Category Archives: Business planning

Why you should define your offering as a freelancer or consultant

Posted on February 4, 2010 by Jon Stow

In these challenging times with regard to the state of the economy there are a lot more people without full-time employment who find themselves looking for freelance work and who are seeking to offer one form or another of business … Continue reading →

Posted in Business planning, Customer relations, management, marketing, Referral networking, Social media | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why we need to take an outside view in business

Posted on January 31, 2010 by Jon Stow

I am in a reflective mood. I am coming to the end of an engagement helping a client; an engagement which should not be ending. This is not just because obviously an income stream will stop; I have other clients. … Continue reading →

Posted in Business planning, management, marketing, productivity | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Why customer service is important even to those who are not customers yet

Posted on January 10, 2010 by Jon Stow

I am feeling a bit let down by the local commercial hospitality providers. The hotel told me they were closed for the week for refurbishment. It is a pity no one told me when I made what I thought was a booking, and it is a pity too that no one realised the error and telephoned me. All-in-all it was pretty poor customer service. Continue reading →

Posted in Business planning, Customer relations, management, marketing, Referral networking | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Why quality is important – lessons from BMW and Waitrose

Posted on January 2, 2010 by Jon Stow

We need to engage trusted and recommended people to support our businesses, and we need to be the best in our field at what we do. We need to be different from the rest, to have something special as far as our prospects are concerned so that they want to be our clients. We need to be the Waitrose experience, top quality products and services for which we can charge a decent amount have our clients or customers and clients come back to us again and again. Continue reading →

Posted in Business planning, Customer relations, management, marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

False economies and part-timers

Posted on December 27, 2009 by Jon Stow

Following on from my last piece, at Christmas those with jobs may well be off work for a week or so, and students are home for the holidays. They may have some time on their hands and be thinking about … Continue reading →

Posted in Business planning, management, productivity | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Practicing what we preach – seeing value over cost

Posted on December 20, 2009 by Jon Stow

When we are selling our product or service, what many of us aim to do is to persuade our customer or client of the value of our offering. That way we get a proper reward, and of course we have … Continue reading →

Posted in Business planning, Customer relations, management, marketing, productivity | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Quasi prospects, time-wasters and an experiment in human nature

Posted on December 6, 2009 by Jon Stow

This piece could have been in either of two blogs but I put it in my Taxing Times thread. Please feel free to visit!

Posted in Business planning, Customer relations, marketing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Why we should deal with the present to look after the future of our business

Posted on November 25, 2009 by Jon Stow

We are coming to the end of another year, and of course all the predictions for 2010 and beyond are already upon us. As with the social media “experts’” forecasts, most of these will be wrong or else they will … Continue reading →

Posted in Business planning, management, marketing, productivity, Social media | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why we need to assess the risk in our business assignments and projects

Posted on November 18, 2009 by Jon Stow

In my last piece I talked about the danger of adapting business agreements and contracts when we do not have the specialist knowledge as lawyers, or indeed as (in my case) a tax practitioner. I suspect that those who are … Continue reading →

Posted in Business planning, management | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why we SHOULD reinvent the wheel – business agreements and contracts

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Jon Stow

One of the most irritating cliches I hear is “I don’t want to reinvent the wheel”. It is a favourite refrain amongst many well-meaning business owners and business advisers who will typically ask for a template for a sale agreement, partnership agreement, shareholders’ agreement or some such thing. Continue reading →

Posted in Business planning, management, marketing | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments