The Blue Collar Back Office Podcast

BCBO Podcast Procrastination is the Enemy

Procrastination is the Enemy of Success As small business owners, we all need to get things done. Lots of things. We know that we set the example for our employees, and how we carry ourselves affects the entire culture of the company. But despite this, procrastination still affects all of us! You may think that procrastinating is just time wasting, but the short and long term consequences of it can go way beyond this. It doesn’t just waste your time. Procrastination affects the performance of your business. It is one of the nastiest bad habits that every one of us has to fight against on a daily basis. Disappointing Customer Experience * As small business owners, we often need to fulfill many roles. One that will always be of paramount importance is the satisfaction of our customers. After all, without customers, we have no business. Sometimes, if we put off certain tasks, the knock-on effect is that other tasks get delayed – sometimes for a long time if they rely on the previous tasks being done! Additionally, we often procrastinate over ‘boring’ tasks, but these tasks can also often be the nuts and bolts of our systems. And these tasks can be those that allow us to keep up to date with client communications and experience. And procrastinating over any tasks that relate to, or could impact on other client relationship or satisfaction tasks is a big no-no. Confidence * Procrastination can and does have a huge effect on confidence. It can also encourage feelings of Imposter Syndrome. When we procrastinate and put things off, it can often lead to a louder internal chatter. Chatter that talks us out of things or tells us we are not good enough. But to run a small business well, you need confidence. Without it, we just can’t put ourselves out there. It’s too painful. So keep an eye on your internal chatter and make sure your procrastination isn’t responsible for your deteriorating or faltering confidence. On the flip side, getting on and doing things builds our confidence! Procrastination also creates a vicious cycle of stress. Deadlines eventually arrive, and next thing you know you are feeling the pressure to deliver and complete 8 hours of work in 30 minutes because earlier in the week you spent 8 hours doing 30 minutes of work! This takes control away from you and your day. Instead being able to be proactive and focus on the important tasks that will help your business succeed, you are constantly putting out fires. Fires you created! When the fire is put out you are so worn out mentally (and/or physically) that you decide you need a “break” for a while. That break turns into more procrastination which eventually turns into more fires to be put out and the cycle continues. Your employees also see this behavior. No one enjoys working for a “Do as I say, not as I do” type person. The example you set for your team inevitably affects their performance, confidence, and enthusiasm. When the team sees that the owner is constantly putting off the important tasks that shows what is expected of them. If you reprimand employees for the same behaviors you are exhibiting that will eventually lead to resentment and disappointing results. Procrastination makes easy things hard and hard things harder. There are some really amusing quotes about procrastination that will make you smile and laugh, but I promise you a successful business will make you even happier. Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today. Be proactive. Take the first step. Reap the rewards.

BCBO Podcast Online Bill Payments

Maintaining a healthy cash flow is crucial for any business, regardless of size. Still, small and medium-sized businesses are particularly vulnerable to cash flow issues, especially in today’s volatile market. The good news is that embracing digital payments can help. A healthy cash flow means you have enough money to pay your vendors, suppliers, utility bills, rent, and employees, and are still left with some extra cash for unexpected expenses or for growing your business. Cash flow health means your business is more resilient in uncertain times as it has some reserves it can lean into if push comes to shove. Switching to digital payments is not just a matter of convenience (which is also a big deal for busy entrepreneurs like you). It helps businesses improve their cash flow management without requiring monetary investment, special equipment, or training. If you have an internet connection and can operate a computer or a mobile phone, you can start sending digital payments online. Many digital payment tools allow you to schedule payments in advance. This saves time as you can handle all your payments in one sitting. It also improves your cash flow as it ensures you pay on time and never a minute too soon. So, you can hang on to cash longer without fear of forgetting a bill and incurring late fees and penalties. By using digital payment tools you can get a clear picture of your finances at any given time. You can also see all of your scheduled payments in order to better plan ahead. Knowing exactly what’s coming in and out of your account and when will help you avoid payments accidentally depleting your cash flow. It will also allow you to know just how much cash you have to play around with at the moment. Using digital payment tools can save you hours every week on writing and sending out checks. If you’re wasting less time on payments, you’re practically adding to your cash reserves by cutting staff hours and focusing on generating revenue instead of busy work. More cash means better cash flow. It’s that simple. When it comes to cash flow, sometimes just having flexibility and choices can make all the difference. When you use QuickBooks Online Bill Payments (powered by Melio) for your payments, you can choose to pay with ACH to preserve cash by saving on fees (0% for ACH payments). If you’re currently low on cash and need a little extra float until some money comes in, you can easily pay your bills with a credit card, even if your vendors don’t accept cards. This way, for a 2.9% fee, your vendor gets paid immediately, whichever way they prefer—check or ACH—while you get to hang on to your cash until your next billing cycle, providing up to 60 days of additional float. One of the newest features is combined payments. Say you need to pay ten different invoices, all from the same vendor. Sure, you can schedule ten individual payments, or, you can pay them all in one payment. Save time, money and make life simpler for you and your vendor. That’s what combined payments are all about! This feature lets you select the bills you want to pay to a single vendor and pay them all in one combined transaction. So, your vendor will see one ACH transfer or get one check for all the bills. And the same goes for you - all the combined bills will show and count as one transaction on your end as well. Melio gives you the flexibility to pay vendors, suppliers and contractors exactly the way you want. Connecting Melio and QuickBooks Online syncs the two to save time and eliminate double data entry. Once connected, Melio pulls vendor information from QuickBooks, so you don't have to enter any vendor details, just select one from a list or start typing and have vendors auto-completed. Then, once you've completed a bill payment in Melio, your QuickBooks account is updated with the payment's details.

BCBO Podcast Start with Integretity

Blue Collar Back Office continues to grow! We are extremely grateful for the sustained growth we have seen over the last couple of years. We continue to add new clients and new services to meet their needs. Throughout this growth period our team has continued to grow to meet the demand. I am extremely proud of the team and culture that we have here at BCBO and without the amazing members of our team we could never achieve the results that we have seen. Hiring and training is not an easy or “fun” task. It takes a lot time to search through potential candidates and then interview those you think will be the best fit. When we are looking to hire for BCBO I try and remember the fantastic advice given by Warren Buffett: We look for three things when we hire people. We look for intelligence, we look for initiative or energy, and we look for integrity. And if they don’t have the latter, the first two will kill you, because if you’re going to get someone without integrity, you want them lazy and dumb. Especially in our industry, integrity is key. Our whole company is built on helping small businesses organize and grow their business, and the key function we provide is bookkeeping. With that, we have access to and see a plethora of information. While we take the necessary security measures to ensure that not a single person that works for our company (including myself) have access to our clients funds, we still see information that should not be shared. Hiring people with the highest level of integrity is the number one priority. Intelligence and initiative are extremely important too. While we aren’t building rockets over here, bookkeeping and accounting is something that requires experience, training, and an extreme attention to detail. The majority of our team works remotely or at least semi-remotely. We are not Big Brother. We are not watching the keystrokes and micromanaging their day. We allow everyone on the team to take ownership of their day and their responsibilities. Every member our of team knows what is expected of them and has the initiative to take control of their day and deliver results for our clients. It sometimes takes a lot of interviews to find the right person that checks all those boxes. This is not an area of your business to “settle” however. It is imperative that you surround yourself with great people that will represent your company well and provide outstanding service for your clients.

BCBO Podcast Show Up

Sometimes, you just need to show up As many of you know by now, Blue Collar Back Office was born out of our construction company. We have been operating a successful construction company since 2008. Are we the biggest builders in NJ? Far from it. We run a successful business that turns a profit and has had steady growth year after year for almost 15 years now. How do we do it? Mostly, we show up. We answer our phones. We reply to emails. We send out estimates that are clear and easy to understand and we do it in a timely manner. We communicate with our clients. We send out our invoices on time, and we keep detailed notes. None of it is rocket science. However, you might be surprised to hear just how hard it is to get someone to show up in our industry. And even if they do the chances of receiving an estimate is not nearly as high as you would expect. That is today’s topic - showing up. It is such a simple concept. In today’s economy it is not as difficult as you think to set yourself apart from the competition and create a company that is stable and profitable. A lot of the competition is either unorganized or simply doesn’t have the discipline and drive to follow through on their commitments.  Want to really set yourself apart from the competition? Not only show up, but show up ON TIME. When you make an appointment, keep it. If you can’t, communicate it the people involved immediately. People understand when an emergency happens and you email or call to say you need to reschedule the appointment you had booked for Tuesday at 2pm. What they don’t understand, but will certainly remember is when it is 2:10 on Tuesday and when they contact you to find out why you aren’t there (or on the Zoom or haven’t called, etc.) and you provide some vague excuse.  Want to rise above the competition that does show up and shows up on time? Show up on time WITH A POSITIVE ATTITUDE AND A PLAN. Come prepared and with knowledge that will help the client. Don’t act like you have someplace better to be and you are doing them a favor by showing up. Don’t immediately go into a sales pitch without finding out what the clients needs truly are.  You would be shocked to hear how many jobs we have done over the years simply because we followed those three simple steps. We have landed jobs where we know we were nowhere close to being the most cost effective or had the best scheduling availability. However, we showed up on with a positive attitude and a plan and was able to develop a trust with the client that not only would the job get done when we said it would get done, but it would be done correctly because we had demonstrated a commitment to our clients and our business through our responsible actions. Once you have landed the work, it is time to implement all of those same strategies in to how you run the job. Send out estimates and invoices in a timely manner. The amount of lost income we have captured for clients over the years is staggering. If invoices don’t get sent out you don’t have a very good chance of getting paid. Schedule jobs realistically and communicate with your clients. It is much better to tell your client up front that you probably can’t get to their job for three weeks and then have the opportunity to call them after two weeks to see if they would be available to start sooner if something changed in your schedule then to tell them you will be there next week and then delay them. These simple steps are sometimes all it takes to rise to top of your industry. Simply not sitting back and waiting for it to come to you but instead going out and getting it is all it takes. This is not a magic trick. This is about making a commitment and putting in the work. Show up and I promise you will see the positive results.

BCBO Podcast The Benefits of Budgets

Budgets: How they work for you A high number of clients that we work with did not implement the use of budgets prior to our relationship. Those that did primarily only did it on an annual basis in regards to the overall company results. That is important, and we will discuss the benefits of that throughout this episode, but just as important, especially for companies in the contracting industry is the ability to create budgets in QBO by individual job or class Without even realizing it or necessarily in a formal fashion, many businesses already carry out the majority of the activities associated with budgeting, such as thinking about growth areas, competitors, cashflow and profit. The process does not have to difficult or time-consuming. QuickBooks Online has a budgeting feature built into the program that makes the process simple. You even have the option to import data from previous periods to use as a template moving forward. The most important thing is that plans are made, they are accurate and realistic to your business or the job, and that the information is clearly communicated to everyone involved. A few examples of the overall benefits of creating a budget (from and overall and per job basis): Manage your money and cash flow effectively * When you are planning per job (or per month, quarter, year, etc.) it allows you be more effective when making cash flow projections and make more informed decisions regarding payments Allocate appropriate resources to jobs * Labor schedule * Management schedule * Sub-contractor schedule Monitor performance * Budget vs Actual reports * % of job invoiced compared to % of budgeted COGS sold is always a good indicator of where the job SHOULD be * Are you behind on billing? * Was there a miscalculation in the original budget that should be revised? Meet your objectives * In general, the use of detailed goal setting strategies has a profound impact on success Increase staff motivation * Clear, understood objectives and goals help drive motivation * When there is no clear path and no clearly defined objective the ability to differentiate between success and failure becomes blurred which can lead to poor moral and motivation New small business owners may run their businesses in a relaxed way and may not see the need to budget. However, if you are planning for your business' future, you will need to fund your plans. Budgeting is the most effective way to control your cashflow, allowing you to invest in new opportunities at the appropriate time.