It’s business awards season again – the time when just about every company out there launches an award. Do you enter them? If you don’t, here’s why you should.
Firstly, if nothing else, business awards are fantastic for teaching you how to write about your business in a positive way. If you’re planning to ever write tenders, you’ll know how important this skill is. Also, because you only have a small amount of space available to write why you should be considered for the award, you’ll need to be able to write about your business in a very succinct way.
And then, once you’ve entered the award, if you are declared a finalist and if you’re lucky enough to win, the PR opportunities can be enormous. I know one of my contacts didn’t have to do any promotion at all, the year she won a massive business award.
Having said that, small businesses in particular don’t often enter business awards because “we’re too small and we won’t win anyway.” My answer to this is how do you know? If every small business felt like that, we wouldn’t stand a chance out there when compared to the big companies.
So, come on – as long as the business award is free or very low cost to enter, why not? Here’s some of the business awards out there right now (please note, if you’re holding a business award and your award isn’t on the list, please don’t be offended – it’s simply that I didn’t know about you).
Social Enterprise Awards - http://www.socialenterpriseawards.org.uk/pages/socialenterpriseawards.html - closing date 28th September 2009
iAwards - http://www.iawards.org.uk/ - closing date 16th September 2009
Essence of the Entrepreneur - http://www.essenceoftheentrepreneur.co.uk/2009/intro/ - closing date 31st August 2009
O2 X Awards - http://o2-business.com/Business/ - closing date 1st August 2009
Remote workers Awards - http://www.remoteemployment.com/awards2.aspx - closing date 31st July 2009
Midlands Business Awards - http://www.midlandsbusinessawards.com/businessawards2009.html - closing date 31st August 2009
Everywoman Business Awards - http://www.everywoman.com/everywomanAwards/TheNatWesteverywomanAwards/ - closing date 31st July 2009
If you want to enter though, be quick. Some of the awards expire very shortly. But please remember to enter them. If you don’t enter, you can’t win and winning will be fantastic for your business…
Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides help and advice for small businesses on their marketing and to people starting up in business.
Thursday, 23 July 2009
Monday, 20 July 2009
When is the right time to change suppliers?
When you're running a small business, you will inevitability have suppliers that provide products or services to you. From website designers to accountants to banks, several companies will be providing you with a service.
But sometimes, the supplier you're with isn't performing up to scratch and now (with the economy like it is) you may be considering changing them. So, the question you need to ask yourself is should you stick with the devil you know or change to someone else who could provide you with a better service?
If you're considering changing suppliers, the first thing you should do before you change them is talk/email your existing supplier and tell them what you're not happy with. You'll be amazed how often they'll be prepared to bend over backwards to accommodate your request. A recent supplier of ours cut their prices in half when we asked about it. But you won't know unless you ask.
If talking doesn't work, then you'll need to start shopping around. Always ask for a trial with a new supplier. That way, it gives you a chance to try them out while still sticking with your existing supplier. If you don't like the new supplier, you haven't lost out by dropping your old supplier.
Be specific about the service and product that you're expecting from the new supplier and make sure it's written down. That way, if there's problems, you've got something to refer to.
Trial periods and being specific should help to cut down on any problems with new suppliers, but remember talking to your existing provider can work wonders too.
But sometimes, the supplier you're with isn't performing up to scratch and now (with the economy like it is) you may be considering changing them. So, the question you need to ask yourself is should you stick with the devil you know or change to someone else who could provide you with a better service?
If you're considering changing suppliers, the first thing you should do before you change them is talk/email your existing supplier and tell them what you're not happy with. You'll be amazed how often they'll be prepared to bend over backwards to accommodate your request. A recent supplier of ours cut their prices in half when we asked about it. But you won't know unless you ask.
If talking doesn't work, then you'll need to start shopping around. Always ask for a trial with a new supplier. That way, it gives you a chance to try them out while still sticking with your existing supplier. If you don't like the new supplier, you haven't lost out by dropping your old supplier.
Be specific about the service and product that you're expecting from the new supplier and make sure it's written down. That way, if there's problems, you've got something to refer to.
Trial periods and being specific should help to cut down on any problems with new suppliers, but remember talking to your existing provider can work wonders too.
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
Why you need to make sure you know what you're doing
This morning, I did a teleconference with a marketing person - the aim being to give this away as a free recording to my contacts.
I'd done a bit of research and had come up with a site called No Cost Conference - www.nocostconference.co.uk which looks liked it was the ideal site for me. Ok, the controls didn't exactly seem to be intuitive, but once I'd found my way around I thought I knew what I was doing.
So, Kim (the marketing person) and I did the call at 10.30am this morning. It went great, sounded great and I was really looking forward to downloading my recording of it.
I went back into the control panel after the call and to my horror, discovered that it wasn't there. Actually, what I needed to do (which they hadn't pointed out) is press the record button on the control panel - I assumed that this would happen automatically.
Nightmare! We're now going to have to the call again, which is a great shame as both of us have just wasted an hour doing something which didn't record.
Now do I wish I'd check to make sure I knew what I was doing and how it worked before I started the conference. Yep! Don't think I'll make that mistake again!
I'd done a bit of research and had come up with a site called No Cost Conference - www.nocostconference.co.uk which looks liked it was the ideal site for me. Ok, the controls didn't exactly seem to be intuitive, but once I'd found my way around I thought I knew what I was doing.
So, Kim (the marketing person) and I did the call at 10.30am this morning. It went great, sounded great and I was really looking forward to downloading my recording of it.
I went back into the control panel after the call and to my horror, discovered that it wasn't there. Actually, what I needed to do (which they hadn't pointed out) is press the record button on the control panel - I assumed that this would happen automatically.
Nightmare! We're now going to have to the call again, which is a great shame as both of us have just wasted an hour doing something which didn't record.
Now do I wish I'd check to make sure I knew what I was doing and how it worked before I started the conference. Yep! Don't think I'll make that mistake again!
Thursday, 2 July 2009
How to get business from social networking
Social networking a.k.a. the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Ecademy, LinkedIn and so on have become the new marketing buzzwords. Everyone is interested in finding out about them and knowing how to use them to get business in through the door.
So, if you’re interested and want to use them in your business, where should you start? Here’s my top ten tips:
1) Don’t expect to see clients immediately. Social networking is a long term strategy. It’s about relationship building. The more people see you adding information and content to online networking sites, the more people will get to know you and want to do business with you.
2) New social networking sites are springing up all the time, so don’t expect to keep up with all of them. Choose 3-4 to keep on top of and work on these. That means setting up your profile and regular posting on there so that people can get to know you.
3) Write a generic profile of your business and about you on Word and then use it on all of the social networking sites you’re going to try out. That way, if you get invited to start using another one, your profile is already written.
4) Link your social networking sites as much as possible. By that I mean, use sites like www.ping.fm to help you manage all of your sites. That way, you can post on one site i.e. Twitter and have the content automatically sent to all of the other social networking sites you’re using.
5) Write as much content as you can. Put your articles on there, give your opinion or views on topics and write down tips. You can write absolutely anything on social networking sites, so get creative.
6) Write as often as you can. It’s no good setting everything up and then ignoring it. For social networking to work for you people have to get to know you and that means you need to write as often as you can i.e. at least once a day.
7) Use tools like www.tweetlater.com to set up posts in advance. That way, even if you can’t physically post something, packages like this will do it for you.
8) Remember to find out about other people. It’s not just all about you. Contact some of the people that request you add them as friends and find out about them. The more you build that relationship, the more likely it is that people will want to do business with you.
9) Very often on social networking sites, groups of like-minded individuals and businesses have been set up. That means it’s easy to find all the people interested in what you do. Join these groups and start participating. You never know what could happen.
10) Finally, please be careful out there. Remember that anyone can write anything on the web, so although you may be genuine, the person you’re communicating with may not be. Take extra care when doing business on the internet.
Because all this is hard work, complicated and very, very new to the marketing world, I’ve just created a free factsheet on social networking. If you’d like a copy, please email me on helen.dowling@exceptionalthinking.co.uk or follow my twitter posts at http://twitter.com/helen350
Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides help and advice to small business owners on their marketing and to people setting up in business.
So, if you’re interested and want to use them in your business, where should you start? Here’s my top ten tips:
1) Don’t expect to see clients immediately. Social networking is a long term strategy. It’s about relationship building. The more people see you adding information and content to online networking sites, the more people will get to know you and want to do business with you.
2) New social networking sites are springing up all the time, so don’t expect to keep up with all of them. Choose 3-4 to keep on top of and work on these. That means setting up your profile and regular posting on there so that people can get to know you.
3) Write a generic profile of your business and about you on Word and then use it on all of the social networking sites you’re going to try out. That way, if you get invited to start using another one, your profile is already written.
4) Link your social networking sites as much as possible. By that I mean, use sites like www.ping.fm to help you manage all of your sites. That way, you can post on one site i.e. Twitter and have the content automatically sent to all of the other social networking sites you’re using.
5) Write as much content as you can. Put your articles on there, give your opinion or views on topics and write down tips. You can write absolutely anything on social networking sites, so get creative.
6) Write as often as you can. It’s no good setting everything up and then ignoring it. For social networking to work for you people have to get to know you and that means you need to write as often as you can i.e. at least once a day.
7) Use tools like www.tweetlater.com to set up posts in advance. That way, even if you can’t physically post something, packages like this will do it for you.
8) Remember to find out about other people. It’s not just all about you. Contact some of the people that request you add them as friends and find out about them. The more you build that relationship, the more likely it is that people will want to do business with you.
9) Very often on social networking sites, groups of like-minded individuals and businesses have been set up. That means it’s easy to find all the people interested in what you do. Join these groups and start participating. You never know what could happen.
10) Finally, please be careful out there. Remember that anyone can write anything on the web, so although you may be genuine, the person you’re communicating with may not be. Take extra care when doing business on the internet.
Because all this is hard work, complicated and very, very new to the marketing world, I’ve just created a free factsheet on social networking. If you’d like a copy, please email me on helen.dowling@exceptionalthinking.co.uk or follow my twitter posts at http://twitter.com/helen350
Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides help and advice to small business owners on their marketing and to people setting up in business.
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
The consequences of not doing things
This morning, I decided not to attend a networking event that I was booked onto. Why? Well, three reasons really. The first was the pile of stuff sitting on my desk looking at me and the second and probably more honest reason is that my hubby is in China at the moment with work and I hadn't spoken to him for 3 days. Because of the time difference, the only opportunity that I have to speak to him would have been when I was at the networking event. Oh and the third reason was the 1 hour travelling time either side.
So, I decided not to go.
But, not going to places has consequences. There could have been a contact there who really needed what we do. The speaker could have been excellent and given me lots of ideas to help develop the business and of course, I have missed the opportunity to spread the awareness around about ET and what we do.
Weighing up the two sides of the argument, it begs an interesting question - when do you say that you're not doing to go to that networking event in favour of other work?
I guess that depends on you and your business, but at the moment, in the current economic climate, I think that probably I made the wrong call this morning. Surely, now more than ever it's important to get your message out there and take advantage of all the opportunities that come along.
Lesson learnt!
So, I decided not to go.
But, not going to places has consequences. There could have been a contact there who really needed what we do. The speaker could have been excellent and given me lots of ideas to help develop the business and of course, I have missed the opportunity to spread the awareness around about ET and what we do.
Weighing up the two sides of the argument, it begs an interesting question - when do you say that you're not doing to go to that networking event in favour of other work?
I guess that depends on you and your business, but at the moment, in the current economic climate, I think that probably I made the wrong call this morning. Surely, now more than ever it's important to get your message out there and take advantage of all the opportunities that come along.
Lesson learnt!
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
The easiest way of doing a difficult task
We’ve all heard the saying that the best way to eat an elephant is a piece at a time. And we’ve probably all been told that if we’ve got a task to do that is difficult, we should break it down into small chunks.
But, have you ever tried it – I mean really tried it?
I’ve known this principle for a while, but I haven’t really tried breaking a task right down until very recently.
Sometimes on my to-do list though, there’s a task that I really, really don’t want to do. Even if it won’t take very long, if I don’t want to do it, it will literally sit there for days and days. And sometimes, even weeks!
I know when it’s a difficult task too because it feels like hard work and I’d rather do ANYTHING instead of that task.
Over the last couple of days though, I’ve found a possible way around that – to break the task down and keep breaking it down until it feels manageable. Let me give you an example. I’m making some calls at the moment for a company – only 10 of them, but they feel like really hard work.
So instead of putting “Do calls for x” on my to-do list, I’ve put “Do call 1 for x”, “Do call 2 for x”, “Do call 3 for x” and so on and really been specific about what the task is.
What’s great about this is that when I’ve done one call, I can tick it off my to-do list instead of having to wait until I’ve done all of them. It’s a lot more motivating I can tell you. And you know what – all the calls are done now too!
So, if you’re stuck on a task, try really breaking it down until the point where it doesn’t feel like hard work and then get on with it. Even if you do the task one bite at a time, I promise you’ll eat the whole elephant.
But, have you ever tried it – I mean really tried it?
I’ve known this principle for a while, but I haven’t really tried breaking a task right down until very recently.
Sometimes on my to-do list though, there’s a task that I really, really don’t want to do. Even if it won’t take very long, if I don’t want to do it, it will literally sit there for days and days. And sometimes, even weeks!
I know when it’s a difficult task too because it feels like hard work and I’d rather do ANYTHING instead of that task.
Over the last couple of days though, I’ve found a possible way around that – to break the task down and keep breaking it down until it feels manageable. Let me give you an example. I’m making some calls at the moment for a company – only 10 of them, but they feel like really hard work.
So instead of putting “Do calls for x” on my to-do list, I’ve put “Do call 1 for x”, “Do call 2 for x”, “Do call 3 for x” and so on and really been specific about what the task is.
What’s great about this is that when I’ve done one call, I can tick it off my to-do list instead of having to wait until I’ve done all of them. It’s a lot more motivating I can tell you. And you know what – all the calls are done now too!
So, if you’re stuck on a task, try really breaking it down until the point where it doesn’t feel like hard work and then get on with it. Even if you do the task one bite at a time, I promise you’ll eat the whole elephant.
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
I've got a business idea - what's next?
One question I get asked a lot goes something like “I’ve got an idea for a business. I need to get finance from the bank, buy stationery and equipment and do some research. I’m not sure how to plan everything that I need to do.”
Do you feel like this? Do you have a business idea and so much to do to get it up and running, that you feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to start?
If so, you’re not alone. Thousands of new business owners feel like this and that’s why it’s vital to put down on paper what you need to do. Here’s how:
Take a big piece of paper and then write down everything that comes into your head that you’ll need to do to set up your business. Don’t worry if it sounds silly – just get it down. You might want to carry this piece of paper round with you for a couple of days just in case you think of anything else you need to do.
Once you’ve got down the vast majority of all the things you’ll need to do, now is the time to start organising them. The first thing to do is group them. For example, anything to do with finance, group them all together (you could do this using a highlighter pen or writing them in groups on a separate sheet of paper); anything to do with getting a loan, group this too. Keep grouping the categories until you have five or six main headings to do.
With grouping, what you’re trying to do is firstly realise that a lot of the tasks you need to do are related and can be done together and secondly reduce the number of things you need to do into five or six areas. As such, if when you do this exercise, you find that some things don’t quite fit into a category, that’s fine – feel free to break them out into another heading.
When you’ve got your groups, take a good long look at them. Is there a logical order in which they need to be done? For example, if you need to get a loan from the bank, you have to write a business plan first before you can do that and research and cashflow things need to go into your business plan.
Are there things that can be done together? I don’t mean literally – but are there things which are not dependent on something else happening first. For instance, could you write a business plan at the same time as you go on a business start-up course?
Your task now is to prioritise your categories and give them an order in which to be done. Here’s my task list:
1) Write a business plan. Do market research and create cashflow.
2) Research banks (could be done while doing the business plan)
3) Go to the bank to talk to them about getting a loan.
4) Once I’ve got a loan, buy equipment and create website
5) Start marketing the business to get my first customer
Bear in mind, what’s on your list might be different to mine. Don’t worry about that – every business is different. The important thing is to get a concrete list of 5 or 6 things to do. Your initial notes will have broken down the detail of what needs to be done in each category.
Finally, once you have a list of things to do – go do them. Only you can make this happen, so go out there and make a difference. Good luck.
Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides advice and help for people setting up in business and for small businesses on their marketing.
Do you feel like this? Do you have a business idea and so much to do to get it up and running, that you feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to start?
If so, you’re not alone. Thousands of new business owners feel like this and that’s why it’s vital to put down on paper what you need to do. Here’s how:
Take a big piece of paper and then write down everything that comes into your head that you’ll need to do to set up your business. Don’t worry if it sounds silly – just get it down. You might want to carry this piece of paper round with you for a couple of days just in case you think of anything else you need to do.
Once you’ve got down the vast majority of all the things you’ll need to do, now is the time to start organising them. The first thing to do is group them. For example, anything to do with finance, group them all together (you could do this using a highlighter pen or writing them in groups on a separate sheet of paper); anything to do with getting a loan, group this too. Keep grouping the categories until you have five or six main headings to do.
With grouping, what you’re trying to do is firstly realise that a lot of the tasks you need to do are related and can be done together and secondly reduce the number of things you need to do into five or six areas. As such, if when you do this exercise, you find that some things don’t quite fit into a category, that’s fine – feel free to break them out into another heading.
When you’ve got your groups, take a good long look at them. Is there a logical order in which they need to be done? For example, if you need to get a loan from the bank, you have to write a business plan first before you can do that and research and cashflow things need to go into your business plan.
Are there things that can be done together? I don’t mean literally – but are there things which are not dependent on something else happening first. For instance, could you write a business plan at the same time as you go on a business start-up course?
Your task now is to prioritise your categories and give them an order in which to be done. Here’s my task list:
1) Write a business plan. Do market research and create cashflow.
2) Research banks (could be done while doing the business plan)
3) Go to the bank to talk to them about getting a loan.
4) Once I’ve got a loan, buy equipment and create website
5) Start marketing the business to get my first customer
Bear in mind, what’s on your list might be different to mine. Don’t worry about that – every business is different. The important thing is to get a concrete list of 5 or 6 things to do. Your initial notes will have broken down the detail of what needs to be done in each category.
Finally, once you have a list of things to do – go do them. Only you can make this happen, so go out there and make a difference. Good luck.
Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides advice and help for people setting up in business and for small businesses on their marketing.
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