Does Your Website Pass the "I" "We" "You" Test?

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Two-Point Perspective. Write from the readers perspective on your website. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As the use of websites to promote our brand and generate leads intensifies too many of us fail a basic but critical test which dramatically impact the performance of our sites.

You will know by now that Google wants everyone to focus on content, yes, that’s the boring bit we have to produce which goes on those lovely well designed web pages we've paid for. For most of us writing copy is not something we do as a profession, but there is something simple we can do which will help us connect with your audience even if we aren’t confident about writing copy.

The most influential is the "I" "we" "you" test. What does that mean? This is simply the number of times you use the terms "I", "we", or "you" on a single page of text. The ideal ratio is 1 "I" "we" to every 6 "you". Sadly for most web sites the ratio is the complete opposite. Why is this important? As a visitor to a site I want to you to be writing from my perspective about thing of interest or benefit to me and about things that might or should be important to me. Its a basic marketing principle that you should always write from the prospective of the reader not the writer. The reason for this is simple when we write from our own perspective we get to focused on what is important to us, which in most cases is not what is important to the reader.

For example writing on your web site “we’ve been established for 25 years and we offer the best in class widget, our quality makes us different” Well lovely, but frankly I’m just not that bothered. However, if you wrote “As a user of widgets you've probably found that the biggest problem is inconsistent quality. So you’ll be looking for a supplier who can give you guarantees about the performance of the widgets you need”. Well you know what; I’m interested.

The two short extracts are talking about the same thing but from a completely different perspectives and it’s the latter which employs “you” that speaks from a potential purchasers perspective which engages the reader, and that is the perspective you must have to get the maximum performance from your site.

Now then why don’t you nip over to your website and see how you fair in the "I" "we" "you" test.

Exigent Consulting provides specialist services for High Growth Businesses, Business Turnaround, and Mentoring to the Small and Medium Business. We help business owners improve the profit performance of their business. 

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Recruitment is Key to Small Business Success

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Recruitment of new staff is a big investment and full of risks; getting it wrong for any small business and especially for micro businesses, that is less than 10 staff it can be catastrophic. Despite this, for most small businesses the recruitment process, if it exists at all, is chaotic and usually based on he or she was cheap,  or they were recommended by a mate I trust.  Why do we do this, for the most part its because the business owner has little or no experience of recruitment and there is little trust in recruitment companies or the service they provide. 

English: Recruitment Process Map (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So what can we do to reduce the risks. In preparation for recruitment of a new employee, as the owner of a small business you should have two things; a job description so you know what role they fulfill and a list of competencies that you think the person requires to be good at their job. So for example if you are employing a receptionist, they should be helpful, polite, have easy to read writing for reading notes, and a voice which is easy to understand over the phone.

Armed with this information you now have some criteria you can investigate when interviewing during the recruitment process. I can already hear some of you saying its a receptionist I haven't got time for that. I have two answers firstly, the receptionist will be the first point of contact for your business for your customers and prospects having a receptionist who is short tempered or even rude can have a serious impact on your business. Secondly, if you were spending £14000 and upwards on a machine I'm sure you wouldn't go and pay for it without bothering to check if it could do the job.

The first thing to ask I would suggest, which may come as a surprise to many, is will this person fit into my organisation. Whilst capability and relevant experience is very important making sure they will work well within your small team is very important indeed. Recruitment of a disruptive employee can do a lot of damage to both morale and productivity whilst at the same time take up a lot of management time and it may take several months for the business to recover. As you might expect the smaller the firm the bigger the level of disruption. 

Having decided on fit, my second suggestion is that you interview more than one candidate, this at least gives you some context for your decision to recruit. Often I have found that the comparison candidate has turned out to be the best fit for the business. 

Thirdly, make sure you ask all the candidates the same key questions during the interview, so you have some consistency in your feedback information and that you take notes so that you can compare the candidates. This is particularly useful. When there is some time between the two meetings. You'll be surprised how unreliable your memory can be especially with details.

Fourthly, do the unexpected during the interview as it helps you get valuable information, for example don't ask the typical questions like "tell me about yourself". Ask instead "what is the one thing you've done to date that you're most proud of or regret the most?" A key characteristic of a good employee is the ability to think "on their feet", you'll find more about a person by throwing a "curve ball" than you will by asking the predictable.  I recall one colleague deliberately made the first interview with a potential recruit as chaotic as possible to keep them off balance. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this extreme interview strategy but as a small business going through the motions at interview will increase the likelihood of a poor result.

Lastly and a very common stake made by small business owners, don't take a candidate just because they are the only one you can find. I've heard all sorts of rationalisations from business owners why they should take the person even though they may not be "perfect". 

For a high growth business keeping the up quality of your recruits is a vital component of continued success, keeping the quality level high for new employees is a key success criteria. If you can't find what you want, I'm afraid that taking the "next cab off the rank" is rarely a satisfactory solution. 

Exigent Consulting provides specialist services for Managing High Growth, Business Turnaround, and Mentoring to the Small and Medium Business. We help business owners improve the profit performance of their business. 

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Exploiting Your IP For Commercial Advantage

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There were a couple times over the last week when I have bumped into Intellectual Property (IP), the first was that there are tax breaks if you exploit it and second IP is still hugely valuable even if you cant patent it. Both occasions incidentally were through group discussions on LinkedIn.

Graph showing European patent applications filed and patents granted from 1997 to 2008. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My first instance was a post in my own Linked In group about the "Patent Box" which was a UK tax incentive come concession which over the next 5 years will enable businesses to claim corporation tax of 10% for that portion of the business based on patents. I'm a little fuzzy on the detail but true to form there was virtually no publicity around this change in tax breaks which is clearly designed to start to change the culture of British enterprises to recognise the commercial value of IP.  If you are a manufacturing, engineering or high tech business, what are you doing to protect your IP? Could you protect your business assets by patenting your new ideas?

Now there is often a basic misunderstanding of what is patentable. It doesn't have to be new, but a idea of a product has to demonstrate that the components have been put together in a novel way to provide a unique solution to a and existing problem or using known components in a way that solves a completely different problem to that originally envisaged.

Image via CrunchBase

Many of you will recall that Apple recently went to court over their patent on the slide control for the iPad and iPhone. Making that control isn't new other than the idea to use it for power up and power off, yet it is patentable.

The importance for a company is that IP offers some protection for their ideas and will stop competitors freely stripping down your product and blatantly copying it. In the longer term having patents will add value to your business enabling you to get a better price on exit that you would without them. The degree of additional value obviously depends on the patents you hold.

Lots of ideas and development of existing products could be protected by patents but the engineering and RandD functions seldom tend to connect the idea with commercial value as innovation is just what they do. As a business owner it is up to you exploit the commercial advantage of holding patents. Yes, there is a cost but a simple ROI analysis will tell if its worth it. Additionally good internal practices can significantly reduce the cost of getting a patent by doing a lot of the basic work before it ever gets to a patent lawyer. 

The other area of IP is that which is not patentable but still delivers great commercial advantage. This IP is typically about how we go about performing our business. Its more about ideas and business processes which enables you to be seen to be offering an advantage over your competition.

Going back to my time with Admiral Computing we had IP in our estimating process which enabled us to use metrics to accurately estimate projects and importantly as part of the sales process we would give a detailed copy to the prospect which explained how we had reached our price. We would always say "if you can find a mistake in our estimates we will certainly change them but we consider that this detail will demonstrate why our estimate is what it is". 

We were very seldom the cheapest but we were nearly always the only one who could quantify our estimate.  This led the customer to understand that our price and certainly our effort was an accurate measure of what was required. 

As they had more confidence in our numbers we were selected as a low risk option and in the vast majority of cases they were proved right as we came in on time and to budget.  

My experience is that a high proportion of high growth businesses have this kind of IP and find a way to exploit it to their commercial advantage. 

If you are the business owner do you know what ideas and processes you have that might give you a competitive advantage and what are you doing about?

Exigent Consulting provides specialist services to the Small and Medium Business including Managing High Growth, Business Turnaround, and Mentoring. We help business owners improve the profit performance of their business. 

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Eight Tips for Small Business Owners

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This month I have a guest blog from a writer at Nerdwallet. Since I have so many US readers I thought It might be nice for you to get a more local view of the issues surrounding Small Business. Having said that Angie provide some useful common sense advice that is valuable to any small business; especially those who are about to, or have just started as business owners.



"Let’s be honest, owning a small business nowadays is challenging. There are so many things to keep in mind, and as such, many variables to consider. It can get a bit flustering trying to sort out every piece of advice you hear. Let’s look at eight solid guidelines that should be staples of any small business owner’s, “things to remember” list.

1. Save up as much money as you can before starting.

One of the worst mistakes you can make is going into business with no capital saved up. Relying on loans from the bank, the SBA or friends is a great way to get you into debt. What some small business owners don’t realize is that it can take awhile for your business to start providing enough profit for you to pay the loan(s) back. If you business isn’t as profitable as expected your lender might just call in the loan, or you may have to pay it off with your credit card. Save enough to cover yourself for at least a year after you start your business.

2. Minimize costs.

Calculate out how much everything is going to cost you. Find how out how little you could possibly spend, and still be effective. Don’t rent out more space than you need, or hire more employees than you will need. You want to start small and keep your screw-ups small too. Give yourself time to learn and deduce the best way to go about things, before you shell out too much cash on this or that. It will save you money in the long run. 

3. Safeguard your personal assets.

You must understand that once you start a business, you are liable for all debts and judgments that it incurs. This can include any judgments from lawsuits against your business, taxes, loans, or money owed to renters. To protect yourself from having your personal assets seized, you will want to get business liability insurance. This alone will not cover you against everything however, and you may want to consider forming a limited liability company.

4. Know how your business will be making a profit

You are going to want to crunch the numbers, analyze the data, and come up with a figure of how much you will be making, how much of it will be going back into the business, and how much actual profit you will be earning. Don’t forget to factor in all the costs of running your business, and figure out how much product you will need to sell.

5. Find your competitive edge and use it

Not every small business is successful, the ones who are doing things that nobody else is, or doing them better than anybody else is, are the ones who make the profit. Whether it’s a special marketing technique, survey method, or manufacturing short cut, find something you can use that nobody else is. You either have to have higher quality than your competitors, or be smarter than them. Once you find this competitive edge, it’s important to guard it. Don’t let anybody find out your secret to success, because it won’t be a secret anymore.

6. Put everything in writing

Oral agreements or deals made over handshakes are not reliable nowadays and it’s wise to put everything important in writing. Make a habit of giving and getting receipts for everything. You will need many contracts written up for things including storage agreements, service contracts, and leases. Don’t be the guy in court without any paper evidence of your claims.

7. Acquire quality employees

Hire employees who are both enthusiastic and highly skilled at their job. An enthusiastic employee will make your business environment much more friendly and appealing to customers. You want your employees to represent your company well on and off the job, and this is more likely to happen if your business is respectable. Pay your employees well and treat them with respect, the result will be worth more than the effort.

8. Pay your taxes! 

As a business, you will be responsible for more than just your personal taxes. Especially important to pay on time are your payroll taxes. These can levy heavy fines if not paid on time. Stay up to date on everything you owe, and maybe even pay some bills early once in a while, it will pay off for your reputation.

Angie Picardo is a staff writer for NerdWallet. Her mission is to help consumers stay financially savvy, and save some money with the best online checking account."

Exigent Consulting provides specialist services for Managing High Growth, Business Turnaround, and Mentoring to the Small and Medium Business. We help business owners improve the profit performance of their business. 

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Finding Your Vision? Why Is It So Difficult?

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I was doing some research for a book I am writing, part of which is about the importance of having a vision. What has become clear, especially in the UK, is how little understanding there is about this topic. This was brought more into focus whilst watching the documentary series "The Men Who Built America", what made them stand out was not only the strength of their Vision but the fact that they had one at all.

My experience in the UK with owner businessmen, is that it is quite challenging getting them to understand how important having a vision is to the long term prosperity of their business. When I give training courses about leadership of high growth businesses, the section on Vision is one of the most challenging. This is because I can count on the fingers of one hand how many business owners actually have thought out what their vision is, whilst the majority just dismiss it as some sort of consultant "mumbo jumbo".  They simply don't get it.

English: DOE Departemental Enterprise Vision (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I wonder if it’s something about the British and their cynicism that prevents them from grasping the value of understanding the purpose of their business. I don't mean from a personal perspective ie to make money, retire in 5 years, those statements are just measurements. I mean having a real business Vision:  something that describes what it is about the way you do what you do, that will have customers flocking to buy your product or service. To paraphrase a comment about George Bush senior and his struggles with the vision thing "If you don't know where you want to go why would you expect others to put themselves out to help you get there?"

That’s essentially the simple great benefit of having a vision. It is something that you can use to bind your employees and your customers to you as they will see, understand and share your Vision and as a result will want to continue to be your customers or employees, to help you get there.

Most of us haven’t found that vision or purpose and so it is much easier to find a substitute and embrace someone else’s, rather than to try to uncover your own. By finding your vision you become one of the few and really separate yourself from your competition. Once found, it immediately makes decisions easier by simply asking does doing this move me towards my vision? You will instantly discard those actions to which the answer is “No”, allowing you to concentrate on those things that will. This immediately makes your business more effective, as you have a clear simple process on which to test effort and separate yourself from those who don’t know where they are going, so, do everything “just in case”

Let’s be honest, uncovering your vision is difficult and getting it down to a succinct phrase takes a lot of effort. Do you really think that the famous Disney vision "to make people happy" came together in a blinding flash? It was developed and honed over time to something that encapsulated the Vision in a simple sound bite. 

Just because we don't generally think at this level or in these terms doesn't mean we can’t if we don't put our minds to it. The first stage is to just put something down and work on it over time until you think it reflects your purpose.

Here are some examples of small business visions, but not small, business visions. I asked the members of the LinkedIn group that I run “managing high growth” if they had a vision and if so what it was. These were the results. I think these examples are more relevant than those famous Visions of the large corporates.

In case you’re asking mine is "To enable high growth businesses to grow faster for longer and with less stress" Others are “To help clients increase sales and reduce time and cost” and “To create an environment where people feel valued”

So uncover your vision and get yourself clarity in your business, separate yourself from your competition and start being more successful. If you think you'd like some more help in extracting your vision contact me here

Exigent Consulting provides specialist services for Managing High Growth, Business Turnaround, and Mentoring to the Small and Medium Business. We help business owners improve the profit performance of their business. 

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Social Media Stop Fighting it and Start Using it

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English: Infographic on how Social Media are being used, and how everything is changed by them. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Social Media is going to become increasingly important in everyone's lives whether we like it or not. As a business person that means you have to get to grips with it as a means of generating leads.

The reason I say this is not the usual 1 billion users on Facebook or 500 million on Twitter or the growth of LinkedIn or any of the other very many social networks. It's simply a question of demographics. That is the generation that was brought up on this stuff are now entering the workforce and will steadily occupy more senior decision making positions and they will use what they are familiar with to search for and validate suppliers. What immediately comes to mind to them is social media. 

This was brought into sharp focus by a story I heard recently. It's about three partners who each run their own retail outlets. One for men one for women and one for kids. They all bear the same family name although the stores are really separate. A local blogger had been to the children's store and had been unimpressed with the service they had received, and posted a blog about the experience. Other members of the community had posted comments agreeing with the sentiment. 

One of the younger members of staff in another shop had seen the posting and immediately made it known to their boss. His answer was well we run a different shop so its nothing to to with us and we work hard to give a personal service to all our customers. It wasn't until it was pointed out that whilst they the partners new how the shops were organised the public at large didn't. Since they all bore the family name in their title, people would naturally connect the three shops together, and that could lead to potential customers avoiding the other two shops because of bad reviews in the shop for children.

The next problem for the shop owner was that they had no social media foot print at all so it was not obvious how they could counter act these adverse comments. The solution to this problem, as I understand it, has not yet been found.

The issue that this raises is that the younger mums were much more connected to social media than the owner and it also illustrates the problem many older people face; that is because they were not on social media they had no idea that these comment were being made and so could do nothing about them. It also demonstrates that as our customers will get younger this type of interaction will become more common.

Google 貼牌冰箱（Google Refrigerator） (Photo credit: Aray Chen)

Also for the first time the likes of Google will come under pressure as the enormous amounts of information collected by the social media giants will be used to provide more relevant search results than a general search engine  like Google. That in turn means that these new customers will NOT be using Google to search for what they want. This isn't going to happen over night but it has already started. LinkedIn users can already search for skill sets companies and individuals within their site and recruitment companies are using it to great effect to validate potential candidates. Whilst they might search Google for other information their primary search is through LinkedIn.  It Wont be long before the other networks find a way to exploit their data. This means that having a web site that can be found using Google will no longer be enough, to get yourself found, you will have to be present on some or other social network.

More worryingly perhaps for the older generation is figuring out just how we interact with social media, what do we say how do we say it and which socials media platforms do we use to communicate. The rate of change in this market is still rapid but we learn to get to grips with it otherwise we are going to end up using marketing channels which just don't deliver.

In short we need to get our feet wet. Once you are in then you can educate yourself by watching others and learn how to exploit these channels. It's likely to involve some investment in training but that's a small price to pay to keep your business growing.       

Exigent Consulting provides specialist services for High Growth Businesses, Business Turnaround, and Mentoring to the Small and Medium Business. We help business owners improve the profit performance of their business. 

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The Five Most Common Mistakes when Buying or Selling a Business

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For most business owners buying or selling their business is a rare event indeed. In fact many owner managed businesses do it only once, when they exit their business to retire. Like most things in life the first time you do something is the occasion when you make the most mistakes. If you are selling a business you can't afford to make mistakes because its the only chance you'll get.

When buying a business  making a mistake can leave you not only seriously overpaying for a business but having a management headache which may take years not months to put right and in the meantime will seriously damage the prospects of your current business.  

It may be some comfort to know that it is not just smaller businesses the make horrendous mistakes, big businesses all too regularly fall into the same trap. I know from personal experience the the business I worked for in my last corporate role was purchased by another company and the acquisition almost brought the acquiring company to its knees, because as far as I could see it made two of these common mistakes.

Mistake No1 Getting emotionally involved with the sale.

SOLD! (Photo credit: my_new_wintercoat)

Lets face it, its exciting to be buying or selling a business and it requires a lot of management time. For the vendor selling a business  there is the prospect of making that exit and having the money to retire. For the buyer there is the undoubted prestige of acquiring a business and the prospect of a big jump in company size or new geographic coverage.

The result for the unwary buyer is that in buying a business they get duped into paying too high a price because they get wrapped up in the chase. For the novice seller the process of selling the business gets dragged out over a long period of time, causing them to take their eye off the day to  day management of the business, often leading to a downturn in its fortunes and so its ultimate price. 

Mistake No 2 Not Having a Walk Away Number

Negotiation Cartoons: Positions Vs. Interests (Photo credit: jonny goldstein)

Buying or Selling a business involves negotiation, in order to make sure you don't pay too much when buying a business or get paid too little when  selling a business you need to establish 1. what is the value of the business and 2. what is the maximum you'll pay or minimum you'll accept. Once you've established this you'll be much better placed in the negotiation and you'll be less likely to make mistake No1

Mistake No 3 Not understanding the Impact of Culture 

This Ladies and Gentleman is the big one, of all the issues that get overlooked culture stands head and shoulders above everything else. Good businesses have strong cultures, their staff have bought into the fact that their way is the right way. Now imagine what happens when these staff are told, that their way is no longer the right way and your way is the right way. Yes that's right they'll find every reason to demonstrate the flaws in your system and why your way is not the right way. Worse they are butting up against your staff who are equally convinced that your way is the right way. So you tend either to have a very difficult integration problem because you now have two opposing camps or you have an attrition problem as the staff from the acquired company leave.

The seller will of course say that culture isn't a problem, because to him it isn't. Either there isn't a problem with culture or its too late for you when you find out there is as he's already got his money. Why don't people address this problem? Firstly because so many don't even recognise it as an issue and secondly because the have made mistake number 1 and are looking for reasons to buy rather than looking for issues.

Mistake No 4 Underestimating Management Effort

Buying a business is just the first step, now you've got to integrate it with the rest of your business so that means addressing, culture, strategy, planning, financial systems, sales, customer relationships a new organisational structure to mention just a few. The management effort to achieve this is considerable even if you have willing staff , so don't be surprised if it takes 6 months to a year to get it all bedded down. This effort is considerable even if the new acquired company is small in comparison to yours.

 Mistake No 5 Buying a business that is too big or too small

This tends to relate to the problem of biting off more than you can chew. Remember the bigger the business you buy in relation to you the acquirer the more political clout it will have and the more concessions you will have to make, and the longer integration will take. The more your management is focused on the acquisition the bigger the risk that they will let your core business slip and then you have a really big management headache, that is, trying to integrate the new business and recover your own.

The other side of the coin is that you waste your money on something too small which won't payback a recent return on all the management effort required to integrate it into your existing business.

Once you understand these problems you are on your way to avoiding them and making your acquisitions a success and not a millstone.

Related articles

• Join Merrill DataSite's Webinar on February 14th: Avoiding the common pitfalls in M&A transactions
• Why Networking Helps You Sell a Business
• Common Mistakes in the Sale of Business and How Advanced Planning Can Fix Them

• 10 Questions You Must Ask Before Buying a Business

Exigent Consulting provides specialist services for High Growth Businesses, Business Turnaround, and Mentoring to the Small and Medium Business. We help business owners improve the profit performance of their business. 

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IR35 - Are you In or Out?

This week I have invited Kevin Ball to talk about  IR 35. In my discussions with business owners and contractors this remains an important but misunderstood issue. Kevin I think provides a clear explanation. Over to you...

IR35 legislation is a common bugbear for a lot of self-employed people. It is often criticised for being vague, intrusive and overly complicated. Despite this, UK Chancellor George Osborne made it clear in his December 2012 statement that IR35 is here to stay; so what is IR35 and why does cause so much bother?

IR35 is a piece of legislation that HMRC use to determine employment status. It is of most concern to independent contractors and the businesses that hire them.  It was originally introduced to combat situations where people would pose as independent contractors for tax purposes whilst still enjoying all the benefits of being an employee.

HMRC will consider anyone who is an employee as “inside IR35” and anyone who is genuinely independent as “outside IR35”.  If you are outside IR35 you will pay corporation tax instead of PAYE and NI; this is a far lower rate of tax so it is important for contractors to stay outside IR35.

Typically, if a contractor is outside IR35 they will:

·         Be capable of working on their own

·         Be financially accountable for their work

·         Provide their own equipment

·         Receive no employee perks such as pension contributions or sick pay

If a contractor is unable to display the above then it is likely that HMRC will consider them to be inside IR35 and an employee of the business that has hired them; they will also be expected to pay regular levels of income tax. If HMRC launch an IR35 investigation, and it is found that a contractor has been paying tax outside IR35 whilst working inside IR35, then HMRC can demand anywhere from 30-100% of the tax avoided back depending on whether the avoidance is deemed to be accidental or negligent.

Flowchart on behalf of The Accountancy Partnership

The importance of IR35 awareness for contractors is obvious but it should also be important for any businesses that use contractors. Businesses must make sure that the contracts they are offering are outside IR35 in order to attract the most astute and honest contractors they can.

Checking for IR35 Compliance

HMRC offer a business entity test that contractors can take to ascertain where they are with regards to IR35. After completing the business entity test the taker will be awarded with a score that corresponds to either a high, medium or low risk of being inside IR35 and therefore investigated; anyone achieving a low risk rating is unlikely to be investigated at all. The questions in this test should also give any businesses hiring contractors a good idea of what they should, and should not include, in the contracts they draft. If there is still uncertainty then employment law experts and contractor accountants can review any contracts before i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed.

IR35 can certainly be a tricky piece of legislation but with the proper research it shouldn’t be the headache it is often portrayed to be.

Cold Calling or Lead Generation, Are We Missing The Key Point?

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Over the last few weeks it seems that the intensity of the debate about ditching cold calling and moving to digital lead generation has increased to a level of intensity where it is getting a bit absurd. It seems to me that proponents of both sides are trying to make unrealistic claims about the efficiency of their pet route to market, I decided it had all got a bit too extreme when I read the following quote: “And that’s when it hit me: Cold calling isn’t just a terrible idea during a recession, but may actually be contributing to the recession itself! Think about it…”

Cold Call (Photo credit: Alan R. Light)

Well I did and I thought it was just about the most ridiculous statement I had heard in a long long time. We have the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Global Banking crisis, massive individual and corporate debt, and then we have cold calling. Nope, I just can’t get my head around that one.

So I thought I would go back to basics to try to bring some sense back into this debate. Cold calling as we know is a rotten job, I’ve been in sales and marketing for all the best part of 30 years and I can honestly count on the fingers of one hand those people who enjoyed making cold calls. Yes cold calling has its drawbacks; in particular cold calling in a B2C environment can be very difficult and counterproductive. Increasingly that type of intrusive marketing is getting a bad name, partly because telemarketing companies are having to make more cold calls per sale, and partly because of the damaging effect some of the “Cowboy” operators out there are having on the industry as a whole. Nevertheless the there are many situations when cold calling is effective.

Going right back to basics, a cold call, or lead generation through email marketing or even printed mail shots, are all attempting to achieve the same purpose; to identify if the recipient has a need for the product or service on offer. With a cold call you find out immediately because of the person at the other end will tell you “no” straight away. This is the essential problem with cold calling, as the vast majority of people can’t cope with being told repeatedly “no, I don’t want what you are offering.” We eventually get the same answer from a mail shot or an email but it is a much more comforting “no” as it is simply no response at all, that’s much less hurtful and much easier to cope with.

Also lead generation has volume on its side, it’s much easier to contact 10000 people by email than to phone 10000 people volume gives you a greater chance of success; and as George Bernard Shaw said, “God is on the side of the big battalions.”

What seems to have got lost in this argument is any form of analysis about what is the best way to contact your target market. In order to come to that decision, it seems to me, we just need to understand how people in our target market prefer to be contacted.  In the UK certainly many industry sectors work on the basis of cold calling, and this is particularly true of construction where main contractors will expect calls from a multitude of subcontractors who may be interested in using their specialist skills to deliver a small part of the overall solution. By contrast if you were to contact media companies many of the office based organisations, in particular, service companies, you might find that using lead generation techniques an effective way to contact your target prospects.

New Target Market (Photo credit: Intersection Consulting)

The essential point here is that we should be led by our prospects preferences and not be dictated to by the method of communication. So just remember put yourself in your customers place and try to understand what form of communication they are likely to respond to best. Now this isn’t easy and you will probably have to try a number of different routes which may involve using both cold calling and lead generation.

After all let’s face it, marketing, or at least getting marketing right, is hard. If it was easy we’ll all have very successful companies, and because it’s not we don’t. The trick is to engage your customer to either progress or close the sale, and from my point of view I don’t care which route gets me there as long as one of them does.

Exigent Consulting provides specialist services for High Growth Businesses, Business Turnaround, and Mentoring to the Small and Medium Business. We help business owners improve the profit performance of their business. 

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Do You Have What it Takes to Run a High Growth Business?

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There is a lot of interest these days about growth in the economy and providing support for high growth businesses. The latest is the Growth Accelerator Programme, and the objective of this initiative is to drive employment growth; and this is based on one key statistic. That is high growth (read 20%+ per annum growth) businesses represent roughly 5% of all companies but drive about 50% of all employment growth.

As the economy remains sluggish, more and more focus is going to be placed on these companies as they are our best chance of dragging ourselves out of the economic doldrums we find ourselves in. Being a high growth business is not easy in fact its a challenging environment in which to live. There are none the less a lot of ambitious business owners who would like to have a high growth business.

So what are the key things to have in place to give yourself the best chance of making it as a high growth business?

The first thing is ambition, no ambition, no growth it's about as basic as it gets.

With ambition comes the drive and the will to change things and to take that step into the unknown.

Having some sort of vision for your business. Its great if you can articulate it clearly and succinctly. A colleague of mine says that if you can't describe your business (why you do what you do) in 10 seconds there you don't understand it enough. I'm not sure I entirely agree as I have met many high growth business owners who are somewhat surprised to themselves heading such businesses. Nevertheless knowing where you are going and why you are going there will provide a focus to your activities

Third is leadership. The ability to inspire others be they your staff or customers. You act as a lightning rod for their ambitions and desires and so carry them forward. Even when things look dark and foreboding people will follow you as you can convince them that this is the right way. You create loyalty amongst your staff and customers which is necessary to underpin long term high growth.

Fourth and lastly at least in my book is Management. The high growth environment is relentless is its pursuit of weaknesses in a business. To survive and be successful you need to have the talent in your management team to take the business forward. This is particularly relevant as the business owner will become more and more remote to the business detail as it grows and will become increasingly reliant on his management team to deliver the goods.   

This list is by no means exhaustive but these, are for me at least, the key attributes that a company needs to be successful as a high growth business. What do you think?

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Exigent Consulting provides specialist services for High Growth Businesses, Business Turnaround, and Mentoring to the Small and Medium Business. We help business owners improve the profit performance of their business. 

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