Welcome to our new Area Manager Lynn Brookes

Dotty Directory is delighted to welcome Lynn Brookes as our new Area Manager for Warrington responsible for sales and marketing of both Warrington Connection and the Warrington Wedding Directory.

Lynn brings a wealth of experience including sales, business development and marketing and we are sure she will prove to be a very significant addition to the Dotty Directory team.

Businesses advertising on Warrington Connection and the Warrington Wedding Directory will be linked to over 150 other websites and dozens of Facebook pages throughout the UK, giving both local and national exposure for one small annual cost. It costs just £25 plus vat A YEAR to advertise on either Warrington Connection or the Warrington Wedding Directory.

Lynn will be introducing Warrington businesses to the unique marketing opportunity offered by Dotty Directory. If you would like more information please call Lynn on 07801 355345 or our head office on 01824 719005 or email us at support@dottydirectory.com.

Torfaen Wedding Directory - 100 Likes!

Dotty Directory is delighted to announce that the Torfaen Wedding Directory Facebook page now has more than 100 ‘Likes’, a remarkable effort by our Area Manager Kersty Evans in such a short space of time.

Businesses advertising on the Torfaen Wedding Directory are now benefitting from increased exposure – at no extra cost. And we won’t stop there. Kersty has plans to increase her team and continue to promote the Torfaen Wedding Directory, and encourage more businesses to advertise on this unique website.

It only costs £25 plus vat A YEAR to advertise on the Torfaen Wedding Directory and advertising is only available to businesses based in Torfaen. Please contact Kersty on 07460 370059 for more information.

Please click here to visit the Torfaen Wedding Directory Facebook page

Please click here to visit the Torfaen Wedding Directory website

Introducing the Ruthin Online Facebook page.

Dotty Directory is delighted to announce that the new Ruthin Online Facebook page is now available. 

We will use the page to highlight businesses in and around Ruthin and link to our highly successful website Ruthin Online.

Already over 90 Ruthin businesses are advertising on Ruthin Online and over 100 other websites managed by Dotty Directory. Setting up the Ruthin Online Facebook page marks the next stage in the development of the Dotty Directory brand.

Any business advertising on Ruthin Online can now take advantage of our free News service and any news published on the Ruthin Online website will also be published on the Ruthin Online Facebook page.

Don’t forget to click Like on the Ruthin Online Facebook page and get all the latest news on your Facebook page whilst helping local, Ruthin based businesses.

Click here to visit the Ruthin Online Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ruthin-Online/183500025166436

Click here to visit the Ruthin Online website: www.ruthinonline.co.uk

Employers Battle Rising Sickness Levels

As National Stress Awareness day approaches (6 November), employers are being reminded that healthy and happy workers mean a boost to the bottom line.

Although the average absence level is now 7.6 days per employee, the number of employers making changes to working patterns to try and reduce long-term absence levels has increased by 20% in the last year, according to the CIPD, the professional body for HR and people development.

John Telfer, Managing Director of Investors in People South, which manages the Investors in People Standard in London and the South, said: “It is very encouraging to hear that so many employers are realising that making a few simple changes can bring huge benefits. It will take time for any change to take effect so we should not be discouraged by the fact that sickness levels have increased slightly.”

Every year 140 million working days1 are lost to sickness absence and employers pay sick pay and associated costs of £9 billion a year.

“Managing the health of employees goes way beyond offering gym membership or free fruit – it is vital that staff feel valued,” continued John Telfer. “Saying thank you, and genuinely meaning it, can be a huge motivator and have a huge impact on a person’s wellbeing.

“It is much more about prevention rather than reacting to a situation. Ensure supportive and effective management at all levels of an organisation and it will lead to enhanced business performance.”

Click here to read the original article: "Employers Battle Rising Sickness Levels"

Net Bank Lending to Small Businesses Falls

Bank lending to businesses fell by £2.3bn in the three months to August, new BoE figures show.

Bank lending to small and medium businesses fell in the three months to August, according to figures published by the Bank of England today.

The Trends in Lending report showed that net lending to businesses of all sizes fell by £2.3bn. 

The news raises questions over the effectiveness of the government's Funding for Lending scheme and will add to calls for banks to open up more to small companies.

John Hoskin, of SME accountants CleverAccounts.com, said: "As ever SMEs are still finding it harder to secure funds from the banks. While SMEs can now turn to alternative forms of finance, they still have fewer options than larger companies, who can always go cap in hand to the capital markets or consider asset-based finance.

"Many smaller businesses, by contrast, just haven't got the the assets and security the banks are looking for.”

On the other hand, banks claim that there is a reduced appetite from some well established SMEs for more credit as they are keen to bootstrap and wary of the risks of borrowing. 

The figures suggest an increasing number of SMEs repaying their debts, which can make net lending figures look worse than they are. 

Anthony Browne, chief executive of the British Bankers Association yesterday said: "Net lending is down because many SMEs are deciding to pay off their existing debts - which presumably they are doing because it is good for them. New lending is growing, but it is outpaced by debts being paid off." 

Increasing numbers of firms are also turning to alternative funding sources like P2P lending, crowdfunding and asset finance as an alternative to banks. 

Adam Tavener of pensionledfunding.com said: "We can only continue to seek a more collaborative approach to lending, which will allow traditional funders to provide a broader range of credit opportunities that will maximise the chances of supporting the businesses now keen to be a part of the UK’s resurgence.”

Click here to read the original article: "Net Bank Lending to Small Businesses Falls"

David Cameron’s £2,000 tax cut for small businesses

The Prime Minister will highlight Coalition plans to give businesses a new “employment allowance” to reduce their employer national insurance bills.

Big companies could also face fines if they delay payments to small suppliers, the Prime Minister will disclose.

Mr Cameron will present the policies as evidence that the Coalition is backing small firms, “the lifeblood of our economy”. His move comes after Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, sought to appeal to small businesses, promising to cut their business rates by increasing corporation tax for big firms.

Legislation for the new tax allowance will be published today. Downing Street said the measure, promised in this year’s Budget, will benefit 1.25 million companies, 450,000 of whom will no longer pay any national insurance. Over 90 per cent of the benefit of the allowance will go to small businesses with fewer than 50 employees, the Government said.

Speaking to business leaders in the east of England, Mr Cameron will stress the Coalition’s commitment to small firms. “It’s businesses that get wages in people’s pockets, food on their tables, hope for their families and success for our country,” he will say. “Small business and entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of our economy and this government is firmly on their side.”

Mr Cameron will also promise to address a persistent complaint of small firms: the time big customers take to pay them for goods and services.

Some surveys show that 85 per cent of small and medium-sized companies have recently experienced problems with late payment. Katja Hall of the CBI said that late payment is a serious issue for all businesses “but particularly for smaller firms, as cash flow is their life blood”.

Although there are rules that companies can use to compel bigger firms to pay more quickly, many smaller companies do not use them “for fear of falling out with their customers,” she said.

Mr Cameron will unveil a range of measures ministers are considering to push big firms to pay up more quickly.

Persistent late payers could effectively be named and shamed under new transparency plans, to highlight good and bad records on payment.

Click here to read the original article: "David Cameron’s £2,000 tax cut for small businesses"

How to Work with Big Companies to Grow a Small Business

No matter how brilliant your business idea or how unique your product, if you don't find a way to get it out to a broader market, growing the business will be a slow process. One way to accelerate growth and create stability is to strike a deal or establish a partnership with a big company. It's also a way to give your startup validity.

"Having a partnership or a business relationship with a larger company gives you credibility," says entrepreneur Julie Hall. "It is an immediate tick in the box under the trust factor." Her business Women Unlimited, a resource for women in business, set up a partnership with the British Library in the early days. "Being able to put the British Library badge on my site was great, it gave us a level of trust in the marketplace that wouldn't have existed anywhere else," she explains.

For environmentally friendly minicab company Green Tomato Cars, securing the first big customer was a question of being in the right place at the right time. "When we launched in 2006, we were lucky to get some good press coverage and in the first two weeks we got a call from BskyB where James Murdoch was still in charge. One day when his chauffeur was off Murdoch wanted to try our service after reading about us, so we got the call to book a car for him," explains founder Jonny Goldstone.

"Fortunately, one of our five cars was available and the driver who picked him up knew all about our business, bought into what we were doing and could speak enthusiastically about it. They had a great conversation and the following week we were called in to present to the procurement team at BskyB, which was amazing."

It was a real breakthrough for the small company, but striking these large deals is not without risks. The challenge of delivering on their promise proved tough for Green Tomato Cars. BskyB staff were told to use the cars, but the startup struggled to meet the demand.

"We were lucky because they were hugely supportive of our vision and our need to grow the business and they went out of their way to champion us and introduce us to other clients and partners," says Goldstone. "They are not the only big clients who have really helped us but it is a great example of a big company working with a small company for mutual benefit and now we are Sky's main supplier and have grown with their requirements."

Getting through the door is often the biggest challenge. Anna Lewis, co-founder of e-publishing startup ValoBox, which launched in 2010, says navigating her way around large publishing firms in search of a partnership has been frustrating at times. "Figuring out who to talk to is a challenge. The person who is going to assess what you are doing will often be the one who goes to digital book publishing conferences and is open to new ideas, but then you will need to speak to the person who is actually implementing the idea," she says.

Her advice is to find someone who is enthusiastic about your business and focus on them rather than the company. "It is hugely valuable to have an internal champion, so I have learnt to ask them what I can do to help make the partnership happen," she explains.

Women Unlimited entrepreneur Julie Hall says targeted networking will get you the attention of the right people. She says: "Use your existing network to get connected with other people, go to industry related events and conferences and put yourself forward as an expert around a particular topic.

"This is not the kind of thing where you pick up the phone and go in and meet somebody and they will want to partner with you. It is a long-term game and you need to engage with the key players and decision makers. Meet with them, offer them some reasons to trust you and slowly that partnership will naturally develop."

Though Green Tomato founder Goldstone has reaped the rewards of working with several big businesses, he has experienced some downsides to being a small business working with the big players. One challenge is late payments. He said: "As a small services business, we're relatively low in the pecking order and we get that, but I think that big companies more than small ones have a duty, moral as well as legal, to do business ethically and if they are going to use your services they should pay for them in a timely fashion."

He says confidence is crucial: "It's vital to have somebody on board at a sufficiently senior level who you can be pretty confident will be treated right when you agree the terms, especially around payment, and you don't fear it is just going to be pushed between accounts and procurement to get paid."

Rigid structures and resistance to flexibility in the big businesses can be a source of frustration for Hall who says agreeing a pilot model would often be the best option. "Too often, it is all or nothing and it just doesn't work if you want to move quickly and try things out because you need to get agreement from so many people within the organisation," she explains.

It's important to remember that it is not just the startup that benefits from the partnership. "While big companies have to sign off among 10 people to make quite a simple decision, we can literally turn on a dime," says ValoBox co-founder Lewis. "Startups are more likely to have their ear to the ground, they are more innovative and faster and they'll probably be more creative and daring, so big businesses will gain a lot from the relationship too."

Click here to read the original article: "How to Work with Big Companies to Grow a Small Business"

Home Businesses Number 2.5 million

Small business owners operating from home now number 2.5 million in the UK, accounting for 52 per cent of all small businesses, according to Direct Line for Business (DL4B).

DL4B's analysis of Office for National Statistics data revealed that:

• Home business owners account for eight per cent of the total UK workforce
• Men are more than twice as likely than women to run a business from home
• There are 432,742 home workers in the south east of England, compared with 68,160 in the north east
• More than a quarter (27 per cent) of all workers in Herefordshire are home business owners.

DL4B's research found that, when starting out, home business owners tend to prioritise operational tasks over issues such as arranging their tax and insurance affairs. DL4B said this was 'particularly concerning' given that almost three quarters of all home businesses keep stock - worth an average £4,388 - at home.

Jazz Gakhal, head of DL4B, said: "We urge anyone looking to operate as a business from home to organise home business insurance from the start. The potential emotional and financial loss from an accident or theft could be devastating. For example, stock stored at home may not be covered by a standard home insurance policy and neither will cover public liability or loss of earnings due to an insurable event."

Click here to read the original article: "Home Businesses Number 2.5 million"

Federation of Small Businesses Throws Its Weight Behind Small Business Advice Week 2013

The countdown to this year’s Small Business Advice Week has officially started with the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) supporting the week.

Now entering its tenth year, Small Business Advice Week will be reaching out to companies across the UK to share best practice, tips and key business information to help create jobs and growth for the year ahead. The week’s aim is to help firms access finance, save money and get the best out of technology.

An estimated 4.8 million businesses are in operation across the UK, employing nearly 24 million people delivering a combined turnover of £3.1 trillion; small and medium size businesses (SMEs) account for 99.9 per cent of all private sector businesses supporting a workforce of 14 million people.

Phil Browne, an organiser of Small Business Advice Week 2013 says: "We've had five years of economic hardship, but despite some financial experts telling us how they’re starting to see tentative signs of recovery, it’s not rocket science to see how the average small business is still finding life incredibly tough. Our aim is to provide as much information as possible and to as many businesses as possible too.

"We're also encouraging business owners to contribute their own advice to our website on a number of subjects ranging from saving money and training staff, to new technology and future planning. You don’t even have to wait for September 2nd to start doing that – the website’s live now so I’d urge you to go and check it out".

Click here to read the original article: "Federation of Small Businesses Throws Its Weight Behind Small Business Advice Week 2013"

Engage with Social Networks, or be Ignored by Masses of Potential Clients

Every minute of the day, 100,000 tweets are sent, more than 600,000 pieces of content are shared on Facebook, 3,600 photos are shared on Instagram and 48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube, according to digital marketing consultant Scott Dylan.

Social media has changed the world; it has changed the way people communicate, and it has revolutionised the way that businesses seek to attract new customers and connect with their existing client base. With such a premium placed on connectivity, UK entrepreneur and business development expert Scott Dylan is warning businesses large and small that they must take social media as seriously as other sales platforms if they want to get ahead.

It is no secret that social media has, for a long time, been the future of business promotions and marketing. Some 53 per cent of people now recommend companies using Twitter, and around half of people who buy online have made a purchase based on a recommendation they found on a social network. The ability to connect on a more personal and approachable level through websites, such as Facebook and Google+, has opened up a whole world of opportunities for businesses seeking to further their digital marketing. The prospects cannot be ignored; if businesses engage with social media and digital promotions in the right way, they could greatly improve their own marketing strategies and become more profitable.

As the world’s most visited site, Facebook is one of those most responsible for the boom in digital marketing on social networks. Over 56 per cent of people check their Facebook accounts daily, and they recently bought out Instagram, another key promotional platform for certain businesses. It is not yet clear how the two networks will merge and enhance one another, but it is obvious that the social network and the photo-sharing app will combine to form one of the most important digital promotional tools around.

LinkedIn is a site strictly for professionals, and the professionals who use it reap the rewards of interacting with one another as well as their clients. One person joins LinkedIn every second of every day, and the site can not only help with promotions and marketing, it can also help with lead generation and follow-ups. With around 171m users altogether, business owners need to connect on LinkedIn to boost their social presence and create a professional persona for themselves.

Twitter has been touted as a news-sharing website, but businesses are finding new ways to promote their wares and their services on the network. Twitter is great for connecting with influential people, and a RT or endorsement from a powerful figure in a certain field can do wonders for follower counts and potential clients. It is widely stated that businesses have not yet harnessed the true power of Twitter as a marketing resource, with its convenient hashtags, integrated media posts and millions of daily users.

While these sites may be the headline grabbers, Dylan advises all department heads, CEOs and MDs to stray off the beaten path and be pro-active about keeping on top of social media trends. He says, “Other networks are also coming to prominence and making their mark on the world of digital communications and marketing. It would be a big mistake – and one that is committed often – to think that just knowing what Facebook is and having a company Twitter account is enough. Pinterest has won numerous breakthrough awards for its innovative design, and it offers companies the ability to share graphic representations of their services, or simply to share content their client base might find interesting.

Tumblr is a microblogging site which tends to attract a younger crowd and is ideal for the brands with a younger demographic. Google+, though often toted as one of the main social networks that businesses should be using, is starting to find its feet after it failed to hit the ground running when it launched. The social media outlook for 2013 is simple: engage with social networks, or be ignored by masses of potential clients.”

Click here to read the original article: "Engage with Social Networks, or be Ignored by Masses of Potential Clients"

27 Ways to Raise Your Company's Profile

Here are 27 ways to boost brand awareness, according to Catherine Woods - Best of Real Business

1. Consider stunts - Stunts may be risky but they can be very effective if done in a witty and relevant way, says author and “ideas man” Shed Simove. “The best are those that show you have the skills relevant to what a person wants,” he says.

Ling’s Cars founder Ling Valentine put a missile truck on the side of the A1 motorway to promote her firm. “People’s opinions changed from ‘you’re mad’ to ‘that’s clever’,” she says. “When Tony Blair forced me to remove the rocket, I was inundated with messages asking where it had gone, and was interviewed on radio and TV.”

2. Try something different - On occasion, it’s good to change tack, says Ronnie Bartlett. His family’s 60-year-old root vegetable business, Albert Bartlett, became a sponsor of iconic horse racing festival Cheltenham. He explains: “We’re getting to the male consumer because that can drive demand. Cheltenham is covered all across the world, so it’s huge exposure for us.

"There’s a lot of trade involved in the festival over the week; punters get to try our products. Everyone who eats a potato at Cheltenham will eat one of ours.”

3. Personalise and differentiate - Simove recommends adding a personal touch to your offering. “Target decision-makers but strike an emotional connection. Don’t do what everyone else will do,” he says.

“One time, to win a client, I found out all about the company’s boss, discovered his favourite character in Coronation Street was Mike Baldwin and then got the actor in question to sign a photo with a special message on it.”

4. Hire a PR firm for your business - It’s an oldie but a goodie. Hiring a good PR firm is one of the easiest ways to increase awareness of your business. Dean Horridge, founder of children’s activity company Fit for Sport, recently hired his first PR company.

“We were sending a lot of mixed messages about what we did through some of our initiatives – we wanted clarity on brand awareness across the UK,” he says.

5. Hire a PR firm for you - One of the services Rostrum Communications offers is “personal” PR. Founder Mark Houlding explains why it can be useful: “It can create credibility for the company by giving it a human face and personality, which can add value if you’re competing against larger firms with bigger budgets and brands.”

6. Pick a firm that knows your market - “An agency is not going to be able to do a great job of positioning your brand and finding the opportunities and dealing with journalists in a professional manner if it doesn’t know your market,” says Jay O’Connor, former MD of European operations for PR firm Racepoint Group. She also says it’s important to check a potential PR partner’s contacts and references.

7. Be eponymous - Valentine believes putting herself in the firing line has been the most successful tactic to raise the profile of her business. “Every other company in the car-leasing sector trades as a generic-style firm, such as XYZ Leasing, but I trade as myself. People know who they’re dealing with,” she says.

“Sticking my head above the parapet includes putting myself on TV [Valentine turned down funding on Dragons’ Den], representing myself on my webpage and personally taking care of my customers.”

8. Network online - The Results Academy founder Fraser Hay says he’s become well known through the use of online social networks such as Ecademy and Facebook. “I’ve been able to generate leads, get referrals from people in many different places and create pre-qualified prospects without having to cold call,” he says.

To make this sort of networking work, however, Hay says you need to identify what peoples’ problems are and how you can help.

9. Don’t be intimidated - Networking is a great way to raise your profile, but Liz Taylor, founder of £3.5m-turnover events company the Taylor Lynn Corporation, says you’ll make more of an impact if you’re not easily intimidated. “You should always have the confidence to speak to anybody,” she says.

10. Know your objectives and your audience - You won’t get anywhere if you don’t know what you want to achieve and who you’re trying to target, says O’Connor. She advises business owners to ask themselves a few questions before embarking on a publicity drive: “Why are you doing this? Who do you want to reach? How do you reach those audiences? Who influences them?”

11. Target obvious customers - Bartlett says the company successfully raised its profile by targeting relevant media outlets. “We featured in Good Food magazines around the world, as well as sponsoring the Food Channel and other food programmes,” he says.

12. Strike the right partnerships - To raise the profile of his new business,iammoving.com's Simon Preston has partnered with organisations his clients have to deal with when they’re moving house.

“We have a partnership with the Royal Mail, which deals with redirections,” he says. “You’ll see us gradually growing relationships with other people, such as letting agents.”

13. Align with big names - Luxury shirt maker Emma Willis was featured in a report called 'Face Value: Your Reputation as a Business Asset,' published by private bank Coutts. “People bank with Coutts all over the world, so it’s a really good affiliation,” she says.

“I have also collaborated with young British fashion label Rodnik. It distinguishes you from being just another shirt maker in Jermyn Street.”

14. Hire a celebrity - Neville Upton brought former England rugby captain Lawrence Dallaglio on board as a director of motivation for his £26m-turnover customer relations firm, The Listening Company. As well as inspiring the 2,000-strong workforce, Upton says Dallaglio also spends time with clients.

“Everyone knows who he is. He’s an impressive person and he’s helped raise the company’s profile a great deal,” Upton says, adding that the initiative has been “very good value for money”.

15. Focus on content - O’Connor says whatever your message, the content you’re putting out there has to be relevant to the audience. “You need to focus on the benefits of your products or services and what’s going to matter to clients or consumers, not the technical aspects that people won’t care about,” she says.

16. Champion a cause - IT services specialist Connect has helped grow awareness of the company by undertaking initiatives to boost the number of women in IT. For example, Connect has formed a group for women IT specialists, worked with schools to promote the IT sector to female students and taken part in industry-wide groups investigating the issue.

CEO Mark MacGregor says: “It helps us stand out from the crowd because it’s not just about us launching a new product.”

17. Be an expert - Writing opinion pieces, joining the speakers’ circuit or running an event that shows your expertise is a good way to get yourself known, according to Judith Germain, founder of Dynamic Transitions.

She says: “I’ve published a lot of articles on the web. I’ve also written a lead article for Talent Management Review, as well as running online and offline business communities.”

18. Be accessible to journalists - If you’re positioning yourself as an industry commentator in the media, Houlding recommends: “Be readily available and give an interesting and different point of view.” He warns against becoming a “rent-a-quote”, saying it’s easier to build an image in one specialist area.

19. Befriend the right writers - Emma Willis says dealing with the press is “absolutely critical” to building up your profile. “I’ve worked hard – on my own and with PR agencies – to be written about in quality publications my customers read, such as the Financial Times and Vogue,” she says. “I will personally go and meet the relevant journalists, even those in the US. I give them a good idea about what I do.”

20. Join a business organisation - “I’m involved in quite a lot of other business activities,” says Preston. “I’m an international board director of the Young Presidents’ Organisation. We have a relatively low public profile, but it’s all about business leaders networking together, sharing experiences, ideas and education.”

21. Be charitable - Helping a charity to raise money not only means using your skills to help others – it may also put you in touch with potential partners. Taylor works with the Prince’s Trust Fundraising Committee.

She advises: “You’ve got to be a little bit canny and make it work commercially for you. Find out who supports the charity, who’s involved, where they come from and what they’re trying to achieve.”

22. Target students - James Lott is the co-founder of business management tool provider The Working Knowledge Group, which runs competitions with university students as a way of promoting its products and services. “Students use a derivative of our strategy tool,” he says. “Throughout the competition, they keep seeing this tool and think ‘I could use this in my future business’.”

23. Be transparent - Today’s consumers are demanding more information about the products they buy and the companies that supply them. Tapping into that can help give your business a better profile. Take vegetable company Albert Bartlett.

Bartlett says: “Our packaging tells you the name of the grower and you can also read about them on our website. It’s good for everyone, as the growers are focused on promotion as well.”

24. Get sporty - Bulldog is the official grooming supplier to rugby team the London Wasps. “We sponsor the back of the shorts,” adds co-founder Rhodri Ferrier. He says that while it’s hard to measure the tangible benefits of sports club sponsorship, the club did get a lot of publicity during the Rugby World Cup. “It’s a great tie-up because it’s a good club that stands for the things we stand for.”

25. Apply for a business award - Many organisations, Real Business included, give out annual awards to the great and the good in a particular area. Winning an award can earn you coverage in the press, the respect of your peers and make potential clients aware of you. Try out our Growing Business Awards!

26. Jump on the bandwagon - While we would never advise changing your business to take advantage of trends, it’s worth promoting a particular side of your business if it’s relevant to a hot issue.

Kelly Smith’s company, Smartbunker, offers customers a data centre that uses zero-carbon energy and green technology. “We have a truly unique proposition, which marks us out in a crowded marketplace – that’s why we’re getting so much publicity,” he says.

27. Be consistent - No one is going to take you seriously if you don’t come across as genuine or consistent. Germain says consistency is often a problem when people cross from offline to online: “A lot of people feel they can write stuff online and act in a certain way, then be very different offline. Everything on the web can be googled.”

Click here to read the original article: "27 Ways to Raise Your Company's Profile"

Five Ways to Make your Staff Great at Teamworking

1. Use the strengths of each team member

Each of us has a unique strengths profile. Strengths are our innate abilities. They are easy and rewarding for us to exercise. They are related to, but not quite the same as, our skills and personalities. Strengths are an expression of highly developed mental pathways and neural connections that take minimal effort to use.

Discovering people’s strengths and encouraging them to use them boosts productivity and has proven benefits on levels of engagement. This is because when we are using our strengths work feels effortless, we are energised and confident. The effect is multiplied in teams as feeling like this we are more able to be generous and patient with others, so the benefits flow onward.

Help your team members discover their true strengths and then find ways as a team to utilise everyone’s strengths to achieve the team task. Think of your team as an economy of strengths, and work out how to create extra value by trading your strengths.

2. Create a positive working culture

Research over the last 10 years has convincingly endorsed what many of us intuitively knew; a good working atmosphere makes a huge difference to a team’s productivity. What the research found is that the key to the difference between high performing and low performing teams is the ratio of positive to negative comments in team meetings. Interestingly this doesn’t need to be balanced, it needs to be weighted in favour of positive comments, at least by a ratio of 3:1.

A number of things seem to happen once this magic ratio is reached and even more so if the ratio moves closer to 6:1. When people feel good they are more able to think well, be creative, and work with others. In addition people become more willing to contribute ideas, and to work with goodwill through the moments of uncertainty, disconnection or confusion in the conversation until something new emerges. The benefits continue beyond the immediate team meetings, as team members’ actions in their own domains are more in sync with their colleagues.

3. Build common ground amongst team members

Teams are often made up of people with different skills and backgrounds who tend to see the world, and the priorities for action within it, differently. This can lead to friction and conflict. Yet at the same time, at a deeper level, there will be areas of commonality amongst team members, often in the areas of core values and central purpose.

A very productive way to access these commonalities is through the sharing of heartfelt and meaningful stories. When people are asked to share personal stories of their moments of pride at work, or moments of achievement or success, or the part of their job that means the most to them, they are expressing their values and sense of purpose in an engaging, passionate and easy to hear form. The listener will undoubtedly find that the story resonates with them, creating an emotional connection at the same time as they begin to see the person in a different light. In the best scenarios, as people share their highlight stories, a sense emerges in the room of ‘wow, these are great people I’m working with here, I’d better raise my game!’ By bringing the hidden common purpose and sense of connection into the foreground, it becomes easier to negotiate surface differences.

4. Foster innovation

Groups can get stuck in repeating dynamic patterns. When this happens listening declines as everyone believes they know what everyone else is saying – they’ve heard it all before. To break the patterns we need to move from rehearsed speech (which means exactly what it says, speech that has been thought or said so often it just tumbles out) to generative speech (which is the delightful sensation of hearing ourselves, or others, say something new).

To help the team make the shift you need to ask questions, or introduce activities that mean people need to think before they speak, that brings information into the common domain that hasn’t been heard before. Positively or appreciatively framed questions are particularly good for this. So too are imagination based questions, for example ‘If we woke up tomorrow and we had solved this dilemma, how would we know, what would be different?’ ‘If we weren’t spending our time locked in this conversation, what might we be talking about?’ Or ‘as if’ questions ‘If we discuss this as if the customer were in the room with us, what will we be saying?’ Sometimes just getting people to switch from their habitual seating pattern breaks old and creates new dynamics.

This, combined with an awareness of strengths and a positive working culture, creates fertile ground for innovative thoughts and ideas to be expressed, explored and developed.

5. Build a beautiful future

When teams suffer a crisis of motivation or morale it is often associated with a lack of hope. A lack of hope that things can get better, a lack of hope in the power and influence of the group or the leader, a lack of hope or belief in the possibility of achieving anything.

Hope and optimism are both great motivators and also key in team resilience. In hopeless situations we need to engender hopefulness. Appreciative Inquiry as an approach is particularly good at doing this as it first of all discovers the best of the current situation, unearths the hidden resources and strengths of the group, and then goes on to imagine future scenarios based on these very discoveries about what is possible. As people project themselves into optimistic futures clearly connected to the present, they begin to experience some hopefulness. This in turn engenders some motivation to start working towards those more aspirational scenarios of how things can be.

By using the techniques described above it's possible to get a stuck team moving again and a move a working team from good to great.

Click here to read the original article: "Five Ways to Make your Staff Great at Teamworking"

Ten Easy Ways to Really Irritate your Customers

1. Torture them by telephone

Of all the bugbears in business, the front-runner is voicemail. Across the UK, companies are damaging their customer relations by replacing receptionists and telephonists with time-wasting, irritating, tedious, answering machines. Across the board, telephones are driving business people crazy. Do you get asked to hold – only to remain stranded on the end of a silent line? Like many business people, advisor Shelia McKenzie sets aside Monday mornings for paperwork, only to be bombarded by people wanting to know whether their letter has arrived. 

2. Pay them late – and bill them wrong

Payment problems are a blight on business life. Almost all our respondents mentioned them. No matter how carefully you nurture a relationship with another company, it seems, it's becoming ever more difficult to get them to pay on time – and with good grace. And if you want to remain in business, don't write worthless cheques. Late payment also appears to have become an everyday fact of business life. Some people even think that legislation would have little effect. 

3. Keep them waiting

Lateness is another universal dislike. Almost all the people we questioned mentioned it. It's rude, it wastes everyone's time, and it's easily avoided by using a diary. Martin Randerson, former managing director of The Travel Professionals, won't do business with people who are late for meetings - “unless they have got a really good excuse. There are very few reasons for being late. If someone is stuck on the M25 and you can hear that they're on the carphone, fair enough. Otherwise your diary should be organised in such a way that it works. People who aren't concerned about time are a major irritation.”

4. Break your promises

The business people we spoke to want to be honourable – and would like, in return, to be treated with honesty. All too often, however, promises are broken. Too often suppliers over-promise and under-deliver. There was a consensus on one depressing feature of business life: people who say they will call in a few days or send information and don't. 

“The worst is when you are waiting to hear if you have won a piece of business,” says David Bailey, co-founder of Impact Plus, acquired by Hitachi Consulting. “The client says that you'll hear on Friday, and, of course, when it comes to it they are too embarrassed to tell you that you haven't got it.” 

5. Be rude to them

Good manners mean good business. Obvious? Apparently not. According to our respondents, an astonishing number of business people forget the basic rules of behaviour. Here are some things you shouldn't do if you want to keep your customers: Missing meetings is unforgivable, as is forgetting that someone is coming to see you; don't cancel, at four hours' notice, meetings that were set up weeks in advance; don't have a chat on your mobile phone during a meeting. Don't tolerate surly receptionists. And for goodness sake, if you ask someone in for a lunchtime get-together, at least offer them a cup of coffee.

6. Tie them up with bureaucracy

Bureaucracy is both the bedfellow and enemy of business. It is estimated that ten per cent of a business person's life is taken up with needless bureaucracy. “It is incredible that so many companies will not take your money without an official purchase order because their system can't cope without the relevant number”, says one company director. “There is so much form-filling for the sake of it.”

One side-effect of bureaucracy is that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Result? Receiving a standardised mailshot from a company you are already using. Or receiving a demand for payment from one department when you have been credited by another.

7. Bombard them with junk mail

Direct mail is so prevalent that it's almost excusable. What isn't is applying blanket, junk mail techniques to regular, valued customers. If a customer has built up a relationship over years, they should expect to receive something better than a standardised form letter. But addressing someone who bought a box of staples from you four years ago or who has never done business with you as a 'valued customer' is plain daft. Want to guarantee that your correspondence goes straight into the bin – and makes you look foolish? Try addressing Mr Smith as Miss Smith, or vice-versa.

8. Raise false hopes

It's unethical and it's happening all the time. Many companies say they would like to meet to discuss business when the prospects are slim. “The time and effort you waste putting together a presentation costs money”, says Stephen Callender, former managing director of Black Cat.

Clients will also deliberately flirt with suppliers they have no intention of engaging. First, it's a cheap way of generating new ideas. Two, it's an effective way of scaring existing suppliers into a better deal –the board insists on a regular statutory review, so they have to make a foregone conclusion look like a genuinely competitive pitch.

9. Baffle them with jargon

People usually use buzzwords to obfuscate and mislead. Either they don't know what they're talking about, or they don't want you to know what they're talking about.

“Our dynamic results-orientated, customer-focused DM campaign has positively impacted on consumer spend” actually means: the mailshot flagged some products. Jargon doesn't always make you sound clever, it's the last refuge of the incompetent.

10. Dither over decisions

Everyone comes across ditherers. And they are not only infuriating, they're expensive. Ditherers know that they need never be alone – they can always hold a meeting. Ask yourself whether you hold meetings that wobble off the agenda leaving the central issue unresolved. “We'll get back to you” is an oft-used and much hated phrase.

Click here to read the original article: "Ten Easy Ways to Really Irritate your Customers"

RBS offers businesses £20bn of loans

The bank, which is 81 per cent owned by the taxpayer, set up the review because of the mismatch between what it says it is doing for business and complaints from firms that they are finding it difficult to secure finance.

RBS has hired former Bank of England deputy governor Sir Andrew Large and management consultancy Oliver Wyman to carry out an independent review of its lending practices for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs).

Following RBS boss Stephen Hester's resignation announcement in June, Chancellor George Osborne made it clear the bank's new chief executive would be expected to increase lending to Britain's businesses.

Bridging the gap

Chris Sullivan, RBS's chief executive of UK corporate banking, said: "We are the biggest lender to SMEs in the country, and have identified £20bn in surplus deposits that we want to put to work to support the economy.

"But we constantly hear that businesses can't get the finance they need. We have to bridge this gap."

Sir Andrew Large said: "There is a disconnect between what the bank says it is doing on lending, and what many businesses say they experience on the ground.

"That is why we have been asked to conduct an independent review to establish what is going on, and what steps can be taken."

The bank's net lending fell by £1.6bn in the first three months of 2013, despite tapping the funding for lending scheme for £750m worth of cheap finance.

Risky ventures

RBS says net lending fell overall because it is in the process of extracting itself from some of the riskier activities that led to its government bailout in 2008.

It says lending to SMEs rose by 1 per cent earlier this year, with £1bn made available to firms.

Businesses say they are finding it hard to attract finance from lenders, but concede that there are firms that are not seeking loans because they believe they will be turned down.

Adam Marshall, director of policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, said the RBS review was a "sensible and welcome step".

He added: "This is just what small businesses will be wanting to hear at this delicate stage of the UK recovery."

Biggest lender

RBS is the biggest lender to SMEs in Britain, with a 35 per cent share of the loan and overdraft market.

It says it saw a 20 per cent reduction in borrowing applications from small firms in 2012.

The review will take place this summer, with findings and recommendations published in the autumn.

Click here to read the original article: "RBS offers businesses £20bn of loans"

Business card firm MOO has used blogging to promote and grow its business for years – learn how you can do the same.

Hands up who’s paid a visit to a company’s website for a brief look, and ended up spending four hours on the site having discovered their blog, and getting sucked into posts from September 2007?

We’ve all been there, and while we admit this may be encouraging procrastination, it’s also a great example of why you should be considering a blog for your small business.

People love people. People buy from people. People love inspiring stories, pictures of cats, and comprehensible, tried-and-tested advice. A blog is your way to be showcase your personality online, when perhaps you have no other way of reaching out to your customers, bar your website.

If we at MOO didn’t have our blog, we’d have nowhere to show you our brilliant customers, nowhere to display what we’re proud of, and nowhere to let you know how much cake is being consumed!

Why should you blog?

Above all, blogging can be really fun: it’s your platform to produce quality content that people will enjoy and share, and if you’re doing it right, you’ll be helping people at the same time.

If your business doesn’t operate in a typically creative or "fun" space, this is your chance to show a fun side; the side that people might not instantly associate with your industry: displaying an edge like this could set you apart from the competition.

If you are running a creative company, open your world up to customers: show them what inspires you, what got you to this point, and in turn, you could inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs.

A blog can be the perfect destination for everything on your social networking accounts: 140 characters isn’t much when you’ve got a lot to say, so linking to a longer blog post can help you come across somewhat more eloquently, as well as allowing your community to join in with their comments.

This is also your chance to establish yourself as an expert in your industry: you can become a voice of authority, help, and inspiration. The more you build up this reputation, the more it reflects on your company.

If you can help people, whether that’s by cheering them up, offering practical advice, or providing people with something interesting and entertaining to read, you’ll be doing a lot more for your business’ reputation than handing out flyers and putting adverts all over the internet.

It’s all very well us saying that posting pictures of cats and writing about your style icons is fun, but it does need a practical side. A blog can work wonders for your business, especially now: people want content to read, they want to know who they’re buying from, and they want to know that you’re not a faceless factory, chasing a profit margin (even if you are).

Why is blogging good for your business?

A well-written, well looked after blog shows clients that your business can be trusted: you’re real people, with real knowledge, real stories, real opinions, and real pets. You aren’t hiding behind customer service lines, and reams of empty promises that cover your website. The more confidence that a client has in what you’re saying, the more confidence they’ll have in what you’re providing: your company becomes authentic.

Blogging gives you the chance to build a different kind of relationship with your customers or clients. They get to chart your progress, from beginning in your bedroom, to opening your first boutique, and in turn, you’re able to hear what they have to say. You’ll be able to engage with clients on a whole new level: have conversations, hear their feedback, and ultimately build a community around your company.

Want to get down to the real details of the benefits of blogging? Firstly, it’s a tried and tested marketing strategy that gets results. Blogs are a great way to create a buzz around what you do, as well as a platform for any press releases: it’s your chance to have a strong online presence, attracting attention towards all the brilliant things you do. You can set a blog up for free, and the main outgoing is time – it’s far cheaper than a lot of marketing options.

Not only will it send more traffic to your site, but you’ll be able to reach a huge range of new people: from existing customers, to prospective ones, as well as potential employees, people in the media, and possible partners. It can also be a great way to reinforce your brand and your values, in a way where you can show what you mean, instead of just telling people.

Click here to read the original article: "Business card firm MOO has used blogging to promote and grow its business for years – learn how you can do the same."

Six Ways Small Businesses can use Facebook to Drive Growth

Think through your objectives. What is going to be a strong message? Where does that land the person? Do you want to drive them to a landing page on your website or do you want to drive them to a store.

Good content

Focus on your page, make sure you are consistently posting good quality content to it and that it is timely and relevant. Make it feel natural. Bring your innovation to your page posting strategy – use it to bring your brand personality to life and give you that invaluable word of mouth megaphone effect.

Reach your target

You can do this through profile whether that is demographic, location, life stage, or relationships. There are more advanced targeting capabilities too where you can load your data of existing customers to be able to get the right message to the right target audience.

Hone your message

It isn’t just reach it is about using targeting tools to get the right message to the right audience. Test and iterating is impactful and really allows you to get value for money. Create three ads into a particular target audience. Stop the two that are performing less well and create more versions of the ones that are performing very well.

Track your reporting

Track how everything is performing. For example your page insights will show you what content people are really responding well to ande that can inform your ad campaign. Equally with your ad reporting you can see what ads people are responding well to and make decisions on which ones to create more of. You can see which segments are responding and invest your budget accordingly.

Starting conversations

Think about your page posts and your conversations as stories. Stories are most engaging when there is a hook and when it is succinct. Make it engaging in two ways: ask questions, ask for opinions, and solicit input and feedback from your community of advocates. Leveraging a conversational tone of voice, allow people to get closer to the personality of the brand.

Click here to read the original article: "Six Ways Small Businesses can use Facebook to Drive Growth"

How Google is Making SEO Easier for Small Business

Google's algorithm updates, Panda and Penguin, are making it easier for small businesses to compete with larger competitors. Brett Tudor explains how.

For small businesses it has been a constant battle to compete with the big brands online.

Many choose to invest large sums in search engine optimisation (SEO), seeing it as the best way to generate leads and sales. I know one small business owner who employed three SEO agencies on three different websites all linked to the same store – sadly within two years that store had closed. It simply could not compete in the retail environment it was in - too much of the marketing budget went into SEO that ultimately failed to deliver.

Prior to recent Google algorithm updates, called cuddly names like "Panda" and "Penguin", websites that needed a boost in search engine rankings could achieve it with a combination of two things – link building and onsite work. The latter included adding the necessary search engine signals and signposts into the website itself.

This worked – until increased competition for that prime piece of real estate on page one of Google meant allocating more and more of the marketing budget to SEO to keep up with the competition. It even led to some turning to unethical so-called "black hat" ways to cheat the system.

For a small business, taking on someone full-time to do SEO was and still is cost prohibitive while big businesses could afford a whole team working full time. Outside contractors needed to be better than good to compete.

The main currency in the old days was backlinks and if you could find ways to get lots of them and in greater volume than your competitors, you stood a great chance of getting to the top. As an SME in a competitive niche, however, there was one big problem. Link building in volume either takes a lot of time or a lot of money.

Things began to change when Google decided to start demoting some websites that appeared to have an unnatural link profile and reward websites that displayed greater link diversity.

This started as early as 2011 in the case of large US retailer J.C. Penney. This company established for more than 100 years had unwittingly taken part in what appeared to be a paid linking scheme with colleges and universities when they used an outside contractor.

For those that need further proof of Google’s intent, its writers removed a reference to linking between websites – even high quality ones in its ranking article within the Webmaster Tools help documentation as highlighted by this Search Engine Land article.

Paying for links is now frowned upon. The main currency of SEO has depreciated dramatically. Further updates are having a more subtle effect on websites looking for shortcuts via press release distribution and even paid guest posting.

While press releases and article distribution still have value in raising awareness of a small business brand, it is now advisable to handle any linking between websites with care and avoid overloading articles and press releases with too many anchor text links targeting the same keywords repeatedly.

So with these short cuts now exhausted you would be forgiven for thinking SEO as an industry is dying.

That was until good readable content began to be rewarded with a more visible presence on search engine results pages (SERPS). So too were those websites that had been doing things the natural way.

This combined with the rise of Google Authorship and the positive results being reported for websites using it has actually revived SEO and in turn has helped small businesses who focused on their content marketing rank better and avoided some of the old short cuts. It has, in other words, levelled the playing field.

Many of these small businesses can now outrank much larger competitors because they have shown that they can genuinely connect with their website visitors.

So the sea change in the way Google rewards good content means that businesses in competitive niches should be using some form of content marketing or ideally a mix of all forms including video, blogging and image sharing and, most importantly, a strategy to connect with customers.

This can even be done in-house at relatively low cost these days and – dare I say it – without the need to pay an outside SEO contractor.

Google has received its fair share of bad press in recent months but the fact is, as its algorithms evolve into a more intelligent aid to searching online, the old unethical practices used to get ahead will soon die out if they have not done so already.

The hope is that this is not just a brief window of opportunity for SMEs before big businesses with big budgets figure out new ways to beat the system. 

Click here to read the original article: "How Google is Making SEO Easier for Small Business"