Saturday Strategy

On this episode of Saturday Strategy, host Johnny Themans welcomes George Blakeway, Owner of The Fruitful Toolbox, which helps business owners create real, sustainable, behavioural and cultural change, develop world class leaders and managers, and transform organisational performance using Everything DiSC and The Five Behaviours.

Do you want to learn how to manage your team better and be the best leader you can be? George is here to talk about his strategic framework for team development and team management, as well as the advantages of his recently developed diagnostic team culture tool, Team Performance Scan. George also describes the critical roles of culture, recruitment, and skills-based development in building and retaining a successful team.

“We need to invest a bit more time and thought in: How do I get the most out of encouraging people to collaborate and to actually feel a sense of collectiveness?”  - George Blakeway

If you’re interested in improving the performance of your team and your organisation, tune in to learn the strategic tools and tactics that will help you become a better leader.

Team Performance Scan:

· Team Performance Scan is a tried and tested tool which enables teams to reach their full potential and deliver enhanced results

· TPS measures the 10 key themes of team performance and highlights strengths and areas for development

· TPS then suggests course of action to work on which will improve development areas

· TPS tracks improvement over time to maintain focus and measure your return on your investment

Host Johnny Themans welcomes Sophie Walton, a brand and social media expert, e-commerce and lead generation Facebook Ads marketer, and Founder of 3twleve, a talented, experienced team of marketing professionals on a mission to create impactful brands and marketing campaigns.

Did you know that Facebook is a great source of highly valuable and qualified leads for B2B companies? Sophie is here to talk about why your business could benefit from improving lead generation and marketing on Facebook, along with the four steps you should take to successfully market your business with Facebook Ads. She details how long you should run a Facebook ad campaign for, the importance of paying attention to on-site conversion, and how to offer attractive incentives to customers in your marketing.

“Whether you’re coming from a B2C or a B2B angle, Facebook Ads is a great platform to shout about your business, for sure.”     - Sophie Walton

Ready to showcase your small business in front of a large audience? Tune in to learn how!

About our Guest:

Sophie Walton helps SME businesses refine their brand and social media marketing strategies according to their business objectives and ideal target audience. She also strategizes, sets up and manages lead generation and e-comm Facebook campaigns that generate leads, sales, and drive business growth.

Sophie is passionate about branding, social media and Facebook advertising. She loves seeing the teams that she works with get excited about creative design, compelling social media content and leads and sales being generated through marketing activity to help their business flourish.

On this episode of Saturday Strategy, host Johnny Themans welcomes Josie Hadley, a leading expert in online marketing with over 30 years of experience specialising in social media as an accredited trainer and coach.

Have you ever had difficulty trying to build and launch a website for your business? Josie is here to talk about the best, quickest way to launch a professional website that looks great and showcases your value. She highlights the benefits of Go Paperless, which is an online platform that enables your business to access paper free document management computing solutions in a single point system.

“Go Paperless is an online portal, it’s much more than a digital business card… It is a way of sharing your personal and business credentials in one single place.” - Josie Hadley

Go Paperless is a powerful business tool for small and medium-sized businesses, like you, to increase your productivity and ROI, as well as present a professional profile to your clients and colleagues. This doesn’t replace your social media platforms, in fact, it enhances the effectiveness and the reach of your social media presence! Josie explains the main features of Go Paperless, the impact of going paperless on the environment, and how this savvy software improves your business’s customer relationship management (CRM).

“Websites are crucial, without a shadow of a doubt, for any business.”      - Josie Hadley

Whether you are a hair stylist, a therapist, a realtor, or a retail store… your online presence is an essential part of your success is a business. Josie will help you through the process of building a credible and attractive presence online.

Tune in next week for another episode of Saturday Strategy!

On this episode of Saturday Strategy, host Johnny Themans welcomes Andy Whyle, a Sustainability and Circular Economy Practitioner who’s an expert in advanced manufacturing. We’re all aware of the global environmental sustainability movement, but where should we start when incorporating sustainability into our business practices?

Andy is here to talk about how to run a greener business and why it’s a smart business decision that aligns with the goals of increasing sales and improving long-term efficiency and sustainability.

“Sustainability is a journey that you shouldn’t take on your own… it’s about understanding that your small part can contribute to a greater sum.”  - Andy Whyle

Andy highlights how three local businesses are putting sustainability standards into practice by addressing pollution and improving water quality. He then explains how people, planet, and profit are the 3 P’s of sustainability and gives insight into the incentives for business owners who are actively working to become more environmentally friendly.

“The customer is only going to buy from you if you give them what they want in a responsible manner.”    - Andy Whyle

He speaks on sustainability in the supply chain, specifically for SME’s, and the simple, yet powerful steps you can take to become a more sustainable business. Wondering how you and your business can become more eco-friendly? Tune in to learn how from an expert!

Tune in next week for another episode of Saturday Strategy!

About our Guest:

Andy Whyle is a Sustainability Specialist who has over thirty years’ experience of sustainable manufacturing. His specialisms cover sustainability leadership, circular economy, natural capital development, networking and collaboration.

As an IEMA Fellow, he Chairs the Circular Economy Network Steering and Corporate Sustainability Fellows Working Groups. Recognised as a Sustainability West Midlands Green Leader, he is a proven leading practitioner on a local, national and international basis. As a subject matter expert on the circular economy, he co-authored the Business Lens evidence chapter of the Government Office of Science - From Waste to Resource Productivity report, which was utilised to create the Resources and Waste Strategy. Andy has also utilised his experience for DEFRA advisory groups and the UK Resources Council, representing the manufacturing sectors’ material users and producers to increase circularity in the UK.

Connect with Andy on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/andywhyle

Contact Johnny through WhatsApp: 0 797-743-7360

On this episode of Saturday Strategy, host Johnny Themans welcomes guest David George, Founder and CEO of choiceMaster Limited. Technology advances at such a fast pace, that it’s important for us, as business owners, to try and keep up with it. With all the movements in artificial intelligence (AI), there are challenges that small businesses face when trying to integrate AI and automation into their systems.

David is here to address the misconceptions and controversies around AI and to speak on what small business owners can do to control and develop their business processes and IT systems, enabling sustainable growth and the ability to remain competitive.

“AI, artificial intelligence, deals with the creation of systems that can learn to emulate human tasks using acquired knowledge and prior experience without any manual intervention.”  - David George

David gives us insight into the differences between machine learning and artificial intelligence, along with how large organizations, like Netflix and Google, are implementing these concepts into their business operations. Then, he scales it down to speak on how small businesses can learn from these implementations of AI to achieve greater outcomes, such as saving time in better understanding their target audiences and finding qualified leads.

The good news is you can find free resources for learning about AI from open source platforms created by larger companies, which David touches on. There are also SaaS (Software as a Service) companies that can help you so that you can focus on more important tasks, allowing you to scale your business. Are you interested in implementing AI in your company? Listen in to learn how from an expert!

Tune in next week for another episode of Saturday Strategy!

About our Guest:

David George has founded/co-founded two specialist software companies and subsequently made his exit, semi-retiring in order to sail and travel globally. Having achieved many personal goals, he decided to re-engage professionally and thus founded choiceMaster, a company that applies an ensemble of intelligent methods and algorithms which collectively implement a Choice Decision Engine, facilitating decision simplicity — the ease with which customers can gather trustworthy information about a product and confidently and efficiently assess their purchase options.

David’s experience encompasses research (PhD), software engineering, specialist software technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Database Management Systems (relational, post-relational, multivalued, columnar) and large-scale project management.

On this episode of Saturday Strategy, host Johnny Themans welcomes guest Emma Alston, a Voice Coach who helps business owners find confidence in their voice. Many business owners are challenged in communicating with their customers, their suppliers, and their teams.

“A speech impediment is the reason, believe it or not, of why I do what I do because I had an incredibly pronounced stutter as a child.”         - Emma Alston

Do you find it anxiety-provoking or downright terrifying to speak in front of a group or present a pitch? Many people do! Communicating through spoken word isn’t always about what is said, it’s often about how it’s said and how we’re heard… and it comes down to the skill of how your message is delivered. Emma emphasizes the connection between the body, the voice, and the breath, detailing how that relationship impacts the way we project our voice and the way we’re perceived. She demonstrates with Johnny a useful, interactive exercise to strengthen this connection and release tension, noting the harmful effects of sitting and working at home all day.

“Our voices are like musical instruments, they need to be practiced.”  – Emma Alston

Do you feel uncomfortable participating in digital meetings or Zoom calls? That’s okay, it takes a bit of adapting and adjusting to feel confident in online video calls. Emma offers advice on how to appropriately and effectively present yourself and communicate through digital meetings. She also shares a powerful technique that will help you reduce the amount of filler words and sounds you add in while speaking (such as like or uh).

Tune in next time for another episode of Saturday Strategy!

About our Guest:

Emma Alston is a Voice Coach whose practice is tailored to the needs of individuals, regardless of age or ability. Working with Emma will help you overcome any self-consciousness or apprehension you may feel regarding communication.

Our voices carry an immeasurable potential of our own creativity and therefore should never be diminished by sociological expectations.

For a FREE 15-minute consultation, contact Emma on mobile: 07538903616

www.emmaalstonvoice.com

On this episode of Saturday Strategy, host Johnny Themans welcomes guest Anthony Tattum of Big Cat Agency. Anthony is here to discuss the importance of aligning your marketing efforts with your operational efforts, as well as his approach to helping hospitality companies through the challenges of the 2020 pandemic.

“Now is the time to think about all of that unused space that you haven’t made the most of.”     - Anthony Tattum

Anthony speaks on the power of focusing on the effectiveness of your marketing tactics and making sure it aligns with your marketing expenses. He details the challenges his clients are facing regarding reengaging their customers post-lockdown and how they’re pivoting their innovative efforts to serve their customers in different ways.

What would you want your best customer to say to their friend about your establishment? Anthony offers insight into the value of storytelling, word of mouth, and building a brand by creating myths based on history or passion. He also shares his positive outlook on the future and how he’s encouraging people to use behavioural science in their business practices.

Tune in next week for another episode of Saturday Strategy!

About our Guest:

For over 20 years, Anthony Tattum has helped grow global and independent brands, which has equipped him with insight, experience and the desire to make a difference no matter the brief or size of project. He’s now building Big Cat Agency to be a top 5 UK Independent Marketing Communications Agency. Our clients include Capital & Regional, Mitchels & Butler, Absolutely Leisure, Hammerson, Minor Weir & Willis, WMCA, BHSF and Colliers International.

Big Cat Agency works with clients who strive for best in class solutions and growth and across many industries, including Retail, Tourism, Hospitality, Health and Wellbeing, and Charity. Big Cat excels at building brands and maximising profit.

On this episode of Saturday Strategy, host Johnny Themans welcomes guest Graydon Radford, an enigma who is a former NHS nurse and is now a part of the Shrewsbury Morris Dancing group. Graydon is here to detail his journey into social media and how he grew their Twitter account to over 100k followers.

“I concentrated on Twitter because I preferred the brevity of it at the time.”       - Graydon Radford

How do you build such a following? Graydon talks about the value of strategically following others and in mutually promoting other businesses and Twitter accounts to help grow your following. He shares the three principal values he runs the Twitter account on and breaks down how each one has helped him build a tribe on the popular social media platform. Graydon also divulges what his interactions with businesses on Twitter look like, noting the significance of sponsorships and general discussion.

How do you manage your time when trying to grow your social media presence? Graydon offers insight into efficient time management with social media and the surprising method he uses to stay organized and systematized in his Twitter engagements. He then shares how Twitter has helped his group remain lucrative and for what purpose Twitter holds in growing their presence in the world.

Tune in next week for another episode of Saturday Strategy!

About our Guest:

Graydon Radford (the person behind Shrewsbury Morris), is a former NHS nurse who lives in Shrewsbury and is part of the Shrewsbury Morris Dancing group. He set up the twitter page and now has over 100,000 followers on the page.

On this episode of Saturday Strategy, host Johnny Themans welcomes guest Niamh Kelly, a Human Resources executive with 25 years of experience in employment relations at the highest level in the corporate, public, and voluntary sectors. Many businesses have either changed the way they’re operating or have decided to open up into new markets, including hers, and she’s here to talk about it. Niamh also details why two specific HR issues, redundancy and recruitment, are keeping her busy.

Niamh explains how The Taylor Review led to the Good Work plan that led to changes in employment law, which means we’re looking at different processes and procedures for working. She also explains how people are now more than ever engaged in a conversation around doing work differently and how productivity has shot up since employers have begun heavily supporting working from home.

How do we figure out the best model for the future? Niamh touches on the concepts of checking the right of people to work and immigration points-based system, then notes the trend of people acting on entrepreneurial opportunities and taking risks during this pandemic. She shares her thoughts on side hustles and challenges that come along with them, as well as employees’ social media impacting employer reputation.

“A recession is ironically a great time to think about starting a business or going in a different way.”     - Niamh Kelly

Tune in next week for another episode of Saturday Strategy!

About our Guest:

Niamh Kelly FCIPD is the Director at The HR Dept Shropshire and The HR Dept Wrexham and Chester. She’s a Human Resources executive with 25 years of experience in employment relations at the highest level in the corporate, public, and voluntary sectors.

Welcome to the 30th episode of Saturday Strategy! On today’s episode, host Johnny Themans welcomes guest Scott Brown, CEO of EiB Group Ltd., to discuss bidding for large contracts and the main opportunities they provide for SME’s. He explains that SME’s don’t exploit these opportunities as they could because they usually don’t understand this process or how to find those opportunities and they’re not prepared in advance.

For business owners who are focused on growth, you’ll want to give this episode a listen to learn important information on the range of size of contracts, examples of types of contracts that are available to you, and the risks to be aware of. He also divulges helpful tips to help you along the way in the bidding process.

“The worst position to be in is finding a procurement opportunity at the point that it’s published... The best thing is to be looking at procurement portals and understanding that something’s going to come to market in a month’s time, two months’ time, three months’ time...”

-  Scott Brown

Recognize the opportunities that are out there and reach out to EiB for support in growing your business! Tune in next week for another episode of Saturday Strategy.

“Answer the question that you’re asked, not the question that you wanted to be asked.”

-  Scott Brown

About our Guest:

Scott Brown is the CEO of EiB (Excellence in Business) Group Ltd., which is a group of companies that includes EiB Professional Services Ltd; Preferred Bid Writers Ltd; and Excellence in Business Ltd. The group specialises in supporting clients with strategic work winning and implementing new collaborative delivery models.

Scott is a visible, highly energetic leader who is passionate about building high performing teams. He enjoys growing profitable businesses through employing and working with exceptionally talented people. Success for him is a motivated and inspired team with happy customers built on long-term relationships, innovative solutions and excellent service delivery.

On this episode of Saturday Strategy, host Johnny Themans welcomes guest Jason Batty, founder of HJR Tax, to discuss a special tax savings opportunity valued at an average of £25,000 for people who have commercial property. He explains (in a way that’s easy for folks like us to understand) the process of making claims for embedded fixtures in commercial buildings and how it leads to this huge tax relief.

For anyone wondering whether one of these claims has already been made before, it’s not likely, and Jason explains why this is. He also details the relevant rules regarding what criteria is required to qualify for this savings opportunity and it’s so simple that he could even let you know in five minutes whether you qualify or not. Then, Jason shares the story of his company’s growth along with some of his noteworthy achievements.

“We’re in a recession, there’s no better time to make a claim than now. And ultimately, this is money that you’re entitled to, you just probably don’t even know it.”  - Jason Batty

Reach out to Jason to see if you qualify for this fantastic tax relief opportunity! It won’t cost you a penny and there’s no upfront cost for their service. Tune in next week for another episode of Saturday Strategy!

“You’ve got nothing to lose and all to gain.”   - Jason Batty

About our Guest:

Jason Batty is the Founder of HJR Tax, an independent property tax consultancy specialising in capital allowances claims for commercial property acquisitions. HJR Tax is a fast growing, award-winning company based in South Wales.

On this episode of Saturday Strategy, host Johnny Themans welcomes guest Geordie Wardman, serial entrepreneur and founder of Onestop Devshop, a software development company. Geordie is here to offer insight on scaling any business, while focusing on software companies. A problem that many people in business face when they start out is the challenge of transitioning from a solopreneur to the business owner they want to be. Identifying and taking action on the steps in between your start point and end point is often the hardest part.

Geordie describes what life as a freelancer is like, what the ambitions and goals could be at the end, and which steps to take during the transition from freelancer to agency to product owner.

How do you know your skills are valuable? Geordie details the answer to this and it’s simpler than you may think. He then offers insight on looking for a problem to solve, generating leads, and augmenting agency income with products to diversify cash flow. He talks about what you can do to start planning your journey towards owning a lucrative business and shares his views on virtual agencies, divulging a few that he utilizes himself.

Software as a Service (SaaS) is an easy way to take part in this booming remote work trend and it’s definitely not going to end. If you would like help with your software idea or would like to start down that path, Geordie would like to offer you a FREE 15-20 minute consultation to brainstorm and answer any questions you may have. You can find his contact information below.

About our Guest:

Geordie Wardman is a serial entrepreneur who is currently working on developing online software products. He is the founder of Onestop Devshop, an online software development agency that he started last year which is on track to hit $1 million in revenues this year. He has one start up SaaS for lead generation where he is in the process of finalising raising funds for it and another distressed SaaS that he purchased recently which helps people get online reviews.

Geordie has a team of 45 and the business is growing steadily each month. He lives in Switzerland with his family, skiing 100 days a year while running all of his businesses from home. He’s especially passionate about Software as a Service (SaaS), software start-ups, marketing, entrepreneurship, bootstrapping, and lifestyle businesses.

Contact Geordie via e-mail: geordie@1stop.io

Connect with him on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/geordiewardman

Visit his business’s website: www.gemm.tv

Follow his business on Twitter: www.twitter.com/gemmsupport

Listen to his podcast: www.bigbreaksoftware.libsyn.com

Contact Johnny through WhatsApp: 0 797-743-7360

On this episode of Saturday Strategy, host Johnny Themans welcomes guest Lucy Key, Owner and Performance Director at Performing Perfectly, to speak about communication and how performance and business are connected. To clearly articulate our message to who we’re working with, we need to be able to use our voice and body language to communicate better and improve our chances of success in business. The two discuss the parallels of the world of performance and the world of business. Effective communication is essential for any business to succeed and when you communicate in an engaging way, you get the best results.

Lucy explains how much of stage performance comes from being a natural and how much comes from learned skills. She details why knowing your audience and environment is so important and how to actively develop your skills in this area, including techniques such as breath work and filming yourself. Then, Lucy shares how remaining authentic and confident, especially when making mistakes, and not being too polished makes a huge difference when presenting to a group.

Johnny and Lucy then discuss cultural stereotypes and prejudices toward voices, while exploring the importance of personal ‘blind spots’, constructive feedback, and pushing people outside of their comfort zones.

About our Guest:

Lucy is a professional actress who has worked in theatre, opera, television, concert and cabaret. After training at Guildford School of Acting, Lucy’s performance credits include: Maria in West Side Story, The Prince of Wales Theatre, London and UK No. 1 tour, Grace Farrel in Annie, Perth Repertory Theatre, Of Thee I Sing, The Bridewell Theatre, London, Midsummer Nights Dream and Two Gentlemen of Verona, Regents Park Open Air Theatre, London, The Marriage of Figaro, New Vic Theatre, The Birthday Party, Chichester Festival Theatre.

Television credits include the role of Manda in Being April for BBC One. Lucy has also worked extensively as a performing arts tutor, choreographer, director and workshop practitioner. Along with her husband, Chris, she directs Key Theatre Academy and Performing Perfectly.

Directing and choreography credits include numerous projects with Leaps and Bounds, including The Young Roots Presentation at The Birmingham Hippodrome, choreographer for The Olympic Handover celebrations in Shropshire and Assistant Director on the world premiere of the musical Chasing Fate at The Birmingham Hippodrome. Lucy is Performance Director at Key Theatre Academy and Performing Perfectly.

Performing Perfectly teams up with psychologists, fellow West End theatre and TV actors, executive coaches and business leaders to nurture performance in the broadest sense. They provide unique opportunities to learn and develop essential skills for successful communication, presentation and peak performance.

Our guest today, Jemma Redden, is one of the key founders of Access Generation, a social enterprise that encourages businesses to employ young people by empowering employers to attract the next generation. In this show- she shares her expertise on how we can make our businesses more attractive to young people and offers straightforward guidance on how we can actively adapt our businesses to meet the needs and desires of the next generation.

Her key points address: 

• Challenging how employers go about reaching out and engaging with young people.
• What options there are to bring young people into the workplace.
• What questions young people are looking for the company to answer.
• Employability process and steps that employers can take to make their candidate journey better.
• Creating and developing entry level roles and offering progression so young people can continue to learn as they work. 

Links mentioned in the interview: 

In our 20th Saturday Strategy episode - Sarah Bishop - long serving recruitment specialist and sales guru - provides her expertise on how we can best communicate with our customers throughout the Lockdown period and how to sell sympathetically, considering their needs.

It seems that many businesses are finding it difficult to sell during the lockdown and this advice helps us all to continue to build relationships and continue the development of our businesses.

Contact details for Sarah: 

Lisa Richards is a trained Grief Recovery Specialist & Mental Health First Aider based in Shrewsbury Shropshire. She is part of a growing network of specialists managed & licensed by Grief Recovery UK set up over 10 years ago to teach recovery from grief and loss. Having suffered from a series of traumatic events in her life, Lisa uses & draws on those experiences to empathise, educate & empower others struggling to enjoy life after any loss.

In this show- Lisa shares her expertise on grief recovery and shares some of her top tips on how to approach grief recovery and guide those around us who are dealing with loss during this difficult time.

Links mentioned in the interview:

Denise is an award-winning HR professional who provides local, pragmatic and affordable HR advice, support and services to SMEs.

In this show- she shares her ideas on how we can adapt to life after lockdown. She talks about the effect that the UK lockdown may have on our businesses and offers us practical advice on what to expect when we eventually return to a new found version of 'normality'.

Links mentioned in the interview:

Sophie Thomas is an experienced marketer with a history of working in technology and SaaS industry sectors. She is motivated by creating marketing campaigns that deliver tangible results and aims to make a difference by highlighting the importance of company culture and values for business growth.

In this show, Sophie shares her thoughts on the importance of building trust and honest, open relationships with customers.

Sophie summarises her tips for business networking into 5 key points. They are:

1. Creating engagement isn’t as difficult as people are led to believe.
   
2. Anyone can do it.
   
3. It is important to acknowledge and understanding ourselves and our strengths (as a business and an individual)
   
4. Understand who exactly our audience is.
   
5. Figure out how to reach them.
   

Contact details for Sophie:

Alex Lowe is an automated marketing expert. Following 10 years experience in the digital marketing industry, Alex has become a specialist in creating traffic funnels and generating leads online. Prior to marketing, Alex started his career as a hypnotherapist - his knowledge on psychology is immeasurably interesting and useful.

In this show- he shares his 6 ‘T’ Step System for effective online marketing. The 6 T’s he mentions are; transformation, temptation, transition, traffic, truth-dive and testing.

Links mentioned in the interview:

Carl Jones is an award-winning journalist who now divides his time between PR, media consultancy, magazine editing, hosting radio and TV shows and performing master of ceremonies duties at awards events, conferences etc. He is now the editor of B2B glossy Shropshire Business, which was named Midlands Magazine of the Year for 2018.

In this show - he shares his expertise in the world of PR and gives us invaluable tips on how to use journalism and media to best advertise our businesses.

He covers:

• How to be more ‘streetwise’ in the modern age of media.
  
• What components make a striking and interesting news story.
  
• The importance of taking a step back from our businesses to recognise what we look like to an outside perspective and how we want to be recognised by potential customers.
  

Links mentioned in the interview:

Teresa is an international Keynote speaker who works with Directors/Senior Managers of small to medium size businesses to ensure their Marketing budget is being used to full effect through a range of Marketing tools. She specialises in Social Media Marketing and works with businesses to understand the benefits of Social Media, integrating it into their current Marketing strategy.

In this show, she shares her 5 step model on how to update our marketing strategy during the lockdown to present our customers with solutions to their ‘pain points’.

Her 5 step plan guides us through:

1. Identifying who our perfect/ target customers are.
   
2. Recognising their ‘pain points’ and sourcing a solution- a ‘lead magnet’.
   
3. Reviewing how to use technology to support our marketing plan.
   
4. Pushing the lead magnets on social media.
   
5. Reaching out to our customers and offering solutions to the problems we’ve identified.
   

Links mentioned in the interview:

Ian Preston is a LinkedIn expert who helps businesses increase their bottom line by using LinkedIn effectively to generate more opportunities. In this show, he shares his expertise on how LinkedIn can be used effectively to benefit businesses and the importance of having an active LinkedIn presence.

He covers:

• How to get your profile in order so that your first impression exemplifies the quality of your business.
  
• How LinkedIn can help to get you found, give value and improve your credibility.
  
• The importance of balancing personal profiles and corporate pages.
  
• How to build valuable business connections through the LinkedIn platform by interacting most effectively.
  

Links mentioned in the interview:

Scott’s business, DCS Digital, is a design company specialising in design, software development, systems integration and automation. Having run a successful business from home for a number of years, Scott shares his tips for running a business remotely to help those of us navigating the adjustment during the lockdown period.

Read Scott’s blog to review his invaluable advice here:

As a former actor and LinkedIn evangelist, Jill really understands people and the importance of establishing meaningful online connections during the COVID-19 isolation period.

In this show, she shares her expertise on how to adapt our businesses to this changing context by re-evaluating our marketing strategies and taking our clients from fear to hope. She emphasises the importance of empathy and emotional understanding/ support throughout this time and navigates us on how to ‘be the life raft’ for our customers.

Links mentioned in the interview:

Lloyd is our accountant here at Good2Great, has three offices in the West Midlands who support 450 small businesses locally. He is part of the TaxAssist Network who work with over 60,000 small businesses nationwide.

In this show, he uses his expertise to break down what the COVID 19 pandemic could mean for us and what measures the government are putting in place to support us and our businesses.

He also provides solid and real advice to help us all understand what we should do right now and what we can expect to happen automatically…

He covers:

1. VAT & Income Tax Payments Deferral
2. Sick Pay for Employees
3. Business Rates Support
4. Loan Scheme
5. HMRC’s Time to Pay Approach
   

Links mentioned in the interview:

If you have any internet marketing presence, then there are gems in this episode to help you get more from your efforts. Helen Culshaw, owner of Ascendancy Internet Marketing, is a Google expert and she shares insights into how her company helps business owners improve the returns from their marketing spend.

Paradoxically, we discuss almost nothing relating to using Google ads. Instead, Helen gives us an ‘under the bonnet’ insight into what to do with traffic once is arrives at your site… In other words, it isn’t about how you get people to your website… The biggest gains for most of us exist in what we do with people once they get there. Helen tells us about having focussed calls to action (CTA’s) and telling people about these on targeted landing pages…

An introduction to content marketing:

What it is, how to do it and why it matters...

Everyone needs quality content – for your web pages, your social media posts, your newsletters, articles and blogs. Good content is so important – it’s why marketers still say Content is King.

Kim tells us why, it’s quality over quantity, make your content interesting, helpful, entertaining or educational. Hook the readers in and give them some top tips, tell a story, get that emotional connection, help solve a problem or give then a real insight with relevant information.

Your content can, of course, be written or an inspirational image, Instagram is currently the fastest growing social media platform. YouTube is a great platform and podcasts are very popular for busy people who like to listen on the go.

Six reasons why you need killer content

1. Improve your SEO and website rankings
2. To showcase your business
3. To establish your credibility and reinforce your brand
4. To target different channels and audiences
5. To create a library of material
6. To generate leads and sales

Sam Shaw from SBC Training helps us to understand the ups and downs of employing apprentices and what benefits there are for small companies.

Seasoned broadcast professional, Nick Margerrison, shares his insights into how to create great marketing content using the spoken word.

Right from the basic concept of what a Podcast actually is, through to how and why you can exploit this media in your business. Nick understands the trends and explains how 'narrowcasting' is challenging general interest broadcast radio. Is shows us how this media can reach highly targeted audiences and how it can be highly engaging by being valuable and relevant to the audience.

He gives presentation tips and helps us to "Get out of our own way" so we can focus on the 'audience of one' to earn their trust and to keep their attention.