Sage Blog

It’s Business Startup Show time again… and we’ll be there Thursday and Friday this week (20/21 May) doing more than we’ve ever done to get out and about to talk with small businesses about their needs and opportunities for the future.

Business opportunities and challenges

At previous shows, we’ve heard a lot about the opportunities and challenges that businesses face. Business planning and cash flow are always top of mind with young business.

We’ll be talking about these and other business challenges at the show. And we’ve got loads going on to help you get your business off the ground.

Free CRM and business planning workshops

We’re doing something slightly different this time around. First off, we’re running some dedicated workshops at the show – Business Planning and CRM – so you can come along and take part in an interactive session with some of our experts. And after all that walking around we’ll make sure you get a comfy seat!

Small business research

Secondly, if the thought of a seat appeals for half an hour or so then you can also take part in our small business research that we’re running whilst at the show. Register your interest in our small business research if you’d like to help shape the future of our software and services for small businesses – there’s even a free coffee and a little incentive on offer! It would be great to hear your views.

Business software for start-ups

We’ll also be there with a couple of traditional stands… but I promise you won’t get heckled from the aisles! If you want some more ideas about what you can find out then here’s a few:

• Sage Planning for Business – Free business planning software that helps you evaluate, plan and launch your new business
• Sage Invoicing – Free invoicing software that gets you up and running using software to manage your incoming revenue
• Sage Pay – looking to trade online? Find out how our online payments services can help
• New Sage Outsource Payroll services – find out whether in-house payroll software or outsourcing your payroll is your best option
• New Sage Mobile HR Advice – it can be difficult to stay on top of HR issues so see how our mobile HR advice tool can help you
• ACT! by Sage – get a demo of the world’s favourite contact management software and learn why CRM is vital for your business

Free business seminars

And if this isn’t enough, some of our experts will be taking part in free business seminars, such as:

Getting on the e-commerce bandwagon

Overcome mediocrity through exceptional customer service

Are you planning for success?

Watch out for more updates from the show in coming days. I’ll be there both days so please come and say hello.

Geoff Phillips – one of the men in the orange t-shirts! (there will be few!)

I had the pleasure of presenting at the StartUp show at Olympia yesterday talking about how to use social media to jump start relationships with your customers.

The blog you are reading is one of the ways that Sage is using this evolving area and combined with our twitter, facebook and youtube activity we were invited to share our thoughts to the people thinking of setting up a business in 2010.

Despite being the Digital Strategy Manager at Sage and having worked in digital for over 10 years now I still try to start my presentation planning using pen and paper. I find it slows down my brain and as a result makes me think a lot harder about what I am saying. The moment my fingers hit the keyboard I know that without that pre-planning I’ll waffle – and I think anyone who has given up time to listen to me deserves better than waffle.

Many years ago an old sales director of mine taught me a lesson. He took a sales presentation I was due to make and ripped it to pieces – each slide was trying to make multiple points, was full of text and required a lot of effort from the receiver to understand. He re-wrote it and killed 70% of the words and made sure every slide made one point and one point only. If someone who picked up the presentation could not tell what the slide meant without my explanation I had not been clear enough. Like all good lessons it hurt a little at the time but I am a better presenter for it.

Anyway the talk was very well attended, seem to be pitched at the right level and generated some great questions. The best question for me was “how do you deal with complaints and competitors moaning at you online?” At Sage we have a secret weapon (she’s called Cath) who listens out for issues and problems and then either talks directly to the person involved or directs it to the relevant part of the business. I explained that every business will have these issues – these conversations will take place – but it’s how you seek to address them that defines your commitment to your customers. We also discussed how labour intensive this area is and that its not something you can just dip in and out of – that point seemed generate a lot of head nodding.

What was most interesting for me was to see how start up businesses already have social media at the heart of their marketing planning. It’s something that a lot of very well established businesses have not even thought about. it makes me feel very positive about the future for social media.

Pete Wilson, Digital Strategy Manager

As mentioned earlier in the week, there is a lovely team of Sage people in London this week for the Business Startup show at Olympia. We had a fantastic day yesterday meeting a wide variety of people and hearing about their own business dreams.

Team Sage at the Business Start-up Show

If you’re thinking about starting your own business or already trading and want business advice and inspiration, then this is the place to be. It’s free to get in so if you can make it along to Olympia today then come along and see on the stand. It’s number 304 but you can’t miss us – especially not with that orange!

There’s been great interest in our free business planning software and free invoicing software and lot’s of people are really benefitting from one-to-one demonstrations – particularly those that have no experience of business software and what it can do to help save you time and money. It’s also really interesting to here about businesses online plans – our Sage Pay experts are here to give advice on trading online and how that links with your business software.

Looking forward to another busy (but foot tiring) day!

Geoff Philips – Head Honcho of Team Sage