This is a plug for a forthcoming event on 17th March taking place at the club.

Laurence Cottle Band

with Claire Martin 

 Swansea Jazzland -- Live Jazz Club, Swansea, Wales, UK

Superlative Jaco-influenced electric bass virtuoso – possibly the best the UK has ever produced – leads his barnstorming big band. The 17 piece band is made up of the cream of London’s brass section talent. Nigel Hitchcock and Simon Allen will be in the saxophone section and Mark Nightingale and Martin Shaw are part of the brass team, plus Claire Martin on vocals. The band will be playing powerful funk classics and sumptuous jazz ballads and standards all arranged by Laurence.

Below Laurence Cottle at The Institute ‘Masterclass -- Master of the Bass’.

Laurence Cottle is one of the world’s greatest bassists and the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance was delighted to recently host a masterclass with this ‘Master of the Bass’.

Directions below on Google Map:

View Larger Map

St James Social Club (SA1 6DR) is situated two doors down from Ffynone House School. 

Tungle is a calendar accelerator that gets you connected, productive and in control of your calendar. Say no to closed off, inflexible calendaring. Tungle your calendar at http://www.tungle.com.  

Here’s a short video explaining the concept:

If you would like to arrange a meeting with me, or a slot for Skype,  you can view my calendar at http://www.tungle.me/LadyBizBizzy.    This invite is extended to people within my social networks and those already in my contact lists.

At this point in time I only welcome contact from my LinkedIn people and my Twitter followers.

My LinkedIn profile can be found here   and my Twitter ID here.

Remember you don’t have to be registered with Tungle to view someone’s calendar, but you do have to be a real person with a verified email address.

Please only use this online calendar if you are a serious enquirer.  All spammers will be reported to the relevant authority.

5 Critical Elements to an Effective Collaboration

Successful businesses are built on collaborations; functional collaborations. No business can survive without establishing and developing powerful relationships with like-minded business owners. Even the most marketable products and services need outside forces and influences to reach their target market and achieve optimum sales results.

Social Media interaction brings opportunity for successful collaboration

However, there is a method to developing effective collaborations. You simply cannot connect, partner and venture into business with any business. Whether you are a solopreneur or have a small staff, your ability to effectively create collaborations is crucial to your business success. You need to know who to connect with, what value you each bring to the table, what are the terms and how will you keep the communication lines open.

Here are 5 ways to ensure your collaborations are effective and meaningful:

1.     Power partner: Select business owners who have products or services that compliment yours and have the client base you are looking for. Their mindset, motivations, visions and business practices should also be compatible with yours. Don’t be afraid to approach someone who is already at your next level. If your product or service is strong enough, it could be an opportunity for you to expand.

2.     Determine the value and incentives: Know what you can and can’t bring to the table. Know what is expected of you and what you expect of your partner(s). Determine the benefits of the collaboration and are they aligned with your values. Never sacrifice the integrity of your business for a sale.

3.     Spell it out in black and white: Collaborations really should be in writing. Having your terms and agreement in writing will help eliminate any misunderstandings or miscommunications. Knowing who is responsible for what will set the boundaries of your relationship.

4.     Client sharing and management (follow-up): You want to expand your client base while maintaining your identity. Remain separate, but equal. How are referrals handled? What is the process for contacting referrals? Is there a referral fee involved? It’s okay to share client databases; but be sure you have an established follow-up system for handling each other’s clients. Your clients should receive and expect the same quality and level of service from your partner.

5.     Communication: Be sure to schedule regular meetings to review your collaborative relationships, make necessary adjustments and outline growth strategies.

It’s important to remember that in collaborations, your partner’s success depends on your success and vice versa. Having a formal collaborative partnership could make all the difference for your business. No business owner is an island. Savvy business owners and entrepreneurs know when to ask for help and know how to leverage their product or services.

A.Michelle Blakeley is the Founder and CEO of Simplicity, Inc.; a progressive small business development firm. She manages her clients’ business expectations and prevents information overload via Micro Business Therapy™ and Micro Business Action Plans. She is featured in Forbes.com and the Financial Post as one of 30 Women Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter and the host of Simple Truths for Women Entrepreneurs on BlogTalkRadio.com.

The tone of this article is not meant to be heavy-handed: it hopes to provide a pragmatic view of what steps can be taken to keep your business from becoming a statistic in the insolvency tables. 

If we all stopped spending on little pleasures like dining at restaurants and visiting sports events etc. the economy would feel the effects and this wouldn’t do much for recovery.  The same is true in our business lives, we still need to spend money on networking, travel and office sundries.  The crux of the matter is the amount we are spending: have we made proper adjustments in order to give our business the best chance of survival in these tough times. 

‘Get ahead of the game’ …… 

This check list might be of use to you in reviewing your action plan: 

Focus on cashflow

Make sure you invoice promptly and chase up outstanding debtors. Strengthen credit control, reduce stock levels, sell surplus assets, negotiate extended credit terms, including so called “time to pay agreements” with HMRC. Obtain up to date credit reports on major customers. 

Cut your costs

Look for savings in all areas of your business – are you still getting the best deals from your suppliers – if you don’t have the time to ring round why not use the price comparison sites to check?  Could you get better credit terms? Renegotiate your ‘terms of business’ for slow paying clients: you might make your formal credit terms shorter where possible and perhaps in staged payments?  Could a meeting be held over the phone – it would save you money (and time) if you held a video-call – Skype B2B.  Keep an eye on the simple things: check your equipment is turned off at night.  Make certain you are using the correct postage on mail to avoid penalties. 

Add more value – don’t cut prices

Improve what you are offering – look at possible customer care initiatives that add value as opposed to slashing prices that will impact your bottom line and won’t be easily recovered when the crisis has passed. 

Increase your marketing

It’s more important than ever that you market your company.  There is as much competition in the market place as always however you are fighting for a smaller pot. Don’t neglect to engage in attraction marketing using social media websites such as Twitter and one that I rate very highly for professional contacts, LinkedIn. (I call LinkedIn ‘the serious professional’s Facebook). 

Analyse staffing costs

Could you function with a reduced number of staff?  Could you make more of their existing skills.  Staff is a valuable resource, they may provide you with ideas to help you survive the crunch, and involving them will also be good for team building and morale. 

Could staff become home-workers for your business in order that you lose the overhead costs involved in employing them?  You might also consider working with a VA, a virtual assistant who has their own business. They provide expertise on an ‘as-and-when-needed basis’, from their own office-space, at an hourly rate between £20-£40 depending on the nature of the work involved, (This is a very cost effective option if you consider the hourly rate of employing full-time staff can be twice as much cost again).  As a last resort, if absolutely necessary, take advantage of the redundancy payment loan scheme operated by the government.

Communication is essential

Keep in touch with your bank and your professional advisors. The warning signs are more obvious to an observer than they will be to you.  If you think there is trouble ahead, face problems head on and don’t adopt a head in the sand approach.  The earlier you deal with it the more options there are open to you.  Recent case law has clarified that as long as directors act in accordance with professional advice they should avoid personal liability.  Do keep detailed records of all decisions made by minute at board meetings. 

Take your chances – when you get them. For every business that fails there will be customers, key personnel and other assets available to those that survive.  

Register on IP-Bid.com, the UK’s online insolvency market place, to receive email updates and opportunities. 

Sources:    AIMS Accountants for Business  and  McTear, Williams & Wood

Children Learn What They Live

If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.

If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.

If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.

If children live with pity, they learn fear.

If children live with jealousy, they learn what envy is.

If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.

If children live with tolerance, they learn to be patient.

If children live with encouragement, they learn to be confident.

If children live with praise, they learn to appreciate.

If children live with acceptance, they learn to find love in the world.

If children live with recognition, they learn to have a goal.

If children live with sharing, they learn to be generous.

If children live with honesty and fairness, they learn what truth and justice are.

If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and those around them.

If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.

If children live with serenity, they learn to have peace of mind.

I cut this out of a newspaper 24 years ago when my daughter was born.  It has been stuck on my fridge for all those years, reminding me of the joy I have experienced in being a parent. It doesn’t give the name of the author unfortunately, but if you know it’s origins I would love to be told.

Time’s Paces

When as a child I laughed and wept,

Time crept.

When as a youth I waxed more bold,

Time strolled.

When I became a full-grown woman,

Time ran.

When older still I daily grew,

Time flew.

Soon I shall find, in passing on,

Time gone!

(These lines appear on an old clock in Chester Cathedral.)

I think all of us can relate to these words.  I’m advocating that immediate action should be taken by all those sole proprietors and business individuals who would like to make a difference to the success of their business enterprises in 2010.

There is no time like the present to become involved in the world of social media in order to promote yourself and your business.  I am going to cogitate here on the one social media platform that seems to be taking the whole world by the scruff of the neck:  Twitter!

I have to admit I lagged behind for months while the activity of others in my circle of friends and business colleagues, soared.   All the while they kept regaling me with tales of tweets made by tweeps.  What on earth were they talking about?  They appeared to possessed a new language that meant absolutely nothing to me. There were times when I’m not ashamed to say ‘they drove me crazy’ as they really did appear to be ‘on another planet’ when engaged in tweeting.

It took place anywhere and everywhere: from PC’s, laptops and iphones, morning, noon and night.  I even heard of one of my friends who would take the iphone to bed and fall asleep with it held firmly in his hand.  He also had tweeted several broadcasts before leaving the warm cosiness of his bed the next morning.  However I just had to draw the line at their tweeting habits around my dinner table: it was bad enough that when we were at a restaurant for an evening’s social engagement, one or another of them would whisk their iphone out from the depths of handbag or jacket breast pocket and stoke it tenderly – like it was a cherished pet! Bestowing total awareness on it’s tweets, links and tweeple, they were oblivous to our charming topic of conversation.

You get the picture!   I told myself there was absolutely no way I was going to sink to those depths.  How would I ever get any work done if I ended up like them?

Well I have bitten the bullet as it were, I am now tweeting too.  Some of you already know me as LadyBizBiz and we are getting to know each other slowly and surely. Why did I do it?  This is why, I read a short paragraph written by Holly G. Green, CEO of The Human Factor, and highly sought after and acclaimed speaker, business consultant and author.   It had the effect of switching something on in my grey matter:  a  thing which my partner and circle of friends had failed to do over a very long period of time.  Here it is:

Embracing social media can be a real competitive advantage.  In addition to instantly connecting you with customers, social media enables you to “mindshare” with industry peers, demonstrate thought leadership, recruit talent and more.  Study the social media habits of your customers, and use the appropriate tools to make them part of your community.

I saw the point of it all. It was the phrase ‘mindshare with industry peers’ that thumped me in the head like a Neolithic club.  Of course, ….. it all made sense, build up a network of connections, share thoughts and ideas, select only quality contacts, and the results will speak for themselves.  It has placed me amidst some of the most stimulating and interesting individuals I have encountered in quite some time.  

Goodwill abounds between connections, and there lays the essence of engaging in social media: I would advocate any number of those individuals, if their services were sought by my peers and business colleagues.*  Incidentally I have also benefitted from the short time I have spent in engaging in social media networking by gaining two new streams of business revenue in less than 4 months.

If you are a greenhorn rookie don’t learn the hard way, try to take some common sense advice, treat social media as a tool; a device; a strategy to control and implement progress in your business.  It can save you bundles of time if you quickly become selective about the people you choose to follow on Twitter. 

It really is an interesting exercise to engage in, and the success in terms of referred traffic to your business website, can be measured by keeping a regular eye on the statistics.

Finally, listen to the no-nonsense words of Sharon Hayes-Tucci, internet entrepreneur when she explains what not to do on Twitter.

Footnote:

* LinkedIn.com for professional business connections is used in conjunction with Twitter, here an indepth personal profile can be viewed and recommendations or testimonials can be recorded.

Compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998

Data controllers must comply with the provisions of the 1998 Act even if they are exempt from notification.

Ask yourself this question:  what might be the consequence if you or your employee lost personal data that you were holding in a client or customer database? It might be on a disk, in a folder, on a flash stick or on your phone.

It would largely depend on your Professional Indemnity Insurance cover – so it is just as well to check your cover because not all policies will provide for the loss or theft of the data.  If the policy doesn’t include this you leave yourself open to a claim against you for neglience.

There are eight data protection principles.  In summary, they require that data shall be:

1. fairly and lawfully processed;
2. processed for limited purposes;
3. adequate, relevant and not excessive;
4. accurate;
5. not kept longer than necessary;
6. processed in accordance with the data subject’s rights;
7. secure; and
8. not transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area without adequate protection.

I quote this list directly from the Information Commissioner’s Office.

This Act places obligations on all organisations and individuals who use personal information and gives individuals certain rights.  It clearly states that those who record and use personal information must be open and transparent about how that information is used and must follow the eight principles of ‘good information handling’ listed above.

There are 100’s of thousands of businesses that need to be aware of this legislation:  the list would probably run the length of the UK two or three times.   Accountants, Solicitors, Bankers, HR departments, secretaries, PA’s and VA’s are just some of those who need to complete a risk assessment.  The mind boggles to think of all the different organisations, SME’s included, who are handling sensitive personal information that should never find it’s way into the public domain.   What percentage of them have taken action to address the risk.

Under the Act every organisation (data controller) that processes personal information (personal data) must notify the Information Commissioner’s Office of the type of information they process.  Failure to notify is a criminal offence.

Data controllers are required to inform the ICO of certain details about their processing of personal information.  The Commissioner uses these details to make an entry describing the processing in the register, which is available to the public at www.ico.gov.uk.

What exactly is the purpose for the register?   The main purpose is reported to be ‘notification to the public register to promote openness in the use of personal information’.    I believe the emphasis is skewed.  Openness is one thing, but more weight should be given to the notion of  ’protection’ and I have seen no reference made to this by the ICO.  We all need to take on board the acute necessity to protect personal information from identity theft/crime.

In my opinion the ICO does not go far enough to emphasise the necessity to protect information.   I guess it is from fear of being labelled a patronising ‘big brother’.  Surely it is blatantly obvious to organisations the steps they need to take to protect data.   If it isn’t clear then why should people think it condescending to be told.

It ought too, to be obvious to high ranking government officers, that taking a laptop home which contains thousands of private personal records is a No No, but still they are taken out of the office, and still they leave them on trains, or back seats of cars only to be stolen while the owner pops into the shop on the way home from work.  When organisations have banned the practise of taking laptops home, people have taken paper records instead and left them on trains and on buses too!

So down to the practicalities, if you hadn’t already thought it through here’s a quick check list.

Does your office, at home or within an organisation, have the following security in place:

• Is there physical security of the room in which the computer/boxfiles etc live?
• Are laptops allowed to leave the building? Why is this necessary when it is much more secure for people to login to the server remotely if they need to work from home?
• If laptops leave the building routinely they need fail-safe protection in the form of a ‘remote destruct device’ in case they become lost or stolen [my preferred provider is Backstopp and Leakstopp].
• Is there Antivirus protection and Firewall protection loaded onto the computer or laptop?
• Have passwords been set?
• If your children use your home computer for chatrooms and games do you have protection set for them [my preferred provider is CrispThinking]?
• Are other users of the computer in the home environment as enlightened as you are? Perhaps you should spend some time briefing them.
• Are all paper records containing personal information, shredded before being disposing of?
• If it is absolutely necessary to pass information via text e.g. account numbers, DON’T send the complete number in one text send it in two halves like this – 1st text contains 12345***, 2nd text contains *****678.
• Don’t risk losing your data due to a lightening strike. There is nothing that you can do to stop lightening travelling down a BT cable and into your home computer. This will destroy your hard disk.  So the answer is to  make sure you have a back-up procedure in place.  Back-up your disk to a remote server [my preferred product is Carbonite where I have unlimited storage space and the whole process happens automatically].
• Check the cover on your Professional Indemnity Insurance.
• Finally, if you take folders containing personal information out of the office environment there should be a reporting system which records the fact that that folder has left the filing cabinet, who has it in their possession, where it is being taken to and when it will be returned.

Does all of this sound rather ‘over the top’?  You won’t think so when you take a look at MobileBozos.

Mobilebozos show examples of data loss in the UK and USA.   Look at the example of a woman working at her laptop while travelling by train, with a bunch of papers alongside her machine ….. she leaves the whole scene unprotected while she goes off to the buffet carriage.

Footnote:

Fees for Registration to ICO are currently set at:

• For organisations with up to 250 employees £35.00
• For organisations with over 250 employees £500.00
• All Charity organisations pay £35.00

Contact by telephone: ICO 01625 545 745

http:www.ico.gov.uk

Welcome to my business Blog.  

So, here I go ‘taking the bull by the horns’ and beginning to write a blog page for my website.   I hope I will be able to achieve a balance between serious content and interesting snippets.

Here’s a taster:

ANYBODY’S GUESS

This is a story about four people who were called ‘Everybody’, ‘Somebody’, ‘Anybody’ and ‘Nobody’.

There was once an important job that had to be done.  Everybody felt sure that Somebody would do it.  Anybody could have done it, but in the end Nobody did it.  Somebody was angry about that because it was really Everybody’s job.  Everybody thought that Somebody should do it, but Nobody realised that Everybody would not do it.  It ended up with Everybody blaming Somebody because Nobody had done  what Anybody should have done.