rebecca « duport blog

Entrepreneurs are healthier the fatter they get!

August 9th, 2010

As a society we struggle to control our weight. The urge to over overeat is natural as we are programmed to believe that we might not get our next meal.

I was just thinking that if we could channel this evolutionary energy towards our businesses instead of our mouths we would instead have an epidemic of healthy but fat businesses.

If we worry equally about where our next client is coming from then maybe we will put more energy into finding and taking better care of our customers.

The problem is, like years ago, this type of business nutrition is not so easy to come by. However, if you continue to test and improve your strategies it won’t be as easy as unwrapping that Mars bar but a heck of a lot more satisfying.

Think of your new business in terms of your diet:

What goes in (sales/food) less what comes out (costs/exercise) = what is remaining (profit/weight).

Here’s a suggested diet plan:

What goes in:

Delegate as much as possible to allow you to work on the stuff that makes your business money.
Regularly consider all marketing, PR & branding efforts
Get out of your cave; network, build links with other businesses, speak at events, pick up the phone, pound the streets if you can.
Ensure all your communication is excellent from how you present yourself to the way emails and telephone calls are made and answered.
Consider and action how to delight your existing customers even more.

What comes out:

Sounds obvious but stop overspending and make sure your financial planning is accurate e.g. overestimating demand vs underestimating marketing.
Take money upfront if possible, set clear payment terms or consider factoring.
Regularly review your supplier’s costs and payment terms (perhaps have 60 day supplier payment terms and 30 day client payment terms).
Consider commission or bonus structures instead of employee salaries.
Are you customers costing you too much, fire the ones that don’t pay up!

Keeping to our ideal weight levels is extremely difficult but lets all try to enjoy some, guilt free, business gluttony! Anyone got any further business diet tips?

As a society we struggle to control our weight. The urge to over overeat is natural as we are programmed to believe that we might not get our next meal.

I was just thinking that if we could channel this evolutionary energy towards our businesses instead of our mouths we would instead have an epidemic of healthy but fat businesses.

If we worry equally about where our next client is coming from then maybe we will put more energy into finding and taking better care of our customers.

Think of your new business in terms of your diet:

What goes in (sales/food) less what comes out (costs/exercise) = what is remaining (profit/weight).

Here’s a suggested diet plan:

What goes in:
•   Delegate as much as possible to allow you to work on the stuff that makes your business money.
•   Regularly consider all marketing, PR & branding efforts
•   Get out of your cave; network, build links with other businesses, speak at events, pick up the phone, pound the streets if you can.
•   Ensure all your communication is excellent from how you present yourself to the way emails and telephone calls are made and answered.
•   Consider and action how to delight your existing customers even more.

What comes out:
•   Sounds obvious but stop overspending and make sure your financial planning is accurate e.g. overestimating demand vs underestimating marketing.
•   Take money upfront if possible, set clear payment terms or consider factoring.
•   Regularly review your supplier’s costs and payment terms (perhaps have 60 day supplier payment terms and 30 day client payment terms).
•   Consider commission or bonus structures instead of employee salaries.
•   Are you customers costing you too much, fire the ones that don’t pay up!

Keeping to our ideal weight levels is extremely difficult but lets all try to enjoy some, guilt free, business gluttony! Anyone got any further business diet tips?

Rate This Post!

Rating: 4.3/5 (3 votes cast)

Comments (1)

Why do we hate to say no?

by: Rebecca

August 2nd, 2010

I was recently talking to a close friend about my latest idea and we both got overly excited about all the endless opportunities and ways we could approach the concept. I asked her to get her ideas together and think about how much she could commit to the project. The next day she sent me an email explaining that on reflection, despite her enthusiasm, she needed to focus on her current commitments.

Instead of disappointment I felt huge admiration. She was able to do something that after six years I am still not able to do, say no to work.

By their very nature entrepreneurs are very open to opportunities. I have tremendous difficulty taming my enthusiasm and resisting the urge to begin work immediately on the next “big idea”. The problem with this approach is that these opportunities arrive on a weekly basis!

I have learnt the hard way, that you simply cannot over commit yourself. Firstly there just isn’t time, secondly there isn’t enough resource and thirdly the other brilliant ideas just get diluted. It’s important to develop discipline and be able to choose what to work on first and what distractions to ignore.

I am still unable to say no to a good idea so I have developed a strategy of regularly reviewing opportunities at a later date:

Discuss every idea first with your business associates. This should help clarify any problems and identify what the real opportunity is.
Write down the idea and prioritise it against the other ideas. Once I have done this I find I am able to concentrate on my current work.
Commit to sticking to your business plans. We review our business plans every six months and at this point if other opportunities seem more lucrative we incorporate them into the following six month plan.
Be realistic about what is achievable. Apparently it’s a common human trait to believe that we will have more “slack time” in the future.

Rate This Post!

Rating: 4.0/5 (3 votes cast)

Comments (1)

Why do business owners feel they have to do everything?

by: Rebecca

July 26th, 2010

If you want to grow your business you must delegate and outsource. To start with it’s not a bad thing to fully understand your business. It’s important that you have the knowledge to find the right people and to communicate exactly how you would like the job to be done.

Cutting my hours since having my son has been a complete revelation to me. His birth and independence from me also coincided with me cutting the umbilical cord from Duport. Putting in place people to take over my responsibilities was absolutely terrifying. Enabling them to make decisions without me causing a bottleneck caused sleepless nights and endless double checking.

Not every job has been done with the same dedication and perfectionism however I have come to realise that productivity is by far more valuable. I have cut my workload in half but I have doubled my productivity. I only concentrate on the stuff that actually makes money for our business.

I would of course like to point out that our staff are absolutely superb and my trust and reliance upon them has come about by having the time to support and monitor them.

I get to enjoy lots of time with my son and I have come to appreciate how valuable thinking time away from the office is. I have time for myself, for my family and for the business. This is only possible through effective delegation. I am working less but achieving more; being busy is not the same as doing a job well.

The more energy you have the more clients/business you have time to attract. Even if you can only afford a few hours a month for help do it. The extra business you attract will allow you to pay for more help later and before you know it you business will be growing rapidly.

Outsource as much as you can afford such as bookkeeping, website marketing as the professionals will do a much better job than you can anyway. Free up as much time as possible to market your business.

Investigate what technology can help such as email automation, taking payments and orders through a website or telephone answering services.

I of course had heard all of this before but I didn’t truly acknowledge/believe that the things I was spending my time doing could be done by someone else. Be brutal and be brave and I guarantee you won’t regret it.

Rate This Post!

Rating: 4.0/5 (3 votes cast)

Comments (0)

Trying to find yourself?

by: Rebecca

July 19th, 2010

Trying to find yourself is a nonsense. I don’t believe anybody knows how they might react in a new situation or different environment. Our biological desire for social acceptance means we are all capable of becoming criminals, addict’s even extremists.

There are a few, remarkable, individuals who are happy to stand apart from the crowd, who are not so easily influenced. They are the exception and believing that you are one of them is naive.

I like to think, like everybody else, that in an emergency situation I can step up to the mark. However, like everybody else, stepping up to the mark mostly comes from learned behaviour.

Last week I went to a very busy park with my friend, her daughter and my son. As our children are young we were both at opposite sides of the park busy preventing visits to A&E. My friend looked away for a moment and when she looked up her daughter had disappeared. As it transpired the little minx thought it would be a funny game to hide from mummy.

Mummy spent an agonising, heart stopping, 10 minutes, frantically searching and calling out for her daughter. The reason I am telling you this is because nobody in the park offered to help her. (I was blissfully unaware any of this was happening). It was clear to everyone that she was experiencing the shear terror at the unimaginable, nightmare that someone could have taken her daughter but no one offered to help?

Later we both discussed how shocked we were that so many people could stand by and watch. Then I asked the question: “have you ever seen a parent looking for a child and offered to help?” I have and I was ashamed to realise that I did not offer to help. We both vowed at this point to always offer to help in a similar situation.

The point here is that everyday we are confronted with situations and what really counts is that we reflect on them and decide to take actions (hopefully the right ones).

You don’t ever find yourself you invent yourself. You do not find business opportunities you make them happen. You shouldn’t have to search for something, you should be making it come to you.

Rate This Post!

Rating: 3.5/5 (4 votes cast)

Comments (1)

Why babies make better business owners

by: Rebecca

July 12th, 2010

Have you seen the ad for Velvet toilet tissue with the baby boss? Some people find it cute, personally it makes me cringe. That was until last night when I realised the truth of the concept.

The natural behaviours that are instinctive to babies are the very same ones we need to be successful in business:

Assertiveness: Babies will tell you that they don’t like something and why. They are definite in their decisions.

Fearlessness: They see the goal and they go for it and they do not worry or even consider the obstacles.

Determination and perseverance: Every development a baby achieves is the result of constant perseverance and determination. Babies need to sleep a lot because their brains are so tired from absorbing all the new skills they need to learn. Just imagine what we could all achieve if we continued to push ourselves in this way?

Pushing the boundaries: Babies never just accept the limits imposed upon them. They will constantly test and push these boundaries to work out what is actually possible.

As children become socially aware, the fear of failure and reprimand gradually tames these instincts. Perhaps we are all protecting our children too much and suppressing entrepreneurial spirit?

Are we trying too hard to mould our children into society instead of giving them the confidence to stand out from the crowd?

Babies have better business characteristics and perhaps we should step back into what is instinctive to all of us.

Rate This Post!

Rating: 3.8/5 (5 votes cast)

Comments (1)

Why do we hate criticism?

by: Rebecca

July 1st, 2010

Yesterday I was walking my dog, through the woods, on the phone, whilst watching my wobbly footed 18 month old son, when a huge Labrador bounded up to us. As always my instant reaction was to stand next to my boy to prevent the dog knocking him over or at worst biting him.

The Labrador was friendly and keen to express that to my son who was now really excited. Whilst talking to my friend, I knelt next to my son and prevented the dog from licking his face by using my hand as a shield. The sour faced owner walked past me and when she was at a safe distance aggressively shouted back “don’t be so ridiculous, he can’t catch anything from my dog”.

My instant reaction was fury and I immediately wanted to confront this woman. I finished the conversation with my friend, who told me to leave it, however I decided I still wanted to discuss this with her. There are positive and negative ways of dealing with issues and I wanted to understand why this had caused her such offense and hopefully resolve it because personal branding is important.

As I continued walking through the woods I started to think about why my instant reaction was so negative when actually receiving criticism is a positive thing. Without criticism how do we expose our flaws? How do we get the chance to improve things?

Almost every action we take will cause offense to someone whose priorities are different to yours. As business owners and managers it’s essential that you can take criticism and if you’re not regularly receiving it, if everybody thinks you’re great, then you are not doing your job properly! In order to be successful you constantly need to adapt and encourage others out of their comfort zones.

“If it’s not broke then don’t fix it” – I couldn’t agree less; things can always be improved, this is not the time for complacency. If you are not being regularly criticised, then you can’t be taking many actions and something is very wrong.

Rate This Post!

Rating: 3.8/5 (5 votes cast)

Comments (2)

Is technology making us invisible?

by: Rebecca

June 28th, 2010

We are all social creatures and the vast majority of us need to be at least acknowledged. We all like emotion and personality; so why do companies continue to use technology to distance themselves and masquerade this as customer service? Here are my top most annoying behaviours:

Websites built for optimisation and not for customer usability

If I land on a website filled with keywords and links I leave it. It looks messy and I haven’t got the time to wade through all that rubbish. Google should be utilised to help you, not the other way round. There is plenty of competition and customers are savvier than buying from the first website they happen to land on.

Blogging for search engines and not for readership

Nobody reads it because it’s boring and poorly written. Yes you might appear all over the internet amongst your favourite search terms but what’s the point in bringing people to your website if there’s nothing to keep them there.

Auto call attendants

We all hate having to go through voicemail options. Prove that “your call is important to us” and get it answered. Retaining customers is more valuable than finding new ones so why still can I always get straight through to sales but not to customer services?

Scripts

Everybody can detect a script so I can’t understand why they are still being used. You may as well get the auto attendant to call me. A structured ad lib will get you much further.

Email only communication

Like many others I simply will not give my business to any website that does not have a contactable, customer service department. I am instantly suspicious of companies who do not want to talk to their customers.

Sending emails rather than calling

If a customer has provided you with a telephone number then why not call them? This lazy approach is a lot more time consuming and cannot possibly convey your message as well.

Uninspiring newsletters

Unless you are providing me with relevant quality content or interesting offers please do not waste my time by making me scan through your boring newsletter and subsequently unsubscribe to you.

Perhaps instead of cheapest price or fastest service why not compete on being the most human?

What technology drives you mad?

Rate This Post!

Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)

Comments (0)

Why I hate blogs

by: Rebecca

June 21st, 2010

I am a positive person however pregnancy hormones combined with endless problems with my ISP and other IT issues have now resulted in me venting my frustrations toward technologies that are supposed to make life better.

Like many people life is a bit of a juggling act and I find I am increasingly impatient and resentful towards things that I feel have wasted my time. Top of my current hit list is social media; I can’t stand it (there I’ve publicly said it). Although I agree with the concept of connecting people and increasing efficiency all I see is evidence of isolation, fake realities and time wasting.

I hate blogs. There are some exceptional, inspiring and action provoking blogs however the vast majority is just regurgitated rubbish.

I am tired of copy cat, unoriginal content, and who has the time or inclination to read blogs about bloggers referencing each other. I appreciate we can’t all have these genius, creative minds and there’s nothing wrong with bringing someone’s concepts to a wider audience but please at least have some opinion or slant on the work.

I just don’t see the point of boring blogs filled with Google friendly key words to drag suckers onto your website who will only leave just as quickly as they arrived. What a waste of company resources and everyone’s time!

So why do I love to blog? I have two reasons:

We want to humanise our business. Let you know we are real people with our own thoughts and ideas. We want to show you that we are not just another faceless competitor hiding behind technology.

Personally I do not regularly read blogs (although I am always keen to receive links to inspiring content) because I feel it clouds my originality. Blogging allows me time and space to think about our business and since doing it I have had more ideas for improving things then I ever have. For example right now I am reviewing how the technology we use can be further humanised.

If you’ve got nothing interesting to say then simply don’t say it and save everyone some time and money.

Rate This Post!

Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)

Comments (0)

Do you have the right personality to be an entrepreneur?

by: Rebecca

June 17th, 2010

I was fascinated by the recent BBC program “child of our time” which conducted the largest ever personality test in Britain.

It was reported that we all have five core traits in our personalities but to different degrees:

Openness indicates how willing we are to explore new ideas and ways of doing things.

Scoring high in openness means you should be suited to creative jobs such as journalism, art, research

Conscientiousness indicates how well we plan and exhibit self-control.

It was shown that those scoring high in conscientiousness tend to be happy in whatever role they choose as in the work place you have the ability to create structure and rules and understand that the more you put into your work the great the rewards will be.

Extroversion indicates our desire for stimulation.

It is thought that if you score highly in extroversion you are suited to careers with lots of simulation and social contact such as sales, finance, law and teaching.

Agreeableness indicates how easily we get along with others.

A high score here indicates you would be most content in caring industries such as health care and education.

Neuroticism indicates how we deal with negative emotions such as stress and anxiety.

Displaying high levels of neuroticism is perfect for administration roles because these negative emotions drive the need to be perfect thus minimising errors.

After watching the program and listening to the traits I found it exceptionally difficult to judge what my profile might look like. I was keen to understand how I came out so I could relate this back to how I perform at work. After taking the test I found I was a fairly even mix but conscientiousness was highest and neuroticism was lowest.

To find out the balance in your personality you can take the BBC online test https://www.bbc.co.uk/labuk/results/personality/index_safe.html

I thought I have a look at the traits considered important to succeed as an entrepreneur and associate these to the personality traits:

Inner Drive to Succeed (conscientiousness)

Strong Belief in themselves (extroversion)

Search for New Ideas and Innovation (openness)

Openness to Change (openness)

Competitive by Nature (extroversion)

Accepting of Constructive Criticism and Rejection (agreeableness)

The thing to appreciate here is that we are all a mix of all the recognised personality traits and after looking at the research it is my belief that anyone can start a business. The initial desire must first be present, which already indicates you have a higher leaning to the tendencies required.

The moral of this story is that to run a successful business it’s vitally important to be self aware and appreciating what you can do well and understanding what someone else could do better for you. Which opportunities are more suited to your personality profile? Perhaps you’ll need to employ managers or take on an accountant in your chosen venture.

Entrepreneurs out there, I would be very interested to learn what your results came out like.

Rate This Post!

Rating: 4.0/5 (1 vote cast)

Comments (0)

Mistakes to avoid when forming a limited company

by: Rebecca

June 14th, 2010

Not taking professional advice first

There are lots of very good reasons to form a limited company but it’s important to take advice first on the right company structure for you. Financially, you may better off with a partnership or to trade as a sole trader for example. If you are unsure call the office and we can put you through to an accountant who will offer free advice.

Cheap/free company formation offers

Once you’ve established you need to form a limited company make sure that you use the right company formation agent. There are plenty of cheap or free company formation offers but there is often a reason for this.

The low end prices advertised tend to only form the company and email you a copy of the incorporation certificate. (This is a good service if you are a professional or have a good understanding of company law.) You will quickly find that you are legally required to have other documents that they will charge, often over the rate, for that will enable them to make their money. These will be added on as you go through the formation process so what appears to be £35 ends up £89.

We often get disgruntled customers calling us for advice as they cannot get through to their formation agent and are unclear about what the next steps are to take.

Free offers mostly tend to obligate you to form a bank account with the formation agent’s partner as the banks pay a commission for this. Always read the small print as you will find there are significant fines from the formation agency for not opening a bank account or other service you have inadvertently signed up for.

Paying too much

Similarly paying in excess of £100 for your company formation is considered a bit steep. Unless the company administering this for you is offering other services such as VAT registration, company office and secretarial services. In many cases clients will ask or assume that only their accountants can complete the company formation. I have been shocked by some of the excessive fees that accountants are charging for a service that they simply ask their formation agent to do. To be fair, I have also been very impressed with those accountants who have added very little or no commission.

DIY

You can form a company with Companies House directly, yourself, for a fee, however you should know that around 90% of formations are formed electronically. There is a reason that even the professional accountants and lawyers opt to incorporate this way and that’s time. If you know how to accurately complete the paperwork, set up the structure and get the documents officially signed it can still take many days to get your company formed and receive the documents back from Companies House. Formation agents can do everything for you in a few hours and the good ones will provide you with all the help and additional documentation you need to get things going.

Not registering a domain

If you don’t intend to use professional looking emails or put up a website straight away you should register your domain name as soon as possible.

Rebeccadawe@yahoo.co.uk (not a professional email)

rebecca@duport.co.uk (a professional email that matches our company name. Personal email addresses, above, do not inspire confidence)

www.duport.co.uk(by registering the domain duport.co.uk we’ve been able to put our website at this Internet address)

There are professional companies registering domain names in the hope to sell them back to you at a later time for excessive fees. Check you can find a domain to match your company name and register them both at the same time.

Call us anytime for advice on any of the issues above. As always we promise there’s no obligation to use us!

Rate This Post!

Rating: 4.5/5 (4 votes cast)

Comments (0)

Older Posts »

companies house made easy