Surviving the Current Financial Situation

In the current climate of apparent worldwide economic crisis there has been a traumatic worldwide economic meltdown which has put the world economy as we know it at risk. There are many companies who will not survive but there are some who will not only survive but will benefit in these unfortunate times. For instance our business in web design has increased recently because in an effort to reduce costs companies are turning to the internet to improve sales without incurring huge overheads. So companies like ours suddenly are in greater demand. However for the majority of the population it is a question of surviving and getting through it. If your business is on a sound financial footing and you have money behind you then this will be beneficial in the coming months. You may even be able to reduce employee salaries for a period of time, rather than have lay-offs or even closing down, but whatever strategy you apply it will need to be with the agreement of the workforce because a company is dependent of the good will of its employees at such a time. During the early stages of the crisis the British company JCB, which makes big machinery like bull dozers and diggers, chose with the agreement of the workforce, to reduce everyone’s salary for 6 months rather than lay off people or go out of business.

Cash flow

Most businesses go to the wall because of problems with cash flow. If there is not enough revenue coming it to pay for goods and services then it will not be long before a company goes into liquidation. Constant monitoring of the financial position is crucial. It is so easy to spend and not realise how much is leaking out and where it is all going. Keeping a tight control on costs is always a vital activity because that is what makes or breaks a company. More profits always come from reducing outgoings whether it’s reducing waste or cheaper purchasing or decreasing the workforce. I once listened to an audio tape on how to become wealthy and the one item to impact me was the advice to plug the leaks. Most people when running short of money try to find a way of making more money, but without a balance of reducing outgoings they never seem to resolve their problem. The simple reason is that when people earn more they spend more. If you imaging a bath with the tap turned on to fill it up. If the plug is securely in place the bath will fill up fairly quickly. But if the bath was full of holes no matter how much water you pour into the bath it will never fill up. The analogy is that the bath is your bank account, the tap is your earnings and the holes are your spending. Since listening to that tape, I have made a point of keeping expenses to a minimum at home and at work and every little sum of money coming in I see as a positive step to achieving wealth. To achieve sustainable wealth it is essential to take control of your spending and plug the leaks.

Avoid buying anything unless you absolutely have to or defer some necessary purchase for a few more months if possible. It’s amazing how you can manage without something for a period of time by using up existing or old stocks and making sure that waste is reduced to an absolute minimum.

Look for Discounts in Purchasing.

When you do have to procure goods to run the business, make sure you look out for bargains or negotiate for a better deal than you may have achieved previously. When times are tough, sales with no profits are better than nothing and there are some good deals to be had. One company I recently heard about sold a house for half the price when a customer came along with a cash offer.

We were recently tasked with setting up website hosting on a seriously low budget for www.presentsmen.com and we actually managed to find a hosting company who are providing free website hosting if you buy a domain name from them. So just because you have a pre conceived idea that something has to be paid for, or costs a certain amount, it might not necessarily be the case and it is worth investigating all markets and reviewing all costs continuously.

Look for Discounts in purchasing.

By taking a good long hard look at all of the business overheads I am sure it will be easy to identify those areas similar to ours where you have large outgoings. If those costs are essential to the functioning of the business then looking for better deals with other providers or renegotiate with current provider to maybe save thousands of dollars. So in many ways the current economic climate could be seen as a good thing because it forces businesses to review their outgoings and get rid of the dead wood. In any business, the higher the outgoings, the smaller the profits. When there is an economic downturn or some loss of business unless you have unlimited capital set aside, it is vital to reduce spending otherwise the business will not survive. Most really successful businesses understand the value of controlling outgoings and constantly review costs, even when times are good.

Tighten your Belt – No need for Fancy Spending

Although looking at reducing large overheads is one way to improve the viability of your company, another is to pay attention to the small amounts going out. It is so easy to think ‘Oh it’s only a few pounds’ but small amounts add up and can so easily get out of control. Remember that old saying ‘take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves’ I think it is so true. So cut out unnecessary spending, no perks on the business such as lunches or dinners to woo customers. They rarely actually need it if your business is offering honest value for money and top class services, and in most cases customers and prospects will appreciate you being prudent if it means you stay in business and continue as their valued suppliers. Managing directors can lead the way by paying themselves less or taking a pay cut showing that they are willing to tighten their own belts.

Recently it was announced that Bruce Forsythe was taking a cut in salary for his position as the host of Strictly Come Dancing, one of the most popular programmes on TV at the moment. He believed that they were being paid too much and put his money where his mouth was.

Another major area of expense is salaries and the costs that go with them. If you employ a large number of people the overhead expenses are huge. However there is always a natural wastage where people leave or retire so without actively having to make people redundant there may be opportunities to reduce the wages bill when times are hard. Efficiency and effectiveness of the people working in the company is critical and communicating with the workforce as to how they can reduce wastage and be more effective can be a rewarding policy.

One example from my previous work in organisations was when running a supervisors workshop. One of the delegates was complaining that when he needed to order supplies he had to sent the request up the line and wait until the senior manager had given the go ahead. As he was responsible for keeping supplies stocked and felt very frustrated at the time it took for him to get the approval he needed. I was amazed to hear that he was being so hampered in doing his job properly. So when I asked the question. ‘What’s to stop you ordering the goods yourself?’ after a long think, he said it had always been done that way. Nobody had questioned the procedure and whether it was still necessary to follow it. The outcome was that the he was given the go ahead to do the ordering himself and the senior manager was freed from one task he could happily do without.

Do Your Customers have Financial Liquidity?

If one of your customers is a very large company and they are source of the majority of your revenue then you are in a high risk position. It is a good idea to ensure that you have more than one high volume customer as well as lots of smaller ones so that you will be covered if one suddenly defaults on payment.

Find out the financial viability of your best customers. When the income of a customer falls then their ability to purchase goods and services is affected. If they are able to pay, then you will be able to pay your suppliers. There is nothing worse than doing a lot of work or selling a lot of stock to customer and then not getting paid. Situations like this can often cost you money, and that is the road to financial ruin, so be sure to be aware of your client’s economic situation as best as possible. We use the free Dunn and Bradstreet financial tracking service to identify any negative changes registered against any of our major clients

One of our clients, a firm of, Nottingham town planning consultants were unfortunate enough to have one of their major clients go bust on them with an oustanding balance of about £10,000. This was a huge sum to lose. View their planning website now. They survived because their business was very healthy with positive cash flow.

Find out the financial stability of your best customers. When the income of a customer falls then their ability to buy goods and services is reduced. If they are able to pay on time, then you will be able to pay your suppliers. There is nothing worse than doing a lot of work or selling a lot of stock to customer and then not getting paid. Situations like this can often make the difference between success or failure. The cost to you in money and wasted effort and resources could be the road to financial ruin, so make sure you are aware of your client’s economic situation as much as possible. When the financial crisis happened one of our best customers suddenly switched to a two month payment plan which meant that we did not get any money from them for a month. When we protested the chief executive told his manager to find another suppler. There were a number of outstanding invoices worth thousands of pounds and we were powerless to do anything. Our overheads were compromised for that month but we were fortunate enough to have access to a reserve fund to tide us over. And yes we did get paid the whole amount over time.

Avoid Borrowing Money

When the world is in a financial crisis it is better not to borrow money if you can help it. If you have already borrowed significant sums of money then make sure you talk to your bank and get the best deal on repayments you can. If it’s possible to repay a chunk of money to reduce the interest you are paying out then do so. To me interest is money going out for nothing in return and is not good money management.

Having said all that, the interest rate in America is just over 1% and recently rates have been radically reduced in the UK. But that in itself is what caused this whole financial mess in the first place. People borrow money cheaply then re-lend it at a higher rate of interest and take the difference in profit. Once the interest rate rises to a more normal level they will bail out and take their billions off to buy an island somewhere while everyone else pays the price. I know that is an over simplification of the problem, but it serves to demonstrate that the greed of a few has caused the distress of millions of the majority.

In my property rental business, a few years ago I had to let a house at a reduced rent but found a good long term tenant. This meant that the income was only just covering my costs but subsequently, because of the drop in interest rates, the mortgage repayments on the property have been reduced by £150 a month. This means I have been able to realise a small profit and with that money I am reinvesting it in improvements to the house. Long term I see it as a good investment to maintain the standard and value of the property. So for some companies who have had to borrow money to stay afloat there is the benefit of lower interest rates to reduce the burden of repayments.

You Only Have to Make it Through

The world economic situation is currently, I realise, much more complicated than we are suggesting above. Although it is true that the simple way of managing crisis is often the best solution. If you cut everything back to the bone and try to recreate the days when people did not have such complex lives, it can allow you to get on top of a situation. Years ago people used to manage their company without armies of specialists to provide tax advice, many coped without water coolers and other such luxuries such as cleaning services and people who come round every few weeks to disinfect the telephones! they coped through carrying out extra work on their own when required or they just went without. As your company regains its footing, or recovers, it probably won’t make commercial sense to sit and trawl through your business accounts doing book keeping yourself or to have to do a lot of extra research and administration, so you can restore those facilities that help to make you more money once the business has recovered.

Now I am not suggesting that we should go back to the good old days. What I am saying is that we might think we can’t manage without all our gimmicks such as mobile phones that take photos, but the reality is that we can do more with a great deal less, as long as we put ourselves into the right frame of mind and think positively about what we can achieve rather than what we haven’t got. Obviously as your business grows, or recovers, it doesn’t become economically viable to sit and trawl through tax return forms or to have to do a lot of extra research and administration yourself, so you can reintroduce those facilities as and when you have recovered your financial equilibrium.

Think what the Victorians did with the limited resources they had at their disposal. The horse was the main mode of transport and they used the manure to heat cold- frames and managed to grow pineapples without any other form of heating. They did not have cars, computers, mobile phones or even phones. The railway was only just coming into being, and they did not even have electricity. But with their energy and ingenuity they conquered the world. The industrial revolution with their steam driven engines changed our economy for ever. In the past there was no such thing as ecommerce web design and yet businesses survived|thrived.

Stay in a Positive Mode

By this I do not mean be in denial and pretend the world is not going through a financial challenging time. But if you are continually thinking and worrying about the negative aspects of the financial situation, then you are likely to make it come true. Don’t forget you get what you wish for and by concentrating on something then it will work like a wish, so why not concentrate on ways of getting new customers, giving better value to your existing customers and how your company could offer new products or services to your existing customer base?

Conclusion

Although during this recession there is no doubt times are hard for people who have lost their work. No work, equals no money coming in, so how do people pay their bills and their mortgages? If consumers have been prudent during times of prosperity and they have a nest egg for a rainy day, then they can probably manage for a few months until they get another job. But if they are already up to their eyes in debt then they will face personal bankruptcy and could lose everything.

In spite of all that, some people are managing quite well if they have jobs or some other type of income. One article I read recently said that the death rate reduced noticeably during recession and put that down to eating more economically at home and not eating so much junk food. So OK we can’t afford to go out for meals as much, and things are more expensive, but home prepared food is often better for you and sharing meals with the family is a way of coming together and communicating. So it’s not all bad. Good luck for a prosperous future.

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Risk In Controlled Environments (RiskICE) Health and Safety System Software

Protect Life introduces RiskICE (Risk In Controlled Environments). Now there is a web based Health and Safety software system that can help your organisation efficiently manage all components of operational risk and compliance in an integrated and proactive way. Please see the article ‘business case for RiskICE’ or the article entitled ‘why use RiskICE’.

Efficient management of risk and compliance requires knowledge to be available and shared across all departments within an organisation. The Safeguard Life’s RiskICE platform comprises a number of integrated modules gathering and automatically distributing key operational information to all areas of your company ensuring compliance and productivity in today’s increasingly arduous legislative environment.

RiskICE’s modules are integrated and easy to use; allowing you to remain on surpass of your business risk at the touch of a button, using RiskICE’s comprehensive reporting. Each module can function independently or as an integrated solution which all-in-all is an online health and safety system

RiskICE’s workflow tool is highly configurable allowing companies to automate and control particular company rules and company process. This means it can be used for more than just a health and safety system.

This health and safety management system can be easily configured to your particular industry requirements and provides a number of options for easily integrating with other third party systems such as SAP, Microsoft Dynamics and Oracle.
RiskICE the health and safety management system.

As you may expect RiskICE is a modern easy to use web based software application developed using the latest Microsoft .Net technologies. The platform has recently been redesigned from the territory up based as a Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) providing a flexible and scalable enterprise software solution.

Advanced capabilities such as the built-in workflow designer, configuration manager, organization intelligence and reporting and flexible application set-up allow organizations to rapidly implement best-practice for every aspects of H&S compliance.

Protect Life – RiskICE is offered as a Serviced hosted offering or can be installed on your corporate Network.

If you would like further information in support of the system, its benefits, integration options and/or the establishment for RiskICE please send us your necessity (enquiries@protectlife.com) or call us to schedule an informal conversation or presentation/demonstration on +44 (0)871 050 0880 (then select option 1).

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The Real Cost of Facilities Management

Do you know the real cost of your facilities management? If a specialist sub-contractor manages your facilities, then you will know exactly what it costs – unless you use managers only and they manage your own employees.

Otherwise, the chances are that you do not know the actual cost of these functions. The thing is that because facilities management does not increase sales or generate income, it is often forgotten. The result is that the jobs are done by various people is different departments, in between other jobs, so it is difficult to cost all their actions.

Quite often, these jobs are just slipped in, and the only thing the manager knows is that the staff are not performing their ordinary work as well as he expected. This is not a good way of managing facilities.

The solution to this problem is to use facilities management specialists. These are not so easy to find, and if you recruit them yourselves, you will find it difficult to know really how good they are. You can by-pass this problem by using the services of facilities recruitment agencies. You will find that these specialists do know the business of facilities management very well, and can advise on the applicants’ skills.

Any good recruitment agency will be able to either find suitable staff to manage the facilities or find a sub-contractor that can manage the whole facilities for you. Of course, at first this will seem expensive because the costs will be out in the open, and added to the costs of running the company. Meanwhile, though, the people who used to do the facilities management will be able to do more of their normal work – and you should be able to reduce the manning levels in the business.

Bartending Is Not As Easy As You Think!

If you’ve never done it, bartending might seem like the ideal way to make a living: all you have to do is hang out in a fun place with cool music, flirt and chat with people as you pour drinks. But the bartender’s life is a lot harder than that. In fact, the job can be quite demanding.

If you have never bartended before and want to give it a shot you might want to consider starting at a smaller watering hole, or a place that is not very busy, so you can hone your skills and learn how to make multiple drinks quickly. Eventually you’ll want to graduate to a busier bar, where the hours you’re spending there will be worth your while for the tips you make. 

Bartenders are paid very low wages, often below standard minimum wage for other professions, so the bulk of your income will come from your tips. A skilled bartender knows how to maximize tips by “working” the customers while keeping the pace up. He or she has a keen sense of the psychological needs of the customers: who requires a little extra attention, and who wants to get their drink quickly and be done with it. Invariably, a bartender will benefit from being a little flirtatious with customers, it’s important not to lay it on too thick or come across as pushy.

Bartending can be hazardous to your health! For one thing, the night-time lifestyle doesn’t work for everyone. The pace can be highly demanding, and you are often coping with drunk and unruly customers. Bartending is no office job. You will be standing all night, and if it’s a busy one you won’t get a break until after last call. When customers are waiting, you won’t have the time to go for a half-hour dinner break! Many people find the stress of the job is just not worth the tip money, while others have the personality to thrive in the bar world. Consider whether you are temperamentally suited for this type of work before you decide to take training courses or take a job in a bar.

And don’t forget—a bar’s money is mostly made on the weekend. If making time to go out with your friends on a Friday night is part of your routine, bartending might not be the best career choice for you. A lot of bartenders are frustrated at losing touch with all their friends with “normal” jobs, not to mention working all night and getting to sleep near dawn.

Bartenders require strong memory skills: you may get an order from one customer for several different drinks at a time. A manager might test a job applicant by having them make about five drinks in rapid succession—gin and tonic, Jack and Coke, vodka soda, rye and ginger, vodka tonic, for example. If they can’t remember the the rapid-fire drink order accurately, they probably won’t get the job.

Bartending truly requires the ability to multi-task. Not only must you remember the customers’ drink orders, you have to keep track of whether your bar is properly stocked, clean, and so on. Crucial sales can be lost if you run out of, say soda water or cranberry juice 15 minutes before last call and have to get more from storage.

A bartender must have well-developed social skills, and be willing to deal with a variety of people, not all of whom may be to your liking. A good bartender knows how to find just the right balance between being friendly and professional. You need to know when to engage in small talk with your customers, and to make them feel special and valued without slowing your pace. Remember, every minute you spend chatting with a customer on a busy night is a minute you lose getting the next person’s order. Not only will that irritate the other patrons who are waiting, it will potentially reduce the total number of drinks you make thus lowering your night’s tips.

One final important thing to remember, is that you have important professional and even legal obligations when serving alcohol. You will be required to have some form of certification. So now you can clearly see that bartending isn’t all fun and games. If you still think you’ve got what it takes, then go for it and find yourself a good bartending job!

Beginnning a football programme collection

To effectively launch a collection of football programmes, a person needs to choose a theme to his or her collection. There are hundreds of thousands of programmes available in the United Kingdom, and even more around the world. To give a collection some sort of meaning a theme should be adopted to avoid needless accumulation and to keep to a designated budget.

Sometimes you come across a football programme that joins or crosses two themes at the same time. These are likely to prove to be valuable purchases in years to come as they represent a special or historical occasion, which will muster memories for soccer fans from around the globe in the future.

A football programme is a good way to record a memorable event at a particular match. This could be in the form of an achievement such as a player milestone, which can be featured in the programme itself. Player milestones come in many forms, such as an appearance record, a goal getting record, the end of a players career, a number of years of service by the manager, and others.

The darker side of soccer is also often recorded in match programmes. These tragic events attract collectors who see them as poignant reminders of the past. They are highly collectible and valuable as a result. The disasters at Bradford, Ibrox and Hillsborough have valuable programmes associated with them, not only for the day itself, but also the subsequent commemorative games.

A very valuable set of football programmes to own are those related to the Munich Air Disaster involving the Manchester United team and Busby’s Babes. The programme from the game against Partizan Belgrade who Manchester United were playing on the tragic trip can sell for over a thousand pounds. A similar sum can be obtained for the programme against Sheffield Wednesday straight after the disaster, where the team list wasn’t filled in for the Man United team.

Notable events are usually reflected in the content and design of the programme. Important football programmes to get hold of are final matches in an old stadium, or the first issue within a new one. Most programmes of this type are abundant with interesting articles and historical information, making them a gem in any soccer programme collection.

Programmes often mean different things to different collectors. You may value one programme highly for entirely personal reasons and memories which they may conjure up. For other collectors the pursuit is one of passion, understanding more about the history and traditions of a football team that they follow. Whatever your reason, collecting football programmes is a highly rewarding hobby, and comes highly recommended to any soccer fan.

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