News and Views

Finding new customers can be time-consuming and expensive, with a new-customer campaign generating only around 5% of sales at best, and nothing at worst. So how can you ramp up your new-customer campaign to get the best results? 1. Get skills. Invest in skills to take best advantage of each opportunity: read more business or …

“Blood is thicker than water” is a common saying about families and working with family members can be a great idea. Family members can very often be more dedicated to the job as they may have a vested interest in the business, and as you know them well they can be an obvious choice to …

April 2017 is almost upon us, and for most of our clients this marks the beginning of a new financial year. Annual Questionnaires In the next couple of weeks, we will be sending out our annual questionnaire emails. These provide a link for you to log in and fill out our online annual questionnaire.  We …

Activity is the only way to increase sales. Without sales, your business is dead. There is one way to create sales, and that is by activity. No activity, no sales, so here are 3 things to look at to increase your activity: 1. Create a pipeline.  Make a list of all of your customers. When …

Finding new customers can be time-consuming and expensive, with a new-customer campaign generating only around 5% of sales at best, and nothing at worst. So how can you ramp up your new-customer campaign to get the best results? 1. Get skills. Invest in skills to take best advantage of each opportunity: read more business or …

Working from home is convenient, comfortable and typically less stressful than doing so in an office environment, but that doesn’t mean it’s free of challenges. For instance, many people who work in their homes have a difficult time staying focused, as there’s nothing stopping them from indulging in any number of distractions over the course …

Have you ever sat in a coffee shop on a lazy Sunday morning reading the paper, thinking you would really like another coffee but can’t be bothered to get up and order it? The result is that you don’t bother, and so the coffee shop loses your sale. How different would your experience be if …

“Number one, cash is king… number two, communicate… number three, buy or bury the competition”. Jack Welch How often do you look at your cash flow? Profit does not equal cash, but when sales are buoyant and business is booming, you may not even be thinking about how much ready cash you have in the …

The “stop doing” list is a way to more effectively allocate the most precious of all resources: time. It’s possibly more beneficial than the to-do list. It’s about this time of year that businesses plot out their strategy for the coming year: they determine what direction they want to go in, what they want to …

Do you like to give gifts of chocolate, wine, sweets or other edible goodies to your customers, suppliers or contacts? This is a great way to say thanks, or just to show you care. Well, Inland Revenue just made gifts of food or drink a little more expensive. Starting from 1st September 2016, Inland Revenue’s …