Have you ever found yourself in a risky situation?
There is a risk in creating a business. Most business owners have asked themselves;
Having great bookkeeping helps enable business owners to not have to worry. There are numerous methods to monitor and analyse how your business is doing via marketing, accounts, and branding.
If you have ever taken a few too many risks, here’s some do’s and don’ts from JRMA to help get your business out of a difficult situation.
| Don't | Do |
|---|---|
| Bury your head in the sand and hope | Face the facts and deal with them |
| Bottle up your worries | Talk to someone with experience of distressed businesses |
| Look for sympathy | Listen to suggestions |
| Focus on sales or profit | Focus on cashflow. Most businesses fail because they run out of cash |
| Repeat the same mistake twice | Make a Plan A and be ready with a Plan B if Plan A doesn’t work |
| Worry about the things that you cannot control eg interest rates, the weather, government policy | Focus on the things that you can control eg your levels of spending & borrowing, who you employ, your sales prices, your product ranges |
As the owner of the business, it’s very easy to get wrapped up in the negatives, in fear of losing the business. This is why there are separate teams that do specialized tasks, rather than you having to worry about every feature of the business. Even if your business is small, talk to someone externally for advice on marketing, the product/service or an accountant*.
Rejecting new ideas, in fear of creating a risk for the business, is a risk in and of itself. You could be rejecting brilliant ideas that may help your business. Instead, sit down, write the pros and cons of an idea, and look at it analytically. How would this decision impact my business? What are the long-term positive or negative effects of this?
This is especially important when making big impulse decisions or changing internal business structures. Without this, you might decide that you’ll regret it and make annoying changes to revert back to what it was. Even if it’s a sticky note on your desk, for you to look back at constantly, it will help remind you.
If you’re just starting a business, you will need to do a lot of research. Thankfully, we have compiled a Business Start Up Checklist, which has the legal requirements of a business, how your business will work, and what to think about when making a successful and stable business.
We also have some quick tips and tricks on setting up the business, making it easier for you to produce your passion into a product or service. You may not even have thought about some of the tips we listed.
Our Managing Director, Judith has the work nickname ‘Captain Cash’, because she is obsessed with monitoring cashflow! At JRMA, we are advocates of the 13-week cashflow forecast, which helps predict business risk. It is a simple & effective tool that helps to emphasize the peaks and troughs in the business’s cashflow to enable corrective action to be taken before things get too difficult.
If you want to hear more and to talk to a friendly accountant who won’t judge you if you are ever in a sticky situation, please drop us a message or ring our offices here.
