Lite Night Liverpool returns  14^th – 18^th May

This is a fantastic opportunity for businesses to throw open their doors and invite trade to come in the evening and a great way for residents to explore something new about the city.  I attended last year and walked right to the top of the Anglican Cathedral.  The twighlight view was spectacular  There will be parties, poetry, prose, crafts and more on the night.  I believe that Steve McFarlane will be putting on an event at Gourmet Coffee.  More info from:    http://www.lightnightliverpool.co.uk/2012/the-programme-is-out/ .

Sound City now in its 6th year is holding an expo on 18^th May.   The event will not only be for music lovers but also there will be a conference and industry exhitition.  For More info see:  http://www.liverpoolsoundcity.co.uk/expo

If you would like to discuss your business and  creative industries please contact me:

gill@escata.co.uk.  T.   07988 616 704.

Alcohol free days at Brink Liverpool © Alexshebanov | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

Brink, Liverpool’s alcohol free bar which was the first of its type to open in the UK may be onto a winner for if alcohol free days become the norm.  The Public Health Service launched 8 payments by results pilots for drug and alcohol treatment services at the end of 2011.   Suzanne Quinney from Appreciating People will talk about her  unique resilience  programme for speeding up the return to independent living following treatment for drug and alcohol recovery at the Chartered Institute of Housing Conference, 12^th -24^th June, Manchester Central.   More information from:  www.appreciatingpeople.co.uk

Creative Industries

Lite Night Liverpool returns  14^th – 18^th May

This is a fantastic opportunity for businesses to throw open their doors and invite trade to come in the evening and a great way for residents to explore something new about the city.  There will be parties, poetry, prose, crafts and more on the night.  More info from:   http://www.lightnight.co.uk/liverpool.php

Sound City now in its 6th year is holding an expo on 18^th May.  The event will not only be for music lovers but also there will be a conference and industry exhitition.  For More info see:  http://www.liverpoolsoundcity.co.uk/expo

If you would like to discuss the public health or creative industries please contact me:

gill@escata.co.uk.  T.   07988 616 704.

Key points I learned on the class were:

1. Have a name for your Facebook (This was my first action point.)
2. Update at regular intervals (for many working people this is first thing in the morning)
3. Know what you want to get out of Facebook (i.e. have a SMART Goal.)
4. Have a strategy for achieving the aims.
5. Social media is a TWO way channel

Businesses are starting to see Facebook as ‘another marketing channel to be considered as part of their mix’.  No longer is it the sole preserve of young people chatting to their friends.  Social media is more of a ‘water well’ than a ‘market place’ a place for companionship, interest, opinion, light news and humour.

It’s an uncomplicated media because it’s easy to use, doesn’t require high-end technology or time and can be updated relatively quickly – perfect for start-ups and she’s.  Large corporations are also using Facebook for engaging with their audience.

Communications on Facebook won’t be seen by anyone unless you have an audience.  New businesses – and people new to using Facebook for business (me) need to build their audiences. Once someone has ‘liked’ your page, they are your audience and messages posted on Facebook will be posted directly to their pages.   So my next task is to build an audience.

Over the last twenty years entrepreneurs have seized business start opportunities because they could see a need or had a market to which they could provide goods and services.   Phil Redmond said that the development of the fourth channel on television ‘Channel 4’ provided him with a market. That market was one person – the commissioning editor of ITV4.  I expect that communication with that editor was through meetings and relationship building.  Businesses are often in the business of selling to a few selected customers meaning that Facebook may not be their top priority but where appropriate it can  be used to enrich relationships and I’m  the important thing  is to understand the favoured media of  your target audience for communications and make sure that you can reach them through this channel.

Examples from ‘How They Started’ shows that it comes from:   seeking the right opportunities and being ready to act on them when they are presented.  Determination, knowledge and flair (being able to use personal strengths) are great qualities for success.

Test your knowledge of  ’How they started.’

1. Who started Glasses Direct?
2. What was the first product produced by Vitabiotics?
3. Who said  (or which company did he start? ) , ‘Back in England, I just couldn’t find a pizza – not even Italian restaurants did them?

answers on:  www.facebook.com/gillhunt.escata

If you want to grow your business here are some considerations:

1.  Have customers/evidence of customer’s intention to buy.

2. Have a business plan

3. Know what you plan to achieve using the funding

4.  Identify a range of business funding options

5. Be ready to build a two way relationship with your business funder

Customers are the lifeblood of any business and attraction and retention of customers is one of the most important things a business seeking growth should do.  See further down the page for more information.

Have a business plan – This indicates what  you intend to do with your business.  A document which has been thought out by you mapping your intended route to reach the goals and objectives of the business.

Know what you plan to achieve using the funding

I have observed some businesses, p articularly in the days when grants were available applying for funding and not being clear about what they would do with the funding. It would be highly unusual for an investor or lender to provide funds when they were not clear about i how those funds would be utilised.

Identify a range of funding options

Those who prepare to succeed are more likely to succeed.  There are many sources of funding and by considering several options there is a higher likelihood of success.  Funders tend to have specific criteria which they can work with and institutions such as banks can be prevented from being flexible through regulatory procedures.  Therefore by identifying the lending/funding criteria of various types of organisation you will be ablel to approach those which are interested in your particular proposition.

Possible options to consider:

 Organic funding

In this option a revenue stream is created to fund future development projects.  E.g. a training organisation may deliver basic training courses for which there is a large market e.g. for clients to comply with new legislation.  Income from this enterprise could be used to fund a new training course where new participants need to be recruited and marketing materials developed.e.g.  Income earned from part time casual working could be used to fund initial investment into a business to secure office premises etc.

Overdraft

Prior agreement with a bank on the level of overdraft can represent an economic way of funding short term cash flow dips.  It is flexible and once the agreement is in place can be managed easily.

Relatives

Relatives who may have built up wealth over their life time may be interested in lending money to a project which can   provide them with a return on their investment in an agreed period of time or offer them an interest in helping with development of the business. If you are very lucky there may be relatives who are so sure of your ability that they will lend without requiring security or legal arrangements. Relatives may also wish for a controlling stake in the business in return for the funding and you may wish to consider the upside and downside of this.

Bank loan

If you are seeking a bank loan a business plan will be of help in showing that you are able to forecast cash flow, have regular management meetings and have a plan for repaying the bank loan.  Banks usually like to share the risk of their loan and so may ask for some form of security on the money they lend.

High Street banks are currently offering the small business loan which is for any amount between £1,000 and £25,000 with repayment terms from 1-10 years.  These loans are flexible and there are no penalties for early repayment.

Banks are also willing to offer loans for up to £1million towards working capital, refurbishment, property development, new machinery or equipment.  These are like a mortgage and applications will be subject to status.  This means that the applicants risk status and past performance will be taken into account.  With this type of loan property offered as security may be repossessed if payments are not kept up to date.

Angel investment

Angel investors come into the same category as relatives, but in this case the agreement is likely to be much more formal.  Angels are usually business people who have already been successful in their own right and have accumulated sufficient wealth to have reserve funds which they choose to invest in other people’s business.  This is similar to the principal of investing in public limited companies. Some Angels are arm’s length and are purely interested in the financial proposition although this type of angel is unlikely to invest in an early stage company due to the high risk factor.  An Angel who wants to become a shadow director is likely to live within a two hour drive of the investment company.

Factoring

unpaid invoices can be used as short term finance where staff salaries and wages may need to be paid on a regular basis.

Microfinance loans

These have been pioneered by Garmeen Bank in India who believed that poor people would make every effort to pay back loans if given access to finance.  The concept is now being used on a wider scale with initiatives to start in the UK shortly.

Whichever type of funding you are interested in, your project is more likely to meet success where you can demonstrate the following:

A well-considered business plan –

Investors and funders look for potential that they can invest in.  This could be Management and leadership experience or potential or innovation potential. They usually judge this from meeting and discussing your proposal with you, however many investors will ask for a business plan or business an executive summary to be submitted before meeting with you so that they can make an outline judgement on your investment readiness.  This will usually include some of the following:

Market information

size of market, potential of market, how you will target the market.

Customer profiles – Descriptions of the target group/groups of customers

Evidence of sales If the company is a trading company then a record customer purchases even for new companies is of importance to funders as it is usually the revenue stream from customers which will be used to either pay back a loan or increase the value of the company for investors seeking a pay-out at exit stage.  Where large projects are the product or service to be developed then evidence of customers expressing an interest in the product or service and willingness to participate in development.

Clear aims and objectives – stating short term, medium term and long term goals.

Gill was a business development manager at Liverpool Ventures which provided a deal pipeline to the Liverpool Seed Fund and these views are based on observations from the industry. *

If you are preparing for expansion and would like to discuss your business growth plan Gill is a registered coach with the High Growth Foundation, and a Chartered Marketer.

Tel. 07988 616 704.   e.  gill@escata.co.uk

The fact is that many real life entrepreneurs start a business on much less than this, however if capital is required to acquire premises, equipment or payment of staff then financing the first year does take some thought. For this reason the development of micro-finance initiatives may provide some fluidity in the field.

If one looked at the business start scenario from a socio demographic point of view there are possibly two key life stages when people have the ability to make the entry into either employing themselves or employing others. The key times are at the beginning of a career when there are still opportunities to pursue other careers if the business does not take off or following a successful industry career when life skills and contacts are possibly at a peak and a mortgage which is nearly paid off reduces the financial risk for the would be entrepreneur.  It’s interesting to note that in industries where there is already a lot of sub contract labour such as construction it is very common to find self -employed people starting to be independent at varying stages in their work life.   Many of these people use wages earned from their trade to invest in equipment and springboard their business from a modest start.

Marketing has become very much more accessible and affordable for small business owners with the development of content managed websites, and proliferation of social media which can be used to interact with large numbers of people.  The opportunity to experiment in a relatively risk free way must be one of the factors making it more accessible than before to enter the world of self-employment or business ownership.  Guy Levine who spoke at a seminar at Business Northwest this week spoke about the number of channels which can be used by on line marketers highlighting the fact that Facebook is now offering a marketers dream – socio demographic targeting options.

I will become more familiar with face-book myself after attending one of Sam Flynn’s Facebook seminars later this week so watch out for more communications.

Gill Hunt provides consultancy for business growth and early stage business development.

How can chunks of information be remembered for use in your own work or life?  The answer is to get the information  into the long term memory. This is like putting it into a filing cabinet or a folder so that you can take it out when wanted.  For example if you had read a book which explained how a company had trebled their profits by increasing sales through creating the right lead generation and it explained how leads from interested prospects are followed up with appropriate levels of contact through phone, meetings  etc. until reciprocal communication leads to a sale, you may wish to put this into action for your own business?

Sometimes, we can remember that we’ve read about something – e.g. How to grow rich quickly, but can’t remember the details. In the marketing example above, we can remember that we’ve read about the concept e.g. marketing, but can’t remember the details. The information was read and processed in the short term memory but not processed into the long term memory. The short term memory loses information very quickly and the long term memory retains information for very long periods of time.  The other explanation for not being able to remember,  is that information may be in the long term memory but there’s no short cut to retrieving it.  Have you ever looked for a piece of information on the laptop and can’t find the folder it’s stored in?  The information was stored in a place where it cannot be found.

A form of processing which some people find helpful is concept mapping.  This helps to  order new information and  connect it to information you already hold in a meaningful way.  If the person wishing to remember information draws the concept map themselves,  they are more likely to retain the information than if they read someone else’s concept map i.e. if they have ‘processed’ the information themselves it helps it into the long term memory.

An example of a concept map is below.  The creator can draw arrow to make links for themselves.  A concept map is usually read from

the top downwards.

Mind-mapping is similar to concept mapping.

Try creating a concept map the next time you read a non-fiction book that you want to remember.

Concept maps were developed around 1970 by Joseph Novak.  For more information see:  http://www.stanford.edu/dept/SUSE/projects/ireport/articles/concept_maps/The%20Theory%20Underlying%20Concept%20Maps.pdf

Teams are made to achieve goals.  Think about a football team,  customer service team.

Are theatres and dance companies a creative group or a team, or are they a community?

- Artists, teachers and learners like to form communities to give each other support and help each other to grow.

Communities have values and members tend to self select for which communities they wish to belong to.  Generally membership of a community involves contributing in some form or other.

Which would you like to create in your organisation- teams, groups or communities.

Do you think that the culture in your organisation is right for the teams, groups or communities that you would like to create?

Should this vision be created by one person or by members of the team, group or community?

Gill is interested in company culture, group, team and community working and is available for discussion.

In this issue

Business Finance- Applications wanted for the £1m Echo Fund

Marketing challenges – the answers to decision making questions.

Growth opportunities

Innovation – beat the competition

Jamie Carragher creates a Liverpool team.

Applications are invited from companies who can show that matched funding will bring more jobs to Merseyside.   The fund is a grant which should be matched by the businesses own contribution.  The fund is part of the £2.4 bn Regional Growth Fund and is managed by the Liverpool Echo in conjunction with Liverpool Vision.   Applications require a 400 word outline of how the grant funding will be used if successful.  For more information see:  http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/in-the-mix/2012/02/02/get-your-share-of-the-1m-liverpool-echo-business-booster-fund-to-transform-your-business-100252-30243231/

How to make an impact with your marketing. 

#Tip1.

Hold a brainstorming meeting.

Marketing is part art and part science and ideas are essential.   Brainstorming is one way to enhance creativity.

#Tip 2

Great design gives marketing an edge

We rely on emotions more than we think to make decisions and design can influence emotions – see http://youtu.be/1wup_K2WN0I

#Tip 3

Be creative within the budget

Marketing  feeds sales and sales feeds business  success so you need to think creatively about getting the most out of your budget or if the budget is lower than you want how you can lever resources for marketing.  Have you spoken to suppliers?

#Tip 4

As well as social media don’t forget tried and tested media which can help you reach large audiences quickly.

Twitter has around 175m registered users which is a huge number, but the reach is as large as your network.

For fast reach – think about purchasing space in a well  established  channel  such as local newspaper.  You may get over 75,000 views IN ONE DAY.

Social media today is at the top of people’s agenda.  These are important communication channels and especially accessible to SME’s as the main requirement for using them is having an ability to build a relationship with your audience and time to keep up with current affairs and interact on Twitter and Facebook.  However sometimes a company may want to reach a large audience quickly or may wish to combine Twitter and Facebook with other forms of media.

A combination of using tried and tested media and creative planning can bring good results, for example I produced a campaign recently which was published in Mersey-mart.  In one day this reached over  75,000 readers.  Another thing to do is to purchase advertising on sites where there is a lot of traffic as this can drive visitors to your own site.

Many people ask where to start with marketing.  Usually it starts with the customer.  Your choice will be based on target audience,  e.g. consumers lifestyle choice, income bracket and motivations, or if the audience is CEO’s, finding the most appropriate way to reach them.

Design really does make a difference in marketing and a good design will attract attention in the right way.   Design  will be influenced by the type of message,   for example if the campaign is to launch a new product in a competitive market it will need to attract attention first, if the campaign is to inform people about something which they may need to consider carefully then a  longer amount of words will give more information to the decision makers, not forgetting that  psychological research  has found that the majority of large decisions are emotion based – so don’t forget the use of good design in your communications.   Budgets have an annoying way of limiting the scope to have the campaign of your dreams so realistically you may be faced with having to make some tough decisions.

The best way to plan the campaign is to start with the objectives, decide which part of your market the campaign is aimed at plan which products/services should be marketed.

Although marketing planning is a theoretical process it can often be helped by starting with a brainstorming meeting to get creative juices flowing in the groups concerned.

If you would like to consult on any of these areas please contact me.  www.escata.co.uk

gill@escata.co.uk

Start to Grow – growth opportunities.

Look for ways of introducing FAIR TRADE policies into your business or incorporating FAIRTRADE products into your range.

Estimated sales of Fair-trade products reached a 12% increase in sales from 2010 – 2012.  This is a growing market.

For more information see:  http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/press_office/press_releases_and_statements/february_2012/responsible_capitalism.aspx

Last minute resources

Do you sometimes need help for projects at short notice.

Gain undergraduate help when temporary staff are needed.  I used this service for an exhibition last year and was very pleased with the staff sent.   This is run from Liverpool John Moors University and a quick phone call will enable them to identify the type of student you are looking for:

e. Liverpool@theworkbank.co.uk

Innovation  link up

The Wilson Report (Feb 2012) recommends that Government works with LEP and universities to enhance the supply chain for research, innovation and skills.  These are key factors in the growth of businesses and organisations as innovation can often be the key to achieving competitive advantage.  The report also recommends the re-introduction of University Innovation Vouchers – a scheme where companies can apply for academic input into innovation of products and services.   I know of several companies which took advantage of this scheme when it was available in 2009 enabling small companies which would not normally have the funding for such research to benefit from it.  The report also highlights the fact that universities have a role in introducing graduates to the concept of working in the SME sector and also providing a link to relevant work experience and development of key work skills.   More on this next time.

Jamie Carragher starts a creative team.

A unique viral video was produced by Anfield Infant Schools as part of the Global Entrepreneurship Schools Competition.  See:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZWDrGPd7EY&feature=youtube_gdata_playe

“Gillian has managed a complex project, developing and implementing marketing support for a group of SMEs, funded by the public sector. This entailed not only a creative approach to the core marketing project, but working with a diverse team of businesses, suppliers, local authority representatives and assorted other stakeholders, to tight deadlines and delivering an excellent outcome. Paul Chapman. ” February 22, 2012

“Gill was assigned as my new enterprise mentor. Upon meeting Gill we discussed and identified areas in which I needed support and put together an action plan to help me in these areas. Gill helped me identify my strong points and this strengthened my business plan. Gill was approachable and professional, communication between myself and Gill was consistent and by the end of the mentoring process I felt confident that I was ready to launch my business.

I would highly recommend Gill to any new start up’s looking for that extra knowledge and support in business management.” Ryan McGuinness.  January 2012

‘Gill is very good at keeping everyone informed and linking people together’  Stephen Nze, Tiber Youth Leadership Facilitator. December 2011

“Gill was recommended to us.  We had fun in her sessions but with that we found her to very personable, warm, knowledgeable and very supportive.  The things she taught us work!  Overall, I would say we have a better understanding of structure, processes and how to put things into practice.  Gill’s knowledge has helped us to work with more structure, by giving us ways of putting things into practise and helping our team members put these ideas into practice too.” Sharon Blaney, Pitman Training.  December 2011

“Gill has a lot of business knowledge. In my business I have really benefitted from her marketing expertise – I found her to be really helpful.  As a result,  I am far more organised with systems for my sales force.  Gill is very good, very approachable and because of that I have no hesitation in recommending her.  In fact, I have passed her number onto 4 or 5 contacts of mine.”  Phil Lynch, We Buy Houses.  December 2011

Having Gill on board as a project manager gives a different approach which has helped us focus our thoughts and efforts whilst gaining some common understanding. Gill helped us by soundproofing our ideas, giving us perspective and qualifying some of our own thought processes. For me personally, I found the way she explained concepts, particularly on branding, really helpful.

Gill has such a nice style which really comes to the fore in a facilitation role. She is very relaxed in her approach, is an excellent communicator and really helps people and so manages a group really well.” Nick Taylor.           e-blueprint. December 2011

click here to play soundListen to Steve Farragher from KVFM talking about increasing sustainability of the business.