Posts Tagged 'new business'

With thanks to the O2 Ideas Room for blog posts…

1. Hire the best. Have and hire only employees who continually impress you with their initiative and competence. Let everyone else go. Increasing profits comes from great employees, not average ones.

2. Establish your R&D Department. Turn your customer service department into the R&D Department of your company. Develop a culture in your business which will encourage lateral thinking.

3. Review Customer issues. Is there a lack of effective communication channels with your customers or is ...

With thanks to the O2 Ideas Room for blog posts…

While business plans are synonymous with startups, business planning is important for all businesses regardless of their age or maturity. A business plan is essentially a future oriented description of how you intend to trade as a commercially viable operation. Given that the plan is essentially predictive in nature, it will need to contain a number of assumptions which the reader will need to accept as being plausible in the context ...

With thanks to the O2 Ideas Room for blog posts…

We learned of another small business blog that might be of use.

Google has launched it as part of their small business series.

So we thought we’d share it with our readers!

You can visit the new blog here

Ideas Room

With thanks to the O2 Ideas Room for blog posts…

Cash flow is the lifeblood of any business and these days is even more important than ever.

Below are a number of simple approaches to use when operating your business.

1.     Minimum Stock Levels. Keep your stock to a minimum. Only hold the stock that you know you can sell in the next 60 days. A business that normally holds 100k of stock, reducing this by 25% will inject 25k into the ...

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 glasses of wine.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They ...

With thanks to the O2 Ideas Room for blog posts…

Economic downturns tend to be self fulfilling. We all help to drive market conditions, so if we all decide to ‘batten down the hatches’, and become more risk averse we all contribute to prolonging a downturn. However though it may sound counter intuitive, an economic downturn is as good a time as any to start a new business.  This short article discusses how entrepreneurs can bootstrap their way to success, by ...

With thanks to the O2 Ideas Room for blog posts…

A marketing plan is a core component of a business plan. It relates specifically to the marketing of a particular product or service and it describes:

• An overall marketing objective

• A broad marketing strategy

• The tactical detail related to specific marketing activities

• The various costs associated with these activities

• Those tasked with delivering these activities by name

The starting point for any marketing plan is an analysis of the strategic context, as a typical objective for most ...

With thanks to the O2 Ideas Room for blog posts…

“What we must decide is perhaps how we are valuable, rather than how valuable we are.”  (Edgar Z Friedenberg)

It may take a moment to digest the full wisdom of this brilliant distinction.

However, for businesses in the future, it’s not going to be a case of what is the cost; but more about the value we bring.

Do you ever find that your customers (or employers) are reluctant to talk about the value ...

With thanks to the O2 Ideas Room for blog posts…

It’s not big. It’s not sexy. But simple is however a little bit clever when it comes to Marketing Communications.

Many People are coming to the conclusion that a lot of the marketing communications that were created towards the end of the Tiger were relatively flabby and lazy. Not sure what to say? Say loads of things! No idea what is the one real consumer benefit that will unlock sales? Well cram ...

With thanks to the O2 Ideas Room for blog posts…

Social media is now an enormous and continually-important part of peoples’ lives. Many reading this short article will have a Facebook page or perhaps a LinkedIn profile. However, social media is not simply about posting photos of your latest holiday and following people you are vaguely connected with. It is now increasingly a very important market place for businesses and brands.

When enormous brands like Pepsi and Ford start hiring heads of ...