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7 Reasons Why a Small Business Should Enter Awards

Once you have an established business, you need to start thinking about entering industry awards. Awards aren’t just about receive kudos for something remarkable your business has achieved. Here are my 7 reasons why a small business should enter awards.

1. Learning Process

Entering awards for your business isn’t just about winning. You get to learn more about yourself and your business. The awards process itself can be quite grueling and difficult. Once you have all the right information, it will make it easier further down the line. You will need to create a spreadsheet with all of the awards you are eligible to enter so that you don’t miss any of the deadline dates.

2. Helps Re-evaluate your business

Every time you enter a new award, there may be something new worth mentioning. Entering these awards helps you re-evaluate your business so that you are always on top of what is going on. It is worth mentioning that when your business hits a milestone, you need to document it so that it is ready to be included in your awards entry.

3. You need to be in it, to win it

If you don’t enter, you won’t win. This may mean putting aside a budget for some of the more important awards so that you are ready to enter as soon as entries open. Just because your business may not be as established as one of your competitors it doesn’t mean you won’t come away with something. You may not win, but you may be highly commended. Don’t let the fear of your competition putt you off entering any industry awards.

4. Make important business connections

If the awards you are entering have ceremonies, make sure you or one of your colleagues attends them. This is very important as you could meet very influential people that you will be able to connect with on a business level. Don’t forget to take business cards with you as you never know when you may need them! When Gloople was chosen as one of Smarta’s top 100 businesses, I attended the awards ceremony where I made a lot of important connections and had a conversation with James Caan.

5. Brand Exposure

Entering Awards and having your business shortlisted is one of the best ways to gain the right kind of brand exposure. It may not happen straight away but the more awards you enter, the more your businesses name will appear in front of people and this can only be good exposure for your brand.

6. Build Relationships with Employees

Entering awards and winning will help build relationships in house. It is always nice to be acknowledged for the work you put into a business and your employees will feel the same way. It may also be a nice gesture to have your team at an awards ceremony to enjoy the company of each other in a social environment.

7. Get to know your Business Sector and Competition

The more awards you enter, the more likely you are to see your competitors. There will always be that one company that you roll your eyes at because they keep winning the awards you enter. Don’t let this defeat you, you never know what will happen – people might start rolling their eyes at your business next!

Are you ready, as a Small Business to build your band and enter industry awards?

Using LinkedIn 5 Minutes a Day

Running a B2B business can be challenging at times, especially when you are trying to contact the right person in a company regarding potential partnerships or joint venture. We all go through the same problem when we call a company, asking to speak to the relevant person and being caught up by a gatekeeper.

A gatekeeper is someone who directs calls to the right person within a business. The problem with this is that this person does not understand how important it is for you to share your business with them. On most occasions, you will end up either taking an email address that is already on the site like info@, enquiries@ or giving your details in the hope that there is a chance they will call you back (which we all know, is very slim indeed).

It has taken me a long time to overcome this problem and find a solution to solve this ongoing issue which I did in 2008.. I am happy to say that I have and want to share it all with you, and now is part of my Customer Acquisition Journey. Thanks to social media, we can now find the right person to talk to and for B2B companies, it all comes down to LinkedIn.

When I was exhibiting at a trade show last year with my eCommerce Platform Gloople, we were approached by a well known global company in the hopes of striking up a partnership which I was very interested in doing. After weeks of chasing this contact, they were not moving forward with what had been initially discussed at the trade show. I then decided to go over this person’s head and use LinkedIn search to find the right person to speak to. After various back and forward emails, I then had a face to face meeting with this company which went very well indeed.

Back in 2008 I remember a similar situation where I was caught up by a gatekeeper and was going around in circles. I then went to LinkedIn, found the right person to contact and had a successful meeting with that person 72 hours later.

I have spent a long time growing my LinkedIn account to over 2,500 connections, allowing me to find the right people to connect with. If I am trying to contact someone who is not a connection of mine, I use the search functionality to find the right person in that said company. On various occasions, I find that the person I am trying to contact is a secondary connection meaning we have a person in common. I will then email them and ask for a warm introduction so that I am not coming from an unknown place.

If you don’t know how to get started with LinkedIn, here are my 5 top tips for using Linkedin 5 minutes a day;

1.Treat LinkedIn differently to Facebook and Twitter – LinkedIn is a B2B network and because of this, it should not be treated the same as other social networks. Only add those you have done business with or want to in the future.

2. Make sure your Profile is 100% Complete – If it isn’t LinkedIn will know and keep pestering you because they want you to experience all that LinkedIn has to offer.

3. Participate in Groups – There are so many great groups on LinkedIn with industry experts that you will be able to learn something off and vice versa. Utilise this part of LinkedIn and make some strong business connections.

4. Use LinkedIn as a News Outlet – LinkedIn now has a News tab once you have logged in. The news in this section is created based on your interests, which you can customise. Use the information in this section to share with your community who also share your interests.

5. Endorsing your Contacts – This is a relatively new feature LinkedIn have brought into play and has already proved its effectiveness. Make sure you endorse your contacts for the work they deserve recognition for and you will receive the same in return.

I hope you will start to use LinkedIn to help you grow your business and make those all important connections.

U.K. To Get Its Own Version of Small Business Saturday

Small business owners; listen up! This year, the U.K. will be getting Small Business Saturday this year! In the United States alone, their version of this highly popular event say over $5 billion in sales for small businesses.

The Shadow Business Secretary Chukka Umunna spoke to The Independent regarding Small Business Saturday;

“The UK version will be launched against the backdrop of a traumatic time for many retailers in town centers  where an average of one in seven shops is empty after a series of failures over the past five years.” Mr Umunna said: “I want to make Small Business Saturday a reality in Britain to actively champion, celebrate and showcase small, independent businesses on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.”

My Umunna has been a huge supporter of this event that will take place on the 7th December 2013. Small business retailers in the U.K., like many in the U.S. have struggled during the tough economic time. This is the time to really celebrate the achievement many small businesses have managed despite all odds.

This event in the U.K. is being backed by several influential groups including the Chambers of Commerce, Federation of Small Businesses, British Independent Retailers Association, The Association of Convenience Stores, the National Federation of Retail Newsagents and the Northern Ireland Independent Retail Trade Association, to name a few.

We should expect to see other well known small business advocates celebrating the event. Startup Britain and Startup Loans are two leading organisations who will be marketing this great event to their audience.

The U.S. version of Small Business Saturday is held on the Saturday after Black Friday. The idea was first formed in 2010 by American Express who picked up on the growing trend that Small Businesses were succeeding in such harsh times. They then decided to promote it around the holiday season and now has hundreds of supporters including cities, states, chambers of commerce, small business advocacy groups, high profile public officials and large brands like American Express, FedEx and The Small Business Administration (SBA)..

The U.S. have managed to successfully tap into Social Media to promote the event. Not only has Small Business Saturday become a major movement, social media activity is constantly active throughout the year. With it’s own website (www.shopsmall.com), Twitter handle and Hashtag (@Shopmall / #Shopsmall) Small Business Saturday has proved its ability to impact Twitter but even more so on Facebook with over 3 million likes on it’s Facebook Page.

I am a huge advocate of Small Businesses as I am an owner of one myself so I will definitely be supporting this cause, even if it is on both my Sister’s birthdays! Voted as one of the UK’s top 100 Startup’s by Startups.co.uk, keep an eye out for Gloople’s name around the 7th December!

What will you be doing to support Small Business Saturday?

The True Cost of Selling Online

Following from my last blog; The importance of Payments for an eCommerce Business, I wanted to discuss payments in more detail, especially when it comes to the cost of selling online.

I know that a lot of eCommerce businesses try and ignore or disregard the importance of managing the costs of selling online but it is something you MUST do before even considering selling online. By costs, I don’t just mean your website build, there are so many additional costs you need to consider;

  • SSL Certificate

  • Monthly fee to Payment gateway

  • Monthly fee for Merchant account

  • Fixed transactions fee

  • % per transaction fee

You are going to have to face the facts when it comes to selling online, there are no two ways about it; you need to accept online payments and to do this, you need to use some form of payment provider.

You have two options when it comes to online payments. You can either take payments immediately without having to create a Merchant ID or, create your own Merchant ID, which can take anything from 2 days to 6 weeks, with companies like SagePay or Worldpay and pay a monthly fee and/or percentage per transaction.

If you DON’T want to create a merchant account, you can work with providers like Stripe, Google Checkout, Amazon Payments and PayPal, which allow you to start taking payments from Visa and Mastercards almost immediately. With Stripe however, your consumer will be kept on the same page and will not be diverted to another website, giving your customer a greater user journey.

Regardless of the company you use, you will be look at a charge of upto 3.4% on the processing fee and a 30p transaction fee for every item sold. These costs vary according to your monthly turnover. Here is a great converter, giving you an overview of all the options in the UK and the total costs per month. Be Careful of the hiddens costs, like 3D secure, mobile terminal, quick checkout all of these might be an extra charge.

Lets say you bought a Necklace from a wholesaler for £1.00 + VAT = £1.20, if you sold the item for £3 on your website, you have to pay 20% VAT leaving you with £2.40. The cost of processing the sale would be 10p (3.4%)+ 30p, leaving you with £2.00 and lets say your shipping to the customer was free of charge and cost you another 40p, leaving you with £1.60.  You are left with 60p profit, and out of this you have to pay, website costs, wages, warehouse etc etc. Can the business exist on this type of profit margin?

If you go down the Merchant ID route, you will still need a gateway to take payments. Some PSP (payment service providers) and ISO (independent sales organisation) can charge a small business up to £25 as a monthly minimum fee and for this you will get between 350 and 1000 transactions depending on the company you go with. The likes of SagePay, PaymentSense, Authorize.net, Realex, eWay, Securetrading, Paypoint and Ogone, to name a few offer a payment solution for those wanting to go down the Merchant ID route. If you are looking to set up a merchant account but unsure how to do so, here is a great blog to help you.

I know that it can be scary when thinking about the cost of selling online but you really need to consider the best route for you, your business and most importantly, the smoothest journey for your consumer.

The Importance of Payments for an eCommerce Business

As a startup or small business the payment provider you chose for your eCommerce site is of high importance. You should be thinking about the user and the smoothest payment journey possible.

At Gloople, we saw the importance of the perfect payment provider from the beginning. We have met with over 18 different PSP, ISO and Acquirers from the new kids on the block; Stripe, Paymill, Braintree all the way to HSBC, Securetrading, Ogone, Skrill, Paypal, Realex, Google Checkout, Amazon Payments and many, many more.

Generally, as a small business, payments fall into the below categories;

  • Credit and debit cards

  • Electronic payments

  • Direct transfer

Before you can choose the right payment provider for your business, you need to think about the kind of goods and services your business is selling. Credit and Debit card payments are the most popular type of payment method as the online world has developed over the years.

If your business trades online and has a physical store, you should offer credit and debit card payments. If your store is online only, you should be using payment systems like PayPal to make sure the checkout process is efficient. If your business sells to other businesses, you should look at credit transfer via the BACS system.

If you are spending your time searching for the perfect payment gateway, you should ask yourself;

  • Have I read the small print? – make sure you’re not getting yourself into a long term contract with extra payments that will crop up. A lot of businesses will try and hide the information which you may disagree with in their small print.

  • What’s the support like? – With the eCommerce world in constant action, you need support to be there when you really need it.

  • Is my online payment gateway and shopping basket compatible? – You will need to check this to make sure your shopping cart can be integrated.

  • Are there going to be hidden costs? – This can sometimes be overlooked so you need to be aware of any potential hidden costs such as multi-currency payments ect.

  • Does my payment gateway come with anti-fraud? As you develop your site, you need to pick a payment provider that can provide the basic anti-fraud tools.

  • Can I see the sales figures? – you should be looking to analyse your sales data all the time so chose a payment provider that will help manage your sales data.

The process of finding the right payment system has taken over three months of preparation with meeting after meeting followed by proposals. I am now in the process of sitting down with the Gloople team where we will, collectively chose the right partner for OUR customers. As a platform it is important that we give our merchants (brands and retailers) the simplest and quickest solution to help them start selling the day they sign up.

I hope when that when the time comes, you will have the right information to pick the payment provider suitable for your eCommerce site. In next weeks blog I will be going into more detail around the positives and negatives, to the various payment providers I have mentioned and their monthly fees, percentage and fixed fees per transaction.