Businesses need efficient process, the focus of leadership and structure that can stretch to enable the company to grow safely as a massive 55% of businesses don’t make it to their fifth birthday. The experts offer banal opinions as to why this happens. I consistently see three key reasons why this tragedy occurs so often and to so many people with different backgrounds, education and knowledge.
The first reason is lack of market comprehension.
Refusal to look at the water ahead. For example Individuals dream up the concept, build the product and then expect the market to appear and purchase. In information age there is no excuse for lack of research prior to wasting any time and money on creating a product until you have firm evidence there is a market.
The second reason is lack of comprehension of the basics of business.
The majority of folks starting a business know their trade, how to offer a service or build a product, but not how to run a business. Having the ability to read and follow the numbers in the P&L or the balance sheet is a vital. The basic knowledge of accounting is not very often imparted coherently by the business manuals, internet resources and experts with the knowledge such as accountants and bookkeepers. The problem is maginfied by greedy and short sighted technology companies such as Sage software misleading the market by selling only a portion of the functionality actually needed by small businesses.
Large corporations way back worked out that all of their Information systems should be joined together to give them a total view of the business and then along came ERP software solutions and packages. One vendor NetSuite had the foresight to see the opening in the market and began selling its small business ERP software. NetSuite pricing has since increased and put their solution out of the economic reach of small businesses.
The third reason businesses don’t make it is a because of the absence of good management processes and policies to enable a sustainable fabric of disciplines and behaviours.
You have probably heard of SAP software. It’s a software application used by thousands of medium sized and large enterprises all over the world. The purpose of the system is to join the whole organisation together and let hundreds and often thousands of workers to record, share and view information concerning the physical and financial activities of the company. Large firms are lead by savvy individuals who know the strategic benefits of this type of software, such as how it can give them a picture of why problems are occurring inside their company or where there might be opportunity for improvements.
This category of system is often known as ERP. It is very complicated, very expensive and can take months and often years to deploy. A deployment of ERP software is a significant investment but this doesn’t stop major firms investing in these applications.
Until recently software like this was not available or affordable for small firms. As a result tiny companies have not been aware of the significant benefits that ERP systems can deliver. Tiny organisations have been misled by predatory manufacturers such as Sage Software and Intuit that small business accounting software is what they need. These applications most often have no capacity to permit their owners to connect the entire firm or undertake basic tasks such as customer relationship management.
It is for this reason that small business ERP businesses like Salesorder.com have started to make great strides in the market. They provide software as a service containing all of the major features a small company requires at very low cost. What is even more fascinating is these systems are simple to use and can be implemented rapidly.
At last ERP platforms are no longer the privilege of big enterprises.
Accounting used to completely perplex me and as a result I had to find a simpler way which I want to share with you. Everyone who starts or runs their own business has ’higher priority’ tasks to perform than spend time on their bookkeeping. All companies have to pay special attention to their accounting if they want to avoid issues.
I asked my accountant for advice and he persuaded me to use Sage Software which turned out to be a small business accounting software package. Without even testing software I naively went ahead and purchased the lowest cost package I could find. This was arguably one of the biggest mistakes I made as the software turned out to be really difficult to comprehend and use. To be straight with you whenever I see the word accounting next to the word software I am immediately reminded of the first wisdom I want to share with you and that is just about all small business accounting software makes the assumption the user possesses good practical knowledge of bookkeeping.
Like me I know this simply isn’t the case for most small business people and this drove me to put aside time that I couldn’t spare to discover a solution to make my life simpler. The great news is I found a really excellent solution, it’s an internet system known as salesorder.com.
This is possibly the simplest software I have ever found and what’s more it is web based and therefore I can use it from anywhere I want to work. Better still and the third piece of wisdom I want to share with you is that the people who work at salesorder.com are not just very knowledgeable of their system but they know a tremendous amount about the problems of running a small enterprise and have taught me the bookkeeping I need to know.
Before I show you my portfolio of my favourite online tools that I promise will assist you to work remotely, I want to discuss one more item connected with self management and especially to do with maintaining your focus and powers of concentration
I’ve spotted and established a consistent habit in acquaintances who work on the Internet and I’ve known for over a long time line and I call this habit the fifty minute rule. I spotted these contacts who concentrate and work for fifty mins. and then pause for a complete ten mins. break and are much more productive and produce a substantially greater quality of work than colleagues who don’t have such distinct working practises.
OK as promised for your consideration is my list of favourite remote working software:
E-Mail
Google Mail is free. But in my opinion the search & label (categories) mechanisms are the best implementation I have encountered. So far the only gripe I have is that it runs a bit slow on not so new PC’s
Phone calls Skype continually perplexed me as the connection quality and reliability was down right horrible, but a big pat on the back for the software tech’s at Skype now as they have substantially changed the quality of the service. For meagre amount of money a month ! can call and conference in any handset and Skype user in the world. The current edition of Skype has a collection of very practical features and there constantly expanding collection of practical add on applications.
Organising Content Evernote has connected more than a million users in a very short space of time – it enables you to store, organise and annotate any type of digital content up on the Internet. Just go check it out…it’s free.
Invoicing, Time and Expenses capture, Accounting and CRM
You probably know that my urge to work remotely was originally inspired by Quickbooks Online, a small business accounting software web application. But it is easily beaten hands down by the free edition of salesorder.com – a lead to cash system that’s as easy to use as a fork I looked at NetSuite whose pricing (and people) scared me off. My choice here is salesorder.com – Go check it out.
The key reason men and women fail to adapt to working remotely is they fail to recognise the need for high-quality organisation and robust self discipline.
I have been working remotely for almost a decade since I first discovered Quickbooks online an ‘on demand’small business accounting software online system and was spellbound by the fact that if you can do accounting on the web then why shouldn’t it be possible to perform other key types of of work remotely?
Whilst working remotely has its obvious perks there are numerous things that workers don’t realise which turn into issues that result in reduced work output and lower motivation. The number one reason for low productivity in remote employees is disruption and it is a proven and well known fact that it can take a person up to 20 mins to return to their original output level after experiencing an interruption.
Deeper insights reveal that individuals who are continuously affected by interruptions are more likely to be susceptible to decreased memory capacity and are prone to developing mental health issues in old age. We live in an over communicated environment and it is imperative that you are acquainted with the issues this causes before you start working remotely. Whilst operating remotely you have to do everything possible to remove the threat of being interrupted.
Here are things that really do work:
1, Get a routine, tell everyone about it and stick to it!
Good examples are a regular time of day when you look at or compose and reply to electronic mail and make or receive phone conversatiions. Before I began working remotely I used to get in the region of two hundred electronic mails a day. Now I think I am unfortunate if I receive in excess of five. To start over with my e-mail experience I modified my e-mail address and vigorously took precautions to look after the details being made available to anyone. I then made sure every party who I gave my e-mail address to, to use it prudently. I also configured an automatic response that swiftly told anyone sending me mail my routine for reading mail and if an e-mail should have my immediate awareness to mark it as ‘Urgent’.
2. Get rid of alerts.
Disable every function that can send you a visual or audible alert. This includes cell and conventional handsets and types of alerts from e-mail such as display events, warning sounds, display changes to your inbox folder and of course facing a window. Get a door on your office and put up a ‘do not disturb’ sign on it.
In ‘Remote Working Part 3 – Essential tools’ I will reveal my favourite tools and software.
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