I’ve just started interviewing entrepreneurs for a new series of posts in which they will reveal their top tips for running a business successfully, and share some of the strategies they use in their work everyday.

The series will run over the course of September and October. If you would like to be considered for an interview just drop me a message, hello@andrew-ng.com, or leave a comment below and I’ll get in touch!

“Learn to fail quickly” Is the best advice available when approaching a new venture. Why?

1. 6 months – 1 year is what it takes to establish if a business will succeed or fail. I’m not saying that you need to make a profit in the first 6 months (although that does help); but if you are losing money, you’ll need to be on track with your business plan. If you’re a long way off target with no indicators that what you’re doing will ever make any money, find something else to do.
2. Save your cash. It takes money to create and grow a startup. Dependant on your sector and business idea, it may take a lot of cash. If something isn’t working, break whatever emotional attachment you may have with it, and save your cash. You can always start a different business!
3. Save your career. You’ll get credit from potential employers for taking a risk and venturing out on your own, and you’ll have learned a lot of valuable business skills – something that many companies will look for in new staff. However plodding away for several years at something that just isn’t working won’t build up any extra “career points”.

Statistically most ventures do fail. And remember, not all great ideas turn in to great businesses.

Yesterday the web development business that I’m involved with completed the re-launch of WordPress Developers UK. And we’re celebrating with a £99 Business Blog offer!

To find out more about our blog offer, download our flyer, or email offers@wordpressdevelopers.co.uk. Your business blog will end up looking something like the one that you’re currently reading. So go on, celebrate with us!

For more information about WordPress Developers UK, visit the website. www.wordpressdevelopers.co.uk

Love it or hate it, you probably went to see the 3rd one, “just because you should”. After all, you’ve already seen the first and second ones haven’t you? And it seems a shame not to complete the trio.

Let’s take a quick business lesson from Disney Pixar. When you’ve got a fan base, milk it for all you can. With the economic downturn still quite visible with SME’s, one of the best sources of reliable income is from your existing “fans”. Sit down, spend an hour with a cup of coffee, and work out exactly what else you can provide to your fans that would be useful to them. It will be one of the most profitable hours that you will do nothing in.

Occasionally there are days when I seem to “work” from 7am through till 11pm, and at the end of it all appear to have achieved very little. These are days that I am increasingly trying to cut-out, and are indeed becoming much more rare. Here are 5 things that have helped me run my business (or businesses as the case is) more effectively.

Do Less
Have a Break
Stop Learning a Little
Attend Fewer Meetings
Play Tennis

1. Do less
   Spend a bit of time working out why you do what you do. For example, I write this blog:
   1) because I enjoy writing and find blogging a lot of fun
   2) to share what I know and (*hopefully) provide a valuable resource to people
   3) to raise my profile and the profile of my companiesDoes this mean that if I didn’t enjoy doing it I would keep a blog? Maybe. It would really depend if I felt points 2 and 3 made it worth my time. However if you don’t know why you’re doing it, you probably would be better off sitting in the garden having a BBQ with friends. Simple as that.
2. Have a Break
   Now that you know why you do what you do… Seriously, take a break – you could even have a Kit Kat if you like them. Having a break refreshes your mind and allows you to return to a task with a more focused attitude. I schedule coffee breaks in every day; as a result I work faster and concentrate better. Knowing that in 30 minutes I get to sit down with a nice cup of coffee encourages to me focus on the task at hand.
3. Stop Learning a Little
   Don’t stop developing your skills; but work out if you really need to learn new ones.I hear stories every day of small companies buying books and attending events to learn about social media: “how Twitter can help your business”, “DIY SEO”, etc. But how much time and money will it take for you to be as good as specialist companies or consultants? Your read 3 books, attend a conference and 2 workshops. Having spent the better part of £400 and lost 3 working days to “learning”, you’re now ready to take the plunge… You then spend another 3 weeks struggling to get it right.You know what? Stop learning a little and focus on what actually makes money – sales! If you want SEO-friendly web copy, find a copywriting firm who can do it for you; the quality will be higher and you can pay for it by finding new clients when you would have been “learning”. “Learning” does not make money. At all.
4. Attend Fewer Meetings
   Send more emails, make more phone calls, do more video conferencing, but attend fewer meetings. I’m not saying attend no meetings, some meetings are essential for developing projects, client relationships, and finding potential new clients. However, meetings often involve time-consuming travel that can also be expensive. It is also easier to take notes if you are on the phone. Emails mean you don’t need to take notes at all! For more about communication, check out: 4 Tips for Better Client Communication.
5. Play Tennis
   Or another sport / activity of your choice. Give yourself something that you enjoy to do at the end of your working day. You will find that you enjoy your “end of day” activity more; and you are incentivised to work harder during the day.

And there you have it; my top tips for running a business more effectively. Now it’s time for a coffee break (or actually, a spot of lunch)! 

And let’s face it, who doesn’t? To a large extent I believe that the more you give, the more you’ll get back in a business relationship.

For example, at Webster49, we give away a FREE basic SEO guide to all of our customers. It’s our way of saying “thank you”. I also offer a FREE personal branding e-Course on my website; this builds up a friendly repertoire with clients and potential clients. In turn, many people who enjoy what we give away free remember us and recommend our services to people they know. There is also a list of FREE e-Books on my website. These weren’t written by me. I have simply collected links to the ones that I like to make it easier for people to find them and to (hopefully) provide a valuable resource. In turn, the writers of these e-Books get a bit of free publicity. It’s a win-win situation; and all because they were generous enough to give something FREE.

So think about it, what can you give away free that will help you build a positive relationship with the world around you?

No posts for the next 10 days or so as today I fly out to Switzerland for some rest and relaxation (and chocolate of course).

I was going to schedule something to post automatically, but time seems to have caught up with me on this occasion!

The problem with people who like writing, is that we like the tone of our own words. I admit, I naturally tend to write more than is necessarily required; then must return to edit ruthlessly. The problem with people who dislike writing is that the organisation of the writing and sentence structure is often convoluted, and the editing is non-existent. If there is one way to improve your business writing, especially marketing copy, it is this: write less, and say more.

1. Why are you writing?Every piece of good writing has a purpose. If you are writing marketing copy, why are you doing it? What are the key points that you want to communicate? For example in a case study, you may want to show how your product helps your client. You also want to point out some of the unique features of your product. These ideas will shape what you write and how you structure your writing.If what you’re writing is not focused on your key ideas, it’s time to take a break, re-read, and refocus.
2. Who are you writing for?This influences the length and style of your writing. If you are blogging, make sure you don’t have huge blocks of text, break it up with subheadings and bullet points. If you are writing a report about how users engage with your company’s website however, longer paragraphs interspersed with graphs that display statistics is more acceptable and probably more appropriate.Don’t start writing until you know exactly who you’re writing for. This, combined with why you’re writing for them, will ensure that what you produce is focused and reads well.
3. Edit like your life depends on it.

   Editing is the “catch-all”. Good editing will leave you with a concise, well-structured piece of writing. Edit out anything that does not directly support your core messages.When editing, don’t forget to proofread… you need to catch those spelling and grammatical errors as well!

I must add before I go on that this is a very rare occurrence for me, but simply for your amusement, and as I am only human as well, this is what a typical “lazy day” looks like when the lazy one in question is me…

9.30am Get out of bed, take a shower, meander lazily through to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and look in the fridge for anything that might be good for breakfast (before obviously deciding that breakfast is a little too much work).

10.15am Turn on the laptop and check Facebook, before logging in to my personal email account, and probably getting distracted by the latest sales email from Amazon, telling me that I need to buy a new lens for my DSLR!

11am Glance at my work emails, and decide to deal with anything “not-urgent”, after lunch; then return to Facebook.

11.30am Meander once again to the kitchen, probably pausing to glance at the post on the way, to start thinking about cooking lunch. Make another cup of coffee, and admire my collection of mugs (yes, really!). Start cooking.

12.30pm Slouch on the sofa, turn the TV on, and proceed to eat lunch while watching something requiring zero concentration, such as “Come Dine with Me”. After eating lunch, make more coffee and return to watch somebody else burn the chicken or under-cook the fist on Come Dine with Me.

2pm Finally bored with “Come Dine with Me”, and text a few friends vaguely enquiring about potential games of tennis in the evening, leaving me the entire afternoon to do some work and deal with those emails…

2.30pm Open the windows to let in lots of lovely fresh air, and with the though of a game of tennis after dinner, sit down to read a book.

4pm Completely lost track of time and need to throw together a quick curry for dinner.

4.30pm Curry simmering, now the laptop stops “sleeping”, and the emails finally get some attention, by which point another 20-ish have turned up.

5.30pm Emails done, time to start work on my work schedule for the day. Actually, the curry is almost ready to eat…

6pm Playing tennis at 7.30pm, so should probably eat some that curry now.

7.30pm Jump on a tennis court and let out all that pent-up energy from sitting at a desk all day working (or not!).

9.30pm Too dark for tennis. Go home. Have a shower. Make coffee. Settle down on the sofa with a good film and chocolate cookies.

11pm Better do a bit of work before bed eh? Actually the day has been far too nice for that. Read a book in bed.

I did mention at the beginning of this post that this happens very rarely; and never when I have urgent work to deal with.

Act like this for a couple of days running, and your business isn’t going to be in a great state when you realise quite how far behind you are with work. On saying that, everybody needs a “lazy day” (very) occasionally… Or perhaps it’s actually called a holiday? And holidays, are very different from work.

Increasingly personal branding is seen as a key way of reaching new clients and retaining existing ones. But it’s no new concept, Tom Peters back in 1997 said:

“Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.”

Since 1997 things have changed a bit; primarily because something called the Internet has taken over the lives of just about everybody in the economically developed world; and is spreading quickly in developing countries. In many ways, personal branding has never been easier and there is no reason why you couldn’t be the Tom Peters of your industry.

Looking for a new job or ways to boost your CV or want to grow your business through the power of personality? I’ve created a FREE 5 week Personal Branding e-Course. You can sign-up at my website and we’ll send you one email every week for 5 weeks outlining how you can build and improve your personal brand. And remember, it’s free so you’ve got nothing to lose!