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 […]
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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 →This week in The Apprentice, Lord Sugar took some good cooking advice and gave the teams a good stir. He separated the two remaining gents, Harrison and James, and put Harrison in charge of Vitality as his business proposal is food based. Sarah took on the PM role for Graphene as she runs a confectionery business. The task The task – to create a recipe kit, brand it and then pitch it to a room of food experts. The team with the most votes from by the experts would be the winner. The teams split into recipe creation vs branding […]
Read more →Staggering new statistics this week in The Apprentice – A quarter of the population has a dog (over 11 million). That’s a lot of poop that needs scooping! And owners spend £11bn, yes, eleven billion pounds, on their dogs. I couldn’t believe that figure so I looked it up on line – it’s actually over £12bn!! I’m in the wrong business! All of which leads (see what I did there?) neatly to this week’s task. Running a doggy day care service. The two services available were running a dog spa or doggy training classes. They also each had a mobile […]
Read more →This week The Apprentice task was an old favourite – the marketing of a new product. In this case two cars to launch. The teams had to create a brand, a TV advert and a digital advert for the London Underground which they then had to pitch to an advertising agency. The best campaign won. Poor Charles – always the bridesmaid, never the PM, yet again put himself up for leading Vitality and yet again was completely ignored in favour of Michaela. I think he’s put himself up for the role in every episode so far and every time it’s […]
Read more →This week – not so much Robot Wars as candidate wars as the animosity between the women built to dangerous levels! It was, on the face of it, a simple enough challenge. Programme and brand a robot to sell to two major retailers and choose a less expensive robot product to sell to independent retailers. As ever, the team that made the most profit won the task. Since the men’s team had lost the last two challenges, their numbers were getting low so team jigging was required to balance the team sizes. In an inspired moment, rather than mix up […]
Read more →If you’re a business owner, particularly one in the first few years of your business, like me, you’re probably looking for solutions to a number of different problems to help your business grow. And solutions that don’t cost a great deal of money because we don’t have infinite resources. The curse of free content The internet is a blessing and a curse in this regard. There is so much ‘free’ stuff out there, that you probably could glean the answers, but you’d have to search a lot and connect a lot of dots before you get anywhere. Or you buy […]
Read more →I don’t know about you, but I find the whole world of social media a complex and confusing place. And therefore to be avoided at all costs. Until recently, Facebook and LinkedIn have been the extent of my on-line presence. Yes, I know that makes me a troglodyte and I’ll be the first to hold my hands up and agree. But that’s all had to change and I’ve had to dip my toes (actually, it was more a full body emersion) into this arcane and mysterious world. These days, as a business, if you are looking for new clients, you […]
Read more →When is a lead magnet not a lead magnet? When it repels! Have you got a lead magnet? If not, why not? It seems the world and his wife has one these days. A lead magnet is an item of value that you give away for free in exchange for some information about the person wanting that item – usually their email address. They get something of value, you get a new contact for your mailing lists and hopefully someone who is more receptive to your offerings (on the assumption they were interested in your item of value). The value item […]
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