small business help

Small Business Help – how to calculate charge out rates, don’t undersell your time

How to calculate charge out rates is one of the most important things to get correct for any small business owner in service industries. That is plumbers, electricians, computer servicing and consulting, even dentists, accountants

Charge out rates - do not undersell your time

and lawyers. Charge too much and you may lose sales, too little and you will not make a living. So it can be a balancing act but when it boils down to it, is there any point of being in business if you are not making enough. It’s quite easy to undervalue yourself and/or your employees and it can require courage to stand up and say ‘no I am worth more’.

Here is a very simplistic guide for working out a minimum rate it ignores profit from any goods you might sell, so has limited usefulness but then aim here is to get you thinking! [Read more…]

Small Business Marketing Tips- remembering the basics

Sometimes it’s hard to know if you are doing the right thing with small business

Small Business Marketing Tips - tick

marketing so its good to get some sort of affirmation from others that what you’re on the right track. And that is what I felt when reading an article titled ” Marketing: For small-business operators, it’s good to remember the basics” by Bruce Spotleson.

Small Business Marketing Tips

Here’s some take aways from the article:

“I think one key to small business is reputation management,” he said. “Commitment to quality. And the ability to do something different than the big guys.”

[Read more…]