Since then they have started referring me into some of their clients, so it’s a ‘win-win’ all round. They’re happy, I’m happy and so will their clients be!

I’ve been delighted to be able to put in place savings of over 18% – worth thousands of pounds of extra profit – on merchant card costs for a family owned restaurant group.

In the current economic climate people are working hard to bring in sales. It’s also important to find cost savings and that what we do at Auditel.

In particular I’ve carried out a gas supply contract tender for one of my favourite clients (they’re just nice, hard working people), which has saved them 14% on what they would be paying to keep their factory warm this coming winter.

With this translating into getting on for £4,000 of savings they are naturally delighted.

Now that’s what I call job satisfaction!

One way to do this is to outsource the ‘donkey-work’. It’s amazing how much help is out there once you start looking.

For example, one of my objectives this year is to improve my time management. Low and behold I got an email today from a business coach I know who is holding a seminar (with business networking) on just this subject!

If one of your objectives is to make your business more profitable then my advice is it’s not possible to do everything yourself. Bring in the (right) expertise.

In my experience cost management is one of the areas where a specialist, such as myself, will do it better than you will. To make the decision to outsource to me easy, I’m prepared to ‘put my money where my mouth is’ and get paid only out of a share of savings, after they’re in your bank. how’s that for a great offer?

Effectively this means you will be more profitable without having to do anything but choose which savings, in which overhead category(s), you want to go ahead with.

I’d be delighted to help you make a great start to 2010.

This is by no means an unusual event.

If you know anyone who uses the telephone for their business I’d be delighted to run a free ‘health-check’ for them. I’d be very surprised if savings can’t be found.

Unlike with energy suppliers, and the suppliers of most other services, a close working relationship often gets formed over several years.

However, just as with any other service provider, a regular measure of the value that broker is bringing to the table should be undertaken through an independent, confidential, audit.

One of my favourite clients – a manufacturer in High Wycombe – was happy for a confidential review of his insurance cover and charges to take place. Although he was convinced his existing broker was doing a fantastic job and it was unlikely their value would be beaten.

So what was the end result? Well it was a welcome surprise for my client when an alternative broker came up with a saving of several thousand pounds for the same level of cover.

It’s worth auditing and checking any overhead cost category. You never know where the next pleasant surprise is going to come from!

The first reason is if they are owed money and the second one is if the conditions of the existing supply contract are still in force. This usually revolves around correct termination. Sounds simple doesn’t it. Well it’s not as simple as it sounds!

One well known supplier has created a lot of problems on both counts over the last month on both issues.

To start with their billing can be a little erratic and needs keeping an eye on generally. However with one of my clients they’ve been a nightmare from the start, taking direct debits on varying dates, taking them twice at times and most annoying of all a recurring, significant difference between what is owed in reality and what the balance of account statement said. This was only solved by going through line by line with a senior accounts person at the supplier for an hour (once we got hold of someone sensible), but we got there in the end.

This was followed by the same supplier unilaterally putting out changes to it’s contractual terms and conditions such that it will only accept termination between 90 and 120 days prior to the contract end date. Now they didn’t exactly broadcast this so many customers will have been caught out because they didn’t put the notice in during this window.

This can translate into a lot of money as I just saved one client 41% on his electricity renewal with this supplier!

The only answer to dealing with this type of issue is to have detail focused cost management in place. It’s well worth it because the risks – such as those above – are real and significant.

One of the main things we talked about is that, after a number of weeks of steady and relatively low wholesale prices, the Electricity market has had two days of pretty sharp increases.

This will have a direct knock-on effect on new commercial Electricity supply contracts.

I look at these markets every day so I can help businesses keep their costs down.

It will be interesting to see what happens today and serves as a reminder that Electricity prices can be very volatile.

I was really pleased to carry out an analysis of the first electricity bills my client had received since I negotiated a stunning new supply contract for them. The analysis proved the predicted 50% savings on what they were going to pay their previous supplier of electricity is being achieved.

My client tells me these savings are really important to them as bookings are well down on last year although they are seeing a small improvement this month.

I’m going to analyse the savings on gas now which are expected to be 40% a year.