Do you sometimes wonder whether you are wasting your time going to Breakfast Events, After Five  Business Meetings, BNI Chapters and the like?

I often wonder whether I am just going for the company (I am – it can be a lonely business being a sole operator working from home) or whether there will be some genuine connections made.

This morning I had a phone call out of the blue from someone who came and visited our BNI Chapter about eight months ago. I resigned from BNI (Business Networking International for anyone who doesn’t know – a great concept and certainly gave me some excellent connections, and hopefully I was able to bring them some excellent connections) earlier this year, but here is someone that heard me speak all those months ago and remembered in the back of his mind that I was the sort of person he needed.

I don’t know whether any lasting business relationship will come out of this – I suspect it will – but it shows the value of networking.

I will keep you posted!

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Sounds like a political election quote, hang on a second, it was! Who remembers who and when? Who cares?

I have not updated my blog for over a year – it’s hard to keep doing something when it seems that there is no purpose to it, however, someone may come across my site unexpectedly and wonder why I haven’t updated it!

I’ve been too busy! Mostly looking after people – perhaps like you – who are too busy to do their own office administration and MYOB, or who value their own time and skills in their own business to spend time and effort on something that they are much better off outsourcing.

My little business is now nearly 18months old – barely a toddler – and while there have been a few stumbles along the way, it is sturdy and safe. It’s not growing very much, but with only me to look after it, for the moment that is OK – there is plenty of time to decide where I want to go with it.

How about you? Do you need an occasional hand to take up some of the slack? Would you like to take a few days off and have someone come in and sort out your office, get it organised and ship-shape and easy for you to manage?

If so, drop me a line, and I can come to you (in Sydney only, sorry) and Get you Sorted!

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If I blog, and nobody reads it, is it still a blog?

Why would someone, whose paperwork needs to be organised, (a) have time to read a blog, or (b) have the inclination?

Why do I (a) have time to write a blog, or (b) have the inclination?

Answer – because it is all about discipline and time management…

If you are disorganised and need someone to help you clear your desk, do your small business administration and book-keeping, then you need to find someone to help you out so that you are free to get on with your own business. There is me, and there are also other people out there with great skills and the ability to help you Get Sorted. My Business support experience can help, even if it is only to check the spelling, grammar, punctuation and syntax in your promotional material and on your website. It’s not a good look to present your business and yourself to the on-line world and have an apostrophe out of place!

Back to philosophy… if I have a small business and nobody uses it (not true at the moment) then is it still a small office administration and book-keeping business? Yes! Because it is just waiting to fulfill its raison d’etre!

Rather than rabbit on about the next idea, discipline, I’ll save that for my next post.

Until then, enjoy your season, whatever it may be, and be grateful that you have a computer, internet access, a life and the love of those around you – I know that I am enormously grateful for all the blessings that I have in my life right now.

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It’s one thing to make the decision to start your own small business, but the reality of doing so is quite another.

My closest analogy to this is starting a family. I was all gung-ho about the idea of having six children (I am an only child, so missed out on the joys of brothers or sisters). I was organised, competent and very good at looking after babies, and ready for a big brood of laughing children.

The reality of having my first child – a hyperactive (that was the term for ADHD back in the late 70′s) little boy who hardly ever slept and needed entertaining for nearly 18 hours a day – completely changed my mind, and I was initially appalled when, nearly three years later, found that his little brother was on the way. He, or course, turned out to be an easy baby, and the final little girl who came along five years after that was an absolute breeze!

Anyway, the point is, that the reality rarely matches the image, and I think it will be similar with my small business.

Having put a great deal of time and effort into networking in three different spheres, to the great amusement and scoffing of said daughter and others, I do feel that it is finally beginning to pay off and that real work and clients will be the result.

There are lots of people out there who need to Get Sorted, and who need help with their small business administration, and hopefully, they will find me, or I will find them and there will be two satisfied groups – me, the small business owner, and them – the newly organised client!

If anyone is reading this blog, could they please send me a comment?!

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Yesterday in Australia it was the first day of spring.

Here in Sydney we had a sudden blast of warm weather to make us think about packing away the winter woollies – today of course, it is damp and chilly and we still need them!

Running a small business is a bit like that – we need an annual spring clean of our files and systems – but we still need to be able to get at them if it turns chilly (or the tax man decides to check them over).

When was the last time that you had a clean out of your files? Have you ever done it? It’s a great time to clean out your hard drive, archive stuff you don’t need immediately and when it’s all sorted, defrag your disc. Small business administration is all about keeping it clean and tidy, yet accessible.

So, enjoy your spring clean, and look forward to some warmer weather.

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One problem about being brilliantly organised about getting other people sorted, is that I tend to fall down on getting myself sorted… I got to Friday of last week and felt that my own small business support was lacking! Where did the week go? I went to a couple of networking events, I went to an Online Social Media mini seminar on Thursday morning (very good by the way, run by Canada Bay Council), managed to get to the gym only twice and did my civic duty by giving blood, and the Erchhh! It was the end of the week!

I need to get myself sorted! How many other people are brilliant at looking after their clients/families/friends, etc but leave themselves at the bottom of the heap? I suspect that it is more than a few.

So, my tip for today – for your own small business support – is to actually put down in your diary (yes, even I – the worst diarist in the world – am learning this) some specific hours this week, that you will mind your own business. And, key point here, you will stick to it.

Small Business Support and Administration is all about small logical steps and discipline. How is yours? Mine is improving!

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Yesterday I went to my graduation ceremony for my Certificate III in Micro Business Operations – the course I did from April to June thanks to the Australian Government who paid for it – and met up with students from the last several courses.

I met up with the young lady who put me on to the course in the first place; a lovely and talented photographer that I have known since she was a little girl in pigtails (if it weren’t for Rosie rosaliesweeney and her father, I would not have a single photo of my daughter’s 21st birthday party).

I realised that even though I’ve only been in business for just over a month, I have quite a bit of valuable wisdom (from my advanced years, more than my actual business experience) and advice that I can pass on to her and help with her confidence boosting in running her business.

I have taken on board a lot of advice from many sources, so it felt really good to be able to give something back.

We went to a networking event run by the Working Women’s Network last night, and Rosie told me afterwards that she admired how I could just go up to a group of complete strangers and just introduce myself and join in with their conversation. This used to be something that I too, found really daunting; I told her that it is just a matter of practice, and more importantly acknowledging to yourself that you are valueable and have a valuable service to offer.

Imagine if we all gave just a little bit more than we received, how much better might we sleep at night? When my children were young, we used to have little hand written A4 posters around the house with inspirational messages, and one of them said

“To be successful in business, give people more than they expect, and do it willingly, with a smile”

Have a lovely day – the sun is shining (even if it’s cloudy, it is still shining above the clouds!)

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Is it full of shoe-boxes containing bundles of receipts that you ought to sort out for your accountant?

Do you know where to start? Do you start at the bottom and work upwards, or the other way around?

Here is my small business administration tip for today…

1. Sort them into twelve piles by month and then put eleven of the piles into envelopes marked with the appropriate month.
2. The pile that you have left is your task for today, sort them into the categories that your accountant has already given you, such as:
   Motor Vehicle and petrol; Travel expenses (including taxis, tolls and parking); Postage, printing and stationery; Staff amenities (tissues, tea, coffee, milk, sugar etc – and, annoyingly, if you are claiming GST you will have to separate these into GST and GST free piles); Research materials; and so on. Put paper clips on each little bundle, add them up and put them into your petty cash spreadsheet, or just leave them for your book-keeping service to record appropriately.

That’s enough for one day, leave another envelope for Monday. Do one every few days, and soon those shoe-boxes will be looking a lot more tidy. Who knows, if you get all your book-keeping done and handed over to your accountant, you may be able to afford to buy some real shoes to put into those boxes!

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How far has technology come?

In my first office job as PA to the manager of a large French bank in Hong Kong, way back in 1976, international communications were via something called a telex – about the size of a small piano (see picture below) – where you had to make a punch tape with no number zero (you had to punch the letter O and then do about three functions to take the tape back and put a slash through the O) and once the tape was finished, it would be about 20 metres long and then had to be fed (noisily) through the machine – oh, and I had to do it all in French! Took me all day to complete the task, I was almost in tears at the end, and i was only just 20 years old!

1970's office technology

I remember when the fax was invented – that was revolutionary – especially for building, architectural and design offices. he first mobile phone I ever saw, which belonged to the builder I worked for in the early 1990′s was the size of a small house brick, and had a base pack the size of a small brief case to charge it!

Imagine running your business now without your mobile phone with its calendar, address book, GPS, internet access, and, oh yes, it can even make phone calls!

Yes, it might mean that we are hardly ever able to turn it off, and are stressed by how available we are, but just be grateful for how easy communication tasks are these days – an attitude of gratitude in every aspect of our lives is something to live up to.

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I went to two different networking events today…

one was more of an introduction; looking at starting up a new chapter of BNI – Business Networking International – a very structured organisation, and possibly a high pressure system (sounds like a weather forecaster) that fills me with some trepidation

The other was a Sydney Women’s Network SWN event where our local Member of Parliament was there to introduce us to the Minister for Housing (and a million other things). Between them they showed us how far women have come in the past 35 years (yes, I know that’s a long time, but in the grand scheme of things it is actually not all that long). Our Member of Parliament is a woman who is skilled in the art of networking – I have certainly never before come across a parliamentarian who is so visible in the community – and this has raised her considerably in my estimation. This event was a relaxed, friendly affair with a very nice lunch thrown in, and plenty of opportunity to move around the room and exchange cards and information.

So why is this a good thing about winter? Well, nothing really, except that there is less temptation to spend my early mornings (7.00 is very early for me) and lunch times at indoor events networking and marketing my business. How will I feel about attending such events when it is warm and sunny outside and I could be going for a nice walkies instead? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, I hope you are getting through all those shoe boxes full of receipts loosely bundled into months (well, that was your intention when you started last July!) and those charity donation receipts that you can claim on your tax? You still have a couple of weeks before your employer is obliged to give you your annual salary statement so that you can hand it over to your accountant.

Enjoy your weekend – I am certainly looking forward to mine!

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