5 productivity tips from a small business success

Posted on March 31, 2016 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

KathyBYB Kathy Vant Foort is owner and founder of Backyard Buyers, a business that helps property owners sub-divide and develop excess land. Kathy is one of the few female Registered Building Practitioners in Victoria.

Having grown the business from concept to start-up, Kathy now manages her company from Melbourne.

Nearly ten years on, business has never been better.

Here are Kathy’s top five tips for success:

1. Know your objectives

“I have two whiteboards visible from my desk. One has long-term objectives and targets. It also has a list of big or innovative ideas.

“The other whiteboard is operational, mapping out all current and pipeline sub-divisions, key performance metrics and projects.”

Marketing your professional services firm

Posted on December 31, 2014 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

The 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.

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

Posted on June 2, 2014 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

Go!

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

Entrepreneurs: are you running a one person show?

Posted on May 12, 2014 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

Many entrepreneurs start out as a one-man (or woman) show. While this can be challenging, exhausting and incredibly rewarding, ultimate success may not be determined by your business idea, but by how organised you are.

Experienced freelancers and small businesses that are single person operations need to be ultra-organised. Whether you are flying solo for the first time or well established, technology can improve your efficiency and performance. Here are some pointers based on my own experience running a one-man show.

See full article here: The Pulse

#socialmedia: the new word of mouth

Posted on March 22, 2014 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

Wow, I can’t believe it is two years since I took the entrepreneurial leap and founded Optimize Business. An exciting time for any small business, it is enjoyable, exhilarating and I love meeting new people everyday: exploring their ideas, developing their ideas into strategy, strategy into a plan and plans into action.

Expanding from business coaching and strategy services, my clients value my financial background and being a CPA gives an added credibility and weight to suggestions about running their organisations. What I enjoy most and now do most is help business with their social media. I diversified my skills with photography, documentary video and writing for the web.

Most of my clients now come from the “new” word of mouth – #socialmedia. I just signed a contract with a North Eastern US company to provide regular social media content… they contacted me from Connecticut, I do not market to the US but social media is global, so be ready! Most people find me through LinkedIn or as a result of my social media engagements.

So give it a go. Try flying solo. Ensure you have enough cash-flow up-front, a good strategy, a good plan, and go for it…. oh, and a good business coach or mentor to guide you along the way 🙂

Social media for pharmacies: let Optimize Business guide you

Posted on December 15, 2013 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

Optimize Business understands pharmacy
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:

Minor CBA system upgrade leads to bank meltdown and social media backlash

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

The Commonwealth Bank (CBA) has taken a beating overnight on social media platforms Twitter and Facebook. What started as a ‘minor upgrade’ to NetBank ended in a social media and literal spat for cash. By 3am the issue had not been resolved, with CBA customers at the end of their tether.

Read the posts on Storify.

It all started with a small Facebook post on the CBA page on Sunday 27, 2013. It was not dissimilar to the outage notice of the night before (1am – 7am), about a minor upgrades, except this notice was of an earlier start to a 6 hour upgrade may impact some accounts from 6pm-12midnight on Sunday evening:

“We’re upgrading NetBank tonight, making several minor enhancements to Australia’s #1 online bank. NetBank, mobile, tablet and CommBank Kaching apps will be online, however some accounts and features will be unavailable 6pm-12midnight (AEDT) on Sunday 27 October. You can stay up-to-date commbank.com.au/update“

The post from the Saturday outage from 1am caused no ripples, with 56 people liking that update and about 25 comments. Sunday’s post, however, turned into something of a social media storm with 85 likes and nearly 500 Facebook comments on the post and over 100 comments directly on the Commonwealth Bank’s Facebook Page. The @NetBank Twitter account also did a short innocuous tweet about the same time, then seemed to go to sleep for two hours before it responded to the tweets for updates, cash and help. Initially mild queries and complaints came in of inconvenience came in:

small business owners lamented the timing for their Australian Taxation Office Business Activity Statement due on Monday;
some asked “is netbank not working at the moment?”

Then some more desperation started to appear in the posts, like from Angela on Facebook over a 2 hour period:

What is going on?? I tried to make a purchase from a store and my card was declined…I went to an ATM and i kept getting error messages…I have tried calling …no response…..NOT HAPPY
I’m pissed off…i’ve been a customer since forever..paid THOUSANDS in interest and this is the service I get????
And what is wrong with the call centre…why cant I get through to anybody ..it even hangs up on me!! Very frustrsting. Feel sorry for the person at my local branch in the morning

After several hours, the impact of the “minor up-grade” became more apparent, with CBA customers almost crying out for help:

unable to pay for dinner or takeaway
spending hours shopping then being unable to pay
“humiliation” and “embarrassment” at having their cards declined
people trapped at petrol stations with a full tank but unable to pay
others frantic to transfer money, pay rent or withdraw cash
customers unable to pay for flights and facing the possibility of losing flights
employers unable to pay their staff

And so the list of individual dramas, tension and frustration continued. Several CBA employees jumped in to defend the corporate giant and leading to with a tongue in cheek poke at impatient customers, led to them being identified as employees and images of their full name, work role and other details being taken as screen shots and posted online. CommBank posted a warning directed at several individuals, deleted several customer posts that identified an employee and reminded the customers of the Facebook Community Guidelines.

At 2:15 am CBA updated their web page with “We’ve had an unexpected issue that we’re working hard to resolve. We still have more investigation and testing to do before we bring our systems back up.”

At 2:30am the CBA posted on Facebook “Hi everyone, we apologies that NetBank still isn’t available right now. We’ve had an unexpected issue that we’re working hard to resolve. We still have more investigation and testing to do before we bring our systems back up. This is all the information we have at present, our next update will be later this morning. Again, we apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.”

And that brings us to 3am when this writer will cease monitoring the situation. I became involved while trying to phone the CBA tonight to advise of overseas transactions on my account, only to eventually get the message “we have encountered a technical problem” and the call was terminated by the CBA.

Ever thought you would love preparing invoices? Here’s how

Video

Having worked with many accounting and invoicing systems over the last 20 years, Optimize Business knows a good billing solution when we see one. That is why Optimize Business uses and recommends Freshbooks. It offers the convenience of cloud accounting and an easy of use and efficiency you have to see to believe.

Forget about backing up your invoices: it is done in the cloud
Stop fussing with an email or envelope: it is delivered in the click of a button
Convert that estimate to an invoice and email: done in seconds

Visit our Optimize Business Bookshop for the latest books, DVD’s and resources to optimize your business performance

It is great for small business start-ups who can use it free for three or less clients and even better for bigger businesses who can streamline their invoicing process with the click of a button. And the best part? Clients pay quicker because of the paper-less email delivery and the easy of payment!

This is why Optimize Business is pleased make Freshbooks available to Australian and New Zealand business through our relationship with Freshbooks. In fact, Freshbooks can be used by any business, anywhere! From Deli to Denver, over 5 million businesses are using Freshbooks.

So why not test drive this great product? We did, and we were so impressed with the customer service, support and user experience, that we can’t help but recommend it! Try it for free:

Facebook for Business: allow subscribers!

Posted on August 31, 2012 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

For the sake of business, don’t for get to “Allow Subscribers”!

If you are running a business page on Facebook, don’t forget to go into your Facebook Settings (found on the top right of your page) and tick the “Allow Subscribers” check box.

This means Facebook users will be able to find you on Facebook, via public search engines and connect… which is probably why your business is on Facebook, so people can find out about your business! Your customers and the public can subscribe without becoming a “friend” also.

© 2012 Andrew McIntosh CPA Optimize Business @Optimize_Biz

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5 productivity tips from a small business success