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Thanks Fred – Nice video – Been killed a few times by powerpoint

Paul, Do an average post just to make the rest of us feel better …. seriously though, great points raised why humour is a powerful and necessary business tool. I also think that you can extend all of these points to the online business world and social media.

Hi Paul,

Loved this piece! Athough it sounds counterintuitive, having your sense of humour locked and loaded, shows you are at ease with yourself and your surroundings – and there’s nothing as attractive as confidence!

When I first graduated from university, sometime back in the Paleolithic era, it was mid-recession and took almost a year to get a job. By the time I landed an interview, I’d already decided to go back to uni and re-train, so the pressure to make a good impression was off.

I arrived at the office and was taken up flight after flight of stairs through a rambling building to the interview location – a conference room on the very top floor. As I entered, somewhat out of breath from lugging a suitcase-sized portfolio all the way, I walked forward laughing and shook the interviewers’ hands, saying, ‘I didn’t realise there would a fitness assessment as well as an interview!’

They both looked blank for a moment and then burst out laughing, apologising profusely for it being the only room available.

It set the tone for the very positive discussion that followed. And, yes – I got the job!

@Barney – Cheers Barney. Yes it has proved my “get out of jail” in the past too

@Niall – Very true Niall. Online humour is great and works with social media. My difficulty is that people don’t always get my humour and it kills my joke having to send an email to explain it or worse a bunch of virtual flowers

@Lewis – For me Crashing & Burning is all part of the excitement.

@Angela – Very good story – love it. I’d have hired you too!!

@Greg – I am thankful for laughter except when I am bench-pressing free weights – Happened the other day and was quite embarrassing.

I was actually laughing as I read the first paragraph (mostly at myself, as I was disagreeing with it immensely), however, I sensed what you were going to say next.
I use humour a lot in training and coaching sessions (great skill to have in both). Sometimes my analogies get the better of me, and I often end up looking a bit silly, but it tones down the serious mood that one often finds at the beginning of a training session. If we couldn’t laugh? – “Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.” ~Ken Kesey

I have to admit I’m our accountant’s worst nightmare – have been attempting the ‘putting everything in a file/litle and often’ approach and it has been working to a point. I think we might be going back to the ‘everything in a big box and hand it to the bookkeeper’

Good post, I found what you said about the spreadsheets interesting as that is what our current accountant has us putting the data on.

Outsourcing to (or even employing) a good bookkeeper can be very cost effective. They will devote time to tracking down missing invoices, making sure you claim all your VAT back, ensure you are tax compliant, get the money in and out efficiently - no more lost weekends! This frees business owners up to work on the business – what they are best at! 
I expect people, (even accountants), to challenge me on the spreadsheet point. Spreadsheets are commonly used, can cause serious errors, and are not giving valuable info to the client in most cases.  
I did a lot of work with the small business unit of a big 4 accountancy firm and client spreadsheets were a nightmare. For instance – a chap who likes everything in order inserts 2 rows to pop in one missing invoice. Without boring you with a step by step – he updated the formula to add everything up. The result? All of the invoices that came before the inserted invoice were not added into totals. He used those totals to calculate his VAT payable and made an incorrect VAT return. He seriously underpaid his VAT as a result & was incredulous that he had made a mistake, because he had used a spreadsheet. He thought he had removed the potential for error…
I won’t go on – it could be another blog post! Actually it will
Thanks Lorna.
~Helen

Some good points there Elaine  – a nice addition to the post. Thank you,
~ Helen

When I started the business I was very lucky to be introduced to an excellent accountant who is also a great business advisor. He recommended a bookkeeping software package and showed me the basics I needed to know to get started and then over time he went through it in greater detail. I would be completely lost without it.

I am definitely going to start using lever arch files for my paperwork. At present I am putting invoices etc into files in a filing cabinet but I find over time they get mixed up and completely out of order. I receive a lot of invoices digitally but I have to admit at times I don’t save them immediately. Days later I have to trawl through my inbox looking for them. A real headache and a waste of time.

I totally agree with your comment about speadsheets Helen. I would highly recommend a bookkeeping software package as it gives detailed information on how the business is doing at the press of a button.

An excellent post Helen which has been added to my favourites for future reference.

The voice of experience speaks volumes! Thanks for adding to the post Mary.

Bank statements, credit card statements provide the bulk of your book keeping needs so concentrate on the non documented like cash transactions use a simple cash management software like CashDispatcher which does require extensive training to book all cash transfer, cash transactions or cash deposits.  For a business with a POS software system cash transactions can be paid via most POS systems however if the transaction amount is higher than cash in drawer this is where CashDispatcher is indispensable.

I think humour is essential in British business and dangerous in international contexts. There is no doubt that the American way – gushing passion & earnestness for a product – is far more influential in international business and British people’s unease with that (and their jokey approach) may lose them respect in certain circles. What do you think?