For the small business or novice entrepreneur, finances are usually rather tight and you have to watch every pound that you spend on training and advice. So, where can you get high quality advice about matters related to your business? Well, although its often said that there are no 'free lunches', the internet does provide numerous free resources for your business.
One great source of free advice that is also high quality is podcasts. Now iTunes is the king of podcasts, so that's a great place to start. If you visit the iTunes site you will not only find great business-related podcasts in the general podcast area but there is also something called iTunes U. This stands for iTunes University and here you will find dozens of universities from around the world sharing course materiel, including lectures for free. A wide variety of subjects er covered, including business, finance and marketing. Example podcasts would be "Building a Business" by Oxford University. This is a series of audio podcasts covering good business practice basics and although has a science entrepreneurship focus, it has much that is relevant to general business practice.
Another example is "Web 2.0 Marketing Communications" by HEC Paris. This offers an introduction to the changing practice of marketing communications and covers word of mouth marketing, buzz marketing, social networking marketing, blogging and podcasting.
So why not check them out and see what is of interest to you. After all its free and comes from some of the best universities in the world!
Well, its been an interesting month or so as regards the progress of our business (www.newbeltanetechmedia.co.uk) and I thought I'd share some of the things that have been happening and that I have learnt along the way.
Every business needs to market itself in order to find customers: marketing leads to customers leads to sales leads to profits. That's the theory, but how to make it happen in reality? Now, I have to say a bit about my background here, in order to make a point or two, and I hope it will be relevant.
Having worked in the non-profit sector for many years I have had to engage in marketing, promoting the work of the charities I have been employed by. Our customers were not just the people we provided services for, but also other stake-holders such as supporters, donors, statutory bodies, grant-making Trusts and local businesses. Each one of these expected and required different kinds of information and levels of detail. Some of this we provided in application forms for grants, some in our annual reports and other publicity material, some via our web-site and some in face to face meetings where we pitched for support.
I did once study for my Certificate in Management Studies (and passed!) at the City College in Norwich, but the course wasn't just about marketing.
Now, I wasn't trained as a marketing professional and as with many charities (at least here in the UK), I learnt "on the job" and did the best I could through networking, the odd course and by seeing what worked and what didn't. Sometimes we paid professionals to help us (such as in designing our annual reports) but mostly we did it "in-house". As you can imagine, sometimes it worked, sometimes it failed. Trouble is, we never had the time (or skills) to work out why.
This is perhaps the biggest problem facing the small business or novice entrepreneur - the lack of time. We are so busy trying to get our business off the ground that we lack time to sit back and take a strategic view and look at what works and why. So, you might ask, how do we do it? Well, we could make more time, by not doing things that are not really necessary and which we instinctively know contribute little to the business. We can work more efficiently by streamlining processes in our business and we can make sure our employers (and any contractors we engage) work as efficiently as possible when working for us.
So, what's been happening with marketing as regards our business? Firstly, I decided to start again from scratch. Almost from day one I had used online marketing to try and garner customers and grow sales and it had worked. Very quickly sales went from a handful to around 60 a month of our main product, the hField Wi-Fire High Gain WiFi Adapter. Not a huge number but nevertheless significant. The picture, from a marketing point of view, was complicated however.
I had originally started off with selling via my personal eBay account and a self-designed web-site on my own domain (www.newbeltane.com). The web-site used a shopping cart that was a Rapidweaver plug-in (Cartloom) and there were problems with it. One was the design; basically it didn't work from the customers point of view and secondly the plug-in couldn't cope with discount codes (it was supposed to but the developers didn't seem to understand the problem and didn't resolve it - big problem!).
So, I made the leap to BigCommerce for my online store and also to becoming a business seller on eBay with an eBay store. I also began using GoogleAdWords and eBay's own version of AdWords - AdCommerce. Both of these brought in significant visitors to both my eBay store and my BigCommerce store and that's how sales increased to around 60 a month of the Wi-Fire and a smaller number of sales of other products. However, it was starting to cost me, around £250 a month and I needed to either get sales up significantly or reduce my online marketing spend. Ideally, both!
So, I took the step of stopping all online campaigns with AdWords and AdCommerce to see what happened. Guess what, sales dropped significantly to around 30 (a 50% fall). However, my marketing spend also dropped to zero so the effects on profits was positive. The exact impact will be something I will look at in more detail at a later date.
So, what next? Well, having read up on online marketing strategies and looked at some detail at SEO and talked to an SEO agency I have come to some conclusions:
It's important to understand what works and what doesn't when it comes to online ads - you need to test different keywords compare conversion rates
You need to use negative keywords to improve your click-through and conversion rates
You need to focus on your most profitable product(s) and market them
You need to constantly be learning from others - read widely on the web (it's free!) and test, test and test again
Look at your marketing - does it talk about features rather than benefits? If so, replace text that does so with text that talks about benefits - how will your product or service benefit your customers?
That's it for today folks. I will share more soon about other lessons I have learnt and how I have changed my marketing strategy and its impact on my business.
Starting out in business is stressful enough in an of itself but one area that generates more stress than most s that of finance. If you are rich or have lots of spare cash then its probably not an issue. However, for the average entrepreneur, its a major issue.
For myself, it was the biggest issue and the greatest hurdle to overcome. I had no ideas coming up with ideas and over the years i have tried various things.Most never got beyond the first stage, i.e., dreaming about some great business idea that would make me, if not rich, at least as no worse-off than I was working for someone else. Some got a bit further, like the time I started out as a freelance photo-journalist. I put together a great portfolio, visited magazines and publishers and got myself some commissions. Despite persuading my bank manager to give me a line of credit (overdraft, business credit card etc), I eventually hit upon that big hurdle that we all face... cash flow. Unfortunately, the ups and downs of the work and the lack of finance meant that I was soon over-burdened by debt. I couldn’t afford to ride out the ups and downs of commissions and I was also penny-pinching, not able to invest in the equipment I needed, or promotion & marketing my business. Soon I had to go back to my old job of nursing and that meant even less time available for promoting myself etc.
Eventually, I had to abandon the dream of being a world-famous photo-journalist, all because of insufficient finance, as well as others reasons, but that was the man one.
So, what about this time? Well, this time I managed to find myself a ‘business angel’ who gave me start-up finance and is supporting me in the early stages of the business. Its not a huge amount of money but it has managed to get the business started by paying for the all-important stock and initial marketing & promotion. Now I need to secure more substantial funding and that will probably mean approaching my bank. I’d like to think that out there are some grants I could tap into but as yet I haven’t found them.
However, one thing have found very helpful is Business Link. They offer a range of advice services, helpful leaflets and documents, seminars and workshops, most of them free of charge. They also offer support and encouragement. They cover topics such as tax, VAT, marketing, health & safety, importing goods, exporting goods, environmental and efficiency issue etc. Well worth a visit and I recommend speaking with them before you even set out on the road to setting up your business so that you get the right help and advice. After all, if you make a mistake then it could be expensive to put it right. By networking through Business Link you will meet others who are in the same boat as you. You may think of them as competitors but they could also be customers, or possibly even partners.
As regards finance, they will be able to point you in the right direction too. As well as speaking to your local Business Link staff, also speak with your bank manager before you start out as they usually have a business advisor who will help you work through the questions you should be asking yourself, as well as offering discounts on services and usually, free banking for 12 - 18 months.
If you are a young person (aged 18 - 30) the Prince’s Trust may help with grants, advice and support. If you're unemployed, they can to help you set up in business. You could also qualify for a low-interest loan, regular help from a business mentor and more.
Government grants may be available, depending on your location and business idea. Again, check out the Business Link site.
So, in finishing, let me say that getting the finance right is perhaps the most important aspect to making your business a success. Pay more attention to this area than almost any other because it will be the key to your success (or failure). Good luck and be sure to share your experiences.
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