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Your EnterQuest Bulletin - 03 August 2005
| Thought for the week:
"Thinking is the hardest work there
is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it."
Henry Ford |
In this week's issue:
Small business answers
If
you have any questions about your business idea or target market,
or need help tracking down a grant, subsidy or business support
in your local area, then send an e-mail with your query to the EnterQuest
information team and we'll do our best to help.
Send
your question to
enterquest@cobwebinfo.com.
To
access over 800 factsheets, guides and small business reports, go
to www.scavenger.net.
Weekly stir 
Six
real world small business self-help tips
One of the biggest and most successful areas
in the small business publishing world is that of self-help for
entrepreneurs. There are thousands of books, manuals, self-learning
courses, videos, DVDs and podcasts covering just about every aspect
of small business and personal development imaginable.
Why
is there so much on the market?
Because
of the demand. Demand fuelled by just about every individual's sense
of self-worth and desire for self-improvement in relation to their
peers or colleagues and, in the case of small business owners, in
relation to their rivals and competitors.
So
how much of it is any good? Well, just like anything else in business,
the quality of what's available varies considerably, from some excellent
must-haves to the drivel produced by people who haven't spent a
day of their lives near a small business, never mind in one.
Our
advice to you is that there's no reason not to shop around and try
out the stuff that's available, but that you should also recognise
you are as good as your own ability to learn things for yourself,
with a little bit of prompting to keep you pointed in the right
direction.
So
here are a few tips for improving your personal skills and the development
habits you can sharpen as a small business owner.
1)
Work on your inquisitiveness and curiosity
This
is about developing an incessant desire to find something new or
something more about the needs of your market, looking for an unfilled
gap in the market, a market inefficiency, a market that doesn't
exist yet, some added value that no-one else is offering, and of
course finding a way that you can deliver it before anyone else.
2)
Write down what you are thinking all of the time
Carry
a notebook everywhere you go and write down your thoughts and ideas
as soon as you can, and especially during or just after business
meetings. Go back through your notebook every week or so and you'll
be amazed at how much you have forgotten to do or have forgotten
that you even thought, agreed or conceived. Highlight the stuff
that sticks out and act on it.
3)
Read as much as you can
You
no longer have to read whole business books and manuals. There are
hundreds of free business newsletters you can subscribe to, free
e-book chapters, online tutorials, extracts from business gurus'
private files and so on. Subscribe to the ones that appeal to you
and you can soon build up a valuable personal coaching resource
you can access via e-mail and the Internet.
4)
Improve your vocabulary and speaking ability
Improving
your vocabulary is one of the easiest and most valuable personal
development habits you can pick up. If you can learn a minimum of
one new word a week, you will improve your ability to describe and
articulate your ideas and business proposals and your ability to
sell them in the process.
5)
Don't shy away from failure
Avoiding
failure goes hand in hand with missing out on business success.
Don't be afraid of failing occasionally, as you'll learn just as
much from this (if not more) as from your successes. View your failures
as rungs or ratchets to help you get up the learning curve a lot
more quickly.
6)
Always seek to improve yourself and your business
Never
stop, and never ease back over this. You'll reach a point many times
in your small business career where you think you know it all, only
to fall back down to earth with a bump. You should view your small
business and your career within it as something that you can improve
every week of every month of every year until you are finally ready
to give it all up. This is something that is very difficult to measure
or put a value on in a balance sheet.
Of
course, there's a lot more to being a small business superstar than
this, but these are a few habits everyone should consider, pick
up and improve on.
Marketing
tip
Using
link-building strategies to boost online sales
Link-building means increasing the number of
websites that have links to your site. Having a high number of incoming
links helps you get a better ranking on search engines - they look
for sites with plenty of good-quality, and relevant, inbound links,
and prioritise them in lists of search results.
Here are five practical tips for increasing your inbound links.
1)
Write a series of free articles on topics relevant to your sector,
and submit them to webmasters, e-zines and article directories.
Include a short blurb about your business and a link to your website.
Search online e-zine directories such as My
Favourite E-zines to find publications in related fields.
2)
Host a weblog ('blog') on your site and make sure it's regularly
updated, as this will encourage people to link back to you. You
can also submit your blog to directories such as Blogdex,
Blogwise and
Daypop for extra
incoming links.
3)
Register with online directories that accept website submissions.
To find them, simply do a search including some keywords specific
to your business plus the word 'directory'. Many are free, and all
you have to do is fill in a short form. See Directory
Pages as an example.
4)
Improve your chances of visitors deciding they want a link to your
site independently by keeping your site fresh and up to date, and
packing it with plenty of interesting or useful content, such as
current news for your sector. Include the date each article was
published to enhance the impression that your site is current.
5)
Beware of link
farms, which are random directories of links with no connection
to one another. Inclusion on these can get you blacklisted by the
search engines.
Read more about Internet marketing strategies for your small business
in Chapter 30 of the UK
Small Business Marketing Bible, where you can also find hundreds
of ideas, tips and techniques for increasing sales.
Legal
tip
Age
discrimination - what the changes are all about
The
Government recently announced that it is going to change the law
to forbid discrimination at work on the grounds of age. The changes
are a long way off - the new law will come into force at the beginning
of October 2006 - but it's a good idea to get ready for the changes
now, rather than being caught out later. So we've put together a
quick summary of the main points to help you prepare if you employ
staff (or might do by next October).
The law is based on a European Directive, but the details haven't
yet been finalised. However, the new law will have the following
effects:
- Age
discrimination at work will be forbidden, which means older employees
will have the same rights to unfair dismissal and redundancy payments
as younger people.
- Employers
will no longer be allowed to force employees to retire before
the age of 65, except in certain cases.
- Employees
will have the right to ask formally for their employment to continue
once they've reached the age of 65.
- Employers
will be obliged to give workers written notification of their
retirement date, so as to give them time to prepare.
The
Age
Positive website gives a useful summary and the latest news.
Finally, the UK
Red Tape Buster has hundreds more factsheets, checklists and
scenarios on the laws affecting small businesses.
IT
tip
Jargon
made easy
Internet
and computer jargon can sometimes be difficult to avoid. Instruction
manuals for the simplest things can be loaded with acronyms and
references to things like protocols or Wi-Fi cards, while service
helpdesks can blabber on about IP addresses and microfilters.
But help is never far away, as long as you know where to look for
it. Here's a quick roundup of some of our favourite websites to
help you cut through the tech-speak and understand the world of
IT in plain English.
- First
is the Webopedia,
which offers a large dictionary of terms and phrases, explained
in more or less un-technical language. It has a word of the day,
a list of the top ten most requested definitions, and the homepage
offers the most recently added terminology.
- As
well as a search facility for technical words and phrases, Learnthat.com
offers a directory of topics, tutorials covering everything from
website design to building your own computer, and a discussion
forum for users.
- Wikipedia
is famous as the encyclopaedia that everyone thought wouldn't
work, but turned out a roaring success. Anyone can contribute
to it, and anybody can change it; the result isn't anarchy, but
a comprehensive set of definitions and explanations (and not only
for IT-related things).
- And
if you're still stuck, why not try Google's
'Define' service. Instead of just typing a word and pressing
the 'Search' button, you can prefix your search term with the
word 'Define'. For example, typing 'define network card' will
give you dozens of definitions ranging from the technical to the
easy-to-understand.
New business idea
Each
week we provide you with summaries of some popular or emerging business
ideas in the UK.
Here
is this week's idea:
Just one word
Regularly
improving your vocabulary is not just about learning a new word
and its meaning. It will improve your general knowledge and make
you feel and act smarter in all sorts of personal and business situations.
Do
you know what the word 'zeitgeist' means?
a)
marketing jargon for a new promotional campaign
b) the German word for entrepreneur
c) slang for a 'gremlin' or bug in a computer
d) the general spirit of a given period of time
Answer
at the end of the Bulletin.
Website review
The
Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS - www.culture.gov.uk)
This
website is the point of reference for information about licensing
and gambling laws, among many others, and it's the new home for
Government information about the 2012 Olympics in London. But how
practical and user-friendly is the site?
- Navigation
- confused and confusing, the homepage tries to do too much. It
lists latest news and also features numerous links to resources
about topics as diverse as the Creative Industries Discussion
Forum and the Tsunami Appeal. The categorised list of what can
be found on the site is about the only saving grace here.
 
A
very ordinary score of 9 for DCMS, a lack of accessibility options
and an ill thought-out, cluttered homepage letting the website down.
Our
rating - 9/20
Did
you know?
Microsoft
has taken on its pirates…
In
an effort to combat
software piracy and the use of unlicensed versions of Windows,
Microsoft has announced it will ask visitors seeking its free updates
to prove their current operating systems are genuine. Windows users
arriving at Microsoft's update site have to download a program which
will scan their existing software and report back to headquarters.
…and
launched the next generation of Windows
Meanwhile,
the software giant has also unveiled the new name of the next generation
of its Windows operating system (OS), which had been codenamed Longhorn
for ages. The new OS will be called Windows
Vista, and a beta version will be available to developers and
IT professionals early in August. Everyone else can expect to get
their hands on it early next year.
Worth
a visit
eBay
for businesses
If
you can't afford new equipment and are keen to find basic office
kit second-hand, you could try visiting eBay's new effort to cater
for small business owners. From photocopiers to shredders, eBay
Business claims to offer difficult-to-find and out-of-stock
items that are hard to get from mainstream retailers and distributors.
There's even a free 'Business Equipment Purchase Protection' scheme
to shield business owners from fraud.
Practical
guide busts health and safety myths
The
Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) has published
a new guide offering practical health and safety advice to small
businesses. 'Protect
your people - and your business' costs £20 and aims to
bring together complicated Government guidance on different pieces
of health and safety law into an easy to understand document that
offers a one-stop shop for business owners trying to meet their
legal obligations.
Low-cost
CV checking service
Businesses
concerned about the validity of information on new recruits' CVs
can take advantage of an affordable new checking service called
Verifile.
It checks everything from personal identity and educational qualifications
to criminal records and employment references for a cost of around
£6 per CV.
Worth
a read
This
simple and accessible how-to guide takes small businesses that aren't
registered for VAT through the complexities of bookkeeping and accounting.
It's ideal for micro, 'cash' enterprises, from gardeners to taxi
drivers, and focuses on the key requirements of these businesses,
omitting the jargon and complex accounting requirements associated
with larger ventures. Check out:
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Just one word answer
The answer is d).
Zeitgeist
(pronounced zitegyst) refers to the general spirit of an era,
in terms of intellectual, moral, political and cultural trends.
Part
of your market research involves understanding the zeitgeist,
which can affect buying patterns and consumer demands.
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Good
luck
The EnterQuest Team
This information is meant as a starting point only. Whilst all reasonable
efforts have been made, the publisher makes no warranties that the
information is accurate and up-to-date and will not be responsible
for any errors or omissions in the information nor any consequences
of any errors or omissions. Professional advice should be sought
where appropriate.
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