How to do Business - for small organisations wanting to act large and large organisations wanting to act smaller. Visit our Daily Newspaper Here
Leading your organisation in the 21 st century is about being in the knowledge economy. You must strike the right balance between systems / results and motivation / creativity. You need a synthesis of left and right brain thinking, a blend of people skills and effective use of technology. Read More Here
Large organisations are great at systems but poor at engagement. In small organisations the reverse is true. Read more here.
If they want to grow, small companies need to learn skills from large companies to become fit to trade with larger partners and take part in the world economy. These skills include
- Basic HR - read more here
- Systems thinking and KPIs
- How to achieve and maintain accreditations
Twitter and Facebook force larger organisations to be more responsive. They can learn from small companies how to
- Recognise that performance is the basis of brand and deal with issues quickly
- Engage staff and motivate them by example so they routinely go the extra mile
- Develop and maintain total customer focus
- Carry out rapid and responsive new product development
The key skill is how to learn on purpose. How to generate and communicate a shared vision of the future and evolve a way of operating within the social ecosystem that blends people and technology skills to produce a uniquely effective operation. There's more on Business Communication here
Our business helps you achieve this – as a small organisation wanting to grow, or a larger one wanting to learn how to dance with the market.
Marketing Teleclasses
First Thursday each month - covers Marketing Basics
Fourth Thursday each month - covers Business Basics
Help for Growing Businesses
Research - carried out for business schools, UK government, business link and IT vendors tells us that business owners like you worry mainly about sales and marketing and cash flow. Apart from these two issues other worries were about how to carry out research, how to use KPIs and how to attract staff. The top 3 services that companies required were.
- Help with creating white papers, presentations and other high quality collateral
- Help with selling successfully to larger organisations
- Help with Market Research.
Companies were happy with their systems and people motivation and retention - the biggest worry is getting a good stream of new customers.
Experience tells a different story. We know that if you want your business to succeed you have to grow the business in an integrated way. You need to
- Create new products
- Produce and deliver them reliably
- Tell the market about them online and in person.
- Motivate staff to make it happen
All based on the vision and values that provide the energy to drive your company forward
We can help you develop your business forward. We've run 4 successful businesses in 30 years and the main thing we've learned is that your brand depends on performance. You do need systematic ways of developing the products you need. But you also need the systems to deliver without mistakes and attract and keep good people to run them for you. If you don't pay attention to these things your business won't grow. I promise you.
The How to do Business Toolkit
So we've developed workshops, workbooks and one to one consultancy programmes to help you. There's a lot on marketing ranging from a complete CD based course - 1ManBrand via our PunchAboveYourWeight programme that deals with online marketing to complete strategic marketing consultancy.
Small company marketing course on CD
Half day Foundation marketing Workshop
Full day internet marketing workshop that deals with using social media for promoting yourself on-line and working collaboratively with other small companies.
We specialise in Market Research and New Product Development.
Business Development
You will get the most value from us in this area. There are several well-defined barriers to cross as your company grows. We can help you identify them and get ready ahead of time. Marketing is straightforward - it's the systems and people issues that stop you dead in your tracks. How should you develop systems, how do you attract and motivate the right people.
Much of this involves pulling together systems and people thinking. That's why we think the Brain Technologies ® tool kit that helps you understand and applies these ideas is so important. And why we advocate applying the ideas of Peter Senge to help you create the learning organisation you need to be to survive.
Some resources that you might find interesting are
Growing Jobs - a free workbook created to understand what it takes to develop a world class workforce in the horticultural industry. Full of practical case studies of what real people did to improve their business.
Just 12 hours - a workbook that pulls together all the findings of the Punch above your Weight project
Our next free teleclass is on August 26th. You can book here.
In summary
Strong businesses are built on clear values and a vision of what they offer their customers. They have a distinctive way of doing things which celebrates their individuality. The How to do Business programme will help you:
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Research, Develop and launch new products and services
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Develop a convincing story to promote the businesses you develop
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Use the intermet to improve delivery and promotion
- Collaborate with other companies using remote and flexible working
- Become a learning company
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Track how well you're doing
- Lead your team to deliver the results you're after
You can get a flavour of our approach by downloading our sample marketing plan. To find out more why not read our blog or subscribe to our newsletter
A bit about us.
We have 25 years experience of running growth businesses in IT, Business Training, Internet trading and horticulture. We run a £650k internet trading company - Plants4Presents - and a 10 employee Organic Vegetable Business. These gives a real-life basis for our consultancy and training business and underpins our research into how companies actually use IT to promote themselves and improve performance as they grow. Our journey taught us to integrate, people, processes and technology help customers more effectively. Perhaps you could benefit from this experience.
Our founder, Dr Alan Rae, is a chartered fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, an associate of the Market Research Society and an accredited workwise adviser. You won't be impressed by the credentials but you might think it nice that we have some.
Contact - To discuss how we can help with your business growth or marketing ring 0845 094 0407
