How to cope with difficult people in the workplace (or anywhere else)

Several years ago, I had a customer who would glower at me as soon as I entered his department. He would say, ‘Fix it right this time, or get it out of here,’ no matter what the problem was.

If I was even one minute later than my ETA, he would be on the phone with my boss, complaining about the horrible service he was getting.

Because he would place a service call for the slightest imperfection or hiccup of the machine, I was going there almost every day.

How to prepare a small business for mobile job management software

Job sheets, whiteboards, clipboards, filing cabinets … these are the communication and information storage tools of old-fashioned, inefficient small businesses. For owners and managers of trades and services companies who are only familiar with these traditional ways of working, and systems that may have been used for decades, it can seem like a difficult task to move to modern, cloud-based job management software.

Five tips on how to put your business in pole position

‘I love deadlines…. especially the whooshing noise they make as they go by!’ That’s one of my favourite “Dilbert” quotes about business but it flies in the face of what motorsport stands for. Motorsport is a business of hitting deadlines because it doesn’t matter what reasons or excuses there are, the race will always start on time…. Whether you are there or not.

Manage a cash gap in your business

One of the tougher challenges for many trade businesses today in terms of finance is what’s commonly referred to as a cash gap.

A cash gap is a lag which occurs between income and cost of goods sold (COGS); that is, cash inflows and outflows. Businesses that suffer from a cash gap may be profitable on paper, but have cash flow problems because they have to pay their suppliers (COGS) much earlier than they receive money from their clients (income).