Is your bank balance keeping you awake at night? You should know you’re not alone! A 2017 study from Barclaycard showed that a whopping 63% of SME decision makers worry about their business’ cash flow. That’s a lot of sleepless people. Cash is king in any business. We hear this expression over and over again […]
Some people in my sphere hold the opinion that I must be barking mad to work in the area of financial services that I do. Or even in financial services at all. In fairness it’s an apt description given that credit controllers are often referred to as Rottweilers! Yet, stepping away from the association with […]
Over the last few months I’ve spoken to many business owners. Time and again I’ve encountered in them a crippling dislike of calling clients and chasing for payment. They’ll email the reluctant payer until the cows come home yet do all they can to avoid picking up the phone and speaking to them! Which leads […]
It’s the start of a new year and so lots of businesses are busy setting goals. I’m no exception to that. For me it’s a straight forward process. I’m the only person in my business so I only have to test whether my goals align with each other and with my values. I’m the only […]
Payment performance is a big part of the due diligence we should undertake in respect of prospective customers. It’s vital we make sure we know who we are doing business with as my previous blog, ‘Are you selling your stuff or giving it away?’ explains. With the UK’s late payments culture affecting four in ten […]
The Christmas period is almost upon us. It’s a time to be merry and dispense peace and goodwill to all men! It’s also, as this business report article on how Christmas can cripple cash flow, points out, one of the most dangerous times of the year to experience cashflow problems. How peaceful will you be […]
I’ve been reflecting recently on how best I can demonstrate the value I can bring to a business as a credit management consultant. You don’t know what you don’t know The difficulty with this is two-fold. In the first instance, what a credit management consultant actually does isn’t something the small business owner tends to […]
Someone wants to buy your stuff… yippee! A cause for celebration for sure. What do you do next? You give them your stuff and then wait for them to pay you. Unless of course you’re a business who takes cash with an order. In which case there’s no need to read any further! Trusting to […]
I’ve had a very busy first month learning how to run a business and networking with some great people. It’s been lovely to meet lots of new people and hear about their businesses, and the stories behind them. One thing that has become very clear, from talking about what I do and why I do […]
Did you know that a third of payments to small businesses are received, on average, 30 days late? And the average value of each late payment is £6,142? Or that around one in five businesses had to write off unpaid invoices as bad debt in the last year, with an estimated average loss of £31,330? […]