“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily.” – Zig Ziglar
Do you find it difficult to keep on track or to focus on what actions you should be taking to hit your business targets and then doing them? I certainly do. My biggest issues have been: Having my goals written down (a good thing), but then not tracking them or making sure I’m taking the actions to complete them on time Content creation and consistently getting it out there. I have a PhD in procrastination But I’ve just started using Trello and I think I may have cracked it! For some reason, I’ve resisted using Trello in the past, but […]
Read more →Do you have enough money in your business for it to survive should you be unable to work? You never know when life is going to trip you up or cause a temporary derailment to your business. I have two clients who have had to take time off work because of parents being ill or needing additional support. And as we get older, that’s a problem more and more of us face. Then I was really shocked and saddened to read a post in a group I’m in on Facebook about a well-known marketing expert who has been diagnosed with […]
Read more →Typically business owners try to do it all themselves. When you start out, that’s par for the course, but if you’re still doing it all two years down the line (or more), then you are probably feeling a bit frazzled or burnt out. And your business possibly isn’t growing as you’d like it to. Even if you’ve tried to improve how you’ve worked to be more efficient and it’s not er, worked, here’s another way to look at your tasks to identify what you can: Keep doing stop doing make more efficient or give to someone else to do Or, […]
Read more →I recently sent out a survey to small business owners asking them what the biggest challenges they faced were and what success looked like for them. And the results are in! Unsurprisingly, the biggest challenges are around not having enough revenue, clients or leads. And working too many hours, although I was slightly surprised to see that only half of people surveyed saw this as a problem. It’s great to see that no-one felt poor service delivery was an issue. Perhaps this only becomes an issue when you have too many clients that makes it difficult to provide a […]
Read more →Having efficient business processes can make a great difference to your business. They help you grow through generating leads or enabling you to scale up. One of the biggest challenges small businesses or start-up businesses have though is finding the tools to help them grow which don’t cost the earth. I have spent five years trying to find the ones that work the best for me and this blog looks at the ones I use and how they fit together. I’ve included more than five, but the key ones I use are: Jotform – for creating tests and questionnaires Active […]
Read more →It hurts when you lose a customer doesn’t it? Particularly if they were a good customer. How do you avoid losing customers? This blog highlights three mistakes that can trip you up and what you can do about it. A client of mine has just sacked their bookkeeping service for making three mistakes which could all have been avoided if they had managed things better. Not only has this company lost a client, but they’ve also left someone who is extremely disgruntled and will be expressing his displeasure far and wide. And I will never recommend them to anyone else. […]
Read more →Despite the demise of yet more large retail businesses over the last month, there are some who are getting with the programme and working out how to keep customers coming to them through clever technology or providing an inviting experience through their shops. There is definitely still a place for the high street. I’m not a big fan of shopping, but sometimes you do want to go and browse and look at the products you want to buy. Shoes, clothing, books and computers are the ones I would happily go and rummage around for. Shoes, only because I can’t be […]
Read more →As I’ve written in several blogs on customer service, getting and keeping happy customers isn’t rocket science. Unfortunately, it seems to be a challenge for many organisations. Given it takes a lot less effort and money to keep your existing customers than to find new ones, it makes much more sense to set up your business to ensure they have the best experience with you so they stay with you (and hopefully buy more from you and tell lots of other people how amazing you are!). To that end, I give you – lean consumption. Not a summer diet… Lean consumption […]
Read more →I’ve been a business adviser for the Young Enterprise charity for three years and this year I was a judge in the local rounds of the Company of the Year programme for East Surrey. Today, I had the pleasure of attending the South East regional finals at the newly renovated Guildford Cathedral. Many of us, myself included, wring our hands in despair at what we call the snowflake generation. But today my faith was restored and I’m happy to say we can sleep easy in our beds tonight secure in the knowledge our future is safe in the hands of […]
Read more →Are you doing everything yourself when you should be outsourcing some areas of your business? A survey carried out by the FSB in 2016 concluded that UK small business owners spend an average of four days per month on internal business administration, while 55% believe the amount of admin they face is stunting the growth of their companies. 76% of small business spend more time than they feel is necessary on compliance – tax, pensions, insurance, health and safety, accounting (and now, of course, GDPR). They concluded that the average SME small business owner spends only eight hours and 50 minutes […]
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