Small Business Blog from Microsoft

Five steps to making a sale

Guest post from Emma Jones, Founder of Enterprise Nation and author of ‘Spare Room Start Up - how to start a business from home'.  

Without a sale we're not in business and ongoing sales will spur the business to grow. Emma Jones offers five steps on how to make a sale and keep the cash flowing.

Step 1: Prepare

Research, supply and demand, ie spend time looking at what the market wants and how you can supply this in a way that will set you apart from the crowd. Before making a first approach to the potential client, carry out a search so you're happy you have the right person, their correct name, and possibly a news item highlighting their demand eg a first note may be ‘Dear Andrew, having seen you quoted in a recent article in ABC press, I understand you are looking to move to new office premises. I am writing to introduce you to my interiors company ....'

Step 2: Present

Present the client proposition in a professional manner. This applies whether it be sending a first email (as above), distributing flyers or making a call to a prospect. Present the benefits of buying you and your product/service. How will it make the client's life easier/who else has bought/what does it cost/who can they call if interested. These are all useful points to cover in a first approach.

Step 3: Persist

There's a delicate line between persistence and becoming a pest! Saying that, unless your potential customer has an immediate need for what you offer on the day on which you make the approach, then it's likely you'll present yourself and then have to spend a bit of time following up. Submit the proposal, follow-up with a delicate prompt a week later and, if still no response, keep in regular contact with friendly emails and calls along the lines of ‘Hi, just like to keep you updated on what's happening here .. would love to do business with you when you're ready..'  

Step 4: Perform

You've won the gig! It's time to deliver on all the goodness sold and promises made. Perform to a high level so reality meets expectation. Along the way, check the new client is happy with the service they're receiving.

Step 5: Promote

Sales means testimonials and this leads to credibility. A growing roster of quality clients will give others the confidence to trade with you. Promote new sales and client wins; through a press release, via testimonials on the site, or social media such as Twitter.  

Taking these steps can be eased by using software such as Salesforce.com which keeps track of sales leads and the business development pipeline. Or, do what I do, which is to use an excel spreadsheet and a handwritten list that's regularly updated and always carried with me!

Enterprise Nation is racing to follow every home business on Twitter by Home Enterprise Day on Friday 20th November at www.twitter.com/e_nation.

Entrepreneur Doug Richard's business start-up top tips

Ex- Dragon's Den panel member and Doug Richard recently held a seminar at the British Library in London for all aspiring entrepreneurs, offering his six top start-up tips.

Here's a very brief summary of the start-up tips he discussed - it's well worth reading the full story because he offers pertinent, relevant advice.

• How attractive is my product to my customer? You might think is absolutely wonderful but that's not the point - you need others to think  so too or you won't sell anything.
• How attractive is the market to me? Do you want to earn a fortune, slave every hour of the day, or carve a lifestyle?
• Can I sustain my advantage? What makes you better than your competitors?
• How attractive is my industry? Are you entering an already crowded marketplace?
• Do we have the skills and experience? The secret of success is to hire really good people
• How connected are we? You need to get out and about and make your presence felt.

Food for thought!

Related posts: Be better than your competitors;

Firm's recession roller coaster ride.

There's an interesting story on the BBC website today on how a small retail business is not just coping but succeeding in the recession by adapting to market changes. Like every other business owner, Carl Bradley, owner of a computer and TV shop n Eastbourne, East Sussex, experienced a drastic fall in sales and income last year and was forced to put expansion plans (plus new home) on hold to adjust to the falling economy.

With some clever strategic changes to the stock he holds and brining new lines, he is now seeing the benefits. A flexible business model, using contractors instead of employees, also gives the business room to manoeuvre. Read the story in full: Firm's recession roller coaster ride.

Team Green Britain – let’s go for green in 2012

July 10 is the first Green Britain Day – an initiative sponsored by EDF energy, the first sustainability partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games as part of the lead-up to the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

 

EDF Energy is encouraging people, including schools around Britain, to ‘do something green for the team’ on Green Britain Day, creating a wave of tangible action across Britain.

 

People are invited to join Team Green Britain, a community aimed at harnessing the power of collective action. Developed in association with the Eden Project, the website suggests new actions to take on Green Britain Day. The innovative website features five areas of interest – Home and Garden, Food, Lifestyle, Travel and Money – with teams within each, offering practical and effective ways to live lower carbon lives. Team Green Britain will provide ongoing support to help people make long-term, low-carbon lifestyle changes on the journey to 2012 and beyond.

 

Team Green Britain is about encouraging all of us – at home, work, or play, to make a positive difference and show the world that Britain is leading the fight against climate change. You can learn more and get involved here: http://www.teamgreenbritain.org/home.

Ask the Expert: Hosted technology is affordable and hassle-free

Our 'Ask the Expert' question for June is answered by Ann Merrick, Managing Director of Infineo, a Microsoft Partner and Small Business Specialist.

The question is: We're a small group of busy people trying to grow our business as quickly as possible. We're conscious that we need to use technology to help achieve this, but we haven't got the expertise or the time to get too involved in that side of things. And we don't really want to hire an in-house IT specialist right now. Is there a low-cost, low-hassle answer?
Ann talks through the benefits of hosted technology for small businesses who perhaps don't have the skills or the time to get too involved in technology and don't have the resources to hire an in-house expert, but who nevertheless understand that they need to have the technology to back up their business offering.
"As long as you have broadband connectivity, there are enormous benefits to be gained by setting up a ‘virtual office' - using software which lives online instead of on your PC. Firstly, this means you don't have to be in the same place as your colleagues to collaborate with them effectively - some companies even dispense with traditional office buildings altogether. Equally important for any smaller operation, the virtual office reduces the expense of your technology because you simply ‘rent' what you need.
 
"By combining several server technologies in this way under one Microsoft licence, hosted Small Business Server offers small businesses like yours the best of both worlds - a business workhorse to keep pace with your expansion, plus very welcome cost savings. A virtual office based on hosted solutions also means that someone else takes care of your IT - allowing you to get on with running your business."

Read the article in full: Hosted technology based on SBS is affordable and hassle-free and find out more from Infineo.

Related posts: Subscribe to online hosted services and cut overheads: Ask the Experts: Cloud computing and mobile working

Is business the secret to a long life?

Guest post from Emma Jone, Founder of Enterprise Nation and author of ‘Spare Room Start Up - how to start a business from home'.  

Many studies are carried out on the number of people starting businesses and the success of those ventures but few researchers have investigated whether business is the secret to a long and healthy life. Emma Jones offers a few examples that point to a connection.

Celebrating a centenary

It was two recent insertions in the Obituaries column that got me thinking about this idea of business leading to a long life. The insertions marked the passing away of two great businessmen; Daniel Carasso, founder of Danone, the world's leading yoghurt maker, and Wall Street veteran Albert Hamilton Gordon, who rebuilt investment banking firm Kidder Peabody after the crash. Mr Carsso was 103. Al Hamilton Gordon was 107.

What I'm suggesting is that their business was very much responsible for keeping them going until a ripe old age. It gave a reason to get up each morning, with both men still very much involved in the running of the business until literally the day they died.

Saying that, when questioned at the age of 103, Al Hamilton Gordon said:

"My longevity I attribute to, number one, excessive exercise!"

The feature reports:

‘On business trips to Los Angeles, he would carry his own bags -- from the airport to downtown, walking all 18 miles. At 82, he ran the London Marathon -- and finished in a little more than six hours.'  

The young kid on the block  

Looking almost youthful in comparison, and still very much alive, Gerald Ronson was recently profiled and praised for his stamina and ongoing business success:  

"The 70 year old has no plans to moderate his workload, which still consists of six and a half days a week, more than 12 hours a day, and with regular travel across the nine countries in his £1.5bn development programme'

In his own words, Ronson said:

"I have more energy at 70 than two 35 year olds. I have no intention of slowing down or retiring. I don't do what I do for the money. I do it because I enjoy it."

And I guess, at the end of the day, this is the crux. It's doing something you enjoy that gives the energy to stay alive. That, plus a little exercise on the side!

Enterprise Nation is racing to follow every home business on Twitter by Home Enterprise Day on Friday 20th November at www.twitter.com/e_nation

 

 

 

National Enterprise Network launches Home Enterprise Week 6-10 July

More than 60% of small businesses are now started from home and an estimated 8 million people will earn an income from home this year alone. In recognition of this growing business trend, NFEA - the national enterprise network, has launched the first ever Home Enterprise Week, running from the 6 - 10 July.

To raise awareness of home based business, NFEA will be providing comment and opinion on a national scale during the NFEA Home Enterprise Week to draw attention to home business topics, issues and opportunities. Plus, tailored events will be running across England throughout the week, delivered by the NFEA network of enterprise support organisations. Activity will be focused on giving existing home businesses the profile and support they need, as well as introducing the home enterprise concept to current and future start up businesses. Those looking to start or grow a business from home will be able to access information, seek inspiration and meet other home business owners from their local area. 

The NFEA network of enterprise support organisations is committed to supporting anyone looking to start or grow a business but the NFEA Home Enterprise Week is an opportunity to place a significant and well deserved focus on home based enterprises. 

Commenting on the launch of this dedicated activity, NFEA Chief Executive George Derbyshire said: "It's not generally appreciated that most small businesses are based in the owner's home - and that brings its own challenges as well as opportunities. As the national enterprise network, it's only right that NFEA should be giving special attention to this sector, and we hope both new and existing home based businesses will benefit from this week of unique activity."

The NFEA Home Enterprise Week has also received ringing endorsement from Enterprise Nation - the UK's largest website for people starting and growing a business from home. Founder Emma Jones said "I'm delighted to see NFEA support the home business sector in such a strong way and Enterprise Nation offers its full support to the NFEA Home Enterprise Week." 

This is not the first enterprise theme week NFEA has developed. Home Enterprise Week comes on the back of the successful NFEA Credit Crunch Week in April 2008 and the Over's 50's Enterprise Week in November 2008.

Related posts: The race is on!

BT Business Experience 2009 - register now

BT Business is hosting a free week-long BT Business Experience event from 29th June to 3rd July 2009 at The Farmiloe, London, EC1M 4AY. An all-new event taking place in central London, it has been specifically created to show businesses how the very latest technology and business thinking can help them manage their costs, market their business more effectively and make them more competitive especially in the current environment.

• See Peter Jones' view on the latest issues facing small businesses
• Bill Murphy, MD BT Business will be present to talk about how they are working with customers to overcome these challenges
• Hear first hand from small business owners on how technology is helping them thrive
• Find out more about the BT Business Essence of the Entrepreneur competition which celebrates the UK's inspiring entrepreneurs
• Meet leading business experts to find out the following issues can help small business owners:
• Flexible Working
• Social networking for business
• Cloud Computing
• Next Generation Access

BT Business will be making key press announcements during the week, plus there is the opportunity for interviews with senior representatives from BT Business and Peter Jones.

Enter two exciting competitions at the event:

• A start up business has the chance to win a £10,000 grant, a great boost to any new company. Applicants can enter this competition directly at the event. Finalists will be selected and judged by a panel and then a winner selected
• Enter the BT Business Essence of the Entrepreneur competition - celebrating the achievement of inspiring UK entrepreneurs - Twenty winners will be selected to have their portrait captured by renowned photographer Rankin plus one business will win a £10,000 business grant towards the continued success of their company
• Take a look at Peter Jones talking about the BT Business Experience and how to thrive in the current climate on YouTube
• Find out more about BT Business Experience 2009 at http://www.btbusinessexperience.com/ and follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bizexperience

Get more out of Outlook 2007

Book of the month for June is Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Inside Out on sale with a 50% discount at £18.01.

Most of us stick to what we know when it comes to software but delve a bit deeper and you find all sorts of hidden treasures that make a real difference to how you work. A colleague at work introduced me to colour categories for example, which immediately transformed my inbox into an organised filing system. (For more on colour categories take a look at the 60-second business insider ‘Using colour categories in Outlook'.)

Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Inside Out is a great reference book, packed with hundreds of time-saving solutions, trouble-shooting tips, and work-arounds. It also features a 40-page section dedicated to Business Contact Manager, offering guidance and help on how to manage customer and prospect information, develop professional marketing campaigns, and keep tabs on project-related information.

Four steps to the perfect home office

Guest post from Emma Jones, Founder of Enterprise Nation and author of ‘Spare Room Start Up - how to start a business from home'.

Working from home gives you the opportunity to set up an office that perfectly suits you and your business. Emma Jones offers her top four tips on creating the right environment.

1. Make some space - you'll work much better if you have dedicated office space. That way, you can work without distraction, and close the door at the end of the working day. This space could be the spare room, the attic or even the garden shed. Working at the end of the garden path is becoming increasingly popular and the garden office industry is booming on the back of it.
   Wherever you choose, make sure it has plenty of natural light and decorate it with soft tones of blues and greens as these colours will make a home office, and you, work particularly well.
   
2. Furnish - Once you've identified the space, whether inside or outside the house, it's time to furnish it and the two most important pieces of furniture are those you'll spend most time at - your chair and desk.
   Buy a chair that is designed for computer use and try it out. Sitting awkwardly for any length of time will put your body under stress and make you work less efficiently, so make sure your chair is fully adjustable. Ideally, your feet should be flat on the floor and your back straight. Getting this right will make working from home so much more comfortable.
   Invest in a good, sturdy desk that offers you sufficient working space and can also accommodate your computer, monitor, keyboard and mouse. The top of your monitor should be at eye level and the monitor itself about an arm's length away.
   Scale furniture to the size of the room to avoid any sense of claustrophobia and keep furnishings an inch or two away from the wall.
   
3. Cut out the clutter - it's difficult to work effectively amidst chaos, so try to keep your workspace free of clutter. If necessary, invest in some good storage but always buy boxes with lids and make sure you label them well. If you have a lot of boxes or files it can be distracting so consider buying a screen or a box seat for visitors to hide them from view.
   
4. Final touches - to make your home office complete, consider adding a plant to help reduce any feelings of isolation, or a vision board to remind you of your business goals and priorities each time you enter and leave the room. And a decent sound system to provide some background music or something to dance to when celebrating a new deal!

Enterprise Nation is racing to follow every home business on Twitter by Home Enterprise Day on Friday 20th November at www.twitter.com/e_nation  

Ask the Experts: entry-level CRM systems

Our May ‘Ask the Expert' was Robert Peledie, a CRM consultant for Chorus IT, who tackled the question of how to get started with a customer relationship management (CRM) programme and what kind of benefits a small business could expect to see. In his article, CRM: keeping tabs on your customers - from cradle to grave, Robert says,

"CRM systems are no longer giant (or expensive) pieces of technology...... the current recession has made most businesses realise they can't afford to miss a single lead. What's more, it's much easier to sell to current clients than to new ones; so your current clients need some attention, too. Enough reasons, I'd say, for any company to seriously consider sharpening up its relationship with its customer base.

CRM is ideal for:

• Keeping in contact: bothering to keep in touch counts for a lot with customers. It's a basic practice you can greatly improve using CRM.
• Identifying key customers: by grouping customers according to their size, how much they buy, how often and so forth, you can target key accounts for special treatment. You may be surprised to find that those you thought were ‘key' are actually not as profitable as you imagined - and equally you'll discover some hidden gems.
• Arming your sales team: so they can talk confidently to prospects. It's easier to sell when you have a customer's details to hand, and see their history. After all, "Can I take your name again?..." is not a good way to make a customer feel special! A little personal service will increase revenue and shorten sales cycles.
• Automating processes: using the workflow functionality in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, you can automate day-to-day tasks like customer service to ensure your customers never ‘slip under the radar'. For example, a garage might use CRM to automate the process of reminding customers that their MOT is due by sending an email or letter 11 months after the previous MOT. A simple ploy like this adds to the relationship you have with clients and helps ensure you keep their business."

Read more about how Robert recommends you get started on the small business website.

Related posts: Give your customers some TLC and gain more business

When search engines become free intelligence tools for UK small and medium businesses

Guest post from Cedric Chambaz, Marketing Manager - SMB, Microsoft Advertising 

Search makes you smarter 

Search engines are great, aren't they? They allow you to find websites, product and services. They mark the start of your digital journeys. They also show you the ways to a restaurant, or the location of a trade exhibition. They even answer you questions like ‘what is 12 feet in cm' and ‘1234224543*123345+675/4567'... You ask, and Bing! Here is the result.

But a search engine can tell you a lot more, providing information of tremendous value for companies - especially Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs). Let me explain why. Digital expert and author John Battelle once qualified search engines as the database of intentions. Visitors are coming to sites like Google or Bing.com with more or less a clear idea of what they are after. For instance, they may type ‘MP3 player review' in a search box because they want to replace their faulty iPod, or ‘Cheap flight to Ibiza' (for obvious reasons).

Now imagine you are a small company with a niche product offering, eg a car insurance company for young drivers. Your target market may be young drivers, but your target audience is probably anxious parents willing to protect their drive-away children. Can you afford to research what your audience's actual demographic profile is and where they live? Are your pockets deep enough to run a regular research to audit your brand awareness against this audience? Probably not, especially in the current economic climate where all costs are cut to their bare minimum.

The above-mentioned prospects are probably checking online for the most appropriate deals... Everything starts with a search engine, remember. So if you could access search engine logs you could get a view on how often people are searching for your brand. Compare that figure with the number of queries against your competitors, and that will provide you with a good indication of your brand awareness. Where are visitors searching from? London, Liverpool, outside the UK? The log can certainly provide you with this information too thanks to the IP addresses of the users.

Search engines are the depository of great business intelligence. Businesses just needed to have the key. We - Microsoft Advertising - have just launched it, and it's free!

The Microsoft Advertising Intelligence Tool is a free add-in to Excel. Enter a word - let's say your brand name for example, press the button and here are a series of statistics displayed in a jiffy - all based on actual UK logs from Microsoft search engine, Bing.com.  The seasonality of people searching for a specific keyword on a daily or monthly basis, their demographic profile (age, gender), their geographical location...

But don't stop at the research, action it.

As usual, all this information is of interest only if you turn it into actions. These learnings can certainly help you identify new niches or even conduct quick and easy analysis, but you could go even further by leveraging the commercial potential of these information nuggets. As mentioned in previous posts, search advertising is such a critical marketing technique for SMB. It enables you to capture the customer intent, and convert it into a lead at a very affordable cost. Until now the process of planning a campaign was pretty much based on trial: you set up an initial campaign, learn from the actual results, optimise your initial campaign, and so on. The Microsoft Advertising Intelligence tool gives you upfront the insights to plan and shape your search campaigns and messaging. With additional features like keyword suggestions or bidding price indications, the tool makes it easier for you to optimise your campaigns from the very start:

• Enabling you to time the delivery of your campaign to create the most effective impact - giving you sight of seasonal trends day-by-day and month-by-month
• Giving you an understanding of what keywords will perform for you from the beginning
• Highlighting the best positions for campaign traffic and clicks
• Providing awareness of how much your search campaign will cost
• Suggesting the most responsive audience ­- young or old, male or female

You can find out more by viewing our demo.

This clear, actionable insight from the outset means you'll be able to make the most effective use of your budget based on what will work best for your search marketing campaign. And an informed strategy means you'll be able to maximise the return on investment your campaign generates.

The Microsoft Intelligence tool is free for you to download and use in Excel 2007. But if you're using Excel 2003 we are happy to offer the readers of this blog with a free 60 day trial of Office 2007 so you can still experience the benefits. You can sign up here.

Beating the recession: selling home-made goods on the web

Interesting story on the BBC site today on how people are making extra money in the recession by selling homemade items on the internet.

Here's a brief extract:

"A boom in cottage industries is being fuelled by people using their hobbies to make money, said UK classified adverts website Vivastreet.co.uk. Cakes, candles, wedding stationery and even rocking horses are being sold.

The site reported a 123% increase in the number of adverts for homemade goods in the three months to the end of May compared with the previous quarter. The website also reported a rise in the number of people advertising home-based services such as private tuition, interpreting, and dance lessons."

It's worth reading the whole article - especially if you've got a skill or a hobby that perhaps you could take one step further or are looking for some inspiration on how you could start-up your own business. 

Related posts: From hobby to home business;

Trading online and cross-border

Guest post from Emma Jones, Founder of Enterprise Nation and author of ‘Spare Room Start Up - how to start a business from home'.

As the European elections come to a close and World Trade Week begins, what better time than the present to look at the possibilities of selling products and services overseas. Emma Jones offers a route map.  

Export-friendly

In a recent report on the characteristics of home-based businesses, it was revealed that the proportion of home businesses deriving more than half their sales from overseas customers is greater than for other SMEs. Businesses started and run from home trade local - but they also have a growing propensity to trade global.

This was confirmed in eBay's quarterly Online Business Index that showed a 127% increase in cross-border online trade in 2008 compared with 2007, with exports by online businesses to Eurozone countries surging by 136%.

As I quoted in our support statement for World Trade Week: ‘It is incredible that you can now start a business from the spare room in the morning and be selling to the world by midday.'

So, how to get started?

I suggest it's about getting three fundamentals right.

• The Platform - to sell to the world, requires being seen by the world. Achieve this by being active on one of a number of powerful platforms; global marketplaces such as eBay and etsy.com and online trading spaces such as elance and peopleperhour.com are connecting buyers and sellers across the globe. As trade develops on these high profile platforms, consider creating your own site or blog. Companies like Venda offer an online trading store for £50 per month; allowing you to run your own store whilst maintaining trade through other platforms.
  
• Payment - with tools such as PayPal and Worldpay you can easily accommodate e-commerce on your website and get paid without having to make up-front investment. PayPal is owned by eBay and has more than 100 million account holders. There is no up-front cost to installing PayPal - you pay transaction fees once the system is up and running. WorldPay has a dedicated site for small business and offers the opportunity to start trading and receiving payments online in one basic package. WorldPay customers are charged an up-front amount plus monthly and transaction charges. Google Checkout is a relative newcomer. It works pretty much like PayPal, with slightly lower fees, ranging from 1.4% to 3.4% plus 15p per transaction.
  
• Post & Packaging - the FedEx Small Business Centre offers all the information you need on packing and posting goods or visit your local Mail Boxes Etc  and have them do the shipping for you. They have deals in place with most of the major postal companies; UPS, Parcelforce Worldwide and FedEx. And if you're looking for somewhere to store all your stock before sending it across the world, take a look at Access Self Storage and move stock out of your garage/hallway/spare room and in to its own dedicated space!

Taking these steps will see you start your adventure of international trade with the rich rewards it is sure to bring.

Enterprise Nation is racing to follow every home business on Twitter by Home Enterprise Day on Friday 20th November at www.twitter.com/e_nation  

 

TechNet Conference 2009 goes virtual

The very first TechNet Virtual Conference will be going live on 19 June 2009. The conference aims to help you cut costs, increase efficiency and reduce environmental impact, whilst still getting all the latest information you need on Microsoft technologies and technology insights.

 

It features a dedicated IT management auditorium, including sessions on:

·         How IT will change over the next 10 years

·         Growing business and managing costs

·         Windows 7 and other Microsoft technologies

·         Product overviews from the experts

 

Get the full agenda – and if you register before 10 June you have a chance to win a bag of goodies in a prize draw.