The Barriers and Benefits of Social Media with Micro-Businesses

JKConsultancy — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:34:59 +0100

Social Media requires planning, time and effort. Don’t worry about having the knowledge to operate social media effectively as this will come in time. Micro-Business owners of Beauty Salons, Restaurants, Shops and a vast array of business types are extremely talented in their specialist fields. Ok you’re not Marketers but you are experts in your field of business and you should be promoting your knowledge and expertise to tell your audience why they should buy from you over your competitors. The explosion of Social Media usage in society really has been a game changer and represents a monumental shift in communication, marketing and technology.

Power to the People!

LemonLtd — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:01:40 +0100

'A company's character is known by the people it keeps.' - John Ruskin

In business, the fine margin between success and failure will be defined by the level of service your customer receives from your people.

The hallelujah moment is when you realise that the best way to create a WOW experience for your customers is to first create a WOW experience for your people.

How do you achieve that WOW factor?

First and foremost by employing people with the correct attitude to work. You need people who take pride in their work, enjoy working as a team and understand what it is to represent your brand. Anything less simply won't do.

Once you have your people, you need to nurture them. It's a culmination of things that will build a positive working environment. Empower your people to achieve. Inspire them to continually raise the bar for themselves. Believe in them and ensure that EVERYONE is aware of the integral role they play in the success off the business, no matter what role they play. Make excellence a habit; instil it into everything your people do.

5 Tangible Ways To Improve Your Website

LauraA — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:53:12 +0100

One of the best methods to advertise and market your products and services is to create a branded website. The importance of a website in this climate cannot be underestimated. Tech retail giants, Amazon and eBay, have transformed the way in which people shop to the extent that ecommerce is now thriving in contrast to their bricks-and-mortars high street grandfathers.

Equally, websites are one of the first resources the average consumer or professional uses to check out a brand or seek out market alternatives. The smallest of niche businesses to the largest of global multi-national corporates has the ability to build a high-performing website and thus attract a variety of target customers.

Ensuring the site performs well for search engines and adequately generates customer conversions requires ongoing investment, as well as being somewhat of an art and a science.

Here are five top areas to review your website in order make it more customer-centric, and in doing so to make you more money:-

I is for Increasing Prices

TheProfitMechanic — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:03:30 +0100

Increasing your prices might feel like the last thing you should be doing in these difficult business times – but don’t dismiss the idea too quickly. Yes, there are businesses making huge profits selling cheap things to mass markets. They are typically large and based on high volumes and big purchasing power – which may not be a model you want to replicate for your business. For the rest of us, struggling with low pricing can be draining and stop you moving your business forward – and yet increasing your prices can be easier than you think.

Follow these steps:

Dear world leaders: What entrepreneurs want from the G8 Summit

Dan Martin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:12:35 +0100

With the eyes of the world on a luxury hotel in Northern Ireland, we asked entrepreneurs what message they'd like to give to the leaders at the G8 Summit.

Arnab Dutt, managing director, Texane:
"As the G8 debates, I doubt if we will get an agreement that stops corporate tax avoidance or halts the conflict in Syria. What the G8 can do is expedite the work towards free trade especially stopping the farm subsidies in the USA and EU that are a unnecessary and harmful barrier to export from the most poverty stricken countries. I believe completion of the free trade agreement between the EU and USA must be the most important priority and making banks lend to SMEs which is a problem in all the G8 countries except for Germany and China."

Why Content isn’t King!

JKConsultancy — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 20:17:01 +0100

If “Content is King” then Marketing and Advertising is dead. Consumers may be suffering from advertising saturation on our TV’s, Radio, the internet, newspapers and social media sites but I truly believe that good Marketing can make Advertising & Marketing relevant and appealing.

Research Findings

G8 Summit [LIVE VIDEO AND IMAGES]

Dan Martin — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 15:25:37 +0100

A live video and image stream of press conferences and announcements from the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland.

Customers are Customers - Don't discriminate

PowerHour — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:52:55 +0100

I have recently had terrible problems with my broadband. Not only is it slow at the best of times (typically we get a speed of 0.5 MBps), but for the last week it has being going AWOL for increasingly large portions of time. This is something of a disaster when much of your work requires you to be on-line.

So, I contacted my broadband supplier. I spent 40 minutes on the phone and after being taken rigorously through their flowchart, I hadn’t learned anything I didn’t already know. I had to terminate the call as I really had to leave for a meeting, so had no resolution. The next day I called again, and went through the whole process from the beginning with a different adviser. During the call my broadband returned (temporarily) so the adviser declared the fault fixed. I knew better and asked for an engineer.

Their process wouldn’t allow the adviser to book an engineer as, at that particular moment, I didn’t have a problem. However, after escalating the matter, the supervisor did at least agree to send out a new router to see if that would help.

Data safer in the clouds

Best Online Accounting — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:43:04 +0100

Interesting research by Microsoft has been released via a little noted research note which suggests that UK SMEs may be missing out because of their anxiety about data privacy and security.

Microsoft looked at just over 200 British SMEs, approximately half of which had switched some of their operations from purely in-house computer software and hardware to cloud-based technologies.

The research notes that of those, seven in 10 reported making savings as a result of the switch.

Smile If You Want Increased Customer Loyalty!

andyhanselman — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:00:25 +0100

Is there a particular local business that you regularly go to because you always get a warm welcome? Well, you’re not alone!

59% of UK consumers say that a smile with a warm greeting is the most common reason why they feel loyal to a small business! That’s according to a new report carried out by The Small Business Research Centre at Kingston University for Barclays Bank.

It might seem obvious stuff, but interestingly, only about half of the country’s small businesses are actually doing it! Only 54% said that that they made a practice of doing it!

The research found that the 3 key factors in securing customer loyalty were…

Female business owners hampered by childcare problems, says entrepreneur awarded an MBE

Dan Martin — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:16:57 +0100

Juggling looking after a family and running a business still presents problems for female entrepreneurs.

That's the claim of notonthehighstreet.com's Sophie Cornish, who with her co-founder Holly Tucker was awarded an MBE in the Queen's birthday honours.

Speaking to the Press Association, Cornish said the majority of the business owners using her retail platform to sell their goods are women.

The rise and rise of peer to peer lending in the UK

pineconemedia — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:52:11 +0100

The banking industry has had a monopoly on business lending for years in the UK. Businesses that required money to startup or expand went to a bank for a loan and crossed their fingers that they would say yes. Today these people have a legitimate alternative to using banks when they need money quickly whilst not paying ridiculous rates offered by awful pay day loan companies which really should all be shut down. This alternative is called peer to peer lending and is currently a hot topic in UK lending.

What is Peer to Peer Lending?

Small business confidence at three-year high but access to credit remains tough [INFOGRAPHIC]

Dan Martin — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 09:37:50 +0100

Confidence among small firms is at its highest level for three years but many companies are still struggling to access bank finance, according to the latest report from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).

Presenting figures for the second quarter of 2013, the FSB said every UK region has a positive confidence reading for the first time since 2010 and every area saw both a quarter-on quarter and year-on-year increase in confidence.

More small employers are planning to increase staffing levels compared to the first three months of the year, while 15% said their exports will increase over the next quarter.

But it wasn't all positive.

Athough bank credit is cheaper now than a year ago, firms are still struggling to access finance, the report found.

Fewer applied for new credit in the second quarter than a year ago and the success rate for applications fell back, while the majority of small businesses found credit availability poor.

British entrepreneurs join hundreds in Russia in fight to prevent 'lost generation'

Dan Martin — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 20:54:31 +0100

With young people almost three times more likely than adults to be unemployed, 10 business owners based in Britain are among 500 entrepreneurs gathered in Russia to come up with recommendations to address issues facing young people across the world.

The group, supported by he Welsh government, was convened by Glynn Pegler and Alex Mitchell, co-founders of Young Brits Network, and forms the UK gathering at the fifth G20 Young Entrepreneur Alliance Summit (G20 YEA) currently taking place in Moscow, Russia.

Youth unemployment tops the agenda as well as ways to boost the amount of young people who set up their own business. The delegates' recommendations will inform the official G20 YEA Communique presented to the B20 business leaders and G20 world leaders at the Saint Petersburg Summit in September.

Pegler said: "I set up my business when I was 15 out of frustration at the lack of opportunities for young people in the UK.

Social Media Research on Micro-Businesses

JKConsultancy — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 14:13:10 +0100

Do micro-businesses not exist in the UK? Upon conducting research for my honours Dissertation I was shocked at how little research and information was available about micro-businesses and SME’s for that matter also. An official definition of a micro-business is an organisation which has 10 or fewer employees with an annual turnover of €2m or less. All UK private sector businesses comprise of 99.9% SME’s with sole-traders accounting for 62.7% of the total market. Therefore a substantial portion of UK businesses are operated by micro-businesses whom are mainly sole-traders.

Honours for entrepreneurs in Queen's birthday gongs

Dan Martin — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 08:17:04 +0100

The founders of retail platform notonthehighstreet.com, the woman who introduced the UK to mobile phone pre-pay top-ups and ex-BBC Dragon Hilary Devey are among the business people honoured by the Queen.

Holly Tucker and Sophie Cornish, the entrepreneurs behind the e-commerce platform for small companies, receive MBEs in the annual list of prizes announced on the monarch's birthday.

Awarded a CBE is Dale Murray who co-founded Omega Logic in UK and introduced the technology that allowed pre-pay mobile phone users to top up their handset at shops and banks.

The same honour goes to Hilary Devey for services to the transport industry and charity. She made her millions through her freight haulage business, Pall-Ex, and has since built up a media profile as a panellist on BBC TV's Dragons' Den.

Approaching Difficult Conversations with Confidence

christinapd — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:48:38 +0100

This week I’m continuing on my theme setting out some of the most difficult situations managers have to face. Last week I wrote about How to make Managing Poor Performance Easy, and this week I set out the steps I believe are essential to successfully hold those difficult conversations, which only become easier with experience and practice.

Being a success online: The business essentials

Dan Martin — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 12:39:29 +0100

Getting a small business online can be very daunting. Where do you start? What needs to be done? Nadine Bourne of XLN Business Services offers up some vital expertise for confused business owners, whether they're unsure where to start or just looking to tidy up their efforts.

Is your small business on the web? A recent study from pbSmart Essentials suggests that it probably is. Rising numbers of small businesses are increasing their investment in online methods of marketing, and with good reason. The internet is an extraordinarily powerful tool when it comes to reaching consumers and getting them to interact with your business.

So what can small business owners do to ensure they're using the right approach for the internet? While it takes time to implement a full online strategy, the tips listed below should cover the basics.

1. Centralising your efforts

Your online activity needs a centralised hub.

read more

Social media and the business of entertainment: Running a concert hall in the recession [VIDEO]

Dan Martin — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 11:45:53 +0100

Louise Mitchell, CEO of Bristol Music Trust, which runs Colston Hall in Bristol, one of the South West's biggest and oldest concert halls, discusses the key role social media plays in promoting concerts and how with the economic downturn and public funding drying up, charity-run organisations need to think like businesses.

Government pledges to help 1.6m small firms grow their online presence

Dan Martin — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 11:14:31 +0100

David Cameron will today unveil a new government strategy aimed at making it easier for businesses to access public services via the web and help more than a million SMEs grow online.

The 'information economy strategy' will be launched at the G8 Innovation Conference in London.

Among the key actions are a new programme to help 1.6 million SMEs scale up their business online over the next five years. The initiative will target companies that either are not online, or want to improve their current online efforts so they can do things like process electronic payments and sell goods overseas.