Columns, blogs and opinion from some of the UKs leading business opinion makers and entrepreneurs and small business owners
Employment levels maybe stabilising, but youth unemployment remains high and is one of the biggest threat to the UK economy’s future. We have to give them the skills for the future because if we don’t charge our economic batteries by training young people now they’ll go flat. Without skilled people powering our economy, we won’t have the energy to drive the country forward.
It is crucial to the success of your business that you understand as much about your competitors as possible. Knowing who they are, what they do and what people like or dislike about them will help you to understand your own strengths. It will also help you to know how to position yourself so that you stand out or are more attractive to your target market.
How to address the epidemic of late payment is one of the biggest headache facing small businesses and politicians, but one initiative has been the 10-day public sector payment target.
While banks are still reluctant to free up additional finances, small businesses are being forced to search for alternative sources of investment. One alternative route that is proving to be increasingly popular with SME’s is crowdfunding.
In this blog, I explain the stupid mistakes salespeople make at exhibitions and what you need to do to make sure you don’t make the same errors.
I’ve been calling for a government-backed business lending bank for ages so you will forgive me if I’m now becoming a little frustrated that, after such a promising announcement, the actual details of how it will work, who will be eligible, and even how much money it will have to lend out, are still not available.
Email marketing might be a cost effective way to drive traffic to your alert potential customers to your goods and services and drive traffic to your website, but it is very easy to come unstuck and land yourself in hot water if you don’t follow these simple rules.
When the new Business Minister Michael Fallon declared that the Government would make it easier to fire workers, I thought my birthday must have come early this year.
The best way to protect your strapline is to trade mark it. In order to trade mark it, the phrase must be distinctive and capable of distinguishing your goods or services from a third party as opposed to a message that could come from anyone.
We all know that we have our best ideas in the shower – so why do we ask our staff to have theirs in meetings?
I have recently seen a change in the lingerie industry. At By Caprice, we have seen lingerie sales sky rocket across the high street in recent months and it’s all due to one book, you got it, I’m talking about the phenomenally successful ’50 shades of grey’. Our customers are seeking sexier and more empowering styles, than ever before.
Digital selling is changing the way sales and prospecting is done. That doesn’t mean that older, more traditional methods no longer work, more that there are new tools and platforms available to the average salesperson that weren’t there 5 years ago for example.
If the Olympic motto was ‘inspire a generation’, the motto of the unemployment figures published today should be ‘invest in a generation.’
The Bank of England reckons the economy will be flat lining again with its growth forecast being cut to close to zero. It has fuelled debate for new measures to stimulate the economy, but what happened to all the cash that has already been thrown at the banks to get the country moving again?
In this blog we take the example of “Peter”.
Peter attempted to sell me his company’s SEO services via email recently, and it serves as a useful example to dissect his approach, and examine the lessons you can learn from it, in order to improve your own sales approaches and increase your sales!
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