Business Banking
Posted: Thu 1 November, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Own Business, Work-related | 2 Comments »Many moons ago, I opened a business account for the limited company I had at the time, and it all turned into an utter nightmare. The problems primarily spouted from the fact that my personal current account suddenly came under the control and “management” of the business banking people, which led to huge screwups all round. I finally closed that account back in ’05 after roughly two years of absolute hell.
Anyway, with that experience in mind, I’ve so far avoided getting a bank account for my wee business. But it’s coming to the point where I need to, so I’ve been doing some checking around, looking at fees, costs, and all that malarkey. It’s duller than shit, of course, but still stuff that needs doing.
Of course, based on my previous experience, I’m avoiding RBS like the plague because I still do my personal banking with them. So one of my primary requirements – if not essentials – for any business banking account is to make sure that the relevant bank doesn’t then insist that I have to have my personal banking with the same bank. Even if I had wanted to stay with RBS, that requirement would kill their chances.
I’m still looking around the various tosspots members of the banking community, but so far HSBC are looking like a good candidate. Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d find myself saying.
One Week To Go
Posted: Mon 29 October, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Own Business, Resolutions, Work-related | 1 Comment »It’s hard to believe that in one week’s time I’m going to be thirty-bloody-six. It doesn’t seem like ten minutes ago that we were down in Roadwater for me being thirty-fucking-five.
This year, we’re not going to be going away for Fireworks Night. (Guy Fawkes, whatever) Instead, we’re going to see just what our new place is like when it comes to the joys of fireworks. So far, we haven’t heard any – which is a massive improvement on Bracknell, when we were getting them going off from about the start of October. The next village along will be doing a bonfire and firework display, but we’ve seen nothing about anything in our place.
Of course, we’ll still be working on exhausting Hound – we’ll most likely go up to the beach at Wells-next-the-Sea or Holkham, let her run round like a loon, and take a couple of toys for her to chase, catch and return. By the time we get home, she’ll be knackered enough that she’ll sleep through just about anything, on previous evidence.
At the same time there’s going to be a couple of big old posts about five year plans, resolutions and the like – they’ve been fun to write, and have helped me lay out some of the ideas for the coming year. Particularly as one of the checkpoints is just about crossed off already, which is a definite bonus…
Business Redesign – Ongoing
Posted: Fri 26 October, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Own Business, Thoughts | Leave a comment »The redesign of the business site is still continuing, amazingly. The “About Me” profile/bio section has been just about completed now, and I’m actually fairly pleased with the way it worked out. There’s still plenty of room for tweaking, but it’s getting there.
I’m now just starting on entirely reworking the ‘clients’ section, which is another big old job. I could leave it ’til I’ve put in a database back-end, and I still might, but at least now I’ve got the site structure that I want.
Other than that, the letterhead stuff that I ordered a couple of weeks ago from Vistaprint arrived last night (as well as a letterhead for the photography side of things, which also matches the business cards) and looks damn good. So over the course of the next week, I’ll most likely be starting to use it to send out some letters.
It’s all actually quite a fun process, and it’s making me think a lot about the business, where it’s been, where it’s going, and a whole bundle of other things too – which is all good, and none of it is negative at all. Happy day.
Business Redesign – About Me
Posted: Tue 23 October, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Own Business, Work-related, Writing | Leave a comment »With the redesigned business site, one of the things I seriously need to update is the entire “About Me/About The Business” page. It’s never been great, but now needs to contain a lot more information than previously.
The thing is, believe it or not, I’m utterly crap at writing that kind of thing. I don’t like writing self-promoting and self-publicising stuff, although I know it’s a necessary evil in the context of having a business. Freelance Switch had a piece about this kind of problem with a couple of ideas I might try out as well.
Then again, maybe I should just write it as though it were a blog post, and that might come up with something workable.
Back
Posted: Tue 23 October, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Travel, Work-related | Leave a comment »Today, I’m back at work. I ended up leaving Middlesbrough at 6am, and driving down to Cambridge to start work. I did OK, got in at 9.30 – and that included a small stop for breakfast at some dire little services. (I really should make a point of remembering, as it’s one I wouldn’t bother returning to – but I do recall the location, if not the name)
I may collapse and die once I get home tonight, but in the meantime, I’m back at work as usual.
Legalities
Posted: Mon 22 October, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Own Business, Work-related | Leave a comment »I haven’t written a great deal about this yet (and there’s still a big ranty post in the offing about it) but it’s finally beginning to look like I might get paid for some of the work I did back near when we moved into the new house.
It’s been an absolute nightmare, but basically the client got the work I’d done, declared it OK, then when the invoice was sent out by the umbrella company that I use, refused to pay it. All of a sudden, despite a number of emails saying “that’s fine, send the invoice, we’ll pay it” (which, thankfully, I’d kept) the work became unacceptable, and they were disputing paying anything at all.
The umbrella company haven’t been great in this either – despite me being the person paying for their so-called “service”, I’ve been the one having to chase this every inch of the way. Yes, there’ll be a solid letter going to them once we’re all done, believe me. It’s taken a lot of calls to get things done, but I’ve now been told that they’re actually (finally) taking the guy to court to get him to pay up. Hey, it’s only taken five months so far.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens now. I still have a vague suspicion that this isn’t all done yet, and that things are still going to be a pain, but at least I’ve now got the support of the umbrella company, and they’re doing something about it.
I’m not going to go into details at the moment for obvious reasons, but at least things finally seem to be progressing. When I got the contract, this client wasn’t overly happy at going through the umbrella company for the work, but I’m glad in this instance that I stuck to my guns – otherwise it would’ve been even more of a nightmare, I suspect.
Business Redesign – Another Step
Posted: Fri 19 October, 2007 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Own Business, Work-related | 2 Comments »As of today, the rebranding and redesign of my company is just about complete. The site has now been done to match the new colour scheme and logo, which was really the last remaining major job. A couple of bits of content on there need some updating now, but for the moment it’s OK with what it’s got. The new letterheads have been ordered and – apparently – despatched. I’m yet to get the redone business cards sorted out, but I’ve got all the necessary files, and it’s now more just deciding on when I get them done.
I still need to redevelop and rewrite the company site a bit, change things around. There are some bits that I’m not happy with, but (as I said earlier for now they’re OK. I think that the rewrite will probably happen between Christmas and the New Year. I’m not going to be working on much else (well, at the moment) so it seems like a good time to do it – and then we come to New Year, New Site. Works for me.
As it is, I’m getting more serious about the work, and the business. A lot of things have dropped into place with it this year (which was part of that five-year plan anyway) and with the rebrand as well, it’s beginning to be something that’s working well. The next big step is going to be sorting out a proper bank account for it all – as the work starts coming in more seriously, it’s something that I think needs to be done.
I’ve got some other thoughts about the rebrand and so on, but they’re for another post, once I’ve been able to lay it all down in words. In the meantime, well, everything now looks far more joined-up and professional than it did three months ago, and that’s a development that I’m really pleased with.