NOV
28
Make It Cheaper helps businesses to compare business electricity prices in one quick online search. This means that you can find out, right now, just how much you can save off your current energy costs immediately. It’s often hundreds or thousands of pounds per year.
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NOV
14
To be successful selling products and services to customers, you need to understand the difference between a feature and an advantage.
A feature is a property of a property of service. A product may come in red, green, blue or orange. The service may be delivered morning, noon or night. Those characteristics are features of the product.
As a product or service developer, you may be competing with a dozen products and they may have hundreds of features. Adding any or all...
NOV
07
To set a price for a new product or service, start by creating a list of competing solutions from other providers. Record the price and then, next to each product, record the advantages each offers to the customer.
Note that your competition is not limited to products that are similar to what you sell. For example, a cheap car competes with motorcycles and the bus as much as it does with other cars.
Add your product to the list and, based on...
OCT
26
Claire Young, an apprentice finalist and youth enterprise trail blazer, is launching TeenBiz in November.
TeenBiz is the UK’s first business start up scheme aimed at teens 13-18. It will launch 1st November, to coincide with Global Entrepreneurship Month.
From the 1st January every month one student will receive up to £500 funding (they must match what we give them), a mentor and a start up pack. TeenBiz calls it’Business in a Box’ because it equips students with the items they need...
OCT
20
To be successful, your startup needs to offer a benefit to people that they need or want. In every case the benefit you want to deliver to people has been met by some other product or service before you came along.
Before the cell phone there was the land line, before the land line there was the telegraph, before the telegraph there were letters. If you develop a new brand of laundry detergent you are competing with every existing brand on...
OCT
18
“The international price for gas, I am afraid, is going up”. Not the words we wanted to hear from Phil Bentley, Managing Director of British Gas this week, but they do reflect the reality of the situation.
Phil Bentley’s comments set the tone for a meeting of the big 6 energy suppliers, Ofgem and government Energy Secretary Chris Huhne to discuss the state of the domestic energy market in the UK.
As a result of this meeting and the drive to make...
OCT
10
As recently reported in the Guardian, the UK’s addiction to gadgets is translating into higher emissions and higher energy bills. While the Guardian was addressing costs in the home, the truth is that businesses the UK are falling prey to the same higher costs.
More computer screens, more tablets, more phones…every device you plug in comes with a cost that goes beyond the purchase price. Use the following checklist to make sure you’re doing your part to conserve energy and to...
OCT
03
From Doctors to Architects, from Artists to Car Mechanics, everyone who provides services for a living has friends that ask for expensive favors and members of professional and personal networks that make saying “No” awkward.
If you find that business discussions in social situations routinely end up with you giving your services away free, the following advice will be useful.
You’ll find our suggestions particularly handy if you are just starting your business and many of your customers will necessarily come from...
SEP
26
Long before people actually take out their wallets to buy something, they begin making their purchase decision. Through exposure to social media and mass media they become familiar with products and services that are consistent with their identity and lifestyle.
For example, someone interested in purchasing a motorcycle will become aware of brands like Kawasaki, Harley-Davidson, Suzuki and Yamaha. They will, over time, begin to choose the brand that is most consistent with their requirements. When it is time to buy...
SEP
20
BusinessFunding.co.uk tracks more than 1000 funding sources, ranging from banks and investor networks to grants and venture capital funds. It also provides a very in-depth list of Public sector funding sources which includes funding that originates from the UK government, devolved governments, regional and local government (i.e. Regional Development Agencies, Local Authorities and County Councils) as well as some funding from the European Union.
In recent months, as more and more funding sources disappear, it has become more and more...
