I purchased a few books from my local bookshop yesterday, but decided not to buy one particular book because I thought it was a little expensive at €29. I checked out the book on Amazon today and purchased it for €17, including shipping and allowing for currency conversion.

There are many times when you can save both yourself and your business by shopping online. Before making some purchases check if the product or service is available online and if you can make a big saving on it.

I recently checked payments we received from a large client. In one column I wrote down everything we were owed, and in the second column I listed all the payments we had received, from the client. The figures balanced and I closed the file content that all was in order.

A little later, one of my colleagues mentioned a payment we were owed from the client. I went back to check my figures and realized the client hadn’t paid for this. But my figures balanced because I hadn’t included it in the column of what was owed. The figures balanced, but a helpful observation from my colleague, avoided a mistake that would have cost the company a lot of money.

The renewed motivation and energy this will bring you will more than make up for time spent day-dreaming.

Insurance is not just for things you own, but also for things you do.  When completing many business functions you should consider the action and ask yourself “is it insured?”  Business actions or event involved could include the following; buying, selling, hiring, firing, disciplining, leasing, distributing, producing, giving professional advice, publishing information, writing reports, accidents, fire, theft, etc. etc. 

It is very easy to do something that can result in an aspect of your business not being insured.  So, get in the habit of regularly asking yourself “Is it insured?”

A short pause can help you avoid saying something you might regret for a long time and help you maintain a strong long term business relationship that could otherwise be lost. 

This simple practice can greatly improve your relations with your business and personal contacts.  Easier said than done, I know, but practice makes perfect.

I remember the first time I did a ring round of our top five clients and ran through a quick survey of four questions to get their feedback on our service.  To my surprise some of these clients had issues with our service that they never mentioned to me before, even though I dealt with them on a regular basis. 

By asking for their feedback I got an honest review and the opportunity to improve service delivery and iron out minor issues before they became major problems that could result in a lost client. 

So ask for feedback.  You might not always like what you hear, but it is much better to know than not know.  If you don’t know about a client’s issues, you won’t have the opportunity to do something about them.

This is not about pushing your product on everyone you meet or speak to.  The idea here is to get in the habit of recognising opportunities to sell and promote your business to those who could benefit from your product or service.

There are lots of sites where you can register your domain name. Personally I use 815 Domains and find them very reliable. You can even get a free domain name from sites like HostBidder.com.

If you get on well and maintain your concentration for the 10 minutes, set it for 12 minutes next time and keep increasing the duration by 2 minutes until you find your concentration waning. If you find it difficult to focus, during the allocated time reduce the duration by 2 minutes.

You will find a simple countdown timer on many watches and mobile phones. Alternatively, you can find a useful online countdown timer here.