Six Things You Can Learn From Our Growing Business

Growing a business isn't easy. And it doesn't happen overnight. CEO Dominique Antarakis (@dantarakis) and COO Maureen Shelley (@MaureenShelley) share the six things they've learned from growing their small business, The Copy Collective. From the people, the clients and the inspiring work - they're privileged to do what they do... and they want to thank YOU for making 2014 a great one.

Number 6. It takes about two years to become an overnight success.

That may sound like a funny thing to say but success in business (which I’m equating to profitability, year-on-year growth, solid reputation and repeat business) takes time. You can be a very smart single operator – like my business partner Dominique was before I bought into The Copy Collective – but that in itself doesn’t make a successful business. There is a different skill set you need to develop and we’ve both been working hard to improve our existing skills and gain more in order to keep growing our business.

Business is hard. It takes commitment, communication, cooperation and compromise. If you are in business, expect that laying the foundations for all of those “C” words will take some time to pay off. In my experience, it’s about two years.

Number 5. Pay yourself – something

In 2012, when I joined The Copy Collective full time, we decided right away that we would pay ourselves wages. We weren’t going to take drawings, we weren’t going to see what was left at the end of each month and take that – we set a wage and we paid it. Now, we could probably both earn more if we went and worked for someone else but we’re growing a business and there is tremendous satisfaction in that. We can now see – after a lot of hard slog – that next year that we will be able to pay ourselves more and maybe even have a tax problem.

I contrast this to other business owners I know who take drawings, not wages, who don’t have a regular amount that they can rely on (even a small regular amount) each week or fortnight. I see them getting resentful about all the effort they put into their business. I see them making silly decisions and taking too much money out because they “deserve” it. I’m so grateful to our business mentor Jon Isaacs who has provided steady counsel along the way. Paying ourselves was one thing he advised.

Number 4. Keep your accounts up to date

I had a long chat with a client this year who was about $7000 behind in payments to us, which was unusual for them. The client acknowledged the debt, said that there wasn’t an issue with paying it but they just hadn’t had time to “do the books”. “The books” were an Excel spreadsheet and it took about three days of this client’s time to “do the books” each month. Business had been good and they hadn’t had time to sit down with Excel and pay suppliers like us. I advised them to use Xero, a subscription accounting system developed by some very smart Kiwis.

We used to have an accountant-run system, which was great until we wanted to know how we were doing. We had to ask for monthly reports to be run, to get P&Ls, for our BAS (and if you don’t know what these acronyms are – you need to know, so go find out) and pretty much anything else. This system didn’t cover payroll, didn’t include super and cost about $400 a month. Xero costs us $60 a month and we can run any report we want, any time we want and we have absolute transparency about our cash flow, profitability and who we owe money to and how much.

Number 3. Automate, automate

We used to have someone chase our debtors and it took about two to three hours (at least) a week for them to chase up late payers. We subscribed to Debtor Daddy for $15 a month and that person now has a lot more time to focus on other things as the software automatically sends reminders to clients as their bills become overdue. We also connected Debtor Daddy to Xero and Xero to Salesforce (our CRM) and this year we’ve installed Breadwinner to bring all that financial data into Salesforce. We can now see who our biggest clients are, who our most profitable clients are, which clients take up most of our time, and which clients take up most time and return the least profit. Automation is transforming our business and enabling us to serve our best clients better with the same number of staff, and to look after our less-profitable clients too.

Number 2. Keep learning

We’ve all attended extensive training and development conferences, workshops, seminars, webinars and even signed up for email courses this year. We’ve found new ways of doing old things and found some new things to do along the way. By constantly learning, we’re improving our skills all the time and are better able to focus on our customers.

Number 1. Cut yourself some slack

I was so heartened to hear Mike Cannon-Brookes of Atlassian say at the Start-Up Conference, earlier in the year, that some days he broke every rule in the business play book and nothing went right. He said that he would say the wrong thing in meetings, do the wrong things in the office, not pay attention when he should and pay attention to things that weren’t his concern. He said he would go home thinking “what an idiot”. Then he’d go back to work the next day and somehow, things would be better and the business survived. It was great to hear Mike say that because some days I just can’t seem to get anything right. Those days are hard but it’s good to know that even very successful entrepreneurs like Mike Cannon-Brookes have those days – and he’s got a $1 billion business.

One more thing – enjoy your successes. We’ve enjoyed some great success during the past 12 months thanks to our amazing team – our staff and our talented writers – and thanks to our exceptional clients. We’re privileged to work with some of the greatest organisations in the country – people who are literally working to save the planet, and make it a better place for us all.

Dominique and I would like to thank everyone at The Copy Collective for a mighty year. We look forward to seeing you and hearing from you next year. May the joy and peace of the season be with you, your family and friends.

How to ask the right questions to deal with dodgy copy briefs

The Copy Collective’s Mr Romance, Jim Butcher, delves into the world of dodgy briefs and hands out some helpful suggestions for navigating your way through.

 

Dealing with dodgy briefs (Pic source: Hoopla)

There’s nothing worse than those cold sweats from fretting over a brief to which you just can’t respond. You’ve spent way too long pondering the job but you still can’t get into the swing of it.

Behind the brief

This could be because the brief is inadequate. It happens frequently; so don’t be too surprised. And there are many reasons for it:

• Perhaps there was more than one person working on the brief. Too many cooks spoiling the broth and all that.
• For some, creating a watertight brief isn’t important and they just want it off their desks, so what you’ve received could just be a bit of a palm-off.
• This might be the person’s first brief, you never know.

Whatever the reason, don’t worry. As long as you’ve caught this early enough, there are things you can do. 

Asking the right questions 
As you read through your brief, which you should do thoroughly as soon as you can, make sure the following questions are answered. If they’re not, then ask the client:

• Audience - who are you writing for?
• Tone - does this need a conversational tone? Is it a report or an emotive piece?
• Purpose - is this going to be a letter asking for donations? A blog post? A promotion or sales pitch?
• Additional material - is there reference material that hasn’t been provided that may support the information that is attached? Make sure you ask for all relevant material.

If there is a lot of background information, it’s OK to ask for direction on to the specific focus of the piece. Sometimes a client will just give you everything, which is great. But trawling through a 900-page document for a 300-word piece isn’t going to work for you or the client. 

Getting the job done 

Ask your questions and plan to ask as many as you need to at once. By planning, you will save your client time on separate phone calls or emails. And if you’re still not clear, ask again.
Your client won’t mind fielding your questions. Deep down, most people know when they’ve written a brief that may be missing the mark. 

Tell us your tricks

So,what do you do if the brief you’ve received isn’t up to scratch? Comment away...

What you can learn from someone else's business disaster

A disaster for one suburban cafe is a learning opportunity for all small businesses, writes Maureen Shelley.

In leafy Lindfield, the day started well for Tablespoon cafe owner Scott. Breakfast business was brisk and the full complement of about 10 staff had turned up and were soon hard at work serving soft-boiled eggs with Turkish toast soldiers and pots of Earl Grey tea to anyone that asked.

Lindfield is on Sydney's leafy North Shore

Tablespoon is in Tryon Road, Lindfield on Sydney's North Shore. It's popular with business types, mums and kids and the grey-haired stay-at-homes who populate the area.
In the adjoining street Downer EDI were carrying out roadworks for Ku-Ring-Gai Council. The hum of machinery could be heard in the cafe but not at an uncomfortable level.
As The Copy Collective's COO I (Maureen Shelley) was hosting a small business MeetUp in the cafe, as I do every month. One of the attendees noticed the staff packing the chairs in the outside dining area.
A river of comment rippled through the restaurant and people started asking: "What's going on?"
In Tryon Road, the road workers had hit a Sydney Water main with their machinery and it had burst. The cafe had no water. There was no indication of when there would be water and Scott had decided to cut his losses and close early - just 2 1/2 hours into the day.
"We have no water," a waiter told the MeetUp members. "We can't do anything without water."
Another staff member went around offering the remaining diners the freshly-cooked scones to take home for free. Business owner Scott had told all the staff that they would be going home - on full pay, of course, because they hadn't any notice that they wouldn't be needed for a full shift.

Lindfield shopping village, corner of Tryon Rd

Not understanding that the water being turned off was accidental rather than planned, Scott was asked if he'd been given notice of the shut down.
"No," he said, "And none of the people in the street knows when the water will be back on.
"No one can tell me anything. I can't run the business like this."
He said that he did have "business disruption insurance" and that he'd be seeing if he could make a claim.
Tablespoon is open 7am to 5pm most days and operates seven days a week.
One customer (an experienced marketing strategist) estimated that, apart from loss of business revenue and reputation, the restaurant would have had to have paid $3,000 in wages for staff to go home and have a swim. Then there was the food that couldn't be kept for another day - such as the scones being handed around -  and the losses were starting to mount up.
No one can prevent these things - road workers burst water mains, heat waves keep people home, computers crash - random events can impact on any small business.
So, apart from having business disruption insurance like sensible Scott, what can you do to minimise the damage?

Sign at Tablespoon 16 January 2014

1. Have a plan
Thinking about the risks to your business before they happen can help. You may not need to ensure that your executives fly on different planes every time but would it hurt to implement it as a strategy?
2. Make sure everyone knows what the plan is
How often has your business paid expensive consultants to develop a business plan and then it has lain around collecting dust? Make the plan short and relevant. Keep it simple - maybe just 10 bullet points that address the most likely things that could hit your business - like computers crashing, the internet being down, the phones being cut off. Simple stuff but can you operate without them?
3. Take out the insurance and pay the premium
If disaster does strike, knowing that you have insurance to cover it can make the difference between your business surviving or going through a really tough time.
4. Look on the bright side - it might be a good thing
I spoke to a business owner who had a fire that destroyed her business premises. They had good insurance cover and she said to me: "It's actually quite scary how well we did out of the fire. Everyone was very sympathetic, our business was back up and running within six weeks, we were able to fix all the things that were wrong with the previous processing plant and the insurance company money really saved the day."