Accidental Salesman delivers recession busting advice for Sussex businesses

Businesses in Sussex are set to benefit from a valuable lesson in sales psychology by ‘Accidental Salesman’ Richard White during a one-off business seminar on 23rd April 2009 organised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing and Business Scene.

Held at Copthorne Hotel in Effingham on the 23rd April from 6pm-9.15pm, the event is predicted to attract hundreds of marketers, sales and management professionals looking to build up their recession-proof armoury with advice and tips from keynote speaker and TV personality Dexter Moscow and a number of round table business experts, including NLP Master Practitioner and Sales Breakthrough specialist Richard White.

The event will comprise focused discussion tables or ‘learning stations’ and each station will be hosted by gurus and mentors from the fields of physiology, psychometrics, Neuro linguistic programming and soft selling. Richard White, founder of free online sales resource TheAccidentalSalesman.com and MD of business development consultancy Pro-Excellence, will deliver an informative session on Soft-Selling. Delegates will have the option to choose to join three stations throughout the evening from which they will be able to learn the very latest techniques to better connect with customers, something which Mr White believes is crucial to business survival in the current climate.

“Sales is the lifeblood of any business and profitable sales is the starting point towards cash in the bank. Quite simply, no cash means no business. For many businesses in the recession, sales provides them with their regular source of cash and whilst most business owners understand this intellectually, often they hate the idea of having to sell. It is a typical ‘feast or famine’ response as they realise that they have no option but to get better and more confident at selling if they want to survive the economic downturn,” says Mr White.

This event is open to CIM members as well as non-members as the institute extends a helping hand to Sussex business owners and their teams. For more information or to book your place at the event visit
http://www.cim.co.uk/cimevents

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Event Details

Title: Understanding Sales and Selling
Date: 23rd April 2009
Time: 6.15pm-9.15pm
Venue: Copthorne Hotel, Effingham Park, West Park Road, Copthorne, RH10 3EU, United Kingdom
Price: Member £19.60, Studying £14.70, Guest £24.70. Price includes buffet on arrival.

Please book online for this event. If you cannot do so please call The Chartered Institute of Marketing on +44 (0)1628 427340

Seminar helps Accountants to prepare for rising negligence claims

Recessions commonly lead to more negligence claims against Accountants as their clients look for scapegoats when their businesses fail. This year, to coincide with the introduction of new HMRC powers, Accountants are being given a helping hand to protect their practices from such claims with a unique seminar hosted by Mark Lee in April.

Mark Lee, FCA, CTA (Fellow), Chairman of the Tax Advice Network and past Chairman of the ICAEW Tax Faculty, will present ‘Protecting your practice from negligence claims and worse’ on the morning of Wednesday 15th April 2009 in London and will highlight many of the ways that professional negligence claims arise and what can be done to avoid them.

Billed as a ‘must attend’ session for all accountants in practice, topics to be addressed include all too common scenarios that lead to claims, the increased risk of allegations during a recession, what goes wrong in practice, evidencing ‘reasonable care’ to avoid penalties, as well as the various other issues that can so easily lead to claims. Mark will also explain how to dump the duff d-list clients, who he says, cause most problems.

“Although always important, the new obligation to evidence ‘reasonable care’ in tax work means that protecting your practice from negligence claims has never been more critical to business survival. This is just one of the related changes arising from the extension of HMRCs powers that take effect this month” says Mark, who has extensive experience in practice and from acting as an expert witness in court.

The seminar will begin at 9.30am and finish at 12.30. Due to popular demand, early booking is advised. For more information or to book your place please visit www.TaxAdviceNetwork.co.uk/negsem or call 0845 003 8780.

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Seminar Details

Seminar Title: Protecting your practice from negligence claims and worse
Short Description: will highlight many of the ways that professional negligence claims arise and what can be done to avoid them. Billed as a ‘must attend’ session for all accountants in practice, topics to be addressed include all too common scenarios that lead to claims, the increased risk of allegations during a recession, what goes wrong in practice, evidencing ‘reasonable care’ to avoid penalties, as well as the various issues that can so easily lead to claims. He also reveals how to dump the duff d-list clients who he says cause most problems.

Venue: 16 Park Crescent, by Regents Park Station – a few minutes walk from Baker Street Station and just off the Euston Road in central London
Date: Wednesday 15th April 2009

Time: 9am for 9.28am start. Finish 12.30pm with time afterwards for networking and chat

Price

Book in advance to secure your place for £147 (plus VAT). Bring a couple of colleagues and secure 3 places for the price of 2 – £294 (plus VAT).
Late bookings – space permitting, late bookings will be charged at £197 (plus VAT) – no discounts.

How to Pay:

Online: Pay by credit card, debit card or paypal online: www.TaxAdviceNetwork.co.uk/negsem
By phone: Just call us on 0845 003 8780 or 01635 574 160 and we will take your credit card details over the phone.

By email: If your company requires an invoice and intends to make payment by direct bank transfer before the event please send your booking request by email to Clare.Gillbanks@TaxAdviceNetwork.co.uk (Please ensure you identify the names of all delegates and provide a contact name and phone number)

By post: If you would prefer to send a cheque please make this payable to Tax Advice Network LLP for the full fee of to £197 plus 15% VAT = £226.55 (or the 3 for 2 price of £394 plus 15% VAT = £453.10) and send it, together with the name of your company or firm, postal address and the names, email addresses and contact numbers of each delegate, to Tax Advice Network LLP, PO Box 562, Pinner, Middx HA5 9FW. Please also advise to whom the invoice should be addressed.

Unless otherwise requested we will send a VAT invoice and confirm bookings and the seminar details by email.

For more information visit www.TaxAdviceNetwork.co.uk/negsem

Scottish Call Centres risk missing business boom over security issues

A failure to address security issues means that the Scottish Call Centre industry could miss out on a surge in business as more organisations pull their overseas operations closer to home, warns leading customer service and outsourcing consultancy Abeo Consulting.

On a recent visit to several Scottish call centres, Abeo Consulting’s MD Derek Bishop said that Scotland was in a prime position to capture a large share of the contact centre market but that security problems could be thwarting their progress. Bishop’s comments come hot on the heels of a recent Scottish Call Centre survey, which concluded that the industry poses a “serious threat” to data privacy.

“Protecting customers from fraud has always been a major concern, especially in the financial services industry and in the last twelve months alone, I have seen and heard of many security breaches whereby sensitive data has been lost, from briefcases left on trains to DSS payment beneficiary’s details going missing. Unfortunately, security breaches are far more common than they should be, calling into question just how serious many businesses actually are when it comes to protecting their customer data from everyday fraud opportunities”

According to Bishop, Contact Centre operations which handle customer data and collect payment details from customers should have strict policies and procedures in place to prevent mis-use of customer data, yet we still see examples of operations where mobile phones are permitted in the contact centre and payment card data can be fully retrieved at a later point after the specific transaction has been completed.

“Whilst your business may provide all the assurances online, behind the scenes there could be some significant breaches going undiscovered. Over the past eighteen months a number of contact centres have been found guilty of this and just questions the use of having all the guarantees for the online processing, when offline is so unsecure! And more worryingly, if customers were informed of a security breach linked to your company they would loose all trust in your company and will make sure everyone else is aware of the problem as well. And in a recession, losing customers is the last thing you need.”

The Private Rights Clearing House claims that more than 234 million records containing sensitive information have been breached since January 2005. They reveal that vulnerabilities can appear anywhere in the sales process and could include POS (Point of Sale devices), personal computers or servers, wireless hotspots or web shopping applications, in paper-based storage systems and unsecured transmissions of cardholder data to service providers.

“A focus on security protocols for the web has meant that all too often some of the basics within the internal operational areas are simply forgotten. Or what many are finding (which is just as bad) is that policies and procedures were implemented but they have not been sustained so the scope for a breach against industry standards and the risk of fraud re-appears again and again,” says Bishop.

For more information visit www.abeoconsulting.co.uk

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Big brands take the rap for failing to support small businesses

Big brands may be shouting about their initiatives for carbon reduction or charitable programmes but are failing to treat their smaller suppliers ethically by consciously delaying invoice payments, according to CSR expert Graeme Crossley.

Graeme Crossley, MD of CSR and sustainability consultancy Brand Reputation, claims that many brands are spending too much time focusing on current media hot topics such as carbon reduction or boasting about the amount that they can still pump into their charitable activities despite the recession, when they could be achieving an additional impact by treating their small business suppliers more ethically.

Crossley says:

“There has been much criticism aimed at the banks and their failure to support small businesses, but many large organisations fail to realise that they could make a major difference through the way that they deal with the small businesses – which could be instrumental in supporting their survival.”

“Cash flow is the biggest issue for small businesses in the current climate and large organisations can certainly afford to pay these suppliers on time, or even better upfront. It is a question of ethics when a large organisation purposely defers invoice payments to a smaller supplier who relies on their prompt payments to survive the recession without a valid reason to do so.”

Crossley also believes that small businesses are still discriminated against in many tendering processes and is calling for more organisations to review their tendering criteria to ensure that smaller businesses and self employed people are eligible to tender alongside large organisations.

Crossley adds:

“How often do large organisations honestly consider start up or early life businesses when putting together tender requirements? It is all very well agreeing that small businesses are going to help pull the UK out of recession but for that to happen, larger businesses need to wake up and realise that they can help and they can make a difference.”

“Brands that reach out an olive branch to small businesses by paying them promptly and enabling them to tender for contracts will demonstrate that their ethics and values permeate the entire business from the way they treat their suppliers through to the wider community and their brand reputation will improve as a result. It will be interesting to see which brands will put their money where their mouth is and rise to the challenge.”

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Language service helps pull UK out of recession

A new telephone interpreting service could help the UK export industry to pull the country out of recession by enabling to staff to bridge the language barrier with foreign companies.

Following reports that only 10% of workers in the UK can speak a second language, Thames Translations, the UK’s longest standing translation company, has launched a new telephone interpreting service to help businesses who deal with foreign partners or suppliers to improve communication and customer relations and increase chances of securing foreign business.

“Exports are good because the pound is low and language ability can help companies to capitalise on an advantageous position,” says Simon George, MD of Thames Translations. “Commonly only found in the public sector, telephone interpreting services has gone relatively unnoticed in the private sector, despite its cost advantages and can give UK-based business the competitive advantage, which could make the difference between winning or losing new business.”

A survey by the Directorate General for Education and Culture of the European Commission claims that 11% of businesses surveyed had lost business as a result of poor language skills, with lost contracts totalling to between 8 million and 13.5 million euros and George says:

“The UK is seriously lagging behind its EU counterparts when it comes to language ability and this is having a serious impact on probably the only industry which can bring the country out of recession. In other EU countries, over half of workers can speak two languages and almost a third can speak three. We need to match their willingness and reach out to them first if we really want to make an impression.”

“When dealing with foreign companies, there is often a requirement for translation – which focuses on the written word. This type of service can often be ordered in advance and therefore often isn’t time sensitive. However, in an increasingly pressurised industry, there is a growing requirement for instant translation of the spoken word in real time and this is known as language interpreting. It can prove most valuable when used in meetings and enables organisations to develop more personal relationships which could be crucial to winning and securing businesses in the current climate.”

“It is simply not practical to replace existing staff with multi-lingual staff as there are many other skills that are needed than just language skills. Telephone interpreting services can help solve the problem of language and enable UK staff to do the job they were employed to do, regardless of the home country of the supplier or partner.”

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Further redundancy blow as £30k tax exemption hopes dashed

A leading tax expert is warning employers making redundancies not to assume staff will automatically receive £30k tax free benefit when they leave their job, even though special tax rules allow MP’s to pocket the entire amount.

Following on from reports that disgraced MP Derek Conway will receive £30,000 of his £31,645 payout tax free when he stands down at the next election, Mark Lee, Chairman of the Tax Advice Network is reminding employers that £30,000 of redundancy pay for staff may not be exempt from tax, even if it is paid in connection with their departure from a job.

Many employees receive additional payments over and above their tax-free statutory redundancy pay. Beyond this Lee says “Yes, there is a tax rule that means that up to £30,000 may be exempt from tax. It’s set out in Section 401 ITEPA 2003 (previously s148 ICTA 1988). But this rule only becomes relevant if certain criteria are met. No one can afford to assume that their situation will automatically pass the tests”, says Lee. The position is different for MPs as their lump sums are subject to special rules in s291 ITEPA 2003 and thus always satisfy the related test.

According to Lee, the basic rule for everyone else is that any extra sums paid by an employer to an employee are subject to tax if paid in accordance with a contractual obligation, if paid for work done, if paid for work to be done or if such payments are part of the employer’s standard practice when someone is asked to leave their job. That’s the basic rule. Only statutory redundancy payments are definitely tax free.

Lee’s main concern is that many will end up with hefty tax bills in 2010 by wrongly assuming they qualify for the tax allowance even though they do not satisfy the basic rule.

“Taxpayers are required to report their ‘tax free’ lump sum on their tax returns. The taxman invariably checks back to determine whether the employer properly reported relevant details. And if HMRC is not satisfied that all is correct the taxman will then seek payment of tax from the employee. For people receiving redundancy payments in early 2009, the relevant tax returns are those for the current tax year. These will not be filed until later in the year, or as late as January 2010. It could be months later before the tax demands start being issued – long after the lump sum has been spent”, says Lee.

Lee is advising employers who intend to pay departing staff more than the statutory redundancy payments to seek specialist tax advice. He says there is much confusion surrounding this tax exemption and adds, “Yet again, there seems to be one rule for MP’s and another for everyone else.”

Brand Reputation proves that smart CSR will pay for itself

Brands which employ smart cost saving CSR programmes could generate enough cash to fund their entire CSR strategy, according to London marcomms agency Brand Reputation, after their MD helped a national restaurant chain save over £180,000 in landfill taxes.

Brand Reputation’s MD Graeme Crossley, who has worked with a range of household names including The Coca-Cola Company, Sainsbury’s and WHSmith, was enlisted by a national restaurant chain to identify and implement a CSR strategy, which resulted in the chain saving over £180,000 this year in landfill taxes. Crossley claims that there are a host of similar organisational ‘hot spots’ in which valuable cost savings can be made, freeing up more cash to reinvest in CSR without having to cut costs in other areas.

Graeme Crossley urges brands to consider impact of saving £180,000 in the current climate through smart CSR"

“Think about the potential impact of instantly saving of £180,000 in current climate. Even if you reinvested £80,000 of that into community focused initiatives, you’d still be £100,000 up on last year. Not only would the brand gain valuable publicity through donating such a sizeable amount to charitable initiatives, but the company would be financially better off too, which in the current climate is an achievement in itself”, says Crossley, who has over 15 years experience in communications and CSR.

Amidst news that big brands such as General Electric and Intel have pledged to maintain their CSR spends over the coming year, Crossley believes that many brands still seem to be competing for who can invest the most money into their CSR programmes during the credit crunch, rather than on whose initiatives provide the most benefit to the business itself, as well as the wider community.

“Whilst it is great to hear about the $160 million that General Electric donated in 2007 and Intel’s commitment of $300,000 to education and development in countries like Afghanistan and Cambodia, what concerns me is that it seems like the focus is always on cash going out of a business through CSR, rather than the savings that can be made through implementing smart CSR initiatives. Most brands that I speak to don’t realise that CSR initiatives aren’t just about leveraging PR but can actually save the business a substantial amount of money, which in the current climate will help the business to be more financially stable and ultimately, sustainable”, says Crossley.

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Editors Notes

Brand Reputation is a communications agency that builds trust in consumer brands by developing and implementing strategies related to corporate social responsibility and sustainability.

Based in Soho Square, Brand Reputation works with consumer brands to set a Corporate Social Responsibility programme to improve their brand and do more good for the environment.

For more information visit www.brandrep.co.uk

For press enquiries please contact Amy Larman on 01603 283 463 or email amy@mediajems.co.uk

Recession could be golden ticket to success for businesses who can adapt

Businesses who are struggling to stay afloat could be missing a trick by failing to reinvent themselves and provide products and services that the market needs right now, advises Accidental Salesman Richard White, who claims that retail chain Woolworths failed because they could not change with the times and were ‘too emersed in the past’.

White, a leading business development expert and founder of free online sales resource The Accidental Salesman (www.accidentalsalesman.com), suggests that like Woolworths, many companies who have done reasonably well in the past are now likely to be suffering and finding that with less money around, selling the ’same old, same old’ simply isnt profitable anymore.

“Woolworths is a great example of a company that just teetered on year after year without a clear market concept. I was surprised that they last so long. Now if it were me, I would have turned them into a chain of Pix N Mix stores long ago, but others have beaten them to it. Pick N Mix is everywhere now, you even get them in service stations, the niche opportunity there has now gone”, says White.

“Businesses that may have been doing very well due to a boom economy are now realising that without change, finding enough sales is getting harder and harder. I’m concerned at how many businesses do not seem to have woken up to the fact that the economic weather has changed and that it actually does not matter if we are in recession or not. The worry of the unknown is enough for people to stop spending”, says White.

White says the best advice any business can take is not to assume failure, but to take some time to retreat, look at the market and find a new niche.  He even suggests that some businesses could actually do incredibly well if they adapt and capitalise on the opportunities presented by a recession market.

“You don’t make money by selling people what they no longer need and I often remind business owners that some of the biggest fortunes were made in the bad times”, says White. “For example, Travelodge are now repositioning themselves as the market leader in budget travel accommodation because they recognise that they can capitalise on a downturn in travel and fill their empty rooms. Their strategy will help them increase market share while the chips are down so that when the market picks up, they’ll have a strong following for when they raise their prices. If you have a more strategic top down approach to sales and marketing that focuses on maximising the value the business adds to the market place, you’ll survive the recession and come out stronger”, says White.

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For press enquiries please contact Rebecca King on 01603 283 506 or email rebecca@mediajems.co.uk

Outsource your ‘memory’ to a social network and see your business thrive

Businesses who use the extended ‘memory’ of social networks have the ability to extend their sphere of influence to many thousands of people, compared to a person’s own limited memory, which is only able to manage around 150 connections, according to Societal Web expert William Buist.

According to Buist, a leading online networking expert and founder of The Societal Web (www.societal-web.com), the typical sphere of influence in the old off-line world was limited to those we socialised, lived and worked with, and it was unlikely that a person could reach more than 150 people. But because social networks can retain the memory of interactions far better than the human brain can, Buist claims our sphere of influence can now reach to many, perhaps even thousands.

“Online, in social networks, we interact with others more often and with more visibility than we tend to do off-line. So if people are influenced by the friends of friends of friends then what we do has a chance of influencing the friends of the friends of our friends. This begins to explain the power of social networks. The powerful part of this is that our reach (and the influence we have in that reach) goes further than was perhaps realised. The level of influence with each person that we have might be tiny, but the potential reach through social networking is staggering”, says Buist.

Buist predicts that business social networks such as Ecademy and LinkedIn will see a surge in membership as many more businesses look to the web as a means of generating new business, as well as finding valuable contacts for collaboration and more cost effective virtual working.  But he warns businesses to ensure that they conduct their online activity exactly as they would in the offline world, as reputation and credibility will be what ensures they succeed in the virtual business world.
“If you aren’t consistent and focused on what you want to achieve then you won’t influence in a consistent way and towards your own goals. Do it well and there is an army waiting to support you”, says Buist.

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For press enquiries please contact Rebecca King on 01603 283 506 or email rebecca@mediajems.co.uk

Travelodge’s smart price cutting campaign is clever, but it’s not for everyone

Leading UK sales expert Andy Preston has praised Travelodge for its aggressive new price check campaign which positions the brand as cheaper than its rivals, but warns that such tactics are still dangerous for companies who need to maintain profitability to survive.

The new press and online campaign from Travelodge focuses on the savings customers can make by booking a room at least seven days in advance and currently runs alongside Premier Inn’s campaign to promote their winning of ‘most improved’ hotel brand in the BDRC British hotel survey. Preston, Director and Head Trainer at sales performance training company Outstanding Results believes the move by Travelodge to become the market leader of discount rooms could work well for the brand, attract more travel customers and get volume so they can then put their prices up at a later date. But he also warns other businesses not to be too hasty in adopting a similar cost cutting strategy and to remember that ultimately, there can only ever be one winner in a price war.

“The move by Travelodge is clearly a short term strategy designed to win market share and take profitable business away from their rivals. It’s an aggressive strategy which is smart at a time when people are not travelling much, so they can ensure they fill their empty rooms, but its obviously not profitable business and so can’t be sustained in the long term”, says Preston, who believes that the real danger for Travelodge lies in the ability of its rivals to copy the price cutting strategy, something which can be dangerous in a market where you can’t drive volume business quickly.

Preston believes that in the current climate, businesses should try to look for other, more sustainable ways to gain leverage than focusing on price alone, to avoid mirroring the devastating ripple effect this strategy has had on the high street, which now sees retailers struggling to encourage customers to return to buying full price merchandise after massive price reductions during the festive trading period.

“In this instance, an aggressive price-led strategy works for Travelodge as the brand is stable enough to sacrifice profit levels in the short term in order to gain market share, but for many businesses, copying this strategy and driving down the profits at a time where profitability is essential for staying in business could be a very dangerous move and may jeopardise their chances of survival”, warns Preston.

Andy Preston is a highly acclaimed sales trainer and international speaker. For further information visit www.andy-preston.com or for press enquiries please contact Rebecca King on 01603 283 506 or email rebecca@mediajems.co.uk

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