March 16, 2010

Intellect says tax breaks could create Tech jobs

by Jan Harris

Intellect, a trade body which represents more than 750 UK technology companies, believes that tax breaks could help create 250,000 jobs in the technology sector over the next ten years.
The organisation believes that economic incentives could help the industry to grow, helping to offset the decline of traditional industries such as manufacturing and engineering.
Small [...]




March 15, 2010

FPB launches support solutions for SMEs

by Jan Harris

Not-for-profit organisation, the Forum of Private Business (FPB), has extended its support for SME’s with a range of new solutions.
Designed for businesses without the internal resources available within larger enterprises, the solutions are designed to help a company with the day to day running of its business.
The solutions include ‘Finance Director’, ‘Legal Director’, [...]




March 12, 2010

Solicitor warns businesses to check their lease

by Jan Harris

A recent court case has prompted Sussex-based Adams & Remers solicitors to warn business owners to check their lease.
The recent case of Newham v Van Staden has highlighted that leases thought to be excluded from security of tenure provisions in the Landlord & Tenant Act 1954 may not, in fact, be excluded from this provision. [...]




March 11, 2010

SMEs optimistic for the economy

by Jan Harris

A survey by Cisco UK & Ireland found a high level of optimism among SMEs for the year ahead.
After coming through the credit crunch and the recession, over three quarters of SMEs believe that business will improve in 2010 according to Cisco’s survey.
Cisco’s Customer Kings 2010 report found that many businesses have been [...]




March 10, 2010

Small businesses invited to benefit from benevolence

by Jan Harris

Small, London-based businesses are being invited to join the ‘1% club’ by Bill Cannon, the founder of IT consultancy Shepperton.com .
The idea behind the venture is to raise money for charity while creating a network of like-minded businesses that can benefit from using the 1% club in their marketing campaigns.
Members of the network, who will [...]




March 8, 2010

FSB calls for openness on flat rate VAT

by Jan Harris

Small business champion, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), is calling on the government to review flat rate VAT after discovering huge rises in the rates that small businesses have to pay.
An FSB survey found that flat rate VAT, which HMRC charges businesses with a turnover of less than £150,000, has risen for 48% of [...]




December 10, 2008

Google pushes Local on UK search

by Brian Turner

Just noticed Google trying to push local search on Google UK SERPS:

I’ve read about Google pushing this before on Google.com, but only just seen this in action on Google UK.
While a number of businesses may serve local markets, this tends to only really apply to the smallest SME’s, with larger SME’s looking for a national [...]




December 2, 2008

Lessons for Freelancers

by Brian Turner

Steven Snell writes an interesting post at Design Mag providing 16 tips for freelancers.
While we’ve seen these sorts of lists before, this is a nice collection in terms of range and depth, and raises pointers that really need underlining, especially in today’s climate of economic uncertainty.
I’ll provide a brief over view of the points below:
1. [...]




November 21, 2008

How big conservative corporations create opportunity

by Brian Turner

I read this with interest: 11% of AdWords Clicks are Wasted on Dead Pages.
While this is obviously not a “scientific study” it is nicely illustrative of problems I’ve seen around advertising spend – that of focusing too much on bringing traffic in, without properly trying to engage them.
While Jeremy talks about server side issues – [...]




November 11, 2008

Tories confused over business tax breaks

by Brian Turner

The Tories have announced their planned tax breaks for business – which essentially boil down to National Insurance incentives for companies taking on people unemployed for over three months.
Political arguments about the suitability of the Tories to govern aside, David Cameron seems to have just sounded confused about what business needs.
In times of stress, business [...]




November 9, 2008

Silicon Valley employees hold worthless stock

by Brian Turner

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, 80% of Silicon Valley’s top 150 companies have employees whose stock options are now worthless.
Stock options are a way to retain key staff, by the right to buy shares at a preset price, as part of a benefits package.
When the stock market runs well, the [...]




August 26, 2008

Pricing strategies to increase sales

by Brian Turner

Hat tip to SEOblackhat for recently highlighting a great post on SmallBizTrends about pricing: 8 Pricing Strategies you can Implement Right Now.
Some of the pricing strategies are priceless, but the first of the 8 tips especially stands out:

1. The Nine and Zero Effect. People associate the number nine with value and zero with quality. Look [...]




August 14, 2008

The importance of praise for good work

by Brian Turner

I have a very good team under me, and often find myself taking it for granted that they know how valued they are.
When I realise this happening, I make a point of thanking them for their great work on an individual basis.
Sometimes I find it hard to say – it takes extra effort to communicate [...]




Giant London cheesegrater gets shelved

by Brian Turner

London has seen plans for the city’s largest building – the Leadenhall Tower, aka “the cheesegrater” – shelved for the time being because of the credit crunch:
BBC: Slump delays ‘Cheesegrater’ plans

The firm blamed weak demand for office space and rising construction costs.
British Land said the building would be completed in 2012 when letting prospects should [...]




August 8, 2008

Reducing revenues to reduce risk

by Brian Turner

One of the commonest risks in a service business is known as the 80:20 rule – where 80% of your income comes from 20% of your clients.
The risk comes from the danger of any of that 20% cancelling their service, resulting in a significant drop in revenues.
This in itself is bad enough, but if your [...]




July 10, 2008

Not every business purchase is tax deductible

by Brian Turner

Interesting thread on the forums: Splitting the cost of a new phone for business & personal use.
Frauke Golding makes some good points in posts 3,8, and 10 about how HMRC doesn’t consider every purchase as tax deductible.
Even a Blackberry is defined as a personal computer, and therefore may not allow for tax concessions.
And even buying [...]




June 12, 2008

The Dangers of Content Development

by Brian Turner

Last month I had to settle £8k over copyright infringement. This week my solicitors are taking against action against Google for defamation.
There are risks and liabilities with every content development model everyone needs to be aware of.
Types of content development
No matter what sort of site you publish, whether a forum, a portal, a blog, a [...]




May 22, 2008

Unfair Trading Regulations

by Brian Turner

This week the government sent out leaflets to UK businesses outlining the impact of the recent Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations.
In their wisdom, the government has only provided PDF coverage online, so I’ll cover the main pointers below:
Practices banned outright
Abuse of the following can result in enforcement by Trading Standards:
Falsely Claiming Accreditation
1. Faking credentials [...]




April 29, 2008

Basic Guide to Business Blogging

by Brian Turner

This is an edited form of a report I recently sent to a corporate client, to help explain the principle of why blogging would be useful for engaging the social web.
I’m not going to push for presentation below or send it out as link bait – it’s an edited client report that others may be [...]




April 28, 2008

10 Rules for engaging the Social Web

by Brian Turner

I was speaking with Anil Dash a while back, and it turns out we both shared the same problem – posting negative comments online, which can come back and bite us on the ass.
The problem is that while internet communications are currently text-driven, the actual social interactions taking place abide by the same principles of [...]




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