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Your EnterQuest Bulletin - Issue 174

Thought for the week: "Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise." Ted Turner

• Excuses, excuses: firms still not paying minimum wage
• Understanding the law surrounding consumer contracts
• Avoiding the spam triggers
• The Business Eye website reviewed

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Excuses, excuses: firms still not paying minimum wage

One of the trickiest problems encountered by new business owners is when it comes to the technicalities of employing staff.

And one area in particular where a lot of people come unstuck is paying staff and doing so within the law.

Shouldn't be all that tricky, you're probably thinking. As long as you know what the National Minimum Wage (NMW) is, it's plain sailing from there, isn't it?

Well, it appears not.

A shock study by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has found that many businesses still don't pay their employees the NMW.

The HMRC report also lists the following as the "top ten worst" excuses given by employers for not paying workers their due. Don't laugh, because these are all real:

• I only took him on as a favour

• The workers can't speak English

• He's over 65, so the NMW doesn't apply

• She's on benefits - if you add those to her pay, it totals the NMW

• They can't cope on their own and it's more than they would get in their own country

• He's disabled

• I didn't think it applied to small employers

• I didn't think the workers were worth the NMW

• She only wanted £3 an hour

• He doesn't deserve it - he's a total waste of space

These excuses expose the general level of ignorance - particularly among smaller firms - about the NMW regulations. But ignorance is no excuse - HMRC is now starting a 'naming and shaming' crackdown on firms who don't comply with the NMW rules. This campaign has been welcomed by the Trades Union Congress.

So, with this in mind, here's a quick test to find out how much you know about the NMW - the answers are given at the end of this bulletin.

If you can't answer these questions correctly, you're in danger of breaking the law, if you are not doing so already. To brush up your knowledge, check out our factsheet on how to comply with the NMW rules. You can also go to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) site for comprehensive guidance on the law.

However, despite this very simple piece of red tape, there is one loophole where small business owners do not have to pay the NMW.

Paying yourself.

In fact, many business owners haven't got a choice but to pay themselves less than the NMW, simply in order to survive. But who said that starting up and running a new business was ever going to be easy?

Understanding the law surrounding consumer contracts

The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 were introduced to protect consumers from entering into contracts with businesses that may contain unfair terms. If your business enters into any type of contract with consumers (not with other businesses), you will be affected by the rules.

There are 17 main types of standard terms that may be considered unfair. These include:

• Clauses that restrict your liability for negligence resulting in death or personal injury to a consumer.

• Penalty clauses - for example, requiring customers who don't fulfil their side of the contract to pay a disproportionately high sum in compensation.

• Automatic renewal clauses - for example, where the contract is automatically extended if the customer doesn't cancel within a short period of time.

• Hidden terms - any attempt to bind the consumer to terms with which they had no real opportunity of becoming familiar, for example a contract that refers to terms expressed in another document that they haven't seen.

• Right to increase the price - any term that allows you either to fix the price at a later date, for example on delivery, or to change an agreed price, could be unfair unless it also gives the consumer the right to cancel if they find the new price unsatisfactory.

• Restrictions on legal remedies - where you seek to limit consumers' legal recourse, for example by imposing time limits for complaints to be made, or insisting that they go through complex channels or processes.

The list above is not exhaustive - for a complete description of all 17 types of unfair term, see our factsheet on the legislation.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT), which offers guidance on the law in this area, recommends several key ways for businesses to ensure that their contracts comply with the Regulations:

• Use plain and intelligible language when drawing up contract terms. Try to use short sentences and break up the text under subheadings, and avoid jargon or technical terminology.

• Provide a 'cooling off' period to give consumers the chance to consider the terms in the contract and withdraw from it without incurring penalties.

• Help consumers to understand key points in the contract by emphasising important issues and offering help with explaining certain technicalities. You could also include a summary alongside the contract.

• Seek legal advice when drafting contracts, as it is extremely important to consult a solicitor with relevant experience to understand how the Regulations apply to your particular business sector and circumstances.

The DTI also has guidance on the Regulations on its website.

Avoiding the spam triggers

Spam e-mails are not only irritating and time-consuming for recipients - it's also increasingly difficult for businesses that send out newsletters or communicate with customers via e-mail to get past the spam filters.

Industry experts suggest that if you publish any type of e-mail publication, there's a very good chance that it never reaches at least some of your subscribers, usually because their Internet Service Provider (ISP) or e-mail application uses a spam filter.

These filter programs search for words and phrases that are considered to be "typical" of spam messages. Each word is assigned a point, and each incoming e-mail is rated against this points system. If your message has too high a score, chances are it'll be blocked.

While a lot of the highest-scoring trigger words are fairly predictable, many are surprising, so here are a few examples of some of the ones that you wouldn't expect to be on the list:

• sale

• free

• money/cash

• congratulations

• great offer

• guarantee

• increase

• promise

• risk

• university

• winner

More examples of spam trigger words can be viewed at the Web Marketing Today site.

There are two main ways of getting round this problem:

• Disguise the words by inserting asterisks or other symbols - for example, 'fr*e' instead of 'free'. However, lots of spam filters are getting more savvy to this trick and might penalise you for doing it anyway.

• Test e-mails before you send. Set up a couple of free web mail accounts in Hotmail, Yahoo! and so on, and send a test message to those before attempting to mail your complete list of subscribers. If they don't arrive, or get put into 'junk' repositories, you'll get a chance to rectify the problem.

• Check your potential spam score in tools such as Lyris Content Checker - simply paste the text into the box and wait for the free report to tell you which words are scoring points.

Finally, check out our guide to the Privacy and E-Marketing Regulations for more information about the legislation that applies to spam in the UK.

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

Here is this week's idea:

• Second-Hand Book Website

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.

Many Latin words and phrases have infiltrated 21st-century English, and a lot of them are used in business communication. Do you know what the term 'prima facie' means?

a) optimum or best
b) the main clause or term in a contract
c) a prototype or first version
d) at first glance or on the face of it

Answer at the end of the Bulletin.

Business Eye www.businesseye.org.uk This is the main source of business support and information for Wales, billing itself as a "free, impartial information service". But how user-friendly and accessible is the website?

Navigation and presentation - a well-designed homepage makes good use of space to ensure that the site is eye-catching and easy to navigate. Search facilities are available throughout the site, too - for example, you can filter online guides by issue and the main search engine allows you to search different areas of the site to make your results more relevant.

Accessibility - unsurprisingly, a Welsh language version of the site is available, but other accessibility options are thin on the ground, despite a very well-designed sitemap. The site's many images all have text descriptions, but there is no option to view the site in text-only format, and no guidance for users of other browsers.

Content and usefulness - the site's guides and information sections are very practical and well-written, and it's useful that you get signposted to factsheets, relevant links and research data whenever you click on a particular area. Other highlights include the directory of business support services, and the business discussion forum where users can exchange tips and advice.

Relevance - as well as a news section that is helpfully categorised by topic, users can sign up for a free monthly newsletter and also browse a regularly updated, location-specific directory of events. Key news headlines are featured on the homepage to keep things looking fresh.

A wide range of genuinely useful content, together with a thoughtful and coherent design, make for a high score here.

Our rating - 16/20

UK diners prefer to eat out

Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have revealed that UK households are spending more money on eating out than buying food to eat at home. The figures revealed that spending on eating out rose to £87.5 billion in 2004 - that's a massive increase of 102% since 1992. Cultural trends are cited as the key driver behind the spending pattern, as more UK consumers than ever before regularly enjoy food and drink outside of the home.

Postal changes cause confusion

The changes brought to postal charges earlier this week are expected to cause confusion among both businesses and consumers, according to the postal industry watchdog. Although Royal Mail has claimed the new system will save firms money, the BBC reports that some small businesses fear it could cost them more, depending on how much material they post and the size of envelope used.

Support for your electronic goods

Support Warehouse is a specialist portal featuring directories of various manufacturers' support services. It offers a tool to enable users to quickly and easily locate the appropriate support service for a huge range of IT hardware, and also lists services by product and by category.

Holiday planning tool

Who's Off is a totally free tool to help businesses without a personnel department or manager deal with employee leave quickly and easily. Staff use the system to log a holiday request, and once this is granted it is published on a calendar that selected people can view. Advantages for smaller firms include the ability to monitor sickness and other absence without setting up your own spreadsheets and records, as well as the fact you can add other important engagements and set restrictions on who can be off at the same time.

This book's author claims to be one of the top ten life coaches in the UK, and the practical ideas put forward in this manual reflect his refreshing and enthusiastic style. Packed with easy to achieve ideas for improving your personal efficiency and productivity, including some unusual suggestions, the book claims to provide a complete system that will enable anyone to complete "one day's work in one day". Check out:

Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management, by Mark Forster

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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.