Confidence in Action is a company specifically formed to address the problems and questions individuals and businesses have about their current situation in these challenging times. The company will run a series of nationwide recovery forums, the first of which takes place on Thursday 10th September in the Burlington Hotel, Dublin from 8am to 8pm.

Co-founders of Confidence in Action, Helen Fahy and Mary Jennings both from business consulting backgrounds, formed the company after an original idea about a redundancy event evolved into something more encompassing and holistic.

The nationwide recovery forums, entitled “Routes to Recovery” will offer practical solutions to current issues like reducing overheads, pension security & maximisation, job opportunities, re-skilling, start ups, as well as offering some alternative advice on stress and time management, relaxation therapies and business coaching. The forums will feature a host of guest speakers, agencies and companies from a wide range of sectors including economists, retailers, financial advisors, educational institutes, entrepreneurs and television and radio personalities.

Speaking about Confidence in Action, Helen Fahy said, “Our philosophy is to provide direction for positive change. We see Confidence in Action as a vehicle for development, to provide people and businesses with the skills, knowledge and abilities to be confident, to motivate and to increase self-awareness in these extraordinary times. We are encouraging people to take the initiative and figure out their next step.”

Commenting on the reason behind these recovery forums Mary Jennings said “The key theme is solidarity, raising awareness that you are not alone; there are people in the same situation as you. Everyone has fears, stresses and questions that are personal to them – why not house, under one roof an event that covers all areas and offers practical advice and solutions to current issues”.

Twitter is the fastest-growing social networking site in the world.

“ Barack Obama used Twitter to generate publicity during his 2008 presidential campaign.”

In June 2009, following allegations of vote-rigging during the Iranian presidential election, protesters used Twitter to communicate with the outside world.

Harvard University found that 10 percent of users created over 90 percent of the content on Twitter. It also showed that many only used the service to follow others and did not post content of their own.

So much has been written and spoken about this modern day internet phenomenon.

On Thursday the 3^rd of Sept at 6pm GMT and 1pm eastern time, I will host a Top Sales Experts International Masterclass “Twitter for B2B, It’s About Friends Not Followers”

I invite you join me in learning how to utilize Twitter’s amazing potential to nurture relationships and create sales opportunities in B2B.

To register for this Masterclass, just click on the banner (Top Right) - remember it’s free if you become a VIP Member

Update 02/09 it has come to my attention that there was a bug in the system so I am offering this masterclass for free. Register below

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/233451570

Btb Guest Author

Miriam Ahern

SOLE-TRADERS and smaller businesses are the most vulnerable potential victims of the expected swine-flu pandemic.

There’s a lot of information about at the moment on how enterprises should prepare themselves to weather a global swine flu outbreak should the current situation worsen. Most of this is aimed at large organisations rather than the sole-trader who could suffer much more.

Among the challenges all businesses may face, in addition to high rates of absenteeism, are; disruption to supply chains and business travel; infection control amongst employees; sudden drops or increases in supply of and demand for goods and services; as well as strain on human resources, insurance and cash flow.

Here are key steps that sole-traders and micro-business leaders can take right now so they are not caught off their guard.

Be Cautious

Let’s face it –sole-traders just don’t have the resources that medium and larger companies have at their disposal if there’s a flu pandemic. If they catch swine-flu, the impact on their business will be significant and immediate. What they can do, however, is to take every precaution they can against catching flu in the first case. Here are some guidelines:

Do:

• Carry your own personal dispenser of hand sanitizer in your pocket. Use it frequently when you are out and about and immediately before entering and upon leaving clients’ premises.
• Bring your own pens or calculators with you for your personal use at appointments and meetings.
• Keep your own workspace, belongings and car hygienically clean (i.e. regularly disinfected). Keep a pack of antiseptic wipes in your car.
• Limit your personal appearances to when it’s mission-critical. Avoid any unnecessary business travel and meetings.
• Be subtle but maintain adequate personal space around you at public gatherings and at meetings.
• Talk to other sole-traders or small business owners who have already dealt with the effects of swine flu and learn from their experience.
• Organise to get swine and winter flu vaccinations from your GP as soon as they are available.

Don’t:

• Travel on public transport during rush hour when trains, busses and trams are packed.
• Handle objects, books, papers and brochures in public waiting areas.
• Panic or over-react. Keep yourself informed so that you can tell the difference between someone with seasonal hay-fever and someone with real flu-symptoms!
• Keep working if you think you have swine flu. You have a responsibility to those around you to act sensibly.

Be Prepared

What if your prevention efforts fail and you fall victim to the dreaded swine flu? First of all, let’s get this whole issue into context. The chances are that, unless you are extremely unlucky, you will only be unable to work for 1-2 weeks maximum. Once you get over your flu, that’s it for your business. You are unlikely to catch a second dose: unlike larger organizations, which will probably have to weather ‘waves’ of outbreaks throughout the winter.

The aims of your contingency planning should be that while you are tending to your own welfare, your business continues; your assets are secure; and your cash-flow is protected. The key is to identify your main vulnerabilities. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What are the core functions that are critical to your business continuity?
• What supplies or materials are essential to producing your goods or delivering your services?
• What can you do if there is a sudden increase or decrease in demand for your products or services during a pandemic?
• What are the fundamental roles or processes that you alone execute?
• What’s your economic exposure to swine flu?
• What will be the impact if you are out of action for a couple of weeks?
• How can you reduce the risk of critical business functions being interrupted?

Here are just some contingencies that you might consider:

Buddy-up with a few trusted business colleagues. Explore and plan ways in which you could keep each-others’ businesses ticking over in the event of a temporary incapacity. Each should keep a copy of the others’ contingency plans.

Set up an emergency file. Keep a list of key business contact details. Keep accurate process notes for any business-critical procedures or functions.

If you have a service or customer-facing business, explore the possibility of increasing the amount of online transactions as well as self-service options for customers.

Review your IT setup and if possible enhance it so that you can control your amount of face-to-face contact. Use video-links and tele-conferencing to maintain essential contact with your business community.

If you and your partner are both working and you have childcare arrangements that could break down in a pandemic, work out a plan (in advance) with a few other parents whereby one parent stays home one day with all the children so each parent misses only a single day each week.

Let your customers and suppliers know that you are prepared and what your contingency arrangements are.

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Miriam Ahern is the founder and managing partner of Align Management Solutions – a consultancy specialising in organisational change and development. She also manages LINK! - Dublin City Enterprise Board’s Network for Start-up Businesses. Miriam is a regular contributor in the national media on issues relating to business management and human resources. She is a Certified Management Consultant and a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants and Advisers.

Mobile: + 353 86 234 2789

Office:  + 353 1 412 5890

Follow Miriam on Twitter

LinkedIn

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Today’s News:

I would like to add my voice to Jonathan’s and the rest of the TSE team in extending my very best wishes to TSE colleague, Steve Martinez. Steve is recovering after seven and half hours of “aorti dissection” surgery. Our thoughts are with Steve, his wife Sally, and his family, may he make a full and speeedy recovery.

The Internationalisation Partnership - Partners In EXCELLENCE, Beyond the Boardroom and Maidsfield Associates

August 7th 2009 – Beyond the Boardroom, an Ireland based Sales Leadership, Consulting and Training company has entered into a three-way partnership with Maidsfield Associates, a business development and sales-side partnering consulting company for the Irish technology sector and Partners In EXCELLENCE, a US based sales, partnering and globalisation consulting and service business.

The focus of the partnership is to help Irish Technology companies accelerate the results they achieve through their Internationalisation efforts.

The partnership brings together experience and track record in helping companies successfully expand globally. Leveraging the capabilities to access new regions, markets, develop new channels and alliances; this partnership will help Irish Technologies improve the results they achieve in competing in a global market.

Whether your organisation is seeking to go international or already trading abroad the internationalisation partnership can assist you to ensure you achieve the highest levels of performance and the best results possible.

Together, Maidsfield, Beyond the Boardroom and Partners In EXCELLENCE have helped Irish and other organizations achieve tremendous results in Internationalising. Organizations like Qumas, InnerWorkings, Decare Systems Ireland, Helix Health, Dolphin Software, IBM, HP, Canon, Motorola, Ericsson, Dassault Systemes, NCR, and others.

“I’m very excited about the impact this partnership can have on helping Irish Technology companies Internationalise. A key growth strategy for these companies, is globalisation. Together, we bring both a track record, experiences, and resources that can accelerate the results companies achieve, while significantly reducing risk in these programs.“

- David A Brock, President of Partners In EXCELLENCE

“The future of Irish business lies in our ability to deliver internationally. This unique initiative is about giving Irish Tech companies the tools to overcome the challenges and pitfalls of the International business landscape. Our aim will be to deliver results, quicker and more effectively than has previously been seen.”,

- Niall Devitt, Managing Partner of Beyond the Boardroom

“I’ve experienced first hand the challenges of internationalising Irish Technology companies. In expanding the capabilities and international reach of working with such good people as in David’s and Niall’s organisations, is about delivering faster and more effective results for the international success of Irish Technology Companies. ”,

- Donagh Kiernan, Managing Partner of Maidsfield Associates

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About Maidsfield Associates

Maidsfield Associates is a business development consulting company providing services to established internationally focussed technology companies. Maidsfield helps its clients meet its growth aspirations through delivering consulting services in Sales-side Corporate Partnerships and Strategic Business Development. Maidsfield clients include with internationally focused technology companies in Dublin, Limerick and Cork.

Maidsfield’s founder, Donagh Kiernan has 20 years experience in working in, owning, driving and delivering results with international focussed Irish technology companies. In 2007/2008 Donagh was selected by Enterprise Ireland as one of 32 Irish business leaders to participate in a year long “Leadership for Growth Programme” for globally focused business leaders delivered by the prestigious Stanford University in California. He is an active contributor to Irish Technology industry development organisations through it@cork, NSC Campus, Irish Software Association, CIT Alumni and on Enterprise Ireland initiatives.

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About Beyond the Boardroom

Beyond the Boardroom is a leading Irish business development consultancy, working in the areas of sales leadership, sales management consulting and sales excellence programs.

Niall Devitt is the founder. He is a member of Top Sales Experts International team and the founder of Sales Leadership Ireland. His blog on sales know how is one of the mostly widely read sales resources on the net.

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About Partners In EXCELLENCE

Partners In EXCELLENCE is a global consulting company, focused on helping its clients achieve the highest level of results and performance in Sales, Marketing, New Product Introduction, and Globalisation. The firm is known for its pragmatic approach to driving significant growth and profitability for its clients.

Btb Guest Author

John Murray 

All business owners exit their business at some point, the only question is whether they are in control of that process or not.  When the exit happens one of three things will occur:- 

• The business will be taken over by an heir
• The business will be closed
• The business will be sold

Many factors affect the saleability and value of an individual business.  Some are outside your control such as the current recession and credit crunch but many factors are very much within your control.  The value you receive from the sale of your business will be in direct proportion to how effectively you manage the factors within your control before you engage with prospective buyers.

Top Ten To-Do’s to maximise your exit value

1.    Focus on growing sustainable cashflow.

Business buyers pay for future cashflow.  For a small business (turnover between €200,000 and €2m) ‘cashflow’ is frequently defined as Sellers Discretionary Earnings or SDE* and for medium sized businesses (turnover between €2m and €10m) it is commonly defined as Earnings Before Interest Tax Depreciation and Amortisation or EBITDA.

Being able to demonstrate strong historical and current cashflow is key to making your business attractive to potential buyers.

2.    Critically review and tidy up your profit and loss account.

Maximizing cashflow means maximizing revenue and margins whilst minimizing expenses.  Make sustainable improvements where possible and in particular eradicate non essential and discretionary expenses from the business.

3.    Critically review and tidy up your balance sheet.

If there are unproductive assets on the balance sheet dispose of them.  Keep stock levels optimised and focus on getting debtor days down.  This may result in cash holdings above what is required to maintain working capital in which case the excess cash can be extracted from the business prior to sale.

4.    Management independent of ownership.

Businesses which ARE the owner are extremely difficult to sell because all business knowledge and key customer and supplier relationships vest in the owner who is walking out the door after the sale.  Delegate as much as possible to a General/Sales Manager and a Financial Controller.  Buyers want to see a management team who can provide continuity after the current business owner has departed and will discount the value of your business if a competent management team is not in place.

5.    Address internal and external risks to the business which buyers will use to lower value.

• Customer concentration – Are a high percentage of sales accounted for by a small number of customers?
• Product or Supplier concentration – Is the business overly reliant on the sale of a single product or range of products from a single supplier?
• Employee concentration – Is there a key man issue in the business other than yourself?
• Legal disputes – Where possible resolve outstanding litigation prior to starting the sale of your business.
• Ensure HR policies and procedures are in place with compliant contracts of employment for all staff.

6.    Maintain good financial and legal records and prepare for due diligence.

A minimum of three years annual accounts is essential to demonstrate the financial performance of the business and up to date management accounts are important to demonstrate that the business is continuing to perform well.

Due diligence requests from the buyers advisors can be anticipated so prepare documentation in advance.  Speedy and complete responses to information requests convey transparency and confidence to the buyer.

7.    Be flexible in relation to terms and conditions particularly in relation to earn outs or deferred payments.

90% of all business sales involve some element of deferred payment.  Don’t expect all cash on completion of the sale and do expect to compromise – rarely does a sale meet all of the seller’s and buyer’s objectives.

8.    Prepare for a process not an event.

Business sales typically take between six and nine months from the initial valuation and marketing of the business to completion.  Expect many small steps and bumps along the way.

9.    Maintain confidentiality.

Don’t openly discuss or advertise that you want to sell your business. If you do your suppliers will get nervous, your customers will start to drift away, your staff will become unsettled and your competitors will tell everyone that you’re going out of business.  The net effect can be that buyers don’t engage at all and the future of the business is threatened.

10.    Price the business so that it actually sells.

Evidence from around the world consistently demonstrates that one of the key reasons businesses fail to sell is pricing.  Small businesses are much higher risk than comparable medium to large sized businesses and as a result will have significantly lower pro rata valuations.  Your business will only sell if the asking price reflects what the market will actually pay.  Always validate the proposed asking price in cold commercial terms.   Would you pay €X for you’re your business?  Why?  If you correctly price your business to match what the market will actually pay then you significantly increase the probability of selling.

*SDE = (Operating profit before tax + market salary for one owner + non cash expenses + non recurring once off expenses + non business related expenses paid for by the business + interest paid)

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John Murray is Managing Director of Sunbelt Business Brokers Ireland, who specialise in the confidential sale of privately owned businesses with turnover between €200,000 and €10m. Before starting Sunbelt Ireland, John spent twenty years working in a variety of financial and commercial roles within small to medium sized businesses. John was Ireland’s inaugural member of the International Business Brokers Association (www.ibba.org) and the first to attain the Certified Business Intermediary accreditation.

Btb Guest Author

Garrett Cronin

Don’t incur the expenditure unless absolutely necessary – mind every euro as if it was your last

Payment side

• Ensure you are purchasing at the best deal you can get through hard negotiation. If you can’t get a better price, get better terms
• Ensure you get appropriate discount for early payment
• Only pay on the due date and not before
• Review contracts to ensure you only pay for what you want/get
• Re-tender supplier contracts on a regular basis
• Aim to reduce the number of suppliers to leverage spend and prices

Debtor side

• Issue invoice straight away and ensure it is correct
• Link any bonus to cash collection
• Have the sales person do the collecting of cash
• Review credit limits on a regular basis and reset based on current, not past, levels of business
• Implement strict early payment discounts
• As soon as credit period elapses have a regimented debt collection procedure in place
• Initiate credit collection procedures before invoices become due
• Trust your gut feel – sometimes it might be better to take less than 100% to get the cash rather than wait and/or never get the amount owed or go through expensive litigation

Stocks

• Don’t order more unless absolutely necessary
• Enter all stock on your system as soon as it is received to ensure full transparency
• Identify slow moving stock and repack, re-price, re-use to generate cash
• Renegotiate lead times from suppliers and reset minimum stock levels and order levels accordingly
• Negotiate consignment stock from suppliers
• Introduce/modify approval levels for stock purchases
• Discontinue slow moving / loss making product ranges
• Ensure ownership and accountability exists for every item of stock (ie sales or product managers)

VAT

• Ensure you include any VAT re bad debts written off in your VAT return
• Process supplier invoices as soon as they are received/issued
• Consider timing of invoice issue at month end to optimise credit on VAT return

Other

• Revisit treasury strategy – reduce number of bank accounts and consolidate with your banking partner
• Sweep cash daily and manage funds, currency and relationships, centrally
• Limit spend authority of staff

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Garrett Cronin is a Partner in the Advisory practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and specialises in the area of Performance Improvement. Garrett leads the Finance and Operations Effectiveness Teams, providing advice on sustainable cost reduction, shared services, outsourcing, programme and change management, working capital management and corporate performance management. He also leads the PwC European Shared Services Network supporting clients internationally with advice and insights on best practice. He hosts PwC Ireland’s CFO Network Forum, which meets a number of times each year to discuss and share insights into those issues challenging CFO’s today. Garrett is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland.

“Loopthing is a social networking platform which enables businesses to create and maintain win-win relationships with other businesses and individuals around the world”

I was delighted when they asked me to do an interview. Here’s that interview.

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Q. Can you tell us a little about your business and what you specialise in?

We help businesses to overcome sales performance issues and to better leverage their current environment to grow business. Sometimes this means management consulting, sometimes it means process management, sometimes it means sales programmes and very often it’s all three.

I endeavour to be an expert in “all things sales”. In the US, they would probably call me a sales guru, although I am not sure that would go down so well in Ireland.

Q. How many staff do you employee currently?

Two full time and two part-time.

Q. In your opinion, what are the biggest hurdles for businesses to overcome in the current global economy? As a result, what do you foresee for the future of your particular businesses sector?

Phew! To a large extent that depends on the particular business. However, let me a general observation about Irish businesses that want to operate globally.

We are an open economy, so recovery will always be heavily tied into our ability to export and sell our products and services internationally.

We continue to have a very high cost base, which in turn limits our competitiveness internationally. Now you don’t have to a rocket scientist to see that this is contradictory.

That being said, I believe that pretty much all obstacles are there to be overcome. The biggest obstacle in overcoming all other obstacles is fear itself. Fear leads to inaction and inaction is extremely bad for business.

In my sector, you already starting to see “a survival of the fittest taking place”. I will be one of “the fittest”.

Q. What are you doing to grow your business and services? Can you tell us about any new initiatives?

My blog is now performing very well and it brings a lot of new enquires. It has allowed me to become better known and I am gaining a lot of respect within the Irish business community and internationally. Our business is fundamentally based on our knowledge and reputation, in both respects – I believe we are making very good gains.

Earlier, this year I changed my payment terms to include an ROI option. This takes any perceived risk away and gives my clients the confidence that we deliver.

Q. Do you consider networking to be an important aspect of your business activity? Why?

Networking is hugely important to me. I am the one responsible for developing new customers. As a sales trainer, I know that sales are about building strong relationships.

It’s a pretty simple equation:

Networking + Relationships = Sales

Q. How does your business interact with the internet and social networking? What have your experiences been like so far?

I spoke about my blog, and recently I am having a lot of success with social media tools such as LinkedIn and Twitter. In fact, social networking is proving so successful that I rarely get the time to make cold calls etc any more.

I spend a lot of time reading and learning about these online tools, because I think this is key to ensuring that you use them well. So much so, that I am now getting approached more and more to coach others in how to use social media for business development.

As a salesperson, I realise that any tool that gives me an opportunity to listen, ask questions and start conversations is extremely valuable.

Q. Any words of advice for other businesses and entrepreneurs?

1. Beware of the fear factor. It’s real and it can kill your business.
2. Speed is now more important than perfection. Take decisions, and try new things. Look at Obama in the states; he moves fast, he makes things happen – that inspires confidence. Of course, not all of his decisions will prove to be right, but that’s not the point. Remember someone who is afraid to make a wrong decision makes no decision.
3. Stop thinking obstacles, start thinking opportunity. This will prove to be a very opportunistic time for many businesses and entrepreneurs. Ask yourself how can we use this recession to maximise our business? Every day keep asking; why not? Why not? – Until the answer comes.

Thank you Donagh and Loopthing.

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In the News

“AN END to the recession is now “in sight”, after the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) said that “a clear picture” was beginning to emerge of the likely extent of the economy’s troubles” From the Irish Times, full story here.

Very interesting post from Dave Brock on Twitter

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Over at TSE

Upcoming Masterclasses include:

Thursday July 16th 2009 : Achieve Real Results with CRM, Quickly and Affordably

Tuesday July 21st 2009 : The Best Damn Networking Process There Is

Thursday July 23rd 2009 : Turn Your Connections into Cash

Thursday July 30th 2009 : The Psychology of Selling

Tuesday August 4th 2009 : Make a Strong ROI in the Simplest Way

Thursday August 6th 2009 : Marketing Is All About Selling You

Tuesday August 11th 2009 : Sociable! — How to Profit from Social Media

“THE ECONOMY will shrink by 8.3 per cent this year and contract by a further 3 per cent in 2010, when unemployment will peak at “15 per cent plus”, according to the latest projections from the Central Bank”

(click Times logo for story)

Reading this headline, you could be forgiven for thinking what next?

But maybe you shouldn’t. Perhaps the greatest damage that has being done is not to our economy, but to our thinking.

Ireland was, is and will continue to be an open economy. For a while, we allowed a situation to develop where this reality was turned on its head, and now allied with a world recession; we find ourselves up the s#@ter without a paddle.

For our collective troubles, we made sure to leave ourselves with a uniquely Irish mess.

• A spectacular banking crisis
• A bloated and inefficient public sector
• A tremendous high cost base.

Now wait for it, we find that our recovery is tied right back to where we started. In our ability to become a successful open economy once again - TRUE: Yes, EASY: No.

High cost base + open economy = competitive?

1+1 = 3

OK, so we won’t need a rocket scientist then, thank God. So while our problems might be big, they also pretty darn obvious. Now here is where the simplicity of my argument ends.

Unique problems call for creative solutions, right?

Seeing as we allowed such a downrightly stupid situation to evolve, what does this say about our recent track record with being creative?

Frankly, it sucks.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

I hear a lot of talk about making hard decisions; but shouldn’t these hard decisions have being part of last year’s news?

Isn’t a hard decision where one is required to make a great choice? Isn’t one that requires foresight rather hindsight? Isn’t one when others struggle with the logic? Isn’t a hard decision one, where grasping the need for such an action is not easily understood?

Surely, hard decisions are made in times when they are difficult to sell rather than by the seat of one’s pance.

Someone please tell me, has HARD become the new OBVIOUS?

Anyway what are required now are not hard decisions, because that ship has sailed, Right?

Here’s a thought, maybe what we really need now is GREAT decisions. Now is surely the time when we most need to employ our creativity, our imagination, and our flair.

So how come then, that it seems to be taking us so long to cop on? How come our preoccupation is with hard rather than great decisions? Might the final legacy of the boom be in how it has dulled our decision making and our creativity?

Let’s look at some of the evidence.

Historically speaking, Celtic Tiger Ireland was a time when making decisions in Ireland was perceived to be at their easiest. Will I buy this car or that car? Will we spend money on this road or that building? Of course we now know that it was a time when a great many of our decisions were at their very worst.

So then, let me ask you again, has the Celtic Tiger really gone? Or perhaps could it still remain, buried deep within our collective psyche? Does it continue to eat away at our creativity, our imagination, our ingenuity and our ability to be innovative around the decisions we now face.

So has the Celtic Tiger really gone, and even if it has, please say it hasn’t eaten all our saints and scholars.

Btb Guest Author

Bob Hogan

Here are some very practical tactics that any business can use to reduce their business costs in areas that often have low cost visibility but with unnecessarily high costs. Just pick and choose the ones that suit your business best.

1. Mobile Phones: Do your research! Choose a tariff that delivers you best value for your money – driving the cost of other calls and call types down e.g. free internal calls to all company mobiles and landline numbers. Constantly monitor and amend your plan to take full advantage of your actual usage profile/requirement. Ensure your provider does what you want them to do. If not, move to an alternative provider.

2. Desktop Print: Set the default printing function on all your office PCs / Laptop to print black & white and on both sides of the pages. Office paper is one of the single biggest costs and by taking this action you could not only reduce your paper costs by up to 50% but avoid paying for colour copies, often about 10 times the cost of Black & White!

3. Print Material: Switch all your variable print material (business cards, leaflets, compliment slips, etc) to be printed digitally. The quality today is fantastic and turnaround times can be measured in hours! This can lead to reducing printing costs by 60-70%!

4. Mobile Phones: Introduce and implement a “fair use” policy for all staff that have mobile phones – sharing the responsibility for individual bills with a “3 strikes – you lose it” caveat. If your staff know the bills are monitored, spends will be significantly lower than a similar business without the same policy.

5. Energy Costs: Electricity & Gas can be a significant cost for most businesses and this can run to tens of thousands of Euros per annum. There are two ways to drive these costs down, 1. Demand challenge – related to the volume you use. There are many web sites giving you lots of tips and hints in how to reduce energy costs. 2 Supply Challenge - recent competition to the market has allowed a number of very reputable alternative business energy providers to enter the market. We recommend you research these providers and select one suiting your supply profile. Savings here can vary from 5-30%pa!

6. Desktop Print: Install MFDs (Multi Functional Devices) into your offices. This utilizes the benefits of a single high tech device to replace your traditional photocopier, scanner, printer and fax. Not only will you reduce your overall hardware costs by implementing an all inclusive monthly cost structure but you can also reduce your monthly operational costs and avoid additional charges such as toners, service and maintenance.

7. Office Stationery: With this low value / high volume item, appoint a single source of supply. Working with that supplier to set up your own ‘essential items’ catalogue of pre-selected items at pre-agreed prices. Maintain these benefits by reviewing your monthly suppliers report – taking appropriate action as needed

8. Office Stationery: Ensure your provider “swaps” brand name products for “own brand”. You can set up this arrangement in advance with your supplier so that any of the more expensive branded items ordered are automatically ‘swapped’ and the suppliers own brands are the ones actually delivered – which can often be as low as 25% of the branded items costs and manufactured by the same company.

9. Mobiles: Ban all costly premium services. These can account for a significant amount of a businesses total bills and generally very little if any is business related.

10. Print Material: Rather than paying an external print company to produce your standard business forms (especially the internally used ones), set all these forms up on a shared business drive. Your staff can then print these forms when they are required (and if you’re clever, even merge with the required data!). You’ll also have the flexibility to make changes at very short notice with no wastage or obsolete material!

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Bob Hogan is managing director of New Wave Purchasing a company that provides purchasing expertise for Irish businesses. Working mainly with SME’s to reduce their spends in key cost area such as Telecoms IT, Company Print, Marketing, Desktop Printing, Office Stationery, Energy (Electricity and Gas) and IT Consumables - their focus is on driving unnecessary costs out of your business. Although a new arrival to the Irish Market, New Wave Purchasing has already delivered on average 31% cost savings for our customers.

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In the News

New Linked Group “Growbiz Tweets”

For people that are interested in using twitter effectively and organically to grow business.

Following on from the success of Sales Leadership Ireland and the great response I had to my Twitter posts last week - I decided to start up a new group dedicated to using Twitter for biz.

Just click on the pic below to join.

Follow us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/growbiztweets

Updated 17/09/09

I have been effectively using LinkedIn for about 3-4 months; it’s a super networking and business development tool. If you do not have a LinkedIn profile - well you should have? Here is a list of some of the Irish LinkedIn groups that I am a member of - to join a group, just click on the name.

If you are a founder or member of a group that you feel should be included – please let me know @ nialldevitt[at]btbtraining.com

Sales Leadership Ireland

This is the group I founded and you guessed it - its focus is selling in Ireland. Sales Leadership Ireland is a new group that aims to help Irish B2B sales people network and discuss all things related to “selling in Ireland”

SOCIAL MEDIA IRELAND

The second group I manage on LinkedIn. it’s for anyone that is interested in learning about using social media tools to effectively and organically grow business -
Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn etc

Irish Software CEOs

This group is for Irish Software CEOs with experience to share and have high-growth aspirations for their businesses. From early stage to global domination, how does a software company grow through the stages. How can Enterprise Ireland / IDA help? What are they good at and what should people expect?

Paddytech

Paddytech is a new group on that aims to connect Irish ICT executives within Ireland and those overseas interested in keeping abreast of the Irish marketplace

OpenCoffee Ireland

Self-organising business meet-up group with members in all major Irish cities such as Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford.

Ireland Business and Professional Network

Ireland Business and Professional Network is the leading business and professional network in Ireland, bringing together experienced, sophisticated private investors and professionals with exciting, early-stage, high growth companies.

121 Marketing Network Ireland

This is a group for Ireland-based Marketing professionals to discuss marketing ideas, industry trends and help people find other marketing experts. Connect with friends, colleagues, alumni, and develop new marketing contacts. Check the notice board for 121 Marketing Network Ireland associated marketing events in your area and meet up with other like-minded professionals.

121 Business Network Ireland

This group is for Ireland-based business professionals to discuss ideas, industry trends & help people find other experts. Connect with friends, colleagues, alumni & develop new business contacts. This is a platform to interact with your peers.

Irish American Business Network

The IABN is founded on the cultural and historical contributions Irish descendents throughout North America. Using a light hearted approach, we seek to use our collective experiences and insights to further our social, professional, and individual pursuits.

Irish Executives

Networking group for Irish business people abroad with close ties to Ireland and want to see it continue to thrive. The aim of the group is to share business connections, ideas, job or consulting opportunities with Irish folks first.

Irish Business Association

The Irish Business Association is a group of professionals and business owners committed to promoting business relationships and personal interaction within the Irish-American business community based upon a shared heritage.

IT Ireland

Group of IT Irish professionals and people working in IT in Ireland.

Freelance Ireland

Brand new LinkedIn group dedicated to freelancers based in Ireland (and anyone looking for freelancers). Find Job postings, participate in discussions, read news and reviews, show your work and expand your professional contacts.

SME Links Ireland

This Group is for Owner-managers / Senior managers of irish SMEs and specialist consultants working within the SME space. Its intention is to allow members to share ideas, gather information, express opinions and concerns, and to make contacts. It is an opportunity to discuss issues, explore opportunities and learn from best practice.

HR Ireland

HR Ireland - HR Network Group run by HR Professionals for HR Professionals in Ireland and Europe. Network of HR Professionals in Ireland and Europe to share and discuss people topics.

Mise Éire (I am Ireland)

Ok, so not a strictly business focused group but well worth a mention not the less. Mise Eire is a varied group of Irish and Irish diaspora. The topics of discussion include politics of all kinds, ancestry, history, music, recipes, humor… and there’s even a virtual pub that’s just shoy of having 15,000 posts in just the past four months! A great bunch, and great craic!

Irish Twitter User Group

Irish Twitter Users on LinkedIn

Btb Guest Author

Jonathan Farrington

Micro-blogging service Twitter remains the preserve of a few, despite the hype surrounding it, according to research.

Just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content, a Harvard study of 300,000 users found.

Estimates suggest it now has more than 10 million users and is growing faster than any other social network.

However, the Harvard team found that more than half of all people using Twitter update their page less than once every 74 days.

And most people only ever “tweet” once during their lifetime, the researchers found.

“Based on the numbers, Twitter is certainly not a service where everyone has seen it has instantly loved it,” said Bill Heil, a graduate from Harvard Business School who carried out the work.

On a typical online social network, he said, the top 10% of users account for 30% of all production.

“This implies that Twitter’s resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network,” the team wrote in a blog post.

Silent crowds

Twitter is a social networking website where people can post messages of 140 up to characters - known as “tweets” - that can be seen by other users who subscribe to their feed.

Its growth has been described as “explosive” and has become the poster child of social networking sites, particularly amongst media companies.

Twitter is a broadcast medium rather than an intimate conversation with friends.

Recent figures from research firm Nielsen Online show that visitors to the site increased by 1,382%, from 475,000 to seven million, between February 2008 and February 2009. It is thought to have grown beyond 10 million in the last 4 months.

By comparison, Facebook - one of the most popular social networking sites by number of visitors - has 200 million active users and grew by 228% during the same period.

Research by Nielsen also suggests that many people give the service a try, but rarely or never return.

Earlier this year, the firm found that more than 60% of US Twitter users fail to return the following month.

“The Harvard data says very, very few people tweet and the Nielsen data says very, very few people listen consistently,” Mr Heil told BBC News.

‘Super user’

The Harvard study took a snapshot of 300,542 users in May 2009. As well as usage patterns it looked in detail at gender differences.

For example, it found that men have 15% more followers than women despite there being slightly more females users of Twitter than males.

It also showed that an average man is almost twice more likely to follow another man than a woman, despite the reverse being true on other social networks.

“The sort of content that drives men to look at women on other social networks does not exist on Twitter,” said Mr Heil. “By that I mean pictures, extended articles and biographical information.”

However, said Mr Heil, the most striking result was that so few people used the service to publish information, preferring instead to be passive consumers.

For example, the median number of lifetime tweets per user is one.

“Twitter is a broadcast medium rather than an intimate conversation with friends,” he said. “It looks like a few people are creating content for a few people to read and share.”

Some “super users” can have thousands or even hundreds of thousands of followers.

Currently, the most popular person to follow on Twitter is the movie star Ashton Kutcher who has over two million followers.

However, the service bills itself as a way to “communicate and stay connected” with “friends, family and co-workers”.

“The Twitter management need to decide if this is a problem,” said Mr Heil. “And if they decide it is, how they will tweak Twitter to become more acceptable to the average user?”

Very interesting!!

Thanks to BBC News.

Jonathan Farrington is a globally recognized business coach, mentor, author, and consultant, who has guided hundreds of companies and tens of thousands of individuals around the world towards optimum performance levels.  He has authored in excess of three hundred skills development programmes, designed a range of unique and innovative process tools and has been published extensively on a wide range of business topics including organizational and sales team development, leadership and the customer imperative.  Jonathan’s first book, “Tougher At The Top” will be published early in 2009.  Visit his website @ www.jonathanfarrington.com

In the News

Here is a second very interesting post from Jonathan called “Dear Customer, Meet Me On Twitter. Dear Vendor, Why Should I Do That? “

“We all know that a vitally important sales activity is that of managing existing customer accounts, to consolidate and grow the relationship. Yet unfortunately, when compared over time, the customers’ interest levels increase while salespeople’s interest levels tend to decrease. This creates a “relationship gap” and is due entirely to complacency. I happen to believe that “complacency levels” are increasing alarmingly, and this goes some way to explaining declining levels of sales achievement”

Jonathan highlights why increasing dependence on Sales 2.0 tools may end up decreasing the levels of time and activities spent managing existing accounts and relationships. I think he makes a very strong case why salespeople should proceed with caution.

Staying with the Twitter theme, Jordan McCollum tells us that to”Breathe into a paper bag. Put your head between your knees” because Twitter traffic is now at best flat or maybe even declining.I guess I may have to start looking for another replacement addiction

Over at TSE

TSE Masterclass Schedule

Today @ 6pm

“Engage More…Sell More” presented by Skip Anderson

Thursday @ 6pm

“Cold Calling in the 21st Century: The New Rules” presented by Wendy Weiss

Thursday June 25th

“Mom Was Right! Honesty is the best policy and, in today’s tough selling market, a very profitable one” presented by Colleen Francis

Tuesday June 30th

“The Incredible Value Of Sales Team Audits” presented by Kendra Lee and Jonathan Farrington

Remember each masterclass is $59.50 on it’s own, but if you join through my blog as a VIP member - you get all this and more, much MORE for $25 so why not:

Take the tour

Download a FREE copy of our summer eBook (normally $19.95)

Just click through on the two banners above.

I had intended that our interviews would happen once a month, however based on the amount of interest, I have decided to make it weekly for the foreseeable future. If you are interested - please let me know @ nialldevitt[at]btbtraining.com

The Btb Interview

Joseph Kelly is CEO of the Loopthing, the newly launched social business network, ww.loopthing.com The service provides any business or self employed person with the opportunity to create an interactive profile in addition to forming and joining networks that relate to their area of business. Together with the open application environment that is being created, Loopthing is starting to push the boundaries of business communication and interaction on the web.

Me: As an Irish based start-up looking to grow the Loopthing network both here and internationally how are you finding current market conditions?

Joseph: It is definitely fair to say that current conditions are by far more stable than Q4 2008 and Q1 2009. Towards the end of last year it was extremely difficult for organisations to see over the business horizon, which made forecasting future profitability and even basic inventory requirements very hard.

Within the ICT sector there are some very innovative products and services in development, and it is essential that we as an entrepreneurial nation capitalise upon opportunities that are being created in current market conditions, especially on an international level. Our only concern would be the support available to SME businesses in the current environment. Speaking from our company’s personal experience it has been very hard to gain any level of concrete support from the country’s enterprise support networks.

Me: “Increasing brand awareness through the web” – Discuss?

Joseph: We believe in today’s business environment every single business, no matter what industry they operate in should be in complete control of their web presence.  It’s basically all about communicating with the widest possible audience and if you’re missing a trick on the net, you’re basically ignoring a large potential customer base. Check out our blog on what steps you should take - http://blog.loopthing.com/?p=351

Me: What advice would you give to increase sales in the current market environment?

Joseph: To improve sales in any downswing is obviously a very hard task, but our belief is that if you can dramatically increase the information surrounding your products and services, your business will stand much more of a chance of attracting those vitally needed sales leads.  Given the product and service is satisfactory, improving the information and transparency associated with your business, in our view carries a high correlation with sales generation. http://blog.loopthing.com/?p=95

In the News

Hi Niall,

We just posted an article, Top 100 Blogs to Boost Your Sales Skills?. I thought I’d bring it to your attention in case you think your readers would find it interesting. I am happy to let you know that your site has been included in this list.

Thanks for your time!

Suzane Smith