Credit Matters Newsletter
In This Issue
- What's New At Credit Matters?
- Quote Of The Month
- Monthly Business Observation
- Monthly Business Conundrum
- Business Red Flags
- Word Of The Month
- Latest Blogs & Readings
- THE LATEST ASIC UPDATES
- AUSTRAC MEDIA RELEASES
- IBAC UPDATES
- ACCC UPDATES
What's New At Credit Matters?
Today, mental health issues are affecting a wider range of people throughout the community. Business people are not exempt. Therefore, a big thank you goes to Beyond Blue for allowing Credit Matters to add a link to their website with information designed to assist business people dealing with mental health issues. Our website can be found at www.creditmatters.com.au Alternatively you can go directly to Beyond Blue at www.beyondblue.org.au/
We have also added another feature for a Members, "Abbreviated Terms for Use in Diary Memos". This feature is designed to assist those businesses which have a facility for adding diary memos of conversations and other actions. It is often time consuming when writing explanations in full. Being able to add this information in an abbreviated form which can be understood by everybody in the organisation, saves time.
The attached brochures this month include two brochures from the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman. They are focused on the risk of franchising, plus the cash flow crises for small business. There is also a brochure relating to RSM's Fraud & Forensic Services ACFE Authorised Trainer 2-day seminar training on Contract and Procurement Fraud seminar Melbourne 21-22 November 2019. Finally, but not least, a template or quiz from The Bank Doctor for business people seeking finance.
Don't forget, if you wish to promote your business services at an affordable rate, you can contact Kim at kim@creditmatters.com.au. You will be pleasantly surprised at what we have to offer.
Quote Of The Month
Always remember, the internet opens the door of opportunity. It is deficient in effecting closure of the sale.
Barry Urquhart
Monthly Business Observation
If a sale is not a sale until the money is in your bank account, understanding the value in Barry Urquhart’s makes good sense.
The problem with an unlimited use of emails, internet relationships and the use of technology is manyfold. The reality is that a heavy reliance on the use of technology means that many business people forget the value of other business interrelationship methodologies. People also tend to forget that technology provides us with a set of tools which CAN aid our business objectives.
All too often in the initial sales contact via emails and the product or service information on our websites, is static. Unless the intended target, or potential customer actually wants to buy then and there, the sales material is often quickly forgotten or ignored.
It is not until a salesperson actually makes direct contact face to face or via the telephone, that real sales action take place.
In following up for unpaid invoices, the sequence of actions often remains the same with no action from the customer to commit to paying the invoice(s). You can send emails, or have the best interactive payment methodologies and a wide range of payment options available for use on your website. However, if the customer or their employee is busy, uninterested or is trying to avoid payment, these technology contacts and offerings often are wasted.
Just like obtaining a commitment to buy often requires a personal connect, the same goes for collecting unpaid invoices. It is not until you contact the customer via an agreed visit at their premises, or a telephone call, that you are likely to get a commitment to pay.
It is always wise to remember that a sale is not a sale until the money is in your bank account. To ignore this reality, is to underestimate the importance of personal contacts by face to face’ or the telephone when following up for the unpaid invoice(s).
Monthly Business Conundrum
Traditionally in tough times, suppliers have tended to change their selling policies in an effort to survive. Consequently, they often:
-
sold their products and services at a discounted rate; or
-
sold to customers which were deemed previously to be of too small a dollar value to be worthwhile; or
-
failed to adhere to their business disciplines and due diligence checks.
With a combination of, or all of these strategies, business people had hoped they could keep their business going long enough to ride out any business downturn. Unfortunately, the outcome was often a quicker path to insolvency.
There is no doubt, many of these same tactics will be employed the next time around when the next downturn starts to bite.
Amongst the other strategies with a potentially better outcome to survive the next downturn may be to:
-
only sell for cash; or
-
on an agreed part-payment schedule supported by proper terms and conditions, or
-
maintain business disciplines and due diligence checks; or
-
provide more customised selling offers;
-
sell to those customers deemed previously too small to deal with because of the dollar value of sales; or
-
seek a business partner or investor, even if means giving away some equity.
Each of these strategies is designed to help survive a downturn long enough to (i) see the demise of your competition, (ii) gain market share and (iii) to survive. Alternatively, you may try these strategies and find they do not work. It may be then, you realise hopefully sooner rather than later, there is not enough business to survive the downturn. In that case, you may decide to close down your business with a minimum of loss and hopefully, your reputation intact.
It is always better to close your business down when you control the process, especially if your financial resources allow you to settle all outstanding debts. If you are forced to close down and your affairs are managed by an insolvency administration, the costs and loss of reputation is often far more damaging.
Business Red Flags
Urgent orders from a potential new customer, or a new customer whose account has just been opened, need to be treated very carefully. Although the order may be from a genuine customer who will pay within terms, this is not always the case.
It is worth remembering that this urgent order could well be part of a fraud, or from a customer with no intention of paying the invoice within agreed terms, in which case it is a fraud. The urgent sales order is a well-known tactic of fraudsters and those businesses which are on stop supply with other suppliers.
In each case, the customer is banking on your business dropping its due diligence and basic business disciplines to get the new order. Desperate salespeople and management trying to meet budgets at any costs, will be the best allies of these new customers with their urgent orders. In a business downturn, these issues add even more pressure on salespeople and management to approve the “sale”.
Rarely are urgent orders of a genuine nature. In many cases, the reason why the orders are required urgently, are because of other matters such as fraud and lack of credit elsewhere.
Word Of The Month
Is the spelling Afterall or After all?
Recently, whilst checking a Microsoft Word document, the word Afterall with the initial letter capitalised did not come up as a spelling error, whereas afterall without the initial capital, was shown as a spelling error. How could this be?
The compound word afterall is a common misspelling of after all. The Australian Oxford dictionary confirms the spelling is after all.
A check of Google for sites in Australia (sites ending in .au) returns 321,000 results for afterall and 19.6 million results for after all, which shows most people spell the word correctly. So why isn’t Microsoft Word marking the word Afterall as a spelling error?
It may simply be the Microsoft Word dictionary is in error. Another possible reason is a check of the internet shows Afterall is used by a number of organisations as part of their name. As part of an organisation’s name, Afterall can be capitalised.
In this situation, how the word Afterall is being used, is after all the only way to know if the word should be capitalised or not. If Afterall is not part of an organisations name, it is a spelling error.
Latest Blogs & Readings
Updates courtesy of www.asic.gov.au
Media Updates
Media Updates
Publications & Resources
Media Releases
Credit Matters is a financial risk management resource centre for the Australian business community. If you are in business, Credit Matters is your ideal source of financial risk management solutions.
Future Opportunities & Possibilities
Credit Matters is continuing to grow and provide marketing and knowledge about financial risks to the Australia business community.
Futhermore, we invite marketing and knowledge ideas from our readers and contributors on how we can assist our respective firms grow. If you have any ideas, please contact me at info@creditmatters.com.au.
If you are interested in finding new ways to reach your marketplace, why not try Credit Matters. Our prices for advertising are very reasonable and advertising packages are on offer to make any cost, even more affordable. So if you are interested in reaching your customers at the right price, please contact Kim at info@creditmatters.com.au for options.