As a business owner, there are plenty of things you need to manage, and two of the most important of these are assets and risks.

In other words, building your wealth and protecting your wealth.

There’s no point building a lot of wealth if the way you have things structured behind the scenes means that someone could take your assets away from you...Read more

Isn’t Twitter a waste of time? Isn’t Facebook for the kids?

Not anymore. 

It’s true that Twitter and Facebook started out with very ‘non-business’ objectives. The founder of Twitter actually did invent it so you could tell everyone you were going to the shop to get some milk; and anyone who has seen the movie The Social Network knows about the very lowbrow origins of Facebook...Read more

Thinking of selling? Or just curious to know the value of your business in case you do decide to put it on the market at some point? 

Many business owners are well-wide of the mark when placing a value on their prized asset. They overvalue it and under-prepare for their exit, believing in a huge potential for their business that buyers unfortunately don’t see. 

Your business is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it!...Read more

Have you been doing the numbers and panicking a little recently?

If your super fund is a little ‘light’ as you start to think ahead to your golden years, you’re not alone.

Millions of Australians are reviewing their retirement plans. We have been taught to believe that the money that flows into our super fund (equivalent to 9.5 per cent of our salaries) will look after us when we retire...Read more

Any business that isn’t planning for the future is planning to get left behind. 

While most business owners know that budgeting is a critical part of their planning, there is some confusion about which components should be included in a budget. 

There are three critical elements. Together, they provide the oversight you need for your business - and the key targets to work towards...Read more

“Signing on the dotted line.” It wasn’t all that long ago that phrase meant signing pen-on-paper. Increasingly these days it can also mean signing on-screen with a stylus—or even with your finger tip!—or by using your computer and keyboard. 

So why have many businesses moved to using electronic signatures? What are the advantages over using pen-on-paper for signatures on agreements?... Read more

For many, the word ‘budget’ is about as appealing as the word ‘diet’. 

It seems to imply what you will go without, rather than what you will achieve. 

To a successful business owner, however, the word ‘budget’ has a very different meaning.

It’s more like a map than a diet. It’s an outline of where you want to take the business, and what you need to achieve to get there...Read more

“When a prospective client asks you for a quote, it's a powerful opportunity to make a sale. In fact, with the right response you may be able to ‘seal the deal’ almost immediately.

But if you take your time to respond, provide wildly different quotes for similar work, or otherwise send bad signals about your business, you could easily lose that client. Which is a pity, because it seemed they really wanted to do business with you...Read more

“You need to work on your business, not just in your business.” 

Made popular by The E-Myth Revisited author Michael Gerber, it’s advice I’m sure you’ve heard dozens of times over the years (I certainly have). But despite being told over and over again, many small business owners still don’t seem to truly understand what it means...Read more

Intellectual property. It’s a hot topic.

Why?

Because, in the globalised and ultra-connected world we live in, the intellectual property (IP) of individuals and businesses is increasingly at risk.

It’s not just famous cases like Ugg Boots that are making the news. Trade mark, patent and copyright infringements in general are on the rise – both from the work of unscrupulous individuals/organisations and through innocent breaches of IP... Read more