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Your EnterQuest Bulletin - 15 March 2006
| Thought for the week: "It is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done." Terry Pratchett |
In this week's issue:
Small business answers
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Weekly stir 
How many ways are there to increase your business?
We'll start off this week with a quick quiz. Well, a quiz with just one question, in fact, but a very important question nonetheless - and it requires you to use some fairly simple maths.
The question is:
How many different ways are there to increase your business?
1) Thousands
2) Hundreds
3) 87
4) 3
Just about every small business owner that tries to answer this question will automatically assume that developing a business and finding different ways to increase sales revenue will be a complicated and multi-faceted process.
What do you think the answer is? Hundreds? Or thousands?
In his book 'Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You’ve Got', Jay Abraham, one of the world's leading business development 'super-consultants', poses this very question, and reveals that developing and increasing sales in any business is not as complicated as you might think.
And the good news, Abraham explains in his book, is that there are only three ways to increase your business:
1) Increase the number of clients.
2) Increase the average size of the sale per client.
3) Increase the number of times clients return and buy again.
Only three.
Put this way, it's much less intimidating to look at how you can set about increasing your sales revenue and developing your business.
Following Abraham's advice, we can start applying the maths.
For the sake of illustration, let's assume the following:
The maths shows that 1,000 clients x £100 x 2 purchases = £200,000.
But here's the rub. Have a look at the maths if you increase these three factors by just 10%.
1,100 clients x £110 x 2.2 purchases = £266,200.
Abraham's three-point formula reveals that applying a 10% increase across the board results in an increase in your revenue of 33.1%.
And a 25% increase would result in revenue increasing by nearly double, to £390,625.
A very simple formula, but one that's easy for anyone to use to grow their business - with remarkable results. And you can do the same in your own business.
To begin with, calculate the number of clients you've got, work out the average transaction value and how many times they buy from you in a year.
But instead of applying your desired 10% or 25% increase to just one of these three factors, which is what most people will generally do, apply the increase to all three.
Jay Abraham is considered by many businesspeople to be the world's pre-eminent business adviser, and is currently the highest-paid and most acclaimed business development consultant around.
You could do a lot worse than reading the book mentioned above, and following his simple business-building formula that we've highlighted this week.
The UK Small Business Marketing Bible has more practical suggestions for how to calculate the lifetime value of your customers in chapter 2, and is jam-packed with hundreds of cheap, easy to implement ideas and techniques for promoting your business.
Start up tip
Choosing a business franchise
An increasingly popular method of starting up in business is to take up a franchise. This is a way of acquiring an 'off the peg' business, where the development of a product or service has, in theory, been done for you. At its best, buying a franchise can offer a relatively risk-free way of starting out in business, though potential franchisees should never forget that their ultimate success or failure will be due largely to their own hard work.
To help you decide what sort of franchise is suitable for you, the following services provide useful starting points:
An exhibition run by a reputable organisation is also a good starting point for assessing a franchise. It will enable you to meet other aspiring franchisees, as well as to compare and contrast different franchise opportunities. See the British and International Franchise Exhibition site for details.
You can also check out our practical factsheet for more comprehensive guidance about the process of taking up a business franchise.
Legal
tip
Understanding parental leave
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is consulting on several proposals concerning parental leave for employees. The proposals focus on providing more options for parents to decide who should care for their child during the first year of life.
Here's a brief guide to the main provisions of the new proposals, which come under the remit of the Work and Families Bill. All the provisions are set to come into force in April 2007.
This has all been criticised as being rather cumbersome for small firms, but the Bill does include some provisions to make things easier on the employer - such as limiting the number of times a woman can change her mind about her return date.
There is more about the consultations at the DTI website. The date for responses to the consultation on maternity and adoption leave is 25 April; firms have till 31 May to comment on the proposals for paternity leave.
In the meantime, our factsheet provides an easy to follow overview of current employee rights for parental leave.
IT
tip
Making your website more accessible - a quick guide
Under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 1995, firms have a legal responsibility to make 'reasonable adjustments' to ensure that people with disabilities have access to their websites.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has published guidance to convince businesses that making these changes isn't as costly or time-consuming as they might think. This is true both of adjustments to premises and to websites, it says.
To keep things simple, the main issues you need to consider to achieve a basic level of accessibility for your site are as follows:
These issues are explained in detail at the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) website.
The Disability Rights Commission (DRC) has a good example of an inaccessible website, and there are guidelines on website design available from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
Finally, the British Standards Institution (BSI) has published a guidance document covering web accessibility. The move follows a study by the DRC, which found that 81% of UK websites are inaccessible for disabled users. The guidance document covers topics from commissioning and building a website to checking compliance with web accessibility guidelines.
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 'taxonomy' means?
a) an economic system that is based on the tax generated by businesses
b) the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) tax band for self-employed people
c) a method of categorising or classifying groups of similar things
d) an official exemption from paying tax
Answer at the end of the Bulletin.
Website review
The Market Research Society (MRS - www.mrs.org.uk)
This is a trade association representing anyone that uses or provides market research or business intelligence. It provides a range of information about understanding the research process - but how user-friendly and accessible is the website?
- Navigation and presentation - several links to the MRS' own products are presented like ads on the homepage, making the page look cluttered by advertising. The menu options for navigating the site could also benefit from a clearer and less cramped layout. But directory maps within the site are easy to use, and the A-Z directory is a good addition.
 
- Accessibility - there's a website feedback form where you can submit comments or queries, but there are no options for adjusting text size, using different browsers or retrieving information in foreign languages.
- Content and usefulness - some useful tools and resources are on offer here, with highlights including the Research Buyers' Guide, which offers a regularly updated directory of UK market research providers. There are also practical tips for newcomers to market research, and a range of research focusing on specific areas.
- Relevance - the MRS organises regular networking events, and maintains a calendar on the site that is usefully categorised by event theme or topic. The press releases on the site are fresh and topical, dealing with current issues such as business blogging.
The Research Buyers' Guide is well worth a read for any business owner who needs to find out more about sources of market and business information. And this site features some excellent guidance about the market research process in general - the addition of some accessibility options would really improve its score.
Our rating - 12/20
Did you know?
New fire rules in force in October
The delayed revision of fire safety rules for non-domestic premises will be introduced on 1 October, according to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM). The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order was originally scheduled for introduction on 6 April, but was postponed to give firms affected by the changes more time to prepare. The Order includes a variety of measures, chief of which is a shift of responsibility for fire risk assessments to the property occupant, manager and owner.
Age discrimination regulations published
After the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 were laid before Parliament on 9 March, the DTI has published the draft text of the new law on its website. Guidance notes on complying with the provisions of the Regulations are also available. Subject to approval by Parliament, the new law will come into force on 1 October this year.
Worth
a visit
Practical IT risk assessment tool
An IT risk assessment tool designed specifically for small firms has been developed by the National Computing Centre (NCC), in partnership with Business Link. The tool’s launch follows a survey of 500 firms, which suggested that 47% of small businesses expect some form of IT security attack over the coming year.
The eBay university
Online auction giant eBay already runs its own 'university', where entrepreneurs can learn how to become successful eBay traders. However, the courses are now being rolled out to other universities and colleges across the UK, opening up the opportunities for people to gain practical skills in the area of trading on the eBay site. Topics covered range from the basic (creating an eBay listing, managing the sale) to advanced areas such as marketing.
Worth
a read
We've recommended books by this author before, as we like his straight-talking, jargon-free approach. This latest offering, published earlier this month, is no different. It focuses on direct marketing, and is aimed at businesses that don't know much about the process. The subtitle of the book is descriptive enough: 'The ultimate, no holds barred, kick butt, take no prisoners direct marketing for non-direct marketing businesses'. Check out:
Just one word answer
The answer is c).
Taxonomy refers to a method of categorising or classifying groups of similar things.
You can organise your different customer groups into a taxonomy based on their location, demographics and personal interests. |
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The EnterQuest Team
This information is meant as a starting point only. Whilst all reasonable
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