The Business Owner Magazine - January 2021

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t h e b e st magazi ne s p eci f i ca l ly f o r bus i n es s o wne r s

THE BUSINESS

OWNER MAGAZINE ARE FIELDSALES DEAD? COVID-19 has effected a lot of areas of business, including fieldsales. Is there still a place for this in the world of business, we share our thoughts here.

ARE YOU USING YOUR DATA CORRECTLY? When used right, your data can tell you where you company is, where it is going and when it is going to get there. We can help you make your data sing.

BOOST YOUR COMPANY WITH THE USE OF PR We talk to an expert PR team on the importance of PR for business growth, and some of the best practices your company can put in place now.

ARE YOUR TEAM IN THE RIGHT JOBS? h av i ng a tea m t hat g e ls w e l l t og e t he r w i l l pr odu ce great r esults f o r you bu si ne ss. Ar e you su r e you ’ve g ot the right p eopl e i n t he r i g ht se at s? R e ad he r e t o find out.

Letter from Welcome to 2021!

After the disruption of 2020, lets make this a golden year for business and their owners across this amazing country. With so many changes happening in the market, now is the time to really review what you do, how you do it and where you’re going. Disrupt, innovate and push on.

This year in BOM, we will continue to bring positive, business owner relevant content to you, at no cost. We have plenty of plans going forward which we will share in the coming issues.

the best maga z i ne sp eci f i ca lly f o r b u si ness o w ner s

THE BUSINESS

OWNER MAGAZINE

Business Owners come in all shapes and sizes and have a variety of dierent needs and wants, but what we all have in common is the desire to build something and share it with the world. This publication aims to share those stories, struggles, innovations, tips and glories, positively.

NO click bait, NO hard sells, NO doom and gloom, NO whining, NO rehashed PR content.

TAKE A LEAP OF FAITH & BEGIN THIS WONDROUS NEW YEAR

BY BELIEVING. - sarah ban breathnach

table of 06

Re-evaluate your customers

08

are fieldsales dead?

10

The gig economy

12

making your data sing

15

stay fit in 2021

16

Meet the boss - james crowley

20

cloud accounting vs. desktop

22

how to use pr to boost your business in 2021

25

company overview - Talk business uk

27

Are your team in the right jobs?

No material may be reproduced in any way, or translated, without written permission of the publishers.

COPYRIGHT © 2020 IPLUS MEDIA

Disclaimer: Every effort has been made to ensure that adverts and articles appear correctly, but The Business Owner Magazine cannot accept responsibility for any loss or damage caused directly or indirectly by the contents of the publication.

The Business Owner Magazine is published by iPlus Media.

Editorial: hello@iplusgroup.co.uk Telephone: 01242 312121 | Website: iplusmedia.co.uk Head office: Suite 2, 14 Union Street, Stroud, Glos, GL5 2HE

The views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of its publisher or editor.

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operational

your customers are they profitable?

It is normally seeing their email address appear that brings the feeling of dread as I open Outlook. One of those customers that many of us have to endure, remain professional with, keep on side and bend to. The customer that never seems to be really happy, never seems to be on the same page and never sees the value that you provide for them. Why do we bother?

headaches! Now of course this is a rough approximation but the observation is the same, which customers are causing stress and which are making you profit.

When you first start out, you and your team will put up with almost anything in order to get sales, get money into the bank account and get the business moving, this can be exhilarating, exciting and stressful. As your business matures and you have a customer base you can start to see, feel and observe who the awkward customers are, but let’s try and quantify this a bit more.

YOU CAN’T MANAGE WHAT YOU DON’T MEASURE. - Peter drucker

The Pareto Principle states that 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes, so in business you often find that 80% of your profit comes from 20% of your customers or 80% of your time is often spent dealing with 20% of your customers. If you extract this further it is quite often 20% of your customers who cause 80% of the

This age-old adage that if you don’t measure certain variables you cannot reliably work out where the profit is, is really important. In our company we measure how much time each member of the team spends on each customer and what they are doing for them.

We also apportion how much each customer uses the systems, resources and goods we pay for and then we work out the profitability of that customer.

We then have a monthly meeting where we discuss the behaviour of the customer, their principal contact, payment terms and then as a management team we score them and decide if they are worth the bother. I cannot tell you how positive and rewarding this is.

delivering what a customer expects is one thing but having a decent conversation to explain the imbalance and why you cannot continue may often have surprising, beneficial consequences in rebalancing the relationship between your company and your customer.

Another trite but useful cliché coming up…

NATURE ABHORS A VACUUM. - Francois Rabelais

Once you’ve decided that a customer fails to meet your criteria, what do you do now?

This will depend on your business model and how strong your sales pipeline is. Let’s assume that you have no new customers waiting. Now you can either continue servicing this customer who is costing you money, or set them free, take the hit on your sales income but not lose time or money helping them. You now have a gap you need to fill, you now have slightly more time and less operational grief from that awkward, unprofitable customer so you can really get on with it. More time, less grief and more impetus to get that new customer. This could be as simple as being able to meet new people at the golf club, networking meetings, spending more time on your social media, finding new connections and contacts or even just having more time to think, create efficiencies and new ideas.

What are the worries about this course of action? The loss of revenue – Of course it depends on the size of customer and your business, but if this customer is causing 80% of your headaches and is not contributing to your bottom line then it is an unsustainable, one-sided relationship. The potential marketing fallout from stopping – not

If you have a much higher volume of sales then you’ll need to capture more data about your customers so that you can quantify what characteristics or product types cause you to spend the most time for the lowest profit and then score this accordingly.

Time is the most valuable thing we have in our business. Use it to maximum effect.

sales

dead?

A question that has been asked many times over the last few months, will fieldsales die and everything become internal and telephone based? In this article we look at the pro`s and cons of fieldsales and how a business can plan on the best way forward to use fieldsales to drive more business or is internal sales a more effective answer?

Before Covid many companies were using fieldsales to gain more sales. Be this, direct salespeople on the ground, sales engineers, sales account managers or even van sales for industrial type products. Covid came and everything changed, and businesses had to adapt, both from the salesperson to the buyer, you just could not meet people face to face. As things have eased, albeit ever changing, many companies have found that internal sales can be done and maybe a fieldsales role is not needed.

Before anyone decides that they are going to cut their sales teams, the fieldsales role still has a part to play but you need to define exactly what that role is and how much of it really does need to be done in the field. Another consideration is that great field salespeople are not always great internal salespeople and it requires a different skill set.

what are the pros and cons of fieldsales?

PROS:

the pros

- Fieldsales are speaking directly to the buyer/customer and can build rapport, see physical buying signals and in many cases get to see where a product or service will actually be happening.

- It is easier to close face to face and much easier to deal with objections.

- People like to see people and interact.

- It is far easier to demonstrate a physical product in front of someone - Getting a deal signed is quicker and easier

CONS: - Cost is high for a new sale or new customer, due to travel and time.

- Less sales calls per day due to travel.

- Fieldsales burnout due to long times on the road.

- Managing fieldsales teams is difficult.

- Productivity when fieldsales merges into account management.

The advent of Covid is no different to the advent of call centres, in the 1990`s many companies invested in call centres to reduce cost and increase sales, this was very true in the office equipment world for example. Today fieldsales and internal sales can work together, the blend needs to be right and in experience you need to have set criteria for defining a fieldsales role.

In Covid or post Covid, internal sales will increase, and more buyers will be happy to buy over the phone, over video calls and through email – as businesses you need to be able to adapt to this and your salesperson or people need to react accordingly. As a business owner you maybe the salesperson and is your time better on the road or in the office/home/factory or wherever your business is. To be successful you need to be structured and have clear processes to put things in place for easy selling.

covid corner

THE GIG ECONOMY

people

The gig economy has been defined as the labour market in which the employed participate in freelance or short-term contract work over a permanent position.

Many of these positions are carried out by millennials and gen Z over online platforms such as Uber and Deliveroo where an individual will get paid per unit of work completed compared to an hourly or daily rate of many other workplaces.

A large portion of labour-based work (filled mostly by younger generations) has become more complicated by the Coronavirus this year, with the retail sector being closed completely for a number of months and the reduction of any hospitality during the hight of reported cases. This has impacted the economy for everyone but particularly the livelihood of those in these industries.

So, how have labour workers had to overcome this hurdle the past year? Well, it has caused the increase of freelance and online work. The gig economy has therefore benefitted greatly from this and companies including PeoplePerHour, Uber and Amazon have all seen a rise in freelancing work in the recent months.

The rise of the gig economy has come with many benefits and issues brought to the surface by both workers and companies. It has been recognised that those working on this basis have less protection and fair pay compared to fixed contract workers. As there is typically a lack of benefits such as sick and holiday pay, reports are beginning to suggest that these individuals may be making even less than minimum wage – an obvious issue for employees. This is currently being reviewed by the

Department for Business and they aim to ensure that their policies are up to date with all methods of employment.

There are, of course, many benefits of this industry too.

Employees are much freer in their working hours and are able to vary them as often as needed.

Companies have also seen an economic benefit residing in their ability to only pay workers for precise workloads, meaning that they can be saving money on slower days. This work category can be used as an opportunity for employees who are also working as a permanent employee to gain experience in other sectors, should they wish, or for anyone to earn extra money with low commitment.

With a severe reduction of retail and hospitality work this year, the presence of a gig economy has been important as a method of earning extra money for people who may have lost their jobs due to the pandemic. Many have seen struggle through having to do this as they have lost the stability of a permanent employer. There are still an estimated 1.5 million people registered on these freelance sites in the UK meaning competition may become an issue for those looking for this type of work. As the sector grows, there will likely be a much higher ratio of workers to work needed.

Having such a new method of employment has attracted a lot of interest and consequently resulted in easier and quicker demand for work in larger companies. It has allowed for employees to be able to range in skill set, availability and location and still gain freelance work – making it highly convenient and accessible to most people.

LET US HELP YOU GET YOUR DATA TO SHOW YOU EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE AND WHERE YOU’RE GOING. TURN OVER TO READ...

are you using correctly?

data

MAKING YOUR DATA

Data, numbers, KPI’s, scores, financials – get your data to show you exactly where you are and where you’re going.

The analogy I enjoyed the most, when researching this article, was from Gino Wickman, author of Traction;

Picture a small plane flying over the Atlantic Ocean. Halfway across, the captain announces, “I’ve got bad news and I’ve got good news. The bad news is that the gauges aren’t working. We are hopelessly lost, I have no idea how fast we’re flying or in what direction, and I don’t know how much fuel we have left. The good news is that we’re making great time!”

How many of us, as business owners, have felt that feeling – I have no idea what our sales are, how much money are we owed or owe, can we cover the bills, what do we have to pay the government and are we even making a profit. It’s scary, unnerving and stressful, but how do you get out of the malaise and start to get the information you need in a reliable and useful format.

The best place to start is with your accounts.

Who does them, what service level agreements do you have, are your books particularly complicated, are they accurate and are they up to date? Another important question is what system you are using to complete the accounts ranging from spreadsheets to cloud based systems such as Xero. In an ideal world the accounts should be up to date and balanced daily.

There should be an accurate cash-flow forecast, aged debtor/receivable list and aged creditor/payable list. You should be able to see clearly how much money you have, what is coming in and going out over the next 4 weeks and what margins or requirements you and your company need to meet.

If you use a bookkeeper or an accountant you need to make sure that they are on top of your accounts and not leaving everything until it fits into their workload or schedule.

You need this information to be able to run your business.

Do you have a customer relationship management software system or similar?

This keeps a track on your customers, your sales pipeline and your interaction with your customers. Is it up to date? This database, when used properly, will give you an overview of your sales, predicted sales and who your hot prospects are. You can build this information into your ‘small plane dashboard of information.’

How often do you look in your bank account? A great habit is to go and have a look as one of the first things you do in your working day. See what transactions have occurred, learn what should be going in and out and get a good feel for it. This way you will very quickly see who has paid, if a payment has gone out and in conjunction with your cash flow forecast predict when you may runout.

If you have a business that sells goods or products having your daily, weekly, monthly, annual and seasonal sales figures are really great tools for setting your budget, stock levels, ordering and pricing. Knowing when sales historically have been strongest puts you in a great position to make sure you have enough in stock, have set the price for maximising profit, ordered at the most opportune moment to minimise your spend and getting your marketing ramped up.

How do you pull this data together? This will vary on your business type but we use a product called Microsoft Power BI which has

a free to use version as part of Office 365.

This takes data from lots of different software systems and spreadsheets and presents them in a ‘dashboard’ so it is easy to review the data visually and make the decisions necessary.

Alternatively, we have previously used Xero and Hubspot reporting with corresponding spreadsheets – delivered daily to the senior management team. Easier, cheaper but more time consuming than Power BI. So, in conclusion, there is no need to fly blind if you make sure your accounts team are up to date, your sales information is accurate, your stock planning is on point and you are able to pull the relevant KPI’s together for your business in a format that means something to you and your team.

If you need any further advice, please feel free to contact hello@iplusgroup.co.uk

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wellbeing

STAY FIT

your health and wellbeing is as important as the health of your business - don’t neglect it.

What a year 2020 has been!!

Hello to 2021 and the light at the end of the tunnel! Many of us have been affected by this pandemic with individual’s health, wellbeing, fitness, and waistlines being hit hard! Running a business at the best of times is all encompassing and far too often it is the business owner who’s health maintenance slides down the priority list.

It is often this time of year when we have a little more time to breath, refocus and think about a restructure of priorities for the year ahead. That is until the Wednesday morning of the first week back and already the workload takes over!!

This year think differently! Create a plan that will fit into your weekly schedule with minimal interference. Training 90 minutes everyday and prepping 7 meals a day is highly unlikely to last!! Exercising 4 times a week for 30 minutes from home plus understanding how a few tweaks to food and food prep go a long way – now that is more like it!!!

Starting the year with a few home truths and benchmarks is a good idea - bodyweight, bodyfat, waist to hip, waist to height and BMI are great. All these can be calculated with a soft tape measure & scale. Although these can be disheartening at the beginning, after 3 months looking back is often extremely rewarding!! Xerlife talks you through these and creates a personal dashboard to store this information.

To create a plan, work out which days/times

are best for you, whereby you will get least interruptions and most satisfaction. Put it on the calendar, in the diary, pencil it out – see exercise as part of your health insurance, your daily escape!! From here, think about how much time you can commit. The NHS guidelines are currently 75 minutes of vigorous or 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week.

- If convenience is key and time is short, train at home – use our Xerlife videos.

- If the outdoors is the perfect escape for you – get outdoors and move.

- If it’s a gym – make sure it is close to home or work.

- If it’s a group session – find ones that go online should we lockdown again.

Do think about the style of training – if you spend all day wrapped round a laptop at the kitchen table, something to reverse this, not compound it would be very beneficial.

The real key to success is creating a healthy plan that is sustainable, realistic, and enjoyable. This is for exercise and food. Too often I witness people cut everything out, exercise like crazy until the first race meet at the end of January and then go wild. Half the weight is back on by Valentines and so the cycle begins again!

The Business Owner Magazine offers a big thanks to Paul Wanford of Xerlife for his expert health tips

TREAT YOURSELF LIKE A BUSINESS PLAN.

meet the boss

james crowley This month in the BOM we have another great interview with a Business Owner who is willing to share his views, opinions and positivity with us. Welcome James!

- Name

James Crowley

- Company

Rockatek

- Position

Director (1 of 3)

- Industry

Engineering

What was your ďŹ rst job or role after education?

2005 - Mechanical Engineer at Precision Drilling in Tewkesbury UK. Junior engineer in a fast growing, high tech, dynamic team of engineers and designers.

Could you describe your career path for the reader?

Worked from Junior Engineer to Seasoned Engineer over 6 years up to Engineering Manager in 2012, responsible for a team of 18 engineers, CAD designers, electronics engineers, and technicians. Staged progression of increasing responsibility and complexity of role responsibilities. Became a Chartered Mechanical Engineer in 2013.

started and ran his own very successful business so it was almost bred into me and I grew up seeing the good and bad side of being your own boss. Its not all plain sailing, but the beneďŹ ts are worth the pain and aggravation if you are willing to put the hard work in.

What is your current role and what is your favourite part about it?

Director. My favourite part is literally being my own boss (with my two fellow partners and directors) and in control of my own destiny. It is a major rush every single day. If we do not make it work, nothing happens. If we do, we thrive. I am an ambitious

When did you realise you wanted to be your own boss?

From when I was at senior school! My dad the 3 directors of rockatek. james, Daniel Ms & Daniel C.

person and don’t mind taking educated risks, so daily life as a business owner needs both of those attributes.

Are you optimistic, realistic or pessimistic about 2021?

Yes very optimistic. The signs from existing clients are exciting and we have between 3-5 more new clients in the pipeline. The way we have managed and done so well during Covid stands us in great stead for 2021. It demonstrates our commitment and our value to clients.

What is the most important task you carry out each day?

Team meeting. Half an hour every morning just to tie up loose ends and get a plan for the day. We have weekly and monthly objectives which govern everything, but with your own business, things pop up every day, every hour sometimes.

Not always directly linked to contracts for clients, but the business itself. I always say, the business itself is like another person.

You have to speak to it every day!

What advice would you give to your 21 year old self about your career journey?

It’s a huge cliché but work hard and be ambitious. As a rule of thumb if you work hard and strive to be a success, you will be a success.

I have seen the most intelligent and sharp people stay stagnant and not really progress, and that’s fine for some people, but for me, it was always about being at the top of the curve as my own boss. Its not for everyone, but it was for me. If you have any inclination that being your own own boss might be for you, it probably is.

Rockatek’s test rig Have there been any positives about 2020 and lockdown for you?

Yes. It has given us time to work on our own technology. Rockatek is an engineering consultancy at heart, and we provide our services to clients, but the long-term business model has always been to design and sell our own products and technology A small slowdown in workload in 2020 allowed us the time to commit people to those projects and we have made some exciting progress with IP on the way.

Exciting times.

What causes you the most stress at work?

Workload. We are at capacity. We have been at capacity for 90% of our time as a business. We constantly strive for more and sometimes I think we should take stock and be satisfied with what we have.

Unfortunately, that’s not our mentality. We have a vision for the growth of Rockatek and I would say we are 25% of the way there.

If you could instantly change one area or thing about your business, what would it be?

Commit more time and resource to our own Rockatek product development. That is where the real long-term success of

Rockatek lies. It’s just very hard on a daily basis when you have such important and valuable commitments to clients to find that time, so it is very difficult and hard to manage.

Our growth plans for 2021 and 22 may afford us the time to improve that satiation.

If you had your time again would you still chose to be a business owner?

100%. No question. I would find it very hard and almost impossible to go back to being an employee now. The bureaucracy and slow pace would be a real problem for me.

We are so efficient and dynamic and provide such value right at the coal face for our clients, it is extremely rewarding.

Being lost in such a large and slow-moving machine like a large corporation or multinational would go against everything I find so exciting and rewarding being a director of Rockatek.

What do you do to unwind?

Go to the gym, before work. 5.15 to 07:00am 5 days a week. General strength and conditioning, boxing and spin. Sets me up for the day. Spend precious time with my family, amazing wife and two girls who keep me on my toes.

Socializing with close friends (not so much in 2020!) Love watching football, boxing and rugby.

james at spe offshore eurpoe 2019

If you could give a single piece of advice to a start up entrepreneur what would that be?

Invest the time in a serious business plan and model for years 1, 3 and 5. It creates so many questions you must answer early on.

After that, be patient. It will take time to take off.

Get good people around you as you simply cannot do it on your own, and sometimes that means outsourcing aspects of the business where necessary. A key point here is having more than 1 person responsible.

Ideally 2 or 3 equal directors is a great idea as it splits the workload, responsibility, and stress. My dad did everything and ran a successful business of 20 people all by himself. He was on site, in the office, with clients, generating new work, managing all the employees….he did everything and he was very very good at it, but long term it is not sustainable.

A fascinating and positive insight into the work life of James Crowley from Rockatek, thank you so much for your time today being interviewed and we wish you the very best of luck in 2021. If you would like to learn more about Rockatek’s services please head to Rockatek.com.

james

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accounting

- Which is better for you, what is the best for your company and what are the differences?

cloud accounting Whether you do your own bookkeeping and accounts, you have a member of your team carry these out or you outsource to an external company, the system used for the recording of your accounts, the interaction with your systems and the reports that they produce can fundamentally alter your business.

Cloud accounting is where your data and the software system is hosted and worked on inside of the cloud. The most recognisable example of this is Xero, a system that arrived in the UK in around 2010 and now has over 20+ million subscribers across the world. Desktop accounting, where the software is downloaded on to your company’s computers and from here it is worked on, was the way all accounts systems worked from the 1990’s to 2010, the most popular being from Sage.

As with most software systems that are cloud based, you access the systems via a web browser, login to the system and to your files. The files are held within the cloud and are backed up instantaneously. You are generally able to export your company’s data from these systems but they do not,

yet, support back up’s on to your desktop.

This is in stark contrast with desktop hosted systems where because all of the data is stored in your machine it can and should be backed up on it.

The negatives of having your data in the cloud system; - You are unable to carry out a back up to which you can restore to. You could carry out a trial balance, debtor and creditor schedule and then manually restore if necessary afterwards but this is not the same as carry out a normal back up and restore.

- If you wish to leave a particular software company your data only remains on their system for a set period once you’ve closed your account.

- Trialling some processes in your business will be significantly more difficult as your data in the cloud is always live.

The positives of cloud data storage; - Your data is in a system that is very secure and constant, various back ups and load balancing mean the chances of your data being lost are almost infinitesimal.

- With your data on a desktop, if you do not carry out very regular back ups to various places including off site data centres, you are at a much higher risk of losing data.

- You can access your accounts and data wherever you can get to the internet with a suitable device.

The way cloud-based systems interact with other software has also been a sea-change in the way accounting data streams have developed in the last decade. Being able to link other cloud-based systems together with your accounts package could bring whole new levels of efficiency to your operation. The most common integrations I see are Xero linked to Hubdoc, ReceiptBank, Hubspot, Stripe, GoCardless, PayPal & A2X. To give you a flavour, this is linking your accounts system to software that automatically process card payments, stock and invoicing on web stores, purchase ledger software and your customer relationship management.

Not having to re-enter data in various systems is very efficient not only in time but usually in stationary too. Of course, with every pro there is usually a con and in this circumstance it is related to the operations in your company. If you have, for example, inhouse software that was developed to interact specifically with a certain

software package or using an externally created comparable, until they are adapted, you will be unable to make the switch over.

It is also fair to say that a lot of the desktop software suppliers have developed methods to get external integration with the systems.

With the two types of system, you generally get the same type of reports from both. This would stand to reason as double entry bookkeeping has been around since Roman times according to Wikipedia. But the speed and accessibility of the cloud-based systems means that instead of being sent reports such as the P&L and the balance sheet on a pdf to your email account, you as a business owner can go in and look at them at any point in time from anywhere in the world. A great asset.

When looking at whether your accounting system should be cloud or desktop based, assess what operational systems you use and whether the integration would increase efficiency. Next consider how you want your data to be stored and if having a constantly live system would be a hinderance or the security of the cloud, a boon. The last thing to assess, is the most important, and that is how you get the financial data in a format you can understand as accurately and quickly as possible.

Marketing

how to use

to boost your

business in 2021..

To know how to use PR to boost your business, you first of all need-to-know what PR is, and most importantly, what it isn’t, there can be a lot of confusion!

PR is reputation management. It’s about how your customer/clients see you and the steps you take to enhance and improve it. It uses social media to spread the word, but it isn’t simply posting on a multitude of channels.

You’ll have seen PR stunts for national brands which are fun and effective but for most businesses’ PR is a long game, building solid pillars of sound business practice, telling your customers who you are and what makes you great to work with.

Never forget that anyone checking out your company, for ANY reason, be it to work for you, work with you or to buy your product/service, will more than likely do some research to find out what makes you tick, so you want your message to be clear and easy to find. Today’s customer and employee wants to

see the direction of your ethical compass; they want to know if you are good at your job and the service you provide, if you care about the environment, about the town you live in, the sector you work in and the staff you employ and about the world in general.

Essentially, are you the good guys? Your PR strategy should be to make sure you look good on all these fronts.

Where do I start?

Firstly, sit back and take a long, self-critical look at your business and how it looks from the outside. Do you think you come across

as open and approachable? Do you display the ethics and standards as discussed above? If a potential new customer does some research on you, what will they find out about you and where will they find it?

Do you have a blog? Social media channels? Review sites? There’s no point in being a great company if people don’t know.

Internal PR

Let’s start from the inside out – your staff, your biggest brand ambassadors. Do you invest in regular training both for the jobs they are employed to do and those that would benefit the entire company i.e., first aid responder? Do you pay attention to their mental health, offer any in-house support? If someone asked a member of your staff to rate the company from 1-10 as an employer, what score do you think they’d give? In fact, why not ask? The mere act of asking staff for their thoughts and opinion is a move in the right direction. Testimonials from happy staff is the best PR a company can get. Breed a healthy, happy internal staff culture and watch as your own staff fly the flag for the company wherever they go.

External PR

There are two kinds of external PR, reactive and proactive.

Reactive PR is sharing stories of successes you’ve had in the business, anniversaries, contracts you’ve won, events you’ve been involved in, awards you’ve won, people you’ve hired or new services or products you’ve launched. Have you told any of these stories recently?

Proactive PR is going out there and making that news by hosting your own awards ceremony, donating to charity, planting trees, becoming a trustee of a local charity and supporting their work, reducing your carbon footprint, running a survey and sharing the results. How many of these could you adopt in 2021?

The final part of all PR work is to tell the

world/your audience. Draft a press release, write a blog, record a podcast and share it on social media. Get your news out there.

Thank you so much to BOM reader Louise Bruce louise@bigredboxpr.com for this contribution. She is currently running a special offer to help companies carry out an audit on their PR, if this sounds good to you make sure to get in contact with her.

- Make a PR calendar to plan your

PR campaigns – you should be planning 6 – 12 months in advance.

- Take a critical look at your website and rewrite copy if necessary. (plus, get all your qualifications to professional bodies, associations and award wins up on that front page. Don’t make the visitor search for the good stuff – share it loud and proud)

- Photos, photos,

photos. People love people. Minimum 300 dpi – bright, smiley ‘everyone looking at the camera’ photos.

- Think out of the box the possibilities for great PR are endless, you just have to think creatively (or, if that’s not your forte, hire a PR firm to do it for you!)

If you need help with some PR for your business, contact louise@bigredboxpr.com

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company overview

talk business uk In our company focused interview, this month we’ve spoken to Jonathan Smith, the leader and founder of Talk Business UK. Let’s delve in and see what he has to say.

- Name

Jonathan Smith

- Company

Talk Business UK

- Position

Founder

- Industry

Business Networking

What does your company do?

Talk Business UK is a membership organisation that develops and organises events and experiences to help local businesses and organisations from all sectors and sizes to connect and create opportunities to build long term and

meaningful business relationships.

What changes or challenges do you foresee for your company in the next three years?

Staffing and outsourcing are likely to be the main concerns as we look to double the membership over this period.

Are you optimistic, realistic or pessimistic about 2021?

Overall, very optimistic for 2021.

2020 has forced us into changes we hadn’t previously considered as viable options.

Mainly the fully virtual world we currently work in and how we now integrate this new skill and habit for the future. More than ever the need is there to help local businesses maintain their links and business relationships and create strong supportive local business communities.

What is the most important task you carry out each day?

Hosting events and maintaining and developing the events agenda to support the membership.

It should be chasing up on new memberships, renewals and payments !

What is your company’s most important KPI? Simple daily task or goal is to gain or retain

a member a day. This means keeping the worth and relevance of what we offer the members.

What positive effects has your company experienced during lockdowns?

The move online has been an incredibly positive move. Being able to host 6-8 events a week – compared with 1 or 2 live events previously - with no challenges on transport or venue facilities either!

If you could instantly change one area or thing about your business, what would it be?

Be free to work more ON the business than IN the business.

How would you rank the following in order of importance? (1 most, 5 least) - Strong financial data (1st) - Sales pipeline (2nd) - Social media (3rd) - Environmental (4th) don’t see us having any environmental impact at the moment.

Will be a higher priority when live events are possible again.

- Team communication (5th) the 2 of us talk all the time!

What causes you the most stress in your business?

Finance and admin, definitely areas to outsource more in 2021.

What do you do to unwind?

I suffer from being an Ercololic ! Love finding and restoring old pieces of Ercol furniture. Challenge is I never want to sell them again.

Thank you Jonathan, so much, for the insight into your business and the positive energy you promote. I think we are looking forward to 2021 almost as much as he is. If you wnat to find out more, please get in touch at hello@talkbusinessuk.co.uk

talk business uk

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LINKEDIN EXPERTS

people

Are your team in the CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND employee experience ARE NOW TWO OF THE DRIVING FORCES OF BUSINESS. - denise lee yawn When you started the company or made the decision to expand, contract or stay relatively static, how did you build your team around you. This could be your company, your department or even you as a sole trader with your outsourced assistance, but where and how did you obtain these people and are they doing the right roles in your organisation.

As I’m sure you’re aware, people are THE most important part of your company. The way your business develops, grows and achieves the business plan is dependent on humans. You need to work as a team, with a common goal, in mutual respect to achieve the outcome desired.

So how do you get you and your team to gel properly together and produce great results?

Firstly, you need to get your company’s values nailed down and communicate these to your team. This gives the whole team the opportunity to realise what the company is

attempting to achieve, why it is doing it and what the results will be. These will be stated in your business plan. Once you have your values down you need to start assessing what jobs are needed in your organisation to make it fly. This can take quite some time to achieve but it is really good practice to get this documented and mapped for the current and future periods matching your business plan and budgets.

In the book the E-Myth by Michael Gerber he urges business owners to treat the

company as a franchise model that could be replicated and repeated. With this mindset you would build all the jobs that are needed to run the company (Franchise) efficiently and successfully and at what point in the company’s gestation they are required. This view is that you are working ON the business and not IN the business, when making these plans.

Initially, particularly if you are starting out or a sole trader, all of the job roles maybe carried out by the business owner but as you grow you then start to fill the roles with the right people for the task.

Once you have an organisational chart of the roles and jobs that are needed in your business, you’ll need to work out what the qualities of person you’ll need to successfully fill that role. As an example, if you need an in-house designer for your t-shirt business then finding someone with a sense of humour, coupled with a great design portfolio and extensive knowledge of relevant software could be your key requirements. When you couple those with your company’s values (Let’s say these are: Fun, Agile, Ambitious, Cheeky & Creative) you start to get a much better definition of the role and person required.

If you already have a team, how did each

person get the role they are in? My guess is that like 95% of the businesses out there you got too busy or too snowed under in a certain area, quickly banged an advert together, interviewed a couple of people then gave them the job. Over time they’ve either sank or swam, if the latter then the role has probably evolved around them.

Does this work for you? Are they happy, productive and pulling for the team?

The next step is to evaluate your team regularly and consistently. Revisit your core values and the job requirements and score the person against the job. If they are not performing, why is this? Is it because they have no desire to help the company achieve its goals or are they unhappy in their current role? Having reviews with them and going through their scores are vital. If the problem is with the person don’t let the situation fester and make sure you document that the performance expected is not being met. Leaving people in the role who are only looking out for themselves can do immeasurable damage to the team, your business and bottom-line profit.

Just taking the time to think this area through and start to plan and communicate with your team with start on the path to a better business.

do you want to the business owner magazine?

There are a number of exible options available to you. The Business Owner Magazine is a great place to advertise your business to other business owners.

Get in touch to ďŹ nd out all the details. hello@iplusgroup.co.uk 01242 312121

t he be st magazine sp ecifically for business owners

THE BUSINESS

OWNER MAGAZINE

A FRESH NEW START Once again you have awakened.

Be grateful for this day.

Let go of needless worry.

Turn negative thoughts away.

View the world more optimistically.

Open the channels of your mind.

New and wonderful experiences await you.

Leave old regrets behind.

For today is a new beginning, a brand new fresh start.

The past is yesterday’s news.

Today you can choose love to ďŹ ll your heart.

- Paul M, Kramer

t he b e st magazi ne spe c i fic a lly for busine ss owne rs

THE BUSINESS

OWNER MAGAZINE