Click on the image to see the trailer

Global icon Dwayne Johnson leads the cast of Legendary’s Skyscraper as former FBI Hostage Rescue Team leader and U.S. war veteran Will Sawyer, who now assesses security for skyscrapers. On assignment in China he finds the tallest, safest building in the world suddenly ablaze, and he’s been framed for it. A wanted man on the run, Will must find those responsible, clear his name and somehow rescue his family who is trapped inside the building... above the fire line.

#DwayneJohnson #NeveCampbell #universalpictures #jdmaccounting #accountant #skyscraper #movie #legendary

Powerful social-media trends affecting both users and brands are strengthening and accelerating.

In the past year, a number of significant stories involved social media: Facebook lured Snapchat users to Instagram, the president of the United States communicated official policy positions in 140 characters and Apple announced plans to alter the way we interact with our mobile devices.

Next year, social media is poised to create even more disruption as a number of new technological advancements go mainstream, and as social norms related to social media change. Here are the top 10 social media trends to prepare for as 2018 draws near.

1. Rise of augmented reality

At the first-ever event hosted in the Steve Jobs Theater, Apple announced the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X. Both devices incorporate a new chip that allows the phones to provide users with extraordinary augmented reality experiences. While augmented reality will have its initial impact on mobile gaming, it is likely that social media platforms will find ways to incorporate the new technology as well.

For example, it’s conceivable that Snapchat or Instagram will soon support filters that allow users to take a selfie with a friend or celebrity projected via augmented reality. Similarly, brands could soon project their products into the homes of social media users through special filters.

2. Increasing popularity of Instagram Stories

Over 200 million people use Instagram Stories each month, which is over 50 million more than those who use Snapchat -- and Instagram Stories is just one year old! At this rate, nearly half of all Instagram users will be using Stories by the end of 2018. This means that brands interested in connecting with Instagram users must take the time to master Instagram Stories.

3. Continued investment in influencer marketing

Over 90 percent of marketers who employ an influencer marketing strategy believe it is successful. Companies like North Face, Hubspot and Rolex use social media–based influencer marketing strategies to connect with new audiences and improve engagement with existing audiences.

This year we saw that brands that opted for traditional advertising strategies struggled to connect to social media users. Next year, it is likely that more brands will embrace influencer marketing as a way to connect with audiences who tend to ignore traditional strategies.

4. Focus on Generation Z

A recent study conducted by Goldman Sachs concluded that Generation Z was more valuable to most organisations than millennials. Today, the oldest Gen Zers are 22 years old. They are just beginning to enter the labor force, and will have increased buying power for some time.

Brands will begin to recognise this, and will shift their social media strategies accordingly. Expect great investment in platforms loved by Gen Zers like Snapchat and Instagram.

5. Increasing brand participation in messaging platforms

Over 2.5 billion people use messaging platforms globally, and yet brands are still primarily focused on connecting with consumers on pure social networks. In 2018, expect brands to invest more time and money in connecting with consumers on messaging platforms. Artificial intelligence, voice assistants and chatbots will enable brands to offer personalised shopping experiences on messaging platforms like Messenger, WhatsApp and Kik.

6. Expansion of live streaming

What was once a novel gimmick has become a mainstream part of social media. Today, brands big and small have started using live streaming to capture the attention of followers.

GORUCK, a backpack manufacturer and the organiser of extreme endurance events, is one example of a medium-sized brand that has grown its reach by live streaming compelling content on Facebook. Thousands of followers tuned in to watch 48-hour coverage of a recent endurance race.

In 2018, more brands will begin to realise the power of live streaming, and will incorporate it into their monthly content plans.

7. Rethinking Twitter

Twitter has failed to grow followers significantly in 2017. In fact, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram all have more social media followers. This year, Twitter also lost access to streaming NFL games (Amazon won the rights). In 2018, it is likely that Twitter leadership will aim to rethink how the platform operates.

Possible changes to Twitter include selling the company to private investors, changing the platform to include some subscription element and/or revamping Twitter advertising options, which have fallen behind other platforms.

8. Digital hangouts go mainstream

Houseparty is a video hangout platform used by over one million people each day. It is primarily used by Gen Zers as a way to hang out with friends digitally. The platform is so successful that Facebook is reportedly investigating ways to create a similar functionality within their platform.

We have already seen video become increasingly important on social media, and live video group hangouts are a natural next iteration of this trend. It is conceivable that in 2018, Facebook will announce a similar product to Houseparty that will win over users, just as Instagram’s introduction of Stories did.

9. Facebook Spaces goes mainstream

Facebook isn’t just interested in live video streaming; they’ve been working on a project called Spaces that is designed to allow friends to connect in VR. Given that Facebook owns Oculus, a virtual reality hardware and software company, it is no surprise that the social media giant is developing a platform to make use of this new technology.

Facebook is poised to scale Spaces in 2018. When they do, it is likely that it will be the first successful VR social media product at scale.

10. Social platforms embrace stronger governance policies

After a series of controversial decisions during the 2016 presidential election, social media platforms have embraced a more hands-on approach to governing conduct on their platforms. Facebook recently turned over thousands of ads that seem to be connected to Russian meddling, and has invested in new AI and human forms of monitoring.

Given the wide criticism that Facebook and Twitter received during 2017, it is likely that these platforms will embrace codes of conduct and governance policies that protect the brands from future criticism.

Conclusion

A number of new social media trends that will impact users and brands alike are strengthening and accelerating. It is likely that video streaming and virtual reality will go mainstream. Additionally, brands will turn to newer social platforms like Instagram and Snapchat as Gen Zers increasingly spend their time there.

With the announcement of the new iPhones, augmented reality has a chance to become a part of social media in ways that were unimaginable only a few years ago. Lastly, Twitter and Facebook will most likely adjust their policies to protect their brands from political criticism and to provide users with better online experiences.

#jdmaccounting #accountant #socialmedia #facebook #instagram #twitter #googleplus #linkedin

George Robert Newhart is an American stand-up comedian and actor, noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery. Newhart came to prominence in 1960 when his album of comedic monologues, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, became a worldwide bestseller and reached number one on the Billboard pop album chart — it remains the 20th-best selling comedy album in history. The follow-up album, The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!, was also a success, and the two albums held the Billboard number one and number two spots simultaneously.

Newhart later went into acting, starring as Chicago psychologist Dr. Robert Hartley in The Bob Newhart Show during the 1970s, and then as Vermont innkeeper Dick Loudon on the 1980s series Newhart. He also had two short-lived sitcoms in the 1990s titled Bob and George and Leo. Newhart also appeared in film roles such as Major Major in Catch-22, and Papa Elf in Elf. He provided the voice of Bernard in the Walt Disney animated films The Rescuers, and The Rescuers Down Under. In 2004, he played the library head Judson in The Librarian, a character which continued in 2014 to the TV series The Librarians. In 2013, Newhart made his first of five guest appearances on The Big Bang Theory as Professor Proton, for which he received his first Primetime Emmy Award on September 15, 2013.

Newhart was drafted into the United States Army and served in the United States during the Korean War as a personnel manager until being discharged in 1954. Newhart briefly attended Loyola University Chicago School of Law, but did not complete a degree, in part, he says, because he was asked to behave unethically during an internship.

After the war, Newhart worked for United States Gypsum as an accountant. He later said that his motto, "That's close enough" and his habit of adjusting petty cash imbalances with his own money shows he did not have the temperament to be an accountant. He also said he was a clerk in the unemployment office who made $55 a week, but who quit upon learning unemployment benefits were $45 a week and he "only had to come in to the office one day a week to collect it."

#bobnewhart #jdmaccounting #accountant #tv #movies #favourites #comedian #funny

The difference between the two is key to proper time management and vital to growing your business.

Recently, at our consulting firm, we were scheduled to begin strategy work with a new client. But, the night before our session, he emailed us, asking to postpone the meeting until the next week. He had something come up at the last minute that he felt couldn’t be put off.

We were able to accommodate his request but suggested that he put off the meeting by only a few hours rather than days. We warned him not to let the urgent overtake the important, a concept Stephen Covey popularised with his Time Management Matrix.

We have written before about urgent vs. important as it applies to decision-making, but wanted to address the topic again as it affects priorities and time management. The difference between the two is key to proper time management and vital to growing a business.

First, we need to define the two concepts. An "urgent item" is a task crying out for immediate attention, one that demands your attention. "Important" tasks are those that, once done, will add significant value to your organisation. These are the tasks that move you forward. Tasks can be one or the other or else neither urgent nor important. Let’s look at each in more detail.

Neither urgent nor important

Some tasks are neither urgent nor important. These are the things that occupy our time but don’t add value to our organisations or personal lives, and no one is begging us to do them.

However, most of us spend at least part of each day on these time-wasters. Time spent browsing social media platforms, reading articles or posts that have no educational value or playing games or apps that distract us from more valuable activities fall into this category.

According to Statista, Americans spend about an hour a day playing video games, and Telegraph reports that browsing social media accounts can suck up close to another two hours each day. Obviously, if you are spending your precious time on items that are neither urgent nor important, it is time to quit cold turkey. Delete that game app from your phone. Relegate browsing your social media platforms to a few minutes after hours. We believe that you will find that you don’t miss the distractions.

Urgent

"Urgent" tasks are those that beg for your attention but don’t necessarily add value. These are ringing phones, spam emails and texts, employees who repeatedly ask the same questions or regularly scheduled meetings that don’t produce results. Often, we believe we need to take care of these items, to “clear the decks” and move on to more important matters. This is the wrong approach. Always tackle important tasks first and get to the urgent, but not important, tasks later. It is easy to spend hours on unimportant tasks

Urgent and important

Many tasks fall into the "urgent and important" category. Remember, these are matters that need your attention immediately and add value to the organisation. These include customer/client issues and concerns, banking and financial matters and legal matters.

Most people recognise these items as important and act accordingly. To make sure you get to your urgent and important tasks each day, first make sure you have a to-do list. Review the items on the list and put stars by the three most critical tasks. Do these first. Once complete, put stars beside the next three most important tasks and complete those. If you do this, you will make sure you focus on the things that require your attention and are the most important to complete.

Important

The category that is the most neglected on this matrix is "important" but not "urgent." Important tasks include developing employees or yourself to improve skills, documenting and improving processes and systems, developing metrics, researching better methods, organising and planning. While all of these types of tasks can improve you and your organisation, they are not urgent.

No one is screaming for you to document your processes. However, if you do document them, you will have a training tool for current and future employees and a way to improve quality. As we say, the first step to improve quality is to document your processes. Becoming more organised can add hours of productive time to your week, and developing a metric can alert you to problems before they get out of control.

"Important"tasks are critical to an organisation’s success, but easy to put off because there is no urgency attached to completing them. To make sure you don’t fall into this trap, assign each important task to a single person with a completion date.

It's easy to let the urgent overtake the important. However, if you can prioritise your time to take care of those tasks that are both urgent and important, and schedule time and resources to ensure you tackle the important-but-not urgent items, you will create a more successful organisation.

#jdmaccounting #accountant #urgent #important #time #timemanagement

Highly successful leaders understand that success in any form is not an event, it’s a process. The most successful leaders understand that success is something that is cultivated over time. Success is a daily grind, a daily commitment, that functions around your life purpose.

To stand out as a leader in your own right, you must create the habits that back your success and good reputation. Once these habits become a part of your daily routine, you set yourself up to be well on your way to becoming the great leader of your own success and in the helping of others to achieve theirs.

1. Read every day

Successful leaders know and trust the undeniable benefits the habit of daily reading offers them. Reading makes you smarter, it improves mental clarity, reduces stress, increases your knowledge base, grows your vocabulary, improves memory, activates your reasoning skills, improves your ability to focus and concentrate, increases writing skills, brings you to a peaceful place and is a great source of free entertainment.

Reading is an activity that relaxes and stimulates you at the same time. To be a great leader, you must always be willing to walk through the door of learning. The learning you gain from reading, greatly increases your potential to succeed.

2. Focus on challenging tasks

Exceptional leaders live and thrive in the arena of challenge. The more you challenge yourself to succeed, the greater your confidence becomes in your ability to do it again. Challenge doesn’t just help to grow your skills and knowledge, it helps to grow the belief you have in yourself that you can achieve the aims you set out to accomplish.

Seasoned leaders are clear that there’s a difference between taking on a challenge that lets them flex their muscles and grow their skillset, and one that is simply a recipe for disaster. Yet, you cannot grow your skills when cruising on auto-pilot. To become a great leader, you must make it your habit to focus on high level tasks that will get you and your team to that next highest level.

3. Make your health a priority

Great leaders make it their habit to take pristine care of themselves on four levels; physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. They know that the overall health of their physical body is the foundation from which all other great things have the opportunity to prosper. If you’re not physically well, how can the levels above the physical level (emotional, mental, spiritual) be well? If you’re sick at your foundation, the whole-of-you cannot function at the levels of peak performance you desire. For this reason, make it a habit to exercise regularly, to eat a balanced diet, get enough sleep and take your daily supplements to help sustain your focus, energy and endurance throughout the day.

4. Learn from people you admire

Exceptional leaders tend to be over-achievers and are often overly critical of themselves when they make mistakes. To avoid getting stuck in this trap, successful leaders make sure to have superiors or other people they look up to and admire to consult with when necessary.

When you have someone to model yourself after, it helps to relieve the acute panic you naturally experience when under the stress of challenging circumstances. Getting advice from the person you admire helps to return you to an emotional state of composure, which allows you to more successfully traverse through the stressful obstacles you are facing. Seasoned leaders understand and deeply respect the concept that all leaders need leaders.

5. Plan your next day the night before

A key success habit of an effective leader is to plan their next day the night before. How can you succeed if you lack clarity on what it is you’re setting out to achieve on any given day? You may get certain things accomplished, but you will not be organised and may find yourself erroneously focusing on tasks or details that do not make a difference for your big picture. Planning your next day the night before, sets you up to start your day in an organised flow, allowing you to get more done in less time.

6. Keep your goals in front of you

Many leaders teach the art of writing goals down and then re-writing them every day. Others say it is good enough to read goals aloud once per day. Making it a habit to have your goals in front of you is priceless when it comes to increasing your capacity to succeed.

The basic idea is to keep refreshing goals in your mind as a way to ensure you’re on the right path to achieving them. If you don’t employ such a practice, it’s too easy to lose sight of what you’re aiming for. Instead of leading your life, you find that you’re merely reacting to whatever comes up next. When it’s your habit to meditate on your goals, you work towards them and achieve them more effortlessly. Accomplishing goals in this way feels incredible, it makes succeeding enjoyable and motivates you to continue to thrive.

7. Take action, even when it’s scary

Fear. Let's face it, what is familiar to us is almost always better than the unknown because it feels safer. When we are comfortable with the status quo, things are at least predictable even if they are boring or painful.

However, brilliant leaders make it their habit to shatter the status quo. They know that growth and remarkable change can only come from doing what is unfamiliar, bold and new. Personal and creative growth cannot manifest from comfort. The majority of us stay in our comfort zones because change is scary. What if it doesn't work out? What if you decide too late that you were better off where you were? These unknowns can potentially keep you so stuck in the fear of creating change, that you end up staying where you’re feeling unfulfilled. Make it your habit to get out of your own way and take some risks. You may not win but you will at least learn.

8. Have a powerful and inspiring “Why.”

A life purpose is the first step to living your most conscious and wholehearted life. While you can be busy with a million tasks every day, when you don’t have a clear purpose, you may be unconsciously heading down the wrong path. That’s because your goals may have nothing to do with your purpose, which means that you can pursue your current goals for the next 5,10 years only to realise that this isn’t what you wanted after all. As Stephen Covey once said, “If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.” When you know your Why, working and risking become well worth the effort. Your Why, almost always has something to do with love. We desire to succeed in an effort to take care of, support and nurture the people we love and who support our vision. Great leaders are driven by an all-consuming desire to love others and give back to their communities.

#jdmaccounting #successful #leaders #routine #goals #focus #health #inspiration #accountant

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of DIY affordable (and relationship testing) furniture maker and Swedish food purveyor Ikea, died on Jan. 27 at the age of 91.

Having been in business for more than seven decades and with a significant global presence, any entrepreneur would want to aim for the kind of success that Kamprad achieved with Ikea, one that earned him a fortune worth $58.7 billion. His wealth earned him the status of the world's eighth richest person, according to Bloomberg.

With that in mind, here are five things that you might not know about Kamprad and his approach to business.

1. He had a customer-first point of view

Though Kamprad stayed largely out of the media spotlight, rarely giving interviews or personal statements, he did write a document in 1976 that explains the ethos of the company, called The Testament of a Furniture Dealer. Namely, that the goal and guiding force behind the company’s decisions would be to put the needs of the user at the forefront. “The many people usually have limited financial resources. It is the many people whom we aim to serve,” Kamprad wrote. “The first rule is to maintain an extremely low level of prices. But they must be low prices with a meaning. We must not compromise either functionality or technical quality.”

2. He made the most of his resources

Kamprad was so concerned with saving money that he was widely nicknamed “Uncle Scrooge” and “The Miser.” He owned a Volvo, always flew coach and made sure that when his leadership team traveled for business, they stayed in the least expensive hotels. He eschewed a more corporate look of suits and ties, and if there was an opportunity to recycle something or snag some condiments from a restaurant, he would. While you may not go to Kamprad’s extremes -- though he owned some expensive properties, it turns out -- it is important to make the most of the resources you have at your disposal. Because, as he once, wrote, “Time is your most important resource. You can do so much in 10 minutes. Ten minutes, once gone, are gone for good. You can never get them back.”

3. He didn’t settle on one product

Kamprad started his first business when he was 5 selling matches around his neighbourhood, graduating to Christmas ornaments, fish, pencils and seeds. Ikea didn’t just always sell furniture. That part of the business started in 1948, but for those first few years, after he launched the mail-order company at 17, he sold items such as nylons, pens and wallets out of a repurposed milk truck. A good reminder that where you begin and where you end up may look very different.

4. He believed work shouldn’t just be work

“A job must never be just a livelihood,” Kamprad wrote. “If you are not enthusiastic about your job, a third of your life goes to waste.” He believed that the Ikea spirit was built on a foundation of enthusiasm and that without it, it was impossible to strive for great things, lead or motivate colleagues.

5. He wasn’t afraid of taking a wrong turn

Kamprad was of the school that if you aren’t making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough. "Only while sleeping one makes no mistakes. Making mistakes is the privilege of the active -- of those who can correct their mistakes and put them right,” he wrote. “Our objectives require us to constantly practice making decisions and taking responsibility, to constantly overcome our fear of making mistakes. The fear of making mistakes is the root of bureaucracy and the enemy of development."

#entrepreneur #jdmaccounting #accountant #ikea #flatpack #forthemasses #kamprad #mistakes

Click on the image to see the trailer

The globe-spanning conflict between otherworldly monsters of mass destruction and the human-piloted super-machines built to vanquish them was only a prelude to the all-out assault on humanity in Pacific Rim Uprising.

John Boyega (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) stars as the rebellious Jake Pentecost, a once-promising Jaeger pilot whose legendary father gave his life to secure humanity’s victory against the monstrous “Kaiju.” Jake has since abandoned his training only to become caught up in a criminal underworld. But when an even more unstoppable threat is unleashed to tear through our cities and bring the world to its knees, he is given one last chance to live up to his father’s legacy by his estranged sister, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) – who is leading a brave new generation of pilots that have grown up in the shadow of war. As they seek justice for the fallen, their only hope is to unite together in a global uprising against the forces of extinction.

Jake is joined by gifted rival pilot Lambert (Scott Eastwood – The Fate of the Furious) and 15-year-old Jaeger hacker Amara (newcomer Cailee Spaeny), as the heroes of the PPDC become the only family he has left. Rising up to become the most powerful defence force to ever walk the earth, they will set course for a spectacular all-new adventure on a towering scale.

Pacific Rim Uprising is directed by Steven S. DeKnight (Netflix’s Daredevil, STARZ’s Spartacus) and also stars Jing Tian, Burn Gorman, Adria Arjona and Charlie Day.

#pacificrimuprising #JohnBoyega #universalpictures #movies #ScottEastwood #Kaiju #Jaeger #MakoMori

At 36, Roger Federer just seems to be getting better, and shows no signs of slowing down. With his 6th Australian Open title, Roger becomes the only fourth person to win 20 major titles, and the first man. He needs to win five more to surpass Australia's own living legend, Margaret Court, who holds the record at 24 grand slam titles. But he's not far behind Serena Williams and Steffi Graf, who hold 23 and 22 consecutively. Considering his greatest rivals, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray are currently injured, he stands a good chance of breaking the record before he retires, assuming he stays injury free.

#tennis #GOAT #rogerfederer #ausopen #grandslam #majortitle #swiss #champion

I want to share with you a client acquisition strategy that’s having a huge impact on my business. I learned it from a coach friend of mine, James Cooper in Houston. It’s called “warm market prospecting.”

As the name implies, warm market prospecting has you engaging people you’ve done business with over the past 12 months. Not to try and sell them anything, but simply to reach out, re-engage and see what’s going on in their business lives.

Now the reason this works is because it’s based on a concept that we all know is true: It’s much easier to secure a repeat client for your business than it is to get a brand new client. And that’s obviously true in every industry.

Whether bookkeeping, coaching, speaking, legal work, if I’ve worked with you in the past (and you were satisfied with the experience), then I am much more likely to work with you again if the situation arises. All we’re doing with warm market prospecting is making that a more intentional part of your overall client acquisition strategy.

So with that said, here’s how you can make it work in your business.

Step 1: Identify your past clients.

As I mentioned earlier, this includes anyone who has spent money with you over the past year. Make a list, and in a perfect world, input those names into your business CRM

Step 2: Start making contact.

Now this can be a little tricky for some folks because if you’re like me, you might not be sure what to say! Personally, I’m a text man when it comes to the initial message. Here’s what I say:

Hey it’s Brian Hilliard, long time no talk! Hope things are going well.

I would love to hear how things have been going with the business lately, and I have a couple of ideas I’ve been working on that I thought you might be interested in.

Anyway, I have some time next week so just let me know if Tues or Weds or any other time works. Talk to you later.

Brian

That’s it. Nothing crazy or over the top. Just a straight forward message to someone you’ve worked with before.

Step 3: During the call, listen and add value.

This gets to that phrase in the message: I have a couple of ideas you might be interested in.Because you want to stay in integrity.

Personally, I know going in that I’m going to have at least one or two good ideas as it relates to their situation. I just need to hear where they are, listen to some of the sticking points/challenges they’re facing, and then, based on my experience, give them some good stuff.

I don’t go in with a predetermined list. Maybe I’ve heard a good point, or read something new recently.

Remember, these are folks you haven’t talked to in awhile. You probably have a ton of good points that they haven’t heard. These are the points you can offer during your conversation.

Step 4: Make an offer of continued assistance.

Now this depends on a lot of things, including their situation and the overall vibe of the conversation. Most of the time, making an offer of continued assistance is absolutely the right way to go. But notice the language: an offer of “continued assistance,” which doesn’t necessarily mean signing them back up as a client.

As a coach and speaker, I sometimes invite people to attend my next live workshop or webinar as my guest. Another offer I make is to get together for coffee next time I’m in town. And another (if that person has a legitimate business problem that I can resolve) is to schedule some time to talk more about their situation.

Now before I move on I want to be very clear: I did not go into the call with a predefined desire to sell them on anything. Ten to 20 percent of the time, when the call is over, there is no additional business opportunity, and that’s totally fine.

But the other 70-80 percent of the time, some type of opportunity is available. Why? Because these are people who are satisfied clients. So if you reach out, and listen for understanding, of course an opportunity for future work can arise!

So during the initial call, you’re catching up and re-engaging. Then they might bring up a challenge where you can help. No problem; now, you add value with some thoughts and ideas, as I said earlier.

Then they might ask some questions or continue to engage you along those lines, so you continue to add value.

An offer of continued assistance.

Such an offer might go like this:

Well I’ll tell you what Sally, it sounds like this is an area you’re really looking at going forward, and I have no problems talking to you about it further. I just can’t do that right now, because I only had a few minutes to catch up.

But I have no problem scheduling something later. I’m thinking 30 minutes to ask some questions, dig in a little bit…and of course there won’t be any transaction of monies or anything.

As a client this will be on the house, and if looks like there is an opportunity to add some value and do some further work together, we can talk about that as well.

Bam! That’s it. And it works -- almost all the time. And now you’ve scheduled an introductory call with a previous client who has a current challenge that you can potentially help. I don’t know how much more you can ask for when it comes to client acquisition.

#jdmaccounting #accountant #moreclients #warmmarketprospecting

Job interviewing is an act. Yes, you are the actor, and both sides know the rules: You, who are one of the candidates for the position, are doing your best to convince the interviewer you are the ideal candidate. The interviewer, who is the audience, has choices, is an independent thinker and often skeptic and needs evidence and proof before buying everything you want to sell. (Please pardon the mixed metaphor.)

The winner in this competition is not only the individual who, on the positive side, has good answers but also the one who, on the negative side, does not make mistakes. So let’s look at both of those issues.

What are positive factors in an interview?

Without being specific, an interviewer’s number one concern is whether you’d fit into the company’s culture. This is a loaded subject because the decision is subjective. The candidate should attempt to find out as much as possible about the company’s culture by talking to present and past employees and should then display to the extent possible the traits for a good fit into the culture.The other factor weighing heavily on the interviewer’s mind is the image you create. A candidate who exhibits a great deal of passion and excitement as well as specific knowledge about the company seems very attractive.More ways to give a positive impression are via general appearance, attire and, above all, a natural smile. Regardless of geographic location, language,or culture, a smile means the same thing around the globe.

What are negative factors in an interview?

Lack of confidence is an interview killer. If you’re not sure of yourself, or you don’t have specific examples, or you’re winging many of your answers, the interviewer will probably not be very impressed. Your body language will instantly reveal the truth, and both parties are thinking the same thing without talking about it.Certain things are universally considered gauche and should be strictly avoided -- for example, being late or smelling of nicotine or strong perfume, dressing improperly, chewing gum or the ringing of your cell phone in the middle of the interview. Any of those could be detrimental.And there are other ways a candidate can disenchant the interviewer -- for example, denigrating a previous employer, voicing strong opinions, being caught lying, pointing out where the interviewer is wrong about something or making the interviewer feel bad -- about anything.

So, in summary, what is the holy grail of the interview process? The answer is, it depends, because a large portion of the decision-making process is subjective and hinges on the interviewer’s consciousness, past experiences, personal culture and intellectual world. What I’ve learned from performing job interview coaching for several years is that the most important success factors are extensive preparation via mock interviewing the building of self-confidence. Both of those are instantly evident to an interviewer.

#jdmaccounting #accounting #interview #acting #newjob #confidence #culture #smile #beprepared

Take five minutes to make your days and nights more smooth.

We’ve all been there, kept awake and tossing and turning because we’re anxious about what challenges the next day will bring. But a recent study found that if you spend just five minutes putting together a to-do list to tackle in the morning, you might go to sleep more quickly.

The team of researchers tried to figure out if the to-do lists would lead to more or less concern about the following day’s tasks. They monitored a group of university students as they slept during weeknights in the lab. The students were split into two randomly selected groups and given two different five-minute writing assignments.

One group wrote down everything they needed to do the next day and the other group was asked to write about what they had accomplished within the past few days.They also had strict bedtimes -- 10:30 p.m. -- and they were not allowed to use electronics or do any additional work.

"We live in a 24/7 culture in which our to-do lists seem to be constantly growing and causing us to worry about unfinished tasks at bedtime," said lead author Dr. Michael K. Scullin in a summary of the findings. "Most people just cycle through their to-do lists in their heads, and so we wanted to explore whether the act of writing them down could counteract nighttime difficulties with falling asleep."

The results of the study found that the participants who wrote the to-do lists fell asleep nine minutes faster than those who reflected on what they had done earlier in the week. Additionally, the more specific the list, the quicker people fell asleep.

While the study had a small sample size of just 57 students, the researchers say that they would be interested in applying the experience in a broader context.

#jdmaccounting #goodnightssleep #sleep #lists #accounting #accountant

A huge surge in the number of people buying and selling the cryptocurrency bitcoin has wreaked havoc on exchanges, seeing some closing to new deposits, and others warning of long delays for people looking to convert their gains to cash.

One bitcoin exchange – Coinspot – has blamed Australian banks for these problems, saying they are refusing to cooperate with crypto-companies.

The banks themselves, meanwhile, have asserted their right to refuse to execute transactions that look suspicious.

The whole business has exposed an atmosphere of confusion among Australia’s various financial regulators, which appear to have been completely unprepared for the huge surge in interest in the shadowy world of cryptocurrency.

This lack of regulation means Australians jumping on board the bitcoin bandwagon are essentially unprotected, leaving them at the mercy of unregulated bitcoin exchanges that were designed to deal with much lower trading volumes, and are staffed accordingly.

The Bitcoin Boom

Last year the value of a single bitcoin went from $1,300 in January to a peak of around $27,000 in mid-December, before settling at the end of the year at around the $20,000 mark, where it has remained for the last couple of weeks.

Asher Tan, chief executive of bitcoin exchange CoinJar, told The New Daily his exchange had seen its user base grow by ten times over the year, adding other exchanges had probably seen similar growth.

But he said this massive increase in CoinJar users is still only served by around 20 staff.

“Everyone is scrambling to provide better service to users,” he said, adding customer support was a particular challenge.

While CoinJar has avoided any major problems, other exchanges have not. Australian exchange BTC Markets has warned customers bitcoin withdrawals are delayed due to a backlog of orders.

And US exchange Coinbase, one of the the world’s largest, has told customers they may have to wait up to two weeks for bitcoin to dollar wire transfers to show up in their accounts.

Most dramatically, CoinSpot, one of Australia’s most trusted exchanges, is not taking any new deposits, blaming Australian banks for not working with them.

In a note on its website, CoinSpot wrote: “We assure you we are just as unhappy with the situation as you but unfortunately Australian banks have been so far unwilling to work with the digital currency industry which leads to frequent account closures and strict limits on accounts whilst they remain operational, in effect debanking our industry.”

CoinSpot did not respond to requests to further explain the nature of the problem.

The banks told The New Daily that, while they did not bar customers from making payments through bitcoin exchanges, they reserved the right to block transactions that raised certain flags.

A Commonwealth Bank spokesperson said the bank was “receptive to innovation in alternative currencies and payment systems” but said it did not recommend using existing currencies as they did not meet “minimum standard of regulation, reliability, and reputation”.

However, CBA said customers could “interact with these currencies” as long as they complied with the bank’s terms and conditions and all relevant legal obligations.

Westpac took a more hardline approach, saying: “Westpac has controls in place to actively verify the identity of our customers and monitor the activities of those customers. Where we can not verify the origin of transfers we may act to ensure we comply with Australia’s anti money laundering obligations.”

A Regulatory Black Hole

The New Daily contacted all four financial regulators: ASIC, which protects consumers from dodgy corporate practices; APRA, which makes sure financial institutions have their finances in order; the Reserve Bank of Australia, which regulates the payment system; and AUSTRAC, which polices money laundering, welfare fraud and funding of terrorism.

Currently not one of these regulators has any oversight of the burgeoning crypto-currency sector, and only one – AUSTRAC – is set to begin regulating the sector.

A spokesperson for AUSTRAC told The New Daily new rules would soon be introduced requiring digital currency exchanges to register with AUSTRAC and comply with anti-money laundering obligations. This would include the obligation to report suspicious matters to AUSTRAC.

Mr Tan of CoinJar told The New Daily that the bitcoin industry would welcome more regulation.

“It’s already happening and I think it’s inevitable. Regulation will legitimise the industry and the banking sector will become more comfortable with crypto-companies,” he said.

#jdmaccounting #accountant #bitcoin #cryptocurrency #money

May 2018 be happy and prosperous for each and every one of you.

#happynewyear #celebrations #jdmaccounting #accountant #resolutions

Startups can fight back against the big guys and win.

If you're a startup worried about Facebook or Google duplicating your technology or business model, you are not alone.

Such is the situation with the popular but miniscule Houseparty app, which Facebook has had in its sights, possibly to acquire, for months but has instead decided to develop its own product. Tentatively named Bonfire, the competing app should be released this fall by the tech giant.

All is not lost for the little guys, however. Startups can fight back against the big guys and win. For example, Facebook not long ago essentially copied and integrated tiny OfferUp's app and called it Marketplace. As of last September, OfferUp is valued at more than one billion dollars, making it Seattle's only unicorn.

What's happened? OfferUp developed a clear value proposition that set its innovation apart from just being a feature on a platform. Connecting buyers and sellers in a safe, secure, curated space is all it does. In Wall Street parlance, it's a pure play.

Here are a few other realities about refusing offers you, as the saying goes, can't refuse -- meaning someone wants to buy you and if you demur, they will compete against you and perhaps crush you.

First, do you have an idea worth copying? Seriously. If your value proposition isn't the best in your space, the innovation machine has already moved on. All you can do then is join the pack of second- and third-tier competitors and hope for the best. If your idea isn't worth copying, maybe you should be open to offers if they come your way.

Next, ideas are cheap; everyone has great ideas. Execution is everything. If you can make good on an idea more efficiently than your unwanted suitor, you'll have won half the battle, as larger companies always will struggle to figure out how they will add on your idea given the greater scope of their mission. Remember: Young David of Biblical lore knew not to fight until he had two things -- his sling (innovation), and good aim (execution). If Goliath had a slingshot, he might have applied a focus group and called in his lawyers before he'd bother even trying to test it.

Lastly, speed -- not size -- matters. To win the other half of the battle, you need to understand what are big companies bad at -- moving and iterating quickly, being aggressive and making decisions. They hold meetings, looooooong meetings, for everything.

If you have a unique idea, can execute it and do it fast, you may have some staying power. Startups are a speed play. Small companies usually have 18 to 24 months before they will see even the beginning of competition. Tip: The way you become valuable is by literally coming out of nowhere and rushing the marketplace before anybody else knows what happened.

Don't worry about the competition's early warning systems, either. Everyone has one. You should, as well. We're all watching each other.

In terms of visibility, your goal is to be in a kind of celestial sweet spot where you are orbiting not too far away from the big planets or the smaller ones (so you can keep an eye on both), but not so close that you get pulled by gravity into them (and crash).

Embracing the suck

Oh, there is a fourth piece of advice: Expect to have your idea stolen. It's vitally important that you use your head start to great advantage. Because if they can't buy your idea, they are going to take it anyway. And just what are you going to do? A patent-infringement suit? And are patents even involved? How long can you pay the lawyers to fight for you if you decide to sue? Start anti-trust litigation? Don't make me laugh.

Moreover, what's the crime here? Who's the friggin' victim? Lots of people can have the same or similar ideas. It is what you do with them that counts. If you think the problem is a bunch of Silicon Valley Sasquatches big footing Bambis by taking and using (legally, let's assume) their ideas, well, it's what technology players do. It's how innovation propagates. It links the building blocks of our scientific DNA. It's life in the business food chain; the chances you can sit out there with your idea and not worry about someone coming after you -- either to buy you or bury you -- are slim and none.

So, if you really believe you can beat the giants and are prepped for battle, do as the military does: Embrace the suck, soldier on. It won't be easy or quick. It may be bloody. But, business is an extreme activity, part bridge and part mixed martial arts. If winning were easy, we'd all be billionaire-CEO-masters-and-mistresses of the universe.

#jdmaccounting #happynewyear #davidvgoliath #startups #accountant

Working from home and productivity can go hand in hand.

Working from home is no longer taboo. In fact, it’s become extremely common for millions of people – thanks in part to technology that’s made it possible to communicate and collaborate with anyone around the world.

While working from home can be a blessing, it can also be curse if you’re not prepared. That’s understandable if you’re new to this lifestyle.

If you’re in that situation, I’ve put together these 11 productivity hackers for work-from-home newbies.

1. Know when you're the most productive

While there is evidence that waking-up early can influence success. The truth is that not every everyone is cut out to wake-up at the ungodly hour or 4am. Some are not built to exercise, send-out emails, and start diving into work before 8am.

The secret to working from home is knowing the best time of day to work. This will ensure that you’re not only productive, but that you can do more quality work.

Not sure when this is?

Here’s a couple of pointers to figure that out.

Ask these two questions; When do I have the most amount of energy and concentration? and When are there the fewest interruptions and distractions?Carve out one to three 90-minute periods, which will be your productive bursts.Prioritise your tasks. Do your most important and challenging tasks first when you have the most energy.Embrace interruptions at the right time. For example, use your lunch break to run errands, do household chores, respond to emails, or play with your dog. You’ll be energised when you get back.Be creative with your schedule. If you want to sleep-in until 10am and work from noon to 8pm, do that. Work when you are at your best. Remember, you’re not tied to the traditional 9-to-5 workday anymore.

2. Keep your days like traditional work days

This doesn’t mean that you start work at 9am and stop at 5pm. After all, we’ve already established that those may not be your most productive times to work.

What this means is that like a traditional 9-to-5 gig, you keep a consistent schedule where you start and end work at a specific time. If not, you’ll be on call 24/7. It’s the ultimate guaranteed ticket to a place known as Burntoutville. I don’t recommend visiting that place anytime soon. Don’t. Just don’t.

If you start work at 7am, take a break around 3pm if you want to spend time with your kids when they get home from school. Even if you go back to work, make sure that you shut everything down around 6pm so that you can eat dinner and put your kids to bed.

3. Learn keyboard shortcuts

This may not seem like that big of a deal, but this hack can save you time, boost your productivity, improve your efficiency, and prevent your arms from getting tired. This is a big deal when you’re writing on a daily basis.

Different operating systems have varying shortcut keys, but the fine folks at Computer Hope put together a handy list to get you started.

4. Use the tools that work best for you

There’s no shortage of tools that can assist you in time-tracking, scheduling your day. Jotting down to-do lists, communicating with clients, and even blocking out distractions is helpful. The trick is to find a mix of tools that work for you.

For example, my colleagues and I used Insightly to collaborate with each other and check off completed assignments. I’m sure that it’s a great tool for larger organisations.

But for our small team it was too time-consuming. We switched over to Slack, which was more ideal, and less time consuming, for us.

When starting out, think about what areas you need assistance with. For instance, do you have hard time keeping track of all of your passwords? Then compare tools like LastPass and experiment with them until you find the tool that works best for you.

5. Set social media and email check-in times

Unless your job involves staying connected to social media, only schedule specific times to check your social media accounts and emails. If not, you’ll be constantly distracted whenever you receive a notification.

Most successful people check their social channels and emails at set times. Choose first thing in the morning, during your lunch break, and at the end of the day.

Also, don’t check your phone for messages directly before bed. This can have a negative impact on your sleep.

Again, shut down your workday at a specific time – and that includes checking into your social channels and email accounts.

6. Schedule meetings

This might seem counter-intuitive. After all, meetings can tend to be a waste of time -- especially when you work remotely.

In reality, scheduling meetings can be beneficial since they’re a quick and effective way to either solve a problem or build a process.

Instead of going back-and-forth via email or playing phone tag with a client or colleague, schedule a one hour meeting. Everything that needs to be discussed regarding a project can usually be covered.

This way you will complete the project sooner.

7. Follow the two-minute rule

If there is a task that’s going to take two-minutes or less to complete, then do it immediately. Don’t waste your time or energy writing down these tasks down either.

Just get them done immediately so that your attention and energy is saved for more important jobs.

8. Don't rule out all distractions

Peace and quiet sounds like an ideal work situation, right? In actuality, we all need a little background noise and distractions from time-to-time.

For some of us, white noise can be beneficial, like improving productivity and boosting creativity. It just depends on the type of noise and how loud it is.

In other words, a little bit of background noise and minor distractions can be an assist when you’re working from home. The TV on is generally not recommended.

9. Take proper breaks

Speaking of distractions, taking micro breaks throughout the day. Your brain needs short periods of rest. This prepares your brain so that it can regain focus and recharge.

A study from Emily Hunter, Ph.D., and Cindy Wu, Ph.D., associate professors of management in Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business, found that the most beneficial time to take a workday break is mid-morning.

“We found that when more hours had elapsed since the beginning of the work shift, fewer resources and more symptoms of poor health were reported after a break,” the study says. “Therefore, breaks later in the day seem to be less effective.”

Additionally, the research found that better breaks involve activities that people enjoy.

“Finding something on your break that you prefer to do -- something that’s not given to you or assigned to you. [These are the] kinds of activities that are going to make your breaks much more restful. [They] provide better recovery and help you come back to work stronger,” Hunter said.

10. Harness the power of flexibility

While you should create and try to stick to a schedule, the fact of the matter is that you have a flexible schedule. If I decide to take the day off and go to the beach, I can afford that luxury. It just means that the next day I may be putting in 10 or more hours.

11. Design an inspiring home office

Whether if you’re working from the kitchen table, cafe table on the patio, or in a dedicated home office, your workspace should be free of clutter, comfortable, and be inspiring.

This means that is should be free of distractions, has the proper lighting and colouring, and contains items that spark your productivity. Items like plants and knick knacks that display your personality provide all kinds of benefits.

This is a surefire way to maintain a healthy work-life balance and prevent you from getting burnt out.

#jdmaccounting #accountant #workfromhome #productive #nomore9till5 #flexibility #homeoffice #takeabreak

Merry Christmas! Stay safe during this festive holiday season.

#JDMAccounting #accountant #Christmas #holiday #festiveseason

A blonde accountant and a lawyer are seated next to each other on a flight from LA to NY. The lawyer asks if she would like to play a fun game? The blonde, tired, just wants to take a nap, politely declines and rolls over to the window to catch a few winks. The lawyer persists and explains that the game is easy and a lot of fun. He explains, "I ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, you pay me $5.00, and vice versa. " Again, she declines and tries to get some sleep. The lawyer, now agitated, says, "Okay, if you don't know the answer you pay me $5.00, and if I don't know the answer, I will pay you $500.00." This catches the blonde's attention and, figuring there will be no end to this torment unless she plays, agrees to the game. The lawyer asks the first question. "What's the distance from the earth to the moon?" The blonde doesn't say a word, reaches into her purse, pulls out a $5.00 bill and hands it to the lawyer. "Okay" says the lawyer, "your turn." She asks the lawyer, "What goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four legs?" The lawyer, puzzled, takes out his laptop computer and searches all his references, no answer. He taps into the air phone with his modem and searches the net and the library of congress, no answer. Frustrated, he sends e-mails to all his friends and coworkers, to no avail. After an hour, he wakes the blonde, and hands her $500.00. The blonde says, "Thank you," and turns back to get some more sleep. The lawyer, who is more than a little miffed, wakes the blonde and asks, "Well, what's the answer?" Without a word, the blonde reaches into her purse, hands the lawyer $5.00, and goes back to sleep. And you thought blondes were dumb.

#jdmaccounting #accountant #money #blonde #lawyer

How you spend your morning makes or breaks your day.

As entrepreneurs, we often work late into the night, only to roll out of bed the next morning, picking up where we left off. One day bleeds into the next, making it seem as if we're always doing, doing, doing and searching for new and novel ways to do more.

The truth is, your desire to do more and get more done will lead you not toward greater productivity, but toward burnout, if you don't take time each day to check in with yourself, and set your intention for how you want your day to proceed.

Abraham Lincoln is credited with saying, "If I had six hours to cut down a tree, I'd spend the first four sharpening the axe." There is no evidence to suggest that Lincoln actually said this, but the point is not lost on us. How we prepare to do the task before us determines our success.

How you spend your morning makes or breaks your day. Do you spend it rushing to get out of the house, waiting in the school drop-off queue or speeding through the drive-thru for anything to satisfy your hunger, or do you spend it in quiet contemplation of how to bring your best self forward? How you spend your mornings sets you up for the day, and how you spend your days is how you ultimately spend your life. To make a great life, let's start by making the most of your mornings.

I've written before on the importance of establishing a 90-minute morning routine. For those of you who are resistant to setting aside an entire 90 minutes, here is a 30-minute fast track I suggest to optimise your daily productivity.

1. Practice gratitude

As soon as you wake up in the morning and before you get out of bed, say three things you are grateful for. By focusing on what you are grateful for, rather than on what's not working, you will set yourself up to receive more of what you're grateful for, and less of what you don't want.

2. Meditate

I do Transcendental Meditation for 20 minutes every morning. Regardless of your meditation practice, find a place in your house where you won't be disturbed, sit in a comfortable chair and meditate for 20 minutes. This will clear your head, make you more present and focused and ready to tackle your day.

3. Read your goals aloud

When I set six-month goals, I write a letter to my future self in great detail about how it feels to have already achieved each one of those goals. I read this letter to myself every morning, recreating the feeling of already having achieved what I'm setting out to do.

4. Set your intention

After I've practiced gratitude, meditated and envisioned the fulfilment of my six-month goals, I set my intention for the day. What am I intending to create today? Am I looking to enrol someone into my program, to make a connection with an industry influencer or to work on product creation? Or, is today the day that I spend focusing on my family and other loved ones? Before you start your day, it is essential that you set an intention and voice it to those who can hold you accountable.

Your intention is so much more than your to-do list. There are many items on our to-do lists we never complete. Your intention is different. If your intention today is to connect with an industry influencer, for instance, then you will turn yourself inside out to do so. That's how powerful an intention is.

So that's it. Thirty minutes to prime the pump for your most effective day. I also recommend that you eat a healthy breakfast, consisting of food that will give you energy rather than zap it, and do some physical exercise to get your body moving and heart pumping.

What not to do

As important as what you should do in your first 30 minutes is what you shouldn't do. Never check voice messages, texts or email before your morning routine or else you'll get mired in other people's priorities. Rather, set aside the first 30 minutes of the day to check in with yourself, quiet your mind, anticipate your long and short-term goals and set your intention. Then and only then are you ready to meet the world anew, serve others and bring your best self into your work day and your life.

#jdmaccounting #productivity #accountant #goals #success #entrepreneurs #bestself

There are many ways a scrappy startup can outshine other businesses.

You need to be aware of your competition, because they're trying to take your market share, but the key to domination is to focus on your business and the things that differentiate you from them. Most businesses struggle and fail because they try to copy the competition. That, or they do a poor job explaining why their product or service is better.

You can do better than that. In fact, you are in the perfect position to do better. Market leaders are slow to change -- you have the power to adapt quickly and get creative.

The principles I'm going to share with you here will help you dominate the competition. You can use them to get ahead at any point, and they're especially helpful when you're first making a name for yourself.

1. Outspend your competition with social currency

If you can't outspend your competition with real currency, do it with social currency instead.

For example, I recently met with a coaching client who owns an exotic car racing company based in Las Vegas. His main competitors are spending about $100,000 a month on Google ads. That means Google ads won't help him at this point, since he can't outspend his competition. He asked me what he could do to draw traffic to his business instead.

I told him to find 10 influencers on Instagram and Facebook with 200,000 or more followers who fit his ideal customer demographics. Then, I told him to invite them to come out to his track and get the full experience for free. Now, he just needs to film a video with each of those influencers and ask them to share it with their followers, encouraging them to visit his business.

That's thousands of dollars worth of organic traffic without spending an extra penny. You can use this same tactic in your business. Trust me: It works for any business, any industry.

2. Find the gap and fill it

There's a gap in your industry. It could be a pricing gap, or a niche your industry has ignored, or a gap in the level of service provided.

For example, look at men's suits. You can go down to your local department store and get a decent-fitting suit for a couple hundred dollars. Or, you can get a custom-tailored suit for seven or eight thousand dollars. Can you see the gap there?

I get my custom suits from a company called b.spoke. They found the pricing gap and filled it with a brilliant new business model. See, a personal tailor who's a one-man shop can only work on one suit at a time. To stay in business, he needs to charge a premium on his time, which is why it's so expensive to get a custom suit. At b.spoke, they bring swatches to your home or office, take your measurements and then send all that info over to a separate tailoring company to get the suits made.

That allows them to charge about $3,000 pert suit, bringing the cost of a custom suit down by 50 percent. It also allows me to get a lot more custom-made suits at once. If you can find that same sweet spot of lower pricing and higher sales volume, you can create rapid growth for your business. Just look for the vacuum in your industry and fill the gap.

3. Become an influencer in your industry

While you're reaching out to influencers, why not become an influencer yourself? Influencers get all kinds of free exposure and exclusive opportunities. Imagine what it would do for your business to have that same access.

It's simpler than you think. You just need to put out consistent content in your area of expertise where you share your best advice.

For example, I noticed that nobody had claimed franchising as their No. 1 topic. It was this dry, boring thing happening in the background of all these other industries. I've learned a ton about franchising by building up Fit Body Boot Camp to an international franchisewith almost 600 locations. Now, I share what I've learned over Facebook Live, YouTube and other social media platforms, effectively making myself the industry authority.

And, of course, this is all content you can create, too.

4. Look outside your industry

Western Dental is crushing right now, even though there are more people with dental insurance than ever before. Here's why: It hires dentists straight out of grad school and offers them experience in the business for lower-end pay, which lets them keep their costs low.

Could you keep your own costs low by hiring talent right out of school? Probably, but there's an even deeper lesson here: Don't get tunnel vision in your own industry. There are innovative ideas in other industries you could copy into your own business.

Plus, when you adapt a technique or strategy from another industry, you get to be first. You get to be the first person in your industry running with that idea, which means you get to reap the greatest benefit from it.

By the way, you can learn just as much from the failures in other industries as you can from the successes. For example, there's a certain frozen yogurt chain that's been struggling for the last few years, even though they were the first to popularise the dessert. What went wrong? It started with the idea of classy, modern frozen yogurt shop, but then it stopped there. It proved the concept, but it left open the door for copycats to set up the same basic business without buying into the brand.

5. Get people talking by creating an experience

If you see a good movie, you don't ask for a refund, but you certainly don't go telling everyone else about it. If you see a great movie, you tell your friends to go see it. This same principle applies to any business in any industry.

Most business owners and entrepreneurs make this one deadly mistake: They try to meet the expectations of their market. Meeting expectations makes you forgettable. You need to exceed the expectations of your market so that they can't help talking about you.

Going back to my first example: Imagine for a moment you go to that guy's track and drive some exotic cars. You'll have fun -- but the experience is no different than going to the next exotic racing company down the road.

Now imagine this instead: You drive five laps around the track, and then the instructor asks you for your phone. When you ask why, he explains that he's going to start filming a video and then set your phone down on the track. That means your own phone is going to film you while you drift the car inches away from it.

That's an experience worth talking about! That has drama, tension and excitement. Best of all, it creates a piece of social proof the customer can upload to YouTube and other social media platforms as soon as she gets back home.

Think about how you can create a story in your business. What can you do to create a moment of drama and excitement for your client or customer? What can you give them to take home that will anchor the memory of your business in their mind (and remind them to share the experience with everyone they know)? Find that answer, and you'll have the key to rapidly growing your business empire.

#jdmaccounting #competition #success #business #google

It's going to be a hot one!

#jdmaccounting #accountant #summer #hot #beach #queensland #swimming

Click on the image to see the trailer

"There was an idea…"

Avengers: Infinity War.

The Avengers join forces with the Guardians of the Galaxy to confront Thanos, who is trying to collect the Infinity Stones.

The sequel to 2012's Marvel's The Avengers, and 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron, Avengers: Infinity Waris the nineteenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo

Screenplay by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely

In cinemas May 2018.

#avengersinfinitywar #avengers #marvel #ironman #thanos #hulk #loki #captainamerica #steverogers #thor #hawkeye #starlord #scarletwitch #wintersoldier #shield #doctorstrange #vision #mariahill #nickfury #wong #gamora #nebula #groot #draxthedestroyer #rocket #mantis #blackwidow #thecollector #spiderman #falcon #blackpanther #okoye #antman #warmachine #shuri #mbaku

2017 was a good year for many businesses, including my own. I earned a few bucks, brought on a few more clients and - most importantly - learned a few things. Here are just a few bits of knowledge gleaned from the past twelve months that should help all of us navigate through the next twelve.

1. Keep your hands to yourself

Oh, and whatever you're thinking...don't say it. Keep your mouth shut. Don't touch. Don't comment. Don't talk about anything but business. Do I even need to write this? Apparently I do because some of the country's most well-known business leaders, politicians and celebrities haven't been doing this. I know that the great majority of men do know how to behave with their female colleagues and employees. But for the rest of you...stop.

2. If you're not prepared for ransomware, you're going to get screwed

Ransomware is the first malware where its makers can actually make money. Guess that's why it’s now a multi-billion dollar a year industry and is expected to explode in 2018. Chances are you will be attacked. Update your security software. Get your people trained. Subscribe to an online backup service.

3. People who complain about millennials are idiots

"They're lazy! They don't work hard! They’re soft! They're not reliable!"

Oh, stop it. The millennial generation now makes up about half of the working population. Sure, these people have different (and in my opinion healthier) priorities about work-life balance. But it's not up to them to adjust. If you want to attract the best talent to your company it's you who has to adjust. And besides, weren't your parents saying the same about you when you were their age? And their parents about them?

4. Shark Tank is not the best show on TV for small business

Actually, it’s not even close. The best show is Nathan for You on Comedy Central. It's in its fourth season and just as hilarious as ever. Nathan Fielder -- who got "really good" grades" (except for that C+) in a "top" Canadian business college -- comes up with the very best (or worst, depending on how you look at it) marketing ideas for his small business clients. Some of them get national attention. Ever hear of "Dumb Starbucks"? The "petting zoo hero?" "The Movement?" Yup, they're all fakes and all him. More importantly, the show demonstrates in all its cleverness the harsh reality of running a small business in the 21st century and the lengths we'll go to get a new customer!

5. It's time to go back and re-watch The Terminator

First of all, it's a terrific movie with iconic lines like "I'll be back" and "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse." OK - maybe that last one wasn't from the Terminator but it was still a great line. More importantly, the Terminator is literally showing us...reality! Robots. Artificial Intelligence. Software bots. This is all real and it's all happening now.

Facebook Messenger had more than 300 million business exchanges last year and gives its business customers an easy way to automate their actions and improve customer service using bots. Amazon is adding robots to warehouses every day. Uber is testing driverless cars on city streets. If you're not considering how these technologies will impact your business in the next few years then you probably won't have a business to consider.

6. Big companies really, really suck at protecting our data

This year saw giant data breaches from the likes of Uber, Equifax, Yahoo, Arby’s, K-Mart and…oh the list goes on and on. Let's not forget -- these companies annually invest hundreds of millions of dollars in cutting edge technology and super-smart people whose job is to do nothing else but protect our data. Thanks, guys but…?

More and more of our business applications are hosted in the cloud, so more and more of us are exposed to the loss of data by those giant cloud-based providers we oftentimes trust blindly. Does this make us lose faith? It doesn't make a difference. It's all going cloud regardless. Let's just make sure to double-check our backup procedures and have a contingency plan. Cyber insurance doesn't hurt either.

7. My laptop doesn't matter

Sure, the cloud raises a few disturbing issues (see above) but it also has its benefits. Now I can get my data anywhere, anytime and integrate it with just about anything…on any device.

Once upon a time I obsessed over a new laptop or desktop computer - how fast? How much memory? What size hard drive? These issues just don't matter now. For most business people -- unless you're a gamer, a Netflix addict or a prolific downloader of porn -- a low level device, a Chromebook, even a phone is enough to do what we need to do.

8. Shocking is no longer shocking

Kim Kardashian's start-up business was a sex tape. Pot shops are opening up around the country. Legalized gambling is a growing business. Sites that encourage cheating on your spouse are profiting. More people are buying guns than ever. Prostitution continues to be a big business in Nevada...and everywhere else. As long as it's not against the law you can bet someone's got a business, and you know what? Good for them. Who am I -- or you -- to judge?

9. Social media is not free

Back-in-the-day you could start a Facebook or Twitter page, post a few thoughts, engage with people, create a buzz, grow your followers and sell some products. Not anymore. There are billions of people using these services and if you think your company is going to get any attention just because of a brilliant tweet, you're tweeting up the wrong tree.

Facebook and Twitter are now publicly held and shareholders don't want engagement...they want profits. Translation: unless you advertise, promote, boost and otherwise pay to play on these sites your brilliant thoughts will quickly disappear into the ether without so much as a like.

10. Finally, optimism really does matter

If I've learned anything from last year's presidential election is that talking about doing something can be just as good for business as doing it. In 2017 the stock market reached all-time highs, the economy grew faster, unemployment fell and the business community's confidence rose to new heights...all because our President said he was going to make America great again. We're really not (and I'm not sure that we ever really were). But that doesn't matter. Optimistic leaders inspire confidence and create opportunities even when they're covfefe – ing on Twitter.

See that? You're actually smarter than you were 12 months ago. Now imagine how smart you’d be if you spent just a little more time reading Scientific American instead of this silly blog.

#jdmaccounting #smarter #business #socialmedia #dontdoityourself #hiretheprofessionals

How Airbnb, Twitter, Skillshare, Buffer and Squarespace create and maintain great company cultures.

What do the world's top startups all have in common? They've mastered the art of company culture.

Brands from all over have attempted to mimic "startup culture" -- the collaborative, fun and enriching atmosphere that makes employees want to come to work each day. But fostering a startup culture is not as easy as it sounds, especially as your company grows.

Having a strong culture, however, is the key to success and cannot be neglected. In fact, research from the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick showed that happy employees are 12 percent more productive than the average worker. So it truly pays to have a strong company culture.

But what exactly does a strong culture look like? And more importantly, how can you build one? Follow these five tips from successful startups:

1. Keep employees engaged

At Airbnb, employees are kept in the loop on major company happenings and big decisions. This gives them a sense of ownership and purpose in the company, which in turn fosters engagement. According to a Gallup survey, 51 percent of the American workforce is not engaged. But having engaged employees is highly beneficial.

As Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky wrote on Twitter, "A company's culture is the foundation for future innovation. An entrepreneur's job is to build the foundation."

Engaged employees create a more positive work atmosphere. And, with happier employees, as well as increased productivity, your company will have happier customers and boost sales.

2. Focus on the company's purpose

Employees want to feel that the work that they do matters. That's why Twitter's purpose-driven environment works so well. Its focus is on creating a collaborative, team-oriented space that helps employees come together and see the value of what they do.

In an article on Medium, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone wrote, "Startups have a unique ability to create a culture of compassion that helps us improve; and in so doing, we are more likely to make a difference in the lives of others."

In 2014, Twitter's employees were named by Glassdoor as the happiest in the country. Much of that happiness can be attributed to the company's culture, where employees feel that their voices matter.

3. Be proactive

Culture doesn't just happen on its own. It's something that needs to be nurtured and tended. Without culture, your company will have no legs to stand on.

On his blog, Buffer CEO Joel Gascoigne wrote, "There's no right or wrong with culture, it is simply a combination of [the] natural personality of the founding team, in addition to proactive work, to push the culture in a desired direction and to maintain certain values."

Since the beginning, Buffer has made culture a priority. At each stage of its business, it's assessed its company culture and made changes based on the company's growth. As your company grows, you must also scale your culture. And that will almost certainly mean that the culture for a three-person team will look very different from the culture for a 20-person team.

4. Stick to your values

In essence, your culture is your people. Without great people, you can't have a great culture. That means you need to define what you want your culture to be like from the beginning -- starting with whom you hire.

In an article on Medium, Skillshare CEO Michael Karnjanaprakorn wrote, "Because the best cultures derive from actions people take, it's imperative to define expectations around optimal behaviours, which set a foundation for a value system."

To ensure all new employees fit in with their culture, Skillshare developed specific hiring guidelines based on its core values. This allowed the company to build a team focused on common goals so people would be able to work together successfully.

5. Show appreciation

Not every employee needs to have fancy benefits like free lunches, yoga classes and snacks -- but perks like those don't hurt, either. Squarespace offers some exciting benefits for its employees, including flexible vacations, catered meals, relaxation spaces and occasional guest lecturers. The company was even named one of the best places to work in New York City in 2013 by Crain's New York Business.

Employees appreciate being taken care of, but that's not the sole reason they want to work for a company. Squarespace also boasts a flat organisational structure, which means there is no hierarchy or levels of management. This creates an open space for employees to collaborate and make their voices heard as well as gain access to the company's leadership.

#success #Airbnb #Twitter #Skillshare #Buffer #Squarespace #startup #jdmaccounting

Leading disruption is a never-ending and iterative journey. You can't move forward if you keep waiting for perfection.

Imagine if Wonder Woman waited until she had full knowledge of the context of World War I before joining the battle? Or what if she spent months, leaving no stone unturned, as she plotted a path to victory over Ares? The war would have escalated and Ares would have been left undeterred and uninterrupted in his mission to extinguish mankind.

In the aptly named Wonder Woman: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection, Deborah Spar, rejects that today’s power women need to keep the myth of having-it-all-perfection alive. To apply this insight to startups, we must consider one of entrepreneurship's most important dynamics: If you want to lead disruption, you must favour progress over perfection. You have no choice. Let’s get you started with three examples to inspire and enable you to move beyond an obsession with perfection and toward a mindset that holds progress at its core.

Go for the big ask

Individual contributors, particularly women, feel immense pressure to produce perfect work with perfect results. That’s where Adrienne Penta, senior vice president and executive director of the Centre for Women & Wealth (CW&W) at Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), found herself when she went from working on her own to leading a team. “I made this leap later in my career. I spent most of my time working directly with clients to leading a national program. I struggle most with giving others autonomy on projects without intervening,” says Penta.

While she still finds it difficult to ‘give away’ work, she has, by necessity, evolved her role into advising and guiding versus doing. This is especially true when it comes to addressing initiatives that are not going perfectly. “A quick action to fix a problem usually leads to a stopping point, instead of a path forward. Refrain from immediate action. Rally your troops and consider all options,” says Penta.

Penta’s advice for accelerating progress by letting go of perfection: force a focus on progress by going in for the big ask. After presenting her first CW&W business plan, a former BBH managing partner told her that in order to make a big impact, she had to think big.

"I realised that we couldn’t prioritise perfection in executing a big plan,” says Penta.

Incremental progress is the only path to innovation

Nothing disrupts a woman’s desire for perfection more than joining the startup ecosystem. When Ashley Lucas, currently Director of Babson College’s WINLab program in Boston, cut her teeth by leading teams toward specific goals and objectives within the confines of a business plan, she leaned on several levers to control hardline deliverables, employing a black-and-white approach to leading. When she entered that constantly evolving ecosystem, Lucas had to replace behaviours geared toward perfection with ones favouring progress. “Instead of leading through strict structure and to-do lists, I learned to lead from a place of curiosity and empathy,” she says.

Without any prior experience, Lucas took a job leading national business development for a 35,000-member startup. She was the first to hold the position. There was no manual or roadmap, yet she could not waste time in making fast progress. “I began to understand that the only path forward was to launch pilot after pilot, collect feedback as I went, and start all over again with the next version. I made the right product faster, generated revenue more quickly, and continued to build the company with each passing turn,” says Lucas.

Lucas’ advice for accelerating progress by letting go of perfection: treat incremental progress as the only pathway to innovation. “At the WINLab, we teach our entrepreneurs to use a Babson pedagogy called Entrepreneurial Thought and Action. The approach prescribes experiments, prototypes, and gathering feedback to continuously build a better version based on what their customers want,” she says.

Redefine factors of success

When I first started studying women in public technology and life sciences company boards, it became clear that these incredible executives did not achieve positions that so few people ever do because they were perfect. They were invited to go where so few people, let alone women, have gone because they earned the experience and exposure it takes to lead industry disruption. Some were early founders of industries that are now worth billions while others created new innovations that we count on every day.

One of my research participants, who played a seminal role in commercialising the forensic science industry, shared the importance of employing the scientific method she used in the lab for building her business. Disruption often means creating innovation by looking at problems and opportunities through a different lens. The executive challenged her team to create a path for innovation based on answering very specific questions, which naturally led to more questions. Each answer was used to build toward the next.

My advice for making empathy your super power: reward learning as you would any other achievement. The only environment that sets the foundation for innovative disruption is one that provides for a continuous opportunity for growth. Reward your team as they find innovative ways to interact and learn from customers, to get exposed to emerging technologies, and to get their hands dirty trying to bring new ideas to fruition.

#jdmaccounting #movies #dccomics #dc #superheroes #leadership #teamwork

Click on the image to see the trailer

Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau, Jason Sudeikis and Kristen Wiig star in #Downsizing directed by Alexander Payne.

Watch Downsizing this Boxing Day. Downsizing imagines what might happen if, as a solution to over-population, Norwegian scientists discover how to shrink humans to five inches tall and propose a 200-year global transition from big to small. People soon realise how much further money goes in a miniaturised world, and with the promise of a better life, everyman Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) and wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) decide to abandon their stressed lives in Omaha in order to get small and move to a new downsized community — a choice that triggers life-changing adventures.

#jdmaccounting #movie #downsizing #accountant #paramount

When I opened my first business, a fitness centre, unfounded confidence flowed through my veins. Visions of fast success and weekends off with the family seemed as close as the next sell.

A few months later, the bravado gave way to fear and insecurity. That dream about weekends away vanished, and my 5 a.m.-to-9 p.m. schedule began taking its toll. I have been fortunate ever since to avoid similar mistakes in my more recent businesses. But I continue to review those mistakes, lest I repeat them:

1. Allowing belief to override the business plan

Owning a business is not for the weak in spirit. You need a strong mind and heart to face the day-in and day-out work. In the early days of the dream, it’s easy to be so excited and enamored with the idea of “your” business that you fail to grind out a proper business model.

When I approached my bank with my business plan in a thick three-ringed binder, I thought the president might just hand me a briefcase of cash. No kidding. Then came reality: Within two minutes the bank president asked me several questions my plan couldn’t answer. Still, that didn’t faze me. I lifted my chin and stated with conviction, “This will work.” I left without the briefcase of cash. Belief overrode the business plan, and I exited penniless.

2. Listening to customers instead of spreadsheets

“Famous Health Club just went out of business,” my soon-to-be business partner Mike said. “They left all the equipment,” he told me excitedly. “We can go in and start quickly and not have to buy everything. However, they scammed their people, and no one wants to sign a contract.”

No problem. We won’t do contracts, I thought. And we didn’t. But we should have. Because, six months later, a giant fitness chain came to town and told members they could sign up for two years and pay via automatic draft. And people signed up in droves. Our “we won’t sign a contract” people left for newer pastures.

The lesson is, you’ll be tempted to set up your business in the way your customers say they want. And, sometimes that will be fine if it fits your model. Otherwise, trust your spreadsheets. Make sure the math works before giving in on every demand in hopes of making the sale.

3. Risking a family member’s retirement fund

Remember my empty briefcase? I gave up on the bank and instead went to my grandfather and asked for the money. I needed only $20,000. That’s it. It never crossed my mind that Daddy B might consider what I requested to be a big sum, considering that during his career, he’d been a lowly paid high school principal. And, as if that weren’t enough, he told me he believed only in safe investments and had put most of his own money into interest-bearing certificates of deposit earning a massive 2 percent interest.

Being young and arrogant, I took my grandfather back to the same bank. Together, we got a secured loan and I was on my way. So, I was able to move forward. But unless your family members have the money to lose, don’t borrow against their retirement or savings. They may love you and want you to succeed, but losing their money will haunt you.

4. Miscalculating the time needed to launch

Since those former fitness club tenants had left their equipment, Mike and I figured that we could open quickly. It was already December and we believed we could open by January 1. Just in time for the New Year’s “resolution” crowd. Timing-wise, we thought we’d won the lottery.

But, three days prior to opening, we knew we were in trouble. I still can’t remember if we slept those last three days. We pushed hard to open the doors. And they opened, but not without our first suffering stress, tears, fears, panic, anxiety and delusions of the greatest business failure ever known to man.

So, set your own grand opening inside a buffer zone. Plan to be ready 10 days ahead of “the” day and you just might open on time, without dread and anxiety.

5. Equating personal experience with business expertise

I began working out at age 12. I was competing in powerlifting and body-building competitions by age 18. In addition to that, I was a personal trainer at a local gym. Certainly all that experience would translate into running a fitness centre of my own, right?

Not even close. I knew how to train people, but not retain people for the purpose of growing a membership-based business. You might be a great cook, mechanic, web designer or artist, but that doesn’t automatically translate into business acumen. So grab some study courses from Entrepreneur.com and arm yourself for this battle called business.

A couple of years later, Mike and I sold that fitness centre. Our buyer was a guy who wanted the space for his karate school. We barely paid off our business loans with the sales proceeds. It could have been so much more had we avoided the mistakes we made starting our first business.

So, remember them, and learn.

#jdmaccounting #business #success #accounting #experience #neverstoplearning

You’re excited to start a business. Maybe you have an idea, or you’re just fascinated with the idea of launching and growing your own enterprise. You’re willing to take some risks, like leaving your current job or going without personal revenue for a while. But there’s one logistical hurdle stopping you: You don’t have much money.

On the surface, this seems like a major problem, but a lack of personal capital shouldn’t stop you from pursuing your dreams. In fact, it’s entirely possible to start and grow a business with almost no personal financial investment whatsoever -- if you know what you’re doing.

1. Why a business needs money

First, let’s take a look at why a business needs money in the first place. There’s no uniform “startup” fee for building a business, so different businesses will have different needs. It’s important to first estimate how much you need before you start finding alternative methods to fund your company.

Consider the following uses:

Licenses and permits. Depending on your region, you may need special paperwork and registry to operate.Supplies. Are you buying raw materials? Do you need computers and/or other devices?Equipment. Do you need specialised machinery or software?Office space. This is a huge expense, and you can't neglect things like Internet, utilities costs, janitorial services and whether to outsource back office tasks, like payroll and invoicing.Associations, subscriptions, memberships. What publications and affiliations will you subsrcibe to every month?Operating expenses. Dig into the nooks and crannies here, and don’t forget about marketing.Legal fees. Are you consulting a lawyer throughout your business-development process?Employees, freelancers and contractors. If you can’t do it alone, you’ll need people on your payroll.

With that said, you have two main paths of starting a business with less money: lowering your costs or increasing your available capital from outside sources. You have three options here:

Your first option is to change your business model to demand fewer needs as listed above. For example, if you were planning on starting a company as a consultant or freelancer, you could reduce your “employee” expenses by being the sole employee at the start. Unless you need office space, you can work from home. You can even do your homework to find cheaper sources of supplies, or cut out entire product lines that are too expensive to produce at the outset.

There are a few expenses that you won’t be able to avoid, however. Licensing and legal fees will set you back even if you cut back on everything else. According to the SBA, many microbusinesses get started on less than $3,000, and home-based franchises can be started for as little as $1,000.

2. Bootstrap

Your second option invokes the idea of a “warmup” period for your business. Instead of going straight into full-fledged business mode, you’ll start with just the basics. You might launch a blog and one niche service, reducing your scope, your audience and your profit, in order to get a head-start. If you can start as a self-employed individual, you'll avoid some of the biggest initial costs (and enjoy a simpler tax situation, too). A payment processing company, such as Due, can be a big help when you are struggling to invoice and follow up professionally.

Once you start realising some revenue, you can invest in yourself, and build the business you imagined piece by piece, rather than all at once.

3. Outsource

Your third option is all about getting funding from outside sources. I’ve covered the world of startup funding in a number of different pieces, so I won’t get into much detail, but know there are dozens of potential ways to raise capital -- even if you don’t have much yourself. Here are just a few potential sources for you:

Friends and family. Don’t rule out the possibility of getting help from friends and family, even if you have to piece the capital together from multiple sources.Angel investors. Angel investors are wealthy individuals who back business ideas early in their generation. They typically invest in exchange for partial ownership of the company, which is a sacrifice worth considering.Venture capitalists. Venture capitalists are like angel investors, but are typically partnerships or organisations and tend to scout businesses that are already in existence.Crowdfunding. It’s popular for a reason: with a good idea and enough work, you can attract funding for anything.Government grants and loans. The Small Business Administration (and a number of state and local government agencies) exist solely to help small businesses grow. Many offer loans and grants to help you get started.Bank loans. You can always open a line of credit with the bank if your credit is in good standing.

With one or more of these three options, you should be able to reduce your personal financial investment to almost nothing. You may have to make some other sacrifices, such as starting small, accommodating partners or taking on debt, but if you believe in your business idea, none of these losses should stand in your way. Capital is a major hurdle to overcome, but make no mistake -- it can be overcome.

#jdmaccounting #business #startup #success #finance #outsource #microbusinesses #homebased #warmup

Employees want more than just health care from their employers to keep them happy, healthy, and committed to their jobs.

When you’re laser-focused on growing your business, it's easy to lose sight of the workplace environment you've created to make that business possible in the first place. But keeping your team happy, engaged, and motivated is essential to your company's success.

Employee perks and benefits can have a profound effect on that sense of workplace environment. Seventy-two percent of surveyed employees said that an improvement in their benefits offerings would make them happier at work, according to the 2017 Aflac Happiness Report.

But what exactly are those increased benefits that keep employees happy and loyal to your business? Here are four key steps to creating a strong and desirable workplace:

1. Make wellness a priority

Ensuring that your employees are happy means taking a more holistic approach to their wellness and wellbeing. Offering wellness benefits to employees including health spending programs is one way to do this.

But that also means extending health benefits into other often overlooked aspects of their lives. For example, offering employees a way to save on their commute to and from work by setting aside tax-free funds in a Commuter Spending Account is a simple way to help your employees spend their money more wisely.

2. Embrace flexible schedules

Having the opportunity to decide when and where they work is a major perk that employees appreciate, and one that doesn't have to cost your company a penny. Aflac's latest Happiness Report found that more than one in every four employees say flexible scheduling — the ability to decide where and when they work — is a crucial part of their choice in working for a small business in particular.

Allowing employees to work from home or remotely for a certain number of days per week or giving them the ability to set their hours depending on what works best with their lifestyle is a simple way to show your team you care.

3. Create opportunities for growth and learning

Don't forget the importance of giving employees a way to expand their knowledge and develop their skills to move up in their careers.

For example, Aflac offers employees access to a Career Success Centre where they can get in-person counseling sessions, resume help and practice interviews. Providing mentorship opportunities is another crucial way to foster a sense of community and show your employees you're invested in their growth. The Aflac TEACH Mentorship Program, which is made up of 68 percent women and 45 percent ethnic minorities, offers resources and support to promote diversity and upward mobility in the workplace.

4. Find ways to engage in the community

Creating opportunities for employees to give back to their communities and contribute to a meaningful cause can go a long way in both building their satisfaction with their work and making a lasting social impact.

You can do this by creating incentives like time off for employees to engage in philanthropic causes like childhood cancer support or Habitat for Humanities. Fostering opportunities for your team to feel connected to their community will make their overall experience more meaningful both inside and outside the office.

#jdmaccounting #business #accounting #accountant #growth #happyatwork

Inspire yourself to make a change or re-ignite your drive to push your business forward.

We all reach a point in our careers when we need to step back and take stock of where we are, where we've been and what's next.

One of my favourite bosses once gave me some questions to routinely ask myself, and over the years, I have added a few questions of my own to the list. Now every six months, I step back from the day-to-day of the rat race and ponder the following five things:

1. Am I learning?

Are you gaining new skills at your job and finding new ways to improve the work you are doing? Is there training at your company or are there outside classes that your job will cover to make you a better employee? Or do you feel like you have topped out at your job and now want to move on to the next challenge? Currently, I am learning something new every day, but that wasn't always the case. My goal has always been to truly master a few things before looking to move on, and I encourage everyone to dig into that mindset.

2. Am I growing?

Is there a clear path to get to the next level at your company? Can you manage more employees or take on a different leadership role? Is there another department within the company you could transfer to where you can progress? I have worked places where the next jump seemed years away or where I didn't want my boss's job at all. If that's the case, you may need to find the next level-up elsewhere.

3. Am I respected?

This is a big one that we don't often ask ourselves but should every day. How are you perceived within your organisation? Do people listen to you and care about your opinion? Are you on a different page than those around you? Often if you start your career at a company, they may always see you as "the kid" even years after you started. Do they recognise what you bring to the table? Never settle for feeling degraded or under-appreciated.

4. Am I doing my best?

We can all occasionally lose our drive and passion for what we do. This does not have to be a long-term issue. Maybe you are burned out and need a vacation. Maybe you could use a new project, either at your job -- volunteer to help with a pitch -- or take on a new personal project outside the workplace. Some people need to challenge themselves physically to get their groove back mentally. Training for a 5K can give you a whole new lease on life.

5. Am I happy?

This question may seem like a cop-out but it is key. I have had what I thought was the "dream job" only to feel miserable and out of place every day. Somehow, I muddled through but once I stepped back, I realised how very unhappy I was and how much worse it was becoming. Life is too short to spend at a job that doesn't make you feel alive. We can't be in the best place all the time, but the more and more you feel you aren't the right fit, make sure you know there is a world beyond this one gig.

#jdmaccounting #business #growth #accountant #success #newjob #career

“What are your numbers?” If you have ever watched an episode of Shark Tank, you will recall how harshly the investors treat the business owners who don’t “know their numbers.” The investors grill their entrepreneurs and expect them to be sharp and intelligent enough to communicate the details of their business effectively. And if they don’t, they are sent away with not only a failed investment opportunity, but also a hefty dose of shame, humiliation and mental anguish.

Though the entrepreneurs aren’t in the tank to sell their businesses -- they are looking for an investment -- wherever money is exchanged, the people shelling it out will want to know the metrics on how that money circulates.

Similar to the shark investors, if you want to sell your business, buyers will want to know your numbers, or metrics, to ensure their investment is as low-risk as possible. Supplying your buyers with valid, detailed metrics will not only keep the acquisition moving forward, but also fuel a more positive and seamless acquisition experience.

Metrics are essential because buyers are naturally skeptical

Regardless of what business you run, knowing your metrics is paramount to selling. Buyers don’t care how much you think your business is worth or what you imagine its future trajectory will look like. They want to see the real numbers.

Buyers come to the table skeptical. They don’t expect to lose their investment when they buy your business, but they won’t feel confident until they take a peek behind your data-lined curtain. To feel assured that they are making a safe, low-risk investment, they will want to see how well your business is doing (aka the metrics).

It also doesn’t matter the size of the acquisition, buyers will enter the process wanting to know how well your business performed, whether it is a six-figure or nine-figure business. They need the hard data to give them enough confidence to pull the trigger.

Buyers want to know: Is your business sustainable?

Buyers need to know that your revenue will be sustainable, and it has the potential to grow long after the acquisition. They are looking for a return on investment that continues year after year. The only way you can answer this question is by showing them with your metrics.

To predict future growth and sustainability, buyers will also look to past growth and trends. They will want to examine metrics such as gross margin, website traffic, revenue growth and customer metrics such as acquisition costs and lifetime value -- and the history associated with each.

They will want to review the metric trends and patterns from the last few years and use this data to weigh their risk. For example, instead of just requesting a blanket customer acquisition cost, buyers will want to see if these costs are consistent and whether you have experienced any surges. If you acquire customers from Facebook and Google, know your customer acquisition costs from each channel not only from Day 0, but also day 30, 60 and 90. Though this is only applicable to subscription-based businesses, the point is that buyers like to see trends and patterns in the data, regardless of what metrics they are reviewing. Positive trends signal to them their investment is safer, your business is robust, and there is a higher potential for the business to continue its positive course in the future. As a result, they will feel more at ease to move forward with the acquisition.

The most valuable metrics to buyers

Though there are numerous metrics attractive to potential buyers, all businesses should be closely tracking revenue, gross margin, customer lifetime value and customer acquisition cost.

The metrics you track, however, should closely pertain to your specific business model. For example, if you are selling an internet business or you have an active website that generates leads and sales, additional metrics buyers will want to track are traffic and conversions, since both are directly tied to revenue. Buyers want to see steady increases in website traffic, but more than that, they want to know what percentage of the revenue comes solely from your traffic. Conversion rates are also important as low rates can signal poor traffic and/or targeting misalignment.

If you have a recurring or subscription-based business model, you also want to track how long it takes for customers to reach their lifetime value since this directly impacts cash flow. If your customer’s lifetime value is $1,000, what is the lifespan of that dollar amount? Did it take three months, six months or one year? Did a larger percentage of the money come in the latter part of the subscription due to subscription upgrades? Knowing these details will help you define exactly how much you can spend on acquiring a customer. Buyers will want to see these numbers as well and will weigh them physically and mentally to assess what level of risk they are comfortable taking on.

The customer lifetime value metric is one that is miscalculated often, even by the largest companies. I recently had a conversation with Babak Azad, former senior vice-president of Beachbody and current founder of Round Two Partners, about his experience in acquisitions. Azad frequently advises clients on how to position themselves for a successful exit and focuses heavily on the need to tighten up metrics. According to Azad, even nine-figure businesses have leaks in their lifetime value calculations and tightening these up is vital.

A way to drive an acquisition forward with concrete metrics for lifetime value is to focus on paid media metrics. Paid media is more controllable than strategies like search engine optimization or influencer marketing, which are unpredictable at best. Concrete metrics like these will allow you to more effectively calculate your customer acquisition costs, lifetime value and consequently your profit margins.

Know your metrics

Buyers are savvy and they want to know their investment will be protected. Know your numbers, analyze the trends, and document your results. As long as you are prepared, you will tip the scales in favor of a successful acquisition process.

#sellyourbusiness #acquisition #jdmaccounting #numbers #accountant #knowyourmetrics #accounting

The first accountant that we were all exposed to was the world's best, and everyone's most favourite acCOUNTant of all time, Count von Count from Sesame Street. He was our aspiration, and the reason why so many of us became accountants. He made it look so easy, and had fun doing it.

#accountant #tv #movies #countvoncount #sesamestreet #jdmaccounting

If you are in professional services, are a small business owner or a freelancer, you probably have had periods when the steady flow of work seems to turn off. In the early days of our consulting practice, we experienced this feast or famine cycle ourselves from time to time.

"Feast or famine" often happens in young businesses. The roller coaster experience goes something like this: You get a new client or two and become very busy doing the work. But the downside of being busy is that you stop most or all of your marketing efforts. Then, one day, you look up and realise that the client work is completed -- and you have no new clients.

At this point in our own business, we tend to experience less fluctuation. However, occasionally, one or the other of us needs more work. When this occurs, we find that doing one or more of the following steps gets the spigot running again.

Get in front of people

When you have gone weeks or months working with your head, your visibility has probably decreased. You need to increase your interaction. So, attend networking events that have produced results in the past. Go to business happy hours and socials. Spend a day or two working out of your local coworking facility.

These collaborative offices are a great way to meet other small business owners, develop new relationships and find future clients. If you are good at public speaking, reach out to organisations that use speakers and volunteer your services. If your schedule is flexible, suggest to these organisations that you can fill in as a last-minute substitution. We know a consultant in Richmond who lands one or two speeches each month substituting for others.

Utilise technology

Depending on your business, you may be able to use Facebook, LinkedIn or other ads to generate work. According to Wordstream, Facebook ads are relatively inexpensive, reach a targeted audience and, when focused on the right outcomes, can be extremely effective in generating leads.

We would also suggest that it can be worth the additional expense to get expert help with these ads. This is especially true if you can use the time saved to generate additional sales. While the ads are relatively easy to create and place, expert help can increase your conversation rate. If you get just one more job, the additional work will have easily offset the cost.

Reach out to current and former clients

For most businesses, the best source of new clients is current or former clients. Don't be shy. Contact your clients with an invitation to have lunch or a drink after work. Let them know that you would appreciate their referrals. This may trigger your clients to pass on the referral they have been meaning to make.

Alternatively, it may cause them to reach out to you with additional work. Just last week, Polly emailed a former client to ask him to lunch. The lunch was to thank him for a referral. At the lunch, Polly was pleased to pick up a new piece of work from this client. She didn't even have to ask.

Develop systems to keep the pipeline filled

It is always better to keep the pipeline filled rather than have to scramble when the work dries up. To do this, you need to make marketing your priority. Schedule time each week to network and keep your face in front of others. Develop a drip marketing campaign or write a weekly blog. Spend a few hours thinking about how you acquired your best clients, then put together a plan that will help you find and earn more of these types of clients. Make your plan's action steps part of your daily and weekly focus.

Certainly, if you find yourself without work, getting paid assignments must be your focus. We all need to pay our bills.

To increase your chances of finding work, focus on the first three suggestions. Utilising technology to generate leads, and getting out in front of people through networking and speeches, can help you get quick results. However, we find that reaching out to current and former clients is often the fastest way to receive new work.

Then, once your workload is back on par, don't repeat your former habits. Put systems in place to ensure that the pipeline always stays filled.

#jdmaccounting #accountant #moreclients #technology #welovework #feastorfamine

Sometimes a small thing can make the difference between failing or succeeding.

Research shows that about two-thirds of businesses survive two years in business, half of all businesses will survive five years and a third will survive 10. The longer a company has been in business, the more likely it is to stay in business.

The business world is not static. It can be a roller coaster in a particular period and a rough ride on some point. There are thousands of obstacles facing businesses in our contemporary world. If you are not prepared, you may struggle to find your footing.

Here are five ways to stay resolute in the face of major business obstacles:

1. Expect challenges and make contingency plans

Challenge is a part of business: Without it, every business would be successful. Many entrepreneurs try to overcome these by committing to providing financial, human and material resources for their startup.

However, they don't work at instituting contingency plans if things don't turn out as expected. Just as the way we expect massive sales and profit, we should also expect challenges and make adequate plans to contain them.

2. Anticipate changes and adapt appropriately

The business world is in large part about change in consumer tastes and behavior, but there are also political, social, economic and environmental changes that can affect any business at any point.

Ifeoma Agu, the co-founder of Ivonmelda Makeova, said in an interview, "Inadequate finance and business location were the two major challenges we overcame during our startup period. We decided to download lots of YouTube videos on makeup and hair making, since we couldn't afford the training fees.

Secondly, when our target markets (mainly graduate and postgraduate students) massively migrated from one location to another, we followed them."

3. Intensify the use of digital technology

Digital technology is the best thing that has ever happened to the business world. Through it, businesses have benefited from social media advertisement, marketing, business apps and software.

It's very difficult for businesses to survive in the modern world without some kind of online marketing strategy. A large percentage of Americans prefer to shop online, yet many American small businesses do not have a website

In an email interview, Ravi Gullapalli, the founder of Fastra Messenger, said, "At Fastra Corporation, we believe our IT industry will move in the direction of augmented reality. Fastra Messenger is developing lot of new features, and we want to change the total chat experience in a modern, innovative way. We are currently developing not only augmented reality filters for our Fastra messenger application, but also working with retail companies, educational schools and colleges to help them use augmented reality technology.

"It is very difficult to survive businesses in long run if you are not adaptable to new technologies. Most of our current apps in iPhone and Android will be converted to augmented reality or virtual reality apps in next two to three years'.

4. Stay focused on business competition

Today's business world is survival of the fittest. So many businesses today are struggling to stay afloat as a result of intense competition. If you're not creative and innovative, you may likely end up a failure.

5. Upgrade your business knowledge

Knowledge is vital to business success. The knowledge you needed to start your business won't necessarily help you manage it.

Build relationship with successful entrepreneurs, read business books and articles and attend business conferences and seminars. These will surely enlighten and sensitise you. By having the right information, you can successfully manage business amid obstacles.

#jdmaccounting #accountant #success #business #obstacles

Many viewers weren't sure if they loved or hated Clarke Hayden (Nathan Lane), the lawyer-turned-accountant charged with getting Lockhart/Gardner to pay off millions in debt. To play the complicated role, Lane created a dark backstory for Hayden. "He was really good with numbers, so he got into accounting. I think he rose at some corporation. I think he was asked to do things he probably thought were not quite legal. I think he became very successful and the things he did were never caught," Lane explained in 2013.

At the same time, Hayden was capable of doing good for its own sake. "He does like helping people. He does like figuring things out," Lane said. "He is a numbers guy. That’s what rules his life in a way."

#accountant #tv #movies #ClarkeHayden #thegoodwife #jdmaccounting

The point is to really get out of bed and get going. If you're just pounding the snooze button earlier, don't bother..

You’ve likely read the studies saying that those who wake up earlier are more successful. You may even have set the goal to adjust your wake-up time, sure that an extra hour or two at the start of the day is all you need. But deciding to wake up early and actually following through are two different things. If you’d like to test out the theory that an early start is the key to success, here are a few tips to help you get started.

Set an alarm

The first key to waking up earlier is forcing yourself to take those first steps. Don’t overthink it. Simply set your alarm for the time you want to wake up each day and force yourself away from the snooze button. If a traditional alarm is too abrupt, a gradual wake-up light alarm may be a more palatable option.

Move up gradually

Unless there’s a specific reason, you don’t have to move your wake time up a full hour overnight. Instead try waking up 15 minutes earlier every day until your body grows accustomed to the change.

Ask a friend to keep you honest

It’s one thing to vow to yourself you’re going to start a new healthy habit. It’s quite another to make a commitment to someone else to do so. Accountability partners are a great way to hold yourself to a new commitment, including waking up earlier each day.

Make your bed

There are a variety of reasons you should make your bed each morning, but one is that it reduces the temptation to climb back in. Instead of eyeing your warm, unkempt bed longingly, you’ll subconsciously resist, knowing that going back to bed means undoing your hard work (and having to do it again later).

Rely on caffeine

No matter what health experts say, some people simply can’t get started without a hefty dose of caffeine. Set yourself up for success in advance, using your coffeemaker’s alarm to ensure you’ll have a pot of coffee ready when you stumble into the kitchen. For the many people who just can't do caffeine, try alternatives.

Take a cold shower

A warm shower is usually the first thing on the agenda for people trying to wake up early. However, warm water can make you sleepier. One tip that can help you wake up is to give yourself a blast of cold water for 30 seconds, switching to extremely hot for another 30 before going back to cold. Some people even forego the hot water completely and do a cold shower instead. Either way, if you inject cold into the shower routine, you're going to wake yourself up very effectively.

Eat a healthy breakfast

Coffee isn’t the only tool you can use to jolt your brain to alertness. Oatmeal, leafy greens, and even water will help you feel more alert in those early morning hours. Also, apples are known by some to be "nature's caffeine." They actually have no caffeine, but the fibre and natural sugar can help wake you up (plus they keep the doctor away).

Start with a workout

Whether you take a run around the block, head straight to the gym, or just do some jumping jacks in your bedroom, a workout is the very thing you need to get your blood pumping. Walking is my favourite form of morning exercise because it's an effective way to shake the cobwebs.

Listen to music

Science has proven that music has a direct impact on the body. Feel free to put in your earbuds and blast your favorite music. Or invest in a shower radio that will help you multitask.

Go to bed earlier

If you hope to wake up early and have a productive day, you’ll need to get plenty of sleep. That means going to bed early, even if you’re typically a night owl. Avoid electronic devicesin the evening hours and gradually move your bedtime up until you’re getting the recommended eight hours of sleep.

Just say no to the snooze button

You may think the snooze button gives you a few extra minutes, but it actually causes more harm than you realize. Force yourself to put both feet on the floor and stand after the first alarm.

Keep the same schedule on weekends

Your natural inclination will likely be to sleep in on Saturdays and Sundays. This actually disrupts your body’s natural rhythms, which can possibly put your health at risk. For best results, keep that wake-up time the same no matter which day of the week it is.

An earlier wake-up time can kick off your day in the right way, helping you get more accomplished and feel better throughout the day. Don’t feel pressured to shift your wake-up time by hours overnight. Instead, make an effort to move your wake-up time forward gradually, letting your body get used to a new schedule.

#success #wakeup #earlystart #jdmaccounting #accountant #sleep #healthylifestyle

It helps having the league's best player in your team, but to win by 48 points against the minor premiers on the day, shows just how good the Tigers are right now. It's been 37 years since the Tigers won the flag, but it was never in doubt for those yellow and black faithful, in the capacity crowd at the 'G'.

#AFL #richmondtigers #dustinmartin #MCG #premiers

Google wasn’t always the world’s second most valuable brand. Long before it was a go-to verb, it was an obedient digital dog, merely finding and retrieving stuff, playing fetch for internet users over and over again.

Eventually the little G -- which started in 1995 as a Stanford University Ph.D. research project -- grew into the big, $367 billion-dollar G we know and love-hate today. No longer satisfied to fetch links alone, the global tech colossus now chases meatier, more meaningful bones, like nailing the fastest internet speeds on the planet, rendering human drivers obsolete and, NBD, ending death.

The Mountain View, Calif., mammoth’s meteoric rise to the top is chock full of juicy trivia tidbits and mind-blowing milestones along the way.

Here are 19 surprising facts about Google:

1. Sergey Brin and Larry (Lawrence) Page met by chance

Page, 22 at the time, having recently earned a computer engineering degree from the University of Michigan, considers attending Stanford University for his Ph.D. Brin, then 21, already a Ph.D. candidate at the prestigious institution, is assigned to show Page around campus. That was back in 1995 and, as fate would have it, quite the momentous meeting of the minds.

2. Google was originally named BackRub

In 1996, Page and Brin collaborated on a pioneering “web crawler” concept curiously called BackRub. Some speculate that the early search engine’s nomenclature was a nod to retrieving backlinks. BackRub, which linked to Brin’s and Page’s '90s-tastic original homepages, lived on Stanford’s servers for more than a year, but eventually chewed up too much bandwidth.

3. Google is a play on the word “googol.”

On Sept. 15, 1997, over the BackRub title, Page and Brin registered the domain name of their mushrooming project as Google, a twist on “googol,” a mathematical term represented by the numeral one followed by 100 zeros. The name hinted at the seemingly infinite amount of data the brainy pair code their fledgling search engine to mine, make sense of and deliver. Many wondered if Google is a misspelling of Googol.

4. Google’s first doodle was a Burning Man stick figure

The inaugural doodle was an out-of-the-office message that Page and Brin created in August of 1998 to let people know they’d shipped off to the Burning Man festival. The future billionaires positioned the iconic Man behind the second “o” in Google’s logo. Dude, check it out here.

5. Google’s first office was a rented garage

So stereotypical Silicon Valley startup, right? Starting in September 1998, the company’s first workspace was Susan Wojcicki’s garage on Santa Margarita Ave. in Menlo Park, Calif. Wojcicki, sister of 23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki, is Google employee number 16. She was Google’s first marketing manager and is now the CEO of YouTube. As for the house that built Google, the tech titan bought it, because of course it did. Then it filled the suburban ranch-style dwelling with candy, snacks and lava lamps.

6. A former caterer for The Grateful Dead was Google’s first chef

In 1999, chef Charlie Ayers won a cook-off judged by Google’s employees, then only 40 in all, to clinch the position, which he held for seven years. Ayers initially cooked for the Grateful Dead in exchange for free admission to their legendary shows, but later took over catering for the jam band. At Google, he eventually served 4,000 daily lunches and dinners in 10 cafés throughout its Mountain View, Calif., global headquarters.

7. Google New York began at a Starbucks on 86th Street

In 2000, Google unofficially kicked off its New York arm at a Starbucks in New York City. It was helmed by a one-person sales “team.” Now, thousands of “NYooglers” clock-in at its swanky, 2.9 million-square-foot New York office, a former Port Authority building on 111 8th Ave.

8. Swedish Chef is a language preference in Google search

Gurndy morn-dee burn-dee, who knew? Yes, it’s true. In 2001, Google got in touch with its inner yodelling Muppet and opened the gates for search queries and results in Swedish Chef lingo (called Bork Bork Bork, to be technical). Other “joke” languages you can tickle Google’s algorithm with include: Elmer Fudd, Pirate, Klingon, Pig Latin and, of course, Hacker (a.k.a. 1337sp34k).

9. Gmail was launched on April Fool’s Day, no joke

Toying with Silicon Valley’s longstanding tradition of pulling April Fool’s Day pranks, Google unveiled Gmail on April 1, 2004, in a wackily-worded announcement that was widely misconstrued as a hoax. It wasn’t Google Gulp. It was a brilliant double fake and the precursor to a Google staple that now serves millions of users across the world every day.

10. Googlers ride colorful “gBikes” around the Googleplex

Launched in 2007, Google’s Googleplex campus commuter bike program began as a modest fleet of bright blue Huffys. Then came the goofy “clown bikes.” Now Googlers ride more than 1,000 primary-colored, basket-equipped beach cruisers, dubbed “gBikes,” around the two-mile expanse that is Google Mountain View. Interestingly, none of the bikes have locks. Employees simply “borrow” the nearest set of wheels. When they’re done, they drop them off conveniently close to office entryways for other Googlers to use.

11. Google negotiated its acquisition of YouTube’s at Denny’s over mozzarella sticks

“We didn’t want to meet at offices,” YouTube co-founder Steven Chen said, “so we were like, ‘Where’s a place that none of us would go?’” That place turned out to be a Denny’s in Palo Alto, Calif. Mozzarella sticks were nibbled, hands were shaken. The 2006 landmark acquisition was a Grand Slam for Chen and co-founders Jawed Karim and Chad Hurley. Not bad for the time. Google doled out $1.65 billion for what would explode into the Internet’s most-watched -- and most uploaded-to -- video platform.

12. Its leaders are in it for the long haul

In 2008, Eric Schmidt, then the CEO of Google and currently the executive chairman of Alphabet, told Fortune before the company went public in 2004, that the trio of Schmidt and co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin agreed to work together for 20 years.

13. The early days of Google were not super glamorous

Schmidt told LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman during an interview for Hoffman’s Masters of Scale podcast that the former CEO's first office at the company was an 8-by-12-foot space that he shared with the company’s then VP of engineering, Amit Singhal.

14. The company helped fight fictional vampires

The first instance of Google being used as a verb -- “to Google” something -- on television occurred during an Oct. 15, 2002, episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

15. Google has had a pet-friendly office since the beginning

One of the company’s earliest employees was a friendly Leonberger named Yoshka, who came to work with his owner, Google’s senior vice president of operations Urs Hoelzle.

16. It speaks many languages

In 2000, French, German, Italian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Norwegian and Danish were the first 10 language versions of the site to be available to the public.

17. Google image search launched in a big way

The company rolled out Google Image search in 2001 with a whopping 250 million images for users to peruse. Not bad for day one.

18. When it went public, Google was valued as much as General Motors

The company sold 19,605,052 shares of stock for $85 per share. It was valued at $27 billion.

19. Google gave Mountain View the gift of free Wi-Fi

In 2006, the company decided to provide Mountain View, the California town where its main headquarters is located, with free city-wide Wi-Fi. While certainly generous, it likely just meant that even more people were free to jump on the web and use the search engine.

#google #internet #searchengine #SEO #success #jdmaccounting #accountant

How good are the Cowboys!!

One more win to take out their second Grand Final in two years!

All they have to do is beat the Storm.

Go The Cowboys!!!

#cowboys #nrl #sport #rugby #queensland #storm #champions #nrlgrandfinal

There's no denying that email marketing plays a huge role in the growth of many successful businesses. Unfortunately, some digital marketers become so caught up with the idea of building a booming email list that they think it's the only way they can achieve huge growth and lasting success.

It isn't. An email list can be a great way to keep in touch with your sales leads, but there are other strategies and methods that can help your startup make it through the first five years when approximately half of all new businesses fail.

For email marketing to be truly successful, you typically need to grow your list organically. For most businesses, that isn't going to happen overnight. However, the following strategies will help you better promote your brand to lure in new customers and leads while building your email list along the way.

Content marketing

Effective content marketing can help potential leads discover your business in a more positive light than an unsolicited email ever could. Publishing a guest post on a well-known site with high readership is a great way to encourage new people to visit your own website, sign up for an email list or start a free product trial.

Smarter networking

We've all heard how networking is important to success in the business world, but far too often, we associate networking with uncomfortable business luncheons where everyone is more focused on making a sales pitch than actually connecting with other professionals.

It doesn't have to be this way. If you express a genuine interest in others, you can put yourself in a much better position to build lasting business connections.

Says Sterling Griffin, a sales and business coach, "When I get asked the famous question 'What do you do?' I respond by turning it around and asking, 'Well, I do a few things, but what's your story?' When I ask about them (showing I care about them), it's like Christmas came early and they found an unexpected gift under the tree. Then, when they finish sharing their story, they inevitably ask about mine. And since I showed I care first, they respond by caring back about my answer."

While these interactions require more one-on-one, in-person work, they can also result in some of your most valuable leads. Someone you've formed a genuine connection with is far more likely to take a lasting interest in your business.

Facebook lead ads

While Facebook's incredibly large user base can make it seem like an intimidating area to focus your marketing, the social media giant's advanced targeting metrics make it an ideal tool for customer outreach.

As I've noted in the past, carefully selecting your campaign parameters is vital for a successful Facebook advertising campaign. You need to make sure your message matches the interests of your target audience while also presenting a clear call to action that encourages customers to sign up for your email list, follow your page or buy your product.

Hashtags aren't going to make or break your Facebook advertising efforts, but continually optimising your campaign's copy, targeting and call to action will allow you to achieve a better cost per impression and conversion rate so you can gain new customers.

PPC and landing pages

You can't ignore the power of Google and pay-per-click (PPC) marketing. While search engine optimisation (SEO) campaigns can take months to deliver noticeable results for your business, PPC advertisements can bring in new customers the day after your campaign begins if you adhere to proper messaging and targeting practices.

Of course, quality PPC ads aren't enough to build a customer base. Your landing page should also be a top priority, as this is where interested users are actually going to decide whether they'll sign up for your email list or place an order. A clean, simple design that highlights your headline, the key benefits of your product or service and a signup form can ultimately make all the difference in generating sales and leads for your business.

Conclusion

As the above tactics illustrate, building a booming email list -- and more importantly, a solid base of loyal customers -- isn't out of reach, even if you're starting with zero email subscribers. By using the above tips as a starting point, you can achieve the necessary growth to get your business on the right track.

#sales #besttips #goodbusiness #jdmaccounting #accountant #accounting #emaillist #PPC #Google #Facebook #advertising

Ditch your script. Record your calls. Analyse your patterns. There are new, non-conventional ways to approach calls. Have you tried them?

We've all got a ton of digital tools to help us boost brand awareness, attract subscribers and followers and ultimately convince people that our brands have something to address their needs. However, closing the deal still usually depends on a one-on-one conversational interaction -- or series of interactions -- the traditional sales call.

Your top salespeople work tirelessly to track down leads generated by your marketing team. They reach out to previous customers to renew interest. And they work to convince interested buyers to finally take the plunge.

You can improve those close rates by: 1) asking your top performers to train your newcomers; or 2) sweetening the pot by offering more to your prospects in the first place.

But if you want to get even more out of your sales strategy, you'll need to optimise your and your salespeople's calls themselves. So, how, exactly, do you improve those calls? Here are five ways:

1. Ditch the script

First, let's be clear: Sales scripts can be helpful. They're a useful rubric for guiding the conversation in the direction you want to go, they're a useful resource for training new candidates; and they're a nice crutch for anyone who is shy or anxious about talking on the phone.

But there are two big problems with sales scripts on calls: First, they have a tendency to sound fake (especially if you're using a template). Most customers can tell the difference between a sincere conversation and one that's been over-rehearsed or pre-planned, and you'll lose sales if you always sound insincere. Second, scripts lock you into a single routine. It may be a decently effective routine, but you'll never know if there's something better out there.

2. Record your calls

Have you ever experienced that phenomenon where the sound of your recorded voice is alien compared to what you're used to hearing? This happens because of the vibrations we pick up in our own head, but it represents a bigger idea; we don't know what we sound like until we listen.

Accordingly, your underperforming salespeople may be making critical mistakes they could pick out in an instant -- if only they realised they existed. Start recording your sales calls, and make your sales staff listen both to their own calls and those of others. You'll become collectively more acquainted with proper sales techniques, and be able to isolate some of the most egregious mistakes your people are making.

3. Analyse your patterns

Unfortunately, there's only so much the human mind can pick out in a single episode of listening of a sales call. That's why artificial intelligence (AI)-powered speech recognition and analytics tools are starting to grow more popular. These tools automatically transcribe your sales calls, then analyse the text, looking for specific keywords that can tell you how the conversation is progressing, and where (for better or worse) the turning points are.

It's an automated way to dissect how your sales calls develop, and a perfect tool for brainstorming new angles and tactics.

4. Control your progress with goals

You should also make sure your progress remains steady and measurable by setting goals for your salespeople. These need to be both short-term and long-term, so your salespeople can see steady progress and feel motivated by their own efforts. Your goals also need to be both individual- and group-focused, so you can keep your team working together while still inspiring a bit of competition and individual improvement.

5. Experiment and observe

Finally, don't let yourself get too comfortable with any one set of tactics -- even if your phone-call recordings guide you in that direction. Just because a strategy is good doesn't mean it's necessarily the best, so if you want to keep improving, you'll want to experiment, sometimes with drastically different approaches.

Observe how these experiments develop, and scrap whatever doesn't work. Inevitably, you'll find something worth exploring.

A note on conventional tips

You'll notice that I haven't included any conventional tips to directly make your calls better, although there are plenty out there that seem to work. For example, there are no recommendations to start the call with a positive anecdote, or to make calls while standing and walking around to bring more energy to the meeting.

These can be helpful, but they're short-term fixes, and they aren't going to fix any glaring problems with your strategy. They're also limited in how much value they can deliver.

Instead, the strategies listed, in contrast, are methodologies that can be applied indefinitely. They're tools to help your team members learn and improve on their own. Accordingly, they won't give you an instant boost in productivity or effectiveness, but they will yield the most powerful results ---- especially when applied over the course of months or even years.

#sales #besttips #goodbusiness #jdmaccounting #accountant #accounting

A young accountant, straight out of uni, applies for a job advertised in the Sydney Morning Herald. She is interviewed by the owner of a small business who has built it up from scratch. "I need someone with an accounting degree," says the man, "but mainly I'm looking for someone to do my worrying for me." "How do you mean?" says the accountant. "I have lots of things to worry about, but I want someone else to worry about money matters." "OK," says the accountant. "How much are you offering?" "You can start on seventy-five thousand," says the owner. "Seventy-five thousand dollars. How can a business like this afford to pay so much?" "That," says the man, "is your first worry."

#job #jokes #jdmaccounting #smallbusiness #funny #accountant #worry

For my money, there's no better long-term strategy than content marketing. Here's why.

Most older marketing and advertising strategies have been based on short-term gains. For example, a direct mail piece might convert a handful of recipients, but once it's sent out, most of the batch gets thrown away and the design is scrapped in favor of next year's model. A billboard might work well for a few months, but eventually, the design will grow tiresome, and you'll need to purchase new space to see another influx.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this approach, especially if you're seeing a positive ROI, but if you want to be successful in the long term, you'll need a strategy with a little more staying power. Inbound marketing strategies, like SEO and social media marketing, are effective in producing a slow build of results, but for my money, there's no better long-term strategy than content marketing.

Here's why.

Content influences almost every other online strategy

First, it's important to understand that content can serve as a complementary strategy to almost any other online marketing strategy:

Content helps SEO by providing more web "real estate" and increasing your domain authority (as well as earning inbound links).It provides source material for a social media marketing campaign.It can encourage more email signups and be used as the basis for an email marketing campaign.It can enhance the value of your landing page and other web pages.It can help you build relationships with other online brands and industries.

In addition to these core complementary influences, content has a number of positive effects that function independently:

It attracts new traffic. If you're guest posting or just producing content on your own blog, people will be more likely to find you and click through to your site. You can also encourage further site interactions by interlinking your blog posts with other pieces of onsite content.It builds your reputation. The more people see your content, the more they'll remember your brand and the higher your reputation with those individuals will be.It encourages trust and faith in your brand. When a visitor stumbles on your site for any reason, your content can secure his/her confidence in your brand, so long as that content is authoritative, helpful, and well-written overall.It can influence conversions. Again assuming that your content is well-written, a well-placed call to action embedded in your content can encourage direct conversions, resulting in more average revenue for every visitor on your site.It can make you a separate stream of revenue. If your content is strong enough, you can feature it as a separate service from your company, such as an extended whitepaper or eBook.

Evergreen content lasts forever

They call it "evergreen" content because it never decays. Trendy content, news content, and other forms of "in the moment" material are all important, and tend to attract a lot of visitors, but some forms of content will always be relevant. For example, people will always need to know tips for better communication, or advice on how to travel efficiently. There may be new elements to some of these features as new technologies develop, but you can always spruce up old posts with a few new tidbits as relevant. Because content can theoretically last forever, it never loses value, making it a perfect long-term investment.

Every piece you write is permanent real estate

Unless you take one of your posts down or change the URL, every piece you publish on your site is valuable web real estate that will never go away. Your guest posts are under the control of other editors, so you have less influence there, but for the most part, every new URL from your content is another URL that can be indexed by Google and found in organic search results.

Content is all about compounding returns

Hopefully, you're familiar with the concept of compound interest--as your investment earns interest, your principal grows and you earn more interest with each subsequent round of compounding. Content works much the same way, since it's more or less "permanent." If you publish twice a week, you'll have 110 pieces the first year, so the first year you'll produce 110 pieces and get 110 pieces' worth of results. The second year, you'll produce 110 pieces and see 220 pieces' worth of results. The third year, you'll see 330 pieces of results, and so on. Additionally, the more people see your name, the more they read your content, and the longer you've been around, the greater effects you'll see with every piece.

Content might evolve, but it will never be unnecessary

As new technologies and new trends permeate the marketing landscape, the form and function of content will evolve. Already, video is starting to overtake written content in terms of popularity, and just a few years ago, semantic, long-tail topics overtook their keyword-focused counterparts in importance. But no matter what happens, content will always be relevant--all that changes is the way it is produced and the way people access it.

Content marketing may be a long-term strategy, but the sooner you start investing in it, the sooner you'll start seeing the benefits--and conversely, the longer you wait to get started, the longer it will take. If you currently have no content strategy whatsoever, it's time to establish one. Whether it serves your bottom line independently or as a backbone for your other inbound marketing strategies, you'll be glad you did.

#jdmaccounting #accounting #accountant #contentmarketing #socialmedia #facebook #instagram #twitter #google #linkedin

#springtime #winterisover #jdmaccounting #flowers #accounting #accountant

Of the 28.8 million businesses in the U.S., about 80 percent, or 23 million, have no employees. The owners have to worry about their business and that’s it. There’s no element of personnel management involved. However, many entrepreneurs -- the remaining 5.8 million -- have to manage people as well. In fact, managing people is one of the top five challenges cited by small business owners. Below are five things entrepreneurs can do to be a better “boss” and manage their employees. These pieces of advice are based on mistakes that I’ve personally made in the past. And I’ve made every mistake in the book.

1. Be genuinely interested in your employees.

Try to figure out what your employees want in life. You need to have a sincere curiosity for the people working for you and how you can serve them better. I’ve started several businesses, and the truth is that the life of an entrepreneur is very stressful. The average net margin of a company in the U.S. is between 5 percent and 8 percent, meaning 5 to 8 cents of profit for each dollar. That’s not a lot of money for a small or medium-sized business. Entrepreneurs expect their employees to innately understand this. But the truth is that most employees don’t understand this, and they probably shouldn’t. It’s better to turn the tables around, and try to understand their world and priorities. I wish I did this more when I was starting out. It would have cut my level of stress and improved my ability to lead people.

2. Let employees know how they’re doing.

Quantify what success is for your employees so that they know whether they’re winning or losing. People have an inherent need to know when they’re doing well. Here’s an example from my personal experience. My sons attended a school that didn’t give out grades. One day, my youngest son came to me, unprovoked, and announced he didn’t want to go there anymore because he “wanted to know how he was doing.” He was only in the 5th grade. People want to know if they’re doing well in life or not. It’s part of human nature. It’s always a good idea to have very specific goals for employees and to have deadlines in place.

3. Take your management responsibilities seriously.

Effective management is a discipline and a skill. In fact, being a “good boss” is a totally separate job from the rest of your day-to-day responsibilities as an entrepreneur. Think of it as a craft. You need to seriously work at it in order to perform the role effectively. This is another major mistake that I made when I was starting out. I thought my role was starting a business and serving customers and getting the products right. I didn’t really consider that I was a boss (or that I had to be one). I thought of myself as an entrepreneur. This is very hard to explain, but it is crucial to being an effective manager.

4. Work with compatible people

It’s important to know when it's not a good fit between you and the person you’re managing. It’s best to evaluate this in the hiring process, but it can be hard to catch right away. Sometimes you’re in a situation where you’re working with someone, and you’re trying to figure out a way to work productively together, but the two of you are just not compatible. There does need to be a level of chemistry between people who work well together. The worst thing you can do as a boss is to dislike the employees you manage. People know when you don’t like them, and they will not perform for you. Often times, there simply isn’t a match. We have all worked with people with whom we didn’t get along super well. If you run into this situation with an employee who is talented, try to find a way for that person to interface with someone else at the company directly. This requires some judgment on your part.

5. Remember: Employees don’t own the business, you do

You, as the business owner, have the most to gain or lose. Therefore, you are naturally going to care more than your employees do about the success of the company. You’re probably going to out-work them as well. It’s not that they are lazy; they are simply less incentivized than you are. I still make this mistake all the time. It’s easy to develop a patronizing or superior attitude, but the economics of the employer-employee relationship are pretty straightforward. Like most of the pieces of advice on this list, it comes down to putting yourself in your employee’s shoes. Think about it from the other person’s point of view. Obviously, you don’t want to drop standards too much, but you also need to make sure that your expectations are realistic. And it’s not realistic for employees to be as invested in the company’s success as an employer.

A recent survey found that employees who have high satisfaction with their management are much less likely to think about looking for a new job than those with low satisfaction with their management. As in many areas of the country, in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina, where Sageworks is headquartered, competition for great employees is significant. So, when we have a great employee, it’s very important that we do everything we can to keep him or her engaged and happy. Taking an inward look at “the boss” is a great way to start.

#jdmaccounting #beabetterboss #business #success #ilovemyjob

Click on the image to see the trailer

It’s the summer of 1980 and Björn Borg (Sverrir Gudnason) is the top tennis player in the world, dominating the sport both on and off the court. A powerful and rigorously disciplined player, there is only one obstacle in his pursuit of a record-breaking fifth Wimbledon championship: the highly talented but ferociously abrasive young American, John McEnroe (a perfectly cast Shia LaBeouf). With three days until the tournament begins, Borg trains religiously in his lavish Monaco home, aided by his coach and mentor Lennart (Stellan Skarsgård) and girlfriend Mariana (Tuva Novotny). But McEnroe's explosive confidence and wrecking-ball persona continue to infiltrate Borg's ice-cool and normally unshakable temperament. With each man the antithesis of the other, both players delve into their formative memories as the climactic tournament draws near and anticipation reaches fever pitch. Visceral and breathlessly tense, the match itself - regarded as one of the greatest of all time - would mark the pinnacle of the ‘Fire and Ice’ rivalry between Borg and McEnroe; an exhilarating battle of personalities that set the world of tennis alight. Borg vs McEnroe opens in cinemas nationwide on 22 September.

#BjörnBorg #JohnMcEnroe #tennis #Wimbledon #sport #jdmaccounting #movie

Goals are a popular topic in any conversation regarding growth, change or success. The reason goals are imperative to our growth is because they organise us. Goals bring us a sense of psychological stability, purpose and direction.

The most powerful goal-vampires to rob of us success are not other people, they are our own fears and doubts. These psychological predators are powerful enough to keep many of us from taking action, and we end up living as dreamers rather than doers. To achieve the growth, success and change we desire, we must become people we can respect and depend upon. We must look our fears in the face, and take action. The more our goals challenge us, the more we grow personally and professionally.

1. Analyze

The best way to decide what we want for our future is to analyze where we are right now. We must learn to estimate what needs to be done, if anything, to help us reach the next tier of our success. It is helpful to put words onto paper and analyze our current situation and ask ourselves if where we are and what we’re doing is enough. This exercise helps us to objectively determine the baseline we’re working from. There will be times where staying baseline is our most advantageous move, and other times we will need to risk change and take action.

2. Define

As human beings, we are born with the natural desire to know more, do more, be more and to explore uncharted territories in our lives. This need for more is what funds our self-development. Those of us who deeply desire to increase our success, dream about making more money, getting in better shape, improving our diet, finding lasting love and becoming more deeply connected to life, love and people. To set achievable, realistic high-level goals, we need to determine how we want to achieve in each important area of our life, and detail the steps we need to take to be successful. The less defined our goals, the less direction, commitment and focus we will have when undertaking them. We must define our goals, shine them up, and then take well-planned, strategic action.

3. Estimate

A great way to avoid feeling overwhelmed by the goals we set is to prioritize them from urgent to less urgent on our mental runway. The more we chunk-things-down for our brain, the less overwhelm we experience which helps keep self-doubt and negative self-talk at bay.

Urgent goals are those that require immediate attention. We must achieve these goals first and work back from there. As we meet each urgent goal, we are in tandem, meeting the smaller that build our longer-term goals. If we come face-to-face with a goal we are afraid to fly and we stall we back up our runway; therefore, it is important to put time estimates, rather than specific dates of achievement, around our goals.

We may find some of our fears are valid, letting us know we can’t fly a certain goal because something about the goal is in mechanical failure. When we use time estimates, we allow for the possibility of unknown factors to occur, which keeps us from feeling like a failure when we do not meet a goal on the exact date initially chosen.

4. Accountability

It is important to share our goals with another person. For this reason, having a mentor or a business coach is a great investment. One of the most significant things a coach adds is they keep us accountable. They give us someone to answer to. Another person’s view into our life gives us a new level of objectivity on what needs reprioritizing, further planning, and which goals are ready to take flight.

When we have to factor in the unknowns, we are always more resilient and confident when we have a coach emotionally supporting us. Bottom line, when we have someone to answer to we naturally put more teeth into what we’re trying to achieve.

5. Contentment

Every goal that takes off from our runway has a period of flight time before it lands. Waiting to see how things land is always challenging when we are eager to see results. Wanting results coupled with having to wait for them can create impatience and lead to the development of an unpleasant, frustrated and disgruntled attitude.

Many things in life take longer than we want or expect. It is what it is. Once a goal takes off, we must learn to let go. Once a goal is in flight it is no longer under our direct control. The most effective way to come through the waiting period is to scale back and focus on all the good in our lives at this very moment and find contentment.

6. Learn

When a goal takes off and it doesn’t go the way we had hoped, we must take the perception that we didn’t lose, we learned. We must go back to the drawing board and start the goal-setting process over again.

Failure helps us see the exact elements of the goal in need of refinement and improvement. So, we must refine, improve and launch the goal again. On another note, we may find a goal of ours didn’t work because it actually wasn’t the direction we were supposed to take. If it wasn’t the direction for us, then we must recalibrate and redefine our direction with a brand-new set of goals. Goals, approached in this way, are effective and successful because whether a goal works or not, it becomes a win/win not a win/lose process. When goals are approached as learning experiences they help us grow and mature as much as they help us succeed and increase our income.

7. Start again

We have more choices available to us after a failure than at any other time because we have a blank slate to start from. If an important goal of ours has a crash-landing, we must get knee-deep in the rubble, analyze what failed, upgrade the goal and put it back on our runway. Further, we must not operate with only one goal on our runway. If we have a failure and need time to rebuild that goal, we can focus on the next goal in line and prepare that goal to take flight.

here is no such thing as a failure if we refuse to give up. There is no end to goal-setting because we can start again as many times as we choose. If we achieve all the goals on our runway, we must explore new directions, and define new goals that will take us towards new and unexplored territory in our lives.

In reality, goals take time. Nothing in life usually goes exactly as planned, so goal-setting requires patience, accountability and flexibility. Our goals are the expression of all the things we dream about for our life. We are 100 percent capable of achieving what we desire. What success comes down to is Grit. As the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz says, “If you stay on the merry-go-round long enough, you’re bound to catch the brass ring.”

#goals #growth #accounting #jdmaccounting #planning #future #risk #achieve #success

Don't miss out! Take the kids to the EKKA this weekend! They will love you for it.

#EKKA2017 #jdmaccounting #accountant #holiday #kids #agriculture

John asks his wife, Mary, what she wants to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. “Would you like a new Mink Coat?” he asks. “Not really,” says Mary. “Well how about a new Mercedes sports car?” says John. “No,” she responds. “What about a new vacation home in the country?” he suggests. She again rejects his offer with a, “No thanks.” Frustrated he finally asks, “Well what would you like for your anniversary?” “John, I’d like a divorce,” answers Mary. John thinks for a moment and replies “Sorry dear, I wasn’t planning to spend that much.”

#wife #jokes #divorce #anniversary #wedding #accountant

Different phases of sleep affect how your brain processes information.

We all know that sleep can help you with focus and health. But did you know why?

A new study out of Paris says different phases of sleep are instrumental both to helping your brain retain information, but also dispose of it.

The researchers had 28 participants listen to a series of sounds while they were asleep and hooked up to machines that monitored their brain waves.

They looked at the effects of three specific phases of sleep -- rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, light non-REM (NREM) sleep, and deep NREM sleep.

When the participants woke up, they were given a series of tests to see how well they recognised the sounds that they had been played.

They researchers found that if they had heard the noises during REM or light NREM sleep, they were more likely to recall what they had heard than if they had been played the sounds during deep NREM sleep. But it was also harder for them to re-learn those sequences than it was to retain new sounds when they were awake.

The researchers explained in their findings that this was an early experiment that could lend itself to a better understanding of how we learn.

"Understanding why both REM sleep and light NREM sleep favour learning while deep NREM sleep suppresses it could provide a unified view of the impact of sleep on memory formation," they wrote in the study.

Ultimately, it seems that if you aren't getting a good night's sleep, you're not allowing your brain the fully process all of the information that you get in a given day.

Do yourself a favour, get the full eight hours and let your mind decompress.

#jdmaccounting #sleep #brainpower #energy #workbetter #accountant #accounting

Nine out of 10 businesses fail within three years. Don't be one of them.

The odds of your startup being around three years from now are not good.

Statistics show that about nine of every 10 new businesses fail that quickly. Often, it isn’t from a lack of hard work or a great idea. The real downfall is a lack of discipline where it counts. Too often the basics -- knowing your market, having enough cash, establishing a healthy corporate culture -- are dumped into the "hope and pray" bucket.

This is the folly of failure. A marketing strategist I know likes to put the concept in mathematical format: P(s) = 1 – P(f)

This reads that the probability of success equals one minus the probability of failure. The smaller you make the right side of the equation, the more you reduce the probability of failure and the more likely you are to succeed.

CarMax -- and their now deceased parent Circuit City -- were built on this concept. Both these retailers analyzed what people hated about buying used cars and household appliances and removed these barriers from their operations. They reduced the probability of failing to sell their products.

Legs

Your product or business idea must have legs. It must have enough broad market appeal to last longer than the third year. Why? Markets change, and all products eventually lose favor. While your first product is hot, you need to be designing your next product. But if your second invention isn’t ready before your market changes, your cash flow will fall and take your R&D budget with it.

Market knowledge

Knowledge is power, and markets make you money. So not knowing your market as well as it can be known is unprofitable. Since R&D, marketing and sales are expensive, every extra bit of market knowledge reduces the amount of money you waste in these activities.

Plan your defense

Your business plan is both offense -- marching into market territory, attacking competitors -- and defense. Most startups only look to offense. You must defend your ground against business cycles, market changes, inevitable law suits and more. One factor in reducing the probability of failure is to watch for attackers and prepare your defenses.

Be confident

The better you prepare, the more confident you can be, and confidence is key to leadership. Nobody follows a cowardly general into battle, and employees will not strive to succeed when the CEO lacks courage. Your preparation will also lead to better business practices and a wisely run outfit, which emboldens employees.

Get help

Even the largest corporations recruit experts. You need mentors to help make smart choices for where your expertise has limits. Never be afraid to ask for help. Most mentors are generous with their time and their guidance. They can save you from mistakes, both minor and critical.

Do whatever it takes

Tenacity and optimism are closely linked. Both lead to the constant, energetic striving that underlies successful businesses. You will encounter speed bumps and roadblocks, but you must persevere and overcome them. Many businesses fail because the founders simply quit when they could have punched through.

The reason why Micrel, the semiconductor company I founded and led for 37 profitable years (36 on a GAAP basis), thrived in the horrendously cyclic chip business is that we did the tough things first. And that is why Tough Things First is the title of my book covering the management and leadership that went into Micrel. Doing things that seem hard or boring is exactly what builds the foundation that so many businesses fail to lay.

#accountant #finance #future #customer #therightadvice #roi #competition #accounting #startup