Book Review: OVERSUBSCRIBED by Daniel Priestley – How to get people lining up to do business with you.

Build an Inspiring Book List with Harvee Pene (Partner & Business Advisor at Inspire CA) as he undertakes his 2016 Challenge: Read (implement & review) a Book a Week.

Harvee – The second I walked past the title, it was book love at first sight.

“OVERSUBSCRIBED: How to get people lining up to do business with you?”

That’s exactly what I want for my business. And probably what you want for yours too.

It’s about doing business on your terms, with just your ideal clients.

It’s about bringing on new clients in waves / groups, rather than 1 at at time.

It’s about being a Key Person of Influence.

It’s about running your year and your business around series of annual campaigns.

It’s about defining a maximum capacity, and saying no to anything above that, in order to deliver a world class experience.

You’ll want to buy a copy for each of your management team and study this chapter by chapter.

In fact, Ben (my business partner) and I went on a business planning retreat last weekend and essentially reformatted our business around this model.

p.s. here’s the link to the KPI workshop (discount using that link) that’s being held in Brisbane in March that I’ll be attending for the first time if anyone wants to join.

Book Review: OVERSUBSCRIBED by Daniel Priestley – How to get people lining up to do business with you

Build an Inspiring Book List with Harvee Pene (Partner & Business Advisor at Inspire CA) as he undertakes his 2016 Challenge: Read (implement & review) a Book a Week.

Harvee – The second I walked past the title, it was book love at first sight.

“OVERSUBSCRIBED: How to get people lining up to do business with you?”

That’s exactly what I want for my business. And probably what you want for yours too.

It’s about doing business on your terms, with just your ideal clients.

It’s about bringing on new clients in waves / groups, rather than 1 at at time.

It’s about being a Key Person of Influence.

It’s about running your year and your business around series of annual campaigns.

It’s about defining a maximum capacity, and saying no to anything above that, in order to deliver a world class experience.

You’ll want to buy a copy for each of your management team and study this chapter by chapter.

In fact, Ben (my business partner) and I went on a business planning retreat last weekend and essentially reformatted our business around this model.

p.s. here’s the link to the KPI workshop (discount using that link) that’s being held in Brisbane in March that I’ll be attending for the first time if anyone wants to join.

The secret recipe to breaking down Big Scary (and Hairy) Audacious Goals into bite sized chunks!

Ever had a great idea for a business that was borne out of a frustration you faced? Ever wanted to take a 3 month Road trip around Australia? Ever tried one of those crappy frozen meals and wondered if there was anything better out there? (I know I have!)

It was an absolute pleasure to interview Dave Compton from Caveman Kitchen this week as part of our YFSB interviews – sharing the inspirational stories and strategies behind Brisbane’s well known entrepreneurs.

You’re going to love this interview, especially the systematic reverse engineering of a 3 month Road trip into a specific number of meals – genius!

Enjoy – Harvee

HP: Hi Dave, What is your business?

DC: Caveman Kitchen – we deliver healthy (gluten free, preservative free and no added sugar) to your door. https://cavemankitchen.com.au/

HP: What does your family look like?

DC: My beautiful fiance’s name is Abbey. We’ve been together since 2011 and will be getting married in Thailand in March!

HP: When and why did you start your Business?

DC: Abbey and I both had 9 – 5 Corporate Jobs and we got tired of spending our whole Sunday going to the markets, buying food and spending the whole day doing meal prep for the week.

So we looked out for healthy prepared meal options but they weren’t really as healthy as they professed to be. So Caveman Kitchen was born. We’re now 2 years old.

HP: So are you both professional chefs then?

DC: Not at all. I’m an engineer and Abbey comes from a background in Marketing and PR.

HP: What’s your biggest lesson learnt after 2 years in Business?

DC: Just do it. You learn far more as you go than you ever could have by delaying a start while make a ‘perfect’ plan. We went from idea to our first delivered meal in 6 weeks. What a learning curve!

HP: As you know Inspire CA helps Young Families, Use Their Small Business to Achieve Big Goals. What is a BIG GOAL you and Abbey are working towards with Caveman Kitchen this year?

DC: Over xmas we made a Big Goal of taking a 3 month road trip around Australia, later this year. This is how we reverse engineered that goal…

We started with our Organisation Chart. Right now Abbey [my future wife and business partner] and I take most of the positions. So we know now in order to get away for that amount of time, the Ideal Positions that need to be filled.

How much those positions cost, gave us the revenue we’d need to achieve in order to afford the roles. We now have a Revenue Target with a real reason behind it – our 3 month road trip!

We also know exactly how many meals we need to make to reach the revenue target. But that’s not the end of it. Revenue isn’t going to increase on its own!

We’ve broken the Goal of increased revenue (e.g. number of meals sold) into a number of Strategies (e.g. Increase website conversion rate) and each strategy into a number of Tactics (e.g. A / B Split Test website content).

For us, this process has broken down a Big Scary (and Hairy) Audacious Goal into manageable chunks that I can prioritise and systemise.

HP: That’s brilliant. I personally subscribe to Caveman Kitchen meals and I love them – especially the all day breakfast. How might our Inspire readers get a taste for what you do?

DC: Here’s a promo code for Inspire that will get you $30 off your first order. Go to c avemanktichen.com.au/order and enter the code ‘LIFE’

Goal setting is one of the most important things you should be doing with your team on a weekly or even daily basis.

But sometimes it is harder to implement them than we think.

In this video, Harvee will give you some awesome tips to help you stay on track with your company goals and show you how to set them so your team will want to crush them with you.

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5 Questions to Profit in 2016

And designing the dream lifestyle you want, with plenty of holidays and time to work ON the business!

Hey, welcome back to 2016! Ever heard of the saying “the quality of one’s life is in direct proportion to the quality of the questions you ask of yourself”?

I’m pretty sure it was that big motivational guy Tony Robbins who said it. Makes sense though right?

Well using Tony Robbins words, today’s webinar was about drastically improving the quality of your business and your life!

Who doesn’t want that for the great 2016 ahead.

The questions are quite simple, yet many business owners (which actually sounds a lot like busy-ness owners) struggle to find the time to prioritise!

So give yourself the gift of clarity by watching the webinar on demand (it’s only 20, very entertaining minutes).

Plus we share 3 great Book recommendations, detail around how to put the TREAT in business retreat and some ideas on how to save tax while having great fun.

Yep, you guessed it … it’s another big show of Australia’s (the world’s?) coolest Accounting firm education channel.

Let’s do this!

On Demand recording:

[su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5Wj-qhrae8″ width=”640″ height=”360″]

Resources, Books and Links mentioned

The Inspire CA website – inspireca.com

The Inspire CA Facebook Page – www.facebook.com/InspireCA

The #InspireMeetUp on Thurs 21st “Celebrating Great Australian Businesses” – www.facebook.com/InspireCA/events, with guest speaker Daniel Rayner the Founder of Entrepreneurs of Brisbane – https://www.facebook.com/EOBofficial/.

Email hello@inspireca.com to give feedback on the agenda for the upcoming Cash Rich Business workshop.

Book Recommendation – “On the subject of lifestyle design” – Tim Ferriss and his book, the 4 Hour Work Week – http://fourhourworkweek.com/

Book Recommendation – “Personal Wealth Strategy to Pay Yourself First” – The Richest Man In Babylon by George S Glasson – http://www.amazon.com/The-Richest-Babylon-George-Clason/dp/1508524351

Book Recommendation – “Business Wealth strategy on separating profits into a separate account FIRST” – Profit First by Mike Michalowicz – http://profitfirstbook.com/

My Top 3 Business / Life Improvement tips from this episode

Taking 3 x 2 week holidays per year doesn’t just allow you time to refresh yourself, but it also gives the remaining team members room to grow, make decisions and step up.
Paying yourself first is a common idea in Personal Wealth books but why not extract your desired Business Profits First (into a separate, hard to access, account) and be smart with what’s left.
WOW or Work On Wednesdays – a day per week dedicated to being out of the office, working ON the business. Completing activities like business planning, marketing and blog articles, product and team development.

Related Inspirational Quotes

“If you don’t know where you’re going, how are you ever going to get there?”

“Ask and you shall receive”

“The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the quality of the questions you ask yourself”

Over to you

What was your biggest business or life improvement learning or ah-ha moment from this episode?

Leave your comment on our Young Family Small Business Collaboration community – https://www.facebook.com/groups/InspireFamily/

Our guests and I respond to each and every comment.

Welcome to the NEW YEAR!!!

Bring your game into the New Year: Michael Jordan knows his numbers

I just recently wrote an article about a baseball team using numbers to win. And in that same week, hearing a quote, I realised something about Michael Jordan’s career.

Michael Jordan would make a great businessman. Oh, I would actually say he is a great businessman, second to basketball.

Michael set goals

Michael set out to be the world’s greatest basketball player. He didn’t start out mucking around.

This would have been a huge target to him, but he set it. He kept it front of mind in every shot, every training session, every time he went on the court.

“I will be the best

Michael knew his numbers

In a recent television ad, Michael is quoted as saying:

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

The man knew his numbers. Even though in the quote above, he’s brought the focus on the negative numbers, he would be able to tell you how many shots he made, how many games he won, and how many game winning shots he made.

What I also find interesting about this quote is it has no mention of:

Games won
Trophies collected
Championship rings won

These ones that he didn’t mention are all lag indicators, rather than lead indicators that are mentioned in the quote.

Michael achieved his success

The outcome of his focus, tracking and making adjustments based on these numbers ultimately lead to his success.

Touted regularly in the Top 10 lists of greatest basketball players, his success is very well known.

What has this got to do with business?

Well, the same principles apply:

1) Set targets

2) Know your numbers

3) Work hard

Success will come to you!

How to Plan for Profit in 2016

Let’s Make it Your Best Year yet – Plan for Profit!

Wouldn’t it be great to Plan well for 2016 now so you can spend more quality time with your family?

How do the multi millionaires plan for profit for the next year so they can holiday in peace?

Watch this webinar and find out:

Here is a sneak peak to what is in this webinar:

Bill Gates’ interesting holiday habit
The Power of One Number rather than many
Three Ways to Grow Your Revenue
Tools for Planning
Reading list for Christmas holidays

We’re the Accountants who help Young Families Use Their Small Business To Achieve Big Goals – Inspire CA – Young Family Small Business.

If you want to build a business that gives you the freedom to put family first, then you are in the right place.

Benefits of having a trust own the shares in your company

This is a fairly technical article – but it is an important one.

All too often, I see business structures slapped together with average advice from accountants.

And one of the killers is just setting up a company, with individuals (usually the business owner / owners) as shareholders.

It won’t hurt you now, but it will hurt you down the track

Now being open, this isn’t something that will hurt you now. There’s usually no instant adverse effects of having an individual as a shareholder.

But it will hurt you in the following circumstances:

You want to issue a dividend from retained profits
You want to sell part or all of your business (BIG one)
You want to restructure your family assets for asset protection or estate planning

All of these situations happen fairly regularly.

The problem is inflexibility for tax purposes.

If you sell the shares in your company – you only have potentially one individual who will pay capital gains tax on the sale.

If you issue a dividend, you are restricted to the shareholders, and cannot redirect these dividends to another taxpayer.

The cost to change it

I have seen this happen – and it’s not fun for anyone.

The business needs a valuation as at the date the fix needs to happen.

This can cost $4 – 10k+ payable to an accountant to value the business.

Then you’ve got the change to ASIC register, and more forms to fill out. Potentially enlisting lawyers to help with the transfer / estate planning. Minimal cost, but just adds to the tears.

And then you’ll have Capital Gains Tax to pay – he more valuable that your business is, the more this will hurt.

The solution is having a discretionary trust own the shares

By having a discretionary trust own the shares, you have the flexibility of who in your family group pays the tax on any capital gain from the sale of your business.

You can also issue dividends from the company, payable to the trust – which can then choose which individuals receives that entitlement.

In the long run, this can potentially save to tens of thousands of dollars in tax.

So my advice is to get it right from the start!

Oh – and it may not be wise to set up your business in a company in any case. You can use a discretionary trust to run your business – just depends on your circumstances.

Chat to someone who knows their way around business structures!

Check out this webinar and see how to:

Improve your Christmas cashflow so you can Holiday in PEACE.

With Christmas coming up, the wheels of business tends to slow as everyone winds down for the year. But the problem for you is, you still have expenses that don’t go on holidays!

Here is a summary of the Top 5 –

Boost your sales & marketing
Thank your clients
Get paid
Review your tax
Be creative with how you spend money

Business Structure Advice: Are you in the Right One?

How does $34,000 TAXED SAVED sound?

Have you ever wondered whether or not you’re in the right business structure?

Or if you have no idea why you’re set up the way you are?

To clear up the mist surrounding business structures, we’ve put together a quick 20 min LIVE webinar that answers the most common questions about Business Structures.

Business Structure Advice Saved Moana Big Time, Here’s how

Want to talk about your Business and Your Structure, book in a Quick Intro – 10 Mins with Ben Walker himself and we’ll help get you sorted ASAP – https://calendly.com/beninspire/10min!