Uncategorized

When you’re feeling unwell—say it’s a cold—you typically take some over-the-counter medication, stay hydrated, eat better, rest, and wait to recover. If after a week you’re still not improving, you book an appointment with your GP. They might run tests, prescribe stronger medication, and guide you on your path to recovery.  If your condition still doesn’t improve, you consult a specialist who can investigate and treat the issue more precisely. You don’t just sit back and hope it passes by divine intervention. It’s expected that you will seek expert help, using all the advanced tools modern medicine offers. It’s the same when a loved one falls ill. No one waits passively; people use every available resource to live better and longer lives. This logic applies to businesses as well, though many don’t treat them the same way. Business owners, driven by passion for a product or solution, often start out with great enthusiasm. Some are equipped to run a business, but many aren’t fully prepared for what lies ahead. Yet, they push forward with motivation, making things happen even without a full understanding of the journey. However, the statistics tell a sobering story: More than 15% of Australian businesses failed in the past 12 months—the worst rate since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). “In the four years between June 2019 and June 2023, 35% of all Australian businesses shut their doors for good.” Even during tough economic times, if you want your business to survive and thrive, you must recognise that it’s like your own health. When you start feeling unwell, self-care may help initially, but when things are serious, seeking professional assistance is the only way to recover and continue living normally.  Your business needs the same level of care—a check-up to survive, thrive, and grow. BUSINESS NEEDS A CHECK-UP IN ORDER TO SURVIVE, THRIVE AND GROW. The main struggles of small businesses, which make up nearly 98% of those operating in Australia, often come down to the lack of long-term planning. Many business owners don’t set clear goals and end up operating year by year or even semester by semester. This short-sighted approach leaves little room for strategic planning and makes it difficult to build a business capable of withstanding economic fluctuations and evolving market challenges. Understanding what’s happening within your business operation is the first step to identifying what needs fixing, where you need to protect, where to invest more, and where to cut costs. This process allows you to reorganise and align your business to be both economically healthy and sustainable. This is what a business check-up is all about. Whether you do it when your business is already suffering and you’ve exhausted your own attempts to correct things or as a regular measure—much like annual health check-ups to prevent issues—this assessment is critical. For instance, 60.3% of small business owners are self-employed, and a significant portion of them use the same bank account for both personal and business expenses. If you fall into this category, it’s the first area you need to address. If you are a self-employed business owner, this is the first thing you need to fix. If you want to grow and properly structure your business, you can’t mix your business revenue with personal income. You should have separate accounts and define how much the business can pay you while setting aside funds to reinvest (wisely) back into the business. This disciplined approach allows your business to grow sustainably until you can support the lifestyle you desire without stalling your business’s growth. If you’re part of the 37% of small businesses with up to 19 employees, it’s crucial to protect your financial health to ensure you can maintain your payroll without harming your overall finances. A specialist can help you forecast growth and develop a financial model to understand how much you can invest and identify the best ways to invest in people who will be vital to your business growth. Understanding whether it’s the right time to expand your team and having a clear roadmap are essential steps toward growth. Benefits of a Business Check-Up: You gain a long-term plan to follow and measure. You start structuring your business to achieve larger goals. You protect your business to safeguard your personal and family finances. You have a guide that helps you determine when and how to invest in business growth. You get a clear business plan with direction toward your goals. You can reduce stress by knowing that the actions you’re taking are aligned with a strategic plan, and you understand how to measure progress. You set clear objectives and understand the right path to achieve them. This is how we help businesses achieve their goals. Our question is: When was the last time your business had a check-up? Schedule a discovery call with us to understand how you can steer your business clear of the troubling statistics that most small businesses fear. We are on this journey with business owners who are determined to see their businesses thrive but need the right structure, protection, and growth strategies to do so.

Common Mistakes in E-commerce Profitability As consultants, we’ve observed that one of the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make when starting an online business is not properly understanding profitability.  Having a great idea, the money and the drive to invest in an e-commerce are crucial for pursuing your dream, but understanding profitability is essential for building a successful business. Many businesses just break even and don’t make any money because owners set their margins too thin, leaving no room for sustainable growth and scaling.  Changing your prices after you start selling can also be problematic. Starting too cheap and raising prices later may deter customers, as they have already set an expectation of your product’s value. Conversely, starting too expensive and then lowering prices can make customers feel deceived. Planning correctly before launching your online business is key to success. Spending time on pricing and planning might seem complicated, but it is crucial for ensuring profitability. If you have an e-commerce and feel the revenue is not enough, you’re are selling however not making money. The Master Solution for Mario to Grow the E-commerce Business: We advised them to streamline operations; stop focusing on what they wanted to sell, lower their expenses, reduce SKU, and focus on higher-margin products. The Solution They Opted to Follow: Unfortunately, they decided not to follow through and didn’t streamline his financial plan and expenses. As a result, they had to close the business several months later. Learnings: When you are too attached to your initial investments and blindsided by the numbers, you may struggle to decide where to invest in your business. This can lead to continued spending on areas that don’t generate a return, on the contrary, chew your money. Learning from these successful stories and some other stories  that we call as lesson stories, help us to understand where to go and how to go. We don’t have to go through the same struggles that some other business owners went through.  To be able to plan correctly we share with you the basics steps you must follow.  Calculating Your Margins Correctly To calculate your margins correctly, especially for an e-commerce business (assuming you are importing products to Australia), you need to consider all your costs and revenue and have it planned and leave some extra to hidden costs.  Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you understand the basics of margin calculation: Understanding Key Terms Cost of Goods Sold (COGS): Direct costs of producing or purchasing your products, including factory costs, freight, import duties, and shipping. Revenue: The total amount of money received from selling your products. Gross Profit: Revenue minus COGS. Gross Margin: (Gross Profit / Revenue) x 100%. This percentage indicates the portion of revenue that exceeds COGS. Net Profit: Gross Profit minus all other expenses (e.g., marketing, Shopify fees). Net Margin: (Net Profit / Revenue) x 100%. This percentage shows the portion of revenue that remains as profit after all expenses are deducted. If You’re Already Operating f you’ve started testing your products and selling on marketplaces or Instagram, you should have an idea of your main costs. You should also understand your marketing, target audience, and whether they are willing to pay your prices. If You’re Still in the Planning Phase If you have an idea for your business but haven’t started selling yet, put your idea on paper and conduct extensive benchmarking. Research competitors’ products, reviews, and customers to get a clear idea of your potential client base. Researching Costs Research all the costs involved to plan how much revenue you need to cover your costs and understand your margins. Here’s how to calculate your margins: Calculating Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) Add up all the costs directly associated with producing or importing your products: Factory Cost: Cost paid to the manufacturer. Freight Costs: Cost of transporting goods from the factory to Australia. Import Duties: Taxes and fees associated with importing goods. Warehouse Costs: Cost of storing your products. Pick and Pack Costs: Cost of picking and packing your products for delivery. Shipping Costs: Cost of shipping the product to customers. Examples: Let’s assume you sell a product for $100. Factory Cost: $30 Freight Costs: $10 Import Duties: $5 Shipping + Warehouse + Pick and Pack Costs: $30 Total COGS: $30 (factory) + $10 (freight) + $5 (import duties) + $30 (shipping) = $75 Calculating Gross Profit and Gross Margin Revenue per product: $100 COGS per product: $75 Gross Profit: $100 – $75 = $25 Gross Margin: ($25 / $100) x 100% = 25% Accounting for Other Expenses Consider your operating expenses, including fees for platforms like Shopify and costs for digital marketing: Shopify Fees: $5 per product sold Digital Marketing Agency Fees: $10 per product sold Calculating Net Profit and Net Margin Total Operating Expenses: $5 (Shopify) + $10 (Marketing) = $15 Net Profit: $25 (Gross Profit) – $15 (Operating Expenses) = $10 Net Margin: ($10 / $100) x 100% = 10% (too low) Analysing Your Costs If you find your margins are too low, consider ways to reduce costs or increase prices. For example, negotiate better rates with suppliers or optimise your shipping processes. Understand what products you can raise the margin and still remain competitive.  Planning for Growth and Scalability When planning growth, consider if you can negotiate better rates for warehousing and pick-and-pack services as you scale.  Summary of Steps Calculate COGS: Add up all costs directly associated with the product (factory, freight, duties, shipping). Determine Gross Profit: Subtract COGS from Revenue. Compute Gross Margin: Divide Gross Profit by Revenue and multiply by 100 to get a percentage. Account for Other Expenses: Include all operational expenses like platform fees and marketing costs. Calculate Net Profit: Subtract all operating expenses from Gross Profit. Compute Net Margin: Divide Net Profit by Revenue and multiply by 100 to get a percentage. Conclusion Regularly Review Costs: Prices for shipping, duties, and even manufacturing can change, so regularly update your calculations. Include All Expenses: Don’t forget to include recurring costs like

Navigating the Challenges of Scaling Your Business: Honest Insights and Practical Tips Throughout our years of helping businesses, solopreneurs, and entrepreneurs, we’ve come to understand that managing, owning, and operating a business can be incredibly demanding, especially if you don’t have a business background. Not having a business background isn’t a problem. Many of the best business owners we’ve met are self-taught, having learned a lot from their own failures and successes. As business owners ourselves, we’ve been through numerous challenges. While this path is rewarding, it can be very demanding, frustrating, challenging and even harder without support and guidance. Are you mastering the basics? Before diving into advice on scaling your business, the first thing to consider is: Are you doing the basics? If you’re not covering the basics, we can identify numerous problems. Here’s how to make sure you’re doing the basics right, access this content to ensure you’re doing your homework: Mastering the Basics and Techniques of Business. If you’re confident with the basics and are growing but facing problems with scaling, then this content is perfect for you. Scaling a Business Sustainably: Key Insights Scaling a business is a journey you must be ready to embark on. Scaling challenges are significant for growing businesses. What works at a $100k turnover might not be effective at $700k.  This means that as your business grows and plateaus, you need to step back and evaluate what needs to change for continued growth.  Sometimes, it’s a tradeoff between the owner doing everything and having to delegate tasks to staff. Questions to Consider: Are you still doing everything in your business? How are you managing your operations? How much time are you spending on financial planning and market research for business growth? When you start growing, you might feel very attached to some parts of the business, such as customer service, supplier trading, or financial planning.  However, you can’t do everything.    Having a structured process and your own methodology can help you with the “letting it grow” process. Training people to maintain and prioritise the quality you envision is essential, but DELEGATING is a must for scaling and growth. Steps for Scaling a Business Let’s start analysing it together First Step: Evaluate Profitability To start growing and scaling a small business, you need to let it grow and delegate. Build a strong team to support you and free yourself to focus on the important things.  Your business is already running, you have your processes, procedures, and methodologies in place, and you are selling your products and services.  You’ve learned what works for you. Now it’s time to achieve the next level, face new challenges, and tackle the next learning curve. You need to focus on planning and structuring. Is your product profitable enough to scale? This answer must be as honest as possible. If your product or service is not profitable enough and you’re just breaking even or using your own funds, you need to step back before thinking about scaling.  Book a Free Discovery Call to discuss how you can fix this situation! If you’re not profiting and your margins are too low, growth won’t be sustainable. Some businesses may be growing but are just breaking even and not making a profit, which is not a good sign. Here’s a case study to illustrate this point: Venture.ly Case Study: E-commerce and Children’s Furniture We had a client passionate about their e-commerce business focused on children’s furniture. The branding was spot on, and everything seemed great. He was optimistic about his product and invested heavily in the business. However, upon analysis, we found that the products weren’t profitable enough, margins were too low, and company expenses were high. Venture.ly’s Solution: Lower expenses Reduce SKUs Focus on products with higher margins to increase revenue Work on a financial plan to prepare for smart growth Unfortunately, the client chose not to follow our advice and had to cease operations several months later. Key Steps to Scale Your Business 1. Financial Planning and Management Proper financial management is critical during the scaling process. Start by analysing and answering important questions: – Cost Management: Are you monitoring your expenses closely? Are you investing in what is profitable and reducing unnecessary costs without compromising quality? – Profit Margins: Is your product or service profitable enough to scale? Are you ready to invest in innovation and present new offerings to your regular clients? If your business is running with its own fuel and is profitable with room to grow, it’s time to delegate and focus on business growth planning. 2. Build a Strong Team Your team will be instrumental in supporting your growth and achieving your dream. – Strategic Recruitment: Hire people with the skills and experience needed to take your business to the next level. – Cultural Fit: Ensure new hires align with your company culture and values. – Training and Development: Establish processes and procedures. Continuous learning and leadership development are essential for maintaining quality and fostering growth. Of course, these are just two initial steps you can take to start preparing the soil to scale your business. There are a few more things you must do after structuring it. As a starting point, if you nail these two initial items, you’ll be ready to move forward to the next phase. Conclusion Scaling a business is an ongoing journey that involves cycles of preparation and growth. Some businesses are ready to scale, while others need to prepare before they can grow. Having mentoring support can make a huge difference by helping you identify blind spots and adjust your strategy for success.  You don’t have to go through this journey alone. It can be much easier and more enjoyable with the right support. Let us be part of your growth journey.  Book a Free Discovery Call now and learn how we can help you.

Cash and tangible assets are the most significant resources for most people. However, cash and cars aren’t the only things to think about when evaluating an organisation’s resources. They are substantial, yet they must still filter out their resources to maximise their output and avoid having their invention stolen by a competition. According to venturely business gurus, the strategic resource of a business is an asset that is unusual, non-substitutable, difficult to copy, and valuable. Organisations obtain their knowledge and information from various sources, both within and outside their performance evaluations. The experience that develops within a firm, on the other hand, is a fundamental source of knowledge. Essential resources you need to develop a business. Below are some things you might need to consider to identify and develop key sources for your business.  Organisational memory Keeping the talents or know-how you’ve developed in your company is critical. You’ll need to establish a formal means to share your employees’ knowledge of the best practices. To see how to set a knowledge strategy for your company, you may offer procedural guidelines based on your employees’ best practices. Relationships between employees and vendors You can get knowledge by polling your staff and suppliers; they’ll have their perspectives on how your company is doing. You can acquire this information through formal surveys or casually asking for their opinions. Customer awareness You should know your clients’ requirements and what they think of you. You might be able to build mutually beneficial knowledge sharing with clients. Talk to them about their future needs and see how you can use this information to research and develop new products and services. Understanding of the market Keep up with the latest advancements in your industry. What are the results of your competitors? What is their fee structure? Are there any new players on the scene? Has there been any substantial new product launches? Try to understand your rivals and understand the industry you work in by conducting market research and reading market reports. Understanding of the corporate world Politics, the economy, technology, society, and the environment could all impact your company’s growth, so stay educated. Consider forming a group to track and report on company developments. Professional organisations and trade associations Obtain information from professional, academic, and government publications and reports from research organisations, trade and technical periodicals, and other sources. Look for a trade organisation. Also, learn about Trade shows and conferences that may enable you to observe what your competitors are doing and learn about the latest advances in your industry.  Product development and research Scientific and technical research and development can be a valuable source of information for developing new products and maintaining a competitive edge. Recruiting non-executive directors can help you bring on board particular industry experience while allowing you to take advantage of pre-made contracts. Clusters are groups of enterprises or related institutions that share shared interests and collaborate to exchange knowledge.  If you want to know more about business development, the Venture specialists are there to help you further.