Ideal Marketing Company Blog

Marketing Seminar sponsored by Barclays Bank

Free marketing seminar for Leicestershire businesses organised by Barclays Bank

Local businesses are invited to a free marketing seminar to be held in Leicester city centre next month (March). The event will feature a talk by Leicestershire based marketing consultant Alastair Campbell of The Ideal Marketing Company and is sponsored by Barclays Bank which has 13 branches in the Leicester area.

The event is being held on Wednesday March 24th from12.00 pm to 2.00 pm at Mem-Saab Indian restaurant and champagne bar in Highcross Street in the city centre. Alastair will be giving a talk which focuses on the 4 critical marketing activities to grow a business and increase profits.

Monica Mendez, Area Manager for Barclays Business Banking Team in Leicestershire feels that the event is one not to be missed. “Marketing is one of the areas that many business owners forget as often they are so involved in the actual day to day ‘running’ of the business,” she comments. “Alastair will be discussing some simple strategies that businesses can apply, that might just help drive more customers through the door. This event will also provide an opportunity for networking – another invaluable and cost effective way of introducing new business.”

Alastair Campbell is Managing Director of The Ideal Marketing Company and gives talks on low cost marketing solutions for SMEs across the UK. He also runs the Marketing Mentor Programme, a fully funded 18 month support and training course designed for small businesses.

Businesses from across Leicestershire and the surrounding area that are interested in attending should call Pragnesh Sadadiwala from Barclays Bank on 0116 206 2184 or email pragnesh.sadadiwala@barclays.com to reserve a free place for this free marketing seminar in Leicester.

Tough times ahead?

Who can help in a turnaround?

In a turnaround, businesses often need help from people who are familiar with this type of crisis situation and who possess the specific experience and skills needed. But there are differing types of help available so it is worth understanding who’s who in the world of CROs, IPs, IMs and other professionals you may encounter, some of whom work within your business and some of whom work simply as advisors.

A Chief Restructuring Officer or CRO, is a turnaround professional that management hire on a temporary basis to provide support and assistance.

A CRO’s job is firstly to help the business analyse its position, providing an experienced eye to look over how deep the crisis is, assess the options and make an informed judgement as to whether the business is salvageable.

CROs then move on to help to drive through the actions needed to deal with the situation, acting as a crisis manager to handle issues with the urgency, independence and sometimes ruthlessness required. CROs therefore need to be people who can cope with the challenges and difficulties that this implies in a professional way.

The CRO also brings to the business a body of specialist knowledge of relevant commercial and insolvency issues such as redundancy processes and wrongful trading, so helping to manage these risks.

A CRO brings their experience of dealing with not only a business in crisis, bit also their experience in keeping financial stakeholders such as banks on board supporting the turnaround. A CRO has the ability to talk to the bank and insolvency advisers their own language, so giving the business the best chance that it will receive funders’ support through its difficulties.

The help provided by a CRO is generally therefore extremely ‘hands on’ in nature. The contrast here is with the professional advisers such as the insolvency practitioner or the lawyer who, however close the relationship, do remain outside the business. The CRO sits on your side of the table at meetings and actively works on behalf of your business, often becoming part of your business by taking on the role and responsibilities of becoming a director to take charge and drive through change for the time needed to make the plan happen.

The Institute for Turnaround provides formal accreditation of UK turnaround professionals, and such they may also be a member of the US based Turnaround Management Association. They often work alone but increasingly are operating as teams, often in conjunction with or organised through the firms who are also involved in supplying in specialists on a temporary basis known as interim managers to deal with particular functional aspects of the business (such as a temporary finance or production director) as may be required to turn the business’ performance around.

But there are many other resources available that a business can need apart from CROs. As a turnaround affects all areas of the business, so the business tends to need assistance from a broad range of specialists.

Business owners should always take formal insolvency advice from either lawyers or an insolvency practitioner (or ‘IP’) if the business is in severe difficulty to see whether they are safe to continue trading the business. An IP will be able to advise on use of any of the business rescue procedures under the Insolvency Act such as a Company Voluntary Arrangement; will be able to help the directors in assessing the business’s position. They will also often have a strong working relationship with the bank and so may be able to to help gain bank support for a turnaround, as well as introducing or working with a turnaround professional.

Often there is a need to raise new or replacement finance to provide funds to deal with the initial crisis or to support the subsequent recovery and regrowth of the business. These funds will come from specialist asset financiers either directly or more usually through a broker who knows the market and is used to placing such business.

Legal advice is almost always required and the business will need a recovery specialist as a lead advisor who can call upon expertise within his or her firm across a wide range of areas such as insolvency and debt collection in the early stages; through key issues for restructuring a business such as employment and redundancy, as well as contractual disputes such as problem contracts; right through to corporate finance specialists if there is a need to raise new equity or arrange a sale of the business.

Interim Managers are often used as a flexible resource to meet the changing needs of a business during the different phases of a turnaround. A typical case might require significant assistance from an interim financial controller on tightening up management of its cash to survive an initial crisis. Then the business might need an operations specialist to address manufacturing issues, before then bringing in a marketing expert to provide a boost to regrowing sales, while the whole strategy is overseen by the CRO.

Mark Blayney has 20 years experience in business rescues, is an IfT member and is the author of Turning a Business Around  visit www.markblayney.co.uk for more ideas.

Marketing Seminar

Thanks to all the small business owners and marketing managers who attended my latest marketing seminar at Hothorpe Hall.  Judging from your feedbackforms and the e-mails I’ve since received you got a lot out the day.

Hear what one of the delegates had to say about yesterday’s event by clicking on these links:

Marketing Mentor Feedback

Marketing Mentor Feedback- part 2

What happy customers look like

CRM gives the best ROI Marketers believe. The Chartered Institute of marketing’s latest Marketing Survey revealed that CRM delivers the best ROI. The marketers believe that ROI with advertising is the worst.

Financial services and service firms(31%) give the best ROI , second being technology and telecom sectors (30%) and public relations with half the number of mentions(12%) as listed in a survey conducted for The Institute by Ipsos MORI in the Spring .

About 38% of the marketers rate the ROI for technology and telecom companies as worst, 23% rate advertising excluding online as worst. While 11% consider that sponsorship deliver poor ROI.

Commenting on the findings, David Thorp, director of research and professional development at The Chartered Institute of Marketing said; “As belts tighten it is clear that marketing spend on advertising is under pressure but it’s refreshing to see that investment in ‘knowing your customer’, through CRM systems, marketers are able to wisely concentrate their spend in the most effective activities and, as we move into 2010, I’m convinced this more professional approach will stand them in good stead when the economy recovers.”

CRM gives a much higher ROI than advertising. This is a good reason for companies to focus on their existing customer base.

The end is nigh?

Is the recession almost over?  A Quarterly survey says so…

The the recession is about to end and UK‘s business confidence has risen to its highest level for a long time.
The reports from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) reveal that the economic outlook is improving.
Business Confidence Monitor shows that third-quarter GDP will rise 0.5%, breaking five quarters of declining output.

In a BCM survey of 1,000 senior businessmen on their economic confidence over the next 12 months 41% of them show more economic confidence about their prospects than the last year. BCM has seen its biggest quarterly rise since the third quarter of 2007. The most benefitted sectors include IT, banking, finance and insurance and property.
This suggests that the UK recession is at an end.  I have certainly noticed a marked upturn of both enquiries and results from existing clients. With economic outlook improving and BCM showing a rise in GDP, recession is likely to come to an end soon.

Managers - are they trusted?

I was reading a survey the other day about how employees are loosing confidence in UK management.
According to the Chartered Institute of Management, almost 47% of the workers leave jobs due to bad management and 50% believe that they could do a better job than their current manager. Estimates say about 49% workers are ready to take a pay cut in order to work with better managers.
Ruth Spellman, CMI chief executive, said: “The figures reveal the depth of the crisis of confidence in UK management and leadership and the enormous toll bad management is taking on the UK economy and people’s wellbeing.”

To improve the management and leadership performance the CMI has launched a Manifesto for a Better Managed Britain.
A survey involving 3,000 adults conducted by OnePoll for CMI came out with interesting figures. Around 68% of the managers confessed that they would not like management roles at the start of their career. Only 28% of the managers carried a management qualification and 63% of the managers had no management training. Two in five admitted that they don’t want to be managers at all.

Spellman said: “It’s not surprising bad management is such an issue in the UK.  We invest less in our managers than our global competitors and it shows.  It’s telling that the majority of individuals never set out to manage people, and have not been trained to do so. If we’re going to stay competitive internationally, the government and employers need to address this worrying skills gap.  In what other profession would it be acceptable for only a quarter of practitioners to hold a professional qualification?  The sad truth is that UK managers are no longer regarded as professional, competent or accountable. By signing up to the Manifesto, policy makers, managers and leaders can demonstrate their commitment to raising UK plc’s game.”
The requirement for individual managers to demonstrate professionalism, and be role models has come out as a national priority. Employers are called upon to develop leaders who can work in a competitive, responsible and professional environment. More than 1,500 leaders, managers and organisations like Price Waterhouse Coopers and Interbrand have committed to CMI’s Manifesto.
I’d say that it is time that we gave more importance to training managers. This will go a long way in restoring employee confidence in management”.

If you have never been to Arts Fresco in Market Harborough you don’t know what you have been missing.  Back for it’s 8th year the town centre is closed to make way for a large number of people who get paid money by the Arts Council to do some very silly things indeed.  It’s on Sunday 13th of September.  See www.artsfresco.com or have a look at this short TV advert we’ve produced for the event.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zMvNf2

It’s always good when you can help a client to gain media coverage that makes a dramatic difference to their number of inquiries and sales.  It’s also nice when you generate some great PR coverage for them.  In our case Metisee Motorbikes have achieved both with significant stories about the company on BBC Radio & TV, The Sunday Times, the Mail on Sunday, Top Gear Magazine and most recently the cover of the current edition of Classic Bike Guide.

We only do 1 day a month for them, but over a 5 day period we have generated media coverage worth over £150,000 for them.  Importantly, this has translated into real sales for the company.  We were helped by it being a very media friendly product, but have helped them achive some significant and worthwhile coverage.

Marketing Seminars

Thanks to everybody who saw my new seminar on 12 ways to grow your business through generating more leads. The seminar took place towards the end of East Midlands Live at the Trent FM Nottingham Arena. Thanks to Tara and all the team who worked so hard to put the event on. If you were there, hope you picked up some useful ideas - but do put them into practice. If you missed it, e-mail me and I’ll let you know when my next Marketing Seminar is on in the area or how you can enroll in the Marketing Mentor programme for free.

Marketing Seminars – Keeping Customers Happy

31. The golden rule – do unto others as you would have done to you.  If you stick by this rule when it comes to customers, you won’t go too far wrong.   

32. Speed stuns.  It is said that in restaurants, the speed and quality of waiter service is rated as more important than the food.  That’s quite interesting if you consider why people go to a restaurant!  The speed of your response will make a big difference to the experience and opinions of your customers.  If you can solve problems swiftly, you will win over any customers and win new friends.

33. Take responsibility.  Things will go wrong in life – have you noticed?  Most suppliers and most of your competitors will blame everybody and anybody instead of themselves, but because you take responsibility when something goes wrong, you will tell the customer the words they want to hear.  “I will take complete responsibility for sorting this out.  Let me look into it, find out exactly what the situation is and I’ll get back to you with an answer by X o’clock”  And even if you don’t know everything you hoped you would by that time, call them back when you said you would.  Would you like to deal with a company that says that when things go wrong? I know I would!

For more marketing ideas come to our next free marketing seminar on February 9^th  Hothorpe Hall, near Leicestershire – see the seminars page for full details.