Wednesday 11 December 2013

My brain's a blank!

Now is there anyone on my list who could do with a battery operated sock warmer?  No?  How about that furry pig draft excluder then?!

I don’t know about you, but every year I find buying Christmas presents more and more difficult.  It’s not that there are a lack of lovely things to buy, it’s just that I can’t seem to dredge up original ideas. Not every present is difficult of course.  Children are fun to buy for and I can always find something to put a smile on the face of my female friends and relatives, but joint presents for couples are pretty tricky and as for you men out there….well…..!

Coming up with new ideas in a society of consumerism and excess is nigh on impossible.  From time to time we’ll see a new product that is such a great idea we wonder why no one had thought of it before.  But how many of those have you seen lately? 

In general, marketing is about ideas.  Of course, it’s about putting those ideas into practice and a lot more besides, but today’s marketer needs to be inventive to be noticed.  There are many ways in which to generate new ideas.  Brain-storming, challenging assumptions, making new and unexpected connections, or going out there and getting an external perspective are just a few.  But I’d suggest the starting point isn’t the idea…it’s the purpose.  As with everything in marketing – and business too – we should be asking ourselves ‘why?’.  How can we generate innovative ideas if we’re not sure what we’re trying to achieve?

Back in the 90’s there was a lot of hoo-hah about company visions and mission statements.  Almost always, the businesses that were creating these missives were established ones.  I’m not knocking them.  It’s always refreshing to revitalise and communicate your purpose.  The thing is, I’ve never met a brand new business owner who has thrust his or her mission statement into my hand.  Why not?!  Surely, the new business needs to know what it wants to be when it grows up!

So perhaps before we start on the meditation, team expression or in-depth soul searching that’s essential in the labour ward of idea creation, we make sure we know where we want to end up.  If a new business starts life with a strong and clear vision it will have a framework for ideas, it will know what values it needs to communicate and, above all, it will have a target against which to measure progress.

Happy head-scratching!


Friday 4 October 2013

What is going on with borrowing?

I have written in the past about the various attempts being made by this government to encourage lending to small businesses.  My original contention was that this was only helping home buyers with cheaper mortgages and not small businesses.

My views are reinforced by the fact that mortgage lending in August is recorded as 28% higher than in the same month last year.  Looking behind the figures this actually seems to be that people are in fact extending their homes and then re-mortgaging instead of moving.  This only goes to prove that home-owners are getting as financially aware as small business owners.

In the same way as micro business owners are vowing never to again be in thrall to the major banks who can call in a loan or overdraft at a moment’s notice and risk ruining their business, so now home owners are saying, OK you want to lend us money at much cheaper rates, we will borrow but we will no longer do it in a way which puts us at the risk of re-possession.  We will borrow because we have to but we will get the cheapest rate possible and switch if we get a better deal.  The government tells us to do so with the energy companies, so don’t be surprised if we do it with the mortgage lenders.


There is however one further statistic that worries me and also doesn’t help my argument – credit card debt continues to escalate.  Is this people who don’t have their own homes or businesses?

Written by Keith Powell, Colbea Business Advisor.

Tuesday 3 September 2013

About turn

I expect you’ve all been deeply shocked by the gas attacks in Syria.  But if we were to take a poll I doubt we’d all agree about what we, as a country, should do in response.

Parliament’s defeat of the vote for military action has caused some repercussions.  Commentators seem fixated on the question of whether David Cameron/the conservative party/the country/the ‘special relationship’ has been damaged by this apparent back track.

All of which started me thinking about what makes for strong leadership and whether a change of mind is a sign of strength or weakness.

Running your own business or managing a company needs leadership AND management skills.  The two are quite different.  Good managers are not always good leaders and vice versa.  So what makes for strong leadership and how come it’s such a rare commodity?

Please don’t think I’m claiming to be a strong leader myself.  I am old enough and wise enough to know that leadership is not my forte!   However, I’ve worked with a few impressive leaders and have watched how they operate.  The best are visionaries.  They tend to be single minded when it comes to achieving objectives and although they are aware of challenges, they have a ‘terrier’ trait that keeps them hanging on.  So does that mean they never waver or have a change of heart?

In my experience, true leaders share some characteristic ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’. 

They don’t
-  jump to conclusions
-  threaten or bully
-  sway between allegiances or causes
-  either over-simplify or over-complicate their message
-  get bogged down with irrelevancies

They do:
-  their homework
-  enlist champions, who believe in their cause and act as advocates
-  communicate their vision to everyone involved, and I mean everyone!
-  motivate their people and trust them to get on with the job
-  have their finger on the pulse.

And perhaps that last point is the most pertinent.  True leaders know what’s going on.  What may have been right six days/weeks/months ago may not be now.  Sometimes environment changes mean that objectives need to change too.  That’s what flexibility and responsiveness is all about.  Sticking to a goal that has been superseded or has become outdated is nothing more than dogma. 

Surely a strong leader is one with the strength of character to stand up and say “we need to do this differently” rather than plough on regardless of the fallout. 


Have you worked with someone who had leadership qualities?  Why not share your thoughts here about what made them so influential?

Monday 29 July 2013

Well....at least they keep trying!

They keep on trying, but it's a pity they will never succeed with these plans.

There has been much talk in the Enterprise Agency community about the right mess that the Government has made of supporting startup and micro businesses but there has always been the feeling that this could be seen as sour grapes along the lines of “…they would say that anyway as funding has been taken away from them.”

Now that sort of criticism is being made by other organisations interested in helping this important sector, if anything in a less temperate tone than adopted by us.

Judge for yourself by going to:

http://www.cobwebinfo.com/the-monty-python-guide-to-great-business-support/#comment-42507

Comment on the blog if you agree.

Keith Powell – Colbea Business Adviser

Tuesday 16 July 2013

Latest assessment of Funding For Lending

The Funding for Lending Scheme is again back in the news, maybe because Syscap are launching a new Short Term Loan Scheme, but I was prompted to have a look at the current situation to see if there was still grounds for my pessimism.

There are continuing grounds for pessimism in that lending to small and micro businesses is not increasing, in fact it continues to decline.  Is this really a cause for concern with the health of small and micro businesses? Despite the decline in lending from conventional institutions like the main clearing banks, in conversations with business managers in several of the clearing banks they tell me that they are lending money, sometimes significant sums. OK, the rates are not exactly attractive and the terms are stringent but there is money to be had.

So, there might be another reason for the decline, perhaps we are at the stage of “once bitten, twice shy”. There are businesses that have borrowed money in the past that suddenly, when things with the lending institutions got tough, found themselves facing demands to pay back, re-finance or else.  This was not a happy time and caused some businesses to fold and many to look carefully at their financial situation and make savings.  Therefore, because of this, we may have businesses that are more financially self-sufficient and certainly more prudent - to use a much maligned term.

I hope that this is the case and therefore micro businesses are in effect saying, thank you for offering but we won’t be caught out again!!

Keith Powell
Colbea Business Advisor

Tuesday 18 June 2013

What inspires you?

“Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration”. 

It’s hard to argue with Edison.  He knew that success comes from commitment and hard work, or as he put it, perspiration.  Everyone who runs a business would agree.  But perspiration has a nasty habit of becoming yawningly dull and stale unless it’s peppered with a little inspiration.

Someone once said to me that people are driven by one of two motives – money or power.  I readily admit to being a little cynical but I like to think that I’ve still got some faith in human nature.  There’s nothing wrong with wanting to build up your business to be a successful and respected business leader.  There’s nothing wrong with making money – money gives you choices and helps you influence other people’s lives…hopefully for the better.  But I think there’s a third motive that is just as important to many and that is, “to be the best that I can be”.  That might not mean that we’re challenging ourselves to climb Mount Everest or abseil down the Shard but just to do a job really well, to go beyond our customer’s expectations and to feel proud.  (No….don’t panic, I’m not about to burst into a ‘Miranda’ style rendition of Heather Small’s song!)

Money?  Power? Self-esteem?  They all require motivation.  And the food of motivation is inspiration.

So how can we find inspiration? 

Some people seem to be in a state of perpetual inspiration.  Marvellous.  Unfortunately, I’m not one of them.  I have to work at my inspiration or I’d never get up in the morning!  Here are the tips that have helped me.  Perhaps they’ll be useful for you too.

-           Seek out people who inspire you and keep in contact with them.
-           Open yourself up to wider thinking and challenging ideas, maybe through training courses or professional seminars.
-           Be curious – about the world around you, about how things work, about how others achieved success, about what makes people tick.
-           Don’t stop learning – your inspiration can come from discovering your own capacity for knowledge as well as from external sources.
-           Remember that we are what we eat!  If we feed ourselves with negative friends, negative media, negative commentaries, etc., we’re unlikely to find ourselves in a particularly inspirational frame of mind.  You could argue that it’s a social duty to be informed about the bad as well as the good in the world, but my point is that we’re more likely to be able to do something positive to help if we’re fired up….otherwise we’ll just crawl back under the duvet in despair.

If you’ve got an inspirational story or tips on how to feed your motivation, why not share them here?

Friday 3 May 2013


Peeling paintwork


I was reading an article recently that suggested it only took 30 seconds for us to form that vital ‘first impression’.  I was amazed!  I have always assumed it took only about 3 or 4 seconds. 

The article started me thinking about how many first impressions we make during the course of an average day.  I’m not going to hazard a guess but it must be a pretty high number.  Even on days that are fairly routine we’ll be forming opinions about all sorts of things.  It happens every time we look in a shop window, meet a customer, sit next to someone on the train and so on.

When we talk about ‘first impressions’ we tend to think that we’re talking about face to face situations and of course, often this is the case, but the surroundings in which people live or work are just as important.  Have you ever been to someone’s home or office and been amazed at how tidy/messy/ luxurious/grubby (delete as applicable!) it was?  We can’t help but be influenced by these things – perhaps they are more wealthy than we thought, maybe their organisational skills aren’t up to much if their desk is such a tip, or can they not afford a hoover…?!!!

A lot of marketing practice is about human behaviour and psychology.  In fact, that’s the part of marketing that interests me most.  I like to know why people do what they do – in other words, what motivates them. 

Marketing covers many areas of business but appearance and perception is right up there at the top of the list.  Everyone knows that negative impressions are often last impressions because we simply don’t get a second chance. 

So are first impressions just about how we look and act?  Today, opinions are formed long before we have a face to face meeting – if, indeed, we ever do.   Our corporate ID and branding is a strong influencer, but so too is our LinkedIn profile, our email tone of voice, or the content of our latest tweet. 

Everything counts in marketing because all these things add up to give customers an overall impression about us, our business, our values and our service.  We live in a world where our actions are public – often online – and we must be consistent if we’re to be believable.

So remember when you’re putting up that fancy name plate outside the front door – check whether the paint is peeling!


Posted by Ruth Wiseman at Savannah Marketing

Thursday 28 March 2013

Spring forward?


The clocks go forward this weekend, it’s Easter and spring is here…..despite the depressing weather!

I love the time of year when everything starts to grow again after winter, the days get longer and (said with fingers firmly crossed) we start to feel the sun on our faces.  I wonder if the economy will revive itself as spring and summer arrives?

Today sees the release of a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), stating that Britain should avoid a triple-dip recession and that the global economy is looking more positive in general.  The Office for National Statistics (ONC) reported that the services sector grew by 0.3% month on month and 0.8% when compared against the same month in 2012. 

Peter Jones, of Dragons’ Den fame, must be feeling optimistic as he’s purchased Jessops from the administrator.  He says that he’ll streamline operations, reduce the number of shops and cut overheads.  Well, he’s the expert, but it’s a bit difficult to see how High Street shops can compete against cut price internet retailers in the camera and related technology sector.  Let’s hope he’s right and I’m wrong!  As a camera and photography addict myself I know that little compares with the hands on experience and advice you can get in a shop, so maybe that’s where the secret lies.

As we head – hopefully – towards greater and brighter things, we’ll all need to think about how we do our marketing and what we spend on it.  The question of how much money to dedicate to marketing is something Mr Jones will have firm views on I’m sure, but the average across all industries seems to come out around 4% of revenue (although in technology it can top 10%). 

An end to recession doesn’t necessarily mean an upturn in business.  If you want to be ahead of your competition and make the most of opportunities, think about how you communicate with your existing and potential customers.

Happy Easter!

Wednesday 27 February 2013

Third time assessment


I have written twice on the subject of the current Funding for Lending scheme, once to express cynicism and then a softening of that position giving some benefit of the doubt towards the major clearing banks.

I have now noted two pieces of news:

The scheme is reported as being responsible for banks launching competitive mortgage deals aimed at borrowers with small deposits.

The scheme is also reported as being responsible for recent cuts in interest rates on personal loans ranging from between £3,000 to £4,999 for one bank and between £7,500 and £14,999 for another.

So, we have the situation where participating banks are drawing down money against the scheme to fund cheaper mortgages (which I predicted) and personal loans (which I didn’t expect).

What can I suggest for my fellow small business owners who want a small loan to develop their business? If you are a Sole Trader with a good credit record you might be able to get a personal loan - but you had better say it is for a retirement party and not mention it is to try and develop your business so you can employ people on Job Seekers Allowance at the moment.

If you are a small private company – keep whistling!

Posted on behalf of Keith Powell.

Tuesday 12 February 2013

Are you free for a meeting?


How many times have you seen a colleague emerging from a meeting rolling their eyes sky-ward and saying “Well….that was a waste of time!”  Most probably you’ve done it yourself!

I used to work for someone whose tolerance of bad meetings was fractionally below zero.  I always knew when it had gone particularly badly, as he’d return with face like thunder, stride purposely towards his office muttering “Couldn’t run a chip shop” under his breath, and slam his office door.  Even if you don’t react in quite the same way, the fact is, meetings can be a waste of time and when you add up the time of all the people in the room, that can be a lot of time and a lot of money!

If you work on your own or in an office with just two or three others, your meetings will be mainly with customers, suppliers, business partners, etc.  I’ve found that even though such meetings are often organised and controlled by someone else, a little preparation can really pay off.

We all know the basic rules of running an effective meeting: circulate an agenda, nominate a chairman, list actions afterwards, blah, blah - it’s not rocket science and is something we probably learnt very early in our working life.  But I’ve been to meetings that have followed these rules to the letter and yet they’re still not successful, which made me ponder why that was.

I wonder if it’s because a lot of meetings don’t actually have an objective.  They may have a sort of catch-all-woolly-reason-for-getting-together, but no one’s defined the exact expectations. 

Let me illustrate what I mean: the marketing and production departments meet to discuss the launch of a new product.  What’s the meeting about?  The launch of the new product….right?  Wrong!  It’s fair to assume that both departments knew they were going to launch a new product (or they should be fired!) so why are they there?  How about marketing of the new product launch?  Well, it’s a start, but still not particularly focused.  However, if the meeting’s purpose is to select the marketing channels and define the key messages for the product launch, everyone has an exact idea of what they need to achieve before they leave the room.

Similarly, if you are meeting a client you will think you know what the meeting is for but do you really have clear objectives and, when they are met do you always stop there?

Unfortunately, however clear your objectives, meetings can become a platform for people to voice their opinions, grievances, successes or just listen to themselves speak for a while!!  A well known IT company used to have a policy of no chairs in meeting rooms, working on the theory that if everyone was standing up the meeting would soon be over.  If you are ‘in charge’, limiting the duration certainly focuses the mind and helps the meeting leader to retain control. 

I always seem to be up against the clock and my betting is that you do too, but perhaps a little time spent thinking about what we want to achieve from a meeting could save us all a lot of time in the long run.  I’ll let you know how I get on….!

If you’ve got tips on running productive meetings (and I’m sure you have) why not share them here?

Thursday 17 January 2013

Funding for lending - the current state of play


Much has been said about this Government initiative and I have been very pessimistic - if not downright cynical – about the likelihood of this being a useful stimulus to small businesses. The headline figures were certainly bearing out my main contention that the most likely beneficiaries are going to be homebuyers with a slight easing of mortgage problems and a number of small business organisations have criticised the initiative for under achieving for small businesses. The problem is that it is tempting to comment on the headline figures and not look too much at the detail.The main reason for this is that it is not only difficult to get at the real figures but it is also a problem looking at a small range of figures over a relatively short period and extrapolating those into an overall view.
Think how long the average period a mortgage or business loan is taken over and then add in the size of the loan parc and you then see how long it is going to be to sort out the problem of lending in general.The figures are so enormous that they become so unreal they are difficult to comprehend. Movements in borrowing or lending are affected by so many factors that are not within the control of the banks, I give just a couple:Someone works for Jessops and loses their job because of the way the market has changed from cameras to smart ‘phones. They had a mortgage but can no longer keep up the payments so their house reverts to the lender. This becomes a bad debt but the house is sold for the value of their debt so it is cleared meaning a reduction in net lending.
Someone wants to burrow £5,000 to fit out a small café and approaches their bank for a loan. An unsecured loan is agreed at 16%. The parents of the café owner hear about this and look at the rate of interest they are getting on their savings and suggest they will lend the money at half the rate of interest.  The loan was available but not taken up.The second example is something that I am coming across much more when talking to start-up businesses so we therefore should be careful when looking at the figures, not just kicking the banks.
At this juncture it might be worth looking at what the main banks themselves say.

Santander

·         Claims to be actively embracing the scheme and is promoting the benefits of it to customers via a national  advertising campaign.
·         Net lending to business increased by more than £3.4bn in the past 12 months. 
·         Currently averaging a 20% increase in lending to British business for each of the past three years.
·         Plans to maintain its expansion in lending to small and mid-sized companies.

RBS Group

·         Says Funding for Lending has led to interest rate cuts of up to 1.7% on loans to small businesses and the removal of arrangement fees, saving customers an average of £4,500 on the cost of a loan.
·         Core business net lending of £160m between July and September. Gross new lending increased 3% for Q3 compared with Q2.
·         Invoice and asset financing of £117m, which is not included in Bank of England figures.
·         A further £800m has been offered to small businesses and is waiting to be drawn down by customers. Claims it is “on track to deliver the full £2.5bn of SME FLS funding by February 2013”.
·         Gross new lending to small and mid-sized companies in the first nine months of £28.6bn.

Barclays

·         Lending to all businesses rose in Q3 from £28.1bn to £28.5bn or 1%.
·         Over the past year lending is four percentage points above the industry average, the bank claims.
·         However, the bank argues that “demand for lending amongst businesses remains well below pre-recession levels with applications decreasing by 25% over the last year”.

Lloyds Banking Group

·         Having drawn £1bn so far, the bank plans to draw down an additional £2bn by the end of 2012.
·         Plans to maintain 4% net lending growth to small and mid-sized businesses.
·         Funding for Lending has enabled the group to provide a 1% discount on interest rates offered to businesses.
·         Was the first bank to draw down funding under the scheme and can draw a total of £20bn by the end of 2013.
·         Lent more than £10bn to small and mid-sized companies in the first nine months of 2012, amounting to net lending growth of 4%. 

Bearing this in mind, I am going to wait a bit longer before I start saying “I told you so!” but I am watching closely!!

Written by Keith Powell, Business Advisor at Colbea. 



Thursday 10 January 2013

One size doesn't fit all


Sad to say, I’m old enough to remember when there was a bit of a craze on women’s clothes that bore the label, “one size fits all”.  Of course, it never did!  Human beings tend to come in all shapes and sizes and being fairly small myself, the “one size fits all” garment looked as if I was wearing a wigwam. 

“Now why is she wittering on about old clothes?”, you’re wondering.  It was Trevor Edwards, Colbea’s trainer and speaker at the next BIG Group Meeting, that made me think of it.  No, he wasn’t wearing a particularly ill-fitting shirt at the time (in fact, he was his normal smart-suited self) but he was talking about how we should treat our customers if we want to make sure our offering is a good fit with their needs and expectations.

Technology has driven a sea change in terms of the level of service businesses are able to provide to their customers.  The collection and analysis of data means we can look at people as individuals rather than ‘en masse’.  If we use that information well, we soon understand that different customers want different things from us.  The pendulum of business has swung from simply supplying goods or services to developing relationships that will facilitate buying behaviour. 

All buying is, in fact, a solution to a problem.  That problem could be a need or a desire and could range in complexity from very simple behaviour (I’ve run out of milk, therefore I buy a pint a milk) to a major decision making process such as buying a house.  Buying helps us to solve a problem or achieve a goal.  Even buying the same product will have different meaning for different buyers.  For example, the middle-aged man who buys a Ford Focus wants an economical family car that’s reliable and has plenty of space – it fulfils his need.  The same car bought by an 18 year old who’s just passed his test may be much more of an aspirational purchase.

Trevor’s going to tackle the subject of customer behaviour in more depth at the BIG Group Meeting on 15 January.  He’ll be looking at communication, buying behaviour, what happens when things go wrong and what you can do to put things right.  You’ll be taught ways of understanding your customer and of designing communications that help you overcome issues and strengthen relationships.

If you’re not already a member of BIG Group, contact Liz Bourne for more information liz.bourne@colbea.co.uk