Maslins August Newsletter

Making the most of your "back end"

Sales targeting can be split into front end and back end.

Front end sales are finding a new customer and making your first sale to them. This is typically very hard to do, as the potential customer may not be aware of your product/service and doesn't know whether it is any good.

New businesses tend to focus all their marketing efforts on front end sales. When you first start out you possibly have no customers at all, so clearly this is the only option. However, a few months/years in (depending on what you sell) if this is still your main tactic to increase sales, you're missing a trick.

Back end sales (as you may have guessed by now) is essentially repeat business from previous customers. If someone has bought from you once, often it is easy to sell to them again (provided their first experience wasn't terrible!). People are generally scared of the unknown, and sometimes even stick with something they don't particularly like, simply because they are scared the alternatives could be worse.

To benefit from this, it is vital you take down sufficient details from your customers so that you can market to them. Name, address, phone number, e-mail address can all be asked for, and are typically given without any questions.

If a customer does question this, say it is part of your after sales service, or that you want to let them know about future special offers. People don't like spam, but if they have already bought your product/service and think they can buy it again next time at a discount, they'll virtually always play ball.

E-mail addresses are rapidly becoming the most popular form. Most small business owners don't like cold calling (not many people do) so would be unlikely to regularly phone past customers. E-mails are also cheaper than snail mail, the cost of printing and postage can stack up if sent regularly.

E-mails can also include things like links to your website (the person will already be at their computer). E-mail marketing providers can also provide you with statistics from the campaign such as how many were read, who clicked through etc etc. This can prove useful in helping you tweak your campaigns by seeing what works best.

Word of caution - Do consider privacy and marketing communication laws. These can be complex, but basically you should ensure you keep your customer's contact details safe and secure, that they are not unreasonably contacted by you other than for genuinely promotional or educational purposes, and you should also provide an easy to use opt out or unsubscribe function.

It probably took you a lot of time/effort/money/all three to obtain your customers for the first time, make it worthwhile by maximising the long term sales from each one!

Partnership with FreeAgent

FreeAgent is an online bookkeeping package aimed at freelance contractors and small businesses with 1-5 employees. It's designed to be simple to use by non-accountants, reconciles automatically with online banking and is as secure as online banking itself.

There are many other benefits which make it superior to other bookkeeping packages, such as accurate tax estimates, along with a tax timeline so you know when taxes are due. It also has many professional looking templates to enable you to easily design and print sales invoices.

This product is not only great for the client, it's great for us too. With it, we can review clients' financial situations throughout the year to ensure we spot potential problems early on, and offer proactive tax advice where appropriate. We can also ensure client records are kept up to date with things like year end adjustments.

Being a partner enables us to offer discounts of 40% on FreeAgent fees for clients of Maslins. So if you're considering moving to an online bookkeeping package, and are either already a Maslins client, or are considering becoming one, please get in touch.

Tax tip of the month

Tax credits

Not something many accountants mention too often. As a breed we like to make out that all of our clients are high net worth individuals with vast salaries, dividends from multiple sources, and rental income from a successful property portfolio.

However, especially during these tough economic times, many small business owners are finding their earnings squeezed, or perhaps they're even making losses.

If you're thinking "tax credits aren't for the likes of me" then you could be missing out on what is essentially free money. If your business is struggling, and you've got kids to feed and rent/mortgage to pay, then you're exactly the person they're aimed at. If you haven't earned very much this year, click here and answer a few quick questions to see whether/what you are eligible for.

Local Event

Local and Live

Over the bank holiday weekend (28-31 August) Tunbridge Wells musical maestro Paul Dunton is hosting a festival in the Pantiles. It's like your typical musical festival, except without the price tag, the mud, and fewer unwashed student types.

Now into it's third year, this is a top notch event. It is entirely free, sponsored by businesses, with local volunteers helping the event run smoothly. Go to local and live for more details of the bands playing and how to get involved.