To Streamline Your Business, Look No Further Than Your Inventory – Forbes

How is your inventory?

I may be generalising, but all businesses suffer from poor inventory control. You may have too much and it ties up your capital depreciates over time and worse.. gets damaged and has to be written off.

Having too little is another issue and you run the risk of loosing customers and sales. Also if you have the wrong inventory at the wrong time the same applies. Imagine selling beach towels in winter as an example.

In reality inventory is in your control, so often there are no excuses in not having it right.You need to make sure it is streamlined and managed to maximise your return.

Check out the article in Forbes magazine.

To Streamline Your Business, Look No Further Than Your Inventory – Forbes.

The competitive advantage of SME's.

Reblogged from Strategyaudit:

Yesterday I did a presentation to a group of owners of small businesses, people who seemingly compete against the odds from a point of weakness, as almost everybody is bigger, better resourced, has better technology, and are more connected, than them. 

As a basis for the presentation I used Simon Sineks great TED talk, that articulated the " Why How What"   model, one I have been able to use quite often as a means to assist SME's sort out what is really important, and what just seems to be important, as they try to navigate the competitive challenges they face.

Read more… 163 more words

A great post on the advantages of SME's and their ability to respond quickly to changes.

How to choose a good bookkeeper

Luca Pacioli – Inventor of double entry bookkeeping. by vintagedept

Running small businesses for so many years, I have had the opportunity and pleasure of interviewing many bookkeeping personnel. Yes I made some bad hires in the early days. And yes I learnt many good lessons.

This led me to develop simple tests for all potential hires based on their résumé and supposed skills. Would you believe it… most failed my simple test.

And this was just to get past stage one and get an interview.

Lets face it, when you hire a bookkeeper, you expect them to start with the knowledge and skills for the software package you utilise. The last thing you want to be doing is teaching someone how to use a software package to do your books whilst paying them the bookkeeper rates. I certainly wasn’t expecting rocket science, but I was expecting knowledge of a package… especially when the advert said “experience essential”. If I had stated software training would be provided, that is fine but I would still test for basic computer skills. Many would fail that also.

In the end I managed to reduce my costs of wrong hire, rehire, rework and training using this simple test to get an understanding of the level of skills the potential employee brings with them.

If you’d like more information or a copy of the bookkeeping skill test that can be easily adjusted for different applications, send me a mail to info@boostcentre.com.au with a request and we can arrange  a copy for you.

Your comments are welcome.

What do you think is more important.. maintaining my blog or an adventure of a lifetime?

Seeing this blog hasn’t been updated for some time, you know I chose the adventure. And that is what I want to share with you now.

A new business concept has been incubating in my mind for several years. It has finally come to a stage where I am ready to build it and launch a new business venture. This is the adventure I have been on for the last number of months and in turn neglected by blog.

It has been a while since I last started a new business and I had almost forgotten the thrill and excitement of a startup. And when you have a passion for small business and the new venture is about helping and supporting the success of other small businesses for me it is even more exhilarating.

Business Boost Centre Logo

I have been working on building the “Business BOOST Centre”. Yes it has been a difficult balancing act with the demands and requirements of an operational business (furnituredirect.com.au), a young family with sport and school commitments and working on BOOST Centre. But it has been thoroughly rewarding.

When you follow your passion you are somehow re-energized and are able to achieve amazing feats especially in balancing and juggling.

So hang around and you’ll hear lots more about Business BOOST Centre as its reaching a stage where we are almost ready to launch. And if you really want to know more before launch send us a note to info@boostcentre.com.au and we’ll send you more about BOOST Centre.

Your comments are welcome.