You can create bad practices that embed themselves like fossils at the heart of the business and continue to be corrosive for a long time to come.
How do you fill the gap between the books and the board?
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Running your own business
Is your finance team fit for purpose?
From the board of directors down, does everyone know how to do their job to make sure that the numbers are right and are produced in time to be useful?
Back up your computer files and restore peace of mind
The CFO of a business told me how they had suffered a software glitch and the accounting software had locked so that no one could open the file and do any accounting work.
Cold calling – a disruptive technology
When the phone rings in our open-plan office it interrupts everyone, which is fine if it’s a client, a prospect or someone else that we need to speak to. But a substantial minority of incoming calls are people trying to sell to us and those calls are a real pain.
Twitter for business – an epiphany, in fact two in a week
We were also very cross – Springsteen, McCartney, Twist & Shout, rock’n’roll history in the making right before your eyes, something truly unique and someone pulls the bloody plug!
There’s often no such thing as a full-time Finance Director role
Once your accounting and finance procedures are running on “automatic pilot” there’s no need for an expensive FD. So the trick is to get to the automatic pilot position and only bring in extra experience when you need it.
Cashflow – sit down, have a cup of tea and let’s mend your business
It matters less what happens to sales, so long as profits are increasing and the objective is to earn good gross profits from the best-selling products.
LinkedIn groups can be goldmines of help – if you ask the right questions
All LinkedIn group members get to see the answers which, as well as being potentially useful for them, allows them to form a view as to whether the respondent knows what they’re talking about.
Business processes – get them right and make more money
A common theme in companies we have seen recently is that where their business processes are poor they have less money in the bank and more nasty surprises than they should have.
It doesn’t matter what size your business is, you must get the processes right or you lose value.
Graduate unemployment – a huge opportunity for SMEs
Our guy got six months of invaluable work experience and we got some very useful things taken from the backburner and put on the “done” list.
