus the cost will vary according to your requirements.

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Small Business Help

A CEO Support service such as this from business assistance companies such as Inca Group assist in the overall management of the business.

My C.E.O

A Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is in charge of total management of a business reporting to the Owners or Board of Director

Inca Group Ltd  offer several supporting services that include:

• Management Support
• Management Reviews
• Financial Management
• Operational Management
• Marketing Management
• Human Resources (HR) Management
• Stakeholder Management
• Analysis and Reviews

Depending on the level of support required, some services need to be outsourced while others can be handled in-house, thus the cost will vary according to your requirements.

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Auckland Small Business Help

A service such as this from business assistance companies such as Inca Group manages your debtor ledger communication to facilitate prompt payment from your customers.

Refinements of financial reporting and debtor control combine to manage the debtors ledger in full.

Benefits:

• Improved cash flow
• Improved reporting
• Strategic support in managing debtors
• Improved communications with your clients
• Improved insight into your customers experience from your Business
• Outcomes from our communications with your clients will improve the delivery of services

Depending on your staff capabilities, some services need to be outsourced while others can be handled in-house, thus the cost will vary according to your requirements.

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Financial Communications

(Full Debtor Ledger Management)

General Section

• We have performed this outsourced service for 10 years to many various types of businesses.

• We have clients that have engaged this service for many years (oldest client is 10 years continuous engagement).

• We have a specifically developed data management system to handle client’s requirements and debt reporting.

• We have developed the procedures to ensure our clients don’t lose customers through our actions and we work with your customers to maximize cash flow.

• Part of the process is working with our client’s cash flow strategies and objectives to set critical credit paths and the processes required to attain these strategies and objectives.

• Our process ensures that we work very closely with our clients to ensure options of ledger management are fully controllable by our client, such as Holds or No contact etc.

• We will provide reports daily, whenever one of your customers is contacted or further information is gathered.

• We are dedicated to communication with our clients either by phone, fax, e-mail, or Skype messaging.

• We take great care on protecting your information so there is no cross pollination of information. (it has not happened to-date as we have heavily protect fire walls on our computer system and privacy protocols)

• We set the fees with an initial interview and in most cases we do not review rates for atleast 12 months.

• The fees cover all toll calls, mobile calls, and provide onsite calls to your customers after the strategy is discussed and approved by you at no extra expense if they are wayward paying clients.

• We will work with you as a client to ensure risks are managed through critical credit management protocols.

• The fees are paid weekly at the agreed rates.

• Our mission is to maximize cash flow through efficient communication for our clients.

• We are not Debt Collectors under the traditional sense as we don’t have fees and procedures as perceived others work with, we are specialized communicators that can undertake a range of duties but we are primarily focused on retaining your customers and getting arrears funds to meet or exceed cash flow requirements.

Why is our service so effective?

• Quality procedures to encourage wayward paying debtors to review their payment strategies ensuring more reliable cash flow to our client whilst maintaining the customer.

• We show no emotions nor do we become abrasive or demanding with our communications.

• We have options that can be offered to a wayward paying debtor such as:

I. MyCEO Services
II. Administration Services
III. Financial Communications
IV. Management Support
V. Finance

ie. we can help both you and your debtor to do Better Business.

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Auckland Small Business Help