Feel the Force - Become a Business Jedi

When it comes to making the big decisions many people become crippled by FEAR. Big decisions - like buying a franchise, employing / firing staff, investing in more marketing, getting a new vehicle - can be huge scary decisions and in many instances they are decisions that many people are not prepared to take. The problem with making big scary decisions is that we get wrapped up in irrational thoughts that gather momentum until you cannot see the wood from the trees. I recently listened to Nigel Botterill talk through a process of dealing with FEAR whenever you need to make a big decision. The talk from Nigel was very insightful and I thought I would share the simple steps to remove the fear. 1. Write down all the negative thoughts and worries you have about your decision. By writing them down it will start to lighten your mind and you will start to see how "dumb" some of your thoughts are. 2. Cross out the worries and concerns that are irrational. 3. This will ...

Google My Business can be a brilliant source of new business. All new franchisees have a GMB location set up when they first start. All the basics are completed leaving simple input and posting as the main action for franchisees. Be wary not to mess around with the the Set Up particularly in the Info section as this can lead to your listing being Suspended. Over time and with the right input your aim is to get your listing into the Top 3 on certain keyword searches on Google. This video shows you the importance of Responding to Reviews - you must reply quickly to all reviews. Adding photos and videos to your listing will make it more engaging.

Facebook Business Pages are one of our key digital assets. All new Franchisees are set up with a business page when they join. Business Pages work together (although not linked) with other digital media including your website and GMB. The basics are always set up for each new franchisee so there should not be too much required other than day to day input and posts. This video talks about Likes and Follows - this is effectively your audience and the bigger the audience of relevant people the better. Note - Getting 1000's of Likes from China is a waste of time. Get Likes and Follows from customers or people who live in your area. A nice feature is Page Feeds where you can Follow other pages and see what they are posting all in one place. You can then share and or like various posts. You can follow colleagues, customers or competitors and see what is going on with their business. Also don't forget Facebook has storage capability for Videos and Photos which will ma...

In business we all need to learn.... and the best way to learn is to find people who are good at what they do, spend time with them, listen and learn. The facts in business are that only 20% of businesses in the UK are in really good shape and only 5% absolutely killing it. It can be hard to know the truth from the bullshit so you need to be astute and be good at filtering out the good from the bad. Here is one person in the network who I can assure you is good at what he does and more importantly, how he does it.... It is a 25 minute video but watch, listen and learn.

I have lost count of the number of times I have heard "google has spent all my money". The conversation quite often goes on to say..... "I thought I was having a really good month and now it has been spoilt because Google have just taken ("stolen") lots of money from my account." However, this frustration is borne out of a lack of understanding on the reality of the cost of getting new customers...... So many businesses are not as successful as they could be as they simply don’t fully appreciate one of the most important costs in business = The cost of getting and keeping customers or THE COST OF ACQUISITION The "Cost of Acquisition" is another way of defining your spend / time / activity on getting new customers. And, once understood it will really make you think differently about how you can grow your business. You see the initial comment about spending lots of money on Google would actually have a direct link with the ...

Online Customer Reviews have fundamentally changed our business over the last few years. It was back in April 2017 the Group conference at the Motor Cycle Museum that we highlighted that the Group had collected very few reviews over all the previous years. From memory we had less that 800 reviews across the brands. I am really proud to say that we have now close to exceeding 9000 reviews!! That is HUGE..!! We are leading the way in our respective sectors and when, or if, the competition finally wake up we will be way ahead of the rest. If you are not actively seeking out reviews from your customers then you will be losing sales. We have lost count of the number of customers that say they chose us due to the reviews they had read. Not only are they good for prospective new customer they can also…. Increase the Click Through Rate on the website They help add new content on your website which is a positive thing for Google They make you stand out from the cr...

We all hate sales calls right...? We spend time and money to promote our business and get all excited about receiving a phone call from a potential customer and you hear the start of a standard sales pitch.......? Boring, frustrating and unwanted!! So take action... after all you are probably paying for the call to you and they are taking up your precious time. Firstly, ALWAYS answer you phone even if you think it is a sales call. YOU JUST DON'T KNOW and second guessing could cost you a lot of money as you will get some genuine calls from numbers outside of your dial code or from commercial businesses that have 0333 type numbers. Secondly if it is an unsolicited sales call don't be polite and let them do their pitch. Be professional and advise them that the call is unsolicited and you are not interested. Thirdly, Block numbers that you recognise to be sales calls. You can do this on most mobile phone. On our Tracking numbers we can block numbers if you let us know. ...