Year End Wrap

In preparation for the year end I usually get together with my accountant to ensure things are on track. It gives us more time to make sure things have been done correctly before we reach the end of the year.

Here are some of the things to do:
- Print your profit/loss statement (P&L) , chart of accounts and Balance Sheet for this year and last. Make sure these are for the same periods. (i.e. Jan 1 - Nov. 15, 2009 & 2010).
- Compare each account and balance between years. Did your Sales go up or down? Did your Purchases go up or down as well? Are there any accounts that have shown large increases/decreases. Can you explain the changes?

Here are areas that I have founds errors
- Postage/Freight - in our case we had a huge decrease but we did more sales so logically this should have increased. Turns out we missed input invoices from Canada Post.
- Check the retained earnings account to ensure it lines up with last year end. If they don't coincide then something is wrong.
- Accounts receivable amounts should be reasonable. If not then start collecting.
- Merchandise inventory - check that this is not too high or too low. Have you done an inventory count recently? Maybe do this before the year end too.
- Foreign exchange - market changes could explain some variance but it has to be reasonable. If not you might have an accounting problem that you do not know about.

This is some of the fun stuff about owning your own business in Canada.

Credit Card Fraud

Another attempted fraudster placed two orders yesterday online. We have certain security facilities setup on our website www.natvd.com to deter potential fraudsters but if they have a valid card number then it's harder to prevent unauthorized use.

Some of things to look for:
- CVC code unknown
- address does not match registered address
- IP address does not match country of cardholder
- multiple attempts with different card numbers

We noticed the discrepancies and canceled the orders we also contact the Loss and prevention department VISA to hopefully protect someone who has had their information compromised.

Movember Natvd.com Team

This fall my company is putting in a team for Movember. Movember started in 2003 between friends in Australia has grown into a world-wide movement - in 2009, global participation of Movember climbed to 255,755 people, with over one million donors raising 47 million dollars! The goal is to raise awareness of men's health issues.

For more information visit: http://www.natvd.com/en/company-events/movember-for-mens-health.html

Relationship management

More and more I am turning to my business partner and saying, "remind me never to do what that salesperson just did." I have another story to add to Casual but not unprofessional.

We had a box supplier come to visit us. It was the big boss, the owner! He was towing along our new sales representative since his former representative quit on him. This was our first meeting with him and the new representative but not our first experience with the company. I shared with both of them our previous poor experience with their 3rd party delivery company. I explained how the driver was not willing to deliver the boxes to the adjacent unit as we specified on our purchase order. They both said, "That's not right. We'll check on that for you."

A couple weeks later the new sales representative comes in and introduces himself like he has never been here before. Then he has no recollection of the conversation we had about the 3rd party delivery company.

If you are going to go through the trouble of personally visiting your customer & make sales calls then be sure to follow up on your findings from these meetings. Otherwise you are wasting your time and your customers.

Casual doesn't mean unprofessional

I know the business world is becoming less formal. You can see it in the way we dress, the way we write emails and the way we greet on another. Business relationships are often strengthened these days by being personable rather than formal. But casual doesn't mean unprofessional.

I have had a few really poor salesmen experiences and thought I would offer them up as cautionary tales for those of us in the sales.

Distracted calling
I had a sales representative from one of my suppliers call me while he was driving & he had me on speaker phone. Besides the fact that the conversation would cut in & out due to background noise. I believe it was start of rush hour and raining outside that day too. He was so distracted from our conversation that he was not thinking about what he was saying. Not thinking enough that the filter between brain and mouth was not functioning. We had to have a make up meeting the following week so he could pull his foot out of his mouth.

My advice is, if you at going to call someone to discuss something important then do not do it while you are distracted. I understand if you receive a call that it might not have control of the timing. But surely if you are going to call your client do it only when you can give them your full attention.

Be prepared
Just like every scout knows, be prepared. Before you make a sales call to a prospective customer have all the information with you. I had a salesmen call me to follow up on a quotation he provided. I had a simple question for him such as "how much of the active ingredient is in the product you quoted to me?". He did not have his quotation in front of him. He proceed to ask me to email my questions to him so he could look at them.

Look if you are going to call me on the telephone to discuss your quotation be prepared to answer some simple questions. If you do not want to talk to me on the telephone then do not call me.

Setting up a time to call
I had one sales rep. write me an email to say I can call him before his first meeting before 8:30 am or between 4:30 & 5:00 pm that day. Otherwise he will be in a meeting all day. The problem with this is I did not want to talk to him. He wanted to talk to me! Or was this to show me how important he was.

Similarly I got this one line email, "let me know when you are free to talk." The problem with this is the person never tried to call me first. I was sitting in the office working all morning. Was I supposed to email back & say, "Now" ? I could understand this message if I was hard to reach or my phone was busy for sometime but to send this before trying to call seems ridiculous.

So please help yourself and do not fall into the above bad habits while contacting your clients or customers.

Adwords the Gym Membership for Business Owners

So if you have a website you've probably signed up for some pay-per-click advertising with Google, Yahoo Search Marketing or Bing etc. After the reality sets in and the fact that you did not get overwhelmed with new customers you have probably set aside the few ad campaigns you made. But did you ever cancel it? Or does it keep running in the background set to your monthly budget. Automatically charging your credit card.

Isn't this the gym membership for business owners. You know you should do it. If you had more time you would do it more often. You know you would be better off if you spent to time to do it. You do it once and a while to make yourself feel better but really is it worth your money? There are so many people already there & they look way better than you.

So just like the gym I am going to make a promise to myself to go in at least 2-3 a week to use it. I am going to make those landing pages direct rather than the home page, I am going to add more variety to the ads to see which are better, and I am going to figure out what the difference between "this" [this] and this is in the adwords. ("phrase match", [exact match] and broad match - in case you were wondering I googled it- I couldn't wait.

There you have it. I have made it known public knowledge. So it is written until I delete this post.

Twitter Status Unavailable

Twitter Status is unavailable from my desktop & my iphone. The world is ending!

I was going to tweet about the awesome people at Big City Cupcakes who gave me a box of cupcakes for helping them unload a stuck pallet from their truck.

Tweet Tweet

Office Depot - Small Handling Fee...$500

I received an email marketing promotion from Office Depot today. I thought why not order some correction tape and paper.

I put in my small order and upon check out I saw a "Small Handling Fee: $500" I thought it was a mistake. But it turns out there are no more Office Depots within 100 miles of me. I had to laugh.

I hope my customers appreciate the free shipping offer on my website.

Rekindle Your Love of Enewsletters

Do you remember the first time you decided to write a newsletter to your loyal customer base? How excited it made you feel to reach out? Finally a chance to be creative again rather than performing a mundane administrative task. Absolutely head over heels you searched the web for tips and ideas on the web. You may have even bought a cute photo from istock to use as your banner. In one inspired evening you did it. It was your first time and it was great. You promised yourself that you would do it again and you would do it often. At least once or twice a month! Right?

So what happened the next month or the month after that? You just don't have as much to talk about. Everything is does not flow like it did before. Where did the magic go? Why it is so hard when in the beginning it was so easy.

Here are some tips to Rekindle Your Love for writing eNewsletters

- Make a Promotion Plan to coordinate your sales, new product launch and seasonal promotions. A simple promotion plan will make it easier to find topics to talk about.
- Remember why you started your business. The passion and drive you have as an entrepreneur is unequalled in the business world. You care so much about serving your customers that is why you work even when you are not at work.
- Make it personal - if it is personal to you then it will be personal to your reader.
- Make it fun - you did not become your own boss to follow someone elses rules. Do it your way!
- Review Tracking Reports - whether you are using Constant Contact or another email marketing provider they will often provide you with tracking reports. Mark sure you look at these. It can be very rewarding and inspiring to see how many people you reached.

HST Rate after July 1st, 2010

HST Rate after July 1st, 2010

BC - 12%
AB –5%
SK – 5%
MB –5%
ON –13%
Quebec –5%
New Brunswick –13%
Nova Scotia –15%
Newfoundland and Labrador –13%
Prince Edward Island –5%
Yukon – 5%
Northwest Territories– 5%
Nunavut – 5%

HST Preparation

As of July 1, 2010, Harmonized Sales Tax(HST) replaces GST and PST in the provinces
of Ontario and British Columbia. The province of Nova Scotia will also increase
HST rates from 13% to 15%. How will this affect www.natvd.com?

Being in British Columbia we will have the pleasure of being subject to the new HST (Harmonized Sales Tax). Our products, vitamins, will now be subject to the new HST. Currently, vitamins and supplements are only subject to GST (Goods & Services Tax) and not the PST (Provincial Sales Tax). It is unfortunate that some of our customers will have to pay more and it will remain to be seen what affect this will have on our mail order business.

We have had staff attend HST preparation seminars and we will have staff to adjust the tax codes at midnight local time on our website.

Notes:

If orders are received but not shipped by July 1st then they will be subject to HST.

Returns or exchanges received from orders prior to HST will not be subject to HST (if there is a differential) until after a specified time from the government.

HST/GST rate will be charged depending on the province where the goods will be shipped to.

The proponents of the new HST claim that the HST will benefit companies. I did a quick test to see if this would be true. One of the 'benefits' would be for businesses to claim the new HST (GST + PST) as a Input Tax Credits (ITC). Our companies total PST paid in 2009 was about $2000. Therefore the benefit will be $2000 ITC that were not previously available. Our sales worldwide were in the 2-3 million dollar range. Many customer will expect the savings to be passed on to them but with such a small benefit how can we pass the savings on in a meaningful manner?

Another concern for me will be the impact on cash flow. Having to wait for HST refund cheques means more cash will be tied up. I guess this will help some people unfortunately it doesn't look like it will be us.

FaxIt Communications - We meet again

Fax Advertiser from hell! Ever since I have had a company fax line this company has been tormenting me with the unwanted advertisements. The most frustrating thing about this company is once you ask to be removed you seem to get an influx of faxes. Punishing you for trying have your number removed. I think it is because they have a certain number of days to remove you so they might as well get you while they can.

In the past I have called the removal line. I have even called their business line. Then I call my telephone company. Still today I have received yet another unsolicited fax. I have timidly called their toll free number to have my fax removed. I guess we will see what I get tomorrow.

Where to put your online advertising dollar

For us small business owners we definitely want to know that our advertising dollars are being well spent. With several choices available for cost-per-click advertising it is hard to decide where the spend.

I currently advertise with the following providers:

Google Adwords - how could you not? There are still the leader when it comes to internet search engines or let's face it Google knows more about us than we do. Have you ever checked out Google Trends or Insights? Yeah, Google is EVERYWHERE.
That is a good thing for anyone who wants to advertise.

Yahoo Marketing Solutions - we chose Yahoo because we noticed a lot of our customers were using yahoo email accounts. It is likely due to the fact that they were from Asia too. Therefore an important factor to consider is who your target user is.

Bing - we have not started to advertise cost per click with Microsoft's Bing. However, we do intend to start in 2010. With the way that Microsoft has integrated so much of their software, I figure with Windows 7 there is going to be more and more people like my parents who will not bother to change from IE to Firefox or Chrome.