4 Game-Changing tips on ‘How To Maintain Focus’
Focus, focus, focus. Learn how to stay focused, laser-sharp focus on your goals and stick to your priorities.
How to maintain focus?
That’s exactly what I think about when I think of focus, is a magnifying glass. You probably did this when you were a kid, you have an A4 piece of paper and you can only see so much, but if you put a magnifying glass over there it will reveal so much more. You can see the detail of the paper, if there’s writing on it, it becomes so close. However, if you get the force of something, of nature behind you, whether it be, say the sun, then that piece of paper literally catches on fire, and that is the power of focus. You can magnify your efforts and intensity into your goals and literally set them on fire. Here are some tips on how to do that in your life.
Focus tip number one, you’ve got to define SMART goals.
S stands for specific, these goals have to be really specific, they’ve got a clear start and end date, and also visual about what you want them to look like.
M stands for measurable, so you can measure your progress as you go and you can also measure what complete and finish looks like.
A is my favorite one, this is assignable. This is when you’re able to help enlist the help of other people around you, whether they be team members or mentors or partners that you work with to jump onboard and help get these things done.
R stands for Realistic, They need to be realistic. You can’t be over-aspirational about what you think you and your team can achieve if it’s not within the reality of the world.
T stands for time-measurable, it needs to be able to be measured in time. We want to have some really clear definitions about when to start and when to finish, and make sure everybody’s on top of what these time expectations are.
Tip 2: “Please do not disturb.”
Now, your time is precious and you need to let everybody around you know that it’s precious, because focus is going to give you the ability to literally set your goals on fire. What are some strategies that you can use to give everybody the message about do not disturb? One thing that I recommend as a business owner is to try and get your first biggest priority done before you even get in the office. You all know what it’s like when you get in there employees go, “Hey, can I get this or can I get your perspective on that?” Knowing that that’s going to be the case, try and get something done before you even get into that environment.
Having a system about what a ‘closed door’ and ‘open door’ means is super powerful! You might be able to communicate that type of message to your team. For those of you who work in an open environment like I do, and those who work in coworking spaces, a good message about Do Not Disturb could relate to having headphones on. I’ve never known some people to literally listen to music during the day, well sometimes they just leave their headphones on just to send the message that, “I’m not one to be disturb right now while I’ve got my headphones on.”
Tip 3: ‘A goal without a plan is just a wish’
You have to start your day with an intention about what you want to achieve, and this looks like having a daily prioritized to-do list. Now a good thing that I learned is to get a piece of paper, you fold it up in half, you fold it up in half again, you fold it up in half one more time, and whatever you can fit in that piece of paper is all you’re going to aim to achieve in one day. Now the next part of that is to prioritize them. Realistically you can probably fit about five, maybe six great things to be done today. Prioritize what those five are and have them, then you can have them in your pocket, you can always reference them throughout the day to make sure you’re on track with your priorities.
Tip 4: Focus is about prioritizing tasks.
Now we’ve already talked about the fact that your first hour of your day is the most valuable, that’s when you’re most optimistic, that’s when you got the most energy, and that’s before everyone’s come to borrow that energy off of you.
Focus on whatever your priority is.
Here’s the thing about us Business owners, our job is to be focused on prioritising big impact projects. What are the projects we can get behind that will have a lasting effect for many years to come? If you find yourself doing things that only have low impact, then you’re not going to be able to achieve these big goals in your business.
Focus on things that have big impact, massive return on investment, or that affect a number of people, whether it be team members of clients with one effort.
That might look like writing a blog article or recording a YouTube video that will forever be there and will impact hundreds and thousands of people who have actually watch these things. That’s the priorities that you need to focus on as business owners.
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How To Create More Time In Your Day!
Feel like you don’t have enough time? I want to share with you 4 easy and powerful tips so you can create more time, even when you feel like you don’t have it.
Now, this is a really interesting one, because the challenge is we all have the same amount of time, so it’s not a case of not having enough time. You have the same 24 hours the Mother Theresa had, that Gandhi has, that Tony Robbins has. Let’s be clear, this is not a time issue. We all have 24 hours.
This is a challenge about priorities, and how we feel about the priorities that we achieve, and more importantly, sometimes, how we feel about the priorities that we don’t achieve.
Here’s four tips that I’d recommend in reading more time when you feel like you have none.
Step number one: Think about what are the things that are taking most of the time from you and taking those feelings of overwhelm from you too.
Most people have the habit of waking up, and what’s the first thing they do? They roll over to their bed and look at their phone, and check their notifications and scroll scroll scroll in e-mail, and scroll scroll scroll on Facebook. I read a brilliant book by Tim Ferris, The 4-Hour Work Week, where he recommends that we move away from constantly being involved in all of these things that are notifying us, and batch them into certain parts of the day. I aim for 10 A.M. and 2 P.M. as the two windows that I both check email and Facebook.
You may need to, on the other side of this, have a bit of expectation setting with your clients, where that looks like an out-of-office reply, but it means that you’re back in control of the priorities in your day, and therefore in your life, and you’ll feel much better about it.
Step number two: Is to schedule everything.
We’re business owners, so we’re in the habit of having meetings with clients. Now, we’re eventually going to move away from meeting our life away, but we can apply that same priority we give to meetings to our personal lives and to the things that are important to us. When you have your day’s priorities, schedule the amount of time that you think it will take to get them done, book it in your calendar, and just like you’d never show up to a meeting late, or you’d never not show up, let’s give the same priority to the projects and priorities that you scheduled for yourself throughout the day, whether these be personal things like going to the gym, or whether it be work-related things like putting that important report together.
Rule number three: Is measure everything.
From measurement, you can start managing. You’ve heard of that topic. What I recommend in this place is an application called RescueTime. It’s one you can install on your computer or your device, and it gives you awareness, over a week or over a day, about what you’re actually doing on your computer. If you’re in emails, it will measure that. If you’re on Facebook, it’ll measure that. If you’re in Zero, it’ll measure it. If you’re on YouTube, it will measure that. Sometimes, as business owners, it’s going to help to be aware about where we’re actually spending our time. An application like RescueTime can help give us that awareness. As you know, awareness is step one. Once we see it we go, “Wow,” and then from there we can start making change.
Rule number four: Is keeping yourself accountable.
One great habit you can get into as a team, this is fantastic for culture, is every morning when you get in, have a little huddle around the desk and say,
“What are the key priorities that we’re all going to achieve today?”
You as the business owner can be accountable to every other team member within the group, and same to, they can be accountable to each other. Think about your top three or four priorities, verbalize them to the rest of the team throughout the day, and either at the end of the day or the following day’s huddle, we can get accountability on how we went with what we said we were going to do.
If you’re in business, but you wouldn’t say that numbers is really your thing, I’d recommend downloading this E-book, The Five Numbers That All Business Owners Need to Know. This will give you insight into the five numbers that matter most in your business and in your life.
Need some help with passing on some of those frustrating time taker tasks?
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How To Use Facebook Groups To Increase Referrals And Retain Your Best Clients
In this video, you’ll learn how to use Facebook groups to increase your referrals and retain your best clients.
Hi, I’m Harvee from Inspire and stay tuned.
How to use Facebook groups to grow your business and referrals, and retain your best clients? This is a really passionate subject of mine because I love Facebook and so too does the world. It’s probably one of the platforms that had the most active users on it, but it’s also about tribes. I love tribes, too, because we’re from New Zealand and everyone has a strong identity to the tribe they come from.
Now, in the world of small business, tribes relate to the people that you wish to do work with or the people that you want to hang out with, and in the Facebook world, this looks like groups. If you’re interested in any topic, if you love CrossFit, if you love cooking, if you love traveling to South America, then there’s definitely going to be a tribe or a Facebook group for you. Here’s some tips about how to maximize Facebook and groups to be able to return your best clients and to be able to grow your business.
4 networking tips to start your Facebook group today:
1. With Facebook groups, the first thing you need to do or I’d recommend is to start participating in other people’s groups.
In Facebook, you can do a search for groups and you can start putting in keywords for the types of things that you’re interested in. Let’s say I was interested in boxing. I could type in ‘boxing’ and see what type of groups there are around me. Once I find them, you can add yourself into the group.
2. Now that you found the groups that identify you and your likes or your business interests, the next step is to participate in these groups and there’s a unique way of doing it within the Facebook.
This social world means that we’re about adding value, so don’t sell when you get in there. When you jump in, tell your story, add value to other people around you. Quite often, the groups are around sharing tips and sharing ideas or helping a group of people solve a common problem. If you know the answer, if you’ve got some experience, feel free to add value and share that experience instead of putting yourself out there and say, “Buy this,” or “Align yourself with my service.” That won’t get you very far and, in fact, an admin might even remove you from the group if you’re in that sales mode.
3. Tip number 3 is, It is a good opportunity to test some ideas, so you’re not out there to sell and you’re not out there saying, “Buy this, buy that,” but you have the opportunity to put some ideas.
Let’s say you’re thinking about running a webinar, and you weren’t too sure which of the three topics you should do that webinar on. You could go into group and say, “Hey, guys, I represent this business and we are interested in achieving this outcome. We’re thinking about running a webinar on topic 1, 2, or 3. What do you think we should do?” In so doing, that’s give you the ability to, in a very soft and subtle way, have people start to engage or interact with your brand without you being able to say, “Buy my product or register for my webinar.”
4. Now, the 4th and final tip to remember is that a successful group is about a topic and not a brand.
You might be interested in CrossFit but the group isn’t necessarily about specific CrossFit gym. It’s about sharing ideas, about recipes, about workout tips, about the social things that are happening, but it’s not just about that company and that service offering. Once you’re confident with this, start exploring these groups, and “Here’s some great tips or great groups that I love.” There’s a topic or a group that exists called Google Apps for Work. I love the idea of Google Apps. In that group, we go in there to share different ideas about how to best use these applications.
Also, I know of another successful group called The 4 Blades and they’ve got a Facebook group in which those who use the thermomix are able to share recipes, share ideas, and brainstorm challenges that they’re all commonly facing. Once you go through and you become a bit of a Ninja at hanging out in Facebook groups, then and only then would I suggest you go and set up your own Facebook group.
Remember, it’s about what your business represents. It’s not necessarily about your business itself.
For Inspire, we represent an accounting firm but why we exist is helping young families in small business, and that’s exactly the name of our group, and we all talk about commonly occurring issues or ideas or suggestions that we have as a unique tribe hanging out in that safe environment.
Now Go For Gold! Make the most of the multitude of Facebook groups, and have FUN!
If you like what you learned in today’s video, feel free to start a conversation with us. Like this video. Put a comment up below. We keep an eye on them. Share your ideas. Share your stories. If you’ve got a question, you can ask us and we’ll answer it for you. You can also jump over to InspireCA’s facebook page to find out more about how we use our facebook groups to connect, educate and support other business’.
On another note, got a burning question about Tax, Your Accountant or Business Structures?
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Stop Procrastinating! 2 Quick Tips To Help You Stay On Task
You’ve been there before, you’re sitting on the computer, you’ve got your to-do list of things that are priority and important to do in your day, but you’re just sitting there scrolling and looking at Facebook, or you’re in your inbox. The worst thing is, you know you’re not really doing anything. You’re just farting around or what we like to call ‘faffing’ around!
So how do we stop procrastinating?
Well, the first step is to think about what are the things that are taking your attention away. This is a real challenge in the modern day because we’ve got so many notifications in our world and they’re so addictive. Before we go into the tips about procrastination, let me give you an understanding as to why these types of notifications are so addictive and how hard it is to break away from these habits.
How the human brain works is there are all sorts of chemicals that are going on. When you’re scrolling through Facebook for instance, and you see something that excites you, whether it’s a picture, whether it’s a bit of juicy gossip, or a bit of information, like wow, that sets off a chemical trigger in your brain called dopamine that says, “This information is good” which feeds the craving for wanting more and more. That’s why it’s so addictive for us to scroll continuously.
Have you ever had that feeling when you’re scrolling, and you stop to ask yourself, “What am I even doing? There’s nothing here; it’s boring.” They’re just saying the same stuff but yet we keep scrolling in the hope of feeding that same ‘feeling’ we got once. Then before we know it we are back at the same point we remembered looking at last night.
The reason is that your brain associates the fact that one time you saw that really cool information which set off that chemical reaction and made you feel good. So now you remember that feeling and are searching for it again, that’s why it’s addictively looking for that next fix.
It’s really important when it comes to procrastination to realize that fighting procrastination means actually going against our human biology.
We’re addicted to these notifications that are around us, and these are the things that have the tendency to distract us. So it all comes down to eradicating your notifications, so that have the tendency to distract you. Now that you understand this here are two tips to help you stop procrastinating and get you focused on your big task for the day.
It all comes down to eradicating your notifications that have the tendency to distract you.
Here’re two simple tips for eliminating procrastination from your life.
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First, you must Identify the Problem:
For me, this is my biggest distraction. I’m probably getting about 150-200 notifications or pings per day through Facebook and Instagram and also through emails.
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Then you can Find the Solution:
With Facebook, you can actually get an application that turns off your news feed. It’s called a news feed eradicator. That means if you have the tendency to, while you’re working you pull up another tab and you go to Facebook, it appears that there’s nothing there in your news feed and your brain goes, “Oh well, nothing here to see today,” and you close that, and you get back to work. That’s playing on the fact that you know that something’s going to be able to distract you.
Anytime that you want to have a hundred percent focus I recommend implementing this proven strategy:
Identify your trigger points and create new habits:
If you’re not at our computer, it is more likely than not that you will have your mobile devices on you, which I hate to say it, but it is an automatic magnet for distraction and procrastination!
If things become out of control and you really need something to change, I recommend you either log out of these applications, so it makes it harder to click back in or even delete them off your phone completely.
At the end of the workday or the end of the week, you might have to form a habit of removing those ‘procrastination apps’ from your phone.
The final BIG tip – Set up a reward system:
Set your phone to airplane mode! That means no phone calls will come through; no notifications will come through, and then you can reward yourself by turning it back on at the end of that job or end of that task and go, I wonder what happened in that last 20 minutes. What once caused you procrastination can be turned around and become your reward!
If you liked what you have learned in today’s video, feel free to start a conversation with us by commenting below. We keep an eye on it. Share your ideas, share your stories.
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Are Coffee Meetings Tax Deductible?
Ever wondered if coffee meetings are tax deductible?
Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m a big coffee freak. I have about 3 or 4 cappuccinos every day. My favourite coffee shop is Bellissimo. You’ve got to try it. It’s around the corner from Inspire and there’s also one around one from my house. I get it everywhere.
I was down there meeting with a prospective client the other day. I shouted the coffees, of course. I went to pay for the coffees and the kind girl behind the desk asked me, “Would you like a tax invoice?” It made me think, why would I need a tax invoice? Are coffee meetings tax deductible? So I went back to Inspire and asked the accountants this very question:
“Are coffee meetings tax deductible? What about other meetings that include food, are they tax deductible too?”
Here’s what they told me:
You can claim meals while you’re traveling overnight.
If you’re an employee going off to a conference, and you’re away from your usual home, then you can claim that meal.
There’s guidance from the ATO, but budget for about a hundred dollars per night. That means you might be able to go to the coffee club and grab a Bolognese, but I wouldn’t really be going to Jamie’s Italian and getting a full course meal.
You can claim meals supplies as a working lunch.
Say you got a team, this happens quite regularly during tax time, we’re really busy and we tend to work late. We go out and buy Domino’s. That’s fine because that’s all part of keeping the progress going, with regards to our work. If it’s related to our team being able to continue working, then that’s okay.
You can claim meals supplied from an in-house canteen or café.
I know this really cool engineering business in West End, who have a chef in-house and they supply meals to their team, throughout the day. What a great place to work? These items would be tax deductible and exempt of FBT.
You can claim snacks on the road, while you’re going as a business owner.
As a business owner, you might be out and about, meeting with clients throughout the day. Grabbing a coffee and a muffin, here and there, while you’re doing your day-to-day work is A-okay. Again, you’ve got to be reasonable. The ATO isn’t stupid. If you’re putting through 7-course at a gas station lunches, instead of a coffee here and a muffin, it’s probably not going to go down so well.
So there you have it! The 4 rules, with regards to how to make coffee meetings and meals tax deductible.
To conclude, My advice to you, as a fellow business owner is to:
- Focus on whatever investment you make into your business, whether it’s a coffee meeting here or whether it’s a Facebook ad there.
2. Ask yourself the question, ‘What is the return on investment you’re going to get from that?’ I always try to aim for 5 to 20 times our way. This is the focus point for you as a business owner, if it turns out to be tax deductible as a result, well bonus. If it isn’t, move on. There’s no point in trying to spend an hour trying to make a 20 cent tax savings on an orange mocha Frappuccino that you had on the weekend than risk that concern and anxiety that might come from being audited.
3. And most importantly, focus on the biggest bang for your buck!
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Increase your profit by mastering this little known economic principle…
Parkinson’s Law says is that if there’s an available resource, it will be used up.
For example with my uni assignments, if I’ve got three weeks to complete a uni assignment, I’ll take the three weeks to complete the uni assignment.
Realistically though, I’ll probably do nothing for the first two and a half weeks and then smash out the assignment in the last two and a half days but I’ll use up that entire period of time to work on that assignment.
This is the same sort of thing where money is involved.
That’s why we say that the traditional profit formula doesn’t really work because if your revenues are up here and your expenses are down here, Parkinson’s Law says that that available resource of revenue will be used up.
Ultimately you’ll start finding more expenses to occur to match your revenues.
I mean, that’s found in personal life as well.
People say all the time, you live to your means. If you’re earning $80,000 a year, you’ll live a lifestyle that meets the $80,000 a year that you’re earning.
We believe that Parkinson’s Law plays a big part in how businesses are run and how profits are made.
Instead of combating this, I guess, natural tendency to use up everything that we have available to us, the Cash Rich Business method teaches us to better manage our animal urges.
One of the main ways that we do that is by having business owners operate out of five key accounts, which is your IN account, which just means money comes into that account and that’s from where you distribute it.
Then throughout the month you distribute it to four other accounts which are essentially your four main purposes for money in a business.
First being profit, then owner’s pay, then tax and finally operational expenses.
That’s the Cash Rich Business method.
That’s how it works, that’s our thinking behind it.
Once we’ve gone through that workshop, we get to say to the business owners, okay, what we want you to implement is to set up your profit account, that’s the number one thing and then the next big step is to cut ten percent of the operational expenses.
We call this trimming the fat.
That’s our sort of key term.
The reason is that in order to find all the different fluctuations and stuff that’s going to be happening in your business by applying the Cash Rich Business method to your business, you’re going to need some room to move.
As a rule of thumb, we’ve said ten percent needs to go. This is the time when business owners often say, look I need money to make money. This isn’t going to work. I need to spend what I’m spending, every dollar is accounted for.
We’ve found time and time again that it really just isn’t the case always and so we give them two sort of key principles to, okay, how are we going to either cut your expenses entirely, just get rid of what you’re spending or negotiate it down?
There are two rules to cutting expenses:
1. Cut everything that doesn’t make you more efficient or keep your customers happy.
2. Negotiate everything else.
That’s probably one of the biggest feedback that we get from people that have gone through the workshop, is them saying, hey look, I was applying this the other day and I went to Optus or I went to Telstra, or I went to this provider with the competitor’s quote and they were able to match it or they were able to cut costs.
Simple things like that can save your business hundreds throughout the year!
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Negative Profit – why this is bad, and what to do about it?
What is negative profit?
| Imagine your business has ten thousand dollars a week coming in.A negative fifteen percent profit means that you are actually spending eleven thousand five hundred dollars.
One thousand five hundred more, than you should actually be spending. One thousand five hundred dollars more than you have. That’s what a negative profit percentage looks like. Why is negative profit bad?That’s one thousand five hundred dollars, because it is not coming from the business income, needs to come from outside sources.
Your days are numbered… Let’s say you had access to $15,000 in reserves (savings, credit cards and loans etc) And you’re spending fifteen hundred dollars a week more is coming in. This means you only have ten weeks in business remaining before it’s game over. How to turn a negative profit percentage, into a positive…If you have a negative profit percentage chances are, you are spending more money on your operational expenses than you should be. The way to fix a negative profit percentage is to start cutting expenses. |
Where to legally store your excess profits, so the tax man doesn’t take half. (HINT: It’s not in Panama!) ???
Imagine you’ve got an amazing business that is trading through a Trust.
You take out some profit to feed yourself, feed your family, put the kids in school and live comfortably.
But you still have some excess profit left over!
If you take it out, you’ll have to pay up to 49 percent tax.
What do you do?
Now the strategy here is actually to set up a company.
The purpose of this company is to receive a distribution from your business.
It’s a distribution of profits of your business.
So here’s where the tax savings come in …
Individuals pay up to 49 percent tax, but companies when they’re receiving a distribution from a trust, they only pay 30 percent tax.
So paying that profit to a company instead of an individual will save you 19% tax – 49% minus 30%.
Important: You can’t just do this distribution ‘on paper’.
The cash must go from your business into your company and into the company bank account.
Then you can use that money to invest in anything else like commercial property, residential property, you can invest in shares with the money in the company.
You may know these company structures by the following names –
- A company
- A Pty Ltd
- A corporate beneficiary and even
- A Bucket Company
I like to think of it as your “Family Vault”.
It’s a smart place to store the profits your business AND reduce the amount of tax you’re paying.
Got a burning question about using Business Structures to save tax and create a family vault?
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Risky business – Dangers of Sole Traders, Partnerships & ABNs as Business Structures ??
| As Accountants, we are seeing people drop out of high-paying employment or jobs, and jumping in and starting their own business.
This is a very exciting time and it’s a great way to be absolutely in control of the impact that you make on this world. However, this big move towards jumping into business is creating another really big problem. That problem is, many people think “Ah, I can get an ABN or I’m a sole-trader and voila – I’m in business”. But there’s so many risks associated with being a Sole Trader. I’ve been in business for a number of years and I’ve been exposed to some of these risks.
So when I learnt about these business structure strategies, it just helped me sleep a bit easier at night, and more importantly, helped me reduce my tax.. I don’t want to be in business and have to give half my money to the taxman! What type of business structures are available to start ups?Well interestingly, there are actually 400 new businesses registered each week. So what that normally means is registering an ABN. An ABN can actually be registered to a sole trader, partnerships, trusts or companies. They are the common business structures. But the majority of people start up as a sole trader or, with a mate or a friend, as a partnership.
Why do most new businesses start up as a sole trader?I believe a big thing is cost. It’s very easy (and free!) to go and register an ABN. There are two big problems though… What are the risks associated with being an ABN holder, or a sole trader, or a partner in business?It might cost you nothing to go set up an ABN, but there are two big problems with being a sole trader which can cost you thousands. Problem No 1: Paying too much tax. The first one is you’ll give 49% of your profit, potentially up to that amount, to the tax man. That is ridiculous. No-one likes to pay excess tax, and 49% per cent tax is ridiculous. Problem No 2: Business Risks affecting Personal Assets. Second one is there’s actually no protection from the risks of your business to your personal assets. So your family home, the two cars, the shares that you invest into, your investment property, cash in the bank; they’re all exposed to the risks of your business. So my advice.
Do I need a proper business structure (Trust and / or Company) from day one or can I wait a year?Business structures are a long-term investment. So if you don’t set up in the right structure from day one, then you’re going to have problems down the road. Let me explain …
You are essentially selling your business to another entity, or another company or a trust. That sale means you’ve made a gain on what your business is worth. You’re not getting any cash, because you’re selling it to yourself, but you’ve got to pay two taxes.
So my advice is –
Why are partnerships twice as dangerous as sole traders?A partnership is always very dangerous unless you trust the person with your life. What it means to go into a partnership, it’s like two sole traders coming together with the aim of making profit and to make money. So they’re both, in effect, liable each other’s decisions. For example … Let’s say Ben and I go into a partnership together. It’s a food truck business. Ben decides “Hey, we need a new stovetop”. Stovetop is going to cost 15 thousand dollars. So he goes out, he buys it, he signs a contract with the partnership signing the contract. As his partner I am liable for those payments. We’re both liable. This means if one day Ben decides to take off to America. I’m the only one left in Australia, they’ll come after me for payment. And I am left liable. So it’s my house, my car, my little pushbike on the line for a mistake that my partner may have made. So that’s why it’s really dangerous to go into business where there’s no structure.
How do I separate business risks from personal assets?Business risks –
Personal Wealth –
Note: Your Superannuation is not included as it is protected in it’s own way.
A final warning if you are a Sole Trader…A lot of people start business with an ABN as a sole trader. They postpone changing to a trust or a company until ‘tomorrow.’ And that’s mainly because I believe no-one is out there giving the education on what the alternatives are. So they might leave it, and one day find themselves turning over this 300,000 dollar a year business. They’re making great money but they are stuck in this structure paying 49 cents in tax. Yuk! They need to change, so here are the costs –
So, while it might be cheaper to start off as a sole trader, it’s not worth leaving it very long at all. In conclusion…You can be in business, or you can be in risky business. What’s your choice? I’ll take the option where I can sleep at night!
Got a burning question about using Business Structures to save tax and create a family vault?Book in, to TEST DRIVE AN ACCOUNTANT – a 15 min rapid fire Q & A session with an Inspirational Accountant. |
Are you smoking away all your profits?
| I’m not proud of it. But my first business was … selling cigarettes to under-aged kids.This entrepreneurial dream didn’t last long as the principal of my school had actually gotten wind of what I was doing.
I packed up shop really, really, really quickly, but not before learning a lesson about business and profits that I’d never forget… Once I’d shut up shop, I realized that I didn’t really have anything to show for it. I got to the point I was like, “ah, I didn’t turn a profit.” I’ve got nothing saved up towards my PlayStation or whatever else I was saving up for at the time!
What happened to all the profits?I literally smoked them. It got to the point where business was going so well, it was in the first week or so, that I thought I might have a cigarette out of my pile. I’ve got so many, I’m selling so many, I’ve got so much money coming in. I thought I would reward myself, plus I had a lot faithful friends so I had reward them too! It turned out that most of what had come in I had actually used to buy my own cigarettes or giving out cigarettes to my friends, so I barely, truly, smoked up my profits. So what’s the moral of the story… other than don’t sell cigarettes to school mates? All this made me realize that, it’s a funny story, it’s a horrible story, but there’s a lesson to be learned here and that lesson is that, in any business you can get to the point where things are going so, so, so well, that you think why not reward yourself? Why not go on holiday? Why not take money out for this? Why not shout this, that and the other? It’s this illusion that we live that money keeps coming in and it’s just going to keep coming in, no matter what. Similar to what happened to me, a lot of the time business owners get to that point where it’s like, I know I’ve got a bill due, I’ve got to make rent on this place that we’re in or whatever else, and you look back and there’s nothing to show. You’ve smoked up all of your profits or you’ve gone and spent on all of these expenses and you’ve just got nothing to show for it. The key is to protect your profits!In our Cash Rich Business Workshops. We teach our business owners how to better manage their finances, how to put their profit first and take that chunk out well in advance before everything else goes out. That’s it. By taking a small percentage of every dollar that comes in and provisioning it to your “Profit War Chest”, you don’t end up at the end of the year and nothing to show!
Got a burning question about how you can increase your profit and build your own ‘Profit War Chest’?Book in, to TEST DRIVE AN ACCOUNTANT – a 15 min rapid fire Q & A session with an Inspirational Accountant. |
Get Cashed Up
