Posts Tagged ‘small business’

When I produce estimates or quotations for customers, I generally produce them quickly and easily using the tools available to me in FreeAgent (the on-line accounts system).  This works for the majority of quotations as I can use the price list system to easily apply standard items, and the quotations are emailed to my customers using my pre-defined template layout.

However, now and again I have to produce more detailed proposals – with lots of text, examples, concepts, terms and payment profiles.  The sort of quotations we all have to produce now and again – the multi page proposals for those ‘larger’ projects.

Recently, I have come across two new cloud based applications which could make the process of quotation generation that little bit easier.  Especially where the quotations are repetitive in nature (where the same text is used over and over again).

Similar Concepts

Both systems are designed around producing quotations.  Both allow you to define customers, define price lists of common tasks, templates for look and feel of quotations (colours, fonts, graphics etc) and allow you to add free text.   Both systems then allow you to quickly generate new quotes by pulling in items from your price list (then saying how many items/hours/days are required) – and will do all the maths for you including adding sales tax/VAT.

Both systems will also allow the quotations to be sent to your customers by email, to view the quotations in web or PDF views, and both will even let your customers accept (or comment) on the quotations on line.

So initially they appear very similar.  However, it’s the way that they generate the quotations, and the integration that sets the two products apart.  Whilst both produce similar cost breakdown in the same way, its how they deal with the text that surrounds the figures that is of interest.

QuoteRoller

Quoteroller is the newer of the two, but for me, has more potential.   The big plus for me is that it integrates with FreeAgent.  Whilst this is currently restricted to pulling your contacts in (which saves a lot of setup time), the developer says it is early days and hopes to push quotes back out to freeagent in due course.  However, it also integrates with Basecamp, Highrise, and Fresh books.

QuoteRoller allows the definition of template ‘pages’ – you can have standard text of any pages which cover any subject required.  Within this text you can paste ‘tokens’, so it can insert the client name, company name, project name, quote number and so on in the text for you.

You can define as many templates as you like to cover all kinds of different quotations – and use the same layouts, words, proposals and information over and over again.  The templates can include text, images, tables, video, HTML and even links to external web sites.  Templates can also be imported from ‘the community’ of users, so regardless of what type of company you run, there will be a template out there to get you going – you just need to customise the text to the way that you prefer to work.

Whilst QuoteRolloer is good, the one thing that is missing for me is a common catalogue of text BEYOND the template that I could pull in before the quotation is complete.  As an example, I could create a template which covers everything I do, but have a section that I wanted to pull in for overseas customers which talks about conversion rates.  If they could include this, it would be perfect.  It also has one major limitation (at time of review) that when entering the cost breakdown, you can only enter whole numbers as a quantity (so if you charge per day, you have the option of 0 or 1, no half day options).

QuoteRoller is free to register and use.  However, once you get past the set limit of quotes per month, you need to pay to add additional quotations.

QuoteRobot

Quoterobot is similar to QuoteRoller, but seems less flexible on the setting of templates.  Whilst it is just as powerful on the pulling in of cost items, you have to enter more text at the time of creating quotations rather than using templates (of standard text blocks).

However, quoterobot is stronger in terms of payment terms planning.  You have the ability to put payment terms per week and it will include a payment plan chart for your customers which is a nice feature.

The one disadvantage with quoterobot is that its price model is designed around a pay to try pattern – so to give it a try you have to have a credit card handy which I didn’t like (although you can cancel after 30 days if you don’t like it).

If you produce enough quotations that you have to pay, quoterobot is significantly cheaper at only $10 a month compared to the $18.99 a month that QuoteRoller charges.

If you have to produce any large or repetitive proposals/quotations, either product could save you an awful lot of time.

I am going to share a Contract Search tip which was emailed to me by a long term reader of this blog (so a big thanks to Rob).  It’s a very useful tip for those looking for the next freelance gig or contract job.

Rob says when you are applying to 5 or 6 contract/freelance jobs every day, it can quickly become confusing on what you have applied for, what jobs need what skills, and which agent was used for what position.

To aid in the search, Rob cleverly uses Evernote.   When Rob replies to an emailed job, or just before he hits the ‘apply’ button on the web based job board, Rob highlights the job detail text and uses the Evenote web/text clipper to add a new note into a new Evernote ‘Contracts Applied For’ folder.

If an agent calls or emails him back, it’s a quick task then to pop into Evernote, search on the agents name (or company), and all the posts applied for through the agent are listed.

It’s also a useful tip for checking that you are not applying for the same position again where it is re-listed in the jobs board, or is going through more than one agent.

If you have never used Evernote before, the clipper function is an add-on which installs itself as a tool button into most browsers and MS Office/Mac programs and allows you to quickly highlight text and add it as a new Evernote note.  The clipper can be downloaded from the Evernote add-on site.

Thanks for the tip Rob.

A real quick one from me today on a new resource I have come across.

Predominantly this is for UK business to business (B2B) companies, but will be useful for business to individuals based companies and companies/freelancers from anywhere outside of the UK.

With the economy in such a bad way, with Europe about to implode and with money on everybody’s mind, it is useful to find out where you stand on late payers.

PayOnTime (www.payontime.co.uk) has everything you need to deal with late payers.  It includes the details of UK laws regarding late payers, templates for letters and emails you can use, rules regarding interest and late payment fees, a discussion/advice forum and a late payment interest calculator.

If you have ever had a late payer, a bad payer or think this situation may arise, you need to visit and bookmark this great FREE web resource.

I am sure it has not escaped you that we are less than one month away from Christmas.

Whilst we are all cutting back this year (as the world teeters on the edge of yet another financial meltdown), Christmas still brings the awful few weeks of worrying about what to buy people.  What do they need, what do they want, what will not make us look like a Scrooge?

As a contractor, freelancer or small business owner, we have the advantage of needing gifts that can work both for us, and for our businesses.  So if you are fed up with yet more socks, bath salts or wall calendars, can I suggest a business Christmas list which you may like to consider and pass on to those stuck for something to buy you?

• Business Books – A little boring, but some can be very useful.  Ones I suggest include the Ultimate Small Business Marketing Book, The ultimate Guide to Google Adwords and The Wealthy Freelancer.
• Tablet Computer – If you don’t own one, a tablet can be very useful.   And tablets are coming down in price all the time (you can get tablets for just over £100).   If you don’t yet have one, it will revolutionise your world.
• A scanner – you can do away with all that paperwork and keep electronic files as described here.  Scanners can be purchased from as little as £30.
• A day at a spa – We all need a break from the day to day grind.  A day of relaxation can be used to rest, relax, recharge and most importantly, plan next year’s activities.  Spa days can be expensive, but a ‘trail’ day can be as little as £30.
• Stamps – Again, seems boring but… a) They won’t devalue, b) Purchased now they will be worth more when postage costs go up in the new year (in both the UA and UK), c) They are always needed and d) Can start you off with a new year mail shot campaign.  Much better than gift tokens.
• An extra monitor – If you use your computer a lot and you still only have 1 (or 2) monitor, an extra monitor will increase your efficiency.  Monitors can start from just £60.
• A better chair – If you spend a lot of time sitting and working, a good chair can make all the difference.  Chairs don’t have to be expensive, but avoid the ‘make it yourself’ variety as sold by Staples as these will be uncomfortable after an hour or so.
• An e-book Reader – one of the modern ebook readers (such as the Amazon Kindle) is perfect for catching up on your reading, whether it is novels, business books or blogs.
• A Love Film or Netflix subscription – DVD disks are becoming a little passé.  A much better option is the gift of a LoveFilm (UK) or Netflix (UK or USA) subscription which can allow rental of movies or streaming to your home.   Use it to catch up on movies which will motivate you to new business heights.
• A portable phone charger  - our mobile devices are the communication hubs of our businesses, so to have one low on power is a disaster.   With a cheap portable battery pack, a dead phone is never now a problem.

Every day, another social media cloud based application appears.  First there was Facebook, then Twitter, then all the sharing sites (like delicious) appeared and now we have Google+.  It’s a fair old mess out there, and if you are anything like me, keeping them all working as you would like can take a fair chunk of effort.

Well let me introduce you to yet another new service called IFTTT (which stands for “If This then That”).  What makes IFTTT unique is that it joins all the other cloud systems together and makes them work as a team.

As the name suggests, it’s a logic engine.  IFTTT allows you to join services together using IF logic rules – and the rules can be very complex.  As a basic example, if somebody follows me on Twitter, I can set IFTTT to DM them with a custom thank you message.  But you can do more clever things – such as if somebody tags a picture of me in facebook, download the picture to my dropbox account.

If This Then That

When you sign up, it asks you to create rules for what you want to do, what services you want to join, and how you want it to work.  I suggest you skip this and go directly to the recipes. Recipes (the option at the top of the screen) are predefined rules that other people have created.  Everything you can think of is already there – sort the list by popularity and take a look.

But if you want to create your own rule, you are free to do this as well, just create the rule (the IF clause) and the action you want carried out – it’s all very easy.  Once the rules have been activated, everything works like magic in the background.

Connected Systems

The power of IFTTT is the vast range of systems it can connect together.  It includes all the big guns (Twitter, Facebook, DropBox, Evernote, Google+) and many smaller cloud based services including lastfm, linkedin, sms, phone (for calls), RSS feeds, emails, calendars, diaries, weather services, Google Reader, Read It Later, Buffer and a whole host more).  There plans appear to include more over time – but there are already over 33.

I have been using IFTTT for a few days, and cannot say enough about it.   If you use more than one cloud based social or data application, you need this service.  Give IFTTT a try.   Oh, and by the way, it’s all FREE!!!

I have talked before about the power of Asking.    I thought I would share a real like example to show how effective it is.

Last week, my wife and I decided to employ a new gardener.  We telephoned a few, found two we liked the look of, and called them over for interviews and quotes.

Both gardeners took a good look round the garden; both gardeners produced an estimate on how much time per week it would take to maintain our gardens and a cost.  Both gardeners produced a list of some ideas for improving the garden.

The first gardener handed over the list with the quote and his contact details, and said he would leave it with us to decide – off he went.

The second gardener handed over the list with the price and contact details, but had circled around two items.

He said “It’s the right time of year for these two jobs – do it in a couple of weeks and it will be too late and will cause damage.  I have the tools in my van now and can spare a couple of hours if we want to get cracking.  Shall I make a start?”

Guess who got the job and is now our gardener?

So go on, ask for the business!

“Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.”
John F. Kennedy

I was looking at some trends recently for the self employed, and there has been a sharp increase in the weight of IT Workers, Americans and in particular, freelancers throughout the world.

Maybe it’s because we are all so busy working that we catch quick (but unhealthy) meals, or we don’t have time to exercise, or maybe it just goes with the territory.   However, as we all know, weight problems can lead to other problems, which can lead to the inability to work, which then leads to a lack of money.

But, I am not going to sit here and preach about getting healthy.  What I am going to do is talk about an option which may interest you… so please bear with me for just a while longer.

The World Is Stuffed Full of Secrets

What if I told you, the world was full of secret places, and hidden items – would you believe me?   What about if I told you a world-wide game of hide and seek was being played right now, very close to where you live and work?  Maybe right outside your house and office.

What about if I told you there was a way of getting a little exercise which is fun for you, fun for your family (and dog if you have one), and is not going to end up with you going down the gym or starting some major exercise regime?

Now what about if I told you its free?

Geocaching

I am talking about an activity called Geocaching.

Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.   I am not talking a virtual container here – I mean a real physical box with items inside.

There are tens of millions of these boxes hidden all over the world – all hidden from people who are not playing the game.  I can guarantee if you have left the house today, you will have walked or driven past a dozen or so without realising it.

If you have a modern mobile phone (iPhone, Android or even Symbian based), there will be a free Geocaching app which uses your phones GPS to guide you in this treasure hunt.   You simply pick a nice area, follow the guide and find the hidden containers (caches).

The containers can be in woods, parks, city streets, buildings, amusement parks, near rivers – anywhere.

Why I love It

Now the reason why I love it – it gets me away from work.  My family and I will go out for an hour or so, and we will go treasure hunting.  For that hour (or eight hours if we do it on a weekend), the family get quality me time, we all get some exercise, we all enjoy the challenge and I still get to use a gadget (to play the game).

Because we are always seeking different caches, the hunts take us to places we didn’t know existed.  We have discovered new pubs (bars), restaurants, woods, countryside paths, rivers, sights, historical buildings, walks, views and even people who we would never have known about if it were not for Geocaching.  We no longer have to visit the same places over and over again.

And being away from the normal work area means I have time to think, to plan, to recharge.  All whilst getting some exercise and staying fit enough to work.

Why not give Geocaching a try?

Last month, I went on holiday to China.  It was a good holiday. It was a great holiday.  But I was puzzled about the flights to and from China.

I flew with British Airways both ways, and noticed that the plane was 25% empty.   Economy was packed – not a free seat to be had, but premium, business and first class were practically empty.   Not surprising I guess, seeing we are teetering on the brink of another recession and people are cutting back.

But what surprised me was this – why were BA not upgrading passengers?  By moving people up one or two grades, they could get more people in the plane and therefore could make more money from the flight.

What is the cost of the Upgrade?

Ok, so maybe I am being optimistic.  After all, upgrading somebody from economy to business is just throwing money away.  Isn’t it?

But hang on – what is the real cost.   The fuel used is the same.  The cost of handling the passenger and their bags are the same.  They still have to have the same number of stewards.  The plane is going there anyway.   So what are we really talking in terms of cost to BA?   A better meal?

And what about the advantages?  They can fit more people on the plane, the flight is greener (more people equals better fuel ratio per flight/person), the stewards in upper class are not so bored.

But the real advantage is that people who only ever travel economy may find what they are missing from travelling premium or business.  They may like it so much that they may decide to travel in that class in the future.  In a nutshell, it’s a great sale at minimum cost.

Can you give a free upgrade?

So with things being as hard as they are, is it worth thinking about whether you can give a free upgrade to your own customers?  If things are fine and you are over busy, then that’s all well and good.  But if you have spare time on your hands, is there something else you could offer as a free upgrade?

What about the rights to the source code, or designs, or web content?  What about the test data you produced, or access to the specifications, or some after sales support?

Of course, the customer has to know they are being upgraded for it to be worthwhile and seen as good value.  Just handing it over is not enough.   But saying, “here is the agreed delivery, and as a special treat for your business in these difficult times and as a way of saying thank you, please accept (whatever you are giving them)”.

Point out this is provided as an upgraded for this time only, and that you normally provide this service/feature/benefit as part of your premium service.

You never know, your customers may like it up there in the expensive seats and decided to fly your premium service from now on.

Let me ask you a question?  What is the worst thing that could happen to your contracting, freelancing or small business?

I would imagine right up there with going bust and being sued is a visit from the tax man.   It’s never happened to me (and touch wood never will), but we all know that when the HMRC (or whoever your particular taxman works for) comes-a-knocking, we better have good records to back up all our business activities.

But do you really want all that paperwork floating around or sitting in files taking up space?

Paper Vs Electronic Storage – the UK Law

Following the UK Electronic Communications act 2000, an electronic form of document is deemed sufficient evidence in law.  That goes for contracts, agreements and of course receipts (seek your own legal advice to be sure).

This means if you have a scanned copy, then that is good enough for the taxman.  This also means you no longer have to store paper copies of everything.

Scanners and their problems

However, there is a problem in transforming everything from paper into bits and bytes.  When you go out and buy a dedicated scanner or multi-function printer/scanner, the device does not know what you are scanning.  It doesn’t know if that page of A4 is an invoice or a purchase order.

Scan all your invoices, receipts, orders or contracts and all you end up with is a big mess of PDF files named SCAN0001.PDF, SCAN0002.PDF and so on.  Whether you scan to JPEG, TIF or PDF – the sequential numbering of files generated actually makes the problem worse.

How do you find that critical contract when you have 5,000 PDFs and they have file names of SCAN00001 through to SCAN05000?

If you are lucky and prepared to spend the money, some scanners will perform OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on the documents.  Whilst this will slow down the scanning process, it does mean you can Windows (or Mac) search the PDFs for a known phrase.  But what about if you don’t know what text was on the contract?

There is a solution.

Decent PDF names

Over time, I have come to find that scanning to a PDF is the best option.  PDF scans will deal with multiple pages and front/back scanning (the term for this is Duplex) a lot better than scanning to a graphical format such as JPEG or TIFF.

Assuming you also want to scan to PDF, there is a free utility available created by a chap named Michael Weiner which allows the batch renaming of PDF files.   The great thing about this utility is that it cycles through all PDFs in a directory, displays them on screen, asks what you want to call it, and then renames the file for you.  The utility can be downloaded free here.

The way I scan my documents is that I scan any documents on receipt (or save received PDFs) to a directory then each weekend I quickly run through them using this utility, giving them decent names.  Once renamed, I then file them away.

Incidentally, I also save invoices and notes that are emailed to me in the same way.  I simply print any documents received to PDF (using the Free CutePDF virtual printer).  This installs a new virtual printer on your computer and you can then print any format of document to a new PDF file (via printing to the virtual printer) which I then save in the same location.

Storage Options

Once you have your collection of PDFs, what to do with them?   The system you select will depend on how fancy you want to be, how secure, how many documents you are likely to store, and of course how much you want to spend.

Here are some suggestions:

Accounts System – For any business money based documents (receipts, invoices, etc) I would recommend uploading them to your on-line accounting system.  I use Freeagent for all my money business processing, and I upload all documents associated to incomings and outgoings as I record them on Freeagent.   Everything is then easily at hand and Freegant deals with the storage and backup of the documents.

Evernote – If you are an Evernote user, then all the documents can be uploaded to Evernote.  This has the advantages that Evernote will automatically OCR your documents for later searching and you can create folders for different document types.  However, whilst the basic account of Evernote is free, uploading large amounts of PDFs will soon move you into the realms of a paid account.

Windows/Mac File Store – the cheap and cheerful solution is to simply keep them in a windows or Mac file directory somewhere on your computer’s hard disk.  As with Evernote you could keep them all in one big directory, or have sub-directories for different categories and document types (such as invoices, contracts etc).  Just remember to perform regular backups of your file store.

Sharepoint – My own personal product of choice is Microsoft Sharepoint (as I have a home Windows server anyway).  Sharepoint comes in a variety of sizes, styles and prices.  As I was using sharepoint for the storage of my general business documents (via integration to office), it seemed the logical choice to store my PDFs there as well.

Third Party Applications – Finally, there are a variety of paid for and free Document Management solutions available, including products such as OpenDocMan which is one of the better open source document storage systems.

Happy scanning.

Today, I had a run in with another small company.  I know the company name and I know that they sell items via Amazon – but that’s all I really know about them.  I don’t know how big they are, how high their turnover is, or even where they are based.

When I recently purchased an electronic device from Amazon, this company was recommended as the supplier.  The Amazon supplier page gave me an automated delivery date range – fair enough.  The order was placed, and I received a nice order confirmation from the company confirming the delivery date originally presented – all good stuff.

Except the item didn’t arrive.  In fact, by the due date, it had not even been despatched.

It needed me to chase the company for them to provide another date.  Now not only did they fail to give a reason for it not being despatched, but they also failed to offer an apology.   They don’t know what the item is for – it could be for me, or for somebody’s birthday or for a work project – they don’t know what impact a late delivery will have.

So I did what I always do, went back onto Amazon and gave them a negative review.  Nothing too harsh, just a “Missed the promised delivery date”.

The request for credit where credit was not due

My negative remark triggered an email from them saying (and I cut and paste here)… “We would like to plead with you regarding your feedback.  We are a small business  and would like to politely request that you consider changing this to a positive review as a negative feedback will adversely affect our small family business should you decide not to”.

So despite them missing their target, they actually want a good review?  They want me to lie?  You note that they don’t ask me to remove the negative comment – no, they want me to replace with a positive.

Price Verses Quality

So this takes us to the point of this transaction conflict and what I did wrong.  I went for somebody cheap, and what  I should have done is find a balance of cheap(ish) and reliable.

This if the difference between consumer spending and business spending.  Consumers are swayed a great deal by price, whereas businesses buy on risk, reliability and then price.  If we do business to business work, being Mr or Mrs Cheap and reducing the quality may put us at risk.

All businesses are at risk of having negative reviews placed against us.  Ebay, Amazon and business review sites makes it very easy for anybody to vent their anger about us.  Even for small shops or companies who think they are too small for such rants, anybody can vent their wrath on a blog site.

For big multi nationals, a few negative posts will get lost in the PR positive noise that they create so will have minimum impact.  But for us small businesses, one negative review can really hurt us.

So is it better to be cheap and let people down, or price for quality and deliver what you promise?  Or as a wise business coach once told me; Quality will be remembered long after Price has been forgotten.