RESOURCE CENTRE

Your EnterQuest Bulletin - 10 November 2004

In this week's issue:

• six habits you really need to pick up
• is your business "buzzword savvy"?
• distance selling - keeping it legal
• analysing web traffic for beginners
  

Weekly stir

Six habits you really need to pick up

Over the many years that we've been involved in business start up (oh so many years for some of our team) we've encountered a question that we keep hearing over and over again.

What exactly is it that makes a successful entrepreneur?

And to be completely frank, this is a question that's almost impossible to answer. Yet you'll find or read all sorts of "success secrets" reports and books, and tons of other meaningless blather, advising you with no authority whatsoever that all successful business owners have similar personality traits. They'll tell you that we're all:

• extroverts
• driven
• visionary
• leaders
• winners
• geniuses
• the next Bill Gates or Richard Branson
  

Have you come across this sort of drivel? The real mystery is that if you are to believe this in the first place, then what exactly are you supposed to do about it? Go out and acquire a new personality from eBay, or find a training course on how to unleash the genius within you that you never knew existed? Perhaps reincarnation will be a quicker route to success.

In the real world there isn't a single personality type that you can just attach to people who will become successful entrepreneurs. But there are plenty of habits, which anyone can pick up or learn, that will make it just that little bit more likely that you'll be an effective small business owner, as long as you stick with them. Here are six habits that we've noticed are common to people who over-achieve in their business.

1) Risk taking

Entrepreneurs are risk takers. Period. The most successful enterprises are run by people who are adept at taking calculated risks, and more often than not getting it right. Is this you? And how adept are you at making major decisions?

2) Highly disciplined

There's no room for scatterbrains in a small business. This is all about self-organisation, sticking to the plan, keeping records, making all those pain-in-the-butt statutory returns. Have you got a system for everything you do? This is something that anyone can become better at.

3) Highly focused

Like a laser on your target audience. Focused on the market niche you are absolutely convinced contains the group of people that you can serve better than anyone else. Remember the old adage, "if everyone's your customer then no-one's your customer". How focused are you?

4) Incurable curiosity

This isn't about having to do research, it's about wanting to do it. Really successful people find things that nobody else does or before everyone else does. And they find the detail that enables them to go that extra mile to make their offer absolutely unbeatable. You can do this as well if you've really got the desire within you.

5) Being action oriented

Winners can do it, not just dream it. They like to get their hands dirty, and don't mind sometimes getting bloody noses in the process. Thinking it out is good, planning it in detail is great, but there's no feeling on earth like slugging it out in the small business trenches.

6) Being realistic

This is all about common sense, and while it's true that not everyone is born with it, it is something that comes with maturity. And maturity comes quickly to business owners. How realistic are your own ideas, timescales, targets and expectations? If you're too pie-in-the-sky, you won't just disappoint yourself but probably your customers as well. Better to under-expect and over-perform every time.

There are other traits you'll need as well as these, such as a natural ability to sell, a modicum of financial acumen and so on, but these are also things you can get better at as you run your enterprise.

You're stuck with the package you're born with, but the habits above can be picked up and used to maximise your potential, not just like Gates or Branson, but like hundreds of thousands of small business owners just like you.

Being successful in business is all about communicating effectively with your target customers, in order to persuade them that your product or service is the solution to their specific problem or need. In order to do this, you've got to be on the same wavelength as them, and speak to them in language they understand.

So it's essential to keep yourself up to date with changes to the English language, and particularly with new "buzzwords" and phrases that are being granted a place in the dictionary all the time. New words reflect modern cultural attitudes, and while you wouldn't use slang or popular phrases in your official business communication, it can be useful to know about them for your sales letters, web adverts and mailshots, especially if you're hoping to target young consumers.

See whether you can match the following words of 2004 to the right meaning. They're all categories of consumer with different psychographic profiles.

a) oldbie
b) chav
c) retrosexual
d) sneezer

1) a person who readily spreads an idea or marketing message by telling others
2) a man who spends very little time on his appearance and personal hygiene
3) a person with a basic knowledge and some experience of using the Internet
4) a young man who wears lots of cheap gold jewellery and a baseball cap, and hangs round in shopping precincts

You can find more of the same at http://www.buzzwhack.com/buzzcomp/dict.htm, and there's a good news article about the history of buzzwords online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1330487,00.html. Meanwhile, the latest edition of the Language Report, Larpers and Shroomers, by Susie Dent, charts the evolution of new slang, idioms and phrases, and examines the trends that impact on language.

And the answers to our buzzword quiz?

• Oldbie goes with definition 3 - it refers to Internet users who are a bit more advanced than newbies, who are complete beginners
• Chav goes with definition 4
• Retrosexual goes with definition 2
• Sneezer goes with definition 1
  

In the UK Small Business Marketing Bible you can find hundreds more tips on targeting customers, as well as techniques and tactics that will help increase sales for any small business in any sector.

Legal tip

Distance selling - keeping it legal

The law defines distance selling as any consumer transactions that aren't face-to-face. But which of the following are exempt from the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000?

a) fresh food and flowers
b) financial services
c) second-hand goods
d) eBay auctions

As we mentioned last week, distance selling laws give your customers certain rights. Here's a quick guide to the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000, followed by some links to websites that give more detailed information.

• The regulations state that consumers who order goods from you over the phone, by mail order, or via your website, are entitled to a seven-day cooling off period, during which they can change their minds and send the goods back.
  
  
• The cooling off period begins when the goods are received, but before that date consumers are also entitled to contact you and cancel their order.
  
  
• You must dispatch the goods within thirty days of receiving an order.
  
  
• The regulations only apply to consumer purchases, not business-to-business transactions.
  
  
• The regulations also apply to services. The seven-day cooling off period in this case begins on the day the order is made.

One of the best websites offering more details is the Office of Fair Trading's factsheet on distance selling.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) also has a practical guide to your obligations as regards promotion and what you must tell the customer before they buy. The ASA's site is worth keeping an eye on for future developments in distance selling - as we mentioned last week, the law is due to change in April 2005.

And our Red Tape BUSTER has advice on numerous aspects of trading online, as well as hundreds of business scenarios, FAQs and checklists for every small business situation.

And the answer to the quiz? Fresh food and flowers are both covered by the Distance Selling Regulations, and so are second-hand goods. Financial services and online auctions such as eBay (answers b and d) are exempt.

Who's been visiting? Analysing web traffic for beginners

Building and running a website is something many businesses consider essential. But it's also important to know something about the visitors your site receives, how they got there, and what they looked at when they arrived. That way you can find out if your online promotion is working, whether some of your pages are more popular than others, and which other websites are providing you with traffic.

Here's how to start analysing your web traffic using a web counter, and a summary of some of the benefits of keeping track of traffic.

• Firstly you will need to install a counter on your website to provide you with the basic information about your traffic. Two of the best known are Sitemeter and Reinvigorate, but there are hundreds available, many of them free - just do a Google search for 'web counters'.
  
  
• Web counters are really easy to use. There's usually nothing you need to install, download or do - you'll simply have to tick a box that says you're happy for the counter logo to appear discreetly on your web pages. Individual counters' sites have instructions on how to set yourself up, but typically it's just a case of entering your site's name and URL and choosing a password.
  
  
• Your chosen web counter will tell you how many visitors you have every day, and can even tell you about visitors in the last hour. This will be useful information when assessing how effective your online promotion is. You can choose to receive the analysis in the form of real-time reports that tell you what visitors are doing while they're actually on your site, or weekly e-mail reviews that provide a summary of your traffic.
  
  
• The counters also record hits - the number of times a page or a picture is downloaded. Don't forget that a visit is different from a hit - if you have a page with text and a picture, a visitor will be recorded as one visit but two hits.
  
  
• Counters with statistics will also tell you where your visitors are from and will give you vital information when adjusting your site for a target audience. If you provide a service to people in your area, for example, a thousand visits a day from Canadian Internet users aren't going to be very useful, and you may need to think about changing your content.
  
  
• Finally, traffic statistics can tell you about what sort of web browser your visitors are using. If your website works well with Internet Explorer but doesn't load to a Netscape browser, you're losing traffic and alienating potential customers. So if you know that 10% of your visitors use Netscape, you need to make sure your site works as well for them as it does for any other browser.

Each week we provide you with summaries of some popular or emerging business ideas in the UK.

Here is this week's idea:

• Local Community Website

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 the difference between 'the Internet' and 'the World Wide Web'?

Which of the following definitions apply to each phrase?

• a global network of interconnected computers that communicate through telephone lines and cable networks
• the systems and resources that deal with requests to access and link to websites all over the world

Did you know?

Licensing Act fees unveiled

If your business is involved in serving or selling alcohol to consumers, you need to get clued up on the sort of fees you're going to have to pay for your personal and premises licences under the Licensing Act 2003. The new law comes into force next year, with applications for new licences being accepted from 7 February. The proposed fees, recently announced by the Government, include a temporary event licence at £21, a personal licence at £37, and a full licence from £80 to £500. You can tell the Government what you think of the proposals up until 21 December.

The proposed fees, plus a timetable for how the law will actually come into force, are online at:
http://www.culture.gov.uk/global/press_notices/archive_2004/dcms145_04.htm

Bagle bites back

Three new variants of the troublesome Bagle worm have been discovered by some of the leading anti-virus companies. Most have released software updates to protect users against infection, and some of them have said the threat posed by one variant, Bagle.BC, is high-risk. The worm spreads through infected e-mail attachments. It wreaked havoc when it was launched back in January, and has spawned close to 50 variants since then.

For the full story, and advice on how to combat the threat, go to:
http://www.computerweekly.com/articles/article.asp?liArticleID=134684&liFlavourID=1

If you're looking for an inspiring idea for a new product or service, or even a social enterprise, then this ideas site could be the place for you. It bills itself as part suggestion box, part networking opportunity, part think-tank and part inspirational entertainment. It's a not-for-profit operation that enables anyone to register and submit ideas, thoughts or suggestions on just about any topic under the sun, provided the idea is a social invention, or it aims to improve society in some way. It maintains a database of previously submitted ideas, which you can browse by categories ranging from the Internet to art and lifestyle.

Get inspired at:
http://www.globalideasbank.org/site/home

Business Startup 2004, London, 19 and 20 November

Free advice is on offer here for aspiring entrepreneurs and those who have recently launched their business venture. This exhibition includes more than 80 free seminars on practical issues related to running a business, and over 180 exhibitors will dispense advice on everything from getting funding to promoting a new enterprise. The legal implications of starting a business will be covered by representatives from the Inland Revenue, Customs & Excise, the Patent Office and Companies House.

Best of all, we'll be there on stand 518, and we hope you'll pop along for a chat. Find out more at:
http://www.bstartup.com

The EU: explained

For all those of you who wondered (but were afraid to ask) what the European Union (EU) actually does, the Government has gone and done something useful and published a new pamphlet explaining basic facts about the EU's structure and remit; what the Constitution of Europe Treaty, signed last week, really means; and how the EU's policies and processes work. The guidance has been praised by the Plain Language Commission for its clarity and concise approach to a complex subject, and could be useful if you're finding it hard to get your head round European laws.

You should be able to pick up a paper copy of the guide at your local library, but it's also online at:
http://www.europe.gov.uk