Test your Market for Proof
Before you begin your marketing efforts in earnest, it is good business practice, almost essential in fact, to speak to a sample of your target audience first. By doing this […]
Getting Past the Gatekeepers
Roughly only 20% of B2B telephone cold calls reach the decision makers on the first call. You need to recognise that persistence is important if you are going get through the […]
Satisfaction Guaranteed?
A ‘just’ satisfied customer isn’t really good enough, only delighted ones will spread the words that encourage others to have the same experience. So how do you know what your […]
Live Long and Prosper – Financing for Growth
As you get bigger, there are three key elements to managing business growth; the operations, the marketing and the finance. If finance isn’t your thing then recognise when you need […]
Feasibility and/or Viability? – Business Maths
A feasibility study, may well provide the reasons not to proceed; It may enable the exploration of other new options to be thoroughly investigated. Above all it is concerned with providing qualitative and quantitative information that helps effective decision making.
Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics – Business Maths
A quote commonly attributed it to Benjamin Disraeli. However, it is far too easy to suggest that business maths has no relevance. The importance of numbers and management information is […]
Getting Paid – Business Finance
A few statistical facts: 25% of all business failures are a direct result of cash flow problems. 90% of business owners say they would pay their suppliers promptly if they […]
Competitor Intelligence – marketing
As Prime Minister John Major once quipped when asked why he didn’t sack the dissenters in his cabinet, “Keep your friends close…and your enemies closer still.” A quote attributed to 6th Century […]
Zut Alors! – Business Contracts
The French translation of drat, damn and blast. Don’t you think it has so much more passion than the English equivalent? French or its English translation is the polite version […]
Best Price – really?
There are businesses that have made a fortune piling high and selling cheap. When I first started working with New Look that was very much their strategy and may still […]
The Love Bug – business contingencies
Fifteen years ago the Love Bug virus cost the global economy billions. Around 10% of UK businesses were affected in one way or another. Even the House of Commons closed […]
What’s a Smile Worth?
50 years ago, Harvey Ball designed the iconic Smiley Face. Its aim was to ease the acrimony following a merger of two insurance companies. The graphic supported a friendship campaign […]
How Far has your Bottle Gone?
No doubt (at all) that you set out some objectives for your business this year. You popped them in a proverbial bottle and sent them sailing. How far have they […]
The Dirty Dozen
Human error is estimated to cost over 3.5% of business turnover worldwide. There are three industries that are considered to be the highest risk. They are Health, Nuclear, and Naval […]
What’s your Business Worth?
It is not too difficult to find out how much your car is worth or indeed your house but as a small business owner one of your personal assets may […]
The GOAL Keeper
Whether we like it or not setting goals is a powerful way of making sure you get things done. Research done by Yale university found that in 1992, only […]
Portal Projects – Getting through the Door
For most of us in the service sector we can be all things to all people and can advise on myriad subjects. The ideal position in our target organisations is […]
Fly in the Face of …
An idiom – to be the opposite of what is usual or accepted His decision to start his own business certainly flies in the face of good judgment. What’s […]
Validating the Vision
The eureka moment for any small business is not that you have found a gap in the market but that you have found a market in the gap. This blog […]
Focus V Balance?
Juggling what needs to be done and what should be done and what is fun to do can be tricky. The fun stuff can start to impinge on the stuff […]
Plate Spinning
When you listen to this track Spinning Around by Jump5 you’re going to wonder what planet I’ve been on for the last month – not posting an’ all. However, if […]
Aristotle on Business Values
In my last blog – The Community Footprint – we looked at values as a pivotal to the ethics of your business. The WessexFM story proves that business comes from […]
Dare to be Different
Of all the marketing strategies diversification is the most risky. The other options for growing your business; infiltrating your current market, producing a new product or service for your current […]
The F1 Formula
Performance at the edge … What can we learn from F1? The Pit Stop Identify the critical processes in your business: which parts of your business give you a competitive […]
What Makes You Stand Out?
The final killer question in my last Blog post was … what one key performance indicator measures your dramatic business differentiator. Easy for me to ask! However, we all know […]
The End is Nigh … where are we now?
A bit of a dramatic statement of fact. Do I have your attention? I am referring of course to the end of this financial year; an ideal time as any […]
Fat Cats
It’s a long time ago – 14 years now. I was Managing Director of Excel Clothing, struggling to pay off its outgoing directors dividends and its Chartered Accountant owner and […]
New Beginnings
I read an article on keeping new year’s resolutions (as you do at this time of year) and was immediately taken with one of the suggestions. It was to share […]
Let me tell you a story
Over the last couple of weeks the benefit of telling stories (not untruths of course) has come up in various different guises. The great thing about telling a story is […]
If you don’t ask …
If you don’t ask …You don’t get; won’t get but more importantly in business if your business connections don’t know what you want, you can’t possibly get. Rudyard Kipling oft […]
Back of an Envelope
It’s another of those quirky idioms. It refers to a quick and dirty calculation jotted on a scrap of paper. However quick and dirty, the impact is only achieved if […]
