Are We Losing the Ability to Read and Understand?

Over the past few months, I have been amazed at how many people fail to read and/or understand either written instructions, information or such documents as Terms and Conditions. T & C's are notoriously ignored as they tend to ramble on and on like the Mother-in-Law in a slanging match. But when those T & C's are fairly short, written in layman's terms and dictates what you will get for your money and when, you should go through them before you sign.

Not so apparently. I am coming across more and more people who sign their life away and then proceed on a daily basis to clag up my inbox with questions that are answered in paragraph one of the paperwork that they've already signed. Heaven forbid that I should be out the office with a client or at a meeting and don't reply within three nanoseconds. I even have my auto responder on with the message that I will reply to their email within 48 hours. I then get more emails within three minutes asking why I haven't replied!!

It's the same when you provide their service based on the questionnaire they filled in, "It's not want I wanted" they moan, "It's exactly what you asked for, nay, demanded" I retort. They then can't understand why it's going to cost more because my crystal ball is a little iffy, and my mind reading skills are definitely below par this morning. The fact is, if you can't follow simple instructions and be able to read ten short paragraphs, then you shouldn't be trying to force your business on me, let alone being out by yourself.

Fortunately, I am in the position of choosing whom I do business with to minimise exposure to these kind of people, but now and again, one slips through the net. So, my advice is, if you don't want to appear to have missed the first twelve years of essential schooling, read carefully any paperwork provided to you and just as important, absorb it and if you don't understand anything, for goodness sake ask. This will make the relationship so much more fruitful and you never know, I might just be able to come off my blood pressure tablets!




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Give Your Business a Chance

Small Businesses

With more and more businesses going into receivership (Focus DIY and Mesh Computers being two of the latest), there has been a sharp increase in new business start-ups. Undoubtedly, much of this is due to redundant employees spending their redundancy money on “going it alone”.

Unfortunately, the attrition rate of these new businesses over the first 24 months is extremely high. However, the economy needs small businesses as the following statistics provided by The Federation of Small Businesses show.
There are 4.8 million small businesses in the UK (up from 4 million in 2003)

3.6 million Businesses are sole proprietors

1.3 million are companies of which 747,000 have employees

444,000 are partnerships

97 per cent of firms employ less than 20 people

95 per cent employ less than 5 people

Over 500,000 people start up their own business every year

Small and medium-sized firms employ more than 59.8 per cent of the private sector workforce

22.8 million people work in small and medium-sized firms

Small firms contribute more than 49 per cent of the UK turnover

64 per cent of commercial innovations come from small firms

Wholesale, Retail and Repairs was the biggest employer at the start of 2009

The 563,000 enterprises in this sector employed 4,853,000 people (21.3 per cent of all UK private sector employment)

Small firms collect and pay Tax, NICs, VAT and other dues which help pay for public services

Around 1,580,000 of all UK enterprises are in London and the South-East

Marketing

From the above statistics then, you can appreciate how important it is to the UK’s economy for small to medium businesses to succeed. So where do they go wrong? Well, the reason is usually lack of investment, poor cash flow, under estimating their market or poor marketing. Whilst the cash has to be looked after, you need to maximise on what you do spend.

One of the biggest cash vacuums is the humble website. For some reason, budding entrepreneurs either think the best way to save money is to get a school boy to design their new website for £400 or to pay £2000 of their hard earned redundancy on a professional website. To be honest, neither is going to do you any favours. Almost anyone can design a website these days and make it look pretty good, but unless you know, and I mean really know, how a website should work for your business, then forget it. Look at it this way; would you pay a teenager £20k to build you a car just because he works for the local garage?

Websites

Conversely, the opposite is also true; you do not need to spend thousands of pounds on your website anymore. Those days have gone for the small business. If you need a website, and believe me, you need a website, don’t think that the moment it’s online, business will come flying in, because it won’t. With every website there are on-going costs. There has to be. Look at it this way; you wouldn’t stop putting fuel in your car would you? If you did, it would grind to a halt. A website is no different. It needs fuel to operate correctly. It needs constant content so that the search engines do not get bored when they index it. We’ve all heard of the dreaded SEO (Search Engine Optimised), but the fact is, your website needs it like your body needs blood. A well-constructed, well optimised website will bring you new customers.

Free Websites

Free websites. What do you get for free? Well, there are plenty out there, go have a look and see how impressed you are. Would you buy from a business that has a free website? There are other options of course, self-build, or a cheap website from a box. If you think these sites are better than employing a professional to build you a website that works, then go ahead and waste your money and become another statistic.

Rent A Web

Now for the blatant plug (What else did you expect?). At Rent A Web, our whole ethos was to help start-ups and small to medium sized companies market themselves online for a minimum cost. This cost would include a professional website with ongoing SEO for a small monthly fee. This would enable the Newco to compete with the big boys and give them a chance with a website that works. For less than £40 per month with no contract, free hosting and domain, unlimited updates and a free website rebuild every year, it’s a no brainer.

For more details, read about our unique service on our site at Rentaweb. You’ll be glad you did.

Start Up Britain

Start Up Britain

Although It is certain to help many new start up businesses get off the ground, the Government backed “Start Up Britain” campaign doesn't go into much detail on how to promote your products/services effectively and cost efficiently on the Internet. Yes, a website is absolutely essential and constructed and maintained correctly will definitely bring you increased business.

Websites

The downside? Well, websites historically can range from a few hundred pounds to thousands of pounds and if you choose the wrong website designer you may find you lose that investment because very few people are visiting your site. There are free websites available on the Internet so these are obviously the answer aren’t they?

Free Websites

If you commit to a free website you will end up with your site being build around a common template so you may find extremely similar sites on the Internet albeit they will be promoting different products. You need to remember that visitors like to see a professionally designed bespoke site to give them confidence in your services. A free website sends out all the wrong signals and may create more problems than it solves. Neither will it be optimised so that the search engines can find you. It will do your business no good at all if it only appears on page eighteen of Google.

Rent A Website

Rent A Website will design a professional website for you from only £14.99 per month with a set up cost of only £29.98. There is no contract. There is no termination penalty. If you wish to cancel, just stop paying. It’s as simple as that. There are no catches. On top of that, they will keep your website up to date for you and redesign your site annually to keep it fresh for NO EXTRA CHARGE. They have taken the risk and cost out of having a website and added simplicity. In fact, if you rent a website, it’s 100% tax deductible.

To see what else is included as standard, visit the website .www.rentawebuk.com and have a browse. They will even design a logo for you at no extra charge.

Website Health Check

If you have already published a website for your business, why not visit their sister site www.dp-group.co.uk and try out the FREE website health check. It will highlight if your site is working as it should. It may also save you a lot of money.