Steve Slisar has been training people how to use computers since 1994, opened a training centre in 1999 in Dee Why and by 2005 had 3 training centres and created over 35 individual courses that include Screen videos with audio commentary, training workbooks for those who prefer to read to learn, and exercise files that are used with the tasks in the workbooks so you get practical experience in the software you are trying to learn. Now the creator of 5 of the most popular online MYOB training courses in Australia.
You may have a different opinion when it comes to paying your suppliers but I believe you should pay quickly. I’m talking mainly about service providers rather that product suppliers, but I think in small business it doesn’t matter.
Everyone loves to be paid on time and if you can get paid earlier, even better. It once took me 16 minutes to pay a supplier – OK, I was making other payments at the time, but still, it looked impressive.
I mention it today because one of my team told me that I was categorised by their accounting software as “high risk” and I wasn’t too happy.
Ever seen these headings in online ads? It’s sensational I know and I’d rather not revert to such tactics, but the truth of the matter is that the personal work you do to become a better networker and learn how to become a good referrer of business to other people will turn you into the “go to” person a lot of small businesses would like. The result is that you’ll pick up more business because people trust you.
A recent example that Michael gave me about the benefits that one bookkeeper received because of their new-found referral marketing skills is Don Doolan from First Class Accounts. He was able to triple his lead generation just by focussing his efforts on effective networking and finding a way to help his network on contacts improve their business.
Is Referral Marketing just good Customer Service?
Customer service is an important aspect in every business. It’s so important that even the largest of Australian and US companies use it as a tool to generate more sales! We include Customer Service tips in our Small Business Management and StartUp Course from David Hall and I’m mentioning it here because both customer service and networking require a similar effort in modifying your approach to customers and listening to them.
When you listen to your customers in your regular conversations you’ll discover many opportunities to either:
Mention a product or service that you offer, or
Mention that you know someone who could provide them with exactly what they are looking for.
Just by writing this email I am referring Michael and his Referral Marketing course because I have seen the benefits from other people in our network and I know how important it is to have a good relationship with key customers.
MYOB Bookkeeper Marketing
If you are one of our MYOB Bookkeeping Course students and you are interested in taking the journey of becoming an independent consultant to provide bookkeeping services in your local area please make sure you read about our MYOB Bookkeeper Directory service.
Want help starting a bookkeeping business?
Business Opportunities for Ordinary People
We have now teamed up with the StartUp Academy to help our students (and anyone else) start their own home based business as a bookkeeper. You’ll be able to earn money by helping people learn how to use programs like MYOB, Quickbooks and Xero or doing the work for them. Learn more about starting a bookkeeping business.
Every time you set goals and generally act like a boss, you’re serving much the same function as a business coach.
Ever since EzyLearn’s early days, when we still had our training centres in Sydney, I’ve always gained a real buzz out of helping our students start their own businesses.
The StartUp Academy is a start-up incubator for entrepreneurs who want to work in industries currently experiencing rapid growth — like the work health and safety industry, for example — but who also want to have balance in their home and work life; to be their own bosses. Continue reading You’ve Already Got a Business Coach – YOU!
We’ve come across a great new referral marketing website that will pay you a grand for referring a colleague.
We’ve published numerous posts about referral marketing, which is an invaluable and cost effective way of marketing your business. In particular, we talked about LinkedIn. This is something that I, Steve Slisar, CEO of EzyLearn, am a big believer in — and so is small business marketing guru, Michael Griffiths.
Great customer service is the key to ensuring you always have a happy customer. Providing consistently good customer service and being courteous to people in the way you communicate with them, be they suppliers or contractors, as well as customers, is also highly beneficial to your business in other ways. Continue reading Thanks For Loving Us
You don’t need to be a BAS agent to be a successful and profitable bookkeeper.
The reason many of our students complete our MYOB training courses is because they’re looking for a new job, and so we’re often asked if our MYOB training courses are accredited and whether they come with a certificate.
The answer to this question is a little more complicated than it may seem, and here’s why:
I mentioned in my last post that I will be presenting a Work at Home Seminar at the Reinvent Your Career Expo in
Sydney on 30 and 31 August 2014. We call it the WAH Seminar and I really hope to see some of EzyLearn’s students there. We’ll have a stand there for our soon to be announced Start Up Academy!
Ever since we started offering our MYOB training courses online, thousands of students have enrolled and learned how to become MYOB bookkeepers. Many of those students are mums, who were looking to become skilled in a job they could do from home.
In 2012, we added the Small Business Management and Start-up course to our online training platform, to help students to learn a new set of skills that would help them start their own businesses as independent contractors, so they can earn more money, work their own hours, work closer to home, and spend more time with the kids.
Entrepreneurs are strong-minded individuals – but we’ve found there are at least 5 other qualities they tend to possess that leads to their business success.
This is a perfectly understandable sentiment — but it’s not necessarily conducive to making a small business work.
Entrepreneurs are known to be people who manage starting up and/or bringing to fruition their own businesses and ventures, but entrepreneurs are a certain breed and as many find out the hard way, self-employment is not for everyone. Continue reading So You Think You Can Be an Entrepreneur?
Michael Griffiths is holding a series of referral marketing workshops in Sydney.
When you start a new business, it’s incredibly important that you consider how you’re going to market your business to gain new customers. We cover the more traditional marketing strategies in our Small Business Management course, such as print advertising and even Google Adwords, but you shouldn’t only focus on these methods of marketing, as there are other, more powerful ways to market your business to customers.
I’ve written about referral marketing on this blog before, where I said that having a blog was a very effective way of getting people to talk about your business. If you frequently publish blog posts that your readers find valuable, they’re more likely to refer you on to their contacts. This is a form of referral marketing.
Have LinkedIn?, Need a Website?
Some people use their blog as a way to drive traffic to their website, but if you have a LinkedIn profile, I would say you don’t even need a website, since LinkedIn already gathers your professional information and then recommends you to other LinkedIn users with similar interests and professional experience.
I used to have my own personal website at the domain www.slisar.com.au, where I used to write and publish blog posts. I wrote a couple of blogs on it and tried to make myself seem amazing. After all, I had this domain and I thought, what on earth will I do with it if I don’t fill it up with stuff about me?
Sometime later I discovered the benefits of a LinkedIn profile, and I did away with my personal website. Now if you type in my domain name it directs to my LinkedIn profile (feel free to try it and connect with me, if you’d like) where you can see my online resume.
For many independent contractors – home-based bookkeepers, virtual assistants, etc – this is all you need to get started working in the digital age. You can still keep a blog, just as I do with the EzyLearn blog, which is connected to my LinkedIn profile so that when I write something, my LinkedIn connections can read it, like it, and start a conversation about it.
However, I probably don’t use LinkedIn as much as I should, but someone who does is Michael Griffiths, a small business marketing guru. He has helped companies with their online marketing for several years, and with a background in sports coaching, it’s little wonder he started teaching people about online marketing.
He now mostly focuses on referral marketing, and LinkedIn is a powerful tool he uses a lot. In fact, he’s created a training workshop that’s being held this coming Tuesday, August 19 in Milsons Point (in Sydney). That only leaves you with a few days to register, but if you’re serious about finding new ways to market and grow your business, it’s worth it.
Otherwise, if you don’t think you can make it on Tuesday, he’s holding another workshop in November. To register or find out more about Michael Griffiths’ referral marketing workshop click here.
Free Video: Michael Griffiths explaining the benefits of having a live and active website
Here’s a video of Michael talking about the value of having a blog and an active website that is regularly updated with new content. When you hear Michael in action during a presentation you realised how freely he shares his knowledge and experiences, enjoy.
If you’re working as a contractor and using an Australian business number (ABN), rather than a tax file number (TFN), you’re self-employed, and this means you will need to invoice your customers for the products or services you provide in order to get paid.
If you’ve only ever worked as an employee before, you’re probably used to being able to set your clock to payday, but unfortunately this isn’t often the case when you’re a contractor.
Getting paid late — or worse, not at all! — can seriously affect your cash-flow, and in turn, affect the success of your business, which is why we cover things like financial planning in our Small Business Management and Start Up Course.
Show Me the Money: A thorough understanding of how to use Google can help you – and your business – earn more.
We’ve been writing about referral marketing a lot lately, and in a recent post about marketing action plans, we talked about why you should include referral marketing and/or networking as a marketing strategy in your marketing plan.
That may seem silly to some people, since networking doesn’t always translate to sales straight away, but we’ve discovered another reason why you should include it in your marketing plan: Google!Continue reading Is Google Your Sugar Daddy?
With a Marketing Action Plan, you’ll be able to isolate which marketing strategies are working best for your small business.
In the marketing module of our Small Business Management course, our students learn about marketing action plans, and throughout the course come to create their own marketing plan for their soon-to-be business.
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Xero is a great bookkeeping program for tradies who are on the go and using their phones (or a tablet) all the time. From receipts scanning to creating quotes and invoices, receiving payments and keeping track of project costs.
bookkeepercourse.com.au/produ…
