5 Lamps Beer at “I believe” in CHQ

As part of “I believe“, Ulster Bank has given a stand to their clients to sample the Christmas atmosphere, sell and make the public aware of their offerings.

Over the next weeks you can visit them at the Food and Craft market. On Saturday 5 December, it is the turn of 5 Lamps Beer.

5 Lamps Beer

The 5 Lamps Dublin Brewery was set up in early 2012 and their first beer The 5 Lamps Dublin Lager was launched in September 2012. The first home was down on the North Strand by the iconic Five Lamps and hence our name.

Their goal was to offer an Irish lager which while hand crafted and produced using only natural ingredients is also accessible and easy drinking and provides a real alternative to the commercially produced international lagers available in Ireland. In the late spring of 2013 they opened the Brewery in the heart of the Liberties (in the shadow of another fairly well known Brewery!)

Visit them at the fair or visit their website.

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Baked With Love At “I BELIEVE” in CHQ

As part of “I believe“, Ulster Bank has given a stand to their clients to sample the Christmas atmosphere, sell and make the public aware of their offerings.

Over the next weeks you can visit them at the Food and Craft market. On Friday 4 December, it is the turn of Baked with Love.

Baked with Love

Baked With Love is a family run bakery based in Monaghan town. The company supplies to the retail a wide range of  premium breads, pastry and mini cakes with modern flavours and designs that have a perfect balance of rich flavours and sweet satisfaction. The diverse product  range  is build  around Convenience, Premium, Health & Wellness.  Bramley Apple Twist- Snack With A Twist and Three Bite Cakes are absolute hits among consumers and they love so much the unique combination of flavours and the intricate design of the products that are great for eating on-the-go.

Visit them at the fair or visit their website. You can follow them on twitter as well @bakedwithloveie

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Got an Opinion? Help Make Small Business Can Better with this Quick Survey

We would like to hear from you. If you have a business or you are involved in starting your own business, please take 5 minutes to fill out our quick survey. Your thoughts and opinions will help us make Small Business Can better in the future.

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Everything Your Business Needs To Know About Starting A Website

A business website is an essential aspect of running a successful enterprise. Without a website your company loses credibility and opportunity, as we all check Google first before we use a service or buy a product. Your website must also act as a reflection of your brand and feature all the important and relevant information your customers are searching for online.

To ensure you set up your site correctly to create the best impact, here is a quick guide featuring everything you need to know about starting a website:

Domain name

It’s important that you think of a website address and check that it is available to use. Once you’ve settled on an address, purchase the domain name and use this when building your website. It’s a good idea to ensure your domain name and company name are the same, so you are easily found when searched for.

Look into web hosting

Every website needs a host and this can be done for free via BT or Google but doesn’t come with any assistance or on top services, everything must be sorted yourself. Business web hosting from UK2 is a good option to consider when building your site, and allows you to create your website, receive a free domain name and have maintenance support from a team of experts.

You can use a basic template or pay a designer

When it comes to what your website looks like, you need to decide whether you’re happy creating one using a basic free template or investing money in a professional web designer to create a certain look for you.

Your site needs to be packed full of relevant content

It’s important that your site is contains keywords and relevant information for those browsing and that all this can be found in easy to access places. It’s also a good idea to consider incorporating a blog into your site, which will feature industry-related posts that answer questions people might have or feature updates on the business itself.

Ensure your contact details are easy to access

You’d be amazed how many websites out there don’t feature easy to access email addresses and telephone numbers or feature their opening times.

Get visitors to… visit/

Once your site is set up, featuring all the correct branding and lots of informative information about your business, then it’s time to actually get people to pay you a visit online. This is where SEO comes in and even if you aren’t a digital marketing expert there are still things you can do to improve your search rankings and visibility online:

  • Do keyword research – then ensure all the important keywords are included in your on page content. Google adwords keyword planner is a useful tool for finding out which searches are best to include. However, do not stuff your content with keywords, you can be penalised if you use the same phrase repeatedly.
  • Avoid using a splash page – these are homepages that require the visitor to click through to the ‘real’ site and can have a negative impact due to a lack of written content, therefore affecting your ability to rank in search engines.
  • Put time into link building – off page is as important to your website as the on page content. That’s why you should try to get involved with writing guest posts for other industry related sites that will get people clicking through.
  • Avoid duplicate content – above all do not use content from other sites or replicate content you have already written on your site on another page. Google will penalise you for it and it will affect your search rankings.
  • Promote your site on social media – a good website needs a decent social media plan to back it up and sharing links to your site on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram will improve the rate of those click throughs.

Starting up a website is an important step for any business and one that requires plenty of thought, time and money to invest and the aim to use it to its highest potential.

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5 Mistakes that Leave Clients Unsatisfied

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Modern advertisement techniques abound on the Internet, television, radio, and everywhere else you turn your eye and ear. For the most part, however, the focus seems to be entirely on how to get new customers rather than on how to retain old ones. Both are valid, in fact necessary, goals. These two twin goals ought be the two legs that your business walks on, the two indispensable wings without which it could not fly. Since keeping existing customers satisfied seems to be unduly under-emphasized, we shall endeavor here to point out five mistakes businesses make that result in customer loss.

 

Poor Customer Service

The number one key to customer retention is excellent customer service. If you continually frustrate your clients and ruin your relationships with them, you cannot expect to long retain them.

Only one percent of customer loss occurs because customers have passed away, three percent because they have moved away, and nine percent because the prospect of lower prices has lured them away. An astounding 68% of customers who chose to take their business elsewhere did it because they felt ignored or mistreated by the staff.

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Comfortable Atmosphere

Ambience is important for clients to subconsciously make a decision about you and your company. First impression can start with having an atmosphere in the office that is comfortable. If you want to be lavish then the direction you can go is to purchase some cheap modern office furniture. But, if you are on a budget you can always find some cheap office furniture that expresses class and practicality. What other companies have started doing is having window walls to create an atmosphere of trust, which can go a long way for clients.

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Poor Communication

Though partly related to the above point, poor communication is also a broader concept. It extends, for example, to misleading advertisements that make special deals only seem worth it until the you read the fine print. It involves not listening and attempting to understand customer complaints and questions. It takes into account the failure to inform your customers of pertinent information and the inability to converse with them about your services/products in other than a specialized lingo that most people don’t speak.

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Lack of Reward for Loyalty

While discounts and deals to reward new customers abound, there is often little or no benefit to be gained from customer loyalty. Perhaps this is why the average business will lose half of its total customer base within a three-year period. New clients keep coming in for the special treatment but then quickly disappear once the honeymoon is over.

The best way to stop this “rotating door” is to show your existing customers that you appreciate them. Reward them for their loyalty, and they will reward you by conducting friend-to-friend, word-of-mouth promotion of your business. They will do it without pay- the cheapest form of advertisement in existence! Add to that the fact that it is simply cheaper to retain a customer than to pay for expensive ads to bring in a new one, and you can see how much sense it makes to give deals to your regular clients. If you don’t reward long-term customers, that may be one reason why you don’t have very many.

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Inconsistency

Sudden changes in your prices, product sizes, or service policies ought be the exception rather than the rule. If customers don’t know what to expect out of you, they may choose the competition simply because it is a known, stable quantity. The fear of being hit with hidden fees and adversely affected by new rules is very real to many customers. You need to build a reputation of trustworthiness and tend to make changes small and incremental.

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Too-Frequent Staff Replacements

While vacancies occur and the need to fire a poor employee will inevitably arise at some point, you should understand that many clients develop relationships with your staff. They may come to your establishment because of who works there just as much as because of other factors. Another aspect of this is that, if you mistreat employees and cause them to constantly quit, your reputation in the community will be hurt.

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Bizimply Wins the Web Summit 2015

Dublin-based tech startup Bizimply is delighted to announce that it is the winner of both of the top startup prizes at this year’s Web Summit! The company was awarded first prize in the 2015 ESB Spark of Genius Award on the Marketing Stage at midday, before being announced the overall winner of the Audi Pitch Competition on the main Centre Stage later in the afternoon on Thursday 5th November – the final day of the Web Summit.

This is the first time that the same company has won both of these accolades, marking Bizimply out as one of the world’s hottest tech startups.

Bizimply is a cloud-based software-as-a-service company, providing workforce management software to businesses with hourly paid employees. Bizimply was founded by Gerard Forde (Cork), Norman Hewson (Wicklow) and Mikey Cannon (Galway). The company’s suite of tools allows customers to manage their employee scheduling and time & attendance, all within one easy-to-use interface, reducing time spent by management on these tasks from hours to minutes, leaving these managers free to focus on growing their business out on the shop floor, rather than being stuck in an office working on admin.

Having come out of beta at the end of 2014, Bizimply is now used at hundreds of locations across 11 countries in restaurants, cafés, bars, hotels and retailers, as well as businesses in the childcare, manufacturing, beauty and healthcare sectors. The company is now set to scale, focusing on sales into the UK and US markets over the next 12-18 months.

Lear more here.

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5 Ways That Start-up Companies Can Grow and Increase Their Sales

Start-ups need money to grow and in the case of most businesses this means that they need to increase their sales. So, how do you go about doing this?

Well, we’ve compiled a list of 5 different ways that start-ups can increase their sales and grow their businesses to new levels – see below.

Sort, rank and follow up with your sales leads

One major mistake that many small businesses and start-up companies make is not having a good way of ranking and tracking their sales leads on a consistent basis.

Large sales organizations tend to use a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for keeping track of critical information on every prospective customer over time.  These types of systems allow companies to keep notes on prospective customers, evaluate sales leads based on their likelihood to make a purchase, and prompts follow-ups at certain intervals throughout the entire sales process.

However, even if you are operating a small company that doesn’t have a big enough budget for running a large CRM system, sorting and ranking sales leads is still possible.  You can do this sorting and ranking process by simply tracking your sales leads on a spreadsheet and prioritizing them based on most promising or highest potential.  After your sales leads are all sorted and ranked, you will then want to “nurture” them.  This isn’t done by just making one cold call to them, but involves having a series of contacts with them over time in order to build a close relationship with them and provide value to them along the way, even when it doesn’t lead to a sale immediately.

Over time, follow up with prospective buyers- keep notes from each conversation that you have, including what questions they ask you, and why you believe this prospect fits in well with what you are selling.  Repeat the process whenever necessary.

Pre Sales Support Can Reveal Lost Sales Patterns

Everybody seems to believe that their website copy and sales funnel are great.  However, realistically speaking, it all comes down to not really knowing what you aren’t aware of.  There could very well be usage patterns that may confuse prospective buyers of your products that you really couldn’t have ever anticipated.  By having a solid pre-sales support system in place, you can start to recognize patterns into what is causing lost sales.  Some of the best ways of discovering these issues is implementing a basic pre-sales FAQ, a telephone system such as Grasshopper, or a live chat system such as Olark.

Build your credibility

Trust is the basis of all good sales relationships.  However, if you are a new company without a lot of existing clients, how can you build trust and demonstrate that you are here for the long haul?

One aspect to building credibility may include sharing some of the details regarding the industry experience that your executive team has.  Think about whether you have any advisors on your company’s board that are well connected and highly respected within your industry.  Or if there are any venture capital investors with major ties that are willing to provide your company with public support.

These are the kinds of stories that you need to be willing to discuss as part of your company’s overall sales process.  The sales process for a start-up company  not only involves selling the value of your products to prospective customers, but also demonstrating that your product fits within a broader context and is respected and trusted by individuals who your buyers respect and trust.

Sales Technology

There are so many ways that a brand can improve their business and thus their sales through the use of new technology. One great way to do so is to introduce a POS system. These systems create a smoother and faster ordering process, create a great first impression among customers and also reduce mistakes, increasing customer satisfaction. Many such as those offered by Revel Systems use the attractive iPad as a POS device and they can be used to help anything from single location to multi-location businesses to succeed.

Be Genuine

You will be repeatedly asked about your ROI.  However, to truly get ahead of the curve, you should be thinking about what risks are involved with ignoring certain opportunities.  Keep in mind that when social media first began to steal advertising dollars from television and print, that many CFOs kicked and screamed about it.

Sales is a human process.  You need to be in the forefront of your prospective and current customer’s minds.  Your champion attending a prospective buyer’s meeting might only have a one hour meeting with her or his CEO later that day.  Will your company be discussed 5th or 1st?

Your sales process needs to be managed.  Otherwise, all you will end up with is one “good” meeting after another without every actually getting anywhere.  Many founders make this mistake.  Sales is actually what takes place in between meetings.

These five ways can change the way a start-up does business and help increase sales no-end – helping them grow and succeed.

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thinkbusiness

Breaking Down Business Processes to Maximize Efficiency

If you want to maximize efficiency in your business, you must take two big steps. The first step involves identifying the business processes you use to conduct your business. As an experiment you should monitor everything your business does for one month. How do you collect sales reports? What systems do you use to pay your employees? Where do you store tax records?

Once you have identified the depths of your processes, you must then analyze them to figure out how you can improve them. Try to think of all the time you could save by switching your business processes around to use different types of software. Your business would benefit greatly from new software such as workflow software. You might also consider using business process software.

Consider these tips for improving business processes for maximum efficiency in your business.

Workflow Technology for Better Communication

Have you ever assigned more than one employee to complete the same task? How much time and money did you waste by paying the second employee? Workflow technology can help your business stay organized. Everyone can figure out which projects they should be working on. The interactive nature of workflow software allows for easy and thorough communication between management and employees. Your productivity in the workplace will increase to levels you thought were impossible.

This software also helps you to communicate better with your customers. Once you make the initial sale, your goal is to bring that customer back again. Workflow technology helps you store vital information about a customer. You’ll know their buying habits, their contact information, and even their birthdays. People will love to buy from you if you remember their birthday.

Business Process Management Software

Have you figured out how much time you spend doing paperwork? What could you do with all that extra time? You could save yourself more than an hour each day with the help of business process management software. That pesky paperwork slows you down from contacting your customers and communicating with your employees. It’s time to let the modern software take care of the tedious tasks people used to do on a regular basis.

You’ll be amazed at the speed and ease of the paperwork. Business process management software can help you organize all the legal and financial aspects of your business in one convenient place. You’ll never lose track of those vital tax records again. Better organization will always lead to a more productive working environment for managers and employees. Let the computers do your paperwork so that you can spend your time on more profitable assignments and projects.

Emphasize Teamwork

Your employees might often forget that they work as part of a team. Even if they have individual sales goals, they should always be looking to help a fellow employee make their sales. There can be a lot of competition for commission checks and bonuses, but a helpful team member will be well-respected at work. Teamwork helps people communicate more effectively, and it provides motivation for everyone to do their best. Nobody wants to be the weak link on a team.

The employees could take turns learning and performing all the different operations at your company. An employee could run the business process management software one week and the workflow software the next week. Alternate their roles between customer-facing duties and administrative duties. This knowledge will help them function better as part of the team. Every team member should know each requirement of each process in your company. You’ll be able to find out where the next manager comes from when you cross-train everyone for success.

Consider New Technology

In addition to the new software for workflow and business processes, you could also implement other technology for your company. Work processes become much easier with newer computers at your disposal. You’ll be surprised at how much your current computer slows you down when you run your paperwork through the new computers. Old technology probably costs your company more time and money than you realize.

You can always find deals on the latest computers and smartphones. You’ll stay connected with customers and employees. Connectivity boosts productivity. Your processes at work will run more smoothly when everyone is on the same page. And you won’t have to sacrifice customer service for the sake of making more sales. Sales will increase naturally thanks to a more efficient business. So what are you waiting for? Analyze your processes today to see how you can take your business to new heights.

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When It’s That Obvious I Get Worried!

The scene is set for the European Central Bank (ECB) to either increase quantitative easing or lower the Repo rate at their meeting in December or a more likely scenario is that they will do both. Meanwhile in the UK, the Bank of England (BOE) have been rowing back on their guidance that UK interest rates would rise around the turn of the year, they are now indicating mid-2016. This is still providing support for the pound as interest rate divergence continues to weaken the Euro and absolute interest rate levels (UK Base Rate is 0.5%) encourage flows into Sterling.

Meanwhile the US Federal Reserve (Fed) seem a nailed down certainty to raise US interest rates at their December meeting and most commentators expect this to lead to a stronger US Dollar (in particular against the Euro) into 2016. Traditionally we would expect Stg in such circumstances to also make gains versus the Euro and initially I expect that to be the case.

“do not raise rates”!

However the decision to adjust monetary policy is likely to be a more difficult one for the Bank of England than for the Fed or the ECB. Some UK economic indicators are screaming “do not raise rates”! These include the CPI rate which stubbornly refuses to rise (it’s been around 0% for most of the year-0.1% in November) and UK Pay growth that remains tepid at best despite an unemployment rate of 5.4%. It would not take much of a stretch of the imagination, if at the end of the first quarter 2016, the BOE were to revise their guidance to raising rates by year end, does this sound familiar?

EURGBP (yellow) and CPI month on month (white) historical chart over the past 2 years, Source: Bloomberg

EURGBP (yellow) and CPI month on month (white) historical chart over the past 2 years, Source: Bloomberg

What all this means is that the domestic economic case for raising UK interest rates is questionable at best and the case for a stronger Stg is largely dependent on higher rates.

The global economic elephant in the room is do we get a soft or hard landing in China in 2016? While the recent economic data from China is indicating a soft landing, it is far too early to discount a less benign scenario. To paraphrase Robert Burns “the best laid plans of mice and men often go askew” If China was to undergo a hard landing then one cannot see the BOE raising rates and Stg under those circumstances would likely give up its gains.

The Brexit vote

Leaving aside the economic factors for a moment; if we turn to the political arena we have the UK’s own moment of truth that could well be resolved in 2016 – the Brexit vote. Is the UK likely to leave the European Union? It’s impossible to say but it is likely to lead to increased uncertainty and unease at holding Stg.

So where should we expect Stg to trade against the Euro for the remainder of 2015 and into 2016? I am certainly foolish to even hazard a prediction, however ignoring that truism, I can see Stg benefiting from expected ECB easing in December, testing the .6800 to .7000 band in the run-up to the year end. I expect that may be the low point for the Eur/Gbp and thereafter I see a slow drift higher towards 0.7500 by the end of Q2 2016 at which point the Brexit debate should be to the forefront of the Market’s thoughts.
As always I welcome alternative views or comments.

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