Archive for the ‘SMEs’ Category

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Professional Services and Valuing the Customer

Following on from yesterday by continuing the theme of the challenges facing small businesses, today we look at the poor level of service sometimes given to small companies by firms offering professional services. Everyone’s a consumer at some level, and as Robert Craven argues, SMEs should be valued customers just as much as anyone else:

I run a consulting company that employs between seven and ten employees depending on the time of year and state of the economy.

My professional advisers – accountant, lawyer, architect, financial adviser – are very important to me. Many run their own businesses, just like me. But for whatever reason, they often don’t think of themselves as being a small business. And that can cause problems for people like me. So what is it that I want my advisers to be able to do? First and foremost, I want my adviser to understand me.

Show an interest in me

From where I stand, I am totally unique. No-one else has the same specific problems that I have and no-one else has the same worries and concerns. When I am going to talk about money and my business I want the other person to have a real interest in me and my aspirations.

Second, I want my adviser to understand the needs of a small business. I want them to really understand (or at least be able to empathise with) just how brilliantly skilful I must have been to grow my business despite all the odds!

Business is not simply about money. Business is about people; employing and motivating people, getting people to buy from you and finding people to buy from. Business is about sales and marketing and about delivering your service or product.

I don’t expect an adviser to understand everything about small businesses, but a decent rudimentary
understanding is not unreasonable. Most businesses are fairly simple – understand how a business works, not in theory but in reality – that’s what I want my adviser to be able to do.

Third, I want my adviser to understand my business. I have specific problems – problems that are specific to my industry, to my market and to the way that I run my business.

The adviser should know this and be able to assist with specific industry-­related support – often, a bit of research would do no harm!

Swift action

Fourth, I want swift action. The systems used by most competing advisers appear to be relatively similar, so I will accept whatever calculations or recommendations are made.

What I cannot accept are the intolerable delays that sometimes seem to occur. I want swift action, answers delivered when promised or, if all else fails, to be offered a date when work will be completed. A little courtesy is all that I ask.

Fifth, I want to know what I am paying for and I want to know how much I am going to pay. If an accountant or lawyer charges by the hour, then they are incentivised to work slowly. Other professional service firms (architects, dentists, doctors) work to a price, so what’s the problem? Surely fixed price agreements would incentivise them to work more efficiently.

What I want is an adviser that understands me, understands my business, gives me decisions when promised and explains how they charge. Not much to ask, surely!

The above article originally appeared in the October 2007 edition of Better Business magazine

Posted in Customer Satisfaction, SMEs |
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Guerrilla Marketing – When Less Is More

Without vast marketing budgets to call upon and with acute time-pressure upon employees, small businesses can sometimes struggle to generate interest in their company.

Finding the most efficacious promotional strategy possible is something of a Holy Grail for SMEs – But without enough care, this can soon become an exercise in not seeing the wood for the trees. In essence, focus is key.

That’s why the notion of guerrilla marketing has become a bit of a buzzword amongst marketers in recent years. A simplified distillation of this technique is as follows:

• Concentrate your efforts on small, focussed areas of promotion that are effective; and
• Repeat them over and over again.

Colin Campbell, a sales and marketing professional from a large corporate background started his own business recently. In the following article, he reflects upon his own experiences of going guerrilla, and argues that a pared-down, but channelled, marketing strategy is what most SMEs need:

I launched my business at the end of 2005, and six months later I found myself in a position of trying to carry out too many marketing activities – yet I had too little business coming in.

I was going from developing my websites, to writing marketing collateral, to developing newsletters, to making contacts and attending networking meetings. All this was taking time and money.

Step back

Taking time out to think about what I was doing and how I was trying to develop my business proved to be the best thing I did.

I immediately discovered some problems. My marketing consisted of a series of activities – they were not linked up. I was meeting people, picking up business cards and not following up sufficiently quickly – people didn’t have a clear enough perspective of how I could help them or how they could help me.

I turned to the internet for answers – Perhaps people with similar business challenges could provide me with some new ideas. I went on some online networking communities and it was here that I came across the concept of guerrilla marketing.

Don’t do too much

The first key with guerrilla marketing is to seize responsibility and analyse the best marketing activities to undertake. One of my problems was that I was trying to do too much at the same time.

On top of this, I was attending a lot of networking meetings as I knew other people had very successful businesses through having a wide and deep network. I’d failed to realise that all these other people had achieved initial success through using one of these strategies, not all of them all at once!

Narrow your focus

The second key with guerrilla marketing is to focus on a small number of marketing activities and carry them out to the best of your ability. CJ Hayden, author of Get Clients Now! says that businesses often know what to do – they just don’t do enough of it, or get distracted.

I therefore concentrated my efforts on networking and following up. By doing this I was able to focus on building relationships with people I already knew and go to events to meet new people. When they showed an interest in what I did, only then did I hand them some of my marketing material. By putting people first, my business increased rapidly.

Repeat it again and again

The third key is to execute and repeat whatever works over and over again. In his Guerrilla Marketing books, Jay Conrad Levinson says:

Mediocre marketing with commitment works better than brilliant marketing without commitment.

I started a programme and five weeks later my business doubled. The growth was far greater than I could have expected if I’d continued with my previous approach.

Factors for success

Here are some other factors that are critical to success.

• Establish how much business you have today.
• Establish how much business you would like in the long term.
• Establish how much business you could add in 28 days, if you put your mind to it.
• Work out where you are stuck or need most effort – Most people think they need to fill the sales pipeline, in fact, most need to focus on following up!
• Work every day on putting the ingredients for success in place.
• Monitor your progress every day.
• Stick to your plan and it will work.

So what are you waiting for? Grab your gun and start your own bit of guerrilla warfare!

The above article originally appeared in the October 2007 edition of Better Business magazine

Posted in Articles, SMEs |
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Online Leadership Portal – Part 2 of 2

Online resources for leadership
Research into what was already available online as an aid to leaders showed millions of references to leadership but very few sites targeted specifically at leadership issues, more were linked to management. Hence, sites for SMEs gave advice on setting up businesses, strengthening entrepreneurship, and business health checks; the voluntary sector focussed on bespoke training and shared leadership; the public sector concentrated on individual development programmes and downloading publications; whilst education and knowledge were areas of interest for the corporate market, with references to business gurus and leading by peer example.

Key words and phrases used on the various sites reflected these differences. Website buzz words amongst SMEs were development, entrepreneur, business planning and advice; for corporates it was challenge, innovative, best practice and cutting edge; words such as innovative, community and good practice were common on public sector sites; and the voluntary sector used development, support, improve and understand.

The layout and aesthetics of websites also varied: conservative and professional for the private sector, plain and dull for SMEs, happy and inviting for the voluntary sector, and old fashioned and cluttered for the public sector.

Having researched what was out there online, focus groups were undertaken to gauge interest in online resources: people from corporates showed most interest in using online resources on leadership; in the public sector there was a tendency to use formal academic programmes for leadership training; the concept of leadership appears newer to the voluntary sector; SMEs are least likely to engage with leadership issues as they are more focussed on management and keeping up-to-date with regulations; students see a strong role for web resources though they expect sophisticated use of technology.

What people want from an online leadership site
Again, the various groups wanted different things. Corporates wanted interaction and information, SMEs wanted advice and updates, the public sector wanted a bit of everything, the voluntary sector wanted experience and sharing, and students needed a site to be active and interesting.

Forum respondents were asked what would make them use an online resource:

• functionality – such that the site was easy to use, site search is essential, good navigation links, personalisation
• format – must be eye-catching, good colour (red and blue), little advertising, meaningful graphics
• interactivity – technology to create two-way communication and social networking, for younger users alternative delivery sources were thought important (e-learning, online mentoring, webinars)

All this feedback collected by B2B was able to provide decision-making information for the NLA who then advised designers of the online portal so as to be able to embrace these opinions and also respond to the different requirements.

The future
The research indicated what an ‘ideal’ site should include: a home page that was generic, with easy navigation, personalised login options, search facility, tabulated index, what’s new section and student site. The site content should include news, case studies, experts and community information, provide training and development resources, and discuss work and industry related issues such as regulation.

Thoughts on the site in the future focussed on a platform portal with self-selecting sector options. Ideas include:

• more bespoke solutions tailored to the needs of specific users or sectors
• leadership linked to self development, using current thinking
• more interactivity using technology to aid learning; networking; mentoring
• a facility to manage resources appropriate to the users’ needs such as sector sites by self selection
• regularly updated site, backed up by a credible institution which addresses leadership

B2B director Carol-Ann Morgan is manager of the research. She believes that the NLA site is the only one that addresses all business/industry sectors and can also engage all levels of management from shop floor to boardroom. “This site pulls all the different elements together as one complete resource. It is easy to use, when and where the individual wants. It allows ideas, best practice, information and leadership advice to be shared for the benefit of all and it encourages individual and cross-sector networking. In fact, it does what it set out to do, ie promote distributed leadership.”

About The Northern leadership Academy – www.northernleadershipacademy.co.uk. The NLA’s interactive leadership portal has been developed to help individuals and organisations based in the North improve their leadership skills through a raft of specialist content and interactive resources. Once registered, individuals can create personal profiles and engage in peer-to-peer networking, access a comprehensive directory of leadership resources, have the opportunity to participate in e-learning courses and sign-up to highly rated personal development programmes such as ‘Windmills’ and Harvard’s ‘Manage Mentor’.

The portal hosts a series of industry-specific channels for those working in the private, public, community and voluntary sectors. Managed by industry professionals, these channels offer dedicated forums, discussion areas, audio-visual tools, event calendars and other content specific to these sectors.
In addition to the online leadership portal, NLA runs leadership course, seminars and networking events across the North. It has also established an academic think-tank that undertakes research linked to regional economic issues ad provides fellowships to students based in the North that specialises in leadership.

Posted in B2B News, Industrial Research, Market Research, SMEs |
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Small Business Hotspots

Microsoft UK recently carried out online research to find out where in Britain most small businesses were being formed and to see if there was any correlation between geographies and the types of vertical sectors that dominated the small business landscape. It also sought to identify how successful small businesses were developing their business and their employees, and where they were investing money to help it succeed further. Click on the following link to view the highlights of the key findings for each of the UK regions excluding Northern Ireland (regions defined by Government Office) – http://regionalhotspots.co.uk/default.htm (rollover each of the regions to view research findings).

Posted in SMEs |
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The Cost Of The Face-To-Face Business Meeting

£17b A Year Wasted On Unneccessary Face-To-Face Business Meetings

Polycom, the leader in collaborative communications solutions, today announced results from a ‘Congested Lives’ research study of over 1,200 businesses employees in the UK, indicating that unnecessary face-to-face meetings cost UK businesses £17 billion annually. Additionally the findings of the survey, showed office workers waste 23 days on average each year traveling to and from appointments.

The research shows that two-thirds (67%) of office professionals across the UK travel at least once a week for work-related meetings, and that an overwhelming majority (82%) who have travelled to meetings in the last year believed many of these meetings were unnecessary and could have been accomplished over the phone.

• Nearly a quarter (23%) of those surveyed believe 1-2 hours of their time could be saved each week by not attending off-site meetings, with one in five (21%) saying 3-4 hours of their time could be saved per week and one in ten (11%) believing 5-6 hours could be saved

• Over one half (57%) of people who travel for business say they are less productive in their job as a result

• The vast majority of respondents (88%) of people leaving the office for meetings weekly are board-level executives, followed closely by senior managers or directors (76%)

• 50% of professionals have to plan their work schedule around external meetings, and believe meetings impact the speed at which their company can make business decisions

• 48% say they travel more on business than they did five years ago

• Office workers in London, Yorkshire and The Humber and East Midlands (70%) travel the most for out-of-office meetings and only 53% of office workers in the North East travel for meetings

• Those working as business, management and professional consultants travel the most to off-site meetings (83%). Those working in the retail sector travel the least (46%)

Posted in B2B News, Customer Satisfaction, Industry News, SMEs |
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