Business Advice Blog

Full article with thanks to https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/stay-positive-in-sales Succeeding in sales is 95-percent mental. If you don’t think you can succeed or land a deal, you will ultimately be right. But if you can remain positive you have a huge competitive advantage. In this decade, sales is a very challenging profession. The way businesses sell is constantly changing, and many sales reps are facing impossible deadlines, strict accountability, dozens of curveballs with each deal, and pipeline scrutiny from all sides. But there is a secret weapon — positivity. A positive outlook is essential for every sales performer and is one of the keys to my personal success. Wondering how you can you be positive when you and your team are at 48-percent to the plan with two days left in the month? Or when you have to hit a high goal without any marketing support? Or when the deal you promised your …

Full article with thanks to https://blog.hubspot.com/service/testimonial-request-template Your best sales rep doesn’t work for your company anymore. In fact, your company’s most convincing sales pitch might be thanks to your loyal customers. Customers trust traditional business communication — like marketing, advertising, and sales — less than ever before. Today, you need word-of-mouth recommendations and reviews from your customers to convince someone new to win you the sale. To do that, you need lots of glowing reviews and testimonials to do the work for you. More than half of the customers we surveyed said they trust word-of-mouth recommendations and customer reviews the post when purchasing business software, so suffice it to say, these are important initiatives to ask your customers to help you with. To get you started, read our best practices for asking for a customer testimonial below — along with some tried-and-true email templates you can use no matter what relationship you have …

Full article with thanks to https://bizfluent.com/how-7608270-evaluate-marketing-strategies.html Evaluation is an important part of marketing: it helps your company eliminate ineffective strategies and develop an overall plan that helps build your business. By scheduling regular evaluations of your marketing plan, you can save wasted money by modifying or eliminating campaigns that are not reaching your target market or garnering the response you need. As you plan, build in mechanisms to monitor the success of each marketing effort to make evaluation cheaper and easier. Check for Changes in Sales Because the end goal of most marketing efforts is to raise sales and profits, use the numbers to measure how your campaigns are affecting customer behavior. Look at the sales before a marketing campaign, during its rollout and for six months afterward; keep track of the long-term response to monitor delayed effects. Use a Questionnaire An easy and inexpensive way to evaluate the effectiveness …

Full article with thanks to http://www.bestselfemploymentideas.com/how-to-set-smart-business-goals   When you’re setting goals for your self-employment job or business, it’s important to set realistic goals. You might want to make a million dollars in your first month, but that’s not realistic.  It would be much more realistic to “reach profitability within six months” or something similar.  This goal does not set some arbitrary dollar amount but does say that you’ll be making money.  It’s also time-constrained to motivate you to work hard on it for those first six months. There’s an acronym to help you set smart goals.  Conveniently, the acronym is SMART.  Here’s what it means: Specific – Specific goals are more likely to be accomplished.  If your goal is to “get a lot of customers,” how can you know when you’re done?  Maybe you’ll get 10 new customers in the next month, but is 10 “a lot?”  It’s better to set …

Full article with thanks to https://www.gov.uk/set-up-self-employed What you need to do when you start working for yourself, either as your only job or at the same time as working for an employer. Step1: Check what being self-employed means There are other ways to work for yourself. Check if you should set up as one of the following instead: a limited company a partner in a business partnership Get help deciding how to set up your business Get help starting your own business if you’re on benefits Step2: Check the rules for sole trader business names You can register a trade mark if you want to stop people from trading under your business name. Step3: Find out what business records you need to keep Step4: To pay tax, you’ll need to register for Self Assessment. Apply for a National Insurance number if you do not have one Register for Self Assessment …

I have a lot of clients who come to me having done ‘shotgun advertising’ and don’t understand why it hasn’t worked for them.  Often they think that ‘Facebook advertising (replace with Google adwords/leaflets/networking/exhibitions etc) doesn’t work for their business’.  Of course it’s always possible that, that is the case – not all types of marketing work for all businesses but there is something called ‘the continuum of behaviour’ and it describes the process that we all have to go through before we make the decision to ‘buy’. Generally someone needs to see something at least 3 times before they make the decision to act on it so clever but consistent, strategic advertising is the key here.  A one off Facebook advert is simply not going to get you far enough….below you’ll find a great article that explains the psychological process that we all go through to make a decision… Full …

Further to my previous blog item about the ‘hows’ in starting a job with no money I also came across this great article that also gives some ideas on types of business you could start. Full article and credit goes to https://smallbiztrends.com/2017/02/home-based-business-ideas-you-can-start-with-no-money.html Blogger You can set up your own blog online for free using a platform like WordPress and then earn an income through ads, sponsored content or product sales. Freelance Writer You can also offer your writing services to other blogs or businesses on a freelance basis. Ebook Author Or you can write and publish your very own ebook to sell online. Some self publishing platforms require money up front, but others allow you to publish your work for free and then take a portion of the sales. Affiliate Marketer Affiliate programs let you earn an income through referring potential customers to specific websites. You can sign up for …

It may seem like a completely mad time to be considering starting a business but just take a moment to think about it.  Maybe you’ve always harboured ideas about starting your own company.  Maybe you’re just considering it now because having to stay at home at the moment means you have the time and opportunity to, and are finding yourself reviewing your career choices. To get you thinking about what you ‘could do’ I found the following article about how to start a business with no money. Full credit for this article goes to https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/327468 Starting a business with limited capital requires a shift in mindset. Traditionally we are conditioned to begin the process of looking for new business opportunities by asking: “Where is there a gap in the market and how can I fill that gap?” A gap could be an unfilled customer need or a new invention yet …

Many thanks and full credit goes to https://www.wired.com/story/tips-for-using-zoom/ for this article. As the pandemic pushes work online, Zoom is the new office. Follow these tips to get the most out of those video meet-ups. AN UPSIDE OF being quarantined during a global pandemic is that your isolation doesn’t have to be so … lonely. Amid the chaos of the coronavirus, the magic of videoconferencing technology (and, most popularly, Zoom) has allowed unprecedented numbers of people to connect virtually. But it’s not exactly second nature. There are all sorts of settings and complications that await the noob Zoomer. Whether you’re using Zoom for work, long-distance video tutoring, or just to connect with friends or family, here’s what you need to know. The Basics Get up to date First things first: You’re going to need to download Zoom. Chances are you’ve already done that, or you wouldn’t be reading this in the …

It is such a scary time at the moment.  Even more scary if you’re self employed.  As you can imagine, I’ve been getting lots of calls from very worried business owners.  For many, their income has just plummeted to nothing, they’re wondering how on earth they’re going to keep their business in existence to come out the other side of this. I’m not going to make any false promises.  To make ANY revenue in this climate is going to be a challenge whatever your business BUT there are so many ways that most businesses can change and adapt what they are offering and how they are working so that they can continue to bring in revenue AND enable their business to survive this crisis. Obviously this is a generic article so without speaking to you I can’t offer you advice specific to your business (you’re very welcome to book a …