Was it Barack Obama? Oprah Winfrey? The Dalai Lama?fair

No, it was Moot, the pseudonym of 21-year-old Christopher Poole, a college student and founder of online community 4chan.org.

Not only was the “most influential person in the world”, according to TIME, largely unheard of (and still is) but so were many of the remainder of the top 21, whose first initials not-so-coincidentally spelled the words ‘MARBLE CAKE ALSO THE GAME‘.

4chan.org, if you’ve never heard of it, is a bare-bones, reliably profane image board whose users have hatched everything from Rickrolling to LOLcats. It’s perhaps influential among college students but was its founder worthy of this TIME accolade?

This is a question that even TIME seemed uncomfortable answering in 2009.

TIME.com managing editor Josh Tyrangiel said that moot is no less deserving than previous title holders. “I would remind anyone who doubts the results that this is an Internet poll,” he says. “Doubting the results is kind of the point.”

So, how did Moot win?

The simple answer is that 4chan.org used its far reaching network to manipulate the voting process. The technicalities of this precision hack can be found elsewhere.

So, why the long winded introduction to this year’s Cool Company Awards Readers’ Choice Award?

Did we get gamed?

Let’s be frank. Readers’ Choice Awards are usually conducted for two reasons.

The first is to provide readers with a voice. This is obviously a good thing. It takes the decision making process away from a few and gives it to many.

The second is to raise awareness. In our world, that could also be interpreted to mean ‘get more traffic’.

As such, we acknowledge that many award programs often end up becoming (for want of a better description) media sanctioned popularity contests. And with acknowledgement comes acceptance.

So, rather than rail against this hard fact (Oh, the inequity!), many years ago we decided to ignore our internal cynics (the ones in our brains, not just the ones in our office) and reward voters according to the effort they put in to reach their own networks.

That’s right, we empowered our entrants to promote the awards for us.

How did the voting work?

The Cool Company Awards Readers’ Choice gave Anthill readers the opportunity to vote on Cool Company Award finalists in one of several ways:

1. Tweet this post:

Use the Tweet button at the top of this page. Your tweet will say:
Congratulations [Name], Anthill 2010 Cool Company finalist!

2. Trigger a spcial media reaction: Hit “Like” or “Google+”, Disqus “Like”.
3. Leave a comment: Show your support! Share the love!

This seemed fare. And, to state the obvious, if success is built on marketing flair (even partially), ranking highly in the Readers’ Choice should bode well for the ‘cool’ company.

So, how did participants rank?

Below is a summary of our performers.

Notice anything weird?

It’s pretty common for the top two to generate more social media interactions than the remainders combined.

At least, that is what has happened in previous years.

One or two companies will usually have strong and established networks. They will have created a remarkable product (hence their slot in the ‘Cools’) and their customers, clients, family, friends and fans are more than happy to show their love.

But this year’s leadership ladder tells a slightly different story.

Our leader generated an outcome roughly five times the social media interactions generated by the entire list.

For those of us able to monitor the process, the astonishing outcome appeared to happen in a matter of days, skyrocketing this one organisation’s Like count seemingly at the push of a button.

Of course, we suspect, that is exactly what happened.

What is LeadBolt?

In less than two years, LeadBolt has become a world leader in website monetisation services via a method called content unlocking.

In essence, site users encounter a screen that makes an enticing offer; the user must engage and react to the offer in order to continue seeing the site content.

LeadBolt says ads powered by its network are generating click-through rates more than 60 times above industry benchmarks and that, on mobile, its engagement layers are pushing publishers’ earnings 100 times higher than industry benchmarks.

The company, founded in mid-2010 by president and CEO Dale Carr and headquartered in Sydney, deployed its export arms early, moving into the U.S. and Asia in July 2010, Latin America in September 2010 and Europe and the UK in January.

Today, it serves hundreds of millions of ad in nearly 200 countries.

Advertisers include Burger King, Pepsi, Walmart, Coca-Cola and Groupon.

It’s a powerful business model and an Australian digital success srory.

But, to summarise and to (perhaps unfairly) simplify the model for today’s purposes, LeadBolt’s business is built to help monetise blogs… by selling Likes.

And what about Starlettos?

It’s part of the Anthill culture to root for the underdog.

In fact, the Cool Company Awards were, in part, developed to identify up-and-comers — businesses with unique business models, powered by innovation. All our contenders for the Cools fit this mould. (It’s the Cool Company Awards, after all — not the richest-business-in-Austraila-deadly-serious-and-humourless awards.)

And, as a fly on the wall, it was plain to see how much effort Starlettos — namely its founders, Mark Naismith-Beeley and Ilde Naismith-Beeley — put into mobilising their masses to achieve an outcome almost five times their nearest competitor (a digital marketing agency too, I might add).

Who would have thought that a small piece of plastic that could prevent high heels from sinking into grass could be so popular? (But I concede that I’m probably not the target market.)

This created a crisis of concience at Anthill HQ.

While LeadBolt is the clear Readers’ Choice winner in terms of ‘votes’, should we not acknolwedge the efforts of others who actively mobilised ‘fans’ and new Anthill readers?

Who do you think should win?

In the spirit of typical Anthillian rule-breaking behaviour, we have decided to ask you, dear readers, for one final vote. Who should win? LeadBolt or Starlettos?

And if you think this turn of events is unfair (or if you ardently support it), leave your rant as a comment below. Now vote. Use the widget below. Click and you’re done.

Businesses make this mistake time and time again: their customers buy from them but they never get their details. Then they just sit around and hope and pray that they will remember them… that somehow the “exceptional” service they have offered will keep them coming back for more.

You may not realise it but all that hoping does is cheapen the value of your business.

Where is the value in your business?

When you buy a business, what is it that you are buying? Where is its value? It could be:

• The equipment. (Just go to any auction site to see how “valuable” this is.)
• The team. (Would you have employed them?)
• The goodwill. (It’s all about goodwill. And what is goodwill but a bunch of customers that already buy from the business?)

Imagine for a second the difference between the following two statements if you were buying a business. Which would you pay more for?

1. “Well we do about $21,000 per week.”
2. “We have a database of 5,475 active customers, whom we market to once a month. This brings in $21,000 per week on non-promotional weeks and $29,000 when we run a promotion.”

Most buyers will be looking for the sure thing and are willing to pay more for it.

So where is the value in your business? It’s in your list of clients or customers.

If you haven’t got a list, you better start building one now.

Four Steps to Building a Client List

Step 1: Work out roughly what you are planning to send them. Is it to: Inform them, Educate them, Amuse them, Offer something to them (Promote something)…?

Step 2: Work out how to ask. “Hey, from time to time, we have some really great specials that we let our existing clients know about. Would that be something you’re interested in?” (Suits retail.)

Or: “Hey, we have tips and tactics that we send out to our clients regularly so they can [save money|make money|add your benefit here]. Would that be something you’re interested in receiving?” (Suits business-to-business.)

Step 3: Create something to collect the details on. Put a form together. Make sure you ask for full details, remember e-mail and mobile/SMS. Have a computer system to put them in. At worst Excel or e-mail, at best a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system.

Step 4: Do something with it. Send out an e-mail newsletter, post out a new product offer, ask for referrals, or send them a birthday card. There are hundreds of what you can communicate to keep yourself in the front of your customer’s mind.

Get moving: your profit is waiting out there for you.

Don’t wait for business to call your phone or knock on your door, go out there and get it!

Steve Smit is a business coach with Reality Consulting. He works with business owners who want to increase their take home profits and work shorter hours. For a free copy of his “Business Accelerator Pack” visit www.realityconsulting.com.au or please email stevesmit@realityconsulting.com.au.

Image by Garry Knight

Can you briefly describe to us how you started and the path the business has taken you to where you are?

I had always been involved in youth marketing. I used to operate dance parties, night clubs and a restaurant. We bought General Pants sixteen years ago when it was a much smaller business, NSW only and it kind of all made sense because youth marketing is what we did so well. Our general mission and vision has never really changed but how we attack it is always changing due to the market.

How has retail changed in the last five to seven years?

I think the change in the last five years has not been as intense as the last two years. The last two years has been a significant change in retail due to the whole social media piece really taking off.

So, the whole way we approach business has really shifted because not only are we talking to our customers but more importantly our customers are talking to us. So the way we do things when marketing is incredibly different.

[Our approach] is no longer about preaching to the customers, it’s about listening to what they want and doing just that.

How would you define customer service?

Simple really, just give the customer what they want. It’s about being intuitive and aware of all the different personality types. Some customers like to be left alone till they need help, some want fast service and others do it all by themselves. So as a representative you need to take an intuitive approach and be aware of the signals your customers give you.

How important has that been in your success in the last 16 years?

We are consistently being told by our customers that they really enjoyed the experience they had when they last walked into one of our stores – customer service is a real differentiator for us. We pay our staff well, they are all on incentives, we have lots of staff functions and provide extensive staff training for all different levels of employment.

This is where we teach them not only about sales, but also awareness, interaction with different styles of people and how to grow as an individual. This ensures staff are happy and motivated; which then reflects on our customer service in store.

With so many employees nationwide, how do you get employees to implement and maintain customer service requirements?

First of all we train all our representatives, managers and area managers. But essentially with any new updates and procedures it ends up being the responsibility of the area manager to teach the managers, and the managers to teach the representatives in the shops.

When recruiting new staff, how important is it to hire staff that is aligned to your customer service objectives?

It all starts at recruitment – hire slow and fire fast. If you have the right people with the right attitude and energy that fit what you’re all about then the job becomes easy to execute and all that is left is refining of the process to continue improving.

At the end of the day it all boils down to attitude. You can teach someone how to use the computers within the stores but you can’t teach someone how to have a good attitude.

How do you quantify and measure customer service?

It all goes back to each individual salesperson, we look individuals and the store to see if they are hitting their targets and by that we know that the system is working

You said before that the retail industry has shifted dramatically in the last two years, how have you stayed ahead of the game in terms of customer service with thing evolving so rapidly?

Have a lot of people in the organisation that are doing different things at all different ages. We have people in the office who are 18, 24, 30, 40 which gives us a great blend of people who have the experience and people who are developing their experience. This gives us a balanced perspective of where we are and where we are heading.

As an owner I get involved in many of the day to day operations and marketing channels as well which always helps. I personally get on Facebook, Twitter, travel to stores and go to seminars to get a greater insight as to what is new in the market place.

For someone who has just started their business, how do they define customer service?

Well it all comes down to what the customer needs. What is customer service? It’s what a customer wants when dealing with you over the phone, in store, through email etc. If you are clear on what your customer wants then you are much closer at giving them what they need.

If you are going into business you should know what your customer wants. If you have a mission of what you want to accomplish, you just need to break that down and that will provide you the customer service strategy.

Where do you see customer service heading in the future?

I think customer service will become a combination of online and bricks and mortar. By combining the two, you are providing the customer trust, a fast and immediate service and certainty knowing that they can get what they want when they want by using your brand.

Depending on your business and industry bricks and mortar in my eyes will still be the prominent way for customers to purchase products or services because people are social beings and they need interaction.

How important is customer service when you compare it to all the other sectors within the business?

The customer in my eyes is the king. I can’t run my business successfully if I don’t have happy customers. Customer service is a huge part of what we do and the success we have had in the past 16 years and will continue to be moving forward.

I see so many people cutting training budgets when times are tough, but I say let’s add to the training budget because if someone has limited money they will want to shop with the best.

What are the top three things to keep in mind when planning a customer service policy?

Concentrate on the customers needs, have an intuitive approach and an educated team.

If you could offer one piece of advice to a business owner looking to provide great customer service what would that be?

I think it goes behind customer service; it’s about having a really clear strategy on what your business is about and once you have identified this you customer service policy will naturally come together.

You can’t have good customer service with a bad system and poor product/service line. You need to have a holistic approach to your entire strategy. These days you need to have a more scientific approach, so if you have a good plan your customer service approach is just another section of that which fits in to the whole circle of what you’re about.

Alex Pirouz is the founder of RIDC Advisory Pty Ltd, a Business and Sales Advisory firm partnering with the top 1% of Australia’s largest and fastest growing companies to further increase their sales revenue. (Visit www.ridc.com.au for more details)

Thanks to the folk at one of Australia’s oldest and most respected ballooning companies, Global Ballooning, and queuing technology company Qumpit, seven entrepreneurs (and Anthill founder James Tuckerman) earned the opportunity to ‘hang’ with AngelCube‘s Adrian Stone and Adventure Capital‘s Darcy Naunton… some 2,000 feet in the air.

Entrepreneurs willing to share their ‘hot air’ for the occasion included representatives from nightfly, SnapComp and Aerion. Intraceuticals’ Nicole McMahon ‘floated’ a new concept for gourmet travellers, while photographer Zoe Wetherall spoke with her lens.

To select these seven high-flyers, Qumpit employed its proprietary online queuing platform, eQueue. Thanks to Global Ballooning, the trip concluded with a champagne breakfast at Rochford Winery.

The sky was never the limit…

However, in terms of lasting impressions, it wasn’t the view, the beef wellington or the chocolate fondant lamingtons that are likely to stay with me for years to come.

Okay, I might be telling my grandkids about the chocolate fondant lamingtons but, for the purpose of this post today, it was a remark made by our host, the CEO of NetSuite since 2002, Zach Nelson, that really got my entrepreneurial brain ticking.

Here’s what he said (paraphrased):

“Every business is now a cloud business. And, if you’re not thinking this way, another business, that is thinking this way, will certainly kill you.”

Nelson has worked for companies such as Oracle Corporation, Sun Microsystems, and McAfee/Network Associates. He was named one of the 10 Visionary CEOs of 2008 by InternetNews.com, after guiding NetSuite through its 2007 IPO. He helmed the company through its rise from startup to one of the world’s leading cloud computing companies.

So, it’s not surprisingly that he should hold this view.

Yes, he is biased. But is he wrong?

But, sometimes, the feedback contradicts what we know to be true, based on the cumulative behaviours of hundreds of thousands of site visitors.

Rather than provide a polite but meaningless response (like, “Thank you for your feedback. We welcome and respect the views of all our readers”), I often try to explain why it is that we do things the way we do.

Today, we received the following piece of feedback, prompted by an auto-responder email that is triggered when a new email subscriber signs up.

Feedback Form [#399]

General feedback and not specific to you as I’m a new subscriber.

We are all running our own businesses. All very busy, and no one has enough time in the week!

* Keep to the point.
* Facts, facts facts.
* I don’t want to have to read a half page of creative writing before I get to the point and facts of the story.
* No time…. I want to know what’s going on and fast.

And here was my reply:

Welcome to Anthill and thanks for your feedback. Before I respond to your suggestions I want you to stop for a moment and indulge me:

Imagine that you are in bed.

It’s very early in the morning and suddenly you wake up.

You don’t know why you woke up.

But here’s one thing you do know…

It’s quiet.

It’s eerily quiet.

You are alone.

You push aside your bedclothes and gently lower your feet to the carpeted floor.

Ever so cautiously, you walk to the door and listen.

Silence.

You push the door open, and it barely releases a squeak.

At this slightest of noises tension grows in your chest and you suddenly notice your heartbeat.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Once outside your bedroom door, you see a staircase. It leads down to a lower floor.

At the foot of the staircase you see a note — an ordinary piece of A4 paper folder in half.

Suddenly… buoyed by unexpected energy and unbound tension, you spring to life!

Grabbing a banister, you bolt down the stairs, three at a time, shattering the silence with each step.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

You grab the note with one hand, before you can even catch your breath.

You pull it open, in one rapid movement, revealing the message inside.

It reads:

“There was nothing remarkable about this story. It contained no facts. Rather, every thing in it has happened to many people before.

However, you would have never discovered the lesson I’m about to reveal, if my anecdote hadn’t exploited your own human desire for anecdotes.”

Facts are very important. And, after nine years of watching competitors launch and fail, building a media business on a budget without the aid of large multinationals or a big fat development budget, there is one thing that I know for sure.

Education requires engagement.

Here’s our modus operandi. Engage… then educate.

It might not be to everyone’s taste, but here’s the other thing that I know for sure (thanks to Google Analytics and split-testing).

Often what our readers think they want doesn’t play out in their behaviours.

And here’s one final fact.

You are still reading.

So, you might now hate me. But you will always remember me…

And the lesson of the factless anecdote.

Yours faithfully,
James Tuckerman

Did I miss the mark?

The feedback was clearly meant to be constructive and the person had, most likely, not yet been exposed to our ‘in ya face’ editorial style.

Okay, I was cocky.

But the message of the note is something that I do, indeed, feel passionate about. I wish that more people would attempt to engage before rushing to ‘educate’ or simply present the facts.

Or, perhaps, in a digital age there is no room for the creative introduction.

What’s more important to education; storytelling or facts?

What do you think?

Image source: Izismile

Several weeks ago, I was sent the Australian edition of ‘Become a Key Person of Influence’ by Daniel Priestly. I read it in an afternoon. And, several weeks on, my imagination is still buzzing.

Below you will find an excerpt from this book (published with the author’s permission). And, as of tomorrow, Antmart will be selling this book for $1, delivered in hard-copy form to your door (following some smooth negotiation by our friends at Antmart).

To ignite your imagination, let me ask you, “Are you a vital person? Or a functional person?”

Vitality is more valuable than functionality (By Daniel Priestley)

What’s the difference between a ‘functional’ person and a ‘vital’ person?

Most Key Persons of Influence fall into the ‘vital’ category.

Let me explain.

Functional people might be great at what they do. They might talk the talk and walk the walk but, at the end of the day, the sad fact is that they are replaceable.

If you can find a cheaper option you will take it and a functional person is usually just one solution to a problem.

Functional people see themselves as executing a set of processes. They try to get better at those processes and they make marginal improvements. Functional people worry about being downsized or overlooked. They are fearful that someone might come along who can ‘do it’ better.

A vital person doesn’t have these fears. Vital people align themselves to the result rather than the process. No matter what, they will always be okay to adapt and change dynamically if it gets them towards a better result, or a faster result.

This is because they feel like they own a specific piece of turf and no one could replace them.

They see themselves as redefining the game in some way. They have their own unique take on things that makes them almost impossible to replace or overlook.

Functional people are scared to take a holiday. They worry what will happen while they are gone. Will they have a job to come back to? Will their clients find someone else?

Will they lose opportunities they really need? A holiday is a scary thing to take when you are functional.

Vital people love taking holidays. They know that part of what makes them vital is that they have a certain spark that few people have and they have fresh ideas that people want to tap into. For a vital person a holiday is a place to get re-energised and to stimulate ideas. It’s also a great reminder to everyone just how vital they are.

A vital person knows that while they are gone, people are worried that they won’t come back!

Functional people like to associate with people who reaffirm that life is tough. They like to be reassured that the economy is affecting others too and that times aren’t what they used to be. A functional person loves the comfort of their friends who don’t push them or inspire them to step up to a whole new level.

A vital person likes to be seen and challenged by their contemporaries.

They welcome debate and stimulating ideas. They want people to push them, to bring the best out of them and to stay true to the idea that there’s always a new level to play at. A vital person will leave a group of people who slow them down for a group that stirs them up.

A Functional Person wants to get more
… A Vital Person wants to produce more.

A Functional Person wants to learn more
… A Vital Person wants to share more.

A Functional Person wants to be shown a path
… A Vital Person wants to create one.

A Functional Person is worn out by their functionality
… A Vital Person is re-energised by their vitality.

Want to see what a person of vitality will do (even after they have the money and the fame) in order to keep pushing the boundaries? Check out this video of David Blaine telling you what he’s willing to do in order to make “magic”.

David Blaine at TED

So, are you a vital person or a functional person?

There is really only one way to answer this question. If you had all the riches in the world, would you still be doing what you’re doing now? Think about it. Are you making magic?

To get the full 188-page hard-copy book for $1, visit Antmart.com.au.

Perdis has built an empire over 65 concept stores and over 4,500 point-of-sale locations in Australia and New Zealand. In the United States, the organisation is represented by three concept scores and are over 300 Ulta stores.

In this Q&A Interview with Alex Pirouz, Perdis shares what it takes to create a global brand, why customer service has been a crucial part of the organisation’s success and the best way to handle challenges in business.

In your opinion, what has been the greatest contributing factor to your success?

Focusing on what is important and knowing what is important. I think that is where most business owners can lose it. Having a good balance of macro and micro vision is also important.

Having a dream is important but if you get stuck on the big picture, you miss out on the detail necessary to achieve your dream. By the same token you don’t want to get too technical and analytical because then you don’t move forward.

How did you go about creating a global brand from scratch?

At the end of the day, I think one of the biggest mistakes business owners make when they start is that they don’t see themselves as a seed of what’s to be a global brand. When we first started, we always believed that our brand would be global. Having that perspective and drive from day one, everything you create and express is an expression of that brand and essentially you operate like one.

What are the components necessary for a brand to be successful?

I think it comes down to three things:

• Authenticity in all that you do
• Consistency of standards at every point
• Innovating your product and service

When we started off, the brands that did well then aren’t necessary the ones that are doing well today, so I think business owners need to understand where things are moving and prepare accordingly.

How important has customer service been?

Growing up, me and Napoleon were always around Mum and Dad’s businesses and the one thing we learnt was to ensure that customer experience and enjoyment is always fulfilled every time we deal with a customer. Given that it was something we grew up with, we naturally incorporated it into our business.

How do you go about creating such a loyal fan base?

We have always had a commitment to quality for all our products and services. You can never compromise one bit, you need to always lead the mark. We understand that make-up and cosmetics are fashionable items, and with fashion comes coolness, so we always strived to become involved in and work with people and occasions that are cool. By doing this we created a level of association which then reflected onto our brand and image.

What is the hardest thing about launching a company from conception?

Capital, because being young, banks and financial institutions don’t take you seriously. We quickly learnt that cash flow was more important than profitability. You can be very profitable but sink because cash flow is not good. Learning how to manage and juggle cash flow was extremely difficult.

Where do most entrepreneurs go wrong in business and why?

I think lack of commitment and awareness of the sacrifices needed to grow a company would be the top two. People are generally afraid to think big, so therefore are not driven by big dreams and find it easy to drop off at the early stages of business.  Never allow yourself or your business to become stagnant, always innovate.

Where do you see business in the next 5 years?

I believe in the next five years businesses will strive to keep becoming more and more experiential. Places where customers want to be and hang out and developing products that customers feel compelled to have.

Customers want to experience something different and visit places where it is not just a shopping habit but more a recreational activity.

What was the main reason why you started your own business? Was it to make money, change the industry, leave a legacy, etc?

I think ego is a very strong driver, having your name and products up in lights and being recognised. That to me is a very honest motive. Having control over your own destiny was also another reason, because the rewards in life are in relation to your work ethic and risks you do and don’t take.

How do you measure success in business?

This all depends on whether or not you have achieved your goals or well on your way to achieving them.

How do you deal with challenges and setbacks in business?

I think it is always good to keep your advisors close to you, so your senior managers, bank mangers, lawyers, etc. Nothing should be a surprise to you, you should have processes, procedures and people in place that can tell you if something is not working or is heading down the wrong path so that you can navigate around or through it.

In business there will always be rough periods, it all really comes down to sheer old-fashioned tenacity. You just have to believe that you can and will get through whatever you are facing in that moment.

What advice do you have for entrepreneurs who are looking to start their own business?

First and foremost I would advise any entrepreneur looking to start their own business to answer one simple question: is this what you really want? Having a very thorough and good idea about what they want, what will be involved in what they want, the kind of sacrifices needed, and understanding why they want it before starting their business will help create the expectations, drive and focus required to get through and endure the game of business.

Alex Pirouz is the founder of RIDC Advisory Pty Ltd, a Business and Sales Advisory firm partnering with the top 1% of Australia’s largest and fastest growing companies to further increase their sales revenue. (Visit www.ridc.com.au for more details)

Choosing the right accounting software package is a hard task for anyone, especially small business owners. What’s right for other business owners may not be compatible with your small business.

That’s why I came up with the top ten tips you should consider when choosing an accounting software package. These are sure to make your job simpler and less time consuming, so you can get on with running your business.

When looking at software options make sure your accounting package can help you:

1.      Keep your GST records in order

Most small businesses are required to report on GST via submitting a Business Activity Statement every month or quarter. This at times can be an exhausting job. Your accounting software package should be able to help you keep adequate records to ensure you fulfill this requirement painlessly and efficiently.

2. Create and send out invoices

Making sure you are invoicing customers correctly should be a top priority. An accounting software package should be able to help you chose, customise and implement the right invoice template for your business. It should also calculate, print, email, and record invoices and credit notes to your satisfaction, keeping all invoice management centralised.

3.      Record payroll for employees and vendors

The task of paying employees and vendors can be grueling and at times lengthy but it is a must for every small business to stay on top of. Your accounting software should help you set up an efficient payroll, pay, edit, print, and email payslips. The right software should make things easier for you, not harder!

4.      Track the current status of your business

Tracking the status of your business is especially important in today’s continuously changing and growing market. Weekly sales, expenses, money owed, what you are getting in and out are all relevant aspects of a business that a good accounting software package will be able to help you monitor closely.

5. Track Your Inventory

Inventory is a vital component of your business, and ensuring you’re up to date with stocks and purchases is imperative. Your accounting software should help you keep track of your stock levels, products and sales through a manageable and adjustable list that monitors this in real time for you.

6.      Manage Time Sheets and Billing

Calculating time sheets and time billing is not always fun, however, it is a central component of running your own small business. A good accounting software package will be able to help you bill customers for time spent via a timesheet feature that will calculate multiple rates and costs, and auto create invoices from the timesheet.

7. Integrate your Online Systems

Ensuring all your financial records are combined make calculating costs and expenses more manageable. A good software package should be able to integrate your accounting records with other accounts such as PayPal. This allows for auto‐payments, purchases and invoices to be managed centrally.

8.      Provide Detailed Financial Reports

Preparing financial reports should be easy but more than often it becomes a hard task. Your accounting software should be able to produce multiple reports and charts, be able to customise reports to suit the small business owner and be able to schedule weekly reports to be sent to specific emails, saving you time and effort.

9.      Manage Finances

Accounting for what you do with your money and where it goes is something all business owners should monitor and keep records for. A good software package will help you do this by tracking the spending, transferring and depositing of money. It should also have tools that connect to the company register as well as online records.

10.  Customer Management

We all know that satisfying your customers is the single most important thing in a business. Without customers, what business you have? Your accounting software package should include tools and features that help you track and monitor customer relations and touch points as well as create charts suited for each individual. This will ensure that you know each of your clients needs and wants on an individual level and you are able to sufficiently identify how you have managed each client.

These are just a few tips that should be taken into consideration when choosing the right accounting software package for your small business. After all, every business is different and should have the right software catered to their individual needs, so don’t settle for less!

Uri Maimon, Founder of Nominal Accounting is a small business accounting software expert. For more information on Nominal Accounting, visit: http://www.nominal.com.au

 

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Your job is to affect policy, policy makers and the public. Your job is to raise awareness, or in other words: Your job is to MAKE NOISE.

Here’s a recipe for a great dish of noise with an average cooking time of about 60 days.

List of ingredients:

1. People: The more passionate the better.

Start with the people that are working in your advocacy organisation.

Use the people on your mailing list and other supporting organisations. To complete this recipe you’ll need at least ten passionate people from your organisation. They will act as your raising agents. You should also have at the ready a network of supporters from similar organisations and groups that fit your agenda including industry, other advocacy groups and supporting politicians.

2. Social tools: Facebook, Twitter, Tweetdeck, Youtube, Hashtags, RT’s and comments.

You’ll also need a website and an e-newsletter.

3. One big simple goal (preferably focused):

Think about one thing you’d like to accomplish. What’s your end goal? Make everyone understand and agree to this goal. Your campaign will not be won until you get it.

4. One rotten organisation you want to influence.

Try to pick an organisation who has suffered from bad publicity lately. This will make your noise stick better.

5. A splash of media attention. A bunch of media outlets including journalists and bloggers.

Making the noise.

Directions

Step one: Mix your people and your social tools by opening facebook and twitter accounts for the ten people in your organisation

Add your goal until you can see everyone tweeting and facebooking about it. Add your network of supporters into the mix. Follow and friend those, mix with your raising agents and beat until dissolved.

Step two: Add twitter hashtags, facebook posts, Youtube videos and blend into the mix posts, tweets and RT’ing

By now you should see your noise rising daily. Continue to stir until you see surfacing bubbles of RTs and likes on facebook Keep noise on high heat and stir for seven days.

Step three: Check noise

By now it should be thick with followers and supporters. Add your e-newsletter until you get more followers and likes.

Step four: Pour your noise onto the rotten organisation’s facebook page

For example: If you bake the noise for Victoria’s premier Ted Baillieu, get your ten agents and supporters working on his facebook page until you get a reaction. Add direct tweets @Ted Baillieu. Make sure your efforts are amplified by each one of your raising agents, RT’ed by your support network and liked.

Step five: Stir thoroughly

After each comment is made on rotten organisation’s facebook wall, there should be another comment from your organisation and /or support network. Increase temperature regularly until someone answers on the rotten organisation behalf.

Step six: Slowly add some media attention into the dish by tweeting and facebooking directly to media outlets about the noise

Wait until they react. Keep increasing the heat by sending more comments, getting more people involved and adding more media attention.

Your dish is finished when you see an action. This can be a promise from the premier to fix things, sparking a debate that grows beyond “social media” or a growing movement of citizens that are now empowered to support you.

Step seven: Take the noise off the heat

Have a beer. Measure. Learn.

To learn more about a successful noise making try Nestle Vs. Greenpeace.

With extensive experience in branding and marketing, starting as a copywriter at Leo Burnett and McCann Erickson advertising agencies, Tamir Berkman’s thought-leadership led him to help brands develop their social business strategy. His most recent clients include Nissan Motors, STA Travel, Carsales.com.au and Goodness Superfoods.

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Way back in September, The Age reported that, to date this year, Consumer Affairs Victoria had received 160 complaints about group buying sites – a significant increase on the 22 similar complaints received the previous year.

“The most common complaints include non-supply or delay in supply of goods or services, difficulties obtaining refunds and difficulty in booking services and redeeming vouchers,” a spokesperson for Consumer Affairs Victoria told The Age.

The newspaper cited one unhappy customer, Holly Dinh, who shelled out $116 for four tickets to attend a wellness retreat, only to be served potato chips and lamingtons while she queued for foot spa in a plastic tub. Mmmm, lamingtons…

Anyhoo. The point is, she was well cheesed. And p’haps she wouldn’t have been had she secured her deal through services booking site Unbooked.

Unbooked founders Sarah Taylor and Jeff Dusting believe both vendors and customers are primed for a slicker fix in the supply VS demand quandary.

“Coupon complaints arise on both the vendor and customer side and there is little question that both sides feel the time is right for a more equitable and sustainable solution,” Taylor says.

“Whilst deals and offers have swept the nation and captured many fans, there is growing dissatisfaction from consumers who can spend days on the phone trying to reach vendors to book their appointments.”

But don’t go mistaking Unbooked for a daily deals site. When asked what advice they’d give such sites looking to enter the segment, they firmly clarified their place in the market.

“We are not in the Daily Deals space so I am not sure why we would be giving advice.”

[Hey, we’re not too proud to admit when we have our arses handed to us…]

“But if my best friend wanted to do a deals site I would ask her, with 323 deal sites already underway in Australia, what do you see as the significant business opportunity and how will you execute?”

So just what is Unbooked? Ask us! We know [now]. It’s the great white hope for 100,000s of merchants and customers who use daily deals and coupon offers. More specifically, it’s a Pay-As-You-Go SAAS solution that works alongside the coupon provider or the individual merchants existing business process and systems.

Here’s how it works. If you’re a merchant, just register with Unbooked and it will manage the influx of customers drawn to your biz through your discounted deal, leaving you free to do whatever it is you do best. For customers, Unbooked will help you secure your preferred dates and times with registered service providers, sans the muss and fuss you may have experienced elsewhere.

One happy merchant customer, Fiona Edelstein of Flavours of Yoga, bigged-up the Unbooked experience.

“I tried one of those coupon deals in order to introduce some new people to my Yoga studio. I was told I would probably get 200 new people….I thought that would translate into 100. Imagine my panic when 335 people all signed up for a month of unlimited yoga.”

“Unbooked took over the bookings by giving me a link that I could send to the new students so that they could make their own bookings…freeing me up to teach.”

“The system works, allowing me to still look professional and deal with each person’s needs.”

What is Unbooked?

This seems to have been forgotten. Innovation; such a buzz word at the moment, everyone is “doing it.” Trouble is, you don’t “do” innovation; innovation is the result of what you do.

Innovation is an outcome, and along with a handful of inspirational “ideas worth sharing”, the TEDxMelbourne event focussed on the topic of innovation. It was also the message that rang loudest in this writer’s head.

Has ‘innovation’ become old hat?

We need to innovate to expand our horizons, make things better, improve systems, evolve. Thing is, “innovation” has always existed. Even before Steve Jobs! (too soon?)

I appreciate what Steve Jobs has achieved as much as the next man, but as I tap away at my MacBook Pro, and pause to answer a call on my iPhone, or even procrastinate with a game of Words or Angry Birds on the iOS platform, one has to wonder if the flood of tributes following the great man’s death has caused us all to overplay the term “innovation.” People innovated before Steve Jobs, they just didn’t make a big deal “talking” about it.

They “did” it.

On a side note, at TEDxMelbourne, Angry Birds was lauded as a great example of how to innovate by Pete Williams (“aim, fire, adjust”) and ridiculed as one of the great innovation killers by Annalie Killian. I’m torn and slightly confused. If anyone has a strong opinion on this, please leave your comments below. I love a bit of pointless banter.

Innovation needs ideas, but ideas don’t need innovation. They are able to exist purely as ideas and that’s fine. Some of the greatest thinkers of our time came up with some great ideas that never came to fruition. Of course, I can’t name any of them (you need to implement an idea to become known as a great “innovator”), but ideas are great.

TEDxMelbourne spread some great ideas and those ideas were the catalyst for some fantastic discussion out in the foyer. Worthwhile discussion between worthwhile people.

I would rather not critique TEDxMelbourne. I could bang on about the amount of TED talks and music acts used as “filler” during the day but won’t (I realise it is a requirement for TEDx to dedicate a portion of the day to TED.com fodder but we watched ten minutes of a guy playing a wok. Sure, the wok had dents in it and made a great sound, but questions need to be asked…is this “innovation?” Actually, on reflection, maybe it is). Instead, I will list all of the ideas from the day in brief…

Pete Williams asked “are you motivated to succeed or to avoid failure?”

Evan Thornley posited frameworks on how we might build a beautiful organisation.

Amantha Imber suggested we can all be creative if we lift our eyebrows and don’t cross our arms while staring at an asymmetrical image.

Roger La Salle said that to be innovative, we should “find something that exists and make it better.”

Our lovely hosts awakened your’s truly to the existence of a “humour industry.”

Liza Boston said something about Lobsters on Facebook.

Simon Griffiths introduced a model for “consumer philanthropy,” how to apply slipstream marketing for social change and placed an economic denominator on ‘puns.’

Monique Conheady presented her vision for the future of the transport system.

And then, at the end of the day, just as these ideas were rattling in my brain, bashing up against my own pre-conceived expectations, Annalie Killan, “Catalyst for Magic” at AMP (coolest title ever and she even looked like a magician) put it out there that maybe, just maybe, our online addiction is “snuffing out our ability to innovate”. The digitally connected audience did gasp in horror and then tweet with a flurry.

Then like magic, Killian hit the nail on the head. “The revolution may be tweeted, but innovation has to be made…we need more ‘make-fests’ and ‘do-fests’, not just ‘think-fests’ and ‘talk-fests’.

That is how innovation works. TEDxMelbourne produced some wonderful discussion about ideas and even touched on the odd innovation or two. The most dangerous idea of the day, however, was the assumed notion that “idea” and “innovation” are interchangeable terms.

Steve Jobs was a great innovator because be managed to implement ideas. He also said “sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”

‘To innovate’ – verb. ‘Innovation’ – noun.

Ben Flavel is an entrepreneur and innovation consultant assisting corporate, SME and fast-growth companies through innovation creation and evaluation, culture development and strategic renewal. Currently, he is an innovation consultant at NeoCogs and director at eQueue He can be contacted on 0417 323 809 or ben@neocogs.com.au.

In this Q&A interview with Alex Pirouz, Baker talks about all the various elements required  to build a great online presence, what business owners need to look for when hiring agencies to help them with their online strategy, the common mistakes most business owners make and (most importantly) how to avoid them.

For someone who has just started their business online, what would you say are some steps they can take in order to build a solid foundation for their business?

First things first – they must have absolute clarity in their business model and that model must be simple to understand for anyone who interacts with the website. If you can’t explain what you do in your traditional elevator pitch, probably don’t do it because you have to explain this business concept a thousand times to a thousand different people from all fields: advertisers, consumers, customers, shareholders, etc.

The second would most definitely be funding. If you don’t have the money to do it, don’t start. And it’s not a case of working out that you need $300,000 and raising that much; most often if you need $300,000, it usually means you need to raise $500,000 because you will never get the numbers right. Also make sure you have a quality team, people who are hard-working. I would rather work with quality people at a higher cost then cheap people who want equity but can’t do the job.

And last but not least make sure that you are operating a real business, one that has scalability and potential.

What are the top 4 most common mistakes business owners make while growing their online presence? How do you avoid these mistakes?

The first mistake would have to be overestimating how much revenue they are going to be generating through the business. I look at business plans all the time because I invest, and I have seen so many hockey sticks it is ridiculous. The second mistake they make is that they under-capitalize themselves.

Day in, day out, they are struggling to pay the bills, and the problem with this is that they spend more time worrying about raising money then they do on building the business. And the third mistake is that they over-intellectualize their business. I have sat down with so many people who say “I have this idea that is going to change the world”. And by the time they have explained their business model, I usually need to ask them: what is it that you do?

In their heads, they have lived with the problem for so long that somehow they have managed to come up with a solution, and for whatever reason they have become too connected or passionately involved with the problem, which is bad because they can’t seem to walk away from the business when it’s not working.

How do you go about avoiding these mistakes from the start?

The best way to avoid these mistakes from the start is to get good advisors on board early; a good advisor is not someone who simply has money to spend, it is someone who has actually done it. Once you get good advisors on board you then need to listen to them.

I can give you so many examples of when I have told business owners not to make a certain decision and they didn’t listen only to come back and say “you were right” one year later.

Why does this occur?

Because they are either too passionately involved or they overestimate their skills

Should the look, feel and functions of a website be determined by the particular industry an individual is involved in?

First of all the website is the manifestation of a business. So for example take www.Realestate.com.au: the primary business is advertising real estate listings to a large audience, and nowhere in that does it say via a website.

Once you have worked out what your core business is, you then work out a way to best manifest that model.  All the businesses that are successful are simple, and the ones that fail you usually have to think about.

What do business owners stand to lose by having little or no presence?

You are better off having no presence than little presence. When customers check you out online and your presence is crap they will assume your business is crap. For example: if you go past a perfume shop and it is messy, poorly organized, low amount of stock on the shelves, you will think that they are not the best business to deal with.

This customer experience also applies online. How many websites have you been to where you think “I can’t use this site, I can’t find the information I want, it’s poorly laid out, slow to load”, etc. All this states is that the business is an amateur, and no one wants to deal with an amateur.

So the bottom line is: you should have a great presence or no presence at all.

With the Internet evolving rapidly all the time, what can business owners do to stay ahead of the game within their industry?

Honestly, I don’t think businesses need to stay ahead of the game, I think you need to play well in the game and in doing so you will be ahead of your competitors. What is the game? Well, too many people think “I have to have the best website, have audio, video, Flash” and whatever else.

But the question they should be asking is: What are my competitors doing? And how am I placed with in them? And if you can deliver a better outcome than your competitors then by definition you are winning in the game.

Why do most online businesses fail?

The main reason is because business owners try to change consumer behavior. Don’t try to change consumer behavior, modify or shape their behavior instead.

Where do you see the online market in the next 3 to 5 years?

I believe mobile will become more relevant and so companies should really learn how to develop a mobile strategy and work it to their advantage moving forward.

What should a business owner look for when hiring a company to help build their online presence?

Relevant experience, Relevant Experience, Relevant Experience and Relevant Experience.  Find guys who have done it before within your industry, hire them, make sure they fit the purpose and then simply listen to them.

How did you learn about all this stuff? Did you have mentors, read books, take courses, etc?

I learned a lot of what I know through trial and error

If you had to offer one piece of advice to a business owner who is looking to create a successful online presence, what would that be?

Doesn’t matter what you are doing, get professional advice. You would not go skydiving without getting instructions first; you would not get in the car without learning how to drive first. So why would you go to solve a potential problem in the marketplace without seeking professional advice first?

Alex Pirouz is the founder of RIDC Advisory Pty Ltd, a Business and Sales Advisory firm partnering with the top 1% of Australia’s largest and fastest growing companies to further increase their sales revenue. (Visit www.ridc.com.au for more details)

While we will always help you with your career choices and offer you advice on where you sit in the market, our fundamental role is to determine whether or not you match the roles we have with our clients.

We ask three questions of any candidate when we are considering them against a role on offer:

1. Can you do the job?
2. Will you do the job?
3. Will you fit the team?

Question: why did you leave your last job?

We want to truly understand what you are looking for in your next role. If you left because you didn’t like the company, the work, the size of the team, the limited career opportunities and so on, then we are not going to offer you an opportunity or a role with similar conditions.

We will also dig deep on this question to understand whether your stated reason for leaving “makes sense.” So when you give us a reason, we ask ourselves: is that consistent with what we know of that company, that type of role and the market place?

We’re also looking for consistency in the way you may make a decision.

Expect more of a grilling if you have many short stints on your resume. Our antenna will be on alert if you leave a company in just on or less than three months, and we know that industry or company is expanding.

Question: what are your salary expectations?

There’s no sinister intent behind this question. We would prefer to understand what you are looking for, so we can negotiate in good faith on your behalf.

Don’t believe what you read all over the net and talk up your salary in the hope that you’ll secure an extraordinary pay rise for your next role.

We have a pretty strong idea about which companies pay well and which ones don’t.  Plus, we do understand market rates for various positions.

We can tell you whether your expectations are realistic, and we understand when you are underpaid in your current role and want more money.

Many of our clients have salary bands – meaning they can only offer salaries within a range. We want to know whether your salary expectations match the range of roles we typically have on offer.

Scenario: we invite you in for one role, but we ask if you are interested in another

Your resume can only tell us so much.

From our discussions in interview we may discover that you are a better fit for another company. If we do not think you are appropriate for one role, based on what you have told us what you want and what our client needs, then we will not put you forward.

If we have other roles that will suit you, we may well talk to you about that role in interview, or call you and discuss it at a later date.

Scenario: We have no decision for the job yet

What applicants should be aware of is that often the decision to appoint or even organize a second interview can take time. For a few reasons:

• Someone internal appears out of nowhere
• Someone internal makes a referral for another applicant
• The business restructures
• The employer likes you, but is not confident they have seen the best in the market
• The employer does not have their paperwork in order and forgot to get sign-off (you’d be surprised how often this happens)
• You are being hired for a newly created role. Often for newly established roles there is less urgency as an employer has less sense of what they are missing out on.
• The employer wants someone more senior to see you and that person is simply not available

Applicants who wait patiently through the process may just come out on top.

The truth is, we have several methods to our interviewing “madness.”  The question is, are you prepared?

In 1997, Liza Garrido founded Enigma HR with the philosophy: “be ethical; be professional; be friendly and serve your clients well.” Her firm specialises in insurance and accounting placements and she has been assisting professionals in this industry for over 20 years.  Visit here for insurance and accounting jobs today!

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When we used to, it was called Innovation Exchange. But it collapsed. Listening to accomplished speakers highlighting this point at the recent Innovation Series event at Langham Hotel, I asked myself: “Why?”

Why, in a country as great as ours, are we so bad at collaboration?

We came up with the Victor lawnmower, Vegemite, Fosters and Greg Norman, and even managed, rightly or wrongly, to sell them overseas (except Norman, who went willingly and after that 60 Minutes thing, where Chris Evert sucked his toes, we willingly obliged).

As I pondered the musings of Ben Waters (Director, ecomagination, GE) and heard about how the legendary American company created a “virtual global research centre,” spinning off ecomagination projects in partnership with a number of companies and providing seed funding to 10 start-ups, I again asked myself. “Why?”

Dr. Alan Finkel (CTO, Better Place Australia) is looking to “drive” Australia into a sustainable future. Literally. Better Place is a company that plans to provide clean energy to Australia’s fleet of electric cars. Still, I asked myself: “Why?”

Then it dawned on me.

Collaboration isn’t merely putting two companies in a room together and saying “work together.” It should be about asking the right questions in the first place and being willing to share our failures as well as our successes. When I was asking “why,” I should have been asking: “How can we define the problem?”

Fear of failure?

Waters presented a damning stat. The percentage of businesses in Australia that brought something new to market last year was just 2.4%. This means Australia lags behind almost every country including (gulp) New Zealand! I don’t even need a joke about sheep to highlight how bad that is (no offence NZ, it’s just that we are bigger and supposedly endowed with better resources).

Why is Australia so far behind? Perhaps we don’t celebrate failure enough. Thomas Edison famously quipped, “I haven’t failed. I’ve found ten thousand ways that do not work.” In Australia, we keep failure to ourselves as if it’s something terrible.

For open innovation to work, it needs to be a top-down approach. But top-down facilitated collaboration requires buy-in down the line.

The top needs to accept failure, but when more than one company is involved, how is this defined and who takes on the risk? What happens down the line when middle management is only given incentives to succeed? If the collapse of the Innovation Exchange is anything to go by, we haven’t come up with an answer as yet.

Do we even know if we’ve asked the right questions?

Is past still a guide to the future?

“Money turns research into knowledge, innovation turns knowledge into money (and) getting 99% of it right helps when something goes wrong.” – Dr. Alan Finkel

Knowing what we need to know is just as important as getting it right. The problem is that research and research facilities involved in these projects are basing judgments on the past. Nothing wrong with that, but when innovation is all about creating the future I wonder how many ideas get killed off based on a now irrelevant view of the past.

Does collaboration help us get it right 99% of the time? It’s not guaranteed, but is that OK? And why should we need to get 99% right just to make it OK to fail? We should share our failures and if we fail, this shouldn’t jeopardise facilitated collaboration. It shouldn’t, but often does.

Open innovation shares the risk that comes with creating new futures. If we collaborate together and fail together, we will know how to succeed together. Share it, speed it up, challenge, learn lessons and improve.

When an industry transforms, it’s not new, it’s just better imagined. Collaboration helps us see with new eyes.

Why do we actually innovate?

We innovate to make the world a better place. It may also be to make money, but I contend that if you are not making the world a better place, you will struggle to make money. If you are only focussed on the money, you will neglect the needs and wants of the world, and you will therefore become irrelevant (ok, so the Crazy Frog ringtones may be an exception here).

How do we know what the world needs or wants? Ask it. Want better questions? Collaborate. By tapping into the collective consciousness of the world and applying sustainable business models, we really can make this planet of ours better.

Collaboration and open innovation have seemingly always been pitched as two or more companies overcoming risk in order to launch a product that neither could have launched on its own. It is promoted and focussed on the outcome, not the process.

The focus for collaboration should be on the question, not the answer. If we know what to ask, we mitigate risk better than any other method out there. The data of the past is only useful for the future if you ask it the right questions. To craft the right questions, you need dialogue and a willingness to challenge the ideas of the past and images of the future.

In that sense at least, and judging by the calibre of personnel discussing this very topic as part of the Innovation Series, we are on our way. The Innovation Series is an initiative of Zernike Australia, in partnership with the Australian Institute for Commercialisation.

Ben Flavel is an entrepreneur and innovation consultant assisting corporate, SME and fast-growth companies through innovation creation and evaluation, culture development and strategic renewal. Currently, he is an innovation consultant at NeoCogs and director at eQueue He can be contacted on 0417 323 809 or ben@neocogs.com.au.