Here’s a fantastic guide to dealing with the media. Its a Publicity Guide for community and NGO activists published by the European Anti Poverty Network (Ireland) – people who do great work with little funding. However this guide can also be applied to small businesses. It’s very useful for people and organisations with little or no experience in publicity work, to give a basic grounding in how the media works, and how to best interact with it. The guide mediaguide is broken up into the following sections: Creating a Media [...]
About fionan
Fionan was CEO of an international software business, which he led to global market leadership in operations management software. He completed the Leadership4Growth executive management course for Ireland’s high potential entrepreneurs at the Stanford Business School in California. He is a former Head of Marketing with KBC Bank and worked as a journalist in London specialising in finance and technology.Author Archive | fionan
NI achievers talk and walk the walk
The debate was lively with a fantastic panel and an engaged audience that asked some great questions. This was an event where you could feel the energy from people that are at the coalface winning business. Here’s what they discussed: Marketing or sales? Can SMEs afford a marketer or is a good sales person what’s really needed? All agreed (eventually) that in SMEs marketers also sell and vice versa and the idea of separation of functions in a small business is nonsense. Both are essential and one does not work [...]
Strategy equals growth
We’ve said it before: We have a strategy deficit on this island. Indigenous businesses do not grow, because of the lack of strategy. Look at the proof; count the number of truly international household names we have? We can’t blame the recession because they didn’t grow during the boom years either; property development companies don’t count! Cut your nose to spite your face We see 2 reasons for this. First, we don’t like giving up control or giving away equity. So we don’t bring in the management teams needed to [...]
Bert and Ernie do la, la, la
Its been a tough week with even more austerity being planned in both Ireland and the UK. We thought we would post someting innocent from happier times.. to cheer us all up. Here’s an idea; when you read the budget summaries, have Bert and Ernie playing in the background!
UK faces up to austerity
The UK Coalition government has reached the halfway point in its term of office. When the Chancellor announced his master plan in the summer of 2010, he must have hoped that the worst of the fiscal pain would be behind him by now. Economic growth was supposed to be just shy of 3% in 2012 with a similar out-turn anticipated in 2013. Meanwhile, it was projected that by 2014/15 the cyclically adjusted current budget (the day‐ to‐day public spending not linked to the downturn of the economic cycle) was set [...]
Budget 2013 – Summary
The target of the Irish Budget 2012 was to get at least €3.5 billion in savings in a combination of cuts to spending and in increased taxation. Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan, opened his speech by saying the government wanted to give the small to medium enterprise sector a ‘helping hand’. New measures were introduced but with the Minister himself accepting they were ‘modest’ the effects are unlikely to make massive differences to small business owners. Here are the main points summarised by our accountants Quinn Meehan Chartered Accountants. Also find [...]
Business achievers online application
The Business achievers awards are one of the premier all island business competitions. If you’re thinking of entering the Ulster Bank Business achievers awards, have a read of this. We also hope that you find the online entry process to be straightforward enough. And if you do enter business achievers, we hope that the process will help you learn a bit more about your business, as-well as (hopefully) getting it, you, your staff and all stakeholders some deserved publicity and recognition. Entering the Business Achievers Awards You have 2 ways [...]
Setting the stage for women led businesses
Last Thursday we had ‘a bit of a do’ to launch our new initiative with Ulster Bank to support more women entrepreneurs called Business Women Can. Now we’re starting to promote it. Yes, we see the irony of ‘publicising’ during the mid term break when many business women are under even more pressure juggling family and working life with holidays. US women can and do In the US we don’t know if there’s mid terms, but business women there seem to be making great strides. We also have figures for Britain showing business women forging ahead. [...]
Calling on all business achievers
You can Register Your Interest in entering the Ulster Bank Business Achievers NOW: Before everyone else. All embracing competition We’ve been working closely with a team in Ulster Bank on its Business Achievers Awards programme. This follows research we carried out on Small Business Can last year where 97% of you said you saw the value of entering business competitions, but 92% of you felt entering the competitions was too much hassle and cumbersome. We made a lot of suggestions to the bank — based on talking to you — [...]
Why Small Business Can is supporting Business Women Can? The USA perspective.
When we launched Small Business Can (SBC), we had an animated picture of a number of business people standing steadfastly together around the logo. From memory there were about 8 or nine business people; only one was a woman. A few years later we had great gas when we set up a social group where SBC members could hang out and meet offline for a few beers. It was called the Can ‘man’ group. We’ve also had panels as part of our Business Live roadshow where the panel was made [...]
Business Achievers Awards – Categories to fit all businesses
It’s that time of year again. Nominations and applications are now open for the Ulster Bank Business Achievers Awards. Now in their 19th year, the awards celebrate exceptional businesses and recognise their vital leadership roles in creating and sustaining economic growth. Raise your profile Prove your excellence Acknowledge your team’s efforts Impress partners, clients and investors Join a network of your peers We’re looking for all types of businesses from SBC to enter - from those just starting out to long established and family owned companies with track records – [...]
A competition designed for you
We’ve talked a lot in the past about the benefits for SMEs of entering business competitions. Last year we did something about it when we engaged with Ulster Bank and gave them feedback based on talking to you about the type of business competition you wanted. We’re taking it further this year with a dedicated micro site which will cover all things business competition. Here are some good reasons why you might want to consider adding ‘must enter business competition’ to your ‘to do’ list! Seeing the wood from the [...]
If it’s worth doing, do it right
We’re a website. We have to do a Top Tips! Here’s our take on how you should approach entering business competitions and filling in the forms. Sorry if this appears a bit didatic. But last year some of the smallbusinesscan team were on judging panels; this blog is based on some of the very simple mistakes that were made – and could so easily be avoided – by applicants. Check the deadline for entry Of course its obvious but almost 90% of applications are filled in on the last day…and [...]
Getting paid on time
For any business these days, it’s a familiar scenario: You win the business, submit the invoice, wait 30 days and then – nothing. Your staff and creditors expect to get paid on time, so is there anything you can do? Here’s a methodology that may help you speed up delivery of payment of your invoices, and avoid hassle with your clients. Define Your Terms Define your terms and conditions It’s really important to define your terms and conditions for payment on your invoice. The wording should state your payment terms [...]
Downloadable Excel Financial Spreadsheets
Here’s 8 pretty fundamental financial spreadsheets that every small business needs to have. All are in excel. All are templates and all are downloadable. This spreadsheet will help you to prepare a projected profit and loss account as part of your Operating Budget, in a format suitable for inclusion in your Business Plan. Download the Operating Budget Profit and Loss spreadsheet. This spreadsheet will help you to record and analyse receipts made by your business. Download the Receipts spreadsheet. This spreadsheet will help you to analyse the overheads your business [...]
