Chris Chambers

Business | Property | Leadership | Aviation

Category: Spend or Save

Instagram Advert Snapshot

Advertising – set a budget

December 29, 2022 /

Ultimately, people need to know about your business – so you probably need to spend!

But otherwise I don’t know where to start this. For me, advertising has probably been the most mystical part of running a business. And every business is different with different goals and geographical reach etc. And there are different ways of advertising. And often it’s not easy to tell whether advertising is working or not. And to be honest – I’m not an expert! We were lucky in that a lot of clients for Proudhouse Property Management have come from word of mouth and referrals.

However, what I can write about is some of the lessons learned. Proudhouse started trading in 2013 and at that time newspaper advertising was still strong. As were flyer drops etc. However, it was expensive and there was no proper tracking of the performance of your advert. And you had to deal with the advertising agent at the local rag who would always try and inflate how great it was… “your advert has been printed 100,000 times and delivered all across South Somerset this week”. Ok – but how many people actually looked at my advert?…

Of course – internet advertising does provide useful metrics, eg, the number of people who ‘click through’ your advert – or how long people watch a video for – or the demographics of viewers etc. As soon as we discovered internet advertising, we never looked back and advertising in local newspapers was dead.

So – some bullets:

  • Define your goal – what is your USP or feature product and focus on this
  • Don’t do copy-cat advertising. Just because your competitor is doing something doesn’t mean it’s effective. It’s far nicer to lead the way and then watch the competition follow you!
  • Set an advertising budget and strategy and stick to it.
  • Be careful when receiving cold-calls from people claiming to be working for Google or working on behalf of a charity or the local fire-brigade etc. It’s usually boll*cks and they’re actually 3rd party agents trying to suck you into a quasi-scam.
  • Online advertising trends change – as do the format and dimensions etc for different platforms, eg Instagram, Facebook etc. Watch some recent YouTube explainers for the latest advice. And on this subject – watch several different YouTubers and get a consensus and feel for what you think is right for your business. Don’t just do follow what one person says – your business might not be their target audience.
  • Is advertising even right for your business? Actually, money spent on networking, conferences or even hosting your open-days/forums might be more effective lead generation
  • Not all advertising has to be obvious and direct. Sponsoring local events can be a great way of building brand awareness.
  • Often the people who might be most aware of your business, is other businesses. So creating mutually beneficial relationships can be great.
  • And finally, as the last few points have alluded to – word-of-mouth advertising is probably the most effective method. Can you leverage your existing client-book? perhaps an incentive for existing clients who can refer new clients to you.

That’s about it – it can feel like trial and error. And not only can advertising be expensive, there are also additional costs for graphic design, printing etc. It’s something to think carefully about. But have a plan, strategy and budget – don’t take a random ‘willy nilly’ approach!

In 2023, we’re moving into video advertising on Instagram – we created this advert (below) ourselves relatively easily with a video editor. Licencing for the imagery and music is vital – but fairly easy to acquire. And actually, if you have someone in your business who can create the content then it can become quite good fun!

Website, graphics, logos, social media

October 18, 2022 /

This is the 4th part in the ‘spend or save’ category of posts. This series aims to advise people who new to business on what (and what not) to spend their money on in the early days of starting their small business.

In the modern world, most business is marketed, generated and completed on the internet. Many business owners don’t even need to see or speak with their clients anymore. Effective and professional looking branding is important. However, the type of business will dictate the type of branding, design, image and look that is required. And this article is not about branding design. That’s down to the business owner to know and understand their industry.

What I can advise are some general principles:

Branding and logo (spend modestly): – keep it simple – not only is a simple design more memorable, but it’s actually easier to manipulate for different media etc. Think of EasyJet – their logo is simply the word ‘easyJet’ in Orange using ‘Cooper’ typeface. easy eh? If you have a good idea for a logo then spend a modest amount of money on a designer to create a professional image for you: avoid your well meaning friend who offers to do the design for you – that gets awkward. Remember to get copies of your logo(s) in various file formats and in different resolutions and optimised for different media. Name them so you understand what they’re for! eg: logo_forprinting.jpg, logo_highres.jpg, logo_website.jpg, logo_blackandwhite.jpg, logo_Facebook, etc. Then file them and look after them!! Your designer will advise on the technical details of best file format etc.

The easyJet logo is a simple design that is easily recognisable.

Website (Save your money): Your business product, goods and services should, by and large, be able to sell themselves. If you think a professional website and sleek branding will make up for a crappy product/service then you’re wrong.

So, if you’ve got a good product or service, then, in the early days, don’t worry too much about spending lots of money on the best website in the world – remember – as you develop your business, you will want to develop and add to your website. Really, think hard about what your website needs to do – unless you need a commerce site that sells and controls stock etc then you can probably start with a simple one-page site! Especially if you are selling services – eg, a beauty therapist simply needs, initially at least, a page to inform potential clients on basic information, contact details and map/location. Then, after a few weeks, think about additions that you want to make – eg, the beauty therapist may wish to add a simple bookings system. I can’t advise strongly enough the need to build your website as an iterative process. Don’t spend thousands of pounds on a website that becomes defunct after a few months when you realise that you need to tweak and modify your business and services.

Avoid showing off your knowledge with pages and pages of information. I’ve made this mistake – it’s tempting to try and demonstrate knowledge and expertise by writing lots of text about what you do and how great your business is etc. Actually, people don’t want to know that – they simply want to know what your business can do for them – it needs to inspire trust (eg, there is a real geographical location, a photo of staff, some accreditation, testimonials and possibly a short resume of experience/qualifications). If people think that they can trust you to solve their problem/need for them, at the right price, then you’ll get clients.

To summarise this advice on websites: save money initially – check out some of the DIY services for websites. They won’t be suitable long term, but in the short term they’ll probably give you the initial online presence that you need.

Photography (save your money): Good photography is expensive – however, there are various sites providing free stock photos. This blog primarily uses unsplash.com for photos. Check the licensing arrangements. DIY photos are usually terrible so, unless you’re really capable with a camera, don’t think you can use your own photos otherwise your website will look amateur.

this photo was free from unsplash.com

Social Media (save your money): Social Media is easy to use – no coding or technical expertise is needed. If you don’t know how to use Facebook, or Instagram then learn and read some guides. I’m seeing more and more people make their enquiries for my businesses through social media and with the website bypassed altogether. You will probably meet people offering to do social media for you… ignore them – at least until you know what your marketing strategy is.

What’s your marketing strategy? Well you could spend some money on a marketing consultant to put together a plan for you – I did this when I started Proudhouse and it was really good – the service and business plan was already a strong idea, so when I spoke with a marketing consultant she was able to give me really good, fresh ideas about how to market the business and she attached the ideas to a timeline to follow. That was worth the fee. And the social media was just part of a wider marketing and advertising strategy.

Summary

In the early days at least, a modest budget spent on tasteful and simple branding/logo can go a long way. Be careful – a relative of mine once spent £3000+ on a start-up website in the nineties, only for the business to fail a few months later. Concentrate on your great business idea and good service which is supported by branding and website. Great branding and social media alone can’t make a great business.

A 1970s' typewriter
If you can only use Microsoft Office apps, then you're really only just a little bit better than a typewriter.

Learn to use a computer!

September 3, 2021 /

I enjoy going to France most years – we have a house in the Correze (sadly a little underused but it’s there waiting for us). Every summer when I’m there, I kick myself for not having made time to learn more of the language – I can get by – of course we can eat, drink, travel etc – but it would all be so much easier if I was conversant with the people, the signs, the posters in windows, books, magazines, the websites, the tourist information etc. Luckily, there is the internet and a world of help. But if I ever planned to live in France then I would have to learn the language properly.

Knowing how to use a computer for business, is very similar to knowing a language for the country you live in. One’s success and experience is greatly enhanced and often fully dependent on knowing how to progress communication. Many people think they know how to use a computer – but they don’t really. Trust me when I say – learn to use a computer – you don’t want to be spending your money on a web designer or IT Geek to help you setup your email account or purchase a web domain name, or put together a basic web-page for you, or all manner of other basic tasks for which there are a million videos to assist you on YouTube!

If you think that being able to use Microsoft Office means you’re all set then you’re not really much beyond using an old typewriter

When I interview prospective employees, I put them through a basic computer test as part of their interview process. I’m fully aware that this can put people under pressure so I think I’m very fair: I don’t give them much of a time limit, I don’t look over their shoulder and if they freeze up then I simply talk to them and ask what their logic is for achieving a particular task. None of the tasks I set relate to using apps (see examples below in the ‘easy’ column). It’s all about understanding fundamentals. It’s very revealing – often, sadly, it’s the older generations who confidently state they are computer “literate”, only to stumble on the most basic of testing. They are often surprised when their lack of understanding is revealed – I feel this is a tell-tale sign that they’re not even really aware of the scope of what computers can be used for and the breadth of experience required. Well, fair enough – these are people who are applying to be employees and not business owners. But I see the same thing through my wife’s graphic and web design business – she works with many people, often older women who want to take the plunge and build a small business – and so often, my wife becomes embroiled in her clients IT issues that arise through their ignorance and ineptitude.

I don’t wish to sound unkind – everyone can’t be experts in everything – but it goes back to that language analogy; you wouldn’t start a business in a country where you didn’t know the language that your clients speak! It’s the same with computers – they are the underlying foundation of communication in the business world.

I’m not a coder or IT Consultant etc. I am a ‘power user’

power userLearn to pronouncenounCOMPUTINGnoun: power user; plural noun: power users; noun: poweruser; plural noun: powerusers
a user of a computer system or program whose skills and expertise are more advanced than most other users, especially a person in an organization who is assigned additional administrative rights and responsibilities for that system or program.

I’ve created a sample of some computer tasks which I would advise any business owner to be able to do for themselves – they may take some time to learn, but all of these can be learned from the forums, sites and videos available on the internet.

– the more you know, the less you fear!

Completely Basic

Setup your PC and peripherals, turn on your device, use apps/Office, change print settings, setup email signature, use email, save/use templates, change print cartridges, connect to a wifi router

Easy

Setup a directory and file structure, print to PDF, understand file types, know what a PDF is and why it is used, understand file sizes, setup a new printer, have a basic understanding of IP addresses, change wifi settings (eg password) on your router, edit an image/photo on an image app, setup your calendar on your phone/tablet, setup a Zoom (or equivalent) meeting, create a basic office/home network.

Start learning soon

Register a domain (website) name, purchase website hosting, understand G-Suite or MS Teams services and what they do for you, setup your accounting software including your branded invoices, and stock/inventory/service items, setup Pop3/IMAP email, setup a static IP address for hardware devices, point your DNS servers to your website domain, setup wordpress on your domain(or learn another website building service).

Know this in time

Build your own apps, spreadsheets or databases for specific tasks in your business, edit your website to refresh content, automate some recurring processes eg, recurring invoices in your accounting software,

Summary – learn to use a computer – the more you know, the less you fear! And the quicker things will progress. I’ll add to the above lists as I think of things – I’ll also try and create links from the items to helpful sites on the internet.

Lady enjoying the view from a mountain top walk
Is your business earning money when you're not working?

Fee Systems

August 23, 2021 /

Imagine taking time off from your business to go on holiday and during that time, you and your business keep earning and receiving fees from subscriptions, commissions and repeat orders?

Or what if you only need 2 or 3 clients a month paying high value fees for your specialist/niche service?

Or perhaps you have a systemised manufacturing process that, when operating, requires little further input other than basic monitoring from a small number of staff?

Business trading, in its simplest form, is the exchange of an item or service for money. If you’re a heating engineer, then you might sell a boiler service for, say, £90 – that’s great but you need to keep doing boiler servicing, maintenance, call-outs and installations to earn money. If you don’t go out to work, then you don’t get paid.

What if the boiler engineer sells a warranty service after he/she’s provided a service? Let’s say £15/month in exchange for a free call out and 1st hour of labour? This might be quite a nice idea for some clients. Now the engineer is earning money when he/she is not working.

Ok – I admit this is a simple example, and the sums need to add up to be viable. But you get my point.

The holy grail for many entreprenurs is subscription payments or/and advertising revenue derived from online content. So perhaps the heating engineer can create online content with self-help videos for common problems – if the client can’t resolve their problem via a self-help video then they complete an internet support for diagnosis, pay a fixed fee for repair/call out and the heating engineer then sub-contracts the ‘easy fixes’ to a mutual competitor whilst making a profit from the fee. If the repair looks difficult then perhaps he tackles it her/himself. Individual losses may be encountered but when all losses and gains are aggregated together, an overall profit is made.

Ok – that’s enough of the heating engineer analagy. I’ll finish with a few final thoughts: what’s better – a million items sold for a £1? Or 1 item sold £1million? The profit might be the same, but what was involved in terms of workload, logisitics and effort? And which has the best future and liklihood of repeat/return customers?

What’s better – a million items sold for a £1? Or 1 item sold £1million?

It’s a deliberately open question without parameters – have a think about this idea for your business idea – will you be able to build scale into your business as you grow and develop? Will you be able to create monetised aspects of your business that take advantage of different fee systems. An entrepreneur with a “constrained business” might reach max headroom before they reach the scale required to make their business viable… not good when that realisation comes after 2 or 3 years of effort.

Spend money on the systems or processes that help achieve scale and monetisation

What does this have to do with ‘spend or save’?

Spend money on the systems or processes that help achieve scale and monetisation, but you need to calculate the cost versus benefits. Perhaps spending is needed for a production/manufacturing method or it might be an app/software to undertake computer tasks that would be otherwise time-consuming. And when you employ staff, are you doing it simply to reduce your/staff workload? How do you know that the workload is not the result of inefficiency that could be resolved with a technological/software solution? Perhaps, frankly, your lack of skills with a computer is creating inefficiency and unnecessary costs?

Next article ‘Time Rich – learn to use a computer’.

A close up of a barman operating draft beer taps and filling up a glass
A part-time job might be a better alternative to business finance/loan

Starting a business? Then get a job!

August 20, 2021 /

That might seem like odd advice…

Everyone’s business plan is different – and different businesses will have different start-up costs. However, there are a few golden rules that I think apply to anyone:

  • Don’t spend your life savings
  • Don’t risk the home you own and live in.
  • Avoid borrowing/debt, if you can.

Unfortunately, viewers of Dragon’s Den would be forgiven for thinking that setting up a business requires many thousands of pounds. And all the banks are all too keen to lend money. I bet there is a business banking rep in the networking group that you recently joined? Yep – people starting a business are vulnerable to tempting, but possibly unnecessary offers.

I bet there is a business banking rep in the networking group that you recently joined? Yep – people starting a business are vulnerable to tempting, but possibly unnecessary offers.

But many businesses can be started with a very low initial outlay.

My big tip is to get a job! A part-time, regular, paid job to help support yourself in the early days of running your business. Or alterntively perhaps you’re wanting to leave your regular career job – if that’s the case, then try and start and run your business part-time concurrent with the last few months in your regular job. That might be difficult but, whatever, try and create a consistent source of income to suport yourself and your family in the early days. But you MUST also create a payment model for yourself, from your business, as soon you can.

It’s hard – I was lucky, when I left the Navy I had already spent a couple of years getting my business idea primed and ready – then, when I left, I was able to work in my old job as a part-time reservist. Which meant I didn’t have to dip into the gratuity payout sat in my bank account (I invested that in property but I’ll talk about that another time).

Don’t spend or pay yourself from your savings!! Savings take a long time to accumulate – and a big lump of money is useful for a big investment (like a house) or an urgent unforeseen need etc (what if your boiler breaksdown at home? or your roof gets damaged?). Your early business costs will probably be intangible and/or be spent on items that depreciate to nil value in very little time – eg, office furniture or PC equipment etc. Don’t convert a really useful lump of money into useless office tat!

Don’t convert a really useful lump of money into useless office tat!

Get a job… pay for the basics and essentials… and reinvest any profits into developing and growing your business. Borrow only for what you really need.  

Next article: ‘Fee Systems’

The good things in life can wait...

Spend or Save?

August 16, 2021 /

I never ceased to be amazed by how keen people are to spend money when they start a business! You hear people say crazy things like: ‘You’ve got to spend money to earn money’ or ‘it’s ok, it’s all included in my business plan projections’ or ‘it’s a business expense and I’ll write it off against tax’… or even ‘I’m expecting to make a loss in my first year’ ?!? That expensive iPad tablet… the really nice ‘company’ car… the high end website and expensive graphic design… these are all eroding your profits and you need money for the really important stuff or unforeseen problems. Think carefully about what you spend money on – and, if you’re smart and willing to learn a few extra skills, there are lots of things you can do yourself instead of outsourcing – when you first start, you are time-rich! Use the time well.

and, if you’re smart and willing to learn a few extra skills, there are lots of things you can do yourself .

I was going to write a single post on money and what not to do in the early days of starting your business. Then, as I thought it through, I realised that this could become many posts and I’ve even created a new post category ‘Spend or save’.

There is no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to money and budgets etc – if you’ve designed a physical thing that requires manufacturing then you need machining, production, packaging, storage etc and all their associated costs. And to be honest, my background is in services and property investment. So these posts really are aimed at people who are providing services. The next few posts will cover the following topics

  • Starting a business? Then get a job…
  • Fee systems – what systems do you want and need
  • Time rich, cash poor – Learn to use a computer
  • Website, graphics, logos, social media
  • Advertising and marketing costs – set a budget
  • Accreditation and Trade/Industry trust
  • Accounting systems
  • CRM, Database management systems

Next article – ‘Starting a business? then get a job’

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