Good Help is Hard to Find: Newsletter April 30, 2021

Hello All,

Whatever stage of your business you are in, there are always questions and doubts. Questions can be about how to do one of the numerous things which contribute to the success of your business or how to simply wade through the tech of setting up an advertising campaign or how to build your audience through social media. Doubts are more pervasive and can lead to you wonder why you are not getting the engagement or sales you had hoped for or whether it is all worth it.

There is a multi-billion dollar industry that has cropped up over the past ten years of coaches, consultants and online learning that promises to answer all of your questions and remove these doubts. Many of these are hollow and provide a small nugget of useful information for a high price tag. There are, however, many others that do deliver what they promise and provide insights that can be transformative. The difficult part is finding the right resource.

While there is no determinative answer on how to choose the right resource for your situation, there are some questions you can ask yourself before choosing to work with someone or enroll in a program:

• Does their message or description of their service/program really resonate with you and the problem you are trying to solve?

• Do they have a blog or a podcast or other resource where you can get to know them and evaluate their expertise?

• What do their reviews say? Do they sound like they are written by real people?

• Can you sign up for a free trial so that you can evaluate if the program is right for you?

• If you talk to them, do they actually listen to your issues and provide insights on how they propose to solve them rather than just talking at you in the hopes that you will buy something?

• Does the service or program seem like good value for money?

• When taking everything into consideration, do they seem like the right fit?

Ultimately, all of us make mistakes along the way. It can be hard to resist a really good sales pitch and sometimes a program is good, but it just isn’t for you. It is part of the learning process and helps us to build experience and hone our instincts. The important thing is to look forward ; regret is mostly a waste of time once you have learned the necessary lessons.

I have a new blog post on a basic vocabulary of accounting terms that every small business owner should understand. While some of the terminology isn’t necessary self evident, much of it just gives you a technical term for information that you already want to know about your business like how much profit you are making or what your customers owe you.

I also updated an older post about marketing your services. The avenues for marketing have come a long way since I originally wrote that post, several years ago. There are many ways to market your business that are more sophisticated than what is in the post, but you it may trigger something that you might not have thought about.

Small Business Articles/Tips

The secret history of an iconic brand: This article from the BBC talks about the incredible branding story of Angostura Bitters which does little or no marketing and is yet known to most people who enjoy the occasional cocktail.

Writing a Business Plan : This article from Shopify gives you a comprehensive roadmap for writing a business plan. A business plan is something I recommend to all business owners even if you a don’t have to submit it to anyone as it helps you gives you greater insights into what you would like to achieve.

QBO Tip: You can use QBO (or any accounting software) to keep track of your accounts receivable (i.e. amounts that customers owe you). QBO allows you to send statements and reminders, which you should do frequently to delinquent customers. It also allows you to accept credit card payments which although more expensive than receiving a direct payment is better than no payment at all. The AR Aging Summary report is available in the reports section which shows you the total amount that customers owe you in 30 day increments. There is also an AR Aging Detail report which provides a breakdown of who owes you what and from what date.

Books

A standing thank you to everyone who has purchased my ebooks. I really appreciate it and sincerely hope they have been useful. I would love to hear your comments!

NEWISH: Small Business Tax Guide: If you are doing your own tax return or simply want to understand how your small business taxes works, this guide attempts to explain everything as simply as possible and provides somewhat entertaining examples.

Small Business and Your Dividends: For those of you who are doing it yourself, and are a bit tardy with filing your dividend declarations, this book helps you understand exactly how dividends work and gives you a step by step tutorial on how to submit them to the government. There is also a free dividend checklist that you can download here.

Start Your Business: If you are planning to start a business, or have stumbled on to a business but now want to make sure that you haven’t missed anything, my book explores what every business owner needs to evaluate from a regulatory, financial and tax perspective.

All three books are also available at Amazon.

Discount: Save 25% on either guide by using the discount code “special”.

My next book will be about accounting for small business owners. If there is anything specific you would like me to cover in it, please don’t hesitate to email me at contact@montrealfinancial.ca

Reviews/Feedback

For anyone who would like to provide their insights into existing blog posts, topic ideas for new blogs, feedback on my products/website or anything else, you can use my feedback form or email me directly. I’m always looking for ways to improve or provide value (to the extent possible) and this will be most helpful.

For anyone who has purchased my books through Amazon or even directly, and have found it valuable, a review directly on Amazon would be hugely helpful. (I believe you simply need an account and have had minimum purchases of $50 in the past year to leave a review on anything even if not purchased through Amazon)

A huge thank you to my new subscribers and of course my current subscribers. I really appreciate you guys and I look forward to your emails.

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!

Ronika