Newsletter - August 2024

Whether you've been running your business for a few months or you've been at this for years, it's important to nail (and keep refining) your foundations. This month, we sat down with Steph Gobraiel, owner of S38 Business Management, to discuss how sole traders can build the 7 key foundations for business success.

Also in this newsletter:

A sneak peek at some major Rounded updates

Advice from Lauren Thiel, Accountant for Creatives

Learn how to use Rounded's new and improved auto invoice reminders

More helpful resources for your solo business

Enjoy!

— The Rounded Team

🧱 7 Foundations For Solo Business Success

Steph Gobraiel is an international bestselling author, meetup leader, and business manager. She's dedicated to helping service-based business owners take control and free up more time in their week.

Here's a quick recap of what we covered in our chat!

What are the 7 foundations?

• Branding - Ensure your logo/colours/style/tone resonate with your target audience and reflect what you're passionate about.

• Services - Limit your offerings to avoid overwhelming clients (and yourself!) and only promote those you enjoy most.

• Website - Ensure everything on your site is up-to-date/working and the first impression potential clients get is the one you intend.

• Marketing - Use one marketing engine (e.g. blog, podcast, interview, etc.) to drive the rest of your content and plan ahead. Creating a calendar 3-6 months in advance means you won't have to worry about what you'll post each week – especially when you get busy with client work.

• Networking - Find the right spaces to achieve your goals (e.g. meet referral partners, bring in more clients, develop professionally).

• Business profile - Showcase expertise in your area through things like appearing on podcasts, contributing to news articles as an expert source, guest blogging, speaking at events, and entering business awards.

• Systems and processes - Have systems in place that help you see what you need to be doing for your clients/business and achieve day-to-day tasks as efficiently as possible.

See a deeper breakdown of each foundation.

Why are these foundations so important for success?

Ultimately, it all comes down to sales:

In this day and age, no one buys from you if they don't know, like, and trust you. Some people will say that's old school, but it's so true because of the world we live in today.

With technology, anyone can start a business. Anyone can say they're a business owner. By building those foundations, you're building your credibility, visibility, and brand name.

⚙️ What We're Working On Behind The Scenes

We've recently grown our development team and there’s plenty of new and improved features in the works. Especially if you're a fan of our time tracker ⏰

We've already released a major upgrade for invoice reminders (see our breakdown of how it works later on in this newsletter).

Here's what you can expect to see in the next few weeks 👇

• Dedicated windows for time and expense management on invoices (rather than being cramped in the sidebar)

• More options for invoicing tracked time

• Fresh UI changes for the timer and the ability to record the start and stop times of each entry (rather than simply recording hours and minutes)

• Ensure similar entries with different dates appear standalone on timesheets

• Hide completed projects or those belonging to archived clients

And coming before Christmas:

• Similar to bank feeds, we're working on integrating data streams from Stripe and Square accounts so you can easily reconcile external payments and their associated fees within Rounded.

• A new and improved invoice editor (for all of you out there who want better design and customisation tools)

💡Tip of the Month with Lauren Thiel, Accountant for Creatives

One of the toughest things when you start working for yourself is that you wear all the hats. You are marketing, finance, HR, production (all departments!).

I suggest blocking out time in your diary throughout the month for ALL these key roles and the tasks that go with them so you don't get bogged down in just production, for example.

You can't just do the service or make the product – you need to also do the networking, social media, bookkeeping and tax, hiring, strategising and more!

That said, you can (and should) get someone to help with some of these areas. Tax, for example 😉

Check out the Tax Q+A we did with Lauren here.

🙌 New Feature: More customisable invoice reminders

Be more proactive with reminders and send BEFORE an invoice is due to prevent late payments.

You can also choose a specific time of day to send reminder emails – perfect for those of you working with clients on different time zones ⏰

To customise your reminders, simply choose this option before sending your invoice 👇

You have the option to create custom templates for both types of reminder emails under Settings.

Once set, Rounded will remember your invoice reminder settings and use as default for all future invoices for that client. You can easily toggle on and off.

To see all see pending and sent reminders, check your Timeline (which has recently been moved to underneath the invoice).

📣 Hear From the Rounded Community

Here's what Jackson Torv from Altõr Electrical Services in Sydney had to say after signing up to Rounded last month.

Not signed up to Rounded yet? Start your free trial now.

🧠 More Helpful Resources

• Get a step-by-step guide to doing your sole trader tax

• See how Rounded works in our weekly masterclass

• How to get help from the ATO when lodging your tax return

• Monica Davidson from Creative Business Plus on the value of values

• How to market without social media from The Content Byte

• How designers (and other service-based businesses) can keep clients happy with The Friday Email

• Connect with other business savvy women to collaborate and share ideas in Like Minded Bitches Drinking Wine's free Facebook group

Cover Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash