I receive more emails from small business owners before and after regular business hours these days than I do during the standard 9-5 window. Yet for employees its different. It’s Friday and at 5:01pm, the only KPI that matters is how fast they can switch off. Legally protected now… Sounds empowering, doesn’t it? Absolutely! Unless…
Author: Suresh Rajani
The Semi-Circle of Friends – The Lesser Known Joke and the Business Angle…
There’s a lesser known joke about me having a semi-circle of friends. Not even enough to make a full circle. Ouch!!! That’s brutal socially… Sounds tragic… until you realize quality trumps quantity… And businesses know this better than anyone. The Semi-Circle of Clients A business doesn’t need the whole town as customers. It needs the…
Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks
Client question answered:“What software should we use? Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks?” Xero is still the favourite. Modern and easy but those recent price hikes sting… MYOB is not pretty but it pulls its weight with inventory and is still the go to for plenty of businesses in manufacturing… QuickBooks is always playing catch up but…
The Sales You Win Vs The Customers You Keep…
Ever gone to the cinema to watch a movie everyone raved about, glowing reviews, flashy trailers, social media hype and then it turned out to be a total dud? You sit there at the end thinking: “Why did I waste my money?” Or spent two hours on Netflix watching something that was “#1 in Australia…
The Day I Met Ed Sheeran and Arijit Singh (And Other Things That Never Happen in Business)
The day I met Ed Sheeran and Arijit Singh was… NEVER!!! And that’s exactly how some business and investing “truths” turn out… NEVER!!! And that’s the point. Some things just don’t happen in life and especially in business. We’re sold glowing, sapphire bright stories of the perfect playlist, without the skipped tracks, bad remixes or…
If It Were Just Tax, We Would Finish by Wednesday…
Apparently, we just do tax. Tax returns, BAS and financials. End of story. At least, that’s what some people think. Reality? Every week feels less like “just tax” and more like a mash-up of accountant, lawyer, banker and part-time detective. By Friday this week, the list of things our office handled ranged from inquiries into…
It Hasn’t Eliminated Pay Gaps (yet), But It Was A Step Forward…
Pay secrecy was the perfect cover. It allowed gaps to hide in plain sight and kept everyone guessing whether they were the office discount special while someone else was on the premium pay plan. If you didn’t know, that cover is gone. You can talk about your pay. You can ask others. And no, you…
Numbers Don’t Lie. But They Do Hand Out Pay Rises…
20+ years ago in Adelaide, I walked into an insulation company for my very first day as a paid bookkeeper. Minimum wage back then was just over $12 an hour. So the $18 on my contract felt generous. By the end of my first day, I’d been bumped to $20. Apparently, enlightenment comes with a…
Legality Is The Floor, Not The Ceiling…
Imagine you are building a house in flood-prone area. The council says: “Your house must be at least this many metres from the ground.” Now imagine proudly stopping right there and saying, “Great, that is all I need to do.” Technically correct but would you really want to live in a house built to the…
“Where’s My Money?!” – Said Every Client, Every Year, Without Fail…
It happens every year. I sit down with a client, present their beautifully prepared financials, point to the bottom line and say: “You made half a million in profit last year!” They lean forward, studying the numbers with suspicion and inevitably ask “So if the business made that much, why isn’t it showing up in…