Chartwell News

By Anna Stubbs July 2, 2025
Keeping on top of your cashflow is even more important during tough economic times.  With global uncertainty, recent high inflation, energy prices soaring, supply chain challenges, cash is likely to be tight over the coming year. Cloud technology and fintech apps, can give your business the best possible control over its cash.
By Anna Stubbs July 2, 2025
You may love running your business. But in the back of every owner’s mind is the knowledge that one day you’ll need to sell the company and retire. But with global markets in upheaval and the future less certain than ever before, how can you guarantee that your business will be worth enough on the open market for you to retire? In this series, we’ll look at the core ways your business can be structured to deliver on your own personal, family, philanthropic and leisure goals, now and into retirement.
By Anna Stubbs July 2, 2025
If you want to stabilise your finances and grow the business, working to strict budgets becomes a necessity. Managing the cashflow twists and turns of a project can be hard work. But it’s easier to do when you have an agreed budget and can track your spending and performance.  So, what’s the best way to stay in control of the budgets you’ve set? And how can you manage your cashflow position to make sure there’s always enough cash to fund the project?
By Anna Stubbs July 2, 2025
As the owner of the business, you’ve set your company up so it delivers on your own personal goals. But you also want the business to deliver for the people you hand the business on to – whether that’s your kids, your management team, or a brand-new buyer.  Let’s take a look at how you pass the business on to the next generation, and the key steps to plan for, consider and get in place before you exit the company.
By Anna Stubbs June 3, 2025
No one can deny that to grow your business, you must attract new potential customers (or leads). It’s how you generate these leads that’s important though. STEP is a lead generation acronym to help you generate quality leads without pointlessly blowing your marketing budget: S = Strategy T = Target E = Efficiency P = Process
By Anna Stubbs June 3, 2025
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are essential to measure the performance of your business in order to grow your numbers. Of course, the measures themselves are pointless unless there’s reflection and discussion to ensure they’re met. Here’s a simple and effective way to link KPIs to a reporting and accountability framework. Firstly, make sure there is ONE leader for each of the departments in your business: Director, Leadership, Product / Service Development, Operations, Marketing, Sales, Finance, HR, and Admin / IT. One person can lead more than one department, but two people can’t lead one department. You can also contract out departments to avoid needing a large head count of team memebrs (finance, marketing and IT can be outsourced relatively easily). Be clear on who reports to who . One person can only manage 5 or so people effectively. Consider establishing teams with team leaders to enable you to achieve a ratio under 6 to 1. Set up regular department meetings . This may be the CEO with each of the other department heads, the Operations Leader with the Operations team (if less than 5 in the Operations team) or with the Operations Team Leaders (if more than 5 in the Operations team).
By Anna Stubbs June 3, 2025
One of the simplest ways to grow your bottom line is to tighten your belt and spend less.
By Anna Stubbs June 3, 2025
Have you ever done the maths on your average spend per customer? That is, how much your customers spend (on average) each time they buy from you. Simply take your total sales for any period (e.g. 12 months) and divide this by the total number of transactions or invoices for that period. When you know your average transaction value, you’ll start to see the value of getting your customers to buy from you more frequently. If only 50% of your customers buy from you one more time per year, your sales will increase significantly. Consider the example of a house maintenance business that does window cleaning, house washing, and gutter care. Imagine the business has 500 customers and turnover of $130,000. There are 460 invoices for the year so the average spend per transaction is $283. Some customers are vigilant about getting their house and windows washed and others leave it until the mould and leaves in the gutters are causing leaks. If you are able to get one more transaction per customer per year, then sales will more than double (500 customers x $283 = additional turnover of $141,500). More importantly, you will be able to prevent an unmanageable flood of job requests after each rain storm!
By Anna Stubbs June 3, 2025
The endless pursuit of new customers to grow a business often distracts us from looking after our existing ones.  This pursuit can unintentionally cause a downward spiral. Spending more on marketing, while neglecting existing customers (and their sales needs), can put pressure on pricing. This can lead to a reduction in prices or a change in product mix, resulting in less sales and the apparent need for more marketing… so the spiral continues. This is not the answer.
By Anna Stubbs June 3, 2025
Measuring your sales and margins provides insight into which parts of your business are performing well and which ones need improvement. With improved margins, you don’t have to generate as many sales to get the same profit. Better still, lift your margins and achieve higher sales; you’ll get even more on your bottom line!
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