As anticipated, my last blog about a simple web site related topic like the conversion rate between visitors to your web site and the number of potential customers engaging with you (for example by completing a contact form) created quite a bit of correspondence.

The vast majority of comments emphasised complex and (to be fair) quite interesting ideas about how to get the best out of your website. But I felt they missed the point. Most businesses are run by hard working individuals who have not got time to understand and implement subtle marketing ploys.

Which brings me to the question of how you eat an elephant. The answer is, of course, a mouthful at a time. To try and take too big a bite out of a problem leaves you with bad indigestion.

You need a website for two reasons, to increase your brand awareness, and to generate sales, and not necessarily both at the same time. Whatever tactics you use to achieve your goal need to be SMART (Google this if you can’t remember the acronym!).

I believe that life is complicated enough without making it harder than it needs to be.

The next time you want to make your business better, talk to someone who can talk to you about it in simple “plain English”.

Identify the problem, break it into manageable chunks, and deal with it! Life is hard enough, without it being taxing.

The climate is what we expect; weather is what we get.

I can’t remember where I heard this, but as regular readers will know, good phrases tend to stick in my head until they pop out here on my blog.

There are many people who will tell you what is going to happen, some will quite happily charge you for the advice. I have no idea where many get their insight from and, as with all predictions, they are often wrong, or were so woolly in the first instance that they try to argue that black is white.

I forget, are we heading for a new ice age, or global warming?

I am not discounting the value of forecasts, but their usefulness lies in the accuracy of the assumptions they are based on. There is not much difference between an uncertain stream of income, and a high pressure zone wandering aimlessly across the Atlantic Ocean towards Europe.

To you give yourself the best possible chance of coming out ahead of the rest, regularly test the assumptions you base your forecast on.

It’s never the weather that is wrong; it’s what you are wearing.

Twitter is a way of communicating with your audience. It has the same potential as any other medium, including advertising and networking, to reach large numbers of people.

It is free (no cost), but it does require an investment of time. On this basis it might be worth thinking of it as an “instead of”, not an “as well as” means of communication.

It relies on you being informative and interesting. If you fulfil these criteria your audience will find you, like you, and follow you (read what you say). If you are pushy, people won’t follow you.

Twitter communicates to everyone who wants to follow you – so one message reaches a far greater audience than a single telephone call or email can. If someone likes what they read, they can forward the message to everyone that is following them.

What particularly differentiates Twitter as a mean of communication is the way that serendipity plays a part. More so than any other medium, it works through referral, over which you have little or no control.

Twitter is used by everyone, from teenagers, to CEO’s of major blue chip corporations. Your next major client, or customer, may just be looking for you on Twitter…

At a breakfast meeting today, I listened to a presentation about Social Media. Given that I am blogging, and you are reading this, the chances are high that we both ought to know all this stuff, but it made good enough sense to me to want to repeat it on here:

• Your online network is not the same as your personal address book.
• Don’t add technology to the way you do things, change the way you do things when you know what the technology can do.
• Social Media is about sharing; it won’t work if you are selfish.
• Accept the fact that there are those who already know their way around Social Media (Digital Natives), if you are new on the scene you are a Digital Immigrant, and it is incumbent on you to learn the language and customs.
• That said, it is up to you whether you abide by the established language and customs.
• The 5 steps involved: Arrive, Listen, Ask, Provide, Advise. In that order!

Blogging as a way of communicating is being debated. Is it a good thing, is it just plain self-indulgent? Is it right to give the general public the ability to speak, well, so publically? http://journalismleadersforum.blogspot.com/2009/05/12th-forum-itv-news-chief-times-web.html

As with all forms of media, from the first printing press to twitter, there are those who just don’t get it, and those who do. There are those who use it well, and those who don’t.

Blogging is a relatively new medium that might yet have its place in history, but that place has to be fought for and proven. Twas ever thus.

I believe it can be a force for good, and Jo Geary’s eloquent support is key to its survival.
http://www.joannageary.com/2009/05/13/qit8-im-sick-and-tired-of-this-infernal-blog-debate/

I gave a presentation to a business-networking group this week on the subject of Social Media and Business.

Realising the audience was at best sceptical (with a couple of exceptions!), and at worst cynical, I used the following images.

• Plain website = shop window, hopefully directing you to the door in.
• Blogging on your website = shop front glass now removed, allowing you to talk to potential customers, and for them to talk back (for example by leaving comments).
• Social Media (such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn) = you have left your shop and are walking about sharing your ideas, and encouraging others to talk about them as well (not always with you present).

It is a bit blunt, but seemed to get the key messages over:

1. Social Media is not something that only happens online – it’s a mesh of physical meetings and online activities.
2. Ideas that are spread through groups of people are far more powerful than ideas delivered to individuals.
3. Real engagement is when people do things for you that you didn’t ask them to.
4. Learn to lose some control – in return for greater reach.

With thanks to Steve Bridger (http://www.stevebridger.com/) for his insights…

I have been wondering what I could “give away” to give you an idea of the kind of support I give to businesses.

The first thing that occurred to me was a simple excel spreadsheet that shows how the P&L links to the Balance Sheet, which links to the Cashflow, which links to the P&L. You get the idea – its a neat pro-forma.

Then there is my list of the various kinds of accountants that businesses use – there are more than you might immediately think. This is helpful because you need someone to look after all aspects of your business’s accounts and it’s easy to overlook something…

Then I have a list of accounting software packages I know, either through using them, or reviewing them, or simply on recommendation – handy when discussing potential changes.

I have a great contacts database, but that’s worth a little too much to just give away…

I keep wondering about a FAQ page for my website. Is there an accounts question you always wanted to know the answer to?

So at the moment I haven’t got anything to give away. Should I have something? Is what I do too intangible? Does a freebie make a website more attractive? What would you like?

I have been pondering a number of issues over the Christmas period to do with the power of positive thought. As I was starting to compose my own blog, I was pointed towards a great article by Jon Cooper (founder of JupiterDawn.com), published in the Birmingham Post on 1st January 2009. Serendipity strikes again…

Jon writes:
I’ve been isolating myself from pessimists for as long as I can remember. As soon as I feel a negative “vibe” from someone, I always make a mental note to be in a different room next time they’re around.
That particular skill is one I’m calling on more and more these days, as finding people without the doom-bug can be quite tough.
One thing which hasn’t changed with the economic climate is pretty much a fundamental law of the universe. Whether or not you believe some of the more spiritual stuff preached by Dale Carnegie, or in recent publications such as “The Secret”, it will always be an irrefutable fact that you get back what you put out.
If you think negatively, you will get negative results.
Even more obviously, if you say and do negative things at work, those around you will mirror those words and actions, producing a spiral of bad outcomes for your business.
The fact is, thriving in 2009 is far from impossible; here’s my 3-point plan to ensure that you keep your plans on track when others are falling off the rails.
1 – Review which of your goods or services are selling best, and focus on making those even more attractive.
Pricing, features and delivery can usually be tweaked if you look closely enough.
Conversely, consider dropping whatever isn’t selling well or making you a profit.
2 – Use PR to get your message to the market cheaply, and ahead of the competition.
Standing out from the crowd as a fashionable, desirable business can cost less than you imagine.
Newspapers, TV and BBC Radio offer great opportunities for entrepreneurs to broadcast interesting, recession-busting stories.
3 – Banish negativity from your business. If suppliers are talking doom and gloom, agree with them and get better prices and longer payment terms.
If customers are whining, find out what it would take to make them happy again.
If staff or colleagues are getting you down, re-arrange your office so you don’t have to listen!
In summary, identify the key success factors which made your business great in the past, promote them and focus on them, whilst eliminating waste and negativity.
I know 2009 is going to present some brilliant opportunities; make sure you are set up to grab them with both hands!

Talked to a friend this morning about their work, and in particular about how much “Pink Stuff” she had to deal with.

“What is Pink Stuff? I asked. Pink Stuff is all the paperwork, correspondence and other stuff that clogs up your day, preventing you from focussing on whats really matters. Pink Stuff might be administrative or financial tasks, reading general information, or just junk mail, but it demands that you deal with it.

How much time though? Do you ever sit back and wonder where the morning has gone? Maybe you are dealing with more Pink Stuff than you think…

If you are spending too much on the Pink Stuff, maybe you need someone to help look after it, so you can focus on the important stuff.

Two contrasting experiences yesterday.

The first was a conversation with an ex-colleague, who told me with glee how she had just bought a house for £205k that only a few months ago was on the market at over £270k. With a little jiggling of her personal finances and a good mortgage broker she had clinched the deal. Knowing the area I think she has bought something between a bargain and a fair price (the property prices had been unreasonably high).

The second was while watching the news and being “told” how the public is increasingly reluctant to pay for large items, choosing to wait until the price falls further, creating deflation.

Of course, the trick is to spot the bottom of the curve. But how material is the potential saving between now and the bottom of the curve? Is the idea of a bargain always more attractive than the actual saving achieved?

Is there a cost for your time and profit/pleasure foregone you need to factor in while waiting for a deal?