Now What? Xero, and
Me!
Brad Burton. Who is
he? If you have not heard of this
gentleman, what planet have you been on?
That is the kind of thought I had when I stumbled across a post of Brad
in September last year on LinkedIn. Brad
Burton, The UK’s #1 Motivational Speaker, does exactly ‘what it says on the
tin’, gets you thinking, really thinking, about you, your direction, where your
heading and how to get there. I joined
his private Now What Club? And never
looked back. If your looking for solid
on-line support with an amazing community of small business owners, this I
recommend. But this isn’t a blog about Brad or his Now What? private members club, though I could
quite happily write one. This is about how the combination of my choosing to be
part of the Now What? Club and becoming a customer of Xero has helped me grow my
passion into an outsourcing solution to support you.
At Brad Burton’s Now What? event held in January called
“Courage Under Fire”, there were many amazing speakers. I enjoyed enormously listening to every
single one.
One guest Keynote Speaker was none other than Gary Turner,
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Xero. What a lovely and personable guy. Not only did Gary speak at the event, he took the time to say hello and talk to people attending.
When he did take to the stage, Gary
spoke about his life and experiences including the different companies he had
worked within, computer games, and being a bit of a geek (your words not mine
Gary!). Gary also talked about experiences as a child,
with his father’s garage business and how in the end it was sadly lost. How life was not delivered on a plate and the
hardships that happened as a result of his father’s business closing. The things that could possibly have shaped
him for his future.
Listening to Gary, I just sat there thinking “me to, same
here”. We share similarities with
childhood experiences and what possibly drives us about business.
My growing wasn’t the hardest, but it wasn’t the easiest
either. My beautiful mother was
diagnosed with MS when I was 3 or 4 years old. My Father was the provider and
grafter, a truck driver and my hero. Dad
was a very proud Owner Driver of a truck and owned almost outright our then family
home. When I was around 5 years old,
without any warning, broke. It was all
gone. Everything. Through no fault of
his own. I can’t go into detail, and
wont. But believe me, this event stained
the future darkly.
It’s a whole family unit that feels this kind of pain.
Maybe that is why I have always worked hard. That and their being no readies
available. We hardly holidayed, we
didn’t do day trips, we didn’t have birthday parties, my parents never
entertained, if we had play dates nobody stayed for dinner. I used to dread having to ask to get new
school uniform, any trip money, lunch money.
It was tight. Paper rounds; I had
two Sunday rounds and even went into the shop earlier at 5am on a Sunday
morning to fill the papers with their supplements to earn extra. I had one morning and one evening round
Mon-Sat. I had Saturday work as soon as
I was old enough. Push, work, do better, do more. Earn. Support.
I have had many different roles in life, and I have had so
many wonderful experiences with people and employment. Work experience includes within the music
industry, in a supermarket, publishing, marketing, sales, estate agency, F1,
events. All have helped to shape me into
who I am today. At the core of
everything for me it always been about people, I love meeting people, learning
about them, and life experiences. All
ages, all walks of life.
So, why Credit Control?
It’s not something I woke up and thought “I am going to chase overdue
invoices”. It was a natural progression
after being offered an opportunity to try something new which was Credit
Control by a local Bookkepping business called The Accounts Place. I did this for a couple of years and then
went on to start my own business in February 2018. I liked doing Credit Control, and I could see
just how this can help small businesses.
Out of every 100 businesses started in 10 years
just 6% will survive. That’s 94
businesses, gone. Poor cashflow given as one of the major reasons behind
business failure. I want to see that figure of 94 businesses
‘fail’ turn into the succeed figure. From
this blog, if I can help just one business keep cash flowing and stay in
business, I will be one happy lady.
There are not many people out there that would say they
enjoy Credit Control, I am one of the few that do. If you don’t have the time, experience or
don’t like asking for money get in touch.
Not everybody is able to ask for money owed to them comfortably or
confidently. I can and do while enhancing
relationships between you and your client.
So here I am with a great combination of support. Brad
Burton’s private members club Now What Too?
Using Xero as a tool to help me and my clients, and for giving me the
opportunity The Accounts Place who are just so helpful with advice. You need a bookkeeper, get in contact with
them.
I predominantly use Xero. Xero is an amazing complement to
any business, its cloud based, user friendly, straight forward, data displayed
is clear, and I say if I can use it anyone can.
I love Xero’s strap line “let’s do beautiful business” because that what
business should be to us, beautiful. If
I had not been approached by The Accounts Place a few years back to take on a
new role in Credit Control, I would not have known about Xero. Credit Control quite possibly would never
have been on my radar. Thank you to Anna
Davies & Sandra Larner from The Accounts Place for helping me find my forte
with Credit Control. A special thank you to Sarah Raffill for recommending me to The Accounts Place.
Statistic source:
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradburtonuk/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garyturner/
https://www.xero.com/uk/
https://www.accountsplace.com/
