Listen to my latest Conversation, an interview with Mike Soutar, the Co-Founder and CEO of Shortlist Media.
You can find out more about Shortlist Media’s titles by following these links:
Stylist Magazine Online, Shortlist Magazine Online and Emerald Street Online.
If you enjoyed the interview, please go to iTunes and leave a rating and a comment which will really help the Podcast and others who visit. Thank you.
Iron & Stone, who supply metal window boxes were recently featured in the Weekend Financial Times Money section under the heading “Growth Strategy that fits on your Window sill”.
Founded by brother and sister team Rhyddian Gilbertson and Anna Hodgson, the company has successfully established itself as a niche supplier of aluminium flat pack window boxes. You can find their website here.
Selling 10 boxes a week at an average price of £110 they are on track to make revenues in excess of £50,000 in 2012 which is a healthy 30% plus rise on Revenues in 2011.
In the FT Article, the experts, who had around 100 words each to comment, when asked suggested
So far so good but it got me thinking about what advice I would give them. Thinking through my Six Simple Strategic Steps for SME Success methodology, I have picked out some specific areas and tried to provide actionable rather than general advice.
Do you ever see someone doing something amazing who is completely unrecognised, a real unsung hero?
Acknowledging achievement is a vital part of engendering a sense of community and encouraging the recipient to further and greater achievement. This is one of the core tenets of the Wiltshire Life Magazine Awards.
Mark Allen
I was therefore delighted to be asked by the Proprietor of Wiltshire Life, Mark Allen, to be part of their Seventh Annual 2012 awards and to present the Community Group of the Year Award. I want to share this celebration and the recognise the achievements of the award winners with you.
If you were an investor, wouldn’t you welcome the opportunity to meet 16 of the UKs most innovative CleanTech companies? I certainly would.
Well, some VCs in Silicon Valley are going to be the lucky recipients of presentations from these British Companies as part of an entrepreneurial trade mission to the US market under the brand, Clean and Cool in the UK.
Among these companies is my client SAVortex (www.savortex.com), a British manufacturer of a revolutionary, highly energy efficient, hand dryer. We are currently actively working with SAVortex to raise a Series A investment to fund their continued exciting high growth strategy.
The SAVortex story is a great one about British innovation and start up and how to go about creating a potential world beating company. Established four years ago, the company started with only a idea of how to take a completely innovative approach to hand dryer manufacture. Four years later the company now sells from its London offices, manufactures in my county, Wiltshire and has ambitions to disrupt the global hand dryer market with its technology.
How many more British businesses out there with this potential and ambition? Well, I for one, hope there are dozens and I am sure there are probably more.
As you may have realised I have been teaching myself how to make videos with my iPhone as part of the blog since the beginning of the year.
Well I have found a great new source of inspiration in the form of Jules Watkins at ivideohero.com who has an amazing CV in television and is a real expert on video. You can find his course here (affiliate link)
He has created a course which teaches you all you need to know to really get the most out of your iPhone using its full 1080P HD camera and I am already trying out some of his ideas.
Check out this video below I have made incorporating a couple of tips from Jules.
Following on from my detailed blog post introducing the Six Simple Strategic Steps to SME Success, I have prepared a brief video for you to learn about the programme.
I hope you enjoy it.
If you would like to know more about my Seminar Programme, please contact me by email at jbdcolley[at]aol.com.
Thank you for joining the Conversation.
Listen to the latest Conversation with the Six Minute Strategist
If you run a private business with revenues between £500,000 and £20 million, I expect you are having a tough time of it.
Being at the top of a business, probably one you started yourself, can be lonely but also brings with it responsibility.
Responsibility to make the right decisions so that your business is successful, you continue to provide for your family and keep the jobs of your employees safe.
This programme which follows my Six Minute Strategist Methodology of One Topic into Six Issues in less than Six Minutes is all about helping you get a better understanding of your business. The Six Topics of this programme are:
I strongly believe in a hostile business environment like today, Entrepreneurs need to master these six topics to be successful with their business. This programme sets out how they can achieve this and I hope will make a positive and long lasting contribution to their business success.
The Six Principles behind the programme are:
Do any of these six questions strike a chord of familiarity?
These are all major strategic issues which you face.
OR
Remember a salary is what you are paid – wealth is what you earn. One happens to you the other you make happen.
How about these more day to day operational issues?
These are all key questions. However, like most entrepreneurs you have bootstrapped your company and everyday you work fast and hard to try to make it grow. It is often difficult to find the time to address these issues or know where to start.
I have been advising companies for nearly 25 years and blogging for the past two years about Corporate Strategy.
I believe that there are Six Strategic Steps that an entrepreneur needs to master to be sucessful, particularly in todays challenging business environment.
Starting today you can either start on the road to managing these steps or you can do nothing and at some point in the future sell your business for what someone is prepared to offer you for it. A purely reactive situation which you will not control.
Someone observed that there are four types of people in this world
I want to make you wealthier and more successful and to do that I need to make sure that you are one of the people in the first group and not one of the people in the other three.
So lets agree that the Do Nothing Scenario is a poor way to start.
In my next blog post I will discuss with you the first of the Six Simple Strategic Steps to SME Success – Appreciation – evaluating your business as it is today.
If you want to know more about my content then why not sign up to my mailing list and start enjoying a more frequent conversation with the Six Minute Strategist.
I had the pleasure of spending the afternoon yesterday (Thursday March 15th 2012) with Jeremy Harbour at a seminar he ran on how to acquire and turn around distressed businesses.
Jeremy started selling on a market stall when he was 14 and had gone through his own first company failiure by the time he was 19. In his view, failing early has taught him valuable lessons and he has learned from these mistakes. He is now a successful serial entrepreneur who also helps other business owners buy companies.
Through the Harbour Club (http://www.jeremyharbour.com/Harbour-Club/index.php) Jeremy has trained partners in his distressed company acquisition methods and works with them to acquire and turnaround distressed companies in the UK. The Seminar was an insightful four hours into his approach. Using case studies he illustrated some of the methods and pitfalls in the process. Judging by the number of attendees to the two sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, there was a high degree of interest from ambitious entrepreneurs seeking to take advantage of the difficult market conditions in the UK at present.
I found some of his pithy quips both amusing and very to the point and I thought I would share some of them with you here.
He stressed the importance of finding motivated sellers. Often he comes across company owners seeking “second round funding because they had F*****d up their first round funding”.
He observed that “Giving money to business owners without changing their behaviour is like giving drugs to children; a very bad idea and they keep coming back for more”
“Find a business and then work out what you have to take away to make it work. If you have to rely on adding something (more sales for instance), you are going to have a problem”
“Make the business focus on cash. Remember you go bust when you run out of cash and not when you make losses”
“Everything you measure in a business will improve – so measure the right things”
“Remember that cash and time are inextricably linked”
“You don’t make money running businesses, you make money when you sell them”
“Understand the difference between income and capital, one enables you to live, the other gives you the freedom to control how you live”
“The best time to sell a business is right Now!”
“Running a business involves three things; blood, sweat and years”
“Goodwill in a business is the thing that makes the phone ring”
“Beware investors seeking capital to fill a balance sheet with a big hole but not seeking enough capital to fill the whole”
“Avoid Deal Heat; don’t do deals where your gut feel tells you you should not be doing the deal”
“Always make sure you get paid on the way out”
If you think that Jeremy might be able to help your business, then why not go to his website and register http://www.jeremyharbour.com/Harbour-Club/index.php
Full disclosure: I have no financial arrangements with Jeremy, these views are my own and I will receive no compensation from Jeremy if you visit his site and engage with him.
If you enjoyed this post and would like to receive more insights and information from the Six Minute Strategist, sign up to my Mailing list here.
Expertise in your field takes time to acquire but takes strategy to communicate to your audience. As a blogger, podcaster and vidcaster, this is obviously a subject in which I take a personal interest.
So, I was very fortunate to meet Daniel Wagner at a Seminar last week and was able to have a good chat with him in the Bar afterwards.
We were discussing online branding and the importance of strategically developing your personal brand to become expert in your field. Daniel then delighted and surprised me by telling me about his new book – The Expert Success Formula – which he co-authored with James Watson. He promptly produced a review copy, signed it and gave it to me.
Well of course, I then had to read it and I am very glad that I did.
The three steps are
1. Create your personal brand online – mine as you know is the Six Minute Strategist
2. Produce Powerful Products
3. Cultivate a Buying Audience
You can learn more about this from Daniel who has posted this video on YouTube which I have embedded below.
I found the book very easy to follow as it is well laid out and has plenty of heading and sub-headings to guide you through. There are helpful exercises some of which I have already tried. If you are trying to work out how to accelerate your personal brand building then I can wholeheartedly recommend Daniel and James’s book.
(Full Disclosure: I have no financial arrangements with Daniel or James of any kind)
You can find out more about The Expert Success Formula by visiting their website http://www.expertsuccessformula.com/; Click the Link now and go and have a look.
I hope you find the book interesting, thank you for Joining My Conversation!
