Beginning your own business is tough and fighting through to the second and third years can be a real strain. You may have to conquer issues like tax and personnel matters before you begin to feel that you are getting the hang of running your own company and are surviving this recession.

However, you originally set out to have a better business than that of a survivor. You wanted to have a better quality of life. So when you reach this point in your entrepreneurial career there is a danger that you could make a very big mistake – and relax because you’ve had to work so hard to get this far. However, this is just the time when you need to step up a gear to avoid mediocrity and disillusionment and push your way towards the success you want.

There are four elements which will see you through to that success:

1.     Vision.

Your initial business idea must be right because you’re still here but now you have to really see the future of your business and imagine the life-style you will achieve. Without vision you will drift with no drive or purpose. You must be able to nearly taste your future success so that you will push hard towards it.

2.     Your Plan

Without a plan you will definitely drift. You need to create a 5-year Plan which is very detailed in the first 12-18 months becoming more of an outline from year 2/3 to year 5. This plan should include income forecasts, expense forecasts intertwined with your growth strategies and their attendant costs. It must also include the money you intend to draw from the business for your own purposes so that you have regular points in time where you can recognise the success of your business to that point which will be reflected in an attendant improvement in your standard of living.

• 3.     Determination.

Despite having written your 5-year Plan with marketing strategies, dates of implementation, costs and sales growth and your own earnings improvements there is another element which is essential to success. You have to be determined. Your Plan will have to face unexpected obstacles every now and then and you have to have the determination to surmount any problem that gets in your way.

And then there is the final element.

As you know the world is full of people who will tell you “it won’t work”, “the timing is wrong”, “there’s too much competition”, and “the economic climate is not conducive to growth”. Well, let me tell you, our first business was started in the teeth of the 1981 recession and we still grew that business from scratch to a £¾ million turnover because we had this final element:

• 4.     Belief.

If you have an unwavering Belief in your business and its future you will ensure your success. Our Northampton based telemarketing and marketing agency is surrounded by competition in the Midlands as well as working through one of the deepest recessions in modern times and yet we are powering on to our success. We have 15 years experience in telemarketing so we know our service, we have a 5-year Plan and we know what the future looks like. We know where we’re going and it is very exciting!

Conclusion

If you’ve got a good service/product, if you’ve a vision of your future, if you’ve devised a 5-year business plan to take you there and if your determination is founded on an unwavering belief you will succeed.

If, from time-to-time, you need a little help with your Plan or marketing strategy just let me know and we’ll be able to help. My number is 0808-172-1900 or you can drop me an e-mail at colin.bh@bhtmarketing.com.

Just remember these 4 important words, See, Plan, Determination and Belief.

Colin Bonham-Horton, based in Northampton, is a founding director of BHT Marketing Ltd and has over 40 years marketing experience.

Colin Bonham-Horton

“Everything was going fine and then we got a VAT bill! – Disaster!”

Living only in the now is like sailing a submarine without navigational aids, depth sounding or a periscope! And yet some business owners run their businesses just like that.  Worst of all they employ people and are taking risks with their lives too.

Thankfully, there is a much, much, better and safer way.

In the early 80’s I was establishing our first business and I wanted to know four things:-

• how have we done up to present,
• how are we doing currently,
• how are we going to do by the end of the financial year,
• are we going to do better in the next financial year.

So I developed and built a P&L spreadsheet. It was great at telling me what our turnover, costs and profit was. I projected it into the future and the future was, of course, bright!

Then the first VAT bill came and with it came a huge lesson. My P&L system didn’t taken VAT into account and so I had been unaware of the impending fall in our bank balance. I soon realised that I had to have more financial knowledge going forward.

So I built a Cash-Flow system to run alongside my P&L system so that I didn’t get caught out again and over time I came to understand retained profit and so ensure we had a positive Balance Sheet as well..

Let me give you an example. You’ve had a good year and profit has gone up, the bank balance is strong and that piece of equipment/car/furniture is calling to you to buy it. You buy it in the first quarter of your next financial year and everything in your garden feels lovely.

Your accountant visits you two and a half months later and congratulates you on the success of the business. You feel great! Then he explains that your big profit means that you’ll have a Corporation Tax bill of £12,000 to pay in 6 months time.  That great feeling disappears like mist on a hot day!

Because you hadn’t been planning you now need to find an additional £2,000 each month just to pay off the Tax.

A financial forecasting system is vital to your health – financially and mentally.

AND there are additional benefits. You have the ability to build into the plan your personal spending needs; holidays, purchases, gifts and increased earnings.

Having built mine and refined it over time for our Marketing and Telemarketing business here in Northampton in the Midlands I will be happy to show anyone how to do it. Until 31^st May I’ll do the first system for no fee just expenses. The next 1 will be at 50% fee plus expenses and thereafter each system will have a fee of £960.

The system will be workable by the time I leave and you’ll understand how to maintain it and I’ll show you how to add to it. So if you want one ring me on 0808-172-1900 or e-mail me on colin.bh@bhtmarketing.com.

Happy planning!

Similar article Developing your own Business Plan http://www.bhtmarketing.com/site/2013/04/03/developing-business-plan/

I’m sure that your answer is “of course, I would engage with, and talk to, the other guests.”

Good, then this article will interest you because in marketing some people do the exact opposite! It’s true – they will make the effort to go to the dinner but then not bother to engage.

Let me explain.

Marketing Crime number 1

I knew a Managing Director once who had the marketing philosophy of just waiting. This is a common crime. He told me that businesses would come to him when they needed his services. No wonder his business slowly went down the proverbial and was eventually taken over.

Marketing Crime number 2

I am also staggered by the companies who openly admit that they send out quotes and then don’t follow them up. This is a big crime! They have gone to the trouble of conducting a marketing campaign to acquire the lead, they’ve had a meeting, they’ve written a quote and then they waste it all by doing –  nothing!

Marketing Crime number 3

A major marketing crime is when an e-mailing or mailing campaign, which has been extensively crafted and the database has been properly cleansed and targeted, waits for the recipient to do all the work and call you.

Banging them to rights

The common crime is resolved simply by realising that you’re not the only fish in the sea, people won’t come to you, you’ve got to go to them and let them know that you’re there. You must raise awareness of your company. Ask for our Free Advice.

The big crime is usually perpetrated by individuals who are afraid of the word “No”. They can’t handle rejection. Well that’s easily solved, get someone else to pick up the ‘phone and ask on your behalf. We do it all the time. Ask for a quote.

 The major marketing crime of wasting all of the previous effort is resolved by using in instrument invented well over 100 years ago – the telephone as a marketing tool. Yes, the telephone, it was invented on 10^th March 1876, when Scottish-born inventor, Alexander Graham Bell uttered these words into the telephone to his assistant in the next room: “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you“. This could be seen as prophetic, in a marketing sense, because he had just uttered a buying signal!

The telephone is the only way to have a conversation across distances in seconds. It adds two extra dimensions to your marketing effort, the voice and your personality. If it’s done properly the telephone call comes across as an attempt to be helpful, not as an attempt to sell. The relationship is developed! Download the 8 Principles of telemarketing.

It is a proven fact that the returns are vastly improved by following up over the telephone rather than leaving them to make the next move.

Needless to say BHT, of Northampton in the Midlands, conducts these sorts of campaigns. Ask for a quote or for some FREE advice.

BHT can design, write, despatch mail and e-mail then follow-up on the telephone or simply follow-up your quotes. We’ve even followed up magazine advertisements to great effect.

So if you don’t want to be a marketing criminal complete the marketing circle and talk to your prospects by using the ‘phone.

If you would like more information about any of this content just click the contact information tab or ring me on 0808-172-1900 or send me an e-mail at colin.bh@bhtmarketing.com and we’ll be glad to advise you.

Well, it has a lot to do with it because time and time again companies rush into direct marketing without the proper thought and planning and time.

The old adage “Rubbish in, rubbish out” will prove itself to be true if you conduct any kind of direct marketing campaign without adequate preparation time before moving forward because you must always refine your data.

There is a fool-proof way of making sure that your data provides you with the means to address the right person in the right type of company in the right area at the right time.

I know what it is – do you? 

In marketing it is true that the rapid routes to action yield the lowest level of results. If some time, effort and money is spent at the start of any campaign then a much more successful outcome can be assured.

The foolish way

A large proportion of companies, when wanting to pursue a direct marketing campaign plan to start the very next week and so rush over the preparation without giving it the importance it is due. They look to see what data they already have and make do or they may go to a list broker and buy an already targeted list but then never check it.

At BHT, we have come across instances where the data has been up to 5 years old and has still been relied upon without any prior checking. (Only recently, we conducted a campaign where the data was supplied to us by the client and turned out to be 50% in error!).

Projects are so often seriously undermined before they are even begun because not enough planning has taken place to allow time prior to the campaign beginning to refine and focus the data.

The result, of course, is a campaign with below expected results and the client blames everyone involved in the campaign except their inability to see that they needed to refine their data.

The smart way

A company that accepts that data needs to be refined and that this takes time, effort and money is well on the way to having a campaign performance which will far out-weigh the costs involved.

By running the data through a high-speed tele-cleansing exercise the right contact can be found and their contact details collected for your CRM system.

By high speed tele-cleansing I mean a system, like our Pure and Simple Service here in Northampton in the Midlands, (Click here for a quote) which can refine a data-base of 3,000 records in just over 21 working days with one person.

If you’re planning to run a continuous weekly mail-shot which will be tele-followed each week then the cleansing process need only clean as many records as can be followed the next week. Click here to read about our instalment plan 

In conclusion do you want to be a fool or smart?

Preparing a mail-shot/e-mail campaign with telemarketing follow-up requires solid preparation not only in terms of “What do we say, write, and offer?” but in making sure that the data is 100% correctly targeted. So if you’re thinking about such a campaign in June you’d better get the data refined in May and act smart and talk to us if you need advice.

If you would like to talk to us about timings and costs please ring 0808-172-1900 or drop me an e-mail at colin.bh@bhtmarketing.com or click here for a quote.

Colin Bonham-Horton

In today’s economic climate we all need to be on the ball, to act and act quickly, quicker than we have ever done before, to make sure we stay ahead of the pack and push our business up into the limelight so that we can make progress.

However, there often seems to be that awkward element, money, which can get in the way of implementing our best laid plans when we want to.

Sometimes, we would like to set a marketing campaign in motion but the funds aren’t currently available but will be in 3 or 4 months time. You fear then that the momentum will be lost and so the initiative fades into the background and is eventually lost.

Now BHT are responding to this need and launching our “Marketing by instalments” plan. Ask for a quote.

Our top quality Call-handling service is already a 12 month, standing-order service and so we are adding telemarketing, e-mail and snail mail campaigns with telemarketing follow-up to that portfolio.

So if you are in the planning stages of or want to start planning campaigns for 3 months or further down the road you can start a payment plan now and spread the payments equally over a 12 month period. Why not get a quote  - just Ask for a quote 

The benefit is that you can start now, targeting the times you want to target and spread the payments to ease your cash-flow throughout the year. This makes planning your budgets and cash out-flow that much easier and because the payments are made by standing order there is no administrative hassle to take up your time.

The 3 month lead time for any campaign gives enough time to arrange the setting-up meetings, prepare the systems, design and write the mail, e-mail and articles on your website as well as prepare any social media output.

This instalment plan is designed to help you and is another way that BHT of Northampton in the Midlands is determined to offer marketing services designed to help you. To get some ideas of costs Ask for a quote now.

If you would like to discuss the costs for your campaign just call me on 0808-172-1900 or send me an e-mail at colin.bh@bhtmarketing.com and I’ll be glad to talk the options through with you. As always there will never be any pressure for you to buy we will just answer your questions and let you make the decision based on the facts.

And finally, could I ask for your help. We would like to get your opinion about this initiative and so would be grateful if you would send an e-mail to colin.bh@bhtmarketing.com or you could phone on 0808 -172- 1900 and let us know. It all helps us to create a service that better suits your needs.

Colin Bonham-Horton

We’ve all heard this question – “Where will you be in 5 years time?”

It’s an annoying little question isn’t it?

However, the reality is that most SMEs haven’t got a clue because they plan nothing and, as a result, that’s what they achieve, they drift from one year to the next believing that their fortunes are dictated by outside forces. Well I’m here to tell you that they are wrong.

Your future lies in your hands and starts with developing a Business Plan – and it’s easy! Why not Ask for a quote now. What have you got to lose? 

Your Business Plan doesn’t have to be complicated but it does have to be based on fact. So the easiest way to start is to develop a rolling 18 month cash-flow spreadsheet system. here at BHT Marketing in Northampton in the Midlands we have one for our telemarketing service which extends into August 2014!

If you do this by week you will be able to detail the income you receive and will receive through the foreseeable future and itemise your expenditure on the same basis. The net result is you will more accurately predict your future cash-flow needs.

This is the beginning and now you can start to develop your PLAN. It’s human nature that once you’ve seen your existing future you’ll want to try to improve it.

Where to start? I’d recommend being selfish and putting in the income you want to draw for high days and holidays.

You’ll start to see that in order to achieve your personal goals, which, after all, is why you went into business in the first place you have to start to increase your sales.

This leads you to thinking about developing marketing strategies which in turn lead to costs and so on and so forth. Why not Ask for a quote.

After a while you will settle on a plan of action that will take you to a short-term goal. What follows on is a less exact plan for the next 4 years based on mathematical income and expenditure growth estimation, which themselves are based on the first 18 months that you’ve just developed.

The combination of the two plans means that you can monitor you performance and make changes to ensure you get to the next level.

The next thing that happens is quite magical – you will wonder why you didn’t do this earlier and marvel at other SMEs who don’t do it at all! Then you find yourself achieving business performance you didn’t think possible before and you’ll start to enjoy the success you are having.

It isn’t always easy to get started however, so if you need a helping hand just give me a call on FREE PHONE 0808-172-1900 and we’ll arrange a meeting or you could drop me an e-mail : colin.bh@bhtmarketing.com, and don’t worry it’s not going to cost you a penny to talk to me!

Related articles

• Do you really need a Business Plan? (akcablog.wordpress.com)

So does it or doesn’t it?

What should you expect from telemarketing and how should you approach it?

Let’s invent a chap called Bob who has a service/product that sells for £500.

1.     Bob didn’t know about the longer-term effects of the campaign.

Bob hadn’t been taken through the maths by a responsible telemarketing company before the campaign. So he was expecting a quick return on investment. He spends £5,200 for a 130 hour, 13 week, campaign. He gains 13 appointments and makes 6 sales worth £3,000 in total. His immediate reaction therefore is, “It didn’t work!”

If he’d been made aware of the longer-term view and had looked at the purchasing patterns of each of his new clients his assessment would have been very different:

Clients 1 & 2 spend £500 every quarter and having been satisfied by Bob’s service place 4 orders with him for the year. This amounts to £4,000.

Clients 3 & 4 spend £500 every 6 months and will also buy from Bob again. This amounts to £2,000.

Clients 5 & 6 weren’t happy with Bob’s service and only buy once. This amounts to £1,000

Consequently, these 6 new clients are worth £7,000 to Bob – a 34.6% return on investment!

2.     So was Bob’s expectation too short-term?

 Whilst telemarketing is a fast route to appointments it is certainly not a quick fix.

(See this article too) http://www.bhtmarketing.com/site/2011/06/13/long-term-working-partnership-not-short-term-fix/

Like all forms of marketing, telemarketing takes time to build a momentum or a pipeline.

Imagine you are working in your office and you take a sales telephone call. Even though you’re interested in what is being said you won’t jump to an appointment before you’re work schedules permit and when you’ve reached the point where this service fits into your plans. You will also have wanted to gather information and investigated the market.

All of this takes time.

There are three types of appointment that telemarketing achieves:

• Opportune – 1%  - we rang just at the right time,
  • Telephone meeting – 3% – want more detailed information in a telephone conversation,
    • Pipeline – 7-10% – in the market within 6 months.

So let’s assume that Bob takes a longer view 

a)     The first 13 weeks yields 6 appointments                                                  £3,000

b)     Subsequently, those clients yield another                                                £4,000

c)     The next 13 weeks bring in a similar result totalling                            £7,000

d)     Now we add the pipeline, assumed as 7% of the database, 182 companies!

IfBob has only a 25% conversion rate he will win 45 new customers worth £22,500 and that’s only if they buy                  once. The reality will be in line with the model above.

So over 26 weeks a campaign yielded £36,500 for an outlay of £10,400 – an ROI of 2.5!!!

• And that doesn’t include repeat purchases!

 Conclusion

Telemarketing works at 3 levels:

• Initial “Opportune” appointments – within each 13 week period
  • Companies who are in the market and who want telephoned information
    • Companies who are in the market within 6 months – pipeline.

And Finally

• You don’t have to buy 26 week campaigns because you can follow up the leads yourself once they’ve been identified by the agency.

• Markets have differing sales conversion speeds and that has to be taken into account.

So the next time someone tells you that telemarketing doesn’t work could I suggest that you recommend that they talk to me and I’ll happily explain the maths.

AND don’t forget you can try Telemarketing at a reduced financial risk?

Ask for a quote now and save on set-up fees.

If you are looking to push your business forward over the next 6 months or so and want to discuss the ins and outs of telemarketing don’t hesitate to call me, Colin Bonham-Horton on 0808-172-1900, or drop me an e-mail at colin.bh@bhtmarketing.com. I’m always glad to help. All advice is absolutely FREE as is our 8 BHT Principles of Telemarketing – free to download.

I do hope you found this article helpful. If you did please drop me a quick line – thanks.

Colin

Related articles

• Does Telemarketing really work?
• Can one Marketing tool achieve all of this?
• Why Cold Calling Has Some B2B Advantages

16% of all companies, on average, called from a properly targeted telemarketing campaign, will be interested in your business.

81% of them will want to progress this within 6 months of the call – that’s 13% of all businesses called will be interested to arrange a meeting with you within the next 6 months!

(Sshh – don’t tell anybody but if you want to try it – there are 2 Great Trial Offers at the end of this article)

Since October 1997, BHT have been gathering statistics on every campaign they have run and the figures above are an average across all markets.

BUT just let me raise a note of caution. Not all clients will achieve this high level of interest because:

• the quality of data will vary,
• different markets have different conversion speeds,
• companies have differing reputations in their respective markets,
• competition may be high in your particular market.

As an indication, however, you can see that if you called 1000 companies you should expect 100 – 160 companies who will express interest at varying levels and over varying time frames.

So telemarketing does work but how?

In short, telemarketing develops a sales opportunity pipeline. From your point of view it is vitally important to know who the prospects are, what level of interest they have and when they are looking to buy into your market, and hopefully from you.

Consequently, we break the results down into:-

• immediate appointments,
• those companies who want a detailed chat on the telephone before going any further
• those companies who want to arrange an appointment at a certain point within 6 months of the telephone call. This is the true sales pipeline. It is the singular most important outcome of a telemarketing campaign because it puts names with dates in the future and allows you to make a more accurate sales forecast and therefore a more accurate P&L and cash-flow forecast.

Can this be improved upon?

The answer is that there are varying levels of refinement or various forms of interlinked campaigns which will suit a variety of purposes and budgets. Here are two examples:

1. an e-mail campaign generates a number of companies who show an interest by opening the e-mail and some then click through to your website. Consequently, you can then use telemarketing to contact those interested companies.
2. a mail-shot campaign directed at named individuals within specific departments will warm a market better than a cold call. Consequently, telemarketing should be more successful when following up.

Is this proven?

BHT are in the process of developing e-mail/telemarketing and mail/telemarketing and will be measuring the outcomes carefully. I will be writing more about both within the next 2 months.

Can you test Telemarketing at a reduced financial risk?

There is an offer which closes by the 1^st March (see the article at  http://www.bhtmarketing.com/site/2013/01/10/marketing-tool-achieve-this/ )

You can take advantage of that if you’re quick, but as that offer is rapidly reaching its expiry date I would like to make you another offer – quote “Offer 133” and we will reduce you telemarketing campaign fees by 5% and waive the set-up fee. That would save you a minimum of £660 across a 13 week campaign. This offer closes on March15th.

If you are looking to push your business forward over the next 6 months or so and want to discuss the ins and outs of telemarketing and the different techniques don’t hesitate to call me,

Colin Bonham-Horton on 0808-172-1900 for a no obligation chat. All calls are confidential and any advice is absolutely FREE.

Or you could go to www.bhtmarketing.com to see what we do before you ring.

Related articles

• Can one Marketing tool achieve all of this? (bhtmarketing.com)

Collect contact information,

Gather market intelligence,

Develop a 12 month sales pipeline,

Follow Newsletters and e-mails,

Develop relationships,

Make sales appointments,

Get same day feedback,

Find new markets.

All of this can be achieved by just using only one marketing tool! To see what it is and take up our Very Special, time limited, Offer read on.

The marketing tool, of course, is a telephone! However, it does need to be used in a professional marketing manner by a professional and ethical agency. Ask for a quote

BHT have demonstrated that they can achieve all of the above every week of the year. “The technique of Telemarketing, with its wide abilities has been very successful for our clients over the last 15 years”, says Colin Bonham-Horton, Director Business Development, and he adds, “By the way, please don’t confuse us with Tele-Sales organisations – there is a world of difference, but primarily – Telemarketing does not sell anything – we do what is listed above.”

Telemarketing doesn’t have to be expensive, it can be as flexible as you want it to be and it doesn’t have to be complicated. You can use it for 1 hour a week, 10 hours a week or every other week – whatever you want. You decide the weight of campaign, with advice from us, but, of course, ultimately your budget is the final master of decisions!

You brief us, we learn your market and then we run the appropriate campaign for you, targeted at your market. We feed results back to you every week along with all the knowledge gained and take that opportunity to discuss fine tuning the campaign based on our experience over the week. Download the 8 BHT principles of Telemarketing

Ultimately, we work hard to achieve for you and to win your trust and maintain a long and mutually beneficial working relationship and that’s where our Guarantee of Performance comes in. This is based on the statistics gathered from your campaign over the previous weeks and means that from the time of its inception BHT will hit or beat your Benchmark every week or work at our own expense until we do! I think you’ll agree that you can’t say fairer than that.

So, if you’re looking for business growth in 2013 and you want a marketing tool that can give you any or all of the above and is operated by a very ethical company call Colin Bonham-Horton on 0808-172-1900.

All calls are confidential and advice is FREE

Or you could just ask us for a quote.

Related articles

• Why telemarketing? (bhtmarketing.com)
• Is Telemarketing a thing of the past? (bhtmarketing.com)
• How to move sales forward without spending a fortune! (bhtmarketing.com)

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Guest Blog from Clarity Solutions

Here at Clarity Solutions, we know that one of the best forms of direct marketing has to be telemarketing. The phone is a fantastic sales tool to get you speaking to your potential customers quickly.

If you are looking to outsource your telemarketing, then you’ll also need to provide, or be advised on a business to business data list for the telemarketing company to target on your behalf.

It shouldn’t be underestimated how important it is to make sure that your campaign is as targeted as possible. This is to ensure you receive the maximum potential return and bottom line profit. 

It’s truly amazing just how targeted you can source business to business data from a data broker. You can request businesses from industries that are applicable to you, whether that’s manufacturing, through to accountants. You can also target companies of a particular size, whether that’s judged on the number of employees, or turnover, the choice is completely up to you. Finally, you can source particular job functions within any business. For example, if you’re selling a product designed for the IT side of an organisation then you can request for a list of IT decision makers.

As you can see from the above, there are numerous possibilities on how to select the criteria for your business to business data. As mentioned, it’s crucial that you focus on this element of your campaign first. After all, your data list really is the underlying foundation to any direct marketing campaign. If poorly prepared and researched, then you’re lining yourself up for poor results. If targeted correctly then you’re providing a firm foundation for a successful campaign.

Any reputable data provider will be able to inform you of accuracy ratings on the data they provide. We recommend that you choose a provider who ensures their databases are updated by an in-house team of telephone researchers continually. At worst case the databases should be no older than 6 months since their last refresh, at the point of sale. This is also crucial to comply with the TPS (Telephone Preference Service). You will want to know that the data provided, safely complies with the Telecommunications – Data Protection and Privacy Regulations Act 1999.

Please call by clicking the link.

We hope you’ve found the above information helpful. The team here at Clarity Solutions wish you all the success with your direct marketing campaign.