Wordless Business Wednesday

V is for....

very very hard work.

Don't let anyone fool you into thinking that running your own business is a walk in the park. The common perception is that being your own boss is glamourous and full of status gratification, but the truth is that being your own boss means long hours, working hard and being the only one to do the work.

Of course there are great rewards to being your own boss but the hard work is at the heart of the rewards.
When you start your business no-one will know you, and no-one will know the business.  Your first major hurdle is to get work.  Whatever your business, you will have customers and you need to find those customers.  Once you have found your customers, you have to keep letting them know you are out there.

Let everyone and anyone who will listen know you are starting your business and just keep at it. Selling yourself to people will pay off eventually.  Don't give up!

Normal service will resume shortly

Hi Lovely followers, my blog will resume this coming week. I have had some time off from everything to comes to terms with my dad's death and I am now ready to begin to get some of the show back on the road.  We'll start in the next few days with the letter V in our a to z of business start ups

See you soon

U is for unique business idea

Land lines on your mobile phone

New service from Anvil Mobile provides multiple local numbers direct to a single mobile phone

For businesses that rely on mobile communications, a new service offered by Anvil Mobile makes it possible to have one or more geographical numbers on a single mobile phone. Having multiple landline numbers covering different areas all going directly to the same mobile, greatly improves customer perception and image; while local numbers can be promoted on business cards, websites, advertisements and directories as well as displayed on vehicles or premises.

Having local or non-geographic numbers such as 0844 direct to a mobile also saves money as there is no need to divert calls; and incoming callers are only charged at the standard rate for land line numbers rather than for calling a mobile. Calls to other employees’ mobile phones are also charged at landline rates, providing further cost savings.

Anvil Mobile simply provides a new generation SIM card that will work with any 3G compatible unlocked mobile phone. “We recognised that many small businesses and self-employed people rely on mobile communications but want to present a more local image in the areas they do business,” said Ian Philip, founder and CEO at Anvil Mobile.

Anvil is an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) working in conjunction with the network operator 3, that offers the widest coverage in the UK, reaching 98.5% of the population. For high-quality and reliable carrier-grade fixed network support, Anvil has partnered with aql that has built a robust, broadband network providing nationwide coverage and access to some 40 million UK landline numbers.

Anvil also takes an innovative approach to billing through its 'unbundled' services. Customers simply choose the features they want and only pay for the calls and texts they actually use.

Multiple device ringing means that users can answer a desk phone or mobile whenever the number is called, whichever is the most convenient. Other features include the ability to send voicemail messages or recorded conversations – complete calls or selected passages - to a designated email address.

“Through our collaboration with 3 and aql, we are now able to deliver a range of flexible services that meet the communications  requirements of small businesses, and also provide substantial cost savings,” said Anvil’s Ian Philip.

To sign up with Anvil, simply visit the www.anvilmobile.com.uk  web site.

T is from Taylor: David Taylor

As my dad is unwell at the minute, I am having help on my blog from guest writers. I really hope you enjoy them, and gain a huge amount from their knowledge:

Giving credit where it’s due: predicting and managing the bad debtors of tomorrow

Companies have cut costs and streamlined operations and are now emerging from the downturn stronger and leaner. As the global economy dusts itself down, their focus is shifting from protecting their customer base to actively expanding it. But poor credit management practices continue to throw a spanner in the works of even the strongest of companies. David Taylor, Chairman & CEO of OnGuard, looks at the challenges facing CFOs in understanding how credit risk affects the stability of their company, both now and in the future.

Although few will admit it, it’s relatively common practice for companies to sustain their cash flow by withholding payments to suppliers until they have invoiced their own customers and safely banked the money. The lengthy tailbacks between the issuing and payment of an invoice can severely restrict the supply of money - the lifeblood of every business. These delays have a knock-on impact all the way down the supply chain from supplier to customer and back again. Eventually, this stagnation filters down to the wider economy, just when it needs it least.

CFOs today know that they have to adopt a more cautious approach to risk, and be tougher on payment terms and conditions. But simply invoicing a client for a product or service is no longer a guarantee of the success of a business, nor indeed of payment. In the present economic climate, revenue only counts if it is cash in the bank. The key challenge facing these CFOs is to keep cash moving by bringing credit management into the heart of their business processes.

Credit management isn’t what it used to be. Sometimes perceived as a one-way street where the recalcitrant customer was chased for payment until it was either received or written off, a growing number of companies are now taking a highly positive, proactive approach to credit management. In fact, the credit management department is one with more touch-points – and more daily customer contact, every working hour of every working day - within an organisation than any other. This makes credit management particularly well placed to deliver a strong alignment between business process and the market, at the same time as reducing customer payment times and improving cash flow.

Good credit management is no longer just about chasing debt; it’s about proactively understanding the customer. All supplier-customer relationships carry the risk of non-payment of invoices, but the new proactive approach to credit management hinges on using behavioural insights to pinpoint those customers who are likely to represent the highest credit risk in the future. By intelligently combining traditional external information about general customer payment times with specific proprietary information on customer behaviour, credit managers are now focusing on actively building relationship with customers and their finance departments, encouraging them to communicate with them about their cash flow situation and keep them informed of any problems on the horizon. Not only does this level of relationship-building help to avoid more remedial action at a later stage, it also keeps the supplier at the forefront of the customer’s mind, ensuring that if a customer should run into difficulties, the company’s invoice will be settled as a priority over those of other suppliers.

As customers, we all reserve the ultimate right not to pay an invoice if we are dissatisfied with the quality of the service or product we have received. Disputed invoices are an unfortunate fact of life, but robust credit management software solutions feature good dispute registration and management procedures that can trace and can track disputes down the supply chain, heading them off before they escalate. And, crucially, the vital behavioural insights produced by the data captured during this process enables a root-cause analysis to be translated into powerful management reporting that gives companies the ability to analyse and improve their working practices to avoid similar issues in the future. A proactive credit management policy focuses not only on having outstanding invoices paid on time but also tries to understand why invoices are not being paid and offers the business insights and solutions to alleviate the problem in future deliveries.

Another area where credit management software is demonstrating its worth is in improving transparency on accounts receivables – a highly significant item on the balance sheet of most companies, and one that is under growing scrutiny from regulators and shareholders alike. Since cases like Shell and Enron, where asset values had been vastly overstated and were consequently written off with huge effects on profits and dividends, shareholders have understandably taken a very close interest in the value of the accounts receivable entry, demanding to know how and why they have been valued as recorded. Almost every company automatically writes off a proportion of this line on the balance sheet as potential bad debt, but the key to success lies in not underestimating and overlooking the impact on the bottom line.

The role of the credit manager is to establish clear visibility on the degree of non payment. By producing accurate and insightful reporting on the chain of actions taken to manage accounts receivables, an automated system can provide a near-real-time measurement of a company’s outstanding invoices and outstanding risk. This helps to minimise attrition through write-offs, thereby increasing pre-tax profits and boosting dividends - all key contributors to shareholder value.

Proactive, positive credit management is an intuitively commonsense way to handle customer invoicing in the current economic climate. Regardless of present market conditions, it represents a best-practice approach to working with clients. It is playing a key role in managing financial exposures and stimulating cash flow, while providing closer control over debtors’ portfolios and minimising time spent chasing unpaid invoices.

For most companies, the path to payment is unfortunately littered with obstacles. Effective credit management is about clearing these obstacles to enable CFOs to make accurate assessments on value and risk and allow them to react swiftly to the rapidly changing customer and market environments. As a discipline, credit management focuses on giving CFOs the insight they need to safeguard their bottom line by identifying and anticipating tomorrow’s risk to minimise attrition through write-offs. And at a time when cash counts, companies with the strategic foresight to integrate credit management systems and procedures into the heart of their business processes will find themselves first in line when it comes to being paid, and being paid on time.

 David Taylor is CEO of credit management software provider OnGuard. 

David developed the software after first-hand experience in his prior business venture that was close to collapse after prolonged payments and a string of bad debtors. 

I'm Sorry

Hey Lovely blog followers, I am sorry to tell you that my blog will be on hold this week as my dad is very sick in hospital with severe pneumonia, so I need to be with him.

I'll catch up with you next week

S is for.......

Social media

You are here reading my blog, and so I guess being Internet savvy, that you have heard of facebook? twitter? linked in? (well maybe not that one, think of it as facebook for business people.) Most people have facebook, but do you have a page for your business?  It's a great way of telling your friends online about what you do and when you do it.  The same goes for twitter, it's a great way to connect with people who may be interested in your business

I am not going to keep you long today, I just want you to set up a twitter account and facebook page for your business idea and invite all your friends and family to join.  If you need help to do either of these then get in touch and I'll email you instructions.

Find us on facebook "out ofthe box"  and on twitter @giftsoutthebox and we'll follow you back