Today's work on/in the business - Wed 30 Sep

1. Networking - follow up on posts and queries. (30mins)
2. Investigate back end for CRM v3. (4hrs 45mins)
3. Update record of market survey results. (5mins)

Sometimes life gets in the way of work - had some stuff to do this afternoon that prevented more work... Well, tomorrow is another day!

Today's work on/in the business - Tues 29 Sep

1. Networking - follow up on posts and queries. (1hr 5mins)
2. Investigate back end for CRM v3. (1hr)
3. Update record of market survey results. (10mins)
4. Investigate 2 possible ways of accessing the data. (1hr 15mins)

Bike ride this morning, so less work than usual - but I worked over the weekend, so it's ok.

Today's work on/in the business - Mon 28 Sep

1. Networking - follow up on posts and queries. (45mins)
2. Investigate back end for CRM v3. (7hrs 45mins)

Yippee - might have found a back end that will work!

Today's work on/in the business - Sun 27 Sep

1. Investigate back end for CRM v3. (2hrs 25mins)

So far, all this has achieved is to remove options from the list of alternatives...

Today's work on/in the business - Sat 26 Sep

1. Investigate back end for CRM v3. (6hrs)

Today's work on/in the business - Fri 25 Sep

1. Investigate back end for CRM v3. (6hrs 40mins)
2. Networking - follow up on posts and queries. (2hrs)

Today's work on/in the business - Thurs 24 Sep

1. Networking - follow up on posts and queries. (50mins)
2. Continue scheduling for CRM v3 and for new product we're planning. (1hr 10mins)
3. Discussion with potential customer - follow on from some work I did earlier this year - could be good! (30mins)
4. Update record of market survey results. (20mins)
5. Investigate back end for CRM v3. (2hrs 25mins)

Today's work on/in the business - Wed 23 Sep

1. Investigate the rules for creating a Facebook page. (1hr 5mins)
2. Reviewing mobile broadband options - think I've got it sorted out. (1hr 40mins)
3. Find and install free project scheduling software that is available on Windows, Mac and Linux. (2hrs 15mins)
4. Start scheduling for CRM v3 (although in actual fact there probably won't be a v2) - scary... (1hr 35mins)
5. Networking - follow up on posts and queries. (45mins)

Today's work on/in the business - Tues 22 Sep

1. Continue refining financials for business plan - or at least try! No response from trainer (he is flat out reviewing all our business plans...) so handed in the figures that are closest to what was requested. (1hr 5mins)
2. Hand in updated business plans. (20mins)
3. Networking - follow up on posts and queries. (1hr)
4. Reviewing mobile phone and mobile broadband options - VERY confusing! (3hrs 50mins)

Today's Centrelink - Tues 22 Sep

About 20mins to fill out the forms, ready to take in today.

Probably 1hr 15mins to take the forms to Centrelink and hand them in - we try not to go at lunchtime, but sometimes it can't be avoided...

Today's work on/in the business - Mon 21 Sep

1. Trip to Centrelink to get forms filled out for NEIS, then meeting at Box Hill TAFE to determine whether business plan needs updating before sign off (including travel time). (3hrs 20mins)

This actually went really well. We didn't really spend long in the queue at Centrelink and then once we got to the head of the line, it only took a few minutes for the form to be filled out. Then we went to Box Hill and had lunch and relaxed, then headed up to TAFE.

Much to Dave's delight, the only thing that needs to change on the business plan is to lower the sales forecasts, so that the financials are less optimistic (I don't think they were overly optimistic, but I don't mind planning lower and overachieving). So, do that today, hand it in tomorrow, fix up the insurance and we should be good to go!

2. Email insurance broker to accept quotation - must be in place for NEIS to start. (10mins)
3. Refine financials for business plan - or at least try! Emailed trainer for assistance. (1hr 25mins)

Today's work on/in the business - Sun 20 Sep

1. Fill out the forms needed for our NEIS sign up tomorrow. (45mins)
2. Networking - follow up on posts and queries. (1hr)

Today's Centrelink - Sun 20 Sep

2hrs 30mins to apply for the 10 jobs required for this fortnight.

Done - yippee!

Saturday's relaxation

Well, there was no work done yesterday, Saturday 19 Sep.

We had a bbq to celebrate that our business plans were all handed in on Friday - all the NEIS group were invited, but the weather was a bit damp and grey, so only a few of us turned up. But we still had a good, fun time! And we got to meet a few partners, which was good too.

Could have done a bit of work before or after, but I figured enough time had gone into this during the week, so a day off was well deserved.

Today's work on/in the business - Fri 18 Sep

1. Work on business plan - collect all required appendices etc - print it all out! (4hrs 10mins)
2. Hand in business plan! Yippee! (1hr)
3. Networking - follow up on posts and queries. (1hr)

Today's work on/in the business - Thurs 17 Sep

1. Trip to meet Insurance Planner to discuss Key Man insurance for the business (including travel time). (3hrs)
2. Register partnership for ABN and TFN. (45mins)
Not really happy about this. Got to the end and got a message that the ATO had to check stuff and the normal time for this is 28 days! How??? What question did I answer wrong? When I did the personal one, it popped up with the ABN when the Submit button was pressed - why is this different?
Now to see whether this stops us starting the business on 1st Oct!
3. Work on business plan - or at least many of the supporting documents! (2hrs 50mins)
4. Networking - follow up on posts and queries. (55mins)

OK - should probably do more of this... but sooooo tired...

Today's work on/in the business - Wed 16 Sep

1. NEIS training course - 8.25am to 3.35pm less 1 hour for lunch and one 10 min break (including travel time). (6hrs)
2. Answer a query from old company. (20 mins)
3. Networking - follow up on posts and queries. (1hr 50mins)

Today's work on/in the business - Tues 15 Sep

1. NEIS training course - 8.15am to 3.20pm less 1/2 hour for lunch and one 10 min break (including travel time). (6hrs 25mins)
2. Work on business plan. (15mins)

Today's work on/in the business - Mon 14 Sep

1. NEIS training course - 8.25am to 2.20pm less 1 hour for lunch and one 10 min break (including travel time). (4hrs 45mins)
2. Work on business plan. (3hrs 45mins)
3. Networking - follow up on posts and queries. (15mins)

Today's work on/in the business - Sun 13 Sep

1. Networking - follow up on posts and queries. (YouTube took forever to download little videos...!) (3hrs 55mins)
2. Work on business plan. (55mins)
3. Send email required - follow up on site visit. (20 mins)

Today's work on/in the business - Sat 12 Sep

1. Work on business plan. (1hr 30mins)

Today's work on/in the business - Fri 11 Sep

1. NEIS training course - 8.15am to 3.30pm less 1 hour for lunch, one 20 min break and one 10 min break (including travel time). (5hrs 45mins)
2. Networking - follow up on posts and queries (1hr 50mins)

Today's work on/in the business - Thurs 10 Sep

1. Customer site visit to address issues - including travel. (3hrs)
I'm very happy about this - this customer is going to buy more hours!
2. Catching up on small business networking and other networking info - FINALLY a 5 min video that explains enough about Twitter and why business should use it for me to understand! (3hrs)

Today's work on/in the business - Wed 9 Sep

1. NEIS training course - 8.25am to 4.55pm less 1 hour for lunch and one 20 min break (including travel time). (7hrs 10mins)
2. Work on customer system investigation. (30mins)
3. Work on business plan - well, at least send out a few more notifications on the market survey... (30mins)

Today's work on/in the business - Tues 8 Sep

1. NEIS training course - 8.15am to 12.35pm less one 20 min break (including travel time). (4hrs)
Short day today as our trainer had a presentation sprung on him at the last minute.
2. Catch up on recording of business email correspondence. (40mins)
3. Work on customer system investigation. (2hrs 30mins)
This sounds good. But in actual fact I can't charge the customer for all of this time. It's at least partly because the laptop wasn't capable of checking the whole system at once - it took me three tries before I got the design into small enough pieces for my setup to cope with it... I expected this part to take an hour, so I really can't charge them for more than that... Oh well...

Today's Centrelink - Tues 8 Sep

Dream run today - pulled up on the motorbike, one person ahead of us in the queue, quick response from the woman who processed our forms (who now recognises us!) and out again. Probably 15 mins tops from pulling up to leaving again - a win!

Today's Centrelink - Mon 7 Sep

About twenty mins to add up the hours Dave's done this fortnight and then finish filling in the forms.

Today's work on/in the business - Mon 7 Sep

1. NEIS training course - 8.15am to 4.20pm less 1 hour for lunch and one 20 min break (including travel time). (6hrs 45mins)
2. Work on business plan. (1hr)

Today's work on/in the business - Sun 6 Sep

1. Draw up floor plan and calculate floor space dedicated to business. (1hr)

Today's Centrelink - Sat 5 Sep

5mins to fill in as much of the Centrelink form for this fortnight as is possible at the moment. Now just to find out how many hours Dave's worked this fortnight...

Today's work on/in the business - Sat 5 Sep

Well, today I wasn't going to do much work - lots of work during the week, so probably no need to do too much over the weekend. So I did an hour and a half of reviewing the business plan - so far, so good. Then I looked at a couple of emails, including one that is about networking - the kind where you meet people and see whether you can help them or they can help you, not the IT connecting computers kind... Mostly because networking events should be part of the promotional plan, which goes with the business plan. Well - it turns out that there were a LOT of links on that email, which is probably good - BUT then there's a list of the networking groups around Aus, so I needed to review that... Only opened 15 of those, which might be relevant - the others were too expensive! Then actually linked through to the first one, which seems reasonable - join up to that one - have to set up a profile and think about keywords and stuff.... Well, all of that has taken about 3 hours! At least some of it was actually useful - but really, today was supposed to be a slack day!!!

1. Work on business plan. (1hrs 30mins)
2. Review networking options and plans. (3hrs or so)

Today's Centrelink - Fri 4 Sep

25mins to apply for the last 3 jobs required for this fortnight.

Done - yippee!

Today's work on/in the business - Fri 4 Sep

1. Send emails asking specific contacts to participate in the marketing survey. (55mins)
2. Sort out selection of logo and email designer with details of text and logo to go on business cards. (15mins)

(An easy day - no sleep last night, but got out for a ride - so exercise and social activity was the focus of today!)

Market research

Below is a link to the market research survey for my business. It gives more detail on what the business will do and has some questions that will be used to drive the direction the business takes. Please follow the link and participate if you have something useful to contribute.

Click Here to take survey

Thank you.
Kathy

Today's Centrelink - Thurs 3 Sep

25mins to apply for 3 more of the 10 jobs required this fortnight. (Seek was responding more quickly tonight!)

Today's work on/in the business - Thurs 3 Sep

1. Work on business plan. (3hrs 30mins)
2. In to TAFE to discuss business plan with trainers (including travel time). (2hrs)
Fortunately, the outcome of the meeting is that the business plan is on track - nice to know!

Today's Centrelink - Wed 2 Sep

45mins to apply for 4 of the 10 jobs required this fortnight.

(The Seek website includes a lot of jobs, but runs really slowly...)

Today's work on/in the business - Wed 2 Sep

1. Work on business plan. (5hrs 30mins)
2. Networking evening (0 mins). Unfortunately, I got caught up in working on the business plan and missed the networking evening. I realised that it was on at the time it finished - rather too late to turn up!

Today's work on/in the business - Tues 1 Sep

1. Work on business plan. (6hrs 30mins)