This week’s tips are ideal for small to medium sized businesses looking to grow their business and step out from the day to day running of the business, and become the Business Owner they set out to be.

“Entrepreneurs are willing to work 80 hours a week to avoid working 40 hours a week” – Lori Greiner

Tip 1:                Systemise
Within your business you have processes that are normally documented as process documents, these describe how to begin and complete a task within your business. So, a process describes what needs to be done in your business. Business systemisation is the systems that form around these processes, these can either be manual or automated systems in order to complete each process. 

Systemisation definition from Personal MBA is: A system is a process made explicit and repeatable. Systemization is the act of creating a new system. The primary benefit of creating a System is that you can examine the process and make improvements. Developing Systems helps everyone do what they have to do with minimum misunderstanding.

For example; the process document for a business task that aims to get more website subscribers, would be to give value, create blogs/reports, advertise them on social media and then link to the website where people can subscribe. The system around this process would be to manually create and schedule posts on social media, and then automate the subscriber sequence by embedding a form into your website (from Mailchimp for example) and setting up an automated email series. You can then monitor results and KPIs based on this system to make improvements. 

This is just one example of how to systemise your business and one example of business systemisation software. There are many systems to your business and just as many (if not more) different software out there that could help automate some of these.

Tip 2:                Outsource        
After reading the Systemise section, you may feel you need this section the most with the amount of process documents and systems to build in your business. However, outsourcing should only be done when you have a correct and detailed specification – and this usually means processes and systems complete, but could mean just a detailed specification of one task.
Some Business process outsourcing examples; 

• Project based – to do one certain task (or repetitive task) in your business, this could be from logo design to website design, research, videos and many more. We have used various outsourcers for project work ranging from:
  • Logo and intro videos for Business SOS using Fiverr.com, 
  • Transport services for guests for our Serviced Accommodation business
  • Business post collected and scanned into Dropbox using UK Postbox
  • And many more
• Part Time or Full Time – to do various jobs/tasks for you and your business for a certain amount of hours per week. This could range from admin, to bookkeeping, sales & marketing to delivering products, and everything in between for your business. We have one team member based in the UK for our property business and 4 Virtual Assistants from the Philippines covering all of our businesses, all full time. We started by hiring part time, and then as roles grew and more processes in the business were defined and could be outsourced, roles became full time and the range of roles increased. 

Outsourcing the systemisation of your business can be done, however you should expect to pay a higher price for this as the person or business that can do this for you needs to be very highly skilled and experienced to know how you want to run your business and what systems you need. You will also need to be heavily involved with this task in order to convey your business vision and what you expect from your business so that the right processes and systems are formed.  

Tip 3:                Scale    
Once you have systemised and outsourced some or all of your business, you should have freed up some of your time as the business owner to work on higher value tasks such as growth. 
With more time to be working ON the business rather than IN, you have more time to work on the business vision, direction, process improvements, new sales, bigger picture growth in order to scale your business.
And then, the great thing about these 3 tips, is that as you scale, the increased sales you make should fall into the systems you have created, be fulfilled by automation or your outsourcers and then create more growth through customer recommendations and reviews from the great service you have provided. 
 
Systemise, Outsource & Scale is a cycle within your business that never ends. Improvements to systems will need to be made as new technology or competition emerges and as you scale you will need a bigger team of outsourcers and new processes in place. 

Business SOS has been created to help small to medium sized business owners, systemise, outsource and scale their business. Through a monthly membership that delivers new training videos each week covering the Business SOS model and how to implement SOS into your business, AND a monthly Live Q&A to have all your business questions answered so there are no blocks in the way of your growth, Business SOS is becoming the go to platform to help your business become sustainable, scalable and profitable (especially due to the low monthly fee of just £9+VAT).
 
We hope you have found these tips useful and are able to use them to improve your business and investments. Don’t miss out on future tips - subscribe to the Turner Invest newsletter at turnerinvest.co.uk and follow us on social media. 

Having run a Serviced Accommodation business for over 3 years now, I know first-hand how hard it can get at Winter time when bookings slow down, cash flow is tight and you’re doing everything you can think of to profit.
 
So, apart from the obvious of making more sales (which a lot of people are posting about), as part of the Business Health Check I do for clients, we look into expenses and aim to trim them where possible ensuring no effect on business performance (as money saved is straight into your profits, whereas increased sales come with more costs).
 
As I have recently done this for a SA business I thought I would share some of my top tips to reduce spend over the Winter (& longer term):
 
Below are tips on how to reduce the Cost of Sales expenses for running a SA business:
 

1. Rent – may not be the easiest to make savings on, but have you considered renegotiating rents or speaking to the landlord about managing their property as a SA rather than renting it (letting them know all the benefits that could get from that)?
2. Repairs & Maintenance – Winter can bring on a lot of larger property repair costs, which if you are a R2R SA business, largely fall to the landlord. However, this can have a massive impact on your business if you are waiting around for a landlord to fix it and your SA is closed. A top tip we employ is having 4-6 weekly maintenance checks to be pro-active and stop larger repairs being needed.
3. Furnishings & Consumables – you may already be tied in to some furniture finance so it would be hard to reduce this cost. However, shopping around can help reduce the cost of the other furnishings and consumables, along with bulk buying.
4. Utilities – again you may be tied in to a contract but that should not stop you looking to change. For example we used a company that will pay any exit fees you have and quoted us cheaper rates then we were previously on (let me know if you want their details). Additionally, monitor SA utility usage and compare units against each other to see if there are any problems or improvements that can be made to reduce usage and cost. A 10% saving here could be a £500 per month saving across 20 SAs.
5. Cleaning – changing cleaners is not something you want to do often, especially if you are happy with their service as a good housekeeping team is vital to a SA business. However, there are savings that can be made, and this should not be ignored. The difference between a VAT registered cleaning company and non VAT registered is a 20% cost to your business, which for a SA business of 20+ properties is over a £1K per month saving. 
6. Laundry – linen hire seems to be the cheapest way to go. Even when comparing a linen hire company who is VAT registered against a non-VAT registered launderette. Re-negotiating laundry rates have saved us thousands and moving to a linen hire supplier could save you even more. Just make sure you factor in the additional time and cost that may come about from your cleaners to manage the laundry from the usual one location/one drop-off service that linen hire companies provide. 

 
Those are just some of the tips for savings in a SA business and all the above relate to the Direct Costs of SA income.
 
If people are interested, I can share further tips on the savings to be made from the operating expenses of a SA business? Just let me know.


Stephen Turner,
Turner Invest
Empowering People to Live the Life of Their Dreams

As it has been a while since we released the last set of Tuesday Tips, this weeks is a bit more special and detailed. 

We are giving away 3 free reports that are our Top Tips to leverage your business and lifestyle, and all you need to do is subscribe to our newsletter and all 3 will be sent to you over the next few days.

So, what are the Top Tips?

Tip 1:   How to Find & Hire the Right Virtual Assistant for Your Business
The simple 5 steps to finding and hiring the right Virtual Assistant (VA) for your business, whether that is to:

• Outsource your bookkeeping
• Have your social media managed
• Delegate all of your tasks
• Or simply save on staff costs

This report takes you through exactly how to prepare for, find and hire the right VA for your business so you can start outsourcing more of your tasks and focus on higher value tasks or simply enjoy more free time.

Tip 2:   The 20 Questions You Need to be Asking Yourself to Get a Leveraged Lifestyle

• No idea where to start leveraging?
• Want to know what to leverage next?
• Or need to reconnect with why you started in business in the first place and get back on track?

Then this free report/workbook asks you all the questions you should be asking yourself to run a successful business that does not take up all of your time, can scale without you and gives you the freedom to do what you want in life.

Prioritise reading this report and answering the questions to get your redefined to-do-list, your refocused business vision and your reinvigorated motivation to get your business to where you want it to be.

Tip 3:   The Top 30 Life Leverage Apps to Save You Time, Money and Your Sanity!
This report details our top 30 apps to use in your day to day life to save you money and time so you can focus on the more important things.

Make life easier by downloading these tried and tested apps and start leveraging technology to live smarter.

​That's this weeks Top Tips on how to leverage more, and get more of your own time back - subscribe below to get all 3 free reports emailed to you.

Thanks, 
Turner Invest
Empowering People to Live the Life of Their Dreams

Managing a virtual team can be a daunting task for some entrepreneurs and business owners. However, the benefits a team of Virtual Assistants (VAs) bring to your business can be enormous, so it is worth taking the time to work out how best to hire and how best to manage your VAs.

For tips on how to hire your VA, see our previous article here.

And for our top 3 tips on managing VAs, read on:

“Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers” – Stephen R Covey

Tip 1:                Know their values
Knowing your teams values, whether virtual or physical, is a must in order to manage your team effectively. If your VAs highest value is their family, and that is why they became a VA to work from home and spend more time with their family, then you know bonuses of additional time off or financial bonuses to help support their family will motivate them. If your VAs highest value is money, then you know they will appreciate financial bonuses, if it is learning & development then they will appreciate the opportunity to grow in their role and attend courses.

Take the time as soon as you hire your VA or team member to find out their top 3 values so you can motivate and reward them to become the best & most loyal team member for your business. 

Tip 2:                Trust    
Trusting your new VA can be hard. A lot of business owners fear that due to the distance and not being able to see them work physically in an office, they may not work the hours required for their role. This can easily be managed using software such as Harvest or Timeproof alongside a task management software such as Asana.

Trust in any relationship is earned, and trust in a working relationship is no different. Give your VA more basic tasks first in order to test them before gradually moving to sensitive or tasks with more responsibility (such as online banking).

Tip 3:                Feedback         
Feedback works both ways in managing your team. You should be feeding back to your VAs exactly how they are performing in their role. To do this effectively you need to have relevant KPIs set-up from the start that can be tracked and monitored. 

Asking your VAs how they feel they are doing in their job and for their own feedback on their role and tasks are important regular questions to ask (at least quarterly). This can lead to improved performance, improved business processes and highlight any blockages that are stopping progress and any training and development needs they have.
 
In summary, treat your virtual team just as you would like to be treated. Get to know the, trust in their ability to get the job done, check in with their progress and results and get their feedback to see how you can improve as a manager to improve them as a vital member of your team. 

To find out more on how to hire your perfect virtual team, see theviva.club

We hope you have found these tips useful and are able to use them to improve your business and investments. Don’t miss out on future tips - subscribe to Turner Invest newsletter on turnerinvest.co.ukand follow us on social media.

​Thanks, 
Turner Invest
Empowering People to Live the Life of Their Dreams
​

Most of our Tuesday Tips have focussed on entrepreneurs who are already running a business, but what if you are just starting out?

​For those looking to start a business from scratch, here are our top 3 tips to get you on your way. And for those who have already started, keep these in mind to stay on track:

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream” – C. S. Lewis

Tip 1:    Learn to monetise something you feel passionate about 
Creating a business around something you are passionate about will keep you driven and motivated to keep going when times are tough. It will give you the energy and passion to sell the services or products you plan to sell, knowing they are of high value to people as they are of high value to you.

Building a business around your passion will mean you will not settle for mediocre or second best and your customers and clients will love you for it and keep returning and referring!

Tip 2: Understand your values & enjoy the journey
By knowing what your values are and living to them, you are more likely to enjoy what you do and why you are doing it. Your values and their order of priority are unique to you, so invest time in working out what these are for you and ensure you keep working in line with them. 

Also, don’t just reward yourself at the end… because there is no real end when you own a business - you’ll find there is always a new goal. So treat yourself along the way and enjoy the journey.

Tip 3: Take opportunities... a leap of faith
To get something different, you have to do something different. Most of us our stuck in a comfort zone and it’s only when something becomes a bit painful that we start to look for something different - a way out. Start to reach outside your comfort zone now and take the opportunities in front of you.

For example, one of the first for us was saying yes to investing in our business education (something we had never done before). At the time it was a leap of faith, now we know it was one of the best investments we ever made.

When it comes to formulating , planning & running your business, there will be a lot more things to consider. However, staying true to the above three tips will allow you to keep pushing for what you want to achieve and what you know is out there waiting for you.

We hope you have found these tips useful and are able to use them to improve your business and investments. Don’t miss out on future tips - subscribe to Turner Invest newsletter on turnerinvest.co.uk and follow us on social media.
Thanks, 

Turner Invest
Empowering People to Live the Life of Their Dreams

​Entrepreneurs and business owners share a common trait, time, and on the road to success we could all do with more of it. With too much to do and not enough time to do it in, tasks get dropped and the time sensitive tasks get done before the important or strategic tasks, giving you the feeling that you are working hard but not progressing fast enough.

The solution to this is for you to work on your high value, important tasks and work ‘on your business’ and to delegate all of the lower value tasks, i.e. working ‘in your business’.

The most cost effective way of delegating your low value tasks, the administrative internet-based tasks, is to hire a Virtual Assistant (VA). By doing this you can get your administrative tasks up to date and achieve more internet research and traffic to your website. 

Hiring a Virtual Assistant is something a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners are doing in order to get the help they need to scale, at an affordable price. The following are our top three tips when it comes to hiring your VA.

“Do what you do best, and outsource the rest” – Peter Drucker

Tip 1:                Improve your Business To-Do List
First things first, you need to know what you are currently doing, should be doing and want to be doing so you can prioritise and categorise. Monitor your weekly tasks and to-do list (to capture all you are doing and what you should be doing), write them down and categorise between:

• Do - Must do/high value tasks for the success of your business. These are the tasks that are of high importance to the business and not necessarily the urgent tasks.
• Manage - These are the tasks that could be done by someone else with management oversight.
• Leverage -These are the low value tasks that you can give to your VA or completely outsource.

Tip 2:                Create a detailed Job Description
Create a detailed job description, based on the Leverage and Manage tasks, that allows your new VA to get straight to work, increasing business productivity and freeing up your time. Remember to include KPIs to measure your VAs performance against and link to as many business process documents and training videos as possible. You can also summarise job description to create an inviting job advert to attract the best applicants.

Tip 3:                Systemise Applications
In order to save you time in the hiring process, aim to systemise as much of the application process as possible. Use tools such as Google Suite to create automatic email replies and Google forms for applicants to complete. Then export applicants answers into a Google sheet for easy review and shortlisting. Set up times for interviews via Skype, let your VAs book the times and then conduct your interviews on your pre-prepared question set.

The key to hiring successful Virtual Assistants all comes in the prep work. You need to invest time in creating detailed process documents, job descriptions and procedures in order for the right people to apply for the role and for them to get straight in to the job.

For a more detailed process of hiring Virtual Assistants including all the template documents you need, check out The VIVA Club at bit.ly/thevivaclub

We hope you have found these tips useful and are able to use them to improve your business and investments. Don’t miss out on future tips - subscribe to Turner Invest newsletter on turnerinvest.co.uk and follow us on social media.

Thanks, 
Turner Invest
Empowering People to Live the Life of Their Dreams

When starting a new business or growing your business, most entrepreneurs need to attract investment. Whether this is from banks, crowd funding, an investor or Joint Venture (JV) partner, you need to present your business or opportunity in the best possible light in order to secure the finance you require. The following are a few tips to help you attract investment for your business or opportunity. 

“There are no secrets to success, it is the result of hard work, preparation and learning from failure” – Colin Powel 

Tip 1:                Business Plan
A detailed business plan will be required from your potential investor that details exactly what the investment will be spent on. This may be your business plan for your entire business or for a specific project depending on the investment you are looking for, business growth or project specific. These plans should be studied with an analytical perspective of a potential investor so you can pre-empt and address any questions you feel they may have.

Tip 2:                Know Your Value          
If you are looking for investment for your business you need to know the value of your business and the projected value of your business, not forgetting to include the value of intellectual property – for example brands, inventions and knowledge. If you are looking for investment for a specific project and therefore the investor is investing in you, you should still value yourself and the skills and knowledge you bring to the opportunity, along with the projected value of the project, the return they will be getting and the exit strategy (preferably more than one to prove the security of their investment).

Tip 3:                Know Your Offer           
Now you have your plan and have valued yourself and your business you need to define exactly what you are offering to investors and what you would not accept. Decide beforehand whether you want to pay a straight interest return on the investment or whether you want to form a partnership. Interest returns need to be affordable for your business (ensuring your business/opportunity remains profitable) and attractive to the investor. Where possible, do not offer a stake in your business in return for investment as this could stop you running your business how you want to due to shareholders rights and interests. But in the case of JV partnerships, if the investor will bring benefit to the opportunity then a share of the business/opportunity should be considered. 

Attracting investment can be an important part of your business’ growth, so stringent planning of must be done before presenting the opportunity to potential investors. Additionally early networking to build relationships with potential investors before you have your investment opportunity will help you succeed. 

We hope you have found these tips useful and are able to use them to improve your business and investments. Don’t miss out on future tips - subscribe to Turner Invest newsletter on turnerinvest.co.uk and follow us on social media.

​Thanks, 
Turner Invest
Empowering People to Live the Life of Their Dreams
​

Whether you are investing with a partner to build your property portfolio, investing with a company to get a good return on your money or looking to acquire or invest in a company, conducting good due diligence is key to reducing risk. Due diligence is used to investigate and evaluate a business opportunity. The aim is to confirm that the opportunity is what it appears to be, identify potential defects to avoid a bad business transaction and gain further information to value the opportunity before proceeding. The following are a few tips to ensure your due diligence is thorough and proper.

“Winning can be defined as the science of being totally prepared” – George Allen

Tip 1:                Define Purpose 
First things first, you need to be clear about why you are looking into the opportunity and where the value of the opportunity lies. If you are looking for hands-free investment and the opportunity required you to be an active member then you are looking at the wrong opportunity. Be sure you have this defined and that you are not looking at an opportunity purely because it arose. You should also define your level of risk and what would make you walk away from the opportunity.

Tip 2:                Structured Approach    
When looking to invest in a business there are three areas to focus on; the trend in the business’ financial results; the outlook for demand and competition; and what has and will make the business competitive in the long term. These three areas can be broadly used when assessing other investments and not just when acquiring businesses; trend, demand and success features.  

Tip 3:                Quality Over Quantity   
Now you know the answers you need to make a decision, you must ask the right questions. The key to due diligence is not to shy away from asking questions in order to get a true picture of the opportunity. When information and answers are received your focus should be on the quality of the information provided, not the quantity. The quality of the financial information is vital so ensure you receive well evidenced forecasts with no missing data. 

This just touches on the subject of due diligence covering the approach you should have for gathering the correct information. Meeting with the business/opportunity owners and knowing the values they hold will also be of importance. You should not stop your due diligence until you have a firm answer on whether you wish to invest or not. 

For larger acquisitions of companies you can hire specific companies to conduct the due diligence for your or the broker selling the company may have already prepared this for your review. But again ensure your mind is clear and that you are happy with the level of remaining risk before you proceed.

We hope you have found these tips useful and are able to use them to improve your business and investments. Don’t miss out on future tips - subscribe to Turner Invest newsletter on turnerinvest.co.uk and follow us on social media.

Thanks, 
Turner Invest
Empowering People to Live the Life of Their Dreams
​

As any business owner knows, there are never enough hours in the day to complete everything and decisions need to be made when you are out of office as much as you are in office. Therefore to make your business digitally efficient, you will be able to keep up to date, work and collaborate with your team on the move. The following are a few tips on making your business digitally efficient.

“What new technology does is create new opportunities to do a job that customers want done” – Tim O’Reilly 

Tip 1:                Cloud
Moving to cloud based computing can give you and your team access to documents from anywhere. Files can be saved, stored and shared from Google Drive or Drop Box, with notes shared via apps such as Evernote and data entered and shared on cloud based software. This allows you to keep up to date at all times and outsource your business away from the office. This can be to working from home/on the road staff or to overseas staff where you can hire full time Virtual Assistants or pay people for specific jobs/tasks, taking advantage of the world market.

Tip 2:                Apps     
There are many apps available to help you manage your business and these are constantly changing and updating. Get recommendations from other people in your field and see what they are using so you can minimise research time. The various types of app that could help your business are:

• Accounting software apps – for a summary overview and to manage your account
• CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software apps – see where your business is with various leads
• To-do list apps – keep your action lists prioritised and easy to find
• Read it later apps – save information you want to read for a later point when you have spare time
• Your own business apps – develop your own apps for your internal business processes 

Tip 3:                Database Management
Now you have the software and apps in place for your business you need to ensure your business operating procedures include effective use of these so that documents are easy to find and up-to-date, all are saving in the correct way and using the same tools, your CRM is up-to-date for anyone to use and email etc. is efficiently managed.

As you can see, leveraging technology effectively can increase the efficiency of how your business is run. It is therefore time well invested in ensuring you have the best tools and have the processes in place for ongoing efficiency which will help when your business grows.

We hope you have found these tips useful and are able to use them to improve your business and investments. Don’t miss out on future tips - subscribe to Turner Invest newsletter on turnerinvest.co.uk and follow us on social media.

​Thanks, 
Turner Invest
Empowering People to Live the Life of Their Dreams

Generally speaking, the more data a business collects about itself, the more likely they are to succeed, if the data is used correctly. And as a starting out entrepreneur, the data capture often gets missed. However, if a business wants to succeed and grow quickly, they are more likely to achieve this if they have all of the data on sales, finances, KPIs, meetings, expenses, staff, contacts, leads etc. The following are a few tips to help you best use this data. 

“If you torture the data long enough, it will confess” – Ronald Coase

Tip 1:                Know Your Data
Firstly, you must know the broad range of data your business could be capturing and put processes into place to capture this. Data can range from sales values per customer, average payment times, social media interest, website analytics and the cost and sales made from events, promotions and advertising. As you can see, not all data captured needs to be financial, but when analysed and acted upon can lead to increases in profits. 
 
Tip 2:                Frequent Real-Time Analysis     
Now you have the processes in place to capture the data, you should run real-time analysis. Ideally, you should get a member of your team to collate the information and provide you with a weekly/fortnightly/monthly report for you to scan and analyse. The information should be presented in an easy to read format, where possible pictorially, so you can quickly analyse and make decisions. Data linked to staff, team or business KPIs should be highlighted to ensure that they and you are on track.  

Tip 3:                Act       
Knowing and analysing the data is not effective without acting upon it. Once you have analysed the data and reports, action plans need to be put into place to address or improve any areas. Examples include:

• Increasing KPI targets as the team are achieving the initial targets set
• Amending web pages as the data shows a high proportion of customers leaving on a particular page
• Increasing or decreasing certain advertising due to the cost per sale ratio (remember to take into account the life time value of customers and wider issues when deciding to remove an advertising route, or any other process)
• Amending the posting time for social media to improve impressions and interest

As you can see, a lot can be achieved from effective use of data and data capture and analysis should be prioritised within your business. Companies can invest heavily in the tools to capture data, only to waste it by not making full use of it. Businesses just starting up should consider capturing data in accounting software and a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system and in quick time delegate this task out in order to focus on the reports and graphs the data produces. 

We hope you have found these tips useful and are able to use them to improve your business and investments. Don’t miss out on future tips - subscribe to Turner Invest newsletter and follow us on social media.

Thanks, 
Turner Invest
Empowering People to Live the Life of Their Dreams