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Why Should Anybody Buy From You?

In today’s world of hyper competition and online v offline purchasing options, why should anybody buy from you? We’re all in business of one form or another, of one size or another. But whatever type of business you run, one question should keep popping up in your brain. “Why should anybody buy from me?” Now, […]

How Long Should Marketing Videos Be?

We’re all gone very visual now. And demanding. Your target market is looking for visual content. They react best to visual. And their preferred format is video. Earlier this year, the top social media marketing gurus were predicting that Facebook, for example, may well be video posts only by 2020 – and that’s just around […]

9 Things to Consider When Starting your own Business

Beginning your journey with your own new business can be a wonderful experience, but also a daunting one. While working for yourself can certainly be a hugely rewarding path to take, it comes fraught with dangers – not least of which is the disappearance of your weekly pay cheque. Are you ready to take the […]

Service Gaps Model for Exceptional Customer Service

I’m not a big fan of marketing and business development ‘models’ in general, but I do like the Service Gaps Model. It’s old-fashioned, perhaps, but still works for me and the many service businesses I deliver mentoring to. Essentially, the Service Gaps Model is a way of reviewing the performance of a business, as measured […]

Remarketing Tools from Facebook and Mailchimp

As a small business owner, you’re probably using Facebook Pages and some email marketing system or other. Mine’s a Mailchimp, thank you for asking. But are you using the powerful remarketing tools these platforms offer? Placing the Facebook pixel tracking code on your website allows you to build audiences on Facebook of website visitors who […]

How much Time do you Waste each Week?

There’s no such thing as “not enough time”. There is the time that there is and none of us can increase or decrease it. I wonder how much time do you waste at work each week? We often hear others, and indeed ourselves, uttering those great words “I don’t have time for that”. Again, there’s […]

Customer Care at the Cleaning Company

It’s a few years since I met these people, but the client’s name recently popped up in a conversation. This cleaning company has been very successful over the years and I remember them as one of the most impressive small businesses I’ve come across. First, their business is spread quite widely across the country. Despite […]

Tips for the Start of a New Year

Let’s face it, we all reflect at the start of each New Year. How’s our business going? How did last year end up, compared to our plans and aspirations of 12 months ago? With that in mind, here are a few tips for the start of a new year. Get out First, go somewhere new […]

What’s Instagram all about?

In the seemingly endless struggle to get a grip on social media marketing, many small businesses tend to blindly jump onto every platform they come across. But just because Mary next door says she’s gone on Instagram and it’s “doing wonders”, doesn’t mean you and your business should blindly follow suit. Same goes for Facebook […]

A Flying Leopard Cannot Change Its Spots

A few short years ago, amid great fanfare, Ryanair announced to the world that it was changing the way it did business. Changing its spots, if you will. The airline, declared Mr. O’Leary, would “try to eliminate things that unnecessarily piss people off”. Apparently, this change of heart was due to some significant shareholders being worried […]