What is the business idea that you are working on right now? How did you come up with it?
I have expanded my Website to include "Promotionl" Pages for Artists and Small Businesses. All new ground for me, but it is the direction I have decided to head in. Currently have four Artist, one Musician and two Small Businesses. It is a concept that has been on the backburner for the last couple of years, figured it was time to either run with it or shelve it entirely.
What is expected of you in your job, and how do you accomplish it?
My job is to build, expand and supervise a small crew in the task of gathering information, and reporting it via the internet. Making sure we have good equipment to do our job efficiently is important to that. The main goal is to gather as much info as there is available for our clients. Our work is what helps them make their businesses thrive, and that is the most important ask of all.
Are these times of crisis good for beginning a business?
Absolutely! If you can run a profitable business now then when the economy picks up it will be a breeze! There are more small businesses than ever and it is they who will create jobs and help the country survive. There are also a lot more working mums now who were struggling to pay for childcare but have found self employment takes away that problem.
Which well known entrepreneurs/enterprises do you admire? Why?
Robert Kiyosaki author of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad books - he put business and investing into simple terms that really fast tracked my success
Andrew Reynold a niche marketing guru - the concept of niche has encouraged me to develop smaller targeted successful businesses.
Darren Hardy author of the compound effect - while I was familiar with compound interest from an investing point of view I had never considered the concept of little actions every day compound into incredible results
What do you think of big corporations? Would you work for one?
I believe big corporations have had their day and smaller home based businesses will become the mainstay of the economy.
Entrepreneurs have a reputation as "control freaks." How do you avoid that?
Not sure that I do. As I tend to use small home based businesses the owner has the same desire to perform well providing the quality I need within the timeframes I require. By setting the contracts up properly as the start I trust the businesses I deal with to perform to my level of expectations. Works quite well. But let me down and I don't give second chances.
How often are you called on outside of work hours to solve an urgent problem?
I am either always working, or never working. I can't tell which. So, I'm never called outside of my work. I encourage people email me or call me whenever they feel I can help them in any way. I love helping people any way I can: with projects, getting their small businesses going, organizing hackerspaces, helping with depression -- any way I can help.
What role does technology play in your business? Do you believe that you are where you need to be technologically speaking?
An increasing part - small businesses increasingly have the ability to run rings around large businesses by adopting the latest (often free) technology. I try to do the same
What is your story? How did you come to run a business?
I spent over 25 years leading international business at the highest level, ultimately a plc, putting me in a unique position to deal with contemporary business challenges.
I am now an, Oxford, UK based, award winning international motivational business growth speaker who inspires and entertains my audiences with my acclaimed Staying in the Helicopter® programmess. Over 10000 CEOs, business leaders and others have achieved transformational change through my thought provoking and entertaining talks laced with real-life stories, anecdotes and humour.
I am also an author, accredited SME business advisor, mentor, consultant and independent director focused on business development and success.
I have extensive experience across a broad spectrum of businesses - from small start-ups to large multinational corporations; from high tech manufactured products through basic commodities, to people based services businesses and not-for-profit organizations
I spent seven years as Group Chief Executive of a FTSE quoted, high tech industrial instrumentation group with 12 operations over four continents. The company was listed in the UK Government’s ‘Competitiveness’ White Paper and gained a reference in the US Forbes magazine as one of the top 100 overseas companies and has been used as a benchmark case study by two business schools on culture change and business re-engineering.
I have run businesses for major multi-national corporations and has been a tutor with one of the leading leadership and teambuilding programs for over 25 years.
I am a Past-President of The Professional Speakers Association, a former Vice-President of The Institution of Mechanical Engineers, and a Liveryman with The Worshipful Company of Marketers.
How did the entrepreneurial spirit rise up in you? Were you exposed to entrepreneurship in your family or your social environment when you were a child?
With two small beautiful daughters under the age of two, I needed the scheduling flexibility that I would allow me to best nurture and tend to
the needs of raising a family. Beginning a small business was the best answer for me.
My grandfather and grandmother had a small self-sustaining farm. I also had several uncles, aunts and cousins that owned their own businesses.
What is your stance as a marketing professional? What are you good at? What differentiates you from others?
I believe branding is critical to commercial success. I think brand is the secret weapon of any successful businesses (large or small). I also believe it should be hands on, fun, and result oriented. My approach uses lateral thinking and inspiration to come up with fresh solutions. I am also very interactive, making sure the clients are deeply invested in the solutions we create since employees are the most important brand ambassadors.
What is your professional position? What technology do you work with?
Docebo provides its cloud-based Docebo E-Learning platform, delivered "As a Service" (SaaS) to Small-Medium sized Businesses. Thanks to its user-friendly interface, this LMS (Learning Management System) is able to match SMBs needs, providing a complete and powerful online training tool.
What factors should one keep in mind when giving advice about an investment in technology?
I can only answer about websites here: you should have a website - no matter how small a business you have. Since everything is now online including phone directories, you should have a site so you can link your listing to them and to local directories. Even if it is a one page site, it is worth your advertising dollars.
Ok, I know I just said you should not get glued to your smart phone, but if you need to get customers emails or phone calls now, instead of when you get back to work (or home business), then you should have a smart phone or blackberry. This is very important to outdoor contractors, service related businesses.
What is your professional position? What technology do you work with?
We provide small businesses with a unique website at an affordable package price. We design all sites without templates. We can create logos, specialized navigation banners, create or edit your images to perfection, write content, keyword every page and then submit to search engines and local links pages by hand. We work for you always and we maintain and update our sites.
We are self-employed.
Why does hunger continue to exist in the world? Is this the result of a deliberate policy?
Hunger, poverty and high rates of infant mortality were the human condition for everyone for thousands of years. Only capital accumulation raises the productivity of work and makes more wealth.
International aid programs are usually government to government transfers that help tyrants build roads and airports they can use to repress rebellions.
We need to shift to a private, voluntary sector model where people receive tax credits to donate to non-governmental organizations that make micro-loans to small businesses, especially women own businesses in patriarchal societies. And increase free trade. And reduce subsidies, like U.S. agriculture subsidies to food produced in the U.S., which make it unprofitable for third world farmers to export to us.
What is your specialty in the interactive world?
I have created a website template called puresilva (http://www.puresilva.com/) to help small businesses have a presence online easily, professionally, and at low cost.
What is your blog address? What subjects do you deal with?
I blog at www.SarkeMedia.com and www.BirdsOnTheBlog.co.uk and contribute to www.bestbloggingtipsonline.com
At SarkeMedia I write about marketing, online and offline for small businesses and about social media. I write with the supposition that your blog is the centre of your marketing plan.
www.BirdsOnTheBlog.co.uk is the biggest multi-author blog for women outside of North America. I am hugely privileged to lead an international team of female business bloggers. It's an amazing experience and I'm very lucky.
www.bestbloggingtipsonline.com is where I contribute as part of a team by top marketer Danny Brown. We share blogging tips, tricks and techniques. I post every Tuesday at 12pm Eastern time.
What is your professional background? What were you doing before?
I have a blend of corporate and small business experience. I have started franchises, bought businesses, and created new businesses.
What is your specialty in the interactive world?
I help people in small businesses, not for profits and churches to begin to use social media as a tool to aid their work. I also run several Social Media Surgeries, providing free consultation to local voluntary groups.
Declaration: With what person or business would you like to work?
I only work with small businesses or charities, where a difference can be made with relative ease. This is not always the case with the large oil tankers of massive industry. It has been an extremely hard time for the small business person and now they are making a resurgence. They are able to react and change their policies to cope with the changing environment at the moment.
I like to work with local firms who like to give back to their community and I feel privileged to be able to choose who I work with now.
Must someone be the leader or boss in order for a creative team to function well?
Not at all, there is a great issue of being able to get ideas into fruition. I positively encourage this within my team as the greatest ideas are not always mine I recognise this, took me a long time though.
I have a team of some of the most incredible minds, I work with inventors, entrepreneurs, small businesses and when you speak to the people on the ground you invariably get the best ideas. The grass roots are where each and every successful business is made and fails. You need to think about everyone and where they fit in from the boss right the way down and you will find these are the most successful firms.
I have had the pleasure of working and currently advising one such company they have a model which is a breath of fresh air. They have a completely open policy, everyone knows everything about the company and as such they are successful.
www.hwcltd.co.uk
What are your clients like?
My clients do vary from high-end fashion publications & retailers to small uk owned businesses.
Each one has been a pleasure to work with.
Describe your business plan as briefly and simply as possible.
The aim at the moment is quite simple. It is to develop a quality product range of 4-5 products, which are still in testing. From there we want to take the products to the local markets to test the reaction of customers. From he we will decide if it is worth taking the next steps, which I hope will lead to distribution in local stores (smaller businesses).
In which market, products or services, are you currently working?
I currently work with small-mid size businesses offering internet marketing solutions via Local SEO, Social Media Marketing, Online Video Marketing and Mobile Marketing.
Do you think businesses waste a lot of money on bad technology?
I think businesses waste money when they could save. I think that businesses insist on custom apps when they could build their apps with AppsGeyser, for example, at a small fraction of the cost.
In which market, products or services, are you currently working?
I focus on working with business to business, small businesses.
A marketing strategy begins with an idea. How are yours born?
Mine was born out of meeting and talking with small business owners and seeing most of them were not using the power of marketing for their businesses.
Is courage needed to practice your profession?
These days the deck is usually stacked in favor of the insurance industry and large corporations, so it definitely takes some degree of courage and fortitude to represent ordinary citizens and small businesses against those powerful interests.
How do you set your rates? Does it have to do with time commitment , what is at stake, or with the financial ability of the client?
How I am paid depends on the type of case. I handle some cases on contingency where the clients do not pay a fee unless we make a recovery. I also handle some cases for small to medium size businesses where I am paid by the hour.
What types of cases interest you most?
I handle a broad range of civil lawsuits including fire claims, wrongful death claims, insurance claims and cases where people have sustained very serious personal injuries. I also represent small businesses in lawsuits against larger companies, and, I regularly represent policyholders who are suing their insurance companies.
What has been your professional experience in the arena of law? How long have you been in the profession?
I have been a licensed Texas attorney for over 25 years. I spent approximately 23 years defending insurance companies and large corporations against all kinds of claims and lawsuits. A few years ago, I decided to switch sides and become a plaintiffs attorney. Today, I represent families, individuals and small businesses who have been harmed by the wrongful conduct of insurance companies and large corporations. My clients are accident and fire victims, widows, orphans, and policyholders whose claims have been delayed, wrongfully denied, or underpaid by their insurance companies. I handle a number of cases involving fires.
What kind of projects do you usually undertake?
New and small businesses. New departments.
What kind of projects do you usually undertake?
I work with small/medium sized businesses in Ireland developing and setting up affordable CMS websites or simple html sites. Typically clients opt for a CMS website built on the WordPress platform.
Irish visitors may wish to get more details at:
http://starterwebsites.net/2011/05/26/cms-web-design/
What kind of projects do you usually undertake?
We prefer to work with small to medium sized businesses. Nothing over 100 employees.
In which market, products or services, are you currently working?
My core focus is on services.
In my corporate practice my clients include major accounting and consulting firms, global banks (like HSBC and ABN Amro), and technology giants like Microsoft. I've also done work for government departments. Unfortunately a lot of my corporate clients insist on non-disclosure agreements, so I can't discuss some of the really juicy pieces of work! Typically I'm working with very senior people in those organisations, sometimes with middle managers. I help them to develop as leaders, improving their communication and thereby increasing their own and the organisations effectiveness.
The other side of my practice deals with smaller professional service firms: consultants (particularly marketers!), business coaches, accountants, financial advisers, medical practitioners. Here my focus is on getting them through whatever the net big hurdle is in gorwing their practice. Surprisingly, a lot of practices are struggling to get their fees into six-figures. I crossed that particular boundary a long time ago, and I help many businesses to do the same.
Up till now, what has been your professional career path?
I have spent more than 20 years as a professional adviser, working around the globe with some of the largest - and also some of the smallest - businesses in the world.
When I graduated from university I trained as an accountant with one of the Big 4 accounting firms (only back then they were the Big 10!). That gave me a great insight into the financial reality of how businesses grow and work, but I wanted to take a broader view and I moved into management consultancy with another of the Big 4.
In 2002 I decided I was ready to make my impact on the world alone and I set up my own advisory practice. I haven't looked back since.
These days I focus on two key areas. In the corporate arena I work with leaders and managers in multinational organisations, helping them to be better leaders and to communicate better internally and externally.
but I also share what I have learned about growing a professional practice with other service professionals. I train and mentor coaches, consultants, lawyers and advisers to help them grow their practice and create the income and lifestyle that they deserve.
What kind of projects do you usually undertake?
We optimize websites for search engines. We work for small businesses, primarily.
What is your specialty in the interactive world?
Pink Minnow specializes in search engine optimization. We help small businesses get found in Google, Yahoo and Bing.
What kind of projects do you usually undertake?
I provide WordPress website design services and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) almost exclusively to local small businesses.
Are there too many taxes?
Yes. The tax system should be simplified. Another problem with taxes is the overwhelming tendency to tax those things we should seek to encourage. Namely emmployment and personal earnings, and the profits of small and medium businesses. The burden of tax should be moved from these areas and focused on things we should seek to discourage, pollution, environmental damage, overexploitation of natural resources, and unsustainable consumption.
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