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By now your business should have cottoned onto the fact that you need to have a strong online presence.
Either that or you’ve just closed up shop altogether.

Well, not only do you need a strong online presence but you also need to be selling online – no matter if that’s a product or a service.

It’s all very well me saying that, but, naturally, not everyone is tech savvy or knows the best options for moving online for their business.

In this article, I’m going to run through a few ideas, hints and tips for maximising your online sales to hopefully help you decide if you should stay (and grow your business) or go.

Talking Heads
One of the most successful ways companies have embraced the online world is by using video. In particular, we’re talking about Zoom, Microsoft Teams and other video chat platforms.

“How and what can I do to make the most of this?”
If you’re running anything like courses, networking, seminars etc, basically anything where you (used to) have a load of people in a venue, using video conferencing opens you up to a world wide audience.
Platforms like Zoom and Teams are good for this, but also take a look at Remo and if you really want to be flash, look at VR platforms like Mixtive or VR Conflux.

At a minimum, you can also look at using these platforms for customer support.

Talking shop
If you’re selling products, physical items that you ship out, you need to integrate ecommerce into your website.
Again, there are many ways you can build an online store depending on what and where you’re selling, but, in general, possibly look at using Shopify, Big Commerce, Prestashop or even WordPress and WooCommerce.
Via these platforms you can use Paypal or Stripe or even hook into your bank’s system for payments and all the major courier companies for shipping at a minimum, but, my advice would be to speak for a few acquaintances to see what they recommend.
If you’re able or need to take card payments, you can use SumUp or other card machine operators.

Talking about me
So, you’ve got yourself set up online and … now what?
Now the fun begins!

It’s all very well having a great online presence, having the stuff people want to buy, but, if nobody knows about it, you aint gonna shift no boxes.

Now you need to get social. Join local Facebook groups, look at using nextdoor.co.uk and Twitter, then depending on what you’re selling, maybe start posting on LinkedIn or any of the other thousands of social networks out there.
The point here is to start marketing yourself, but, be careful not to just become a business bore – join in with others conversations, start up threads of your own and, every now and again drop in a special offer, a promotion or even a hint/ tip on how to best use your product or service.

As a side point – when running any promotion or offer, look to building a relevant landing page linking to the actual details rather than just sending people to your general website.

Hopefully, I’ve given you something to work on and keep your business running but, of course, if you need a hand or have any questions, feel free to get in contact any time.

There’s a general, regular discussion around pricing our services or products; how much profit we need to make to survive.

My stance on this is that price should always equal profit for both you and your customers. And here’s why.

As a business, you need to make a profit – you’d be surprised at how many firms don’t actually realise this.
When you make a profit, you can pay your taxes, your VAT, your wages, your rent, buy new equipment, invest in your staff … etc, the list is endless.
When you don’t you can’t do any of this stuff and when something like a pandemic hits (yeah, like that ever happens!) you can find yourself having to shut shop while the bailiffs and creditors are banging on your door.

But, profit shouldn’t only be a one way street for your business.
It should also be a factor for your customers.

Traditionally profit is defined as:
“a financial gain – the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, operating, or producing something.”

It can also be defined as:
“an advantage or benefit”

And this is where your customers come in.
You see, if there’s no value, no need, no profit in someone buying your product or service, they’ll not buy – it’s as simple as that.
The profit for your customer might be convenience, it might mean they get to save time, or can do something easier, it might just mean they know you provide a more personal service or simply gives them a better outlook in life.

For the customer, profit is the purpose.

You sell widgets, but there’s also some other guy selling the same widgets, and now you’ve got competition.

The easiest way to beat the competition is to lower your prices, but, of course, while that means more profit for your customer, it also means less profit for you.
So, you lower your price, then your competitor does the same, so you go lower, and your competitor goes lower, … and your profits follow suit.
Never participate in a price war.

Repeat after me:
“I will never participate in a price war.
I will never participate in a price war.
I will never participate in a price war.”

Instead, give your customer a reason to always think of buying from you when they need your products or service – the trust, the quality, even your back-story or your company philosophy might resonate with them and so you can price accordingly.

So, how do you build up this ‘raison d’etre’?
Be open – speak with your customers on a regular basis. And I don’t mean just getting them to sign up to your newsletter which is sent daily with nothing but sales pitches, I mean catch-up with them, call them on the phone, a simple email or spend time chatting with them if you’re meeting person to person.

Be transparent – If a delivery is going to be delayed, let them know. If that product is out of stock, let them know.

Be aware – You sold a widget, but, there’s a newer widget coming out next month. Great, let your customer know and also ask if there’s anything else they need help with.

Also, never be afraid of increasing your price.
Yes, you might lose a few customers, but you’ll not lose your business if done legitimately.

Remember – When pricing your products or service, it needs to profit both your company and consumer.

If you have any thoughts or comments on this subject or any of our other articles, please do let us know.

So, here’s an important business website element.
As part of proving you’re running a legitimate, active business your website, amongst other essential elements, should display the correct date – this might be a copyright or ‘last updated’ date, usually located in the website footer.

If I visit your website and scroll to the bottom, what year is displayed?
By now it should display the current year. It does? Great.
Nice work and I’ll revisit soon.

If it doesn’t, read on.

Being online, for a business, is all about showing the world that you are alive and being productive, it’s all about having a product or service to sell and importantly about being transparent.

Gone are the days where you could simply call yourself A1A1 Plumbing Services so you were listed as the first plumber in the Yellow pages, now you have many, many others to compete with – a1a1plumbers.com, .co.uk, .biz, .plumbing – now you need to prove you are real, trusted and alive.

If I want to spend a substantial sum of money with you, I’m going to carry out due diligence first by checking your website for your business details and one of the first things I’m going to check is the copyright date in the footer of your website.
Why so? Well, this lays the foundation of proof that you are more than likely to be still trading, that you are alive and that I can, possibly, still contact you. If the copyright date says something like 2011 rather than 2021 are you still in business? Are the details on your website up to date and still relevant? Hello? anyone in?

The thing is, if your website is built correctly updating at 1 second into the New Year should be an automatic process.
If not, how much will your web developer charge you to change it?
Even worse if you’ve tens, hundreds or even thousands of pages, if it has not been built correctly, each will have to be manually updated taking time and therefore costing you money.

Other important elements to include, to prove you are a legitimate business – some a legal requirement, some, aesthetic – include:
– Address – this could be your office address, but also needs to include a registered company address. If you run your business from home, and don’t want to display your home address, look to getting a virtual address. You could also speak with your accountant about using their address for the registered address.

– Telephone/ contacts – Speak with your clients to find out the best way they want to contact you. This might simply be by telephone or email but also these days people are using messaging apps more and more – WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram, Signal etc.

– VAT/ company registration number – If you run a limited/ VAT registered business, there is a legal requirement to display these details on your website. They don’t need to be on every page, just on the ‘contact’ or ‘about us’ page is fine as long as they are easily accessible.

Before you rush off and spend with your current web developer, who should know better by now, check for alternative solutions and get your website built the right way, preferably before next year.

“Work at home if you can” is now a phrase we’re very familiar with, but back in 2019 working from home was clearly not as commonplace.

Pre-Pandemic, working from home turned MDs cold and was seen to give employees the excuse to do the dishes and sit around in their underpants all day … but that’s all changed.

Working from home – now rebranded to working safely, remotely – is the big change to business that looks set to stay long after the threat of Covid-19 has faded. Despite Lord Sugar getting upset at the lack of city life and the working lunch in the Big Smoke, working remotely is a viable plan for many people.
Employers and employees alike are benefiting from a significant saving in cost and a better, more flexible work/life balance.

Getting ready for the new normal? You should be …

Let’s Get Non-physical
As a limited company you are legally obliged to display official business details on your website including things like registered address, VAT number etc.
In the good old days, a company was trusted more if they had an office you could visit. But why not have a virtual office instead?
If you don’t have many visitors, you could run a virtual office address, have meetings locally in coffee shops, co-working spaces, or visit your clients at their premises.

The daily or hourly renting of office space may well become the norm for business as we stagger out of 2020 bruised, battered, and tired – but with new views and experiences on the way we could all work differently.

The Virtual Line
Having a dog and bone is still the lifeline of any business, but just because you’re giving up the office, doesn’t mean you need to give up the landline. And there’s no need for an actual fixed line – you can go virtual!
A virtual landline forwarded to your mobile phone or call centre is the 2020 answer to the remote, virtual office. We’ve moved on leaps and bounds this year in terms of virtual, remote business but there’s still something reassuring about a landline number.

Using your mobile number? Maybe it’s time to change that and get a virtual line. You can still operate it on your mobile and you’ll even get call tracking and recording if you wish, but a virtual line looks more professional and gives a better impression on your website, too. Also, means you don’t have to worry about giving everyone your mobile number.

Bricks and Mortar to Clicks and Bought More
The high street was already in trouble, and for many businesses, Coronavirus was the nail in the coffin. Why wait for the eviction letters to come in? Go earlier and close down your physical store and move everything online.

eCommerce is the new black.

When the internet first began, buying food online seemed like an alien concept; now it’s the norm. Before 2020 much of this online life was avoided and pushed away. Now it’s all we have, in many cases.
eCommerce is now more popular than ever – so get online and make it easy for people all over the globe to buy from you!

That Meeting Could’ve Been an Email
Remember those pointless trips to meetings pre-Covid? Often we’d think afterwards, “Yeah, that could’ve been an email”. Now though, thanks to lockdowns and social distancing, we’re all using Zoom or Microsoft Teams so get more meetings and work done in a day.
No commute, no awkward small talk, no pointless chit-chat. Online meetings (done well) are the best way to get you, your team, and your clients ‘in the room’.

Meetings about meetings about meetings? Nah – Zoom it!

Just don’t make us do another Thursday evening quiz, please. We’re so over those now.

Teaming Building – Get Your Head in the Clouds
One area that really needs some focus though are your team. Keeping up morale – especially now – is really important to your continued success and growth. It would be easy for people to work separately all day and lose the sense of teamwork you once had.
Got a team to manage? Look at using apps like Slack, MS Teams, and run your CRM online. Using cloud-based tools (many of them are free to a point) will revolutionise your remote office.

Some of these are actually better and will help your team be more productive than when they were in the real-life office.

Bringing people in, adding attachments, screenshares, and more bring a better way of working that the traditional office simply can’t compete with.
Get good at online team building now and prepare for the resurgence in business in 2021!

Online business: The Future is Yesterday
The time to avoid the inevitable has passed.
Online payments, virtual meetings, remote working, cloud accounting, cashless transactions – it’s all here. And it’s not going away.
Embrace the change, prepare for the future, and get ready to build your business more digitally than you ever imagined.

It’s time to stop fighting the digital world and start embracing it.

Need help getting your website ready for this digital normal? Hit us up right here.

If lockdown has taught us anything it’s that nothing is set in stone and that very little stays the same for long.
Years ago you could leave things the way they’ve been for donkey’s years and you’d be OK. But now your donkey needs rockets and lasers … and maybe some of those snazzy LED lights?
Today, you’ve got to stay focused on being up-to-date and competitive. Being stuck in your ways could leave you stuck in the mud and that’s no way to run a company.

Here are five trigger phrases to listen out for that show you’re in need of an upgrade in your thinking.

“But we’ve always done it that way!”
That was OK. Now though, in 2020 and beyond, things move on quickly.
Even before that, staying stale and not upgrading your systems, your processes, tech, equipment or team wasn’t a great strategy. The best and most successful companies in the world constantly innovate.
We’re sick to the back teeth of ‘gooroos’ telling us to “PIVOT” throughout lockdown but they definitely had a point.
The businesses who couldn’t work in their existing structure or industry and managed to change it up are the ones who survived.

Move on, invent, experiment, and upgrade your bad self.

“Training costs money”
And we’ll also add “I’ll just work it out myself”.
Look, we’re sure that when you’re starting out that bootstrapping was a good strategy and most likely the only choice you had, thanks to a short-sighted bank manager (thanks for nothing, Clive!). But now you’re on the road to business success you should be looking to invest and bring in some experts to support you.
Many coaches will tell you that mentors and training are a good investment. Why walk the mountain alone when you can hire a Sherpa for a while?
Training costs money, but untrained staff cost more!
Get up to speed and pay someone who’s walked the walk already. It’s a fast track to your next level.

“We need to do it because our competitors are doing it”
Ok, look. Your competition might well be doing well. They might well look great from the outside. But a bit like the proverbial swan on a lake with no ripples, there’s a tonne of work you don’t see that’s giving them that success and it’s not always that swanky website or their meticulous Pinterest board.

And anyway, why would you copy them? You’re joining a race halfway through. No, don’t do that. Be original and take the lead. Make a different move.
Build a new product or service, or create something that’s never been seen before in your industry. Heck, it doesn’t even need to be that innovative; just not a carbon copy of what ‘they’ are doing already. Got it?

“The person that signs the cheques is not here today”
No, no, no. Your business is from this day forward banned from phrases like “We’ll post the letter on Monday”, “David in accounts will send you the invoice when he’s next in the office” and please stop talking about cheques.
Cash is on its way out and you’re still on cheques? Did you hear that they now have colour TV?

Ever heard about the modern way of doing business? It’s faster, leaner, and more competitive.
Put the fax machine in a museum and get comfortable with the cloud and Internet of Things.

It’s scary at first, but so was that first LinkedIn post you ever sent. You do use LinkedIn right?

“We need to list everything we do on our website”
It’s a website for your business, not Wikipedia for a country. So no, you don’t need to list EVERYTHING.
A good website needs to offer a taste of what you do. It’s the trailer for the greatest movie that your potential client will have ever seen.
Get the popcorn ready, and work on the core features and services that you offer.

The main aim of your website is to gain leads and enquiries, show you’re a legit company and of course drop a few truth bombs on your blog like this if you wish.
Keep the longform ‘War and Peace’ for your book writing.

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got.”
Businesses need fresh thinking all the time but that darn virus thing and the following lockdown has been a test to even the most innovative of companies.
Get online, get up-to-date, and look for the positives and the opportunities here and in the future.

Sticking with the stable, trusted, and old-fashioned ways might make a crusty old MD happy, but it won’t put a smile on your potential clients’ faces.
Pivot if you must, but we’d rather just call it being forward-thinking.

Need help staying ahead of the competition or need some ideas on how your website and online systems can catapult you into the current decade?
Drop us an email.
Oh OK, fine, call us: 020 3319 7857.
What? No, we don’t have a fax number.