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There are several parts to your business. It is not just one part on its own. this is my business. So what do you do in your business? Well, I do the lot. Ok, what is the “lot”? So many people would love to be in business and be their own boss. Answer to no one else but themselves. I hear them say, I make my own hours. I hear this and snicker to myself. Let’s break a business down. When I talk about a business, I am talking about a small business with a sole owner and a staff of less than 20 people, where all 20 people are not working simultaneously. The 20 people is the staffing pool. Once I have talked about those components, I will discuss the paperwork. That part is where the true secret of business is hidden. It is how you keep your book is how you run your business. keep bad books and you have a bad business, that has no idea where the money is going. If you have books that show you what is going on then you are a winner.
Location – Yes this can be important. if you rely on foot traffic you want your business in the best location that gives you good foot traffic. small retail stoors, this is a must. For large specialty stores, this is not so important. I went out of my way to go to an electrical stoor, because I knew they had the item I wanted and would get good service.
Shop front – You need to let people know who you are and what you do. Simple. unless you want to start a franchise, don’t worry about creating a brand, a logo, or a colour schema. if you want a franchise go for it. But you will be up against other businesses that already do the same thing, and you will need to compete on a whole new level.
Shop display – Now we are getting to what is important. This includes the shop front but also the inside and how things are laid out. Presentation is 90% of the sale. If you can present your wares in the best way you are almost home and hosed. Now one wants to walk into a takeaway food shop that has greasy floors, and cobwebs hanging from the window frame, but the service is fantastic. You may need a tennis shot just to look at the place. You need to take pride in your shop, your stock, your self.
Service – Yes this is both the pre-sale and after-sale service. I recall I went into a shoe shop and I knew what I wanted. I love my boots, a good set of Mongrels are the best. So I went in and I was looking at the boots, held them in my hand, and started contemplating the type of sole. The shopkeeper was mucking around on his phone. Eventually, he came over and said to me “What do you want?”. The smart ass in me just came alive, the Joker archetype wanted to play. With a grin that you would just want to smack off my face, I looked at him, put the shoe box back and said “I would like a pound of mince please”. Like – Oh, My Goodness, the prick could not see I was annoyed at being ignored and then asked a stupid question, he told me that I was in the wrong shop for that. So I walked out and bought my boots at another shop. I am sure he was joking around at my expense to his boss or coworkers. You know what I do not care. I thought that his service was not friendly and they did not want to be there. I would rather him come up to me and vent about what his dream job would be instead of showing how much he hates working there. If your spirit is not in the business, the business has no spirit and will die. It is the spirit that you give service that you will be remembered for. People will talk about your service and the level of care that you have for your customers. There is no higher purpose than to be of service. Even in my job, as a D&A Therapist, my clients can see that I would do my job well, even if I did not get paid for it. The love of the client and the job will be seen for miles and remembered for a lifetime. I just met a client that I have not seen for 10 years, she still knew me by name. I forgot her name. Service matters from the shoe shiner on the street corner to the bank manager and lawyer that sit in an office. If you do not treat your clients with respect and serve them well you will also be remembered for all the wrong things and those people will talk. I got pulled over by a police officer for a random breath check. He told me that the front tyre on my bike would soon need replacing. I told him that I checked it 2 days ago. he said back to me, I want you to have a safe ride. I thanked him for his care. Even police are there to protect, to serve, have people obey the law and to save lives. Service Is an honourable part of any business.
Bookwork – Paperwork – Accounting – The job is not done till the paperwork is finished. You can make this as complicated or as simple as you want. All you need is a recept book and a spreadsheet. Whether the spreadsheet is a book that you have lying open on your desk or a spreadsheet on your computer. For starters, and I can hear accountants curse me for saying this, stick with a spreadsheet for as long as you can. Resist going over to accounting packages till you need to. When I say need this is to do with the amount of time you are spending on your books. If you can make entries in your spreadsheet as you run your business or at the end of each day that would be great. if you wait to make entries at the end of the week you are setting yourself up for misery. 50 entries at the end of the day of 250 entries in the spreadsheet on Friday night? what would you rather do?
The spreadsheet – Why keep a spreadsheet? if you do not know how your books work and how to correct entries and do reconciliations. You will lost when you need to fix a mistake in an accounting package. You will be so lost that the accountant will be making money from your mistakes. if you need to go to night school to learn the basics of accounting, do so. You will need it and your knowledge is power. And have a mantra that you need to follow. CASH IS KING. The more you can deal in cash the less you are paying the banks for their services. I love it when people choose to use direct deposit. I do not like it when they use PayPal. why? Because PayPal charges a lot. I do not have eftpos, because the bank charges for that too. If you have too many people with a hand in your pocket, the less you make. so let’s list out what bill you would need;
- Power
- Phone
- Insurance
- Advertising
- Rent
- Licencing fees, if your business needs a licence.
- Wages – including your wages
- Price of stock
- Car expenses if you need a car in the business.
You do not need to waste money on an EFTPOS machine, or a Point of sale (POS) accounting system, you do not need to have an accounting package. Everyone can do direct deposits now with their phones, and all you need is a duplicate receipt book to keep track of sales. I see small businesses and coffee shops have these fancy POS systems and think why? They sell 2 products, Coffee and Sandwiches. They write the order on the cup, but receipts are not written. So why can’t a simple receipt book do it? and then give a 10% discount for people who pay cash. Because that is what the bank charges for EFTPOS transactions, plus a monthly fee.
Yours Banking – You need a minimum of two bank accounts. One is your working account. this is the account that you use every day for all your income and expenses. The second account should be your TAX account. this is the account where you deposit your GST and your other TAXES, tax for your (the owner’s) income tax and the tax for the other stuff that you are employing. If you can subcontract your employees, bonus, they are in charge of their own tax, supper, sick leave, holiday pay and tax, you just need to pay them the before-tax rate. On a side note, this is how my wife was working for a motel. the business owner just paid my wife’s invoice, he did not need to worry about anything else. The big downfall is that his business would not be a fault if my wife did something wrong, my wife would be legally at risk. But as a business owner, this is a great way to set up employment.
I am looking around on YouTube to find someone who showed a simple bookkeeping spreadsheet without all the bells and whistles that you do not need. I have run an Auction House, Pawnshop, and secondhand shop, and have been a treasurer of 3 clubs and the spreadsheet was the same for all of them. Only the collum headings changed.
For a takeaway shop that sells burgers, fries and drinks this would be a simple spreadsheet. income on the left and expenses on the right. The more income streams you want to track or expenses you want to track, just add more columns. The bottom row is an unformatted P&L sheet. when you set this up for yourself, email it to your accountant and just ask if the company can work with it and ask if they would like any modifications. They will try to convince you to subscribe to an accounting package. Just tell them that you do not want to till you are more confident in the business. You will get a package eventually, but you need to know how to adjust the books and know how accounting works before you jump into a package where adjustments are really hard to do.
