Columns, blogs and opinion from some of the UKs leading business opinion makers and entrepreneurs and small business owners
Social media has been with us for a while now, but until recently it seemed that many in the business world had failed to grasp the true power of the social medium and were largely confused as to how best to embrace the phenomenon in any meaningful or useful fashion.
Thank you for stepping in to this, my first surgery with Business Matters. Each week I will answer questions either, from those posted you, the reader, or from my own surgery sessions.
There has been a lot of talk over the past few months about ‘the green shots of recovery’ that are emerging, as the recession apparently begins to ease. This doesn’t just have to be limited to the housing market and the commercial side of business – it can also apply to REAL Thought Leadership.
REAL thought leadership is based upon the idea that Reach, Engagement, Authority and Longevity are the key to being the best in your field.
Like most of us, I’ve had the culture of long term business planning drummed into me throughout my career. Plotting a three or five year plan for a new venture; hours pouring over spreadsheets, forecasting and re-forecasting. I have to confess it’s been the least useful tool in my entrepreneurial tool box.
In this article, leading Sales Expert Andy Preston explains the last two of the top 5 things you need to consider right now, to give yourself and your team the best chance of taking advantage of the upturn….
The economy is starting to see signs of recovery, but are you best placed to capitalise on this in your business or will your competitors beat you to it by gaining valuable media coverage for their goods and services? Taking a quick look at your marketing plans, if you have any, might reveal a gaping hole in publicity, and more important, how you intend to get some.
In the late 1980’s, Clive Woodcock was about the only journalist reporting on small business issues through his column in Friday’s Guardian. His solitary status reflected the lack of media interest in the subject; the term entrepreneur hadn’t been widely adopted, nor had our work culture embraced the positive options of self-employment.
Training is a great investment to make in your staff and the efficiency of your business, but choosing a training provider you can work well with can be a bit of a minefield. What is it you are looking for in a training company, and what do you hope to gain from the training? A few questions can set you on the right track to a successful long term relationship with your provider.
I need to make something absolutely clear: I believe effective use of social media will benefit any business. No exceptions. None whatsoever. I don’t believe you can show me one business that can’t benefit from it. Not one. If you disagree, well sorry, either prove it or admit you’re wrong.
Employees. Always good to have them where you can see them right? To make sure they are in the door at 9am, working solidly and then out the door no earlier than 5pm? Ban Facebook from the office to make sure opportunities to skive are minimal and if we can give them clocking in/out cards, so much the better. After all, if the boss is sitting there watching their staff, productivity is almost guaranteed, isn’t it?
Getting paid is not always as easy as it should be and threatening to terminate the contract is usually a last resort. There are intermediate steps you can take as well as including some protective measures in your contract terms.
Conversations which took place in many businesses last year were all about survival, talking about how you got through it, how awful it was, and how you hoped for better fortunes next year.
The conversations happening this year could quite easily be no different…unless, that is, you do something differently.
In this article, leading Sales Expert Andy Preston explains 5 things you need to consider right now, to give yourself and your team the best chance of taking advantage of the upturn….
This article is the first of a series in which I will look at different contract terms and the sort of issues that you need to cover in your contract – or to think about in a contract you have been given to sign.
This winter there has been a lot of talk about ‘visibility’. For the purposes of this blog post, though, I’m not talking about whether you can see out of your windscreen when it has frosted over. The kind of visibility that has become a trendy subject is about being seen in the marketplace. We all know about information overload and how much competition there is for your customers’ attention, both online and offline. So being seen – in person, online, in the media – is essential. However it is dangerous to stop there.
