Category Archives: Support for your Business

Marketing your professional services firm

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IMG_1970The next graduate arrives, interviewing for a position at a small to medium-sized accounting firm: your accounting firm. This graduate will be one of the top performing employees for the employer of their choice. It takes you a while — nearly fifteen minutes into the interview, to fully realise that they are actually interviewing you.

Methodically, the graduate carefully crafts their answers and questions. When you look up from your notepad, direct eye contact takes a fraction of a second to re-connect: this graduate is absorbing the environment, the workspace and your body language. As you take notes, this graduate is also checking boxes on their own mental checklist: assessing you as a partner and the firm as a whole.

They don’t fit into your standard interview guide or assessment criteria: they are impressive in every aspect that a young aspiring graduate could be. They are energized and prepared to embark on a exciting career — just not with your firm.

Read more here

How much is my time worth?

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Photo motorbikesA few years ago, one of my first business coaching sessions was with an entrepreneur who had spent a year and a half in development. He’d given up a well-paid job and spent about $25,000 on developing an App. He had no real business plan. When I pointed out that he had notionally invested about a quarter of million dollars on the App, he drew a deep breath of entrepreneurial fatigue, and said disheartenly, “Well, I suppose so.”

This back of the envelope calculation was done as follows: see calculations and read more here.

A CEO start-up guide to personal taxes

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Communities

People depend on the CEO to get things right. A failure to manage your personal taxes may see you damage your reputation, send your startup belly up and let down all those people looking at you as an inspirational start-up CEO.

A chance to be the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a startup company can be one of the most exciting, challenging, inspiring, risky and adrenalin-filled periods of your life. Particularly for young innovators and entrepreneurs, the dynamic and fast paced environment can leave little time to reflect on your own tax position or obligations to any new employees.

A lot of great startups come undone by neglecting the mundane — but essential — regulatory or compliance functions. So while I would love to write an inspiring story of innovation and success, Why? Because you are the CEO and it is your job to get it right.

Read my full blog here.

Will your business expenses trigger a personal audit?

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phone deer horns

Are you worried your business tax deductions will make you stand out? New techniques and ever evolving technology, may make you more obvious than you think. Photo © Andrew McIntosh CPA

Some of us went crazy with the Game of Thrones grand finale, with the show becoming the most pirated program in history. Australians were the worst offenders. Digital piracy is illegal; so too is tax evasion.

If you have cheated the tax system, it may not impact you now as a struggling entrepreneur or business owner, but perhaps years later when you are held to account for your actions. Long after the moment of greed, or seeming need, you may have a partner, child and a thriving business by then.

Do you participate in the cash or hidden economy? Read the full article here.

I am a 90 year old one man band because I am also underfunded but resolute!

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After being surprised by the stat that “the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity is in the 55-64-year-old group” in a recent article by Jim Dougherty, I was posting my own blog about single operator businesses and was surprised yet again to get this comment back:

“I am a 90 yr. old one man band because I am also underfunded but resolute! There are services that one can sign up for that begin in a free stage and I definitely use them, have to. But this digital business needs advertising money, lots of it. One SBA volunteer told me since I didn’t have money I’m dead in the water. But I got an order the other day.” David Lambert

Amazing: especially after you read his bio of life experiences, I could not help but try to encourage a few followers, likes, views for him. Because you can do digital business at no or low cost and not all entrepreneurs are young, Jim rightly says. And maybe he’ll get the odd order or two; I know I became his second order from #socialmedia.

All this links social links are from his webpage, so anyone feeling socially generous, please give David’s Delicious Chocolates a like, follow or even an order (via PayPal, here’s on that too)!

I live in Australia and David is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I have never met David until he reached Melbourne via LinkedIn and now I’m ordering chocolate from some guy called David in Pennsylvania!

http://davidsdeliciouschocolates.com

 

How do you get business inspiration (and keep it)?

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Go!

Go!

Think

Stop. Think. Get inspired.

The gardening crew has arrived outside my office. I hear a clunk and a bump as their truck and trailer bounces into the lot. I watch for a few minutes, and I’m inspired by the efficiency. They quickly rev up the ride-on mower and begin trimming the edges. It’s like a well-oiled pit stop team — every worker knows his place. Someone hands me the bill and everybody leaves as smoothly as they came in. In business, it’s important to be creative. Here are five sources of inspiration. See full article: Here

Optometrists, war, hot cross buns and death

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WW1medals&cardsBusiness owners often ask me about how to create content that is interesting and relevant for social media and blogging: “but I don’t have anything to write about” they say.

Firstly, we have all probably have heard a hundred times that it is about creating valuable “content” and “story telling.” Social media (which includes blogs like this one you are reading now), can just talk about what you care about or what you are doing as a business or passion. No-one has your life, it’s unique and your business is also unique.

Here are some tips to draw out some relevant:

  • Have an annual calendar of events is a great starter – plan in advance
  • How does your business relate to the local, state or national event?
  • Link social media to real life. Easter? Maybe have hot cross buns for customers over lunch. (e.g.Photograph the buns in advance and let people know its coming);
  • Use social media to share the event when it is happening (e.g. photo and text of staff and customer eating piping hot cross buns right now, hurry in);
  • Send out a thanks for coming post. A picture tells a thousand words so: I am alway big on using images.

Last week was ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand and I have been helping a local optometrist network in content creation and story telling. For those unaware, ANZAC Day is national day of military remembrance held on the 25th of April each year.

So what can an optometrist do for a day like remembrance day, apart from being shut? Well, like any profession, retail or trade, Australian and New Zealand optometrists made a huge contribution during First World War and other conflicts. With a few hours research we had a relevant and respectful ‘social media campaign’ ready to go.

  1. Advertising was minimised during the period;
  2. We shared photos and stories of opticians, optometrists and optical dispenser to high the service of the profession;
  3. While some stories were amazing (a single optometrist at an Army Hospital able to examine, cut and fit lenses in 16 minutes during #WW2), some were heartbreaking & heroic.

I have summarised the story of four #WW1 opticians we found and reposted here. On ANZAC Day, we will, and did, remember them.

Lest we forget:

museumandhistory.com

AWMP08299.007 An outdoor portrait of the 9th Training Battalion at Perham Downs, Wiltshire. Victorian optician Gordon Heathcote from Kew is seated on the far left, sporting his new Corporal stripes he earned in England.

Cpl Gordon Roy Heathcote, 24th Company Australian Machine Gun Corps.

Cpl Gordon Roy Heathcote was an optician of Kew in Victoria. Single, twenty-three years old and living with his parents comfortably in Melbourne’s inner eastern suburbs, he enlisted in August and set sail from Melbourne on 20 October 1916. Seated on the left above, the machine gun is not just a prop for the photo – this optician had landed as a non-commissioned officer in an Australian Army Machine Gun Corps. Single, living with his parents comfortably in Melbourne’s suburbs. he enlisted in August and left Melbourne on 20 October 1916. In was promoted to Corporal while in England and completed his physical and bayonet training courses there before landing…

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Social media for pharmacies: let Optimize Business guide you

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Optimize Business understands pharmacyCommunities
As your business pushes through the scripts, orders the retail and behind the counter stock, balances the cash, pays the bills, drops off the banking and tries to spend time with talking with every customer….  should you be embarking on a new marketing strategy to embrace social media in your pharmacy?

Social media for pharmacies
Social media can be overwhelming at times: content (photographs, images and text), online communities, tone of voice, moderation, legal considerations, time management, public verses personal posts, timely responses to customers… Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter… a blog? Where should you start? Do you even need to start using social media?

We understand social media
Pharmacy is a unique business and every pharmacy is unique. Don’t jump into social media with out carefully selecting what best suits your needs. Nothing is worse than a business that started Facebook or Tweeting but has not done an update in the last year or two. It is part of a pharmacy’s public face, just like a shop window, it is either neat and tidy, or run-down and tired. Even worse perhaps, there is no shop window for your Pharmacy! We have great experience with social media, let us help you!

Let us guide you through the process
Pharmacists are called on to do a lot of things. Let Optimize Business help you assess your business needs for social media. We’ll sit down with you to understand your customers, your opportunities for social and then we either train up you and/or your staff or you can hand it all over to Optimize Business for a complete outsourced solution.

Our approach
We are flexible and will work to meet your individual needs. We will also tell you straight out if we think social media is not right for you. We will also talk to you about social media advertising, it is constantly changing but provides direct access to local customers you choose to communicate with.

  • Needs analysis
  • Strategy development
  • Initial account configuration
  • Content creation
  • Outsource 100% or in-house training
  • Build & engage your community
  • Social advertising
  • Grow your business!

To take advantage of current promotional offers, enter your details below and we will contact you:

LinkedIn Company Pages 101

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It is not often you get things for free, but Company Pages from LinkedIn give small business owners, managers, NFP and NGOs a chance to showcase their organisation for no cost (at the time of this blog!). Linked in Company Pages currently have four sections:

  1. Home page
  2. Products and services
  3. Careers
  4. Insights (including views)

Will creating a company page on LinkedIn really make any difference? Well, have you noticed how when you are searching for a local business or person on Google, LinkedIn profiles typically rank very high in the ‘natural search’ results.

  • Natural search is what Google finds based on its proprietary search algorithms and ranks the results for you to review.
  • Paid search are results that appear (usually at the top or side of your search engine results page) that are only there based on advertisers paying for you to seem them based on your key words and phrases used in your search.

Adding a company page to LinkedIn strengthens the natural search result rankings of your business. You can create a Home page and Product / Service descriptions with links to your other websites and social media accounts. While not only providing a free way to showcase your business, it also provides a structured way to think through your products and service offerings.

You can link individual LinkedIn profiles of your management team and key staff to each product or service. You also have the option to ‘pay’ for your job listings in the “Careers” section of your Company Pages. This paid service targets your job vacancies to those meeting your requirements and will cost about $200 AUD for a 30 day local posting in Melbourne (Australia).

Check out the attached guide for more information on LinkedIn Company Pages above. You can create a Company Page from the links here at LinkedIn FAQ.

LinkedIn Company Pages: a great way to showcase your organisation, for free!

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Free Guide: LinkedIn Company Pages

It is not often you get things for free, but Company Pages from LinkedIn give small business owners, managers, NFP and NGOs a chance to showcase their organisation for no cost (at the time of this blog!). Linked in Company Pages currently have four sections:

  1. Home page
  2. Products and services
  3. Careers
  4. Insights (including views)

Will creating a company page on LinkedIn really make any difference? Well, have you noticed how when you are searching for a local business or person on Google, LinkedIn profiles typically rank very high in the ‘natural search’ results.

  • Natural search is what Google finds based on its proprietary search algorithms and ranks the results for you to review.
  • Paid search are results that appear (usually at the top or side of your search engine results page) that are only there based on advertisers paying for you to seem them based on your key words and phrases used in your search.

Adding a company page to LinkedIn strengthens the natural search result rankings of your business. You can create a Home page and Product / Service descriptions with links to your other websites and social media accounts. While not only providing a free way to showcase your business, it also provides a structured way to think through your products and service offerings.

You can link individual LinkedIn profiles of your management team and key staff to each product or service. You also have the option to ‘pay’ for your job listings in the “Careers” section of your Company Pages. This paid service targets your job vacancies to those meeting your requirements and will cost about $200 AUD for a 30 day local posting in Melbourne (Australia).

Check out the attached guide for more information on LinkedIn Company Pages above. You can create a Company Page from the links here at LinkedIn FAQ.