Health,work,life,business,& most important family, we have made a major change

On the 5th of March 2010 my car was serviced. So what has that got to do with health,work,life,business and most important family you may ask? Well that day it made me wake up and understand what is important in life. 

What happened, was I used Liz's car as I had to go to Chesterfield. So I dropped Liz off in Belper. It was a beautiful Spring day, the sky was clear and blue and I then dropped off Jack & Lucy at school. They ran off full of the joys of Spring, waving and shouting 'see you later Daddy'. I then got back into Liz's car and said to myself 'what the hell am I doing?'... this was the first time in about 18 months I had dropped off my children at school.

So we had gone from having a work life balance, to one that was not working for us. Some time before this I went see a nurse at my doctors for a minor issue. When I was there she said 'we have not checked your blood pressure for about 10 years', she tested it and then went to get my doctor, the result of the test was a BP of 110/220. This was very, very high. My doctor put me on a high dosage of tablets to try to get it under control. 

We had got on a big 'hamster wheel' and lost track of what is important. We had gone from one branch in Belper to having another one in Chesterfield. Some of this was the 'hamster wheel' of thinking that growing your business is the best way forward. How often do you hear 'grow your business' or expand? There is nothing wrong with that, but don't fall in to the trap of losing sight of what is important. 

Ask yourself some key questions. Why did you set yourself up in business and what are you doing it for?

Liz and I have had massive guilt trips about the children and the school holidays. The children many times have to come in work with us when it's obvious they'd rather be doing something else. The guilt is that they should be at home playing with friends. Liz has been running Belper and dealing with all the issues meaning has been spending more time managing rather than designing.

So on that evening in March 2010, Liz and I made up our minds to sell our Chesterfield branch. On the 1st of December 2010 we finally sold it. This is going to make a major change for us all. We can now start to get my health, our work, life, business and most important family balance right.

So what I am saying is to keep focused on what is important to you and your family. Don't loose sight and jump on the big hamster wheel and loose track of what is important. It's not how rich you are, but how rich your life is.

From January 2011 we will have the right balance, we will be able to share the school run, so no more of the children in the office until 5pm plus. Most of all Liz and I will be sharing time off for all the school holidays.  

Remember your health and family are the most important things in life so remember to review what is important to you and your family. We wish Dean and Ben all the best in Chesterfield.

12 months Of Twitter.

Cannot believe that 12 months will be here soon on twitter.

Over the last 12 months have had the chance to chat with lots of great people. Twitter has helped us to add new customers and has generated a steady flow of work for our business.

It has amazed me that so many businesses still do not use Twitter or Facebook to help to promote, market and add value to their business.

Here are a few ideas that I have come across or thought about in how Twitter and Facebook can help.

One twitter user who has real embraced it has to be www.twitter.com/Loulouscafe What they have done is that they use twitter not just to promote their offers but to use twitter for face to face networking by arranging meet ups. One key thing is that meeting up and having a coffee is a great way to build up trust and business.

I cannot understand why more pubs, restaurants, cafes etc do not use Twitter etc to promote their menu's offers and guest beers, events etc.

Another sector who are missing business are the likes of hairdressing, health and beauty etc, if you think they can promote offers etc but more important they can use Twitter to promote appointments ie if they have a cancellation they can Tweet it with an offer. Is it not better to get 50% of something than 100% of nothing.

 www.twitter.com/dealdrivers who sell cars at a discount use Twitter to promote offers and also Tweet what is happening out there in the car market. As you think we do not buy a new car everyday but what they are doing is building up trust so that when you are in the market for a new car they are only a phone call away.

The tourism sector can use Twitter to help engage with their customers. A great example has to be www.twitter.com/CrichTramway who use both Twitter and Facebook to promote events, news and to create a following by informing people about their history and heritage.

Websites like www.smarta.com use Twitter to inform followers about new blogs, offers etc.Many more sites should use Twitter etc as this helps to drive traffic to the website.

Twitter and Facebook is about engaging with people and building up followers who are interested in what your business offers or does. 

So in 12 months and about 2000 followers and generating business has to be a great result.

So if you want to add twitter marketing to your business please give me a call on 01773 599159 and let's see what we can tweet about.

Regards

Mike 

The identity we have designed for an iphone app for Rachel Elnaugh

This is the logo/identity for the Nine Star Ki iphone app for Rachel Elnaugh www.rachelelnaugh.com

X Factor, Twitter and Organic Yogurt

X Factor, Twitter and Organic Yogurt

Last night in the first adbreak for X Factor  I saw for the first time an advert for organic yogurt produced by Yeo Valley. (To see the advert visit http://www.youtube.com/Yeotube ) This for Yeo Valley must have been a big call to book that slot as this must be one of the most expensive ad slots going. The impact of the advert was quite amazing as at the start of the evening Yeo Valley ( www.twitter.com/yeovalley ) had  just over 400 followers on Twitter. During the evening the amount of comment about the advert on Twitter meant that Yeo Valley started trending, at one point they were number 2 /3 trending word/phrase on Twitter in the UK even higher than X Factor, what great free marketing. What Yeo Valley did well last night was to interact well with twitter users. As at this morning they now have 623 followers and have gained great exposure. Great result Yeo Valley.

Well Twitter is working well for us, over the last few months we have gained new customers and generated penty of business. It has helped to increase the business profile and my personal profile.

So what I have learnt about twitter also works with LinkedIn and Facebook, it's all about chatting to build up trust and relationships, in other words it's networking.

Besides picking up new customers I have made some great contacts who are helping us as a business.

Many business' have embraced the likes of Twitter as part of the communication and marketing. A great example of this is how the MD of Starbucks uses Twitter to communicate with his customers and staff. A very bad example are one of their competitors Costa Coffee who joined Twitter in October 2008 and wrote "We've finally arrived on Twitter!" but have not communicated since. In my opinion this is very poor for Costa Coffee.

Many business' are missing out, an example of this are "East Midlands Trains". Over time I have read so many bad reports about their service on Twitter but they appear to not use Twitter. On Twitter "East Midlands Trains" could be seen to manage customer feed back and take the right actions to rectify issues. They could use it to post information about offers, train delays and news.For example "East Midlands Trains" had a great green news story the other week about how the trains switch the engines off when in the station.(Read more here) That would have made some good Twitter PR.

In the SME sector Twitter can help pubs to promote themselves, an example of that is the Cross Keys near Belper who have recently had a refit, they now use twitter as part of their marketing.

Did you know that that Twitter now gets more than 1 Billion tweets per month. 

So here are a few tips that may help you.

In you profile and twitter back ground tell people what you do, may be your interests etc.

Provide value, share interesting information, help others, if you read something interesting on the web, share the link and information.

Participate in conversations. Make it fun.

Be you and be original. Don’t be afraid to say what's on your mind. Express your view point. Remember people buy from people.

If all you do is talk about what you do and about yourself or if you only promote your product all the time, people will get bored of you. Good idea is to mix what you post i.e 1/3 about you and 2/3 helping others, retwittering interesting stuff etc.

Tweet regularly, try to do it every day. If people see your profile was last updated say 1 week ago, they will probably not follow you.

Search for people who share common interests etc.

Always remember that what you post is posted to the world so be careful what you say.

If I can help you with Twitter please get in contact.
Thanks for reading.

R = RECOVERY AND NOT RECESSION.

Well we all know it has been very bad out there. Times have been very tough. We all agree with that.


However in my opinion the media have talked us all into a downward spiral. All we hear are bad news stories. There are some great good news stories out there but the fact is that good news does not sell newspapers.


So it's so important to make sure that your business stands out, as those who can ride the store will be well positioned when the business recovers. Here are a few tips and ideas to help you ride the storm.


First of all don't let the suits kill your business. What I mean by that are people like your accountant, your bank manager by suggesting that you cut back on your marketing and advertising. At times like this you need to market your business harder so that it SHOUTS louder.  Cutting back on your marketing will have an instant saving on your bottom line but this will have long term consequences on your business.


If your competitors follow the suits advice and cut back on their marketing then they will start to whisper. When the market starts to recover your business will be in a SHOUTING louder than your competitors. 
This will mean that your business will reap the long term rewards and win more business.


So here are a few ideas to help make your marketing spend work harder.


Recovery Checklist


First of all take some time out of your business to review what you are doing with your marketing spend.


Ask yourself some questions like:-


1. When did you last review your marketing material or your website?


2. Does your logo look like it's past it's sell by date?


3. Is your brand or message that your business portrays strong, professional and consistent?


4. Do your customers realise all the services and products you offer?


5. Are you communicating frequently with your customers? i.e do you send out newsletters or your latest offers?


6. Do you go networking both physical ie like www.4networking.biz or use the power of social media like www.twitter.com/graphic_results etc.


When you have taken a bit of time out and reviewed your marketing then make a plan of "who you want to target, when you are going to do it and with what".


We have many cost effective, creative design and print solutions we know that will work for you.


Don't think of good design and print as a cost look at it as an investment.


Try the shoe leather challenge...


Think of a couple of offers that may appeal to new customers, ie 25% off with this leaflet or buy 1 get 1 free.
Then let us use our skills to design and produce some great leaflets.


Round up some family and friends and then go for a walk on a Sunday putting your new leaflets through local letterboxes.


Why Sunday you ask? How much mail do you get on a Sunday?  Exactly! People are more likely to pick up your leaflet and read it, as you're not competing with other mail. 


So lets look at the shoe leather challenge as investment... if the leaflets cost say £149.00 to design and print for 5000 leaflets and you run a Gastro Pub business for example you would not need to get too many new customers through the door to cover the cost.


So if you need help to do a marketing review then give us a call and see what we can do for YOU.


P.S Please remember R is for recovery and not recession.

Fly by the seat of your pants and learn from your mistakes.

Over the many years that we have run the business we have made many mistakes, but if you think about it if you don't make mistakes then you are not taking risks.

If you were to ask any successful business person they would admit to making mistakes but it has helped them to move forward.

Often in business we have found that you make decisions by "flying by the seat of your pants" , I think thats it's more fun! But this is often when mistakes are made.

The key thing that we have learnt is that you need to keep reviewing what you are doing.

Question yourself about what you are doing and is the result what you want to achieve. That may be from a financial point of view, a staffing view point or quality of life view point or something else.

Don't be proud if you are making a mistake ask for help from friends, professional advisors, staff or even using your extended group of contacts i.e from networking etc.

Don't try and put it off "by burying your head in the sand", the issue does not go away.

The sooner you review your actions the quicker you can take action to sort out the mistake.

What we have found that it's often best to take time out of the business ie have a weekend away, go for a walk in the fresh air and talk about the issues. Then you can do a full review and an action plan for the future.

It may sound sad but one thing that we have learnt duing the recession is to work out how much profit we need to make per hour, per day and per week. The great reason for this is that it is easier to take action if you have not achieved the profit in a week than leaving it to the month end.

Another thing is not to look back on the mistakes but focus on the future. 

Remember always look at reviewing your business on a regular basis to make sure that you get out of it what you want your lifestyle to be, but most of all keep smiling as one day it will be worth it.