I hate seeing things fail, especially businesses, it’s a waste of time and money (except for the learning for the business person to be…)

Here are some key points to explore, especially if you have an idea and are looking at starting up, here are some fail points.

• Business idea and research – You had an idea, but how much research did or didn’t you do before making a start? FAIL, not enough research into, who wants what you have to offer, what are their buying habits, demographics etc and can I supply to them in a way that suits them? Did you factor in a decent profit margin? Is the idea sustainable? Have other business of this type tried and failed before? You get the idea…
• Marketing, yes you need it! – Do you have the time and expertise to do it? Do you have the cash to be able to pay someone to do it if you don’t have the time etc? Marketing can cover everything from signs to promotions to sales and LOTS of things in between. It needs to be looked into early and carefully to make sure you do enough of the right things to make your business idea a raging success.
• What are you worth? – Strange question, especially in the start up phase… But what you pay  you to do what you do is vital to you being able to carry on with confidence in the business, knowing you are being paid what you are worth.
• Start up $$ – Do you have enough? Do you have investors? Do you have support from others willing to put in to your idea if things need propping up in the short term? Many start ups fail dismally because of a lack of capital to get the ball rolling. How will you pitch your idea to a prospective investor, what’s in it for them?
• How long? – How long before you succeed or fail? Many businesses fail by not sticking with a great business idea long enough, giving up JUST before seeing success. Some just keep on going by the ‘skin of their teeth’ hoping things will improve. Set yourself some goals, perhaps starting with a time frame to meet your various other goals.
• Who can help you? – Marketing advice and ideas, management ideas and advice, operational procedures, advice and ideas… the list goes on. Surround yourself with people you can trust to assist you with all this and more.
• Look at the gap/s – What you know and what you want to do is different. Will you be able to minimise this or not? E.g. marketing, you might be great at technician in the business and be able to ‘fix things’ for example, but if people don’t know you exist then you have a gap that needs to be filled. Look solidly at all these things and make sure you are really confident you can fill these gaps.

Starting to wonder about the whole business start up phase? Thinking that business should not be this hard? Well at least you are thinking. Now get to work and make these thing happen so you can minimse the chances of failure. Otherwise you could just stand on a street corner and throw a few thousand $$ away, because that’s how it might feel if you fail with your business idea in a few months or so.

Well that’s my view.

We could spend ages debating the issue, what a brilliant business is, how it’s measured and the results it provides. But I want to focus on the ethereal things which caused it to be a brilliant business. The initial points I put up are a big part of that.

Let’s go back to the start, a business you set up started with an idea, you could see what you wanted, probably saw yourself running it how things would turn out. In your minds eye you saw a plan of action coming to reality and all the key pointers I started this article with are what bought the dream to reality.

It was you in the beginning who put in the effort, you did the thinking, the planning, took initiative, explored options and provided great service to ensure prospects and customers would come back for more.

The next step in your business was a big one, you took on staff, partners and or associates who could see what you saw, felt what you felt and heard the positive accolades for the products and service you provided for customers. You managed to  encourage your ‘team’, they got motivated, excited and became driven to follow in your footsteps.

The results spoke for themselves, happy customers, great products and services and the bottom line reflects the top level positive work everyone puts in.

There it is, your brilliant business, brilliantly utilising your ‘soft resources’ to ensure the ‘hard resources’, products and services, are in the right place at the right time for your ideal prospects and customers.

Sadly all of this is not a common occurrence, in fact it’s a rare situation, one sadly lacking in a world where hope, excitement and the ‘thrill of the chase’ has been eclipsed by businesses which start up and fade, some fast, some slow.

All of the above points and so much more in formation is available to those who want to ensure their ‘business idea is given the best chance of survival in the ‘formative part of the business process’ and thriving in the maturing part of the process, yet too many fail fast.

What annoys me the most is that people who have great intentions in starting their business find the sense of loss palpable. All that was required was the right sort of research, a solid plan of action and the ability to cause people to follow your brilliant lead. Alas too many businesses do not have that and what could be a great start soon becomes millstone.

Let’s ask then, what sort of business do you want to have? One with brilliant prospects and outcomes or one doomed to failing fast? Now ask what will you do to make sure it’s not the latter!

1. Have something to sell.

2. Sell it.

3. Make a profit.

To do so you need to market the offerings, have a process to sell with, manage the money.

To do that you need to have a handle on the HR, finances, marketing, overheads and it then starts to get more in depth from there. However  you probably should be thinking in the terms of the basic 3 things to do, then see what’s happening from there.

May I suggest, you make a BIG poster or three with those key points on it.

Then consider breaking things down from there, so at any given moment you can know how each area is going, which one to tweak next and set a plan for the next one.

On your breakdown you will probably have a list of finer points relating to each area, then you can ask yourself, “which smaller area works well and which needs adjusting?”

Lets face it, business is not easy, in fact very challenging at times! But if these simple steps can make it easier for you then that’s got to be a good thing.

Oh wait I forgot! there’s a fourth point, oh silly me… Notice how you are looking at the business as the owner (from the perspective I have written it), note also how you are looking at the business, as a whole. Therefore you are taking a leaders view, a coaches view if you like.

Therefore you can be the coach and suggest strategies, work with your people to develop tactics, involve them in the game, many of them will know their parts in the process and know you have a chance to direct things that bit further. Go on be the leader, check out the strategies and concepts you need to put in place, then bring it all together like a great symphony, all orchestrated and conducted by you the business leader.

Allianz operates throughout Australia and New Zealand and through its subsidiaries offers a range of insurance and risk management products and services. The company provides some form of insurance cover for more than half of Australia’s top 50 BRW-listing companies, and employs approximately 3,300 staff. An avid supporter of environmental friendly initiatives, Allianz has a target to reduce emissions by 20% by 2012 and Is a member of the Australian Government’s Greenhouse Challenge Plus program.

Combing through franchise businesses for sale notices should be less daunting if you implement a well thought-out research strategy. Using online research, industry publications, news clippings and other methods is a great starting point.

When identifying franchise opportunities, consider what will complement your lifestyle, business goals and your skill set. Some aspects to consider are outlined below.

Brand strength? Behind every successful business is a strong brand, bolstered by an enviable reputation. Read widely about how the franchise brand is perceived by the industry, customers and business partners. Part of what you’re buying is the company’s brand equity. What do you estimate the brand’s equity to be?

Finding out about financial health How open and transparent is the organisation about its financial health? A company’s balance sheet can provide valuable insights about how well placed the franchise business is to harness future growth.

Expenses today and in the future Before you buy a franchise, you’ll need to know what set-up costs are involved. There could also be ongoing costs, such as marketing or advertising levies.

Strategic marketing, PR and advertising expertise? Dig deeper into the company’s marketing strategy. What level of investment and support is offered nationally and locally? What marketing and branding expertise does the company offer? How well resourced is the organisation to fund public relations programs?

Systems for success? Systems are essential ingredients in any successful franchise network. How efficient are the franchise’s systems and processes – do they help or hinder your ability to operate the business?

Investigate the level of support on the ground Do they have a dedicated operational and field support team to assist you? Investigate the ratio of franchisees to field support infrastructure.

Consider the commercial environment Determine the competitive dynamics that are likely to impact the brand. Do they have a well-defined understanding of their competitors, future opportunities, trends and issues?

Create a shortlist of franchise business opportunities? Once you’ve created your wish list, shortlist your most suitable franchise opportunities. Map out what works for you and what doesn’t, including the business must-haves e.g. IT and marketing support, costs (one-off and ongoing) and other forms of critical infrastructure.

Talk to franchise owners at the coalface Franchise owners are valuable resources. They can often provide you with the ‘inside story’ about a potential franchise business opportunity.

Lesley D’Arcy – As a franchise recruitment manager at Mortgage Choice, Lesley D’Arcy is responsible for recruiting franchisees to greenfield (new) opportunities as well as selling established franchise businesses. Her career in franchise recruitment spans over 15 years where she has worked with many major franchise brands. Lesley has a wealth of experience in recruitment of franchisees and builds on this experience by unearthing and developing the latest and most innovative ways to help franchisors build their networks. This experience has given her the skills to become an expert in the field of franchise recruitment, excelling in lead generation, screening, qualifying and selling to prospective franchisees.

The Australian Bureau of statistics indicates, women make up 33% of small business owners and steadily climbing. It’s being fuelled by the growth of mumpreneurs – women who launch their own business after having children, as if they didn’t have enough on their plate already!

Lets hope they do the right things to get the business up and running, find their points of difference, get the cash flow happening and are able to make it through the tough times and reap great rewards.

Lets also hope they are able to avoid the traps which can befall business and gobble up all the hard work and cash and take it away in a blink!

To all the people who start a business now and into the future I wish you all the best, remember the more information you can get on making your business flourish the better. So now take a look at our forum and the rest of the articles in our vast resources, and you will find the answers to the questions you seek…

Therefore, any chance I get I like to mention the basics of business in the hope to make a difference, I like to harp on about the basics and let people know…

• Idea – Research – Action – Spend $$ – Make $$ – Have some left over – Invest – Repeat. (or close to that.)

Still people get it wrong, some end up with an image like this…

• Idea – Action – Spend $$ – Make SOME $$ – Spend more $$ – End up broke. (Or some similar pattern to that.)

What’s the point of having a great idea and seeing it crash and burn? None, it hurts and can easily hurt others, so stop doing it. The challenge is however people don’t see the “crash and burn phase” they see a rose coloured world of $$ and happy customers.

Consider this, you want to learn to fly, you have the idea, you have the cash to buy a plane, you know full well you can’t fly the sucker until you have been trained and pass the test.

So why the heck do people jump into business (of any size) without the right training… Because they can, and you know what, you can sign up to get business registration on line, get a bank account and so forth and be in business in no time flat. Problem is no training, probably some skills, possibly and few helping hands to get started. and the rest seems to be “fly by the seat of your pants” and hope for the best.

Do some basic research BEFORE getting started and make sure you KNOW what you are in for PLEASE. too many failures in business seems such a waste of resources folks.

Are you kidding me? ……… NONE!

I believe I put it best when I wrote, ” … might as well hand out bulls-eyes imprinted with “Gangs Suck” for children to wear on their back.” Seriously, putting an anti-gang message on something for children to carry around or wear – is a bad, bad idea. The good news is, the discussion brought to light a couple of insights we as marketers should keep in mind in order to keep the government, advocacy and activist groups out of our business.

1) When we take advantage of marketing opportunities, we must also recognize our tremendous responsibility. While we may have responsibility to shareholders, bottom line and market share, we must also remember that we have a responsibility to our industry and to the publics that are affected by our marketing efforts.

2 )Place emphasis on message not product. In the example above, the question, “What product do we put an anti-gang message on?” is product focused. However, had the question been, “What do we want to accomplish?” the focus could have been placed on promoting good as opposed to gang-bashing.

In an effort to not paint bulls eyes on the backs of non-gang children, many of us agreed that before worrying about which products would be appropriate, that it would be best to first change the focus of the thinking. Instead of thinking anti-gang we felt that the focus should be more along the lines of pro education, pro safety, pro future, pro self esteem or something else that doesn’t threaten the gangs.

One line of thinking is be, “Want to keep kids from joining gangs? Give them something else to join.” Now you’ve got the seed of an idea that could make for a campaign that could involve parents, band and athletic boosters, the school, school clubs, businesses, scouting, 4-H, social and civic organizations … the entire community.

For marketers, the question is, “Want to keep consumers from buying from your competitors? Give them a reason to buy from you.” Give them something to belong to.

Finally, as a public service, I want to re-emphasize the responsibility we shoulder as marketers. To that end I share with you a thought I cannot shake since I first read, “What promotional products would be good to carry an anti-gang message for middle and high school kids?”

That neat, fun, do-dad with the wrong message on it … could get someone killed.

Have a nice day:)

This year, month, week, that’s pretty much changed. The word is, we are fast moving towards breaking the drought. With just “average” rainfall mind you. Fantastic! However, it’s caused a bit of chaos this week. You see, Geelong is a city divided by the Moorabool River. It runs roughly West to East, and dissects the North from South.

Of course, there are multiple points at which to cross the river, but one (apparently) vital one. It’s called the Breakwater Rd & Breakwater bridge. As the name suggests, it’s a breakwater, and it floods every time the Moorabool River reaches a certain level. It a pressure release valve so that the river doesn’t flood as badly as it might.

It’s a two way, one lane intersection. It’s tiny. It’s insignificant. It doesn’t appear to be that busy in the scheme of things. I take it everyday in my 5 minute trip to the office.

When it floods, it throws the City of Geelong into Traffic chaos! This week has seen a lot of Geelong employees late for work. My daily 5 minute drive has turned into 45-60 minutes!

My City has a heart problem. Like our Hearts, the city depends on all it’s arteries to follow un-hindered – block one, and you have a heart problem.

It made me think about my business (while i was stuck in traffic ) Sometimes, we have arterial blockages in our businesses. It might be that the phone messages stall at reception and don’t quickly get sent to the sales guy, it might be the order release message from the accounts dept stalls and doesn’t get communicated to the despatch area, so an order sits on the back dock two days longer than it should.

An arterial blockage in our business is simply a part of the system that gets blocked up, slows the rest down, and sometimes even stops the system dead – grid lock!

The first step to clearing such a blockage is to identify it. Sit back, take a breath, and objectively look at your business and how an order goes through your system, even place an anonymous order and see how your system looks to an outsider. Once identified, you can take steps to alleviate the pressure and work out ways to prevent future issues.

In my business for example, the artwork process can be one of those areas that can bog down and block the system. It might be the client is slow to send us appropriate files, or our email breaks down, or a contract artist does not do the job fast enough – there are any number of ways that part of my business can (and has) block and stop orders from proceeding. I don’t like it, but knowing it is an area for a higher potential for screw ups, I pay more attention to it to avoid said screw ups.

Another area with potential for blockages is delivery. I rely on third parties often for delivery. I have clients all around Australia and even a few Internationals. Therefore, I am often reliant on third parties like manufacturers and couriers. If the guy on the back dock at the pens factory is having a bad day, my urgent delivery might not go out, just as the courier driver might have a flat tyre or only pick up 2 of 3 boxes. Even a foggy night made us miss one deadline when the plane holding one box was grounded.

I can’t completely avoid potential blockages, but if i know exactly what they are, I can put safe guards and pressure valves in place to reduce the risk.

So, does your business have a heart problem? It’s one of those questions just like your own health – it might not be comfortable to self analyse if you are at risk, but well worth the effort.

Once aboard the ship, we could buy a soft drink card that yielded unlimited soft drinks while on board. We also received a 16oz tumbler emblazoned with the Coke(r) logo and a small Princess(r) Cruise logo. Coke had its name in front of 3000 travelers for 10 days playing an integral role in life aboard the ship. Good promotion, no question.

Now that I’m back home, however, there sits these four tumblers on my counter. I see the Coke and the Princess logo …. so what? I am motivated to do exactly …. nothing.

For starters, it would have cost no more to imprint a website on the tumbler and perhaps a message that said, “Visit (website) to continue your cruise experience.” Since the tumblers were shrink-wrapped, it wouldn’t have cost much more to add an interactive component to the mix. Perhaps an ultra-removeable sticker affixed, inserted inside or shrink-wrapped onto the tumbler. The sticker would say, “Affix this sticker to the inside of your suitcase to remind you to visit (website) at home when you unpack.” When people got home and unpacked, that sticker would remind them to visit the website.

Another thought would be to encourage people to take photos of themselves in ports of call holding their tumblers – and email them in. Once they send their photo in, they would have reason to check back on the website to see if their photo was up. And you know as soon as they see it, they would tell all their friends and family to go to the website and see it.

With a little more thought, Coke and Princess could have leveraged something that I had to purchase in the first place … to their benefit! No kidding. Think about that. I paid money for the tumbler and drink card, giving them the opportunity to market to me during the cruise and interactively after the cruise. Now that’s brilliant! But they didn’t take it far enough.

Instead, I have a tumbler that (yawn) passively reminds me of my vacation.

If you are in the midst of developing a promotional campaign, perhaps now you have a bit more to think about. Ask yourself, “Is simply having our logo on an item good enough?” “Can we do more? Can we go further?” “How much more will a call to action really cost us?” Seriously, a great idea can be no more than another thought away.

So here are the top seven IT mistakes I have seen new businesses make:

1. POP email

POP email accounts are those email accounts that you get when you sign up with an ISP. Often you get a few free email accounts that you can associate with your company domain. The problem with POP accounts is that they don’t get backed up and leave you with a false sense of security. Ultimately much of your businesses value lies in the contacts that you have, as much as the conversations you’ve had. POP accounts only store the conversations, and in many cases even those are cleared from the server by your email application. So now all of your data is sitting on the one vulnerable hard disk in your computer and unless you know what you are doing, this does not get backed up.

Shop around. For less than $US15 per month you can get a hosted 5GB Exchange mailbox that stores all contacts, calendar and email. It gets backed up each night and it can be made to synchronise contacts and appointments as well as email with your mobile PDA. If you have multiple employees you can share contacts and calendars and email. This can takes office productivity to a whole new level. Outside the office, on the work site, having access to your email, contacts and calendar is fast becoming as important and as expected these days as having a mobile phone was five years ago. From the work site you can place a booking with a client into the Calendar on your PDA and within minutes staff back in your office can see that booking by looking into your calendar on the server. And Vice-Versa, how good is that. No more checking with the office then calling the client back to confirm, not to mention the to and fro reduced if the booking did not suit.

Of course if you lose or break the mobile phone al of the contacts and appointments that are synchronised to the server are not lost. Just get a new phone and set up again and all the contacts and appointments will be synchronised back onto the phone.

OK, setting this up may require some help from an IT consultant but when you factor in the productivity gains and the reduced risk of data loss in the event of failure the gains are worth it for most businesses.

2. Peer to Peer networking

There is a plethora of fantastic cheap devices on the market these days that let you store copious amounts of data on a networked hard disk. If you like you can also share the hard disk of your own computer so that your co-workers can store all of the data in a single location.

But please don’t forget that you need to back that data up and, just as importantly, you need to be able to restore from that backup should the data be accidentally overwritten, corrupted or you just have a good old fashioned disk crash. Most IT professionals don’t like keeping all of the eggs in one basket. So we devise ways of making systems redundant. A ‘real’ server solution will have redundant hard disks, so that should one fail, your data does not go with it, resulting in days of downtime while the system is pieced together from that backup that you regularly do.

Too many small businesses still store scary amounts of critical data on a single hard disk inside a regular workstation (usually the oldest one in the office).

3. Free software

Free software sounds great. And it can be. I am not against it in itself, but with most software it is not the license that will end up costing you the most money, that will actually be a small part of the cost. You need to consider the longer term costs of implementation and running your systems utilising that software. For a small basic single user application that may be fine. But for something that will be implemented across your business to become what we call ‘mission-critical’ you need to consider the longer term implications. How easily can I get outside help to support this system should those who know it move on (key-man risk)? Can I recruit people who know how to use this system, or will I need to train them up?  Will updates for the software be available when I come to upgrade the platform on which it runs?

These are some of the questions you need to ask before taking on what may appear to be a cheap solution.

4. Mates Rates advice

It is hard to pass up free advice. However free advice rarely translates into good support. At least not the kind of support you can depend on from a strategic point of view. Your mates may be available after hours and on weekends but if they are holding down a full time job they may not be as accessible as you need them to be. There are also often strategic and technical differences between how IT is setup and run in a small business environment compared to that of larger organisations. There are specific product bundles available from vendors such as Microsoft, Dell, Hewlett Packard, Symantec and many others that facilitate excellent solutions for small business when implemented correctly. However while these bundles may appear to be a collection of products that many IT experts may be familiar with, they often include some additional bells and whistles that allow you to get real leverage with your IT investment. I have seen many implementations Microsoft’s Small Business Server where a so-called expert was unfamiliar with the use of Remote Web Workplace and so had not known to implement this for the business. Yet Remote Web Workplace is one of the core offerings of small business server and one that many administrators of large organisations would give their eye-teeth for. It allows small business workers to connect to any workstation within the office and run all of their applications from a remote location.

So how could this have been over-looked? Remote Web Workplace is not a feature available on ‘big’ business systems, so if your friends work in big business, they may not know about it, or many other things.

Another important function I have seen ‘knowledgeable’ mates overlook is the ability of Microsoft’s Small Business Server to enable BlackBerry type functionality with regular iPhone, Nokia and Windows PDAs. Perhaps the mate thought they would need to buy a BlackBerry server to do all of this, perhaps because the company they work for has one.

5 . Backup-backup-backup and offsite-backups. Then test them.

It makes me cringe to see what some people consider a backup plan.

Too often I have heard people telling a reporter that loosing the house to a fire was bad enough but loosing the family albums and memories was devastating. The rate of business failure after a major IT disaster from which there was no backup is very high. I have seen figures like 80% in the two years following the disaster thrown around.

So I guess lesson one is make a backup of all of the family photos and take them to a location away from the home. And then repeat this regularly. And check that you can access the copies that you have made. Lesson two is to do the same for your business.

6. In-house software / DIY Systems

All too often I see people who believe that their systems and their way of doing things is so special that they must create their own software just to manage this. Accountants probably bare the brunt of this when the new business owner fronts up to them with a box full of receipts and an excel spreadsheet full of fancy macros that nobody except the business owner knows how to use. Or the very very special Access database for managing stock levels and generating very very special reports.

All businesses want to feel that they are unique. But encoding that uniqueness into a software application that can only be modified by one select person can turn out to be a serious strategic mistake when you try to sell the business or when that ‘key-man’ risk is realised because the person who knows the system can no longer maintain it.

Ask yourself how your business will make money. If developing this special piece of software and selling it is not on the list then don’t go there.

7. Lock in.

No deal in IT is so good that you should sign up for more than two years. The market and your business moves too fast for that. What is a great deal today can be serious drain on cash flow in as little as six months from now. So whether it be a mobile phone plan, an internet connection, a PABX system, a server hosting plan or an IT support plan, two years is just too long a commitment to make. If we think a deal is good today, you can be assured that a better deal is just around the corner and if you’ve locked in for a long time you will be regretting the lock in for at least half of that time.

And it is not just the money. Once you’ve locked into a plan you’re often locked into a technology. Then along comes the next best thing and your business is now not as dynamic as you thought it was.

Svend Petersen is the Managing Director of Excelan.

Excelan provides a personalised level of IT support and strategic consulting for small to medium sized organisations in and around the Sydney CBD.

In these tough economic times, owners are struggling to make their business grow, but strangely enough, there is great opportunity for companies to make leaps and bounds while the market is down.

Take a Step Back

Being in the day-to-day running of your business can alter your perception of how effectively it is run.  Take the time to look at every facet of your business to gain the most unbiased perspective.

What kind of relationships do you have with suppliers? Is there any way you can leverage the associations you have with them to gain better pricing or additional extras (like longer trading terms to increase cash flow) that they don’t usually provide?

Do employees see their position as a job or a career? One of the most difficult tasks an employer can face is motivating their staff so that they are more productive.  Try to introduce creative, cost effective ideas to improve staff morale, which will ultimately allow your business to be more successful in so many different ways – higher customer satisfaction, increased work output, less mistakes and a much nicer place for everyone to work.

What are your sales margins? Taking a realistic look at how much you are making on your products and services is crucial to allowing your business to grow.  A small increase in sales margin may not seem like much in isolation, but calculated over a year, this additional profit can make quite a difference to your bottom line.

In many cases, customers will expect to see increases in prices every few years, purely because of inflation.  If you do apply increases, be transparent to your valued clientele – it will only reaffirm why they should continue to spend their money with you.

What are your competitors doing? If they are blazing trails in your area or industry, find out why and how.  Start to follow their lead and see where you can even improve on their practises.  But another, far more powerful way to knock down competition is to find out what they are doing badly.  By being exceptionally great at what your competitors do badly, it will soon put you miles in front.

Planning – What to Consider

After all the research has been done, it’s important to spend some time planning how you will turn all of these findings into meaningful actions.  There is a fine balance between continuing to maintain a high service level in your business and being able to implement new processes, procedures and projects.  Figure out what elements can be immediately implemented into your business and what will take more time and resources. Once you’ve determined this, you can then allocate timelines to these more lengthy projects so as not to interrupt the flow of your business.  Many strategies tend to stretch over several years, so make sure you build some level of flexibility in to allow for changes in your business, the economy and the marketplace.

Implementation – Getting Your Hands Dirty

It’s all well and good to research and develop business strategy, but sometimes the hardest part can actually be doing the work involved.  The best way to avoid being overwhelmed with implementing the strategy is to break up each task and set key goals and milestones.  Once you have completed the task or project successfully, make sure you take the time to look back on what you have done and be constructively critical.  If you have an upcoming project of a similar nature, it will allow you to become more efficient in implementing your business strategy.

All in all, developing a business strategy gives you the chance to recognise opportunities and shortcomings that may not have been realised otherwise.  While each business can be very different, the foundations of a solid business strategy are ultimately the same and can be applied to most companies, regardless of their service offering or industry.

An article provided to us by one of our site sponsors – NRMA Business Insurance

Part 1 – Roboform.

If you are like me, you have dozens, if not hundreds of log ins and passwords to remember.

I have several websites and blogs to manage and they each have a log in for the blog, one for the forum, one for the admin etc etc, I bank accounts, supplier sites – the list goes on. As of today, I have 212 log ins to various websites, all needing me to remember the URL, the log in name, and the password – yeah, that surprised even me

I also use the web a lot these days, like most of us, for purchasing, researching, enquiring products and services. So i’m constantly filling in forms – Name, address, age, hair colour……. – very time consuming.

About two years ago, I found the very nifty product – Roboform. Roboform is a little bit of software you load straight onto your PC that securely stores all your personal info.

RoboForm’s Key Features are;

• So Easy – You remember one password, RoboForm remembers the rest. I suggest you don’t use your beagle’s name, ok?
• Saves Time – With ONE CLICK RoboForm goes to a website and logs you in automatically. I can log into any site on the list – no finding the site, no remembering the log in, no remembering the password.
• Saves More Time – RoboForm also fills long registration and checkout forms with one click. Roboform will fill in just about any form you find on the web. I save lots of time when signing up for service, newsletter, buying a product, making an enquiry. I’ve found a few it wont work with, like java applet stuff, but even then you can copy and paste faster then you can type it all in.
• Secures Your Information – Stores passwords on YOUR computer, protects them with AES encryption. Hey, nothing is bullet proof, but Roboform’s encryption is far stronger than having your browser store your passwords in the cache.
• Strengthens Passwords – Generates random passwords that hackers cannot guess. A strong password has, letters (a mix of upper and lower case), symbols, numbers, is min 8 digits long, and is apparently random in appearance. So, a strong password looks like this – 1&xT44B! – a weak password would be – Franklin (your beagle’s name that you use for every password, banking, your blog, your facebook, the lot!) The problem is of course, how do you possibly remember a password like the strong one, let alone remember dozens or hundreds of different ones? Roboform features a password generator that you can set to generate passwords of different length, different types of digits (numbers, upper / lower case text, symbols). It will fill the forms on the fly, and copy the password to you clipboard if the form you are using won’t allow auto fill in (some more secure sites like banks won’t allow auto fill in to stop robots)
• Fights Phishing – Phishing is when you get those emails from a bank or PayPal or some such asking you to log in and confirm your details. Often these fake sites look so real that many unsuspecting users will “log in” and hand their name and password to the thieves on a silver platter.Fills passwords only on matching web sites. Just for the record, your bank will NEVER email you and ask you to log in.
• Defeats Keyloggers – Somewhere along the line, we have all been infected by a malicious virus. A common threat are keyloggers, simply put, a virus records every keystroke, and send a small text file to the data thief at a pre-determined time. Roboform doesn’t use the keyboard to fill in your passwords, or to fill forms (like credit card forms), so keyloggers are rendered ineffective. You can also use your mouse to fill in the master password, so even that can be kept secure.
• Simple to Use – Just download RoboForm and learn as you go. It really is intuitive and easy to use. Even if you are very new to the interweb, you will be Roboforming like a pro in no time.

There are a few other features – you can find more details here – too many for me to detail, but the three above are the ones I use every day. In fact, i’m using it right now. I can quickly and easily skip between different sites. At the moment i’m working from home, so i’m skipping between logging into the work network, Vertical Response, the WordPress log in for this blog, and the admin for www.freepromotips.com.au. Too easy!

The good folks at Robofrom also have a portable version – Roboform2go – for installation onto a usb. You can take that with you and log in on any PC (the portable version doesn’t work on your Mac)

When you buy Roboform, you also get access to the online system, which means you can even log into your account from anywhere without Roboform2go (I find having a USB easier and more convenient myself)

It’s ready to go for PC’s, but they haven’t yet produced a MAC friendly version. I’m told that will come, but for the moment they have created a system utilising the online product, and a java applet that sits in your safari or firefox menu bar (it may work in other browsers, but I don’t know. I only use Safari of Firefox on my Mac)

If you think that sounds good, you can trial it free or buy it here.

That’s my favourite web tool.Part 2 next week – Goodsync.

Bren

I think I got started in business from birth. My Mum and Dad had corner stores and I was taught business skills at an early age. (I can remember balancing the till while in primary school… It was one of the ways we learnt to count).

After school I worked in One Hour Photoshops, working my way to Manager by the time I was 19. In 1995 I was offered a “job” at a lab as manager.. Turned out they wanted someone to buy it, so I did. This led to the expansion to 2 suburban Kodak Express stores. In 2001 someone offered me an offer too good to refuse so I took it ? (I took a year off and then took up a position as the EA to the Managing Director of the No 3 Photographic Supplier in Aus.)

Meanwhile my hubby, Mick, had been working in various companies doing Security Screens, Window installation, Blinds, Awnings etc. In 1998, I convinced him he should go out on his own. This business – Abacus Screens and Security – while successful, it suffered from my lack of time to manage the business side of things. (Advertising not planned, very much RE-active rather than PRO-active).

In 2000, he was offered a job at one of his suppliers so he took it. Lesson 1: ONE business at a time ?

Fast forward to 2005 and we moved from Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast. Mick secured a position at a local screen company. (I am still travelling to Bris 3 days a week). Mick learnt very quickly, the coast was grossly under serviced in the security screen business, so we resurrected Abacus Screens in October 2006

Understanding the problems from “Abacus Mach I” we put a number of things in place up front.

• We made sure we had enough money to start. Printing, advertising, good ute, etc etc etc. Also enough “buffer cash” for 3 months wages, just to take the pressure off.
• We joined a couple of networking clubs, so we had people to talk to and bounce ideas off.
• Mick spent a fair bit of time scoping out who he knew (Lots of his old colleagues have moved to the coast and are now in management and decision making positions with building, window or aluminium companies)

Nearly 2 years down the track and all in going along VERY well.

2. What inspired you to become part of the FBT forum?

Gosh it is soooo long ago now ? From memory I was googling something to do with business and came across FBT. I am a forum junkie and join anything !!! Most though get deleted from my Favourites after 3 months or so when I get bored. So I guess the fact I have been a fairly active member for the past 24 months or so is testimony that the forum is vibrant and above all RELEVANT!!

3. What have been your three biggest business challenges (so far) and how have you overcome them?

• Finding staff- As with many communities, we have a skills shortage on the coast. (Hmmm Well maybe not We have a “committed worker shortage”. Talk to many business owners (especially “tradie types” in any coastal community) and , if the surf is pumping, the sickie rate is high ?)
• We have overcome this by asking prospective employees LOTS of questions (I asked the forum to give me some questions to ask – Thanks Guys!!) and following up references. My number one telling question with references is “Would you be happy to have “Fred” work for you again?”
• Marketing – With my background in retail I have great skills in creating a rapport to keep customers coming back and back. Abacus presents a different scenario wherein, generally, we only see our customers once or twice Overcoming this is an ongoing process. I ask a LOT of questions of similar, non-competing businesses. Eg our local winner of “Young Woman in Business” is in the steel shed business, so I rang her up, took her out for coffee and picked her brain.
• Managing Growth – Mick is getting a reputation among builders for being good ? So being able to say NO is difficult. We have learnt to say No gently, “No you can’t have it in 5 days but is 7 ok?” If he delivers in 5 Great!! But at least he doesn’t have to. Having a buffer allows us to outsource the manufacturing if need be.

4. What five tips would you give to a person starting in business?

5. Is there anything you would like to say about being in business, and or being an active part of learning more from Internet type forums?
Internet forums can be a good source of information and networking. FBT has a great cross section of industries and people who are ready to help. There is no such thing as a silly question!

6. The best part about being in business is…
The journey ?
I like to think of any of our businesses like a baby. They took a year or so of sleepless nights and teething troubles, then they walk all by themselves and eventually don’t need you anymore ? Along the way you need to guide and point them in the right direction, they won’t just grow on their own. Discipline is important and , if you get it right, you raise a healthy self sufficient entity, with a life of its own.

Mick Moynihan & Sue Josephson

Abacus Screens
25/6 Beerburrum Street
DICKY BEACH Qld 4551
Ph 5491 5489
Fax 5439 4125
www.abacusscreens.com.au