The ACCC is warning business they have just over three months to prepare for new product safety laws that will require consumer goods suppliers to make a report to the ACCC within two days of becoming aware that their product has caused serious injury, illness or death.

Failure to make a report faces fines of up to $16,500, but legal experts warn this tight timeframe does not allow time to investigate all claims, whether fraudulent or genuine.

This comes into effect on January 1, 2011and requires suppliers of consumer goods to provide a written report to the ACCC within two days of “becoming aware” of illness, death or serious injury (defined as “an external physical injury, such as a serious burn, deep cut, broken bone, choking or serious fracture”).

This is regardless of the country the illness or injury occurs in and applies to all parts of the supply chain – from retailers and distributors to importers and manufacturers – and can be triggered by something as informal as an email or “anecdote” passed on from a consumer.

At present, businesses are only required to make a report to regulators after a product recall has been issued.

The two-day reporting requirement seems unreasonable.

Another concern with the tight reporting timeframe is the inability for companies to investigate for fraudulent complaints.

But be warned, you do need to have a good customer complaints system in place in your business.  You should have this in any case but this is certainly adding to the pressure.

If you don’t have a corrective and most importantly, preventive action your business is really missing out because this is the thing that triggers real growth and improvement and ends up saving you time, stress and money.

To get more information on how you can get help with this in time to protect yourself against he new rules, book in for a Blue Print Consultation straight a way or else just bite the bullet and book into the next group course - if you hurry you will catch this week’s.

Jean Cannon

Jean is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want greater efficiency and reduced stress!

If you sometimes need to deal with staff errors and what is even worse, covered up errors that come back to bite, you are riding a time bomb and Jean will help you defuse it. Plus get you real recognition from markets and regulators.

The good news is that this is now available as online training so you only need to commit to one hour per week and no travel. You can even Do-It-Yourself! .

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Australia looks like having a hung parliament and a time of uncertainty.

Every report we hear on the election outcomes is different and confusing and we are in a period of uncertainty.  The one thing that is certain is that as business owners and managers we need to keep our minds on running our businesses efficiently and reducing waste and risks.

Hopefully the various players can put their egos aside and reach a position that is good for the country.  In my opinion, the outcomes could be an improvement on having two sides beating their chests and rubbishing each other.

What looks probable is that we may have improved broadband, but not necessarily a wildly expensive approach.  That would be a bonus on both counts.

Also probable is greater fairness for rural and regional people with three rural independents.  The regional and rural sector generates so much of our export income but is ignored as far and sensible infrastructure, health and education is concerned.

We may even have a more sensible approach to environmental management.  Personally I believe that we will need a price on carbon as an incentive to restrict pollution but the big push should be to push for renewable energy and ban the development of new coal mines.  I am NOT a “greenie” and I worry about extreme policies that limit the ability of business to operate effectively.

Meantime the best approach for business owners is business as usual because small to medium business is the biggest employer group in the country and we just need to keep doing what we do well and tidying up what where we need help.

Jean Cannon

Jean is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want greater efficiency and reduced stress!

If you sometimes need to deal with staff errors and what is even worse, covered up errors that come back to bite, you are riding a time bomb and Jean will help you defuse it. Plus get you real recognition from markets and regulators.

The good news is that this is now available as online training so you only need to commit to one hour per week and no travel. You can even Do-It-Yourself! .

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This week I met a guy who was shot 14 times doing his job as a policeman and his attitude is that it is not what happens to you that matters, but how you respond.

This is both inspirational and the correct approach.  The world is increasingly full of victims who expect maximum compensation when something goes wrong.

Those of you who are small business owners have learned the hard way that things do go wrong, bad things happen to good people and what allows a business to thrive is the mental attitude of the business owner who responds in a way that overcomes the things that happen.

Two things we should all take from this are:
1.    the need to help injured workers understand this concept and go for true rehabilitation rather than maximum compo.  True rehabilitation starts in the head and is very largely a mindset.
2.    the need to learn from things that go wrong and identify why they were able to happen so that the problem can be avoided in future.  This applies to all areas of your business, not just safety.

Still thinking about safety; each year in Queensland alone, there are approximately 100 work-related fatalities and nearly 30 000 serious injuries.  These incidents cost the Queensland economy over $5.2 billion each year.  Much more Australia wide but I don’t have those stats.  I have a Victorian example of a business that was recently fined nearly half a million dollars for a maintenance and training failure in another article.

…………..Just imagine having a simple way to identify those things in your business that are hazardous and being able to prevent or minimise, not only safety accidents but also time wasting, upset customers and missed opportunities.

And let your imagination run on to picture saving yourself time and money each year because you have a simple and effective management system in place to cover all your risks, safety, quality (customer satisfaction) and environmental.

………….Now stop dreaming and sign up quickly to the next group course starting this week.  Don’t waste any more time, just get started and you will be surprised and how much this helps you.

Jean Cannon

Jean is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want greater efficiency and reduced stress!

If you sometimes need to deal with staff errors and what is even worse, covered up errors that come back to bite, you are riding a time bomb and Jean will help you defuse it. Plus get you real recognition from markets and regulators.

The good news is that this is now available as online training so you only need to commit to one hour per week and no travel. You can even Do-It-Yourself! .

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I know Mick Jagger and I may be looking for slightly different satisfaction but the quote does sum up last week for me.

I have been moving both house and office and I spent the week being let down by contractors who mostly turned up when they felt like it with no regard to the times they had agreed to.  I even spent two and a half days on phone hold, pressing 1, 2 or 3 on their menus and still holding on.   One contractor drifted in and out over several days then sent in an invoice three times greater than the quote.

It had to happen – my carefully drawn up project management plan for moving failed completely.  No one but me thought that contracting people on a particular day mattered.

If you run a business do your staff let your customers down.  You are not immune to your staff letting your customers down unless you have good systems in place.

Telcos were the worst and I also discovered that the contractor who manages my answering system has been bought out without bothering to notify me and my message was deleted again with no notification.

What has happened to concepts of customer satisfaction?   Customer service does not seem to be high on agendas now.  If this rings any bells, you should implement a quality system.

If you want to know more about how I can help you to reduce problems in your business why not call me for a Quickstart Blueprint Consultation to discover what you can do to improve your customer’s satisfaction.

Jean Cannon

Jean is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want greater efficiency and reduced stress!

If you sometimes need to deal with staff errors and what is even worse, covered up errors that come back to bite, you are riding a time bomb and Jean will help you defuse it. Plus get you real recognition from markets and regulators.

The good news is that this is now available as online training so you only need to commit to one hour per week and no travel. You can even Do-It-Yourself! .

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The single biggest risk to your data is probably you or your staff.  Huge amounts of data are lost through simple file deletion or mistakes that lead to the corruption of files.

You can have highly sophisticated security systems, servers with redundant power and spare hard drives, and even fail-safe systems, but your own staff can still cause chaos.

But as a basic you do need to:
•    Have a very good firewall that is kept up-to-date
•    Screen your email and web content to ensure it’s as clean as possible to reduce risks of virus and malware.
•    Make sure you screen and limit the use of USB thumb drives and Bluetooth access and other forms of mobile data.
•    Get good power protection and back ups.

I strongly advisable that you restrict your employees’ access to only the files that they need to do their work to prevent them accidentally wiping a folder of files that they have nothing to do with.

Even though it does cost to set this up, it is money well spent.

When my server died in January, I had a loan computer with a copy of all my server data set up within 24 hours and I was fully operational plus I had my most critical files copied back to my server and also my laptop so during that 24 hours I was able to continue.  In a bigger business with full time staff I would demand a mirrored server.  I also have all my training programs and client list on a major overseas server with 3 backups.

I back up my local server nightly and I move the backup offsite.  In a larger business I suggest having local backup done on a continuous, automated basis throughout the day with replication to an offsite store via the internet.  Systems for this are improving rapidly at the moment, and exist at various price points and offer a range of solutions from back up only, to onsite or offsite recovery, to virtual servers or physical servers.

I chose the quick rebuild process that guaranteed I was back up in a few hours. But more money will give you faster replacement.  The decision depends on how many staff are wasting the time at how much per hour while you are down.

You cannot afford to gamble your business by failing to provide good data protection.

He/she who does not back up shall be sorry!

Jean Cannon

Jean is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want greater efficiency and reduced stress!

If you sometimes need to deal with staff errors and what is even worse, covered up errors that come back to bite, you are riding a time bomb and Jean will help you defuse it. Plus get you real recognition from markets and regulators.

The good news is that this is now available as online training so you only need to commit to one hour per week and no travel. You can even Do-It-Yourself! .

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Is money making or money spending biggest in your business?

Last week I told you about the problem I had with my administration seven years ago.  Admin was determinedly growing and spending my money and I was running both operations and marketing by myself because the guy I brought in with great credentials to help with operations was less than competent and actually preferred to add to the admin load.  An interesting dynamic and it was good to review it again.

The other thing is that recruitment is really a marketing exercise where you let prospects know enough about what you are and are not about, to attract the right people and repel those that are unsuitable.

1.    I see so many businesses like this.  You should have three main sections to your business, Operations who bring in the money and work with your clients are the most important followed by
2.    Marketing with the job of attracting the right clients to your business– and I did say marketing rather than just sales.
3.    Admin is just there to provide support and billing.  Admin tends to generate the most paper, files and waste in a lot of business who come to me for help.

If you run a small or micro business, you need to be spending more than 50% of your time effectively marketing.  Your main job is marketing so that you have customers to work with.  Simplify your admin, including accounts.

One thing I had real trouble getting my self styled “Office Manager” to understand was that so long as there are not big or regular discrepancies in petty cash, it does not make sense to spend $60 worth of time chasing 25cents petty cash discrepancy!  This is crazy priorities.

Put your effort where the money IS and that is customer service.  Make sure your procedures are based of the high risk areas of your business and do not include 3 pages about how to balance the petty cash or something equally trivial.  Make sure you know what all your staff actually do and where they put most of their time and effort – their wages are your money.

I am not advocating only going the online and virtual way I mostly work of course.  It suits me and my business but it has cost me over $300,000 to set up all my online training systems.  It certainly would not work for all businesses.

Your take away message here is loud and clear.  Put your effort and controls where your risks are greatest.  Make sure that the money making and marketing sections of your business attract the most attention and keep your admin slim and low paper.

This is what I teach you to do in my training programs, whether you choose the coached group courses or the self paced do-it-yourself options.  Stop wasting money with unbalanced effort now!

Jean Cannon

Jean is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want greater efficiency and reduced stress!

If you sometimes need to deal with staff errors and what is even worse, covered up errors that come back to bite, you are riding a time bomb and Jean will help you defuse it. Plus get you real recognition from markets and regulators.

The good news is that this is now available as online training so you only need to commit to one hour per week and no travel. You can even Do-It-Yourself! .

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South Australia’s aquaculture industry had 14.1% jobs growth in 2008-09 with production and farm-gate value increasing in most sectors of the industry, highlighted by a 65% rise in marine finfish value to $29.2 million.

“SA’s aquaculture industry continues to show resilience during a difficult business environment, accounting for approximately $246 million in farm-gate sales and more than half the state’s total seafood production in 2008-09,” SA Fisheries Minister Michael O’Brien says.

“Tuna remains the single largest market, leading with 64% share of output valued at approximately $158 million, followed by oysters and marine finfish at 25%, with a combined value of almost $62 million.

And 64% of the industry’s employment was based in regional areas with 90% on Eyre Peninsular

Personally I find this a great result as I have helped most of the tuna and many of the finfish and other farms to increase their business efficiency with integrated quality, environmental and safety management systems

Aquculture, oysters, South Australia, tuna, finfish, seafood production,

Jean Cannon

Jean is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want greater efficiency and reduced stress!

If you sometimes need to deal with staff errors and what is even worse, covered up errors that come back to bite, you are riding a time bomb and Jean will help you defuse it. Plus get you real recognition from markets and regulators.

The good news is that this is now available as online training so you only need to commit to one hour per week and no travel. You can even Do-It-Yourself! .

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The Internet is fundamental to the way we run our businesses now. Colossal amounts of digital information moves around the world every second via undersea cables, delivered to around 1.73 billion people. We lap it up and demand more. With so much information exchanged in an instant, we hardly think about the impact of our electronic actions. But how environmentally sustainable are our online lives?

Every time you hit the Google search button, about 0.2 grams of carbon dioxide is created, according to research by Harvard University physicist, Alex Wissner-Gross.

It’s sobering news for anyone who envisaged digital data as virtual bits and bytes drifting harmlessly through cyberspace. Google is right to state that 0.2 grams of carbon is a tiny amount. But with around one billion Google searches made every day, it adds up.

Our brave, new, Internet-obsessed world is chewing up extraordinary amounts of energy. The energy used by American data centres in 2006 was roughly the same as that used by 5.8 million US. households.

These mysterious data centres house computer servers and other critical IT equipment. In the same way your personal computer stores, processes and ‘serves’ data to you, a data centre ‘serves’ data to hundreds, thousands or millions of dispersed users via the Internet. Think of it as one big computer that manages the rest.

Websites like Google and Facebook have huge and energy-hungry data centres, as do Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as Optus and Telstra. Data centres across the world cooperate to bring you information. But why do they use so much power?

So why are they so energy hungry?  Because the servers are extremely high-tech machines, running 24/7, they emit loads of heat and need air-conditioning and other cooling methods keep the temperature low and humidity in check.  Cooling accounts for half of a centre’s total energy use.

And they servers have fire protection systems, security cameras and back-up power supplies. Some data centres can consume enough energy to run a small country town,”

Australia’s newest and largest data centre is a six-storey building that has its own substation in it!

More than 17 million Australians are internet users – 80 per cent the population. And 85 per cent of whom search the net daily.

Have you though about this in working out your environmental sustainability.

You are reading this newsletter from a fully wind powered data centre in Texas and I
Choice of equipment changes the power you use.  Carbon Planet’s Dave Sag  says he charges his iPhone three times a day but his wife only charges her old phone once a week!”

Using the most energy-efficient devices possible to access the Internet, or switching to green power, means you cancel out the impact of your home browsing. Once data reaches Australia, you have the option to choose a local ‘green’ ISP.

Google is increasing its use of renewable energy and finding viable carbon offset options.

Innovative new techniques – like building data centres in cold places to use outside air for cooling – are helping too.  A public energy company in Finland plans to recycle data centre heat to generate hot water for Helsinki, and countries like Iceland – with ready supplies of hydroelectric and geothermal energy – are marketing themselves aggressively as great locations for data centres.

Jean Cannon

Jean is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want greater efficiency and reduced stress!

If you sometimes need to deal with staff errors and what is even worse, covered up errors that come back to bite, you are riding a time bomb and Jean will help you defuse it. Plus get you real recognition from markets and regulators.

The good news is that this is now available as online training so you only need to commit to one hour per week and no travel. You can even Do-It-Yourself! .

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Only two weeks after the underground coal gasification plant at Kingaroy sent a groundwater poisoning scare through that community, tests have found levels of hydrocarbons and possibly mercury in Kogan Creek, near Carbon Energy’s coal gas plant.

A test at Kogan Creek by Landcare in January found levels of mercury, which can cause brain and liver damage. five times the acceptable limit.

Sharon Lohse, whose family owns a property neighbouring Carbon’s plant and includes the affected Kogan Creek, said there was no way she would be returning until the contamination concerns were settled.  She said she had been telling the department for months about odours from the creek and fish in the creek also had strange orange growths.

Jean Cannon

Jean is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want greater efficiency and reduced stress!

If you sometimes need to deal with staff errors and what is even worse, covered up errors that come back to bite, you are riding a time bomb and Jean will help you defuse it. Plus get you real recognition from markets and regulators.

The good news is that this is now available as online training so you only need to commit to one hour per week and no travel. You can even Do-It-Yourself! .

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Train chaos in Melbourne that disrupted 400,000 commuters on Tuesday was worsened by a major safety breach, in which a train wrongly entered an area where electrical repairs were under way.  As Metro’s staff rushed to fix the damaged overhead wiring on the viaduct between Southern Cross and Flinders Street stations, a train entered the shutdown repair area.

OK this is trains, but it is something that can happen so easily and can equally easily be avoided.

Do you have adequate warning systems?  If a tradesperson is working in your business, do you have an adequate warning system.  If an electrician is working on a circuit, is it clearly labelled in the power box so some bright spark does not think a circuit breaker has been tripped and turn it on, potentially killing the electrician?  There are lots of other examples.

Jean Cannon

Jean is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want greater efficiency and reduced stress!

If you sometimes need to deal with staff errors and what is even worse, covered up errors that come back to bite, you are riding a time bomb and Jean will help you defuse it. Plus get you real recognition from markets and regulators.

The good news is that this is now available as online training so you only need to commit to one hour per week and no travel. You can even Do-It-Yourself! .

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