There are many small business owners reading this, and they have probably read my earlier posts on business improvement and said "that's not for me, I'm just a grinder, grinding away day to day in my small business".
I'm thinking of Dave the floor sander who did the new floorboards at my house. I'm also thinking of Adam the housepainter who did such a good job on my house and Brad the electrician who comes over anytime I call him. These are all hard working small business owners who employ anything from none to 5 people, organising their work procedures, their finances and their people as best as they can, where every day is a busy day just "doing the stuff".
If you are one of them you are probably thinking that all this "strategy advice stuff" is not for you. And yet, every time I talk to Dave, and Adam and Brad, they are always willing to talk about their latest ideas, about how they improved sales by getting a telephone answering service, about how once a year they take their staff inter-state to watch a football game as a reward and to build team spirit, about how they sit down together to...
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6 Things to do before you start your own business
So you want to start your own business?
If you are like all small business people, you have decided to start your small or kitchen table business because of factors such as being your own boss and all that picture entails. Today, this seems even more possible due to the technology that you can use from home or a shared space that allows you to keep costs down in comparison to a bricks and mortar business.
While there are even government websites encouraging you (there's one that has a header "Open for Business: Simple, Fast, Easy) headlines still exist that shout out nearly 80% of businesses close within 18 months of starting - and you can bet most of these are micro, small, kitchen table businesses.
Nevertheless our enthusiasm as human beings for the life of freedom is boundless, and once you conquer fear of failure, most of us grasp the chance and plunge in.
The question is not "will you start your own business" but "how will you start your business with least risk of failure". So here are the 6 things I believe you need, gleaned from 35 years advising small business.
No. 1: Know yourself! This is probably the most important advice...
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Is your Aboriginal organisation compliant in its charitable status?
The Australia Taxation Office has released a Draft Ruling (TR2014/D5 Special Conditions for Various Entities whose Ordinary and Statutory Income is Exempt) for public comment.
This Draft Tax Ruling applies to entities which include registered charities, a classification under which many Australian Indigenous corporations have registered for tax exemption. These entities have been registered as tax exempt under Division 50 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 and in doing so, had to comply with a number of conditions.
The Draft Tax Ruling deals with two of of those conditions, being:-
1. the entity must comply with all of the substantive requirements in its governing rules; and
2. the entity must apply all of its income and assets solely for the purpose for wehich the entity is established.
While the Draft Tax Ruling in part merely confirms our understanding of the legislation, it does clarify a number of matters, including how the Tax Office will view compliance should you be subject to a tax audit.
The first item that is illuminating is that the Draft Tax Ruling views the constitution or Rule Book as the main, but not the only source of "governing rules". It goes on to say that other sources of governing rules may be legislation....
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Recession Proof Your Business
Is this possible – to recession-proof your business? Well no, probably not despite the wealth of articles about how to do so appearing on the internet (about 614,000 hits on Google).
However, what is possible is to secure your business as much as is possible by following a series of simple and common sense business strategies. These strategies are no different from strategies you should employ under normal circumstances, but which application is much more acute in today’s economic climate, and with a different emphasis required. Sadly when times are good, businesses allow themselves to get “fat” and some of these every-day disciplines are allowed to slacken.
The strategies can be grouped into defensive and offensive strategies. As you look at your business performance it is likely that you will find profit performance heading south, and with the economy looking the way it is, it is difficult not to panic and begin to tighten all the hatches. However you can tighten too much, to the extent that your business finds it difficult to operate normally. Hence, while it is natural to concentrate on the defensive strategies such as cutting costs,...
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