Joined: May 2006 Gender: Female Posts: 49 Karma: 0
Should you join a networking group? « Result #1 on Aug 8, 2008, 2:02am »
Someone told me a couple of years ago that there were over 300 networking groups in the UK each with their own networking events – who knows what the situation is right now? The number of networking groups has grown exponentially while I’ve been in business and what’s more each of them has a membership structure where you can potentially join the group. So, should you join a networking group and if so, which one would be the best for you?
Before you make the decision about joining any networking group, I would strongly suggest that you visit lots and lots of groups and see which ones you like and which ones you’re not keen on. Even within the same group (like BNI – Business Networking International), there will be different chapters and some chapters will suit you better than others.
Most networking groups will welcome you twice as a visitor before you need to make a decision, but if you are seriously considering joining ask the organiser if you can come again. As long as you don’t take the mickey (going 27 times and still not joining) any organiser should allow you to do this is if they can see you’re being serious.
Should you join a networking group? I would only say the answer is yes, if you’re prepared to spend the time and the energy that joining a networking group requires. It’s not just about attending the event; it’s also about meeting up with fellow members and finding out more about their business and following up after the event. It’s about consistently attending the networking groups and making the most of their training etc. And sometimes, it’s about sitting on the committee too and organising the events.
For the small business owners who have joined a networking group and put the time and effort into it, most of them have told me that they get excellent returns on investment and most will continue to be members year after year after year.
If joining a networking group is not for you, you should aim for five or six different networking events each month – this will ensure that you get a good mixture of events and meet lots of different people. You should then be consistent at following up with everyone at the events, regardless of whether you meet them or not.
In summary then, should you join – yes if you can commit the time and energy it takes to get to know the other members and make the most of a networking group; if you can’t, go along to a variety of other events and be consistent at following up with people you’ve met afterwards. Which one should you join – it’s really important that you go to a number of different groups and events before you commit to joining one group. That way you can see which group would suit you best.
Remember though, ultimately you’re looking for return on investment; you’re looking to get more business from the group than the joining fee would cost you. So when you’re looking for a group, keep this in mind.
Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides help and advice for small businesses on marketing and for people starting up in business.
Joined: May 2006 Gender: Female Posts: 49 Karma: 0
How to make leaflets work for you « Result #2 on Jul 29, 2008, 11:07am »
I meet several small business owners who use leaflets as a way of promoting their business. But, one of the biggest complaints with this method is that it hasn’t worked. Whenever, someone tells me this though, my question back to them is “how do you know?”
Think about what happens to leaflets once they come through your door or into your office. Probably one of two things – if they’re of no interest and never likely to be, they’ll end up in the bin. But, if they are of interest, it’s likely that you’ll keep them for some point in the future when you’d like to use the product or service being advertised.
If you’re anything like me, the leaflets I’m interested in go in a drawer or on a notice board. The problem is that I’m only likely to look at them again if I either tidy out my drawer or notice board or something makes me remember them i.e. I receive something else from the same company like another leaflet or a newsletter for instance.
The point I’m trying to make here is that if you just send one leaflet out, even if the person is interested in your products or services, they’re unlikely to do something about it unless they keep hearing from you and you make an effort to build a relationship.
There’s two ways you can start to build a relationship with someone. The expensive way is to keep putting leaflets through their door; send them mail or give them a call. But, you may well be continuing to contact them when they’re not interested and the danger then is that you start to annoy them.
The cost-effective way is to plan this right from the start – before you design your leaflet. You need to get the person to contact you and give you their details in return for something useful. This can be a free report; free brochure; a sample; entering a competition etc, but shouldn’t be anything too big. In other words, if you offer a free consultation, you’re likely to scare people who may not be ready to buy from you just yet – so start with something small.
If, when you send the leaflet out, a person then requests your free gift, what they are telling you is that they’re interested (to some degree) in what you do. It’s then up to you to build that relationship with them and find out how interested they actually are – did they just want the free gift and nothing else or are they a hot buyer and want to be sold to right now?
Either way, if someone requests the free gift, you know immediately that your leaflets have worked and you will have a whole bunch of people who are interested in what you do to build a relationship with and ultimately sell to.
Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides help and advice to small businesses on their marketing and to people who are setting up in business.
« Last Edit: Jul 29, 2008, 11:08am by Helen Dowling »
Joined: May 2006 Gender: Female Posts: 49 Karma: 0
Re: What's the best way to do market research? « Result #3 on Jul 20, 2008, 11:15am »
Hi Karen,
This very much depends on what you're trying to research, but to give you a general starter, you need to research three main things:
1) Your customers - you need to find out who your target customers are and whether or not they need your product or service. There are two main ways to do this - either ask your target customers or go and look at research that's already been done. Going to your industry association is always a good place to start.
2) Your competition - find out who your competition are by using Google and Yell.com (online yellow pages). Then go and have a look at their sites, brochures, visit them or call them. You should be looking to answer five main questions: a) Who are they b) What service or product do they provide c) What do you like about them d) What don't you like about them and e) What prices do they charge?
3) Market Trends - you need to know what's going on in the world around you to see if now is the best time to start up. You should do a PEST analysis i.e. Political trends; Social Trends; Economically Trends and Technological trends. Have a think about what's going on in each of those four areas and if any of it will have an impact on your business.
Joined: May 2006 Gender: Female Posts: 49 Karma: 0
5 marketing activities a day keeps the feast or fa « Result #5 on Jul 7, 2008, 7:20am »
One of the biggest complaints I hear from small business owners is that they don’t have time to do marketing. What this probably translates into though is that they don’t like marketing; they find it frustrating and they’re not sure where to start. And if I even dare to suggest that ideally you should be doing five marketing activities a day, most owners would tell me that this is unrealistic and there is absolutely no way that they can do this.
But, wait. Before you throw up your hands in horror, let me explain.
Have you ever experienced the horrendous ups and downs of feast or famine? In other words at some point of the year you’re really busy doing client work and at other times you’re so quiet you could scream. I’m willing to bet that when you’re busy, there’s absolutely no way you can find time to do any marketing and when you’re quiet you have no choice but to do some marketing as it’s vital that you get business in.
Most businesses will tell you that the feast or famine is just part of business life and you should get used to it. But, you see – I don’t believe that’s the case. I believe that if you market and promote your business to the same intensity when you’re busy as when you’re quiet, you’ll get business throughout the whole of the year.
You see, it takes time for any marketing you do to work – around two to three months. That means that any marketing you do now will come to fruition in two to three months time. Let’s imagine you’re quiet at the moment and you start marketing your business today. You won’t see the results of this immediately so you’ll keep doing some bits of marketing until you get too busy to do any. If you don’t see any results for two to three months time, that means that you’ll be doing two to three months worth of marketing which will continue to have an effect two to three months after you stop marketing – hope that makes sense.
That’s why I describe marketing as similar to riding a bike – when you’re starting to market and promote your business, it’s like you’re peddling really hard. After you’ve peddled really hard, you can coast for a while, but if you don’t start peddling again, your bike will stop. And then each time you’re quiet in your business, you’ll need to start peddling really hard again.
So, how can you make sure you promote your business even when you’re really, really busy with client work? There are two main ways – either do five small marketing activities a day that you can fit in easily with your workload. Or, get someone else (preferably my company) to do it for you.
Seriously though, this article is all about helping you to help yourself so let’s go through some small marketing activities that you could do each day. Here are my 5 small marketing activities for today. They take no more than an hour and a half to do altogether and have a huge, huge benefit to my business. Is it worth finding an hour an a half to do? Absolutely!
My marketing activities today with the time it took me are:
1) Write this article and publish it on 5 internet sites (30 mins) 2) Send out some follow-up emails from a networking event (15 mins) 3) Make a call to a potential customer (5 mins) 4) Record a radio interview (30 mins) 5) Write a short article to promote my workshops (10 mins)
Tomorrow, my marketing activities are:
1) Go to a networking event (1 hour) 2) Make a call to a potential customer (5 mins) 3) Update my blog (5 mins) 4) Send out some emails to previous clients to see what they’re up to (10 mins) 5) Check on the internet for any relevant tenders for my business (10 mins)
If you really haven’t got time to do 5 marketing activities, try cutting it back to two marketing activities or even one. One marketing thing is much, much better than none!
And if you really haven’t got time to do even one marketing activity, I would have a look at what you’re doing throughout the day. Is there any time that you ‘waste’ talking to colleagues, making coffee, in meetings that you really shouldn’t be in etc? Look at what you’re doing. Are you sure there isn’t even 5-10 minutes that you could spend doing some marketing?
Doing marketing all the time means that you’ll be much less likely to suffer from feast and famine. By doing this and making sure I promote my business even when we’re really, really busy (believe me we’re are absolutely mental at the moment), I make sure there’s never a dull moment around here. We’ve had our best year ever this year – make sure you do too.
Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides advice and help to small business owners on their marketing and to people starting a business.
Joined: May 2006 Gender: Female Posts: 49 Karma: 0
Looking for a marketing/client assistant « Result #6 on Jul 2, 2008, 10:02am »
Hi,
We are currently looking for a part-time assistant to help us partly with marketing Exceptional Thinking and partly with client work.
The position is for 8 hours a week to start off with, which will increase as the business grows and will be based at our offices in Alderton, Gloucestershire.
If you know anyone who might be interested, please contact us on 0845 644 9371 or email info@exceptionalthinking.co.uk for an application form.
Joined: May 2006 Gender: Female Posts: 49 Karma: 0
Should you blog? « Result #7 on Jun 25, 2008, 3:07am »
Blogging has become very popular in the last few months and even the most non-technical of my clients are now talking about using a blog to promote their businesses. But, what exactly is a blog and should you set one up?
You’ll see lots of slight variations in what a blog is if you have a look, but I like to think of a blog (or a web-log) as an on-line diary, where you can record your thoughts, opinions and useful information. You can set one up for free using sites like www.blogger.com and getting started is fairly easy even if you’re not technically minded. Many people are also setting up blogs instead of a website too – you can’t blame them – it’s quick, free and you can add and change the content whenever you like!
Setting a blog up though is the easy part. Then you have to look after it. I updated my blog once a week, but many blogging experts would tell me that’s not enough. Ideally, you should be updating your blog three to four times as week. Granted your blogs don’t have to be long, but it’s still a time-consuming activity in your busy world.
And then there’s the problem of what to write about. I tend to get inspiration by talking to my clients and contacts and writing about something they’ve said that has interested me, but I have to admit that sometimes I sit there and think what should I write about this week? Having said that, if you write a newsletter or articles, there is absolutely no reason why you couldn’t post this on there. I also express my opinion about various things in the news or things that have annoyed me – being careful of course, not to betray confidentiality or give away any names!
The other consideration is whether you will get business from your blog. Well, you can certainly monitor whether or not it’s being read and where people have found out about your blog. But whether you’ll get business from it is another matter – what it does do is build your credibility as an expert within your field and give people an idea of what you’d be like to work with. People may very well decide to use your company as a result of seeing your blog – but don’t expect instant results.
Finally, you’ll also have to think about promoting your blog to make sure people actually see it – the blog will automatically be sent to search engines like Google, but often that’s not enough (as there are thousands of blogs out there). So, many people choose other ways to promote and tell people about their blog like adding their blog to their website and email signature and business cards to name, but a few.
So, should you blog? You should certainly consider it if you like writing and expressing your opinions and realise that a blog will help you establish your credibility rather than give you immediate customers. You also need to put it into your diary to update it on a regular basis so that you don’t forget – there’s nothing worse than a blog that has been set up 3 months ago and not updated since.
If, on the other hand, you hate writing; have no time to spare; and are not sure what to write about, I would say blogging is probably not for you and you should have a think about other methods to promote your business. Blogging should definitely be used in combination with other marketing methods and not in isolation.
Still not sure whether or not it’s for you…that’s fine. Go onto sites like www.blogger.com and have a look at some of the blogs that have been written – you can even search for blogs that are related to your industry. Don’t forget that you can post comments to blogs that interest you, so start doing this first. This will give you an excellent way to get your name out there and also decide whether or not blogging is for you.
Exceptional Thinking (www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) gives help and advice to established small businesses on their marketing and to people setting up in business.
« Last Edit: Jun 25, 2008, 3:08am by Helen Dowling »
Joined: May 2006 Gender: Female Posts: 49 Karma: 0
Articles on our website « Result #8 on Jun 17, 2008, 3:18am »
Hi,
We've been writing articles for quite some time now and adding them to various article websites around the Internet. What we haven't done before though is add these articles to our website - so from today, we'll be adding all new articles we write to there too. Check them out at:
Joined: May 2006 Gender: Female Posts: 49 Karma: 0
Free recordings on starting your own business « Result #9 on Jun 11, 2008, 1:05pm »
We've busy recording a series of three recordings which will be "Planning your own business", "Writing a plan and getting funding" and "Kicking off your business". Better still, they're all completely free, and I'll tell you how to download them below. Feel free to pass them onto any of your contacts that might be interested too.
Feel free to pass this onto any of your contacts who are also starting their own business too - but make sure you tell them to fill in their contact details using the form if they haven't already done so - otherwise I won't know that they also want to receive the other two free recordings as well.
Joined: May 2006 Gender: Female Posts: 49 Karma: 0
New Regulation « Result #10 on Jun 4, 2008, 7:34am »
A new law came into effect on Monday 26th May covering how businesses sell and promote their services. You can read the new regulation and how it might affect you by going to: http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file46035.pdf
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