Enterprise Nation

Home Enterprise Day: Launch of 2009 Home Business Report

22/11/2009 19:08:23

2009 Home Business Report

This Report is now in its third year. With thanks to BT for being our principal sponsor. Thanks to Professor Colin Mason of the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship and infoUK for their key contributions and to Business Link in London.

A few key highlights

2.8 million home businesses contributing £284bn to the annual UK economy
Over 60% of small businesses started in the UK are started at home
89% of home businesses expect to increase turnover in the next 12 months
The majority of businesses will grow by outsourcing and sub-contracting, as opposed to taking on staff
'Working 5 to 9' is on the rise as people hold down a day job and build a business at nights and weekends
Home business is bringing families together and contributing to the local economy and environment

Click on the link below to download your copy of The 2009 Home Business Report

Home Enterprise Day: First footage from roadtrip

22/11/2009 18:24:36

Video highlights

Throughout Friday’s event we wanted to offer views from home business owners on the topics being discussed. So the very excellent Tim Sargent of Mint Video (who was one of the crew of four who travelled over 1,000 miles in September to film home businesses) put some clips together.

Clip 1: Networks

We asked our home businesses how they get inspiration and help from fellow business owners. This is what they had to say..

Clip on networks

Featuring:

- Clare Nicolson, Clare Nicolson Designs

- Kath Friend, Emerald Frames

- Stuart Mills, Useyourlocal.com

Clip 2: Growth

One of the key messages conveyed in the 2009 Home Business Report is that home businesses are growing by outsourcing and making the most of technology. Let these home business owners tell you how ..

Clip on growing a home business

Featuring:

- Karine Kong, Bodie and Fou

- Malcolm Gallagher, BizVision

- Emma Warren, Portfolio Directors

Clip 3: What do you most enjoy about being your own boss from home?

We particularly liked the response from Malcolm Gallagher ;-)

Clip on best bit of working from home

Featuring:

- Karine Kong

- Danielle Pond, Sugarcup Bakery

- Clare Nicolson

- Malcolm Gallagher

That was quite a Home Enterprise Day

21/11/2009 14:25:45

The day after

The build-up seemed to last for weeks and yet the Day went so fast!

Judging by the emails coming in today, Home Enterprise Day was indeed a success. Thanks to our venue host, BT, the top line-up of speakers, our lovely guests, and supporters including HP and Staples.

The Day started well with Doug Richard setting the tone for all the information and inspiration that was set to follow.

We launched the 2009 Home Business Report which you can access by clicking on the link below and this year’s Home Business Award winners were announced.

They are … (drum roll please ..to remind you of how it went yesterday!) ..

2009 Home Business of the Year: Janan Leo, CocoRose London
Home Business Couple of the Year: Gordon and Liz Maw, Maw Communications
5 to 9 Home Business of the Year: Michelle Briffa, Paragon Virtual Assistance
Young Home Business Owner of the Year: John Randall, JV Bouncy Castle Hire
Home Office of the Year: Sharon and Gary Bassett, Enjoy-a-ball.com

All their entries will be featured on the site this weekend.

Congratulations to all you worthy winners!

It was a jam-packed day of business tips, motivational thoughts and rampant networking. To all of you who attended – thanks for coming and I hope you enjoyed it. To those of you who weren’t there – we hope to see you next year! – Emma Jones

The Good Web Guide to the best websites of 2009

19/11/2009 07:40:24

Runners up were:

Songkick.com. Songkick lets users track artists, venues, festivals and other fans for upcoming gigs and create their own ‘gigography’ of gig history. Users can also post videos, pictures, set lists, posters and reviews of concerts they have attended recently.
Findinvestgrow.com. FIG works with young entrepreneurs, specifically undergraduates and graduates of the past five years, to help them define their ideas, support them through the development of their business plans and introduce them to suitable investors.
Shiply.com. Shiply is a reverse auction site that helps you find cheap courier services by matching users up with couriers & delivery companies already making similar trips across the UK & Europe.

To view the full range of shortlisted sites, click here and to read a business profile of winning site, SimonSeeks.com, click here.

An entrepreneur's quick guide to closing face to face sales

18/11/2009 08:02:05

Do you want what I'm selling? Can you afford to pay for it?

The first step in knowing how to sell is identifying who should want to buy what you are selling. If you manufacture hundreds of 14K gold watches, you need to identify who buys hundreds of 14K gold watches. You aren't looking for the rich fellow that buys one, you are looking for the jewelry store that buys dozens at a go.

Ideally, before you start to sell, you know that the person you are talking to has a need, by your estimation, a need for what you have and has money to pay for it. This is called "qualifying the customer".

There is almost never a reason to start selling to someone who doesn't need your product or to someone who can't pay for it. Qualify contacts as sales prospects before you meet them or qualify them during the first few minutes of your first meeting.

Why not buy it right now?

Once you know that someone needs, in your estimation, what you are selling and can pay for it, you move into the true process of selling. You need to find out why they aren't already buying what you have to sell.

If this makes you uncomfortable, consider the following. For the product or service you are currently selling, and in the industry you work in, you're an expert. If you have determined that the person you are talking to actually needs what you are selling, you do them no disservice by helping them understand why you think they need what you can give them.

If, for example, your gold watches can be purchased at a much lower cost than competing watches, and you know the manufacturer is currently running a multimillion dollar ad campaign in this jeweler's region, you do him a favor by letting him know. If you are working with a jeweler who buys and sells jewelry every day, this process should go smoothly. You will tell him what you are selling. You will mention why you think he should buy your watches. He will respond in one of two ways. He will either give you a condition or an objection.

I will buy it if . . .

Once you've identified a qualified customer, and you've told him the salient facts about your product and why he should buy it, he will come back with either a condition or an objection.

A condition is a statement of what a product or service must have before the customer can buy it.
An objection is a valid statement about why a given product does not meet the customers need.

Often, because change is hard, a buyer's conditions and objections sound much a like. "I don't want your watches because they don't come with a lifetime guarantee."

When you hear this kind of statement, you must either:

Tell the customer that your product meets their condition, or
Probe the objection to see how firm it is and if there's a way to work around it.

If you can't meet the condition, and it is important, then the sales process is over. If you can meet the condition, it’s time to ask for the customer to buy the product again. You'll either get a "Yes", another condition, or a firm No.

Every entrepreneur needs to be able to sell. It is a skill you can acquire quickly, and once mastered you'll find selling is not only profitable but fairly enjoyable as well. After all, who doesn't want to help people acquire the things they need?

- Doug Richard

If you need help building a profitable startup or small business, visit www.schoolforstartups.com. Every month we offer online and face-to-face events that will help you start and run your business more successfully. You can also follow us on Twitter at @s4startups or @s4stv.

Business begins at home

17/11/2009 01:35:44

Homeworking with the Hens

I decided to start my home based business five years ago after a successful career as a marketing director. Five years down the line and although I’ve relocated from our dining room to a larger room and my business has grown significantly, I'm still a member of that powerful army of home-based businesses - with no intention of moving into office premises. Working from home has many benefits. My overheads are lower and I don't have the daily grind of a commute to work. My charges reflect my expertise and experience as opposed to swish but expensive office premises and my clients enjoy visiting my home office. I reckon that the added attraction of feeding the hens and having lunch in a lovely conservatory helps!

Make time for your marketing plan

It's tempting when starting out to bypass your marketing planning in favour of the rapid yet random pursuit of new customers. Don’t! I spent two full weeks getting to grips with my marketing plan. Having spent twenty odd years showing other people how to write one it was now my turn. I identified the marketing services that I was going to offer based on my expertise and experience. I identified my target audiences - prospective clients that I knew would be genuinely interested. I set my fees after researching competitors and arrived at some bold financial targets. I told my husband that I was determined to beat my previous year’s salary. He was unconvinced (Thankfully I proved him wrong and in 2008 he gave up his job to join my business!)

Marketing plan complete, I had a clear sense of direction. Instead of rushing out into the big wide world with a megaphone announcing my arrival I began my laser honed targeting process. I hit the networking scene with a vengeance. I quickly realised that running a home-based business could be lonely and I had to generate sales. I identified the business networking groups in my local area and joined one. Within four months I had gained several thousands of pounds worth of new business. I was on my way!

My top tips

Write your marketing plan –it will pay you back
Identify the networking groups in your area
Network online – websites such as enterprisenation.com are brilliant for sharing advice and networking

Chartered Marketer Dee Blick has 25 years experience in marketing and is the author of the Amazon 2009 best seller, Powerful Marketing On A Shoestring Budget For Small Businesses

The Marketing Gym

Identifying the right target audience

17/11/2009 01:21:48

Your best customers

Identifying a target audience may seem like common sense but what many of us fail to do is decide which type of customer we want, before we go on to work out a profile of our typical customer.

The type of customer we want is more important than you might think. It's easy to focus on selling to as many people as possible who roughly fit your "target audience", but are they good for your business? Assuming you're already in business, think of your customer base - who are your best customers?

By "best" we mean those customers who:

Pay on time or without query
Are loyal - you would have to really upset them to make them go somewhere else
Are likely to recommend you and your service
Order or buy a lot from you

Now think about your worst customers, those who:

Never pay on time
Are so price sensitive that they will swap suppliers at the drop of a hat
Have no loyalty to you
Might only buy from you once, usually having argued about the price

Make a list of each. You might be surprised at this point to learn who you want to keep and who you don't. Now you can work out the profile that fits your "best" customer, thinking about their attributes:

For Business to Consumer (B2C)
• Age
• Social profile e.g. affluent, high disposable income
• Where they live
• Gender
• What they do for a living
• Are they married or single
• Do they have a family or dependents?

For Business to Business
• Size of business (can be number of employees or turnover)
• The typical job title of the person who makes the buying decision
• Where they are likely to be based (geographically)
• Which sector they are in (type of marketplace or industry)

Once you've done this it makes the next stage of your marketing plan so much more straightforward and stops you wasting time trying to target the customers that won't grow your business. Much better!

Karen McNulty and Fay Judson, Marketing Plan Wiz

When leaving doesnât have to mean âGoodbyeâ

16/11/2009 12:15:15

Leaving but staying on

What do you do when you want to retain an employee’s valuable skills and experience but at the same time, don’t want to squash their entrepreneurial spirit? We managed the loss of a key employee by securing them as a subcontractor rather than an employee.

Initially I was disappointed that Sarah, who was a key member of the team, wanted to leave. We talked through the process and came up with a workable plan. We both agreed that trying to work as a Research & Administration Manager during the day and then trying to establish her Virtual Assistant business in the evenings was going to put an unnecessary strain on Sarah’s home and work life.

Instead, we moved to a supplier relationship rather than an employee/employer relationship. As a small business mentor I’m a passionate supporter of the entrepreneurial spirit and small business so I was glad I was able to support Sarah as well as protect my own company’s interests.

Sarah Bradley co-founded her new venture ‘Help Ahoy’ on 1st October and within 3 weeks had a bank of 3 regular clients, one being Portfolio Directors!

What does Sarah have to say about the process:

“It goes to show that by keeping the lines of communication open and by talking things through you can achieve a good outcome. Portfolio Directors still has access to my skills and experience and I am free to offer my time to other companies who might also benefit from business growth mentoring from the team at Portfolio Directors. We both get to refer clients to each other - it’s a Win/Win situation. Being responsible for my own company has also opened my eyes to the reality of running a business and has made me a more effective resource for Portfolio Directors.”

Sounds like the perfect solution for all concerned!

Emma Warren is Founder of Portfolio Directors Ltd, a Business Growth Consultancy based in Somerset
Sarah Bradley is co-founder of Help Ahoy

Tasty treats on Friday

16/11/2009 09:30:13

Start with a springling of cupcake dust

We’re delighted that Svarna will be providing the coffee and cake break refreshments at the Enterprise Nation conference on Friday.

She is a home based cupcake maker who will be carefully dividing her time on Friday between the auditorium (where they’ll be lots of tasty morsels too) and setting up her stall for delegates’ enjoyment.

And end with a little magic

The show will finish with skills and talents on display from a home business owner of quite a different kind. Jonathan Dowden of Jonathan Mark Magic will be doing magic tricks during the drinks reception and turning playing cards into wheels of good fortune.

We look forward to seeing you at the show!

We have a notebook winner!

16/11/2009 07:25:26

Amanda Vlahakis of Truly Ace

Congratulations to Amanda who wins a fancy new HP notebook.

It’s a winning week as two more people will win HP notebooks on Friday when we announce winners of the 2009 Home Business Awards. It also marks the Day we’ll be launching the 2009 Home Business Report in which your survey responses are included.

The Report will be available on the site from Friday morning and the winners will be profiled on the site on Friday night!

Thanks to HP and Intel for their generous prizes.

And well done to Amanda!

TrulyAce.com

One long lunch

15/11/2009 21:24:20

Homeworking by the sea

“Our home office is on the beach (South Coast) and we are fortunate to be able to spend our lunch breaks swimming in the sea, walking or cycling along the sea front, or just sitting on the beach to think.

In our spare time I grow our own vegetables, my partner and co –director catches our fish, and we make jam and wine. A working lunch means fresh sea bream or mackerel with tomato salsa and home-made bread is often on the menu. It inspires creative ideas away from the computers when the team get together over lunch.”

The Enterprise Nation team read this entry and positively drooled :-)

Enterprise Nation Conference: Five days to go and five lucky winners

15/11/2009 08:33:43

The UK’s first ever Home Enterprise Day

The conference is being held on Friday 20th November to celebrate the fact it’s the first ever Home Enterprise Day. It’s a day to encourage more people to start a business from home and support existing home businesses to grow.

The Enterprise Nation conference is being staged at BT Centre in London. We have a sell-out audience and a roster of great speakers. On the day we’ll be launching the 2009 Home Business Report and announcing winners of the 2009 Home Business Awards.

Here’s the programme for the day:

9.00am: Registration

9.30am: Welcome to BT Centre – Andrew Campling, General Manager, BT Regions

9.40am: Welcome to Home Enterprise Day and launch of 2009 Home Business Report – Emma Jones

10.00am: Keynote on sales & marketing - Doug Richard (former Dragon & CEO, School for Startups)

11.00am: Coffee and cake break

11.20am: Sites that changed the home business world – panel chaired by Dan Wagner (Founder, Venda.com) with eBay (Mark Lewis, head of eBay UK), MyEhive.com (Louise Campbell, Founder) and BT Tradespace (Ivan Croxford, Head of Digital Marketing Services BT Business)

11.50am: Building a global business from my home – Christian Arno, Founder, lingo24.com and Mike Hollands, Founder, Toniks and 2008 Home Business of the Year winner

12.20pm: Make Me Famous! - media panel chaired by David Parsley with Daryl Willcox (DW Publishing), Jenny Culshaw (Working Lunch) Lisa Sykes (Features Editor, Country Living) and Jimmy Leach (Head of Digital, Independent)

1pm: Lunch

1.40pm: Interview with Mark Dixon (CEO, Regus) by David Parsley, Parsley Media

2.20pm: Panel – the future of business support – panellists Patrick Elliott (CEO, Business Link for London), Professor Colin Mason (Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, University of Strathclyde), Dawn Whiteley (Chair, National Federation of Enterprise Agencies) and Andy Hudson (Director, BT Local Business)

3.00pm: Keynote from Mike Finnigan, Mr Motivator

3.40pm: A few words from Scott Cain, Deputy Chief Executive, Enterprise UK

3.50pm: Announce winners of 2009 Home Business Awards

4.00pm: Conference close with champagne reception

With thanks

Thanks to our report sponsor and conference host:
• BT

And thanks to event supporters:
• Staples
• Regus
• HP
• Intel
• PayPal
• Business Link

And:
• Global Entrepreneurship Week UK 2009

See you there?

If you are one of the 5 lucky Sunday Times winners, we look forward to seeing you there!

12 things that make homeworking more productive

15/11/2009 08:16:01

A few bright ideas

Here are some key tools/ideas/things, some of which go without saying, others are slightly less obvious. But each one allows my working day to be much more productive.

Firefox

Well by this I really mean the Internet and web browsers. Personally I use Firefox... but I would be at an absolute loss without it. Most of the tools I use require the internet. Without my quick internet connection, it would simply be impossible to do what I need to do. Get yourself a good internet connection, a great browser (not Internet Explorer!) and suddenly everything is possible.

Firefox

Skype

This is probably the second most important tool on my computer. While I use Office, Adobe and online tools, without Skype, communications with my colleagues (who are mainly abroad) would cost so much, it would just be unfathomable. Skype is so easy to use, can integrate with your browser and allows you to IM and make calls at the click of a button.

Skype

Glasscubes

While this is actually part of my job, it really makes my life easier - not just from home but when I'm out at meetings. By keeping my documents here I can log in within seconds and recover them, wherever I am, and because it has previews, whiteboards and online editing, I don't even need to worry about the applications on the local machine. It has lots of other features which make my life easier, but the true value is not needing to carry my laptop with me when I actually leave the office/home. It also allows me to communicate so simply with my colleagues when maybe a call/IM is overkill.

Glasscubes

Blackberry

This is a pain and a pleasure. It means that I can actually turn my laptop off once in a while. I stay in touch with everybody and yet don't have to have my eyes glued to a screen. It's also so easy to use on the road that when I am in transit, I can jot notes, ideas and email people all at once. To prove my point, this entire article came to me while I was reading an email on a bus and I wanted to make an instant note about it.

BlackBerry

Taking a break

OK, so it's not a tool, but it's vital. It's just unhealthy to sit and work constantly for hours. Go on, take a break.

Google alerts

I've got my Google alerts set up. There might be plenty of alternatives and I do get lots of newsletters to keep me posted, but because I can customise my request, I feel like I'm in control. It keeps me up to date about topics key to my heart and keeps me thinking about ideas. I'll always open them - unlike newsletters - even though the subject line is awful.

Google Alerts

Outlook

Outlook is always on. Always. I've been laughed at a bit recently for still using it in light of all things online. But I just like the security it brings. If my internet was down for any reason, my emails would still be there and I'd actually be able to take time to go through and do the nitty gritty. Which is simply not possible using anything webmail.

Outlook

iTunes

I can't abide a silent room. iTunes quite literally keeps me sane. It's that simple.

iTunes

Water

Concentration levels are hard enough to maintain as the day draws to an end in any environment. But at home I can - and do - keep water nearby at all times. When I've worked in an office I barely touch the stuff and I notice the degradation in my attitude and work. Keeping water handy at home just keeps me going like coffee never could.

Positivity

You have to have a positive attitude. It's very easy to let yourself get down and because there's nobody nearby to help snap you out of it, you have to snap yourself out of it. Keeping positive is tough, but will really pay dividends in your levels of productivity.

Twitter

Not only is it a great communication tool, you can learn so much from the people on it. It's a great way to get away from your computer, without leaving your computer at all. It can be dangerous, you have to restrict yourself, but if you want to think a little laterally, it won't be long before something has taken your attention. It's uncanny how sometimes, the best ideas come when you've been distracted just a little.

Twitter

Closing the door

On washing-up, dirty washing and any other household chores. After all, if I were working in an office I wouldn't be doing these chores so when I'm working from home these get forgotten until my working day is over.

Sophie Le Brozec is British but lives on the French Riviera where she happily homeworks. Sophie currently works for Glasscubes (www.glasscubes.com), offering online collaboration and simple CRM for small and medium businesses, especially those who do not have a dedicated IT department/employee.

Ten tips for building a strong profile on LinkedIn

12/11/2009 19:38:59

Ten tips from LinkedIn

Borrow from the best marketers

Light up your profile with your voice. Use specific adjectives, colorful verbs, active construction. Act naturally. Picture yourself at a conference or client meeting. How do you introduce yourself? That’s your authentic voice.

Write a personal tagline

That line of text under your name? It’s the first thing people see in your profile. It follows your name in search hit lists. It’s your brand. (Note: your e-mail address is not a brand!) Your company’s brand might be so strong that it and your title are sufficient. Or you might need to distill your professional personality into a more eye-catching phrase, something that at a glance describes who you are.

Put your elevator pitch to work

Go back to your conference introduction. That 30 second description, the essence of who you are and what you do, is a personal elevator pitch. Use it in the Summary section to engage readers. You’ve got 5-10 seconds to capture their attention. The more meaningful your summary is, the more time you’ll get from readers.

Point out your skills

Think of the Specialties field as your personal search engine optimizer, a way to refine the ways people find and remember you. This searchable section is where that list of industry buzzwords from your resume belongs. Also – particular abilities and interests, the personal values you bring to your professional performance, even a note of humor or passion.

Explain your experience

Help the reader grasp the key points: briefly say what the company does. Picture yourself at that conference, again. After you’ve introduced yourself, how do you describe what you do, what your company does? Use those clear, succinct phrases here – and break them into visually digestible chunks.

Don’t cut and paste your CV

Describe your experience and abilities as you would to someone you’ve just met. And write for the screen – short blocks of copy with visual or textual signposts.

Distinguish yourself from the crowd

Use the Additional Information section to round out your profile with a few key interests. Add websites that showcase your abilities or passions. Then edit the default ‘My Website’ label to encourage clickthroughs (you get Google page rankings for those, raising your visibility). Maybe you belong to a trade association or an interest group; help other members find you by naming those groups. If you’re an award winner, recognized by peers, customers or employers, add prestige without bragging by listing them here.

Ask and answer questions

Thoughtful questions and useful answers build your credibility. The best ones give people a reason to look at your profile. Make a point of answering questions in your field to establish your expertise, raise your visibility and, most importantly, to build social capital with people in your network – you may need answers to a question of your own down the road.

Improve your Google PageRank

Pat your own back and others too. Get recommendations from colleagues, clients, and employers who can speak credibly about your abilities or performance. Think quality not quantity. Ask them to focus on a specific skill or personality trait that drives their opinion of you. Make meaningful comments when you recommend others. And mix it up - variety makes your recommendations feel authentic.

Build your connections

Connections are one of the most important aspects of your brand – the company you keep reflects the quality of your brand. What happens when you scan a profile and see that you know someone in common? Your respect grows for them and you feel more comfortable. And the value of that commonality works both ways too. So identify connections that will add to your credibility and pursue them.

Thanks to LinkedIn for their top tips.

Why not start strengthening your brand straight away by entering the LinkedIn Awards on the link below.

LinkedIn Business Awards

This oneâs for the ladies

12/11/2009 08:18:46

Open for Business

Thanks to Di Gates for sending on information about this new programme:

Run by Women into the Network, the Art for Art’s Sake programme is now open for business, with a range of hands-on arty activities and courses for women across the North East. This is a unique chance to develop new skills and networks that can create benefit in business as well as everyday life; but it’s also an easy way just to enjoy and learn more about the arts from the region’s most talented creative minds. There’s also the added bonus that each course costs just £15!

The programme kicks off this month with a series of 2-hour workshops to introduce you to the Art of Networking, plus the first session of a 6-week Intro to Playwriting course delivered by the Live Theatre.

The Art of Networking workshops, delivered by WIN Ltd, are designed for women who would like to be more effective in the way they meet and manage new contacts.

Workshops will run across the North East, starting with daytime and evening sessions in Durham on 19th November, Northumberland on 25th November, then Tyne &Wear on 3rd December, and the Tees Valley on 15th December. Workshops cost just £15+VAT per person and are free to paid-up WIN members. Full details and booking form available at: http://www.womenintothenetwork.co.uk/events/the-art-of-networking.

Women into the Network , Art for Art’s Sake

One home: three homeworkers

11/11/2009 08:08:56

Who started their business first? You, or Katey?

I started up first after leaving a large further education college as Deputy Director of Quality in April 2009. Katey started in July 2009.

My business is a training and consultancy business that offers leadership and management packages but I'm in the middle of developing training workshops on Social Responsibility in the Workplace and I also job coach freelance for the Shaw Trust who support people in the workplace with disabilities. My website is: www.yourpeoplecount.co.uk

Katey's business is called Panda loves Kitsch. It’s a clothing company that makes and sells limited edition, handmade clothing. Selling internationally to late teens to 20's women who want to dress like an individual but still want to be upto date with the current trends. Also, coming soon will be a couture section! Her website is: www.weheartpanda.com

Do you work in the same home office?

I have a spare bedroom that I use as my office and Katey uses part of her bedroom to design and cut fabric but uses the downstairs study to sew. Although we are in the process of swapping and I am going downstairs into the study and she is going into the spare bedroom. We are swapping because her activity is messier than mine and it will mean she can leave her machines and material etc out and not have to clear it all away when we have guests. And my husband is locked away in another spare bedroom. Luckily there are only three of us in the family otherwise someone would be sleeping in the garage!

Do you talk business over lunch?

We all tend to eat together at lunch time but we don't spend the same amount of time together, as one of us will disappear off to get on with things. We do offer each other advice but sometimes it is best coming from someone outside. It gives us a chance to have an objective view. Katey has a mentor and I’m about to do the same.

I have joined the Doncaster Chamber and attend as many networking events as I can, as this has developed my confidence on being able to deliver my elevator pitch and find the direction in which I want my business to go. I recently had a spot on the local radio (sinefm.com) and you can hear the interview on line if you click on programmes and Talk of the Town. I think I've free entry into the Guinness Book of Records for saying the most errs and ummms in a 10 minute pitch!

As I said my husband is a home worker and he has been doing this for a long time. I think he is finding it different with us all being at home, but in saying that we tend to lock ourselves away and get on with things. So we see each other the same amount as if we went out to work (apart from lunch time).

What is it you most enjoy about being your own boss?

Both Katey and I love the independence and being able to develop our own ideas. The reason I left full time work was because I felt frustrated at not always being able to move things forward if it didn't fit in with someone else's agenda. Katey loves the freedom of being able to create her own designs in the way she wants to work. She was at University up until June this year and she also felt frustrated that she was held back in her ideas by having to follow a specific brief and not work in her own way.

Cheryl Walsh talks to Enterprise Nation about her buzzing business home.

The top 8 tools for anyone using Twitter

09/11/2009 17:13:03

Here are John’s top 8 tools for anyone using Twitter

HootSuite

HootSuite allows you to manage multiple Twitter profiles, add multiple editors, pre-schedule tweets, and measure your success. HootSuite lets you manage your entire Twitter experience from one interface. It allows you to check stats and analytics. Search Twitter for keyword information. Reply @ and Direct Message the people in your conversation.

Hootsuite

TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and more. You can customise your Twitter experience with columns, groups, saved searches and automatic updates helping you to effortlessly stay updated with the people and topics you care about. See what people are saying about you and join the conversation by tweeting, sharing photos, videos or links directly from TweetDeck.

Tweetdeck

SocialOomph

Formerly TweetLater, this service now provides a big list of automation tools. Not only does it automatically send Direct Messages to your new followers, it also does everything that is needed to keep your Twitter account open with a mass amount of followers. You can Schedule tweets, Auto Follows allowing you to auto follow anyone that follows you, Un-follow those who un-follow you and much more.

SocialOomph

TweetMeme

TweetMeme watches what is going on within Twitter and picks up anyone posting links to content. It then tracks how many other mentions of the same content are made (and how influential they are.) and presents them in a simple format.

TweetMeme

Twittermail

Twittermail provides you with a Twittermail address. For instance 1234abcd@twittermail.com. When you send an email to that address it will be posted to your Twitter account – i.e. Tweet by email.

Twittermail

Twitpic

TwitPic lets you share photos on Twitter by publishing a link via a Tweet to each photo. You can post photos to TwitPic from your phone or through their website.

Twitpic

Trendistic

Trendistic allows you to track trends on Twitter, similarly to what Google Trends does for Google searches. It gathers tweets as they are posted, filters redundant ones and compiles the rest into one-hour intervals.

This way, it shows how the frequency of one, two, three and four-word phrases fluctuate over time. The result is a visualization of what is popular and what is not among Twitter users, and how certain events are reflected or even predicted by the microblogosphere.

Trendistic

Twellow

Twellow is simply the Twitter equivalent of the Yellow Pages, i.e. a directory of Twitter users.

Twellow

John Giazzi runs JCG Marketing, a marketing and public relations consultancy that provides simple, effective and low cost marketing and PR for small and medium size businesses.

JCG Marketing

Home business on a cloud

07/11/2009 18:20:11

Market research

The idea for Shopinsky was born out of the visible impact the recession was having on our local town centre, with shops, both large and small closing each week. After some research it became clear that retailers didn’t necessarily want more trade online, but more customers through their stores. They also needed a way to promote latest offers and last minute bargains to local consumers.
After a good look at the competition we decide to develop “Shopinsky”, a web-based shopping channel for consumers. Our strategy was to provide a healthy mix of local and national brands for local consumers across 175+ cities & towns. Our emphasis is on the local shopping experience. We have an individual presence in the UK’s top 175 shopping cities & towns.

The idea

The idea is simple; each city & major town in the country has a Shopinsky Page, so businesses can join Shopinsky to be part of their local town. They can post messages - via the website or sms - these are distributed on the site, to the local Twitter account, their web page and an RSS feed, plus a daily emailed roundup of offers in each town. This gives local retailers the opportunity to reach those consumers who are in their catchment area, and it gives national brands a way to localise their business message and add-value to their current marketing. For more see the link www.shopinsky-consulting.com

For businesses, Shopinsky offers a great way to connect to local consumers through social networking services. Building up a following on sites such as Twitter or your own blog is a lot of work, so the idea with Shopinsky is that audience is already there for you. All you have to do is send your updates/offers.

For shoppers the site offers a great way to find out about local businesses, offers and freebies. We have made it as easy as possible to interact with Shopinsky and understand that people want content delivered to them rather than having to search for it. Therefore people can bookmark their towns page, subscribe to the RSS feed in their news reader, follow the local town on Twitter or subscribe to a free daily email summary, showing all the local retailer news that day. There are optional extra services for retailers, such advertising in a free-subscription newsletter, publishing online catalogue, coupon distribution and even YouTube commercials.

Life before Shopinsky

Before Shopinsky I worked as the worldwide Group Marketing Director for a large Insurance company. I left in 2003 to buy and run my own hotel with my wife, which we sold in mid 2007. My business partner runs his own marketing company specialising in the hi-tech market, working with both software development and major hardware manufacturers and has been based in France for the last six years.

Clouds on the horizon

After working on the initial strategy for Shopinsky here in Shropshire, the rest of the development activity has been conducted in ‘The Cloud’ using a number of cloud-enabled applications such as Buzzword and iWorks, as well as Skype conferencing for low-cost communications. Even our accounting is Internet-based with a package called Kashflow. Our developers - based both here in Shropshire and the South of France - were given access to our ‘Cloud based’ thinking and specifications. Regular Skype conferencing has been key. Our servers are based in both the UK and France.

A soft start

This is a soft launch so at present we are just starting to recruit local businesses and national retailers. Until we have a solid base of retailers in each city/town where we have a presence, we want to maintain a relatively low profile. We don’t want to focus heavily on consumer recruitment only to have them find an empty site. However, once we have a good spread of retail businesses providing both local and national offers we will be using a range of web-based strategies and tools to launch Shopinsky to consumers nationwide. In addition we have SEO (search engine optimisation) skills which we share with our customers.

And a final word of advice…

For anyone starting a business that they want to develop/run between the UK and overseas, the key issue for us was communications. I have to say France has proved more reliable than the UK, as I have suffered from poor bandwidth here. The second issue has been discipline and sticking to set times to meet on the cloud, to conference call or deliver pieces of work. After a false start we have also been lucky to eventually find good developers, both here and in France who have been flexible and have added value to our proposition and our future thinking over the last six months.

What insurance do I need?

07/11/2009 17:15:29

When starting a business from home, what kind of cover do you recommend?

I would recommend:

Public and Products Liability Insurance
If you have any employees then you’ll need our Employer's Liability insurance (which is compulsory, by law)
After that you should consider insurance cover for your contents and stock and then cover for Business Interruption and Legal expenses
Health and safety is also important

Can home businesses just add protection on to an existing domestic policy?

Yes - it is possible but can be difficult. There are combined policies out there. Aviva provides elements of business cover as standard with its household insurance policy but it is becoming more common to have a separate business cover.

Do you offer a dedicated home business package? What is the cost and how to apply?

Yes - Self Employed, which is a commercial policy arranged through your local broker or there is some business cover which you can get with your home insurance direct from Aviva (though do check that this will provide sufficient cover for your needs) The cost is tailored to the circumstances of the cover required so the best advice is to talk to your local broker to find out more. If you don’t have a broker visit www.aviva.co.uk/business-insurance

Thanks to David Bruce

Managing battery life

07/11/2009 11:15:37

Not 1, not 2, but 10 simple tips

Many of our customers only manage to get 1 hour out of their laptop but much of the time this is due to lack of knowledge in the way they could improve the battery life of their laptop. Here are our top 10 simple tips for you to follow:

Look at ‘Power Options’ in your control panel. It allows you to create the settings that suit your use. Remember, your screen when on full power consumes the battery, getting your laptop to dim when not on the mains will conserve your battery.
Power down all nonessential functions. Switch it off if you're not using it. Many business travellers already know that you don't want to take the DVD player for a spin on the plane, and that every time you hit "save" it can set the hard-drive whirring, which devours even more power. Users often also forget to turn off their wireless card when they are no longer using it, so it sits there continually searching for networks.
Stay out of extreme temperatures. Temperatures can affect the performance of your battery. It's best to use (and especially charge) your battery at room temperature. Extreme conditions can drain your battery quickly. Also, avoid partial charges and use the battery until it is dead. Battery experts liken partial charges — and discharges — to eating a cup of lard every day. It significantly shortens your battery's life. Considering that a lithium-ion battery can explode if it's improperly used, it could also shorten your life.
Let your laptop do the saving. No laptop device handles a power source in the same way. Some of the more sophisticated laptops, which are designed with small business travel in mind, are misers when it comes to using power. And that's a good thing. Consult your user manual. Often, calibrating your laptop is as easy as double-clicking on the battery icon in the toolbar. Alternatively, if your laptop is an older model, you might want to turn off the autosave function, which would result in the hard drive doing less work.
Defrag regularly. The faster your hard drive does its work – the less demand you are going to put on the hard drive and your battery.
Add more RAM. This will allow you to process more with the memory your laptop has, rather than relying on virtual memory. Virtual memory results in hard drive use, and is much less power efficient. Note that adding more RAM will consume more energy, so this is most applicable if you do need to run memory intensive programs which actually require heavy usage of virtual memory.
Keep the battery contacts clean. Clean your battery’s metal contacts every couple of months with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol. This keeps the transfer of power from your battery more efficient.
Hibernate not standby. Although placing a laptop in standby mode saves some power and you can instantly resume where you left off, it doesn’t save anywhere as much power as the hibernate function does. Hibernating will actually save your laptop’s state as it is, and completely shut itself down.
Don’t multitask. Do one thing at a time when you’re on battery. Rather than working on a spreadsheet, letting your email client run in the background and listening to your latest set of MP3’s, set your mind to one thing only. If you don’t you’ll only drain out your batteries before anything gets completed!
Lower the graphics use. You can do this by changing the screen resolution and shutting off fancy graphic drivers. Graphics cards (video cards) use as much or more power today as hard disks.

Sam Francis is Commercial Director of TEK Express Ltd; a company that manages The Laptop Specialist site

The Laptop Specialist

Enterprise Nation

Home Enterprise Day: Launch of 2009 Home Business Report

2009 Home Business Report

A few key highlights

Home Enterprise Day: First footage from roadtrip

Video highlights

Clip 1: Networks

Clip 2: Growth

Clip 3: What do you most enjoy about being your own boss from home?

That was quite a Home Enterprise Day

The day after

The Good Web Guide to the best websites of 2009

Runners up were:

An entrepreneur's quick guide to closing face to face sales

Do you want what I'm selling? Can you afford to pay for it?

Why not buy it right now?

Business begins at home

Homeworking with the Hens

Make time for your marketing plan

My top tips

Identifying the right target audience

Your best customers

When leaving doesnât have to mean âGoodbyeâ

Leaving but staying on

Tasty treats on Friday

Start with a springling of cupcake dust

And end with a little magic

We have a notebook winner!

Amanda Vlahakis of Truly Ace

One long lunch

Homeworking by the sea

Enterprise Nation Conference: Five days to go and five lucky winners

The UK’s first ever Home Enterprise Day

With thanks

See you there?

12 things that make homeworking more productive

A few bright ideas

Firefox

Skype

Glasscubes

Blackberry

Taking a break

Google alerts

Outlook

iTunes

Water

Positivity

Twitter

Closing the door

Ten tips for building a strong profile on LinkedIn

Ten tips from LinkedIn

Borrow from the best marketers

Write a personal tagline

Put your elevator pitch to work

Point out your skills

Explain your experience

Don’t cut and paste your CV

Distinguish yourself from the crowd

Ask and answer questions

Improve your Google PageRank

Build your connections

This oneâs for the ladies

Open for Business

One home: three homeworkers

Who started their business first? You, or Katey?

Do you work in the same home office?

Do you talk business over lunch?

What is it you most enjoy about being your own boss?

The top 8 tools for anyone using Twitter

HootSuite

TweetDeck

SocialOomph

TweetMeme

Twittermail

Twitpic

Trendistic

Twellow

Home business on a cloud

Market research

The idea

When leaving doesnât have to mean âGoodbyeâ

This oneâs for the ladies