Top 10 Blog Posts of 2014

Here is a round up of the top 10 blog posts of 2014.

Like most business owners, I usually take some time to reflect on how my year has progressed, what works, what didn’t work and what do I want for the following 12 months and how will I achieve that. As part of this period of reflection, I take stock of the articles I write, to try and find what you the reader is interested in reading. So that I can bring more of the same straight to your inbox and hopefully captivate your attention for just a short while. So here they are the top 10 blog posts of 2014 by popularity.

1. 7 Golden Rules of Excellent Customer Service

Customer service should be at the heart of any business. You can go through the expensive motions offering various different timely promotions & discount prices to bring in as many new customers as you want, but unless you can get your service levels right you will not get some of those customers to come back, and repeat business, your existing customer bank is your most profitable asset. Read More

2. Motivational Tips for the Self Employed

As the saying goes “it can be lonely at the top” especially when you are the top middle and bottom of your organisation. I have found from my experiences when mentoring self employed on motivation I get asked – Carl how do you stay so motivated – what makes you get up and go every day when it would be easier to stay in bed. Read More

3. Are you just following the crowd?

Often when I am mentoring or coaching business owners I am told, “I have lost my direction, I feel like I am just following the same routine”, and I wonder how many of us just follow the crowd?

We get up at 7am, shower, dress and eat. Start work at 9am. Read More

4. 10 tips for hot summer sales

Ten tips for hot sales this summer, now the sun is shining and the sky is blue, make the most of the great weather and get outdoors to make some sales. There is never a bad time to meet and greet your new clients or customers so get out of the office, factory, surgery or call center and enjoy the sun. Read More

5. The best advice I ever got

Whilst browsing the internet, in fact it was Facebook, I discovered this link from Linkedin about where entrepreneurs got the best advice from and it made such an interesting read I decided to share it. Read More

6. Twitter Analytics

Twitter has recently made its Twitter Analytics available to everyone who has an account, why is this important you ask? Well if you are using twitter for business purposes it is certainly a useful tool to be able to take a snap shot look at your account and its impact on your potential clients and customers, to see if you are engaging with them in a positive way. Read More

7. Sales strategy for new start business

The more new start businesses I mentor (now approaching 300+ over two years) the more I am asked about sales strategy for new starts, my standard answers are too persevere and keep knocking on doors,numbers or bums on seats is the key to successful selling, but am I offering enough information to my mentees when I explain about sales. Read More

8. 9 things Del Boy can teach us about business

I recently found an old Telegraph article about “27 things you can learn from Del Boy” and being a massive fan of the TV show, I had to stop and read it, so I thought I would break out my 9 of the best. 1. Its all about who you know (Networking) Read More

9. How saying sorry is great for business

An interesting snippet picked up from Sky news this morning, saying sorry is good for business. The original article appears in the Daily Mail today, “How the British habit of constantly apologising makes you look more trustworthy”. Read More

10. Whats the first rule of a gun fight

Late payments kill small companies. Often, large companies don’t pay their small suppliers promptly – if at all. They have procurement teams that play dirty tricks instead. SMEs have to pay their suppliers, their employees and the tax man. Cash flows out and doesn’t come in. They’ve been caught in the jaws of a vice. Read More

Author: Carl Bradshaw FInstSMM. Follow on Twitter @CarlBradshaw, Google+, or public updates on Facebook catch up with what I’m reading on Pinterest.
By Carl Bradshaw, MentorNW

Traditional Post is Making a Comeback

All too often when speaking to clients, mentees, friends and colleagues it is becoming apparent that traditional post or snail mail as it is sometimes referred to,  is making a comeback, there are now a number of ways to get in front of your customers or clients, including all the digital routes such as social media, email, SMS, on-line chat, live chat, Bluetooth, near field communications, but don’t forget the power of dropping a letter on the doormat.

So in the past post has lost out to the new. However, there are a number of benefits to using franked mail, for all your business letters, packages, parcels and direct mail marketing:

These are the top 14 benefits to customers in franking their mail, against buying stamps from the post office.

1.    Royal Mail concession and discount between 10 and 23% on franked mail.
2.    Save time by reducing mail processing time, up to half the time to process mail.

3.    Avoids misuse of postage, enhancing security.

4.    Saves visits to the post office, eradicating unproductive time.

5.    Allows urgent requirements for postage, no more missed deadlines.

6.    Mail processing by Royal Mail is streamlined, as items are already dated.

7.    Advertise your corporate messages on every item mailed.

8.    Presents a professional image, stamps give the impression of non-business mail.

9.    Allows greater control of postage costs and mail accounting.

10.  Allows budgeting and charging by department, customer or other user group.

11.  Accurate postage on all items saves money of stamp use.

12.  Avoids under posting and penalty charges incurred by incorrect mail.

13.  Secure storage of postal funds, no concerns over the availability of petty cash.

14.  Return address for items not delivered, your important documents are not destroyed.

If you would like to find out more about switching back to direct mail, or to save money on your existing franking machine and post room costs then contact us today using the form below.

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Introducing Bradex Business Solutions

I would like to introduce the newest enterprise to the group, and its team of dedicated business consultants and mentors.

Bradex Business Solutions has been created to become the one stop shop for business advice and support around running a business, with a wide variety of services from credit management software to executive level mentoring and non executive directorship available from our team of six business consultants.

In short, from my personal experience it is often lonely at the top, especially when trying to fill all the roles that a modern day business requires. Often the owner of the business is not fully trained in all areas, their specialities may lie in finance, sales, hr, manufacturing, retailing, online sales, information technology they generally are a specialist in one, and have a working knowledge of the others, so rather than recruiting a specialist for each role, with the costs of recruitment, salaries, pension, maternity and paternity leave, holidays, sick pay, car, phone and laptop just to name a few.

Employ the team from Bradex Business Solutions on a fixed contract and let us worry about the rest.

Bradex Business Solutions the consulting team

Carl Bradshaw Cert PFS, Cert CII, CeMap, FInstSMM a strong relationship with sales, marketing and business development both online and offline, over 20 years experience in owning and running businesses from financial services to digital creative industries. Read more about Carl Bradshaw.

Carl Stott, ACIB a rounded knowledge in finance, banking, insolvency and financial services with over 35 years experience. Read more about Carl Stott.

John Ardern – Wise Owl a high level of knowledge with market research and a particular lean towards the ‘creative industries’ with 50 years of experience under his belt. Read more about John Ardern.

John Leigh – The Silver Fox a specialist in the service based industries. Starting – and even growing – a service business is easy. The challenge is profitability. Read more about John Leigh.

Mark Dearden a strong background in IT and design, he does things with Dashboard led, VBA in Excel, the rest of us just drool over. Read more about Mark Dearden.

Wendy Latchford experience lies in administration to credit control having worked in the past for a variety of employers from Equinox to Red Prairie, and several different company types, from a golf club to a manufacturer. Read more about Wendy Latchford.