4 Sales Smart Hacks – Get more sales with less hours!

I am sure you have heard of the saying “work smarter, not harder” from either a friend or colleague.

But how is a question we all ask especially – when we get caught up working for many hours in our busy working environment and yet hitting the targets we want.

Well we asked the same question – and here is the 4 hacks which enabled us to multiply our own sales while saving time!

 

Put Technology to Work for You

Allow the advance of technology work FOR you instead of work with you. Tech tools such as Zoho CRM brings all of your conversations into one place across email, social media and in person. Google Analytics helps to measure advertising ROI from your online marketing efforts.

TQ Prospector can automate the manual process of you Googling for contacts and emails – instead of searching multiple sites and copy-pasting emails one-by-one, you can automatically add every email found in multiple sites and export it to Excel in seconds! What’s more, we have a free trial campaign now! Get 200 searches and thousands of emails for free here now!

There are also many other tools out that which can help to automate your daily to-dos such as If This Then That (IFTTT) which you can use to greatly reduce the daily grind of tasks you may have. But what about tasks that only you or your team can do? Read on further!

 

Focus on Most Important Tasks (MITs)

The idea behind Most Important Tasks is to give an importance to certain tasks in the to-do list. We often tend to complete the easy and less important to-dos instead of doing the harder tasks first. However, this action doesn’t benefit anyone at work at all.

We are just simply running away from the tedious task that requires more attention and effort. A way to combat this issue is to focus on simply checking off tasks in the to-do list might lead to the likelihood for procrastination.

To renew your focus on what’s important, spend a few minutes of your morning to choose 1-3 MITs and completing it by the end of the day, no matter what.

 

Type A Breakfast

You are probably thinking about having breakfast at work? Yes, you are absolutely correct! Type A Breakfast is about getting a whole day’s work done in 2 hours (along with having your breakfast if you want to). I know this sounds insane but this method actually works!

How does this work? You have to set a list of 6 tasks that will usually take up your entire workday and get it done in the breakfast. Do ensure that you have all the preparation necessary to actually do the tasks to ensure you are ready for your Type A Breakfast.

Why it helps – No one at work is to have any conversations during the 2 hours and hustle in silence. Regular 15 minutes check-ins also remind you to refocus on your task and speed if necessary. You are also not allowed to use any devices that will cause distraction and disrupt your workflow. You will be surprised to see how much you can accomplish within the given time-frame.

 

Don’t Multitask

People often misinterpret the idea of multitasking, thinking that you can accomplish a lot of things at once. However, whenever you try to multitask, you aren’t actually doing many tasks at once – in fact you are just rapidly switching your focus between those tasks.

As you are switching between tasks, you have to always re-focus and this is extremely inefficient. You might have the tendency to feel overwhelm and stressed out as the deadlines are approaching quickly and you have gotten solid work done.

Therefore, it is best to focus on completing one task at a time. By doing so, you definitely won’t find yourself feeling overwhelmed with the workload!

 

With that said, our key takeaway for you is to focus, focus and more focus – and allow technology to do as much as possible! After all why do the manual work for tasks where machines are faster, cheaper and more accurate than humans! You will find yourself no longer wasting precious time once you start implementing these work smart hacks. What are you waiting for? Work smarter now!

Converting ‘busy-ness’ into businesses – Tips to manage your workload efficiently

 

It’s not astonishing to see that salespeople need more time than ever to keep their schedules in line. Sometimes it is overwhelming by the amount of workload you need to manage daily, some of which doesn’t involve selling: finding resources, managing client relationships, attending business meetings etc.

This could lead to salespeople working overtime trying to do multiple tasks at one go. So, we came up with a few tips to manage your workload efficiently to get you to focus on what matters.

 

Getting your priorities right

It is important to set goals that don’t just put a brass ring in front of you, but a what, why and how. If your goal is to generate 100 new leads, jot down why this matters, what steps you must take to make this happen and how you will go about it.

That way you can be productive and manage your workload effectively since you have gotten your priorities right on which tasks matters more. To put it in simple terms, doing “the right thing, for the right reason, in the right way”

 

Identify your next steps

Knowing your next steps help keep you organizing and it prevents you from side tracking. Make a list and figuring out which steps to prioritise first. Then you just work you way down the list, doing the high important things before the lesser important things.

By doing this, you will not be overwhelmed with the amount of workload that has to be done and you can focus on completing the workload that is most urgent.

 

Using the right tools for efficiency

Salespeople can get geeked out over technology and tools that can help them perform more efficiently. or may be get intimidated by the number of options available and technical complexity to set up. Fret no more, we will introduce you some tools that will help you get your efficiency level up and going without needing to read a manual!

 

TQ Prospector – An extension that helps to source for contacts on any website and add each contact to a list and export it to an Excel file.

Dropbox for Business – A secure file sharing and storage tool that provides a central storage location and collaboration platform for your business files.

Prezi – Cloud-based presentation software that creates interactive presentations that include an engaging “zooming” feature and collaboration functionality that allows multiple users to work on presentations together.

Trello – A productivity tool that uses boards, lists, and cards for organizing and prioritizing.

Insightly – Cloud-based customer relationship management and project management tools for small businesses.

Manage your workload now!

 

Utilizing your ‘one-on-one’ time with your manager

Utilizing your managers to get the key resources you need to excel to manage your workload efficiently doesn’t mean you are outsmarting your boss. In fact, sales managers should spend recurring one-on-one time with their sales representatives. This allows the sales representatives to clear off any questions and any help or guidance needed.

 

Looking for the sweet spot

Once you have identified your clients, pursuit only those prospects that fit into your sweet spot. With that, this allows you to stick within the ‘business parameters’ and focus on invest your time and effort on these prospects, making your workload much more efficient and productive.

Eliminate The Biggest Headache In Email Marketing

Email marketing is no longer what it used to be. It has a low conversion rate, which means that we need to have a huge email list to make up for the small percentage and drive sales.

Finding prospects is also incredibly tedious. Before I created my tool, there were generally 3 ways to find prospects:

  1. Networking events
  2. Email lists
  3. Manual search on Google

 

Networking Events

To build our network, we go to conferences, trade shows, networking lunches, business networking events and seminars. There, we hope to find people who are interested in our product. And usually we do. These events tend to give us a higher chance to close a deal, but they are very expensive and time-consuming.

 

Email Lists

The alternative to networking events is to buy email lists. However, email lists also come with their own problems.

  • They are ridiculously overpriced
  • They are obsolete or completely incorrect (Out of 10,000 emails, at least 6,000 bounce because they are no longer in use.)
  • These emails are so flooded with emails from hundreds if not thousands of people that the receivers are either stop bothering with unknown emails or have implemented strong filters that auto-junk emails

 

THE BIGGEST HEADACHE

The biggest headache in email marketing is COST. For anyone who has tried to find email leads without burning cash, you probably tried to manually search for emails on Google. You search for your industry and click on every single search result and scroll through the chunk of text to find an email address. But that is not effective.

I used to source for emails manually from Google, which took me 4 hours to get 50 emails. But now, I take 4 minutes to get 50 emails.

Now that I have eliminated the entire process, I save over 100 hours to focus on important tasks like meeting prospects and clients.

To explain without the technical details, I built a tool that extracts every single email within a single Google Search.

 

So here is how it works. For example, if I search “Property Agency Singapore”, I will do this:

If I want to manually select results to add, I click:

This tool is completely FREE for you to use.

 

We originally built this tool to recruit >40,000 vendors for our e-procurement marketplace. But now we are making it available for everyone. If you do sales or merchant acquisition, this tool is for you. Seeing is believing. Experience the difference HERE.

 

ThunderQuote is the most comprehensive business services portal in Singapore, Australia and ASEAN , where hundreds of thousands of dollars of procurement contracts are sourced every month by major companies like Singapore Press Holdings, National Trade Union Congress and more.

How To Reduce Unsubscribers For Your Email Marketing

When people unsubscribe from our email marketing, it can be extremely painful and demotivating. It feels like a form of rejection, especially when you truly believe in the value you provide to people and they just don’t see it.

But that is the reality of sales and marketing. You and I do not meet EVERYONE’s needs. We have a target group of prospects and we want to capture as much market share as possible. Sometimes it takes a longer process of persuading, but getting a “no” does not really mean “no”. It just means “not now, maybe later.”

Understanding why your prospects unsubscribe is important to learning how to keep them on your mailing list. I have compiled some ideas for you to refine your email marketing strategy and keep your subscribers engaged.

 

State Your Objectives Clearly

It is not enough to simply say “sign up for our newsletter.” What are your subscribers going to get out of it? You need to be very clear about what you are offering, otherwise you will have mismatched expectations or worse people feel like you are just spamming them.

 

Segment Your Subscribers

Do your subscribers only want to learn about a particular topic or product out of an entire range you cover? Do varying demographics and geographies affect your readers’ expectations? How committed are your customers? Are they loyal, sceptical, deal finders or just window shoppers? Segment your email list by meaningful categories.

 

Test Email Frequency

Do your subscribers appreciate daily, weekly or monthly updates? It depends on the industry and value you are offering. Which day of the week do you receive a higher open-rate and conversion rate? Test that too.

 

Test Subject Lines

Do clickbait subject lines work well? Or do they frustrate your readers? I wrote a full-length article about the new expectations of email marketing that your readers never told you. Hope it is useful.

 

Be Personal

Rather than going “Hey friend” or worse still “Dear valued subscriber”, use your subscriber’s name! Collect names along with emails. A simple guideline is to mention your subscriber’s name once in every paragraph or so.

 

Offer Real Value

Give useful and relevant information that value-adds to your readers. Give offers, discounts and promotions exclusively to subscribers to make them feel appreciated.

 

Use Creative Formatting

Get un-boring. Refresh your style continually for visual appeal.

 

Optimise For Mobile

Why are we still saying this? Most of us read emails on mobile, so if you haven’t already considered this step, please do it. It will really help you to engage >70% of your audience reading on mobile.

 

OH NOOO! THEY STILL UNSUBSCRIBE!

This is inevitable. Rejections are a harsh reality. BUT we can do our best to minimise unsubscribes. The following techniques can help you save some prospects from flying out of your nest.

 

Allow More Options

You need to get out of the mindset that subscription is binary, either “Subscribe” or “Unsubscribe”. Think of it as a full spectrum. Your subscribers have different levels of relationships with you, and it is important to treat them differently to minimise total “unsubscribes”.

The following Email Subscriber Relationship Spectrum was developed by ThunderQuote inhouse to help us with relationship management.

 

Recognise Unsubscribe Trends

You need to be sensitive to patterns especially when they cause people to unsubscribe from your newsletter. Often it is clickbait subject lines, routine and ugly formats and poor value offered. Pay special attention to the feedback you get.

 

Building relationships with your subscribers is not easy, but we can definitely use some of these ideas to improve and give subscribers what they really need.

BONUS: We built a FREE tool that helps you find 200 email leads in 10 minutes. If you want to supercharge your email marketing campaign, click on this link.

 

ThunderQuote is the most comprehensive business services portal in Singapore, Australia and ASEAN , where hundreds of thousands of dollars of procurement contracts are sourced every month by major companies like Singapore Press Holdings, National Trade Union Congress and more.

21 Ways To Get Your First 100 Customers

Starting out is always the hardest. When you are new in the market, you need to build your startup brand awareness and know how to get customers to trust you before they are willing to buy your product. If you are struggling with how to get your first 100 customers, you are not alone. We entrepreneurs know the difficulty. Here are 21 proven strategies to build your brand and get your first 100 customers.

 

Start with Friends and Family

When you are a new entrepreneur with a startup, perhaps you are a bit embarrassed to let your loved ones know that you are entering a business venture. Look in the mirror. There’s an entrepreneur in you. Own it. Share with your family and friends. Hold a party to celebrate your new journey and pitch to them. You will be amazed how supportive your loved ones are and how much they adore your bravery. Your first customers may be people you know very well.

 

Get to Friends of Friends

Once you have let all your loved ones know the value of your business, ask for a favour.  Ask them to refer your business to their friends. That way, you will have already reached your 2nd degree contacts to know your startup. Ask them to share a social media post, a hashtag, a flyer or your website. Who knows, perhaps your friends’ friends would spread the word.

 

Start an Email Marketing Campaign

You need to quickly get publicity for your small business beyond your immediate circle. You need to know how to get customers online. To start an email marketing campaigns, I suggest that you first begin with 50,000 emails. I don’t suggest that you buy email lists. They are super overpriced and 50% or more of the emails are outdated.

At the same time, you don’t want to manually search websites for emails. If I did that, I would take 4 hours to find 50 emails. I recommend that you use TQ Prospector. It helped me find 50 emails in 4 minutes. It automates the entire lead generation process for you and it’s absolutely free for your first 200 emails! There’s nothing to lose except 200 potential customers if you don’t give it a shot!

 

Blog, Blog, Blog

At first you may be wondering how blogging can help you get customers in a short time. The truth is that blogging is useful to show to the world that you are an expert in your field. Your knowledge in your domain will help others understand what you do and respect you as a thought leader. This is especially important to build credibility as a startup founder. Learn Search Engine Optimisation to maximise your reach. Use keywords that people normally search on Google. That way, your blog post will appear on the front page of the Google search results and you get free traffic to your website.

 

Create a Newsletter

Do you remember moving your mouse out of the webpage and suddenly a pop-up on the screen appears? What does it offer? A free toolkit? An ebook? A newsletter? A free trial? Exactly. Do that. Copy best practices and this will supercharge your startup’s growth.This will generate leads for your email marketing campaign to reach your initial customers.

 

Answer Quora

A great way to directly meet your potential customers’ needs is to find relevant questions on Quora to answer. Often people ask questions that they need an expert to advice on. Treat Quora like a blog. Share your expertise and build connections with a global audience. This will bring great long-term awareness to your startup.

 

Maximise Facebook

Create a Facebook page and post your blog content. I also suggest that you create a “like-and-share” contest to incentivise your fans to share your content with the rest of the world. Building a following on Facebook is quite tricky nowadays. You may need paid adverts to give your startup brand the awareness it needs.

 

Tweet in Droves

Hashtag-ing is most popular on Twitter and it is an amazing technique to get your brand in front of a relevant audience. I recommend tweeting 10-17 times a day. Create your own hashtag and use other common hashtags also. How do you get your brand in front of potential customers? Ride on viral hashtags to drive traffic to your Twitter account. Direct your followers to your startup website through images and blog posts.

 

Pin It on Pinterest

Pinterest is a visual blog. Convert all your blog posts into infographics and post them onto Pinterest regularly. When people click on your image, link them to your website. Honestly I find myself more inclined to read an infographic than a blog post. So it is also prudent to post your infographics in your blog too.

 

Link Up on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is your digital CV. Everything you share and do on LinkedIn will determine the success or failure of your business. Be professional. People go to LinkedIn like they go for a business networking event rather than a birthday party. Share valuable educational content and not cat pictures. Advertising on LinkedIn is definitely an effective way to generate solid leads and get your first 100 customers.

 

Write on Reddit

How do I describe Reddit? It is a discussion page for everything under the sun, and that includes discussing your startup business. Getting in relevant discussions and providing insights will definitely provide you with a good reputation as a passionate leader in your industry and bring you your first 100 customers. Reddit has a cult following that is smaller than other social media platforms, but if you stay committed to the platform, you will reap a handsome number of leads.

 

Contribute to Forums

There are online forums for everything. They are decentralised public discussion pages that passionate enthusiasts gather around. These forums tend to be less formal. So it is perfectly fine to offer the lighter side of your startup business. But people on these forums know their stuff. So they appreciate truly valuable insights that have educational value.

 

Connect with Your Subscribers

Your subscribers are fans, regardless of which social media platform they follow you from. They expect to be related to as friends. So it pays to interact with them over social media. Your aim shouldn’t be to figure out how to get them to become customers, but rather how to add value to them. It helps you build rapport, learn their needs, build trust and get referrals from them. Actually help them even if it is beyond your scope. Refer them to people who can help them.

 

Call to Action

You need to link every Social Media account, blog and print adverts to a single landing page. That landing page needs to be optimised to reduce barriers to purchasing your product. You should only have 1 button “Try for Free”, “Subscribe”, “Download Now” etc. Any other button on your landing page is a distraction. Remember that your landing page has 1 sole purpose, which is to convert your committed fans into your first 100 customers. Don’t ever forget that.

 

Go to Networking Events

Conferences, book launches, breakfast clubs, round tables, and talks are great places to meet like-minded people. Always have an elevator pitch in mind to stimulate a conversation about what your startup has to offer. Prepare name cards, promo codes, discount vouchers and flyers to give away. See my article about 12 money saving tips for start-ups for ideas about how to go for these events for free.

 

Dish out Deals and Discounts

Who doesn’t love a $10 voucher? Personally, once I receive one, I want to make the most of the voucher. I will spend just to use it. It’s a psychological tactic. The loss aversion I feel from not using a voucher makes me buy. So use that to your advantage (just don’t do it to me). I still want a voucher though.

 

Try for Free

Often software has a free plan and a paid plan. You will use the free plan until you realise that you are addicted to the product and need to use the paid version. For your free plan to work, you need to make sure that you offer enough free stuff for it to be sticky and people actually stay on the free product instead of deleting it. That’s how getting them to become paid customers becomes easier.

 

Get Free Publicity

Start connecting with influential people in your field who can share your startup story on their blogs or magazines. You can cold email them or message them on social media. But the best way to make the emotional connection is through meeting them in person. That means actually going to networking events to meet people. I didn’t say this yet but I’ll say it now. Networking is nerve-wreaking for an introvert like me. I love people, but meeting new people is exhausting. But it is worth it. You will meet new friends, help others and receive help. Being in community is good.

 

Paid Adverts

I generally avoid paying for adverts, unless it is for retargeting. Retargeting is how you get undecided visitors to become customers. Retargeting basically goes like this: a visitor enters your website but decides that he needs time to think about it. The adverts he sees subsequently will be about your website to persuade him that your product is really what he needs. There is a higher chance of getting a sale from him than from randomly placed adverts.

 

Affiliate Marketing

2 is better than 1, and 3 is better than 2. So why not get someone to be your brand ambassador for your startup! Offer your salesperson a commission for each sale to incentivise him to work hard for sales. You could approach bloggers to be affiliate marketers for you too. Then you don’t have to figure our how to get customers on your own. You have a team to synergise and figure out the best strategies together.

 

Fusion Marketing

Find a complementary product to partner and exchange advertisements. Why? That’s because you will benefit from targeting your partner’s network while your partner will benefit from targeting yours. That’s why I say find a “complementary” product, not a “competing” product. Get creative about bartering for publicity.

 

BONUS: Tell your Story

Once you have made it past your first 100 customers, it is time to share your story to inspire other entrepreneurs who want to be like you. How did you end up doing what you are doing? What was the journey like? What were your ups and downs? Frame the story into the Hero’s Journey. Every story has the following elements:

  1. Living ordinarily
  2. The Call to Adventure
  3. Taking the First Step
  4. Trials, Tribulations and Troubles
  5. Meeting the Mentor (or guru)
  6. Confronting Your Biggest Fears
  7. Crippling Despair
  8. Slaying the Dragon
  9. Journey Home
  10. The Heroic Return

 

I hope this article helps you with many ideas find your first 100 customers. It is honestly not easy at the beginning, but that is the life of a startup founder. Entrepreneurs all go through these same problems as you. Keep pressing on and let us know any ideas you have too or surprising methods which worked!

 

ThunderQuote is the most comprehensive business services portal in Singapore, Australia and ASEAN , where hundreds of thousands of dollars of procurement contracts are sourced every month by major companies like Singapore Press Holdings, National Trade Union Congress and more.

10 Ways to Increase Email Marketing Sales

You need a killer strategy for your email marketing campaign. Many mediocre marketing emails do not even get opened because your readers’ expectations have changed. To make full use of this platform, you also need to ensure that you do not fall into the trap of getting into the Promotions Tab.

If you struggle to make sales through your email marketing campaign, you are not alone. Here are email marketing best practices that will maximise your click-through and conversion rate. So let’s dive in. Continue reading “10 Ways to Increase Email Marketing Sales”

12 Money Saving Tips for Start-ups

From our experience, running a business need not cost an arm or a leg. However, we realize that entrepreneurs tend to compartmentalize their personal budgeting away from business budgeting. While it is true that you need to invest a sunk cost to get your business going, you should watch your business spending as much as (or even more closely than) your personal finances.

Here are some proven innovative cost saving ideas to cut costs and stretch your dollar.

 

Follow Procurement Best Practices

It is not enough to simply record your expenses and explain their practical use in the business. You need cost saving ideas to maximize cash flow. Often there are more cost-effective solutions to save money and you need to compare prices before making a purchase. Make it a habit among your team members to source for the most cost-effective solution and presenting their researched options to you before committing to a purchase. But who has time to do all that right, so save yourself the time and hassle and get quotations from ThunderQuote for free.

Just another tip: Assign your most trustworthy and meticulous team member to be in charge of all fund outflows. All proposed expenditure need to be justified to him and there should be no commitment to purchase before his approval, else it’ll be easy to overrun your budget without realising it till the end of the month or worse!

 

Use Free Advertising

There are many free alternatives to paid advertising. Getting paid clicks on social media platforms and Google are targeted and cheaper than the regular billboards, but they may still be expensive for a start-up who needs to cut costs for other business opportunities.

Blogging with good SEO keywording is one way to save money and get free traffic to your website and build your company’s reputation as a thought leader in your industry. Building your repertoire of articles will take a long process, but this is a long-term marketing strategy to build brand awareness.

You can accelerate your web traffic through email marketing and setting up a newsletter. However, buying email lists can be extremely expensive and easily 50% of the emails in the list are outdated. You can create your own email lists, but that will take a very long process. Manually finding 50 emails can take up to 4 hours. You should automate this process for free with TQ Prospector, which extracts 50 emails in 8 minutes. That saves you time to attend to your more important business appointments.

 

Run Your Business from Home

In many countries, a home office is legal and may only require a licence. Take advantage of this flexibility to save your rental and transportation costs. By home office, I also mean working from Starbucks and other cafes at your convenience.

If your business is really successful and your home cannot accommodate your expansion, look for co-working spaces such as Workcentral with all the amenities provided at a cheap cost or incubators like NUS Enterprise which provide free hot-desking spaces are great too! Once again, do your shopping and find the cheapest option that doesn’t burn a hole in your wallet.

 

Go to Conferences for Free

Oh I love this one! Usually conference organizers are understaffed because conferences occur very infrequently. And they tend to hire a lot of part-time working students to shoulder the heavy-lifting for them. Hiring part-time students cost money too! You can help them cut costs through some innovative negotiation.

Here’s what you can offer them: Tell the conference organizer that you have a team of friends who are willing to volunteer their help for free in exchange for participation in the conference. I did this for 6 conferences already, and every one of them were glad to take me in!

And here is the good part: Invite your team and friends for a free learning and networking opportunity in an otherwise expensive conference, at the cost of ushering or doing registration for a short time. You will gain a good standing as being resourceful and generous. So why not?

 

Get Sponsors for Your Own Events

While networking at the events you attend for free, you may meet people who find your services extremely valuable and they may want to sponsor you. I recently attended my friend’s book launch at a Harley Davidson showroom, complete with a sponsored test drive, sponsored catering and sponsored wines. How did he do that? He conveyed the vision for his book in a way that resonated with the vision of his sponsors’ values. His sponsors saw the alignment of vision and decided that sponsoring his book launch is the perfect way to convey their vision to the public. So it is possible! Be creative about getting sponsorship.

 

Buy Refurbished Equipment

You do not always have to buy new equipment if you are not operating your office as a showroom. A refurbished photocopier, cupboard and mini fridge may not look fancy, but they certainly do their job and saves you money. If you work in a co-working space, these may already be provided to you. Otherwise just find a thrift shop, buy in bulk and get a discount.

 

Don’t Hire Full-Time Employees

On the surface, this sounds harsh. But the truth is that you do your entire team a favor in the long-run. Hiring full-time employees can be expensive, and you don’t want a case where you put them out of job if the worst happens. Begin with interns and contract staff to help you with various projects within the business. Your interns will greatly value the experience you offer along with the allowance to pay off their student loans. That helps both you and your interns save money!

If you need a longer-term solution, look for part-time hires. These may be new mothers who need time to look after their kids or university students and other people in a season of transition. Hire a full-time employee only once your start-up has grown enough to need and afford one.

 

Be Lazy. Do It Once, Automate.

What business processes can you completely leave to a machine to handle? I wrote a full article about how you can automate your sales and marketing at zero cost. There are automation tools for almost everything. Write down all your business processes and Google search for tools that can do that 10 times faster than you. Typically, the cost is small relative to the time you save for the things you cannot automate, like meeting prospects and clients. Saving time means money making opportunities for you and your business.

 

Keep It Lean: Outsource

Anything apart from your core business? Outsource. Warehousing? Outsource. Delivery and fulfilment? Outsource. Graphic design? Outsource. Keep your business focused on your core product and lighten the load of your team with what truly matters. Hire consultants as needed on a project basis. This will ensure that you have more time devoted to your team and cut overhead costs and put your money to other uses.

 

Watch Your Cash Cycle

Take note of your accounts collectibles and payables, ensuring that you get money in faster than you pay out is incredibly important especially as a cash strapped start-up.

Even if your income and expenses look healthy, you don’t want to get catch in a situation where your cash on hand falls beneath what you require for daily operations! Read more about cash flow mistakes and tips on how to better manage your cash flow here.

 

Value Your Employee Time

Your employees typically spend 8 hours in office, with a lot of time wasted in meetings. Keep your meetings short! For an introvert like me, meetings drain my mental energy and that means less productivity for the rest of the day. Please spare a thought for the awkward geeky nervous nerds like me.

Rather than having everyone travel to a centralized venue for a meeting, just do teleconferencing, or videoconferencing. In my company we find Skype the most convenient solution to get our meetings done quick. An introvert like me prefers that actually.

 

Negotiate

Negotiate with your landlord. Negotiate with your suppliers. Negotiate for a barter trade. Negotiate for a longer payment period, cheaper rates and yes, an exchange of services.

Negotiate is not about getting all of the pie. Negotiating is about making the pie bigger. Often we don’t know what our counterpart really wants. We just assume that they want the cash. Take time to develop the relationship and know what they need. Perhaps you have something to offer to them that is of value. My marketing consultant wanted to revamp her website and I wanted an email campaign. Guess what? We bartered. And the cost savings we got could be put to other business opportunities.

Find a win-win situation for everyone to come away happy at the outcome and build the relationship.

 

ThunderQuote is the most comprehensive business services portal in Singapore, Australia and ASEAN , where hundreds of thousands of dollars of procurement contracts are sourced every month by major companies like Singapore Press Holdings, National Trade Union Congress and more.

The Next Big Thing In Digital Marketing And How It could Cost You Your Job

Technological disruption is upon us. The world is changing too fast for us to be comfortable with our jobs. Every industry is being disrupted. Transport, finance, law, medicine, manufacturing, you name it. Everything is changing.

We are long past the dawn of Industry 4.0. Early adopters of these technologies are already reaping the benefits even at the cost of jobs. Just a few years ago, Artificial Intelligence, IoT, blockchain, 5G and cloud computing were cliché buzzwords.

But now they are here to stay. And they are disrupting every industry, including yours.
Continue reading “The Next Big Thing In Digital Marketing And How It could Cost You Your Job”

5 Free Tools To Make Email Marketing Work Harder For You

Email marketing can become a laborious process that can seriously suck the joy out of your passion. Let’s keep things simple here. I have a few email marketing software tools that I highly recommend for any marketer to use. Coming from a start-up background, a lean team really needs some serious automation firepower. Let’s fire away.
Continue reading “5 Free Tools To Make Email Marketing Work Harder For You”

6 Cash Flow Mistakes Start-ups Make & How To Avoid Them

Cash flow management problems are one of the top start-up killers today. It is often true that the more funding you raise, the more money you waste. Paradoxically, cash flow management problems frequently occur after investors inject a ton of cash into a start-up. Here’s why:

Entrepreneurs tend to be frugal and prudent when cash flow is running tight and monitoring is easy. Bootstrapping also forces us to think hard about their expenditure to make every cent count.

Conversely, after a huge round of funding, we tend to become complacent and have a grossly mistaken delusion that we have made it big and the future is set in stone. IT IS NOT!

So here is our advice and our fellow entrepreneurs’ experience. Some of whom learnt these cash flow management lessons the hard way so that you don’t have to repeat them. Let’s dive in.

 

Reckless spending

It is true that we should not get too caught up with micromanaging our petty cash so that we can focus on the goals that matter. However, you need your team to buy-in to the reality that a start-up has less resources than an MNC. Every cent counts. With a frugal mindset, your team should ask themselves the following questions before buying anything:

  1. Do we really need this?
  2. Do we already have this or a substitute somewhere in the office?
  3. Is this this the most cost-effective option available?

Question 3 is crucial. Please understand that “cheap” is not the same as “cost effective”. Buying a cheap printer with expensive ink cartridges and a short lifespan is NOT cost-effective. I recommend that you calculate the lifetime cost of using a product before committing to a purchase. Here is an example:

Assume we will print 1,000 pagesper year

Printer upfront cost Printer lifespan Ink cartridge cost Number of pages each cartridge can print Number of cartridges used over printer lifespan Total Cost over printer lifespan Total annual cost
Printer A $80 2 years $40 80 25 $1,080 $540
Printer B $140 5 years $35 100 50 $1,890 $378
Printer C $260 5 years $50 200 25 $1,510 $302

 

Clearly from the example, Printer C is the most cost-effective solution despite having the highest printer cost. The savings per year is actually $238! So take the effort to calculate the best option for your start-up and stretch your dollar to improve cash flow.

 

Spamming hires

I know that your investors will pressure you to maximise your company growth over revenue. You need to be very weary of that advice. What are your investors motivated by? They want your company to group 400% in valuation so that they can quickly exit within 5 years, sometimes 3 years. Right? The reason for their aggressive growth push is because only 10% of their portfolio start-ups will ever make it big, and they promise their investors that they will produce 20% in annualised returns regardless of your long term cash flow management issues.

Your investors’ motivations will seldom coincide with yours, even if they were former entrepreneurs themselves. So, be wise about how you handle investor-relations. Bear this in mind: Don’t hire hastily. Hire right, not hire fast.

What’s more if you want to scale up, automating processes instead of getting more hires will be a much better long-term solution. So keep your team lean with some of the following tips.

  • Automate lead generation with TQ Prospector which enables you to consistently get high quality leads from Google directly
  • Automate sales follow-ups and account management with CRM software
  • Automate financial accounting and budgeting with accounting software such as Xero which integrates with your bank account and minimises manual transaction logging and checking

 

Stockpiling inventory because you believe you will increase sales

It is true that producing inventory in bulk will produce some cost savings because economies-of-scale. However, what this means that you are locking up your cash in illiquid assets and not being able to do anything else with it. After all, your inventory has a shelf life with depreciating value over time. They may expire, rust or get damaged.

Furthermore, you are paying for storage. Depending on the nature of your inventory, sterile rooms, dehumidifiers and chillers do not come cheap. Stockpiling of inventory is one of the most expensive mistakes you can make.

It is really not worthwhile to make some small savings in bulk orders and forego all other business opportunities with your cash. Protect your cash flow. Don’t stockpile on hope. Stay realistic.

 

Paying bills on time

This advice may sound odd at first, after all it’s cash out of the coffers. Shouldn’t we delay payment as long as possible?

While some companies do that, it is ultimately toxic for supplier relationships in the long run and opens up the possibility of being charged interest. Hence, it is always ideal to pay on-time, neither early or late.

Of course, the better your negotiating position, the more you should try to get better terms of payment with an extension of your payment due date.

 

Offering credit to non-creditworthy clients

Repeat after me: DUE DILIGENCE. Bear in mind that however huge or seemingly successful your clients are, they could be another Enron. Check their cash flow statements and statement of financial position. Ask yourself the following questions:

  • Can your client afford to pay you?
  • What is their credit rating?
  • What is their repayment history?

If you suspect that your client is probably unable to pay you, don’t drag the repayment date. Collect what they can pay and be prepared to record a bad debt expense. It’s painful, but it is better to realise small losses early than to realise huge losses later. Don’t gamble with your cashflow.

In the worst case, you might even wish to reconsider taking on the project in the first place. Yes, it looks good as clocked revenue – but revenue that you can never collect on but have to spend your resources to make the project work? That’s throwing good money after bad…

 

Neglecting your Accounts Receivable

Don’t be a loan shark, but also don’t be a charity. The longer your accounts receivable ages, the less likely you will get paid. Keep following up with your dues. The cash you don’t get back is business opportunity gone. Accept partial payments. If you don’t mind accepting a small percentage loss of the accounts receivable, you can consider factoring.

Factoring means selling your accounts receivable. You will have to pay a percentage of the accounts receivable called a factoring fee. This means of financing is popular among small businesses and it is one option you can consider to further improve your cash flow cycle.

 

Have you encountered any of these issues in your business before or have more tips on how to improve cashflow for startups? Let us know in the comments below.

 

 ThunderQuote is the most comprehensive business services portal in Singapore, Australia and ASEAN , where hundreds of thousands of dollars of procurement contracts are sourced every month by major companies like Singapore Press Holdings, National Trade Union Congress and more.