If you offer a professional service, chances are you're selling your knowledge. But what happens if your advice isn't right? We look at the risks involved in giving advice for a living. To err is human, or so the saying goes. Superstar footy players miss match-winning kicks, the savviest politicians put their foot in [...]

There are a lot of things that can wrong for a business owner. But with a little forethought and a small investment of time and money, many of those risks can be substantially reduced. The typical business owner confronts risks related to safety, operational, financial, strategic, reputational and compliance issues. If these risks can’t [...]

Many Australians, especially those who own businesses, discover they don’t have the cover they need in the worst possible circumstances. Insurance is one of those subjects that many people glaze over. So, just to test how knowledgeable you are about this important but unsexy topic, see how many of the following you can answer. [...]

COVID-19 has produced many challenges for small businesses. But even in a downturn, there are opportunities to develop products and target new customers to drive business growth. Business planning specialist Suzanne Laidlaw, author of What’s Your Plan?, explains understanding the problems your product or service solves is one of the crucial success factors you [...]

Hannah Vasicek abandoned her plans for a legal career to establish Francesca Collections. Here she explains how she scaled up from a market stall to popular retail stores in Hobart and Melbourne. By age 13, Hannah Vasicek was already an entrepreneur. Spotting a gap in the market on her long commute to school, she [...]

You've got killer ideas, fire in your belly and you're prepared to put in the hard yards – the first months of a new business venture are often highly exciting and productive. But a slip up now could cost you not only your capital but also your confidence, your reputation and your business. Sadly, [...]

Hiring a contractor or sub-contractor is often appealing to time-poor, cash-strapped small business owners. One big reason is that they take care of their own insurance (as opposed to the business owner having to provide coverage for them, as is the case with employees). But what if things aren’t quite that straightforward? Imagine the [...]

Small business owners should expect changes to the way income protection insurance is designed, to better balance out the cost of cover and insurers’ liabilities around this popular product. Recent data shows just how much income protection payouts cost insurers. According to figures from the Financial Services Council, in FY20 insurers paid out $4.3 [...]

You’re in the middle of renovating your business premises when you discover the waterproofing in the bathroom is faulty.  You can only fix it by removing the tiles, which means breaking them, so you need to find, and pay for, replacements – but they’ve been discontinued.  It’s impossible to find a perfect match for [...]

Visit any worksite and at least one tradie will be able to regale a yarn of a time they had their tools nicked from the back of the ute, swiped on-site or mistakenly carried off by a contractor. Stolen tools are more than a mere inconvenience – as well as shouldering the replacement costs, [...]