Answered Questions (scroll down to read— links don't work)/David Stephensen

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Answer Question / Revise Answer/David Stephensen

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You answered this question on 07/06/16

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	No

Comment:

None

Questioner:	sam
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Procedure manuals and franchise manuals
Question:	Good day With reference to developing a procedure / operations manual for a small to medium sized business are there any good do it yourself resources out there ie. workbooks, software, step by step resources etc... Also is an operation manual the same as a franchise manual. If not where can I learn to write a franchise manual. Are there any good books, manuals that you can refer me to that teaches one how to write a franchise manual.
Answer:	Hi Sam A franchise manual is actually three manuals: 1. The manual for operating the franchisee business (for example, one of your shops, if the franchise is a chain of shops) 2. The manual for communications between the franchisor and the franchisee. For example, what standards the franchisee needs to comply with and what the responsibilities are on each side. 3. The manual for operating head office. For example, finding new franchisees (marketing and sales), signing up new franchisees, managing franchisees and keeping them happy, closing down franchises that have reached the end of their life or are not working. Helping business owners with procedure manuals is my profession. I love helping people to set up a structure for their manual and teaching them good ways to write it. I specialise in easy to maintain web-based procedure manuals with the ability to print when necessary. Web-based manuals are much easier to maintain and can have embedded media to make them into training manuals as well. I have a DIY system and template ready to go for the first manual listed above. Please reply to this message or visit my website http://qdt.com.au if you'd like to know more. You can contact me from there and also subscribe to my newsletter about business systems. I looked around for franchise templates and found this: http://www.franchiseprep.com . This looks comprehensive, but of course you'd need your lawyer to check it out for local laws. Also it seems to be based in office software rather than web. What is the nature of your franchise business? Hope this helps David

Options: Revise answer (Questioner will be notified again and the answer will be republished). Email me a copy of this Q&A. Remind the questioner to read this answer. Remind the questioner to rate this answer. Send the questioner a message, could be a follow-up, "thank you" note, etc.

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Answer Question / Revise Answer/David Stephensen

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You answered this question on 09/10/15

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

Dear David Thanks. Thanks & Regards, Prashant S Akerkar

Questioner:	Prashant S Akerkar
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Bank Employees Transfer.
Question:	Dear David In India the Bank Employees are transferred from one branch to another branch. They get promotions in their Grade by accepting the transfer. Is this Bank Business rule mandatory in all countries?. Thanks Prashant
Answer:	I don't think it is mandatory but it is certainly common practice in Australia. It also makes good sense. If you are a bright young bank employee with management potential, are they going to put you in charge of a big branch in the city? No. That is too big a step for you. They will make you the manager or other senior officer in a branch in a small town first. That will be less stressful for you as you are learning the ropes of management. After you prove yourself in the small branch then you can get bigger appointments. Also, with teachers in Australia, country postings are unpopular and so everyone has to take a turn sometime during their career. This could be the same in banks. I'm still waiting for you to write to me and tell me about yourself, Prashant - why you ask so many questions.

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Answer Question / Revise Answer/David Stephensen

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You answered this question on 09/10/15

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

Dear David Thanks. Thanks & Regards, Prashant S Akerkar

Questioner:	Prashant S Akerkar
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Bank Employees Transfer.
Question:	Dear David In India the Bank Employees are transferred from one branch to another branch. They get promotions in their Grade by accepting the transfer. Is this Bank Business rule mandatory in all countries?. Thanks Prashant
Answer:	I don't think it is mandatory but it is certainly common practice in Australia. It also makes good sense. If you are a bright young bank employee with management potential, are they going to put you in charge of a big branch in the city? No. That is too big a step for you. They will make you the manager or other senior officer in a branch in a small town first. That will be less stressful for you as you are learning the ropes of management. After you prove yourself in the small branch then you can get bigger appointments. Also, with teachers in Australia, country postings are unpopular and so everyone has to take a turn sometime during their career. This could be the same in banks. I'm still waiting for you to write to me and tell me about yourself, Prashant - why you ask so many questions.

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Answer Question / Revise Answer/David Stephensen

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You answered this question on 08/14/15

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

Dear David Thanks. Thanks & Regards, Prashant S Akerkar

Questioner:	Prashant S Akerkar
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Cybercafes Inside airports.
Question:	Dear David Do you suggest to have cybercafes Inside airports - Local and International?. Could this be a good Business startup?. Thanks Prashant
Answer:	More and more airports are providing free wifi these days. It seems to me that this is slowly spreading throughout the world. If I am right then cybercafes are not a good investment. Maybe providing computers might be good, but, once again, it seems these days that even the poorest people have smartphones.

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Answer Question / Revise Answer/David Stephensen

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You answered this question on 05/04/14

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

None

Questioner:	JJ
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	Yes
Subject:	Help with writing to get a contract extension please
Question:	Hi, I need help with writing this more succinctly, are you able to please suggest and help me: Dear Dennis, It is now the 5th of May,2 014 and as such this means that I have just 20 working days left in my current contract. I would be grateful if you could let me know as early as possible this week, whether the contract can be extended. I believe last time we had a renewal, an email from you said "I'm sure they'll extend again". Please note I am only interested in contract roles and to my credit I have worked to project deliverables. Hamish has even said that I am more stable than most of the permanent employees they've had, referring to of course those who have just joined and left early. With positive feedback, surely another extension is probable? Please do let me know as I am keen to know the outcome earlier than later.
Answer:	Hi JJ. Your contract may depend on your client's financial situation rather than on how happy they are with your services. I have made some notes and changes to your text. I suggest that perfect grammar and punctuation would be a wise plan. I am making some guesses about what you are setting out to say. Please adjust accordingly if I am wrong. ----------------------- I am writing to you about the renewal of my contract. It is now the 5th May and I have just 20 working days left in the current contract. When my contract was last renewed, I recall an email from you which said "I'm sure they'll extend again". I am really hoping that this prediction will come true. During this contract I have consistently achieved project deliverable dates. Hamish has said that I am more stable than most of the permanent employees they've had, referring to those who have joined and left early. Please note that, if possible, I prefer to continue working as a contractor rather than an employee. It is really important to me to know about my renewal as early as possible. I would really appreciate it if you could let me know, preferably this week, whether my contract can be extended.

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Answer Question / Revise Answer/David Stephensen

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You answered this question on 03/12/14

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

Dear David Thank you. Thanks & Regards, Prashant S Akerkar

Questioner:	Prashant S Akerkar
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Start up Business Entity Name.
Question:	Dear David http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_company_name_etymologies http://www.companyname.com/ http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/21774 http://www.inc.com/login?returnurl=http://www.inc.com/ss/5-characteristics-of-great-company-names http://nineplanets.org/‎ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet‎ Start up Business Entity give names to their co by First Name, Last Name and any other name to create Brand/s. There are nine planets in the Solar System. Earth, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto, Mercury, Saturn. Giving A Startup Co name that to a existing planet name would also be nice ?. For examples : Pluto Restaurant Uranus IT Services Pvt Ltd Saturn Glass Manufacturers Mercury Detective Agency Mars Motor Driving School etc What is your opinion ?. Awaiting your reply, Thanks & Regards, Prashant S Akerkar
Answer:	Hi Prashant Why not? It is a good idea. I do have some remarks, though. Each planet has a different association. Maybe these are different in Indian culture. In European cultures, for example, Mars is male and warlike. Venus is feminine and romantic, maybe erotic. Jupiter is big, jolly and generous. Saturn is stern, etc. When choosing the planet you need to be aware of these associations in all cultures from which your customers might come. Uranus is potentially the victim of some rude word association in English so I'd avoid that. Your business name needs to be easy and logical to spell and easy to say over the phone. You need to be able to register a domain name that matches the business name. If you are dealing with different cultures you need to be sure that your business name does not have some embarrassing or negative meaning to people in the other cultures. It is a good idea to ask a sample of potential customers what they think of your proposed business name and what associations it brings to their minds. Should you need some help with your business procedure manual or issue management, please don't hesitate to visit my website http://www.qdt.com.au and contact me. Cheers David

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Answer Question / Revise Answer/David Stephensen

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You answered this question on 07/26/13

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

Thanks, David Stephensen.

Questioner:	Jake
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	company shares
Question:	Hello, David Stephensen I recently started working for a start-up company as a web developer. Since it is a start-up the pay is not that great, but I was given company shares as 'payment'. I do not have a business degree nor knowledge of shares/stocks. So, what exactly can I do with these shares? How can I generate wealth with the shares? Thank you
Answer:	Hi Jake The shares in the company mean that you are now a part owner of the company. Some things to check: 1. Have you received a share certificate? You are entitled to one. 2. What was the sale value of these shares at the time they were issued to you? You may need to know this for tax purposes. 3. What percentage of the company do you now own? 4. Are these ordinary shares the same as the main owners have or do they have some special limitations? They need to be clear with you about this. Now another question: Did you agree to receive shares in the company as part of your employment contract or did they suddenly decide to give you shares instead of wages without your agreement? If they did this without your agreement they may be in breach of Canadian labour laws. If you object to this, then check with the labour authorities. Now let's see what benefits you have received. Firstly you need to understand risk. As an employee being paid for your time fortnightly or whatever, you are risking, say, 80 hours of your life. If you don't get paid, then you can walk away and wear that loss. The level of risk for you is very low. If people take a higher risk then they get paid more. If your job was as a miner or bomb squad officer, you would be paid more money because your work is dangerous and you are risking your life to some extent. If you start a software company you are investing a lot of money without making anything at all at first. If the company fails then you will lose all of this money. This is a big risk, so you expect, if the company is successful, to make a lot of money, many times what you invested. If the company does poorly and you make only a little money, that is not a good result either, as you could have made the same money for much less risk just by getting a job. By giving you shares instead of payment for your time, the owners of the company have persuaded or coerced you into accepting the same risk as they are, but on a smaller scale. You are gambling part or all of your salary on the success of the company. Everyone has a different comfort level with risk and only you can decide whether this is acceptable to you. You would need to be satisfied that you have a good chance of making a lot more money than you would have received as wages. You can make money from shares in two ways. If the company makes a profit, it can pay a share of the profits to its shareholders in the form of dividends. In the short term I would not be expecting much from this but I may be wrong. If the company is successful, its sale value increases. This is equivalent to the value of the shares increasing, and means that you could sell the shares at a higher price that you 'bought' them for when you originally traded your labour for them. If it is a private company, you'd need to do your own footwork to find a buyer, and this may be difficult. Your best option would be to try and sell them back to the owners or to other employees or clients or associates of the company. You also have to work out what the shares are worth, and this would all be debatable you would need to bargain. When companies become larger and more successful they get publicly listed on a stock exchange. After this happens you can then get a stockbroker to sell them for you and the price is more clearly determined by the market. I don't know anything about this company, of course, but if it is a small start-up business with a big bank loan and the owners are not so experienced then your risk is very high. The more established and experienced business people the owners are and the larger the company and the less debt it has, the lower the risk. As a shareholder I'd say that you are entitled to see the balance sheet of the company. This shows what the company is actually worth (assets (money and property) less liabilities (debts and loans)). I recommend that you learn to read a balance sheet and a profit and loss statement. If you ask the owners when they expect to be publicly listed, they will probably give you an overly optimistic answer, not to cheat you, but with all of their own money invested they must have a positive and optimistic attitude. It may still be worth asking them, just to see what they say. A more likely plan, however, is that, rather than publicly listing the company, the owners intend to build the value of the business and then sell it to a larger company. Here is where you need to always keep in touch with them and make sure they tell you when this is going to happen. This is your best opportunity to sell your shares as well and collect the profit from your investment. I am basing this answer only on what I can gather from your question. If I have gone in the wrong direction, please clarify the situation for me.

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Answer Question / Revise Answer/David Stephensen

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You answered this question on 07/12/13

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

I cannot recommend this expert highly enough!

Questioner:	peter
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	A Question For David Stephensen
Question:	QUESTION: Hello, Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my question. It is much appreciated! I have recently taken over a florist (a small shop). I am looking to improve the amount of profit that the business makes, which currently is very little. As far as I know, a florist works like this: A florist takes an order, X percent is deducted straight away from the order total to account for labour costs, fixed costs and profit. Then, flowers plus other materials (at retail price) are used to make the product. To illustrate: for an order of £40, a percentage, let’s randomly pick 20%, is deducted straight away, leaving £32 for the flowers etc. My question to you is this: what should the “X percent” (see above) be? N.B. I am aware that there probably are better formulas than the one I use and have described above; however, I urge to answer my question directly, rather than suggest a completely different formula. Thank you, Peter Hughes ANSWER: Hi Peter A short start point answer is, if you use the COST price of materials and flowers instead of the retail price, 50%, but you will need to see if this is sustainable. See below. Here is a long answer, in case you are interested. It is a challenge to give you a figure for this formula, because I don't have all of the information. How much markup have you already put on the 'raw material' flowers? How much labour are you putting into arranging the flowers before delivery? Are they arrangements or just bunches? Do you have strong competitors nearby? May I share with you a more conventional way of working? The first three steps to increasing your profits are measure, measure and measure. It is very important to establish your actual costs. Best to use a spreadsheet—get help from a friend if you are not sure about using them. How much time does it take to do each type of arrangement? What is the actual cost to you of an arrangement? A bunch? Note that in calculating the costs of arrangement you should treat yourself as an employee—include your labour in your costs at an hourly rate that you might pay a suitable employee. I am not hugely experienced in retail, but it seems to me that retailers generally put about 100% markup on the cost of their goods (supermarkets probably a bit less), so let's work on that for a start. From this markup you pay your fixed expenses such as rent, insurance, advertising, cleaning and the labour (including yours—this is how you show the difference between owning a job and owning a business) of attending to customers. The rest is the profit from the risk you are taking by being in this business (if you are making a profit then you are owning a business as well as a job). From this you can now calculate what volume of sales you need just to pay these fixed expenses, before your business starts making a profit. Now when you calculate all of this, compare what you calculated that you should be charging with the prices your competitors are charging or your predecessor in the business was charging (some reconnaissance needed). If your competitors' prices are about the same as or higher than your calculated retail price, then everything is fine and you have your answer. If they are much lower, then you may need to lower your markup percentage. A smaller markup means you have to sell more flowers and here is where efficiency, marketing, earning customer loyalty, salesmanship, business development and all of those other things come in. So here I have given you a rather a large serving of information and suggestions to digest. Best of luck with your business. Do keep educating yourself about business and may you soon own a chain of florist shops! ---------- FOLLOW-UP ---------- QUESTION: Hello Mr Stephensen, Thank you very much for your very quick and informative reply. It is very much appreciated!! You are absolutely right to say that you can’t give me an exact figure for my formula because I haven’t supplied you with other vital bits of information. My apologies for that. I should’ve realised that you wouldn’t be able to give me a figure without other vital bits of information. Let me address that now and provide you with the information that you mentioned you would need: - I was until recently doubling my wholesale price to get my retail price, but now I treble my wholesale price to get my retail price (this applies to flowers and all other materials used). - The labour cost for orders, is approximately 10%. So for example, for a £50 order, £5 (10%) will be spent on labour in making the product. - Yes, most of the time I sell arrangements. When I do sell just bunches or plants, they are sold at my retail price (which is three times wholesale price), and that’s how I make money from selling those products. - I do have quite a bit of competition nearby, yes. (I have researched the prices that local florists charge and my prices are very similar.) Now that I’ve supplied the above information, I’m hoping you’ll be able to give me a rough figure for my formula. If you need more information, please tell me and I will provide it. Thank you, Peter Hughes ANSWER: Hi again, Peter I am trying to understand why this formula is as it is, as there seem to be costs mysteriously divided on each side of it. Is the purpose of this formula perhaps to determine how much worth of flowers and materials you will use to make up the order? This interpretation I can make sense of, so I'll go on that basis until you correct me. Let's assume for simplicity that the order is all arrangements. If your 10% labour is a cost, then you need to add a profit to this labour cost. Let's say that the resale price of labour is also three times the cost (in my experience this seems to be the case). This markup of labour, flowers and material is the gross profit from which you take your fixed expenses, leaving your net profit. If you are in fact tripling the labour cost, then surely your X would be 30%. For a $100 order you say the labour cost is $10 and so what you need to charge the customer is $30 for the labour. This leaves $70 worth of flowers that you can use. If there are fixed costs that relate specifically to the order, such as a delivery fee, than you would have to factor that in to the percentage somehow. Am I close to understanding your question? ---------- FOLLOW-UP ---------- QUESTION: Hello again Mr Stephensen, Thank you again for another very quick and detailed reply. It is very much appreciated!! First of all - my apologies. I forgot to tell you the reason why I use the formula that I do. It is indeed for the reason that you mention. Given what you’ve said, am I right to assume that in your opinion the “X percent” should to be 30%? Also, when you say that: “This leaves $70 worth of flowers that you can use.” - would this $70 worth of flowers be made up from wholesale price flowers or retail price flowers (don’t forget to bear in mind that my retail prices = three times wholesale prices)? (And as for your final point - I charge a fee for deliveries, so I don’t have to worry about delivery costs in the formula.) Thank you, Peter Hughes
Answer:	Hi Peter I am sorry for the delay in answering this. I did not get an email notification and only came back today to remind you to give me a rating! Thanks for confirming my theory about the reason for the formula. My answer is based purely on what you have told me and the following two assumptions: 1. All of your fixed costs come out of your gross profit, so these are not part of the percentage calculation. 2. Your markup on labour related to a specific order is the same as on the flowers: 200% (triple) It seems that this percentage represents the retail price of the labour. If the cost price of the labour is 10% of the quoted price than the price you are charging for labour would be 30% of the quoted price. And, yes, according to your original question the $70 would be the retail price of the flowers and materials. For example, consider an order of $100 (working in round figures). Your estimated labour cost would be $10. You sell this labour to the customer for $30. This leaves $70 worth of flowers and materials. These cost you $23. This gives you a gross profit of $66. From this and the gross profit from all of your other sales you pay your rent, power, labour for over the counter sales, insurance, and so on. What is left is your net profit. Does all this fit with the question you set out to answer? Cheers David

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Answer Question / Revise Answer/David Stephensen

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You answered this question on 07/08/13

Questioner:	peter
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	A Question For David Stephensen
Question:	QUESTION: Hello, Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my question. It is much appreciated! I have recently taken over a florist (a small shop). I am looking to improve the amount of profit that the business makes, which currently is very little. As far as I know, a florist works like this: A florist takes an order, X percent is deducted straight away from the order total to account for labour costs, fixed costs and profit. Then, flowers plus other materials (at retail price) are used to make the product. To illustrate: for an order of £40, a percentage, let’s randomly pick 20%, is deducted straight away, leaving £32 for the flowers etc. My question to you is this: what should the “X percent” (see above) be? N.B. I am aware that there probably are better formulas than the one I use and have described above; however, I urge to answer my question directly, rather than suggest a completely different formula. Thank you, Peter Hughes ANSWER: Hi Peter A short start point answer is, if you use the COST price of materials and flowers instead of the retail price, 50%, but you will need to see if this is sustainable. See below. Here is a long answer, in case you are interested. It is a challenge to give you a figure for this formula, because I don't have all of the information. How much markup have you already put on the 'raw material' flowers? How much labour are you putting into arranging the flowers before delivery? Are they arrangements or just bunches? Do you have strong competitors nearby? May I share with you a more conventional way of working? The first three steps to increasing your profits are measure, measure and measure. It is very important to establish your actual costs. Best to use a spreadsheet—get help from a friend if you are not sure about using them. How much time does it take to do each type of arrangement? What is the actual cost to you of an arrangement? A bunch? Note that in calculating the costs of arrangement you should treat yourself as an employee—include your labour in your costs at an hourly rate that you might pay a suitable employee. I am not hugely experienced in retail, but it seems to me that retailers generally put about 100% markup on the cost of their goods (supermarkets probably a bit less), so let's work on that for a start. From this markup you pay your fixed expenses such as rent, insurance, advertising, cleaning and the labour (including yours—this is how you show the difference between owning a job and owning a business) of attending to customers. The rest is the profit from the risk you are taking by being in this business (if you are making a profit then you are owning a business as well as a job). From this you can now calculate what volume of sales you need just to pay these fixed expenses, before your business starts making a profit. Now when you calculate all of this, compare what you calculated that you should be charging with the prices your competitors are charging or your predecessor in the business was charging (some reconnaissance needed). If your competitors' prices are about the same as or higher than your calculated retail price, then everything is fine and you have your answer. If they are much lower, then you may need to lower your markup percentage. A smaller markup means you have to sell more flowers and here is where efficiency, marketing, earning customer loyalty, salesmanship, business development and all of those other things come in. So here I have given you a rather a large serving of information and suggestions to digest. Best of luck with your business. Do keep educating yourself about business and may you soon own a chain of florist shops! ---------- FOLLOW-UP ---------- QUESTION: Hello Mr Stephensen, Thank you very much for your very quick and informative reply. It is very much appreciated!! You are absolutely right to say that you can’t give me an exact figure for my formula because I haven’t supplied you with other vital bits of information. My apologies for that. I should’ve realised that you wouldn’t be able to give me a figure without other vital bits of information. Let me address that now and provide you with the information that you mentioned you would need: - I was until recently doubling my wholesale price to get my retail price, but now I treble my wholesale price to get my retail price (this applies to flowers and all other materials used). - The labour cost for orders, is approximately 10%. So for example, for a £50 order, £5 (10%) will be spent on labour in making the product. - Yes, most of the time I sell arrangements. When I do sell just bunches or plants, they are sold at my retail price (which is three times wholesale price), and that’s how I make money from selling those products. - I do have quite a bit of competition nearby, yes. (I have researched the prices that local florists charge and my prices are very similar.) Now that I’ve supplied the above information, I’m hoping you’ll be able to give me a rough figure for my formula. If you need more information, please tell me and I will provide it. Thank you, Peter Hughes
Answer:	Hi again, Peter I am trying to understand why this formula is as it is, as there seem to be costs mysteriously divided on each side of it. Is the purpose of this formula perhaps to determine how much worth of flowers and materials you will use to make up the order? This interpretation I can make sense of, so I'll go on that basis until you correct me. Let's assume for simplicity that the order is all arrangements. If your 10% labour is a cost, then you need to add a profit to this labour cost. Let's say that the resale price of labour is also three times the cost (in my experience this seems to be the case). This markup of labour, flowers and material is the gross profit from which you take your fixed expenses, leaving your net profit. If you are in fact tripling the labour cost, then surely your X would be 30%. For a $100 order you say the labour cost is $10 and so what you need to charge the customer is $30 for the labour. This leaves $70 worth of flowers that you can use. If there are fixed costs that relate specifically to the order, such as a delivery fee, than you would have to factor that in to the percentage somehow. Am I close to understanding your question?

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Answer Question / Revise Answer/David Stephensen

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You answered this question on 07/08/13

Questioner:	peter
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	A Question For David Stephensen
Question:	Hello, Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my question. It is much appreciated! I have recently taken over a florist (a small shop). I am looking to improve the amount of profit that the business makes, which currently is very little. As far as I know, a florist works like this: A florist takes an order, X percent is deducted straight away from the order total to account for labour costs, fixed costs and profit. Then, flowers plus other materials (at retail price) are used to make the product. To illustrate: for an order of £40, a percentage, let’s randomly pick 20%, is deducted straight away, leaving £32 for the flowers etc. My question to you is this: what should the “X percent” (see above) be? N.B. I am aware that there probably are better formulas than the one I use and have described above; however, I urge to answer my question directly, rather than suggest a completely different formula. Thank you, Peter Hughes
Answer:	Hi Peter A short start point answer is, if you use the COST price of materials and flowers instead of the retail price, 50%, but you will need to see if this is sustainable. See below. Here is a long answer, in case you are interested. It is a challenge to give you a figure for this formula, because I don't have all of the information. How much markup have you already put on the 'raw material' flowers? How much labour are you putting into arranging the flowers before delivery? Are they arrangements or just bunches? Do you have strong competitors nearby? May I share with you a more conventional way of working? The first three steps to increasing your profits are measure, measure and measure. It is very important to establish your actual costs. Best to use a spreadsheet—get help from a friend if you are not sure about using them. How much time does it take to do each type of arrangement? What is the actual cost to you of an arrangement? A bunch? Note that in calculating the costs of arrangement you should treat yourself as an employee—include your labour in your costs at an hourly rate that you might pay a suitable employee. I am not hugely experienced in retail, but it seems to me that retailers generally put about 100% markup on the cost of their goods (supermarkets probably a bit less), so let's work on that for a start. From this markup you pay your fixed expenses such as rent, insurance, advertising, cleaning and the labour (including yours—this is how you show the difference between owning a job and owning a business) of attending to customers. The rest is the profit from the risk you are taking by being in this business (if you are making a profit then you are owning a business as well as a job). From this you can now calculate what volume of sales you need just to pay these fixed expenses, before your business starts making a profit. Now when you calculate all of this, compare what you calculated that you should be charging with the prices your competitors are charging or your predecessor in the business was charging (some reconnaissance needed). If your competitors' prices are about the same as or higher than your calculated retail price, then everything is fine and you have your answer. If they are much lower, then you may need to lower your markup percentage. A smaller markup means you have to sell more flowers and here is where efficiency, marketing, earning customer loyalty, salesmanship, business development and all of those other things come in. So here I have given you a rather a large serving of information and suggestions to digest. Best of luck with your business. Do keep educating yourself about business and may you soon own a chain of florist shops!

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You answered this question on 02/03/13

Questioner:	ashley
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	owner of llc
Question:	On the llc i listed my husband as mgrm and me as mgr...can we each own 50% of the business?
Answer:	Hi Ashley I live in Australia and am not familiar with the laws that govern LLCs. I can therefore only take you part of the way on your journey of understanding. Here in Australia we only have this structure for non-profits. Everyone else has to have either a partnership or a proper company. From a brief reading about them I gather that they are based on 'members' and I imagine that that your LLC has only two members, your husband and you. I'd imagine that you have set up your LLC with equal ownership. I also imagine that ownership is not changed by the fact of being an office-bearer. If I am guessing all of this correctly, then you would indeed own 50% each no matter what titles you give yourselves. This answer may clarify the way you need to think about the way LLCs work and help you on your way, but please seek confirmation from someone in USA who actually knows about them. When you do find out, I'd love it if you got back to me and told me how close I was. I found these web pages about LLCs: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/191788 Please feel free to visit my website http://qdt.com.au and my blog http://qdt.com.au/blog Cheers David

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You answered this question on 07/28/12

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

None

Questioner:	AJ
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Contractors & management
Question:	If a manager is to appoint a contractor and the manager wants really good quality software developed should the managers approach be to make the standards higher than what is to be delivered so contractor has to do that and deliver a super high standard or is a better approach for the manager and the contractor to sit down and work together as to what an agreed high level standard is?
Answer:	The quality of software is a bit harder to determine than the quality of a physical product. If I was the manager I would specify detailed acceptance criteria for the software that would form part of the contract with the developer. These would include: * User acceptance testing method and results (can the intended users learn it easily and use it easily?) * Software testing method and results (is it bug-free?) * Internal documentation and maintainability (can a programmer other than the contractor find their way around the code and maintain it?) * Functionality test results (does it do everything that you want it to do completely and correctly?) You could engage a third party to help with this, or at least to review the final criteria for you. The developer, if they are worth their salt, should help you to develop the criteria as they discover your requirements. It would be fair to pay the contractor to help you develop the detailed acceptance criteria. I'm not sure what you mean by 'standards'. If you mean that it is bug-free, easily usable, does what you want it to do and is maintainable after the contractor finishes, then why would you want low standards? If you mean its level of sophistication (its features), then that comes at a cost and you need to carefully work out and specify exactly what you want. The developer really needs to know what features you want. If you move the goal posts in the middle of the job they will rightly ask for more money. The specifications for software are best to be a team effort involving the users. If the manager specifies the software without consulting the users, you can be pretty sure that it will end up costing you a lot of money and frustration. Please ask a supplementary question if I have not yet answered your question. Cheers

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You answered this question on 03/08/12

Questioner:	Denis
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Management program
Question:	"Hi, We have a piece of undeveloped land and ideas of planting premium crops like vanilla for exports and as well as planting organic vegetation for local consumption. The land is 3 1/2 hours away from the capital city with population of 460,000. Migrant workers are a plenty. We wish to know about managing, security and cost management.Hope you could throw in sme light.
Answer:	Hi Denis You question is very broad. You do not say what country you live in or whether you already have experience in business or in agriculture. I'll assume for now that you know very little. 1. Market research. Learn about the markets for your proposed product and how they work. 2. Business plan. You need to do a detailed business plan including calculations about money. If you don't know how to do a business plan, there are plenty of books you can buy and free resources on the internet to help you. Where I live in Australia the government has a counselling service that helps you learn how to do a business plan. You cold look up the free resources that the Victorian Government provides, for example. 3. Risk management. This is extremely important, even more so for you if you have little experience. It is very easy to enter a business with rose coloured glasses. Systematically think of all of the ways things could go wrong, how likely it would be and how bad the impact would be. Develop a written plan for what you would do in each case. 4. Government assistance. Frequently this is available in some form. Research it. Management: This covers many things. Firstly it is you taking charge of carrying out your business plan. Secondly is is you managing the risks. Thirdly it is you developing an efficient system for your business and making sure it runs that way. It is many things beside that. Security: I'm not sure what you mean by that. Whatever it is, however, it ultimately comes down to risk management. Cost management: This comes down to your business plan. It will be hard to stick to your business plan exactly. You will create your business plan so that the result is profitable. Inevitably, when you start up there will be costs that you did not foresee. You should allow for this in your plan. When you discover a new cost, plug it into your business plan spreadsheet and look at its effect on your profits. Similarly when your actual income is different from your planned income. Don't be tempted to just spend. Invest in your business by all means, but always look at the benefit you get from spending money. Don't let laziness or apathy creep in. When you have developed your business and you are ready to create a documented systems manual for it, please feel free to contact me as this is my speciality. My website is http://www.qdt.com.au and my blog is http://www.qdt.com.au/blog.

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You answered this question on 09/10/11

Questioner:	Amanda
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Spreadsheet templates :S
Question:	I am a secretary for a company that does painting, cleaning, tub/counter resurfacing, and general maintenance for a rapidly growing number of apartment complexes and residential homes. The owner of the company wants to have a current daily sheet of all the jobs scheduled for that day, scheduled upcoming jobs,and any office notes. We currently are using Google Documents, Microsoft Word so the owner, supervisors, and secretaries can view an updated version of it 24/7. Can you please suggest a business related program that would help us manage this as well as keeping track of invoices, employee info, and bills. Thank you for your time, I look forward to hearing from you.
Answer:	Hi Amanda My apologies for the long delay in responding to your question. It looks like your company is comfortable in the Cloud. That provides many advantages. For an all round integrated system you may like to look at Zoho (http://www.zoho.com). It has a wider variety of tools than Google, but integrates with Google as well. Is seems to me that you'd find most of the tools you want there. A lot of it is free of charge, but you have to pay when you reach a certain level of use. Please check the capabilities of the accounting software before you commit to it. Your accountant may prefer you to use software that they are familiar with. Please feel free to ask further questions. I should be able to answer more promptly from now on. My speciality is operation manuals. You are welcome to visit my blog http://www.qdt.com.au/blog and my website http://www.qdt.com.au. Cheers David

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You answered this question on 09/10/11

Questioner:	erick
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	The hands on CEO of jetblue
Question:	1- so whats wrong with a pilot staying in the cockpit in terms of being a contributor to a people-oriented business?
Answer:	Hi Erick Apologies for the delay in answering this rather cryptic question. I'll assume that you are asking if it is OK for a CEO to remain distant from and not communicate much with team members and customers. If you are omniscient and know exactly how your team members and customers think and feel and are able to rely 100% on this intuition, then you may be able to make correct strategic decisions for the success of the business. In my opinion it is a rare leader who can do this without some direct gathering of information and sentiment. However, the team and customers are human beings and in my opinion the majority of people like to know that a human being is in charge. Humans have a significant tribal and family oriented aspect. Have you read 'Lord of the Flies'? Without a tribal leader who gains respect and is seen to care personally about each member of the tribe, the team (and, often, the customer base as well) will form its own tribe. This tribe may not necessarily have attitudes and behaviour that is in the best interests of the company. A team with a 'them and us' attitude to management can prevent a business from succeeding. So unless you can be particularly inspiring over the public address system, hand over to the second officer and spend some time in the main cabin. Talk to some passengers and maybe serve a few refreshments. The cabin staff will love your honest vulnerable incompetence when you have a go at doing their job and you will gather valuable insights into what it is like to be a passenger on your plane. I've played along with your metaphor here. It will need some translating to fit whatever your business actually is. You are welcome to visit my blog http://www.qdt.com.au/blog and my website http://www.qdt.com.au. My main business is systems manuals for business. Cheers David

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You answered this question on 07/17/11

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
6	10	10	No

Comment:

None

Questioner:	DAVID
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Business in NY
Question:	Dear David, I am new resident in Newyork; what are suitable businesses for me in Newyork with the capital of 600,000 to 700,000 USD ?! Thanks and regards, David
Answer:	Hi David Sorry about the long delay in answering. I am a bit pressed for time so can only give you a brief answer. I assume you want to be hands-on in this business. Is it New York state or NYC? I'll assume NYC. Upstate areas may be a little more like home for you, I guess, but most of my answer should still apply. You first need to immerse yourself in the culture of NYC and get a feel for the place and its districts. Also you need to imagine the types of business that you have affinity for. As much as possible, mix with other business people and join some business networking groups or clubs. Meet as many people as possible. From this research you will get ideas and contacts and discover opportunities. Buy or borrow Brad Sugars books about buying and renovating businesses. He is the founder of Action Coaching and his ideas are very good. The stories he tells are of people spending only a few thousand on a business that is surviving but has potential, and buiding them up into great businesses buy use of good business techniques. You could save your capital for later when you are more certain of an opportunity that arises. The following link is to one of my previous answers, giving a way of determining the value of a business for purchase. It is not how a lot of people think. You want to buy a business, not a job. If you also want to employ yourself in it, that is fine, but the business should make money whether you work in it or not. http://en.allexperts.com/q/Managing-Business-1088/2008/10/Taking-existing-Restau You may consider working as an employee for a while in the type of business that you like. This is a way of getting paid to learn more about that type of business in NYC. So if I was in your shoes I'd do a lot of research to find what was right for me and not put my money into anything without really understanding the local game. Please feel free to ask supplementary questions if I have not hit the spot with you yet. And also feel free to visit my website http://www.qdt.com.au and sign up for my blog at http://www.qdt.com.au/blog Cheers David

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You answered this question on 04/23/11

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

Thank you

Questioner:	Claude
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Self Storage business
Question:	Mr. Stephensen I am interested in the self storage business or mini storage. I would like to start with the storage locker business to get my foot in the industry and offer more bigger storage space when i am ready for such investments. But, if i am offering a storage locker business what service does this type of business offer that is different from the lokers that banks are offering? Where can i have more informations on this business model? Thank you very much
Answer:	Hi Claude Sorry for the late response. I'm not sure what the banks offer in Quebec, but here it is only small spaces for valuable items. Self storage can be secure but also offer much more space for the same price or less. Research your competitors both in your own town and in other places. For each competitor, try using their service. What are their strengths and weaknesses? In what ways could you do better? Are any of the businesses for sale? It is easier to buy a business than to start one. Search the internet for self-storage and similar terms, and read all you can about how people operate these businesses. Write to them as a potential customer and ask them questions. If you can find one that is surviving but badly managed, try offering to buy it. You can build it up and make it prosper. To calculate the goodwill value of the business, calculate the profit less all wages INCLUDING the owner's wage. Multiply the profit by 2. This is what you should offer + value of assets. It may seem insulting to the owner, but if they want to exit, they will accept your offer. From your research into other businesses you will work out the way you want to set up your own and what will be your sustainable competitive advantage. For your storage locker business, research banks and any other locker services. When I visited Montreal in 1998 they did not offer lockers in railway stations, remembering the terrorist acts from years before. You need to seek opportunities. Who needs a locker? Where are these people? When do they need a locker? How big? At the stations in Australia lockers are now fully automatic. For longer term storage, this may be worth considering. It would save you labour costs but cost more to set up. Please ask follow up questions if you have some. When your business grows and you have employees, please check out my website http://www.qdt.com.au, where I help people create and document business systems. Good luck! Cheers David

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You answered this question on 03/04/11

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

Thanks, I'll ask you If I had problems.

Questioner:	ryuko seiko
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Business Start-up
Question:	QUESTION: To build a small business like "film distributing" What more requirements do I need to put in mind to have a succesful business. Example: I need,documentation,Ordering,Selling But what documentations will I need? and other more. ANSWER: Hi Ryuko This is a very broad question. I'll give you some basic answers Firstly you need a business plan that explains how your business will operate and estimates the income and expenditure tat it will have. Then you need to design forms or other ways of recording the day to day transactions. For many of these you can just buy them from a stationery shop: Customer information, Supplier information, Order, Invoice, Receipt You need a system for keeping your accounts. You need a plan for marketing, including a website. As your business grows you need to write down in detail how you do the following things: 1. Plan and manage your business and measure performance 2, Market your goods and services 3. Sell, maintain customer relationships, measure sales performance 4. Do any manufacturing or deliver any service 5. Select suppliers and purchase from them 6. Pay bills, receive payments, pay wages, manage financial records 7. Employ train and care for your team 8. Ensure that your workplace is safe and respond to safety issues 9. Provide office and other site facilities for your business to operate in. I hope this helps You are welcome to visit my website http://www.qdt.com.au and subscribe to my blog http://www.qdt.com.au/blog Cheers ---------- FOLLOW-UP ---------- QUESTION: Wow, Thats very helpful. Thanks so much But what kind of system do you mean to keep track of accounts. Accounts as in financial? And sorry for the broad question
Answer:	Hi Ryuko Yes. Financial management. Recording your income and expenditure, putting all amounts into categories producing financial reports such as profit an loss. If it is very simple you can do it on paper, but it is better to use accounting software like Quickbooks. While your business is small you can use simpler, cheaper bookkeeping software instead of Quickbooks. Cheers David

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You answered this question on 03/04/11

Questioner:	ryuko seiko
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Business Start-up
Question:	To build a small business like "film distributing" What more requirements do I need to put in mind to have a succesful business. Example: I need,documentation,Ordering,Selling But what documentations will I need? and other more.
Answer:	Hi Ryuko This is a very broad question. I'll give you some basic answers Firstly you need a business plan that explains how your business will operate and estimates the income and expenditure tat it will have. Then you need to design forms or other ways of recording the day to day transactions. For many of these you can just buy them from a stationery shop: Customer information, Supplier information, Order, Invoice, Receipt You need a system for keeping your accounts. You need a plan for marketing, including a website. As your business grows you need to write down in detail how you do the following things: 1. Plan and manage your business and measure performance 2, Market your goods and services 3. Sell, maintain customer relationships, measure sales performance 4. Do any manufacturing or deliver any service 5. Select suppliers and purchase from them 6. Pay bills, receive payments, pay wages, manage financial records 7. Employ train and care for your team 8. Ensure that your workplace is safe and respond to safety issues 9. Provide office and other site facilities for your business to operate in. I hope this helps You are welcome to visit my website http://www.qdt.com.au and subscribe to my blog http://www.qdt.com.au/blog Cheers

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You answered this question on 02/23/11

Questioner:	LIM Choon bing
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	New models of Evaluation Forms?
Question:	Hi, Thought I'd take a stab at this. Are there any new forms of project evaluation forms that are not 'retail' looking, i.e. simple forms that people check into boxes? Perhaps something more substantive and more all encompassing, but still does not bother the client too much when filling in? I am asking this as we are a small company doing work on 3-4 months basis with UN Agencies, and from time to time we send out project evaluation forms at the end of projects for feedback. The forms we use then to be quite simplistic, intended to not bother the client too much. Are there any other more advanced ways to go about it all?
Answer:	Hello Have you thought of online surveys, requested by email? Here are some free services to play with http://freeonlinesurveys.com/ http://www.kwiksurveys.com/ http://www.websurveycreator.com http://www.surveymonkey.com/ I favour feedback forms that have both multiple choice or ratings questions, each one with a place to write comments. The most important thing with feedback forms is how you phrase the question. Spend some time designing questions to get the answers you really need to hear. If you are not inviting pain as well as pleasure, then your questionnaire is not so useful. Why do you want to do the survey? Is it so you can improve? Yes? Then you have to invite pain. Yes you are right not to bother the client. Make it REALLY easy to answer the questions--short, sharp and to the point. If you want them to take some trouble, then bribe them with a small gift. Before they start, give them an honest estimate of the time it will take to answer it. I just had a creative thought that I'll share. My persistence level with online surveys is quite low. If I hit a question that I think is inappropriate or too hard to answer, or the survey goes on too long, I'll abandon it half way through. What if you told a story or a joke gradually through the survey, so that the person would have to get to the end to hear the end of the story or the punchline? That is my stroke of genius for the day. Thanks for the question! Cheers David

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You answered this question on 02/21/11

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	No

Comment:

Very clear and concise answer to a simple question. Quick reply as well. Thanks

Questioner:	Simon
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	splitting proffits
Question:	Hi there - I have no idea if you are the right person to ask this so please feel free to say that you aren't! I was just wondering, what is the normal way to split profits if equipment that is jointly owned goes out on hire and one of the people who jointly own the equipment got the hire, organised it and basically took care of it all. Is there a normal way to split profits in this situation? thanks Simon
Answer:	Hi Simon Pay a service fee to the person who does the work, based on the time taken to administer the rental and maintain the equipment. Take this fee out and split the profits that are left. It would be the same if you had an employee doing this work. The partnership would have to pay the employee's wages before taking the profit on the rental. In fact, the person doing all of the work is essentially an employee of the partnership and should be paid a wage. To calculate it, just imagine the employee and what they would need to be paid. Please feel free to ask follow up questions You are welcome at my website http://www.qdt.com.au, and to read my blog on documenting a business http://www.qdt.com.au/blog Cheers David

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You answered this question on 02/17/11

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

Dear David Thank you. Thanks & Regards, Prashant S Akerkar

Questioner:	prashant akerkar
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Adding Video Link/s in Business Card - Can it Add Value ?
Question:	QUESTION: Dear David Adding Video Link/s in Business Card - Can it Add Value ? For example : The Hyperlink URL for youtube.com - free video upload service on the net listed in the Business Card will Point to the Business Card Owner's Video Presentation on Specific Business Function. i.e Sales and Marketing, Human Resources, Accounting, Projects, Finance,R&D and ... Summary : On My Business Card along with my designation,company name, corporate url, corporate address, contact nos i add my video movie links i.e say i publish my videos on youtube.com and this link i would like to add on my Business Card. Can it add value ? Thanks & Regards, Prashant S Akerkar ANSWER: Yes, of course! Why not? Good idea! I assume you will put something like this: Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/prashant Cheers ---------- FOLLOW-UP ---------- QUESTION: Dear David Thank you. My Video/s will be recorded by a professional video shooter on a camcorder where i will speak on my products, services, sbu and business offering. once it is done, i will upload my youtube.com video links on my corporate home page or on my linkedin profile. Lastly as you mention it may add value when i will distribute my business card/s to potiential and existing customers after publishing my videos on youtube.com . Thanks & Regards, Prashant S Akerkar
Answer:	Hi Prashant (I never know which name to use when I am addressing an Indian whom I don't know well) This will be very good! May I suggest that you add variety to the visuals of your video, especially if you are having it made professionally. If it is just your 'talking head' right through, you may lost your viewers' attention. Can you prepare some evidence of the quality of your service? * Some charts to show 'before' and 'after' from some of your successful customers * A PowerPoint presentation explaining your service and its benefits * Photos or footage of you working with with your existing clients, or working in your office or something, anything except just standing in front of the camera talking for the whole video * Text of testimonials that your customers have written for you (ask for some if you don't have any), or even get a happy client to go on the video and say what a great guy you are * A little music may be good, but make it quiet, neutral, inviting music, without an aggressive, heavy rock beat. Better no music than bad music. I'd love to see it when it is finished. Please come back to this question and give me the link. Cheers

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Answer Question / Revise Answer/David Stephensen

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You answered this question on 02/17/11

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

Dear David Thank you. Thanks & Regards, Prashant S Akerkar

Questioner:	prashant akerkar
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Adding Video Link/s in Business Card - Can it Add Value ?
Question:	Dear David Adding Video Link/s in Business Card - Can it Add Value ? For example : The Hyperlink URL for youtube.com - free video upload service on the net listed in the Business Card will Point to the Business Card Owner's Video Presentation on Specific Business Function. i.e Sales and Marketing, Human Resources, Accounting, Projects, Finance,R&D and ... Summary : On My Business Card along with my designation,company name, corporate url, corporate address, contact nos i add my video movie links i.e say i publish my videos on youtube.com and this link i would like to add on my Business Card. Can it add value ? Thanks & Regards, Prashant S Akerkar
Answer:	Yes, of course! Why not? Good idea! I assume you will put something like this: Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/prashant Cheers

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You answered this question on 09/23/10

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

Dear David, Thanks for your quick reply. I t helped me a lot, With warm regards, Sourav

Questioner:	Sourav
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	Yes
Subject:	Job Title - Need Suggestion
Question:	QUESTION: Hi David, This is Sourav. I run a small website designing & development company. We are only 2 people in this company. I am pretty much confused in what to put my designation in the business card. I mean what should I write in my business card as my designation so that the big boys don't laugh behind my back. Should I write "Founder / Owner" in my business card? But I personally feel it represents a huge ego as a small organization and not much professional too. Waiting for your valuable suggestion then. Thanks & regards, Sourav ANSWER: Hi Sourav It is better to give the impression that your business is bigger than it really is. This allows bigger clients to be interested in you. If they hire you, you can soon employ people to do the work, and, suddenly, you are bigger! Think of the position you put on your card as creating a picture of what your business will be. When you were little your mum probably bought clothes a bit too big for you and you grew into them. Your business promotion is a bit the same. Ideas for positions: A Senior web designer Senior consultant These are good because that say that clients can talk technical stuff to you right away. B Director Chief Executive Officer These are not so good, because often managers are managers and don't know anything about the how to do the work. It is better to only use these titles if you are in that position in a larger business. If a client calls they will expect to be handed down promptly to a consultant who knows something. C You can also have just your name and no title, which suggests a 'flat' structure for your business. People like a democratic-looking business. It looks up to date and not hierarchical. In my opinion there is little value in identifying yourself as the owner or founder of the business. It immediately makes your business look small or inefficient. A client might ask: If you were the owner of a good business, you'd be at the beach while your employees ran the business. Why are you still working in it? Hope this helps. When you have grown the business and you need a procedure manual, think of me: http://www.qdt.com.au. You can subscribe to my blog: http://www.qdt.com.au/blog Cheers David ---------- FOLLOW-UP ---------- QUESTION: Dear David, Thank you very very much for your quick answer, Just one question if I put no title in my card then dosen't it raise a few questions to "his" mind like whom do I report to or something like that... Thanks again, Waiting for your reply, With warm regards, Sourav
Answer:	Hi Sourav If I think of this in a cultural context, I see that a missing designation is not appropriate for India. It instantly labels you as nobody. From what I understand about your situation, my best suggestion is 'Senior Consultant' Cheers David http://www.qdt.com.au

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You answered this question on 09/22/10

Questioner:	Sourav
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Job Title - Need Suggestion
Question:	Hi David, This is Sourav. I run a small website designing & development company. We are only 2 people in this company. I am pretty much confused in what to put my designation in the business card. I mean what should I write in my business card as my designation so that the big boys don't laugh behind my back. Should I write "Founder / Owner" in my business card? But I personally feel it represents a huge ego as a small organization and not much professional too. Waiting for your valuable suggestion then. Thanks & regards, Sourav
Answer:	Hi Sourav It is better to give the impression that your business is bigger than it really is. This allows bigger clients to be interested in you. If they hire you, you can soon employ people to do the work, and, suddenly, you are bigger! Think of the position you put on your card as creating a picture of what your business will be. When you were little your mum probably bought clothes a bit too big for you and you grew into them. Your business promotion is a bit the same. Ideas for positions: A Senior web designer Senior consultant These are good because that say that clients can talk technical stuff to you right away. B Director Chief Executive Officer These are not so good, because often managers are managers and don't know anything about the how to do the work. It is better to only use these titles if you are in that position in a larger business. If a client calls they will expect to be handed down promptly to a consultant who knows something. C You can also have just your name and no title, which suggests a 'flat' structure for your business. People like a democratic-looking business. It looks up to date and not hierarchical. In my opinion there is little value in identifying yourself as the owner or founder of the business. It immediately makes your business look small or inefficient. A client might ask: If you were the owner of a good business, you'd be at the beach while your employees ran the business. Why are you still working in it? Hope this helps. When you have grown the business and you need a procedure manual, think of me: http://www.qdt.com.au. You can subscribe to my blog: http://www.qdt.com.au/blog Cheers David

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You answered this question on 06/29/10

Questioner:	Randy
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Quizzes
Question:	Just wondering when putting together user guides and writing quiz's should it be open book or closed book when users take the quiz?, what are your thoughts as I'd be keen to hear your opinion.
Answer:	These days it is generally more important to be able to find information than it is to be able to remember it. Also in what seems from your question to be workplace training, it is better to let the learners decide whether they are testing themselves in open book or closed book mode. You can suggest to them a preferred mode, but in the end they'll do what they want. If you create questions that apply the concepts to solve problems, then you'll avoid this dilemma, because even if the learners can look up the text, they still have to understand the concept before they can solve the problem. If you are creating a test that leads to a formal qualification, or if the skill is important, for example, for safety and the learners need a certain score before being allowed to do something, then it may be more appropriate to have closed book, since then you may need to test whether they remember the training material. Please feel free to ask follow up questions and to red my blog about business documentation. http://www.qdt.com.au/blog Cheers

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You answered this question on 06/29/10

Questioner:	Lisa
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Driving positive awareness
Question:	I am just wondering how to endorse a more positive culture towards the intranet which we have in place but for some processes there seems to be a lot of information on the intranet which is not heavily utilized by the business. Any thoughts on how to drive more awareness and expose them to the positive side of the intranet?
Answer:	Hi Lisa Firstly consider the health of your intranet. Is it well designed, consistent, concise, navigable and usable? If possible do some usability testing, or at least observe some people using it, to make sure that people are comfortable using it. Secondly is there a competing source of information? Is it duplicated on the Intranet or is it separate information? You could make the intranet the only source of this information, a one stop shop. Is it the only source of process information that people should be following but don't know about? If yes then you need to deliver training on this, get executive buy-in to direct employees to follow the documented process and conduct audits that ensure people are complying with it. Is it difficult to get these directives because the workplace is somewhat anarchistic and people can do what they want (within reason)? If yes then you need to employ marketing techniques and sell the idea of using it. Is it chaotic, inconsistent and with duplications and overlaps, the result of contributions from various teams, each wanting to do things their own way with little regard for the other teams? If yes then it can only be sorted out by team leaders and managers cooperating. This is probably not going to happen unless the CEO insists, funds a team to unite the various collections and sort out the duplication and forces the managers to cooperate. Could be a big job You will know you are winning when something happens like an event at my client's site this week. It is a blue collar workplace where for too long people did what they thought best and generally were OK, except that it depended on long experience and it was impossible to improve safety and efficiency. We have established an intranet, told people they have to do exactly what it says (but could suggest changes) and would be sacked of they didn't follow it. On the site is a wealth of navigable information that explains their work. Last week we had a failed publish and today another part of the intranet broke down. The Quality Manager was DELIGHTED to be swamped with complaints from workers. We fixed the problem, but it was so good to know people are depending on it. Our injury rate has dropped to almost zero in the past year. I don't really know enough about your scenario. If I haven't hit any right spots here please give me a follow up question. Cheers

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You answered this question on 04/28/10

Questioner:	Lisa
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	question regarding
Question:	Hi there, When applying for a job that requires good documentation skills, its easy enough to demonstrate but how can you write it to compliment. One of the things I was always told in all roles is I communicate effectively both in oral and written and management would praise my ability in having superb and sound documentation skills. Any ideas on how I could write that? I was always called upon to overlook documentation that had been written by other departments to ensure it was to a high standard before it was released to the client.
Answer:	Hi Lisa What you wrote in your question is a good start. Why not expand that and describe the circumstances in more detail? Make it into evidence, that on this occasion, with this employer you did this and got this response to your work. Specific examples of events and situations are a great supplement to general claims of your ability. I think it is good to include evidence about as many general claims as possible that you make about yourself. Can you make it so real that the person evaluating your application could ring your old boss and ask them to confirm what you say happened? Have you written or contributed to a style guide? Say that you can do it and are interested in promoting corporate documentation standards or even taking leadership in them, or training staff to follow them. If you go to my website http://www.qdt.com.au and sign up for my blog, the 'free gift' is a style guide that may be of interest to you. By the way did you 'review' the other department's material rather than 'overlook' it? Follow up questions are welcome. Cheers David

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You answered this question on 04/27/10

Questioner:	Stephanie
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	use cases
Question:	What make up good use cases in business analysis, I am a junior that wants to learn more about this, are you able to elaborate?
Answer:	Hi Stephanie The main thing is for them to thoroughly address what the user might want to do. This means sitting down with a user and finding things out in detail. It also means being aware of the traps and unusual circumstances that may arise and working through them. Most of all, it is really important to understand the business process behind what you are working on. I've seen some pretty superficial use cases and by the time they got to (technical writer) me it was hard to change things that had been glossed over. So number 1 tip to a junior business analyst is to really understand the business process well. How it works and its purpose. The software you are helping to design is for supporting this process and so ideally it will fit like a glove. Secondly is to be able to anticipate the confusions that will arise. You can only do this by being a really good interviewer of the users and be able to empathise with them (walk in their shoes). So, in a couple of words: thoroughness and full understanding. Sorry this is a rushed answer. I am so time poor at the moment.

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You answered this question on 04/23/10

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

None

Questioner:	colin
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	writing
Question:	Emily, Website: www.webtest.co.nz Just wondering if you could take a look at this site as I want to apply for a role there and let me know what you get as the core of what they do, I get software testing and automation, reason I ask is they want in the application for us to read it and mention that we have understood what they are about. If you could help, I'd be greatful. Thanks. Colin.
Answer:	Hi Colin I'm not Emily, but I can tell you something about this industry. (My grandfather was Emil, if that helps.) This company tests software especially web-based software applications such as, say, online reservations systems. Software testing is a whole technology in itself, with lots of automation and systemising. As a software tester you might spend some time manually trying to use software, but more of the time you'd spend programming tests that will run automatically each time the software is compiled. There is some IBM software called Robot that you can program to act like an interactive user, click buttons and check that the screen looks right. One of my clients has tutorial exercises associated with their software. They are working towards creating automated tests that run through every tutorial exercise every time they compile. The testing program would automatically install the software and then carry out all of the tutorials. Hope this gives you some more idea. If you ever need to know about procedure manuals, please visit my website http://www.qdt.com.au or sign up for my blog at http://www.qdt.com.au/blog Cheers David

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You answered this question on 04/21/10

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

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Questioner:	Bonnie
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	writing
Question:	I just need to update this section and have had a go myself but am wondering if you could please (Pretty please) offer me a re-write for the below so that it packs a punch: 1. Maintained SalesLogix CRM system – application upgrade, re-designed the database structure and user interface, rewrote VB script at the back end to meet the business needs, and assisted in upgrading the window application to a web server.. 2.Have hands-on experiences with SQL Server Tools. I was involved in SQL server migration and database backup planning. 3. Worked with the web team to improve the overall website performance. 4.Redesigned the dimensions and cube in Analysis Service for the management team to effectively analyze the sales and revenue. 5. Worked well under stress and tight deadline. I was given a project to synchronize a client’s member list with GSB’s CRM system and the project needed to be released within two weeks. The client’s list was in a different data source and it included more than 2000 companies and 5000 contact people. I used Integration Service to design the process to get the data from data source, identify and eliminate the duplicates, synchronize with the GSB’s database and wrote the VB script to populate the processed data to the destination data source. The project was completed by me with plenty of time for testing. 6. Designed and completed the reports for the internal users and external clients according to the business requirements using Report Service. For example, I delivered the category and contract reports for the clients to have a better overview of their yearly spends and savings as well as the potential savings they could have using GSB’s services. This gave the clients more opportunities to trade with GSB and in turn it increased the potential revenue for GSB. 7. Responsible for all the data requests.
Answer:	Hi Bonnie I don't have time for a rewrite, and it is better to be your words anyway. I'll give you some comments and tips that may help. I assume that this is either a job or promotion application or a performance review self-evaluation. Your evidence and example formula is good. You need an example for each claim. It is better to describe a specific thing you did and the positive result that came from it. No 5 is the best example so far. I'd be aiming to have evidence that is measurable and immediately confirmable. Could your interviewer call a person who benefited from the item, with you right there in the room, and confirm the action and benefit that you describe? Is the first part of each point a selection criterion? If so, perhaps put it in bold. Ensure that you have consistent layout and punctuation for all points. Make it look professional. All other text must be in complete sentences with correct spelling and grammar. Use bullet points (hope you can drive the word processor OK for numbers and bullets) where appropriate for clarity, for example in item 1. Make sure you describe specific actions in sentences. What did you do with the application upgrade? If you can't describe a benefit from your action because you were just a team member, then appropriate the team achievement. Our team succeeded in ... by ... deadline with ... satisfaction of the people for whom were were doing the work. Avoid passive voice. Active voice is better: 'I completed this project with plenty of time for testing.' In this text you may have to duck and weave to avoid starting too many sentences with I, but active voice is nearly always better. Passive voice is a bit covert in business writing because it often hides the person who performs the action. In business we like to know who does what. How has the management team been going with their analysis since your work? What benefits? Hope this helps. Please follow up with further questions if you need to. Should you need to work on procedure manuals or general business writing, please visit http://qdt.com.au and subscribe to my blog at http://qdt.com.au/blog Cheers David

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You answered this question on 03/10/10

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

None

Questioner:	Laura
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Business analysis
Question:	I promise to rate your answer. I work in the field of IT as well, Business Analyst and we are having an icrease (sorry I am a junior not senior hence have asked this question) in GST (Goods & Services Tax). It will rise from 12.5% to 15%, as an aspiring professional, what are some of the key things I need to be thinking about when getting to work on a project like this, i.e. one of which will be processes and the implications on systems and how will it impact organizational change?
Answer:	Hi Laura I'm not sure of your role in this change, so I'll write generally about it. If it is not what you need to know, please send a follow up question and clarify. I can see two aspects: Impact on business strategy and impact on procedures. -------- Business Strategy: Assuming GST has similar rules in NZ to Australia, if your business is all 'business to business' then it may have no impact on your sales and purchases. If your customers are non-business consumers, then they may need persuading to pay the extra 2.5% for your products. Therefore your Sales and Marketing department will need to do some analysis to work out the possible impact and how to soften it for yourselves and your customers. This may end up in a change of marketing strategy and a change of communication with customers. The Sales and Marketing people will need to develop some changes in their procedures, document them and deploy them (if your company is organised enough to do that). If your customers sell to consumers, then any pressure on sales may reflect back on you and it may be to your advantage to help your customers deal with their possible reduced sales. --------- Procedures The main impact will be in financial management, sales and purchasing, where they will have to do these things -- Reconfigure the accounting software to be able to apply the new GST rate -- Reformat stationery such as invoices, statements, remittance advices and purchase orders -- Revise price lists showing clearly the date on which the new lists take over -- Write to clients advising the new prices and what they need to do when ordering around the changeover date -- Train sales staff to be aware of the price change and to understand enough about it to be able to explain the change to customers -- If you have any pre-set purchasing, be ready for price changes in most things that you purchase. This could affect your cash flow, since you may have to find an extra 2.5% up front when you purchase something (though you'll get it back later). Ensure that purchasing staff are all trained in the new prices as needed. -- Work out what happens on the changeover date, including switching all sales inventory items in the accounts system over to the new rate for invoicing and reminding sales staff of the new prices. Hope this is a start for you. If you like, please visit our website http://www.qdt.com.au and subscribe to our blog http://www.qdt.com.au/blog Cheers David

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You answered this question on 01/26/10

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

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Questioner:	Lisa
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	Yes
Subject:	Marketing
Question:	QUESTION: I run a resume writing/cover letter writing business and I was wondering if you could suggest something catchy that I could use to advertise it at a local cafe. so far I've been able to think of: Are you losing thousands as a result of being unemployed? Why not invest in yourself and have your resume professionally written and stand out from your compeition. Our team of writers write to a high standard and can be contacted on 123 for all your writing needs from CV's to Cover Letters, to Proof Reading, Copy & content Writing, Press & Proudct releases...etc ANSWER: Hi Lisa One thing is for sure, people in coffee shops have a VERY short attention span so your message has to be short and to the point. You need one large slogan of about 5 words. This must catch people's attention. In smaller print a brief sentence or two and your contact details including your website (see next paragraph). Do you have a website? If you want local business, get yourself an EASY TO REMEMBER .co.nz domain name and a simple "business card" website. For a more complex website I suggest you look seriously at Wordpress. This is blog software but perfect for many business websites. You can attract people to your website by your brilliant helpful blogs about writing. Wordpress has plenty of widgets and pages for your business information. Just an idea. You can see my blog at http://www.qdt.com.au/blog Anyway back to your sign. This is just off the top of my head with the time I have available: Expert resumés and cover letters (very large letters) Let us help you win that job (smaller letters underneath still readable from a distance) Resumés -- Letters -- Copy writing -- Content -- Press releases -- Product releases (even smaller letters) Lisa the Wordsmith www.lisawordsmith.co.nz 021 345 8374 (smaller letters but readable from a distance) Good luck! David PS: No apostophes with plurals even with acronyms. Use capitals and lower case to show the plural -- CVs. And set a goal: No typos in ANY communications. You are the professional. Show people that the buck stops with you (now that I've said this you will find a typo in my answer). ---------- FOLLOW-UP ---------- QUESTION: What about pricing, as my pricing is from $50.00
Answer:	Some ideas Base it on an hourly rate. What do you want to earn per hour? How long, on the average, will you take to do a job? You can only tell by doing some jobs and measuring carefully how long it takes to do each activity. You can offer a fixed price but it will only be a stab in the dark until you have your own set of statistics. Don't worry about the working for $5 per hour a few times. Get some gigs and see how long they take. Then you can set your price based on the time it takes. I imagine that some clients will be all over the shop and drive you crazy and others will be well organised and easy to help. If you have a fixed price it needs to be in the middle of these two. As you develop your service, find efficiencies. For example you could develop a questionnaire for the resumé and the cover letter. Let the client do the work. Why not? You also need to find out what your competitors are charging. If you want to charge more you need to be able to argue that you are better, explaining why. My friend Ingrid Cliff at heartharmony.com.au is a copywriter and may be able to counsel you about how to work out your prices. Tell her that I sent you for advice. Cheers David http://www.qdt.com.au

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You answered this question on 01/22/10

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

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Questioner:	Saleh
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	business writing and survival help
Question:	I really need help with writing this letter to my customers, otherwise sadly I’ll be joining the bankruptcy queue. I would really appreciate a re-write for the breif below as soon as possible. Again I would be most greatful for your help. Dear valued customers, Due to the recent holiday period that has passed, at present we are experiencing a dealy with the delivery of products. We apologise profusely for any inconveience caused and as a result we are happy at your request to provide an alternative solution as we do value our customers or if you wish a refund. During this time, we appreciate your patience and if you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact us, our details are below: Saleh S. (I’ll insert this)
Answer:	Hi Saleh Sorry about the late response. It has been quite a week! I'm late with my deliveries too! Your letter is already very good. I'll rewrite it, but only to make it more concise and improve punctuation and sentence length. It already communicated its message very well and would have been quite acceptable. Cheers David ------------ Dear valued customer, Due to the recent holiday period and other delays that we could not foresee, we are running late with delivering your order. We apologise profusely for any inconvenience caused. We are happy to provide an alternative solution or a refund on request. During this time we appreciate your patience. We are working hard to get back on schedule. If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact us. Our details are below.

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You answered this question on 11/26/09

Questioner:	Mufid
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Developing a business when you have a full time job
Question:	Dear Sir, I have my own print shop which opened for more than a year and when I open this small business I was called to work in big firm which concern Engineering jobs. I am a draftsman and graphic designer and have an excellent knowledge in computers and graphics. My issue is, the worker who works in my print shop is not experienced as me in this work and the fact is, no body will effort in thing as the owner will, and I always give better solutions because of experience. Because of my obligation in the engineering firm, I can not be fully occupied to upgrade my own business. I dream a lot to have my own business and now I feel far from it. About the income, exactly I give a salary to the worker as I have salary in the engineering firm. My print shop income goes ok but a lot of upgrading is missing, because with my control I will have a lot of services to inaugurate. Please I need your advice what to do, shall I leave the engineering firm or what. Thanks in advance.
Answer:	Hi Mufid You are not alone in this problem. We all wonder how we can find someone to run a business with initiative as if it was their own. Here are some ideas: Get some business development time Can you reduce your commitment to your employer by one day per week that you can spend developing your business? Is your employee suitable? Is your current employee trainable to run the business or do you need to find another person? Does he love the customers and does he give them more care than they expect? (Is he under-promising and over-delivering?) This is very important. Procedure manual It looks like you are frustrated because your employee cannot think of creative solutions. A procedures manual cannot help that very much. However, for the regular, routine things, and for the standards that you want to apply to work, do you have a system of writing down how to do each task? If you can produce a procedures manual for the business it has big advantages. Look at the successful franchises. They all have very detailed procedure manuals. -- It adds value to the business. You can sell it for more money because the buyer knows exactly how to run the business by reading the manual -- You can easily train new employees with it -- Your current employee can benefit by learning from your experience that you write down. HOWEVER -- There is a big advantage if the employee writes some of the manual. Give your employee paid time to write down what they do step by step. This is good because ---- Your employee is more likely to follow what they wrote themselves ---- Everything they write adds to the intellectual property of the business ---- You can review what they write, improve it, and train them in the improved ways of working Ongoing training of your employee If you have got the right employee and want to invest more in training, get them to record all of their jobs for the day and their solutions to the problems. Review these and see if there are better solutions. Make sure these are written down and become part of the procedure manual. Profit sharing Do you pay your employee according to the success of the business? Hope these ideas are helpful. Please follow up with more questions if you want. You may find helpful information on my website http://www.qdt.com.au

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You answered this question on 10/28/09

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

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Questioner:	Don
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	what makes a good manager
Question:	I am trying to make the move into a management position and would like to ask what makes a good manager (I realize this question may appear generic) but I would be keen to hear your thoughts on it.
Answer:	Hi Don As a manager your primary duty is to create an environment where your staff can do their work and add their own creativity for the best outcome. Most employees just want to get on with their job and do it well. Frustration with this breeds apathy. You love the people for whom you are responsible. You regularly acknowledge them for the work that they do and find a reason to celebrate regularly (birthdays, targets achieved, etc) If there are problems you understand the root cause and help to resolve that. Your staff feel safe to be open about mistakes. Mistakes are learning opportunities and need to be brought out into the open and examined for the system improvements that they yield. If you ever punished a staff member (and that is not a good word for a workplace) it would be for hiding a mistake and therefore depriving the team of an opportunity to improve. You don't do their work for them (see next point). You empower them. There is nothing worse than dealing with someone in a company who can't make decisions. This means that you trust them. You might also monitor their decisions and give them guidance for future cases, but you trust them. In empowering your staff you make sure that their powers are clearly explained and documented so they know where they stand. You seek feedback about the system from staff and implement system improvements. If the company is not good on system improvements, you at least do the ones you can do in your area and on behalf of your staff work for the improvements that need wider cooperation. In fact continual improvement of the business system is one of your responsibilities. You know the business system back to front and what everyone does. You know how to do their jobs (specialist technicians excepted, perhaps) and have been known to roll up your sleeves in a busy period. See also my answer "Keeping motivated" from 15 May 09. Contact me if you can't find it. Cheers David Stephensen www.qdt.com.au

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You answered this question on 10/21/09

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

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Questioner:	Rachel
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Business Process Analyst
Question:	How is a business process analyst different to a business analyst.
Answer:	Hi Rachel To tell the truth, the profession of Business Analyst is a little vague. People call themselves whatever they want. I can only give you my viewpoint. Business Analysts (BA) analyse how a business operates so that somebody can create something in the business, such as a database or a software package or a defined workflow. They may or may not be interested in human dynamics. They could well just be interested in the flow of product or data. A Business Process Analyst focuses more on the flows of communication amongst people. They certainly take account of product and data, but they want to know what the people do with it. I found a definition in http://www.modernanalyst.com/TheProfession/Roles/BusinessProcessAnalyst/tabid/18 It was a little different to my idea, but the common thread was of invention and development. I call myself a business process analyst. When I go into a business I often formally define for the first time what people have been doing instinctively or habitually, passing on their method by word of mouth. If they don't have a system then I help them to create one. I invent ways to describe the business, and help management to clarify muddy areas of their system. A BA, I suspect, would expect that the business already knew what they wanted and that it was their job to express the system in a form that a software or database developer could use. In an organisation I worked in recently, the BAs were quite junior. I'd be interested to hear other viewpoints on this. Cheers David QDT Management Consultants http://www.qdt.com.au

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You answered this question on 08/06/09

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

None

Questioner:	Phil
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Gaining new business
Question:	Hi there, I work for a web design company and am just looking on some strategies I could use to gain new clients, with the recession its a bit tough. The space we're in is developing websites - custom for specific requirements that are given to us. We are also a test shop - testing software before release to go live. Suggestions that you can give me would be great.
Answer:	Hi Phil. Sorry about the late reply. I'm not a great expert in this area, but I'll tell you what I know. I'm going to focus on local clients. International clients through your website is another ball game that I'm still learning myself. Ideas for capturing leads: * Join as many local business groups as possible and go to all of their functions. Give free advice at the meetings and give everyone you talk to at least two of your business cards. Call them a few days later to say Hi. If they are an interesting prospect, ask if you can visit them. Look through their website and give them some useful suggestions * Offer a free website checkup to see what needs improving, with a short, free report that includes some stuff that the lead doesn't need you for (and of course stuff that they do need you for) * Ask some compatible businesses like accountants or business coaches if they would like to give their clients vouchers for your free checkup. They would! * Become a local expert on web design. Write a column about it in a local newspaper (they might make you buy an ad!) * You can recycle all of your writing on your website as well in the form of a blog. This leads to the whole game of search engine optimisation (SEO) and internet marketing that I'm trying to learn about myself and maybe you already know. * It is easy to attract local clients through Google if you position your town or suburb in your home page so that Google will pick up "web design Christchurch" or whatever. This kind of localised SEO is the easiest SEO to achieve. * Local business is based on trust and confidence. Be the well-known person that people can talk to and who understands their needs * (Following from previous) ask your clients for referrals * At the business networking functions, focus on finding out what people need with their websites. You can't fill needs unless you know what the needs are * Do free jobs for non-profits. Make sure they are non-profits with lots of business members and that in exchange for your service they carry out an agreed marketing program for you (which can include your free checkups). Be conspicuous at the non-profit's functions so that you get to meet people. Ask them for referrals. * Get testimonials on your website and in materials that you give to leads * If you fix websites, measure hits before and after your work * If you aren't already, become SEO experts and market this with your service. As an alternative to your free checkup you could do a bit of free SEO. Measure it before and after to prove that it works. Have further service available to make it even better--full marketing with lead capturing, blog, etc. * If you can't close a sale with someone who has received your free service, at least get some referrals out of them. * Get in league with business coaches and be able to implement their strategies if they refer clients to you. * Follow up clients who have received your free service. Become their personal expert. Break it to them gently that you'll have to charge next time. * For your testing business, networking is paramount. You know yourself that you want to buy from someone you know or has been referred to you (I do, anyway). Building relationships is very important. Summary: Build relationships in whatever way you can Become a locally known expert Ask for referrals Give compatible businesses with lots of clients an offer they can't refuse to promote your services Form relationships with potential clients by giving some free service Have fun! Cheers David QDT Management Consultants http://www.qdt.com.au

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You answered this question on 07/12/09

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

None

Questioner:	Tim
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	motivating slack employees
Question:	Can you give me some ideas of how I can motivate employees, how to make work a good environment and how to ensure sickness by staff is not done frequently in winter. Would really appreciate. Thanks, Tim
Answer:	One could write a book about this, but here are some ideas. Some of these are general for happy workplaces in any season, but it is even important to have fun and be cheerful when days are short. This is in danger of being a ramble, but it is what came out when I started writing. -- Prevent seasonal affective disorder by having a cosy and well-lit workplace -- Celebrate birthdays or any other reason, so that employees look forward to these little breaks. If this is awkward, persist, find a good birthday coordinator to do it for you. -- No bullying or harassment. Get rid of bullies -- No negativity, bitchiness, destructiveness, covertness. If it is there, find it, find out why the perpetrator is angry, understand them so they feel listened to. If that doesn't fix them and they keep doing it, throw them out. If there have been problems with it, discuss it openly and see if the staff would like to adopt a 'no gossip' rule in the workplace. Set an example by your total respect, acceptance, understanding and love for all of your employees (but not sympathy or protection). -- If someone makes a mistake they should be able to report this to their workmates and their manager without fear of punishment, disapproval or other negativity. Instead, analyse the mistake and find the root cause. Use that information to change your company's system to reduce the chance of it happening again. Mistakes are great lessons for improvement, not a cause for bad feelings -- If people believe in what they are doing, they will tolerate lots of stress. If your business has the atmosphere of optimism, celebration of wins, team action, employees will work hard just for fun. You have to reward them both with personal acknowledgment and a share of the profits they bring you, such as in the form of bonuses. -- As manager or business owner, you are in a way the servant of your employees, not the other way around. It is not your job to protect them and mother them and feed them every morsel of work, but it is your job to make sure they have the best and happiest environment where they can be at their most creative. It is your job to hold the idea steady of a happy workplace so that they know you will always back them in their desire to do their best, facilitate it and acknowledge them for doing it. Of course some will want to do stuff that isn't on the business plan. Here is where your skill as a manager comes in -- to channel this creativity into the ways that fit the business plan rather than rejecting what they want to do. -- Expect a lot from your employees but don't expect the impossible. A bit of pressure is good, but be realistic about what a person can do. You can't afford to have overwhelmed or bitter employees. This is the art of leadership. If you can put yourself in their shoes, it will help. -- Do some research on an 'employer of choice' program. It may benefit your atmosphere and help you keep your staff. Cheers David QDT Management Consultants http://www.qdt.com.au

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You answered this question on 05/24/09

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

None

Questioner:	TJ
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Business Question
Question:	Hello, Over the summer I started a small lawn mowing business and its doing well. Due to our excellent lawn care - people have recommended us to their friends and so forth. I advertise on free sites to generate business. But am wondering if having a website of my own for lawn care educating my customers about what a neatly mowed lawn represents, how to cut grass at the right height and pictures of how neatly we do the lawn mowing - would this be helpful?
Answer:	Yes! Why not? You need to do research before setting up your website. Selecting a domain name is important and you need to study it before you do. The next step is to find a website host. There are many DIY website facilities these days, where you don't need to know much HTML CSS. Even your local internet service provider (ISP) or your domain name registry should have good services to help customers. After you have your domain name (since your customers are local it should be .co.nz, in my opinion), your next learning curve is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Once again your providers may have services but you need to study it at least to find out what it is about. There is a lot of information on the web about it. For your service, if you have little competition locally on the web, you should be able to go straight right to the top of Google search results (very hard for me to do with my business). For example if you work in Aspen Grove, then you use SEO techniques to show your site at the top when someone searches for 'lawn mowing aspen grove'. I just tried that and it yielded USA sites. You would hope that your users would then search for NZ sites only or add Queenstown to the search. For NZ sites there is no competition for that suburb and lawn mowing. So there is your first lesson in SEO. It is a fun area. And yes your idea about free education is good. That is a whole way to drive people to your site, too, to become a web authority on lawn care. Have fun! David QDT Management Consultants http://www.qdt.com.au

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You answered this question on 05/15/09

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

None

Questioner:	Erica
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	keeping motivated
Question:	I would like to know what are some ways stress can be reduced in the workplace, improve health and keep motivated during the cold winter. i.e. what are some things that can be done internally. Please let me know as would like a productive company.
Answer:	One could write a book about this, but here are some ideas. Some of these are general for happy workplaces in any season, but it is even important to have fun and be cheerful when days are short. This is in danger of being a ramble, but it is what came out when I started writing. -- Prevent seasonal affective disorder by having a cosy and well-lit workplace -- Celebrate birthdays or any other reason, so that employees look forward to these little breaks. If this is awkward, persist, find a good birthday coordinator to do it for you. -- No bullying or harassment. Get rid of bullies -- No negativity, bitchiness, destructiveness, covertness. If it is there, find it, find out why the perpetrator is angry, understand them so they feel listened to. If that doesn't fix them and they keep doing it, throw them out. If there have been problems with it, discuss it openly and see if the staff would like to adopt a 'no gossip' rule in the workplace. Set an example by your total respect, acceptance, understanding and love for all of your employees (but not sympathy or protection). -- If someone makes a mistake they should be able to report this to their workmates and their manager without fear of punishment, disapproval or other negativity. Instead, analyse the mistake and find the root cause. Use that information to change your company's system to reduce the chance of it happening again. Mistakes are great lessons for improvement, not a cause for bad feelings -- If people believe in what they are doing, they will tolerate lots of stress. If your business has the atmosphere of optimism, celebration of wins, team action, employees will work hard just for fun. You have to reward them both with personal acknowledgment and a share of the profits they bring you, such as in the form of bonuses. -- As manager or business owner, you are in a way the servant of your employees, not the other way around. It is not your job to protect them and mother them and feed them every morsel of work, but it is your job to make sure they have the best and happiest environment where they can be at their most creative. It is your job to hold the idea steady of a happy workplace so that they know you will always back them in their desire to do their best, facilitate it and acknowledge them for doing it. Of course some will want to do stuff that isn't on the business plan. Here is where your skill as a manager comes in -- to channel this creativity into the ways that fit the business plan rather than rejecting what they want to do. -- Expect a lot from your employees but don't expect the impossible. A bit of pressure is good, but be realistic about what a person can do. You can't afford to have overwhelmed or bitter employees. This is the art of leadership. If you can put yourself in their shoes, it will help. -- Do some research on an 'employer of choice' program. It may benefit your atmosphere and help you keep your staff. Cheers David QDT Management Consultants http://www.qdt.com.au

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You answered this question on 04/19/09

Questioner:	munsif ali from pakistan
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No
Subject:	machinery/office equipment's depreciation value
Question:	dear mr. davisd stephenson, I refer to your expertise of designing and producing procedures manuals for small and medium sized businesses. In this context, I have a question, for instance, I have a medium size business, in which I am using 100 computer units, each unit comprising a printer, scanner, v-wireless phone, monitor, cpu. Each computer unit has been alloted to business manager at different places far away. The maximum distance is 300 kilometres. Each computer unit costed me , for instance, 1200 u.s. dollars. How would you design a procedure that could help me,write the depreciation value against each sub-unit of computer in a book, since the day of purchase.wether recording depreciation value can be computerized. regards munsif ali from pakistan
Answer:	This is the basic accounting procedure of depreciating an asset. Do you have an accountant? Accounting software? Use either of these to keep your records. Please ask again if you need more help.

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You answered this question on 04/19/09

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
8	9	10	No

Comment:

thank you, that was helpful.

Questioner:	Paul
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Partnership Ownership Allocation
Question:	I am considering establishing a business partnership for a newly conceived internet business. Myself and my partner wil invest equal start-up capital into the business and I will contribute the business idea as a part of my investment. The idea is in the process of being copyright protected. What is the suggested means by which my business idea can be valued as a part of my equity contribution to the business, which could/would, therefore, create an imbalance of ownership.
Answer:	I am not really an expert here. I hope someone else can give you a fuller answer than this, but I'd like to comment. 1. It is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL that you resolve this issue about the idea openly honestly and then in writing with your partner before anything happens. It is a time bomb of the highest order, guaranteed to end in tears if not worked out before you do the business plan. 2. An idea is not copyrightable, as you probably know. Have you developed the idea and written it down? If it is your idea and you want it to have value beyond your equal share, why not work on it yourself a bit and develop it as a documented business system before bringing in your friend? Then it will exist as more than an idea and can carry weight in your argument for greater equity. 3. A documented business system does indeed carry weight as IP. Why not license it to the partnership like a franchise? That way you get annual rental rather than equity. Dribble income is the holy grail. Cheers David QDT Management Consultants http://www.qdt.com.au

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You answered this question on 04/19/09

Rating:

Knowledgeability	Clarity of Response	Politeness	Nomination?
10	10	10	Yes

Comment:

None

Questioner:	TJ
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	customer who won't pay for services
Question:	Hi, I started a small lawn mowing business but one of my customers has not paid despite the invoice and reminder. He got a bit cheeky and said he doesn't want us to do it not that we do a bad job but because he was annoyed that we mowed his lawns on a Saturday yet we've done it that way per his specifications. Anyway, I have plenty of customers but I want him to pay the $30.00 he owes us as am not willing to write it off as a "bad debt" and let him be the winner. How can I word something to recover my $30.00. Can you advise a polite way in which I can give it to him in writing.
Answer:	Don't waste too much of your life chasing after this idiot. Write to him reminding him of the occasion on which he ordered the work and how he said Saturday was OK or did not specify a day. Tell him that unless he pays the invoice by x/x/x date, you will pass his debt to a collection agency. Warn him that if the debt is listed with a credit reporting agency that it will affect his credit rating. This is all nonsense because the debt is too small to refer to a collection agency and you couldn't affect his credit rating with it. It is just bluff on your part. Spend no more than 30 min on this and then let it go. Really this is all just to make you feel better. You will get these people from time to time. More than needing the money you may be afraid that this will damage your sense of trust in humanity or that if he is allowed to get away with it he will do it to someone else. Be honest with yourself about this so you understand better how you tick. It is a good opportunity to learn something. To help this not happen again, introduce a more detailed procedure for making your contract for the work. Have a list of questions written down that you ask the customer and write down the answers. Design an order form and keep a supply with you. Have discipline about asking all of the questions and writing the answers. I got done for $12000 a few years ago through lack of my own basic procedures such as getting progressive payments. Who was the idiot in this case? Me! Cheers David QDT Management Consultants http://www.qdt.com.au

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You answered this question on 10/25/08

Questioner:	Chaitanya
Category:	Managing a Business
Private:	No View Published Answer
Subject:	Taking over existing Restaurant
Question:	Hi David My name is Chaitanya we are planning to take over an existing restaurant with 40 seater in the city in melbourne City-Australia we would like to know how much would the business be worth currently its making sales up to AUD $31000 per month. I would like to know what will be the profit percentage for that amount of sales in this kind of industry, & how to valuate the buying cost. If you can let mw know it would be great. Regards Chaitanya
Answer:	Hi Chaitanya Here is a method of valuing a business that the business brokers won't tell you. Firstly you need to decide if you are buying a job or a business. I'll assume you are wanting to buy a business. This means that you want something that can operate without you and be profitable. OK. Look at the books of the business. Assume that you are not working in it, so even the manager's salary has to come from the income of the business. If there is no manager's salary shown, put one in and recalculate. What is the annual profit of the business? My teachers tell me that a suitable Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio for a small business like this is 2-3. Multiply the profit that you have calculated by 2 or 2.5 and, according to this method, that indicates a value for the goodwill of the business. The total value of the business is then the goodwill plus the other assets. Warning: The figure you come up with may seem outrageously low compared with the figure that the sellers are asking. It is up to you what you do with this information. I'm just showing you one way to value a business. David QDT Management Consultants http://www.qdt.com.au

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Managing a Business/Expert Profile

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David Stephensen

Australia

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Expertise

I can answer questions about all aspects of designing and producing procedures manuals for small and medium sized businesses, including managing the documentation project, the analysis that leads to the design of the manual, business writing, publishing the business manual, educating the staff about continuous improvement and using ISO 9001. You can find out more at my website http://www.qdt.com.au and sign up to receive my blog.

UNIVERSITY STUDENTS FROM INDIA AND PAKISTAN (and everywhere else, too) PLEASE NOTE: I do not have time to complete your assignments for you. Please do not paste questions from your assignments into a request for my help. If you ask me a specific question in your own words and fool me into thinking you are a business person by your interest in and commitment to the subject then I will answer you.

Experience in the area

I have been a professional technical communicator and information designer since 1992 and have worked in business process analysis since 1998. I have produced procedures manuals for businesses and software user manuals that reflect business processes. I also provide internal quality auditing services. I have created a template for small and medium business operations manuals.

Education/Credentials

B.Sc. (University of Queensland), B.Ed. (Tasmania University)

Awards and Honors

Excellence Award in the Society for Technical Communication Australia Chapter On-line Communications Competition, 2009, for Keech Australia's procedure manual 'The Way We Do Things'

Merit Award in the Society for Technical Communication Australia Chapter On-line Communications Competition, 2006, for the CPA Australia Event Scheduling Application User Manual

Merit Award in the Society for Technical Communication Australia Chapter On-line Communications Competition, 2005 for the Lensworth Customer Relationship Management User Manual

What do you like about this subject?

I love helping people to automate what can be automated so that they can focus on being creative in their lives.

What do you still hope to achieve/learn in this field?

To have even more happy clients with living, breathing procedures manuals at the centres of their businesses.

Something controversial or provocative about this subject

It is easier write a well-formatted document than a messy one.

Average Ratings

Knowledgeability 9.93
Clarity of Response 9.96
Politeness 10.00
Response Time(hr) 31.0
Response Time(hr, last 90 days) 1.9

Number of Questions Today 0
Max Questions to be Asked in a Day 5
Total Questions (since joining AllExperts) 186
Volunteer Since 2008-10-21
Prestige Points 1100

Recent Reviews from Users

Recent Answers from David Stephensen

2016-07-05 Procedure manuals and franchise manuals:

Hi Sam A franchise manual is actually three manuals: 1. The manual for operating the franchisee business (for example, one of your shops, if the franchise is a chain of shops) 2. The manual for

2015-09-10 Bank Employees Transfer.:

I don't think it is mandatory but it is certainly common practice in Australia. It also makes good sense. If you are a bright young bank employee with management potential, are they going to put you

2015-08-13 Cybercafes Inside airports.:

More and more airports are providing free wifi these days. It seems to me that this is slowly spreading throughout the world. If I am right then cybercafes are not a good investment. Maybe providing

2014-03-12 Start up Business Entity Name.:

Hi Prashant Why not? It is a good idea. I do have some remarks, though. Each planet has a different association. Maybe these are different in Indian culture. In European cultures, for example

2013-07-25 company shares:

Hi Jake The shares in the company mean that you are now a part owner of the company. Some things to check: 1. Have you received a share certificate? You are entitled to one. 2. What was the sale

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David Stephensen

Managing a Business/Expert Profile

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David Stephensen

Australia

Available

Ask A Question
View Past Answers
View Statistics
View Ratings

Expertise

Experience in the area

Education/Credentials

B.Sc. (University of Queensland), B.Ed. (Tasmania University)

Awards and Honors

What do you like about this subject?

I love helping people to automate what can be automated so that they can focus on being creative in their lives.

What do you still hope to achieve/learn in this field?

To have even more happy clients with living, breathing procedures manuals at the centres of their businesses.

Something controversial or provocative about this subject

It is easier write a well-formatted document than a messy one.

Average Ratings

Knowledgeability 9.93
Clarity of Response 9.96
Politeness 10.00
Response Time(hr) 31.0
Response Time(hr, last 90 days) 1.9

Number of Questions Today 0
Max Questions to be Asked in a Day 5
Total Questions (since joining AllExperts) 186
Volunteer Since 2008-10-21
Prestige Points 1100

Recent Reviews from Users

Recent Answers from David Stephensen

2016-07-05 Procedure manuals and franchise manuals:

Hi Sam A franchise manual is actually three manuals: 1. The manual for operating the franchisee business (for example, one of your shops, if the franchise is a chain of shops) 2. The manual for

2015-09-10 Bank Employees Transfer.:

I don't think it is mandatory but it is certainly common practice in Australia. It also makes good sense. If you are a bright young bank employee with management potential, are they going to put you

2015-08-13 Cybercafes Inside airports.:

More and more airports are providing free wifi these days. It seems to me that this is slowly spreading throughout the world. If I am right then cybercafes are not a good investment. Maybe providing

2014-03-12 Start up Business Entity Name.:

Hi Prashant Why not? It is a good idea. I do have some remarks, though. Each planet has a different association. Maybe these are different in Indian culture. In European cultures, for example

2013-07-25 company shares:

Hi Jake The shares in the company mean that you are now a part owner of the company. Some things to check: 1. Have you received a share certificate? You are entitled to one. 2. What was the sale

Ask A Question

User	Date	K	C	P	Comments
sam	07/06/16	10	10	10
Prashant S Akerkar	09/11/15	10	10	10	Dear David Thank you. Thanks & Regards .....
Prashant S Akerkar	09/10/15	10	10	10	Dear David Thanks. Thanks & Regards, Prashant .....
Prashant S Akerkar	08/14/15	10	10	10	Dear David Thanks. Thanks & Regards, Prashant .....
JJ	05/04/14	10	10	10