Tag Archives: recession

Innovation, sacrifice and the job trap

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Jon Stow

  Employee blues I was in the tax business a long time as an employee, and in the corporate world we were also in the “business advisory” sector. As someone who has run businesses for some time, I realise how … Continue reading →

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The Frank Sinatra guide to running a small business

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Jon Stow

The local councillor who couldn’t help me might have been a local version of one of those politicians who think it is sufficient to reach high office and do not have a vision or a plan to do anything when … Continue reading →

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You are more versatile than you think

Posted on July 19, 2010 by Jon Stow

As we know, there is far less job security these days. It is not just because of the recession and hard economic times. There is less of a tradition of working for one employer one’s whole life. People tend to … Continue reading →

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Economists with the truth

Posted on March 9, 2010 by Jon Stow

I went to an interesting meeting last night. Two out of the three speakers were economists. It is often said that there are as many opinions of economic issues as there are economists. There were two opinions of the economy … Continue reading →

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More imagination in customer service

Posted on January 16, 2010 by Jon Stow

Having been frustrated with the lack of interest in new business exhibited by local event venues and hotels, I have to be fair and mention that one of them telephoned back after a week to say that they could meet my proposal for the amount per head for each of my breakfast group, but they would need to charge an extra amount (actually quite a lot) for our use of a room at their establishment. Quite why they thought this would be satisfactory when clearly I was looking for a particular budget, which they disregarded in adding the room cost, I just don’t know. Continue reading →

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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 →

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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 →

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How to get the best out of our employees and co-workers

Posted on September 18, 2009 by Jon Stow

Fortunately the small business owner is in a much better position to do something about these problems and to put matters right. It involves taking a friendly approach which might be alien to the big employers and their workforce representatives. Being nice to someone is certainly never harmful. Continue reading →

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Enterprise and risk

Posted on August 1, 2009 by Jon Stow

I have been talking about risk recently in another context. I was a little dumbfounded yesterday when my Mum said she was told by a family member that she should not sign up to Facebook because there was a risk … Continue reading →

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“Show me the money” and Giver’s Gain

Posted on June 24, 2009 by Jon Stow

I alluded a month or so back to my early steps in referral networking and my experience with BNI. I wonder if I am going soft though. What always made me happiest in BNI was the concept of Giver’s Gain. … Continue reading →

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