Category: Business Advice

Business Advice, Startups

Starting a Business

Starting a business can seem scary, but with the right support and a strong idea, you can quickly go through the setting up process and launch your business with strong foundations. One of the first things you will need to consider is your business idea, how much time you have and the amount of money that you want to put in. Starting a business will take financial, legal and strategic planning. You’re going to need to have the right mindset, focus on your business journey and don’t compare yourself to anyone else. Consistency is key, create habits and routines that will continue even if your motivation starts to wane a little. Take each step, don’t think you can fly towards your goal or get stuck in the planning stages, but break down your goal into individual steps, in order, that you need to take to get there

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Business Advice, Business Investment

UK Business Investor

If you are looking to expand your business and would like to bring in an investor, the first thing you need to do is decide how many shares in the company you wish to sell and at what value. Remember that an investor not only brings money into the business they also give you support.  There needs to be chemistry between you to make it work, so you need to get along.

The best investors are those closest to you, your personal connections.  These can be friends and family or even LinkedIn connections.

Another source of investors is your network.  Do you attend networking events regularly with other business people?  Maybe you know people from events in your local area that may be interested in investing in your business.  Remember that the person or business that invests does not need to be identical to yours.  You can learn from people in different market sectors.

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Business Advice

What is Email Marketing?

We have been using emails since 1971, when Ray Tomlinson sent the first one. In 1973 Gary Thuerk, a marketing manager, sent the first commercial email, resulting in $13 million of sales.  Since then, email has grown considerably to the most used form of written communication.

Email marketing is an essential type of direct marketing and digital marketing. It is used to connect and communicate with your customers and ideal customers.

Once you have built your email list, you can quickly reach people interested in your brand, no matter how big or small. As email is global, there is no telling where in the world the email will reach.

When sending a marketing email to your list, make it sound like you are only speaking to the reader, not a list of people.  Conversational emails help you build a relationship with the receiver, who in turn may become a customer.   

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Business Advice, Startups

Why You Should Invest in a Vector Image for Your Brand Logo

As a start-up, it can be very tempting to go with a very inexpensive, option for your logo and branding package but if you will not be getting a quality logo that is created from a vector image, you are wasting your time and will most likely need to re-brand in the future. You can save yourself a lot of wasted effort and money by getting a good quality vector logo the first time around. It is still possible to get quality work that is not extortionate, you just need to shop around, network, and ask for recommendations from other small business owners.

To understand what a vector logo is, you need to understand the difference between a raster image and a vector image. A Raster image is made of pixels and as you resize it, it will distort and pixelate, this does not happen with a Vector image. Vector images are much more versatile.
Your logo is typically what people will see first, so it is definitely worth investing in something that will project the right image and feel, whilst being able to stand the test of time.

Vector Images:

1. Are infinitely scalable! This means you can make it as big or small as you like without it losing its shape, resolution or quality.

2. Are easily editable. If you want to change the color, hue or rearrange the components of your logo, this can easily be done in Adobe Illustrator (which offers free trials).

3. Have several different export options. While using vector-based programs you can easily save the image in the format that you require for whatever project you need it for.

Having a vector logo will make your website and any other online platforms much more professional and more trustworthy.

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Business Advice

When it’s time to stop procrastinating

If you’re a business owner or are perhaps a self-employed freelancer, one of the challenges you’ve most likely faced at some point is procrastination.

We’re all guilty of it. This is when we delay important tasks that need to be done or possibly leave those tasks until the very last minute. It’s an easy thing to do, especially at university, as it seems most students do this, but you have to act very differently as a business owner or freelancer. If you’re not driving sales, chasing money owed to you and producing good quality products or services, you’re putting yourself in a vulnerable situation. There is nobody above you to pick up the slack; you have to put in the work to drive sales for your business. Freelancers have to act the same in many ways because without marketing your talents, you can’t expect people to invest in you or trust you. Staying organised is one thing, but make sure the work that needs to be done is being completed, because this can be a tricky spell to get out of if you let too much work build up.

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Business Advice

Utilising LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn has become the number one B2B online networking platform, but of course, it’s widely recognised as a social network too. It’s not just B2B companies utilising this space though, there are many B2C companies that see benefits of using LinkedIn too, whilst it’s a great way to upload your CV and create an online profile, so you do have a varied mix of people using LinkedIn. With this in mind, utilising LinkedIn ads can be extremely beneficial. It can help you build connections with the right type of companies or individuals, it can help you raise awareness of a particular product or service, or it can be used to spread the word about your brand in your local area. There are many different ways to reach key demographics, but as far as targeting goes, LinkedIn’s advertising platforms is up there with the best, and we do recommend you give it a try for one of your next campaigns.

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Business Advice

How email marketing can help your business

Combining online and offline marketing strategies are the best way to get maximum reach from your business. That said, email marketing tends to be pushed to the back of the queue compared to social media marketing and business brochures for example.

Email marketing can be an effective tool if done correctly. Once you have a growing list of subscribers, sending out regular emails is definitely an effective marketing strategy, but only once the email is opened. Improving your open rate can be achieved by creating curiosity with your email title, making the recipient want to know more.

Once the email is opened you want to include a good amount of visuals complimented with to the point written content to drive the point clearly. A great way to break a chunky text box up is by using bullet points with simple short points. Always provide easy links to your website and relevant contact information for the readers.

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Business Advice

Keeping your website updated with quality content

Business websites should be updated on a regular basis, including written and visual content to improve their position on search engines and also keep their customers engaged.

Online marketing is so important these days, due to the increasing level of web users, more businesses are turning to online marketing strategies to improve their company sales. While there are many elements to online marketing, keeping your website up to date with fresh relevant content is probably the most important. For instance, having eye-catching social media posts that direct customers to a poorly designed website will not benefit your business at all.

A good way to keep content on your website fresh is by including a blog, this way to can add new posts in a very interactive way.

You should also update any written text on your site regularly and change images to suit recent promotions or a change of season. All these small steps in keeping your website fresh will help to improve SEO, in turn leading to more traffic to your site.

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Business Advice

Investing in a friend’s business: The risks

If you’re considering investing in a friend’s startup but are having a few doubts, it’s important to not make any rash decisions. Whether you’ve grown a company before, or are also a first timer in investing, you have to go through the facts. You need to put on your business face and ask your friend:

What are the risks?
What’s the timeline?
Who else is investing?
How much have you already put into your business?
Will this impact out friendship in any way?
Are you doing this full time?

There are of course many other questions your friend will need to answer, but by asking these first, you’ll get a better feeling about how likely success is for the startup. You also have to forget your friend’s personality and how nice they are, but look at them as a businessperson or entrepreneur. It’s not just about having faith in the product or service, you also have to put faith in the individual, and ask yourself whether you feel you can genuinely help them succeed. Investing is a big decision; so take your time to really think things through.

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