Author: Steve Slisar

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.
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Induction Training is Most Important for Contractors

Online inductions are vital for keeping contractors safe and informed.
Online inductions are vital for keeping contractors safe and informed.

In a recent post, we mentioned how our MYOB training courses are like an induction into the role of a bookkeeper; we’ve also written about how to engage your staff with your work, health and safety training material. But induction training doesn’t just deal with the potential safety risks contractors may encounter at your organisation.

Who is a Contractor, Exactly?

The word ‘contractor’ doesn’t just relate to tradespeople, like plumbers or electricians, who may come to your business to perform work. It also refers to the IT or marketing consultants or temp workers who regularly come to your office to work.

Even though they are usually employed by another organisation, or perhaps even self-employed, while they are at your office or premises you are still bound by a duty of care to ensure their safety.

This means providing them with work, health and safety training – although they are not required to provide a safe work method statement (SWMS). (That is a requirement only for tradespeople.)

Induction for Info Beyond Safety

But safety aside, it’s important you provide induction training that also covers where contractors can refer customers for customer service or more detailed product information.

Induction training is even necessary to advise contractors of common things, such as where they can find parking, where local amenities – like cafés and train stations – are.

Many companies provide this information in the form of hard copy ‘welcome packs’, but it’s much easier and more efficient – particularly if your organisation uses contractors often – to deliver this induction information using an online training course.

Further, besides creating and updating the training material itself, online induction training courses require very little maintenance. And the training material can be as simple or elaborate as you like. By delivering your course online, you can add steps to ensure people actually read the material. It’s as simple as creating the course in PowerPoint, recording your audio and uploading it to your learning management system.

The Importance of Due Diligence and Morale Building

The most important part of an induction training course is that it shows evidence of due diligence. That is; you have made a concerted effort to ensure contractors are aware of certain process and procedures within your organisation.

Induction training is also an important aspect of building team morale. Whether it’s among your permanent staff members or contract and temp workers, if the morale within your organisation is low, your business will suffer as a result.

A key way to build team morale is to ensure your staff, contractors and temp workers understand what is expected of them in terms of performance – and what they can expect of you in return.

And though no one likes to think about the negative things like this, induction training is very important should you ever find yourself involved in legal action over something a contractor should have known about.

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If you would like to learn more about induction training for your organisation, visit our website, or request a quote from us.

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Small Business Finances: Should You Start Your Business in the Red?

Don't fall into a credit trap by running into debt to finance your small business before you even have your first customer.
Don’t fall into a credit trap by running into debt to finance your small business before you even have your first customer.

The ‘Plan small business finances module‘ of our Small Business Management Course takes students through the steps to creating a financial plan for their small business. Many small businesses get loans and credit from banks and other finance institutions, but how wise is it to get into debt before the doors to your business are even open?

Is Credit the Best Way?

About 20 years ago, the only way businesses could make payments easily was to apply for a credit card from a bank. The bank would then give you an amount of credit, $5000 say, and the more you used it, the more credit you would be offered.

This is great if you have the means to pay it back immediately – and if you do actually pay it back immediately. However, if you’re like most people, having access to large sums of money that can be paid back at a later date – in 30 days, 55 days, 3 months – can lead down a dangerous path for your small business.

Start-Up Finance

We spoke to one entrepreneur who had an idea to start a gourmet packaged meals business aimed at a demographic of busy professionals. He had planned to go the conventional route and borrow $200K to finance his start-up; even though at this point, he didn’t have a single customer.

But there were plenty of other options available to get his business off the ground, rather than getting into debt before he even had his first customer. We suggested using another company’s equipment, contracting the manufacture of the products to another company, or re-branding an already existing product.

The term used in the start-up community for using your own money is called bootstrapping. But it’s one way to guarantee that you will do all the research and determine the most cost efficient way to run your business before outlaying substantial sums of money on equipment or other overheads.

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With new technologies like cloud-based software and high-speed internet, many small business owners have been able to significantly reduce their overheads, which has enabled them to avoid starting their business in the red.

Business is about taking calculated risks for a reasonably predictable reward and it really all comes down to research and knowledge. Live with an asset mentality and don’t get caught in the credit trap. You’ll find out all the best financing options for your small business in our Small Business Management Course.

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Small Business is about Doing

It's time to roll your sleeves up: our Small Business Management Course gets you working on a real life business idea.
It’s time to roll your sleeves up: our Small Business Management Course gets you working on a real life business idea.

As Australia’s leading provider of online training courses, we deliver all kinds of different training courses – and we’ve recently branched into providing online induction training courses to business. But where EzyLearn’s flagship course, the MYOB training course, teaches practical skills in using one of the most popular accounting software packages, it is a completely different kind of course to our Small Business Management Course – and for good reason.

Thinking as if You Own A Business

Our Small Business Management Course is designed to make you think like a business owner. Where our other software-based courses are designed to systematically guide you through a particular software package, our Small Business Management Course needs to be different.

As a business owner, you’ll be thrown curve balls from many directions – especially when you first start out – and the key to surviving them is being able to think objectively and without bias.

You’ll need to be able to problem-solve and sometimes develop new approaches to existing business practices or activities. Running your own business means having a plan, but not always operating to it.

To complete the course, you need to be able to demonstrate that you possess the required skills to successful operate your own business – by researching, thinking and writing.

A Real Business Idea with Tutor Feedback

The Small Business Management Course is deliberately structured so that as you work your way through the course content, you’re applying the exercises and skills you’re learning to a real-life business idea. Then, once you’ve complete the course, you’ll go live with this business idea.

The course gives students an unusual and unique advantage over other soon-to-be business owners because our students get feedback from a tutor that they can then apply to their business strategies.

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This is what makes our Small Business Management Course so popular – because you’re learning with your real business idea, where other business courses merely have student complete exercises or answer questions in relation to hypothetical business scenarios.

If you would like to learn more about our small business management course, visit our website or enrol here.

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MYOB: What is an Induction?

Our MYOB course will help induct you into the role of bookkeeper.
Our MYOB course will help induct you into the role of bookkeeper.

The word ‘induction’ has many uses, which can make it rather subjective. It can refer to the time interval between the cause and the first measurable effect in an experiment; it can refer to stimulating the process of childbirth; it can refer to a rite of passage or ritual event, like a Bar of Bat Mitzvah; even our MYOB training courses act as a kind of quasi induction into the world of bookkeeping.

Exposure to Real-World Scenarios

Even though our MYOB courses are primarily teaching you how to use an accounting software package, we deliberately created training courses that would expose our students to real-world bookkeeping scenarios, so they would properly understand the software.

When you complete the day-to-day transactions module of our MYOB course you’re taught how to receive money and pay bills, record a cash-sale, settle credits and returns, and analyse payable, among other things.

Each module within our MYOB training courses teaches you a fundamental aspect within the whole bookkeeping process, and in that way our courses act like an induction into the role of a bookkeeper.

Inducting You as a Bookkeeper

An induction helps to give a person a basic understanding of what to expect of a particular situation or circumstance. In the instance of our MYOB courses, we’re helping you to understand what is expected of you as a bookkeeper, and what you should expect in turn.

Many organisations provide new employees with induction training to help them understand how the business operates, and to keep their existing staff up-to-date with changing policies and procedures – such as work, health and safety.

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As Australia’s leading provider of online training courses, EzyLearn has recently ventured into providing companies and organisations with the facilities to provide their staff with online induction training.

If you’d like to learn more about the kinds of induction programs you can offer your staff, visit our website or request a quote.

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Discussion Post: How Do You File Your Invoices and Receipts?

How do you file invoices and receipts? Tell us, we want to hear!
How do you file invoices and receipts? We’d very much like to hear!

Whether you’re a bookkeeper or business owner, if there’s one thing we probably all have a shared hatred of — it’s filing. Filing is the little task we always put off, until eventually we can’t find anything through the sea of paper and receipts cluttering our offices.

This wouldn’t be so bad if filing wasn’t such an important part of a business.

People File Differently Now

But as cloud computing, internet banking and email have changed the way businesses operate, the way people file their expenses and important business documents has changed as well. Continue reading Discussion Post: How Do You File Your Invoices and Receipts?

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Web Analytics: Everything You Thought You Knew About the Web is WRONG!

It's all about the clicks on the web - or is it?
It’s all about the clicks on the web – or is it?

If you’re an average reader, I’ve got your attention for about 15 seconds, so here goes: many things we’ve been taught about the web are wrong. One of the biggest mistakes – thinking that clicking is the same as reading.

Not your average reader? Perhaps I’ve got you a while longer… We’ve mentioned on this blog before that every business owner should be monitoring their web analytics – we’re even developing a Google Training Course for business owners who want to learn more about the Google products.

What Does Web Analytics Help You With?

Web analytics allows you to determine things like where your visitors originated from, your click rate and your bounce rate.

Google considers any visitor who spends less than 30 seconds on your web page before clicking elsewhere to have “bounced” – and the number of people who bounce from your website is your bounce rate.

Clicks and Conversions

Your click rate is the number of people who have clicked through to your website from a search engine, banner ad, or third party link. The goal is to keep your click rate high and your bounce rate low – this is supposed to demonstrate high engagement with your website, your business or your brand; it’s also supposes to guarantee conversions.

Except that it doesn’t – a fact that’s becoming clear to organisations with large web presences, as web users become more sophisticated as the way we use the web has evolved.

According to Tony Haile, of US company Chartbeat, which provides real-time analytics for companies like Time Inc, Forbes and NBC Universal, businesses should be looking towards something he calls Attention Web and away from clicks and bounce rates.

Time and Attention

Attention Web is not just valuing the number of clicks, but valuing the time and attention visitors give your site. “Time is a rare scarce resource on the web and we spend more of our time with good content than with bad,” Haile says.

For business owners this means you need to give your customers and clients, good, valuable content and start valuing the time they spend reading and engaging with it. Do this and your conversion rate will soar – and in turn, your bounce rate plummet.

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If you’d like to learn more about web analytics and other Google products, you can subscribe to our blog. Alternatively, if you’d like to learn more about building an effective website, you can enrol in our WordPress Training Course.

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‘Commenting’ in Databases

We suggest only writing the glad, not the bad, when it comes to comments in databases - and indeed, perhaps in life.
We suggest only writing the glad, not the bad, when it comes to comments in databases – and indeed, perhaps in life.

Nearly every company has one – usually as part of their CRM software, but other times it’s just a good ol’ faithful Excel document. Either way, databases are commonplace in a great deal of companies and they’re often used to keep track of communication between staff and their customers.

But what’s the rule on commenting in databases, or specifically, leaving negative comments in databases?

Comments – Integral to a Database

Making general comments in a database following a conversation with a client is pretty much standard practice – in many cases, it’s often the reason you have a database. In customer service call centres, for example, leaving a detailed comment about the discussion you’ve had with a customer is expected – and serves as an invaluable resource for the next person who speaks to that customer.

In this instance, it’s sometimes appropriate to leave comments about the customer’s temperament – angry, rude, upset, and so forth. This just helps the next staff member manage this customer in a manner that suits the circumstances.

But many companies quite commonly also use databases for the express purpose of selling something to a new or potentially new client; negative comments speculating on the temperament or nature of a contact in a database, may not be altogether helpful in this instance.

Reading that the person you’re about to call or have a meeting with is a ‘disgruntled curmudgeon’ is almost certainly going to affect the way you interact with that person. If you go into something expecting hostility, you’ll naturally position yourself on the defense, which in turn is only going to illicit hostility back.

Ditching the Negativity

But what if that person was only responding with hostility because you pre-empted their alleged hostility by being defensive in the first place? That’s a question you may never know the answer to, unless you ditch the negative comments in your database.

That doesn’t mean you can’t write useful comments such as “spoke to John, but he said he wasn’t interested in our product’, but you should definitely avoid comments like ‘spoke to John who was extremely rude and said he wasn’t interested in our product.’ The added detail in the latter is not particularly useful and if that person does ever become a customer it could underscore your interactions with them.

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It can be a good philosophy to only write the glad, not the bad. Perhaps have a think about that when you leave comments in a database, or make a policy about your own database usage.

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What Kind of Bank Account Do You Need for Your Business?

At EzyLearn, we’re committed to helping students of our MYOB courses gain employment as a MYOB bookkeeper or even start their own bookkeeping business; it’s why we provide you with lifetime access to our MYOB training courses as part of our commitment to continuing professional development.

We recently wrote posts about the service, Banklink, (generally used far and wide except by the Bank of Queensland) and since then we’ve heard back from a couple of our readers, who told us about some of the problems they’ve experienced trying to use BankLink with their bank account.

Banklink and Credit Card Issues

We spoke to one reader, Anton Prinsloo, who owns and operates CSTAY Budget Holiday Accommodation at Magnetic Island, off the Townsville Coast. Anton uses the Bank of Queensland for his business banking, and as part of his business strategy uses his credit card for all of his business purchases.

Anton has found that while the BankLink service “beautifully reconciles my everyday business account, BankLink doesn’t work with my credit card.” Anton later discovered that the reason BankLink doesn’t work with his credit card is because in 2007 the Bank of Queensland transferred its credit card service to Citibank.

According to BOQ Managing director, David Liddy, the decision to transfer BOQ’s credit card service to Citibank was “part of Bank of Queensland’s ongoing strategy to provide its customers with the best in access and customer service, while providing the full range of finance products.”

“Bank of Queensland customers will continue to have the advantages of a BOQ card, but with greater support, better product range, and more extensive national and international systems,” Liddy said of the deal in 2007.

However, as Anton found out, the Citibank-provided BOQ credit card doesn’t offer the same advantages as a BOQ card would have, as it can’t be used with BankLink because it’s a service provided by Citibank.

“I contacted Citibank to see if I could get BankLink from them, but because they don’t hold the account they’re not able to offer this service to me,” Anton told us, adding, “I get the feeling they have no intention to even try to resolve this issue, either.”

For Anton and, we imagine, many other business owners who bank with BOQ, this adds upwards of three hours to his reconciliation process using what he calls “half technology”.

Issues with the NAB

But BOQ isn’t alone. The National Australia Bank requires businesses to have a debit card account that’s separate to their business account, requiring the business owner to make time-consuming journal entries in MYOB each time they transfer money from their business account to the account attached to their debit card.

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For business owners, selecting the right bank account for your business is a decision you should make wisely. Make sure you think about how you intend to use your account and do your research before settling on any particular bank. Be extra certain to find out if your bank offers the Bank Link service and how it will work with your account, so you can save yourself the hassle of journal entries and manual reconciliation.

Thanks again to Anton who shared his story with us. If your have a story you’d like to share with us, please let us know in the comments or get in touch.

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It Doesn’t Matter if You’re Mac or PC – We’re Cross-Platform

You can access us using any browser and a PC or Mac.
You can access us using any browser and a PC or Mac.

At EzyLearn we are commonly asked the question, “Can I still take the MYOB training course if I used a Mac computer?”  We’re only too pleased to report that, unlike the Australian Taxation Office — which ignored Mac users for the better part of a decade — at EzyLearn you can use a Mac with all of our training courses.

Accessible to Any Browser

Our training courses are all delivered using our online learning management system, which is accessed by any web browser. Whether you use Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Google Chrome and so on, you can access our training courses at anytime, from any computer.

Once you’re enrolled in one of our online training courses, you can then access our course content using a username and password to login to our online learning management system — unlike other training courses, you do not need to download any software to access our coursework.

Workbooks in PDF

The workbooks for each course are created in a PDF format that can be downloaded to any computer — and printed off if you so wish; all of our online training videos are compatible with any web browser; and any tests or exams can also be completed online.

If you’re taking our MYOB training course, we do recommend that you download a free trial of the MYOB software, which you can use to test your knowledge as your progress through the course; the MYOB free trial software can be downloaded from the MYOB website.

Why Online?

Part of the reason we offer our training courses online is because we wanted to offer students the flexibility of completing our courses when and where it suited them; offering training courses in a cross-platform format, accessible from any computer, regardless of operating system, makes the learning process even more flexible for you.

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So whether you’re using an IBM or a Mac — EzyLearn does not discriminate! If you’d like to enrol in our MYOB training course, you can do so here; for a comprehensive list of all  our other training courses, click here.

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Amway and Multi-Level Marketing at a Glance

Avon and Amway rely on independent business owners to market their products to their network of friends and family.
Avon and Amway rely on independent business owners to market their products to their network of friends and family.

In a previous post we talked about your own online business opportunity and how you can buy EzyLearn enrolment vouchers for our MYOB training courses at wholesale price, that you can then sell on to your own clients and contacts at retail price. We have sold enrolment vouchers to other training organisations for some time, but it also presents an opportunity for bookkeepers to expand their services to include training for their clients. If you’re wondering why someone would want to sell another business’ products or service, then take a look at one of the most successful multi-level marketing businesses, which relies on people to do just that: Amway.

Amway: Topping $10 Billion

Founded in 1959, Amway is one of the worlds oldest and most prosperous multi-level marketing companies. Like other well-known multi-level marketing businesses such as Avon and Tupperware, Amway utilises a workforce of distributors (known as independent business owners, or IBOs), who directly market the Amway products to their own network of friends and contacts; Amway expands its network of distributors by encouraging their IBOs to recruit and train new people into the Amway business for which the IBO receives a fee.

IBOs purchase Amway products at wholesale prices, and then sell those products at the recommended retail price; the difference is the IBO’s to keep, and in many ways, the Amway business model isn’t that different from your typical bricks-and-mortar business that stocks and sells the products of other companies.

For years the success of the Amway business model relied entirely upon IBOs developing and building their own network of clients, to whom they sold the Amway products. If you’re familiar with the catchphrase, “Ding dong, Avon calling” this pretty much encapsulates how Amway, Avon and the distributors of many other multi-level marketing businesses, won and retained their customers — pounding the pavement and ringing doorbells.

And it was a pretty successful business model, too. According to Forbes, Amway’s revenue in 2012 had reached $10.9 billion worldwide, making them the twenty-fifth largest private company in America; in Australia and the Asia Pacific, Amway’s revenues totalled more than AUD$198 million, while the number of distributors topped more than 100,000 in Australia, alone.

Social Media to Target the Younger Generations 

In 2010, however, Amway saw an opportunity to use Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms to expand their reach. As a business that relies on typical social networks to grow and develop their customer base, utilising social media to grow and develop their customer base online, made sense.

Where other organisations weren’t quite sure what to do with Facebook, Amway did as they had always done: cultivated good relationships with their customers. Their goal was to target a younger demographic that was not the typical Amway customer. Because social media platforms like Facebook naturally skew to a younger demographic, Amway’s decision to include social media in their marketing strategies paid off.

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If you’re already working as a bookkeeper, you can expand your range of services and pick up some extra revenue in the process by selling EzyLearn’s enrolment vouchers. Contact us to find out more.

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WHS Online Training Continued: Enrolment Forms and Exams

EzyLearn can help your business train WHS staff or provide credentialing and inductions.
EzyLearn can help your business train WHS staff or provide credentialing and inductions.

In a previous post we provided you with some tips on how to create a video for your work health and safety (WHS) induction training, which can be delivered online using EzyLearn’s learning management system. In this post, we look at handling enrolments and the most important element of all: testing your staff on their WHS knowledge!

Now that you’ve created your training content and it’s ready to be uploaded onto our learning management system, you need to create a way for people to enrol in your training course, which is accessible from a website.

How to Enrol People in Your Training Course

The easiest way to enrol your staff is to create an online enrolment form that either links to our learning management system where the person is automatically enrolled, or a more basic enrolment form that requires someone to manually enter the person’s details into our learning management system. The option you choose is largely dependent on the size of your organisation.

There are plenty of web-based form builders available that you can use to create your enrolment form, each varying in features and flexibility. If you’re looking for something that’s free, the Google Apps marketplace offers some fairly basic form-building software; there’s also Wufoo, which counts micro-blogging site, Twitter as one of its clients (along with us at EzyLearn!); if you’re looking for optimum flexibility, however, try Formsite.

Once you’ve created an enrolment form, you can use that same form-building software to create the exam your staff will need to complete in order to pass their induction training. It’s best to use a multiple-choice format for your exam, and try to keep the questions as simple as possible — in a real-world scenario, a person will need to respond to a potential safety risk quickly, so you want them to be as prepared as possible.

Have People Had the Requisite Training? Why You Need a Credentialing System

If your organisation has a lot of contractors coming and going on a daily basis, it may be necessary to have a credentialing system on your site. A credentialing system requires visitors to sign in upon arrival at your site to verify whether they’ve had the necessary WHS training.

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EzyLearn has recently partnered with EzyAccess to provide a suite of options in the area of WHS training. This means that we can provide businesses with the means to induct and train their own staff and also verify and credential visitors to their site.

For more information on how EzyLearn can help your business with your WHS needs, contact us.

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How to Engage Your People in WHS Training

An online video effectively engages your audience for training purposes.
An online video effectively engages your audience for training purposes.

We recently wrote about why it’s important for all small businesses to have their work health and safety (WHS) procedures up-to-date, particularly their induction training. Being that EzyLearn is in the learning business, and in particular, the online learning business, we’re able to facilitate your induction training via our learning management system.

If you employ staff, whether they are contractors or consultants, WHS training should be a major priority for your business. Providing your staff with online induction training is the easiest way to ensure your training materials are correct and up-to-date.

Create Training Videos

Because everyone’s learning style is different, we’ve found that the best way to guarantee engagement is to create a training video, which is then complemented with some form of written materials. Here are some of our tips for creating training videos:

Watch the clock: The key to a good training video is length. Try to keep your training videos short and sweet — ideally less than two minutes long — as people are sometimes turned off by the prospect of watching a 15-minute video. Shorter videos also load quicker, which is helpful for people with slow internet connections. For topics that are long, split them up into a combination of videos and written content.

Be engaging: Don’t just set up a camera tripod and film yourself writing on a white board — there is a reason so many people fall asleep during university lectures! It’s boring! Instead, put together a PowerPoint presentation and record audio over the top or try out some other presentation software, like Prezi.

Pace yourself: The average person can speak 150-160 words per minute (WPM), but for instructional videos you should try to reduce this to about 110 WPM to ensure people are able to grasp all of the information you’re providing. Don’t fall into the trap of speaking too slow, however. Slow-talkers — around the 90-100 WPM mark — project lethargy and can frustrate listeners. Given the choice, most people prefer a fast-talker — like President John F Kennedy, who was notorious for topping 200 WPM — than a slow-talker.

Don’t be afraid to go off script: Having a script is important, but scripts are rigid and boring. Run through your script a few times before you record your audio to iron out any clunky parts. It’s good to remember that people don’t speak the way they read, so you should avoid sentences that are too verbose, which stops the narration from flowing fluidly. As for those awkward pauses while you’re trying to find your place in your script: they’re annoying! Don’t be afraid to ad lib!

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If you’re interested in finding out how EzyLearn can help you provide your WHS training material online, contact us.

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Why the File Name of Your Resume is So Important

There are some very real practical reasons for not naming your resume file, "resume".
There are some very real practical reasons for not naming your resume file, “resume”.

When applying for a job, there are perhaps only two things most job seekers pay any attention to – the impressiveness of their CV and whether their cover letter is equally impressive, which is fine; CVs do have to be impressive, after all. In fact, if you’re looking for tips on crafting a good CV or cover letter, try reading our posts on both topics – one from the horse’s mouth, well actually that of a recruiter, who shares tips on what will get your CV noticed and another outlines the vital importance of covering letters. But the truth is, many people are still sloppy when it comes to their CVs.

Making a Good, Nay, Great First Impression

When you’re applying for a job, you’ve got to put your best foot forward. Most people know this, which is why they spend hours toiling over their resumes and then spend more hours laboriously constructing sentences that are neither ambiguous, nor too forthright, either; lest it leave the recruiter or hiring manager without any questions that could be answered in an interview.

Once we’re asked to come in for an interview, we make sure to wear our fancy interview threads and our best attitude – in short, we turn on the best version of ourselves. It’s about first impressions, after all, and everyone knows this. It’s so basic that all these things serve to do is weed out the tyre-kickers from the real contenders.

A Tougher Market

But in today’s job market the number of real contenders have increased markedly, while opportunities have remained the same, if not decreased in the years since the GFC. Standing out from your competition requires something extra – it could be something like showing a commitment to continuing professional development by taking a short course like many students of our MYOB training courses have done.

It could also be something as simple as demonstrating attention to detail – an important attribute to have if you’re applying for a job as a bookkeeper or an administration assistant, one would assume. Certainly, if I’m looking to hire a new staff member and I’ve had piles of CVs delivered to my inbox from Seek or Gumtree, finicky things like the filename of a person’s CV are things I look at.

If I receive a resume from someone simply saved as “resume” it’s generally safe to say that this person shows little attention to detail. More often than not, I open the file to find something off – poor formatting, spelling mistakes, terrible grammar, and the like. Sometimes this isn’t the case, and I certainly wouldn’t disregard a perfectly good candidate over something like this, but I’ve still made a note of it.

Think of the Interviewer

But there are practical considerations to this, too. Often, I’ll want to forward a couple of CVs onto another staff member to get their input, usually mentioning which candidate I think seems promising in my email. But emailing several CVs all saved as “resume” means the recipient will have to open each file to see if it corresponds to the applicant I was referring to – kind of annoying, particularly for the time-strapped recruiter.

It also makes saving the files on my computer difficult; plus there’s the chance that I could accidentally overwrite your CV with another candidate’s because they each have the same filename. Consequently, you’re not getting a phone call about an interview. All that time you spent on your CV was just negated in less than two seconds when I accidentally clicked ‘yes’ in response to the “‘resume.doc’ already exists. Do you want to replace it?” warning.

Saving your CV with your name and the job title you’re applying for doesn’t just show your attention to detail, it also makes it easy for recruiters and hiring managers – who are often advertising for more than one position – to identify who you are and the job you’re applying for, giving you a much great shot at being called in for an interview.

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Don’t risk your CV getting lost over something as simple as a filename – and if you’re not that attentive to detail, then start! It’s an important attribute to possess, because it means employers can trust that you’ll do your job right, which is why we’re hiring you in the first place. You might also consider getting some help writing your resume and learning how to use Microsoft Word to edit your resume if you need to. If you want to look at starting your own independent contracting business try the Small Business Management and StartUp Course.

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Bookkeepers: Stand Out from the Crowd and Become ICB Certified

You'll stand out by becoming ICB certified and BAS registered.
You’ll stand out by becoming ICB certified and a registered BAS agent.

Many of the students who take our MYOB training course in order to start their own bookkeeping business wish to then become certified with the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers (ICB).

How to Get ICB Stamp of Approval

Since 2006 the ICB has had a set of requirements bookkeepers must meet before they are permitted the ICB stamp of approval. Among these requirements – which also include possessing a Certificate IV in Financial Services (Bookkeeping) and personal indemnity insurance – all bookkeepers seeking to become certified with the ICB must possess a minimum of two years’ working experience.

For many bookkeepers starting out, getting that two years experience is a tough hurdle, particularly since the vast majority of bookkeepers in Australia are, according to General Manager of the ICB, Rick van Dyk, “independent sole traders”. “That’s why the ICB holds networking events at 59 locations around the country,” Rick says. “Because the best way to get the experience you need to become an ICB certified bookkeeper is to network with other bookkeepers.”

The ICB also holds online webinars each month, but Rick recommends attending networking events in person, because it provides you with more opportunity to network and get to know other bookkeepers.

Good Ways to Gain New Business

While it may seem like a lot of hoops to jump through in order to obtain membership to an organisation that’s voluntary, being an ICB certified bookkeeper does set you apart from the many other bookkeepers; it’s also a way of gaining new business, as the ICB is often the first port-of-call for many businesses looking for a contract bookkeeper.

But Rick van Dyk says that if your really want to stand out as a contract bookkeeper, become a registered BAS agent. “If you’re a contracting bookkeeper, you can look after a client’s data entry and do their reconciliation, but you’re not allowed to print any of the reports and advise your client on figures and so forth, as that contravenes the Act,”

Rick explains. There are currently about 9000 registered BAS agents in Australia, so there’s plenty of opportunity for bookkeepers to enter into this field by becoming a registered BAS agent with the Tax Practitioners Board.

Rick also offers this last piece of advice to budding bookkeepers-to-be: “Learn to use Excel; Excel still plays a very important part of the bookkeeper’s role, so it’s important bookkeepers know how to use it – fluently.”

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You can find more information about out MYOB course here or our Excel course here. Alternatively, if you’d like more information about becoming certified by the ICB, visit their website.

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Be Loved by Google: Use WordPress!

why-google-loves-wordpress
There are many benefits to creating your website with WordPress – and Google loves it too.

Although our flagship training course is our online MYOB training course, EzyLearn also offers a number of other training courses, such as our Small Business Management Course and our WordPress Design Course. WordPress has become one of the most popular free and open-source content management systems in the world and is used by nearly 19 percent of the top 10 million websites, according to Forbes magazine.

WordPress Benefits

What makes WordPress so popular, especially among small businesses, is that you can edit and update content whenever you like. You can select from a number of pre-existing themes, or install a custom-made theme to use for your website. There are also a number of plugins available to WordPress, like Google Analytics, which allows you to track and analyse the traffic visiting your site.

Until far too recently, creating a website for your business was often a costly and daunting exercise. While large organisations typically had in-house web developers and SEO experts, many small businesses retained the services of external web developers.

If you didn’t need to make any changes to your website, this was usually fine. Your web designer would create your website and it was all systems go. But as Google has changed the algorithms that are used to index websites, preferring web pages that are constantly updated, it’s become more necessary to update your website — and often — in order to appear relevant to Google.

The Need to be Googled

Google, the verb, was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, and is defined as “using the Google search engine to obtain information about something or someone on the World Wide Web.” Thus, it’s necessary to ensure your website appears in Google, so people can google you.

To do this you need to update your content, and frequently. This could involve creating new web pages, or regularly maintaining a blog. However, paying a web designer to upload and publish new content on website on a daily basis is not cost-effective, which is why WordPress has become so popular.

But there are other practical reasons to create and manage your own WordPress website. If you change your business address, or telephone number, you can quickly and easily update those details immediately — rather than waiting until your web designer has the time.

You’d be surprised how many businesses show their incorrect building address or telephone numbers on their websites, because they don’t have an easily updated website. And for each customer who calls, or can’t find that business at their address, that’s a customer they’ve lost to their competitor.

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If your business’ website is not currently easy-to-update, consider using one of the world’s most popular content management systems, and take our WordPress training course today.

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Entrpreneurs Share: Why All Businesses Need an Exit Strategy

Exit strategy
Plan from the outset where you want your business to go.

Perhaps to some it sounds a little pessimistic to talk about having an exit strategy for a business you haven’t yet started, however, an exit strategy is actually a very wise move. We talk all about the things you need to consider when starting a business in our Small Business Management Course, but of equal importance is how you’ll end the business, which is something you need to consider when writing your Business Plan.

How Will You End It All?

Knowing how you’ll exit your business when the time comes will determine a framework for how you’ll set up your business up in the first place. This could involve creating a name for your business, rather than using your own name, so that you can sell your business later without having to relinquish your right to use your own name.

Exit strategies have never been more important than they are today when it’s not uncommon for a start-up to be sold maybe two or three years after its inception. Take Flickr, the image hosting website, as an example of case in point; it was only 18 months old when it was sold to Yahoo! for $30 million in 2005.

Three Key Reasons to Have an Exit Strategy

We spoke to our network of fellow entrepreneurs and business owners recently, and they gave us three reasons every business should have an exit strategy.

1.    It gives you a roadmap: Mark Darling of Sip Water says: “Begin with the end in mind.” Operating a business without an exit strategy is like going on a road trip without taking a map. “How are you going to get there if you don’t know where there is?” The smaller things tend to fall into place much more easily when the bigger things have been decided.

2.    It’s motivating: “When you’re working towards a specific goal, it really helps you to stay motivated on those days when everything seems to be going wrong,” says Vic Cherikoff of Australian Functional Foods. Your exit strategy helps you to put certain problems in perspective.

3.   Get the best sale price: “Knowing when and how you will sell your business can help you think about what you need to do to maximise your business’s value,” explains Robert Crane of CIA OPS. Without an exit strategy, you may find yourself accepting fire sale prices just because you want to exit your business quickly. Having an exit strategy helps you avoid this.

Having an exit strategy is just as important as having a start-up strategy. But that doesn’t mean you have to follow it down to the letter. Like most things in life, often the best-laid plans don’t actually go to plan, but having a framework to work off will help to make your business more successful and ultimately, more profitable in the long run.

You can find out more about writing a business plan in our Small Business Management Course by clicking here.