The Blue Collar Back Office Podcast

Procrastination is the Enemy of Success

As small business owners, we all need to get things done. Lots of things. We know that we set the example for our employees, and how we carry ourselves affects the entire culture of the company. But despite this, procrastination still affects all of us!

You may think that procrastinating is just time wasting, but the short and long term consequences of it can go way beyond this. It doesn’t just waste your time. Procrastination affects the performance of your business. It is one of the nastiest bad habits that every one of us has to fight against on a daily basis.

Disappointing Customer Experience

Confidence

Procrastination also creates a vicious cycle of stress. Deadlines eventually arrive, and next thing you know you are feeling the pressure to deliver and complete 8 hours of work in 30 minutes because earlier in the week you spent 8 hours doing 30 minutes of work! This takes control away from you and your day. Instead being able to be proactive and focus on the important tasks that will help your business succeed, you are constantly putting out fires. Fires you created! When the fire is put out you are so worn out mentally (and/or physically) that you decide you need a “break” for a while. That break turns into more procrastination which eventually turns into more fires to be put out and the cycle continues.

Your employees also see this behavior. No one enjoys working for a “Do as I say, not as I do” type person. The example you set for your team inevitably affects their performance, confidence, and enthusiasm. When the team sees that the owner is constantly putting off the important tasks that shows what is expected of them. If you reprimand employees for the same behaviors you are exhibiting that will eventually lead to resentment and disappointing results.

Procrastination makes easy things hard and hard things harder. There are some really amusing quotes about procrastination that will make you smile and laugh, but I promise you a successful business will make you even happier. Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today. Be proactive. Take the first step. Reap the rewards.

Maintaining a healthy cash flow is crucial for any business, regardless of size. Still, small and medium-sized businesses are particularly vulnerable to cash flow issues, especially in today’s volatile market. The good news is that embracing digital payments can help.

A healthy cash flow means you have enough money to pay your vendors, suppliers, utility bills, rent, and employees, and are still left with some extra cash for unexpected expenses or for growing your business. Cash flow health means your business is more resilient in uncertain times as it has some reserves it can lean into if push comes to shove.

Switching to digital payments is not just a matter of convenience (which is also a big deal for busy entrepreneurs like you). It helps businesses improve their cash flow management without requiring monetary investment, special equipment, or training. If you have an internet connection and can operate a computer or a mobile phone, you can start sending digital payments online.

Many digital payment tools allow you to schedule payments in advance. This saves time as you can handle all your payments in one sitting. It also improves your cash flow as it ensures you pay on time and never a minute too soon. So, you can hang on to cash longer without fear of forgetting a bill and incurring late fees and penalties.

By using digital payment tools you can get a clear picture of your finances at any given time. You can also see all of your scheduled payments in order to better plan ahead. Knowing exactly what’s coming in and out of your account and when will help you avoid payments accidentally depleting your cash flow. It will also allow you to know just how much cash you have to play around with at the moment.

Using digital payment tools can save you hours every week on writing and sending out checks. If you’re wasting less time on payments, you’re practically adding to your cash reserves by cutting staff hours and focusing on generating revenue instead of busy work. More cash means better cash flow. It’s that simple.

When it comes to cash flow, sometimes just having flexibility and choices can make all the difference. When you use QuickBooks Online Bill Payments (powered by Melio) for your payments, you can choose to pay with ACH to preserve cash by saving on fees (0% for ACH payments). If you’re currently low on cash and need a little extra float until some money comes in, you can easily pay your bills with a credit card, even if your vendors don’t accept cards. This way, for a 2.9% fee, your vendor gets paid immediately, whichever way they prefer—check or ACH—while you get to hang on to your cash until your next billing cycle, providing up to 60 days of additional float.

One of the newest features is combined payments. Say you need to pay ten different invoices, all from the same vendor. Sure, you can schedule ten individual payments, or, you can pay them all in one payment. Save time, money and make life simpler for you and your vendor. That’s what combined payments are all about! This feature lets you select the bills you want to pay to a single vendor and pay them all in one combined transaction. So, your vendor will see one ACH transfer or get one check for all the bills. And the same goes for you - all the combined bills will show and count as one transaction on your end as well.

Melio gives you the flexibility to pay vendors, suppliers and contractors exactly the way you want. Connecting Melio and QuickBooks Online syncs the two to save time and eliminate double data entry. Once connected, Melio pulls vendor information from QuickBooks, so you don't have to enter any vendor details, just select one from a list or start typing and have vendors auto-completed. Then, once you've completed a bill payment in Melio, your QuickBooks account is updated with the payment's details.

Blue Collar Back Office continues to grow! We are extremely grateful for the sustained growth we have seen over the last couple of years. We continue to add new clients and new services to meet their needs. Throughout this growth period our team has continued to grow to meet the demand. I am extremely proud of the team and culture that we have here at BCBO and without the amazing members of our team we could never achieve the results that we have seen.

Hiring and training is not an easy or “fun” task. It takes a lot time to search through potential candidates and then interview those you think will be the best fit. When we are looking to hire for BCBO I try and remember the fantastic advice given by Warren Buffett:

We look for three things when we hire people. We look for intelligence, we look for initiative or energy, and we look for integrity. And if they don’t have the latter, the first two will kill you, because if you’re going to get someone without integrity, you want them lazy and dumb.

Especially in our industry, integrity is key. Our whole company is built on helping small businesses organize and grow their business, and the key function we provide is bookkeeping. With that, we have access to and see a plethora of information. While we take the necessary security measures to ensure that not a single person that works for our company (including myself) have access to our clients funds, we still see information that should not be shared. Hiring people with the highest level of integrity is the number one priority.

Intelligence and initiative are extremely important too. While we aren’t building rockets over here, bookkeeping and accounting is something that requires experience, training, and an extreme attention to detail. The majority of our team works remotely or at least semi-remotely. We are not Big Brother. We are not watching the keystrokes and micromanaging their day. We allow everyone on the team to take ownership of their day and their responsibilities. Every member our of team knows what is expected of them and has the initiative to take control of their day and deliver results for our clients.

It sometimes takes a lot of interviews to find the right person that checks all those boxes. This is not an area of your business to “settle” however. It is imperative that you surround yourself with great people that will represent your company well and provide outstanding service for your clients.

Sometimes, you just need to show up

As many of you know by now, Blue Collar Back Office was born out of our construction company. We have been operating a successful construction company since 2008. Are we the biggest builders in NJ? Far from it. We run a successful business that turns a profit and has had steady growth year after year for almost 15 years now.

How do we do it? Mostly, we show up. We answer our phones. We reply to emails. We send out estimates that are clear and easy to understand and we do it in a timely manner. We communicate with our clients. We send out our invoices on time, and we keep detailed notes. None of it is rocket science. However, you might be surprised to hear just how hard it is to get someone to show up in our industry. And even if they do the chances of receiving an estimate is not nearly as high as you would expect.

That is today’s topic - showing up. It is such a simple concept. In today’s economy it is not as difficult as you think to set yourself apart from the competition and create a company that is stable and profitable. A lot of the competition is either unorganized or simply doesn’t have the discipline and drive to follow through on their commitments. 

Want to really set yourself apart from the competition? Not only show up, but show up ON TIME. When you make an appointment, keep it. If you can’t, communicate it the people involved immediately. People understand when an emergency happens and you email or call to say you need to reschedule the appointment you had booked for Tuesday at 2pm. What they don’t understand, but will certainly remember is when it is 2:10 on Tuesday and when they contact you to find out why you aren’t there (or on the Zoom or haven’t called, etc.) and you provide some vague excuse. 

Want to rise above the competition that does show up and shows up on time? Show up on time WITH A POSITIVE ATTITUDE AND A PLAN. Come prepared and with knowledge that will help the client. Don’t act like you have someplace better to be and you are doing them a favor by showing up. Don’t immediately go into a sales pitch without finding out what the clients needs truly are. 

You would be shocked to hear how many jobs we have done over the years simply because we followed those three simple steps. We have landed jobs where we know we were nowhere close to being the most cost effective or had the best scheduling availability. However, we showed up on with a positive attitude and a plan and was able to develop a trust with the client that not only would the job get done when we said it would get done, but it would be done correctly because we had demonstrated a commitment to our clients and our business through our responsible actions.

Once you have landed the work, it is time to implement all of those same strategies in to how you run the job. Send out estimates and invoices in a timely manner. The amount of lost income we have captured for clients over the years is staggering. If invoices don’t get sent out you don’t have a very good chance of getting paid. Schedule jobs realistically and communicate with your clients. It is much better to tell your client up front that you probably can’t get to their job for three weeks and then have the opportunity to call them after two weeks to see if they would be available to start sooner if something changed in your schedule then to tell them you will be there next week and then delay them.

These simple steps are sometimes all it takes to rise to top of your industry. Simply not sitting back and waiting for it to come to you but instead going out and getting it is all it takes. This is not a magic trick. This is about making a commitment and putting in the work. Show up and I promise you will see the positive results.

Budgets: How they work for you

A high number of clients that we work with did not implement the use of budgets prior to our relationship. Those that did primarily only did it on an annual basis in regards to the overall company results. That is important, and we will discuss the benefits of that throughout this episode, but just as important, especially for companies in the contracting industry is the ability to create budgets in QBO by individual job or class

Without even realizing it or necessarily in a formal fashion, many businesses already carry out the majority of the activities associated with budgeting, such as thinking about growth areas, competitors, cashflow and profit. The process does not have to difficult or time-consuming. QuickBooks Online has a budgeting feature built into the program that makes the process simple. You even have the option to import data from previous periods to use as a template moving forward.

The most important thing is that plans are made, they are accurate and realistic to your business or the job, and that the information is clearly communicated to everyone involved.

A few examples of the overall benefits of creating a budget (from and overall and per job basis):

Manage your money and cash flow effectively

Allocate appropriate resources to jobs

Monitor performance

Meet your objectives

Increase staff motivation

New small business owners may run their businesses in a relaxed way and may not see the need to budget. However, if you are planning for your business' future, you will need to fund your plans. Budgeting is the most effective way to control your cashflow, allowing you to invest in new opportunities at the appropriate time.

In both our professional and personal lives, we are at all times either being proactive or reactive. A proactive approach allows us to take more control and have more influence in outcomes.

The benefits of being proactive includes the following:

It is impossible to Proactive 100% of the time, but the higher percentage of time you spend in a proactive state, the better your results will be.

As a culture we work hard. Like over the top extremely hard. Based on a recent study Americans work 137 more hours per year than the Japanese, 260 more than the British, and 499 more than the French. That equates to more than 20 full days per year! Mediterranean work cultures like Italy, Greece, and Spain are probably a category of their own. This episode isn't about all of sudden working less, but it is about giving yourself a break each week to give your body and mind the time it needs to reset. If I rest better, I work better.

The most common answer to the question “How are you?” is “Busy”.

90% of us check the phone first upon waking up.

37% of us take fewer than 7 days of vacation a year.

14% of us take more than 2 weeks a year.

20% of us stay in touch with the office while on vacation.

As we continue to work nonstop we actually put more stress on our minds and bodies and it impacts our ability to be creative and focused. Instead, based on a recent article, we should try to practice a weekly Sabbath. This has nothing to do with religion, but it is all about giving yourself a break from work every week for preferably 24 hours. 

You may need a Sabbath practice if you…

When and how you celebrate is entirely up to you. Make sure spend it doing things that truly bring you joy. 

What keeps us healthy and happy as we go through life? If you were going to invest now in your future best self, where would you put your time and your energy? Unfortunately, many people think getting rich and/or famous is the answer. However, one of the key findings of an 84-year (and counting) study of human development at Harvard University called the Grant Study says differently. It is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period. 

Dr. Robert Waldinger is a Harvard psychiatrist who has been running the Grant Study or Harvard Study of Adult Development for almost 20 years (he’s the fourth person in charge in its history). It may be the longest study of adult life that's ever been done. For 84 years, they have tracked the lives of 724 men, year after year, asking about their work, their home lives, their health, and of course asking all along the way without knowing how their life stories were going to turn out.

About a dozen of the 268 men originally in the Harvard study are still alive. Most served in World War II, all were white. Some achieved great success; others failed to live up to their potential. Now, they’ve moved on to a second generation study. While there were many aspects of the men's lives that were striking, Waldinger says there are three key findings about relationships that predicted how happy and healthy the men were as they grew older.

Dr. Robert Waldinger said the following in his 2015 TED talk:

1. Loneliness kills. "People who are more isolated than they want to be from others find that they are less happy, their health declines earlier in midlife, their brain functioning declines sooner and they live shorter lives than people who are not lonely. And the sad fact is that at any given time, more than one in five Americans will report that they're lonely.”

2. Quality of relationships matters more than quantity. "It turns out that living in the midst of conflict is really bad for our health. High-conflict marriages, for example, without much affection, turn out to be very bad for our health, perhaps worse than getting divorced. And living in the midst of good, warm relationships is protective."

3. Good relationships protect the brain. "People who are in relationships where they really feel they can count on the other person in times of need, those people's memories stay sharper longer. And the people in relationships where they feel they really can't count on the other one, those are the people who experience earlier memory decline."

Last week we discussed the anticipated surge in new businesses opening up this year. Starting a business can evoke emotions like excitement and hope, but can also lead to feelings of overwhelm regarding the process. Today we discuss how to register a business, the reasons to register, the benefits of registration, and the steps you need to take to help eliminate any sense of dread while going through this process.

First, choose a business structure. Your business structure is the foundation of your business, including how your taxes are filed, how personal assets are handled, and how day-to-day operations are controlled. It also impacts business registration, including how and who you register with. There are many types of business structures, so it’s important to choose the one that best suits your organization's needs.

After choosing the structure, it’s time to settle on a location for your business. Even if your company operates mostly online, you still need to register a location for operations like receiving government documents, filing taxes, and more. Next, you’ll want to register your business name to prevent other businesses from using it now or in the future.

Next, register with the IRS. Registering your business with the Internal Revenue Service will give you a federal EIN, or Employer Identification Number. This is essentially a Social Security number for businesses (sometimes referred to as a federal tax ID). EINs are necessary for things like filing taxes, opening business bank accounts, and hiring employees.

You may need to register with state and local agencies such as: Department of Revenue, Secretary of State, Better Business Bureau, Franchise Tax Board. Each entity has its own requirements that must be followed, so it’s worth working with an attorney to get things done correctly and in a timely manner. Finally, specific licenses and permits are required to run different businesses, and they vary by industry and state. It’s a good idea to have any necessary licenses or permits before you start your business to avoid future problems. If you want to know what licenses and permits are needed for your business, you can contact your local branch of the Small Business Administration.

The pandemic upended where, when and how we work. Over the last two years, employers have experimented with new, flexible ways of working, and many have made the move to permanent remote workplaces. When carried out correctly, remote work can bring many benefits to a company and its employees like reduced turnover, better work-life balance and increased performance. But even with the right skills and experiences, not every candidate is cut out to work from home. In an increasingly remote world of work, it's essential hiring managers know which interview questions to ask and how to identify whether or not an applicant is a right fit for a remote role.

Here are 8 of the best interview questions to spot great remote workers:

1. Have you ever worked remotely? If so, what were some of the challenges you faced? It's important to understand a person's motivation for seeking remote work, as some candidates don't understand the reality of working from home. If the answer is, "Never," follow up with, "Why do you want to work remotely?" They should know what the challenges of remote work are and have strategies in place for tackling them.

2. Where do you prefer to work? Not having a "home office" should not disqualify someone from the job, but understanding how and where an applicant works best can help you understand them as a potential employee. If they already work from home, ask about their home office setup. Do they have everything a remote worker needs to be productive? Is it someplace that is relatively free of distractions? 

3. How do you plan on communicating with a remote team? Remote employees should be comfortable using a wide range of platforms. Ask how the candidate will communicate with the team and how comfortable they are using different communication platforms.

4. How do you stay focused on your tasks? By starting with the broad question, you'll be able to hone in on more remote-specific follow-ups. For example, if the candidate says, "I use noise-canceling headphones to block out noisy coworkers," you can ask, "Will you face that same distraction when you work remotely?"

5. What do you like and what do you dislike about working in an office? If a candidate says that they love the company's team-building opportunities, or their favorite activity is the 10 a.m. coffee cart, see why they're interested in remote work. It could mean they never thought about the lack of face-to-face socialization and may discover that remote work isn't right for them.

6. What's the most challenging project you ever designed and executed? Working remotely requires employees to be highly self-motivated. Without a manager nearby, it's easy for people to get distracted or lose their drive. The answer will speak to the candidate's motivation and ability to get the job done when there's nothing else motivating them--except themselves.

7. Tell me about a risk you took and failed. What did you learn? Asking for an example will give some insight into how the candidate operates. Do they only have one way of doing things? Do they learn and grow from their mistakes? Are they willing to admit they made a mistake? These answers will help you determine whether or not they are truly flexible and can mesh well with the existing team.

8. How do you switch off from work? Ask how applicants plan to manage their days, take appropriate breaks and stop working when it's quitting time. Understanding how they switch out of work mode will help you better understand how they will do it when they're on the job.