Structure and strategy are the main things which are missing from most small and home businesses. The majority of businesses do things according to industry norms and never seek to set themselves apart from the competition. Failure to develop a structured approach to your business strategy will ensure that the business does not grow to a level where it otherwise could have.

Channel marketing is the path or medium through which your product or service must pass through to reach your end user customer. Large corporations have whole departments dedicated to channel marketing and it is critical to the structure of any business. When I worked in Japan, marketing computer technology to the major Japanese computer manufacturers, channel marketing played a critical role in our success and it is even more important today for the small and home business entrepreneur.

Now, in my personal consulting work, I take clients through a structured program which includes the fundamentals of channel marketing as this is indeed critical to how you find and service your current, past and future clients. To develop a channel marketing strategy for your home business, take the following steps:

1. Examine your product or service to determine which category of the market if fits into: Take note of where you have pitched your product within the market. For example, if you are selling a house costing more than £1 million, you will need to consider the medium which you will use to reach your ideal client interested in purchasing a house of that value.
2. Examine your market segmentation results: Through this analysis, you will have determined which section of the population is most suited to your company’s product or service. If you happen to be selling sponge cakes (as this is your passion and specialty) and you have been selling them at your local social club for less than £20, your market segmentation results may have indicated that individuals within a particular geographic location and income level are suited to your product.
3. Determine the main channel to market for your flagship product: The results of the above should give you the data to identify whether your ideal client has a propensity to purchasing via the Internet, at your local social club, in a retail store, through a home catalogue, over the telephone or other means. You should determine what your main channel to market is and focus your energies on reaching your customers through that channel.
4. Develop marketing tools and messages for your primary marketing channel: The majority of your efforts should be focused on where you will receive the maximum returns. This is, of course, common sense but without going through the channel marketing exercise, you will never know where to focus your efforts in the first place! These tools should be developed in line with the results of Step 1 and Step 2 above.
5. Determine sub marketing channels: You will have a main channel to market, through which you will sell the majority of your goods, but there will be other channels through which you will also sell your goods. In a structured plan, you will ensure that customers at the end of these sub channels are also presented with the message of your home business.
6. Consider the Internet as one of your marketing channels: With the age in which we are blessed to be living today, we are able to reach an individual on the other side of the world with news, messages, and information on the importance of our goods and services. If you live in Oregon, there may be someone in Singapore who will pay for your homemade American sponge cakes and pay for the shipping from the U.S. Or he may want your sponge cake recipe or your streaming video showing how to perfect your recipe. We live in a borderless world and the Internet marketing channel enables us to reach individuals within our town, state, country, continent and the world.

Always consider the fact that the products and services of your home business must pass through a specific channel of the market in order to reach your end user customer. You will set yourself apart from the competition if you use the process steps outlined above as an integral part of your business strategy.

Every company exists for the sole purpose of providing a product or service to the end user. No matter how fantastic a product or service is, you will never be able to sell and generate revenue unless the end user knows that it exists. Also if you are a small or home business owner with a set customer base and you only service those customers, and yet you have no active and ongoing marketing strategy, your business will not grow as much as it otherwise could have.

Of course, your existing customers may increase their orders, but without a constant stream of new customers, your business will not grow beyond you and your current circumstance. Here are a few steps you can take to structure your sales and marketing strategies.

1. Define who your ideal client is: Every company should have what may be termed as an ‘ideal client profile’. That is, you should have in mind your perfect customer. That customer who may buy a low-priced product from you and then move up to buy higher ticket items and ultimately stay with you for years, recommending your product and service to other potential clients.

2. Define your product funnel: Ideally you should have a range of products and services, starting from a low price and steadily moving up in price to your highest ticket product or service. I have low-priced digital products selling for less than £100; my highest priced products are my personal one-on-one business consulting services.

3. Decide where you will bring in each client: This refers to your product funnel in conjunction with the ideal client profile. It may make sense to bring in some clients to purchase your lowest priced product in order to gain trust etc., and then move them up in price. With others, you may market to them so they come straight in to your funnel to purchase higher-priced products.

4. Devise an ongoing outbound marketing strategy: You must put processes in place to ensure that, every Monday, you work on putting your message out to the marketplace so that you take in a steady stream of fresh prospects, some of whom eventually, ideally turn into customers.

The problem I normally come across is that most small business owners are very good at their skill or profession, but have not been schooled or skilled in business or marketing. The heart and soul of every business is sales and marketing; no matter whether you are running a dry cleaning service, soap making business, carpentry business or any other kind of business, the process of getting the message of your products and services out to the marketplace is critical to the long term success of your business. The companies who hire marketing consultants and/or spend money and time to go to seminars updating their skills are the ones who grow their revenues and live the lives of their dreams.

Promotional merchandise is one of the most cost effective of all promotional media. The goodwill created far exceeds the actual cost of the merchandise itself, plus your brand/message gets promoted time and again whenever the products are seen or used.

Case Study 1

Many years ago an organisation took 250 customers and staff for a day at the races; each was given a printed promotional umbrella and told they must be at a selected point of the race track at 2pm with the umbrellas up, come rain or shine.
The two o’clock race was being televised by the BBC and, as the camera’s followed the race around the track, a sea of advertising umbrellas were there for all to see.
The agency that organised the event estimated that had the company had bought the space on commercial television the cost would have been many times greater than was paid in total for a day’s corporate entertaining and umbrellas etc,
Promotional umbrellas can cost effectively promote your business because every time the umbrella is used the advert gets seen.

Case Study 2

A Bath company needed a way of getting sales calls past the receptionists who often acts as gatekeeper. They purchased some small Teddy bears with T shirts printed with their company details and when the sales people called at the reception desk to gather the information they would later use such as contact names and responsibilities etc. they would thank the receptionist and then leave her the gift of a Teddy Bear. When they telephoned a few days later and asked to speak to the target they had identified earlier the number of calls that got through increased dramatically and on a number of occasions the receptionists said ‘Oh yes, you’re the teddy bear man’.
You can make an impact by giving a gift that gets you and your business remembered.

How often do you have to hunt around for a pencil, often I expect and your clients and prospects probably do the same. Use this to your advantage by giving away promotional pencils printed with your message. Ballpens are a popular and practical gift that will also keep your message at the clients and prospects finger tips.

To give you some idea of possible costs, Adgiftco can offer a quality promotional umbrella printed on 4 panels from around £5 each for 50 with lower prices for larger quantities, a bear in a printed T shirt for around £1.50 each for 144 with lower prices for higher quantities. We are currently offering the stylish Torpedo retractable ballpen with metal trim and a black ink refill for just 21p each for 1000 printed or 1000 printed promotional pencils for 10p each plus usual origination charges, delivery costs and VAT.

You can contact David Faulkner of Advertising Gift Consultancy at www.adgiftco.co.uk

A good pool of prospects is one of the keys to a successful selling career. Knowing how to prospect effectively keeps a career vital, and is truly the lifeblood of sales. Yet, so many sales professionals overlook the crucial element of having a prospecting plan. With a plan to follow, you can measure your efforts and results.

The Mix
A good prospecting plan includes several types of activities. Some examples include: cold phone calls, referrals, talks, mailings and networking. While most salespeople have a variety of activities available to them, they tend to use only a few, either because they have a certain comfort level with some activities, or a discomfort with others. Mixing your activities takes the pressure of any one activity to provide your livelihood. If you’re not comfortable with an approach, invest time to improve your skills, and ultimately your comfort level, to make other activities work for you.

The Action
Prospecting activities are either active or passive. Active prospecting gives you complete control over how the activity is carried out. For example, making cold call is active. You control who you call, how often you call, how many calls you make, and what you say. Advertising is passive – you can’t control whether a piece gets to its intended destination, is read, or generates a response. Although you can increase your response rate by offering free samples, a bonus or other premium, you give up most control by advertising.
To achieve desired results, mix your active and passive prospecting. Passive activities may be more comfortable, but comfort may not be the answer to your prospecting challenge.

The Plan
When you’ve decided which activities to pursue, put them on your calendar. Schedule your activities according to time, budget, resources and target audience considerations. And be sure to put your preparation activities (preparing a seminar, writing your newsletter or composing your mailing) in no-pay time. A budget should accompany your prospecting calendar. Will there be labor, equipment, facility or print costs? These elements all factor into your choice of prospecting activities and their weight in your mix.

The Results
Once you’ve chosen your mix, planned your actions, scheduled your activities and carried out your plan, what were the results? Where did your leads come from, and which activities generated the leads that translated into appointments? Although different activities may produce varying results, you’ll probably find that a plan that reflects a variety of methods will pay off. And you may even find success with an activity you thought wouldn’t work for you, or that you were reluctant to try.

Each prospecting plan is unique, but all have elements in common: they should include a mix of activities that are feasible for your situation and have action steps for those activities based on resources available and scheduling constraints. As the saying goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there?”

Based on the Sandler training program, President’s Club ©2000 by Sandler Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

For further information contact Jo Partington Tel: 0844 412 7380 www.swest.sandler.com
1st Floor, Prudential Buildings, 11-19 Wine Street, Bristol BS1 2PH

Lewis Hamilton, for example, is carrying on where he left off in his quest to become Formula 1 world champion. All the pundits seem to agree that the world title, which he came tantalisingly within a point of winning in his rookie season, is destined to be his one day and his supremacy will be confirmed. He is then likely to go on to become the wealthiest sportsman Britain has ever produced, eclipsing even that other famous high earner, David Beckham.

World class sports stars like Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, Maria Sharapova and the Williams sisters command phenomenal incomes not just from plying their trade, but also from the sponsorship and other marketing endorsements that accrue as a direct result of their fame.
Retired, seven-times F1 world champion, Michael Schumacher, who is reported to have netted a total of around £500 million, earned about £17 million a year. But Lewis is tipped to surpass that and become Britain’s first ever billionaire sports star (Daily Telegraph 2/10/07).

Such wealth is beyond the grasp of the majority of people – but any accumulated wealth, whatever its size, should always be carefully nurtured and protected. Protecting wealth is just as important as creating it.

The three main planks of wealth management are building and preserving capital, managing cash and borrowings, and financial protection against risk. For most people, the key objective is to achieve significant growth in the value of their capital over time, and then preserve the value of that capital for themselves and their children.

As a result, it is important to develop investment strategies to make the best use of the range of asset classes, markets and investment managers available, and place funds in investment vehicles that minimise liability to taxation.

Building and preserving capital covers a number of needs such as pension planning, investments, portfolio management and trust and estate planning. The earning power of sports stars is finite, and building and preserving the wealth they have created is a key consideration, as it is for anyone with accumulated assets. When building capital, the management of risk is critical, and diversification - both by asset class and by investment manager - is always the best approach.

It is important to determine how much money should be held in cash to meet short term needs and emergencies. Also, establishing the right mix between UK and international equities, gaining exposure to commercial property and other alternative asset classes are all central to the successful accumulation of capital.

In building capital, every effort should be made to take advantage of the various tax-efficient vehicles that are available, such as those now provided in retirement planning via the new pensions rules. Similarly, making regular use of Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs) has helped people build worthwhile sums of capital in a tax-efficient way.

In building capital, it is equally important to preserve and protect it against the rising tide of taxation. Careful Inheritance Tax (IHT) planning is vital in protecting wealth and making sure the bulk of it is passed on to families and loved ones when you die and not to Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs.

Therefore, it is important to draw up a Will in a tax-efficient way, ensuring your family does not have to face a large IHT bill when you die and ensuring also that the taxman does not take a greater share of your wealth than necessary.

Managing cash and borrowing requirements means that advice on mortgages, commercial banking, deposit and current accounts may be needed. The choice can be vast, so guidance on the most appropriate product or service is paramount to ensure that whether you are borrowing or depositing cash, the interest rates are competitive. These days some banks take a more enlightened view, allowing clients to offset the balances on any savings or current accounts they have with the bank against any mortgage borrowing before calculating the interest payable. The key is to put into place arrangements that are most advantageous to you.

Finally, there is financial protection, not the most exciting area of financial services but arguably the most important. Inadequate planning for financial protection can be disastrous.
Wealth management can help determine and establish both adequate levels of insurance and appropriate kinds of cover, to protect you and those who depend on you, against all the most serious risks that you face to your life and your health. It can also be used in conjunction with certain types of trust as part of an IHT mitigation strategy ensuring that more of your wealth ends up in the hands of your chosen beneficiaries.

Such considerations may all seem a long way off. Today’s sports heroes seem invincible, but there will come a time, along with everyone else, when they have to face such issues head on and there is no substitute for early, careful financial planning to ensure adequate provision is made.

St. James’s Place Wealth Management has produced free guides covering Wealth Management, Retirement Planning and Inheritance Tax Planning.
To receive your free copies contact Johnny McGowan Hayes of the St. James’s Place Partnership on 01598 710655 or email johnny.mcgowanhayes@sjpp.co.uk.

It’s a leap year, and a centuries old tradition has it that a woman may ask a man to marry her. What is more, tradition says that an honourable man may not turn her down! With marriages on the increase more proposals are expected from women than ever before, according to research from one wedding insurer*.

This research also shows that substantially more women than men organise all aspects of the wedding arrangements these days. It should therefore come as no surprise to hear that more 21st century women are taking control of the finances as spending power increases.

When it comes to asking important financial questions about investments, retirement planning and mortgages, one in four women with partners make the financial decisions in their relationship. Only 7% of women questioned said their men took control with financial issues. One in five women said they made the investment decisions too, while 22% said they made decisions about the couple’s financial future by deciding which pension to invest in**.

So it is quite probable that there has not been a better time for women to take control of their finances. Indeed, by 2020, more women than men are expected to have the final say on financial decisions affecting the home, according to the think tank Future Foundation***. They predict a power shift, with women’s incomes overtaking men in the future and taking greater responsibility in the financial decisions relating to the home, which 50 years ago was an exclusive male preserve.

It does seem that women are developing a better grasp of financial products and are more likely to understand the intricacies of the household balance sheet than men****. Even if financial equality has not been fully achieved yet, women are becoming more financially successful and independent than ever. And with that comes both the responsibility and ability to organise and manage their financial futures.

Twenty years ago, only 7% of women earned the same or more as their partner. Today, the figure stands at nearly 25% - and is rising, which gives credence to the findings of the Future Foundation****.

So what are the key issues that women need to consider in planning their financial futures and those of their partners? The mainstays of any wealth management strategy are investment, tax planning, retirement planning, and protection. The other important consideration is obtaining professional advice from a specialist wealth expert.

As far as investments are concerned, it is important to determine attitudes to risk from the very outset. Risk normally means a combination of two elements. The first is the possibility that you may lose some – or in extreme cases, all – of the money you have put into a particular investment. The second is the risk of volatility – short term fluctuations in value.

Getting the investment right is crucial to future financial wellbeing - but not even the very best investment manager has a crystal ball. Investors often worry that they are investing in the market at the wrong time, but running an investment portfolio on the basis of getting the timing right rarely works.

But what good investment managers can do is distinguish between companies that are better managed than others, and in sectors that can be expected to do better as current trends develop. They run their funds and select their holdings on the basis of medium to long-term assessments of business and economic trends.

Briefly, with taxation planning, inheritance tax (IHT) is a growing issue for more and more of us following the rise in property prices this decade. While many people are aware of the existence of IHT planning, few still do anything about their potential liability. IHT is a time bomb waiting to go off, and once it has, Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs gives only a relatively short time to pay, meaning that a property may have to be sold quickly by a person’s executors in order to make the payment.

With retirement planning, if you have not done so already, the time to start planning for retirement is now. Childbirth, marriage, divorce and being widowed have all had a significant impact on the pension accrual of many women. Women’s pensions are affected by the career breaks they take to bring up children or care for elderly relatives. The new rules on pensions introduced in 2006 have introduced a simple, single system making it easier to plan for your retirement, but it remains an area where it is essential to seek professional guidance.

Finally, protection. None of us likes to think about suffering a critical illness. And many of us, either as individuals or in many cases as businesses, tend to bury their head in the sand rather than doing something about it. It is rather like making a Will. People would rather put off thinking about it until later. Yet the effect of doing so can have unthinkable consequences on financial futures and families.

St. James’s Place Wealth Management has produced free guides covering Wealth Management, Retirement Planning and Inheritance Tax Planning. To receive your free copies contact Johnny McGowan Hayes of the St. James’s Place Partnership on 01598 710655.

Sources
*Debenhams Wedding Insurance December 2007
**YouGov Survey for GMAC-RFC, February 2007
***BBC News, August 2008, reporting on Future Foundation research
****M&S Money Financial Decision Makers Report 2005

* * IMPORTANT * *
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I a recent article I mentioned a call I received from a well-known BBC radio presenter who wanted some assistance. During his call, he explained that he had just accepted an outstanding career opportunity - to present his very own afternoon program. What was his problem? Fear! This professional Newsreader, who speaks to millions of people every week, was in his own words; “absolutely terrified” at the prospect of moving to the new programme. I suggested we meet and get this problem sorted out.

After a chat with me over some BBC coffee, he was able to transfer that fear into excitement and was really looking forward to this new chapter in his exciting career.

There is a valuable lesson here!
Even though this chap was “absolutely terrified” about this new stage in his career, he knew it was a great opportunity and so he took it - and THEN focused on removing the barrier! He did not allow the fear to get in his way of what he wanted.

One of my former boxing trainers told me that a hero and a coward both felt scared when they were confronted with a fearful situation. What made them a coward or a hero was simply how they reacted. He was absolutely correct.

The people who bravely progress through their lives feel fear just the same as those who elect to take ‘the cheap route’. They simply develop strategies for coping with their fear - rather than allowing what they fear to hold them back.

Of course, motivation plays a big part in the route we decide to take through our life. There is an old saying that tells us; “When you have a big enough WHY the HOW will take care of itself.” In other words, when you have a big enough reason or motive to do something, you will find a way to make it happen.

The natural human condition, sometimes called ‘the homeostatic impulse,’ is to reach a ‘place’ where we feel ’safe’ or comfortable and then stay there. Obviously, people want things to get better for them, but they fear making the changes required so they ‘make do’. This ‘impulse’ explains why so many people stay in unrewarding jobs for their entire working lives. They moan about their salary, their conditions and their boss - but they just won’t proactively do something to improve their situation. They complain, but stay the same.

For 95% of the working population, their fear of change means they are locked into a job that they endure - like attending an open prison! If they do move to a new employer, it is usually for another position that will not cause them to have to stretch. If you doubt this for one moment, look at the way people dash for the exit within minutes (or seconds) of their official home time. I have seen middle-aged men and women hustling like schoolchildren around a machine to ‘clock-off’ and get out as soon as possible. Incredibly, they seem to use more energy in that final few minutes to get away from work than they did at any point during that day!

If you want more from your life you have to embrace change and that means dealing with the fear that we all face. Open that new office, make that cold-call, go for that new job, move into that new area, take on a bigger mortgage, try that new restaurant, start your own new business, find new markets for your services.

Grow a little every day by conquering something you fear. When you know that something is right for you, but you are afraid of doing it - STOP - think of a strategy to defeat the fear and move on. Each time you do this, your confidence will grow and it will become increasing easy for you to make the right decisions and take the right actions.

To your success,

Jim Connolly

If you are planning a major investment in plant and equipment for your business in the next few months, you may be better of doing it after 6 April 2008.

The reason for this is that the current rules governing the tax relief that businesses receive on expenditure on plant and equipment are set to change from April 2008 – for the better!

What will be different?

Currently businesses can only write off against profits a certain percentage of the amount spent on the plant and machinery in the year it was purchased.

The rules around this are quite complex and the percentage varies depending upon what has been purchased and by what type of business. However the maximum amount that can be clamed is 50% of the expenditure.

The rest of the amount spent is written off against your profits in subsequent tax years at a rate of 25% per year.

Luckily HMRC are reducing this complexity as well as being rather more generous.

From April 2008 you can claim 100% of any costs on plant and machinery in the year that you bought the items. This is up to a maximum of £50,000.

So what is plant and equipment?

Well there is no statutory definition but for guidance purposes the following can be taken to mean plant and equipment:

‘An asset is plant or equipment if it is used for carrying on the business and is not stock in trade, the business premises or part of the business premises.’

So examples include tools, ladders, computers, furniture etc. but not cars, long life assets or assets for leasing.

For further information please contact Elaine Clark on 0844 884 2399 or visit www.CheapAccounting.co.uk

All organisations have a resource which can significantly influence how well they perform a range of managerial activities, including delegation and time management. However, though this resource is, quite simply, quality operational information (QOI) – i.e. good, reliable information about business operations – relatively few businesses are aware of how valuable it is.

Now, if it seems strange that this kind of information should be so valuable, it’s important to remember that all organisations, without exception, “are what they do”, and what they “do” are their operations (or processes or tasks – or whatever other word you prefer to use), so having good information about those operations plays a major part in helping an organisation, business or otherwise, function successfully.

QOI consists of a range of information about a given operation (e.g. the steps taken to perform it, and the controls – or rules – used to make sure it is performed correctly) which, when taken together, helps a business owner (or manager) to know important things such as:
• What currently happens when a particular operation is performed,
• What business situations the operation can successfully manage,
• What quality and other controls are currently used,
• What choices – and their pros/cons – exist for making changes,
• What other operations are, or may be, impacted if the operation is changed, and
• How to ensure a change is made and implemented successfully

And having ready access to this kind of information is essential for a business owner or manager to plan and/or respond effectively to business situations like…
• changing any aspect of the business’s operations,
• responding to a problem or other unexpected event,
• bringing a new member into the organisation,
• improving the ability to manage time,
• growing the business,
• assessing the benefits of – or preparing for – a merger,
• determining whether automation would help the organisation … and so on,

On the other hand, not having ready access to this kind of information – at least for the business’s critical operations - can create quite serious problems, in particular for small businesses where, with fewer staff and a greater dependence on a regular cash-flow, there is less flexibility to deal with these situations.
At minimum, regular operations are likely to be disrupted as staff collect the information needed to
(a) assess the impact of dealing with or planning any of the above and
(b) identify the options for dealing with the situation.
Also, the work of planning and implementing any changes may well be hindered by the need to ensure that the necessary quality controls are both in place and satisfied. And, while this is going on, the business’s regular activities may well be suffering, with customers perhaps being inconvenienced or let down, and worse repercussions possible.

So, if your business is likely to need to address any of the above events, you may like to take the opportunity to discover beforehand whether or not you have (access to) the operational information that you’ll inevitably need to ensure tasks like these can be carried out with the minimum of disruption…

The author – Robert Lovett, a business analyst with 20+ years experience in business improvement and information management – is currently working through his enterprise The Business Handle with techniques to both bring wider recognition to QOI and improve business ability to benefit from its value and, for anyone with comments and/or questions on this article, can be contacted at robertlovett[at]blueyonder.co.uk or on 01454-853594.