PBL Articles

Marketing is not a luxury, but rather an essential. The best part is that this can be 100%.free! But first things first, you need to ask a few questions before taking advantage of the free stuff.

Know what makes you different

What makes your product or service different from that of your competition? Research your competition. What are they doing? Where are they? Are they missing an opportunity? Does your product or service stand-out in comparison? What benefits would your potential customers have buying from you rather than from your competition?

Know your customer

What are your target customer’s expectations? What are their buying cycles? What benefits are they interested in? How do they define value? What influences their purchasing decisions? What price are they willing to pay? Why would they buy from you rather than from your competition?

Get Word of Mouth Referrals

Word-of-mouth referrals are, by far, the best method of getting new customers, not least of all because they are free. They are also about trust. As consumers, we are bombarded daily with messages about why we should buy product ‘X or Y’ to a point where it is difficult to differentiate.

Offer Incentives

You can also give your existing customers an incentive to refer you. The more personal, the better. I suggest building a relationship with your customers and then just simply ask them who they think may also benefit from your product or service. It is amazing how people will help out when simply asked. If you do get a referral, a thank you call can do wonders as can an unexpected discount, or freebie, the next time that client deals with you.

Giveaways

Event organisers are always on the lookout for great giveaways that fit with their event. Consider donating your product or service to an event if the audience fits with your customer base.

Prepared by Leon Honour, Director of Pittwater Business Limited and joint owner of Limelite Studio in Collaroy. Limelite Studio is a national award winning portrait studio specialising in capturing your story through photographic artworks. For more information please visit www.limelitstudio.com.au

The papers are full of it - the news bombards us with yet another multinational corporation losing half its stock market value, confidence is down, the housing market is stalled and there is a global credit crunch hurting everything.

But is it all doom and gloom and should we all throw our hands in the air and hit the beach (we might as well go broke there, right?)? Or is there more noise than there should be and is there something we can do to protect ourselves and even prosper while all the sheep run around with their heads cut off panicking and mixing their metaphors?

The companies failing seem to be the ones who allowed greed and hubris to guide their business strategies – and had high risk practices. Retail confidence is down but isn’t that why we have had interest rate rises – to slow down our screaming economy? The housing market is stalled but, again, much of the damage is in those outer suburbs where people have been enticed to overstretch themselves with cheap and large mortgages – risky practice, greed and interest rate rises again.

So, is it as bad as the media suggest? I don’t know, I’m a business coach not an economist but I don’t think we should be panicking.

Whether we are in a crisis situation or not and whether or not the economy is being slowed down on purpose by our vigilant central bank, it is clear that we are not in a booming economy at the moment. For those of us in small business, it is a good time to think about what we’re doing.

So what should we be doing?

I’m running out of space, so here’s a short list:

Keep marketing for goodness sake – if you lose customers and don’t keep marketing, the downward spiral is fast and nasty – keep the pressure on your marketing and your selling

Pay attention to collecting your money – don’t leave it to chance, like most of us do – call when invoices are due and ask, directly, for payment. Or demand cash with order!

See if you can lift your prices a little without losing business (it is not true that all your customers make their buying decisions on price alone!)

Have a go at your suppliers and see if you can squeeze them a little – for better prices or better credit terms, delivery terms or another non-price benefit.

Focus on your loyal customers and find ways to keep them loyal (by giving them something excellent but that doesn’t cost you the earth)

It’s a short list, sorry. If you want more help you know where to find us! (www.sfbc.com.au)

As the man says: "stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time" William Bernbach, Advertising guru who is in the American Advertisers Hall of Fame

By Jon Dale, Small Fish Business Coaching
www.sfbc.com.au

From 1 July 2007 the ATO has broadened the criteria for a range of small business tax concessions. Small businesses with an annual turnover less than $2 million are called small business entities and may qualify for a range of tax concessions.

Eligible businesses can choose to use the concessions which suit their business although they may have to satisfy additional conditions. They will have to check if they qualify for the concessions each tax year.

Some of these concessions were previously only available to businesses in the simplified tax system. The simplified tax system no longer operates, however all of its concessions remain available to eligible businesses.

What are the concessions?

Capital gains tax (CGT) 15 year asset exemption
If you are aged 55 or older, retiring and your business has owned an asset for at least 15 years you won’t pay CGT when you sell the asset.

CGT 50 per cent active asset reduction
If you’ve owned an asset to conduct your business (an ‘active asset’) you’ll only pay tax on 50% of the capital gain when you sell the asset.

CGT retirement exemption
There is CGT exemption on the sale of a business asset, up to a lifetime limit of $500,000. If you are under 55, money from the sale of the asset must be paid into a complying superannuation fund or approved deposit fund or a retirement savings account.

CGT roll-over
If you sell a small business asset and buy a replacement, you can roll over your CGT liability to the value of the replacement asset. This means you won’t pay any CGT owing until you sell the replacement asset.

Simpler depreciation rules
Generally, you can pool your assets to make depreciation calculations easier and also claim an immediate deduction for most assets costing less than $1,000.

Simpler trading stock rules
You can choose whether or not to do an end-of-year stock take if the value of your trading stock has not increased or decreased by more than $5,000 over the year.

Immediate deduction for certain prepaid business expenses

You can claim an immediate deduction for prepaid business expenses where the payment covers a period of 12 months or less that ends in the next income year.

Entrepreneurs’ tax offset (ETO)

The entrepreneurs’ tax offset may reduce your tax payable by up to 25% where your business has turnover less than $75,000.

Accounting for goods and services tax (GST) on a cash basis

You are not required to account for the GST on a sale you make until you receive payment for the sale.

Annual apportionment of GST input tax credits

If you purchase items that you use partly for private purposes, you can choose to claim full GST credits for these items on your activity statements, and then make a single adjustment to account for the private use percentage at the end of the year.

Paying GST by instalments

You can pay GST by instalments worked out for you by the Tax Office. You can vary this amount each quarter if you choose.

Fringe benefits tax (FBT) car parking exemption

In some cases you may be exempt from FBT for employee car parking.

If you would like more information on these concessions or wish to discuss how they are relevant to your business, please contact Peter Lever at Northstar Accountants on 9999 2344 or Peter@nsg.com.au This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
The contents of this Newsletter are general in nature. We therefore accept no responsibility to persons acting on the information herein without first consulting us.