Social networking 
Cartoon courtesy of shorelines art Larger businesses are embracing social networking by introducing corporate blogs, to show they are trend setters and by doing this believe they are putting a human face to their business. Studies reveal that some corporates have introduced intranet blogs think this will improve staff retention and loyalty by allowing employees to post comments on company intranets. However some corporate blogs have back fired. For example Delta airlines in America were sued by one of their stewardesses who had kept a blog called ‘Queen of the Sky: Diary of a Dysfunctial Air Stewardess. When the stewardess posted sexy photographs of herself in the company uniform she was suspended. On suing Delta airlines for wrongful dismissal she released her story to the press and it went nationwide in America. Things went from bad to worse for Delta when undaunted the stewardess published a book Diary of a fired Flight Attendant. Meanwhile a Yorkshire born secretary working for a British accountancy firm in Paris published a blog called Petite Anglaisie in which she revealed details of her personal life referring to her French boyfriend as ‘Frog’ and their baby as ‘Tadpole’. She began sharing her thoughts on her colleagues on the blog and began making fun of the firm’s snobby Old School culture. She was fired, but the British press picked up the story and she was offered large sums of money for interviews. Dubbed ‘Bridget Jones online’ her blog hits increased to 3000 per day. She launched a lawsuit against her dismissal and was offered $900,000 for two book deal by Penguin books. Source Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom Back to the top Make your sales count in 2009 The new year is the perfect time to review your business, to look to the year ahead and plan how you will increase sales, retain customers and introduce new products and services. So how can you achieve this? The following check list will make clear the elements you need to successfully market your products and services. A business brand is the way customers recognise a business and represents what a business stands for. Think Virgin. A business brand takes in all aspects of a business, including web site, business cards, marketing material and every message that is sent out from a business. What benefits do your products and services bring to your customers? Customers buy products and services on the basis of what’s in it for them. Use these benefits in your marketing material, on your web site, in direct mailings and when you meet your customers. At what level are your products and services pitched? For example do you sell large numbers of products with a relatively small profit margin or do you sell fewer services with a greater profit margin. This has nothing to do with quality. Where you pitch your products should be reflected in marketing material on your web site and on your packaging. Who are your customers? Being specific about who you are selling to can be scary, but will achieve more sales. For example if your labour saving cleaning product best suits families with young children, then aim all your marketing at this market. It might seem that you are cutting out a lot of potential sales by doing this, but by targeting your market specifically you are make it easier to sell your products and services. Once you have decided who your customers are you can then look to where your potential customers buy. For example, publications, the internet, supermarkets, local shops and networks. Build your existing customers into your marketing plan
Your existing customers liked your products and services enough to buy and assuming you did a good job for them and sold products and services they liked then they are going to be easier to sell to. Did you know that poor customer engagement is reported to cause up to 75% of lost sales, and that loyal customers buy more, and will often pay more for a better service? and did you know that an increase in customer retention can boost profit by up to 100%? So tell your existing customers the new things that you’re doing and ask them what they think. Are they happy with a particular product or service? In that way you will retain your customers, they might even bring new business to you as well.
Monitor the results Make sure you know what marketing works for your business by monitoring where your sales are coming from. After you have put together a business plan that sets specific short and long term goals for your business follow it with a marketing plan that includes all the marketing and promotional activities you need to accomplish to achieve your business goals. And be specific!! Need a marketing plan? Back to the top Britain's Coal Industry Following the miners strike and disputes in 1984 it was predicted that the coal industry in Britain was finished. Not so, now it is on track to break a new production record as it expands. Surprisingly Daw Mill colliery near Nuneaton is expected to produce more coal this year than any other in the history of an indigenous industry that began with the Romans. Daw Mill has already mined 3m tonnes this year and staff are confident of hitting 3.25m tonnes by the end of December beating the previous record for annual output set at Selby in North Yorkshire. Three exploratory boreholes will reveal whether to reopen a mothballed mine at Harworth in North Nottinghamshire and UK Coal is spending £100m on extending output at Thoresby in Nottinghamshire and Kellingley in West Yorkshire. In addition 14 companies have applied to develop 58 new opencast mines in Britain. The reason for this expansion is the tripling of commodity prices over the past two years, making it once more economically viable to mine coal in Britain. When Harworth colliery closed in August 2006, the price of world coal was £34 a tonne. The price of world coal is now around £50. At present about 60% of coal burned at UK power stations is imported from countries such as Russia, South Africa and Colombia. The bulk of coal from Daw Mill colliery is sent by rail to the Ratcliffe power station near Nottingham., which is owned by German based E.ON. Source The Guardian online Back to the Top How easy is it for you to buy fine quality wines from family run vineyards? You will not find the wines Andrassy's sell on supermarket shelves. Andrassy fine Wines are a family run business and they buy from family run wineries in France, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Portugal and New Zealand. www.andrassy.co.uk |
Credit Crunch 1294 While the financial products we have today such as insurances, investments and mortgages are a relatively modern phenomenon, credit crunches are not new. In 1294 Edward 1's England experienced a credit crunch following a boom period in the 1280's when money was freely available in a merchant based economy. The main cause of this early credit crunch was a loss of liquidity in the money markets. The reason for this financial down turn was the decision by the Pope to call in the loans he had provided to the banks of Europe from clerical taxes levied. The banks in turn provided credit to the kings of Europe who controlled nations finances. At the same time war broke out between England and France. Edward 1 called in his bankers Ricciardi's of Lucca in Italy to raise funds for the war. In normal times this bank would have funded a loan to the king by raising money from other banks and large merchant businesses. Because the Pope had called in his loans Ricciardi's were unable to raise the finance needed and like today money markets were frozen. To add to the difficulty communications between England and Italy were cut due to the war making it impossible for the Italian bankers to add any credit available into Edward 1's English coffers. In 2008 a senior banker was quoted in The Times 'There is no capital left in the world'. In 1294 a spokesman for Ricciardi's bank said 'it seems that money has disappeared'. Source The BBC History magazine Bailout Bailouts are everywhere now and are even hitting Parmigiano in Italy. Many producers in the Emilia-Romagna district are selling their cheese at below cost price simply to move it off the shelves. some of the producers are so desperate they are using cheese as collateral against bank loans they are using to raise money to pay salaries. As a result many of them are facing bankruptcy. However the Italian government has launched a €50m bail out in an attempt to save the 800 year old tradition of producing the cheese. source The Financial Times Back to the top And finally..... Britain Chris Hoy is the most successful male cyclist in Olympic history. He also recently won BBC sports personality of the year. Now he has signed up to be the face of Bran flakes for Kellog, in a bid to position the brand as 'Special K for men'. Kellogg believes his knowledge and experience of eating healthy and training regularly can appeal to out-of-shape men. Source Brand Republic | 
