Business Growth Power Pack

Rob Shoesmith’s iPhone app called ‘Problem Halved’ has sold over 3.7m copies at just a dollar each.
Shoesmiths success is the inspiration behind the launch of a free course to teach 18-24 year olds, based in Manchester, how to create cutting-edge mobile phone applications.
THE WHITE ROOM is launching the unique course to help budding creatives [...]

Business cards are often the only thing someone has to jog their memory once they’ve left your presence. And it’s not through lack of attention, it’s just that business life has become more frenetic and we’re all networking hard and consequently meet many businesses.
So, what does your business card do for the person you presented [...]

Social Media Marketing or social marketing as it’s becoming better known has actually been around for quite a few years now. It’s not just Twitter or LinkedIn.
Social marketing also covers blogging, which only really started in December 1997 and started to take off much later around 2003/2004. Similarly Twitter started in March 2006 [...]

Manchester is currently the land of opportunity for grabbing hold of some free coaching and consultancy that will power your business growth.

As I’ve a said before bigger companies usually ask me how to get more sales.
They often expect me to say, “more sales staff” or “increase your marketing” or “increase your sales activity.”
The truth is, you need to really look at your whole business and view it as a sales and marketing machine. That way [...]

I’ve spent years helping clients grow their business and helping them concentrate on profitable business growth.
And there are two key questions that businesses ask me. Firstly small businesses often say, “would you agree that referrals are the best way of getting business?.”
And secondly, bigger businesses say , “how do we get more sales?”
Referrals Are [...]

Getting the Proposal team in place means you then also have access to the materials you need to produce the proposal. And of courses the resources.
And unfortunately there really is no magic lamp you can rub to make your proposal suddenly appear neatly bound on your desk.
Typically the bid manager leads the proposal preparation, [...]

Social Media Marketing – the workshop to workout whether to do it, what to do and how.

Social media strikes fear into company executives hearts. It raises many fearful questions, some of which may be in your head right now…
Questions like:

Q1 How can we prevent employees spilling the beans about what happens inside our company?
Q2 What about if our customers leave negative comments?
Q3 Isn’t it a gift to competitors spying [...]

It’s that time of year once more when our thoughts to turn to presents.
Usually people look to buy the latest business book that sounds interesting.
I’ve just emailed a client a list of books that any business would benefit from reading.
So with that in mind I’d like to share the list with you, and add [...]

Corporate Christmas gifts are always difficult to buy. And the reason is simple. Whilst you may know your clients in a business context you don’t always know what they would like as a gift, or even if they’d prefer just to pop out with you for a Christmas drink.
Obviously the solution is to sound them [...]

I tweeted about an interesting subject earlier today: Google Caffeine. Google Caffeine is an exercise by Google to improve search results. It’s actually gone live in one Google data centre and it’s going to be rolled out across the rest of us in due course.
The important point is that this appears to be a radical [...]

Social media hype drips from the keyboard of many enthusiasts.
Yes, it’s a way of developing a conversation, yes it’s a way of improving rapport and yes it’s possible to display your expertise.
However, without making sales, or promoting sales the whole exercise with social media is pointless and a complete waste of time.
Remember business lives [...]

Coaching is steadily becoming big business. And business coaching even more so.
Some people say it’s expensive, others that a coach doesn’t really help them because “they could have done it for themselves.”
To answer the first point a coaching organisation has issued a coaching press release where they noted the massive ROI with coaching:
International consulting [...]

The Manchester Evening News Business awards were presented last night. Jeremy Vine hosting the evening. And just for the record the winners were as follows:

MEN Business Of The Year 2009 Award Winner

Company

Young Business Of The Year

The Neighbourhood

Turnover Under £5million

SRR Ltd

Turnover £5 to £10 million

EDM

Turnover £10 to £25 million

ANS Group

Turnover £25 to £50 million

A [...]

Manchester has an interesting funding arrangement at the moment. It’s called Creative Credits.
Creative Credits aims to help Manchester SME businesses get creative input from other businesses registered on the Creative Credits gallery on their web site.
The way it works is as follows:
Creative Credits As A User
Initially eligible users register on the Creative Credits site. There [...]

Confiding in your board, or your senior managers, about your worries or anxieties about a new market, a fellow director or even the business direction is often seen as a mark of weakness and will get pounced on just like a hungry T-Rex spying a tasty morsel.
And yet, we’re only human, we need someone [...]

Egg sucking entrepreneur scores

I was talking to my brother Simon yesterday and we were discussing entrepreneurs and how it can be difficult to go to the next level in a business.
We both agreed that the common trap entrepreneurs seem to fall into is making excuses for their business. After all it’s their baby. And it can be very [...]

Heraklietos a Greek philosopher, a native of Ephesus, Ionia and a staunch believer in change said:
Whosoever wishes to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details. Knowledge is not intelligence.
In searching for the truth be ready for the unexpected. Change alone is unchanging. [...]