Sage Blog

Sage World is back again in 2011. This year we’ll be in Manchester’s EventCity  on the 12^th and 13^th of October. To register for your free ticket visit www.sageworld2011.co.uk

Every year hundreds of business events are promoted. And let’s face it, some are better than others. Nothing beats a recommendation; so if you’ve been to an event which you think shouldn’t be missed, then let us know and add a comment.

Why take time out of  your business to attend an event?

Guest blogger Sarah Hopcroft from Wildfire Digital Media recently attended Sage World, our free event for small businesses. Here she talks about her recent business challenges and how a business event can both inspire you and help you focus on the future.

Over to Sarah….

WildFire Digital Media

As a recently established business, we at WildFire Digital Media were looking for any help and advice we could get to help us to make our business stand out from the crowd. WildFire was formed in July as a web design agency whose USP is to help get young businesses off the ground and get online, we also touch on the importance of social media and include this as one of our packages. Of course, we also do a lot of work with more seasoned businesses too.

Hard times
Starting a business in the current economic downturn has its challenges. We started off in a competitive market with virtually no money behind us and were relying solely on marketing, word of mouth and the power of online media. But we still needed support and inspiration to keep those wheels turning! We were very glad to find out about Sage World and, with no further ado, booked our tickets for the 2 day conference in Telford.

Sage World
We were not disappointed! Upon our arrival the mood was friendly and energetic, the main area was a hive of activity. The Sage technical support team were present to offer free advice on how to get the best from their software. The Sage staff helped us to make sense of our Spotme devices that were provided for the event. These turned out to be the perfect tool for networking and provided up to the minute information throughout the day;

Sage World

gently reminding us when a session was due to begin. It was also a way to electronically exchange business cards with like minded individuals, details of which were sent to us after the event and we were able to generate a couple of leads in this way.

The talent
There were some incredible speakers, and I would be here all day if I were to outline all the benefits of listening to these passionate and knowledgeable individuals talk about what they love the most. Notable speakers for us included Will King of King of Shaves, Karren Brady,  Geoff Ramm and Andy Lopata, each for very different reasons – of course Sage excelled at ensuring there was plenty of variety and something for everyone.

• Will King showed us that any business has its highs and lows and inspired us to believe in ourselves and that you can make something of nothing if you have the drive to succeed. A little inspiration goes a long way in what can seem to be a ‘dog eat dog’ world of business.
• Karren Brady, a woman in a business dominated by men, was fascinating to listen to. We are in a similar situation in our own business and some of the stories she regaled about the prejudice she came across and how she overcame it were very entertaining!
• Geoff Ramm, a marketing expert, offered us some amazing tips and advice on how to stick out like a sore thumb. He even took time out to talk to some businesses individually and of course we were the first in line. He recommended that rather than paying for advertising, save money and do something noteworthy to get you into the press – ergo free advertising! An important point he made, for any business, was that when times are tough the first thing people tend to do is cut down on their marketing, whereas it is actually the time to increase it.
• Andy Lopata provided advice on networking and getting yourself known through word of mouth. This is something we needed to do as a new business and we listened intently! He told us to get referrals rather than recommendations, to ensure that the potential client is expecting the call. He told the group not to be afraid of asking friends and family for referrals and we have since received 2 referrals for our own business in this way, one of which has already generated new business – thank you Andy!

The future
I hope I have managed to provide a small insight into the experience that was Sage World. The knowledge taken away from the event was invaluable, and everyone there learnt something new. This event changed how we looked at our business, we were able to step outside of it and look back in. We left the event inspired, with a lot of new contacts and a head full of ideas for the future. We will continue to gain referrals from our contacts and we have plans for a competition as, in the words of Geoff Ramm, give something away and it will come back.

Roll on next year!

Long before the advent of the Internet… before John Logie-Baird invented the television, Thomas Newcomen invented the steam engine, Charles Babbage invented the computer, and before the mass production of newspapers… sellers and buyers actually had to talk to each other.

Hard to believe isn’t it?

Traders used to meet buyers in the local market place.  Business men (because it invariably was men in those pre-equality days) met to discuss the latest prices in pubs and coffee houses.  Buyers made one-off transactions with sellers.  House-wives made requests of travelling salesmen for items they would buy on his next visit.

It was a two way conversation.  It was a one-to-one; equal-to-equal transaction.  It was tailored to the buyer’s needs.  The seller listened to what the buyer wanted, and then supplied it.

All that changed with the Industrial Revolution.  The revolution put power into the hands of those that could afford to mechanise the production of products.  It allowed them to put the craftsman out of business because he or she couldn’t compete, and owners to amass fortunes by controlling the Four P’s of marketing – Product, Place, Price and Promotion.  It saw the rise of middlemen who were the accredited representatives of the producers, and it put the consumer at a huge disadvantage… think the Model T Ford – ‘They can have any colour as long as it’s black.’

Why is this so important?  What relevance does this have to you and me?

It’s relevant because the pendulum has swung back in favour of the consumer once more.  And it’s swung back because of two inventions… The Internet, and email.

The Internet and email have effectively ‘leveled the playing field’ once again.  You don’t need thousands of pounds to set up in business… you can do it with less than fifty quid.  You don’t need to go through a middleman to source a product… you go straight to China via Alibaba.com.

Explosion of competition

This has led to an explosion of competition and alternate sources of opinion, and the traditional corporations and retailers simply cannot control it – without realising it, the rules of the game they played by… and won by… have changed.

Even worse from the traditional businesses point of view… the pendulum has swung even further back than it was originally.  The saying ‘Do a good job and they’ll tell one other person, do a bad job and they’ll tell twenty’ is outdated… today a disenchanted customer can tell thousands of people instantly via the web.

And in my opinion that can only be a good thing.  Sellers ’should’ be respectful of their customers.  The wise business owners will adapt to the new situation and improve their customer service and product quality.  Only the blind and the arrogant will fall by the wayside.

Top five tips for ‘Back to the Future’ marketing

1. Concentrate on issues that are relevant to your customer, and then relate them back to your business.  You have to coax and persuade your audience into doing what you need them to do in today’s market.  Blatant promotion will work less and less often.
2. Your audience is fragmented into a myriad of niche markets.  You can’t afford to run unique campaigns to every single market because there are too many, so you need to build assets that can be easily converted for a wide range of channels – white papers; video’s; forum scripts; etc.
3. If the new marketing is about networking and talking one-to-one, employ people who are willing to do just that – people with consultative sales background – and give them the marketing tools to do the job – forums; webinars; web chat; etc.
4. Employ listening posts.  In traditional business hierarchies, the management is quite removed from the ‘coal face’.  But if the coal face is where your customer is, and your objective is to be relevant to them, then you need to make sure you have access to what they’re saying and thinking, and you can’t afford to be behind the times, because what they were thinking three days ago could be irrelevant.
5. Engage often, and don’t ‘sell, sell, sell’.  Today’s audience want trustworthy advice, and if they believe you’re trustworthy, the sale will happen… assuming you have a good product or service.

In these tough economic times, we all know that cuts are inevitable. But where the axe falls – and how this impacts on public and private sector companies – is still up for debate.

Steve Porter, Sage Accountants Division

Marketing…an easy cut to make?

All too often marketing departments are the first to go, as bosses fail to appreciate their value and look for quick, supposedly efficient ways, to make savings. The Central Office of Information (COI) and the BBC are just two of the big names already slashing budgets in an attempt to weather the recession.

Last month, the Coalition government announced plans to halve the CIO’s spending power and abolish its £75 million flagship anti-obesity campaign, Change4Life, in a move that cost 287 jobs.

The BBC have taken a similar approach – reducing the corporation’s marketing spend by 25 per cent this year, with a further 25 per cent fall planned between now and 2013.

As the Coalition continues its comprehensive review, in lieu of next month’s formal report, it’s clear there is much, much more of the same ahead. So what do such savage cuts tell us about the way bosses view marketing? Do they fully understand the role good staff and effective strategies play – and the growth revenue they can create to help trade firms out of recession? If not, how can we make sure they do?

Understanding the value of marketing

Marketing expert, Mark Choueke, is someone giving the issue a great deal of thought. He says public and private sector bosses are underestimating the vital work these teams do – and sacrificing potentially valuable staff, in a damaging exercise in false economy. Now he is urging chief executives to take another look at their communications teams and consider how they can move forward together.

As Mark, a commentator for industry magazine, Marketing Week, says: “There is little understanding of how effective marketing is linked to growth in demand for products and services, or how marketing can represent value-creation for a company.

“If your customer base seems to be coming with you on your journey towards growth, does it matter that others – the City, the politicians, the markets – don’t understand the power of marketing to transform a business and achieve its objectives?

“I would argue that it does. The perceived value of your companies, the perceived value of your work, and most importantly, the perceived value of you and your skills, depends on it.”

As he argues, effective, sustained marketing really does pay off.

Expanding marketing output

Giant, global brands like Colgate Palmolive and Apple have continued to develop their brands and create record profits by valuing and expanding their marketing output. Their investment helped Colgate – which owns the toothpaste as well as Ajax cleaning products – make a staggering £2 billion last year.

For their part, Apple saw record growth across all their markets – with Mac sales up by nine per cent, iPhone by 88 per cent and iPods by three per cent – helping them reach quarterly profits of £1 billion.

Now Mark Choueke and other industry leaders are calling on marketing departments to follow their lead and fight back. “The onus is on us to prove ourselves,” says Mark.

“Marketing budget is currently far too disposable. It is the beating heart, the lifeblood and the brains of any economy. We have the tools to be directing from the top. It’s time we started demonstrating it.”

Steve Porter, Sage Accountants’ Division

In advance of our free event for small businesses, Rory O’Neill, Senior Director with BlackBerry Marketing, talks about BlackBerry’s passion to help small businesses benefit from mobile technology.

Small and medium enterprises are crucial to both the economy and employment in the UK. They are responsible for more than half of the employment (59.4 per cent) and turnover (50.1 per cent) in British business.

The benefits of investing in technology

Small businesses continue to invest in technology, especially smartphones, which have become a necessity to SMEs with workers on the move. In fact, 65% state that technology helps their business by allowing increased staff flexibility and the ability to keep in touch with customers and suppliers, while nearly half say that it has improved the productivity of their workforce. Nearly a third of small businesses say mobile technologies have even enabled them to cut costs through reduced fixed office space.

Be more productive on the move

These factors have led to more business owners utilsing the latest technology as nearly half (46%) of SME decision makers believe they can be more productive on the move. There has been an 81% increase in the number of smartphone users in the last year alone and multi-tasking now accounts for a fifth of media and communications usage.

Savvy SMEs can thrive against the competition by focussing on customer services, optimising revenue streams and increasing business productivity.

Make real-time decisions

On Wednesday, September 8 at 4.00pm, we will be at Sage World 2010, presenting on how SMEs can do just this by utilising mobile applications. At RIM, the company behind BlackBerry smartphones, we believe passionately in empowering businesses to make accurate and immediate real-time decisions that impact the bottom line.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express

We practice what we preach. We have recently introduced new software specifically tailored to the small and medium business – BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express. This new software provides a host of benefits and allows companies to empower all employees with wireless access to their corporate email without compromising security or manageability, maintaining critical connectivity to the office.

Business success and survival

By citing customer examples, we’ll be highlighting how BlackBerry smartphones and associated applications have given employees the freedom to work from anywhere, provided access to critical apps on the move, and enabled interaction with customers and colleagues in real-time.

These customer implementations have led to improved employee efficiency, increased customer responsiveness and utilised downtime – three tangible benefits which have encouraged business success and survival.

Register now

There is still time to register for our free Sage World event. Go to www.sageworld2010.co.uk

Sage World is back again in 2011. This year we’ll be in Manchester’s EventCity  on the 12^th and 13^th of October. To register for your free ticket visit www.sageworld2011.co.uk

Business Networking Strategist, Andy Lopata, is speaking at this week’s free Sage World event. He talks to the Sage Blog about getting the most out of business events.

Business Networking Strategist, Andy Lopata

I’m delighted to hear that registrations for the Sage World 2010 event in Telford this weeks are now around the 1,500 mark.

I’m speaking on both days at the event alongside some exceptional business experts and entrepreneurs and Sage have worked hard to ensure that each delegate will enjoy a fully interactive experience. I’m particularly interested to see in action the SpotMe technology they are using for people to exchange details, meet key people and ask questions of the speakers.

In my first presentation I’ll be looking at how to get the most from the event, and the importance of a networking strategy in general. Two days is a big investment of time from any entrepreneur, but one that can offer a tremendous return if used wisely. I’ll be aiming to give delegates a few ideas to really focus their attention on what they want to achieve by being there.

At the end of day two I’ll be sharing some simple tips to help delegates develop a powerful referrals strategy, hopefully with the help of some of the contacts they will have made over the previous 36 hours!

As well as my two talks, I’ll be holding surgeries, facilitating networking and be available to answer your questions on networking and referral generation on both days of the event. I’ve also invited some questions in advance on the Sage World Facebook page and I will deal with as many as I can at the event.

There is still time to register; go to www.sageworld2010.co.uk to book your place today.

Keith Proudfoot, Regional Director of Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), will be speaking at next month’s free event for small businesses, Sage World. He’s taken time out to talk to the Sage Blog about the needs of small businesses.

Last week I attended a round table discussion with Dr Vince Cable.  Among some talk about Local Economic Partnerships replacing the 10 Regional Development Agencies discussion turned to small business and their needs to drive the recovery.

Keith Proudfoot, Regional Director ICAEW

Dr Cable sees the SME sector as pivotal to the future of the UK.  So it’s good news that his Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) will do what they can, or what they can afford, to help smaller businesses.

The promise of less regulation has been heard before, but the most encouraging part was Dr Cable’s affirmation that he would use a combination of sticks and carrots to ensure that the banking sector lends to smaller businesses.

Of course a bank overdraft is just one way that a business sets itself up to do business and I shall be talking about alternatives in my session at the Sage World conference in Telford next month.

I will also be looking at ways to make your approach to banks more likely to succeed.  While I can make no promises on turning sow’s ears into silk purses, I will be giving tips to make your approach to the bank be given proper consideration.

I’m looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible at the Sage World conference and hope you will find my presentation useful.  I know I will enjoy hearing the other presentations and find out a little more about Telford: the home town of my daughter’s boyfriend – it’s a small world!

Keith Proudfoot

Register free for Sage World at www.sageworld2010.co.uk