Tax in a mess??

At DHM we constantly are meeting new clients. Many new clients have receieved poor taxation advice in the past and often their taxation situation is in a mess. Having met such a client last week, their reaction is often to say "do you still want us a clients even though our tax is a mess". At DHM we thrive on these clients, because they have good businesses, its just that they haven't had decent advice to structure their affairs correctly. Taxation structuring advice can often save these clients thousands of dollars in tax and also make them feel in control of their financial situation again. If you feel your tax is in a mess, take control of the situation and do something about it.

Creating a high culture workplace

As a very broad and general overview the essence of a high culture workplace comes down to a general belief through the organisation that you are the best at what you do, in your chosen market. In order to gain this belief in yourself and your organisation there are a series of processes and systems that need to be developed and implemented to work yourself up to the point where you truly believe the work you do is the best available to your clients.

Briefly, in order to instil this belief through your organisation and experience the benefits that come with it you should consider implementing the following in your business or workplace.

Give your employees more input and control over what they do and the general direction of the organisation. This gives them more ownership over their job and they feel more confident and start doing it better.

Strive to be the market leader in innovation. It’s the easiest thing to sell around the BBQ when you are able to tell people about things you are doing that others simply cannot and your employees will be proud to promote themselves as your employees when you are seen as innovative.

Promote an open and honest line of communication with no threat of backlash. You will get better feedback more often from those at the coalface on what you can do to grow your clients and improve your bottom line.

Invest time in training and skill enhancement for your employees and give them the confidence they have enough skill to perform their job. So many employees get bogged down at work because they don’t believe they have the required skill to perform their tasks and therefore fear failure.

Promote a “different to does not equate to wrong” policy and give employees the freedom to consider better ways to do things. Out of 100 suggestions, the 90 that simply are not workable are worth sitting through to get to the 10 ideas that you have not considered and that really help your productivity.

Simplify your internal processes where possible, promote an easy way to do things. Words like hard, difficult, boring promote a negative frame of mind. Easy, new, challenging promote a positive way of thinking.

Have no fear of change.

Tell your employees to have the courage to make decisions as part of their job and the honesty to be up front about mistakes knowing that we don’t want to sack people, we just want to learn from them.

Remember, implementing some of the above ideas and some of the ones that DHM can help you with specifically will give you a competitive advantage over your competition and increase the gap in the market, positioning your firm above all others and making you and your employees feel great about themselves, their job, their organisation (that’s how they think of it because they have taken more ownership of its direction) and their future job prospects. It accelerates your growth, helps your promotion and with the help of DHM, increases your bottom line.

If your interested in exploring the implementation of some of these strategies & more come in and see us!

What does it mean to be successful?

The local cricket association has its grand final weekend starting tomorrow and it’s a time of year that I look forward to every year. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance again this year to have a crack at winning premiership number two. I was thinking a little about it during the week and I remember thinking when I won my first premiership in 2005 in the thirds that it was the most successful I had ever felt. Sure it was a cracking grand final with a first innings tie and the result going down to the wire in the 2nd innings, three exciting days of cricket and I just happened to find myself in the middle when the game was there to be won but why should I rate that more highly then being a part of a team or organisation that overachieves even though they don’t get the honour of being recognised as the best?

Is success just a title or emotion that we assign to ourselves when we feel like it or is it actually something that we can dream up, plan for, take steps towards, take steps backwards and eventually fulfil the dream and become successful?

I believe in the latter and I believe every business person needs to experience the feeling of being successful because it does two things.
Makes you feel bloody good about yourself
Inspires you to push harder and become more successful (& increase your wealth!)

In business we tend to measure success on a year by year basis because it conveniently works around the end of the financial year. Should a business be dissatisfied with their performance because they don’t finish the year recognised as the number one leader in their industry & area? This is why it is important to sit down at the beginning of the year and lay out your hopes and dreams for the coming year. Make them realistic and stick to them. Next is the plan, how do you achieve these things? Do you need to set a pattern of meetings to monitor your progress towards these goals? What shake up in your organisational structure do you need in order to put yourself in the best possible position to achieve your goals? What extra resources do you need to purchase to expand your capacity and achieve your goals? Will you have enough cash to fund your operations during this time or should you consider an overdraft facility with the bank?

Finally & most importantly, celebrate achieving your goals. Enjoy the feeling of success & share that feeling with the people you work with and the people who associate with you. Motivate them to achieve success if they are not currently achieving it. Then restart the process, dream big, set the goals, set the plan and do it all again.

Remember, the current market leaders you are trying to chase down didn’t open their doors and become the best overnight. They had goals, they laid a plan and they worked hard at it. Now its your turn.

Good luck to all teams competing for the holy grail this weekend in the SCA.

Cheers,
Luke.