Category: Business advice
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21st Century Retail
With the global e-commerce spend poised to hit €825bn in 2012, and the fastest growing e-commerce markets experiencing year on year growth in excess of 10%, is there a future for retail businesses without a strong online presence?
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The Fantastic Five : Financial Figures You Need To Know
As someone who works closely with small businesses on a daily basis, I am more than a little concerned at how little awareness many small business owners have of the financial position of their company. Whilst corporates have armies of accountants, finance managers and number crunchers calculating every financial ratio imaginable, this luxury is not…
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Using NLP Techniques to Improve your Networking Skills
Networking gives you an opportunity to meet new people and develop mutually beneficial relationships. We network both with potential customers and to develop strategic business relationships. Networking should be about giving: if you help someone out, maybe by introducing them to a helpful contact, they might do something to help you in return. Networking is…
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Optimising your website for the long-tail
When a potential customer searches for your products and services on the internet they might put in a very general term to describe what they are looking for, such as fancy dress. They might decide to restrict results to the local area and instead put in the service plus a location, such as fancy dress…
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Designing a strong ecommerce website
It’s a fairly easy process these days to set up a basic ecommerce site. But making sure that your online shop is optimised in the best way to ensure conversions requires a lot more skill. With most online shops seeing a conversion rate of less than 1% you really need to work hard to ensure…
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Using Consultants: Outsourcing your Work
When your business is going well there comes a point when you need some extra help. Employing specialist staff full-time can be expensive and limits you in terms of the skills and experience available. Using consultants gives you the advantage of only paying someone for the duration of the project and gives you access to…
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Prevention is better than cure – even in HR!
We all know the importance of smoke alarms in helping to prevent a fire, the need to have your car regularly serviced if you’d like to avoid a breakdown and the requirement for insurance in case the worst happens. But when it comes to your business, are you being as careful? All of those things…