Small Business
Business Link to be Scrapped by Government
Hot on the heals that the regional development agencies are to be scrapped comes the news that Business Link is to go the same way.
In the detail of the emergency budget documents the 8 regional development agencies that employ 3,400 would be closed and the budget of a whopping £270 million would be cut as part of the overall government savings plan. The RDAs would be replaced by local enterprise partnerships, details of which have not been announced. Now Mark Brisk the business and enterprise minister has told the online small business magazine “Real Business” that Business Link would also be shut down.
Business Link to go as well – but the website continues
He said that as part of the winding down process of the RDAs that they would also be winding down the regional Business Link contracts.
It is thought that the online web service would be continued to be state funded and wanted a privately funded partnership for the face to face advice as a “21st century approach to business support” and recent research showed just how much government websites cost. The total cost of developing the Business Link website is a mind blowing £35 million which attracts around 1.6 million visitors a month equating to £2.15 per visitor.
During the budget the coalition government spelled out clearly that they wanted a private business economic recovery with the rates of both corporation tax and small business tax falling over the coming years. New businesses of course need real support and although the web can provide a lot of that many new business people do need some form of networking presence with like minded individuals to take them to the next level and may not have the funds to invest into expensive consultants who may not be able to help them in any case.
Most people don’t actually turn to the government for advice when starting or running their businesses in any case and the vast majority don’t actually know that perhaps Business Link advisers exist or where to contact them. We hear all the time of good reports as well as bad reports of trying to get appointments and about the quality of the advice provided.
So if you have used Business Link in the past what do you think of its passing ? Will the private sector be able to provide a better response to people that need help not only starting their business but helping it perform especially in these current tough economic conditions ? Over to you.. is this a good idea for Business Link to be scrapped together with the regional development agencies or not ?
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Reducing Electricity and Gas Rates for Small Business Owners
In these days of the continuing uncertainty in the economy and more cuts to come one thing a small business owner can do is to reduce all their utility bills such as electricity, gas and telephone. So how can you do this without affecting the service. We investigate.
One tactic many of the energy companies use is to put businesses on so called “roll over contracts” for their electric and gas. This means that any contract you sign will have a clause when you can terminate or even renegotiate the contract each year and if you don’t exercise that right then the energy provider will put you on another contract for another year and can increase your prices without informing you.
A recent ruling by ofgem, the industry regulator, said that for micro business users the energy companies had to inform customers when their contracts run out so for the smallest of users taking out new contract this is less of a burden but for everyone else it’s something to take account of when thinking of trying to reduce your costs.
Electricity and gas – lowering your rates
Just like you would do with your own household bills you should shop around when your contract comes to an end. We have a page about electricity and gas supplies for business hereand this provides a little more detail but in summary, you should shop around with the big 6 suppliers in the market (British Gas, Southern Electric, Npower, EDF, EON energy and Scottish Power) who can all (apart from one) provide you with a quote online from their website. Just enter your postcode, meter number and estimated consumption and you’ll get your proposed rates.
This is however just the starting point as although rates online are normally the lowest prices you can get for energy tariffs it’s always best to telephone the supplier to see if you can negotiated them downwards even further. Alternatively you could use the professional services of an energy broker who has better relationships with the energy suppliers than you’ll ever had. If you want more information on electric and gas supplies including dual fuel contracts there is a wealth of information on this website that takes you through all the different types of contracts and providers that supply business users.
It will probably only take you an hour to get quotes from all the suppliers and put in a telephone call but at the end of the day you could save your business literally thousands of pounds each year by switching to someone cheaper and your supply will virtually be the same. Switching suppliers is also hassle free as your new provider will prepare and process all the paperwork on your behalf.
Telecoms and broadband
The same goes for business telecommunications services. If you have had the same supplier for years the chances are that you are on a bad deal. The cost of broadband has plummeted in recent years for both domestic and business users and there are many special deals on the market place. We have a page here about broadband which can certainly lower your costs. There are also specialist price comparison sites out there that can show you all of the deals available.
In summary
As you would do at home why not go through all your utility providers and get online quotes to see how much you could save. Even if you just put aside half a day to look at energy, telecommunications and even office supplies you’ll make savings which will go directly to your bottom line and improve your profits this year.
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Chris Cardell Advertising Standards Authority Ruling
Many many small business owners have heard of Chris Cardel via his marketing which were reported to the ASA. Here are also details about his 6 CD offer and other information.
We did initially have a factual write up of recent marketing activities by the Chris Cardell group of companies which is further explained in the ASA ruling which was offering 6 free CDs on various marketing tactics for the price of postage. You also got 2 free months in his VIP club and if you did not cancel then would be charged £39.95 per month until you did cancel.
The original post about the mailing undertaken by Cardell contained various items including a post it note sign by “J” together with a newspaper cutting from the Times and a link to a website where you could sign up.
However writers of blogs in the UK have received what are known as “cease and desist” letters from lawyers in the US saying that they should take down their postings and many have complied and taken down their blog posts. We have also received the letter entitled “notice of unlawful conduct demand to cease and desist immediately” from Preovolos and associates based in California who are retained by Mr. Chris Cardell, Cardell Media Limited, a UK company, Cardell Media Limited an Isle of Man company and Cardell Media LLC a US company (collectively the Cardell Media Family) over various matters of the post and some of the many comments left by people who also received the same “J” letter.
We thank the many hundreds of people who have come to this post and posted about their experiences and thoughts about the “letter from a friend” . We have saved the original article which may appear back here in the future and if you have received letters from the Cardell Media Family lawyers then please feel free to get in touch.
For those that are needing to cancel their membership then please try emailing accounts@cardellmedia.co.uk
The register is also reporting about various websites receiving legal letters http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/09/junk_mail_returns/
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Small Business Statistics and Numbers
Add this image to your blog or website – please tell others about these small business statistics and let us know how this data can be improved and what you’d like to see. As we get new data we’ll update the graphic and if you use the code below your website will also automatically update as the image is hosted on our site. You can add the graphic so long as you use the code exactly as detailed below.
Graphic provided by Small Business Pro.co.uk
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25 To Consider Before Starting Your Own Business
If you are thinking of starting a business itstat can feel like complete excitement but there are many pitfalls so here’s our top tips to think about before you spend a single penny of your hard earned cash or redundancy.
For many people starting a business is the one thing they dream of in life but unfortunately of the many hundreds of thousands of new startups each year and high percentage don’t make it past year 1. Here are our tips starting with those that you will having probably already heard about but worth remembering.
1: Research your market – and that means customers. It’s those people who are going to buy your products or services. Just imagine your typical customer, their age, where they are based and their income. Just why on earth will they buy from you and not one of your competitors ?
2: Location, location, location – it’s all too easy to see an empty shop in your high street and think that you can open a business there and make your fortune but many a time a business is not there for good reasons. So think real hard on your location because in reality you only get one shot at getting premises and once you have signed that 10 year contract it’s going to be hard (and expensive) to get out of it.
3: Start up costs – sometimes these can be almost zero (for example if you are going to offer consulting services and you already have some clients) but for most these are huge (if you are going to open a restaurant there are so many initial costs such as shop fitting and equipment) so make sure you account for them all so you don’t get too many nasty surprises.
4: Get a business plan sorted – many believe these are a waste of time but even if you have run successful businesses before even having a simple spreadsheet showing how the business will grow in terms of sales and all your costs coming in will show the cold light of reality and just how much money you may need to fund the initial start up phase.
5: Only trust those you trust – many a good idea has been stolen so be careful who you discuss your plans with especially if you are developing something online.
6: Discuss your ideas – but of course with only those you trust. When you are deep within your own project it can be hard to think outside of what you know and getting a friend or family member who you really can trust and who will provide honest feedback is essential. If you know someone who already has a successful business then get them to go through your ideas as there maybe something you are missing or could do better with.
7: Temper your ambitions – almost no new business becomes a big success overnight although we all think that our ideas are the best so when it comes to planning be realistic and not believe your business will keep doubling in turnover in the first 3 years. It’s unlikely and can cost your business, so:
8: Start small and grow big – some of the most profitable businesses are in small niches and are the biggest player in the niche. It’s OK to be small and earning loads of money because once you have found success you can duplicate your formula.
9: Start whilst being employed – if you can. Try not to quit your job and then work on your business. If you want to start ensure you have all your plans ready and a place in mind. Many people quit there jobs and then start to develop their plans. This can cost you about six months with no revenue because there is always something to slow you down whether it be the bank not lending to you or government red tape. If you can start earning whilst you already have a steady job then you can test your idea before losing that (almost) guaranteed income.
10: Read up on what the government and tax office need – there are so many hoops to jump through from letting the tax office know that you are now self employed and registering for VAT to setting up a limited company if you are going down that route to any health and safety certificates if you need them. So make sure you know what’s required otherwise you may find yourself with a big fine.
11: Get professional accounting advice – although you may read on some of the forums which legal company set up is right for someone else it may not be right for you because of your personal circumstances so it’s always wise to seek the advice of a qualified account as you are setting up your business. An initial 30 minute consultation can be free or certainly low cost and it can help you in the longer term.
12: Do get an accounting package – and keep all receipts as you are setting your business up because all of this can be claimed against tax at the end of your first financial year and expenses that have VAT attached to them can be reclaimed if you register for VAT.
13: Separate your personal and business bank accounts – because a) your personal bank account will not accept cheques and payments made out to your company and b) it really is a lot easier to account for everything. You can get free business banking in any case from 3 banks in the UK so it won’t cost you anything.
14: Prepare for hard work – because starting a business requires a lot of your time and if you are opening a restaurant or high street shop it’s going to be hard work so prepare for this.
15: Do outsource administration tasks – if you are going it alone running the business and carrying out all tasks such as accounting, answering the telephone and emails, marketing your business etc takes time and really you should be concentrating on what’s going to bring in the cash. So if you can outsource these to others who can take this time burden away from you.
16: Be careful with franchises – there are some really great franchise operations but there are some really bad ones around who will take your money and offer limited support. You’ll still need to promote and run the business and often this is not an instant money machine so talk with existing franchise owners if you are thinking of going down this route.
17: Set it up and they will not come – many people believe just because they develop a business then customers will be falling over themselves to buy their products but if know one knows about you then you’ll have none. If you are good at marketing then you’ll have no problems but most people don’t have these skills so get professional advice if you can or ask others how to get customers to your business.
18: How many customers do you need ? to meet your profit projections ? Once you have your business plan ready break it down so you know just how many sales you need per day to meeting your weekly, monthly or even yearly profit projections. You’ll then know instantly if you are ahead. You can easily put a spreadsheet together to add up sales and costs on a weekly basis then you can make adjustments if things are not quite going to plan.
19: Don’t bury your head – if you have started and things are slow and not up to your expectations then seek help as soon as possible. It might just be you need to make a few tweaks to your business model to get things moving again.
20: How about just do it ? Some people have an idea for a business all of their lives but don’t act upon it. Preparing a plan can be done in a weekend so if you are putting things off why not just put your plan together and see what it looks like ?
21: Spend time on your pricing- a lot of people believe that the lowest price always wins, and sometimes it can when you are selling a commodity product but with services it can be tricky. You can learn a lot from your competitors and what type of customers you are targeting. It can be difficult to increase prices once you have had low pricing for a while but easy to have sales and special offers. Higher pricing also suggests increased perceived quality so it’s not just about the actual figure but how your business is perceived in the market place that also matters. There is always room for the cheapest contender (eg: poundland) and the most expensive (eg: John Lewis) but they are targeting different products to different types of people.
22: Have an end goal in mind – whatever that may be. Is it simply to succeed with your dream so your business is in effect a hobby or will it provide for you and your family? Whatever it is keep that goal in mind and strive towards it.
23: Do something you know – if you want to start a business but have no experience in the field you are entering then you have a steep learning curve to climb. Although this can be done people with the knowledge will likely succeed more than you. If you need the knowledge then acquire it via training or get someone how has the experience to help you.
24: Do something you enjoy – as it’s no use running a business you hate.
25: The detail matters or does it ? - It can be easy to get bogged down with minute details when starting off but looking after your finances is key, however, you need to keep the bigger picture in mind and not lose sight of how and why your business will succeed.
Our additional thoughts – Many people do start successful businesses each year with careful planning and you could to. You can start at any time even in a recession as people are still eating out and still spending millions of pounds each week but not every business is a success. Just enjoy the process and let us know of your success.
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Federation of Small Businesses Joining Woes
So I thought I should join the FSB as they have a lot to offer but how hard do you think they have made it for me as a simple (?) small business owner? Read on….
Last Thursday I believe it was on a sunny September day I thought I would head over to the Federation of Small Businesses website and join up. I remember when I have been to their website before that they have a ton of benefits to offer and many people on forums highly recommended them.
So onto their website where I found how much it costs I was searching for the online registration page where I would simply pay my fees and hey-presto I thought I would be a fully fledged member within a couple of minutes.
But wait – where is their online payment form to be found ?
Well I though I had found it on the “join now” page where it asks you for some basic details… and your telephone number (I thought that was a little odd at first – I mean, why would they need that?)
Anyhow, I completed my details on their form thinking that this was like step 1 of 2 when the next page would be asking for my credit card information. But no 
all I got was another pages saying “thank you for your request for information to join”
That’s odd – *the* place that supports and guides the majority of small businesses in the UK can’t (or won’t) take online payments to subscribe to their service? What could be more easy – a front end payment form that integrates with their back-end subscription database and automatically sends out new joiners packs? Well, it wasn’t there.
Never mind I thought I would wait for the call that afternoon.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz
Well it was onto Monday when the call finally arrived to make an appointment for their local rep to come and visit me and take me through all the benefits that the FSB can provide to me. I suggested to the guy on the telephone that their website had indeed done a wonderful job of selling me on their service and all I wanted to do was to sign up. “oh, but your local FSB rep must visit you first”
Well, I didn’t want a visit (and as an aside here, my old boss used to tell me “don’t sell past closing” – a great phrase saying “once you have the sale simply close it – don’t carry on trying to sell in benefits or whatever…)
So onwards. The telephone guy then said he would speak to the rep himself and see what could be done. A few moments later he called back and said that the local rep *must* come to visit me because he had to *witness* my signature on the application form ????? Well, I though I must be back in the 1960’s at that point because I had never heard this before. I gave up at this point and said I would instigate the process at a future point in time and thanked him for his efforts.
But 30 minutes later my local rep then called me and again attempted to sell in the benefits of the FSB (which I said the website had done, yadda yadda) and I asked if the application form could simply be posted to me – well that’s not possible because this chap didn’t trust the postal service in the UK and he would have to personally deliver the app. forms to me.
OK, so be it. So the forms have now duly arrived (the next day – a bit like the postal service really…) and what do I find ? An application form in triplicate that has a direct debit mandate attached to it.
Sigh
I can only deduce that the wheels are turning slowly and life is at the same speed. Perhaps the FSB don’t want to use new fangled gadgets such as online credit card processing but I would have thought that would have made the entire process much, much easier and cost effective. But may be I am just an old Victor Meldrew in disguise?
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Stop Procrastinating Don’t be a Perfectionist
It’s often said that procrastination is the thief of time and many people put off either starting a business or launching a website because they want it to be perfect but being a perfectionist is the worst sin for budding entrepreneurs.
There are so many people who want to quit their day jobs or are now unemployed and want to earn more cash or get another job. I see it all the time when people are “umm-ing and ahh-ing” over a project or idea and are lookingfor 100% perfection before they launch it on the world and of course many of those people never actually achieve anything.
There are two phrases that should be kept in the back of one’s mind or pasted on the wall of your office:
Nike’s “just do it” phrase 80% is good enough
You see once you have 80% or even 60% of your project completed it may be enough to launch it. The effort / reward curve once you have got to this stage tails off dramatically so the work you put in to complete the final 20% is so great that the rewards can appear to be almost lost.
In fact peratos 80/20 rule suggests 20% effort provides 80% of the rules with the reverse being true. Here’s a great cartoon from Dilbert about procrastination in the work place where no one really wants to make a decision anyway
(Click on the image for the full picture)
But joking aside you really don’t need to be a perfectionist and here are some of the things to think about….
Your idea of perfection may not be the same as your target audience – ie: you could get real close to 100% of where *you* believe your product should be adding all the little extras you *think* are required and yet when you launch it your customers didn’t want the items you spent the past 3 months doing and want some other features instead. Research is your enemy (but your best friend) – of course you need to be developing something that people really, really want and that is the core of your product offering. But don’t keep thinking “is this all of the product they want” and continue researching. Large companies are adding extra features to their *core* offerings all of the time and if they waited nothing would be there. Eg: Google launched their search engine and have been honing it ever since. Even niche products like the Kashflow accounting system are evolving – if Kashflow wasn’t launched as it was back in 2005 do you think it would be where it is today if they had waited to add in *all* the features their customers told them they wanted ? You can start small and build it bigger – many people may be put off because they want a business *today* that earns them the salary they think they want and are not prepared to start off small but in most cases being a large niche player is a real strategy for long term success. Once you have dominated a niche you can expand into other related verticals with related products and services you already have. Business success is always a long term goal – expanding on the above observation many people still believe that they will make it big in a short time but history tells us that even very successful companies sometimes take decades to be great. That goes with the new entrepreneur as well. Perhaps you want to start a restaurant but don’t have the capital or knowledge to do that now so why not start a small coffee shop or sandwich bar first? By starting small you can hone your skills and lower the risk if, for example, you don’t actually cut it as a business owner.
So if you have a new website that’s “nearly ready” or are thinking of starting a blog why not launch it today and write your first blog post. If you have a bricks and mortar business in the offing could you service customers today if it were open? I’ve leave it up to you.
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Hurrah – the Recession has ended (or not…)
So like the media were intent on ramping up that the recession was coming many months before we saw it they are now saying it really has finished although we haven’t seen that yet. Here’s a run down on where we are.
I thought I would surf around to see where we really are with the economy in the UK to see if I could draw on the research to see where we might be with perhaps ending the recession and perhaps draw some conclusions.
Some facts first.
According to GDP figures and the traditional measure of a recession (2 months negative growth) – we are still in a recession However, Germany, France and Japan have seen positive GDP growth recently so they are officially out of a recession Unemployment continues to rise globally Special financial measures are to end shortly such as the VAT reduction and the car scrappage scheme The banks are still not lending freely and interest rates for loans are slowly starting to increase Interest rates are flat at an all time low and the LIBOR inter-bank lending rate is still reducing
Where does this leave us ?
The trouble with this recession unlike those in the 80s and 90s is that this time almost all countries without fail have borrowed heavily in an attempt to spend their way out of it.
So it seems like a bit of a false dawn because although GDP is starting to turn positive all that money has either come from a) government borrowing or b) the bank of England’s “quantitive easing” and that’s not real money.
The UK is now saddled with heavy debt and not much seems to have yet changed with the current government’s spending and although some behind the scenes reductions are occurring without being reported (such as laying off consultants, not recruiting leavers or retirees and projects being delayed) that’s small fry to perhaps what needs to occur.
And with the heavy debt mountain also comes a massive reduction in government receipts:
Lower VAT due to the rate reducing to 15% from 17.5% and lower sales from businesses Lower corporation taxes due to lower business sales Lower income tax and national insurance due to less people being employed
And higher government spending on social factors such as unemployment benefits and tax credits will be required and more people lose their jobs.
So in reality where are we?
It would seem that although GDP is improving the worst is still yet to come. Unemployment always lags behind any positive economic data and trends upwards months (and sometimes years) after a recession has officially come to an end so that is yet to come.
So we will probably have the following scenario in the coming years:
Much higher taxes in an attempt to service the increasing debt because of unemployment and the general debt burden in any case Deep cuts in public spending because it simply can’t continue as it is and all political parties have agreed on this Perhaps stagnant growth
I was watching a program on the BBC last week about the recession/ depression of the 1930s and the scenario was almost the same as now. The banks had lent cheap money to those who could never pay it back and strict banking guidelines were put in place which unfortunately were quietly softened over the past 10 years.
The 1930s depression took many, many years to work its way through with high unemployment and although I don’t think that’s going to happen this time I do believe we have false hope at the present time and although the worst is not yet to come we are certainly not through this year and have a bumping ride over the coming years.
Is the recession over? Technically yes – but with the threat of a “double dip” recession looming I would not celebrate yet.
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Companies Act 2006 Changes for 2009
There are some imminent changes that come into force from the Companies Act 2006 that all business owners need to be aware of.
Each private limited company owner in the UK should have received a fold out guide issued by companies house that provides detail of the changes that have already been made and those effective from 1st October 2009. Here are those changes.
Changes to companies act already in force
Some changes have already been made and these are:
You must be aged 16 years or older to be appointed a director of a company Although you can still appoint a company secretary you do not need to any longer You do not need to hold an annual general meeting for a private limited company although you can if you wish You do not need a court order to make capital reductions as they can be supported by a solvency statement instead You do not need to have a unanimous vote for resolutions subject to articles as members may agree in writing to resolutions for private limited companies
Changes to companies act effectives 1st October 2009
The following changes come into force on 1st October 2009 so ensure you know what these mean for your ltd company (private limited companies in the UK)
You have to file your accounts 1 month earlier than previously – this means filing your accounts 9 months after the date of your year end for accounting periods starting on or after 6th April 2008 – this should not cause any problems because corporation tax has always been taken 9 months after the year end date with the accounts being filed the month afterwards – but bare this in mind because if you are late you will be handed a whopping £1,500 penalty by HMRC Changes to articles – any changes to a company’s articles need to be notified to HMRC within 15 days or you’ll be handed a nice £200 fine as this is regarded as a criminal offence and the fine is charged as a civil penalty The articles for new companies will include the company’s objectives and liabilities which were previously found in the memorandum of association Directors will now have a “service” address as well as their real address. The service address will be a public record whereas the real/ residential address will only be made available to credit reference agencies and public bodies. From 1st October 2009 the current director’s residential address will automatically become the service address and if you want to change that you will be able to do so online The company’s registers can now be held at either the current registered office or at a single alternative inspection location which has the acronym SAIL – you may only have one SAIL address per company (as defined by the acronym…) and must notify companies house of any changes made. Forms are available on the companies house website. All companies house forms will also change from 1st October for company events that take place on or after this date and if you don’t and forget to include the appropriate fee your form will of course be rejected. The PROOF system comes into force (and that stands for the Registrars PROtected Online Filing Scheme which means that members who sign up for it can only files their documents online and any paper forms will be rejected.
Those are the main companies act 2006 changes that come into force so just be aware or contact your accountant if in any doubt.
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Twitter for Business – Tips for Twittering
So after seeing much mentioned about twitter both in the press and from members in the business forums I thought I’d launch our twitter account.
There’s not much there at present but it stuck me that really, yes it was a good idea to have an account and to be using twitter for business purposes.
Since setting it up last week (albeit in the middle of the DOS attack they had so it took much longer to get my account) I have now got a whopping 18 followers from a few corners of the globe. The strange thing is I don’t know many of these people and they have found the account – somehow.
Anyhow I am thinking this should be good to get additional people over to the blog by announcing items on Twitter – is this what’s it’s really for?
I actually can’t think of anything else other than have a semi public face to a website because you get the magic 140 characters to post “what you are doing” which in a similar manner is what happens in Facebook although those posts are only open to your friends where (for most people) Twitter is open for all.
Having a look around at other people’s Twitter accounts where they have thousands of followers seem to back up this idea that it’s just for announcing stuff on your website or blog — and perhaps point out other stories that you are interested in to spread the word and get others to visit your friends’ blogs and websites – or is this being too cynical ?
Maybe I have missed the point but will continue to make updates and see what happens to traffic and my “online presence”. Personally I prefer to blog because I can get all my thoughts down into 500 words or so whereas of course Twitter is just 140 characters and doesn’t really say much about what’s happening (although if it were longer it would be difficult to follow anyone at all)
Anyone else got anythoughts or are we all just voyeurs ? But before we go here are some tips on using twitter for business purposes (and this can be use for blogging in a company as well):
obviously create an account and ensure your name is your real name or company name for when people are searching for you (rather than have your name as your twitter id) be personal to show your company and/ or website has real people behind it ie: don’t be all corporate because that’s not what it’s about follow others in your field to build up your followers list don’t just be all self promotional although it helps post interesting tweets probably 2-3 times per day ask questions on your account to get responses have a few people on your twitter account to cover sickness and holidays and if your main twitter person leaves the company you’ll still need to get access
After all the goal is to build up loyal followers so you and your business gets talked about more online. If you have interesting things to say, get people “talking” on your twitter feed and point out interesting facts not only in your space but in the world generally people will value your account and publicise it for you.
Rather like building a blogger following Twitter takes time and effort to make it all worthwhile. I will report back on how we are getting along and the type of traffic it sends and any PR that we get out of it in due course.
Any more tips – please post below.
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Affiliate Management and Sales Management
It’s amazing how many companies treat the internet as “something different” especially when it comes to affiliate managment and most get it completely wrong. Here’s some of my stories and ways to manage affiliates better.
Affiliate management gone wrong – the story
So for one programme I have been an affiliate for this company in a particular niche for over 3 years and in that time sent over £25,000 of sales their way collecting a nice 30% for my efforts.
During this time the company MD has sent me various emails asking me to promote the product more – in more places on some of the websites I operate. I have asked for help on how other affiliates are converting so I may change my links or web copy but to no avail but I continued to promote and send sales there way.
Then out of the blue I got an email saying my commission would be cut from 30% to 15% – what !!??
Obviously I made contact but there was no way they would change their minds and they offered no help in terms of providing me targets to get back to the previous level. So what does this say ?
Affiliates are sales people
Back in my brick and mortar days I helped manage the sales forces for multi-billion dollar companies and we spend thousands of hours developing sales commission schemes to ensure the sales force was well motivated. We provided as many sales tools, presentations, techniques and training as we could as well as targets and detailed reports to help them. They drove sales for these companies like no other and we all made great profits.
The company was successful and the sales force was motivated and sold well.
The online problem
The problem most companies have online is they don’t see their affiliates as sales people for their organisation – some see them as a necessary evil and almost a pain for their company. Most don’t offer help nor the motivation for affiliates to sell well and most companies don’t make that many sales from their affiliates.
Other evidence
I belong to many affiliate programs from the big affiliate networks to private programs and see how they operate and manage. Other emails I get (or don’t) really sum up how these businesses treat their affiliates:
- one private program I belong to has a monthly subscription service. Their product was selling at £12 per month and I got £2 per month in commission. They increased their product pricing to £17 per month but didn’t increase the commission (and at less than 10% commission is almost hardly worth promoting in any case)
- I joined a new affiliate network and logged into my account to find my “personal affiliate manager” so emailed them to ask about some programs and the best ways to promote them – 3 weeks later I am still awaiting a response.
The best ways to manage affiliates
So what can companies do? Well first and foremost treat affiliates as a sales force and manage them accordingly 
– not many people will have managed sales people before and it really is a skill and an art that should be learned.
Additionally, some people think that giving out commissions is profit lost from the company but really, would you have made the sale without the affiliate in the first place? Once a sale has been made you have a customer that you can ask to help promote your products to people they know (in terms of a member get member scheme).
If there is anything to be learned from the “get rich quick” industry and the “big” internet marketing programs is that they offer a large % in commissions. These guys and their affiliates make millions of dollars per year. If the commission were small (ie: 10% as in the example above) do you think people would promote the products as hard as they do? no.
So leading on from the above here are my top tips:
Manage affiliates as sales people Give out big fat commissions – 40% – 60% are the norm in the internet marketing niche Communicate on a regular basis offering new promotions from your company and tips to promote Provide as many ways as possible for the affiliates to promote your products from banner ads of differing sizes and promotional messages to email copy and website copy which makes it easy for the affiliate to cut and paste (yes, you do need to hold many people by the hand and do the work for them) Provide in-depth statistics so they can see what campaign has worked the best Offer direct contact so they can ask questions Have a pool of “super affiliates” and offer them more Have monthly affiliate competitions where they can win prizes or more commissions if they promote x% more in a month or quarter
In reality the above are all part of a sales management tool kit that the large international companies use to manage their sales forces. They know what it takes to get the best from their sales people and if you operate a business online and have an affiliate program then may be it’s time to beef up your in house resources in this area ?
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Top 10 Free SEO Tools for Webmasters
If you run a website or are undertaking SEO on it then here is my summary of the best free webmaster and SEO tools that I have used extensively that has saved me a lot of time and also improved my sites and own personal performance !
There are many free webmaster and SEO tools on the market but I have found that the majority don’t actually help me that much and the ones listed below could well charge £100 for each installation but they offer these for free. So let’s begin….
1: Xenu link sleuth- I have found this to be invaluable in searching for broken links resulting in 404/ not found pages from my own site and external sites I am linking to that either no longer exist or have moved their page structure around. This has been vital to not only my visitors’ on site experience but possibly for search engine optimisation because if my sites are linking to a ton of “not found” pages it could impact my rankings and would certainly upset my visitors if they couldn’t find what they were looking for.
Other uses for Xenu I have used it for is to check for duplicate titles on my pages (or very similar titles) so I can ensure I have unique content, to find large images so I can optimise page load times, see how many internal links I have linking internally for each page and how many outbound links are on each page. Xenu is really easy to use and it the one tool I run almost on a daily basis to check my site. You can download Xenu link software for free here.
2: IE: tester – We have all done it – designed and developed a new website using our favourite browser and uploaded it for all to see and then notice our conversions have plummeted to low levels which we can not understand. What we forgot to do is to check it works in all versions of internet explorer as version 6 and 7 behave in slightly different ways when it comes to padding and some other CSS issues.
I tend to use IE7 as a default browser along side the latest version of Firefox and if it works in those two I am probably 70% of the way there. Then I fire up IEtester and run the site (from my laptop) on IE6 and 5 to check that nothing funny has happened. This is a great piece of software you can download for free here.
3: Instant Eyedropper – There’s been many a time I have seen a colour on a website that I want to use – especially link colours and up until I discovered this tool it was a complete guessing game. The instant eyedropper is a free download that sits in the toolbar tray at the bottom of your screen and then it’s a case of clicking and dragging the icon over anything on your screen and it will tell you the colour code. The download is here.
4: Wordpress – I have to add Wordpress here because it’s just the easiest way to get a site up and running – so long as you are careful. Wordpress can generate a lot of duplicate content and there are some SEO attributes it doesn’t generate such as meta descriptions but that is a small price to pay for its ease of use. I tend to download the software “as is” and edit the standard default theme to my own requirements. I take out any links to categories and tags to begin with and ensure my home page has additional text to introduce the site. I also change the permalinks to /%postname%/ – other than that I use the core software. You can also generate your own hosted blog at wordpress.com and they are less likely to burn your blog like blogger sometimes can.
5: Adwords keyword tool – in the old days most SEOs relied on the old Yahoo/ Overture keyword tool which was very accurate because it actually showed real search volume but since that went there was a gapping whole. The Google Adwords tool is almost there but the estimations can be widely off in some cases. I search through the tool with the “exact match” turned on to see what variations are there. If I really want to know real volumes I will run a test Adwords campaign just to check the data is close enough before building a website. See and use the tool here.
6: SEO Book Keyword Tool – this does the same job as the Adwords tool above but uses wordtracker results. It uses US data so is not so useful for UK searches but can provide more keywords to help target new articles or content on a site. Aaron Wall who developed the tool also links out to many other analytical content that may help you further to understand the market place you are in. Test is out free here.
7: FileZilla ftp software – I used to use smart ftp for many years to upload content onto new sites but one day it just wouldn’t load and stopped working. I searched the internet for other ftp software packages until I found Filezilla – like most ftp packages it’s very easy to use although does lack a few handy features that smart ftp had. Never the less I use it each and every day on my websites so why not give a try here.
8: Statcounter/ getclicky webstats – OK the big daddy is Google Analytics but I haven’t put it in this list as you never know what Google may do with the data they are collecting about your site. Sure, if you use Adsense on a site they know a lot already but if you don’t then it may be worth keeping it all to yourself. Both statcounter and getclicky offer free web stats with the latter offering a paid option if you have many sites or generate more page impressions than the free service allows. Millions of website owners use these so why not check them out here and here.
9: Alexa for competitor analysis – Alexa can be easy to manipulate but did you know that they now offer the top keywords that people search for to get to sites? I have used this to look at keywords for markets I am looking to market to as well as competitor websites – you can also get competitive intelligence from majestic SEO and compete.com
10: SEO for Firefox – this is always loaded when I am in Firefox and provides a ton of information about anything you are searching for. The best part is looking for links to specific pages or to a whole site with a single click into Yahoo (of course with the recent deal between Microsoft and Yahoo we don’t know how long this element will last so use it whilst you can!) – although this sits at number 10 it should probably be #1 – thanks again to Aaron @ SEO book – you can get SEO for Firefox free here.
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Cost Reduction – 10 Ways for Businesses to Reduce Costs
For many businesses money is really tight at present so here are our top 10 tips to save money without impacting the efficiency of your business.
1: Review your bank account
Even these days banks are still wanting to get new and existing business owners onto their free banking accounts. There are at least 2 banks in the UK that offer free business banking for life and other organisations such as the FSB provide free banking accounts if you are a member. Also check your business savings accounts rates – when we undertook market research into what banks are paying on savings it was astonishing. Most are only paying businesses 0.10% on their savings accounts but there are other ways to make any cash you have earn more. By reviewing your bank and perhaps changing it to a fee free account can save your hundreds, if not thousands over the course of a year and that money and go towards marketing or other customer generating strategies.
2: Reduce or clear your credit card debt
If you have any business expenses outstanding on credit cards then you are wasting money. Most business credits cards charge at least 16% interest per year and like personal finances it’s best if you move any excess cash you may have to pay off credit cards rather than saving that cash and having the debt outstanding. Additionally there are deals to be had where you can open a new credit card and use the balance transfer facility – yes, some business credit cards do offer that option – see the link above for more information.
3: Cut your energy bills
Many new comparison websites have been developed over the past years where like with consumer gas and electricity you can move suppliers with relative ease. You’ll be surprised at just how much you may be able to save by switching your business electricity and gas supplies so have a look at these sites as their headline rates suggest you may be able to save up to 50% on your annual costs.
4: Switch your broadband supplier
The cost of broadband for everyone has fallen dramatically in the past few years and even the giant BT offers business broadband deals for just £12.50 per month. Like domestic broadband it’s easy to switch and if you are coming to the end of a deal then contact your broadband provider and see how much you can reduce your monthly cost – most will want to keep you as a customer so it’s worth suggesting to them that you are thinking of moving provider just to see what they may offer you not to switch. Just ensure you don’t sign up to too long a contract as you may wish to move supplier in the future – most will only want to tie you into 12 months in any case.
5: Shop around for insurance products
Most businesses are required to have certain insurance such as professional indemnity insurance or public and employers liability insurance and if you are like most businesses where you simply renew your annual policy with your current insurer you may be paying too higher a price. Like with everything mentioned above a few minutes surfing companies online and getting a range of quotes should reduce your outgoings considerably. It’s worth mentioning with insurance that policies are different from insurer to insurer with different cover and excess values so check what you are receiving before you make any changes. As insurance is a high cost for many business owners this could be an area where you could make a big reduction.
6: Consider switching your vehicles
At present the cost of diesel is the same as petrol (I am not sure why this is because it always used to be around 10%-15% more expensive) so a diesel vehicle may be a way forward to make fuel costs go further. You may also want to investigate vehicle leasing as you won’t have the depreciation costs and an asset that depreciates in value and the cost of the leasing is deductable from your P&L each month.
7: Use a good accountant
We all want to ensure our tax bills are kept to a minimum and a good accountant will know what type of allowable expenses you can deduct legally from your accounts each year to minimise your tax liability. For personal tax there are additional tax allowances you may be entitled to. If you are a sole trader it may be worth investigating whether you should opt for a limited company where you pay dividends which are free of national insurance so you could legitimately save this expense also. Having a proactive accountant should also mean you won’t receive any fines from HMRC as there are many forms and deadlines a business has to meet each year from p60 filing to annual returns. If you miss any of these deadlines you will automatically receive a fine and for each month of delay the fine just increases. An accountant may also be able to get fines reduced or wiped out if you fall into this trap as they know who to call and get things sorted out quickly.
8: Review telephone and mobile costs
Even in business the telephone industry is fairly cut throat and if you have mobiles for your business then you’ll likely get a better deal if you contact your current service provider and threaten to leave or simply contact another provider with your requirements. It’s easy to just stay with your current mobile operator and not do anything but a couple of calls and it could all be sorted out for you. With a new contract you’ll probably receive more call units and upgraded phones which could save your company hundreds in call costs. If your provider gives you thousands of inclusive minutes each month then compare this with your fixed land line as it may be cheaper to have your staff using their mobiles than using the office telephones. With fixed telephones there are also deals to be had from 100% inclusive and free calls to any numbers in the UK (and cheaper rates for calls to mobiles and international) and as with the last comment it may be cheaper to use the office phone than mobiles – just see what you are offered then you’ll know which method to use for the majority of time.
9: Pay bills on time
OK, we should all be doing this in any case and even the government seems to have jumped onto this bandwagon but the reason this is in at #9 is because many suppliers offer discounts for early settlements. If you have a large cost with one or 2 of your suppliers you may also want to try and negotiate an early settlement discount with them. In these tough economic times you may find that your suppliers will be willing to do this for you as it means better cash flow for their business and also keeps your business relationship sweeter. On the other side of course some suppliers may charge you a penalty or interest if you pay late and this is a cost which can so easily be avoided.
10: Ditch your subscriptions
OK so how many of us belong to organisations as an individual or a company but don’t necessarily receive any benefit as a result? Hands up ! Many subscriptions are necessary such as to professional bodies and it’s just a fact of life but if you subscribing to magazines that you never read (or can be read online), newspapers and other industry journals perhaps it’s time to stop subscribing and save hundreds in the process. I bet if you review what your business is subscribing to you can save something and if you receive no benefit then why not?
If you liked these 10 ways to reduce costs in an effort in your cost reduction programme or have others you wish to share then please let us know by adding them below.
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Dragons Den Review and Duncan Bannatyne
So we were introduced to a new series of the popular bbc “business” programme dragons den last night but the wife and I were more intrigued on what has happened to Duncan Bannatyne’s hair….
The Dragons Den programme now in its 7th series here in the UK followed the same format we have come used to except for new opening credits with all the dragons lining up against an old factory looking as though they are about to be shot. So we found out how successful these people are now (although we don’t know how they are doing in the recession) and then it was on with the programme with Ewan reading and dubbing on his script to the programme with annoying music and cuts to people nodding filling the programme.
If you have watched it before like us we do already know the following:
- yes, we know that under the rules of the den the person asking for the money needs the full amount or they go away with nothing (although I wonder if some of the participants got deals afterwards in any case ?)
- yes, we know that hardly anyone going into the den knows their sales, profits and margins for the past and into the future
- yes, we know it’s a made for tv programme so there may be some not to be taken so seriously people on the programme and others just there for some publicity (although that has done wonders for a certain Chinese Girl who sells car leasing on her website….)
So we sat through the first presentation for an inventor who wanted some of his ideas to become reality and looking at them I guess the BBC cut the good bits because he had this great chimney pot that churned out electricity from the wind for free – enough to power everything in the house and yet no one looked at that so be prepared to see something similar in the shops very soon. He got his money and it was an investment in the person himself (and yet what business is not about people) ? so well done James Caan who seems to have given up his recruitment activities and now manages an investment fund.
Next was someone who had low carbon patio heaters – my wife thought this was a great idea although the prices he was suggesting seems a little high. In the cold of winter and in the smoking shelters most people use gas powered heaters where most of the heat simply disappears into the sky and these gadgets had lights built in as well. The guy had a great product but was not willing to give away too much. The dragons wanted 49% of his company but he only wanted to give out 35% — trouble is if I had a business where well known entrepreneurs had a half I would rather have the other half of something worth say £10 million that 100% of nothing. I bet someone will copy the idea and he won’t have the marketing muscle to compete.
But there was something else going on in the programme which caught our eyes and we couldn’t quite work it out and that was Duncan Bannatyne’s hair line which seems to have changed somewhat.
Going onto Google images search reveals the original image on the left from a few years ago… which is the picture of Duncan B that we all know from Dragon’s Den…. then searching onwards brought us the current picture that you can see below… 
The old Duncan was maturing gracefully and now the new Duncan seems to have had some magic taken place.
Nothing was mentioned on the programme but it made for interesting viewing !
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Dragons Den Review and Duncan Ballantyne
So we were introduced to a new series of the popular bbc “business” programme dragons den last night but the wife and I were more intrigued on what has happened to Duncan Ballantyne’s hair….
The Dragons Den programme now in its 7th series here in the UK followed the same format we have come used to except for new opening credits with all the dragons lining up against an old factory looking as though they are about to be shot. So we found out how successful these people are now (although we don’t know how they are doing in the recession) and then it was on with the programme with Ewan reading and dubbing on his script to the programme with annoying music and cuts to people nodding filling the programme.
If you have watched it before like us we do already know the following:
- yes, we know that under the rules of the den the person asking for the money needs the full amount or they go away with nothing (although I wonder if some of the participants got deals afterwards in any case ?)
- yes, we know that hardly anyone going into the den knows their sales, profits and margins for the past and into the future
- yes, we know it’s a made for tv programme so there may be some not to be taken so seriously people on the programme and others just there for some publicity (although that has done wonders for a certain Chinese Girl who sells car leasing on her website….)
So we sat through the first presentation for an inventor who wanted some of his ideas to become reality and looking at them I guess the BBC cut the good bits because he had this great chimney pot that churned out electricity from the wind for free - enough to power everything in the house and yet no one looked at that so be prepared to see something similar in the shops very soon. He got his money and it was an investment in the person himself (and yet what business is not about people) ? so well done James Caarn who seems to have given up his recruitment activities and now manages an investment fund.
Next was someone who had low carbon patio heaters - my wife thought this was a great idea although the prices he was suggesting seems a little high. In the cold of winter and in the smoking shelters most people use gas powered heaters where most of the heat simply disappears into the sky and these gadgets had lights built in as well. The guy had a great product but was not willing to give away too much. The dragons wanted 49% of his company but he only wanted to give out 35% — trouble is if I had a business where well known entrepreneurs had a half I would rather have the other half of something worth say £10 million that 100% of nothing. I bet someone will copy the idea and he won’t have the marketing muscle to compete.
But there was something else going on in the programme which caught our eyes and we couldn’t quite work it out and that was Duncan Ballantyne’s hair line which seems to have sprouted. Going onto Google images search reveals the original image on the left from a few years ago…
The old Duncan was maturing gracefully and now the new Duncan seems to have visited a hair loss clinic and magic has taken place.
Nothing was mentioned on the programme but it made for interesting viewing !
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Income Tax Rates New Rate For UK Tax Payers
Here’s a quick guide to the new income tax rates in the UK for 2009/ 10.
Income tax rates changed in the last budget with the introduction of the new extended 50% tax rate up from 45% in the previous budget. The tax brackets also changed with the introduction of a reducing scale for anyone earning over £100,000 per year making the marginal rate of tax actually 60%.
Income tax table
Here’s a quick income tax table so you can see what tax bracket you fall into now for the tax year 2009 2010
Starting rate for savings only 10% – £0 – £2,440 Basic tax rate 20% – earning from £0 – £37,400 Higher Rate 40% – earning over £37,400 Increased Higher Rate 50% – Earning over £150,000 from April 2010 (increased from 45% in April 2009 budget )
Full information on your tax bracket for income tax can be found in our comprehensive tax brackets guide for 2009 and 2010 with changes perhaps continuing as the government attempts to find additional ways to extract more from the working population and perhaps a new change in government either later this year but before May 2010.
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Redundancy Advice – Start or Buy a Business
While a swathe of redundancies engulf the developed world in the wake of the global economic downturn, many of those set free from their contracts of employment are turning their previously dormant business ideas into reality and becoming entrepreneurs.
Hard-hit industries such as the financial sector are witnessing the highest conversion of redundancies to entrepreneurs, with hundreds of City workers turning their back on a narrowing jobs market to blaze their own trail.
Lee Shuell, a former employee of a major mortgage lender, was made redundant after a 19-year stint working for a company that lent upwards of £70 million daily. Following a three-month period of unsuccessful job applications and recruitment agency cul-de-sacs, Shuell stumbled across his holy grail, an advert for a lettings agency franchise.
Talking to BusinessWings, Shuell says the newly redundant should, above all, try to do something they enjoy: “I had always wanted to run my own business, but due to having very good jobs I never had the chance to follow it up.
“I then came across Belvoir Lettings.
“To cut a long story short, I bought the Oldham franchise and opened in November 2008. In the short time that I have been open I can already see that this is going to be a great success.
“I believe people that have been made redundant should look at what they enjoy doing as a hobby and see if they can make a career out of it.”
In a similar scenario, Mike Mitchell took early retirement from his post at Cheltenham & Gloucester when he foresaw a difficult period looming for the banking industry. Sensing he was at the end of one chapter and the start of another, he fulfilled a lifelong ambition and bought an online art gallery, with his wife.
“We are now responsible for managing the prestigious Knapp Gallery in Regent’s College, London, and providing the artworks for the Malvern Theatres, one of the most successful provincial theatres in the UK,” he explains.
“Banking to art – quite a change, and we love it.”
Mitchell is keen to emphasise the polarity of his previous and current work patterns: “Less than 12 months ago I was managing the entire customer service operation of Cheltenham & Gloucester Plc, circa 1,200 people in the UK and a team of about 600 in India.
“Last year I would have been at home in Lloyds TSB’s boardroom in Gresham St; last week I was having breakfast in Sotheby’s boardroom surrounded by Damian Hurst’s butterflies.”
Heartening stories – but the aforementioned redundant employees turned entrepreneurs both bought into a proven business model, be it a tried and tested franchise concept or an established business with a proven track record.
Starting from scratch is a different challenge altogether.
Starting a business was difficult even in the boom years and only about 20% of start-ups made it past the first three years. And yet, Jayne Davies, who started her own business in the most inauspicious economic circumstances since the Great Depression, is faring rather well.
“I set up a business last year selling a remarkable new slimming product and the business is going from strength to strength,” she explains. She’s about to receive additional help from her soon-to-be redundant husband.
“My husband Peter, who has worked in the steel industry for the last 25 years, has just volunteered for redundancy because he’s also going to be involved in the business.
“It will be remarkably different from what he done all his life, but he’s going to be involved in all aspects.” The credit crunch hasn’t had a uniformly negative impact it would seem.
“The credit crunch has had a bearing on the decision,” says Davies.
“We own two properties and the mortgages have virtually disappeared. “This has put us in a position where he could take is redundancy and be involved in a whole new venture.
And, she adds: “The business is operating on a national level and getting to the stage where I just can’t manage it alone.”
Starting out on your own is a tough proposition, even in the most settled of financial climates.
A helping hand for the fledgling entrepreneur can be found at the Prince’s Trust Business Programme for 18-30 year olds or find more advice on the small business pro website – click here for the home page.
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Interview with Duane Jackson of Kashflow Accounting Software
I have long been a fan of Duane Jackson founder and creator of Kashflow. I find it interesting that he is very vocal in his marketing approach and he has no problems in pointing out “flaws” in his main competitors offerings – I like the approach and many marketers say that controversy sells.
So I have managed to get Duane’s ear to ask him a few questions about his approach and others about his company that he has kindly offered to answer for us today. So let’s kick this off:
Q: For all the postings you have made to your blog on the subject of Sage, is this marketing approach something you thought about before you kicked it off or just something you thought you should just make public to show what they are doing (or something else) ?
A: Sage are the biggest player in the UK accounting software industry and were once the biggest software company in the UK. So I think it’d probably be more remarkable if I didn’t mention them on my blog.
There was certainly no plan to have the blog mention Sage as often as it has. It just so happened that not long after I launched the blog, Sage attempted to take a piece of the web-based accounting software market that we had helped create.
It was by pure chance that at the end of last year I found myself with exclusive information about a new Sage product that noone outside of Sage knew about.
I did consider not blogging about it, but decided it’d be silly not to. So in the end I did and it attracted a lot of attention. http://blog.kashflow.com/2008/11/28/sage-live/
Q: Do you think it has raised the profile of Kashflow (if this was a strategy of yours?) as I see even the Times Online picked it up.
A: It’s done wonders for our profile – more than I ever expected. It probably helped that a few days later Sage threatened us with legal action over a different issue. As a result we’ve had coverage in the national press, including The Times, The Telegraph, The NY Times and a number of other places. A few industry journalists have also said that they first heard about KashFlow as a result of the running with Sage.
After they launched their product, I found some very serious security holes. I used to be very involved in the information security scene many years ago, so I’m well aware that I should have gone straight to Sage and told them rather than blog about it. But because of their aggressive stance towards us, and because the information wouldn’t lead to any businesses losing data, I decided to publish. http://blog.kashflow.com/2009/01/21/sage-live-security/ and this resulted in them having to withdraw from the market http://blog.kashflow.com/2009/01/28/sage-take-saas-product-offline-due-to-security-concerns/
This led on to lots more profile-raising coverage for us. It also meant that my company name would be forever connected with a £2bn company attempting to enter our market. Not a bad marketing coup really. Whenever Sage Live is mentioned, so are we. In fact, at the moment we’re #1 on Google for the term Sage Live.
Q: Last year you managed to get an excellent partnership with PayPal by integrating your software with them. Other smaller companies may be thinking along the same lines so do you have any advice on how small business owners can approach larger companies ?
A: We were really fortunate that PayPal approached us rather than us having to approach them. They even helped to fund the developments which resulted in us being the first accounting application in the world to be PayPal certified. For such a big company, I’m always amazed how entrepreneurial the guys at PayPal are, and at how entrepreneurial they’re allowed to be.
Q: You started Kashflow with a small grant from the Prince’s Trust some years ago would you still recommend this route for young entrepreneurs today?
A: Absolutely. Although the cash I got from the Princes Trust was important, in hindsight it was the other help I got from them that was more essential. As well as mentoring, you get access to workshops on various areas of running a business and access to specialists.
They also run networking groups for Prince’s Trust supported businesses. This turned into more of a peer-support group than business networking. But without that group I know my business wouldn’t be as successful as it has been, Plus I made some really great friends from that group.
The Princes Trust do an amazing job that no other organisation in this country comes close to matching. As you can imagine, it costs them a few quid to run it – they need to raise a million pounds a week. I occasionally help raise funds via their Technology Leadership Group (http://www.princes-trust.org.uk/support_us/leadership_groups/technology.aspx) and have been lucky enough to meet some great technology entrepreneurs like Bill Gates. I certainly know what my first big charitable donation will be!
Q: Do you have any other tips for people wanting to start a new business in today’s tough economic environment?
A: There’s a big difference between starting a business in the middle of an economic boom and a time like now where the economy is struggling.
The main differences now are:
There are more talented people looking for work Salary expectations are lower Advertising sales are down, so there are bargains to be had. Consumers and businesses are more likely to seek out services that save them money If you’re currently employed, there may be voluntary redundancy packages on offer. Companies are more willing to switch suppliers if there is a demonstrable saving involved
There hasn’t been a better time to start a business. So the only tip I could give is to get started now rather than wait for the boom times to return as they undoubtedly will.
Q: Now you have a successful business, what’s helping you continue to develop and grow your business ?
A: It’s been a very interesting and educational journey for me so far. I now have a business that’s serving thousands of customers every day, is fairly established in the market place and is making a profit. But to stay in that position we need to be constantly improving what we do and how we do it, especially as now there are some very worthy competitors in the web-based accounting software market.
A year or so ago I was learning how to rapidly scale the business to cope with the demand. Currently I’m learning how to get (and keep!) a management team in place and make sure they’re appropriately incentivised. And I’m sure this time next year I’ll be learning something completely different.
I have a very experienced and patient chairman and mentor, Lord Young, he has over 50 years of business experience and brings a lot to the table. We’ve also been working with some great people at Deloitte. I used to be of the mindset that “consultants” are a waste of time and money, but I now really see the value in utilising the specialist knowledge that these kinds of people have.
Q: Seeing as how you and your team are always coming up with new ideas, perhaps you can tell me what your typical day looks like ?
A: The ideas really come from our customers, not my team. We’re not a particularly creative bunch to be honest. From day one we’ve built our software based on what our customers said they want, rather than what we or the accountants decide they should have. That was a deliberate decision and I think it’s served us really well and has been instrumental in getting us to where we are now.
If you phone the office and ask for me before 10am you’ll usually get told I’m in a meeting. The truth is I haven’t actually got into the office yet. I’ve never been one for early starts but I make up for it at the other end of the working day.
I start the day by going through my emails, checking up on our competitors and taking a look at the important numbers (sales so far this month, number of paying customers, new trial sign ups).
I’m really rubbish at doing the small things – like remembering to return important calls or signing documents – so my PA Dominique will give me a list of the important small things I should be getting done that day and she’ll badger me throughout the day until they’re done.
From then on, every day can be different. Sometimes I might have to get involved with complicated support queries, or I might get involved with some of the programming – either actually writing the code or agreeing with our developers the best way to approach something.
There can be a degree of making sure the different departments – sales, support, development – are all speaking to each other and getting what they need from each other.
There will usually be calls from journalists or commercial partners to deal with. It’s all pretty boring stuff to an outsider!
Q: If a budding entrepreneur asks you where they should go to get advice on starting a new business where would you send them ?
A: Advice is just that – advice. Not instructions. Some mentors can’t make that distinction and they get their knickers in a twist when their mentee doesn’t follow the advice given.
I think that often the best thing to do is to get as much varied advice as possible, and then make decisions based on that. The best place for a range of advice is business forums. Just be aware that as well as great advice, you can also get some really bad advice from forums.
One of my most important advisors is my accountant, Alan Moore at Alpha Business Services (http://www.alphalimited.co.uk/) . I actually met him via a business forum. An accountant should be much more than someone you hear from once a year to get the accounts in order.
Accountants are naturally risk averse, whereas entrepreneurs are, by their very nature, the exact opposite. So they’re great to bounce ideas off and to bring you back down to earth occasionally. As well as the technical ins and outs of a business (annual returns, share certificates, etc) your accountant should be able to give you advice on actually growing your business. Alan is certainly the unsung hero behind KashFlow’s success.
Q: Thanks for your time today Duane – is there anything else you’d like to add to help people start a new business or even grow one ?
A: There are a lot of resources on the internet for people starting and growing businesses – make sure you use them. And don’t be reluctant to spend money on things like marketing and professional fees. The old saying that you have to speculate to accumulate is true in business.
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Marketing Your Business in a Recession
For most larger companies the first thing that gets cut back if sales are reducing especially in a recession is marketing, training and recruitment. Sometimes that’s a hard pill to swallow so what marketing activities can you undertake when sales and profits are reducing?
About your competitors
The great part about marketing is that your competitors are probably doing the same thing and cutting back on advertising expenditure as well. So if you poke your head above the mire and start promoting your products and services you’ll likely be one that your customers notice first and foremost.
Contact your previous customers
Most likely your previous customers will purchase from you again. Spending in the UK has “only” reduced by some 3% which is not much and that consumer spending is cutting back on luxuries such as flat screen TVs and new cars. We are still spending on a daily basis and so are companies.
So why not contact your current customer list? If you know how to undertake email and direct marketing correctly you should at least get a 5% response rate and email marketing probably much higher.
Previous customers are much easier to convert as they know your products and purchasing process and you don’t have to convince them that your company is someone solid and dependable.
If you haven’t contacted your customers in a long time then it’s time to it today.
Use your best performing advertising methods
You’ll know what promotions and advertising methods have worked for you in the past – if not then you should look back and measure those results. Now implement another campaign that gave you the biggest bang for your buck !
Many companies will simply continue doing what they have always done without really knowing if it’s working or not. Certainly you see the same advertisements in the local newspapers each week and I always wonder if they are working at all – I have never really seen good or even great results from newspaper advertising for local companies.
Look at what you are spending your money on
We all generally continuing spending because we may be afraid to cut costs or pull campaigns we “think” are working so it may be a good time to review your budgets. I pulled an adwords campaign not so long again and although sales reduced a little it was not as much as the cost of the advertising. OK, I probably wasn’t advertising correctly but I have save many thousand pounds per year but only reduced sales in the hundreds.
If you have any tips of your own please post them below. In these challenging times you should review all advertising but also contact your customer base and tell them about new promotions you have.
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Starting a Bookkeeping Business
If you’re a bookkeeper or have financial qualifications what about running your own bookkeeping business ?
You need some background in finance if you’re thinking of starting a bookkeeping business but there is no requirement for formal qualifications. If you have none then you can get qualified from the Institute of bookkeepers or standard accounting qualifications.
With most businesses you’ll need customers and marketing is key. It’s generally smaller business owners that retain the services of a bookkeeper and the work will be varied as you’ll get all the small sole traders such as electricians and plumbers and small family run companies.
Generally it’ll be work in updating sales and purchase ledgers with invoices from customers and suppliers and reconciling this with the bank account statements on a regular, perhaps monthly basis.
Once you have a few customers your business should grow by word of mouth as companies need someone realiable, trustworthy and keeps records in complete confidence. Sometimes you may have to deal with HMRC for tax and employee issues but most cases are fairly straight forward.
So if you have a background in finance or are at home with “numbers” then starting a bookkeeping business may be an opportunity for you to earn extra money or as a full time career.
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New Startup Guides Published
We’ve been busy adding new guides onto the small business pro site.
If you’re thinking of starting a restaurant business then this opporuntity is reviewed in our guide to starting a restaurant business that covers everything from location to marketing restaurants.
And if you need a business plan then we have posted some free business plan template downloads that you can access and download to your computer for no cost.
Additionally, there is some new information about taxes if you are self employed or have a limited company business. We’ve reviewed small business income tax and national insurance to keep you up to date !
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Startup Costs, Fundraising and Nursery Guides
We’ve just posted a few crucial “how to” guides on the site on the subject of fundraising, managing startup costs and a guide to starting a nursery school:
Easy fundraising ideas Business startup costs Starting a nursery school business
Please let us know what you think and if there are any guides you would like featured. Full information on the site is available in the business directory.
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Should You Start a New Business During This Recession ?
So we have a recession at the moment and many people are thinking of starting a new business but just haven’t got around to it or are probably too scared to start one. But most of the time from the emails and help requests we receive all we hear about are excuses.
People sign up to our business planning training and months later we ask how they are getting on and they say “they are still working on it”
Which is just crazy - why still working on their business plan after months?
I guess the fear factor is there. If you have a job and others around you are being made redundant why on earth should you leave that cozy office where you get paid each and every month? But if you put it off the chances are that you’ll never start and then just think you may actually be made redundant yourself and you’ll have nothing to fall back on.
So in the words of Nike - “just do it”
1) Start planning now : You can actually start all of the planning whilst you are still working as a PAYE employee - no one need know and so long as you plan in your spare time in the evenings and at the weekends there’s no conflict of interest. Build a plan for your first 3-6 months. You don’t need to take over the world as soon as your business starts because no one ever does. Start small and grow big. If you need a business plan layout to structure your thoughts have a look at this simple business plan format you can get online for free.
2) Market and network - There are just so many people that have done what you want to do before so there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Network with people you know as well as other entrepreneurs - there are plenty of online business forums that give advice for free so get to it.
3) You don’t need much money do you? - These days costs are low and are getting lower and for most businesses that are operated by a one man (or woman) band you don’t need much. You can rent or lease most equipment you need (or vans and cars) and just get what you need right now - you probably don’t need a big office or flashy premises - those come later.
4) You can start right now - as mentioned in #1 there is no need to put anything off. You can get going right now planning and devising marketing campaigns. Your first customers can be friends and family - or if you don’t like mixing business and pleasure ask your friends and family to pass your marketing literature onto people they know.
5) Get your skills brushed up - Most of us have excellent skills but a successful business owner is likely to be a bit of an all-rounder with a good grasp of a lot of business skills. You can run a business without some of these skills as you can outsource or employ someone to do it for you. Check out our article on what business skills do you need to run a business.
If you just want to work on your own but don’t know what type of business is for you then have a look through our 10 top profitable business ventures - we also have written a couple of in-depth guides to starting businesses - 1) how to start a courier business and 2) how to start a book-keeping business - these may not be for you but the requirements are likely to be similar as there is loads you need to undertake to make sure you’ll be a success !
Also check out our guide to marketing your business during a recession - if you are having a quiet time then there are costs you can reduce and marketing activities to undertake to get going again.
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Small Business Marketing Advice
Running and developing a small business can be tough especially during the current credit crunch so marketing is even more important than ever.
Marketing advice can be hard to come by when all you want is more paying customers and you don’t want to wade through tons of articles to get to your goals.
On small business pro we have post some easy to understand advice. First off much like when you start a new business and develop your business plan we have step by step guidance on writing your marketing plan. Your marketing plan is just as important to help you get into the minds of your customers and why they might purchase from you in the first place. By writing your plan you’ll probably end up with more questions than answers - but this is good - because most people don’t go through this process of auditing their own business so by doing this you’ll be ahead of most of your competitors.
The marketing plan covers indepth the marketing mix of your business (you know, product, place, pricing and promotion now with people, process and physical presence) - the marketing mix summarises every aspect of your interaction with your customers.
And if you don’t want to do the boring bits and want to delve straight in and just promote and communicate with prospects but don’t have much money and need some ideas to get you started then we have put together some small business marketing ideas that anyone can implement even if they’ve never put together a marketing campaign before !
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Interest Rates Held at 5% by Bank of England
The UK Bank of England held the base rate of interest at 5% despite worries over increased inflation.
With the prospect of a recession in the UK the bank had to balance the risk of dampening the economy too much if they raise interest rates and also kill off a very weak housing market but also keep in mind that their only weapon in fighting inflation is interest rates.
The holding of the rate was widely expected as they know if they reduced interest rates in an attempt to give the economy a boost they risk inflation getting out of control. So they are between a rock and a hard place in this respect.
Of course many people want to see interest rates reduced to kick start the economy even though the recent 10 years of growth (plus 3 from the previous conservative government) were largely based upon massive government borrowing, huge tax increases and a virtual tripling of house prices which allowed consumers all kinds of luxuries they wouldn’t be able to afford.
The past 10 years will not happen again for an economy this generation and interest rates would need to fall dramatically to improve confidence and allow consumers to spend more. Even so, Ray Boulger, of mortgage adviser John Charcol, said the MPC’s decision was widely expected but the central bank was now under pressure to try to revive the economy.
With the economic news from nearly all sectors of the economy getting worse by the day, a rate cut is badly needed to help restore some confidence to consumers and reduce the financial pressure on both them and industry,”
Perhaps it’s time for some tough medicine for the UK population in that they can’t simply carry on spending at will ?
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Welcome to our small business blog
Welcome to our small business blog where we’ll share news and information from the world of small business.
We have been around since 2001 posting away but haven’t really had the interaction from the business world nor new people wanting to start businesses. So any breaking news and methods to keep your business afloat during tough economic times we’ll post here and hope that you can join in the discussion.
For indepth articles for starting and running a business please browse our main website here - we’ll keep adding news and advice to help you and if there’s anything you believe is missing please let us know here.
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Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations
The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations will implement the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) in the UK. It comes into force on 26 May 2008, subject to Parliamentary approval. The Directive introduces a general duty not to trade unfairly and seeks to ensure that traders act honestly and fairly towards their customers. It applies […] [Link]
10 Reasons to start a small business
Last year over 500,000 people started a new business in the UK - this continues to underpin the UK’s realiance for small businesses in the UK economy and shows the continued entrepreneurial qualities we have been taught in schools and possess naturally. It’s really easy to start up and get going no matter what you want […] [Link]
Initial Marketing Ideas for New Businesses
For new businesses getting initial customers can seem to be a struggle. It’s those first customers that get a business going because word of mouth is a powerful strategy once the snow ball effect begins. But getting people to try your products or service at first and move from an existing supplier or favourite shop is […] [Link]
Google Adds Dates to SERPS
If you have a blog, a forum or news site check this out. You will see that Google is adding the date of the post as the first item in the snippet in the search engine results pages. At a guess this is for the freshness of the result for users but could be an issue for […] [Link]
Can British Airways Survive Long Term ?
The ongoing fiasco with the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow has hit British Airways hard and Today BA announced that it is postponing its permanent move to T5 until June. Terminal 5 is destined to be the home of all British Airways flights but in the first few weeks of operation they have cancelled hundreds of […] [Link]
Now Google and Yahoo Announce Partnership
Hot on the heals of Microsoft’s hostile bid to buy Yahoo and Yahoo saying their offer is too low, there comes the most extraordinary announcement. Yahoo is to start testing Google’s advertising system Awords and put the results in the Yahoo search results. The Internet company said it would begin a limited test of Google’s search advertising […] [Link]
How to Start Your Business Plan
So you have your idea all mapped out and want to put everything down on paper - yep, you need to write your business plan but where do you start? You know that a business plan is going to help you longer term, map out your ambitions, help you ensure you meet your financial objectives […] [Link]
Fresh Content for Google a Myth
How nice that all the people who run article marketing websites or software that “writes articles for your site” tell us we always need fresh and ever changing content for our websites. Well today I have proof that this is NOT required. All you need are “fresh links” to your “up to date” content - […] [Link]
UK is Still a Nation of Small Businesses
The old adage that the UK is a nation of small shopkeepers could never be truer. Recent research by Barclays Bank showed that over 471,500 people started a new business during 2007 - the highest since records began. This shows that the UK is full of entrepreneurs who want to take the plunge and become […] [Link]
Online Chargeback Fraud Merchant Pays
As a consumer, you’ll probably get frustrated when you spot something on your monthly credit card statement that means nothing to you. Or your credit card is stolen, you inform your card company but still eroneous charges appear on your statement. Obviously you are a victim of credit card fraud. No worries you think. Just call […] [Link]
Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations
The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations will implement the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) in the UK. It comes into force on 26 May 2008, subject to Parliamentary approval. The Directive introduces a general duty not to trade unfairly and seeks to ensure that traders act honestly and fairly towards their customers. It applies to business to consumer transactions.
The vast majority of UK businesses are fair dealing and will not need to change their businesses practices but the Directive aims to tackle those businesses who don’t always treat their customers well.
Schedule 1 to the CPRs lists 31 commercial practices which are
considered unfair in all circumstances and which are prohibited.9 There is
no need to consider the likely effect on consumers. The text that follows
lists these banned practices and provides some illustrative examples in
italicised text. Breaches of these provisions may also breach the other
prohibitions in the CPRs.
(1) Claiming to be a signatory to a code of conduct when the trader is
not.
(2) Displaying a trust mark, quality mark or equivalent without having
obtained the necessary authorisation.
(3) Claiming that a code of conduct has an endorsement from a public or
other body which it does not have.
A member of the (voluntary) Pure Water Code displays the code logo in
his shop and on his advertising materials and claims beside the logo that
the code is ‘approved by the Office of Fair Trading’. The code has not
been approved. This would breach the CPRs.
(4) Claiming that a trader (including his commercial practices) or a
product has been approved, endorsed or authorised by a public or private
body when the trader, the commercial practices or the product have not
or making such a claim without complying with the terms of the
approval, endorsement or authorisation.
A plumber claims that he is CORGI-Registered10 when he is not. This
would breach the CPRs.
(5) Making an invitation to purchase products at a specified price
without disclosing the existence of any reasonable grounds the trader
may have for believing that he will not be able to offer for supply, or to
procure another trader to supply, those products or equivalent products
at that price for a period that is, and in quantities that are, reasonable
having regard to the product, the scale of advertising of the product and
the price offered (bait advertising).
A camera firm advertises nationally using the line ‘Digital cameras for
£3′.11 They had only ever planned to have a very small number of such
cameras available at that price. This would breach the CPRs because the
number of cameras actually available for £3 would not be sufficient to
meet the likely level of demand arising from the scale of the advertising
and the trader knew this but failed to make clear in the advertisement
that only limited numbers were available.
(6) Making an invitation to purchase products at a specified price and
then:
(a) refusing to show the advertised item to consumers
(b) refusing to take orders for it or deliver it within a reasonable time, or
(c) demonstrating a defective sample of it,
with the intention of promoting a different product (bait and switch).
A trader advertises a television in his shop window for £300.12 When
consumers ask him about it, he shows them a model which does not
work properly, and then refers them to a different model of television. If
the trader intentionally used this practice to promote a different model
(for instance one offering a higher profit margin), it would breach the
CPRs.
(7) Falsely stating that a product will only be available for a very limited
time, or that it will only be available on particular terms for a very limited
time, in order to elicit an immediate decision and deprive consumers of
sufficient opportunity or time to make an informed choice.
A trader falsely tells a consumer that prices for new houses will be
increased in 7 days time, in order to pressurise him into making an
immediate decision to buy.
(8) Undertaking to provide after-sales service to consumers with whom
the trader has communicated prior to a transaction in a language which
is not an official language of the European Economic Area State where
the trader is located, and then making such service available only in
another language without clearly disclosing this to the consumer before
the consumer is committed to the transaction.
A trader based in the UK agrees to provide after-sales service to a
consumer with whom he has been communicating in German. The trader
then provides after-sales services only in English, without warning the
consumer pre-contract that that would be the case. This would breach
the CPRs.
(9) Stating or otherwise creating the impression that a product can
legally be sold when it cannot.
A trader offers goods for sale in circumstances in which the consumer
cannot legally become their owner by buying them from him, for
instance because they have been stolen and he has no legal title to pass
on. This would breach the CPRs.
(10) Presenting rights given to consumers in law as a distinctive feature
of the trader’s offer.
A stationer sells pens. He advertises on the following basis: ‘Pens for
sale. If they don’t work I’ll give you your money back or replace them.
You won’t find this offer elsewhere’. If the pen is faulty at the time of
purchase the consumer would be entitled to a refund, repair or
replacement under contract law. The trader’s emphasis on the unique
nature of his offer to refund or replace would breach the CPRs.
(11) Using editorial content in the media to promote a product where a
trader has paid for the promotion without making that clear in the
content or by images or sounds clearly identifiable by the consumer
(advertorial).
A magazine is paid by a holiday company for an advertising feature on
their luxury Red Sea diving school. The magazine does not make it clear
that this is a paid-for feature – for example by clearly labelling it
‘Advertising Feature’ or ‘Advertorial’. This would breach the CPRs.
(12) Making a materially inaccurate claim concerning the nature and
extent of the risk to the personal security of the consumer or his family
if the consumer does not purchase the product.
A trader selling video door entry systems tells potential customers ‘There
have been a lot of doorstep muggings in your street recently. There is
clearly a gang at work in this area, and you will probably be mugged on
your doorstep too, before very long, unless you purchase one of my door
entry systems now’. If the risk of doorstep mugging is materially
exaggerated the statement would breach the CPRs.
(13) Promoting a product similar to a product made by a particular
manufacturer in such a manner as deliberately to mislead the consumer into believing that the product is made by that same manufacturer when
it is not.
A trader designs the packaging of shampoo A so that it very closely
resembles that of shampoo B, an established brand of a competitor. If
the similarity was introduced to deliberately mislead consumers into
believing that shampoo A is made by the competitor (who makes
shampoo B) – this would breach the CPRs.
(14) Establishing, operating or promoting a pyramid promotional scheme
where a consumer gives consideration for the opportunity to receive
compensation that is derived primarily from the introduction of other
consumers into the scheme rather than from the sale or consumption of
products.
A trader operates a holiday club which offers consumers, on payment of
a membership fee, the opportunity of earning large amounts of money by
recruiting new members to the club. The other benefits of club
membership are negligible compared to the potential rewards of earning
commission for introducing new members. This practice would breach
the CPRs.
(15) Claiming that the trader is about to cease trading or move premises
when he is not.
A trader runs a clothes shop. He puts up a sign in the shop window
stating: ‘Closing down sale’. Unless the shop was genuinely closing
down this would breach the CPRs.
(16) Claiming that products are able to facilitate winning in games of
chance.
A trader advertises a computer program with the claim: ‘This will help
you win money on scratchcard lotteries’. This would breach the CPRs.
(17) Falsely claiming that a product is able to cure illnesses, dysfunction
or malformations.
A trader sells orthopaedic beds to the elderly with the advertisement
‘Cure your backache once and for all with my special beds’. If untrue,
his definitive statement about the curative effects of his product would
breach the CPRs. The court may order the trader to substantiate such a
claim in proceedings.
(18) Passing on materially inaccurate information on market conditions
or on the possibility of finding the product with the intention of inducing
the consumer to acquire the product at conditions less favourable than
normal market conditions.
An estate agent tells a consumer that he has recently sold several
houses in the same area, just like the one the consumer is viewing, at a
certain price. If this is not true and he is making the claim in order to
persuade the consumer to buy at an inflated price, the estate agent
would breach the CPRs.
(19) Claiming in a commercial practice to offer a competition or prize
promotion without awarding the prizes described or a reasonable
equivalent.
A trader operates a scratch-card prize promotion with a top prize of
£10,000. In fact, he does not print any cards that win this top prize (or
does print the cards but does not make them available). As this would
mean that no prizes of £10,000 could be awarded, this would breach
the CPRs.
(20) Describing a product as ‘gratis’, ‘free’, ‘without charge’ or similar if
the consumer has to pay anything other than the unavoidable cost of
responding to the commercial practice and collecting or paying for
delivery of the item.
A trader advertises a ‘free’ gift. He then tells consumers that in order to
receive their ‘free’ gift they need to pay an extra fee. This would breach
the CPRs.
(21) Including in marketing material an invoice or similar document
seeking payment which gives the consumer the impression that he has
already ordered the marketed product when he has not.
A trader sends letters to consumers with his marketing material which
are or closely resemble invoices for products that have not been ordered.
This would breach the CPRs.
(22) Falsely claiming or creating the impression that the trader is not
acting for purposes relating to his trade, business, craft or profession, or
falsely representing oneself as a consumer.
A second-hand car dealership puts a used car on a nearby road and
displays a handwritten advertisement reading ‘One careful owner. Good
family run-around. £2000 or nearest offer. Call Jack on 01234 56789′.
The sign gives the impression that the seller is not selling as a trader,
and hence this would breach the CPRs.
(23) Creating the false impression that after-sales service in relation to a
product is available in a European Economic Area State other than the
one in which the product is sold.
(24) Creating the impression that the consumer cannot leave the
premises until a contract is formed.
A holiday company advertise sales presentations at hotels. During the
presentations, intimidating doormen are posted at all the exits, creating
the impression that the consumers cannot leave before buying. This
would breach the CPRs.
(25) Conducting personal visits to the consumer’s home ignoring the
consumer’s request to leave or not to return except in circumstances
and to the extent justified13 to enforce a contractual obligation.
A door to door salesman visits a consumer to sell her some cleaning
products. She tells him she is not interested and asks him to leave. He is
determined to try and get her to change her mind and continues his sales
pitch on her doorstep. This would breach the CPRs.
(26) Making persistent and unwanted solicitations by telephone, fax, email
or other remote media except in circumstances and to the extent
justified14 to enforce a contractual obligation.
A direct seller telephones consumers to sell them products, but does not
record when consumers have explicitly asked to be removed from their
contact lists. The trader calls back consumers several times, who have
asked him not to. This would breach the CPRs.
Note that a consumer who has signed up to the Telephone Preference
Service is likely to be regarded as a consumer who does not want
unsolicited telephone calls.
(27) Requiring a consumer who wishes to claim on an insurance policy
to produce documents which could not reasonably be considered
relevant as to whether the claim was valid, or failing systematically to
respond to pertinent correspondence, in order to dissuade a consumer
from exercising his contractual rights.
(28) Including in an advertisement a direct exhortation to children to buy
advertised products or persuade their parents or other adults to buy
advertised products for them.
Advertising a comic book for children stating ‘read about the adventures
of Fluffy the Bunny in this new comic book each week – ask your mum
to buy it from your local newsagents’. This (telling children to ask their
mothers) would breach the CPRs.
(29) Demanding immediate or deferred payment for or the return or
safekeeping of products supplied by the trader, but not solicited by the
consumer, except where the product is a substitute supplied in
accordance with regulation 19(7) of the Consumer Protection (Distance
Selling) Regulations 2000 (inertia selling).15
A trader writes to consumers informing them of a new grease
eradicating dishcloth which he is selling for £2.99. In the letter the
trader encloses one of the cloths for the consumer to inspect and says
that if the consumer does not return the cloth within 7 days then action
will be taken to collect the £2.99. This would breach the CPRs.
(30) Explicitly informing a consumer that if he does not buy the product
or service, the trader’s job or livelihood will be in jeopardy.
(31) Creating the false impression that the consumer has already won,
will win, or will on doing a particular act win, a prize or other equivalent
benefit, when in fact either:
(a) there is no prize or other equivalent benefit, or
(b) taking any action in relation to claiming the prize or other equivalent
benefit is subject to the consumer paying money or incurring a cost.
A trader sends letters to consumers which, at the top of the letter in
large characters, state: ‘You have won our top prize of £3,000.’ This is
false – only the small print on the back of the letter mentions that the
consumer must buy a product before being entered into a draw for the
money. This would breach the CPRs.
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10 Reasons to start a small business
Last year over 500,000 people started a new business in the UK - this continues to underpin the UK’s realiance for small businesses in the UK economy and shows the continued entrepreneurial qualities we have been taught in schools and possess naturally.
It’s really easy to start up and get going no matter what you want to do. It costs £40 to set up a limited company and away you go. Are you thinking of starting a new business? Here are 10 reasons why you should start your own small business :
1: It’s easy to start - As mentioned above it’s really easy to set up a company. There are numerous company formation agents who will set up a company for you in about 3 hours. If you have a product and customers waiting you can start trading immediately. (don’t forget to account for everything so you can pay the tax man your profits though….)
2: You can sack your boss - Fed up with the person you call your boss? Think you can do better than the company you work for? Well you don’t need to put up with idiots in the office or bullying any longer. When you have your own business then you are the boss. You set the standards, goals and pricing. You decide what to sell and to whom. (of course you can get it completely wrong so make sure you know what you’re doing !!)
3: No more public transport or traffic jams - wow, sitting in traffic for 2 to 3 hours a day or standing on a train and paying high prices must be a thing of the past. With your own business you can decide where your premises are located or simply work from your home office. Not only will you not have the daily grind with thousands of others but you’ll save the travel expenses and have an additional 2 to 3 hours a day to either develop your business, use for family time or to get all those jobs done in time.
4: You employ who you want to - All those people your boss employs that you have to train up are a thing of the past. Why do people employ folks with no knowledge of the job or disrupt the rest of the office or who turn up late each day? And to think that they get paid the same as you? If you have your own consulting or internet business then it’s just you. But if you expand it’s you who can choose who you have working for your business. No more layabouts but good people working for your business to make more money for you.
5: Redundancy no more - Deperate times call for desperate measures and when there’s a recession looming then costs have to be cut. This generally means marketing and training are cut to the bone and people are not replaced when they leave. Then the big cuts come and of course most businesses over do it and fire too many staff. That threat of redundancy is just not there if you have your own business (of course downtimes have to be met with brilliant products of your own and great marketing - but as we know that doesn’t have to be expensive - just good)
6: Complete satisfaction - When you are making money for yourself and your business develops the pride of what you have achieved is second to none. After all it is you who has developed that business. Imagine in just a couple of years time when you have a thriving business that’s buying you stuff you could only have dreamed of before. That feeling of satisfaction can never be replaced.
7: Get out of a dead end job - do you feel there is no chance of promotion or your face doesn’t fit in the large organisation you’re in? When you are out of the merry go round of “big business” you can concentrate on your business. You’ll know where you are heading because you’ll have a plan of action to develop your business. No more stress on a Sunday night knowing that the week ahead is full of boring nonsense.
8: Make money for you not someone else - All your hard work is for someone else. See all the big profits your company is making because of your knowledge and experience. Why line the pockets of your bosses when you can line your own pockets? All those products you’ve developed in the past could be working for you rather than some faceless corporation. All those customers you’ve won in the past should be buying your products and services to build your business.
9: Life is not a rehearsal - Of course we are only around for 70 or so years so why waste it ? Would you rather be speaking to your grandchildren about the excellent business you started and developed that you’ll pass onto them one day or all the opportunities that passed you by that you didn’t grab hold of. You can start at any time in your life but it’s harder and harder to start the older you get. If you get the opportunity from redundancy or being put out of work then it might be the right time to start and then you’ll have a great story to tell
10: What have you got to lose ? - If you have a great well researched idea, have developed your business plan and run it past some of your friends and relatives and been given the thumbs up then what have you got to lose ? If your idea is really sound then go for it. You’ll never know if you’ll be a success until you try. Perhaps start the initial elements whilst you are still employed so you’ll know early if you can sell stuff. You don’t need to jump in right away so start small. Above all - just get something done.
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Initial Marketing Ideas for New Businesses
For new businesses getting initial customers can seem to be a struggle. It’s those first customers that get a business going because word of mouth is a powerful strategy once the snow ball effect begins.
But getting people to try your products or service at first and move from an existing supplier or favourite shop is likely to be your first tactical marketing exercise.
If you are not getting these customers it can be all too easy to think that lowering your prices will attract new business - and this will likely be a successful strategy - but at the expense of short term profits and longer term health of your business.
In a service business low pricing may also put people off because a price also indicates value and setting too lower a price might suggest that your service is not really that good enough and people will not purchase. So stick to your overall strategy and properly market your business. Simple ideas are usually the best. Try not to over complicate matters. Here are some suggestions to try out to build your initial customer base.
1) A simple “A” board - if you have a retail presence your only job is to get people inside your shop. Once inside it’s the job of your store to entice people to purchase. As people are walking down the street you’ll need to shout out loud with an offer to get people to look at your “A” board and look into your store. A simple message of a free gift or special offer for today only should do the trick.
2) Working with other stores - your potential customers will be visiting other stores in your local area. So why not ask other stores to have a stack of business cards or a small A5 flyer at their checkouts. You’ve probably seen these for other stores and most likely picked one up. Again, put a direct marketing message on these pieces and ask the other store owners to place your message. Offer to reciprocate the offer so you too stock the other store owners cards in your store. As most people won’t take up your offer you will win.
3) Online forum advertising - there are many online communities discussing your product or service right now. Do you know about these potential customers? Search online for your product or service for the forums and join them. Don’t overtly advertise your product but join the discussion and have a message in your forum signature. Once people see you as an expert they will start to contact you. This is an ongoing part of your overall marketing. It may not work immediately as you’ll need to build your profile so stick with it. See what others are doing as a lot of business is generated this way.
4) Leaflet drop - If you have a local business then printing a simple flyer on your printer and physically posting them through letterboxes of your target market is a cost effective way to generate good local business. Your message should follow standard direct marketing principles in that it should be solving a problem that your target customer has and how you are the answer to their prayers. Try a few streets first then follow up to get peoples’ reaction. This way you can see if a) it’s a service they want b) why they may have not contacted you so you can change your message if required. Then try more streets and re-test. This way you will get your message correctly targeted and can develop this marketing angle over time.
Marketing is about providing the right service to people that want it for a profit with correct communication. We hope the ideas above can help and/ or stimulate your own ideas to get more prospects and customers into your business.
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Google Adds Dates to SERPS
If you have a blog, a forum or news site check this out.
You will see that Google is adding the date of the post as the first item in the snippet in the search engine results pages. At a guess this is for the freshness of the result for users but could be an issue for webmasters seeing a reduction in referals from Google.
If you have a post ranking highly that you wrote some years ago a date of 2005 appearing in SERPS will undoubtedly put users off clicking on your link as it looks old and out of date.
So what can you do?
One way is to take out the date of your post in the actual page of the post itself. For a blog page this isn’t such a big deal and you can easily edit Wordpress etc. For forums you might not want to edit the date or perhaps you can do something else with the dates of posts.
Do a search for your industry and see what happens - this is a big change.
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Can British Airways Survive Long Term ?
The ongoing fiasco with the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow has hit British Airways hard and Today BA announced that it is postponing its permanent move to T5 until June.
Terminal 5 is destined to be the home of all British Airways flights but in the first few weeks of operation they have cancelled hundreds of flights and lost probably thousands of bags.
British Airways is no stranger to industrial unrest which plagued it during the 1970s and 1980s. In recent years there have been strikes affecting all elements of its operation. 2005 saw workers being sacked from their catering supplier meaning all flights for a few days went without food and beverages and all of their flights being cancelled for 24 hours.
An averted cabin crew strike in January 2007 saw many virtually empty flights taking off as talks with unions went into the early hours and with flights previously cancelled (but reinstated) passengers just gave up with BA and went elsewhere.
And this year BA pilots have voted to strike - Balpa members voted to strike over what they said were plans to staff BA OpenSkies with crews on inferior terms to those of existing staff. Balpa represents 3,000 of the 3,200 pilots that work for BA - talks are underway to try and avert strike action.
So what now? No new home at T5 regular strikes by staff? Do people really care?
It’s a strange place because BA regularly reports strong profits (mainly from its long haul premium classes) and passenger numbers are generally high.
The great thing about the human race is people have very short memories. Most problems with BA are generally short term and although many thousands of people are affected by delays and industrial action they will fly again with the same carrier in the future.
The planning for T5 however is a different issue. Most companies that go for a “big bang” solution of moving from a current proven and working operation to something completely new almost always fail - it is just too greater risk to bring something like this in all at once and now BA is using most of their time on damage limitation and disaster recovery rather than planning ahead.
But we will all forget about the problems although BA will always remain in the news for problems they have rather than excellent product or service. It may not be a great time to fly with BA until the summer months but everything will get better for the passengers and BA - until the next crisis they have to deal with !
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Now Google and Yahoo Announce Partnership
Hot on the heals of Microsoft’s hostile bid to buy Yahoo and Yahoo saying their offer is too low, there comes the most extraordinary announcement.
Yahoo is to start testing Google’s advertising system Awords and put the results in the Yahoo search results.
The Internet company said it would begin a limited test of Google’s search advertising technology as part of efforts to remain independent from Microsoft. The test is designed to show whether or not the company could extract more revenue if it outsourced its search advertising system to Google, a person briefed on the plan said.
The test will involve using Google’s search advertising system, called AdSense for Search, to deliver ads that appear alongside Yahoo’s search results. The test will involve searches conducted in the United States on Yahoo.com, not on any of the company’s search affiliates, and will be limited to no more than 3 percent of all search queries, Yahoo said in a press release.
Whatever next? Google to purchase Yahoo themselves?
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How to Start Your Business Plan
So you have your idea all mapped out and want to put everything down on paper - yep, you need to write your business plan but where do you start? You know that a business plan is going to help you longer term, map out your ambitions, help you ensure you meet your financial objectives and is critical if you need a loan or bank finance — but where do you start? How do you turn that blank sheet of paper or spreadsheet into something that resembles your plans?
Well this article is aimed to get you going and come up with something meaningful.
We are guessing that you know what you want to do and have seen an opportunity by way of a large customer base with a need you are satisfying with your product or service. Here’s the best way to start your plan.
It’s best to start at the end ! That’s right, start with the end goal of your business idea or dream. Decide for yourself the profits you want to make in the next 12 months, the following year and the year after that. Remember you should look at profits first. For the purpose of this article, we’ll just look at the next 12 months trading (as you must get through this alive otherwise your business is dead in the water in any case ! ) Say the profit you want to make in the next 12 months is £10,000.
Now it’s time to calculate your fixed costs. These are essential costs that you will have to bear whether you sell 1000 units of your product or none at all. These might be rent and rates, web site hosting or advertising. Add all these fixed costs to your profits figure. Say this figure is £4,000.
Next it’s time to look at your product you’ll going to sell. Find the selling price (say this is £10) the direct cost of producing that product (eg: raw materials) (say this is £4) and any other directly associated costs with selling just one products (eg: sales commissions, credit card fees etc) (say this is £1). That means the profit per sale is £5.
To find out how many you need to sell in a year is now simple. Add your profit (£10k) and your fixed costs you need to cover (£4k) and you have £14k you need to produce in sales profit. We know the profit per sale is £5 so you now know that you need to sell 2,800 products (£14k divided by £5) in the next 12 months to cover all your costs and produce the overall profits you want. Can you do it ?
Selling 2,800 units may sound too much at first, but start to break this number down. That’s 233 per month or 54 per week (of course all these are averages and you’ll have seasonal differences, but when you break the numbers down it may seem more managable)
Now you have your numbers and you believe it’s all achievable you’ll need to put plans into action to show investors (and yourself) how you are actually going to achieve these goals. This will mean exactly what you’re going to do. Write down what you will do on your first day in business. Will you be doing some marketing to get customers? Setting up shop? buying product? recruiting staff? etc etc.
The business plan is your document showing the goals your want to achieve and exactly how you are going to achieve those goals. Good for you? Great - any questions ! 
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Fresh Content for Google a Myth
How nice that all the people who run article marketing websites or software that “writes articles for your site” tell us we always need fresh and ever changing content for our websites. Well today I have proof that this is NOT required. All you need are “fresh links” to your “up to date” content - and that’s that.
Of course, if you only have a one page website this is not going to carry weight in Google at all. I would suggest at least 30 pages (although this will include a contact us, about us, and site map page) and you should be fine.
For years we have been told we need fresh content. Along come programmers who have made this exercise “so easy” because now you can develop “unique” articles in minutes ! how? by plagerising others original works. You may not be able to spot the similarities straight away but any search of a few phrases will bring up the original artice that was produced.
So where’s my proof I hear you ask.
Well some changes are happening at Google right now and the search results are just a mess. But even before this a site in Google SERPs for a business related phrase comes up at the very top for some big term queries.
This site has always been around. It is practically a dead site with no additional pages being added for a long time. And when do you think the last update took place? 2004 - that’s right - 4 years ago.
So who needs all this “fresh content” for Google? Best to concentrate on developing a proper site with just the right amount of information for your visitors and get people to link to the pages you have developed. Then go onto the next niche and do the same and save your money on nonsense software.
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UK is Still a Nation of Small Businesses
The old adage that the UK is a nation of small shopkeepers could never be truer. Recent research by Barclays Bank showed that over 471,500 people started a new business during 2007 - the highest since records began. This shows that the UK is full of entrepreneurs who want to take the plunge and become self employed or start a new business with the view of employment of others.
This is great news for the economy at large but also for the entreprenerial spirit and a “just do it” mentality that has been with the UK for centuries. These days there is the highest amount of support for new businesses and people who have never run businesses before. Even if you just type in “small business” into Google and don’t mind clicking on all the ads, you’ll find all the research and information you need to start and grow a business.
The biggest step is taking the initial plunge. Our advice is to attempt to begin your business whilst you are still employed. This doesn’t mean developing a multi-million pound empire in your lunch time but beginning to get your first customers, developing your website and marketing materials and starting to get referrals. Once you have some momentum you can think about quitting your job. The worst you can do is think your business will succeed but you have no plans or customers — but quit your job any way; this way you will surely fail.
So a few quick tips to get going:
1) Write a business plan - yes, you have seen this before and it sound boring and complicated - but really, it will open you eyes to what is really required for you to get your first profits. You will know how many customers you’ll need per week and at what profits - real essentials - without this information written and in your head you will lose.
2) Cashflow - many a profitable business has gone bust because they run out of cash. You can get working capital/ cash flow through loans, factoring, invoice financing, improve payment terms, purchasing on credit etc etc - just let the cash work for you.
3) Customers - oh yes, but real customers that really want your product. Don’t ever attempt to try and sell to everyone, because everyone doesn’t want your products and services - and that’s guaranteed. Just select exactly who is going to purchase your product and only pitch to them
4) Products/ services - the next item after (3) is to have a product or service that people actually want. Don’t develop something you think is needed because you think it’s an idea. If you want to survive you’ll need to sell more than one of your products to many hundreds, thousands may be millions of customers, so it’s going to need to be popular.
Trust that gets you going and you join the nation of small businesses in the UK very soon !
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Online Chargeback Fraud Merchant Pays
As a consumer, you’ll probably get frustrated when you spot something on your monthly credit card statement that means nothing to you. Or your credit card is stolen, you inform your card company but still eroneous charges appear on your statement.
Obviously you are a victim of credit card fraud. No worries you think. Just call your credit card company and everything will be fine. After all they are nice people and they’ll simply credit your account with all those fraudulent charges because that’s what they do.
But have you ever thought of who really pays for the fraud? Most people probably believe that the credit card companies or the bank pays for this. After all, they make billions of profits per year so why not? They can easily swallow this and really it’s their fault.
It’s the banks fault because:
they designed the cards they accepted the charge from the merchant in the first place they design all the anti fraud systems
But actually the bank never pays. In fact they make a profit on each fraud transaction and here’s how.
Whenever a consumer reports a fraud the credit card company issues a chargeback against the merchant - ie: the company that supplied the goods and took the original transaction. The merchant then is offered the chance to provide evidence that the consumer received the goods or products (although with some banks they won’t dispute any online transactions).
9 times out of 10 the merchant loses. So guess what? The bank charges back the original transaction to the merchant. ie: the merchant or shop has provided the goods, took the credit card payment in good faith using the banks’ own systems, but the credit card sale is reversed by the bank so the shop loses money.
On top of that most banks also charge an admin fee for the convenience of charging you back the sale in full.
So, credit card fraud is seen as the fault of the merchant or shop. Just by using systems provided by banks the merchant never knows if the card charge taken is fraud.
The banks have introduced a type of online “chip and pin” called 3D secure (although why they didn’t simply use chip and pin only who only knows). This shifts the responsibility onto the bank. But also reduces conversions because this is a new scheme and a new password to be remembered by consumers.
Really, the banks should take all fraud. If they process the charge they should pay and not charge bank to the merchant.
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How to get Self Employed Loans
If you are self employed getting loans to start or develop your business can be tough going. In this article we explore some of the most common methods to secure your loan whether you have started your business or need additional financing.
If you are looking for unsecured loans most loan providers used to ask for audited accounts for 3 years or more which proved extremely difficult for new business owners to get finance. However most lenders will opt for self certification which basically means you provide details of your accounts (or get your accountant to develop these for you) and provide these to your lender.
In general unsecured loans for self employed people are higher especially in today’s credit crunch market and may now be tough to source especially if you personally have a poor credit rating or history. But if you want unsecured then try a few lenders, especially your own bank initially, to see what they can offer you.
Other ways to get unsecured finance is to get a loan from a family member, friend or colleague - just ensure you have any agreement written down, signed by both of you and witnessed properly as you never know what may go wrong in the future. You can of course borrow from your credit cards but this will present you with extremely uncompetitive and high levels of interest rates which is something you don’t want when you are starting in business.
Another way is to get a loan secured on your hoome. Perhaps it’s best to talk to your current mortgage provider rather than contacting a company that advertises on day time TV. If you have a flexible mortgage where your credit balance in your current account is offset against the amount of your mortgage you may be able to draw down back up to your initial mortgage loan amount. If not, you may be able to re-mortgage to release some capital that you can use for your self employed business.
Before even thinking about a loan it’s essential you have an up to date business plan - this will enable you to see if you can pay back the loan and interest in the time scales you are thinking of. Additionally you should look at several scenarios just in case your business doesn’t develop as fast as you think it might intially.
Please also take professional advice. This article should not be seen as advice over one form of loan or another. Any loans you take out will have to be repaid at some point and if you take out a secured loan against your property then your property may be at risk if you can not afford to repay it.
There are plenty of companies to help with self employed loans and it’s best if you get several quotes and be sure to check any terms and conditions which may be attached to the loan itself.
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Prospects Today = Customers Tomorrow
The prospects you contact and collect today are those that you’ll want to transform into customers tomorrow, next week or next month. As we’ve discussed before people may not want your products today so it’s important to capture their information at the earliest possible moment and then start a dialogue to move them from a prospect to a customer, when they are ready.
That means all small business owners need to develop a prospect database that they can market to later. By adding prospects you’ll going to develop the start of a lucrative future for your business.
The more leads you add into your funnel the more customers and sales you’re going to have in the future months ahead. So what happens if you don’t add leads into your sales funnel?
Certainly with web marketing there are literally millions of websites targeting your customers wnating a share of the online sales pie. Imagine when you look at websites — if someone offered you something for free - a free trial or download and all you had to provide was your email address, the chances are that you’ll provide those details and get on with using that free information. If that company didn’t follow up with you the chances are that you would forget all about them in just a few hours, if not minutes.
And if you didn’t download anything and went onto the next website, you’ll have probably forgotton about them when you visited the next place on your list.
So just imagine if that first company made contact with more free information - and over again in the coming months? You’ll remember the name, perhaps go back to the website and have a look at some more of what they have to offer, and then, maybe, make a purchase.
That’s much better than just forgetting about them.
So the most important thing any small business owner must do, whether you have a website or not, is to capture anyone, any visitor, and capture their basic information. Online that would mean taking an email address and at least a first name. That means you can email them with personalised emails. Rather than sending the dreaded “dear friend” email.
Treat any prospect as though they were a customer. Customers ask what you may believe are daft questions and I bet you treat them with respect and answer those daft questions immediately because they paid you some money. Treat prospects the same. After all, they don’t know you, your products or have the skills and experience that you have with your business. You’ll get really basic questions but answer them as though every email is from a customer.
Some prospects are not ready to buy not. Don’t hard sell at the moment but answer all questions and keep following up with them in whatever manner is appropriate - telephone, email or face to face. It can take time to convert a prospect into a customer, but if you have hundreds, if not thousands of leads, you will convert. Then if your conversion is lower than your expectations you’ll need to look at both your conversion process and the products and pricing you are trying to sell. That’ll be an article for another day!
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Are Your Customers Ready For Your Products ?
The trouble with being a small business owner is you go day to day with the frustrations of “not quite making it” - you know you have great products and services and you have communicated these to your customers either by direct mail, email marketing or other traditional methods but you just haven’t made the sales you believe you should.
You have researched the market place, asked your previous buyers what they want and produced something better than what’s on the market already. But your sales are lower, perhaps much lower than expected.
No matter how much effort you have put in some or many of your customers may not be a position to buy from you at the moment even if they have purchased from you before.
So what’s the problem? Is your price too high or maybe you got something wrong when you were developing your product? Maybe the economic climate is so bad that budgets have been cut so bad that there’s no money for new initiatives at the moment? You may have caught them on a bad day or when they were out of the office.
So what is the solution? Well timing is crucial and everything in business.
Most times people are just not ready to buy just yet. When people go onto the internet for the first time most likely they will be researching the market to see what is out there and will gather information from many companies. They may even then put their idea on the back burner because other issues or pressing problems have come their way. They may even forget they were researching the subject and will certainly forget about you, your company and website if you don’t follow up with them after they have made contact.
So you need to follow up with your prospect relentlessly. This has always been true with traditional sales. A sales person has their prospect list and will follow up with telephone calls, visits or direct mail. If they are trying to win a contact from a company the timing may just not be right and their current contract has not come to an end yet.
For an internet business this means you need to collect as many emails addresses from people who roam your site each and every day and add them to an autoresponder.
For one site we own we did this. Our autoresponder had about 10 messages on it …. and then nothing. We believed that if we didn’t make a sale after 10 contacts we would never make a sale. But this simply was not true. We added another 30 messages - a week apart - and our overall sales went up by 20%+ and still do today because we continue to capture email addresses and continue to send the email messages.
By “mastering the moment” when your prospect is ready to get their credit card details out and make a sale from you is all so important. You need to be ready when your prospects or current customers are ready to interact with you. You won’t necessarily know when this will be, but by keeping in constant contact with them all, offering information they need and interspersing with sales messages your sales will surely soar.
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Small business should reclaim unfair bank charges
Over the past year or so many consumers have managed to reclaim thousands in “unfair bank charges” - many of these claims made the headlines and websites popped up to help consumers reclaim either via the courts or by simply writing to their bank. Unfortunately all of this is on hold and awaiting a judgement […] [Link]
HSBC Start-Up Stars Awards
The eighth HSBC startup stars awards has recently been announced. The start up stars awards is looking for new UK businesses that show exceptional drive, creativity and business acumen. The top prize is a whopping £50,000 that goes to the most inspirational startup business - and the entrepreneur behind the success. The 2007 prize was won […] [Link]
Worthless shares targeted to UK investors
When people are approached out of the blue by a friendly person selling shares that are “certain to rise” most of use would think twice and believe in the old adage that “if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is” But last weeks new that a husband and wife team operating out […] [Link]
Mortgage Lending Criteria Tightens in UK Credit Crunch
With the recent credit crunch in the US clearly making its way over the Atlantic to the UK in the past weeks now sees two incredible activities that we have not seen in the past decade. The first early this week saw the Bank of England making at least £11bn available to UK banks to improve … [Link]
House prices flat, slide or crash ?
If a press release issued by the Halifax in February is to be believed, ‘house price inflation will be flat’ in 2008. Either this is a case of wishful thinking or the press office simply forgot to check the figures before they wrote it. In the six years between the third quarters of 2001 and 2007 … [Link]
Microsoft to Purchase Yahoo ?
Microsoft made a surprise unsolicited offer to purchase Yahoo! today. The offer of $31 per share was slightly lower than the closing stock price of Yahoo and sees Microsoft seizing on Yahoo’s current troubles. Yahoo’s profits are sliding rapidly as it loses out to Google in the search advertising stakes and Microsoft has longed to compete head on … [Link]
Crazy Egg Web Conversions
There’s a new service to improve your website conversions from Crazy Egg Strange name I know but this little website monitors who clicks on what links on the pages on your site. The Crazy Egg site at www.crazyegg.com is an updated service from others that have tried the same. But in addition it produces a heat map … [Link]
Company Formation Help
If you are thinking of starting a new business one of the things you’ll need to do if you want a limited company is to actually form the company properly. You can do this online with one of the company formation agents and this normally takes a few hours. A new site dedicated to offering formation … [Link]
House prices flat, slide or crash ?
If a press release issued by the Halifax in February is to be believed, ‘house price inflation will be flat’ in 2008. Either this is a case of wishful thinking or the press office simply forgot to check the figures before they wrote it. In the six years between the third quarters of 2001 and 2007 […] [Link]
Unsecured Business Finance
If you are thinking of starting a new small business or have an existing business that you are expanding then it’s likely you’ll need some form of financing to get things started or to improve your immediate cash flow.Certainly new business owners find things difficult when it comes to financing because a) they have no … [Link]
Microsoft to Purchase Yahoo ?
Microsoft made a surprise unsolicited offer to purchase Yahoo! today. The offer of $31 per share was slightly lower than the closing stock price of Yahoo and sees Microsoft seizing on Yahoo’s current troubles. Yahoo’s profits are sliding rapidly as it loses out to Google in the search advertising stakes and Microsoft has longed to compete head on […] [Link]
Surviving the Credit Crunch in 2008
At the moment we are being bombarded with cautions about the UK economy and the impact that bank losses on US sub-prime mortgages are having on it. Meanwhile £56 billion pounds of public money has been committed to Northern Rock; an ‘investment’ that was made by the current government in the full knowledge that it was insolvent at … [Link]
Self Assessment Filing Date Extended
HM Revenue and Customs have extended this years self assessment tax filing deadline by one day until 1st February 2008. As reported earlier today, the computer systems that manage the online filing of self assessment tax returns crashed “sometime early on Thursday morning” which in turn left thousands of people unable to file their self assessment … [Link]
HMRC Self Assessment Website Crashes
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) confirmed that their website that handles the online filing for self assessment tax returns crashed “sometime on Thursday morning” Today, January 31st is the last day people can file their self assessment tax returns online and last year 150,000 people filed on the final day. If people file late, they are … [Link]
Protx Invests in Customer Services
A note from the MD of Protx to its customers today shows the results of their recent survey and details how they are dramatically improving their customer support for their customers. The full note from their MD is below. First of all, a big thank you to everybody who participated in the research survey we sent … [Link]
Stock Market Crash News
We weren’t going to write news about the recent stock market crash but events today may have change commentators’ perception of what is really going on in the world economies. This may be slightly old new but most commentators had previously agreed that the US is currently in a recession although no one currently really knows how deep the recession … [Link]
Small Business Startups
There are more that 500,000 small business startups in the UK each year. Additionally over 300,000 small businesses fail or close down each year. It’s never been easy starting and running your own business but with careful planning you can avoid being one of the failure statistics and actually enjoy paying your annual tax bill […] [Link]
Small Business Startups
There are more that 500,000 small business startups in the UK each year. Additionally over 300,000 small businesses fail or close down each year. It’s never been easy starting and running your own business but with careful planning you can avoid being one of the failure statistics and actually enjoy paying your annual tax bill […] [Link]
Self Assessment Tax Returns Are Due Now
If you are like most people in the UK you need to complete your self-assessment tax return each year. The deadline for final submissions is looming and the last date for filing is January 31st 2008. You’ll also need to pay any tax owing to HMRC by this date as well. Thousands of people last year […] [Link]
Jeremy Clarkson Published His Bank Account Details Then Lost Money
In a bold move to be smug and suggest that bank accounts can’t be used to steal money by crooks, Jeremy Clarkson published his own personal bank account details in his Sun newspaper column assuming nothing would happen. Then surprisingly (sic) someone has set up a direct debit to pay £500 into a Diabetes charity account. The […] [Link]
Installing MSN Messenger - twice
Why oh why does Microsoft make life so difficult for regular computer users ? So I thought I needed to download MSN messenger as people are always trying to contact me online (rather than the telephone of course) so searched for MSN messenger from Google. I got to the messenger home page but no download link. […] [Link]
Poor Christmas Trading at Currys
The owner of Currys and PC World has issued a profits warning after poor Christmas sales. It said that like for like sales fell 1% but computer sales fell 11% in the 11 weeks to December 29th 2007 The shares in its parent company DSG fell 20% after they said that profits could be up to […] [Link]
Self Assessment Tax Deadline Looms
The annual deadline to submit your self assessment tax forms is still January 31st - and this year is not exception. If you file your tax return late you’ll get a fine of £100 (and you’ll still need to pay your tax of course) You can file your tax return online and 2 million tax payers […] [Link]
Testing Small Business Website Changes
The great thing about having an internet business is that you can make a change to your website and see instant results. The trouble is, what happens if your sales start to slow down or your conversion ratio suffers? Was it the changes you made or something else like traffic changes or are people waiting? If […] [Link]
UK Record Trade Deficit
In the three months from July to September, the UK recorded its worse current account deficit in history at 5.7% of GDP - a higher % than the US whose economy runs ahead of ours. In fact, whilst the UK economy was growing the then Chancellor (now PM) should have really been squiraling it all away […] [Link]
More Data Lost by HMRC
Today is another dreadful day for the folks who collect our taxes over at HMRC. Two more batches of personal data have gone missing. The first happened over in the US on Monday where our UK data from driving tests including names, addresses and phone numbers on a computer hard drive had gone missing - this […] [Link]
Check Your Spelling
It’s really amazing how much “stuff” is online - millions and millions of documents with people blogging about their lives, adding articles and content to bait the search engines to earn adsense revenues and then millions attempting to make it as internet entreprenuers. But it still amazes me how many folks either mis-spell easy words or […] [Link]
Good IT Security Practices
Good IT Security Practices. – an introduction! This is translated to: how secure is your data. Questions to ask your self are – How important is your data to you, and – how important is your data to your competitor. How should we secure our business against data loss (or corruption), as ultimately that is what we […] [Link]
Different types of computer networks
A Guide to different types of networks Businesses using more than one computer will most likely need a data network to share common files, databases, software and hardware, making the day-to-day running of the business more efficient and profitable. The benefits of networks • Computer users can save money by being able to share printers, scanners, external disks, […] [Link]
ukbusinessforums sells for £250,000
So who said that running a forum would make no money. A few weeks ago ukbusinessforums sold for a whopping £250,000 - the forum was purchased in 2004 and built up so they now have 300,000 posts and nearly 15,000 members (although only 4000 are “active”) Most internet entrepreneurs will tell you that the money is in […] [Link]
Inland Revenue Sheffield Offices
Here are the local Inland Revenue Sheffield Offices - find your local VAT, Customs and Excise or Inland Revenue location office details here : Inland Revenue Sheffield Concept House 5 Young Street Sheffield S1 4LA Telephone: 01142 969696 Customs & Excise Sheffield Area Imperial House 7 Victoria Street Grimsby DN31 1DB VAT Valuations Office Sheffield Cathedral Court 1 Vicar Lane Sheffield S1 1HD Telephone 0114 289 4600 If there are other […] [Link]
Online VAT Calculator
This online VAT calculator calculates the net and gross amounts and show how much VAT there is in a purchase to subtract for your accounts or the value of VAT you should add to an amount to produce the gross value. All figures are at the current VAT rate of 17.5% - either enter the […] [Link]
Inland Revenue Leeds Office
Here are the contact details for the Inland Revenue Leeds offices Inland Revenue Leeds City Centre 31 Castle House Lisbon St Leeds LS1 4SA Tel: 0113 228 3000 Inland Revenue Leeds Wakefield 127 Crown House Kirkgate Wakefield WF1 1JL Tel: 0845 302 1467 Inland Revenue Shipley Crown House Victoria Street Shipley BD177TW Inland Revenue Bradford 1 St. Blaise Wy Bradford, BD1 4XY Tel: 0845 302 1432 Inland Revenue Halifax 6 Southgate House Wards End Halifax HX1 […] [Link]
Affordable Self employed health insurance Plans
If you work for yourself then you should ensure you have self employed health insurance from a leading insurance company. Health insurance is vital if you have an accident, are on long term sick leave or get a disability at all because you still need a steady financial income to support you, your family and your everyday living […] [Link]
Wordpress Display Most Recent Posts
If you have a different index page (index.html or index.htm) and don’t use the home.php scenario wordpress wants you to use and need to display the last 10 posts (or say 5 most recent posts) it’s darn hard to find any information online about all this ! So after 4 hours of trawling the internet I […] [Link]
Best Small business accounting software UK
Welcome to our advice on the best small business accounting software in the UK. If you run a small business then you’ll need to get yourself some accounting software to help prepare your annual accounts and VAT returns accurately and to save your time rather than keeping manual books ! There are many accounting software packages […] [Link]
Credit Card Fraud No Longer a Crime
So we find out today that credit card fraud in the UK is no longer a criminal offence. The UK government has decided that is a person is a victim of credit card fraud they can not report it to the police as a crime and must simply report it to their bank. So it’s open […] [Link]
SME Business Directory
There’s a SME business directory that goes by the name of justsme (http://www.justsme.com/) and is reporting on the UKBF that he is getting a ton of first page/ number 1 spots for his search term of “SME Business Directory. The problem with this is that hardly anyone really searches for those terms. Even the more popular […] [Link]
VAT Flat Rate Scheme
HMRC operates a VAT flat rate scheme. This means that you simply pay a % of your turnover off to the goverment each month rather than calculate your own VAT return. So, it can save a lot of time and energy in completing your VAT return each month and keeping records of all your expenses (as […] [Link]
Google’s Supplemental Index
In the good old days Google only had one index. Its main index. But as the internet has grown Google needs to find ways to still continue to provide results quickly. And this is where the supplemental index came along. It’s mainly based around PR (page rank) - if you have thousands of low ranking pages […] [Link]
Internet Marketing Blog
Learn about internet marketing through our internet marketing blog - internet marketing these days is a tough and complex industry that encompasses not just search engine optimisation but pay per click advertising, email marketing, social bookmarketing, blogging, e-commerce, adsense, adwords - you name it. Although a lot of newbies may think it’s tough to get right […] [Link]
Budget 2007 Tax Rate Increase
So the fanfare of what is likely to be Gordon Brown’s last budget this March 2007 on the reduction of the personal tax rate from 22p to 20p had most of the tabloids fooled. Of course this is for 2008 and beyond - but even at the beginning of his speach he said it would be a neutral […] [Link]
Paypal Merchant Account Reduces Your Fees
Get a PayPal Merchant account - why? Because this will reduce the fees you pay to paypal from 3.2% to 2.9% OK, not much but why not ? You need to be earning $1500 per month or equivalent in your currency. We just applied for one of our sites of 4 years standing with Paypal and got […] [Link]
Michael Cheney’s Traffic Videos
Michael Cheney will release his traffic videos on Tuesday 3rd April. In the words of Michael “The product is going to be a COLLOSSAL collection of traffic videos (SEO, link building, YouTube, Blogging, Affiliate Marketing, Viral, Articles, Offline, Press Releases, Pay Per Click, MySpace, Ezines, Lead Gen, you get the idea! Think *comprehensive*.” Michael […] [Link]
The Three Layer SEO Approach
There has been much discussion over the years regarding the design of websites in respect of the search engine robots. The general rule seems to be that one should design a site for humans and not employ any ‘tricks’ to gain advantage. Whilst this is all well and good it has made me think how […] [Link]
Contact us
Contact us We welcome all comments about our site on how to improve and develop the service. Please use the form below to send us your comments and suggestions. Write for the small business site Do you run a small business ? Do you have something to say? Then let us know. If you would like to become […] [Link]
Google Links Operator Expanded
Brand new from Google is even more data about who links to your website. The Google links operator that anyone can use to see what links go to any site is rather outdated and only shows a selection of links. If you have a webmaster account (sign up top right hand corner of the google home […] [Link]
Small Business Loan Finance
Small business loan finance is almost a prerequisite when starting a new business. Generally the main problems when starting out are around cash flow finance. Your initial investment is for cash flow finance - this funding will be to develop your products or services, recruit staff, secure premises then launch and market your business - and all of this is well […] [Link]
Uneducated email #2
Further to my previous email I received full of spelling mistakes I got another one today. At least the write did not want my help - but just check it out… Dear Peter Firest of All I Should thank you for all the sation which you provied me and its relly halpfule .But what i can understande […] [Link]
Businessplan help
Your businessplan is the most important document you can ever write if you are thinking of starting or developing a business. Businessplans are easy to write and follow a certain structure. Luckily any entrepreneur can get hold of the right information online and quickly follow all the free templates - most of which are all […] [Link]
Should I Startup My Own Business ?
It’s a question that millions ask themselves each year and most of us want to be our own boss. No more 9 to 5, no more Dilbert Cubes and no more bosses that demand more and more each day. It’s because you can do it - can’t you ? So if you really think that a new […] [Link]