The Blog of an Entrepreneur

Posts Tagged ‘twitter’

Why Can’t BusinessLink Keep Good Advisers?

Posted in Entrepreneurialism on March 19th 2010 | 1 Comment

This is a question that has been on my mind for a while, but I’m not alone. It’s also a different question to ask because I know a few people who work for BusinessLink and as an organisation they provide a lot of very valuable services but they fail to follow one of the most fundamental rules they preach. They don’t just stick to what they are good at, they try and do everything!

Have you ever spent time looking through the BusinessLink website? If not, do so, it contains a huge wealth of information and resources that is great for any business of any size. Whether you have questions on employment, some statutory compliance issues, how to raise finance, you name it and if it is related to running a business you’re likely to find some help on their website.

What about grants and other funding options, if you are looking for matched funding for capital expenditure or staff training, BusinessLink should be the first place to look as they usually have their finger on the pulse of what money is being handed out to help business by the Government.
That’s it guys, you should stop there! Do yourselves a favour and stick to what you are good at. Providing practical business support in the workplace is not your strong point because as an organisation you simply do not provide an attractive enough proposition to attract and keep really good business advisors. The problem is that these really good ones are either already running their own successful businesses, or have setup their own consultancy firms providing business advice after either selling their successful business or putting a management structure in to keep a residual income.

This isn’t just my opinion I’m afraid to say, it’s a common perception and it is one that BusinessLink are aware of and have tried many times to resolve without success. A conversation with a senior manager asked me what I would suggest to recruit a better calibre of advisor and I couldn’t answer the question, because I couldn’t think of one good reason why a really successful Entrepreneur would want to become employed by an organisation that is pulled from left to right by changing Government policies and budgets, which has a bad reputation for offering out of date advice, when if the Entrepreneur wanted to become a business advisor they could run their own business doing it themselves and be in control of their own destiny.

@NigelAdams on Twitter was the first one to correctly respond to my own comment asking the question whether retired business people were out of touch with business today, and the answer is no they are not. Many are I’m afraid, because the business environment today is a million miles different from what it was 20 or so years ago. In my own working live I have seen the introduction of e-mail, Internet, mobile phones and now social network marketing. A conversation I had yesterday with a very successful Entrepreneur touched the subject of my own fear of falling out of date with current business trends as I get older, and business starts to move faster than I may be able to keep up with. However, as Nigel implies, its not the age of the person but their ability to keep up with what is happening in the world and adapting with it. After all, my Nan bless her, who is in her eighties, is more than happy to be doing her banking online, sending e-cards, using intant messaging and webcams, and even Facebook!

So where does this leave BusinessLink as an entity, and the hugely discussed topic of should it stay or going being discussed on many forums and heavily on the IoD group on LinkedIn. My opinion is that they should close it down as a separate entity and consolidate it’s offering more directly into the Regional Development Agencies, producing with it many cost savings as well and a more central place offering business advice. As an onsite business advice service it fails dismally because very few, if any at all, energetic, up-to-date and motivated business advisers will want to work for an organisation they have no control over and have their goal posts moved for no logical reason by a disconnect bureaucrat in Whitehall. Retired bank managers are used to this sort of management system and fit in with it nicely, but sadly have no real world experience of running their own businesses.

Here is some related topic’s I’ve found online about this too;

http://www.businesszone.co.uk/blogs/robertcraven/robert-craven039s-business-blog/business-link-should-it-stay-or-should-it-go

http://realbusiness.co.uk/finance_and_banking/the_axe_hangs_over_business_link

http://www.shell-livewire.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=24450

My stolen motorbike and Twitter

Posted in Internet on September 17th 2009 | 2 Comments

It has been a couple of months since my last blog post, and mainly down to time constraints and also the only things I could think of blogging about in my life were commercially sensitive. Bad excuse I know, but then this happened to me…

This is my stolen Yamaha R1 taken a couple of months before it was stolen from outside my office on Moulton Park, Northampton

This is a picture of my stolen Yamaha R1 taken a couple of months before it was stolen from outside my office on Moulton Park, Northampton

Tuesday 15th September was my birthday, and for a treat I thought I’d take my pride and joy to work. My motorbike that I’d worked my nuts off for and bought as a birthday present to myself 5 years ago. When I’d managed to clear the 3 credit cards and bank loans I’d ran up starting Quick Formations. I always enjoy riding my bike, the freedom it gives you away from ringing phones, and being such a symbolic purchase has high sentimental value to me.

This post is partly to let as many people know what happened as possible, in case anyone saw the bike being transported, but also the speed in which the message spread through Twitter absolutely amazed me. That in itself demonstrated to me the power of using Twitter to send out an urgent or immediate message.

At 12:50pm on Tuesday 15th September a tatty looking grey Transit type van reversed up a kerb onto a central decorative area of our car park where my bike was parked. In broad view of 20 offices mind, in front of two witnesses who were in the car park at the time. The van registration was S425 UOF, and appeared to have a roof rack and possibly 3x pipes on its roof.

Two men got out of the van, one wearing black motorcycle leathers and a dark blue or possibly black crash helmet. The other was wearing blue jeans, white trainers, and a white sweater or jumper with blue horizontal stripes. This man had brown hair but quickly put on a blue cap. They both appeared of stocky build and around 5ft 10″ to 6ft tall. They went round ot the back of the van, picked up my bike which isn’t light, and put it in the back of the van. The one in leathers jumped in the back with the bike, the other shut the van doors and drove the van away at speed.

The police were notified within 5 minutes and managed to track the van through surveilance camera’s and ANPR camera’s. The van was found within about 45 minutes.

Where Twitter came in is that I posted the following message on Twitter;

“My m/bike just stolen 10 mins ago, blue R1. Thrown in battered grey transit reg S425 UOF in Moulton Park , Northampton Please RT” – you can view it here.

Within minutes the message had been ReTweeted countless times, the message had been posted on biker forums around the UK, the local paper had picked up on it and posted a story here, other business owners I know around Northampton had started emailing messages to each other spreading the news. Telling everyone to keep an eye out for my bike. Within an hour of my bike being stolen social media had spread the news as far afield as Newcastle and as far south as Cornwall. Just searching on Google already shows how far the message has travelled, and that is what websites Google has crawled already.

One last thing I am hoping is to find my bike before it is destroyed by those who stole it, and sold off for spare parts or smashed up. They wont be able to sell it on the open market easily as every component is tagged and marked with MagicWater, so I dread to think what could happen to my pride and joy. So I am hoping if anyone around the Northampton area saw a blue sports motorbike being delivered by some men matching the above description, please call the police on 03000 111222. This delivery would have happened some time between 1pm and 2pm on Tuesday 15th September. It could have been to a house, a lockup, a warehouse. This location would be within an hours drive from Moulton Park Office Village, Northampton. My bike was parked alongside the tree in the centre raised area you will see on that satellite picture.

I am a big fan of social networking, always have been, but the support from everyone else helping spread the message so quickly after my bike being stolen is heart warming. I keep saying it on Twitter, but again, Thank You.

I hope this blog post goes a step closer to me getting my bike back. I know the insurance money could get me another, but it won’t be “My Bike”.

Social Media – Is it a waste of time?

Posted in Networking on April 24th 2009 | 2 Comments

This morning I attending an event in Milton Keynes where the speaker gave a presentation on using Social Media Advertising in your own business. I went along hoping to learn something I am missing, pick up that little nugget of information that would help me improve my own use of online social media networking.

The event itself was fun to listen to, the chap presenting was @N3W_Media on Twitter and despite his rather dry humour did get the message across, albiet the room was clearly filled with people who had heard of the likes of Facebook or Twitter but not really used them. I also disagreed with some of his comments, such as he ignores the “noise” on the timeline on Twitter. Surely if you ignore the time line and only use robots to send out scheduled tweets you’re ignore everyone else and missing the whole point of social networking! You should interact with everyone else, it’s rude not too.

Back on topic, and the reason for this post. I met a gentleman there who attends a number of networking breakfasts and lunches, and dinners, every week. He spends, we estimated, about 25-30 hours a week networking! Yet he didn’t get the point of online networking so I tried to explain it like this.

At a networking lunch you might meet 20 people, who you will obviously exchange your business card with. This lunch, allowing for travel to and from, will take about 3 hours of your day to meet these 20 people. If you are lucky maybe one or two of these twenty people will have any interest in what you business does.

If you spend 3 hours on a site such as UK Business Forums you could contribute to about 50 threads, network with about 2,000 people, and have had your company information viewed by potentially tens of thousands of people. This is just one example, but it would be better that you use those 3 hours to spread yourself across tools such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and forums such as UK Business Labs and UK Business Forums. With more and more people moving to online mediums for networking and business social interaction, it is ever more important to spread your networking across both offline and online channels. What is even more brilliant about online networking is that you are target more effectively the groups of people you networking with, by common interest or industry groups. This targetting can significantly increase your prospective conversion rates making those twenty people you may have met at lunch look pretty insignificant.

With efficient use of your time and using smart tools you could streamline your time too, but linking sites such as Facebook and Plaxo to your Twitter updates. For example, Plaxo and Facebook will automatically import your blog updates and Twitter updates. This means you only need to post a Status Update to Twitter and which automatically updates these other two social networks. Likewise, post to your blog and have all your social network accounts automatically import your latest blog entries (an example would be Notes in Facebook). This dispells the myth that online networking can take too much time, you such manage your time differently that’s all.

Spend some time researching these tools, it may take a few hours of your time to find your way around but it will be time well spent. Then, start spreading your time between your online and offline networking. They both have their place, but online networking does give you a much wider exposure than any person could physically manage offline.

Should I adopt Guerilla Marketing?

Posted in Entrepreneurialism on February 18th 2009 | 3 Comments

Guerilla Marketing is a great term, and if done right a fantastic method of promotion for a business and/or product. The thing is, you need to be a certain type of character to do it properly, and this is something I’m not sure I’m that kind of person to undertake such a task.

I’ve been watching the actions of a fellow Entrepreneur and friend, Duane Jackson owner of Kashflow, with great interest. Someone I would categorise as a great guerilla marketeer, and the results he has achieved I admire.

Perhaps one of his most high profile onslaughts was his attack at the apparent Sage Security Holes in their new online accounting offering, which provided his firm with plenty of media interest from many professional media circles. To quote a term, you can’t buy the sort of publicity this blog entry provided Duane and his business, and he made sure he maximised every opportunity with it. This included sending out Twitter updates, and posts on various online business forums such as UK Business Forums. Making sure everyone he knew not only read the blog post, but were also talking about it. This social publicity is what led to the media interest, and subsequent promotion of his business.

Duane isn’t afraid to rock a few boats and upset a few people to achieve his end goal, which at the end of the day is promoting and growing his business. Even using articles that have no relevance on the face of them with his business at all, yet still generate a lot of conversation about him and his business. The one that actually trigered this blog post was about why are designers bad at business?

I cannot help but admire what Duane achieves with these marketing tactics, and I cannot help but consider the possible benefits of giving them ago myself.