Forum

Phasing in price increases and staying in control

It is a very common for contractors to find themselves locked into to a historical pricing structure that is holding their business back.

Remaining under-priced for too long can be catastrophic. Not just because it's a barrier to making a profit but

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The cost of being ill and self employed ?

£3,000 price of being ill and self-employed

Self employed people are amongst the hardest hit when it comes to the financial impact of being in hospital according to a report.

The report, published by Medicash, examined the true costs of illness and s

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iZettle

iZettle Phone Payments

 

Has anyone else come across the iZettle offer? What do you think about it?

"iZettle, the social payments company, creates services for person-to-person and business-to-consumer commerce. The first service includes an app and a m

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Starting a landscaping or garden maintenance business in France

I often get asked how easy it is to start a landscape business in France.

I don't actually trade as a landscaper any more but there are people I know who are either starting up or who have been working in France.

I have written an article for the Lan

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Thank you LJN - & Phil

All the discussions recently about LJN, its merits, its shortcomings and its existence has had me thinking - This coupled with LJN being very much the third wheel in my life for the past 3 years, and my main source of business related education, frie

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A short excert from yesterdays BBC You and Yours programme.

I was listening to the radio whilst delivering yesterday and heard this article was in the programme, I didn't get to hear this part because I was making the delivery while it was broadcast but found it on the iplayer.
You and Yours garden centres

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cutting down on time taken to prepare quotes

the good news is that I am being asked to quote on bigger jobs - the bad news is preparing and organising all the tenders for plants quantities/varieties required to send out to nurseries for tender. Has anyone found a quicker way - or is this always

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is there any software to make it easier to create a bill of quantities for soft landscaping?

Hello - just wondering if anyone has found any software that is really useful for creating detailed plant lists to send off to nurseries for quotation/tender - finding typing lists of latin names repeatedly a tedious process.

Have seen Liberate mentio

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What is the minimum guarantee that is offered on work.

I need to gen up on guarantees & we were having a good debate early today on twitter. There certainly seems to be a lot of mis-information & ignorance about it. As a landscape business we offer a 1 year guarantee generally on all our work. This can b

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Charging Rates - How to work out...

There have been many requests lately for providing costs for various aspects of work. When starting up or when you are not sure how to work out rates for a new style of work, it is easy to fall into the trap of asking someone what they charge.

That i

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Should we be recording our phone calls?

New services that enable consumers and small businesses to record telephone calls, store them to "the cloud" and then read transcripts or carry out key-word searches of the audio database, are potentially revolutionising the way we treat the spoken w

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Using Zoho Invoice to track sales and create reports

If you are still using pen, paper and a calculator to create, send and track invoices then you might be interested in this very handy online Zoho invoice tracking system.

It's fully customisable so you can set in pounds.

There's linked estimate creat

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Employees first, Customers second?

“I’m sorry, for me, you do not come first because unless I take care of my employees they won’t take care of you.”

A thought provoking approach for those that provide a client service whether you have employees or not....(from our Business ISP's Blog

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A guide to cashflow management for startups

It may be a cliche, but it is inescapable. Cashflow is the lifeblood of any company that wants to avoid being the one in two that will fail in their first year.

The key to success for startup companies, more than ever before, is to get funds coming i

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Summary for a fresh start up, BIGGA and the lack of a lawn mower!

Good morning all, I hope you have all had a great Christmas and a happy new year?How exhausted am I?  I got into Germany last night having driven my 40 year old landrover across with me that I shall use as a promotional tool.  (the landrover is anoth

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From little acorns a mighty tree grows!

A common phrase that im sure you all know and this is the direction my small business is heading. I started off 3.5 years ago as a one man band and i have now managed to grow the business to a five strong team including myself and a couple of good qu

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In winter, how do you work on and build your business?

Last year, I learnt quite a big lesson.
Although we all have a seasonal business, I didn't start advertising until around March in 2012. At this point though I found out the hard way that a lot of clients may have already chosen their contractor for

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Smartsheet project management

I've just come across Smartsheet online project management system via the Chrome Store. It looks like a powerful package and reasonably priced too.

Does anyone use it?

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What Holiday ?

Just been a reading a real insightful blog that reflects many of my business feelings and approaches and felt the main theme was well worth posting on LJN for your take:

"It’s winter; time for some time off, right?

Wrong.

Truly believe that our seaso

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staff bringing in more work to the business.

If any member of your staff bring in more work to your company , how do you reward them and would you put that in there contract of employment   

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