04 January 2012: Don't throw experience away
We've all heard it before, early redundancies, no jobs for the over 50s, keep staff young - they're more productive, get more skills in, need more educated people, need cheaper people, and so on.
It seems to us that the experienced are the very people you need when times are tough. They hold vast reservoirs of experience, strategic solutions and thinking power. Putting experience and thought together offers your business phenomenal decision making and action-enabling capabilities. The experienced usually get more buy-in into unpopular projects.
In addition, they should also offer your business phenomenal thinking power in better times if your business has to change fast. Who wouldn't want three wise men up top?
Laying off experience in tough times is wrong. Those who do are dismissing some of the most valuable assets they have.
It's true that re-education and re-skilling are often needed, but that applies to everyone throughout their careers.
And when you dismiss experience and re-employ someone younger, someone educated to modern standards, don't believe you benefit. You will still have lost the experience combined with thinking power and buy-in.
And you will also be swapping someone who knows your business as intimately as you for someone that's never heard of your business. Its also much more expensive, and one of the reasons that wages rise so quickly.
Youth, skill and education can easily be outsourced: outsourcing thought and experience often ends in failure.
Chalestra has the view that, no matter how educated a new person is, it takes three of them to replace the benefits of an existing person.
To find new and better ways of growing your human assets, contact Chalestra.
07 June 2011: Thousands of businesses still closing down
Midsummer 2011. The retail industry at one of its peaks of the year, and thousands of shops and businesses are still closing down.
Early spring is among the best times to start or buy a business with early profits and cash flow being harvested for the quieter autumn months. End of summer sales usually offer the last bits of profit with last pickings coming from stock clearances. The approaches to Christmas are the next big opportunity.
Yet on nearly every high street you go onto, businesses are still closing down.
Consolidation and contraction no longer explain the closures. That explanation can only be used in a strong recession - this is a stable depression.
City analysts are still forecasting higher expectations than the reality that follows shortly afterwards. They clearly had expected the economy to improve a little. That suggests the right positioning for growth.
Reports also say that the vast number or people are still paying down debt, but many forecasters had expected that to let up for the summer. Total silence came from the holiday industry during the spring, which was probably a good sounding for the state of the economic summer.
Some have tried to use bank holidays for an explanation for slow progress. Our view is that bank holidays tend to act as an accelerator for two reasons: the first is that people frequently indulge in shopping over the Bank holidays, and, second, everyone is back to work refreshed to make up for the lost time.
Taxes, undoubtedly, still form a barrier to progress, as does both national and personal debt. The unemployment situation remains stable, forming another barrier to progress. And the government, rightly, is still focused on paying down excess debt.
Little way has been made on cutting bureaucracy, leaving it still very risky to start or develop businesses. Bureaucratic cost still forms the biggest risk to development, and is the massive barrier to business growth
That there are expectations of growth from City professionals shows that there are many reasons to be positive. And people are positive. Bankruptcy appears to falling.
The government is about to sell off state funded banks. The Tote was recently sold off successfully and the government allowed universities to start funding and developing themselves. These demonstrate, for the first time in years, that the government has a healthy confidence in business and social desire to move on.
Stocks are up, M&A is slowly gaining ground, and banks are lending more. The City is starting to become confident too, even if their forecasts are high.
So whilst the economy continues to do its pancake act, there is a developing mixture of fortune in this flat economy.
There is still a lot of cost cutting to be done. For those that do it, there will be huge opportunities, post-depression, as they ensure they are ready for the economy taking off.
For those paying off debt: it's boring, but they're doing the right thing. Trying to grow whilst debt-laden allows only stunted growth at best, and failure being a likely outcome.
Property still falls, and the rental market, while up, remains very sensitive. Some say it's very temperamental. The state of the property market is still more about personal debt and unemployment than it is the willingness of the banks to push mortgages. Banks have been exploring exciting mortgage packaging in recent times.
Northern Rocks growth demonstrates that there is business to be done, and that it's worth the fight. The governments intent to sell Northern Rock to a business is good demonstration of the confidence it has for that Bank and for business in general. The asset arm of Northern Rock should sort itself out as the economy improves.
Our expectation of a useful improvement in the economy is now early spring 2012. Even if there is growth in 2011, it will be insufficient to include everyone, and, if it doesn't include everyone, the recovery will remain vulnerable.
14 May 2011: End or recession getting closer
The end of recession has been a long time coming. GDP is stable, and a second dip is unlikely. The recession has become stable and it has turned into a depression, which is likely to be long-term.
It's noticeable. People are starting to get about their business again, fewer businesses are falling, and employment seems to be increasing.
The economy is still behind where it should be and it's likely to be a couple of years before growth starts to get under way. High taxes and the Debt will continue to throttle growth. Once domestic and commercial cash flow return, confidence will develop further, enabling small falls in tax, and allowing growth to get underway.
Inflation, they say, has become rampant. Our view is that it hasn't. Inflation has been subdued for some time now when volatile effects, such as fuel, are removed. We believe the current inflation hike is nothing more than a correction, bringing it back to it's natural line. We believe it will calm and reduce the pressure for heavy interest rate rises.
House prices continue to fall, but that is only to be expected in a depression. They are unlikely to rise, or even stabilise until growth emerges, in some 12 months time. Rents tend to move in the opposite direction and are increasing quickly.
The government appears to be doing something about the unemployment state. With falls in unemployment, confidence is likely to return more quickly. The state employs over 5 million people, making the payroll nearly as costly as the dole itself. We believe people are aware of that: the state must shrink further to create a better public/private sector ratio, to enable economic growth.
But to put the unemployed in employment, and the overweight part of the state in new employment will need a lot more than existing businesses taking on those people. A lot of businesses have been lost. A lot of new businesses will spring up, more in the form of cottage industries than anything else, and they should employ a vast amount of the unemployed.
The M&A phenomenon is returning to banks and financial advisers. The state of that industry is a sensitive barometer of economic confidence: in fact, it was failing M&A deals that enabled our accurate prediction that a recession was imminent. The growing M&A industry is evidence that the ends of the recession and the depression are also imminent.
People's memories of hardship will hold for some time, until cash starts to flow in their lives again. Most people are still overweight with debt, and paying that down is their prime objective, effectively holding back the consumer markets. Fear of interest rates rises will continue the theme of debt paydown. But it should leave people with more cash, and a population with excess cash has been known to change the way financial markets work.
Changes may be at play already. Even though the markets and the economy have stabilised, the mortgage industry continues to fall. In some ways, this could be a way that people are telling the mortgage industry to change.
In terms of finding work, it is the experienced that are ahead of the game instead of the youthful. We note that companies are erring on the side of keeping employees rather than dispensing with them.
We still believe the government’s takeover of Northern Rock was right. Had it not, then half the mortgages in the land would have fallen pray to repossession whether their owners could pay or not, because Northern Rocks liabilities would have pursued recovery of their money. However, we don't accept that the government would be right to sell off Northern Rock shareholders shares: this would cause a loss in confidence in owning shares, which would do no good at all for the economy. It is for the banks to return the money to the government.
And that's important: with many other effects on the markets, such as Japan's disaster, the markets are incredibly sensitive and jittery.
31 October 2010: Taxes still going up
Three major tax rises are imminent, Air Passenger Duty, Fuel Tax and the VAT rise by 14.3% to 20%, showing that tax rises are not going to be constrained for some time to come.
The big downside to tax rises, particularly large ones, is that it makes consumers very nervous about spending in the future. With most banks having reported a slump in mortgage lending, that house prices continue to fall, and that consumer debt payments are at record levels, it’s becoming clear what most people are planning for 2011. Consumers are nervous.
Businesses directly reliant on the consumer trade are going to have to become quite creative in enticing those consumers to part with their money.
With Christmas fast approaching, it’s very difficult to predict the outcome to festive shopping. Our feeling is that there will be a burst of shopping just before Christmas, but, overall, it’s likely to be down on last year.
The start to 2011 is unlikely to be exciting with many savings in the January sales reduced by the VAT rise. Consumers are clearly very keen on reducing debt liabilities, and creating savings for the next few years.
We suspect that Spring 2011 is likely to be very slow, and consumer spend is likely to increase a little on the approaches to next Summer, as consumers start to chill out.
The lot for most small businesses will be to continue to keep tight reigns, becoming even more flexible, and keeping a sharp lookout for, and seizing, new opportunities.
The brighter news is that the economy is still likely to grow through 2011, albeit slowly, and that growth is likely to increase in 2012, particularly if most people have repaid consumer debt.
The governments only timetable for reducing taxes appears to be in 2013/14, which will doubtlessly be welcome.
We can’t see that businesses are going to move to any degree in absorbing state redundancies unless there’s a major shift in the economy, which would suggest that the welfare population is likely to grow considerably. With the governments determination to reduce the welfare bill, we suspect the net effect will be a lot of new businesses being created, though at high risk, particularly in the North and Scotland.
18 October 2010: Jaguar roars for the future
Announcing new profits, security for its factories and workforce for the next ten years, and an intention to double output, Jaguar Land Rover starts to break free from the recession.
It’s another sign of growing confidence around the UK.
Tata Industries has reported a 60% increase in sales, are keeping its car plants open and investing £5billion in the operation: it’s even made the unions happy.
Chalestra foresaw the recession, and predicted the end of it. It’s here. Growing reports of turnaround and new successes provides ample evidence that the UK is set for another long-term growth run.
It is true that there is still a lot of weakness. Consumer debt is still very high, job security is still low, the housing market is still falling and a VAT rise is around the corner. But consumers have largely got their mortgages under control, are paying off their debts, and are already looking for the feel-good factor. Credit ratings for people and businesses are likely to improve substantially over the next year.
The government is about to announce its spending review, which should offer everyone a clear vision or route to the future: it should boost confidence further. And cuts in corporation tax over the next four years should help businesses hold on to some cash for reinvestment.
The government has also provided routes to employing more people and developing a variety of resources. Slashing health and safety rules will allow businesses to take more risks, and reduce costs further.
New businesses, particularly in the North, are being offered new forms of investment, thus regenerating markets there.
UK banks are poised to start lending again substantially, and interest rates are likely to remain low for some time to come.
The quango cut was disappointing, but we doubt that’s over.
Chalestra reinforces its view that we are up for long-term growth, though it will remain slow for the next three years.
04 August 2010: What is customer service
A customer is anyone or any institution that gives you money. What makes customers volatile is the simple fact that they don't have to give you money, whence they stop being customers, or are relegated to potential customers. A potential customer is someone who has money but has not yet been persuaded to give money.
There are exceptions to the rule of course, some perverse, but the exceptions are far and few between.
Identifying customers is a matter of finding people who have money to give, and establishing what would persuade them to give money to you. It often materalises as an offer of a service or the transfer of goods.
Persuading a potential customer to buy-in often involves you proving that they is going to get value for their money. If you can prove that, then the deal is made.
It is generally reckoned that a customer is five times more expensive to 'get' than keeping a one - or five times as hard.
So maintaining a customer is much more likely to help you achieve your fortunes than going through customer after customer. The latter is the hard slog.
And it gets better if they trust you.
So what does it take to keep a customer? Opinions differ from person to person, which largely depends on the degrees of success they've had, and their experience of managing them.
Some will say that you will keep a customer if you offer a very professional service. Some would say that all you have to do is give the customer what he wants. Others that you just stick to the agreements.
But, in our view, none of these will really entice customers to return. Something more is needed.
Chalestra says that it's all about smiles on peoples faces. Chalestra has turned peoples nightmares into the happiest days of their lives, so it should know what what makes customers happy.
Ideally, customers will come back for no reason at all! Which gives you the chance to sell time and again, and with no effort. Particularly if they trust you.
A bit of banter, mucking about, being human, are all ingredients of what makes customers happy.
And the measure of a happy customer as they walk away is the smiles on their faces.
Learn more about Chalestra's communication services.
04 August 2010: What is customer service
A customer is anyone or any institution that gives you money. What makes customers volatile is the simple fact that they don't have to give you money, whence they stop being customers, or are relegated to potential customers. A potential customer is someone who has money but has not yet been persuaded to give money.
There are exceptions to the rule of course, some perverse, but the exceptions are far and few between.
Identifying customers is a matter of finding people who have money to give, and establishing what would persuade them to give money to you. It often materalises as an offer of a service or the transfer of goods.
Persuading a potential customer to buy-in often involves you proving that they is going to get value for their money. If you can prove that, then the deal is made.
It is generally reckoned that a customer is five times more expensive to 'get' than keeping a one - or five times as hard.
So maintaining a customer is much more likely to help you achieve your fortunes than going through customer after customer. The latter is the hard slog.
And it gets better if they trust you.
So what does it take to keep a customer? Opinions differ from person to person, which largely depends on the degrees of success they've had, and their experience of managing them.
Some will say that you will keep a customer if you offer a very professional service. Some would say that all you have to do is give the customer what he wants. Others that you just stick to the agreements.
But, in our view, none of these will really entice customers to return. Something more is needed.
Chalestra says that it's all about smiles on peoples faces. Chalestra has turned peoples nightmares into the happiest days of their lives, so it should know what what makes customers happy.
Ideally, customers will come back for no reason at all! Which gives you the chance to sell time and again, and with no effort. Particularly if they trust you.
A bit of banter, mucking about, being human, are all ingredients of what makes customers happy.
And the measure of a happy customer as they walk away is the smiles on their faces.
Learn more about Chalestra's communication services.
25 November 2009: Why Business Administrator makes life so easy
Business Administrator is among the most powerful business systems today. It offers a wealth of equipment to help you run your business. But in what ways does it make your life easier?
As someone running a business, your time is precious: so much to do and so little time to do it. And trying to cut time shorter!
Business Administrator was conceived out of the very need to cut down the time involved in running a business. And expense. To that end, Business Administrator is kitted out with a wealth of tools to make business faster and more professional.
There is little that can be done to reduce data input: Business Administrator has to be told what’s going on. But once that’s done, everything else becomes electric. Middle office, central administration and all the paperwork are removed because Business Administrator handles all that. Once it’s got the information, Business Administrator can handle almost everything. Business Administrator’s Shadow Systems manage the middle office, and you can sometimes see them in operation: on large jobs, they report their status through progress bars – if you unexpectedly see progress bars, then this is the Shadow Systems in operation.
And as for output, tax, reporting, etc., Business Administrator provides a host of tools to make that simple too. It offers fast routes to execution of a huge range of business tasks, and hosts a wealth of reporting tools.
Business Administrator is a live reporting system: it is able to report on the state of a business at any given time, which allows you to make immediate business decisions. In the old days, to make a decision, you would have had to do lots of calculations and produce lots of reports before you could even begin to make a decision. Now, Business Administrator brings immediacy to it, allowing you to impress you stakeholders (customers, staff, etc.).
You can also commit your business to virtually any type of project or initiative: you can create contact lists, timelines, marketing initiatives and manage project budgets.
Business Administrator runs a comprehensive set of on-screen reports. Though it will never run every single type of report possible, it can export data from the reports you like so that you can run further analysis on the data.
Business Administrator also hosts its own CRM system: with a few clicks of a mouse, you can see who knows who, who contributes to your business, who hasn’t been contributing or which customers or suppliers are unhappy. And if you’re using the Business Administrator Network, then who-knows-who is extended across that network, offering you the opportunity to find new customers or suppliers by electronic word of mouth.
Through its processes, Business Administrator offers a number of alarms for things going wrong. Its reporting systems will soon show you that a recession is impending, even if that recession is only in your world. These alarm signals can soon take a lot of the worry out of running a business.
Business Administrator hosts a myriad of services and functions that can reduce your workload of a few hours to just a few minutes.
02 September 2009: Are you sending the right messages
Sending the right messages in any communication is vital if you want to achieve any objectives. Business people will know how little time they have, and consumers have better things to do than listen to hype. The world is becoming immune to sales messages.
All too often, messages are lost in rambling talk where the author fails to either get to the point or to deliver an adequate call to action. Worse, they often indulge in discussion about themselves or what they do. Worse still, they indulge in self-discussion: they are actually writing to themselves!
In our modern high pressure society, people, whether in business or not, will not spend a lot of time reading any form of message, unless reading the message is proved to be of benefit to them.
It is vital to get your key message and call to action across incredibly fast. After that, there’s little point in writing more.
Writing a quick message and a call to action actually takes a lot of confidence and even more nerve. The tendency to drift into apology or explanation is all too common, even in the final print. The tendency to tell the world how wonderful a product is, in the print that’s barely legible, is fatal. Customers want to know whether the product will benefit them, and they want to know very quickly.
Some of the most successful pitches Chalestra has made, both for itself and its clients, have been two-part messages: a quick question, and a quick call to action. No more. It doesn’t work every single time, but it is the most successful. The real question is what the question should be.
Contact Chalestra to get your messages right.
11 August 2009: Sell value instead of volume
It wasn’t too long ago that people had money to burn. Really. Almost everyone will admit to spending good money on things they neither wanted nor needed. They even spent that money buying bulk volumes of kit they never wanted. And volume-seekers were the people to attract.
The recession has changed all that. People are trying not to spend any more than they have to: with high taxes and interest rates imminent, the sensible thing now is for people and businesses to reduce debt.
Telecoms companies have largely stopped mass marketing for new customers: they prefer, instead, to spend their time offering better customers services and offering value for their existing customers just to keep them. They learn from the last recession that customers are very fickle, and they lost fortunes by not paying attention to them. Why would you sell a mobile phone to someone who has already got one?
But customers will spend on value. Value, can be a complex thing. There is no such thing as a product or service that is not valuable. A product or service that offers something beneficial at an economic price is valuable. The question is, who is it valuable to? The answer, of course, is obvious.
Contact Chalestra to develop you strategic business.
29 July 2009: Advertising in a summer recession
Money’s tough, customers are tough, the free ad papers are gone, and the thought for the day asks, where to now? Consumers traditionally spend a lot of money during the summer months: they’ve usually spent six months saving for it. Business spend is traditionally at its lowest during those months.
Business plans can only be designed when there is tangible evidence to base them on. Whilst basing business plans on dreams is better than not writing them at all, some path to the future is a must for feasible plans.
But declining business offers lousy evidence as a route to the future. The decline of the free ad papers is demonstration enough that there is no confidence in mainstream advertising, and that it provides little value. If you have no one specific to market to, then you can only market to a mass audience. But no one is listening.
Shopkeepers standing outside shops watching passers by, offers little inspiration. Consumers carrying little more than their handbags are becoming an increasingly normal sight.
But if no one else is advertising, does that not mean you have the world to market to? You, alone, pressing on? And with the media so desperate for cash, great deals are there to be done. We know that they’ll do deals for virtually nothing, just to keep the game alive.
Marketing Week in London was particularly busy this year. Was that because everyone has nothing better to do? Or were they desperate for ideas?
With the right communications, a recessionary summer is an excellent time for promotion to people who have little else to listen to.
Contact Chalestra to start developing your sales pitches.
23 July 2009: Employing computers are vital route to keeping costs down
Todays economy shows that the survivors of downturns are those that were willing to drive down costs. Driving down costs involves some of the toughest decisions a business person can make. But in the absence of sales, it is a very necessary function.
Customers are hard to find. Getting them to part with their money is even harder. Shopkeepers are watching people browsing, and leaving empty handed.
The best way to indulge in cost management is by increasing sales. But what if you can’t increase sales?
Business Administrator is a wall-to-wall business management system. Because it provides services to all areas of your business, it will offer business functionality at virtually no cost. Unlike other management software, it will offer a wide platform of help at no extra cost.
Whether it’s helping you make fast sales, run your marketing programmes, keep in contact with your customers, ensure your stock is at optimal levels, it is a system that will help you set up a well balanced business.
Business Administrator will show you where you can save money. And it can show you where you can add value.
Download Business Administrator and how it can help your business survive.
17 July 2009: Identifying your customers correctly
As Chalestra offers it's communication and strategic business consulting services to it's customers, it's quite shocking how many people don't understand what a customer is. But understanding what customers are and what they do is vital to trade, and even more vital to successfully pitching for business.
In order to keep this simple, I'll take the case of estate agents, which inherently have got it wrong. The reason estate agents do so much trade is because people desperately want to own their own properties. Which is great, most of the time.
But estate agents fail to identity their real customers. Traditionally, estate agents are paid by the seller of property: nothing wrong with that. But those sellers are not the customers, for the simple reason that they don’t enable the trade.
Those sellers do nothing but hand money over, good money, no doubt. But handing that money over does not action a trade.
The real customers are the buyers when they buy a property. The reason being that it is they who have enabled the trade. Until the buyer buys, the estate agent will get nothing.
Many business people seek people or businesses that have money to be their customers. It's an understandable process, but completely wrong. To get people to be willing to part with their money they need a clear reason to do so. This rarely comes from the people with money: that's why they have money.
Business people ought to be seeking trade enablers to be their customers. True, potential customers must have financial backing to complete the process of becoming a customer, but most people will find the money if they have enough of a reason. More people, you will find, are trade enablers, and it is they who must be identified and found. Estate agents, for this example, would fair much better if they identified their customers more accurately.
One new customer of ours trebled their pitch success rate and turnover just for changing their view of what a customer is. Call Chalestra if you are having difficulty in finding trade.
13 July 2009: Be careful of price management
In times of economic depression, when few customers are around, it’s easy to turn to price management to encourage customers to come back. But price management has little track record on managing customer buy-in, or in developing sales volume.
In reality, customers always buy into attractiveness. iPhones, Jaguars, Disneyland, are all expensive, but attractive and highly popular: it doesn’t matter that there are cheaper, and perhaps better, alternatives that could do just as well. It’s the attractiveness that counts.
But how did they become attractive? Undoubtedly, huge marketing budgets come to play. But, if so, where did they huge marketing budgets come from?
The reality is that these items are all sold on communication. It always comes down to the way a product or service is presented to the community, and to the correct community. And presentation and communication don’t have to be expensive. In fact, there are plenty of examples of hugely budgeted presentations that have flopped: money isn’t everything.
It’s well recognised that if you have a 30% gross profit, then a 10% price reduction means you have got to sell 50% more units to maintain revenue income. Conversely, a 10% price increase means you can allow sales to fall to 25% to maintain your income. So what do you do? It’s clearly fraught with potential errors.
We propose you consider the way you sell. Economic downturns mean that presentations and pitches need to be well polished, and there is less room for clumsy effort.
Contact Chalestra for help in bringing your pitches to the frontline.
30 June 2009: How to get your staff to work for nothing
You couldn’t make it up. How many businesses could even dream of getting 16% of the workforce to work for free, let alone pull it off. Yet this is what British Airways have achieved.
Whilst we don’t have any details on the deals that were made to achieve this incredible scenario, we wait with baited breath to find out.
British Airways is a world-class airline and a leader in its field. The very thought of having to ask staff to work for free is incomprehensible, let alone doable. But, it’s obviously possible.
But there is something more worrying. If this is the example that a world-class institution and industry leader offers to the remainder of the business community, it makes you wonder if SMEs should be following the examples of supposed masters. To us, this is not business. The ability of 99% of businesses to get a sixth of their workforce to work for free, even for a month, is simply not a credible route to the future.
Even more worrying is that if such a world-class institution can achieve the scenario, what could they dream up next?
25 June 2009: Chalestras thoughts on SEO
As promised, and for a few months now, Chalestra has indulged in web marketing. It's been important for us for several reasons: our clients have asked about it, we really ought to be promoting the business in every way possible, and we would be able to add the experience to our repertoire of skills. And, like most businesses will, the monetary budget was set at zero.
Our thoughts on SEO
Through the help our friends and a lot of research, we applied every known SEO (search engine optimisation) technique to our promotional efforts. And we have mixed conclusions about it.
The key solution, for us, is to just write. Write to promote to customers and nothing else. Good content is made up of good writing, for which we read essays. It should be interesting to as many people as possible. And it is this concept that keeps readers on the website. And it's very sensitive. I think of magazine editors choosing writers for the content of their magazines.
Except that one should also write properly coded websites. But we do that anyway - it's part of our professionalism.
Web marketing
And to compliment our SEO efforts, we also employed web marketing, in which we've spent an enormous amount of effort. You'll find comments from Chalestra in all the big business networking sites, and, again, we've got mixed reactions.
Sales didn't do well. We suspect the reason for that was related to a golden rule we tell our own clients: we clearly didn't promote to the people we should have promoted to - we didn't put the web links in front of the right people. But time and budget constraints, and all that.
Does it work?
To do the job properly, we've tried to be as comprehensive and wide-ranging as possible. We've increased the number of visitors to the site by three times, which isn't too bad. We've noticed that we should expect natural growth: we did expect to get hard hits and big increases. But that was naive: we're wiser now.
As for more sales: we're not impressed. We found a lot more people had heard of Chalestra, so the marketing angle did work. As a sales channel, it left a lot to be desired. For us. Though we will spend more time researching the right people and casting web links to them. But with more people having heard of us, selling has become easier.
Conclusion
In hindsight, we now believe that SEO and web marketing should be parts of a marketing and sales mix. It is for everyone, but in varying degrees. And it should be pursued.
We maintain that there is no alternative to meeting people face-to-face, and getting to know viable potential customers. Word of mouth is second to that. But if people have already heard of you, then that's a benefit, and it's the key benefit of SEO and we marketing.
SEO and web marketing add new layers in the customer to supplier route, and those that don't pursue these disciplines are likely to get left behind. With nearly everyone in the world resorting to the web for research, it's vital for every business to have a presence on the web, and that they promote that presence. How they go about it is dependent on the key objectives, and finding an objective and targeting towards that objective.
23 June 2009: Summer is here - get ready for autumn business
Autumn is often the beginning of a new business year. For the services industry, and particularly for large companies, it is often the period that earns the most money, and when most new contacts are made.
Autumn is also the pre-Christmas season, a period vital for retailers. Retailers will be jostling for position on the start line, positioning themselves to be attractive to buyers. And a long lead in is going to be vital to cope with this recession.
And businesses will have be willing to move very quickly to respond to new opportunities.
It follows, then, that summer has to be the time for all businesses to prepare for full-on business opportunities. Whether it is preparing to recruit staff, develop computer systems, put business plans together, or requisition finance, the quality of the preparation can often be the make or break for a successful Autumn season.
The recession, of course, is going to make things very unpredictable, but those businesses that rise to the challenges will almost certainly break the recession and set themselves up for a productive 2010. Those that don't are likely to become even more disheartened.
With a government dithering about whether and when they should cut their own costs, and thus taxes, it is likely that businesses will have to prepare for the coming season paying heavy attention to costs and savings. Costs will be a necessity, of course, but given how unpredictable the coming season will be for flourishing revenue, every care must be applied. The end of summer is also the time for most businesses when corporation tax is due, which is still rising despite the state of the economy.
Banks, too, will be looking for business, and deals this year should be far better than last year for businesses that can show they will make use of the coming season.
And making use of the season is going to be vital factor. For many, it will be the last. A few will have much to brag about. For most, it will be a case of doing well and getting to the next season, which will be no mean feat.
Creativity will also be on the menu. Businesses will have to be very creative on how they will persuade customers to hand over cash that the customers themselves need.
As with all things business, the competition will have to have a close eye on it. No business, these days, can afford to miss a sale, let alone give it to another business.
Staff will have to rise to the challenges faced by their employers, and rise to the opportunities open to them. Not much room for promotions, this year, but staying in a job, for many, will be the opportunity.
Suppliers will have to forge an all-out effort to help their customers. Ensuring products and services are the best in the marketplace, supply chains are oiled and greased, and useful agreements being in place, are only some of the issues for suppliers to prepare.
Summer is about preparing to reap the autumn harvest. Good luck, and best wishes from us.
contact Chalestra if you want to take advantage of our business consulting services.
19 June 2009: Trade something else besides money
The "credit crunch", as it has become known, would suggest that there's no money around, given that no one can get credit to supply it. Businesses, and people, have become heavily reliant on debt, and, because debt was so easy to acquire, have not learned to manage it well. Even the best of companies have failed to manage debt well.
But money, whilst it is the forestay of our economy, is not the only item that can be traded. Time, for instance, is frequently traded in our social lives.
In business, time can be traded too. Asset swapping and lending are other routes to balancing trade. It's also true of stock swapping - one man's muck is another man's gold.
I must remember, though, that a story like this must come with a risk warning: don't forget to pay the tax. What! I heard that! Tax is not payable on exchange of money - it's payable on exchange of value. So, even, if you trade time, you must pay the tax on it. Unfortunately, Inland Revenue, rightly or wrongly, only understands currency.
But I can picture a local shopkeeper talking to someone who's hard up (which is normal now), asking his customer what they have got to trade, if they have no cash. Well, the picture is possible, and you never know what opportunities might arise.
And with the government bickering about whether costs should be cut in two years time, instead of doing it now, the situation is likely to become infinitely worse, and alternative means of trade could become vital resources for everybody.
Many people often wonder why the world is all about cash, even if the answer is obvious, but it goes to show that the world doesn't have to be about cash. Trading co-operation, then, could become the currency for some people in relentless recessions. And businesses.
16 June 2009: Software can help position websites
Because Chalestra develops bespoke software, the question frequently arises as to whether software can really help position websites on the Internet in terms of popularity. We maintain, that it can if it's used wisely, but it forms part of an army of functions that are used to promote websites.
Computers are being used frequently to management website content - a facility known as content management. It's about providing accurate and relevant content to website visitors, whether those visitors be human or electronic. Content can only properly targeted if the information within it is properly managed, and if you know what the visitor wants. This is where Chalestra comes in: we are information management specialists.
If content isn't managed by a dedicated information system, then you are reduced to pitching stories at the Internet, hoping it finds the places that you do want to target, and that it’s relevant to the audience: it's like firing shots everywhere hoping one hits home.
Content management also needs a partner: a properly managed SEO management system that helps search engines understand the relevance of the content. But that comes back to information management.
Content management backed by an information management system reduces the effort in managing websites.
But there's a side effect. That is because the efforts of a software engine are relentless. Compare the efforts of humans where activity is once in a while, or a few times a day with full-blown effort.
And an information management system can do even more. It's all very nice pitching to search engines, but what about pitching to the remainder of the Internet. SEO, as it says, only focuses on pitching to search engines, which means that SEO-focused business are missing out on more than 90% of their Internet marketing potential.
It is true that websites work 24/7. But most of them, unlike the likes of Amazon.com or the BBC, are static. Imagine what could be done with a dedicated management system that is actively managing and distributing information from your business.
Then there's the question of popularity. With whom should the website be popular? Search engines? Humans? Businesses? News agencies? Accurate pitching of information should be a clear business strategy.
Information management systems are not cheap. This is true. But the benefit of a bespoke information management system is that it is tailored to your business, your objectives, and the way you want to work. And can become one of your most prized assets.
contact us for more information on building information management systems.
12 June 2009: Software games
Software games offer businesses a vital role in developing their strategic systems. It offers them the chance to toy with ideas and assess the strategic direction before spending large sums on full-scale projects.
The UK and US navies spend billions developing games with the single objective of keeping projects on track. The games are designed to estimate how facilities will work in the field, and to find out at the early stages how they can be improved. The results saves them fortunes more, and gives them the ultimate systems.
Chalestra, too, indulges in games. We play them both with business and with software projects. By playing games with business allows us to hone our business skills. Playing with software allows to ensure our products and services are among the best around. That's one of the reasons why Business Administrator is so successful, why it's so attractive, and why we could afford to build it. Business Administrator is the case study for everything we do.
And we allow our customers to play games. It allows us to understand clearly what our customers want, and it allows them to discover exactly what they need and how they should fine-tune the software. It also allows our customers to see how we perform and what they're getting for their money. And, of course, it allows them to lower the risks of their projects, save their spending money, and get an exact idea of what they need.
A software game is essentially the bare bones of a project. It looks lousy, it works to an extent, and it could be described as unprofessional. This is true. But the objective is to get a toy to play with to see how it will work. In manufacturing, you might call these prototypes. The benefit of the games is that they work, they're cheap and they give you an idea of how your project is going.
Usually, the game is the basis of the finished project. We'll adjust the toy until it's perfect, and then we'll start on creating a world-class product. If that's what you want.
If you would like to get to know more about Chalestra's services, please contact us.
10 June 2009: Your customers know your future customers
It's a fact of life that as friendships develop, they develop between people who have things in common. It's fair to say that you customers know people who could be your customers too.
It's also fair to say that your customers know more of your potential customers than you ever will.
The trick is to find out how you can persuade your customers friends to bring you their business. How can you persuade your customers to give you access to their friends?
But not many businesses do anything to drill into their social networks to explore new businesses opportunities.
Some do network in the social sense. But there aren't many networks that encourage face-to-face networking - most of the few businesses that do network do it online. Worse, there aren't many business people that indulge in any kind of networking at all.
For someone to give personal information on their friends takes a lot of trust. This can only be gained through social networking. Not just in networking meetings, but, particularly, networking among customers. Networking with customers could give virtually unfettered access to new business.
And it can multiply. For every customer you have, they may have three or four friends who could bring business to you. For each of those, they may have a further three of four friends each that could bring business your way. And so it goes on.
There is no doubt that gaining new customers is an expensive business, in terms of time, money and effort. But social networking is comparatively cheap, and everybody loves networking.
But they ought to do more with networking with customers.
29 May 2009: Why Business Administrator works
Normal business…
Take sales >> Do administration >> Account for it >> Go to the pub
Business Administrator business…
Take sales >> Go to the pub
Business Administrator wipes out the middle two!
20 February 2009: When credit reports fail
We hear that many small businesses are ceasing to do credit checks because credit reports no longer accurately report on the creditworthiness of people and businesses. We can’t blame them, since we’re among those who no longer use credit reporting.
For the last 30 years or so, checking credit worthiness was an essential part of good business. But it’s only valid if the credit reports themselves are valid and accurate. And it should be remembered that the banks largely drive credit report content. That which ends that conversation!
Credit reporting, wrongly, has become the pinnacle to business intelligence. It’s wrong, because it entices everyone to use only one form of reference. One form of anything is barely an adequate reference, because that reference can’t really be verified: you’re taking someone else’s word for it, and you don’t even know them!
However, it’s still vital to get an accurate judgement on whether a person or business is credit worthy. Get it wrong, and you either lose stock or you lose a customer. Either is bad business. So what are the alternatives?
Get to know people
Up to some 30 years ago, shopkeepers and tradesmen always got to know their customers personally. Even bank managers did. Today, that concept has drifted far into the depths of history. We think it should come back. Business owners should spend time getting to know their communities, although with pubs all but gone, that’s difficult.
Get references
References are another valuable tool that has made it into the history books. But we know that many sports clubs still use the idea. Someone who wants to trade with you gets a reference from someone you already know and trust. Put the idea in your customers’ heads and let nature take its course.
Trade down
Many businesses have an entry requirement for new customers: say £1,000, cash up front, for the first order. Many potential customers, new or old, are going to find it difficult to raise substantial cash up front: it is reported that most small businesses are behind in their tax payments – a dangerous place to be. We suggest reducing the entry level to virtually zero. There is nothing that says that a tiny customer today won’t be a massive customer tomorrow. People often remember those who helped them and are likely to become very loyal customers. In this day of electronic trading, loyal customers are hard to find.
Be a champion against prejudice
Trade is trade and business is business. There is really no place for prejudice in the routes to market. Many businesses decline to trade with those that trade solely on the Internet. It has happened to use, and we find it amazing. The reality is that, because of the huge costs in establishing a business, most people are starting their businesses via the Internet. It makes sense. By cutting out these people, you are not only losing customers not, but you will have lost them for the future. Almost certainly, new businesses will trade with new market entrants. Historical trends show that these types of partnerships often become phenomenally strong, leaving your business exposed in the future.
16 January 2009: A recession proof business
We’ve been growing alarmed at the number of businesses that are saying that they are recession-proof businesses. Not only have we heard this on the grapevine, but no less that four businesses have said it directly to us. In our view, there is no such thing as a recession-proof business: even the government is not recession-proof.
There’s a simple test: how many businesses, including the government, could survive if cash were to disappear? Will your staff be perfectly happy to be paid in chickens?
The reality is that recessions can provide a quantum change in business style, and the outcome is largely unpredictable. It is this lack of predictability that drives the risks. The evidence for this statement already exists: Woolworths has always been at risk in recent years, but, until two years ago, who would ever have thought that Lehmans or the Bank of Scotland would fall?
And, we feel, it is downright arrogant and irresponsible to start claiming that a business is recession proof. The reason is that so many stakeholders are dependent on a business coping. Staff rely on businesses surviving, as do customers and suppliers, and so does the state. Then there’s the knock on effect where other businesses rely on your staff for their trade: mortgage companies, the local grocer and pub would be examples.
The snag is that if you say that your business is recession-proof, it opens the door to becoming cocky and complacent: worse, you’ll get to believe it. When that happens, you’re business will become a prime at-risk business.
There is also the issue of huge debts by large companies. Many are using cash calls to raise cash to pay debt. This isn’t a problem in itself, but it will be if interest rates rise significantly: many large businesses will be in trouble, and it will have a knock-on effect for small businesses.
We propose that any business that claims to be recession proof be treated with raised eyebrows, and everyone be rightfully nervous about them. It could be the last screams of a dying business.
And it must be remembered that this is not a recession in the normal sense: it’s not a standalone recession. It was caused by the credit crunch and is being driven by it.
And there are other factors coming to play, particularly on the political front.
There’s likely to be a shift in politics for two possible reasons. Not only are the Conservatives likely to make it to power in 12 months, but there is also a massive rise in nationalism, and commentators are already suggesting the BNP could form an opposition at some point. Even through these, business will cope, but it is not right to say that the outcomes can be predicted: there’s no case for saying whether or not certain businesses will be proofed against the changing climate, and certainly no case for saying that certain industries are immune to change.