Small Business Blog

Business Magazines: List of the World’s Top Business Magazines

James Cooper — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 14:07:00 GMT

We all need a number of sources of business advice, information, insights, news and inspiration – why not subscribe to one or two business magazines? Sure, we certainly live in a world in which anyone can fall victim to information overload. But if you can filter your information intake to content that helps bring you closer towards your goals, then that’s got to be good, right? The following is a list of the top business magazines you should consider.

[Today’s Image: Mimosa Street, London, UK – Aug 2011] - Learn more about James's Travels & Where he is Currently?

List of Business Magazines by Country

In no specific order, but with a small business bias;

US Business Magazines

Forbes - http://www.forbes.com/
Fortune – http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/
The Economist – http://www.economist.com/
Bloomberg Businessweek - http://www.businessweek.com/
Inc – http://www.inc.com/
Entrepreneur - http://www.entrepreneur.com/
FastCompany – http://www.fastcompany.com/
Harvard Business Review - http://hbr.org/
My Business Magazine - http://www.nfib.com/mybusiness-magazine
Home Business Magazine - http://www.homebusinessmag.com/
Advertising Age (Industry & Trade Magazine) - http://adage.com/
Ad Week (Industry & Trade Magazine) - http://www.adweek.com/

We have left out the many State or City specific Business Magazines and Journals from this list. Many of these publications likely deserve inclusion however, we have purposefully omitted to avoid a completely overwhelming list.

UK Business Magazines

The Economist – http://www.economist.com/
New business Magazine - http://www.newbusiness.co.uk/
Startups - http://www.startups.co.uk/
First Voice - http://www.firstvoice.co.uk/SubscribeFirstVoice
Real Business - http://realbusiness.co.uk/
Growing Business - http://www.growingbusiness.co.uk/
Start Your Business - http://www.startyourbusinessmag.com/
Director - http://www.director.co.uk/
Business Insider - http://www.business7.co.uk/insider-magazine/
Management Today - http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/
Business First - http://www.businessfirstmagazine.co.uk/
Raw Business - http://www.rawbusiness.com/
The Business Magazine - http://www.businessmag.co.uk/
Marketing Magazine (Industry & Trade Magazine) - http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/

Canadian Business Magazines

Profit - http://www.profitguide.com
Canadian Business - http://www.canadianbusiness.com/
Unlimited - http://www.unlimitedmagazine.com/
Atlantic Business Magazine - http://www.atlanticbusinessmagazine.ca/info/magazines/atlantic-business-magazine/
Canada One - http://www.canadaone.com/
Make it Business - http://www.makeitbusiness.com/
Strategy - http://strategyonline.ca/
Franchise Canada - http://www.cfa.ca/Publications_Research/FranchiseCanada/subscribe.aspx
Marketing Magazine (Industry & Trade Magazine)- http://www.marketingmag.ca/
Entreprendre (French Only) - http://www.entreprendre.ca/

Australian Business Magazines

BRW - http://www.brw.com.au/
My Business - http://www.mybusiness.com.au/
Australian Business Solutions - http://www.absmagazine.com.au/
Anthill - http://anthillonline.com/
Dynamic Business - http://www.dynamicbusiness.com.au/
Fast Thinking - http://fastthinking.com.au/
Franchising - http://www.franchise.net.au/
B&T (Industry & Trade Magazine) - http://www.bandt.com.au/
Ad News (Industry & Trade Magazine) - http://www.adnews.com.au/
Marketing Mag (Industry & Trade Magazine) - http://www.marketingmag.com.au/

New Zealand Business Magazines

Unlimited - http://unlimited.co.nz/
Idealog - http://idealog.co.nz/
NZ Business - http://www.nzbusiness.co.nz/
NZ Management - http://www.management.co.nz/
Franchise NZ - http://www.franchise.co.nz/
NZ Marketing Magazine (Industry & Trade Magazine) - http://marketingmag.co.nz/
Ad Media Magazine (Industry & Trade Magazine) - http://www.admedia.co.nz/

Question:

Do you have a favorite business magazine? What is it? Why is that?

Premium Membership Special Offer for Readers

James Cooper — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:55:00 GMT

We’ve put together a special offer for our readers (that’s YOU) and subscribers to try our new Premium Membership Website. If you want to grow your small business and make more money, or you help other small business owners as a business coach/consultant/adviser grow their business and you want to grow your own successful practice, then this special offer is for you! The deal – get membership for the first month for only US$3.95.

Normally we sell premium membership for US$49 per month, so this is a great deal! The special offer does have a time limit – so check it out now.

Review What’s on Offer & Sign Up Now by Clicking Here

We are only just beginning and already we have a heap of premium content available to members. Each week Craig Langdon (mimosaPLANET Members Community Manager & Small Business Development Specialist) and I are putting a heap of work into this and we are obsessed with helping small business owners, coaches & consultants get better business results. We want to help you increase your profit, grow your business to help the economy, and have more flexible time with your family, friends, travel or leisure activities.

I promise you we have a tonne of information and small business advice, and we love to hear your specific questions so we can give you actionable and practical steps for you to get better business results – for $3.95 it’s actually a crazy price, you’ll be stoked!!!

Check out the details and sign up for the deal today!

Lifestyle Design Plan - Overview

James Cooper — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:32:00 GMT

Lifestyle Design Plan - An Overview for Small Business Owners

How to operate your business remotely from anywhere in the world working only 8 hours per week...

Current location - Stavanger, Norway.

If you want to design a better lifestyle for you and your family, then this article is for you.

It's good to be back writing articles, this is my first article in more than a year. Why? Well, I've been experiencing exciting new things and enjoying life... living my preferred lifestyle by choice, by design. In fact over the last 6 months I've been living abroad and operating my business remotely. Why? Because I wanted to live in a tropical location in another country and go sailing for 3 months working only 8 hours a week while still keeping my business running smoothly. Too many people say that they would love to do something but can't do it because....[insert excuse]. I decided to prove to myself, clients and other small business owners that this is possible, so I booked a one-way flight, implemented some changes and just did it.

In this article I'll share with you some key lessons I've learnt and a 3-6 month Action Plan we've created to help other business owners design their business to deliver the lifestyle they want, we call it our Lifestyle Design Plan.

Background

I first heard about the term ‘lifestyle design' when I read Tim Ferris' great book The 4 Hour Work Week. Tim talks about how insane the whole current way of working is for 99% of the population, you know... the whole 40-80 hours per week gig for 40 years until you retire. Tim asks, why not have some fun during your life and experience whatever it is you want to do now not later. He goes on to talk about how he turned his business into a vehicle that he could operate from anywhere in the world while working only 4 hours per week. I thought to myself, "I can do that, that would be great fun, and what better way to show other business owners that you really can achieve whatever it is you want through your business", so I got less than a ¼ way through the book, and I knew what I wanted to do... it had something to do with living in a tropical location, plenty of hot sunny days, idyllic blue waters and sailing. I got online, and found that the Whitsundays, Queensland, Australia fit the bill, and booked my one-way flight.

I wanted to enjoy the summer in Auckland, New Zealand (my home at the time) first, so on the 1^stof Oct I booked my flight for exactly 6 months out, leaving on the 1^st of April. This meant; 1) I could enjoy the summer at home first and keep the sun rolling on by leaving just when Autumn was about to kick in, 2) it also meant I had 6 months to implement the changes required in my business.

So, for 3 months I lived in the Whitsundays and operated my business on 8 hours a week via systems and processes. The rest of the time I relaxed in the sun, did some sailing and contemplated my place in the universe. I then moved to Sydney, Australia for some more excitement that city life can offer, I ripped back into working some more hours because I had many ideas to implement and plenty of energy (thanks to 3 mths of time to relax, think and recharge), and I'm currently in Europe for 6 weeks.

Ok, now for the good stuff....

How can you implement changes to your business so you can do whatever it is that you want to do? The answer... the mimosaPLANET Lifestyle Design Plan!

(NOTE: you don't have to live abroad, remote working can be at home or at a holiday home or it could just mean far greater flexibility in your business giving you the ability to take a week or 2 off at short notice or long weekends or spending much more time with family or becoming really good at your favorite hobby or whatever you want)

The mimosaPLANET Lifestyle Design Plan

We've developed an 11 Step Process which can be implemented over 3 or 6 months. Heck, if you're really keen it could be implemented over a couple of weeks.

But first set some specific goals for how you want your lifestyle to be in 3 or 6 months time. Specific goals in 3 areas; what you want to DO, what you want to HAVE, and who you want to BE.

Over the next few weeks I'll post more blog articles focusing on the different steps. But first here are the overall steps of the plan...

Step 1: Time Log (capture what it is that you do with your time for a week)

Step 2: Time Audit (analyse your tasks to determine what is important and what is costing you time)

Step 3: Document Business Process - Current Work Flow (record, in flow chart form, how you do everything now; your marketing process, order or sales process, service fulfilment or product delivery process, accounting process, etc)

Step 4: Eliminate | Automate | Delegate (take what you have discovered so far and determine what you will do with each Role, Process or Task; Eliminate, Automate or Delegate)

Step 5: New Business Architecture (design the high level make up of your business, how will it work mostly without your time. Don't worry about the exact details yet)

Step 6: Document Business Process - New Work Flow (now link together the details into your new business processes, recreate new business processes that run without you)

Step 7: Supporting Documents, Forms, Templates, Collateral & How To's (create all the necessary collateral for the new business architecture and processes)

Step 8: Implement (implement the new Business Architecture & Processes across your business)

Step 9: Trial - 1 or 2 Weeks (take a holiday for 1 or 2 weeks, only working the scheduled number of hours you have set for yourself, 4 or 8 or 20 or 0 or whatever)

Step 10: Review | Tune | Implement (take the lessons you have learnt from your 1 or 2 week trial and adjust as required to iron out any mishaps or bottle necks)

Step 11: Execute New Schedule (Start living your new lifestyle)

Key Lessons in Lifestyle Design

Here are a few lessons I learnt...

IMPLEMENTING CHANGES IN YOUR BUSINESS:
- Less is more. So much of what you do on a day to day basis just doesn't matter. You can most likely cut your working hours in half immediately by not doing half of what you normally do and still get the same results. In fact my business expanded while cutting the hours to 8 per week.
LIVING YOUR NEW SCHEDULE:
- Get a new hobby or two. With all this free time you'll get bored very quickly.
- Find some new friends. You'll find most of your friends are busy working and "can't" join you.

In summary, this was my experience, and it'll be different for everyone. Here's a point I'd like to stress:

Others will say that "this won't work with my business"... but this is exactly the point.... If this is you saying this... well... of course it doesn't work with your business otherwise you'd be doing it now, right? ... you need to change your business, change its architecture, its design! I named mimosaPLANET after the mimosa tree, this tree is very adaptive in nature, it will change to suit the environment. This is true, now more than ever before, in business. We must change and adapt to the ever changing environment in which we operate. Change and adapt or get the same average results or worse... face extinction!

Take away Action Points

Read Tim's book The 4 Hour Work Week.
Recognise THINGS CAN BE DIFFERENT and ANYONE can do whatever they want to in this world.
Set a goal for what you want your life to be like in 3 or 6 months time. What you want to DO, what you want to HAVE, and who you want to BE.
List then implement changes; TODAY, TOMORROW, and OVER THE NEXT 3-6 MONTHS

Go for it!

Small Business Accountants - How Good Is Your Accountant?

James Cooper — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:06:00 GMT

How To Check You Are Getting The Most Out Of Your Accountant...

When discussing business vs personal expenses and deductions or leasing vs renting vs owning assets and all manner of other tax and structure issues, I quiet often hear business owners say "my accountant never told me this", "or my accountant isn't very proactive, they just do my end of year accounts and I see them once a year and they tell me how well or badly I'm doing".... Does any of this sound familiar? If you've felt like this before, then I've got a solution for you, learn how to quickly resolve this issue...

What Accountants Have Told Me

I've put this feedback to different accountants before and they have come back with the same response.... "we don't know that they want more from us" or "they never said they want this information" or "they didn't ask us to do that" or "they didn't tell us they were doing that".

So, the challenge here is we now have two parties who aren't communicating and have a lack of knowledge about the other person's situation. The Accountant doesn't know about the business owners' most up to date situation or scenario so can't offer any advice. And the business owner believes that there is no value to be had in talking with their Accountant about what is currently happening, so they have a lack of knowledge about the different ways things can be setup and what the impacts have now or in the future.

So Whose Fault Is It?

Get off that train of thought for a start, if you're on it. Both parties can do better for sure; Accountant's could communicate more regularly with clients; a quarterly phone call to see what's happening, bi-monthly newsletters with case studies of the value they have added with advice in the typical areas, situations and scenarios business owners face. And you, what about you the business owner, what can you do......?

Get Smarter and Get More Knowledge!

No, this is not what you pay the Accountant for. You pay your Accountant to provide you with a solution that fits your current and future needs... and to do that you need to be aware when there is or could be a situation they can add value to... then share with them everything that is going on and most importantly ask them the hard questions!!!!

Where Do These Questions Come From?

Knowing the right time to speak with your Accountant and what questions to ask them is all about... Getting a solid basic knowledge in Accounting! About money, about financial statements, about structures, about taxation and about deductions. I'm not talking about going to University. What I'm talking about is not hard, trust me if you really wanted to, I mean actually cared enough to do something about this and valued this enough you could get a basic knowledge over the weekend, this weekend even. How?

I'm not an Accountant so I'm not going to tell you this "solid basic knowledge in Accounting", and besides I'm too lazy to do that when all you need to do is go to the local book store or online and pickup some basic Small Business Accounting books. The following 3 books are easy to read, I repeat very easy to read, and have great content...

Where's the money? - By Craig Rust (ISBN: 9780476016439)
Pay Zero taxes - By Peter Sibbald
Slash your taxes now - By Peter Sibbald

Note:
- Peter Sibbald's books are based on NZ Tax laws (so find an equivalent in your country or state)
- Craig Rust's book helps build a solid understanding of Money Management in a Small Business

Purchase from whitcoulls.co.nz or go to the local book store or amazon.com to see what else suits.

Disclaimer! Caution!

If you are thinking about selling your business in the next 2 years don't go mad with some of Peter's ideas on deductions, in fact do the opposite in some cases, as you will want Net Profit to be as high as possible to get the highest possible sale price, right?

As Always Seek Professional Advice

What I'm getting at here is that in order to get the most out of your Accountant, you need to challenge them, ask them the hard questions "Why aren't we doing this?" "How can we get this out come?" "I want to do this, what do we need to consider?" "I've made a list of the things I believe we could do to improve my situation, what are your thoughts?

Getting a proactive Accountant (and with it the best advice for you and your situation) is about having a basic knowledge of the possibilities and challenging your Accountant to make those possibilities happen. Many Accountants are conservative in nature, and that's ok, I mean, the IRD/IRS/HMRC/ATO are all scary and none are someone (something?) you want to mess with, but remember your Accountant should be helping you to reach for those possibilities... you shoot for the stars, your Accountant pulls you back to the Moon, the result is still better than been stuck on the earth's surface with everyone else. And of course if you really don't like the answers you get back, start interviewing Accountants with the same questions, you'll soon find one who's a fit. I know heaps of Great Accountants.

This week's Action Points...

Buy the books, read them with a highlighter and a note pad. Take your notes and questions to your accountant to get a better solution. Good luck!