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This business in the spotlight brought to you by BPAY
A: So here we are Tamira Stevensen thanks for joining us. T: You're welcome.
A: Stevensen's business lawyers, tell us a little bit about how you got started.
T: I came from a large law firm, providing commercial
law services that small businesses simply could not afford. So I thought; well, here's
a real niche here, and that is that I provide specialised commercial law services but without
my clients paying for the harbour views, which I did enjoy but we're expensive.
A: And what are some of the most common mistakes you see people make?
T: Some of the common mistakes is an over enthusiasm to share their ideas before we've actually legally protected it.
A: How can people protect their idea before opening the business?
T: Well to maintain documentation to show that they are the actual creator of that product.
Now that's a very good start, but if they're going to involve anyone with their idea,
they really need to have a non disclosure agreement with anyone that they're negotiating with.
A: And looking at your small business, you've
been going for about 9 years now, what are some of the challenges that you've faced?
T: I think the main challenge is administration, and that is that making sure the back end
supports the front end, fairly efficiently, but the other thing is that we do a lot of
commercial litigation, and if we're briefing barristers such as senior council, we receive
a deposit on behalf of those barristers. So when we're in large commercial litigation
that can involve a fair bit of money.
A: Ok, what are some of the things you've put in place to streamline that process?
T: Well software is one of the most obvious things and outsourcing aspects of administration.
We decided to introduce BPAY in July this year, because we now actively discourage cash made payments,
and obviously the advantage for our clients is that they have more choice as to how they pay and more choices as to
how they manage their cash flow. If a client has a cash flow issue in a particular month,
they have a choice, do they want to pay from their cheque account or their credit card or their
savings account. So many people are confident with banking online, this is the logical next step.
A: What have been the big gains for you?
T: If someone is a small business owner they'll often get their family to contribute part of the money,
and so what I have found with BPAY is that family members can get the merchant number
and the bill number and you find that you have several sources then paying towards the one amount.
Visit bpay.com.au/sme for more information