RESOURCE CENTRE

Your EnterQuest Bulletin - 6 April 2005

In this week's issue:

• more straight talking about business plans
• membership marketing on a shoestring budget
• the truth about planning permission
• how to stop the sneakier spammers
• the Patent Office website reviewed
  

Small business answers

If you have any questions about your business idea, are lacking some basic data about your target market, or simply need help tracking down a grant, subsidy or other source of 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.

Weekly stir

More straight talking about business plans

Written your business plan yet? Or are you in the process of getting it worked out, or working out what to make of the advice you've had or have read about what should be included in it?

Here's a little story this week to help you focus your thoughts.

A bull and a turkey were sat in a field talking. The turkey sighed miserably. "I want to get to the top of that tree but haven't got the strength, as I've been on my feet non-stop for more than a week."

The bull looked wisely down at the turkey and replied, "Why don't you try eating some of my dung? It's full of vitamins, minerals and nutrients and will give you the strength you need."

The turkey nibbled away experimentally at the dung and after a few minutes managed to reach the first branches of the tree. Later on, the turkey ate some more and found enough strength to get halfway up the tree.

The next morning, after gorging itself on a dung breakfast, the turkey reached the highest branch of the tree and perched there with a very satisfied look on its face.

Later that day a farmer came along, spotted the turkey and promptly shot it down with his gun.

The lesson to be learned? Bullsh*t can quickly get you to where you want to be, but you won't stay there for long.

Now back to your business plan.

There are no quick and easy ways to succeed in business. No short cuts, no regular out-of-the-blue windfalls, no perpetual guaranteed lucky breaks. So even if it's tempting to rush headlong into an opportunity you can see, take a short but meaningful step back, and make sure you are really prepared and ready to go for it.

Here are six tips to keep you on the right track.

1)	Planning is about preparation, and preparing far enough ahead of what you want to do. Remember, Noah built his Ark before it started to rain. So it's about thinking ahead, all of the time.
2)	There is plenty of bullsh*t advice around about starting a business or pursing a new opportunity, and plenty of people willing to give it. So shop around for your advice, and get opinions from at least two or three sources before you act on anything.
3)	You'll come across plenty of critics and detractors about your business ideas. Some of these may be constructive, but a lot will just be negative or downright destructive. However, if you can see what action you think needs to be taken to move your business forward, then do it.
4)	Speed isn't always the best way to pursue something. Remember the tale of the tortoise and the hare? The hare was quicker but he wasn't cleverer, and he lost.
5)	The road least travelled often proves to be the road best travelled. In other words, don't always look down the same track as everyone else. Sometimes look for the less beaten path.
6)	Don't dither too long in devising or writing your plan. The detail may be interesting, but if it's irrelevant then you're wasting a lot of your time.

Make sure you aren't a turkey when you start up or pursue a new business venture. Don't rush - prepare carefully, but don't take too long.

Marketing tip

Membership marketing on a shoestring budget

In a few weeks' time, we're supporting a practical marketing event which will take place at Newcastle University's Business School. It will focus on easily achievable marketing ideas for small businesses who are on a shoestring budget.

The half-day seminar will focus on providing practical case studies and insights into key ways that businesses can increase sales and find new customers, and will also explore how to link your marketing strategy with your overall business plan.

More information about the event is available from the University, but if you can't make it, here's a practical suggestion for how to grow your business without spending a fortune on costly marketing tactics.

Developing a membership programme is a great way of turning occasional buyers into loyal repeat customers. Membership programmes help to increase customer loyalty, sell more products and services, generate higher revenue per customer, and improve referrals. Every business has products and services it can package into a membership programme.

For example, a dry cleaner could offer a 10% discount on all cleaning, or a café could offer five lunches a month for the price of three for members of the scheme. Even better benefits could be added for a more expensive, premium membership package - such as free alterations and delivery in the case of the dry cleaner, or a free bottle of wine for members of the café's scheme.

Having multi-levels to your membership programme in this way entices customers to spend more by moving up to higher levels of the programme. Membership schemes also make customers feel loyal to your business, which means they're less likely to go elsewhere and more likely to recommend you to their friends.

It just takes a little creativity to come up with a list of ways you can package the products and services you offer into a membership programme.

Other low-cost or free ways to encourage your customers to buy from you again and again include the following:

• Perform mystery shopper surveys with your customers from time to time to gauge their level of satisfaction.
  
  
• Establish a regular newsletter that details compelling offers that cannot be turned down.
  
  
• Follow up with your customers to see how they're enjoying the benefits of the new product or service you sold them, and suggest products or services that would increase their satisfaction.

Read more about membership marketing in Chapter 19 of the UK Small Business Marketing Bible, which also contains hundreds of practical marketing techniques to help any small business in any sector flourish and grow.

Legal tip

The truth about planning permission

A recent BBC story describing how a Manchester shop had unexpectedly got into trouble with the local council for serving hot sandwiches is a good example of the need for retailers to be aware of 'business classes'.

Business classes are part of planning law and are used by your local authority to limit the type of activity business premises can be used for.

In this case, the Manchester business was class A3, which is suitable only for restaurants and cafés. The sandwiches were sold to be eaten off the premises, which is only allowed for takeaways. So the local council successfully argued that the shop should have obtained planning permission for change of use.

All business premises are classified in this way. Here's a brief explanation of some of the most common classes, and what this means if you want to change the use of your premises.

• Class A1 applies to shops, and includes post offices, hairdressers, travel agents and hire shops.
  
  
• Class A2 applies to financial services businesses, which means banks, building societies and betting shops.
  
  
• Class A3 applies to restaurants, cafés, wine bars and pubs, but not to takeaways which are now A5.
  
  
• The B classes apply to general businesses the public is unlikely to visit regularly. Class B1 can include light industrial businesses, B2 applies to industry in general, and B8 is used for storage and distribution.

Changing the use of a building from one class to another may need planning permission, but this isn't always the case. The only way to find out for sure if you need planning permission or not is to consult your local authority's planning department. You can find a directory of all the UK's local councils at the Direct.gov site.

For a good explanation of all the various classes, pages 5 to 13 of the Deputy Prime Minister's Circular are worth a visit.

The UK Red Tape BUSTER offers plenty more advice about planning permission for small businesses, as well as hundreds of legal factsheets, scenarios and FAQs.

IT tip

How to stop the sneakier spammers

How many e-mails sent to people around the world are actually worthless spam?

a) 2 out of 10?
b) 5 out of 15?
c) 8 out of 12?
d) 93%?

Despite reports that spam had slowed down this year, a spam watchdog called Mail Filters believes the figure actually rose to 93% in January this year!

E-mail spammers are as active as ever, despite the fact that many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are often working just as hard to keep unwanted e-mail out of your inbox. For example, most ISPs have introduced useful blocks and filters for their customers to use on incoming e-mails.

However, spammers will always look for new ways of 'delivering' their messages. IT security firm Sophos reports that spammers are now deliberately misspelling words and using unusual characters in order to avoid the filters used by ISPs to protect their customers from spam.

Where it was once easy to filter out particular words, spammers have taken to replacing certain characters with symbols, adding spaces to break up words, repeating characters in well-known spam words, and even adding dozens of lines of nonsense to the end of each mail in order to persuade the filters their e-mails are important. Read this list from Sophos to see the 25 words that are most commonly misspelled in this way.

What can you do if you find this sort of spam starts arriving in your mailbox? Apart from writing to your ISP (which can get tedious after the sixth time), you can update your own filters to block out this spam. If misspelled words turn up repeatedly, add them to the filter in Outlook or Outlook Express (you'll find the filter under 'Tools' in the toolbar). As spammers find even more ingenious ways to get round the filters, the protection won't last forever, but it could save you some of that irritation every time the wily spammer strikes.

New business idea

Here is this week's idea:

• Genealogist

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 'prevaricate' means?

a) to chair a meeting
b) to delay or take too long over
c) to act or speak evasively
d) to prove something is true

Answer at the end of the Bulletin.

Website review

The Patent Office (www.patent.gov.uk)

This week, we're reviewing the Government website responsible for providing information about the law governing intellectual property (IP) in the UK, covering copyright, patents, design rights and trade marks.

• Navigation - an excellent homepage, which provides clear links to the sections of the website dealing with different aspects and issues to do with IP. Whether you want to find out how to register a patent or check out the ins and outs of copyright law, it's really easy to find what you're looking for. News sections and useful links are also clearly signposted. There's even a Newcomers' Guide for those new to the website.
  
  
  

• Accessibility - information about this was surprisingly difficult to find. We had to resort to the site map, and even then all we could discover was an Adobe Acrobat PDF reader available for download. There doesn't seem to be any provision of content in minority languages or formats that are accessible to disabled users. A poor show, even by the Government's standards.
  
  
  
  
• Content - the law regarding key IP issues for businesses is explained clearly and in practical language, and there are plenty of downloadable guides about important areas such as understanding copyright and applying to register a trade mark. The glossaries and further contacts are also extremely useful.
  
  
  
  
• Relevance - each section of the website has its own news segment, and these are kept fairly up to date, with plenty of stories from 2005. In addition, the Media Centre already contains 10 press releases for this year, covering major developments in IP in the UK. We also like the up-to-date Events Calendar.
  
  

A reasonable score of 14 out of 20 for the Patent Office, and we're granting a bonus point for the recently launched sister site, www.the-key.biz, which is a highly practical and informative resource for any small business wanting to gain a better understanding of IP.

Our rating - 15/20

Did you know?

UK falling prey to identity theft

A survey carried out in London by Infosecurity Europe has revealed that 92% of people will give up all the personal details needed to steal their identities just for the chance to win theatre tickets. Most members of the public questioned were persuaded to divulge key information such as date of birth and mother's maiden name in order to enter a competition. Infosecurity said the study showed how easy it is to steal a person's or business' identity.

Mostly small firms using the Corporate TPS

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has published the findings of a major study into the profile of users of the Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS), which was introduced on 25 June last year to enable businesses to opt out of receiving unsolicited cold calls. 54% of the 275,000 registrants polled were businesses with fewer than 10 employees; a further 29% was made up of firms with fewer than 50 staff. The study also showed that only 15% of the firms registered with the CTPS use the telephone for their own marketing.

Postal charges might change next year

Royal Mail has announced proposals to charge for delivering letters by size rather than weight. Items of a thickness up to 25mm will be treated as standard large letters, which may mean lower charges for businesses posting items such as CDs and DVDs. The proposals, which could affect up to 30% of the UK's total business and consumer mailbag, are still subject to regulatory approval and, even if they get through, won't be introduced until April 2006.

Worth a visit

Find business premises online

Office Finders is a free resource that helps business owners find serviced offices, conventional workspace or virtual offices anywhere in the world. Whether you're looking for a permanent new base, occasional premises in a particular location, or temporary workspace to cover an emergency, the database of thousands of offices in every county of the UK and 42 countries worldwide should have something that meets your requirements. You need to register to access the service, but registration is free.

Free index of domain name decisions

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has published an index detailing trends in 7,000 domain name dispute decisions that have taken place under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, which decides most .com, .net and .org domain name disputes, up to February this year. There's also a useful overview of examples for businesses trying to resolve their own domain name dispute and victims of cybersquatting.

Worth a read

This newly published book provides a fascinating insight into the battle between the UK's leading supermarkets, chronicling the social trends and changes that have influenced and accompanied the ongoing contest. It also looks at how the relationship between supermarkets and their suppliers really works. Check out:

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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.