Small businesses Archives - Page 4 of 5

How To Organise Your Home Office

Hello – welcome back! Or if you’re new here – welcome, pull up a chair and stay for a while. We’re passionate about all things ‘small business’. We’ve talked on the blog previously about ideas on how to create your dream office but this week we’re focusing on the practical side of things. Keeping your home office space organised is by no means easy – especially when you’re busy running a business. Here are a few things we think are essential to an organised and efficient space.

Drawers
It goes without saying that all businesses and home offices have one thing in common: paperwork. Unfortunately, there isn’t a magic trick to making it organise itself but luckily there are plenty of storage systems available these days that make it look a lot more appealing. Filing cabinets still have their place, but there are tons of drawer based solutions available too. We’re loving the look of this one from Ikea.

Shelves
Shelves are also great places to store paperwork, as long as it’s organised in an attractive way. Although, if you’re unlikely to want to put things back in their designated spot on the shelf it’s better to opt for a closed system. A row of sleek magazine files can look great, and you can also keep any books, ornaments or memorabilia relating to your business on them too. Just try to keep it minimal – when it comes to shelves, less is often more otherwise they can become hotspots for piles of receipts!

Pin Board

A pin board above your desk is a great addition to your home office. Perfect for popping up day-to-day reminders, or you can also use it to pin inspirational images or quotes. It’s the perfect spot for anything that’s going to make you smile when you’re sending invoices at 9.30pm.

Bull Dog Clips

This may sound random but organising your wires helps keep your desktop clear. And a clear, organised desk is proven to help with productivity. We found this hack online and recently implemented it in our home – it totally works! No more scrabbling around trying to match the cable with the device – they’re all at the side of the desk ready to go.

Desk Life
All home offices will need a desk or clear surface which you can work from, and often you will need to keep a few items on hand. Pens, pencils, note books, tape measures (!) you get the idea! Why not add a couple of nicer items to your desktop to inspire you to keep it clean and tidy? A nice
lamp, or a nice coaster for your morning coffee all help to create a work space that feels intentional. We all want to spend as little time as possible at our desks, but whilst you’re there you may as well enjoy the view.

What are your tips for creating an organised home office? Any tips and tricks for those pesky but oh-so-necessary receipts? Comment below – we would love to hear from you!

Team LP

Leave a commentBusiness Tips, Office Designs, Small businesseshome office, ideas, inspiration, organisation, paper work, pin board

Home Office Inspiration

When we last talked about work space on the blog. We were day-dreaming about our ultimate Local Pages office. This week we’re looking at inspiration for that all important home office. Many of our clients are busy running their businesses during the day and then complete all the paperwork surrounding that business from home. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an inspiring and calming space to get productive in?
Monochrome Clean Lines
We love how super-sleek this space is. Monochrome mixed with the wooden floor creates a laid back, streamlined space to work in.

Creative Corner
Maybe you don’t have an entire room of your home to dedicate to a home office (we know the feeling!), you can still make a corner of the room feel put together and inspirational.

Light and Bright
Just look at all those windows surrounding the desk. Natural light in a work space is high on our home office lust list. And the plant too.

The Executive
Leather chair, dark panelling, bookshelves? Check, check, check. We love this modern take on executive chic.

Space for Two
Maybe you need a space for you and a partner to work side by side. An office for two is quite common these days as businesses become more open to working from home and more of us are taking the plunge and starting our own ventures.

What does your home office space look like? Are you tempted to put some effort into creating something different? We would love to hear from you – comment below!

Leave a commentBusiness Tips, Office Designs, Small businesseshome office, office design, office inspiration, small business

8 Essential Branding Tips For Small Businesses

If you think that branding is just something for big businesses with big budgets, think again. Branding is just as important for small businesses, maybe even more so. If you don’t have the budget to hire a big branding agency (and not many small businesses do) here are 8 simple steps you can take to keep your brand in check.

Remember – It’s not all about your logo

Your logo is important, but branding is about far more than just that. Your logo is a badge that will represent you to the world, it’ll help distinguish your business from your competitors and it may even help customers to understand what you do. But it’s just one small part of a much bigger picture and even the best logo won’t build a successful brand on its own.

Know what you stand for

What values and ideals are at the core of your business? What motivated you to start and what keeps you going? If you’re unsure of where you’re going and why your customers will be even less sure. Keep a list of at least three core values and make sure that any new products, services and marketing campaigns are true to them.

Know what value your business provides

Whatever type of business you run, one thing is guaranteed your customers are not interested in just buying your products or your services. What they’re interested in is results. It’s the real life benefits that your products can offer them that will really get them engaged. A lot of businesses make the mistake of focusing on the features of their products and wonder why they’re not getting results. By taking a step back and communicating the benefits they offer you can give customers a really compelling reason to part with their money.

Get inside your customers heads

Knowing your customers inside out is crucial. Forget about your taste and your preferences and focus on the people you’re trying to serve. Who are they? What are they looking for? What gets them excited? Keep your focus very narrow to start with; just think about your ideal customer.

Keep this profile in mind whenever you’re planning a new piece of marketing and build it just for them. This will really help to keep your message focused and effective.

Keep a close eye on the competition

Identify your closest competitors and make sure you check up on them regularly. Who are they targeting? How are they doing it? What messages are they putting out? Where are they falling short? By doing this you can stay ahead of the game and fill gaps that they’re leaving. Remember, they’re probably watching your every move too.

Find something unique to offer

Every business has something unique to offer, but many don’t take the time to identify it and use it to their advantage. Strong brands clearly stand out even in a crowded market. You might sell the same products as everyone else but that doesn’t mean you have to offer exactly the same service. If you’re struggling to find something that makes you stand out, go back to your customers, think about what they need and where your competitors might be falling short.

Be consistent

Whatever direction you choose to take your brand in, make sure you’re consistent about it. That means keeping an eye on every tiny detail from how your logo looks, to the colours and fonts you use right through to your website and the kind of language you use when you talk to your customers. All this will build up to give the impression of professional, credible and trustworthy business.

Keep it simple

We all lead busy lives and few people have the time to unravel complex messages. Simple, well thought out communication is more likely to get through and be remembered. This applies to your logo, your marketing material, your customer communications – even your business processes.

Leave a commentBranding, Design, Marketing, Small businessesbranding, marketing, small business, tips

Our Dream Office

Open Plan Office Ideas

For over 30 years we have lovingly called our converted Victorian house in Southville (Bristol) home to Local Pages. As a building it’s great, but lately our eyes have been wandering and we’ve been thinking about our dream office.

As you can imagine with a converted house, especially one of this era, the rooms are relatively small and we’re all located across two floors (and a rear extension!). We’re craving some open plan space where we can get creative, and gain some extra efficiency. We’re not talking about moving to our dream office tomorrow, but it’s OK to dream right? We thought it might be fun to share out Open Plan Office Lust List (trying saying that quickly!).

Industrial Vibes
Just look at all that SPACE! Brushed concrete floors, white walls, big windows = plenty of light, and big desks. Yes, please.

Green/Eco
We would like to be able to bring the outside in. A living wall would also help keep our air clean, naturally. We’re also loving those lighting pendants above the hot desk space.

A Pop of Colour
We would also want to introduce colour into our work space. Although ours would likely be Local Pages blue!

Texture
Too many white walls and industrial windows might be quite cold so we would also include lots of texture – we’re thinking cork boards and wood.

What does your dream office space look like? Have you already created it? Comment below – we’d love to hear from you.
Team LP

Leave a commentBlog, Office Designs, Small businessescreative solutions, eco design, office, office layout, open plan, workspace

How to Conduct a Job Interview

The Interview Checklist

The key to a well prepared and well structured job interview is to have a clear view of the skills, knowledge and ability demanded by the job. You then need to use the interview to gather evidence to demonstrate whether the candidates meet these requirements. Please prepare well for the job interview, using this small business checklist as a prompt.

Re-read the advert, job and person specification.
If you are not seeing all the candidates, ensure that your short listing decisions are based only on the requirement of the job.
If you are not seeing all the candidates, sift according to criteria that is tangible from a CV i.e. headcount managed previously; operational background; achievements etc. Don’t second guess what a candidate may or may not be like or may or not have done just because it’s not on their CV. 67% of candidates omit crucial.
Ensure that you have prepared some standard questions. If you wish to ask additional questions, ensure that they are based on the person specification requirements for the job. These questions should be asked of all candidates to enable you to determine the best match against the job requirement.
Re-read all the application forms, and highlight any points which you want individual candidates to clarify (e.g. further information on qualifications or experience).
Arrange a suitable job interview room and make sure that you have diverted any calls and interruptions.
Remember that the application forms are confidential documents and should only be circulated to those people involved in the recruitment process.
Once you have conducted the job interview, mark your decision on whether to employ. Ensure that this is based on factual information and not gut feeling.Â If you have decided to reject the candidate mark your reason where indicated on the back of the form.

Welcome The Job Interview Plan

Introduce yourself and any other interviewers
Put the candidate at ease
Explain the purpose of the interview
Outline the way the interview will be structured
Explain you will be taking notes

Ask

Information about the candidate that is related to the job
Use the criteria on the person specification
Identify points from the application form that need querying
Prepare questions in advance
Use open questions â€“ move from easy to more searching ones
Listen and probe
Find out what the candidate expects from the job
Explore the candidate’s motivations. Are these more to do with rewards (such as money or status) or with job satisfaction?

Supply

Information related to the job. Summarise the main points of the job, department and company.
Remember the interviewer should only do 20-30% of the talking

Notes

Note down key points and remember that candidates are able to ask for copies of all interview notes

Wrapping up

Ensure there is enough time for the candidate’s questions and respond fully and positively
Inform candidates when they can expect to hear from you

And finally, restrict your role to

Asking questions
Clarifying queries
Keeping the conversation flowing
Providing information
Reassuring the candidates

After the job interview

Assess the candidates by using interview notes, personal specification, test results and candidate comparison forms
Inform all candidates of the outcome of their interview.

Leave a commentBusiness Tips, Small businessesadvice, business owner, checklist, job interview, small business

Do small businesses need to get real about cyber security?

Katie Holland, Barclays Business Manager, examines the issue.

The prominence of the internet has changed the way companies of all sizes conduct their business. It has opened the doors for many SMEs to streamline their processes and generate additional opportunities in areas which previously might have appeared out of reach. However, it is not without some downsides, a major one being the growth in prominence of cyber crime.

Last summer a Government Security Breaches Survey found that nearly three quarters [74 per cent] of small organisations reported a security breach in the last year. This is a real concern, as is the variety and scale of the scams which are currently in the offing.

One example in early 2016 reports some cases of conveyancing fraud. In these instances criminals were said to have hacked into emails sent between solicitors and clients. The fraudsters, posing as the solicitor, then sent emails with instructions to transfer money from property transactions to a rogue account. The funds then disappeared.

As a lender it’s absolutely vital for Barclays to have a fraud prevention strategy in place. Plus a substantial, and active, fraud team alongside a raft of resources for individual and business borrowers. But, as a SME what more should you be doing?

The first prudent step is to ensure your business is fully protected, including the data in your possession. The lengths at which cyber criminals go to shouldn’t be underestimated.

SMEs could also be made aware that changes to any payment details attached to a transaction should be treated with suspicion. For example, if they are sent an encrypted email or asked for personal data by email, or anything that feels even remotely dubious, then they should pick up the phone and verify it directly with the party in question. The inclusion of cyber security and anti-malware protection will not only safeguard your business, but also provide an additional layer of protection for you, your customers and subsequently cement your long-term relationship with them.

Some of you may have seen Barclays latest advert which sees a seemingly trustworthy advisor asking for personal banking details whilst a voice in the background explains that his intentions are not genuine. The advert goes on to reveal a member of Barclays branch staff, who is a Premier Banking Manager, standing behind the fraudster and offering advice on how consumers can protect themselves.

This type of fraud is known as social engineering and it is the manipulation of situations and people that result in the targeted individuals divulging confidential information. It is one of the most prolific and effective means of gaining access to secure systems and obtaining sensitive information, yet requires minimal technical knowledge.

The advert is one way in which Barclays is raising awareness about these issues and we regularly host cyber crime events for SMEs locally most recently in Weston-Super-Mare.

From April 2016 Barclays will host a series of events specifically for businesses providing guidance on how they can protect themselves from cyber crime. For further information please speak to your Barclays Business Manager and more details about how to be cyber smart can be found here.

Leave a commentBusiness Tips, Small businessesadvice, business owner, cybersecurity, small business

5 Ways Business Continuity Plans Improve Profitability

As the manager of a business, no one understands or cares more about the success of your company. That’s why having business continuity in place should be a priority, not just because it’s best practice but because it’s good for your bottom line as well.

Last week was Business Continuity Awareness Week (16th and 20th May) and aimed to help businesses identify the potential returns on investment achievable from business continuity planning. As Information Technology (IT) is a key resource for many businesses this is a good time to review the IT Continuity element of your plans. The benefits of such a review is related to disaster recovery planning and future survival of the business; however it also includes potential increases in profitability through the identification of cost savings, efficiency gains and increased sales opportunities.

What is Business Continuity?

“..loosely defined as the capability of the organisation to continue delivery of products or services at acceptable predefined levels following a disruptive incident.”

(Source: ISO 22301:2012)

What are Disruptive Incidents?

Loss of Buildings or Utilities
Loss of access to Facilities, Equipment & Consumables
Loss of access to Information Communication Technology (ICT) Systems (Voice & Data)
Loss of access to Information and Data
Inability to source or access Emergency Finance
Loss of Partners, Suppliers and Supplies

This year alone, businesses have experienced disruption due to flooding, storms, fires, power cuts and cyber crime. Would your business be able to continue delivery of products or services at acceptable predefined levels following a disruptive incident? If you don’t yet have a plan to cover all eventualities your business is at risk and could benefit from a Business Continuity Plan.

Here are 5 ways that Business Continuity Plans Reduce Risk and Improve Profitability

1.Improve efficiency, develop systems for growth and use resources to increase revenue

Considering the effects of all potentially disruptive incidents relevant to your business and the risk they present involves reviewing business processes. This often reveals opportunities for cost savings and greater efficiencies.

A key area is in the use of new IT platforms and applications. Greater IT efficiencies means lower labour costs and better time management. Wouldn’t you prefer to spend more time with your clients and less time managing IT?

2. Become a more competitive supplier

Prepared businesses are more competitive to win contract awards and grow revenues.

If your business is part of a supply chain, or customers can choose between you and your competitors, you need to have a plan; one that will help you even if you don’t experience a disaster.

Government regulations or contractual obligations mean that to trade with certain time-critical Government functions, as well as supply chain driven industries such as the oil and gas sector and the manufacturing industry, having a tried and tested BCP is a must if you do not want to risk losing your customers and/or your license to operate.

Many organisations now require critical suppliers down the supply chain to have a BCP. So even if you’re a catering supplier, a construction company, a transport supplier or a cleaning company, you can be critical to your customers.

And BCPs are not just valuable to businesses whose customers are other businesses (B2B). Even consumers can be interested in your ability to continue providing products and services no matter what happens. Why not use the existence of your BCP to convince your customers that they are in good hands? This strategy can be applied to numerous sectors, in particular those where health and well-being are at stake, such as hospitality and catering, food suppliers, security providers and utilities.

3. Enhance your reputation and increase resilience

Having detailed plans in place for “the big bang” can also make a business stronger against the far more regular, minor mishaps of everyday life. Responsiveness to small incidents will improve exponentially, considering staff will have a stronger “what if” mind-set, making themselves and the company more resilient and enhancing your reputation.

4. Secure Investment or Funding

Those with a financial interest in a business such as investors and banks are also concerned about a business being sustainable and its ability to continue to operate should adverse events occur. A business continuity plan can help prove the resilience of your company.

5. Lower Your Insurance Premiums

In a recent survey amongst brokers and insurers by the British Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA), 83.3% of the respondents said they would either offer a discount or improvement of the terms of business interruption policies, if companies had a plan.

Leave a commentBusiness Tips, Small businessesadvice, business continuity, business continuity awareness week, business owner, profitability

Be The Boss You’d Want To Work For

Being a good boss matters

We know that most people working in the UK (at least 60% of employees) aren’t engaged with their work. That means they’re less productive and more likely to leave their job. It’s an expensive situation for employers, but being a good boss can be a good way to start fixing it. So how do you become the boss that you’d want to work for?

Research by Gallup has shown that 81% of people would work better without a manager and that managers are preventing people performing to their full potential. This has led some to say that we should just get rid of all bosses. Perhaps that’s not right for your company, but it does seem that managers are often only needed for small proportion of the time and the rest of the time they’re simply getting in the way.

So how can you be the boss that you’d want to work for? A boss that would provide you with what you need when you needed it and not get in your way.

What does a great boss do?

Whether you run the company or are in your first management role, you can be a great boss. In fact, why wait to get promoted? There are lots of opportunities in organisations to take the lead without having to wait until you’re in a role where you officially manage people.

We’re all individuals and we’ll all be different bosses. That’s OK, it’s the outcomes that matter and it’s important that you manage in a style that’s true to you. So think about it: who’s the best boss you’ve ever had, and why were they so great?

For most people a good boss does some (and ideally all) of the following:

Helps them achieve their goals
Gives them the freedom to work in a way that works for them
Gives them responsibility and supports them to take it
Is clear about what the company is trying to achieve
Is open and honest
Listens to them
Gives them credit when it goes right and helps them learn from their mistakes when it doesn’t
Tells them when they’re doing a great job (and also when they’re not)

It all sounds quite simple doesn’t it. But my experience is that many bosses become very different people in the workplace to the humans that they are outside. Something weird often happens to us when we take responsibility for managing other people. Now’s the time to bring you “the boss” and “the real you” closer together.

Make the change

I’m not suggesting it’s easy to change your behaviour, especially when you may have been doing the same things for some time. But you’re more likely to change what you do if you can see someone else demonstrating the behaviour that you want to copy. Seek them out. Watch what they do and how they do it. Then practice doing things differently and see what different results you get.

And whilst it can often be embarrassing to admit to our team that we don’t know everything and aren’t as great as we’d like to be at something (especially when that something is being a boss), by showing that you’re aware of your weaknesses and by asking for their feedback and support for your efforts to change, you’ll build a very different kind of relationship with the team which will start you on the way to being the boss that you’d want to work for.

Some say the way you tend to manage people reflects the way you were treated by your very first manager? What was your first boss like? And have you copied them?

Leave a commentBlog, Business Tips, Small businessesbusiness owner, employees, manager, small business, work environment

Why Bother With A Sales Process

If you put the phrase “sales process” into the source of all wisdom which is Google, you will get a whole load of smartly titled materials pop up. Anything from the 7 steps of the sales process explained, 5 crucial sales process step to a bunch of serious looking diagrams. When you look it up on Wikipedia it throws this smart sounding sentence at you: “A sales process is an approach to selling a product or service. The sales process has been approached from the point of view of an engineering discipline”.

Whilst I do not doubt that reading many of these articles, examples, case studies and e-books will help improve your sales revenue I doubt that you have the time or inclination to do so. After all sales just happen don’t they? It’s all about common sense, a good product, sound reputation and a bit of luck, isn’t it?

I agree that many of the above elements are important to make sales happen (not so sure about the luck bit though). However, having a sales process can really help make sure that you keep repeating all these good strategies that help you win business and take out elements that have not worked in the past. In fact here is a whole list of things for which it can be useful:

It can help you train new team members faster
Measuring results become a lot easier
Productivity can be improved by cutting out unnecessary fluff
Additional touches can be added to improve conversion rate
It can really improve your customer retention

So the reason you should bother with a sales process is that it takes away the trial and error element of sales and helps you systemise all that in your experience has brought in sales in the past to make sure they happen more often.

Even more important is the potential to improve your customer retention. As most customers leave due to indifference, not ensuring that you demonstrate the value you offer leaves them to decide on price alone. Couple this with the fact that up selling is much easier than selling to a new prospect and you can see how important it is to have an after sale plan.

To get your sales process up and running consider the following:

Write down all steps you take between first engaging with a prospect to making a sale and ongoing communication with your clients
Emphasise the actions you take and consider writing scripts, list of actions and written communications which can be repeated
Write it with another, new member of your team point of view in mind
Get someone else to read through and comment on how easy it is to follow

So, to summarise, developing as sales process for your business is well worth the effort as it will definitely make a difference to your conversion and retention rates. Follow my suggested steps to help you make a start and develop it further based on your unique process. Most importantly, make sure you and your team follow the process once designed consistently to see the benefit.

What do you see as the biggest challenge for your business in terms of sales process?

Leave a commentMarketing, Sales, Small businessesmarketing plan, marketing process, sales process, sales retention

Why all businesses need a website in 2016

How many times a day do you go on the internet? We bet that the amount of time you spend online has significantly increased over the past few years, right? The explosion of the online world has been felt across all industries and now almost everyone has a smartphone, tablet or some form of device that enables them to access the internet at any time, in any location. The internet is full of huge opportunities, but it also opens up the market to a high number of competitors for the services you provide. You need to be on top form to fight off the competition, but even with these technological advances, a lot of business still DON’T have the number one tool; a website which delivers results.

Does your business have a great website? If not, why not? We commonly hear the excuse that a business “doesn’t think it’s a worthwhile investment” or that it’s simply not worth the money. Well then here are our top reasons as to why it could be the best investment your business will make.

Do you want to attract new customers and increase sales?
If you are trying to run a successful business, then we hope the answer to this question is a loud YES. To do this you need somewhere to direct potential customers to and a container to hold all of the information about your products/ services. Think of it as an online brochure with the ability to reach a global audience without the hard work of manually posting one through every door! Without a decent website that appeals to your target market, they will simply move onto one of your competitors.

How do you market your business?
The internet isn’t all about having your own website, of course this is the first (and biggest) step, but you need to get out there and promote it online. Social media, email marketing, blog there’s a vast variety of online marketing tools available out there, but these all need to point back to a website. There’s no point tweeting about your fantastic new product, if you can’t include a link for someone to read more information about it.
Who are you?
We all know that the best way of securing new business is via word of mouth, but since the internet became such a huge thing, an extra step was added to this; Google. It’s pretty common for someone to Google a company name to check them out before deciding whether to make contact or not. If you haven’t got a website, how will they find you or how to contact you?

Convinced yet? If not, just try Googling some of your products or services and see just how many of your competitors have a website.

Websites don’t have to be a burden to your business, with the right website developer; it can be a simple and stress-free process that leaves you with an efficient, appealing online sales tool that helps to drive your business development.

Leave a commentMarketing, Small businesses, Websitesonline, small businesses, web design, websites