If you go down to the woods today For many of us, when we go about our daily duties, visiting or greeting customers, we are on our own. This can make some people nervous, especially when visiting a new prospect that we want to impress, and may even prove to be too daunting – so we fluff it up, or just don’t bother. The idea of collaborative working is not new, but for many, it is still an experience we have never had. After all, you want to concentrate on delivering your service or offering your product – you don’t need the distraction of someone else trying to pitch in do you? In my experience, the opportunity to bring complimentary services or distributors together can be very powerful, and surprisingly well received by clients. It demonstrates that you have adopted an holistic approach to a particular requirement of theirs, and not just restricted your efforts to a narrow brief. An example of this might be when a customer tells you that they have plans to expand or move premises. You might be their telecoms provider, or you might supply their stationery, but this scenario opens a number of other opportunities for you to effectively use the close network that you have developed, to offer a total solution. Why not take along an accountant, a solicitor, HR specialist or even an insurance broker? Or perhaps you’ve identified that they would like to speak to a carpet supplier – you make the call. Anyway, returning to the subject of my “blog”, my point is that there really can be strength in numbers, and you don’t need to always go it alone. In the words of the nursery rhyme, if you go down to the woods today, you’d better not go alone.
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Bankers should look after your money – let the experts look after the other services
I am often bombarded with sales calls, emails, letters, flyers and now tweets, asking me to buy this product or subscribe to that service – none of which I have requested. I hold the view that if I am looking for a particular service, then I will look for a solution – preferably in my local area to begin with, and if not, and then ask for recommendations from others. I believe that business and life in general just flows that little bit better this way. A trend which has developed over recent years is that more and more consumers are convinced that their bank is their only choice, or their preferred supermarket can look after everything “from cradle to grave” they’d have you believe. Perhaps I am in the minority, or maybe it’s because I work for a local, family owned and managed business, that I genuinely believe that buying from someone you can have more than just one conversation with is important and should be valued. One case in point is a firm of solicitors locally, for whom I have recently reviewed their insurances covering each of their offices. For years, they have entrusted this to their bank, and for years it now becomes apparent, they have been paying far too much, without any advice or support, let alone a single visit over the years. My approach was to visit them, discuss their requirements, and identify potential gaps in their cover, before conducting a thorough exercise with carefully selected insurers. The result is that I have saved them almost £2,000 immediately, and offered them much wider cover, in this case specifically designed for the legal profession. This is just one example where the power of using local really does reap rewards. I am sure that many professionals and tradesmen in the county will give testimony to why they prefer to operate locally. Cutting out the middle man, or simply letting the bank handle everything doesn’t always pay. If you, your family, business contacts or clients are still going down the supermarket aisle or are part of the banking queue, could I ask you to do them, and me a favour – have a word? Andrew Long Cert CII Cass Stephens Workplace pensions. 10 ways to avoid taking a big one in the.................
Cashflow! You may have seen the adverts on TV with good old Theo fom Dragons Den and Nick from the apprentice spouting "Im in". Unfortunatley the adverts make it sound like a pension is a nice option to take. However, what the adverts don't really convey is that they are compulsory, with the option to opt out after they have started. Recently changes to pensions law started to affect all employers with at least one worker in the UK. If you are not organised and ready for auto enrolment then you will be saying "I'm in" - "in it right up to my neck". To help get the ball rolling, here's a dummies guide to auto-enrolment. Your responsibility as an Employer: With effect from their particular staging date each employer will have to: Enrol eligible jobholders who are not already active members of a qualifying scheme into an automatic enrolment scheme. An eligible jobholder is defined as a jobholder who is at least 22 years of age, earns at or above the personal income tax threshold of (£9,440 pa. 2013/2014 tax year)and has not reached pensionable age. Maintain a jobholder’s membership of the automatic enrolment scheme (or another qualifying scheme), so long as he/she is employed by the employer and chooses to be a member. Make relevant employer and employee contributions – minimum contribution rates, for money purchase schemes, are expressed as a percentage of qualifying earnings (between £5,668 and £41,450 in 2013/14 terms). The full rate of 8% (of which employers must pay at least 3%) will be phased in over a six year transitional period (extended from the original four years). If you leave it to the last minute then your cash flow is going to take the hit with your time being devoted to getting it right and the 3% contribution you have to put in! Provide certain information to jobholders and workers Register with the Pensions Regulator and keep certain records Re-enrol eligible jobholders who have previously opted-out from a qualifying scheme, every three years. Employers will have the option of waiting for up to three months before auto-enrolling some or all eligible jobholders, subject to giving the jobholders a prescribed notice within one month from the date they should have been enrolled and allowing them to opt-in during the waiting period if they so wish. A waiting period can be used in different ways across the workforce. This goes some way towards helping to ease the administrative burden on employers with high staff turnover and/or seasonal staff. When are the changes happening? The new employer duties started to be introduced in stages starting from October 2012, with the largest employers having to comply first. Each employer should already have been or will be allocated a date from when the duties will first apply to them, known as their ‘staging date.’ This date is based on the number of people in an employer’s PAYE scheme. Employers can check their provisional staging date on the pension regulator website: www.tpr.gov.uk/staging. To allow some flexibility, employers can choose to bring forward their staging date, provided the pension regulator is informed. However, employers cannot choose a later date than the one they are allocated. Finding out when the staging date is the first thing an employer should do, so they can plan what they need to do to be ready in good time. 10 Points to consider: 1. Auto-enrolment imposes new duties and, potentially, additional costs on your business. 2. It is not lot like stakeholder pensions, it is not going to go away and if you get it wrong you will be fined by the pension regulator!!! 3. The first step is to find out your firm’s staging date. That date may well be a few years off, however the earlier you start preparing the better because there are many points to consider, all of which could require additional professional insight. 4. Do you have any existing pension arrangements, could or should they be amended to meet the auto-enrolment provisions? 5. If you have no existing workplace pension, what route should you take? 6. What impact will compulsory employer contributions have on your business’s finances? 7. How will your current payroll system identify those eligible for auto-enrolment and cope with the collection, payment and, for opt-outs, refunds of contributions? 8. When should you start communicating to your workforce? 9. Who is going to administer the pension as its your ongoing responsibility to ensure it is fullfilled every pay reference? 10. For professional advice and support to review the current pension arrangements in place and ensure the most appropriate pension scheme or schemes are chosen and implemented at the outset on a case by case basis please contact Paul Smith at Abacus Associates on 01594 835675 or 07794583087. Current best practice states it takes 12 months from the first meeting to implementation. It is important to act now!!! Or take one in the ....... What’s in a name?
Your name is an essential part of your identity and helps to define who you are and often where your roots are too. This is topical; given the much publicised interview recently on This Morning when a guest, Katie Hopkins began to deliver her firmly held views that you can and indeed should judge someone (even a child in this case) on the strength of their name. Her view is that a Chardonnay or Tyler would not make suitable playmates for her children, as their names conjure up images of the wrong sort of family or background. Anyway, I digress. What’s in a name? In my own experience, I have throughout my life been referred to by the name that my parents chose for me – Andrew. Not Andy, And, Drew – just Andrew. At boarding school, the first name was rarely used and as I was the second brother to attend this particular school (St Johns on the Hill in Tutshill) I was simply known as Long 2. I was never particularly tall, so Long 2 was often dispensed with and replaced with Stumpy instead – an affectionate sort of nickname which I really didn’t object to. Fast forward over 30 years, and I began to be referred to as Drew by our close-knit group of friends when we first moved to Longhope. It was a form of acceptance for me, and, whilst I’ll probably never be truly accepted as a Forester, it made be feel at least part of the community somehow. Since moving to the Forest, I have become quite involved in local amateur dramatics (very amateur at times) within Longhope and May Hill. This has often lead to me playing a character with an awkward name or simply embarrassing. Many of these names have disappeared into the distant past, until recently. I decided to deliver a Talk called a 4Sight to the local Ross on Wye meeting of 4Networking a couple of months ago on my life on the stage (sounds more grand than the reality). During the talk, I gave an overview of the different roles which I have played – including Hump. Hump was a very camp Holiday Rep and apparently I played the part very convincingly…. This nickname then circulated around the 4 N circuit, but hopefully has now disappeared. When I moved to Cass Stephens in August last year, I responded to a colleague’s rather risqué comment by stating that I was actually a Methodist Minister, which was the first thing that I thought of. This then earned me another nickname of The Rev – which I quite like, and, for internal communications still gets used to this day. Networking seems to have a habit of bringing out new names, and again this morning I mentioned that I see myself as a Nice Guy, and as such this may be at odds with the role of a salesman. Everyone agreed this was not the case, but that they would be the judge of whether I was nice! Returning to my original question – what’s in a name? From a business perspective it is vital. Whether you simply need to differentiate yourself from a competitor with a similar name, or you want to make a bold statement, then getting the name right is essential. From an Insurance angle, getting the name right is essential. If your name or trading title is not accurate on your policy, this could lead to difficulties when a claim arises or even to the point that you’re not insured because your trading title is not noted. Whatever you’re called, just make sure your name is yours, and you get it right. Andrew Long AKA Stumpy, Drew, Hump, The Rev and overall Nice Guy. Author - Andrew Long
Business Insurance – that’s like Public Liability and that isn’t it? Public liability insurance is an essential cover for most types of business – but there is far more to it than that. For all types of business – from a sole trader to a major global organisation, it's especially important for your customers to be sure that your business has the right cover. What is public liability insurance? This type of insurance would cover a business if a customer or member of the public was to suffer a loss or injury as a result of its business activities and if that person made a claim for compensation. The Liability insurance company would meet any compensation payment plus any legal expenses. Why is public liability insurance a good thing for customers? Above all else, it demonstrates that you as a business owner take your responsibilities and obligations seriously. Even when a business does everything right there is always the chance of an accident happening. With the right insurance cover, a business can operate knowing that should the worst happen, their customers' property could be repaired, their possessions replaced and their medical costs paid for. What is covered in a public liability claim? The Policies are usually tailored to the individual business however as a guide, the insurance covers a business's legal liability to pay damages to members of the public for death and injury or damage to property or possessions, which has resulted from the business's activities. A good example would be if you hired a roofing company to re-tile your roof but they didn't use adequate weather protection, resulting in severe water damage, you could make a claim against them for compensation to pay for repairing the damage. Public Liability Insurance ensures that the company can meet the cost of the claim, along with any legal expenses. Make sure the business you hire has public liability insurance Any business that has visitors to its premises or involves work on client sites needs public liability insurance. If you allow tradesmen or professional contractors on to your business premises, you should always insist on seeing a copy of their insurance schedule and documentation before taking them on. What is the best way of sourcing suitable cover? The UK has an army of trained and experienced insurance professionals working within your community. It is always worthwhile speaking to a local broker to help you determine what insurance is essential and what level of cover would best suit your specific needs. A broker can also point out the main terms and conditions and warranties that apply – easy to overlook if you simply arrange cover at the click of a mouse. So I have my Public Liability Insurance – what next? Public Liability Insurance is a core cover which every business should have, but in addition, if you employ any staff (whether this is on a casual or permanent basis), then you must maintain Employer’s Liability insurance by law. For many businesses, it is possible to include a range of covers within one package policy – eg a Shopkeeper could have cover to include loss or damage to stock, fixtures and fittings, loss of profits, money, goods in transit, and often commercial legal expenses cover too. This is often a very cost effective way of arranging this cover, and it affords the business owner added peace of mind. Andrew Long Cert CII (Commercial Account Executive) Cass Stephens Insurance Ltd (June 2013) |
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