Top 6 tips for small businesses with late payments from clients.

1. Submit your terms: The first important thing you can do to make sure clients don’t have excuses for late payments is to state the terms and conditions of the payment clearly on your initial invoice. State to the client when you expect to be paid in advance. It is surprising how very few small businesses remember this important must!
2. Charge interest on late payments: All companies have a legal right to start charging interest on any late payments. Although many small businesses won’t like to do this in case  they lose the work, what harm can be done in mentioning that late payment interest may be added on the invoice to remind the client about it. It might even encourage clients to before the due date.
3. Get tough: Most small businesses often fail with the lack of financial stock and skill that would ensure they are paid on time, therefore anything you can do to increase you weight of cash will help your case. Some small businesses even put a stickers on all their invoices saying ‘we use a debt collection agency for overdue payments’. Clients will not want the hasle of a debt collection agency knowing about their late payments as it could in fact harm their credit references, so including stickers on your invoices could help you get paid more quickly. Very Simple, but very effective.
4. Building up relationships: Many reasons are the cause to late payments but one of the main problems with late payment is that it’s often anonymous: accounts departments may not know you and can’t put a name to a face. Single out someone who can help you and introduce yourself and try to speak to the same person each time and create a good relationship. Once you have built up a good friendly working relationship, it will be much harder for them to let you down or not send out payment.
5. Don’t focus work on one company: Relying for revenue on one big company or client for most of your profits is a BIG recipe for disaster, this can cause huge head aches if they are late payers. Avoiding this is simple, try and get a mix bag of clients who are both small and large companies, this will spread your risk. It’s just not worth the gamble on one big client, no matter how big and well respected they are companies go bust.
6. Call it a day while you’re ahead: The important question to ask yourself when dealing a company that’s a late payer is: ‘Am I still making money out of this client’?’ If the deals you are doing with this company not leaving much profit margin anyway, and your waiting for the payment is it causing you to incur debts, then you could be making a loss out of the deal. Do your sums, do the add up in your favour? Make sure you know when it’s time to cut away.

In times when business can be hard to find for some sectors in Grimsby, some are using local networking opportunities such as the one held at the The Europarc Innovation Centre.

Business Generation Group Grimsby or ‘BGG’ is a weekly breakfast meet held every Friday morning from 7:30am till 9:00am at The Europarc Innovation Centre in Grimsby.
On their website they describe themselves to be a great way to make friends, contacts and introduce business.. They go on to say unlike many other networking groups the Business Generation Group is not like an army drill or to be high pressured.

“We do not demand that members bring a piece of business every week. We are far more interested in high quality, qualified referrals that have a high probability of generating business for the recipient.”

A typical meeting runs along these lines.

• 07:30 – 08:00 Breakfast & Open Networking – general introductions.
• 08:00 – 08:02 Chairman’s welcome to members and guests. Explain general format and purpose of BGG. Introduce 1 minute presentations.
• 08:02 – 08:20 1 minute presentations – What is your company looking for this week.
• 0820 – 08:24 Membership secretary – Welcomes new members and focuses on vacant position
  within the group.
• 08:24 – 08:27 1 to 1 secretary – Updates on meetings and books forthcoming 1 to 1′s.
• 08:27 – 08:30 Treasurer – Reports on finance and explain fees.
• 08:30 – 08:32 10 minute secretary – Introduces 10 minute presentations and this week’s presenter.
  Update on future 10 minute presenters.
• 08:32 – 08:45 10 minute presentation – One member from the group has the floor for 10 minutes to promote their company and answer questions.
• 08:45 – 09:00 Referral section – Referral secretary explains the system and gives everyone the
  opportunity to pass business tips, leads, recommendations & referrals.
• 09:00 Chairman – Announcements & close meeting.

All there members can be found on their members page

The group is in need of businesses in the following areas

• Alternative Health
• Architect
• B&B
• Builder
• Business Consultants
• Car Hire / Leasing
• Carpet & Flooring Contractor
• Cleaning Services
• Corporate Clothing
• Couriers
• Decorator
• Dentist
• Electrical Contractor
• Estate Agents
• Fire, Alarm & Safety Systems
• Hypnotherapist
• Interior Design
• Insolvency and Business Recovery
• IT Consultant
• Landscaper
• Locksmith
• Mobile Phones
• Office Furniture
• Photographer
• Plumber
• Public Relations
• Recruitment Agency
• Secretarial
• Security Products
• Tradesmen
• Travel Agent
• Windows / Doors / Conservatories
• Wine Importer

Interested in this Grimsby business networking meeting? Then contact them!
The Innovation Centre
Innovation Way
Grimsby
South Humberside
DN37 9TT
Telephone:     0800 2800 129

All are welcome at the next Hull Bus Forum, which will be held on Wednesday 28 January at 12 noon at the Guildhall, Room C1, Alfred Gelder Street.  There is disabled access.

The forums have been held regularly for nearly 10 years, and give passengers an opportunity to meet bus operators and representatives of the Council to air their views and improve the quality of the local bus network.

The Forum is chaired independently by City of Hull Environmental Forum, a charity specialising in public transport issues.  Bus operators benefit from feedback, whilst it helps the City Council obtain a strategic view of services in the area.  The Forum is also a useful means of updating the public on developments.

Our award winning training can help reduce the stress and increase productivity of your staff.

Please think of MindWorks training courses when bedgeting for 2009. We specialise in Stress Management and MentalHealth Awareness training courses.

For more detailed information on any of the courses that we have offer, please visit www.mindworkstraining.co.uk

Here is a chance to see the 40 second Time to Change TV ad that will be aired in January and February 2009 in England. The advert explains how the affects of stigma and discrimination can impact on a person who is or has experienced mental health problems.

View the TV advert

Hull & East Yorkshire Mind, Trafalgar House, 41 – 45 Beverley Road, Hull, HU3 1XH
Tel 01482 240134
Fax 01482 336871

Local businesses have decided to ignore talk of doom, gloom and recession and are meeting up fortnightly to see if there are opportunities for them to work together, or to create business through joint ventures.

Tom Salter of thebestofhull explains “business has slowed down for all of us, but instead of moaning about it, a few of us decided to get together with other likeminded local businesses. The truth is that there is still business out there, you might just have to look a bit harder for it. Sitting down over an informal breakfast and talking to each other, we often find opportunities that, individually, would have passed us by”.

“To be honest, we could get really bogged down by talk of a recession, but we decided months ago to see if, by sticking together, we could continue to thrive, and, so far so good, some of our members are actually doing better than they did last year.”

Instead of going it alone, the local businesses involved decided to sign up with national networking group 4Networking – “rather than just concentrating on local businesses, 4Networking has put us in touch with like minded business people all over the country, all of whom are determined to fight through any recession, rather than just accept it! Members here in Hull can go out to any other meeting anywhere in the country to pitch for business and we have a regular stream of visitors from all over the country to our meeting, some of whom end up buying services here”.

A simple solution to a national problem? As Tom tells us “what’s the worst that can happen? Rather than sitting waiting for the ‘phone to ring, at the very least I get to lift my spirits and share a joke and breakfast with the others. And any local business is welcome, they can call me, or just turn up on the day”.

Our next meeting is at 8am on Friday 13th February at the Brewers Fayre in Hessle.
For further information contact:
Tom Salter – 4Networking Area Leader, Yorkshire

Google maps have been around for a few years now and have added new features over them. You can plan routes, look into your next doors garden and can be viewed in many ways.

They have now launched a new feature to Google maps which shows the speed flow of traffic. A red line for slow traffic, Yellow for fair and green for free flowing fast. Here’s an example of the Humber area Google traffic flow map

Completing tasks on a daily basis around the home or your business  are a necessary part of every day life for all of us. We all have to keep a clean and tidy home and working environment! Until NOW LocalFavours.com is a brand new concept for people and businesses that are tired of doing or paying regular contracts for  tasks, making home/business improvements, general chores and much needed repairs or work. It allows you to pay others to do jobs while you sit back, do more important jobs, relax, free up some well needed spare time and take a moment to yourself. On the other hand you can make money by doing the tasks or jobs for others and earn extra cash.

From a local survey taken in County Kent it was found that the most hated household and small business chores and tasks include DIY, washing the car or work van, cleaning windows and car parks, painting, cleaning the bathroom and toilet blocks, gardening or company landscaping and ironing.

Alternatively individuals or the self employed can search for jobs in their local area, do someone a favour and make some money in their spare or quite times; there is no limit to the amount of jobs that can be done. So for those that fancy themselves as a bit of a handyman, or are willing to work for their money then LocalFavours.com can help to find jobs for you to do and get paid locally, the system has endless potential.

Anyone and everyone can advertise on LocalFavours.com from individuals to small/Medium businesses located across the UK allowing you to find your local contacts. It can often cost a small fortune to hire in experts, and corporate companies to do work that you don’t have the skills to do, so instead you can advertise your jobs at a cost that you can afford in your local community.

Registering on the site LocalFavours.com website is completly free. Once joined it will allow you to start submitting jobs, or bidding on them to carry out work. Most of the UK has access to and regularly uses the internet on a daily basis, improving the chance of finding someone for the task, or otherwise finding a suitable job in return for some extra cash.

So why not log onto www.localfavours.com today, save time and money, and see for yourself!

Reports say that Pulse Tidal have plans to install a tidal stream energy generator in the east coast Humber estuary.

The company resposible is Pulse Tidal who are based at the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham.

They have developed the prototype pulse generator which is able to produce a power level of up to 0.150MW and will be one of the very first tidal power devices to supply the UK national grid. If the tests are successful, it will be used to help develop much larger 1MW unit which could be deployed in arrays each generating up to 100MW, this would be enough to power the equivalent of 65,000+ homes.

The eco electrical system has been successfully tested at Hull University and the systems technology works by using the energy from tidal flows that will power a pair of straight horizontal hydrofoils, 11 metres in length, which will move up and down like a dolphin’s tail.

The scheme is backed by the Secretary of State for Energy, John Hutton and successfully secured around £2m from private investors, the government and European funding.