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A properly setup, capable, clean and simple POS system is absolutely imperative to your salon front desk. Not only will you be able to take payments, monitor sales, pull reports, check stock, and add a rewards program, you will also be providing a clean and easy customer experience which is paramount in the service industry. Make sure you customise your POS to perhaps include button menus of your particular services and products to save time as well as card scanners if you want to offer rewards, even make sure your receipts carry personalised messages or offers. Customer experience at the front desk is paramount in the service industry and you really need to go the extra mile when offering more personal services often offered by salons.

To appeal to environmentally conscious small businesses, the Government rolled out Energy Efficiency Grants at the beginning of the year which offer small businesses up to $25,000 to install more efficient and environmentally friendly solutions. However, Reckon’s research indicates that merely 19% of Australian small businesses will adopt the government’s offer, while close to half (47%) are not even aware what it is. With many businesses fearful of stagnant spending and consumer confidence, just over half (56%) say the seven-year personal income tax relief plan announced during last year’s budget benefited them. With recognisable skills gaps across many Australian SME’s, a large 83% of those polled want to see more subsidies for upskilling, education and training in this year’s budget.

You don’t need to go deep end on this, as you can easily spend a vault of money, but for relatively little cost and some ‘Youtube University’ you can grow your advisory business with decent and consistent branding. If you can position yourself as such a source, you will be at a far greater chance of picking up further clients through building trust, professionalism and becoming a known quantity to potential customers. With the ease of social media these days and the ability to propogate a blog or channel with useful, upskilling and inspirational content, you are as well placed as anyone to become a ‘thought leader’. You don’t necessarily have to position yourself individually as the source of information, if you are uncomfortable with too much personal branding. If people listen to you on LinkedIn or share your blog or advice on Facebook, you can be sure this is a great way to start building your industry cache and thus your client base.

Reef Ball are a non profit global organisation dedicated to creating and ‘planting’ hollow perforated concrete structures known as ‘reef balls’. As an original way of helping to fund their work, while offering an alternative to burial, you can sponsor a reef ball and have the ashes of your loved one incorporated into the structure of the ball itself, with a memorial plaque attached, and become part of a living world. Started as a bit of fun, their first business ‘Ship Snow, Yo‘ set out as seemingly intended, to ship you some snow… yo. During Boston’s 2015 bumper snow year, they decided on a whim to ship people all over the US, a package of fresh New England snow collected from around their house.