Hi everyone, and welcome to the January 2021 edition of IF News. Happy New Year and here’s to a great 2021 for all of us.

From all of us at Indigo Financial we hope you enjoy this edition. Once again, it is packed with relevant information for anyone in business.

1. Increasing Business Performance

What you can do to improve business performance:

• Increase the number of enquiries.
• Increase the number of conversions from enquiries to sales.
• Increase the average value of sales.
• Increase the number of times people buy from your business.
• Increase the gross profit %.

Lets take a look at an example to see the real power of something like this.

For example (hypothetical business):

Currently                            After Changes

(1) Annual enquiries                                                           11,000                                      12,000

(2) Conversion to Customers                                              12.7%                                          15%

(3) Number of Customers (1 x 2 = 3)                                   1,397                                        1,800

(4) Frequency of business by customer (times)                    2.3                                              2.6

(5) Sales (No. of Transactions, 3 x 4 = 5)                            3,213                                        4,680

(6) Average price (Price Increase of 6%)                             $310                                     $328.60

(7) Sales in Dollars (5 x 6 = 7)                                       $996,030                               $1,537,848

(8) Gross Profit %                                                                  39%                                           41%

(9) Gross profit in Dollars (7 x 8 = 9)                             $388,452                                   $630,517

Gross profit Improvement therefore is:

The key question is how do you go from the ‘currently’ position to the ‘after changes’ position or how can you increase your business performance?

There are a number of ways to do this and we can help you with them. You can work with us regularly so we can together improve certain things in your business through a concentrated effective “non price differentiation” strategy. Also, add to that our very leveraged 3 day intensive Global Business Camp event. The next event will be held at the magnificent Hilton, Surfers Paradise Hotel in July 2021, where over 3 days we will spend time as a group focusing on the key areas that can dramatically improve your business.

Some of the areas that could need review and then a deeper focus on include:

• Quality of product or service
• Having guarantees and the appropriate promotion of your guarantees
• Pre sale service
• After sale follow up
• Staff knowledge
• Communication program with staff and customers
• Website
• Negotiation with suppliers and improved buying strategies
• Instigating a marketing system and pricing strategy to get the best out of every lead generated by your business
• Implementation of a “business building matrix” so as to improve your businesses  sales
• Instigating effective strategies to create “pricing/product differentiation” within your business including
• There are many more areas

2. Everyone has 1,440 minutes a Day

Time is one of those things which cannot be expanded, however it can be better managed.  Every one of us has 24 hours or 1,440 minutes per day.  Some business people are better managers of their time than others.  Business people need to allocate the number of hours per day that they are prepared to spend at work and then prioritise how they are going to spend that time.

Managers need to consider a lot of things when allocating time covering:

• Technical issues:
  • Sales
  • Client/Customer work
• Management issues:
  • Planning
  • Controlling operations
  • Administration
  • Team leadership
  • Developing new products & services
  • Training & development
  • Conferences

How do you better manage your time?  Here are some suggestions:

• Establish daily and weekly priority goals/”to do” lists. Mark off the task when it’s completed and periodically prepare a log sheet of the amount of time you spent on various tasks.
• Control the telephone. Do not allow the telephone to control you.  Perhaps you could have messages taken during the day and then have very specific time allocations to return telephone calls (e.g. one in the morning, the other in the afternoon).  Have a “quiet period” each day so you can use the “quality time” to plan your daily activities and business strategies.
• Consider and analysis those persons or tasks that cause you to waste time. Can you change your management style to overcome these time wasters (e.g. it might be better if you visited others in their offices or business premises rather than meeting in your office?)  The visitor can close the meeting and basically leave.
• All meetings should have an agenda and should start and finish on time.  At meetings, ensure that minutes are taken and distributed and follow these up at the next meeting.  If this type of activity continues at all meetings it will speed up the process.
• Delegate. Is there anything currently on your desk or work area that could be delegated to someone else in the organisation?

Management of time is essential if you wish to be successful in business.  Effective management involves planning, delegation and eliminating bad time wasting practices.  Remember; everyone is allocated the same amount of time each day.  How you effectively spend it will have a significant impact on how you perform as a business person.

3. Global Business Camp 19 – 21 July, 2021 Hilton, Surfers Paradise

Now, some really great news.

GBC is back and we hope you are as excited as we are. We have had a lot of enquiries asking when the camp will be held. So lock the dates in your calendar.

When: 19 – 21 July, 2021
Where: Hilton, Surfers Paradise

The camp is truly a great way to lock yourself away for a few days and seriously think and work on your business with like-minded business people.

Some of the things we will work on over the 3 days:

• Working through the importance of the right culture in any business
• Working on and not in the business and effective leadership
• Undertaking a strategic planning (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) exercise for each business that is at the event
• Looking at financial management in the business
• Focusing on what customer service really is
• What an elevator pitch is and why have one in your business
• Looking at examples of successful businesses and what they do – including visiting Tom O’Toole’s Beechworth Bakery, Stew Leonard’s Supermarket in the USA and Paddi Lund’s Dentist business in Queensland just to name a few
• Focusing on the traits that all successful businesses have from generation to generation
• The importance of having a customer focused business
• Complete a ‘19 point check list’ that gives every individual a chance to tackle things that are easy and can make a massive difference to your business
• Focus on the ‘little things’ that make a profound effect
• Look at moments of truth within each business and ensure you understand the importance of these events
• Work through our proprietary software ‘GBC Business Analysis Software’ to highlight the impact to your business of what the changes will do. This is a truly powerful tool and ties everything together well. This will highlight what impact focusing on some key drivers will have
• Discovering the importance of having a management control plan in your business to track progress
• Looking at the areas that affects the value of your business and working on improving those areas
• Discovering the importance of a succession plan even if you are not looking at selling the business. Just working through this process will dramatically increase the value of your business
• And much more.

For those of you that are already registered that is awesome and for the rest of you do not miss out on this massive opportunity to come along. Now is the time to get organised so that you can attend in July and spend quality time working ON your business.

To find out more- www.globalbusinesscamps.com.au

Detailed agenda/outline of the 3 days and speaker bio’s – https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:44359aee-86fe-41d9-9eba-81b897b101c0#pageNum=1

To register – https://www.globalbusinesscamps.com.au/registration/#

It is truly an event not to be missed by anyone in business no matter how many times you have attended before.

Look out for more details coming out soon.

Please feel free to pass IF News to anyone you feel may get value from. Also, if you know of anyone that we can help please do not hesitate to refer us to them. We know that “birds of a feather flock together” and we want more clients and friends just like you to work with us.

Thank you for being clients and friends of ours. We truly value the relationship we have and we will do all we can to assist you to reach your dreams and goals.

Cheers for now from the Indigo Financial Team.