How to transform your business by being HUMAN

Stop spinning your wheels wondering why customers are not buying.  Customers today don't care what you know, they want to know that you care. Figure out what they want and do that. You must talk to them and see them to accomplish that.

The best consultation I give to the small and mid-sized businesses is to free up the desktime you spend in exchange for facetime with clients. No client is going to be dazzled by all the high-tech you can muster to streamline your operations if they don't get to see you or at least hear from you. They won't be impressed by all the community activities you sponsor, only the ones at which they see you. 

Rather than a product- or service-oriented marketing approach, creating a human-centered marketing approach puts your client or prospect first. That's precisely how you win customers today. And how you keep them. And how you earn referrals from them.

What does it take to execute on a truly human-centered marketing approach?  Here's an infographic, used with permission, from author, Mark Schaefer. He says, "The manifesto list fluctuated and I was constantly messing it with it right up to the end. I’m pretty happy with the result and I’m offering this as a free infographic, created by Paris Woodhull. "

The takeaway from this is that #10 on the 'manifesto' is #1. We can work together to streamline your business to maximize efficiency, but if you're not taking that efficiency as an opportunity to be visible and relevant to your customer base, it's a missed opportunity. 

There's a bit in Schaefer's list that mentions 'relentless honesty.' I think this is so critical for today's entrepreneuer. People don't trust people they don't see. It's in the eyes, actually. Mammals are hard-wired to instinctively evaluate trustworthiness (and whether or not we're comfortable giving our business to someone) by that person's eyes. According to research reported on in Psychology Today, “liars maintain more deliberate eye contact than do truthful people.”  Also, those who are honest will maintain a consistent rhythm of blinking when they speak according to the Daily Mail, and will blink more slowly when they aren't truthful. You could be as honest as Abe, but your clients need to see you to judge that for themselves.

Starting and growing a business takes smarts and smart partners

Congratulations. You have vision. You must or you wouldn't be willing to read beyond headlines about growing your brand. To do so you will need smarts: Knowing your client, your market, your unique selling proposition.

Many of Office AdministrationAssociates' businesses have checked all those boxes already before partnering with us for bookkeeping and administration, yet it's wise to give yourself a pinch once in awhile to make sure your smarts are still functioning.

Do you know your market? When I ask this, I'm wondering not just about your business – lets say it's home improvement – but do you know what's trending in your line of work and how you'll position yourself as part of this trend or the next.

Do you know your competitors? When's the last time you checked who was doing the same or similar work? You don't have to do the same as them, or do it cheaper, just know who's out there also doing home improvement work.

What is your Unique Selling Proposition or USP? Some competitors may warranty their home improvement work, or offer some guarantee, or a discount on future projects. How might you stack up? Is the competition using inferior techniques or supplies? That could be a major selling point to fuel your growth.

Do you need to spend money to make money – and where will this money come from? Advertising, social media (done right), point-of-sale pieces, all costs money. The brochure you used to launch your business might need to be ratcheted up a notch or two (or at least updated).

You can put yourself in the best possible position to grow if/when you're smart about these four things. However, there isn't a smart entrepreneur who asks and delves into these four areas only in the eight inches between his or her own ears. An experienced sounding board can help you check your smarts and put them in perspective. If they have a vested interest in your business (spouse, partner, etc.) that's great. You may also want an impartial ear as well. OAA can be that ear, by the way.

Image by Federico Caputo used with permission.

AIM to keep an eye on fees you're charged for accepting credit cards

Credit and debit cards have benefits for your customers: It gives them an optional way to pay beyond cash or check. It is a potential barrier to your business if your don't accept the payments. However, accepting credit cards helps and hurts your bottom line at the same time. Office Administration Associates sees both the good and the not-so-good: First we see the increased revenue while bookkeeping, second, while reconciling client's accounts we see the charges Merchant Services (processing) companies charge for the convenience… and third we know know we're going to hear the inevitable question from clients, 'I'm paying HOW much?'

OAA doesn't do Merchant Services. We do help clients understand them. There are no less than six parties involved in a credit or debit: You, the customer, two banks, an underwriter, and Merchant Services. To keep it simple, OAA takes 'AIM' on three key players.

Acquiring Bank – YOUR bank. They deduct a fee (called a discount fee) from the amount of the total transaction after another level of fees has already been deducted by the...

Issuing Bank – Issuer of the customer's credit or debit card. This bank deducts a fee (called an interchange fee) from the amount of the transaction before it's paid out to your banks. This fee is set by the network (Visa, Discover, MasterCard)*.

Merchant Services – intermediary that turns the electronic swipe into a debit on the customer and a deposit to you.

*(This article is leaving the more costly American Express out of the fray: They are both Issuing Bank and Acquiring Bank.)

The fees involved are seldom crystal clear. They're usually expressed as a percentage of the transaction but there are tiers of fees for credit or debit cards, depending on the Issuing Bank's rewards programs, the customer, and the type of transaction (phone, internet, card swipe). It's very complex. That complexity makes it very difficult to shop for Merchant Services. Some fees are collected immediately during the transaction (discount fee and interchange fee), and other fees are billed a month in arrears (again, you pay, not the customer, based on the number of transactions).

For example, a customer pays you $1,000 for a job. The interchange fee could be 2.1 percent, the discount fee could be 1.1 percent, and the per transaction fee could be $.39. Your customer pays $1,000. You get $967.05

The Acquiring Bank – with whom you already have a relationship – will no doubt make a play for your Merchant Services business if they offer it through an affiliated company. Seems like a no-brainer to streamline the process. In actuality, you are paying the same entity at least twice: Their processing fee for accepting the charge, and their account fee. There may be a terminal fee. You're paying them to put your money in their bank. Sounds goofy when put that way, however, you will always pay somebody the processing fees.

Nearly every small business is approached by Merchant Services sales people. They'll take a couple of statements from your current processor, and come back with an analysis that shows their rate is better than what you're paying. They're sales people hard-wired to highlight the benefits and downplay the downside to their provide. Just keep in mind this is not a second opinion. It's a first opinion. If you're looking at Merchant Services comparisons, send the same two statements to another competitor.

With all this expense and mystery, why take the payments at all? Because it helps close business. Nothing says closed like forking over money… even if it is plastic. When you look at 'AIM' closely, you can make sure more of it is forked over to you and not to fees.

Photo: Aaron Amat, used with permission

Becky’s Bytes: Four ways to avoid underestimating and overbooking your time

In the late 1970’s, psychologist Daniel Kahneman proposed that when planning a task, humans budget their time optimistically. It happens with yardwork: You plan an hour to weed the garden, it takes two. It even happens at Office Administration Associates: We budget an hour for a new client’s payroll, it invariably swells to two.

The weeding gets done and the payroll gets posted on time.  Nothing fatal about that optimistic time management flaw, until it becomes your business plan. When you underestimate the time, you’re likely double-booking your time because there are few days when you have only ONE project or client on the calendar.

Here are a few tactics to avoid erring on the short side of the time you budget for a project:

1)      Use past experience as a guide, not as a rule. the phrase “it always took an hour, except when…” really means that we should budget the time for the exceptions.

2)      See the small picture. The big picture is that it takes me 15 minutes to get from appointment A to appointment B because Google Maps said so. Google maps doesn’t account for you grabbing your keys, getting out of the building, finding a parking spot, etc. The 15 min. is the big picture, the other steps are the small picture.

3)      Automatically ‘pad’ your best-guess time estimate based on 1) and 2) by an extra 15 minutes. The 1957 book by Northcote Parkinson gave us Parkinson’s Law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. It holds true 60 years later despite all our time-saving gadgetry.

4)      Delegate what you can. Small business owners who succeed are the ones that embrace the idea that they don’t personally have to do everything. They hire pros to help with the tasks (marketing, office management, equipment maintenance, etc.) that take time away from client-facing or client-servicing roles. There are enough hours in a day when you aren’t trying to take on everything.

We’re all busy. If they plan properly, no entrepreneur has to be late or miss deadlines – both of which are customer-service suicide.

Photo by Catalin Petolea, used with permission.
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Becky's Bytes: Have your ducks aligned with CFO-level service

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) is among a number of resources that suggest outsourcing as a direct means of boosting your bottom line rather than denting it. The role of Chief Financial Officer is one that comes up often as you can see in this related article from the NFIB.

 

Beef up your success quotient by adding an outsourced CFO's time to your own available time, and you will, by default increase the amount time spent on income generating activities...

success = total time - time managing cash flow - time managing risks

                generating revenue time

The CFO for a business manages cash flow: The accounts payable and the accounts receivable. Cash is king and cash flow is critical to businesses small and large. Lying beneath cash flow are the essential tasks of maintaining budgets, taxes, records, insurance, payroll, and liabilities. Consider how much time is gobbled up just in the first third of the year on these responsibilities before tax filing. A full-time CFO works year round so the 'ducks are in a row' prior to tax season, leveraging the best ways to cut expenses, pay bills on time, and keep production going. When a business owner is the CFO because a full-time one is financially out of reach, then it's the producing revenue part that falls to the second priority… behind the ducks.

If you've been behind ducks, you know it's cleaner walking ahead of them.

 

Imagine now that while acting as CFO, you got yourself into an audit. That's a whole flock of ducks you don't want on your beach. This isn't to say a full-time or an outsourced CFO will avoid an audit 100 percent of the time, but it one came up, they – not you – would be spending the time on it, and you could stay focused on the revenue-generating.

Outsourcing buys you an available assistant – available as you need – without the full-time headcount you might not yet need for the business. A way I look at it is that the assistant assists you with having more time with paying customers… and less time with ducks.

 

Photo by Serge Villa, used with permission.

Becky's Bytes: Celebrate the upcoming National Small Business Week

 

More than half of all Americans either own or work for a small business, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. The Administration's annual National Small Business Week is April 30 to May 6 to recognize that we create two out of every three new U.S. jobs. It's our chance to talk up each other, and sharpen our own skills. Here are five ideas to improve the value we offer to all consumers.

1) Use Small Business Week as an excuse to learn about the trends, technology and marketing tactics that can help take your small business to the next level. Enroll in an online seminar, or a live and local one. Tech is a game changer, and an ever-changing game. So is marketing. Even if you just refreshed your skills with a seminar or meeting last year, that was 365 days of innovation ago.

2) Look at your recent tax filing. Did you pay too much? Did you plan too little? Taxes – property, personal, and/or payroll – are predictable aggravations for any small business owner. If you found April 18 or the last year-end to be particularly stressful, your accountant has helpful suggestions. So does your office professional.

3) Outsource what you can. The timing of Small Business Week couldn't be better to evaluate where you stand as a business. You're one third of the way through the year. How much of that four months have you spent actually doing what you set out to do? If you spent a quarter of your time chasing invoices or selecting insurance or managing payroll or marketing, any of these can be outsourced so you'll spend 100 percent of your time on your trade, rather than 75 percent.

4) Attend one event or open house, or create your own. The SBA has a list of events at the link above. Local Chambers of Commerce hold 'Business After Five' events. I personally know of one that very week at Yerkes Observatory on Geneva Lake. If there isn't an event in your town, consider hosting your own open house or networking get-together for your local peers. It can be hard to step away from the daily demands of running a small business—use Small Business Week as an excuse to take a little break and connect with fellow small business owners.

5) Join a Chamber or service organization. Never underestimate the powerful networking possibilities that exist in Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions, The U.S. Junior Chamber (Jaycees) or a local Chamber of Commerce. Sorry if I missed one: It wasn't an intentional slight. Each group puts you elbow-to-elbow with possible customers and provides an undeniable measure of community goodwill.

Image by Paulus Rusyanto, used with permission.

Five reasons EVERY small business owner needs an office professional

Every business owner and every business – no exception – can be money ahead thanks to the skillset of an office professional who knows bookkeeping, taxes, insurance, HR, and payroll.

1.   TAXES – This is one area that is so time sensitive that you can’t afford to treat it lightly.  Not understanding the law doesn’t waive penalties or late fees and they accumulate very quickly.  Someone needs to track that all things “tax” because you know Federal and State revenue departments do.

2.   INSURANCE – By definition, insurance is a “transfer of risk.”  Why on earth would you take a chance of not having the right insurance in place for your business risks? Someone that can take the time to review renewals and evaluate risk by asking critical questions is very important.  Do you know if you have already or need E&O, or a BOP, or an Umbrella, or Work Comp?  There are so many types of insurance that are imperative to protecting your business (and you personally) that this shouldn’t be left to “chance.”

3.   REGULATIONS & COMPLIANCE – This might vary greatly depending on your industry. Regardless of the regulations coming from a local municipality, county, state or Federal Agency, the cost of non-compliance can be staggering.  Do you really understand your obligations under OSHA, Unemployment, Work Comp, DFI Filings, EPA Standards, Building or Fire Codes, etc.?  If you don’t have time to master all these areas yourself, you need someone to help, before it’s too late.

4.   EMPLOYEES – From payroll to HR and timesheets to training logs...  Having employees opens a special can of worms.  Training, hiring, firing, unemployment, new tax forms, child support payments, wage garnishments are just a few of the many things that start to suck away your available time once you become an employer. And that’s what it all comes down to…

5.   TIME!  Your time is worth something. Spend it generating REVENUE.  Unfortunately, running an office is OVERHEAD, not revenue generating.  In theory, you went into business because you had a service, trade, skill, idea, or product that other people want or need.  That’s what is generating sales, income and profits.  Running an office isn’t likely what you first goal was.  

 

The person managing the things that keep the business part of the business give you time to sell/create/build. Running to business part may be done more efficiently and cost effectively by someone that makes less than you do, and by someone that already understands these things.  Why re-create the wheel and burn your valuable time?  Hire, train or outsource, regardless of how you get these things done, in the long run you’re money ahead.

 

Photo by Slavoljub Pantelic, used with permission.