New guidance to ensure that Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) acts as a force for good in society has been published by BSI, aiming to help organisations navigate the ethical challenges associated with the use of the technology and build trust in its use as a result.

Use of Artificial intelligence (AI) powered facial recognition tools is increasingly common, including for security purposes such as at King Charles’ Coronation or major sporting events like football matches, and to curb shoplifting. FRT maps an individual’s physical features in an image to form a face template, which can be compared against other images stored within a database to either verify a high level of likeness or identify an individual’s presence at a specific location at a given time.

BSI’s recent research showed that 40% of people globally expect to be using biometric identification in airports by 2030. Its proliferation has prompted concerns about safe and ethical use, including around error rates linked to racial or gender differences, as well as high-profile legal cases, among them one involving software used by Uber. A 2022 audit assessed police use of facial recognition, finding that deployment regularly failed to meet minimum ethical and legal standards.

The new standard has been developed by BSI, in its role as the UK National Standards Body, to assuage concerns by helping organizations navigate the tools and build public trust. It follows BSI’s Trust in AI poll showing that 77% of people believed trust in AI was key for its use in surveillance.

Designed for both public and private organizations using and/or monitoring Video Surveillance Systems (VSS) and Biometric facial technologies, the code of practice is applicable to the whole supply chain, beginning with an assessment to determine the need to use FRT, to its procurement, installation, and appropriate use of the technology. Facial recognition technology – Ethical use and deployment in video surveillance-based systems – Code of practice (BS 9347:2024)sets out six key overarching principles of ‘trustworthiness’. These are backed up with a summary of policies that are required and to be maintained by those across the supply chain. The guide covers its applicability across governance and accountability, human agency and oversight, privacy and data governance, technical robustness and safety, transparency and explain-ability, diversity, non-discrimination, and fairness.

With the industry expected to be worth $13.4 billion globally by 2028, the standard sets out the importance of regularly reviewing the ethics of AI and its application in FRT. It embeds best practice and gives guidance on the appropriate guardrails for safe and unbiased use of FRT through the definition of two scenarios: identification and verification. For the former, such as identifying individuals in crowds at events, the standard requires that FRT is used in conjunction with human intervention or human-in-the-loop measures to ensure accurate identification before action is taken.

In verification scenarios where the technology can operate autonomously, such as building access control, authenticating a payment transaction, or opening a phone, the standard puts guardrails in place for the technology’s learning by ensuring training data includes sets from diverse demographic pools and across a variety of lighting levels and camera angles, to eliminate inaccuracies and mitigate the risk for bias by way of false positives.

Scott Steedman, Director-General, Standards, BSI said: “AI-enabled facial recognition tools have the potential to be a driving force for good and benefit society through their ability to detect and monitor potential security threats.

“This code of practice is designed to help organizations navigate the ethical challenges associated with the use of FRT systems and build trust in its use as a result. It aims to embed best practice and give guidance on the appropriate guardrails organizations can put in place to safeguard civil rights and eliminate system bias and discrimination.”

Dave Wilkinson, Director of Technical Services, British Security Industry Association, said “The use of FRT has not come without its own challenges, whether that has been down to the accuracy of the technology, or how and where it is deployed. Many relevant questions have been asked by privacy groups, industry stakeholders and other interested parties on the appropriate and proportionate use of such technology. This code of practice aims to instil trustworthiness in the use of FRT by setting out key principles covering the whole process from assessing the need to use it, to ensuring its continued operation remains fit for purpose and justified.

“Aligned to the understanding of developing regulation both here in the UK and the wider international regulatory landscape, the code of practice sets out to build trust with those that develop, use, and are subject to its use.”

Read more:
Guide to safe and ethical use of facial recognition tools launched

The current VAT threshold in the UK stands at £85,000. Any business that has an annual turnover of that value must register for VAT with HMRC, and when they do this they will receive a VAT number.

Before you work with another business, you normally want to find out all you can about them and you can easily do this through a Google search. However, something you might not consider looking at is their VAT number, and this is actually something that you should definitely be verifying.

Verifying the VAT number of any businesses that your business is in contact with should be an initial move. You can find out extensive details on the VAT numbers on gov.co.uk, however we have summarised what VAT is and the importance of verifying the VAT number below.

What is a VAT number?

A VAT number is a registration number of sorts for those businesses that surpass the annual turnover threshold of £85,000. The VAT number is a code which is unique to a business and a business will be given it when they are registered with HMRC. The number will be displayed on the VAT registration certificate, and the UK VAT numbers consist of nine digits, usually beginning with “GB”.

Why is it important to verify a VAT number?

It is important to check the validity of a VAT number because if you put the wrong number on your return, you may invalidate your invoice and HMRC can even disallow your tax input claim. This can leave you with having to deal with pile of paperwork and no money back for the VAT. Sometimes having an invalid VAT number will likely be due to human error, other times it could be because of fraudulent activity. Therefore, verifying the VAT number is essential.

Two steps you can take to validate a VAT number

You can easily carry out the two methods available to check the validity of a VAT number. Firstly you can call the HMRC VAT helpline (0300 200 3700), which is open between 8am to 8pm from Monday to Friday. However, you should keep in mind that the helpline can only verify the numbers that are from UK registered businesses.

Alternatively, you can use the online VAT number validation service which is provided by the VAT Information Exchange System (VIES). As the HMRC helpline can only deal with UK registered business the VIES website, which is run by European Commission, can help you verify VAT numbers of European countries. This method is simple and all you have to do is fill in a short form online. The website can then inform you if the VAT number is registered and to which business, straight away.

Keep proof of your search

If you need to keep proof of your search, then the website also allows you to do so. You are able to print out or save the search results, and if need be you can use the proof to let HMRC know that the VAT number in question was registered at the time.

Read more:
Checking the validity of a VAT number

With no experience, there are multiple tools available out there that will allow you to create your own website without learning any code or stressing over what acronym means what (SSL, SSD, FTP, SSH…what do they all mean?)

So, if you’re an SME just starting out and looking to build your very own site, here’s a quick guide:

Make use of a website builder

A website builder is a ready made tool, that allows you to pay a fee and create a personalised website featuring your content on a pre created template. For those starting out they are a great option, although they are not as flexible as you might like them to be when it comes to customisation of design. A builder gives you the satisfaction of a plug and play site. If you can’t afford a developer it’s well worth it.

Or use a blogging platform

WordPress and Blogger allow you to create websites in the same way a website builder does, using a template, filling it with content and publishing pages and posts as and when needed. For more advanced templates you may have to pay a fee, but sometimes it is worth doing this to ensure your site looks professional and appealing. You can even add store elements if you buy into a professional business plan with these sites, that allow you to sell securely through your site.

Purchase a domain name

It’s so important to register your domain name before you even begin creating your website. You can find these on domain register sites, where you pay a fee and then own the domain for a year or a set period before renewing again later. It’s important you renew when needed and choose a domain that looks reputable (.co.uk and .com are preferred but if they are not available you could go for .net or .biz). You can take this domain with you, even if you move your website to another host, so it’s worth investing in.

Choose a website builder that hosts too

Web hosting is tricky business, there are servers to manage and security to install, but using a website builder allows you to skip this step as they cover these bases for you. This is definitely recommended, as it protects you from hackers and if you have a store on the site it ensures it is safe for visitors to buy through.

As an SME, building a website with no experience means leaning on the professionals and using every free tool to your advantage. Backtrack ten, even five, years ago and this would not have been possible but drop and drag builders are so common and affordable now everyone can have a great looking website without the stress of learning code!

Read more:
SME’s guide to building a website with NO experience

Maybe I’m simply being fussy.

But this rise in audio content has left the Internet (and our ears) saturated with mundane, everyday conversations. Podcasters aren’t typically trained in the art of conversational speaking. I’ve heard too many shows where the speakers end up talking over each other. They deviate completely from the chosen topic and end up selling themselves, rather than their learning experience.

So the question is, are audiences really learning from podcasts?

Or is it giving a voice to people who haven’t yet crafted the art of an effective audio experience? At least with a blog post or white paper, audiences can take what they need in a matter of seconds, and then refer back whenever they choose.

Or maybe I’m ‘just another Millennial’ talking and can’t pay attention for longer than 8-seconds.

Whilst each podcast claims to be focused on helping people succeed with their businesses and personal lives, the rise of podcasts emphasise the growing amount of life and productivity coaches working today. We’ve been told time and time again to create useful, shareable content which benefits our audiences.

This has led to complete content overload. Just take a look at the iTunes Podcast Directory.

There’s a stronger push now for quality over quantity, but with this push, we’ve ended up giving a voice to people who haven’t crafted their (tone of voice) yet.

You can’t deny the traffic podcasts receive. Social Pros podcast gets 60’000 downloads a month! Audiences have the option to download the entire shows from websites, stream directly from sites, or use a torrent programme to download shows – giving people the ability to curate and choose their content.

But are your listeners really getting what they want from your podcast?

Marketers are still trying to figure out how to deliver a consistent and useful experience, one that allows their audiences to learn as well as positioning their company as thought-leaders. Unfortunately, though, this has become synonymous with influencer name dropping and pushing sponsored products.

We’re still in the early stages of developing audio-visual-text-based communications. Marketers have to learn how to integrate all three, in order to effectively target and improve their deliverable experiences.

But first, let’s look at a brief history of podcasts.

Now the title of ‘Podcast Grandfather’ has been given to Adam Curry, who began his show, the Daily Source Code, back in August 2004 – recorded in his car whilst driving through the Netherlands!

But it was actually Christopher Lydon who began his podcast in July 2003, Radio Open Source, which is still available today. The earliest forms of podcasts tended to use Apple Script in order to pull audio enclosures of an RSS feed, synch it via iTunes and then to an iPod. Something known as a Podcatcher, one of the first being the iPodder.

And that’s how podcasts began. See, I told you it was brief.

Since a boom in 2004, the rise of podcast shows has grown at an unbelievable rate. And with this, is a clear quality-standard which needs to be introduced, and met by podcasters. So now let’s look at the pros and cons.

Pro’s

1. Your brand is able to focus on any given niche and create a conversation around this
2. They’re free and portable, making them readily available for most audiences
3. You have the option to reach out to a new community of listeners
4. Podcasts allow audiences to multi-task – perfect in today’s hectic world
5. It mixes up the content types you’re offering to your audiences
6. Audiences can listen in their own time and at their own pace
7. It increases your brand’s authority
8. You can engage with audiences at times that usually weren’t available i.e. commutes, before bedtime, as they’re waking up
9. Podcasts expand the number of networking opportunities available – an influencer is more likely to take part in a 20-minute phone conversation rather than a guest blog
10. Audiences are exclusively listening to your show!

Con’s

1. Conversations are broken up by heavy selling from sponsors and related products
2. As they’re audio-based, it’s a lot harder for Google to crawl and find your podcast for search results
3. Audiences aren’t able to skim through the content to see if it’s relevant to them
4. Anyone has the ability to create a podcast – even from their back bedroom… or car
5. Podcasts need to be delivered following a consistent schedule
6. They are available for free and so don’t make the creators any, or much money
7. It’s hard to track the ROI without directly linking to a hard-sell and marketing messages
8. Lack of quality conversations and speaking training
9. Poor equipment can lead to poor quality podcasts
10. Doesn’t create a two-way conversation with your audience – extra attention needs to be paid in order to engage your audiences

There are many arguments for both sides and it entirely depends on your preference.

Personally I prefer to have my content laid out in-front of me, allowing me to delve in whenever I get the chance to, making my own notes, at my own pace. But this I know is a simply a personal preference. What works for me won’t nessarcarily work for everyone else.

Marketers and podcasters need to find the middle ground. Alongside the call for quality content, there needs to be a push now for quality podcasts. I certainly can’t provide you with a perfect example, but I can list out all the pointers podcasters need to keep in mind, in order to deliver a sound experience.

Integrate your communication platforms

If you’ve ever been to a panel talk or conference, there’s always a room full of professionals and journalists (or attempting journalists), scribbling away any quote they can jot down – essentially missing the essence of the talk. Even as I’m writing this now, I’ve been stopping and starting the podcast I’ve been listening to, not really taking any information in!

Podcasters need to take a stronger note from content marketing. Make your content easier to view, to share and download. Include a text-based transcript which follows along with your audio, just like lynda.com does. Even Convince & Convert compliment their podcast with a full-text transcript.

This gives your audience visual identifiers, allowing them to form connections with your topic, and create better engagement with your offerings.

Although we get visual messages much more clearly than text-based information, in order to refer back, you have to retain your brain to follow down the same journey you took just to get there. Mix up your text-audio-visual identifiers so that your audience can refer back to your podcast whenever they need.

Train people in the art of conversation

I’m sure we’ve all heard enough podcasts to know that most, struggle to follow even the most basic of structures. If talking to an influencer, a lot of people make the mistake of talking over others, speeding up the conversation so it’s too fast to listen to and deviating from their chosen subject.

Yes, it is meant to be conversational. But it’s also meant to be deliverable.

One fantastic example of tackling poor conversations is Adobe’s Marketing Podcasts. Now I’ll note, they’re not the best in terms of content, but what they do to engage their readers audibly, is outstanding. Adobe has hired Malcolm McDowell and Rufus Beck to add some ‘gravitas’ to their content.

The pair are so well trained at engaging their audiences with simply the sound of their voice, they make reading white papers sound like a symphony orchestra.

Of course hiring professional actors isn’t the most viable of options. But training yourself in a similar way might actually help you.

Try taking stand up comedy classes, hire a public speaking voice coach, or even get one of your colleagues to critique you. (I wouldn’t suggest using a friend because they won’t be able to judge you unbiased).

Invest in quality equipment

I’m not saying if you’re a young start-up with a voice, that you should invest half of your budget into buying quality equipment. But it does help.

Now I won’t name the examples of poor sounding podcasts, but there’s a clear difference between using shoddy, run-of-the-mill equipment, and quality recording devices. Make sure you take the time to invest, even if this is over a period of time, in a good microphone, editing software and marketing materials.

Search for reviews online, go in-store and ask for advice. Take the time to consider what’s within your price range and available to you. Don’t worry if you can’t afford state-of-the-art equipment, as long as what your using delivers quality.

Market. And market well

This is the danger with podcasts. You record them, upload to the Internet and iTunes and then forget entirely about them. Your audiences need to be constantly reminded what you have out there, and then deliver it to them in a consistent and timely manner.

Don’t forget, podcasts don’t help to engage your audiences. They only create a conversation between you and your chosen influencer. Instead, you need to focus on creating a ‘multiway conversation’ – one between yourself, your influencer or brand, and your audiences.

This is where it becomes important to take a multi-channel approach to marketing your podcast. Utilise all platforms which are relevant and available for you. Don’t just deliver an audio episode. Include a text-based transcript and create visual imagery to pair with the points you’re making.

Don’t forget, blogging is still the number one platform. Why? Because people search for answers, providing blogs with long-tail SEO traffic. Something that’s not possible for podcasts without any text to reference the content.

Try including a contents list, top quotes and key takeaways to support your audio content.

Plan well in advance

You’re going to need to take a lot of time to plan your podcast. Don’t forget, it’s not just a matter of switching your microphone on and then talking. There’s script writing; structure planning; talent and influencer sourcing; research; sound editing; mixing; website design and marketing involved.

Make sure you plan well ahead and give yourself enough time to perfect your podcast. Don’t set the date for your first episode and then rush to get it ready in that time. Instead, create a backlog of content and make sure each has a clear, but definable voice.

One that clearly links with your podcast topic.

Main takeaway: Podcasts need to be integrated better with other platforms to deliver their audiences a sound learning experience.

And just so you can make your own mind up, a selection from Buffer and iTunes.

Written by Georgina Dunn

Read more:
How to get podcasting right

Whether you’re at the very early stages of selling your business or are looking to find a buyer, a business transfer agent can give professional and practical help to take you through the process.

As a business owner, there may come a point when, for one reason or another, you need or want to sell your business. While you may have planned for this as part of your grand plan, selling a business is not always a straightforward process, and there are many aspects that need to be considered from the initial business valuation though to the final details of the sale.

It is common to appoint a business transfer agent, a professional to handle all the aspects of selling your business and we asked Sovereign Business Transfer – UK’s fastest growing business broker and transfer agent – to explain how a broker could help.

Expert knowledge to assess the value of your business
A business transfer agent has a similar role in the world of business sales as an estate agent has in the world of buying and selling houses. With in-depth knowledge of the business world, a good business transfer agent can smooth the path of your sale (or purchase if you are buying a business). Essentially there to help you obtain the best price for your business, these business brokers will carry out a business valuation taking a number of factors into account. With a valuation complete, a business transfer agent will then advise the price to put your business on the market, and guide your through the process to a successful outcome, working to obtain the best, acceptable price for your business.

Work out your sale strategy
A business transfer agent doesn’t just perform valuations thought. If you instruct a business transfer agent early in the process, he or she should help you plan your exit strategy from the business you are intending to sell. This could include organising tax and if necessary, pension advice (for example if the sale is due to retirement), before you sell your business a good agent will ensure the transaction progresses, ensuring the process goes as smoothly as possible and you know what to expect every step of the way. If you’re intending to invest in another business after the sale, a good business transfer agent can help you to source your next investment at the same time as they are overseeing the transfer of your current business.

Special attention to marketing
With a valuation complete and a price for the market, a business transfer agent will then ensure that your business is marketed correctly, drawing up a prospectus for the sale – a Memorandum of Sale – which provides and accurate description of the business for prospective buyers who have signed a suitable confidentiality agreement. A business transfer agent will be responsible for publicising the sale of the business, and for finding potential buyers. He or she will also be responsible for communication between you and potential buyers. In short, a business transfer agent will handle all details of the sale, allowing you to continue to keep your business running until the point of sale.

Dealing with the legalities
The last details of a business sale come down to the legal procedures necessary to transfer ownership of the business from you, as the seller, to your buyer. Although a solicitor may be required, the business transfer agent should be able to handle many of the legalities of the sale. Alternatively, he or she should be able to liaise closely between your legal representatives and those of the seller to keep the sale running smoothly.

By working on commission – receiving a percentage of the sale – business transfer agents are motivated to obtain the highest price for your business.

Read more:
What is a business transfer agent?

Such a key strategic position on the Western Approaches enabled the town to flourish during the mid-17^th to 19^th centuries when, as the designated Royal Packet Station, it played a vital communications role for the expanding British Empire.

During the Packet Ship era, an outward-looking Falmouth was home to over 20 consulates and today the town retains the same cosmopolitan air. Despite the recent global economic downturn and UK recession, Falmouth’s eclectic high street punches well above its weight, which adds significant appeal to the 1.2 million visitors it attracts annually.

Brightly painted buildings house a collection of artisan shops and niche independent operators, while the town also offers a burgeoning food and drink sector and creative industries scene. There is real variety and quirkiness  to the retail offering – a business designing and manufacturing multi-million-pound superyachts sits comfortably alongside the UK’s oldest chandlery, while a recently-opened Japanese restaurant is less than two minutes’ walk away from a multi-award winning prosthetics and special effects studio that boasts clients from Hollywood and Bollywood. Move along the foreshore and you’ll discover the hub of Cornwall’s marine sector that is now one of the UK’s key influencers in terms of the development of marine renewables, engineering and design; shaping and driving products, services and solutions on a global level. Falmouth-based Fugro Seacore played a key role in raising the ill-fated Costa Concordia ship from the seabed, for example, and pioneering renewable energy devices are being tested in Falmouth Bay.

A port with a purpose, Falmouth strikes a successful balance between its multi-layered retail and business offering, and its strong sense of community. It is not for nothing that The Sunday Times cited Falmouth as one of the best places to live in Britain with its ‘eccentric and splendid surroundings’ and ‘international reputation for arts and media,’ which brings us to the influence of Falmouth University upon the town’s fortunes.

From its humble beginnings as an art school in 1902, it has evolved to become Falmouth University, which was recently ranked by The Sunday Times as the number one arts university in the UK. With one campus embedded in the heart of town and a second in nearby Penryn, Falmouth benefits from the wealth of artistic and original talent that is nurtured there as many graduates  choose  to stay and establish businesses in the town. This leads to a ‘creative corridor’ of start-ups and agencies, which adds a further dynamic to an already vibrant mix.

Sanders Shiers is one such example. Established by Falmouth University graduate, Alan Sanders in 2003, this high-end CGI illustration and animation agency has an impressive international portfolio that includes Conran, DDB and Taylor Wimpey. Sanders Shiers can offer world-class talent and professionalism from its Falmouth HQ to corporate clients across the globe – and enjoy the enviable lifestyle that Cornwall offers.

The rollout of Superfast broadband in Cornwall has helped to stimulate the growth of such businesses with Falmouth being one of the first towns in the UK to receive 95% coverage. Graduates, start-ups and would-be investors now view Falmouth as an increasingly attractive location to do business in and from. Where once the geographical distance to London and other centres of international commerce may have been a stumbling block to business growth, new technologies work very much in the town’s favour.

But it is also Falmouth’s strong sense of community that is very much at the heart of its growth and development. The recent passing of a much-admired police officer, PC Andy Hocking, brought over 6,000 people to Falmouth to walk ‘One Last Beat’, in memory of a man whose pride and passion for all things Falmouth struck a lasting chord with so many. This unique event was reported across the world’s media (a memorial walk among UK police ex-pats was even organised in Australia) and Falmouth works hard to foster and celebrate its supportive and positive community.

Staying with the community theme, Falmouth’s award-winning Cruise Ship Ambassador Scheme is the only such volunteer service in Europe. Established nearly 10 years ago, the ambassadors are largely retired residents of the town who provide an invaluable meet, greet and information service to the 20,000+ cruise visitors who disembark in the port each season. With £80 as the average day-spend of a single cruise liner passenger, the town’s Business Improvement District (BID) seeks to enhance their visitor experience by providing multi-language maps and guides, and complimentary shuttle buses so that they can explore all that the town has to offer.

The BID does much behind the scenes to drive Falmouth’s prosperity in partnership with Falmouth Town Council as part of a dynamic Town Team. Something of a trailblazer as the only such model operating in Cornwall, this Town Team comprises  BID Manager, Richard Wilcox, supported by the BID’s Board of volunteer Directors, and Town Manager, Richard Gates, representing Falmouth Town Council, who work tirelessly to engage with and support Falmouth’s thriving  community by coordinating and planning shared strategy.

The Town Council is proactive in negotiating control of some of the town’s assets from Cornwall Council, actively champions local initiatives and provides vital infrastructure for events. The BID has helped the town’s businesses through challenging times by investing their levy payments in a colourful calendar of events, festivals and year-round initiatives to drive footfall and extend the season; a community-led branding project that identified target audiences; a national PR campaign that positions Falmouth as a valued proposition for high-yield consumers, lifestyle magazine and newspaper editors, as well as would-be investors; public realm enhancements; business upskilling programmes;  and a dynamic destination website, www.falmouth.co.uk, backed by savvy social media campaigns. The fact that 87 per cent of Falmouth’s businesses voted in favour of a second five-year term for the BID – the strongest result in the region – says it all.

As part of its public realm programme, the BID has helped to ‘connect the dots’ of the town for visitors, given that the retail hub, harbour and beaches are situated along a linear coastal and harbour area.  Businesses in the town centre and its stunning beaches are now clearly linked via bespoke, branded maps, trails, storytelling boards and supporting digital literature that seek to highlight Falmouth’s history, artistic pedigree and maritime heritage, and encourage visitors to explore and return.

Falmouth’s Town Team was also called upon by retail guru, Mary Portas to provide relevant research and insight to inform her government review of the British high street. Her report went on to recommend strategic operational management for the UK’s high streets; the empowering of successful Business Improvement Districts to become ‘Super-BIDs’, and highlighted ‘the sheer importance of community spirit and reinventing towns as destinations for socialising, culture, health, wellbeing, creativity and learning’ – all of which Falmouth has long known about and continues to deliver with aplomb.

Its year-round programme of festivals not only brings the local community together, but also encourages visitors to contribute significantly to the local economy.  Last year’s Tall Ships Regatta, which was hosted by Falmouth for the sixth time in nearly 50 years, contributed £10M to the county’s coffers, for example.

To complement established events such as the Oyster Festival (October), the International Sea Shanty Festival (June) and Falmouth Week (August), the BID has developed new festivals to extend the season such as Spring Fest (March), Splash Creative (September), and this year’s ZestiFAL that celebrates wellbeing and getting active (July).

Falmouth has an empty vacant unit rate of under 5 per cent, well below the UK national average which is around 11%.

Sweetpea & Betty, a quirky, boutique establishment that sells French antiques and holds workshops on how to upcycle furniture has recently opened a second shop within the town. Willow & Stone, which offers high quality interior accessories such as door furniture, period fittings and chic homeware has opened another premises to enable it to distribute globally via its digital platforms. Artisan coffee house, Espressini, which The Independent hailed as one of the best coffee shops in the UK, has opened a second outlet in a different part of town, such is its popularity. Wild Pony, which trades in vintage apparel, relocated from Brighton to establish its cool clothing outlet and with increasing demand from Falmouth fashionistas, has recently unveiled a pop-up shop to entice yet more customers with its imaginative interiors and brand.

Bosun’s Locker Chandlery, the oldest in the country, has recently exchanged its secluded harbourside location to join the throng of Falmouth’s thriving high street, taking up residence in a prime retail location and rebranding to appeal to a cooler, contemporary customer as well as celebrate its traditional roots.

Multi-award winning Seasalt Clothing is a Cornish retail success story that also has its HQ in Falmouth. With a retail philosophy that is rooted in the creativity, maritime history and heritage of Cornwall, the company has expanded rapidly across the UK in recent years, with John Lewis and M&S among several major players who now stock the Seasalt range.

Falmouth offers the perfect environment for small and medium-sized enterprises looking to launch a new business or nurture a fledgling brand, as John and Hannah Hersey discovered when they launched their surfer chic café, Good Vibes.  Inspired by their love of water sports and great food, their blend of locally-sourced ingredients, funky recipes, laidback atmosphere and colourful interior is hugely popular with surfers, students and high street shoppers alike. Like other businesses in the town, they have found their niche.

Amanzi offers African food made from local produce, with Cornish Biltong being a particular speciality. Wildebeest serves up delicious gluten free and vegan fare, often with an Asian and Cornish influence. The Wheelhouse and Rick Stein serve the finest Cornish seafood, Ciuri Ciuri delights customers with its Sicilian gelataria, and Earth & Sea offer an unusual sausage-making and eating experience.

Richard Wilcox, Falmouth Business Improvement District (BID) Manager, says: “We have much to be proud of and to celebrate here in Falmouth. We maximise our  resources by thinking and working imaginatively, partnering with local organisations and volunteer groups to ensure that the town is a vibrant, year-round destination for visitors, residents and businesses alike. As Cornwall’s events hub, we’re constantly reviewing our offer, seeking to make the most of our natural setting and welcome visitors from all over the world. Successful high streets and communities are ones that combine local expertise, enthusiasm, pride and passion to best effect, and foster an environment that is conducive to creative thinking, and Falmouth has all that and more.”

Read more:
Cornish seaside home to entrepreneurial creative businesses, independent retailers and eateries

Business Structures
The sole trader / partnership route is the simplest way to get going in business. The limited company route is the most tax efficient in most situations, although company directors have more obligations to meet than the self employed. In some industries clients will only do business with you if you are operating via a limited company structure plus a limited company also provides you with limited liability so should the company get into any financial issues then the owners of the business will not be personally liable for any debts.

Bad Advice
A good accountant can save you time, money and stress, and let you focus on growing your business. Almost all limited companies use accountants, and if you’re a sole trader, you may also benefit from hiring an accountant to complete your annual self-assessment return, and provide ongoing tax advice.

Meeting Deadlines
As a business owner, you should be aware the you are are ultimately responsible for meeting your financial and statutory deadlines, so there shouldn’t have any excuses for submitting forms or paying your taxes late. You could face heavy HMRC penalties for missing your tax deadlines, and even prosecution in extreme cases if you fail to submit your Annual Return to Companies House on time (if you’re a limited company owner).

The Right People
A business will only be successful if it employs the right people. Most small businesses are driven forward by their owners, but often the unsung heroes are the people who run the office, keep on top of the administration, and provide customer support. Treat your employees well, reward them meeting their targets, and consider providing incentives (such as sharing the profits of the business) so that your staff have a stake in the company’s success.

Research
Before starting up your new enterprise, have you taken time to research your market, to ensure that a profitable business opportunity exists? How many competitors are there in your space, and what is your unique selling point (USP)? How will you differentiate yourself from other firms in the market?

No Business Plan
Many businesses do not have a business plan. You should always have a solid plan in mind when you start a new business, even if you do not create a traditional ‘business plan’. A business plan is a fluid document – all companies evolve as they grow, reacting to situations as they happen, and to changes in the marketplace. At worst, a business plan is a useful document to measure your success against.

Funding
Most small businesses are initially financed by their owners – from personal funds, or with the help of friends or family. In the future, if you require further funding, you will need to provide potential investors, or banks with credible reasons why they should lend you money or buy into your business through equity funding. You will not be able to gain funds from financial organisations or angel investors unless you have a realistic business plan in place, and a proven business model.

Read more:
8 classic small business mistakes to avoid

Any good video conferencing network includes a host of conferencing and workshopping tools like virtual whiteboards, screen sharing, and media sharing. But simply hosting an online meeting through video conferencing can be a challenge on its own: how can you get the most of all these new tools at your disposal, and keep your meetings smooth and productive?

Know thy software, know thyself
The first step to facilitating an effective online meeting is all practice. Take the time to familiarize yourself with the software your business uses for video conferencing. Your provider will probably have resources available on their website to teach you how to use your software’s features.

The more streamlined and user-friendly your software package, the less time you’ll have to spend figuring out the ins and outs of using it effectively. System-agnostic or broad-based compatible software is often the easiest to learn. These systems are browser-based, and designed to be compatible with whatever operating system and hardware you use: PC or Mac, desktop or mobile. Video communication with Bluejeans is one of the easiest systems to learn, for you and your online collaborators.

Set an agenda and timeline
An agenda is important in a normal, face-to-face meeting, but it becomes even more important when you’re attempting to hold the attention of your collaborators remotely. Business communication experts from the University of California recommend setting not only an agenda, but a timeline for an online meeting, to ensure you keep the pace brisk and your collaborators involved. Set out each item on the agenda, and then estimate how much time you want to spend on that item before coming to a solution and moving on.

It’s extremely important to keep online meetings interactive: since you can’t rely on the normal set of visual cues, like yawning, wandering eyes, and doodling, you’ll have to work extra hard to keep the attention of your audience. Sticking to a timeline will help you here as well: University of California’s experts have found that after ten minutes of presentations or lecturing, your audience will start to lose focus. Plan your agenda so that you can break up presentations with interactive, collaborative activities to keep everyone engaged.

Don’t overload your screen (or your collaborators)
Screen sharing is a great way to keep your collaborators involved, but it can be a double-edged sword: if you over use your video conferencing software’s screen sharing capabilities, your meeting and workshopping can quickly turn into an incomprehensible mess. According to Facilitate.com, a business communications resource, you should limit the number of windows on your screen to three at any given time: too many more, and you and your collaborators will lose focus.

Features like screen sharing and virtual whiteboards are a great combination for workshopping a document in a group, combining ideas and expertise without overloading your screen. Use screen sharing to share a document or mockup, a virtual whiteboard to collect feedback and workshop ideas, and a video window to communicate face to face with your collaborators: an ideal setup that won’t clutter your screen.

Minimise movement
Just like facilitating an in-person meeting, running an online video conference and using tools like screen sharing is a skill that takes practice. Using too many windows on one screen can quickly overload your collaborators, and moving a shared screen too quickly will have the same effect. Remember, even the fastest network will lag a little when you’re sharing large documents, so scrolling too quickly will cause your collaborator’s screens to blur and jump.

Learning how fast you can scroll to let a screen display properly takes some trial and error, and it will vary from system to system. According to Forbes, the best way to master screen sharing is simple practice: set up a call with a coworker and experiment until you find the right levels of screen movement, scrolling and switching.

Wrapping Up
Video conferencing is a tool every business needs in their arsenal. And like any new tool, you’ll have to learn a new skill set to get the most of it. Facilitating an effective meeting and moderating collaboration in an online video conference is a challenge, but once you’ve mastered the basics, it will have a huge impact on what you can achieve. Save money on travel, collaborate with experts no matter how far away they are, and get the best feedback on projects in progress. Whatever your line of work, video conferencing isn’t a skill you can afford to pass up on.

Image: Screensharing by Shutterstock

Read more:
Screensharing 101: How to get the most out of your video conferencing software

As a rule, setting up automated website deployments renders a drastic increase in deployment success rates and frequencies. SMBs in particular benefit from automating deployment for several reasons. Once you set up an automated deployment, you are better able to produce high-quality websites and apps with less waste, because you can deliver small increases in functionality to end users frequently and react faster to market demands. Moreover, automated deployments do not suffer from variability; once configured, the process is the same every time a release is initiated. Thus, it is economically sound to invest time and resources into setting up automated deployment.

Following this short, down and dirty guide will help save you nerves and time, especially if you have a relatively large team of developers and opt for the Git Flow branching model. By utilizing the latter in concert with a hook script to automatically roll out websites to production servers every time there is a commit to master, you can streamline your release cycles – resulting in greater transparency and stability, as well as allowing your team to be more flexible and move significantly faster.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, Dreamweaver is a decent editor that offers many handy tools wrapped in a friendly and simple interface. Whether you currently believe this or not, the one thing Dreamweaver lacks is Git integration. There goes versioning with your beloved distributed version control system (DVCS) along with push and subsequent automated deployment with hooks, right? Well, not quite.

I’m about to share a step-by-step walkthrough on how to set up Dreamweaver, Git and Bitbucket to play nicely together and handle automated deployments to your server/hosting using POST hooks.

The expected workflow is as follows:

• You commit changes to your local repository (repo) and push them up to your Bitbucket repo;
• Bitbucket sends a POST request to a deployment script on your server;
• If you committed changes to a specific branch, the script deploys them from Bitbucket to your server.

Prerequisites

For the purposes of this article, we assume that:

• You opt for Dreamweaver;
• You are on a Windows machine;
• You are a Bitbucket fan, because you believe that free private repositories for up to five users rock;
• You have a server/hosting account;
• You have shell access to that environment;
• The PHP exec function is enabled there;
• You are at least a little familiar with Git.

Preparing the local environment

The first thing that you have to do (if you haven’t done it already) is to install Git on your local machine. To do that, follow this link and run the automatically downloaded setup file. Given that the installation process is straightforward, I recommend omitting explanations leaving the default settings as-is, except for one; I suggest changing the default installation folder from C:\Program Files (x86)\Git to whichever folder you prefer.

Next, we need to download and install TortoiseGit, a Windows shell interface for Git that is available here. Follow the link and download a version that corresponds to the version of your operating system (i.e. 32-bit or 64-bit). The same installation rule applies here; use default settings except for two:

• Change the default installation folder from C:\Program Files\TortoiseGit to whichever folder you prefer;
• Tick the OpenSSH, Git default SSH Client, as we will be using SSH to connect to your Bitbucket repository.

You also need to download the GITWeaver plugin, developed by Chris McKee, which hooks Dreamweaver into TortoiseGIT. Follow this link to Chris’s GitHub repo and download the file, which corresponds to your Dreamweaver version:

• For CC/CS6 you need to download the .zxp file;
• For all other versions, you need to download the .mxi file.

Once you have downloaded the corresponding file, run it, and the Adobe Extension Manager will handle the installation.*

* At this point, you may face an issue where the extension manager doesn’t see that you have Dreamweaver installed. To fix that, update Adobe Extension Manager to the latest version via Creative Cloud. 

Finally, you have to set up your Bitbucket repo:

1. Follow this link and enter your credentials as shown below:

2. Select Empty, enter the name of your repo, untick the checkbox if you want your repository to be visible to public and press Create:

3. Somewhere along the way make sure to confirm your email address:

4. Press Done to finish setting up the repo:

Setting up an identity

Now it is time to set up an identity on your system for Git to use when communicating with Bitbucket. To do that, run Git Bash, which by now should appear in your Start menu:

Type in ssh -v to verify that you have SSH installed and ready to go. If you do, then the response that you get should look like this:

You will now need to type ssh-keygen and press enter to create a pair of keys that will identify you to other systems:

The console will prompt you to specify the filename in which to save the keys. Accept what it automatically suggests by pressing enter. Then you will be prompted to enter a passphrase and confirm it:

Don’t get too excited if you don’t see any characters appearing in the console as you press keys on your keyboard; they remain invisible so you will just have to carefully type in a password of your choice, hit enter and then do that once again to confirm it. Once you are done, you will end up having something like this:

To ensure that a public and a private key have been successfully generated, enter ls -a ~/.ssh into the console and press enter. If they have, then the response will list two files named id_rsa and id_rsa.pub:

Now you need to create a configuration file, which would specify Bitbucket as a host and pinpoint where the key is located. To do that you need to go to your .ssh folder and create an empty file there called config. This file should not have any extension.*

*At this point, you might be facing two problems: locating your .ssh folder and creating a file without extension. If you have not changed any default settings during this process, your .ssh folder should be located at C:\Users\%YourUserName%\.ssh. If not, then I suggest using search in Windows explorer to look for the generated id_rsa.pub key, which is located in the .ssh folder. In order to create a file without extension called config, you can use Notepad++. Simply create a new file there, click Save As…, type in config under File Name, select All types under Save as type, and click Save.

Copy and paste the following two lines into your newly created config file and save it (please, note that the second line is indented by one space character):

Host bitbucket.org

IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

If Git Bash is open, close it and open it again. At this point we need to create a file called .bashrc in our root folder (the parent folder of .ssh, which in our case is C:\Users\%YourUserName%\). This file will automatically start an ssh agent when Git Bash is launched.*

*At this point, you might be facing the problem of creating a .bashrc file. Use Notepad++ to do that. Create a new file there, click Save As…, type in .bashrc under File Name, select All types under Save as type, and click Save.

Copy and paste the following lines to your newly created .bashrc file and save it:

SSH_ENV=$HOME/.ssh/environment

# start the ssh-agent

function start_agent {

echo “Initializing…”

# spawn ssh-agent

/usr/bin/ssh-agent | sed ‘s/^echo/#echo/’ > “${SSH_ENV}”

echo succeeded

chmod 600 “${SSH_ENV}”

. “${SSH_ENV}” > /dev/null

/usr/bin/ssh-add

}

if [ -f “${SSH_ENV}” ]; then

. “${SSH_ENV}” > /dev/null

ps -ef | grep ${SSH_AGENT_PID} | grep ssh-agent$ > /dev/null || {

start_agent;

}

else

start_agent;

fi

Close and open Git Bash once again. When reopened, it should prompt you to enter the password, which you specified earlier when you generated the keys.

Type in the password and press enter. You’ll get a response, which says Identity added.*

*At this point, you might face the following problem: if you close Git Bash before you type in your password and press enter, Git Bash will no longer prompt you to enter the password when opened again. To fix that issue, close Git Bash, go to your .ssh folder, delete a file, called environment, then open Git Bash again and you should be good.

Just to make sure that your identity has been added, type in ssh-add –l. The response you get should look like this:

Finally, we need to add that key to Bitbucket so that it can successfully authorize us. Log in to your newly created Bitbucket account, click on your avatar in the top right corner and click Manage Account:

Click SSH Keys in the sidebar on the left.

Click Add key to open up a window where we will paste our generated SSH key.

Open Git Bash, type in cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub and press enter. This command will respond with our public SSH key:

Click the icon in the top left corner of Git Bash window, select Edit and Mark.

Drag the mouse over all the lines that contain the key (it begins with ssh-rsa).

Once selected, click the icon in the top left corner again, select Edit and Copy.

Paste the copied key to Bitbucket, give it any name you want and click Add key:

Now if you go back to Git Bash, type in ssh -T git@bitbucket.org and press enter, you will get a response, confirming that you are logged in:*

*At this point, you might get another response where you need to type in yes and press enter to proceed. If prompted, do that.

Befriending Dreamweaver and Bitbucket

For the sake of simplicity, we will now clone our empty Bitbucket repository to our local machine. To do that, go to your Bitbucket repository, select Clone in the sidebar on the left, pick SSH in the dropdown menu and copy the line highlighted in blue.

Create a new folder on your local machine, name it whatever you like, right-mouse click it and select Git Clone….*

Proceed pasting the copied line into the URL field in the window that pops up and click OK.*

*At this point, you need to be aware that TortoiseGit will automatically suggest cloning your Bitbucket repo to a child folder of the folder that you specified. E.g., if you right-mouse click C:/Git and press Git Clone…, TortoiseGit will automatically suggest C:/Git/test as your local repo location (where test is the name of your Bitbucket repo in lowercase).

TortoiseGit will begin cloning your repository:

You will be prompted to enter the same password that you chose when you generated the keys. Type it in and press OK:

TortoiseGit will notify you of your success:

Finally, you can test whether you can push your commits to your Bitbucket repo straight from Dreamweaver. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll be using the master branch for our needs and will not go into Git branching models.

What you need to do now is open Dreamweaver and create a new site by clicking Site/New Site… in the top menu. Pick whatever name you like and specify the location to where you cloned your Bitbucket repo and click Save:

Once done, create an empty .html file and save it as index.html in the location to where you cloned your Bitbucket repo (our site root folder now). Right-mouse click it in the Explorer in Dreamweaver, select GIT and click Add.

A window will pop up. Click OK to add index.html to your local repo:

You will be notified of success via another pop up window. Click Commit… there to commit your newly made changes.

Enter a commit message in the Message window. Tick Set author date and Set author checkboxes to keep better track of when things got changed and who to blame.

Press OK to start the process.

Upon success, a window will pop up offering you to push your new commit to a remote repository (Bitbucket in our case). Press Push… to do that.

Click OK to confirm.

Pushing will be initialized and you will be prompted to enter your password. Enter it and press OK.

You will then be notified of success.

Finally, you can check the results of your hard work by going to your Bitbucket repo and selecting Commits in the sidebar on the left. You will then see the details of your first commit. Good job! We’re halfway there!

Cloning Bitbucket repo to server

Your next task is to set up automated deployments from your Bitbucket repo to your server. We’ll be using Hostgator shared hosting to cover additional details specific to hosting environments. First, we will clone your Bitbucket repo to the server.

Given that SSH access is enabled on all Hostgator hosting accounts by default, all we need to do is to connect to the server. Visit this link, download PuTTY (you need a file named putty.exe), a free SSH client, and run it.

Log in to your cPanel and copy the IP Address, which is located in the bottom of the sidebar on the left.

Switch back to PuTTY and paste the IP Address to the textbox located under Host Name (or IP address). Enter the corresponding port number under Port based on your account type:

• Shared and Reseller accounts – 2222;
• Dedicated and VPS – 22.

Press Open and enter your cPanel login and password when prompted.* You will receive the following response:**

*At this point, a window might pop up asking you to accept connection. Click Yes.

**No, we do not host our website on Hostgator. The cake is a lie.

Once logged in, navigate to .ssh directory of the user that PHP runs under by typing cd ~/.ssh and pressing enter. If you receive a response that there is no such directory, you will have to create one by typing mkdir .ssh and pressing enter. Once done, navigate to ~/.ssh directory as described.

Now we need to repeat the procedure of generating a pair of keys, but on the server this time. Type in ssh-keygen -t rsa and press enter. Press enter again to accept the default id_rsa key name. When prompted to enter your password, simply press enter to create a passwordless key. Though not recommended in other scenarios, we need it to be able to connect to Bitbucket without a passphrase. Ultimately, you will receive a success response, which looks like this:

You also need to create a config file similar to the one we created earlier and add Bitbucket as a host. In your cPanel navigate to File Manager, open it, type in .ssh and press Go.

This should open the .ssh folder on the server. Create a config file there by pressing New File in the left top corner, type in config under New File Name, and press Create New File.

Select the newly created config file and press Edit.

As with our previous config file, copy and paste the following two lines into it and press save in the top right corner (please note that the second line is indented by one space character):

Host bitbucket.org

IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

You need to add the key to Bitbucket. Switch back to PuTTY, type in cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub and press enter. The console should spit out your key. Select it with your mouse (remember that it begins with ssh-rsa) and press ctrl+с to copy it. Go to Bitbucket, open Manage Account/SSH Keys and add the copied key to Bitbucket (this procedure was described earlier).

Switch to PuTTY, make sure you’re in the root directory by typing cd ~ and pressing enter, type in git clone git@bitbucket.org:<username>/<repo>.git where <username> is your Bitbucket username and <repo> is the slug name of your Bitbucket repository (we’ll use <username> and <repo> hereinafter, so be careful and do not copy/paste the rest of the commands blindly). This procedure will clone your Bitbucket repo into a directory called <repo>.git, in your home directory.

Type in cd ~/<repo>.git and press enter to switch to that directory. Afterwards, type in GIT_WORK_TREE=/home/<username>/public_html git checkout -f and press enter to checkout your master branch to public_html folder on your server.*

*You will receive no confirmation, so you will have to go to File Manager to check whether our index.html file got copied to the public_html folder. Bear in mind that the absolute address of your public_html folder may differ from /home/<username>/public_html. If so, make necessary changes to the aforementioned command.

For crying out loud! Aren’t we done yet? (Setting up automated deployment with a PHP script and a POST hook)

No, but we are done, but we’re almost there. Create a folder called deploy in your public_html directory and create three files there: index.html, deploy.php and deploy.log (most of these processes were described earlier on with screenshots included). While an empty index.html file is there so that no one can view the directory index and the deploy.log‘s extension speaks for itself, it’s the deploy.php file where all the magic happens.*

*Credit for this part goes to Jonathan Nicol for publicly sharing the php deployment script.

Edit the deploy.php file and paste the following code there:

<?php
$repo_dir     = ‘/home/<username>/<repo>.git’;
$web_root_dir = ‘/home/<username>/public_html;

// Full path to git binary is required if git is not in your PHP user’s path. Otherwise just use ‘git’.
$git_bin_path = ‘git’;

$update = false;

// Parse data from Bitbucket hook payload
$payload = json_decode($_POST[‘payload’]);

if (empty($payload->commits)) {
// When merging and pushing to bitbucket, the commits array will be empty.
// In this case there is no way to know what branch was pushed to, so we will do an update.
$update = true;
} else {
foreach ($payload->commits as $commit) {
$branch = $commit->branch;
if ($branch === ‘master’ || isset($commit->branches) && in_array(‘master’, $commit->branches)) {
$update = true;
break;
}
}
}

if ($update) {
// Do a git checkout to the web root
exec(‘cd ‘ . $repo_dir . ‘ && ‘ . $git_bin_path . ‘ fetch’);
exec(‘cd ‘ . $repo_dir . ‘ && GIT_WORK_TREE=’ . $web_root_dir . ‘ ‘ . $git_bin_path . ‘ checkout -f’);

// Log the deployment
$commit_hash = shell_exec(‘cd ‘ . $repo_dir . ‘ && ‘ . $git_bin_path . ‘ rev-parse –short HEAD’);
file_put_contents(‘deploy.log’, date(‘m/d/Y h:i:s a’) . ” Deployed branch: ” . $branch . ” Commit: ” . $commit_hash . “\n”, FILE_APPEND);
}
?>

Make sure to change the value of $repo_dir and $web_root_dir variables to whatever corresponds to your environment. This script iterates over the payload object sent by Bitbucket, looking for commits made to the master branch. If found, a git fetch and checkout are performed and the deployment details are logged to deploy.log.

Finally, go to your Bitbucket repo, click Settings in the sidebar on the left, click Hooks, select POST from the dropdown menu and click Add hook.

Type in http://<domain>/deploy/deploy.php in the window that popped up (where <domain> is the name of your domain) and press Save.

Hooray! The torture is over!

Or is it? (Testing)

Now it’s time to test whether the whole scheme works. To do that, open Dreamweaver and modify our index.html file so that it has <p>Hello World!</p> in the <body> tag.

Save the file and commit changes to the master branch of your local repo.

Once done, press Push to push the commit to your Bitbucket repo.

Check that your commit has been pushed to Bitbucket by visiting your Bitbucket repo and clicking Commits in the sidebar on the left.

Check that your website has been deployed to your public_html folder by visiting your website.

You should see your ‘Hello World!’ message, and if you do, that means you have successfully set up Git with Dreamweaver and Bitbucket for an automated deployment of your website. Congratulations!

Jan Guardian graduated from the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute cum laude with an LL.M in International Crime and Justice. Though a lawyer by virtue of education, Jan has always been passionate about programming and web development, having begun his endeavors in this field back in 2000. Since then, he has developed several dozen websites and mobile apps, with one of them being awarded by the United Nations for its contribution to human rights and resolution of justice problems. He joined Itransition as a senior web developer last year and has already become a valuable member of the team, bringing many creative and inspiring ideas to life.

Read more:
Setting up Git with Dreamweaver and Bitbucket for Automated Website Deployment

Email marketing is still one of the most cost effective tools available, right up there with SEO when it comes to building a brand and converting prospects into customers.

But what is the best way to get started? In an era of one-click unsubscribe and a customer base highly attuned to the ways of marketers, how can businesses make the right connection?

Helen Armour, Marketing Manager, Really Simple Systems, provides her five steps to effective email marketing.

Step One – Build the Database

The days of buying a prospect database are long gone – that approach is a fast track to a bad reputation and a mass of unsubscribes.

Instead companies need to actively capture the email addresses of both customers and prospects – pretty much everyone you come across. It is also worth considering creating a single database that combines both sales and marketing information.

In addition to avoiding duplication and errors, a single customer/prospect database makes it much easier to track interactions and provides the sales team with insight into the all past prospect communications – including which emails prompted the lead to click through, and which did not – which can help focus the sales effort.

Step Two – Create the Right Content

Email marketing is not a one off event; it is an opportunity to build a relationship. And that means not bombarding individuals with blatant product sales – that will do nothing to inspire confidence or demonstrate value.

Instead, organisations need to create content that is interesting, insightful and indicates an understanding of the market.

Step Three – Adopt an Email Marketing Tool

An email marketing campaign should be run at least once a month – and attempting to manage all the inevitable email bounces and unsubscribes manually via the existing email client is an administrative nightmare.

Given the range of low cost email marketing tools of the market, such as MailChimp, it is certainly worth investing in a product or service that can automate much of this process – and if it is integrated with the CRM, so much the better, since that ensures the company’s customer/prospect database is also automatically updated.

Step Four – Measure Effectiveness

Email marketing tools provide essential information regarding the success of each email campaign – most notably click through rates (CTR). Combining the email marketing tool with the CRM enables a company to add relevance to that basic CTR information – correlating the number of leads generated and sales closed provides a direct financial ROI figure that can provide really valuable insight into on-going email marketing activity.

Step Five – Increase Sophistication

Once a company has mastered the process of sending relevant, interesting emails perhaps once a month, it is time to start getting more sophisticated. For example, splitting the email campaign between customers and prospects and refining the message accordingly.

If the company has enough insight in the customer database to distinguish between hot and cold prospects, it is also worth considering varying the frequency of the emails – creating a stronger, more frequent relationship with those on the point of purchase, for example.

Read more:
Getting started with email marketing

Since 2008 all UK companies have been required to ensure that the following rules and regulations of the Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2008 are adhered to:

Company name
Displaying the company name on communications

You must include your limited company name on all forms of communication, including: business letters, publications, emails, order forms, cheques, money orders, bills, invoices, receipts.

Company website?
You must display your company name on all company websites. Not necessarily on every single web page, but it must be easily accessible to your visitors.

Displaying further company information
For all private limited companies, the following details should also be added to all business letters, websites and order forms:

Where the company is registered (England & Wales, Wales, Scotland, or NI).
The company’s registered number.
The registered company address.
The fact that the company is ‘limited’, if it has been exempted from the usual requirement to include the term in the company name.
If you have decided to display the company’s share capital, it should include the amount of paid up share capital.
If you state directors’ names on business communications, you cannot be selective, and must display the names of all directors, or none at all.
If the company is an investment company or community interest company, then you should disclose this fact.

What should I have on my emails?
What information companies should display on email communications can cause confusion. This depends on the type of communication the email is making. If the email is, or contains a business letter or order form, then it should contain the detailed information displayed above. If not, then just the company name should suffice.

Further information
You are also obliged to display the company name at the company’s registered office address – read more here.

If someone you deal with during the course of your business requests it, you are also obliged to disclose the company’s registered office address, any ‘inspection place’, and the type of company records held at such locations. You should send a response within five days of receiving a written request for information.

You may also need to display further information, such as your VAT number, or Data Protection Number on other company paperwork, if applicable.
You can access the Regulations in full here.

Read more:
Are you breaking the law by not putting right details on website, letters & emails?

To access them, you need to invest in the shares of a small, unlisted company. Small means 250 employees or less, and maximum gross assets of £15 million (before the investment). Unlisted means that the company is not quoted on a major stock market, although it can be quoted on a market for smaller companies like AIM or ISDX.

These schemes offer a range of attractive tax incentives. According to EMV, EIS investors may
be eligible to claim 30% income tax relief on investments of up to £1 million. These programs
provide investors with significant tax breaks while at the same time supporting small businesses
in their early stages.

Obviously, investing in small companies is generally riskier than buying shares in giants like HSBC or Shell. And the fact that the companies are not listed on the stock market means that there’s no easy way to sell your shares.

But small companies can grow very quickly because they are coming from a low base. With a small company, you’re more likely to lose your money, but you’re also more likely to make double, treble, or an even bigger multiple of the amount you invested.

Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) tax breaks
The UK government set up the Enterprise Investment Scheme in 1994. Today, it offers a number of tax breaks to investors who buy shares in small, private companies:

You get income tax relief of 30 per cent. So if you invest £10,000 in a company that is eligible for EIS, you can knock £3,000 off your income tax bill in the year that you invest.

You’ll pay no capital gains tax on any profits you make from an EIS investment. So if you invest £10,000 and five years later sell your shares for £20,000, you’ll get the full benefit of the £10,000 profit, saving you at least £1,800.

If you make a loss on your investment, you can offset that loss against income tax. So let’s say you lose your entire £10,000 investment. Because of income tax relief, your actual loss is only £7,000 (£10,000-£3,000). So you can, if you choose, reduce your taxable income for the year in which you disposed of the shares by £7,000, resulting in a saving of £2,800 (40 per cent of £7,000) for a higher-rate taxpayer. If you want to offset your loss against other capital gains in the normal way, you can do this instead.

There’s no inheritance tax to pay on shares bought through EIS.
To be eligible for these reliefs, you generally have to hold the shares for at least three years before selling them.

There’s a few more catches. You still have to pay tax on any dividends – but most small private companies won’t pay dividends anyway. There are certain restrictions as to what kind of business you can invest in (it can’t be a bank, a farm or a nursing home, for example). And you can’t be connected to the company or have a stake of more than 30 per cent of it.

You can invest a maximum of £1 million each year through EIS.

Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) tax breaks

The Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme is much newer than its parent initiative, EIS, having been set up as recently as 2012.

It is very similar to EIS but designed for investing in even smaller companies, and providing even more generous tax breaks.

While the maximum workforce and gross assets allowable under EIS are 250 staff and £15 million respectively, SEIS has lower limits of 50 staff and £200,000 gross assets. Businesses must also be less than two years old (there are no age restrictions under EIS).

The tax breaks are:
Income tax relief is 50 per cent, not 30 per cent. So you get £5,000 off your income tax bill for investing £10,000 under SEIS.

As with EIS, there’s no capital gains tax to pay on profits, no inheritance tax, and you can claim loss relief in the same way. See above for details.

There is an extra relief called capital gains reinvestment relief. This is useful to you if you have recently paid capital gains tax on other investments. You can reclaim up to 50 per cent of the tax paid if you reinvest that money into SEIS. (This was originally introduced as a temporary measure, but in the 2014 Budget, chancellor George Osborne made it permanent.)

The tax reliefs available through SEIS are so generous that for the 2012/13 tax year, they added up to a potential 100.5 per cent of your investment in a situation where that investment was a complete failure. In other words, you literally could not lose provided you had paid enough tax to offset your SEIS investment against.

However, for the 2013/14 and 2014/15 tax years, the downside protection has fallen 86.5 per cent – so you’ll get back £8,650 from a £10,000 investment that totally fails if you pay enough tax to use all the reliefs. This is still an excellent buffer, of course.

The maximum you can invest through SEIS in any tax year is £100,000.

How to access EIS and SEIS
If you invest through a business angel network or an equity crowdfunding website, the network or website should help you with the paperwork around getting your EIS or SEIS benefits.

You can also invest in a company you know, provided you are not considered to be connected to it by HMRC. Connection means being a partner, employee, director, or having a share of 30 per cent or more. If you do invest in a company you have come across privately, make sure you buy the shares after the company has been set up, otherwise EIS and SEIS won’t apply.

You should always check that the company you’re investing in is definitely eligible for EIS or SEIS – and make sure you’re happy with it as an investment. Never invest just for the tax breaks.

EIS funds
Although EIS was originally designed to encourage direct investments in companies by individuals, there are a number of EIS funds where professional managers will choose companies to invest in.

Sometimes, the EIS fund manager makes investments on your behalf, with your name ending up on the shares. In this case, you only get the tax reliefs as and when your money is invested in qualifying companies. Other EIS funds that have been specially approved by HMRC can give you the chance to claim all your tax relief when the fund closes for investment.

EIS funds can help you spread risk across a larger number of companies, and effectively outsource your investment decisions to a manager who should have the time and skills to assess companies properly. However, this doesn’t change the fact that an EIS fund is still a very risky investment, with a high chance of losing large chunks of your money. Use with caution.

Read more:
Guides: EIS & SEIS tax break incentives

With business becoming more demanding and fast-paced than ever, choosing the right hotel for a business trip is no easy task. Alex Buttle, founder of hotel comparison site Top10.com, compiles the best of the best.

Andaz Liverpool Street, London
Ideally located in London’s East End, The Andaz caters for every business need. Check in by iPad and continue to enjoy free internet throughout your stay. The Andaz also offers the discreet ‘Hyatt for Her’ package, where female guests travelling alone are offered more assistance and an exclusive area of the hotel to make them feel more comfortable if required.

St Pancras Rennaissance, London

An iconic London building, the St Pancras Rennaissance is an architectural beauty steeped in history. Perfectly located next to Kings Cross St Pancras station, one of London’s major transport hubs, serving London and links to Europe via Eurostar.

Malmaison, Birmingham

A former sorting office, this hotel ‘delivers’ everything you need to make your stay completely comfortable. A business hotspot in the centre of Birmingham, the Malmaison will keep every modern traveller satisfied.

The Lowry Hotel Manchester

Big is better! Offering Manchester’s largest rooms, the Lowry Hotel is a superb choice when taking a trip to Manchester with incredible views over the Salford skyline, perfect for unwinding after a hectic day.

Apex London Wall, London

With complimentary Wi-Fi and unlimited local calls as standard, the Apex London Wall provides a solid business base for a stay in the Capital. Upgrade for a small cost for extra perks like a coffee machines and surround sound to make that stay even more comfortable.

Hotel Missoni, Edinburgh

In the heart of Edinburgh, Hotel Missoni is where business meets boutique. Hold a business meeting here and they’ll dish out complimentary neck and head massages for the delegates during break times. Now that’s service!

Copthorne Hotel, Manchester

Conveniently located for the City Centre, City Airport and motorway links to and from Manchester, the Copthorne Hotel is a great choice when staying in the city for work. The state of the art business facilities also make life that little bit easier.

Radisson Blu, Liverpool

With 194 rooms, including the biggest suite in Liverpool, trusted brand Radisson Blu offers a business class rooms with free internet, a super breakfast buffet and daily papers that come as standard.

Sofitel St James, London

In the fitting setting of a former bank, this luxury hotel in the heart of London offers fully integrated technology in each of its 183 rooms, catering for every modern day business need. They also offer a personalised and unique business experience as well as state of the art conferencing facilities.

Park Plaza, Cardiff

Express check-ins/outs and complimentary Wi-Fi are amongst the fantastic services on offer at the Park Plaza in Cardiff. After a busy day, why not pamper yourself and make use of the excellent on-site health and spa facilities.

Alex Buttle, co-founder and CMO of hotel comparison site, Top10.com

Read more:
Business Guide: Top 10 Business Hotels in the UK

No manager or business owner wants to face the reality of redundancy, but there are times when there is simply no alternative.

Companies face extinction if they can’t balance their books – particularly in the current economic climate. Because the biggest cost incurred by most companies is labour, redundancies are an unavoidable part of modern business.

If you need to cut the costs of your business, or you’re the individual in an organisation responsible for a programme of redundancies, you will need to avail yourself of the legal requirements involved. By seeking advice from employment solicitors and adhering to the regulations, you can ensure legal compliance and minimise costs.

Seek redundancy advice before selecting employees

It may sound rather obvious, but your organisation must have a compelling reason to announce redundancies. From the moment you start to consider this course of action, you should seek redundancy advice from legal experts.

The method you choose for selecting employees for redundancy has to be fair and transparent. Selecting people on the grounds of age, sex, race and religion is illegal, potentially leading to strong cases for unfair dismissal and discrimination. Employment lawyers will work with you to formulate a redundancy process that is wholly evidence based.

This will include factors such as performance and disciplinary issues. However, if your organisation has already agreed on a redundancy process with a trades union, it should be followed. Also, if a redundancy procedure is outlined in an employment contract it must be adhered to.

Redundancy consultations

If you are planning to make fewer than 20 people redundant, you will need to consult with those affected before a decision is made. Failure to do this will usually constitute unfair dismissal. This consultation should give your employee an opportunity to discuss the timescale involved, as well as providing mitigating information about why they shouldn’t be made redundant.

In some rare cases, this consultation may result in an agreement on changes to pay and working practices that could stop the redundancy from taking place.

If 20 or more redundancies are planned, a more formal procedure is required. A relevant trade union must be consulted before any decisions are made. If there is no such trades union, employees must be given the opportunity to appoint representatives who will consult with you on behalf of your workforce. If you don’t follow this procedure, everyone made redundant may have recourse to an unfair dismissal claim.

Staying on the right side of the law

You are not allowed to discriminate on the grounds of sex, religion, sexual orientation, race or religion when it comes to selecting people for redundancy. It is also against the law to select people based on a pregnancy, or because they work on a part-time basis.

However, you can, in certain circumstances, use length of service as a criterion for redundancy selection. However, you should seek advice from employment lawyers before including length of service in your selection process.

If you were to announce that anyone who has worked in your organisation for less than 6 months is to be made redundant, that may include the youngest members of your time – exposing you to allegations of discrimination based on age.

Redundancy should always be a last resort, but it can be inevitable when the alternative is a failed business. By managing the process according to the law, and consulting with employment solicitors  at every stage, you should be able to avoid employment tribunals and minimise the disruption to your organisation.

Read more:
Employer Guides – Dealing with Redundancy

Businesses are recognising the need to work smarter and do more with less by embracing new ways of working. It’s no surprise then that, as part of this shift, estimates by the Citrix Global Workshifting Index show that by the end of 2013 an overwhelming 93 per cent of organisations will offer some kind of flexible work policy.

In developing a strategy that’s right for you, Andrew Millard, senior director marketing, EMEA, SaaS division at Citrix suggests the following tips will help create an environment in which your staff can conduct business globally, whether connecting from home, a train or a cafe:

Get the management team on-board
Realistically, no new company-wide policy will be successful without buy-in at a senior level. For this reason, prior to any steps being taken, it’s important that the potential advantages for the business are recognised and discussed. Aside from improving an individual’s work-life balance, one of the most important benefits flexible working offers is the opportunity to operate more cost-efficiently with no loss of productivity, in some instances significantly reducing office and travel costs

Discuss the trust issue upfront
Probably the most consistent barrier to flexible working requests being granted are long-standing management concerns around the inability to manage remote employees as effectively as when they are in the same location. For this reason, line managers need to overcome fears about loss of control and find ways to adjust to new ways of working. This may include revised productivity measures or the use of remote working technologies that give visibility of the output of staff working remotely

Define clear goals and deadlines
Rather than having daily targets, putting weekly or monthly productivity goals in place is a constructive way to move away from surveillance and control towards trust and result-oriented work. These outputs should be guided the number of contractually-agreed working hours for each employee

Provide the right tools for remote workers
A remote working policy is only as strong as the tools that can actually make it happen. To achieve this, companies need to wholly integrate remote employees into their business processes using collaboration, support and training tools to overcome distances

Make the most of BYOD and Software as a Service (SaaS) to cut IT costs
Overwhelmingly, demand for mobile technologies has been consumer-led, with many of today’s professionals already upgrading and using their preferred smartphones and tablets. As part of the shift towards flexible working, offering support to employee owned devices can help cut down on hardware costs. From a budget perspective, using software delivered as a service is also ideal for both large and small businesses, as upfront costs are minimised. The IT burden is also reduced as there is no need for in-house maintenance

Collaborate anywhere, instantly and effectively
Distance should not be a barrier to important face-to-face meetings. Similarly, just because they aren’t in the office doesn’t mean that employees, third-party workers and clients can’t be contacted instantly. Use the right technology tools to build trusted relationships and keep projects on track, without the hassle or expense of travel

Manage IT from a central location
IT support is crucial to support mobile and flexible employees. As such, IT staff need to be able to manage distributed computing devices and mobile endpoint devices from a central location

Engage and retain employees around the globe
Widen the pool of talent and attract and retain the most skilled staff, by providing the tools to be fully operational and effective – wherever they are located. Flexible working is a real draw for many employees and can make a real difference in attracting the best talent

Train smarter, not harder
An effective mobile workforce needs efficient online training that takes away all the problems of travel and site logistics. Here, online training can make it easier to hold training sessions that are low-cost, interactive and personal, with subject experts from any location

Review your strategy
As with any other change to operational policy, it’s important to check how well the strategy is working relatively soon after it has been implemented. A move to flexible working will affect both employees and their managers, so it’s important to address any problems early on and give everyone a chance to have their say.

As these ten top tips highlight, when embarking on the journey to a more agile working culture, businesses need to strike a balance between finding the right strategy, tools and improved business processes in order to develop a productive and successful flexible working environment.

Read more:
Guide: Tips on how to transform your business by adopting flexible working

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) may sound like a concept that is out of reach for many start-ups.

However with the right know-how and focus, building responsibility and sustainability into your business from the beginning will help your small business go beyond mere compliance with ethical standards and laws to creating additional value for your business, employees, community and the environment. But where do you start?

Firstly, don’t overstretch yourself

You want to care for the environment and support your local community, and corporate social responsibility is a great way to do this – and yes, even businesses that only have a couple of staff can donate their time and efforts – but do not overstretch your resources.

Put guidelines in place

Consider putting guidelines in place to ensure any voluntary or community work you and your team partake in will not have a negative effect on your business. This will provide focus and a streamlined approach to future initiatives, also giving you a proactive stance to potential opportunities.

Communication

Speaking to your staff and understanding what motivates them will help you to support them as they engage with the CSR approach of the business. This communication can stretch well beyond the immediate network of people in your small business, however, as you can also involve clients and suppliers to understand what they are doing in terms of CSR, share ideas and even partner with them in CSR initiatives.

Commitment

Commitment to the community and specific charities or causes can build long-lasting relationships that reap rewards in the future. These will also build greater meaning for your business’ future CSR engagements.

Use your resources

Your small business may still be a start-up, but it got where it is for a reason. Use the resources and skills at your disposal (equipment, space, expertise, etc) but, once again, make sure you do not overstretch yourself.

Business ethics

A simple way to uphold the meaning of corporate social responsibility is by making sure that your business commits to an ethical supply chain, which includes the use of local suppliers and buying fairtrade products where possible.

Let people know

There is nothing wrong with showing people that your business is doing some good for the local community. Let people know about the causes you champion and be proud of the good your business is doing.

Monitor progress

Corporate social responsibility can easily run out of steam if you do not maintain records of CSR activity. Monitoring progress will also give you the chance to identify where changes or opportunities are possible.

Read more:
How to be a socially responsible start-up

As any business owner will tell you, insurance is one of the most important expenses each year.

It can seem like throwing money down the drain to some, but it’s only once you consider the repercussions of losing out on your essential assets that you realise how dangerous it is to risk going without insurance.

Fleet owners need insurance, it’s the law. Without having adequate insurance in place you quite simply cannot drive on the roads. We’re always looking to get the best deals on our motoring insurance in an attempt to keep costs down, without compromising on the level of cover and Track Compare can be a great help in that respect, helping you to find the very best policy to meet your requirements so you can get out on the road.

Fleet insurance offers a significantly wider range of benefits in comparison to your traditional forms of insurance, one of which is that you can cover all of the vehicles under one overall policy. This saves you having to get quotes and prices for each vehicle in the fleet and the subsequent paperwork that accompanies it.

You can also cover the various kinds of vehicles in your fleet in that one policy. A delivery company might have vehicles ranging from scooters and motorcycles up to small vans and HGVs depending on the type of deliveries they’re making, so it’s good to know that separate policies aren’t required for the various vehicles.

There are a number of measures you can implement to help reduce the overall cost of your fleet insurance, one of which being the installation of specialist tracking software. Working by taking a signal from a satellite and using GPS technology, the tracking devices can be activated and will send an alert to the police to inform them that the vehicle has been stolen, making it much easier for them to locate the vehicle.

Insurance companies will look upon this measure favourably, appreciating that you’re doing everything within your power to prevent damage or theft involving your vehicles and the premiums will come down as a result, making a tracking device a highly cost-effective investment.

Essentially, fleet insurance makes things much simpler, especially from an administrative point of view.

Read more:
Guide to Insuring Your Fleet

If your business relies on the internet, then you need to ensure you have a broadband service that is not just dependable and trustworthy, but that helps you get the most out of your internet use.

This is where business broadband comes in, as many internet service providers (ISP) now offer exclusive packages that address many of the concerns about running a business online, or being reliant on the web for information or communication purposes.

A good business broadband deal, like TalkTalk’s business broadband is for you to decide, as each business has varying needs. However, here are some aspects you should consider before making your choice:

Speeds – You will want to be able to complete downloads as quickly as possible and so you should look for fast speeds (probably 2Mb as a minimum, 8Mb for typical use, though speeds up to 24Mb are available). However, you should also consider upload speeds too as you may need to place information online, such as on to a company website. Most business broadband providers utilise technology that allows for faster uploads through processes such as symmetric DSL and optical carrier lines (that can transfer data at speeds up to 600Mb).

Contention ratios – Broadband speeds can vary and are dependent on a number of factors including the volume of traffic being carried when you are logged on. The higher the contention ratio, the larger number of people that are using the service at any one time. Look to lower contention ratios to enjoy faster speeds.

Security – Nearly every business broadband package on the market will offer enhanced levels of security such as anti-virus and spyware protection. Also look for additional elements such as firewalls and the ability to back-up your data online.

Support – Is there a dedicated 24hr helpline and will your call be prioritised? Is there a guarantee to fix services within a set period of time?
Networking – Does the business broadband package allow for networking – which is two or more computers sharing information and resources. If so, how many computers will it support and is there room for growth? Also, is wireless networking available

Static IP address – Receiving a static IP address as part of your package will allow you to enjoy remote access, pick up emails direct to your PC and more. Most business broadband deals include at least one static IP address.

VoIP services – VoIP allows you to make calls over the internet as a cheaper alternative to a regular landline or mobile phone. See if you can get VoIP software from your broadband provider and are there a range of services available? VoIP is particularly useful for businesses with customers overseas as international calls are free to select countries.

Price – As with any broadband deal you should pay close attention to the price and think about whether you are getting value for money. Consider the length of the contract and don’t be fooled by introductory rates.

This post is in association with TalkTalk business

Read more:
Guide: Choosing your Business Broadband supplier

At the time, the main threat to business was damage to marine and cargo, so it is hard to imagine that Edward Lloyd could ever have anticipated the kind of the threats facing businesses in today’s modern world.

As the risks to business change and adapt to reflect new practices and opportunities, so too does the need for more relevant insurance products. From cover to protect against professional mistakes through to cyber attacks, business insurance is more important than ever, particularly for small businesses. Insurance has become key to helping to mitigate some of today’s most costly business risks.

With more insurance options available than ever before, it can be a challenge for a small business to decide which insurance is best suited to its needs and we asked Deepak Soni, a small business insurance expert at Hiscox to explain the options that SMEs must have, should have, and also could do with having to really cover themselves.

Business insurance falls into two main categories. Firstly, there is compulsory insurance that all businesses must have, and secondly there is insurance that an SME should consider.

Claims of any nature against a business can be very costly. Having the correct insurance can for some businesses be the difference between being kept up and running in the event of a claim, or folding due to the financial burden of a loss. It’s startling just how many people will tick the first box because it is a regulatory requirement, but will skip the second optional one altogether and run their business without adequate cover to protect them.

If you are a small business the first step is to investigate the additional insurance cover you really need. Since cash flow is king it’s important to strike the right balance between costs and efficiency. Knowing what your business liabilities might look like and getting the right insurance product to give you the right protection will give you peace of mind, after all your protecting your investment, be it people, customers, property or reputation.

To a small business, one claim can be crippling. What happens if your business receives a claim from a customer for professional negligence? What if you have a computer stolen, then how are you going to replace it? Can you afford for such risks to impact your bottom line? Or would you feel more comfortable, and does it make more commercial sense, having insurance. It’s a matter of identifying risk and budgeting for insurance. An insurance expert can help you make that assessment, and support you with their expertise. A good insurance policy is like a having access to a team that can be part of your business protection, and recovery process.

Small business owners should consider:
Public Liability Insurance
Public Liability Insurance protects against a number of claims. It protects against where a business and its employees are held to be liable to third parties. This can be for bodily injury to a person, or damage to property. Looking at bodily injury, it protects against a claim arising from one of your employees actions’ at work which causes injury to a third party, such as a client or member of the public.

Property protection gives your business protection against claims for any loss or damage to third party property.

Whilst Public Liability Insurance is not compulsory and there is no legal requirement for an individual or business to hold public liability cover (except under special circumstances) it is often considered to be important business insurance. Just think about how times you or your employees visit customer’s premises and how many times they visit yours?

Employers Liability Insurance
The majority of employers are required by law to insure against Employers Liability for injury to their employees, including sickness or disease, arising out of their employment. If you are not a business where this insurance is compulsory, it is one to highly consider.

Professional Indemnity Insurance
Professional Indemnity Insurance is sometimes referred to as Professional Liability Insurance. This insurance, although not always compulsory by law is one that proves essential if a claim is brought against a business alleging mistakes. Mistakes happen but they don’t need to ruin a business.

Professional indemnity policies can protect businesses against claims for professional negligence or breach of duty of care. Where a business holds itself out to be an expert in its profession, and it charges for any expert advice given or service provided, it then owes a duty of care to the third party to deliver. In the event that the business (through its employees) neglect or breach this duty then a claim for compensation might be brought against it. Policies usually have a wide footprint of protection.

They can extend to cover negligent statements or misrepresentation, infringement of intellectual property rights (including copyright and trademark), defamation (libel and slander), breach of confidence or even misuse of any information which is confidential.

To illustrate lets take a scenario; the web design company that wasn’t! If a design company says it can design a website, and charged its client accordingly, then, in the event the site failed to look or feel as a website or as agreed, the customer may have a claim for compensation.

The customer might have a claim for negligence (that the design company failed to design the site professionally and in line with the brief). Professional indemnity insurance might provide protection against the claims, and losses.

Contents Insurance
As technology advances so does a small business’s reliance on it. Today there is a demand for instant information, connection to clients, and the ability to deliver electronically: there is no getting away from it. For businesses of any size the reliance on technology cannot be underestimated as it offers efficiency, speed and the capability to handle multiple tasks, which is very important when you have few staff or operate as a sole trader.

Contents insurance gives the business owner protection from the financial costs of replacing equipment. If contents are damaged, lost or stolen they are replaced or reimbursed through such insurance. Costs, which could be hard to cover out of your own pocket, or which might be significantly high and therefore crippling to a business, can be covered.

Insurances to keep an eye on
An increased reliance on new technology means new risks to business. The more online, digital and technology focused world in which business finds itself operating has driven the insurance industry to create new and more relevant products.

A relatively new product that is specific to businesses relying heavily on technology is cyber insurance. Cyber insurance covers a business in the event it experiences a cyber attack. For example, if your website is hacked and someone defaces it there will be a cost to restore it back to how it was. Cyber insurance cover can help to reinstate the website and get the business back up and running. In the event someone hacks your website and steals your customer database, cyber insurance gives specific cover to reconstitute the database.

Whatever type of business you have there will be risks. The type of risk and its potential for damage will vary across professions. The insurance needs for advertising consultants will differ to those of IT consultants therefore it is important to keep close to the overarching needs of your business. Ask yourself, is my business operating this year as it did last year? Have I diversified? Do I have new business risks that I need to consider?

Read more:
Buying Guide: Business insurance – everything your business needs

Get end users involved early, or they will not come along for the ride. – Ideally in the decision making and how the system will be used. It sounds obvious, but even just a few end users who will ‘champion’ the system can make all the difference. With any process change there will be a learning period and your users should want the system to be a success rather than a failure.

Be pragmatic – paper is still the best tool for some jobs and overall “usability” is the aim of the system. Involving users will highlight some areas where 100% “paperless” just won’t work. Sometimes a piece of paper is the best way to capture or share information – accept this and look at complimentary technologies to produce documents and capture the data from paper. This isn’t failing to “go paperless”; it’s just providing a solution which is fit-for-purpose!

Select key short-term goals to win support for the initiative
Pick the “low hanging fruit”. Having a particular team or business area lauding the benefits they’ve had from document management will create interest from everyone else. Even if you want to have a “big bang” change, someone has to go first and this should be managed carefully.

Set realistic measurement parameters and make sure they are used to appraise progress against the plan.
Ideally these measures should be quantitative – which can sometimes require a creative way to define ‘softer’ benefits. There is nothing quite like a number to prove the benefit of the system. It’ll also tell you how well your project is progressing.

Get management buy-in across the organisation. This is important even in the areas that aren’t going to be paperless straight away. Sharing a vision creates energy and avoids pockets of naysayers.

Be aware that information is used for many purposes As well as allowing for efficient retrieval, think about how information is created, collected and modified (forms, updates and extra notes added to existing pages). What are the appropriate tools for each situation and what technology is already in place?

Think of who needs to see the information and where. Accessibility is vital to a successful implementation, without it you’ll just have printouts. Ensure you are making access easy for those who need it, otherwise you will have failed before you’ve begun.

The flip side to accessibility is security– make sure yours is upgraded. Paper can be lost or stolen but so can electronic data – rapidly and in vast amounts. Many board directors are nervous of this,so build in appropriate security from the start.

Think about the structure of what you’re storing. (A taxonomy, in the jargon). Consider what indexes are required to allow information to be retrieved quickly. Take care with this because once you start storing information you will be locked into a structure which can be hard to change.

Consider the different ways that information comes into the organisation (i.e paper, e-mail, electronic data) and aim to consolidate this to a single path based on purpose rather than managing by where it came from – this is the next step towards managing your processes as well as controlling your paper.

These all seem obvious things to do but we’ve seen plenty of examples where one or more has been missing – always to the detriment of the overall initiative. It is possible to reduce your paper usage in the office and improve your business processes at the same time – but only if you have a clear plan.

Read more:
Guide on Sustainable Working Practices: The ”Less Paper” Challenge

Focusing on the top performers can be satisfying in terms of providing high-level and high-profile achievements, but many HR professionals argue that nurturing the average band of workers making up the body of any organisation would prove a more effective investment.

In addition, defining performance can be a minefield and it can be difficult to distinguish between mid and top- performing people. Many mid performance staff stay at that level not because they lack potential, but because those defined as the top maintain their own level by not providing information that might help others to follow in their footsteps. Line managers also contribute to the problem by creating a culture in which the top level are promoted, regardless of whether they are adding value in reality or keeping to the company’s value. Setting targets act as a incentive for everyone but striving for the unachievable is disengaging and can lead to extreme behaviours such increased risk-taking, Meanwhile, those at the top are likely to underperform, even on easy goals, if their only reward is likely to be setting harder goals.

Barney Ely, Director, Hays Human Resources, says, “Good performance is not just about getting the best results. How people behave within an organisation also plays an important role. On occasions, bad or damaging behaviour can be overlooked if the individual is high-performing. If all employees are genuinely regarded as talent, then staff will see that high performance really is something for everyone and not the preserve of the privileged few. With such a message at their heart, organisations might hope to create a performance culture that will help them survive and grow into a successful future.”

Read more:
Developing High Performing Teams

Research undertaken by Streamline last year saw that nine out of ten SMEs see the internet a profitable place to do business, and almost half found the set up costs to be lower than they anticipated.

With millions of active internet shoppers increasing their online spend year-on-year in spite of the recession , the potential benefits of selling online have never been greater.

We have asked Jayadeep Nair, VP, Small Business & New Markets at Streamline to tell us the key things that SMEs who are considering setting up online need to know to set up eCommerce payments, and how to protect themselves from fraud or legal issues.

Website Construction
The important first step to setting up online is to create a website which clearly displays your goods and services. Making a decision about your domain name and hosting site can be overwhelming, but off the shelf, all-in-one e-business packages are available. These are often a very simple and cost-effective way to create your online presence.

Banking Essentials
You will need to open a Merchant Account – a bank account specifically designed to process online credit and debit card charges, and to transfer the funds before you set up online. Although these services are readily available from several banks and financial institutions, their specifics can vary so it is worth doing some research before you sign up. It is important to ensure that your provider accepts all payment methods, including multiple currencies, and offers fraud screening services so that you have peace of mind and don’t have to work with multiple suppliers.

Legal Regulations
E-business trading brings with it a few extra regulations that you must comply with, such as Distance Selling Legislation, HM Revenue & Customs, Health & Safety and the Data Protection Act 1998. These include terms and conditions that your customers can print off, displaying information such as your business name, address and contact details plus clear prices and logos for the cards that you accept. It’s crucial that you adhere to these.

Fight Fraud
The most important step is to establish a fraud policy setting out what should be done if fraud is suspected and ensure that all members of your staff are trained to act. When an order looks too good to be true, it probably is. Frequent, late night, high quantity or high value orders where a shopper orders an unusually large amount of an item without preference for the size, colour, make or model should be investigated. Identifying fraud can be done in two ways – manually and automatically. A combination of both is the ideal scenario.

Make the most of industry tools like Cardholder Authentication, Card Security Code and Address Verification Service checks. Use these along with fraud screening measures that include technology to filter card transactions, UK third-party name and address checking techniques and methods of validating cardholder data. Screen your transactions and consider applying risk scoring and alerts to flag suspect activity that merits further checks. You may be able to design your own in-house system or ask your payment service provider.

Manual checks include comparing new shopper information to data you already hold, and keeping records of previous fraud attempts. Look for patterns such as similarities between transactions and repeat use of the same shopper name, e-mail address or IP address. Test their contact details to see if they work – send an e-mail and call the telephone number. You may also ask for copies of utility bills, card statements, passport or driving licence (with any sensitive details obscured). Investigate further anything that you consider suspicious.

We also recommend that you regularly search the Internet for websites using similar names to your own. These may have been set up to impersonate your company illegally.

Offering online shopping to your customers can greatly increase your revenue, and setting up online is relatively easy. Just make sure you following legal and banking codes to set up, and that you are careful to screen transactions.

Read more:
Guide to Setting Up eCommerce Payments

With UK SEO Agency, QueryClick, we are putting together easy to follow snippets of expert advice across a range of search marketing disciplines including search engine optimisation, paid advertising, customer relationship optimisation, content strategy and analytics.

In this post, we cover five simple tips that will help you develop a website’s backlink profile, whilst keeping it ethical by sticking to the appropriate webmaster guidelines.

Have you read any Webmaster Guidelines?

To begin, it’s vital that your link building strategy remains 100 per cent ethical at all times. Therefore, we would highly advise reading up on the webmaster guidelines provided by the major search engines, such as Bing and Google. This will ensure that there is zero chance of any manual or algorithmic penalty being placed on your website.

Whatever strategy is currently in place, it would be incredibly frustrating to lose years of work as a result of a demotion within the search engine results pages. So try and keep up-to-date and know the difference between the ethical and unethical means of link building.

Building a natural backlink profile is key to creating sustainable rankings within the search engine results pages

This touches upon the previous tip. Search engine algorithms have advanced a lot in recent years and can detect numerous kinds of patterns and unethical activities that break the webmaster guidelines. Therefore, it’s wise to avoid the older link building techniques, such as:

• article spinning
• mass directory submissions
• buying links

Don’t fall into the trap of believing that building a set number of links per month/year is the road to success. Doing so will only leave you chasing your tail.

Instead, the aim should be to source a range of backlinks from relevant and authoritative websites. These will help build trust and act as a clear quality signal towards your website.

It is vital to create a link building strategy that focuses on long-term goals and combines a variety of activities and functions. These include building long-term relationships and being pro-active with existing and new content, whilst also leveraging social media and other means of outreach.

Don’t forget that content plays a significant role in every SEO campaign. As they say, “content is king”

The importance of content is often underestimated and many times considered an after-thought, especially when there is a new site build planned. However, the implementation of a content strategy should always be at the heart of every SEO campaign.

Updating existing content and creating new content, including resources, on a website is a great way to keep content fresh and can also be a great way to build assets that can provide a lot of value over time, especially when you consider fresh content being a ranking factor.

Content can be used to bolster link building activities to help increase a website’s competitive edge, and its ability to attract links. For example, creating what is known as ‘evergreen content’, ranging from simple step-by-step guides to content that may have a seasonal element, can help reduce any gaps or reduce what may have previously been thin content, thus creating focus and drive that will become part of a long-term link building strategy.

Don’t forget, out-of-date web pages may drive visitors away, and reduce conversions.

We believe that link building accounts for 55 per cent of the SEO mix.

The SEO mix is split between technical elements (10%), on-page work (35%), and linkbuilding (55%). Search engine optimisation involves a complex blend of activities that will be carried out at specific points during an SEO campaign, with each playing an important role regarding search engine performance. Therefore, understanding the importance of link building is important, but ensuring the foundations are built right is the only way to improve within the search engines.

Try weeding out your very own website’s backlink profile

If you own a website that was impacted by the Google Penguin update (that was introduced on the 24th April 2012), or have received an unnatural link warning within Google webmaster tools, it may be worthwhile getting to know your backlink profile. Intimately.

Conducting an in-depth backlink audit on any website can help identify unnatural links and prevent any future algorithmic penalties. Although it may sound difficult and time consuming, there are many structured step-by-step guides that make the process simple. Here is a blog written by myself on the specific topic of carrying out a backlink audit and identifying unnatural links, suitable for beginners.

Once you have isolated the individual links that may be causing a problem, contacting your webmaster to have the links removed will be the first step. The second step will involve a re-inclusion request (carried out through Google) and if required using the link disavow tool.

Read more:
Simple Webmaster Guide To Building An Ethical Backlink Profile to get Google to love your site

Equipped with smartphones, tablets and laptops connected at average speeds of around 20Mbps – faster than many home broadband connections – the truly mobile office is now a reality for many British businesses.

So what exactly are the benefits of using 4G and where should you start? Mike Tomlinson, Director of Small Business at EE, shares his ten top tips on how companies can use 4G to innovate and beat the competition:

Get more done out of the office
An estimated 20 per cent of UK employees (over 6.5 million people) now work while out of the office, according to cyber security organisation, the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure. 4G download speeds are up to ten times faster than 3G, so small businesses can send and receive more data in less time from mobile devices.

A small photography company that took part in a recent 4G trial in Cumbria last year, for example, has slashed the time it takes to transfer an image to its clients from five hours to one and a half. This has transformed their business, vastly improving productivity and customer satisfaction.

Take advantage of the mobile cloud
The days of returning to the office to back up mobile devices are well and truly over. With 4G, small businesses can automatically back up their documents, images, settings and address book whenever and wherever they are. As a result, free cloud applications (such as Google Drive) are growing in popularity among small companies, as employees use 4G to instantly access their work while on the move 

Enhance customer experiences
Small businesses can use 4G to provide a better service to their clients. For example, architects and surveyors can download 3D CAD plans while on site and review them instantly with their clients, rather than waiting to send them over a fixed line connection back at the office.

Set up a new business location instantly
Getting to market quickly is crucial for small businesses, yet many have to wait for a fixed line connection to be installed before they can begin trading properly. 4G lets new businesses set up instantly, rather than waiting a month or more for a telephone line and internet connectivity to be installed.

Give your marketing a boost
Videos and photos really improve online visibility and can help small companies bring the human element of their business to life. 4G’s superfast upload speeds mean small businesses can instantly upload videos to Twitter, Google+, Facebook and YouTube. For street food sellers, videos profiling their cooks and of food being prepared on the stall, all help to market the business more effectively.

Reinvent and innovate
Small businesses can use 4G to introduce new ways of working. For instance, service engineers on the road can instantly connect to office systems. This improves information to customers on fault fix times, which in turn improves quality of service and customer satisfaction.

Save time waiting for downloads
Downloading image-heavy attachments can cost businesses time and money. A 20MB document takes 8.3 seconds on average to download with 3G. Downloading the same attachment using 4G can reduce this waiting time to less than a second.

Take creativity to another level
Supercharge business ideas by organising brainstorms in unusual and inspiring locations, be it a park, castle, or riverboat. With a 4G mobile wi-fi device, your team will have instant access to online research and background information. At the end of the session, they can upload ideas and supporting documents to the cloud for use back at the office.

Foster a good work-life balance
One of the benefits of remote working is it allows employees to maximise time during the office commute or avoid these journeys altogether at times of travel disruption. With 4G, they are able to connect and work at a moment’s notice. This allows workers to organise their time in a way that suits them, rather than being governed by location or time.

Follow the four steps to 4G connectivity
Finally, there are four steps to getting up and running with 4G. First, check you are in a 4G coverage area explore.ee.co.uk/coverage-checker. Second, check you have a 4G-compatible device. If you do, then choose the 4G price plan that works best for you. Finally, obtain a 4G SIM card and enjoy all the benefits a superfast connection can bring small businesses.

Read more:
Guide To Using Technology in Business: Serving up a productivity boost with 4G

The length and severity of the recession has created a short term, survival of the fittest mentality, aggravated by a reluctance on the behalf of banks, boardrooms and business advisers to take a gamble on new ideas or look for ways to grow. Unfortunately, in some cases, this negative culture has extended to accountancy practices who may be so focused on balancing the books that they fail to act proactively on your behalf.

If you ask the question ‘why do businesses fail?’ many people will attribute the blame to problems with cash flow. But is this the true root cause – or a difficulty that businesses experience on their way to failing? As an accountant, it’s true to say that many of the struggling businesses that I have encountered have experienced cash flow issues, but these have usually been caused by other existing factors which were problematic in their business.

Why do businesses fail?
So, to identify the reasons why businesses struggle or ultimately fail, we have to go further back and analyse things more deeply. There may be certain things which went wrong or which were never right. For example, prices were set incorrectly, key contracts were lost, costs increased, sales and marketing wasn’t strong enough or maybe there were serious staffing issues.

However, whilst these are all significant problems, they still don’t get to the crux of why businesses fail.

The real reason is the management of a business and its failure to adapt or respond to whatever problems it is experiencing. In more serious cases, they may be unaware that there is a problem in the first place – until it is too late. Your accountant should play an intrinsic role in identifying any potential issues, as well as suggesting possible solutions.

The role of your accountant
An accountant isn’t just an add-on extra who crunches the numbers – they should form a key part of a company’s management, from creating a tax efficient company structure to identifying problems and monitoring profit and loss so any potential cash flow issues can be managed proactively. Much more than a trouble shooter, they should know your business and bring a fresh eye to its needs, suggesting areas for development, possible revenue streams and advising on issues such as minimising tax liability and research and development.

A simple formula
Being a numbers person, I’m a great fan of simplicity and often apply the following equation to my clients to help them both manage and grow their businesses.

E + R = O

E is event: something that has happened and cannot be changed as it is in the past. R is the response and O is the outcome. The variable factor in this equation is R; E is fixed whilst O depends on what the response is.

If we apply this in the context of the possible business problems I mentioned earlier, we see how the response influences the outcome.

Prices weren’t right (the event). If the company’s accounting information system is good it should identify that profitability is insufficient; this may be because prices are too low to earn enough or too high and sales volumes have dropped.  If management are made aware of the problem early enough, they can implement change (response), experimenting with different pricing policies for example, to find the right balance.

The SME issue
Identifying potential problems can be difficult for SMEs who may have very small management teams, lacking suitably qualified professionals to confide in who understand their business well enough to help. Due to pressures of time and money, many business owners are guilty of ‘working in’ their business rather than ‘on it’, which is why a good accountant is so fundamental to the success of SMEs, acting as a business mentor to help focus on the key issues.

Your accountant should be proactive, ultimately adding value to your business. They may not be experts in your specific market, but they should be able to help you with benchmarking so you are operating competitively with other organisations in your sector. With experience of many different kinds of businesses, a good practice will also have insight into a whole range of problems that companies experience – and how to avoid them.

Keep talking
Communication is key: it’s not enough to go through the figures annually when it may be too late to address problems that have become entrenched over the past 12 months. I encourage clients to hold monthly or quarterly meetings to discuss the business. This could be based on the SWOT method where strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are identified. Involve your accountant and aim to come out of every meeting with two tasks – one to strengthen a weakness, and one to build on an opportunity. If you act on these, and the advice that a proactive accountant can offer, your business will go from strength to strength.

[box]Carl Elsby is MD of Midlands based [ilink url=”http://www.elsbyandco.co.uk”]chartered accountants Elsby & Co[/ilink]  who specialise in working with SMEs, start-ups and family businesses.[/box]

Read more:
Guide to Business Growth: How your accountant can help your business grow

In tough economic times it’s easy to think that you should be prepared to do absolutely anything to get a client and then to keep them happy, but that is the fastest road to madness.

Here’s how it happens…

A prospective client contacts you with “a quick question”. They start to tell you their problems; they talk and talk, and ask questions. After an hour long conversation, they go away feeling great with their problem solved but you’re left tired, drained, and probably a bit frustrated.

You didn’t get the thing done that you needed to do. You have less time to market yourself and bring in the business that you need. You also have less time for the clients who HAVE invested in themselves on your programme, and you have less time for yourself and family. What you need, is a strategy in place to filter out the time wasters.

What to do if they want you to deliver part of your paid-for service for free.

Here is a script you can use when you are asked a question that will require you to use your hard earned skills.

• Check if it’s important to them or if they are “just curious”. “This is really important to you isn’t it?”

• If they say No then stop there and politely end the conversation, or you could ask them what IS important to them.

• If they say Yes. “Great. And because this is so important the best way I can serve you is with my undivided 100% dedicated attention and energy, you deserve that. So let’s book you in for a session where we can work together to solve this properly. The investment for this is xxx and I have a slot next Tuesday at 11.00am. Shall we go ahead and make the booking?”

• If they say No. Act surprised and say “Oh, I’m sorry! I thought you said this was important to you!” Make sure you stand firm. They may say they can’t afford it or have no money, or that their cat just died or any number of reasons why they think you should give your services for free. But the truth is if they really wanted that solution they would invest in it.

What to do if they dive into their life history or any other lengthy and irrelevant story.

Say – “I’m just going to interrupt you there. My guess is you’ve told this story a lot. And it hasn’t really helped yet. So would it be ok if I asked you some questions about where you are now in relation to what you DO want so that we can find ways to help you get that?”

Because you asked permission to interrupt, they will be fine about this.

Sticking to time limits and ending the conversation.

Have a clock in your eye line. Don’t get so sucked into the conversation that you lose track of time.

When time is nearly up say: “We are nearing the end of the time I have available today. I just want to check in, have you got what you wanted?”

If they haven’t, this is where you let them know where they can get the solution to this problem and where you offer your product or programme.

With firm, clear boundaries you won’t always get the sale, but whether you do or not you’ll have stopped giving away your time and energy for free.

Read more:
A guide to stop giving your time away for free

Success in business often depends on a speedy response to queries from prospective customers, as well as the method in which your company is projected to the outside world.

So many companies make the mistake of cutting their marketing budgets when they should be using imagination and flair to promote their companies.

Telephony

No one likes to be left hanging on the telephone for too long and an efficient method of responding to customers’ requests is to use a telephone system that employs interactive voice response (IVR).

The technology has been around for a while and increasingly consumers are becoming used to the phone being answered quickly and then having their calls routed to the right department through this type of automation.

Human interaction is, of course, still important but the IVR filter system does mean that the hours of waiting to be put through to the right person may become a thing of the past.

Social Media

Rather than building a company website many start-ups rely on their internet presence through some of the myriad social media sites that are available. Some companies also use social media as an extension of their corporate websites. Facebook is very popular but it doesn’t suit everyone.

For short snappy company announcements, Twitter is invaluable. Both of these sites get picked up by the Google search engine, and also will contribute to your company’s page rankings.

Social media is a vital tool in terms of interacting with your clients, if your followers disagree with you or don’t like a new product, they’ll soon let you know; conversely if you receive a large number of Facebook ‘likes’ you know that you’re doing something right.

LinkedIn & Google

Another very useful tool that is increasingly being used by companies as well as individuals is the professional networking site, LinkedIn. This site is used as an invaluable method of connecting with potential customers, trade associations and discussion forums.

The newly introduced Google ‘Think Insights’ looks as if it is going to become hugely popular; it offers research and analysis as well as statistics so that a business can monitor the effectiveness of its brand message.

Imagery

The old expression that ‘an image is worth a thousand words’ is as important today as it was when first coined. The very latest digital techniques mean that any photograph can be enhanced, manipulated and altered in order to make your company and products stand out from the crowd. ‘Guerrilla Marketing’ is the phrase that is used to identify quirky and edgy imagery that usually carries a memorable strap line.

These pictures will remain in any passer by’s brain for sometime, often thanks to the sheer novelty factor as well as the humour. This type of marketing campaign is most frequently displayed in bus shelters, on the sides of cars or even on the back of a bus. In an ever-competitive market place this strategy will definitely make your company more memorable.

Read more:
Four quick ways to modernise your marketing

Some employers appear to be encouraging this as it offers employees’ greater flexibility in accessing information outside of normal working hours, employees are using devices they like, and on the face of it is cheaper for the employer. However, Jane Crosby specialises in employment law and commercial litigation at law firm Hart Brown explains that there are serious risks for employers and their ability to control and protect access of information and the information itself.

As a result of this change in the workplace the information commissioner has published guidance for employers to help them reduce the risk of breaching the provisions of the Data Protection Act.

The information commissioner has highlighted concerns about the risk to personal data when using personal electronic devices for work purposes especially if there is no formal written policy or guidance in place at work to control the access to information.

One of the risks which the information commissioner has identified is that the user of a personal device “owns, maintains and supports the device and this means that the data controller has significantly less control over the device that it would have over a traditional corporately owned and provided device”.

The guidance by the information commissioner recommends a “Bring Your Own Device Policy” and suggests that the policy should cover the following points:

• Who will be responsible for monitoring the policy?
• What type of personal data can be processed on the personal device and if it is stored on the device how can this be safely deleted when not in use
• Strong passwords to secure devices
• Automatic locks on devices to prevent unauthorised access of information, ensure the user knows when to delete information and maintaining a separation between personal data and data used for the purposes of work
• Which documents are allowed to be accessed through a personal device?
• How controls can be put in place if the device is lost of stolen
• Who pays for the cost of maintaining the device if it is being used for work purposes?
• What happens on termination of employment?

Recent surveys have revealed that over 40 per cent of employees are using their own devices for work without any guidance in place by their employers to ensure that they comply with the Data Protection Act. This guidance is therefore particularly helpful.

If businesses are unable to provide their employees with their own electronic devices then they should consider implementing a Bring Your Own Device Policy.

Read more:
Guide to creating your own Bring Your Own Device to Work policy

In this, Donald Stephenson, Account Manager at QueryClick looks at search engine optimisation (SEO), giving you five top tips to help you develop a solid SEO strategy. Enjoy!

1.  Don’t stuff page titles with multiple keywords

One of the most important things to consider is the ‘title’ you give your web pages. The page title is not only visible across the top of your browser window but is also displayed on the search engine results pages. It is often this title that will encourage the person searching to click through.

Don’t be tempted to ‘stuff’ page titles with multiple keywords. Instead, keep each page title focused around a single search term, and stick to the 70 character limit to prevent it being shortened (truncated) on the search engine results page.

This ensures the search results are synchronised and relevant to the content of the page – making for a better user experience for the person searching.

2.  Don’t underestimate the importance of the main heading

The main heading (H1) on each page of your website, which can often be edited via the Content Management System, is a strong signifier of the relevance of web content to search engines. By tagging key phrases on your site as H1 you are signalling to the search engines what the page is about.

Many website owners are guilty of tagging their logo as the H1, or of including multiple H1 tags on a single page. This just serves to nullify what should be a highly effective way of informing search engines about the context of your page.

3.  Target one key phrase per page to rank well for a variety of terms

Don’t blur the focus of a page with mixed messages or more than one key phrase – the end result will be confusion on the part of the search engine, and the loss of potential ranking performance.

Of course, using secondary or synonymous terms on the same page to reinforce the message of the content is great, and can enhance the page’s ability to rank for your selected key phrase.

Don’t stray off topic, keep the content tight, and have a clear focus for each page.

4. Be more creative in your internal linking strategy
Internal linking is an important part of any SEO strategy, not only aiding a user on their journey, but also reinforcing the purpose of specific web pages.

Don’t use standard phrases like ‘read more’ or ‘click here’ as the linking text when a more creative alternative, appropriate to your website, could be used. To do so would be a missed opportunity – as you could be providing the search engines with additional context about the page being linked to.

For example, if you want to link through to a video about apple pies, the anchor text should be ‘apple pie videos’, rather than ‘click here’.

5. Include a strong call to action in the meta description
Meta descriptions are displayed beneath each listing on the search engine results. Although they have little direct value in determining ranking, the importance of the meta description must not be underestimated.

They give the user a clear understanding of what each page contains. Ensuring there are clear ‘calls to action’ in the meta description can make a listing stand out on the results page.

Consequently, this can increase click-through rates. Just remember to remain within the 160 character limit to prevent any information or calls to action being shortened.

Read more:
The inside guide to Search Engine Marketing

Immediate action
There are several steps to consider when a debt turns bad. One or two missed payments will usually prompt a reminder or gentle warning from the creditor. If subsequent payments are missed, the creditor might ask for the entire debt to be paid in full by a certain date.

Obviously, if you are struggling to meet weekly or monthly repayments, you would probably be unable to make a single, much larger payment. At this point, the situation has already become unmanageable in the framework of the original credit agreement. Charges for late payment will also be added to the debt, for as long as the problem continues without intervention.

Negotiating a revised payment schedule with the creditor at the earliest opportunity is always the most effective way to avoid the bailiffs. By tackling the issue early, you could give yourself a fighting chance of clearing debts without incurring too many financial and credit-related penalties. By ignoring the problem, you could move a step closer to encountering the bailiffs.

After several weeks or months of requesting the borrower to clear his debt, a creditor is likely to hire a debt collection company to take over the account. Some debt collectors work directly for creditors, while others buy bad debts from creditors via a legal process, known as novation. Debt collectors tend to be more aggressive in their demands for payment, than high-street lenders, such as banks and retailers.

What happens if your debts have been passed to a debt collection agency?
A debt collection firm will typically send a letter to you to notify you of your duty to clear your debts. The letter might state that you have one or two weeks in which to clear the debt in full, otherwise solicitors will be instructed to initiate legal proceedings in the small claims court (depending, of course, on the size of the debt).

At this point, a debt collection company could write to you to tell you that they plan on using bailiffs to recover the debt or you could look to enter wither a Company Voluntary Arrangement or an Individual Voluntary Arrangement in order to solve the problem.

Reasons to avoid bailiffs
Unless appointed by a court to recover tax arrears, criminal fines or VAT, bailiffs cannot force their way into properties. They can, however, gain peaceful entry via a door that has been left unlocked or a window that has been left open. Once peaceful entry to a property has been made, bailiffs can return at a later date using force (on the property) to remove seized goods, which are then sold at auction.

How to avoid bailiffs and clear your debts
If you’re struggling to repay your debts, don’t panic! Although it can feel like a scary situation, it’s important to remember that there is help available that could enable you to get back on track – even if your debts have been passed on to a debt collection company.

No situation is hopeless, so try not to let things get to a stage where you’re constantly worrying about a bailiff turning up at your door.
Creditors must treat your fairly and they may be able to help you set up a new repayment structure. If not, then you can rely on the help of a professional debt management company to help you overcome your money troubles.

Read more:
Tips on avoiding seeing bailiffs

It is hoped that the new and free Step by Step guides will help SMEs get the best from their people and stay on the right side of the law by breaking down the most common employment issues into a series of practical steps that can be used as needed.

Anne Sharp, Acas Chief Executive, said: “These new free online guides are simple to use and help employers understand the basics of how to hire, manage and get the best from their staff.

“Some employers want to grow their business but are worried about getting employment law right or find it too time consuming as they just want to run their business.

“The step by step guides build on our knowledge as workplace experts to make it as easy as possible for small business owners to quickly pick up a guide that best suits their circumstances and get it right first time.

“A better understanding of the law can make the difference between managing staff well and potentially facing a costly and stressful employment tribunal when things aren’t handled correctly.”

The six step by step guides cover:

• Recruiting an employee
• Settling in a new employee
• The new employee’s contract
• Managing a complaint at work
• Managing staff absence
• How to get the best out of your staff

Acas has also announced the launch of a new online guide on managing discipline. The free guides include a legal checklist, useful tools and templates that can be downloaded from their website deal with the myths about common workplace scenarios which bring common problems to life.

Employment Relations Minister Jo Swinson said: “We know that small businesses can find taking on staff a daunting prospect because of a lack of understanding of employment law. It is important to help employers better understand their responsibilities.

“This is why promoting the benefits of good communication, better management, and early dispute resolution is important as it can lead to the best outcomes for everyone and cut out the need for costly and stressful employment tribunals.

“The new Acas guides will provide small business with an invaluable free resource and give them greater confidence to grow their business which will in turn support a stronger economy.”

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has today also launched an online toolkit to help startups through the process of hiring their first member of staff. The “Taking on a employee” toolkit can be found at https://www.gov.uk/employing-staff

Read more:
Acas launches six steps to success for small business

So here are The Nurture Network’s latest marketing buzzwords to watch out for:

Sharkonomics
No, it doesn’t refer to Shark Tank, the US version of Dragons Den but to the book, Sharkonomics: How to Attack the Market Leaders, which talks about how brand leaders are hunted and devoured by competitors wanting to steal market share. The key to Sharkonomics is to learn from others mistakes and start planning long before your competitors strike. But the most profound piece of advice is move or die; businesses that don’t innovate, evolve and remain relevant are overtaken.

Participatory marketing
Customers want to interact with the brands in rewarding and interesting new ways and the most successful marketing campaigns recognise the need to market with people, instead of at them – which defines the overarching principle of participatory marketing. The focus has thus shifted to generating high quality content with a brand personality and story that can be communicated with customers through multiple touch points, so that they want to interact with it.

The F-Factor
Don’t worry, you haven’t missed the launch of another terrible reality TV show, on the contrary, the F-Factor refers to the increasing importance of second-level contacts or so-called friends, fans and followers, which have been powered by the growth of social media. Brands marketing at customers are increasingly interested in not only their initial target customer but also that customer’s circle of influence.

Gamification
Despite the name, gamification doesn’t typically apply to computer games but rather how the competitive element of gaming is being introduced to real life products and processes as a way to encourage engagement. Often Gamification works by making a real world task more engaging by allowing users to collect points or badges to reward completion – just like in a computer game.

SoLoMo
SoLoMo is the fusion of social, local and mobile and represents the growing marketing trend of targeting content or promotions at consumers based on their current location, via their mobile. This type of marketing is designed to be shared by the consumer with their F-Factor networks via social media. The importance for brands is that smartphones and the continuing growth of mobile and 4G means that having a local presence can enable marketers to maximize on location patterns.

Likeconomics
If developing a brand ever feels like taking part in a popularity contest, then Facebook’s ‘Like’ button is partly to blame. Likenomics is a spinoff of attraction marketing, the idea that consumers start to like brands which their peers like. Therefore being ‘liked’ (Facebook) ‘followed’ (twitter), ‘plussed’ (Google+) or ‘pinned’ (Pinterest) on a social media platform impacts the economics of a brand.

Plusification
Plusification originates from the ‘plus’ in the Google+ social network platform, which is a form of Facebook ‘Liking’. However, when integrated with Google’s other platforms such as search engine searches or YouTube views it means that Google can now reshape the content you view based upon what you and your closest contacts have publicly ‘plussed’ – giving it even more reach and potential power, if it takes off.

Tradigital
In some sectors of the industry, digital marketing has developed separately to traditional marketing principles and Tradigital is the realisation that to design and launch successful holistic campaigns you need to be applying the traditional principles of branding and marketing to the digital space in order to maximise your campaign effectiveness.

In-sourcing
In-sourcing is increasingly being used to describe the flexible approach to staffing where a third party outsourcer is brought in to work within a business as one of the team. As businesses seek to remain leaner and more dynamic, many have turned to in-sourcing business solutions – employing individuals, and sometimes whole teams – either for a set term, or part time in an on-demand and flexible way. This is what The Nurture Network model is based on; with most new business not having the resources for full time heavy-weight marketers, you can get one just when you need it.

Big Data
Recent social media IPO’s are testimony to the financial power of the data that online platforms collect about users. Big data has evolved from two parallel but interrelated concepts; namely that companies today store such vast quantities of data that they have had to start innovating about how to collect, store, organize, analyze, share and most importantly, utilize it in such a way as to create a competitive advantage.

Have you heard any undecipherable or entertaining buzz words lately? Add a comment below with any new ones and we’ll shed some light.

Christina Richardson is a business marketing specialist and Founder of The Nurture Network, the on-demand marketing department for ambitious SMEs. With a proven track record in leading high profile marketing campaigns for entrepreneurial brands, The Nurture Network are a partner of GrowthAccelerator, working with business leaders who are passionate about growing their business. GrowthAccelerator matches businesses with experts to define a tailored growth plan to accelerate and realise their growth potential – opening the doors to external funding, new business opportunities and boosting innovation and leadership. Christina’s extensive experience working with entrepreneurs and dynamic businesses mean she is a much in demand thought leader, a business mentor at University College London and regular speaker at industry events including The British Library.

Read more:
Navigating the latest ten Marketing Buzzwords in the Boardroom

During the London 2012 Games, millions of Londoners stayed at home to avoid the expected crush on the tube. According to recent figures from the CBI, around half of London based firms allowed employees to work from home during the London 2012 Games – with over 40% specifically investing in new technology to allow employees access to email, video-conferencing and critical business systems.

If you are working from home, you’ll probably end up working harder and longer hours according to BT, but you must take care to ensure a proper work / life balance. Here Olivier Chameyrat, managing director of Pixmania-PRO, highlights top tips for those working from home:

Create an office space
Set up an area within your house or flat that is specifically dedicated to you working from home – this is not to be shared or used by other members of the family and when you’re working in this area of the home it is clear you are not to be disturbed or distracted.

Define your working hours
Keep to your usual working and sleeping patterns, and try not to stray outside of this. This will help define when your working day is over and when you can take that all-important time to relax and wind down from the stresses and strains of the day.

Me time
Make sure you switch off your computer / phone at the end of the working day so you are not tempted to start on another piece of work. When you’re done for the day, shut down and ensure your co-workers know you have finished for the day.

Keep in contact
We are naturally social animals and being isolated from human contact can have an adverse effect – make sure you stay in contact with your work colleagues over the phone, over email and even over social media channels, such as Twitter. Make sure you go to networking events, join online communities and forums – don’t be alone during the day.

Take regular breaks
Just as you would in a normal office environment, make yourself a coffee, grab a glass of water, get up and walk around the house to stretch your legs. Go out at lunchtime to get a sandwich from the shops, get some fresh air and avoid the cabin fever.

Stay professional
When you get up in the morning, avoid heading straight for your workstation still in your pyjamas. Have a shower, get dressed, have a proper breakfast and start the day as you would in the office. This will also help you stay motivated throughout the day.

Don’t be distracted
Turn the TV off, put away the Xbox and the PlayStation, and stay focused on delivering your workload. Get together a ‘to-do’ list for the day and don’t allow yourself to hang out the washing or log on to Facebook until you’ve ticked off a certain number of tasks.

Read more:
Top tips to effectively work from home

1. What is it?
A trade mark is a sign which distinguishes your goods and services from those of other businesses. Your trade mark could also be described as your ‘brand’ and can be made up of words, logos or a combination of both.

2. Why do I need one?
A trade mark protects your business names and brands, including stopping unscrupulous traders trying to derive benefit from using your trade mark or a very similar trade mark to do business which could also damage your reputation in the process.

3. A rebrand could cost you dear.
Without a registered trade mark, your competitors could register your trade mark and force you to rebrand. A rebrand can cost tens of thousands of pounds in costs when you factor in new design work, replacement signage, all stationery, stock changes, the need for a new website and in addition, if the website domain needs to be changed this can be doubly harmful as search engines will need to ‘find’ your site all over again. Then it’s impossible to put a figure on the loss to a business of its good name.

4. Don’t rely on Companies House:
Registering your company at Companies House does not give you any rights to the name nor does it stop anyone else trade marking the name.

5. The myth of domain names:
This also applies to domain names. Owning a domain name does not offer you any protection under the law. If you want to protect your brand, you must register your trade mark.

6. Tell me the benefits of a trade mark?
Without a registered trade mark, your brand is insecure. A registered trade mark:

– Belongs to you, so you can sell it, or let other people have a licence that allows them to use it;
– Will help to put people off using your trade mark without your permission;
– Lets you take effective and inexpensive action against anyone using your trade mark without permission;
– Allows the authorities to bring criminal charges against counterfeiters.

7. How long does it last?
A registered trade mark lasts forever with renewal fees payable every ten years but think carefully about what it should cover as it’s not possible to expand a trade mark’s scope after registration. Therefore if you’re currently selling cosmetics but are thinking about expanding into clothing as well, then it’s worth applying for both classes, otherwise you would have to fund a second application from scratch.

8. Can two businesses own the same trade mark name?
Two businesses can register the same trade mark provided their areas of trade do not overlap, e.g. Tunstille Estate Agency and Tunstille Tree Surgeons.

9. How do I decide on a name?
To be registrable, trade marks must be distinctive for the goods and services you provide. A registered trade mark must allow consumers to differentiate your goods or service from another company’s. Made up words, for example AVENT iQ (baby bottle and warmer) and Viagra, are often the easiest way to be sure of obtaining a trade mark.

10. Don’t delay your application.
Too many businesses put it off until too late when someone else has already registered the company or product name they have been using. They then have to rebrand and start trading under a new name, which can be a very costly process. A trade mark can cost from as little as £470 including VAT.

Read more:
Top Ten Guide to Trade Marks

Until recently the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) focused mainly on the public sector, but Simon Brailsford, Director of Sales, Advanced Data Destruction explains that the commissioner is increasingly looking at data protection practices in the private sector. SMEs, in particular, often fail to understand the business impact of failing to have secure systems in place to dispose of private data.

Companies falling foul of the law risk their reputation and possibly their business as the ICO is ramping up its fines which can run into six figures for data law breaches, in addition businesses that have been successfully prosecuted and fined can be struck off tender lists and lose customers through a diminished reputation.

Data destruction and IT asset disposal are heavily regulated and complex areas but ignorance is not bliss and will not let a business off the hook. No matter who is responsible in the organisation for the operational aspect of data protection and destruction, the chief executive or managing director is ultimately accountable.

This is even the case where an external company has been hired to destroy data. In one recent high profile case a Scottish council was fined £250,000 after sensitive documents were found in supermarket waste bins. The Scottish ICO said the local authority had ‘taken their eye off the ball’ when outsourcing and not carried out sufficient checks on the provider.

The process for disposing of redundant IT equipment and data can overlap a number of departments and functions, including IT, procurement and data governance. Mistakes often happen because just one person is given responsibility, leaving other areas of significance overlooked.

So what are the necessary steps businesses can take to ensure that they are fully compliant?

· If you handle any sensitive or personally identifiable data then you must have provision to destroy it securely and prove it when required. Check your internal processes and systems making sure that you have robust protocols

· Have someone senior in charge who can bring relevant departments together and who understands the consequences of poor security procedures

· Run regular staff training for key people on information security procedures. If necessary bring in specialists to advise

· Be mindful of data classifications. “Aggregation” and “Accumulation” of data often occurs at the disposal stage, where assets of all types are merged together, you therefore have to treat ALL assets as “Worse Case” scenario.

· Ensure you accurately identify all equipment marked for disposal and its data bearing status and maintain accurate records; you may be required to provide full end to end traceability

· Data Destruction Certification – you have to be able to demonstrate and prove your data has been destroyed using approved data destruction methods

· When using a third party be extremely diligent when checking their credentials and ensure that you are confident about their systems and their personnel. For example, have they carried out Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) checks and Counter Terrorist Checks (CTC) on staff, including any agency workers? Remember you are still liable for their actions!

· Have robust service agreements in place. This will show you have done your “Due Diligence”, carry out regular audits and remember a contract does not relinquish your responsibility. However, it may provide you with a course of action against the third party providing you can prove they are in breach of contract

· As you remain responsible, you must remain involved. Don’t allow your data to leave your premises, as out of sight is definitely not out of mind. You will find you are not insured against data loss whilst in transit

· If you are the CEO or MD ensure that you know what is happening to the destruction of sensitive data in your business.

Read more:
Tips on avoiding paying the heavy price of data destruction ignorance

The changes fall into four main trends.

Trend 1) The shift towards online systems

In this digital age, more and more services have become available online and payroll is no exception.. With an online payroll system, you can run the payroll at any time, using any computer with a web browser, or even from your smart-phone. The information isn’t stored on your computer, so you can use different computers at different times and it lessens the risk that one of your staff will sneak onto your computer and see what their colleagues earn. Online payroll systems are offered on a subscription basis without the need to buy a new package at the start of each tax year. The software provider also has the ability to update the system when any legislative changes are made, meaning that you don’t have to worry about it. The term cloud computing is sometimes used to describe online systems available on a subscription basis. This term can cause confusion because it has more than one meaning and it suggests that the system is not in a fixed location but in this case it is. Your employees’ details are covered by the Data Protection Act.1998, so you’ll want to know whether the payroll system is based within the European Economic Area. Fortunately, despite the cloud metaphor, it is easy to check the company’s website or ask where your information is stored.

Trend 2) Accounts system integration

Innovation within the accounting software sector, particularly when it comes to online accounting systems, has led to many more accounts packages coming onto the market. Many of these are aimed at an international audience, which gives the product a much further reach. On the other hand payroll is specific to each country and the expense of developing separate payroll systems has meant many accounting systems do not offer payroll options. If you use one of these systems, you will need to find a separate solution for payroll. The good news is that many of the accounts systems have an Application Programming Interface (API) that allows other programs to add transactions automatically, and payroll systems can take advantage of this. A good payroll system will have integration with your accounts systems so you can export your payroll figures rather than having to manually retype them. This helps to ensure accuracy and also saves a little bit of precious time.

Trend 3) Electronic payslips

Email is now a common way to communicate, with businesses and individuals comfortable about receiving information in this way. With many businesses fighting to keep costs low and to run as efficiently as possible there has been a shift towards sending employee payslips out electronically. Large businesses led the way, seeing big efficiency savings by removing their printing, sealing and distribution costs. Now even systems designed for small businesses come with this feature included. This advance in technology means that at the click of a button you can send payslips instantly to all employees without the need for paper copies. As emails can travel across the internet unencrypted, some systems allow the payslips to be password-protected. On receiving the email, the employee must enter a password before they can see their payslip. As well as saving time and money, electronic payslips can reduce the delay between calculating the pay run and paying the staff, because the Employment Rights Act 1996 dictates that payslips must be received at or before the time the employee is paid. By using electronic payslips and the Faster Payments Service, it is now practical to calculate the wages and pay the employees on the same day, even if they all work at different locations.

Trend 4) Online filing and RTI

In 2005, the government asked Lord Carter to undertake a Review of HMRC Online Services. His report recommended a move to online filing for businesses and IT-literate groups by 2012. As a result, electronic filing has been introduced in stages over the last few years, beginning with the larger employers. Now almost all businesses that employ staff must file their PAYE returns electronically. In 2010, HMRC began a consultation on ways for employers to send even more information to HMRC electronically and this will culminate in the implementation of Real Time Information (RTI) for small businesses in April 2013. RTI is intended to improve the information received with regards to PAYE, and to enable the Department for Work and Pensions to more accurately assess universal credits for individuals. Under RTI, you will be required to submit information to HMRC every time you pay your staff, rather than the current system of sending a summary once a year, plus notifications when someone starts or leaves. Similar to payslips, the rule for RTI is that the return must be sent to HMRC on or before paying the employees.

These four trends illustrate the direction small business payroll systems are moving, ignoring the stable features that we have all come to expect. As these trends continue, small businesses will end up with faster, electronic communication between the payroll system at the hub, the users, employees, HMRC and accounting systems at the edge. The common theme behind all four trends is better communication, enabled by technology.

Read more:
Changes in Payroll

1. Being small is a good thing.
Small businesses have an advantage when using social media because of their speed to market against the big guys; they have less legal processes and more time interacting with their followers.

2. Social isn’t just for communicating to the public.
Social media is more than just for sales and marketing; it could be a valuable tool for internal communications, too. Software like Yammer or SalesForce Chatter can help you set up an internal social network for your business.

3. Don’t try to be everywhere at once.
Figure out which social network has the most impact for your customers and focus on that network. It’s better to excel in one and establish a strong, meaningful community than to two or three badly.

4. Foster community and customer service.
Social media is a two-way street. You can’t only respond to the positive and ignore the negative. Show your customers you care, and they’ll keep coming back even through the inevitable bumps.

5. Tie in your social media plan with your business plan.
To start a social media plan, begin with your overall business plan and think about how to integrate social media with all parts of your business (e.g., Twitter for customer service, LinkedIn for HR, Facebook for customers).

And, just to show that social media does impact the bottom line, one of our staff said he he had a bad experience whilst checking in at a major hotel and tweeted #fail. A neighboring hotel saw it and responded, “Sorry you’re having a bad time, hope the rest of your stay is better.” The next time, he stayed at this neighboring hotel; not only that, his friend asked if he’d recommend it for a family reunion because of the tweet he saw. Twitter works!

Read more:
5 Tips on how to do social media right

When I log into Xero every morning, it is hard to imagine that only 18 months ago, I was running the company finances on a network of Excel spreadsheets that could only really be understood by me and my accountant (and then only with my detailed interpretation). I’m not a finance specialist, and, at the time when I started using Xero, I had no accounting training, which made this software the ideal choice for my small communications consultancy.

Xero is a cloud-based solution that has been developed with the owner-manager in mind. It simplifies book-keeping and accounting as much as these administrative processes can be simplified. It doesn’t quite take the whole financial management function off your hands (if only), but it does make everything from invoicing to debt collection easier.

Log in to Xero and on your dashboard you can view:
Bank accounts: you can import a bank feed any of 70 UK banks (or financial organisations). And if Xero doesn’t work with your bank, you can ask them to integrate and they will get straight on it. The reconciliation works very well, although I have had a problem setting up automatic feeds for our Barclays credit card statement (Xero has been very professional in dealing with this).

Invoicing: The invoicing function is fantastic. It makes creating and sending invoices a breeze. You simply add your contacts, create an invoice template and raise invoices (Xero can automatically generate an invoice number and you can email them straight from within the system, so no saving and naming files). These are immediately added to accounts receivable so you know when to chase.

Accounts payable (Xero calls this ‘Money Going Out’ so there’s no confusion): enter your receipts into the accounts payable section and you can automatically reconcile them with payments from the bank account. I have an intern handling the data entry for me and then I only need to spend five minutes every second day on reconciliation.

Accounts receivable (aka ‘Money Coming In’): provides a simple list of your invoices that can be ordered according to due date, paid, client, date issued or invoice number. This makes handling any bookkeeping queries quick and easy.

Reports: On the reports tab, you can run reports covering everything from P&L to balance sheet, cash summary and aged receivables. I tend to leave this to my accountant, and I instead focus on ensuring the data in Xero has been entered correctly. However, my accountant has her own log in and can do everything from the VAT return to the management accounts from within the system.

I’ve never actually measured it, but I believe that my accounting bill (which is based on the accountant’s hourly rate) has fallen substantially because Xero has streamlined the whole process. Of course, it wasn’t like this at first, and we had to develop a working relationship that ensured everything went smoothly. This requires discipline on our part, to ensure that we are consistent and accurate in updating Xero.

To familiarise myself with the software I attended one of Xero’s very comprehensive introductory webinars, and that was enough for me to understand how to use the software to improve my ability to manage the finances of the business.

Perhaps the best thing about Xero is their approach to customer service. There is no helpline, which really annoyed me at first, but then I tried the email support function and it won me over. The customer services team is responsive and comprehensive in its approach, and this has been consistent in email and social media communication. They genuinely want you to get the most out of the software and are very good at delivering that.

This is a company that is genuinely interested in delivering a service that makes small business accounting easier and quicker. They are constantly on the lookout for feedback and I have been nothing short of impressed.

Xero offers pricing plans to suit a number of organisations, starting at $19 a month.

Read more:
Under Review: Xero Accounting Software

Ironmen
History is littered with examples of fortunes turning right at the last moment. In the 1999 UEFA Champions League Final between Bayern Munich and Manchester United, Bayern’s ribbons had already been attached to the trophy when Manchester scored two goals in the very last minutes of the game. In the Ryder Cup and the Champions League final, neither the European team nor Manchester United gave up hope.

Of course this is just sport but the underlying principle is profoundly important for business.

Face the brutal truth
Jim Collins, in “Good to Great” writes about Admiral Stockdale, one of the most highly decorated officers in the history of the United States Navy. Stockdale was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Collins recalled a conversation with Stockdale about what was the difference between those who survived and those who did not.

He was unequivocal. The optimists died, because they were repeatedly disappointed by the reality of their existence not living up to their hopes. The people who survived were like Stockdale, they never lost faith that they would survive whilst at the same time able to confront the brutal truth of their current circumstance.

Without hope and belief that it is possible to survive and succeed then quite simply, you won’t. But blind faith is not enough. It won’t deal with declining sales or increasing costs. It’s the combination of facing the brutal truth of your current circumstances and dealing with the issues whilst believing you can survive into a better future.

Moments of truth
It’s also about mental resilience. As an ultra distance cyclist I have a sense of what this is about. There is a point in any long distance ride (>300+ miles non-stop) that it all feels like too much. Your body aches, you just want to sleep, in short, you want to give up. These are moments of truth. It’s the point where you decide to give in or carry on. You have every excuse at hand to give in. Your friends and family would understand, you could hold your head up high for the amount you did manage to achieve. But here’s the rub – you still didn’t finish.

If your business, like many, is finding these economic times hard, so too do you have the perfect excuse to quit – it’s the worst recession in decades. At some point you too will reach a moment of truth where you have to decide to carry on or give in.

Fore-sight
The question then is how to ensure hope for the future doesn’t become blind faith. Too often business failure creeps up insidiously. It’s too late by the time we realise how bad the situation has become to do anything about it. Instead, plan for failure. Write yourself some simple rules. For example:

• ‘If sales have not increased ‘X’ by ‘Y’ then we will call a halt’.
• ‘If our reserves drop below ‘Z’ then it’s time to pull down the shutters’.

It’s never too late to work out the rules that work for you and prevent you destroying all you’ve worked for. Once you’ve identified what these ‘rules’ are it feels great because now you are in control of the worst case scenario. So, now you’ve faced the brutal truth, you can turn your attention to being successful. Like the Ryder Cup team, it’s time to do the seemingly impossible.

Read more:
Lessons from the Ryder Cup – What can business learn from Europe’s attitude?

For instance, if you were called Helen and ran a boutique clothes store, you may want to call your website something like www.helensfashions.com. Getting your domain name should be one of the first steps in naming your business, shaping how easily new customers find you.

The process of buying your chosen domain name from a host is in itself inexpensive. Registering a name can cost as little as £3.32 per year for small businesses and can be purchased in no time at all. It is surprising, however, how many small companies fail to remember to register their company name early on – for any small business it can be frustrating (and help you to lose potential clients) if you don’t register a logical domain name at the beginning.

Forgetting to register your domain name could really backfire. Every year thousands of domain names are registered and more and more options are taken every single day.

While being the victim of a cybersquatter is a rare case for a small business, you could equally be victim to another business or competitor owning the .co.uk address you truly desire. A more malicious competitor may even try to set-up a website similar to yours and try to steal customers with a close website address.

In rare occasions for a small business you may be the victim of cybersquatting – particularly if your business has attracted press attention or gained an audience very fast.

You are unlikely to have to pay the vast sums of a Google or Microsoft to get back your website address, but I’ve heard stories of small media businesses having to pay a few thousand pounds to get back their website address. Quite a mark up on a domain usually costing less than a fiver a year!

The costs can easily add up if you have not bought your desired web address in the first place. So how do you make sure you have your domain name early on?

The first thing you need to do is protect your small business’ domain name as soon as possible. Let’s take the example of Helen’s fashion store again. You’d want to register the address www.helensfashions.com, but consider the variants of this too.

Domain name “extensions” (the end part to the web address) such as .co.uk, .org, .biz, .net and .info are all worth registering so that no other business or cybersquatter can create a site with your name and profit off the publicity of your website.

You should also register both the singular and plural version of your name, and if your company name has more than one word in it, make sure you register the hyphenated version of your small business: www.helens-fashions.com.

It’s worth noting that registering www.helensfashionssucks.com gives you even more protection against malicious third parties wanting to take away the positive attention from your brand.

Lastly, registering the differently spelt versions of your name are helpful to stop other companies and individuals using it: in this case, this includes www.helenfashion.com, www.helenfashions.com and www.helensfashions.com.

Also remember that your domain names need to be renewed annually. This is standard practice, and the act of re-registering will safeguard your small business from being attacked by small time cybersquatters, who will often comb through lists of expired domain names and buy them to sell on for more money. Domain name registration services like Cheap Domain Names will send you warning emails notifying your small business about renewals when needed.

However, small businesses like yours should also consider purchasing domains for longer periods of time to save money and get rid of the hassle of annual renewals.

For example, you might want to purchase a domain name for ten years and pay £15 a year in one bulk payment. This will help prevent other businesses being able to purchase your own domain name and give you peace of mind for your company’s web address. The rules on this changed only this year and it’s a great call to make sure you own your domain name for longer.

As a small business, it is in your interest to secure a suitable domain name for your company as soon as you can – before someone else gets to it first.

You may feel you have a million things to do in setting up your new venture, but registering your domain will add an asset to your company brand straight away.

As a customer of your company, it is equally as important to be able to look at your website, to learn more about your goods or services and to find our more information on your products through a memorable domain name. It pays off to choose wisely.

Take a look at Cheap Domain Names for more information on creating your own domain. When purchasing your domain your company can also get free access to web pages, email-forwarding features, web page creators, online control panels and expert advice.

Read more:
Your online business starts with your web address

Who are my customers? What do they want? Why have they bought my product? Gathering vital evidence by conducting thorough and well-considered research can benefit businesses of all sizes and, if used correctly can be a essential resource for startups and businessess looking to maximise their PR and media exposure.

Evidence is a critical component in every owner’s or manager’s toolkit. Yet, too often, gut feeling is relied on instead of informed decisions shaped by good research.

This is particularly the case with smaller businesses and those just starting out; it can be difficult to gain access to funds for research, and stretched budgets are a real challenge. However, conducting some well-targeted, thorough research in the early stages of running a business can actually save you money in the long term.

Not understanding your customers will cost you much more. It is also one of the most important times to have good, solid evidence – essentially, you are entering uncharted waters and don’t have the benefit of past experience to base decisions on.

Research can provide invaluable insight into your new territories and markets, highlighting how you should be adapting your strategy and approach to succeed. It can be used to show you how best to secure finance, how to work out your next steps and stand apart from your competitors. The knowledge that you have the evidence to base decisions on and inform your strategy can be of real help to a fledgling business or entrepreneur.

Using research doesn’t always mean commissioning a big project with an even bigger fee. You may have more information at your fingertips than you realise, and you need help analysing it. The key is using competent and qualified research professionals, as they will know how to keep costs down for startups while still delivering research that meets your objectives. It is also worth taking the time to do some of your own research.

There is a wealth of data available if you take the time to look. The UK census contains a range of useful demographic information which can prove a useful aid. As your business grows, you will generate customer data; it is worth getting help on how to capture and maintain this to give you a really good basis for the future.

When commissioning research from an expert, it’s important to have a specific and well-considered brief to get the most for your money.

Richard Alvin, managing director of Trends Research, the SME research specialist division within the Capital Business Media group said: “It is absolutely essential that before you commission any research you think about what exactly you need to find out. Then aim to evaluate which suppliers have relevant experience, offer value for money and will demonstrate a return on investment. Always consider how you wish to use the research and what outcome you want – the results of your research could well surprise you, and will certainly benefit you as you set up your business. Plus remember that the data sample needs to have weight, you should look to have a sample size of no-less than 1,000 respondents if you are looking to gain PR coverage from your research”.

Here are five top tips on writing a good brief for a researcher, or research supplier:

Plan, plan, plan

Start with the end in mind – what do you want out of the research? What do you intend to do with the results? Be prepared, as the results could surprise you.

Be clear on time and money

Ensure you are clear on delivery time-scales and leave the agency enough time to respond. The clearer you are on available budget, the better their brief will be.

Help them get to know your business

Bring the researcher up to speed on your business ideas, strategy and objectives. They will then be better able to advise on what research you need when you tell them what you hope they will find out.

Establish the relationship

The better the working relationship, the more you will get out of the research. Be clear on delivery expectations and time-scales, and how you would like the client-researcher conversation to work. Do you want formal presentations, or a series of meetings?

Use a researcher you can trust

You need to be able to rely on the results, so use an accredited researcher or agency. The Research Buyer’s Guide, published by MRS, is the best place to star.

Read more:
How to use market research to improve your business

We receive a lot of emails from readers asking for assistance and advice. From this experience Editor Paul Jones has observed that the following 10 basic selling errors are surprisingly common.

Answering Objections the Customer Hasn’t mentioned
Though it’s a good idea to anticipate objections that the customer might have and prepare reasonable answers to them, it is absolutely idiotic to bring those objections into the sales process yourself–because you’ve just created an issue that probably didn’t exist. Explaining away something preemptively can also make you seem defensive and unsure of the real value of your offering.

Fix: Never start any sentence with “You may be wondering…” or “Perhaps you’re asking yourself…”

Leaving the ‘Next Step’ to the Customer
I’ve read dozens of so-called sales letters and sales emails that end with a suggestion that the customer should call or contact the seller “if you’re interested” or “in order to learn more.” The people who send these letters always complain that they don’t get any responses.

Of course you won’t–you’re asking the customer to do your work for you.

Fix: Keep the ball in your court. Try substituting a closer like this: “I will call you next week to discuss any questions you may have, or a simple to discuss this matter further.”

Selling Features Rather Than Results
Incredibly, some people (usually marketing folks) believe that customers buy a product because it has desirable features. They therefore rattle off a list of those features, hoping that at least one will pique the customer’s interest.

In fact, customers care only about the results of purchasing a product and the ways it will affect their lives and their businesses.

Fix: Figure out why a customer buys your product rather than somebody else’s. Then sell that result, using the features to buttress your ability to deliver that result.

Faking Intimacy
Like it or not, the minute you’re positioned in somebody’s mind as “a person who is trying to sell me something,” you’re fighting an uphill battle to win trust. Under those circumstances, the absolute worst thing you can do is to try to “suck up” by acting smarmy.

The most common manifestation: brightly asking, “How are you doing today?” at the beginning of a cold call. It will make some people want to slam the receiver down.

Fix: Remain personable and professional–but no more–until such time as you actually forge a friendship, which typically takes weeks.

Writing a Sales Proposal Too Soon
Although proposals can occasionally help develop an opportunity, in most cases, the proposal requesting (and writing) process happens after the prospect has already defined the problem and (probably) defined the solution as well. Because writing a proposal takes time and effort, it’s usually a bad investment unless you’ve got the inside track on the sale.

Fix: Write a sales proposal only after you’ve got a verbal agreement.

Talking More Than Listening
When you’re selling, it’s all too easy to get excited and nervous and then try to “drive the sale” forward by talking or giving a sales pitch. Customers find this extraordinarily irritating.

Fix: In your mind, redefine selling as a passive activity that consists mostly of listening, considering, and reacting to what the customer does and says.

Wasting Time on Dead-End ‘Opportunities’
What with voice mail, gatekeepers, and a challenging economy, it sometimes seems like a miracle when you actually get into a sales conversation with a live human being. When that happens, the possibility of making a sale can become so seductive that you don’t want to spoil the dream by asking questions that might reveal this as a false opportunity.

Fix: Within the first five minutes of your first conversation, ask questions that will reveal whether the customer has a real need–as well as the money to satisfy it.

Failing to Follow Through
The sad truth is that, to customers, people who sell are guilty until proven innocent. Building a customer relationship is about gradually building up enough trust to overcome the natural antipathy that most people feel toward sellers.

Because of this, you’re not going to get any slack if you fail to deliver when promised. Drop the ball, even once, and you’re probably out of the game.

Fix: Get religious about your to-do list and scheduling specific events. Make only commitments that you’re 100% certain you can keep.

Treating a “Close” as the End of the Process

Maybe it’s the result of unfortunate terminology, but a lot of companies and individuals take “closing the deal” to mean that the sales activity has ended. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The real work happens after you’ve closed the deal–because that’s when you can start building the kind of relationship that will eventually generate follow-on business and referral sales, both of which are far easier and profitable than winning new business.

Fix: Always aim for long-term relationships rather than short-term revenue. That way a “close” is the beginning, not the end, of the process.

Asking for a Referral Too Soon
Some sales trainers recommend asking, “Do you know somebody else who might need my product?” even when prospects say they’re not interested. Others suggest asking a similar question when you’ve closed your first sale to a customer.

Both approaches are naive, because customers in their right mind do not put their own reputations at risk by recommending somebody whose ability to perform is unknown to them.

Fix: Ask for referrals only after the customer is delighted with the products or services that you’ve sold.

For more advice on sales techniques take a look at sales specialist Andy Preston’s sales techniques advice blog

Read more:
The 10 sales tactics which lose you business

Before opening my business, I worked for a lot of companies–big and small, corporate and family run, traditional and innovative. I encountered many types of managers, and I learned that those who managed best were those who allowed staff members to think boldly, to move swiftly, and to do so with a game plan rather than a rulebook.

When it came time to open my business, I knew that I wanted my company to be a place that valued motivation and maverick thinking over micromanagement. The only way to make that happen was to be willing to delegate, and as a business owner, giving up control sometimes was scary.

To beat back fear in favor of freedom, here’s how to comfortably delegate:

Establish checkpoints.
Employees thrive when they feel they are not only entrusted with, but accountable for, the projects they work on. That said, as business owners, we need to know how projects are advancing. Rather than asking about specific details every step of the way, I check in with staff members at regular intervals, but in a more general way.

My staff members are able to report progress instead of feeling as though they are facing an inquisition. This allows me to head off problems before they happen, but in a way that does not compromise the autonomy of the people working for me.

Ask a lot of questions.
One of the most powerful tools in delegating successfully is to ask questions rather than give instructions. If you say you trust your employees but then tell them how you want them to do every little thing, the message is clear that you don’t really trust them after all.

Questioning is especially important with new hires, because it sets the tone for how the employee will be able to handle responsibilities going forward.

When a member of my staff asks me what to do in a given situation, I often respond by asking what he thinks should be done. Then we can discuss his idea, and he can confidently take the reins in finding a resolution.

Make yourself a resource.
Employees can feel just as stressed or nervous as owners do when they are called upon to lead. I make sure my employees know I am there to bounce ideas off of or to lend another opinion when needed. This allows them to feel that coming to me is not a weakness or a sign of distress but rather another tool in the arsenal for getting the job done well.

Asking staff people to be autonomous works only if you give them a strong support system.

Own your mistakes.
The best way to let staff people know it’s OK to take charge is by showing them that the consequences are not dire if they take a wrong turn, as long as they do so in a responsible way.

As an owner, I make decisions big and small all day long, and not all of them are right. I tell my employees about the good outcomes as well as the bad ones, and I take responsibility openly and honestly for both. Learning that I sometimes make bad calls allows my staff members to take calculated risks as well, knowing that I will be in their corner if something goes awry.

Delegating successfully is not only a way to reduce stress; it’s also a survival strategy. If you choke your staff with micromanagement minutiae, you miss out on the great ideas that will move your company forward and frustrate the best resource your company has–your employees.

Read more:
4 traits of incredibly effective delegators

“The brain works more like a muscle than we thought,” Blake says. “So if you’re pinned in a corner for too long listening to someone being negative, you’re more likely to behave that way as well.”

Even worse, being exposed to too much complaining can actually make you dumb. Research shows that exposure to 30 minutes or more of negativity–including viewing such material on TV–actually peels away neurons in the brain’s hippocampus. “That’s the part of your brain you need for problem solving,” he says. “Basically, it turns your brain to mush.”

But if you’re running a company, don’t you need to hear about anything that may have gone wrong? “There’s a big difference between bringing your attention to something that’s awry and a complaint,” Blake says. “Typically, people who are complaining don’t want a solution; they just want you to join in the indignity of the whole thing. You can almost hear brains clink when six people get together and start saying, ‘Isn’t it terrible?’ This will damage your brain even if you’re just passively listening. And if you try to change their behavior, you’ll become the target of the complaint.”

So, how do you defend yourself and your brain from all the negativity? Blake recommends the following tactics:

1. Get some distance
“My father was a chain smoker,” Blake confides. “I tried to change his habit, but it’s not easy to do that.” Blake knew secondhand smoke could damage his own lungs as well. “My only recourse was to distance myself.”

You should look at complaining the same way, he says. “The approach I’ve always taken with complaining is to think of it as the same as passive smoking.” Your brain will thank you if you get yourself away from the complainer, if you can.

2. Ask the complainer to fix the problem
Sometimes getting distance isn’t an option. If you can’t easily walk away, a second strategy is to ask the complainer to fix the problem.

“Try to get the person who’s complaining to take responsibility for a solution,” Blake says. “I typically respond to a complaint with, ‘What are you going to do about it?'” Many complainers walk away huffily at that point, because he hasn’t given them what they wanted, Blake reports. But some may actually try to solve the problem.

3. Shields up!
When you’re trapped listening to a complaint, you can use mental techniques to block out the griping and save your neurones. Blake favours one used by the late Spanish golfer Seve Ballesteros during a match against Jack Nicklaus–a match the crowd wanted Ballesteros to lose. “He was having difficulty handling the hostility of the crowd,” Blake says. “So he imagined a bell jar that no one could see descending from the sky to protect him.”

In America Major League Baseball pitchers can sometimes be seen mouthing “Shields on!” as they stride to the mound, he says. He adds that his own imaginary defense is “more like a Harry Potter invisibility cloak.”

A related strategy is to mentally retreat to your imagined favorite spot, someplace you’d go if you could wave a magic wand. “For me, it was a ribbon of beautiful white sugary sand that extended out in a horseshoe shape from a private island,” Blake says. “I would take myself to my private retreat while people were ranting and raving. I could smile at them and nod in all the right places and meanwhile take myself for a walk on my private beach.”

Blake first saw the picture of the island in a magazine, and the image stuck with him. Eventually, he got a chance to try it for real. “It turned out the island was for rent, and it was the same one I’d seen,” he says. “So I rented it for a week. And I got to take that walk.”

Read more:
Listening to complainers is bad for your brain

What is an unsolicited direct marketing email?
Under the relevant regulations, electronic mail is any electronic message that consists of text, voice, sound or images – ie, email, text, picture, video, voicemail and answer phone messages.

Direct marketing is defined as a message that is trying to sell goods or services, or is promoting the values or beliefs of a particular organisation.
Unsolicited marketing is marketing that has not been specifically asked for.

If you want to use email to carry out unsolicited direct marketing, you need to comply with the rules in the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations and with the Data Protection Act 1998.

Are unsolicited direct marketing emails illegal?
The applicable regulations distinguish between an individual subscriber (eg amandasmith@hotmail.com) and a corporate subscriber (eg amandasmith@123ltd.com). However, note that sole traders and individuals in partnerships are regarded as individual subscribers even if you are emailing them in their business capacity.

You can only carry out unsolicited direct marketing by email to individual subscribers if the individual you are sending the message to has given you their permission (known as an Opt In) OR you obtained his or her email details during the course of a sale (or negotiations towards the sale) and the email is relating to similar products or services that were the subject of such sale AND you give such individual subscriber the right to opt out of further emails (known as the “Soft Opt In”).

The prior consent rule does not apply to a corporate subscriber. However marketing emails to corporate subscribers should still identify the sender and provide a geographical address (see below).

Information to be provided before consent is given
If you are collecting contact details which include personal data (which could include the name of an individual in a corporate email address, such as amanda.smith@123ltd.com), certain information must be notified to the individual:
• your identity; and
• the purpose(s) for which you are processing the individual’s data (eg to send them marketing email about products or services that they may be interested in); and
• any further information which is necessary to make the processing of that individual’s data fair – ie be open and honest with individuals about how you are going to use their personal data.

This information should be given to the individuals or made readily available to them (for example in a link on your website) at the point of collection.

The best way to meet these requirements is through a privacy policy.
Information to be provided in all marketing emails
All marketing emails (even those where no personal data is used such as admin@123ltd.com) must clearly display your identity and your address and if you are registered as a company, you must also include the:
• company registration number;
• place of registration; and
• registered office address.

What is good practice?
The Information Commissioner has stated that, notwithstanding the legal requirements, good practice requires that marketers follow the guidelines set out below.
• Try to go for opt-in-based marketing as much as possible.
• Provide a statement of use when you collect details typically via a privacy policy).
• Make sure you clearly explain what individuals’ details will be used for.
• Do not have consent boxes already ticked.
• Provide a simple and quick method for customers to opt out of marketing messages at no cost other than that of sending the message.
• Promptly comply with opt-out requests from everyone, not just those from individuals.
• Have a system in place to deal with complaints about unwanted marketing.
• When you receive an opt-out request, suppress the individual or company details rather than deleting them so that you have a record of who not to contact.

Suzanne Dibble, multi- award winning business lawyer

Read more:
Is your email marketing legal?

Let’s face it: Despite all of the positives associated with today’s rapidly changing business environment, technology can also cause distractions and put a strain on our productivity. You answer 10 emails only to have 20 more in your inbox. You are expected to be available 24/7. You have to schedule conference calls with people across the globe. You are tempted to text and email during meetings. You can’t stay off Twitter during the workday.

Whatever your personal distractions may be, following these six simple steps should help you to increase personal productivity and job performance.

1. Do the Worst First
Knock out the most important (or most arduous) tasks of the day before the phone calls and emails start rolling in. This can be the most productive part of the day, and it feels great to have your most time-consuming or undesirable task completed first thing. If you are not a morning person, then identify your personal peak time in which you are able to fully dedicate yourself to your highest-priority task.

2. Break Projects Into Chunks
It’s easy to get overwhelmed with large, ongoing projects. A good trick is to consistently chip away at the project to avoid procrastinating and finding yourself in a bind. By taking one large project and separating it into individual mini-projects with individual deadlines, you can achieve small wins each day to keep yourself motivated and on track.

3. Pay Attention
We’ve all had that moment in a meeting where we are asked a question only to realise we weren’t fully paying attention. Put down your phone and shut off your laptop during conference calls or meetings. Don’t just go through the motions; nothing is worth doing unless you are fully engaged. We understand it might be difficult to disconnect, but give it a shot. Trust us–you will be amazed at how much more you get out of meetings by giving them your full attention.

4. The Inbox Can Wait
Responsiveness is critical for professionals at all levels. However, don’t let the influx of emails distract you from getting your work done. Designate communication-free times in which you dedicate 60 to 90 minutes to real work. If you are a manager, it is also helpful to set the tone at the top by not expecting others to be available 24/7.

5. Write Everything Down
This tip comes from David Allen’s book Getting Things Done. Any time an idea or to-do pops into your head, immediately write it down. This isn’t rocket science, but we often have so much on our plates or so many back-to-back meetings that we can forget critical thoughts and ideas we have throughout the day.

6. Take Breaks
An often overlooked pillar of productivity is to make time for yourself to do something you truly enjoy. Whether it be reading industry-related articles, taking an exercise class, or leaving a little early to eat dinner with your family, it is important to take the time to refuel and recharge so you are ready to attack your to-do list again tomorrow.

The most important part of this process is finding a system that works for you and sticking to it. And always remember to fully engage in whatever it is you are doing, whether it be a project, a client meeting, or even vacation.

Read more:
Business Toolbox: 6 Steps to getting more done

Some entrepreneurs use the time-tested technique of paying for ads to get traffic. Others generate buzz through promotional stunts, or try tweeting with reckless abandon. But those aren’t your only options. Here are five strategies to try to push your traffic numbers skyward:

1. Pay pennies for YouTube views.
The concept of paying for ads (à la Google Adwords) has been around for years. One new technique, though, is to pay for YouTube viewers. Virool.com is one option. You can post a video, and then pay about one penny per view. The idea is that Virool pushes your videos out to a targeted audience culled from its network of publishers. Once someone watches your video, he or she may want to visit your website as well.Just be sure your site is set up to cater to Web viewers: Offer other videos and media as well as an engaging call to action.

2. Get specific on Twitter.
Twitter is one of the best ways to generate traffic, because you can target users, groups, and topics. Experts say the trick is to get specific: Send tweets to popular social networking gurus who might respond, and make sure you actively retweet those in similar fields. Statistics say that the average person on Twitter reads around 200 tweets a day. Also reposting a tweet is not a bad idea: 7 a.m., 11 a.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m., and 9 p.m. are good times to tweet. The best time is between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m and there really is very little point in tweeting content type links out at 2 a.m when no one is going to be following your feeds. Try to get your content retweeted constantly as it adds to your reach.

3. Run on Groupon
Stephen King, an investment and marketing expert, says one good strategy is to run a ‘Groupon’. This might seem like a stretch for a company that does not sell a product, but every business has something to sell. For example, a Web design company might run a coupon offering services for half-price. When bargain hunters investigate what your company offers, you’ll probably get more traffic to your website. Note that the approval process to post coupons can take up to two weeks.

4. Find a journalist in need
Seeking out a journalist who is looking for a case study, an opinion or comment from a business is a great way to get your company name known and in helping out the journalist and the title there is a good chance that your company name as quoted in the piece could be a link back to your site. This will help you in two ways as both instantly the piece will get clicks thru’s and over a longer term this will help in your ongoing SEO strategy as Google loves these kind of links.

5. Write a counterpoint blog post
An excellent way to generate buzz on your site is to write a guest blog that offers an alternative viewpoint and get it published on a popular website. Say everyone else is talking about a particular topic. Offer your take on the subject. (Of course, you do genuinely need to have a decent working knowledge of the topic otherwise it could backfire.) Make sure that your post includes a link back to your site. And be ready for some backlash and visitors looking to post negative comments.

And also make sure that you are tracking your visitors using either Google Analytics or gosquared.com as once they start to come you need to okay to your strengths and focus on the activity that works and not the ones that don’t.

Read more:
5 tricks to drive traffic to your website

You’ve read that more people are starting their own business than ever before and now feel sure that owning your own business is right for you.

Not so fast. Many feel that entrepreneurism is not taught or something you can feel your way through.

If any of the following applies, think twice before taking the entrepreneurial plunge:

Your workday must include a chunk of “me” time.

The last thing you’ll have time for is managing your fantasy football team when revenues and profits are a distant dream. The same is true for seeing what’s up with your Facebook friends, tweeting your favorite inspirational quotes, or ranting on message boards.

You can forget “me” time in a startup, because you’ll never have enough time to do the critical stuff.

So start now. Don’t plan your best 11 for this season’s fantasy league season, say goodbye to your Facebook friends (at least the ones who won’t someday be customers), and focus on your thoughts, not those of your favorite bloggers. Start spending all your “free” time thinking about how you’ll make money.

If that’s too big of a sacrifice, stay where you are.

You spend time personalising your office.

I know: You dreamed of a bigger office. You’re proud of your bigger office. You deserved that bigger office. It’s only right that it reflects your personality and your personal brand.

Now say you plan to open a restaurant; since customers will never see your office, the only thing it should reflect is “cheap.” Start-up funds should never be spent on anything that will not touch the customer.

Besides, you’ll be too busy chasing customers to worry about whether your office aligns with your personal brand.

“Someone” takes care of facilities management, you say? Someone moves your furniture, fixes your printer, and solves your network problems? Your job is to focus on more important tasks?

Maybe so… but not anymore. Entrepreneurs, especially early on, don’t wear several hats—they wear every hat.

Besides, in a start-up efficiency is everything: No movement should be wasted, no time saving is too small, and no expense is too minor to eliminate.

If doing whatever needs to be done—no matter how menial or relatively unskilled—isn’t something that comes naturally to you, don’t go out on your own.

You feel you could be a lot more productive if you just had that new…

Think about your last laptop, smartphone, tablet, or software purchase. Did it really make you more efficient? Can you quantify the gains?

Or was it just fun to have?

I’ve never heard an entrepreneur say, “You know what, we were really struggling to make a profit until I bought the new iPad—then our revenues took off!”

In a start-up you’ll be lucky to get the “must have” stuff. Even if you have the funds, money spent on “nice to have” is always money wasted.

You’re still fuming that your department had a few percentage points from its budget during the last budget cycle.

Unless your rich uncle funds your new venture, you won’t really have a “budget.” The money you spend won’t come from a vast corporate pot. It will come from your pocket.

If you hate struggling with limited resources or seeing your can’t-miss project plans unjustly compromised by budgetary concerns, you’ll also hate running your own business when you realise that bootstrap is a verb.

You discuss work-life balance issues with passion and intelligence.

The concept of work-life balance is an artificial construct—there is no line between “work” and “life”—but let’s pretend one does exist.

If you think a lot about the conflict between work and life, and you feel work is winning the battle, wait until you start a business.

“Work” will eat “life” for breakfast.

You’ve ever said, even once, “I’ve paid my dues.”

When you run your own business you pay your dues each and every day. (The same should be true if you work for someone else, because the only real measure of your value is the tangible contributions you make on a daily basis.)

No customer cares about your vast experience or years of hard work… unless the fruit of that labour benefits them. You pay your dues when customers pay you.

As a business owner, you earn the right today to stay in business tomorrow. That is your only “due.”

If we haven’t scared you off, then go for it! If you aren’t ready to take the plunge full-time first off then start as a 5-9 entrepreneur. There has been no better time in the UK to start your own business with support and initiatives like StartUp Britain there to provide assistance all the way through the process.

Read more:
Going it alone? The Signs that tell you you’re not entrepreneur material

Entrepreneurs can be a wacky bunch, like Innocent’s Richard Reed or Simon Woodroffe from Yo Sushi fame, whilst others like Peter Jones or Theo Paphitis can be regarded as very traditional, but it can get weird to see some of these personality traits in the people you select to help build your business.

When you look at entrepreneurs who have built businesses larger and longer-lasting than themselves, you see some fascinating and surprising characteristics. Some of these attributes are contrary to the stereotypes that are propagated by television and movies.

Here are five observations we’ve made about the entrepreneurial mind and personality.

1. Entrepreneurs are passionate, inside and outside of work.
Whatever they immerse themselves in, entrepreneurs typically invest fully and passionately. This extends beyond business building into many aspects of life outside the workplace.

2. Entrepreneurs are committed to building businesses, not just coming up with great ideas.
Most people with ideas don’t build businesses. Most entrepreneurs we know look for good businesses to build, given their area of expertise. We’ve met countless individuals with a “great idea” who never turn that idea into a successful business.

3. Entrepreneurs know how to focus, yet are comfortable moving in multiple directions at once.
It’s notable how many entrepreneurial business owners we know who are building multiple businesses at once or are leading nonprofit organizations at the same time they are building for-profit businesses.

Often, this comes across as restlessness but is really the manifestation of a high level of energy that, when focused, can lead to amazing accomplishments.

4. Entrepreneurs are happy.
Most entrepreneurs have healthy personal lives, despite in some cases being “married” to their work. Our guess is that finding happiness in your professional life, whether that means freedom from a boss or feelings of accomplishment, feeds a healthy mind, which bleeds into one’s personal life.

5. Entrepreneurs can be employees.
People in business often associate “entrepreneur” with any small-business owner, however Sir Richard Branson and Lord Sugar always top the list when members of the general public are asked,but we see the term as more general to any business builder. The reason? We see a lot of small-business owners who don’t act like business builders, and we see a lot of business builders within larger companies who have entrepreneurial traits. You don’t have to be an owner to be a successful entrepreneur.

All of the above characteristics contribute to success in building businesses and creating lasting growth.

Read more:
5 Signs that show that you really are an entrepreneur at heart

Over the past decade or so, I’ve reviewed dozens of marketing plans and hundreds of sales messages, and watched thousands of companies try to establish themselves in some of the most competitive markets in the world.

My main take-away from this experience is: there’s an incredible amount of really lousy marketing out there. I’m not just talking the “inept” kind of lousy, I’m talking the “would stink in a deep space vacuum” kind of lousy.

1. No Concept of the Ideal Customer
Many marketers have a completely product-centric view of the world. They know their product up, down and sideways, but have only a vague idea of who might actually want or need it, or how they’d actually use it. Worst case, the marketers don’t think that’s important because their product is so “state-of-the-art” that it’s obvious why it’s a good thing to buy.

2. No Time Spent Listening to That Type of Customer
Even when marketers DO have a concept of the ideal customer, they often spend little time actually listening to those customers. They do “market research” and run demographic numbers, but when it comes to just sitting down and listening (really listening)… that’s simply not on the agenda. Not surprisingly, the result is marketing messages that don’t mean anything to the people who are supposed to buy.

3. No Idea of What That Customer’s Customer Wants
Even when marketers DO listen to an ideal customer, they listen for the wrong things. They try to find ways that the product they are marketing can fulfill the customer’s needs.

While that sound’s smart, it’s actually stupid. In business-to-business sales (which is the bulk of most sales activity) what’s important is not satisfying the customer’s needs, but the needs of the customer’s customer. That’s what’s driving your customer’s business. Your product only counts if it counts to the end customers.

4. Inability to Formulate a Meaningful “Value Proposition”
Even when marketers DO understand their customer’s customer, they often have an extraordinarily difficult time formulating a value proposition that makes sense to both the customer and the end customer. Doing so requires an understanding of the business dynamics that permeates the entire supply chain, a concept that’s unfortunately beyond the ken of all but the most experienced marketers.

5. Inability to Articulate a Value Proposition in 25 Words or Less
Even when marketers DO have a great value proposition, they have a tendency to do “group writing” that always results in long-winded sentences, full of abstractions, biz-blab and jargon. Writing a crisp message is a specialized task that only a talented individual can accomplish. It’s a rare skill, as evidenced by the truly awful marketing messages floating around, even inside otherwise great companies.

What’s the solution?

Well, don’t get mad at your marketers, who are trying to do their best at a very difficult job. The real solution is to step back from your marketing milieu, research potential customer bases, spend lots of time listening until you thoroughly understand how their businesses work.

Then, after you REALLY understand what’s going on, give the writing assignment to a professional writer and resist the urge to let the process devolve into group editing, which is the messaging kiss of death.

There’s really no shortcut.

Read more:
The 5 most common marketing mistakes