WE HELP BUSINESSES GROW STRONG
Don’t Wear Shorts – Study Hard at School – Get A Good Job
The golden years for employees and thier families was after WW2. Most workers in the developed world earned enough to raise a …
Don’t cut out the middle man
People are told to “cut out the middle man” like its a good thing, but specialisation is what allowed us to stop …
How many lead guitarists does it take to change a lightbulb?
….. One, but I could have done it better”. Most accountants think they are good at management reports, and that’s …
Everyone Blames The Boss
You have a million important things to do, and keep getting interrupted, it’s almost lunchtime already, and then an employee wants to …
Why Some People Are Doing Well Right Now
One of the reasons the Victorian English were annoyed by Charles Darwin is because he challenged their idilic view of the countryside; …
Get The Jump On Next Year
Everyone is so bloody exhausted by 2020, it makes it very hard to think ahead, but the holiday break is a great …
How To Swing From Vine To Vine
It’s been a rough couple of years, when is the best time to put someone on? Even before COVID things were not …
Do This if You Want to Keep Working From Home
The reason some bosses hate the idea of you working from home is they think you are going to slack off. Being …
Timesheets Are Even More Important Now
One of the best things about working in the city is being able to get out for a run at lunchtime. A …
Reduce The Number Of Moving Parts
A 4WD enthusiast told me that he wouldn’t trust a fancy new electric ute. What if it broke down in the outback? …
People Are Your Biggest Possibility
My Octopus Teacher on Netflix blew me away. It is so beautiful, I absolutely recommend it. It’s a lovely view of lessons from …
A Lifestyle Business Should Not Be Difficult
It seems everyone wants to grow their business at all costs, to be the next Atlassian. But trying to do that can …
Old Ideas About Admin Work Are History
Even today people continue to talk about the difference between strategy and housekeeping in business. I catch myself doing it sometimes and …
How Do I Know When Can I Employ Someone?
Anyone who runs a service business knows the feeling, a constant concern about balancing the amount of work on and knowing when …
Living With Constant Disruption……
It wasn’t that long ago that we were discussing the end of jobs for life. How we would need to retrain a …
How Much Money Are You Really Making From SaaS Sales?
How do you know if you’re making money from your SaaS sales? It’s easy right? If you sell it for more than …
Why You Don’t Need Accounts Staff Anymore
If you have to spend money on compliance, try to get some value from it. Bookkeeping and tax definitely fall into that …
How To Do What You Love And What’s Good For You
There is no end of advice out about how to be more productive, to get more things done in your day. But …
No One Eats Just Cake – Have Your Cake On Top
Do Not Only Eat Cake It’s absolutely fine to put high-value, time-based, consulting work on top of your standard products. That suits …
Which Income Stream Is Making You Money?
We often recommend better management reporting, but also, the equally important, regular time put aside each month to review and interpret the …
Is Your Business Lumpy? Is It Going Downhill?
Is your business really lumpy? Or is it just the accounts? And if so, is it, beneath all that distortion, having problems? …
Beware The Budget Loch Ness Monster
In last week’s blog entry I talked about how what might appear to be a lumpy business is more often just lumpy …
Who’s Who In Your Business Zoo?
Most people only have a limited number of different tasks to perform each day. If they are delivering work for clients, their …
Do You Know Where The Day Goes?
Time flies – but it can also sink you. So how do you better control it? Usually only people that bill by …
Strategy Vs Housekeeping
Some things have to get done – else they will come back to bite you later – but they won’t necessarily grow …
How To Write A Budget Paper
If you have to present a budget paper to your Board and/or investors it’s a good idea to provide a document explaining …
Design The Life You Love
Check out “Design The Life You Love” by Ayse Birsel. This is a great read for business owners. Especially the consideration of …
Why It’s Better To Be Slightly Resource Constrained
Human beings work better with constraints and we are usually not very good at restraint. Constraints drive better creative solutions, plus we get …
Podcast Interview With Leigh Dunsford @ Waddle Loans
I recently did a podcast interview with the very cool Leigh Dunsfield from Waddle Loans Check it out https://soundcloud.com/waddlepodcast/thomas-taylor-t2-consult-podcast
Focus On The Large And Variable – Not The Small And Predictable
If you have a 30 June year end you’re probably putting the finishing touches on your annual budget. If you are, it’s …
How Will Automation Affect Your Clients?
We mostly work with businesses that have really big clients, it seems to be the thing that defines us. And most knowledge …
It’s What’s Up Front That Counts
There is that old saying that “if you what to improve something, first measure it”. And if you really want to know …
Should You Keep Staff Salaries Secret?
I remember being told at my first university economics lecture that we have to assume human beings always make rational choices. That …
Should You Sell To One Of The Big Guys?
Is running your own show is the best way for you to grow? One option might be to join up with a bigger …
Why Overdrafts Are Rubbish
A while ago I wrote about why you should bootstrap for as long as you can noting… “Apart from the obvious benefits of having …
You Should Probably Charge More
The world seems to be splitting into extremes. Amazon and the like are wiping out traditional retail, luxury retailers are doing fine, …
What Usually Happens To A Small Business As It Gets Bigger
There is something that I think happens at a particular stage in every growing company. The time you realise you don’t know …
How To Separate Strategy And Housekeeping
Those mountains aren’t going to climb themselves and you need a good base camp or your best-laid plans will fail. Absolutely make it …
How To Cherry-Pick Good Ideas From Big Corporates
We all know about economies of scale for big businesses, and of course, there are major diseconomies too. Otherwise small business would …
Back To Basics – A Checklist
Does your billing/front office system equal the accounts each month? If not you might have a black hole. Regardless, you won’t know …
It Will Be The End Of The Year Before You Know It
These years just keep getting faster… Right now you’ve hopefully had a lovely break and thinking that getting stuck in can probably …
You Should Have Your Numbers On The First Day Of The Month
If you’re doing all the cool things like continuous billing, accruing and prepaying expenses, twice monthly salaries, something like ReceiptBank for automated accounts payable …
Why You Should Outsource Your Bookkeeping
One of the best ways to waste time and/or money is to do your own bookkeeping in-house. But we all do things …
Where Your Sales Come From
There are four ways to grow B2B sales. New Clients from Inbound Marketing A lot of people think that businesses that don’t …
Think Broadly About Solving Problems
We often put up with sub-optimum solutions. Things we’ve always done a particular way; ways that mostly just waste time and cause …
How To Set A Growth Target For Your Business
We all know that we need goals, and unless you measure something it won’t improve, but don’t get too stressed out about …
It’s Time To Change Your Old MYOB Files To XERO Before 30 June
Give us a shout if you need a hand getting ready to change over to Xero at 30 June. It’s good …
Our Growth Almost Killed Us
I had a great question put to me the other day. You often hear of companies saying “our growth almost killed us” …
How To Make Your Business Sustainable
When we assess a business for financial security and sustainability the following is what we look for. The big one is recurring …
What I Learnt Working In A Hotel
Hotels have a magic number that they all aim for. That number is 80% occupancy. The percentage of available rooms occupied each …
Add Sensible Spinach To Your Smashed Avocado
Add Sensible Spinach To Your Smashed Avocado Thomas Taylor – Monday, May 21, 2018 We’ve changed our name. We are now Green Spinach …
Accounts Not Getting Important Things Done? Are They Overworked Or Overwhelmed?
Accounts staff will often tell you they’re too busy when you ask them to do something new. I get it thats annoying …
Exit Stage Left
There might be 50 ways to leave a lover, but not many ways to leave a company that you have built. And …
You Need Meat And Gravy
These days, for most businesses, it’s all about recurring revenue. A lot of Real estate agents aim to fund their basic operating …
Are You An Industry Player, Or A Market Player?
Guest Post by Raz Chorez In over a decade of consulting, I’ve learned to take nothing for granted. I don’t assume as much …
Are You Bundling Services?
These days smart firms are forming their service offerings into bundled products that better align with and meet client needs. Once upon …
How To Manage Margins In Professional Services
To manage your firm, you need to know the most important ratios. Utilisation is by far the most important for most, but …
Are You Eligible For A Small Business Grant?
The NSW government is giving small businesses in NSW a grant of $2000 if they employ new full-time, part-time and casual workers …
How Will Automation Effect Your Business?
Remember when cruise control was just on flash cars? When a Mercedes stunt to demonstrate automatic emergency braking went terribly wrong and …
Reduce Risk During Rough Times
Humans have an innate tendency to take more risks when we are under pressure. Put what’s left on a horse race, kick …
Your Time Sheet Needs To Add Up To A Whole Day
This is for all the people that use timesheets. There is an old accounting saying that if something is out by only …
Can All This Technological Disruption Work In Your Favour?
All those trend setters, not following traditional business models, have the opportunity to build a modern, agile and flexible businesses unimpeded by …
You Own The Profit
Happy New Year all. I hope you had a great holiday if you managed one. Fresh for a new year and, like …
Why You Should Have An Advisory Board Meeting Every Two Months
The most successful businesses I’ve worked with have all had one thing in common, they all had some sort of advisory board. …
Do You Have Enough Cash For January?
I know everyone is flat out right now but it’s a really good time to do a cash flow forecast and make sure …
The Debit Is Near The Window
That’s an old accounts joke. It’s only funny if you’ve ever struggled with an accounting course. And everyone does when they first …
Competitive Advantage Is Being Good At Things Other People Think Are Too Hard
The Dalai Lama said “It is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself …
Why Businesses Fail
We like saying we are no smarter than anyone else but we get to see inside a lot of businesses at the …
You Should Plan For Blue Sky Too
Scenario planning is something that makes perfect sense but a bit daunting to tackle for a lot of people. An easy way …
How A CFO Adds Value To Your Business
Have you noticed that there seems to be a bunch of new Outsourced CFOs about? This is a great thing, I think …
Why Finance Dashboards Never Work
Leaders do vision, they are responsible for the strategy, and then they facilitate the actions everyone needs to take to make the …
The 3 Reports You Need To Run Your Business
I’m writing this on a public holiday, the sun is shining and, after this, the dog and I are going for a …
Suzzie Used To Be A Chef – She Helped A Friend With A Dinner Party
It was years ago now, and before I met her, but Suzzie M told me a great story about how she helped …
How To Do A Cash Flow Forecast
A weekly cash flow forecast is one of the most important housekeeping tasks in your business. Many a business has failed because …
How Many People Do You Need In Accounts?
We’ve all heard it before … “there are too many people in accounts”….. but first a detour via refrigerators. Hang in there, …
Why Middle Office Is Probably Holding You Back
You’ve most probably heard of middle office and decided it was a banking thing designed to try to stop dealers going off …
Never Outsource Your Future
We are huge fans of outsourcing repetitive processes for SMEs, particularly processes that respond well to economies of scale. Things that get …
Welcome Results Both Good And Bad
Thomas Taylor – Sunday, August 04, 2019 The other day I heard a scientist say there is no such thing as a …
Accounts Can’t Fix Utilisation – Its A People Problem
I keep banging on about how people send things to accounts just because it has something to do with adding up numbers. …
How To Stop Flipping Burgers
Good solid businesses value recurring revenue, in fact, it’s usually the most important element when a business is valued for sale or …
Get The Numbers Right Before You Turn Up The Heat
The more time I spend working with growing businesses, the more I see that the biggest success factor is usually sales. I …
Managing A Business With Very Different Revenue Streams
It’s hard to manage a business that provides consulting services, but even more so if consulting is not your only income stream. …
Fixed Price Projects Can Be Exhausting
When you hear any combination of the following be very careful. “But that’s what we had to bid to win the work” …
There Should Never Be 3 Fortnights In A Month
If you think that time went fast over the weekend try fitting 6 weeks into a month. We have all seen management …
Are The Walls Closing In?
From the (Urban Dictionary): In contrast to what you might think about a claustrophobic reference, the “walls are closing in” actually means that someone was …
What The Hell Should You Do? You Need A Model
I’ve been talking to lots of business owners in the past week and one thing is crystal clear. After they have taken …
What Happens If Your Payroll Person Gets Sick?
Payroll has to be done on time, every time, no matter what. If you have someone in-house doing payroll, even if that …
Do You Really Need An Office?
There are some great businesses with no office, or with a semi-distributed working model. I’ve been having many conversations about this, like …
What Happens When A Business Runs Out Of Cash
A business running out of cash is like a boat running aground. If you’re passionate about either, seeing it will bring you …
What Can You Sell Online Right Now?
Why the hell have Australian supermarkets stopped most deliveries? Partly because they have never taken it seriously. Like newspapers that lost the …
If They Shut The Door Go Through The Window
Sometimes you are forced to change how you do things. Call it pivot if you will. The thought of it can be …
What To Do If Your Clients Squeeze You? – Add Vodka
It might sound counterintuitive but if your clients ask for a discount right now offer to do more for less, but put …
How To Cut Costs
I’m sure you’ve been having a good look at costs lately so here are a few things to consider. 1) Better control …
Payroll Keeping You Up Late? Let Us Do It For You
It might sound counterintuitive but if your clients ask for a discount right now offer to do more for less, but put …
More Selling Time – Less Spending Time
We all know that it’s hard to track which particular sales activities result in sales. It might be a conversation that you …
How To Compete With The Big Boys
Big businesses have some enormous advantages but they have weaknesses too. How can you learn from recent disrupters and get a foothold? …
Getting New Customers Costs Time And Money
After the cost of delivering services, the cost of client acquisition is the most critical expense to control in your business – …
Dont Look At The Tree
They tell people this when they teach them to race motorcycles. They tell you to look towards your escape route, not the …
But I Didn’t Have An Entree
“Numbers written on restaurant bills within the confines of restaurants do not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any …
Does The Cat Match The Curtains?
A lot of people think that the health of your business is measured by the people in the back office, like a …