Accounting | Teik Oh

What To Do In a Financial Crisis

Oct 20 2015

Touch wood that you never experience a financial crisis in your business.

However, it happens, and it happens to the best of us. No matter how much you think you are on top of your game, sometimes you take your eye off the ball, and sometimes one thing you never watched out for jumps up and – Wham! A financial crisis hits your business – a major account receivable goes belly-up and with it, takes your profits and future cash flow. Or perhaps an employee walks out and takes your business, or maybe even commits fraud over some time and leaves you with a big cash hole. Perhaps you may even have been (or should have been!) aware of a trend that kept getting worse, business fading away?

If this ever happens to you the first thing is to work fast. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and work out a plan quickly.

Put yourself in the big picture.

When crisis happens, it is tempting to burrow down to find the “fault” and to try to fix it. However the “fault” is often a symptom and if you pour effort into it, this may be too little too late.

Better to take a brief step back and see the big picture – make sure you accurately assess your business’ and your own assets and liabilities, make sure you understand your overall income and expenditure. Looking at the big picture can give you a better idea of what happened and why – not just the end results. Understanding your assets and liabilities and income and expenditure should give you some ideas about what resources you have, what risks you need to take care of, and what you can do to stem the flow.

With a good understanding of what happened and how it happened, and knowing what your resources and capabilities are, set yourself some short-term and medium term financial goals. Read More

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How much should I pay myself?

Jul 28 2015

When I’m consulting to startups or small businesses there is a perennial question: “am I paying myself the right amount?”

That really is a difficult question to answer.

On the one hand, I’d like to say that you should pay yourself what you would have to pay someone else to do what you do. That’s difficult enough as it is. After all, as business owner you are almost certainly doing things above and beyond a normal Job Description – long hours, things “beneath” a manager’s role, the literal bottle-washer. How much would you pay someone for all that?

On the other hand you did not start your business to earn a salary. What you put into the business will reap you the rewards a salary earner will never get – even though it may take a few years to eventuate. You will have equity, you will have the satisfaction of working for yourself, and perhaps the most powerful of all, you will fulfill your dream – the reason you started in business.

Watch this video for a discussion of what you will have to think about when you try to work out what you should pay yourself.

Let’s be honest. At the beginning, what you are likely to be able to pay yourself is simply what’s left in the bank at the end of the day! That can be difficult for business owners who are single income families with mortgages especially in the early days when cash available in the business is in short supply.

I’ve written before about how business owners need to realise they may have to make sacrifices, and this may be one of them.

However your reward really comes from the future, the building of a sustainable business with a base for growth, steady profitability and a structure that you can mould to your vision. Stick to the vision. Focus on what it takes to make your business successful. Be clear about quality and customer service. Stay determined and constantly on track.

Sure it gets hard from time to time, but work smart and work hard, plan your way forward and you will get there. When you do, the celebration is worth the sacrifice!

In the meantime, subscribe to our newletter here so that you can get all our resources, tools and tips to grow your business sent directly to your inbox for you to read and prosper from in your own time.

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10 Business Opportunities in good or bad times

Jul 14 2015

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about 10 business survival strategies in difficult times.

I received a ton of email telling me that you guys are actually having it good out there!

John from Sydney said that his office design business had never seen it so good! Peta, also from Sydney, said that while she did see ups and downs the sales in her online home-wares business was growing steadily. Anne and Peter told me that their cafe in Adelaide hit a rough patch last year but they seem to be recovering now. From London, Geoff who runs a house-clearance company (Steptoe and Sons?) says that with a little smart management he has maintained his sales while reducing costs.

That’s great!

So I thought this week I’d “balance the books”. Here’s a video about 10 business improvement opportunities that you can take advantage of in good time (or bad – see, I’m hedging my bets).

These are 10 things you really should look to do whatever the economic climate – they just make sense if you want to make your business be more efficient, be more responsive, be more profitable, and grow.

Improve your business position, whether physical (better location), market share or quality products;
Look for opportunities to buy out your competitors or their equipment;
Increase the quality of your employees;
Reorganise your finance facilities;
Renegotiate property leases;
Increase margins (by increasing quality and service);
Eliminate unprofitable business segments or products;
Restructure and reorganise operations for more efficiency or customer-responsiveness;
Reorganise your office – put in more efficient systems to save time and cost;
Review your long term personal goals.

OK people, send me more email about how you’re going! I love getting your ideas and your stories.

Or, if you don’t mind sharing, get over to https://teikoh.com and leave a comment. While you’re there, or click here to subscribe to our newsletter and receive great valuable tips, tools and resources to grow your business.

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How to grow your business with no external capital

Jun 05 2015

You’ve started your business. You may have been running a few years and you are now at a stage where you need some capital to organically grow your business to its next stage.

We all want to see our businesses grow into something bigger, but finding external capital is difficult these days. Where are the angels when you need them, especially if you don’t want to go into debt?

Well there are things you can do to grow your business from within. Watch this week’s video to see what you can do.

Remember – there are always innovative ways to find capital from within your business. Sure, if you could get an injection of $250,000 to half a million, what you could do to your business! But when it’s not there, it’s not there and your growth will have to be organic and a little bit slower. But grow you can.

As always the fun starts after you watch the video – what do you think? What are your ideas or experiences in finding organic capital?

Get over to https://teikoh.com and leave a comment. Better still, sign up at here and be part of the Masterclass conversation!

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3 Ways to Increase Your Sales

Mar 20 2015

Tell me if this sounds familiar:-

For some reason, perhaps you want to increase profits or you just want to grow your business, you sat down and decided you needed to increase your sales by setting a new sales target. Having worked out what sales you need to increase your profits or grow your business, you look at your new sales target – at how much you need to increase your current sales by – and you went “Oh crap!”

The increase in sales is scary! Oh my goodness, increasing my sales by 30% sound alright but that’s an extra $600,000! How the heck am I going to do that???

This video tells you exactly how to do it in three different ways that leverage up to a substantial increase in sales.

Remember all sales are made up of three components:-

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Increase your sales through a highly focused marketing plan!

SMART Marketing: In this book, the owners of a small business are led through the SMART Marketing 7 Step Process to produce a marketing plan targeted at their most desirable customers. Any business can use these principles and in 4 to 6 weeks implement a plan to get them through the door! Find out how...

The SMART Marketing Workbook: Companion to “SMART Marketing”, this workbook sets out the SMART Marketing process in 7 workshops for you and your staff to complete questionnaires and templates that at the end, form the marketing plan you need to sell your REAL product to your REAL customer! View now...

Category - Accounting

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What To Do In a Financial Crisis

How much should I pay myself?

10 Business Opportunities in good or bad times

How to grow your business with no external capital

3 Ways to Increase Your Sales