Networking Not Working?

For small businesses it is essential and compulsory to get your name out there! There are a number of ways of doing this of course but to make an obvious point - if no one knows you are there you can have the best ideas/service/expertise in the world and no one will see it.

The truth is that the networking meetings you may have thought I was referring to initially are a part of a web of marketing initiatives you can set up. The point is very much that they should all work together.

Presuming that your small business depends on the personality of one or two people for new business then the presentation to the outside world should take advantage of some obvious outlets available to you.

Each one supports and is supported by its neighbour. The marketing web includes a web site.  80 thousand businesses in Wales have no web site I saw recently. These days anyone under the age of let's say, 50 and quite a few over that age will search for things on line. I rest that case.

Moreover if your business intends to catch a younger demographic - then a mobile site is an essential addendum. 20% of searches are now done from mobiles rather than PCs. 

Back that up with references in a chatty way on Twitter and personal facebook. In a more business like way on a Business Facebook page and in a more serious way on LinkedIn.  Also include some longer pieces on blog sites. Now make those refer to some of the others and you are building a net. Have a nice leaflet to hawk around, prepare some quick answers to questions like 'What do you do?'  and you are ready for networking events.

The business message 

The link is a consistency of message. That doesn't mean bang on about the same things incessantly. It also doesn't mean grab someone by the throat until they agree to buy from you. It is all far more subtle than this.

It all has to fit and be part of your brand, your presence and indeed your personality on line. So too does all your communication. Have a nice email heading. Have a nice badge with your name on it for those events. Have a banner to put up. Work up a bit of a talk to make yourself memorable then deliver it. Make a few points on discussion forums.

Once established this all becomes part of your business personality. You will get to the stage when you can mix and match and adapt to what is going on around you.   The result? People will know you, like you and trust you to work for them or to recommend you. You have arrived!

But don't stop at that point. You have to keep up the presence out there. Oh, and you need to find time to do some of that work you have said you are good at....

Bob Shepherd Associates at http://www.bobshepherdassociates.co.uk/marketing.html  builds up businesses by helping you take a practical view of what you have, what you can do, and how it all can fit together. For a monthly sum that won't break the budget (there's another topic to consider) you will save so much time money and effort in developing your business, or perhaps setting up your business, that the investment will repay itself over and over. If you are in SE Wales or nearby, ask for an initial meeting at no charge to explore the possibilities and open the door to a new level of business.  

Make it Happen Monday!

4N's extra session called Make it Happen Monday is designed to make small business stop think and focus on improvement. It's a clever idea and when well organised does a lot of good. So having been to one of these workshops, you have come away with a basket of ideas to address.

Well Good, that is what it is for. This Monday's Cardiff MHM was an interesting case. Last time we had one in Cardiff nearly everyone stood up to say the things they were having trouble with were the money aspects of business. 

Things like Cash Flow, Pricing, bookkeeping and banks all figured strongly. The previous MHM to that had an emphasis on Marketing and Social Media. Many wanted to know more about Twitter LinkedIn and Facebook and how to use them to advantage in business.

This last MHM on Monday had an emphasis on Time Management, organising, short term business planning and general effectiveness. 

As a lecturer and practising consultant in building businesses and sorting out finance for people I would have previously stated that taking small business as a whole you could reckon on 40% having issues with money, 30% having Marketing issues and another 30% having admin and time worries. 

It could be that all businesses have all of these worries in some measure and when one or two express them out loud the rest find their focus swings towards that. It could be that for some reasons of networking cohesion, like minded businesses have gathered together with their friends to come along to MHM. 

It could also be that the seasons change and there is some sort of annual cycle going on that leans towards certain problems at certain times of the year. 

It could also be that I specialise too much in this stuff and I should get out more. Safe to say most businesses have their issues. The sooner you can address them by improving, outsourcing or concentrating on getting the mix right the better will your business be. 

Leaders and Managers

You have to have Leaders. You also have to have Managers, or whatever they are leading won't last long.  Some Leaders are good managers but all managers are not leaders. It could get very complicated. Any leader who doesn't have management skills is going to fall over at some points.

It always comes down to the people in the end. The smartest strategies, the best equipment and the  best products in the world are worth nothing if someone isn't leading the charge.

In my circle there is at least one person who is practised at this. He is happy to lead and come up with the new plan. He also surrounds himself with people who are good at managing. That side is reliably taken care of leaving the boss to rally the troops and charge again tomorrow.

In June there is a gathering to explores the whole idea of leadership and how it fits into your own environment. It explores a "Triple Context' - the importance of keeping in balance the economy, the natural environment and the social and political system". Locally, exactly the same principles apply to your own business world.The biggest task ahead for business leaders is to find that talent and empower new leaders within their company. Smart companies look beyond their traditional key roles and staff searching for talent across all their corporate ecosystems, both internally and externally.
For small businesses and for other organisations the principles involved impact upon all modern working. To get the best out of your people you need to gain their trust, their enthusiasm, their ideas and their initiative. At the same the manager and leader needs to be comfortable with this and their own attitude. They need to be comfortable with management coming at them from up, down, sideways and indeed all directions.

The conference is to be held at Buckland Hall in the Brecon Beacons. 

It  is called Tomorrow’s Leadership (Tomorrow plural), a residential conference taking place in beautiful surroundings between the 20th and 22nd of June. It will bring together a wide range of speakers and participants to debate and analyse a new model of leadership for the 21st century. The website is www.tomorrowsleadership.org/ and there is a registration process. Some bursaries are available to reduce the cost. Hopefully a few of today's leaders in business and the community as well as academia and the social enterprises will gain new insight from it. 
Bob Shepherd Associates is one of the sponsors of the conference giving support to the organisation and the business structure that is necessary for any project to get off the ground. 

What's In A Business Name?

What should you call a new business? You should decide all the attributes you want your intended audience to attach to the name. Write down these qualities. When you hit on a name check it to see if it includes these points.

Try to avoid anything difficult to say or to spell. You want to be understood over the telephone and elsewhere and you want people to relate to the name easily.  A quirky spelling might be all right or it might mean no one can find you listed anywhere.

Avoid initials that sound like others. The phone test is a good one again. Ps sound like Ds Vs and Bs for example. Again, do you want people to find you easily or not?

Find some consistency. If possible your business name should be the same as your internet domain name and your company name if you have one. It doesn't have to be but why make things difficult?  You might want to make sure of your Twitter and Facebook names while you are at it.

There are many other considerations depending on the type of business you are and want to be known as. A useful thing to know is the site for the Business Names Register which is http://www.start.biz/business_names/ You don't have to register a business name though there are good reasons for doing so. As long as you are not "passing off" yourself as someone else and can't be confused with their business name you can call a business what you like.

However this site allows you to search an idea.  It will instantly tell you about the business name, the company registrations, the domain names and any trade marks - all very useful when trying to decide what to call a business. 

What it doesn't do of course is comment on the marketability of your proposed name as mentioned earlier. There are a lot more considerations to take into account and it is worse than naming kids! 

Bob Shepherd Associates can save you time, money and headaches in setting up a business. The topic covered here is one small section under the marketing section of a new business plan (whether written or not). See  http://www.bobshepherdassociates.co.uk/structure_and_practicalities.html  on the web site.

Tomorrows' Leadership

The old ideas of leadership are changing in business. In truth they have been changing for years and 'evolving' may be a better word to use. The old autocratic ideas of a pyramid hierarchy with a man at the top are rarely found these days.

Quite apart from the gender roles disappearing and the values that went with them watering down the structure of business is changing. Some of that is good and some not as with all change. What was there before was a mixture of good and bad as well and it is a mistake to ever think everything is fine.

Some have started to realise that leadership is present at all levels and is an integral part of the mixture of all things. 'If you want to know how to build a pyramid ask the man with the trowel', is a phrase I heard many years ago and it touches on the same thing.

Leadership is managing people upwards, downwards and sideways. It's managing your people, your boss, and your colleagues.

Some people are natural leaders. That simply means they have a natural aptitude for influence and like any other skill it can be developed from there into a powerful attribute. If you are nominated a leader of a group, a department, a company or indeed any other organisation at all you would do well to watch for these people and have them working with you for the same ends.

In June there is a conference which explores the whole idea of leadership and how it fits into your own particular environment. In a wider context it explores a "Triple Context' - the importance of keeping in balance the economy, the natural environment and the social and political system". In a local context exactly the same principles apply to your own local world.The biggest task ahead for business leaders is to find that talent and empower new leaders within their company, and smart companies look beyond their traditional key roles and staff but search for talent across all their corporate ecosystems, both internally and externally.
For small businesses and for other organisations the principles involved impact upon all modern working. To get the best out of your people you need to gain their trust, their enthusiasm, their ideas and their initiative. At the same the manager and leader needs to be comfortable with this and their own attitude to it. They need to be comfortable with management coming at them from up, down, sideways and indeed all directions. The conference is to be held at Buckland Hall in the Brecon Beacons. 
It  is called Tomorrow’s Leadership (Tomorrow plural), a residential conference taking place in beautiful surroundings between the 20th and 22nd of June. It will bring together a wide range of speakers and participants to debate and analyse a new model of leadership for the 21st century.  The website is www.tomorrowsleadership.org/ and there is a registration process. Some bursaries are available to reduce the cost. Hopefully a few of today's leaders in business and the community as well as academia and the social enterprises will gain new insight from it. 
Bob Shepherd Associates is one of the sponsors of the conference giving support to the organisation and the business structure that is necessary for any project to get off the ground. 

Things Ain’t What?

To a large degree the traditional Bank Manager has ceased to exist. Some Twenty years ago the main stream banks split 'retail' and their 'commercial' business and headed pell mell for Business Managers working separately. Later this was refined accounting for size of business, and then they realised that they had quite large accounts that didn't actually borrow much but were still worth looking after. That meant a mix of targeting responsibilities based on Turnover as well as Lending came about. This coincided with a cultural swing towards sales in a cynical and robust way that they had never done before. 

In many cases this meant the idea of service first went out the window (and is the basis of all the claims for PPI (Loan Insurance selling) that we have seen lately). At the same time many bank people couldn't, or wouldn't swallow the change in philosophy and took the opportunity to leave. This suited the Banks anyway because the retail/commercial split facilitated centralisation of just about every function one by one, leaving the High Street premises to function as little more than cashing shops. 

The idea was to create 'centres of excellence' with a concentration of skills. This achieves an economy of staff needed to push a processing system. That was fine for a while as everyone knew all about the processes anyway, but as time went by the centres began to believe that the branch folk knew nothing about what they did while the branch folk realised that the centres didn't care about them or their customers much, as they had their workflow problems to worry about and anyway they didn't have to actually look at the customer. 

Training need 

New people appeared in branches and business manager roles so a giant 'training need' opened up with anyone facing customers having to go on an ' awareness course ' to know what to expect and how to service it for the banks' systems. The more this happens the less they know by experience. The 80/20 rule applies in shovel loads. If your case is at all unusual or requires a little interpretation, and doesn't quite fit, then you will have a major problem on your hands to get past an initial negative reaction . 

A few of the old school managers are still out there but since the Banks were shedding staff at a colossal rate with their centralisation, many of those who are still there are those with a survival instinct. They may know their stuff still but they are subject to the targets and sales pressures and the latest flag waving new ideas that their younger colleagues have in their little folders. 

Clip Board Thinking

In ten years time or less there will be nobody who came up through the old pyramid structure and has all round experience including processing, cash handling, security (collateral security for loans that is), investments and trustee work, administering a business (ie - the ‘Branch’ which was largely a business in the local community) along with staff management, premises, alarms, credit balances, lending and credit control, reporting and putting together applications plus all the business experience out there etc . 

Most of the modern bank staff wouldn’t know what a garnishee order is if it sprang up and hit them. The modern answer will be that they don't need to know, because specialist departments exist to deal with these things. And so the circle is perpetuated. Or perhaps it’s a downwards spiral. The less a customer facing manager knows (and most of these bear no relation to the public's memory of such a thing), the more he or she has to rely on their clip board training. You can't do that, the computer says no has become the reality and not an excuse. That is especially so in the retail sector. Anything out of the ordinary is referred quickly away to a central processing centre which has no personal interest in sorting it out.   

Customer Loyalty 

In short, the idea that anyone has been loyal to their bank for 30 years is a whimsical throwback and has no currency whatsoever. In the face of an application for finance the bank would have the current flow of entries through the account(s) for a year or so and would take note of the last three years' Accountant's published figures but there it would stop. What a Manager might have recorded as an opinion about a business 5 years ago has no weight whatsoever. In many cases the opinion of the local manager who has actually been to and looked the local business in to eye is a minor tick on the list. 

All this means the business case for whatever is in mind now has to stand alone largely with some comforting references to past records. There has to be a ‘way forward’ and a progressive plan for the exercise contemplated. The old idea of seeing your Bank manager for a little help to get through some choppy waters is a big alarm bell, despite what it says in all the published codes of practice. Do that and you are likely to find you are shouldered into some kind of special care department where specialist managers will look after (nurse) your account at a substantial cost to you in interest or fees with a strict sequence of management activity designed to get rid of the problem or you. 

Things certainly ain’t what they used to be. In some ways that is good. In many ways it is not. Unless there is a major change in attitude and corporate culture the whole set up is designed to get worse. Bob Shepherd Associates has the experience and the contacts to do the best for you with your Bank and if you are under pressure to see how you can get out of the mire.

Too Many Channels

Social Media for business is undoubtedly the thing! But where to start? There are outlets for your creative muse by the dozen. Actually there are hundreds of them but you have to pick ones where you feel comfortable and your audience is likely to be relevant for you. So explore before you belong, and see what sort of thing is going on there. It's like a giant party with groups of people drifting in and out of the conversations.

My own perceived difficulty is with the inspiration. If I see a useful article or some observation strikes me I can tweet about it, put it on my facebook business page, include it in an article I am publishing somewhere, put it on the 4N forum, Linked in Groups, Googleplus,  or any of the other outlets I have something to do with. The point is that having done one or two of those the creative inspiration has been used up for that little topic. I am not short of ideas but I am short of enough to service all these outlets.

Keep it under control

The obvious answer is to keep an eye on the response you get and service the outlets that are most useful. You are in business, TIME is your biggest resource problem and it is not cynical to ignore some of the chat that is constantly going on. The measure might be - would they miss me if I didn't bother for a few days? Harsh but fair!

Measured Response

You could go overboard and studiously examine the insights, the klout, the metrics and the various applications (apps) available to tidy up your social media. Probably it is worth keeping an eye on some of it but you can spend too much time analysing and worrying about all the measures and creating a bigger problem still.

Allocate your time

So my considered conclusion is that a mixture of outlets is useful. This should be a mix of what you perceive to be useful areas to keep in with and you do that by seeing if the material there is useful to you. There is also the social context. A little light distraction is not harmful, but don't spend all day on it.

Content

Of course you should talk about your business things, but not without humour and not incessantly. Equally I think it is unhelpful to talk about frippery and pointless inconsequential things. Have something to say, just as you would when chatting to a friend at a break in a meeting.

There is the key. It is 'social' media you are dealing with. Building up a circle of friends in business is always useful. Helping them promote their on line presence is not difficult and creates the goodwill you need.

Bob Shepherd Associates builds up businesses. One of the components - a sub heading under 'Marketing' in the business plan is social media and what to do about it. Off loading it to a managed service is okay only if you keep a close eye on what they say and supplement the whole with your own content. The arena for this is changing and evolving. Emails are no longer as effective, newsletters are  largely ignored, blogs are losing their impact. It's a moving floor and you need to keep your balance. Doing something involves allocating time to service it. Doing it badly is a waste of time. A strategy is necessary to make it worthwhile.

Missed The Point Again

Those who follow these writings will have gathered I think that the banks have a fundamental misapprehension about small business but here’s a particular example showing how the National Assembly in Wales have fundamentally misunderstood small business as well.

From the start I have been critical of the Wales Economic Growth grant which are funds left over before the grants were largely whisked away in 2010. I said it was too proscriptive, was open for applications for too short a time and sadly had missed an opportunity (otherwise known as ‘the point’) once again.

This business grant has only been open since the beginning of December and I have had enquiries where ineligibilty has been the downfall for potential applicants, but I have a better example which illustrates the inept thinking that has gone into it.

A business trying its best

A Torfaen based company has been paddling hard to keep afloat. This has been partly because it has been shouldered out of contracts with another local council in favour of a company from the Midlands in very questionable circumstances, but that’s another story. To counter this and diversify they have identified a product and a market that sits nicely alongside their own and is largely unserviced.

I was asked about the grant and a finance application. All the grant criteria seemed to be answered. The Directors had the information, were in a good area for the grant, had a nod from both the bank and from Finance Wales that lending facilities to make up the matched funding could be available subject to successful application, and the company was keen to get on with it. Although the grant advice documents do not spell this out the Directors were even aware that guidelines for new employment could be met. So the lenders had been spoken to, the Accountant had the latest recent company figures ready for sign off and it all looked constructive and positive.

What is the grant for then?

Most of the ticks in place so far, so what actually are we spending this money on? The grant minimum is £100k and the best case is a 50% match in some areas so we need to propose spending £200k.  

We need a couple of web sites, marketing and PR, a van, some employees, some equipment and some examples to install in show areas. Totting it up quickly, I stretch the list to about £90k and to be honest we could do it for much less.

It is immediately obvious that the Directors, over keen  at the prospect of much needed assistance from the Welsh Government have fitted the finance around the possible funding. We could probably get away with a loan of £10k, have one web site and use the workforce and vans we already have, start things slowly and take less of a commercial risk.

In summary the grant is completely useless for what they want. In fact it is difficult to see how it can be of any use to anyone unless by chance they happen to be in the middle of a project that could use a substantial injection to make it bigger and better than first thought.  The project has to be under way (but not ‘committed’ or it is ineligible anyway) because there is insufficient time to organise a new project for which this grant might have a part to play.

I am left feeling cynical, exasperated, and still somehow, after long experience, disappointed that Business Support in Wales can be so inept in its operation. 

Money Gets Everywhere

A lot of people struggle with money. Some of them go into business and struggle with money there too.

One thing you must never do is to shove all your bills unopened behind the clock, as it were. The money gets everywhere in business. It’s the measure of how you are doing, how big you can be and a stream of business consciousness. It is the lowest common denominator for all business.

If you do struggle with money there are some things you can do to get to grips with it. Ultimately you can get someone else to look after your business for you but that is undesirable in many ways. You must retain an overview even if you have a bookkeeper for example. Above that the pricing, the investments, the procurements are all down to your day to day management anyway.

Business Tips 

Some straight forward procedures will take away the mystery, the time wasting and the disasters. Some simple ones for micro businesses are offered below but the implementation is up to you and differs from business to business depending on the number of people involved and the scale of activities.

• ·         Have on line banking
• ·         Look at every morning to confirm what is happening
• ·         Have a list of invoices, with a tick box for sent, paid, chased with the dates.
• ·         Have a set date or method of getting your invoices sent off
• ·         Have a set date to chase any outstanding
• ·         Make sure money is cleared at the Bank before you pay against it
• ·         Keep all your receipts in a tidy file
• ·         Keep a note of your mileage in your diary as you go along. Use the trip meter
• ·         Make sure you have a system for pricing and stick to it

In short just be bothered to keep an eye on it all.

For larger SME businesses the idea is the same but the systems need to be more organised. Even so they do not need to be complicated . Do not be fooled into buying some complicated bookkeeping software that you will struggle to keep up with. I see so many businesses unable to extract reports and information from their computerised bookkeeping I have to wonder if they would be better off with a hand written chart or two.

Bob Shepherd Associates has a background in business money. It's not straight forward and there is no reason why you should already be experienced in dealing with it. There is however every reason why you should pay it attention. 

Why Banks Say NO

To hear people talk these days you’d think the Banks were always saying no. It is easy to forget that an essential part of their business is to lend money. It is not in their interests to not do that. Criticism can be directed at some of their policies and their blanket decrees about some sectors, and even individual lending decisions but even where wrongly applied, behind it all is a grain of sense.

Leaving all that to one side there are some fundamental principles to business that a Bank will look for and if some of them are in doubt, are not proved, or are simply missing the bank will take a negative view of a proposition.  A side aspect is that it is not their remit to spend hours of time muscling something into a bankable shape, though sometimes they will. 

How much better all round then when they get a proposition that is properly put together with all the ticks in order and the questions answered before they are asked? Bob Shepherd Associates has long experience in taking a proposition and turning a bankable purse out of a sow’s ear, to use an old expression. Some of the principles that may come into play with varying degrees of importance are:

Basic Business Information

It is easy to fall into a trap of assuming your bank  knows all about your business – it doesn’t. Probably they have the last 6 months of figures passing through the main account and not a lot else. You know your business well and it needs explaining in a well set out business plan that starts with who you are and where you have been.

Out of Date Company Financial Information (or none at all!)

If your Accountant has been slow in doing your Accounts they will be ‘historic’ which is a euphemism for being useless.  All they will show is a record of past performance which does have some relevance but in a limited way.  You need some up to date figures to confirm where your business  is currently and they need to follow on from the last Accountant’s figures.  Whatever the case the lack of up to date figures shows that you haven’t valued the information and have no idea how your business is doing. That is poor management and not encouraging.

Your Business Model

This is a term used to describe how your business idea hangs together. You want that to be compelling and convincing – see that business plan and make sure it is set out consistently, logically and with a full story evident. Don’t assume the bank understands it just because you do.  Look for the risks and make sure you have demonstrated answers. In short does it all make sense and are you actually in charge of it?

It is possible that the Bank will just not have belief in your business because it has specialist aspects. The Bank is after all only so good as the people who are in it (as your business is in fact...) and you have to realise that your cogent and articulate verbal presentation may not make it up the line with the same authority unless you have spelled it out well in that business plan.

Poor Credit History

Surely this self explanatory? If the bank has been slinging cheques back on you it can be no surprise that they are not happy to advance you further funds for that bright idea you have just had. If there is some evidence of poor financial behaviour you need to tackle this head on and explain convincingly that you are past the difficulties and it is not your normal attitude.

Financial Contribution

The Bank will want to see you putting in substantial funds yourself. That will imply you have a vested interest in the progress of the business and adds to the credibility of the whole thing. For small loans do not expect the Bank to put up more than 50%. For larger loans there is a limit to what an individual can be expected to put up and increasing weight is given to your contribution in an unwritten sense of proportion.  The package is made up of cash, and assets some of which may be available for security.

Bank Security

For any substantial lending the bank will look for collateral security. It is a safety net and you will never get a proposition through just because there is security. You may have it refused if there is no security available. What forms acceptable security is the subject of another article.  

You and the Management

The Bank is not lending to the business so much as to you and your team.  No Bank official is going to sit with you day by day and direct you. Once the lending is agreed only occasional checks are made that all is well. You have the trust of the bank. If you and or your fellow Directors do not demonstrate a record of successful management expertise you can’t expect the bank to be encouraged.

Summary

In short it is up to you to make your case. It is up to the bank to check what you say, interpret the risks and come to a conclusion about your chances of succeeding with the business proposition.

It starts with you – your standing, your financial worth, you history and track record, and you association with the bank.  That comes before any real examination of the business on the basis that if you are known to know what you are talking about the likelihood of you getting this one right has more credibility. 

The proposition has to make sense, be in proportion, be lawful and respectable, have realistic ambition and a forecasted future that continues to make sense.  Proof of all this is looked for so far as can be ascertained.

Consider this - if a stranger came up to you in the street and asked to borrow a substantial amount, what would you wish to know?