Bob Shepherd Associates - News and Comment

Missed The Point Again

2012-01-19T19:13:00.000Z

Those who follow these writings will have gathered I think that the banks have a fundamental misapprehension about small business but here’s a particular example showing how the National Assembly in Wales have fundamentally misunderstood small business as well.

From the start I have been critical of the Wales Economic Growth grant which are funds left over before the grants were largely whisked away in 2010. I said it was too proscriptive, was open for applications for too short a time and sadly had missed an opportunity (otherwise known as ‘the point’) once again.

This business grant has only been open since the beginning of December and I have had enquiries where ineligibilty has been the downfall for potential applicants, but I have a better example which illustrates the inept thinking that has gone into it.

A business trying its best

A Torfaen based company has been paddling hard to keep afloat. This has been partly because it has been shouldered out of contracts with another local council in favour of a company from the Midlands in very questionable circumstances, but that’s another story. To counter this and diversify they have identified a product and a market that sits nicely alongside their own and is largely unserviced.

I was asked about the grant and a finance application. All the grant criteria seemed to be answered. The Directors had the information, were in a good area for the grant, had a nod from both the bank and from Finance Wales that lending facilities to make up the matched funding could be available subject to successful application, and the company was keen to get on with it. Although the grant advice documents do not spell this out the Directors were even aware that guidelines for new employment could be met. So the lenders had been spoken to, the Accountant had the latest recent company figures ready for sign off and it all looked constructive and positive.

What is the grant for then?

Most of the ticks in place so far, so what actually are we spending this money on? The grant minimum is £100k and the best case is a 50% match in some areas so we need to propose spending £200k.

We need a couple of web sites, marketing and PR, a van, some employees, some equipment and some examples to install in show areas. Totting it up quickly, I stretch the list to about £90k and to be honest we could do it for much less.

It is immediately obvious that the Directors, over keen at the prospect of much needed assistance from the Welsh Government have fitted the finance around the possible funding. We could probably get away with a loan of £10k, have one web site and use the workforce and vans we already have, start things slowly and take less of a commercial risk.

In summary the grant is completely useless for what they want. In fact it is difficult to see how it can be of any use to anyone unless by chance they happen to be in the middle of a project that could use a substantial injection to make it bigger and better than first thought. The project has to be under way (but not ‘committed’ or it is ineligible anyway) because there is insufficient time to organise a new project for which this grant might have a part to play.

I am left feeling cynical, exasperated, and still somehow, after long experience, disappointed that Business Support in Wales can be so inept in its operation.

Money Gets Everywhere

2011-12-22T13:15:00.000Z

A lot of people struggle with money. Some of them go into business and struggle with money there too.

One thing you must never do is to shove all your bills unopened behind the clock, as it were. The money gets everywhere in business. It’s the measure of how you are doing, how big you can be and a stream of business consciousness. It is the lowest common denominator for all business.

If you do struggle with money there are some things you can do to get to grips with it. Ultimately you can get someone else to look after your business for you but that is undesirable in many ways. You must retain an overview even if you have a bookkeeper for example. Above that the pricing, the investments, the procurements are all down to your day to day management anyway.

Business Tips

Some straight forward procedures will take away the mystery, the time wasting and the disasters. Some simple ones for micro businesses are offered below but the implementation is up to you and differs from business to business depending on the number of people involved and the scale of activities.

· Have on line banking
· Look at every morning to confirm what is happening
· Have a list of invoices, with a tick box for sent, paid, chased with the dates.
· Have a set date or method of getting your invoices sent off
· Have a set date to chase any outstanding
· Make sure money is cleared at the Bank before you pay against it
· Keep all your receipts in a tidy file
· Keep a note of your mileage in your diary as you go along. Use the trip meter
· Make sure you have a system for pricing and stick to it

In short just be bothered to keep an eye on it all.

For larger SME businesses the idea is the same but the systems need to be more organised. Even so they do not need to be complicated . Do not be fooled into buying some complicated bookkeeping software that you will struggle to keep up with. I see so many businesses unable to extract reports and information from their computerised bookkeeping I have to wonder if they would be better off with a hand written chart or two.

Bob Shepherd Associates has a background in business money. It's not straight forward and there is no reason why you should already be experienced in dealing with it. There is however every reason why you should pay it attention.

Why Banks Say NO

2011-11-02T16:18:00.001Z

To hear people talk these days you’d think the Banks were always saying no. It is easy to forget that an essential part of their business is to lend money. It is not in their interests to not do that. Criticism can be directed at some of their policies and their blanket decrees about some sectors, and even individual lending decisions but even where wrongly applied, behind it all is a grain of sense.

Leaving all that to one side there are some fundamental principles to business that a Bank will look for and if some of them are in doubt, are not proved, or are simply missing the bank will take a negative view of a proposition. A side aspect is that it is not their remit to spend hours of time muscling something into a bankable shape, though sometimes they will.

How much better all round then when they get a proposition that is properly put together with all the ticks in order and the questions answered before they are asked? Bob Shepherd Associates has long experience in taking a proposition and turning a bankable purse out of a sow’s ear, to use an old expression. Some of the principles that may come into play with varying degrees of importance are:

Basic Business Information

It is easy to fall into a trap of assuming your bank knows all about your business – it doesn’t. Probably they have the last 6 months of figures passing through the main account and not a lot else. You know your business well and it needs explaining in a well set out business plan that starts with who you are and where you have been.

Out of Date Company Financial Information (or none at all!)

If your Accountant has been slow in doing your Accounts they will be ‘historic’ which is a euphemism for being useless. All they will show is a record of past performance which does have some relevance but in a limited way. You need some up to date figures to confirm where your business is currently and they need to follow on from the last Accountant’s figures. Whatever the case the lack of up to date figures shows that you haven’t valued the information and have no idea how your business is doing. That is poor management and not encouraging.

Your Business Model

This is a term used to describe how your business idea hangs together. You want that to be compelling and convincing – see that business plan and make sure it is set out consistently, logically and with a full story evident. Don’t assume the bank understands it just because you do. Look for the risks and make sure you have demonstrated answers. In short does it all make sense and are you actually in charge of it?

It is possible that the Bank will just not have belief in your business because it has specialist aspects. The Bank is after all only so good as the people who are in it (as your business is in fact...) and you have to realise that your cogent and articulate verbal presentation may not make it up the line with the same authority unless you have spelled it out well in that business plan.

Poor Credit History

Surely this self explanatory? If the bank has been slinging cheques back on you it can be no surprise that they are not happy to advance you further funds for that bright idea you have just had. If there is some evidence of poor financial behaviour you need to tackle this head on and explain convincingly that you are past the difficulties and it is not your normal attitude.

Financial Contribution

The Bank will want to see you putting in substantial funds yourself. That will imply you have a vested interest in the progress of the business and adds to the credibility of the whole thing. For small loans do not expect the Bank to put up more than 50%. For larger loans there is a limit to what an individual can be expected to put up and increasing weight is given to your contribution in an unwritten sense of proportion. The package is made up of cash, and assets some of which may be available for security.

Bank Security

For any substantial lending the bank will look for collateral security. It is a safety net and you will never get a proposition through just because there is security. You may have it refused if there is no security available. What forms acceptable security is the subject of another article.

You and the Management

The Bank is not lending to the business so much as to you and your team. No Bank official is going to sit with you day by day and direct you. Once the lending is agreed only occasional checks are made that all is well. You have the trust of the bank. If you and or your fellow Directors do not demonstrate a record of successful management expertise you can’t expect the bank to be encouraged.

Summary

In short it is up to you to make your case. It is up to the bank to check what you say, interpret the risks and come to a conclusion about your chances of succeeding with the business proposition.

It starts with you – your standing, your financial worth, you history and track record, and you association with the bank. That comes before any real examination of the business on the basis that if you are known to know what you are talking about the likelihood of you getting this one right has more credibility.

The proposition has to make sense, be in proportion, be lawful and respectable, have realistic ambition and a forecasted future that continues to make sense. Proof of all this is looked for so far as can be ascertained.

Consider this - if a stranger came up to you in the street and asked to borrow a substantial amount, what would you wish to know?

'Pub Talk'

2011-10-28T14:44:00.003+01:00

Banks get a mixed press and I for one have been very disappointed in a number of things I have seen with my clients in recent months. However sometimes the bank is justified in its view. I was once called upon by an SME to advise them because their bank was suddenly taking away their £65k trading overdraft.

The reality was that they had had a £25k overdraft which had been increased after consultation to £65k for a 3 month period to cover the circumstances. That 3 months had expired and an extension had been granted to cover some further crisis and so on. 6 months after the first expiry the bank was saying 'this can't go on, we want to revert to £25k at the end of the month'. Not unreasonable when you examine the case and quite different from what I was told initially.

By producing information, preparing forecasts and approaching the bank properly Bob Shepherd Associates managed to get the £65k retained as their normal overdraft. While I was at it I noticed the company's leasing arrangements for equipment were all over the place and I re-sheduled that lending creating £4k extra cash per month in the business.

I call it 'pub talk' where an ill informed half story gains currency. Banks are wide open to it all the time and often cannot answer without breaking confidentiality.

Your Best Customers

2011-10-03T10:49:00.000+01:00

Sometimes your best customers are not your best customers! There is a difference between turnover and profit and how much extras do you do to keep that big customer happy?
I went to see an engineering company with one major customer accounting for 85% of the turnover. They were taking 90 days to pay I was told instead of the agreed 60 days. When we looked at the sums they were actually taking 120 days.
The engineering company was struggling. No money was spare, and the owners had stopped taking a wage. The trade accounts were maxed out and a lot of time was spent juggling the creditors. When I asked why we didn't go and talk to the major customer I was told we could not upset them and did not want to rock the boat.
After some discussion a nervous business owner went cap in hand , touching the forelock, to see if he could get a payment. They said 'We wondered why you hadn't asked for a payment. This cheque has been on the desk for a week!'
Business turnover is not profit
Another client was a transport company. An old family firm was pouring money into the company each month to keep it going. They were accepting contracts which meant they were driving from Cardiff to London for little more than the price of the fuel. The argument was that this would keep the driver busy and keep them on the road. As I have described it you will see immediately that there are other costs - for the lorry, but also the admin, the fixed costs, the finance,and all the rest. Madness! An old family form was being mismanaged into the ground.
Little jobs for little companies
Plenty of small firms take on jobs that make me wonder. If you are a landscaping firm of an electrical contractor for example you should be getting work because your sign written van is parked outside. That big 10 week job is only giving you the security of having work for that time. In every other respect it is doing you a disservice. You probably discounted your price for quantity of work. You may have underestimated the travelling costs. You may have to settle for materials before you get paid. If it turns to a bad debt you have one big bad debt you can't handle. You may have to cope with wages during that time. All that can be handled if you have made suitable arrangements. However your van is stuck in one place for all that time and off the radar. Your ability to generate new work is stymied. Your Bank account will have major peaks and troughs. Your profit margin is likely to be lower. Altogether, smaller jobs are better.
So look carefully at your customers. Are they really your best customers?
Bob Shepherd Associates will help you define your strategy and sort out your priorities. A little forethought goes a long way.

Bankers Not Getting Their Feet Muddy

2011-09-20T11:38:00.002+01:00

The BBA ( British Bankers' Association) held a conference in Cardiff last week hosted by the SW Chamber of Commerce. It was a good event but I was left with a feeling of depression. Amid all the rhetoric, and the unintentionally patronising declarations of openness for business, intentions to be accommodating, and figures defending the banks' position as a key player in the economy ..... there is a fundamental lack of understanding going on which is either staggering or cynical, depending on your view point.

Bank Lending Figures
An example is the BBA figure 85% of lending applications for SMEs are granted. Accurate I don't doubt, but far from being evidence of banks pulling their weight in this sector I think it's an appalling admission and a patronising complacent assertion.
- It ignores those propositions that the local business manager hasn't given a nod towards.
- It ignores the BBA's own figure earlier this month that 55% of SMEs didn't even approach their bank last year because they thought they would get turned down anyway.
- It ignores the fact that the local business managers don't have time to spend with their sme customers who are borrowing less than £500k (say..) to knock a proposition into shape.
- It ignores also the indifference or ignorance of the local business manager towards referring possible projects to a paid consultant who can spend the time with them to get them into shape.
- It ignores the fact that most small business SMEs have no idea what 'shape' is in the banking sense.
To say ( as was done at the conference) that 2/3rds of SMEs did not seek finance last year as corroboration of the Banks provision of service being okay in a straightened market is paradoxical at first glance and a head in the sand concept at second glance.

Banks and Project Merlin
Banks are not in the business of not lending. A good phrase to use but not backed up by observations on the street. The Project Merlin ( banks agreed to have targets for SME lending imposed) figures are all behind. No surprise there. Then you realise that most of what has been cheerfully put forward as banks doing their bit despite the reluctance of customers to come forward with sensible propositions, is accounted for by repeated lending and renewals of facilities and not new money.
It is the reluctance of Bank seniors to get their feet muddy that bothers me.

Building Businesses

2011-08-31T18:37:00.001+01:00

After months of consideration I hit on a way to describe what we do when I deliver a short introduction at business meetings. Bob Shepherd Associates is good at building businesses. That phrase is positive and constructive and does actually cover the case.

When we view a business we look for all the components to fit together and all fire at the same rate. If they don't then there is something to work upon. For a new start up business it is more a question of making sure the business has all the components available, but the principle is the same.

They all form part of a business plan if it has been done properly. They all form part of a cycle of business if you are a theorist. In practical terms - if any of it is not there the business will struggle.

Building businesses is not a question of applying a template. Each business is different. The components we look for have a place in the business. They are always there but have different weighting in each business. That is where the experience and knowledge of the business adviser comes in. The balance has to be right. Building businesses can only be done if the foundations are strong and the business is well put together.

So what are the components? The main labels are Physical, Invisible Financial, Markets and Marketing, People and Money. The list of detailed components within each heading is very large.

Think of it like a large jigsaw. The picture is known, the edges have been done and there are many pieces in the middle and some still in the box. Putting it all together takes patience, resourcefulness, time and preferably a little help.

The jig saw analogy is a good one. Bob Shepherd Associates is good at building businesses, and probably good at jig saws.

Economics? What's That?

2011-08-19T14:09:00.001+01:00

To paraphrase a well know advertising campaign 'I thought Mackro was a cash and carry until I discovered Economics!' That's a finance world joke that is sort of funny. It refers to macro economics which is about the big strategic stuff rather than micro economics which is the homely detail.
There was an event at the new university building in Newport this week put on by a major Bank to give the business world a briefing. I expected a summary of where we are with things, some guidance to the cutting edge thinking of the moment, some tips on areas for special interest and a command of the whole thing better than my own.
Business Finance Guidance
I also thought we have guidance on what this major organ of the UK financial world was doing to contribute. They had a go at that. We had a specialist - a well qualified economist flown down specially from the bank's Head Office to disseminate vital information to the grass roots. But when a question along those lines came up he handed back to the local regional Director.
We had a good summary of the current economic trends and thinking, but no better than I get by listening to Radio 4 and the BBC News.
In short we had a summary of UK economics with nothing innovative to add. There are no inside tips. The bank's central economics unit has no real interest in what the bank is actually doing for its local region it would seem.
Project Merlin - Bank Lending to Small Business
Some figures were given that showed the bank is lending more than anyone else under 'Project Merlin' - the government's initiative to have them lend more to small business. Might be right; not convinced.
Still we all had a nice lunch with a beautiful chocolate dessert. I forgot to note who the caterers were. We also saw the inside of the new Uni building, which is impressive. There was always the chance of bumping into someone useful, as with any networking event. It was good.

Bank Lending To Small Business SMEs

2011-08-02T12:41:00.003+01:00

Business lending by the UK's largest banks fell during the last quarter (BoE Q2 2011) despite what Barclays says about its own performance. Of course it did - any consultant working on a local scale will report similarly.

Until Banks get training for their local business managers and then trust them to exercise some discretion to liaise with the Credit/Lending department the position will remain. So too will the belief out there that Banks aren't lending to small business. Therefore the business economy will remain flat.

The first signs that someone is thinking they should do something about it that I have seen came at a local level with an invitation to talk by a Regional Business Manager for one of the big ones. His new on the block business manager had 4 years in the Bank and 3 weeks on 'the Business Side'. An awareness course and a clip board to follow, is all he had, plus a few ideas he picked up from the family shop. Oh dear. Who is going to talk to him with any expectation of understanding?

As it is, a report has said that last year 55% of businesses didn't even bother to go to their Bank because the word is out that they will be turned down.

Business Planning – What’s That Then?

2011-06-30T11:51:00.002+01:00

Everybody’s different! So too, with businesses. So too, with business owners. As a consultant I need to relate quickly to the position of my client. What seems important to me may not to them and vice versa.

The principal of what I’m doing is the underlying process of business planning. The components of a business plan when it is done properly are of course the very things that a business needs to have right to enable it to run smoothly, profitably and realistically.

When a new business starts the owners very often do not have a complete insight into all the ramifications of what they’re doing. There’s no insult or disgrace in that. Why should anyone know everything?

What usually happens is that I get called into a business at the point when the owners have decided it should be running better and is in need of development. To do so we need all the resources in place and in proportion. We need a complete set of skills and realistic overview of what has happened, what is intended and it is then up to me to help decide how we are going to get there. While this may involve some coaching or training on my part as a business consultant it does not carry any patronising feeling from me and cannot be allowed to do so. The business is my client’s and will always remain so. What they get from their consultant is an outside view and an external perspective.

This reflects the position that any business owner is in whereby they are looking at their business from the inside. It is very hard to step outside and look back in.

I recently helped a high street gallery which of course is all about the display arrangement and how welcoming the shop front appears and what happens to the customer once they cross the threshold. I actually took the owner across the street to stand there with me for 10 minutes while we discussed the appearance of the front of the shop and what passersby seemed to make of it. Very illuminating!

As a consultant I am very careful to maintain the ownership of the business with the business owner. So by doing a business plan it has to be done with the owner and not for the owner. Equally it is important that a business plan is done with the business in mind. This seems obvious until you realise that most small businesses have a business plan originally done using a template from a poor photocopy several generations old. In effect they are answering someone else’s questions!

This exercise does not have to be expensive. At an entry level I have helped businesses for £200 per month for three months which has been enough to give them sufficient guidance and perspective to lift the business to a new level of profitability and turnover (not the same thing but that’s another article)

See www.bobshepherdassociates.co.uk and make contact on 07747 758596 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 07747 758596 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or by email mail@bobshepherdassociates.co.uk .. Expect a practical and meaningful business planning exercise from Bob Shepherd Associates that will retune your business approach.

A Template For Success?

2011-06-12T16:57:00.001+01:00

The index used for Inflation calculations is based upon a basket of purchases that most households are likely to buy. Not only is that a nonsense for an individual household but the shopping list alters as life evolves. The different requirements of families at each stage alter and hopefully their circumstances improve as they rise in their chosen occupation. Fashions change and technology develops. It is only a few years since people had routine access to a computer or even found the need to do so. Likewise they saw no particular urgency for a mobile phone.

As a benchmark for prices it is flawed but you have to start somewhere and every so often the basket of products changes to reflect the current society requirements.

So a template for a shopping list is not a particularly useful idea for an individual. Each shopper has different pressures, arrangements, and preferences.

This thinking hasn’t made it to the world of a small business. The business plan is downloaded, purchased as a sort of form or questionnaire, to be filled in as best as seems right and very likely stuck in the drawer and forgotten.

The point seems to be that every business needs a business plan and many small business owners and starters don’t really know why. Sometimes it is done to appease the requirements of the Bank. Sitting on the other side of the desk in a former life my heart used to drop when seeming intelligent customer presented me with a business plan that was a badly drawn up or even a badly photocopied template on some occasions. The questions had peremptory answers in a misunderstanding of the point. ‘What are your Marketing aims?’ Answer – ‘To get more customers’. I could go on. You could almost hear the young people’s impatient catchphrase ‘duh!’ implying stupidity of a rare order.

The point here is that you cannot really have a template for a business plan any more than you can have a standard shopping list for anyone. That means a business plan (the clue is in the title, Duh!) has to be made for each business idea and development . What a disservice you do to you and your business if you present anything else to the bank for consideration!

The other get out is that the business is small enough or simple enough for you to run it on natural cunning. Not very impressive either is it? If it is ever going to grow and develop on a sound base then some thought needs to go in there on a continual basis.

The business plans I do with clients (not ‘for clients’ please note) bring them through a process of preparation and thought that ends up as a written document but has its main value in the process. There are many examples of this even to the point where it has been proved on paper that the business idea cannot proceed successfully. How much better to find that out with a good business plan before investing much time and effort?

Bob Shepherd Associates gives every client an individual business plan - it is normally done with the client rather than for the client and it stays on the desk as a working document afterwards.

Management Speak

2011-04-19T18:40:00.000+01:00

I don't say that language should always be plain though that is admirable in many cases. Using the rich heritage we have in the English language for effect, for humour or to emphasis to a point is a wonderful thing. An articulate facility with language is useful and valuable. It bothers me greatly that we have somehow gone so wrong with Education that 25% of the Welsh population is functionally illiterate. (50% is functionally innumerate which is another disaster). (Figures from the Institute of Welsh Affairs)

I am always interested in language use and there is a case for jargon and short hand speech within any particular industry. When that spills over to a wider audience it can be annoying or amusing depending on your perspective and perhaps your mood that day. Those who trot out the latest business clichés raise questions about their understanding of their subject and their own security about their position within their business world. Are they trying to impress? Might they be sheltering behind familiar terms to show they belong to some sort of tribe or society?
I consider myself lucky to have met two people in my business career who were originators, apparently of these clichés. It must begin somewhere and I was amused to see people making a discreet note with the obvious intention of repeating those terms later. These were original metaphors to illustrate a point and the audience was amused and interested.

Some interesting examples I have come across lately are phrases such as:
'Within the SME landscape...'
'Build new solutions in the alternative space...'
'Create an atmosphere for solutionising the problems...'
'What are the key takeaways?'
'...that is less, on a relative basis.'

‘Cosynergistic operations...’

You get the idea. What on earth are they talking about?

An SME needs sensible help to promote its business and Bob Shepherd Associates is well placed to do this.

Proof Of The Pudding

2011-02-18T11:35:00.000Z

The world for Small Businesses has changed in the last couple of years. Once it was necessary to ’put yourself about’ and attend everything that was going, to be seen and to make contacts. That is not so much the case anymore. The small business owner has other ways of building a profile and there are so many events that it does not much matter if you miss a few, there will be another one along in a minute.

I used to hear it said there were around 90 networking organisations in the Gwent area and a few more have started up since. It is Buyer’s Choice – there are a variety of flavours out there and you should pick and chose these days.

Proof of the pudding is not fulfilled by the number of leads, if any you get out of an event. I am continually surprised at the number of people who simply don’t understand this. The message seems be there that button holing a likely victim and doing a hard sell on them is not adviseable and to be fair I haven’t come across anyone haranguing me about their wares lately. Others who turn up to a meeting and leave early because it is not working for them are too cynical and have missed a point I feel. The soft skills of dealing with people and being interested are the skills of networking. If that is not your forte you may need a partner.

I have come across someone who monopolised all conversations while at the same time committing two other networking sins. Marketing services have a lot to do with presentation. He was fishing for marketing work and yet his personal presentation was in all respects dreadful. An oxymoron at work. I would feel embarrassed to introduce him to my clients. The debate around what is acceptable business dress and considerations of routine personal hygiene is interesting but there are minimal limits surely? Another sin was mentioning that his business was very new and yet had some household names on its books. None of it fits together. While some people did not seem to mind, some of his audience did, and he made no friends that day

Networking is primarily about building a network of good relationships. Coming home with a fist full of cards and spamming those people with over familiar emails is not a good idea. Once you have had a couple of conversations with them you will have worked out, and so will they, that there is a complementary relationship building. That is time to have a coffee elsewhere then - make an appointment and sit down with them for an hour.

This is called a 121 on some circles. Its purpose is to find out about the other business and build a friendly relationship. The first few minutes are usually about putting the world to rights, or establishing like minded ground. After that some business ideas should be emerging. Ask questions! Again this is not about selling. It is up to them to find out about your business and you. A few helpful leading references can be slipped in but the main focus is taking an interest in the other party.

The profile you create at all levels will work for you if you are true to what you do and say. Plus, your virtual profile is also working alongside you. Social media is here and in your face book. It’s also in the air and twittering. LinkedIn and blogs are helping. Do not underestimate the power of these channels. There are hundreds more but like the networking meetings – some are for you and some not. Pay attention and keep it ticking over.

If you don’t ‘get it’, investigatefurther. Ignoring networking – on line or in person is a mistake. You can get help with these subtle aspects of Marketing from us at Bob Shepherd Associates

Skating On Thin Ice

2010-11-16T18:24:00.001Z

While thinking about a short presentation at a Business Club I remembered something I noticed a number of years ago now.
Those of us old enough to remember gasping at the flair and panache of Torville and Dean as they fought out their ice dance championships and emerged with perfect scores may not have noticed something at the time. Whereas most of the competitors finished their routine and shuffled off the ice any old fashion, Torville and Dean remained in character, as it were, until they had left the ice.
The impact on their already established professionalism and skill was slight, but added something nevertheless.
In the business world recent articles I have read point out the advisability of keeping your public and your private profiles separate on line. Facebook for example, publishes pictures of you 'tagged' by others. I am not suggesting you will have behaved inappropriately but your hilarious faces pulled for the kids are not in the spirit of what you wish to present as a serious business perhaps!
Christopher Dean, as choreographer, understood the point. Even when you have finished work, you may well still be 'on show'.
Bob Shepherd Associates advises Small Business SMEs on their presentation to the outside world as a part of an essential review of their Marketing Strategy in their business planning.

The Range of Articles

2010-11-16T18:08:00.001Z

Bob Shepherd Associates' articles cover a range of business topics. A quick review of recent articles shows the following interests covered. I have written these in response to something that has emerged from my day to day business dealings and experience and most are not sensitive to date.
Please take a while to browse some of the older articles and feel free to post any comments.

Education, Society and Business

2010-11-15T22:22:00.001Z

Of the 3200 undergraduates admitted to Oxford last year only one was from a British Black Caribbean family. Said like that Oxford University is immediately thrown into a bad light. There may be more to it however. I write only in observation as I have no way of substantiating any research on this.

The first thought is that clearly their admission procedures need looking at for prejudicial practice. One might imagine a figure around 100 admissions would be more appropriate by relating numbers to population. Imagine though that opportunity might be at fault. The admission policies and criteria might show equality but maybe the opportunity does not.

That throws the responsibility back on to the education system and maybe further back on to the Local Education Authorities and ultimately the Government. Oxford and Cambridge have a very demanding academic standard with a limited number of places and so to gain entry you have to be very able, very mature in interview and just lucky on the day as well as having self belief and confidence and ambition.

Another statistic that enters the frame at this point is that most Oxbridge students come from Public Schools and it is tempting but ill considered to suggest that it is because they are fee paying. That brings selection and other partisan debates into the fray as well.

The essence of it is that the Education system in the UK is in poor shape. We no longer command respect around the World for it as we used to do, and we no longer have the expectations and apparently the consistent motivation across the industry to shine.

The Schools blame the Government interference. The Government lament the fall in social standards and have no redress that we can afford. The papers blame the schools on one hand, the parents on the other and the government for nanny interference by turn. The Society that does not have consistency of standards of behaviour and controls is also probably the fault of our parents and their parents, so far as fault is the right term. Consequence is another. The boom in babies after the Second World War coupled with the loss of significant numbers from that generation and the preceding one and the sheer scale of regeneration needed set up all kinds of consequences. Changes in life opportunities and traditions for home life, work, and other social contexts meant major shifts in attitudes, allowances and expectations.

The increasing speed of technological applications (that’s ‘apps’ in modern phone speak) also creates and continues to create speedily shifting sands. So it all shifts round and no one seems to have the answers. The Government is at the mercy of the latest education nerdy fad and the teachers roll their eyes. My observation is that they are asked to do an impossible job made so by the attempts to make it all evenly registered and compliant.

The kids aren’t all the same so why herd them all into a meaningless regime designed, but not successful, at giving them equal opportunities? It only means some are disinterested at any one time and kids get bored. Who would want to be a teacher against that background? I saw some Chinese children on a programme doing mental arithmetic in class. They were hugely talented at it. The mental exercise gave them dexterity with other things and they were loving being challenged.

All of these observations come to no firm conclusion. But I feel the numbers of any one particular classification of students entering the rarefied halls of Oxford is not the real point; wanting to do mental gymnastics probably is.

The impact on Business behaviour, resources, performance, recruitment, and therefore the wealth of the economy and the UK is immense and the threads run through everything.

Bob Shepherd is the owner of Bob Shepherd Associates

South Wales Networking Groups

2010-11-01T17:06:00.001Z

There are 85+ networks in South Wales I picked up somewhere in my business travels. I deal with business finance development and business strategy development. Not a shameless plug altogether, my point is that the business planning for growth and development requires experience and a knowledge of networking as one of the sub headings under that all embracing term "Marketing". You need all that in place to get the finance sorted by which time you have a plan to put into action.

My view is that there is not one answer. Some networks work best when you have a business that is easily pigeon holed by everyone else (accurately or not - doesn't matter, you can sort that out later). Others don't.

Then again if you like a strong systematic approach you will feel more comfortable in some groups more than others.

My own loyalty goes first to ABC - Action Business Club. (www.actionbusinessclub.co.uk) You have some businesses there who are very experienced and can operate on different levels as required to service the needs of the business customer. To say it was best suited to 'small businesses' might give a false impression but small business SMEs – definition: under 250 employees? - oh yes. Small businesses just starting out? Yes, if you are serious about what you do.

The light hearted way it is conducted encourages friendship and respect for bright people who are happy in their work and confident in the trust of their colleagues. I would (and do) happily work with any one of them and I can't say that about every group I go to.

So which one is best? The answer depends. When I am helping a business who is new to networking the first questions are about what they expect to get out of it. Their answer tells me if they understand it. If they do the one(s) to attend depend on the nature of their business but also the attitude and character of the attendee. It is more complicated than it appears but it does not need to be difficult.

It is vital to understand the essence of networking and incidentally this applies to ‘online Social Networks’, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and the like. If you feel you want to ask what was my return on that meeting then you haven’t understood the nature of what you are supposed to be doing. If you feel you have a room full of punters when you go to a meeting then you have misunderstood it and you will do little more than mark yourself down as someone to avoid. Measure you r ‘Return on Investment’over 20 meetings or so but be careful to estimate the worth of someone acknowledging your introduction with ‘I have heard about you.’

The whole business of getting your business known is not straight forward. It needs a mixture of resources and approaches.

For those just starting out it is worth a hundred cul de sacs to get help from the beginning to plan your marketing and this part of it in particular. At Bob Shepherd Associates we have a particular interest in start up businesses (no bad habits!). It need not cost a lot to get appropriate guidance and the saving in time effort and practical application (therefore that 'return on investment' we were so worried about in the paragraph above) should show dividends in due course.

WAG, ERP And A Shambles

2010-10-07T12:09:00.001+01:00

A friend of mine from CIBC (Chartered Institute of business Consulting) is going to a seminar soon with James Price, the Director of Transport and Strategic Regeneration at WAG speaking. We were asked if there were any questions she could put on behalf of the members.

James Price is the author of ERP (Economic Renewal Programme) which was announced at the beginning of July by WAG as a strategy for business support in Wales and it was decided to implement it straight away. If you haven’t caught up with the back ground on ERP spend a little time looking over Prof. Dylan Jones Evans’ blog ( just search on his name and it will come up first) which lambasts the ERP from every direction. Because of his profile and the fact that he is read, if not agreed with, at WAG a number of the consultants who move around in this area have fed into it. The comments are as good as the articles very often. Also see my article '2 Paper Bags' published on 2nd August 2010 in these pages.

In quick summary, If the ERP was announced on day one with no other background one would have nodded approvingly commenting that the principles were good, sectors, focus, and all that. However it followed what went before. Neither approach is foolproof.

Then to guillotine the old ways instantly, and leave the WAG staff embarrassed at not knowing which grant had made the cut, and what was replacing it is unbelievable ineptitude and made Wales look silly. A couple of months afterwards WAG staff neither knew what was replacing it or even if they still had a job. Much of that is still unclear now.

Now some 300 DET staff have gone there are answerphones still carrying their message ‘ to get back to you ‘.

The whole support system, deeply flawed as it was has been thrown into chaos with no sign of anything replacing it along the lines of ERP within 6 months.

There are fundamental questions about some of the proposals I think with some of the major questions being

If we are to expect ‘Repayable Grants’ – why is WAG, without any banking experience setting up an operation to monitor and control a system which is not unlike what Finance Wales does already?
Can WAG legally make grants that are repayable, (esentially loans) without the controls and regulations of the Banking industry?
Why was the announcement ERP made with no implementation in place or planned?
Why were WAG staff instructed to say that it was Business as usual with no break in Finacial support for business when that is patently not the case

Unbelievable! If WAG were any sort of commercial business they would have gone out of business and deservedly so.

Bring back the WDA! With all its faults at least we knew what you were dealing with and it had a good reputation elsewhere.

Businesses needing advice and support still have a number of WAG financed options. I don't think they are effective in the main and they get the rest of us a bad name! If a business want practical business help they should consider a small investment which will ultimately save them time money and several degrees of sanity. With Bob Shepherd Associates they get a wide ranging expertise and an external perspective they can never have themselves. If you know anyone seriously starting out or anyone wanting to develop an existing business please point them to the web site and ask them to make contact. http://www.bobshepherdassociates.co.uk/business_expansion.html

Pay And The Genders

2010-09-17T19:00:00.001+01:00

‘The differential between the sexes on pay has increased to 22%’ A Radio 4 article on equal pay between the sexes prompted me to look at this topic again in these columns.

The emotive flavour of that comment hides a lack of substance and it was not explained in the item on the radio. If you take the average earnings of all working males and measure that against the average earnings of all female workers you get a figure for a comparison (presumably the 22%) but it is inadequate.

If you take all train drivers and compare them to all bus drivers you might have a comparison that makes sense, but even then only with qualification. For example the average wage in Cornwall is about half what it is in central London for the same occupation. With buses essentially more locally based in the main, you need to qualify the information. If you can agree a common basis under that observation you can start to compare whether the constant decisions and operation of a bus fairly compare with the longer lasting more intent concentration of a train driver who has possibly 10 times the number of passengers but has other people looking out for his route and what might be in the way, but all the stops signals and latest restrictions to attend to on his journey. Is it the same? The pay rates certainly are not, and partly from historical precedent.

Sticking with transport the BA cabin crews’ dispute brought out some interesting quirks. I understand the cabin crews are paid at different rates if they are working from Heathrow, say to those rates applying to Gatwick. It seems they were agreed at different times under different trading conditions. Widening the thinking, presumably the Unions are aware of what the various airlines pay. Does an airline crew from a non European country have similar rates to BA? I don’t suppose they do. Imagine if BA crews had wages pegged to the country they were in for that flight, Sri Lanka perhaps, or Thailand perhaps. You would never get anyone to fly to the poorly paid countries.

On a domestic scale the same considerations actually apply. Geography creates havoc however you look at the problem. At present there are some disturbing realities. Fire fighters I understand come from many miles away for some stations because they cannot afford to live in the locations where they are based. Perhaps they need subsidised accommodation as part of the package because the ideal worker needs to be based locally. But set a wage too high and workers would come from less favoured areas anyway simply to get the extra pay.

The cost of living in any one area is different and the reward for skills cannot be satisfactorily measured across the board. Part time work is sometimes more suited for some occupations and long hours is demanded for others. Some work is clean and some dirty. Some is dangerous and some not. All this is why we have seen Polish and Romanian folk, for example, coming to the UK for what seems like well paid work. The hotel and catering industries depend on foreign workers .

A Tower Crane operator has a hugely responsible job, requiring special skills as well as a head for heights. Yet we pay entertainers and sports folk far more than would appear to be reasonable on any comparison. Maybe it should all come down to market forces and we should stop trying to compare and set benchmarks.

If every job was paid subject to the number of applicants in some way, ie subject to the Demand for the job vs. the Demand for the service, then the unpleasant jobs would carry a premium. The jobs that suffer a low benchmark figure now would be better paid in an expensive area. In an area that is less favoured the jobs would carry a premium just to keep or get people there. That already happens to some degree but not with any consistency.

The problem with that is already seen. Domiciliary Care workers for example have a responsible and trying job to do. They are not well paid for the most part. Usually they don’t get travel time I believe, so a Dom Care company is likely to have difficulty with a wide spread rural area. They will not be able to source staff to service a wide spread area at the same rates as they can in a town. Since the Local Authorities go very largely on cost, the problem is passed on because the companies will not be bidding for less favoured areas without an overriding reason.

Small company SMEs are all subject to market forces. If it is not the big boys setting the rates, by comparison or by attitude (if you won’t supply us at that rate there are plenty more that will...) then it is the market forces that dictate the success of the business pricing policy. In there is the cost of wages in some form as well as all the other demand forces.

The whole thing is riddled with unfairness and difficulties of comparison. I wish the news media would stop jumping on the wagon with headlines about gender comparisons when the problem is infinitely more subtle than that.

Bob Shepherd Associates tries to take in all the market considerations when considering the promotion and the presentation of a business to the outside world.
For another article exploring this subject see 'Apples and Pears' - http://ow.ly/2FXsB

History Is Not Bunk

2010-09-15T16:09:00.000+01:00

I read today that History is being phased out of schools because some Heads don’t think it has any value. I want to shout that down straight away. That is rank stupidity.

Apart from any interest in where we came from or how we came to be here, there are fundamental skills that come with History studies. One company I know was run by science graduates who naturally looked to their own. It was a company set up to provide and monitor data from the mobile communications industries and others. It gives industry forecasts and knowledge to the phone manufacturers, the satellite navigation companies etc. All very techy and gadget strewn. It employed a lot of young people and many came from international backgrounds, form the far east and elsewhere.

When they were recruiting some years ago they were given a cv from the agency of a young graduate who was competent in spreadsheets and sported a good degree from Oxford, in Modern History.

There was enough in the cv to warrant an interview, They discovered that not only was he competent in basic IT packages – MS Excel, Word and others but of course he could take data, interpret it and produce a report about it that was fluent and well written. Not only that he could do it effortlessly.

When you have been through the mangle of an Oxford history degree with a major presentation and 4000 word essay to do every 10 days, producing an article drawing on data you have before you is not so hard.

It soon became the case that the other members of the team , mostly second language English speakers used to pass their efforts by our junior recruit to correct and check their English and the spellings before submitting for publication approval.

I haven’t identified anyone here but the story is essentially true. That company realised with a bump that History graduates had what they needed. Research skills, and presentational skills plus fluidity of language. Not only could they summarise the data, but they could communicate.

So who says History is a pointless subject? It actually has relevance to research and communication. Marketing of all sorts depends on just those things. Wake up Education World! Our heritage industries depend on an interest in history. We have so much in the UK . There are probably 50 historic sites within an hour’s drive where I live. On a simple level it enriches and gives pleasure to millions. The film industry thrives on it. The tourist industry depends on it. History is not just one thing after another.

Bob Shepherd Associates has a wider perspective on business. Add value to your development plans with specialist guidance for finance and strategy. And consider what staff you really need!

Lending Jig Saw

2010-09-03T11:42:00.003+01:00

It’s a bit like a jig saw. Whenever I am asked to help raise some finance, be it grant, bank or investment I start looking for the jig saw. The pieces of the puzzle have to fit together, the picture has to make sense and relate to what I have in front of meand as every jig saw puzzlist knows, you start with the outline.

It doesn’t really matter how much the sum involved is, in so far as the principles remain the same. During this last week I was approached by someone wanting to raise £42million. My very first thought of course was that is a large sum to ask for, it’s very specific and I wonder what sort of project we are dealing with.

As I explained the principles will be the same no matter what the sum. The first pieces of the jigsaw I am looking for are that my caller moves in those sorts of circles, has some substance and perhaps other worthy people involved. I am also looking for some appreciation of a scheme to put it together with other contributions to come from elsewhere, to form a balanced package of resources that stack up for a sustainable project that is viable and sustainable over a period beyond what it takes to pay off the lending or investment

As it happens my caller had none of those things, was not contributing anything himself and I have no idea how he arrived at that particular sum. I concluded within a sentence or two that he was a victim of what I have called ‘pub talk’ or perhaps he had just had a new phone with a calculator on it. Diplomatically I pointed out that a problem he had with that sort of sum is that people are (rightly) wary of a quick rich scheme and whatever the true case he is up against all the scams and freeloading frauds ringing alarm bells. His credibility and that of his scheme needs establishing before any further examination takes place. I also said I looked forward to seeing him quoted in the FT in a couple of years. I don’t really expect that. In short, I think he was the missing piece looking for his jigsaw.

So what is needed with a proposition is a balanced basket of things, starting with You; who you are and where you are coming from. That means what experience you have, what background you have that gives any comfort that you know what you are talking about. Next is some sort of contribution yourself or yourselves. The world is full of bright ideas looking for a philanthropic backer fancying a punt. Not many find one. The world is also full of people who say if only they had a few thousand more, just think what they could do!

So, Background first, then ability, then means. That is a shapeless concept that comprises your resources and your worth. That may not be money; it may be expertise or equity in a property for example. It means your substance and less so, your standing.

Next we look at idea, the ‘proposition’. If the first things are in good order it is unlikely you will be pursuing a fatuous scheme with no viability, however that remains to be seen. The project in mind has to be reasonable. That is legal, that is well balanced, that is ‘a good idea’ and capable of being shown to be so. There is very little that is actually new in the broadest sense. When Dyson started making his carpet sucking and brushing mechanical devices he had some new ideas, and not least the price it seems to me, but the concept of a vacuum cleaner already existed. An interesting side issue is the concept whereby a product becomes known by its maker – say ‘a Hoover ‘ to anyone and they know exactly what you mean and think nothing odd if it is made by Electrolux or anyone else.

Only now in our fictional account of an ideal finance proposition do we come to the amount. If we have come this far with full marks, it is unlikely that the amount is going to be untoward. Look how far down the list we have come. The idea that you go to the bank and they say how much do you want and check on the repayment only exists where all the other factors are a given.

In a former life I once had a respectable gentleman come to me saying he wanted to borrow £150 thousand. He said, ‘you know who I am and where I live’. I asked what it was for and he said he wasn’t going to tell me. In that case I am not going to lend it to you, I informed him politely. I was thinking ‘this is not going well’ and as a passing concern wondering how much flak and trouble he was about to cause me with some senior Bank official he probably had as a mate at his club somewhere.

The repayment scheme or exit strategy for an investor is next. There are different schemes with varying labels at any Bank. Most simply, there is an overdraft – an agreed limit to which you can do what it says and draw more than is in your account. Some banks are busy trying to dispense with business overdrafts which is a pity because a facility of variable amounts to be used to iron out the bumps in a trading pattern is sometimes the ideal vehicle.

Then there are loans, which is an overdraft on a separate account with an agreed transfer amount taking place. More often these days there is a fixed loan, which has a fixed interest rate and therefore a definite calculation which enables a certain amount for a repayment transfer to take place bringing it right to the penny in a fixed number of repayments. Anything else is a minor variant on these basic types of lending. It has to make sense. It has to be affordable and it also has a relationship with the term of the loan. There comes a point on the graph where extending the term does nothing to reduce the amount of the repayment because of the compound nature of the interest calculation.

Once the background, the characters involved and the amount makes sense we are almost there. Security comes next. No Bank will ever lend just because there is security available. ( q.v. my self important friend with the £150k request). What might happen is that they don’t lend because there is no security. That would be unusual in the context of the process we have seen but what is more usual is that there is not enough to cover the case. A Bank will look at property (typically) and give it a security value of around 70% of its market value. There are good reasons for that to be explored in another article. Other assets may be at a lower value still. In company terms that is often the case with machinery or debtors for example which have different considerations.

These days we have a government guarantee scheme that might pick up the case for a cost, if the proposition is good but falls down only because the available security is a bit short. Currently that is extended until March 2011 but is so useful that it could be continued or rise up in another form after that, I should think.

There are other matters to be brought in such as Life Cover for the principal people involved. The structure of the company/partnership/business needs looking at and there a host of sub issues along the way. Using Bob Shepherd Associates gives you a chance to air all this first before going to the bank and then when you do, the Bank is friends with your proposition because it all hangs together in a sensible and workable framework. The jig saw is complete.

2 Paper Bags

2010-08-17T16:49:00.002+01:00

Those familiar with these articles and followers of Twitter (Bob_Shepherd and other accounts) will be aware that WAG has come in for criticism from me before for trying to run the business world with bureaucrats in South Wales. The present situation is that we have "ERP". That is the Economic Renewal Programme which was published with a fanfare in early July.
If we were starting today you could say there is some sense in the proposals and some thought obviously went into it. That is not my point. The guillotine that came down on the Single Investment Fund (SIF) grants left everyone in the dark. I have clients who do not know whether their support applications made the cut, so to speak. No one seemed to know what departments would survive and what support. And by 'no one' I mean the Business Support staff themselves who bless them, are a mixed bunch in many ways.
We are over a month later and still they don't know, it would appear. The latest I have heard is that we might have some decisions on what is coming next and how the new forms of support will operate, some time in the New Year!
Meanwhile, there are propositions for sizeable businesses who were getting their plans together for sensible and worthwhile investments who have put everything on hold or scrapped the plans altogether. Immediately the consultant helping them has lost his job and in some cases had many hours work done with no where to go. Next down the line the business support staff have no new business coming in and must be twiddling their thumbs. Next comes the supporting businesses for new ventures, who have lost a client. They include the property people, the accountants, the Bank staff, the recruiting agencies, the cleaners, painters, office equipment people and so on. You get the idea. For every non starting business proposition there are waves of knock on effects to take into account.
In short, my complaint immediately is that the WAG has failed to manage their self assumed role in the economy again. Much of what they were doing was misguided on some level anyway but to pull the plug on it overnight is not constructive. On a higher plane they are doing the reputation of Wales no favours either. We already have the highest rate of dependency on Government funding for GDP in the UK. Whether or not there should be grants and active support is an argument, for which the prospective 'repayable grants' is not a credible substitute and whatever should have been done about the 1800 or so support staff employed by the WAG for business support for reasons that are commercially incoherent, the limbo we have now is ridiculous.
Some of my colleagues have put thoughts into email about the loss of potential business that is being caused and I would encourage anyone that has relevant experience to relate to do the same. Email the minister at ieuan.wynjones@wales.gov.uk with your opinions.
If enough people do that he might notice that companies want confidence in their working environment and are going away from Wales to where they can organise 2 paper bags.
Bob Shepherd Associates deals with Small Business SMEs' Business Direction Development and Business Financial development. That included Grants as well as Banks and Investors until recently.

Money Is A Figment

2010-07-29T15:01:00.001+01:00

The Royal Mint picked out nearly £2m in fake £1 coins last year it has been reported. Actually when you think about it all the coinage and the notes we use are mere tokens anyway.

The few exceptions are special issues of sovereigns and £5 coins made of gold that are the other way round. They have no relation to the value of the coin either. They are legal tender but you wouldn’t spend them in quite that way.

If you were paid in gold coins the face value of the coins would be very low and presumably you would not be liable for tax, NIC etc. There was a legal case in America that decided you couldn’t do that but I am not sure it has been tried and tested under UK law. There is the minimum wage legislation however.

I pointed out to my Corporate Finance university class that most money doesn’t exist. Banks work on the basis that not everyone will want their money in their hand at the same time and have done since 1931. Therefore it is safe to lend most of it back out and when that person spends it and pays it back in, we’ll go round again. One of the problems a year or two ago was that erstwhile respectable banks had stretched this principle beyond the limit. The consequent ball of knitting could not be untangled.

Attempting to do so results in a run on the Bank. Selfish motives overtake academic principles. If the BBC reports queues around the Block to withdraw money from your Bank you are going to get down there yourself. I have been told that at the height of the banking crisis more than one major bank was within minutes of closing down the ATM cash tills!

Almost unbelievable, but then so was much else going on at the time.

So should we all go back to bartering? My expertise and knowledge is worth 53 of your lovely cabbages? We need a lowest common denominator of course. Other things besides round metal tokens have been used within living memory. Cigarettes in prison, or PoW camps for example. When paper IOUs were issued as a standard amount paper money was born.

There are interesting quirks around paper money - who can issue it, where it can be issued and is it legal tender? (only sometimes) . Other payment methods, cheques, credit cards, etc are not legal tender either. It’s a minefield but actually, day to day, most people are happy to get on with it. And not worry too much.

‘Go to the Bank!’ declared my 5 year old (some years ago) when I said we had run out of money. As if the bank was a benevolent provider.

So money is all a big confidence trick. But what would we do without it? It is a measure of resource, a measure of success, a common denominator. (Who needs all those cabbages? ) Moreover money gets everywhere in business. Every department of business needs and uses it and could always do with a bit more in the budget. You do need to understand how it all fits together, and what your Accountant is on about with those papers he does for you.

If your business needs developing, money will be part of the equation somewhere along the line. Let Bob Shepherd Associates sort it all out for you to your best advantage. We will help you Save Money and Make Money!

Smile - It's Not Hard!

2010-06-23T23:37:00.002+01:00

These columns have seen several articles about customer service from me. They are all based on observations and an irritation stemming from years of being responsible for delivering a good service.

In a tea room/cafe the other day I witnessed a lack of awareness that had me wondering all day. The place was presentable, pleasant and clean. The food was good and the tea was spot on. I was received at the counter by a new boy. He was shadowed by the senior person there, presumably the owner. There were two others out front and it was the start of a busy lunchtime in a seaside town.

Putting myself in the role of the owner, I would have thought the following points would have been an obvious clear cut consideration:

Let’s have our new boy here 20 minutes early today to show him the ropes. That way, he can be shown how we like to present the trays of comestibles to the customer. He can be shown also how the kitchen needs the order written down, and the key points “Is it toasted or simply a sandwich?” taught and discussed to give meaning.

He can be taught what to clean with what, and when. Most importantly he can be taught and shown how to deal with people in a friendly and helpful way at the same time encouraging them to buy more and making sure they feel welcome and served.

All this is only some of the point. The fundamental underlying point is that the manager or owner obviously assumed the lad would pick it up, or would have enough savvy to get most of it right and somehow would not need showing. Poor management, lack of forethought and basic understanding writ large on the uncertain, unconfident, halting inadequate service offered as a sample of the worth of this cafe.

Is your business represented well by your employees? Do they care about giving a good service? Don’t assume it is adequate because no one has complained – poor service is rife wherever you go and the common standard will excite feelings of frustration that will not usually give rise to expressions of anger.

Take a second look. Bob Shepherd Associates can give you an external perspective on customer service and can make useful suggestions. You will be amazed how the little things multiply the sales.

Inside Out

2010-05-17T16:56:00.001+01:00

If you are given terrible service somewhere you probably think all sorts of things to yourself with variations on ’That’s the last time I am going there!”

When you think ‘Why on Earth do they do that?’ it has probably never occurred to you to answer that question. Very often the basic answer is that they can’t see their business from the outside as you have just done. Whatever your business one thing you will never be able to do is to see it from the outside, and that presents a problem.

One partial answer is to try to get feedback. Mystery Shoppers have been around for years. As a Bank manager in a former life it was both a carrot and a stick. Our branch staff felt they wanted good results but also felt let down by the rigid, no room for negotiating reports. Large businesses can do these things with some relevance. One side issue is that you actually end up with a target for complaints. It needs to be a target for handling complaints well, but measuring that is hard so they usually just measure the number of complaints.

For a small business Testimonials are good but nobody gets bad ones and they certainly wouldn’t get published. Casual feedback from your business colleagues is good. Ultimately the small business ends up assuming things can’t be that bad if the orders come in or the phone keeps ringing.

The trouble with all of it is that word travels. ‘Word of mouth’ it is called which is an ugly phrase that is trotted out often when a business is not doing any active marketing. Good words travel just as fast and every contact with the customers is carries a reputational risk that is positive or negative to some degree.

For that reason alone service, professionalism, accommodating, attentive, are all words that should be in the plans somewhere. It is truly said that it is easier to retain a customer than it is to get new ones. It is very subtle. We are taught from our earliest breath all about body language and interpreting others. Most of it is unconscious by the time we have intelligent thought.

It all applies, to everyone in the business, to every contact made, by letter, email, phone, person, or even being observed when out and about. See a group of smokers having a cough and a drag by the staff side door and it portrays something not entirely positive. In a business sense all very subtle and not to be ignored.

The best place to spot these things is from outside your business. That is why a consultant is better placed to advise you on this kind of thing. The idea of a ‘mystery shopper‘ touches on the same principle if a little deviously, and is also an attempt to measure the unmeasurable. It can easily be seen in a negative light by staff and can be unproductive. Marketing is a big subject and all this comes into it somewhere. Whatever you are doing, make sure you present the best picture to the outside world, your market. Bob Shepherd Associates has a strong record in coming up with imaginative views on how to present a business. See the main website for contact details or go to http://bobshepherdassociates.co.uk

Networking Or Not Working?

2010-03-26T18:56:00.001Z

People are funny, well some are anyway. Small Business folk are not exempt from this observation. To the outsider the self made businessman/woman is self possessed, confidant and intent on their next million as they move purposefully from meeting to meeting.

In most cases the truth is very different. I am struck by several things from recent networking events I have attended. I do this for several reasons not all of which are shared by other attendees. My primary motivation is to gather some business. You would think that applied to everyone but not so. My secondary reason is why. If I did not attend these events I would very soon be ‘out of the loop’ as the expression goes.

By listening at least as much as I am asked to speak I pick up news and tips, I gather who is doing what and I get to know and trust people I can use at some point to supplement my own business offerings to my clients. On a simple basis it gives me a boost to hobnob with business colleagues and become known to their contacts as we go. Under this heading also is the simple human pleasure in conversing with other people and that I have discovered is more appreciated than I had realised.

In training presentations I do about setting up in Business successfully I have a slide entitled ‘loneliness’. That is a surprise to many but under that heading I cover the need for social interaction as well as talking about the responsibility of being the boss of a small business. The buck stops very much here and that covers making the tea as much as doing the background reading, as much as turning up when and where you say you will as well as presenting your business well and actually producing whatever you say you will.

For anyone wanting to Start up in business who has been an employee for years the change comes as a dawning surprise that there is no boss to ask, no books of instruction to obey and no pay if you go on holiday.

There are so many networking clubs, events, sessions and things to attend that it no longer matters if you don’t. At one time it was a benefit to be seen at a number of events. It showed you were out and about, that you were aware and hungry for business. Nowadays it is the case like some bus routes where it doesn’t matter if you miss one, another will be along in a minute.

In the last week there are some people I have seen at every event. I have been there as well, of course so I can’t criticise them for that. However it is clear there are other people there who have no idea what they can get from it. These days the word had got around and you don’t get many hard sellers grabbing you by the lapels and doing a number on you with their carefully rehearsed elevator speech. Intent on their own message they give the impression they are not interested in you or yours. At the other extreme there are still some who attend a couple of events and seem to converse only with the colleague who brought them. Others seem to want to be able to measure the ‘outcomes’ and only attend where they can score some business.

Some are content to have their business facade. Bankers, Solicitors and Accountants are often poor networkers who have a Brass Plate mentality and wouldn’t see an opportunity if it hit them. They might be affable and convivial but it never goes anywhere, unless they receive a direct request for assistance.

There are the micro mini businesses, often interested in multi level marketed body products of some sort. They service a circle of friends for a year or two and realise it is costing them all their commissions and all their time and effort to deliver an overpriced substance to a punter some miles away.

The solutions for all these observations depends on the form of the event, but all have some common aspects. The spark between businesses is a part of what they have on offer. That funeral director should have the florist’s brochure with him when he sits down with the family. He should get the signage company to push his monumental masonry as an alternative to traditional signs. He should talk to the IFA about his funeral plans.

The printer should have working association with the marketing and branding people, the business development people and the web site people as well as the graphic designer. Any marketing function should also be able to offer the services of the finance and grant associates.

The point is whatever the speciality, it is always part of something bigger. The new website is for growth, for promotion, for fitting in with the brochures and needs the funding in place. The secondary point is that networking needs to be understood in the context of your business and the sort of event it is.

If you are a new startup finding your way or an old established business who has wondered if there is anything in this networking lark, then get some help to rationalise your approach and get your skills in place. Bob Shepherd Associates gives businesses direction and saves you time and money. One of the topics we cover is networking as part of a presentational strategy.

A Spanner In The Works

2010-03-01T22:19:00.004Z

I own certain tools that are always handy, useful, comfortable and my favourites to call upon. I would be sorry to lose them. That ratchet screwdriver I have had for 25 years, the swiss army knife I carry that gets used everyday for something or other.

The Welsh Assembly government have announced a new Fund for South Wales Valleys and other needy areas of £6m. It is a supplementary fund to the existing SIF (Single Investment Fund) providing grant aid from European money. The main objective of the new Enhancement Area Fund is to generate employment for Disadvantaged and Disabled workers by encouraging businesses, located within the Strategic Regeneration Areas of Wales, to undertake capital investment projects. Financial support ranging from £10,000 to £90,000 is available.

Fantastic! So far so good, but I am sorry – is it me? Here’s a fund that has fished out £6m from the pond and has had to play a ‘disabled’ and a ‘disadvantaged’ card to do it. That and the other usual restrictions are enough to push aside most projects. That means the fund will sit there until someone notices it is greatly under subscribed and they will have to apply for some variation, or give it back.

So now we have great looking WAG publicity material and the Assembly look business like and trendy up front, and once again can’t deliver. At the minimum £10k grant for eligible projects they would need 600 projects. At £90k each they would need 67 projects. Suppose it is somewhere in between. Say, 300 projects at about £20000 costing double that although the percentages for various eligible aspects are not all the same.

Let us be clear. That would mean finding 300 projects that can show a need for grant investment, that do not have a local focus only, that are not in the retail sector or are for portable equipment, and do not displace any other work locally. Other restrictions apply and of course they must be employing disadvantaged or disabled folk to some significant degree and purpose.

Then there are the unspoken restrictions centring around the recruitment systems for suitable grant projects which involve the Relationship Managers and the application process which takes a good while and has a few hoops to jump through.

I might be quite wrong but I think they are going to have difficulty fulfilling their purpose. Am I missing something here? That money would be better used in some of the support that is actually successful such as the HoVIP (Heads of the Valleys Innovation Programme) scheme.

One could argue the money is only available because the disabled and disadvantaged button has been pushed and any money is better than none. If that is the case, fine, but let’s not pretend it is a wonderful tool. I think it will stay at the back of the toolbox.

If your business needs better business tools contact Bob Shepherd – http://bobshepherdassociates.co.uk

Setting Up A Business

2010-02-23T21:54:00.001Z

Anyone can set up a business. Long observation and experience has taught me that not everyone has the make up to do so successfully.

Most professional Managers have met those psychometric tests beloved of the HR people in recent years. Some people say they can manipulate them and I always wonder why you would want to do so. That world is full of people who are round pegs in the square hole of their employment and who are basically unsuited and unhappy with their lot. The Peter Principle pops up all over the place where people are promoted one step too far. Heaven help us when that step puts them in a senior position that carries such a bow wave of credibility that they are unassailable; too senior to be criticised.

So given that there might be some basis in these character tests it might be an idea if everyone starting a business examined their own personal resources to see if they are actually suited for the job. In truth the attributes of the self employed need to be many and varied. You can get others to cover the gaps in your skills but that does not mean you can abrogate all responsibility for large chunks of your business.

Take your car to the back street garage and the mechanic draws a sharp sceptical intake of breath. ‘Shame you got one of those, sir’, he says, sending your optimism and the contents of your wallet in opposite directions. You need to have an appreciation of whether you are being conducted politely up the path to have the mick taken. You may not be able to fit the parts yourself but at least know they should have worn out by now and that the cost being proposed is reasonable. In such circumstances, a (blonde as well...) female relative of mine has just been quoted for 2 hours to do a 20 minute job with a commensurate fee.

Know your business. That means know the nuts and bolts of your particular specialism but take time to find out the fine points of business generally. What resources do you need and do they match or exceed the idea in mind?

Resources includes money of course. Money gets everywhere and is a measure of what is possible, what is achievable in the future and what has actually been achieved. Then there are premises, equipment, time, and people. Always people – either any of staff, customers, suppliers, external supporting businesses or all of these.

It all has to be in a balance – running before you walk is not on. It is no good having a fantastic sales mechanism if the capacity to supply is not there. Equally the best ideas in the world are worth nothing if no one knows about them.

There is a lot to know and a lot to get right. Loneliness is not a topic on most consultants’ list for new business. Many small businesses underestimate the change form a corporate environment to the freedom of your own business. Freedom yes, but no support mechanisms either. Getting an outside perspective and a second head to help you through is more essential than is usually appreciated.

The need to network includes a search for business and business contacts of course but it also includes a social context. For small businesses it provides a link to the business world and the chance to form relationships some of which can be useful and some of which can develop into introducers or even business partners.

The message is – you can’t do it all yourself. At least you can’t do it all yourself well. No one is good at everything and should not expect to be so. Let’s make a little room in the budget to bring in some outside help and we can make more of our businesses . I have recently spoken to a new business that had calculated a maximum of 19months survival on the back of savings while the business is set up. I suggested making it 18 months and using the money from the last month to further the business now. With a bit of forethought and a following wind we shall never get to find out if the sums were correct.

Bob Shepherd Associates will give small business SMEs an external perspective with expertise and contacts you may not have. We will give you the short cuts through the red tape, best practices, development ideas and a sound appreciation of how your business can form, avoid the pit falls, stay the course and last the early period to mature into a worthwhile and profitable business. Save a lot of time and money in the long term by judicial use of your resources in the short term. A better business is right in front of you, waiting to be developed!

Paperless Or Just Less Paper?

2010-02-05T17:03:00.000Z

In the 1980s we were promised a paperless office. I am not the best at technology but I have some of the tools and make an effort. Nevertheless, I have just spent 2 days sorting through some of that stuff that has accumulated. In the old days there was a pile on the end of the desk. ‘That’s interesting, I’ll read that later’ sort of pile. I have a pile like that and I have the equivalent in e-newsletters and emails as well.

When it comes to reading masses of text on screen I hunch up and eventually go to sleep. I need to make notes to keep myself awake and interested. So I still have masses of paper…

My Bank wants me to accept statements on line, others email invoices and bills to me or if I order anything I can print off the invoice. And I do. I still maintain a paper based accounting system. It is actually easier as I don’t have dozens of entries. You can write on it, tick things off, make sensible notes in the margin.

There could be good reasons for a business going paperless. Computers list and re-sort things very well and adding up vast numbers of numbers doesn’t phase them a bit. Then there are environmental reasons for going paperless if you are in a business with a rampant demand for paper records. Not just in the manufacture of the paper but in the disposal.

Cost is difficult to justify, because paper is still a cheap resource but ease of communication across distance and varied sites is a good reason for looking at the technology more.

Cultural anticipation is a problem. Still a large proportion of the population did not grow up with computers and is not intuitive in their use. Computers do sort things exactly. You can’t flip a few cards either way to pick out what you need. Then there is something nice about paper. The Folio society still secure a section of the buying public with well crafted books at several times the cost of a cheap paperback edition.

Fliers and leaflets are best in paper. The distribution is different. We have the technology to push out an advert for offers when a mobile phone owner walks past the shop, but who wants that?

In the business world we all have seen people losing their data on a failed hard drive and we don’t exactly trust it all that much. You can lose a piece of paper too but you know how to look for it. Plenty of people print off those important emails. ‘Keep a copy for the file...’

Preparation of reports, documents, letters etc. is so much better on the computer if you can type fairly fast. You can change things and alter the presentation easily. All good. No more carbon paper, tippex strips under the typewriter keys and blue and green copies.

Dual monitors on your desktop computer would enable you to spread out your work so that it can sensibly be seen side by side. More cost, and more energy but better in some cases.

I believe we print more paper now than we ever wasted typing and filing. Some suggest that

our paper-usage is 4-5 times greater now that we all have our own computers and printers.

The truth of it is the opportunities with computers are fine but sometimes it has to be paper for all sorts of reasons. Apple’s new I-pad attempts to close the gap (as have several page readers beforehand) but still doesn’t exactly get there entirely. We just have more alternatives now. That means more communication, more information overload and less defined ways of reaching your target audience. You now have to check your emails, your SMS messages, your ansafone messages, on your phone and then pick up the ansafone in the office, the fax, the post. Information comes in by post, by email, by various phone systems, by fax, by post, and indeed in person, by courier, by messenger, by notes left on the desk, sticky notes on the screen, as well as the calendar, the diary, outlook or similar, with whatever you have managed to synchronise and so on.

Lucky you if you have a PA. No wonder I have a pile building up. If you want direction and feel you can't see the woods from the trees seek help with Bob Shepherd Associates @ www.bobshepherdassociates.co.uk

All Change Is Not All Good

2009-12-16T11:46:00.003Z

The call for cheques to be abandoned as a method of payment by 2018 is an inevitable step in the direction dictated by progress. Over the last 40 years the methods of payment have multiplied along with advancing technology and it is a wonder that cheques have maintained such a stronghold. Some 663 million transactions were conducted by cheque last year apparently.

What I have not heard mentioned however is the knock on effects. Is this also another nail in the coffin of the Royal Mail service? What are cheques used for nowadays? Shops do not take them anymore. The big supermarkets abandoned them a year or two back. I recall surprise at my own irritation when a customer paid by cheque in front of me in the queue and I wondered how it had crept up on me that the lengthy process of paying by cheque had become unacceptable.

Cheques are used for payments by post mainly. Of those millions of transactions possibly 75% were postal payments. That’s a lot of revenue for the post offices to lose. A good proportion of those payments are possible by some other means. The minority without a computer these days will necessarily be fewer by then. Those with an antipathy towards technology will have come to terms with on line banking. Everyone will learn their pin number. I witnessed an elderly lady checking with her daughter in a shop ‘Is my pin number 2036?’ There was an embarrassed shuffling all round at this flagrant breach of security etiquette.

So changes have a rippling effect beyond the obvious. The introduction of card payment mechanisms meant distance ordering became more available. Cash machines meant initially the availability of cash outside banking hours and then as machines were installed in remote locations the need to visit the Bank disappeared almost entirely. The effect of this was that the Banks no longer have a captive audience they once had and sales targets assumed a greater importance. The banks have long been sectioned off into Retail and Commercial with the Retail arms dumbing down their longstanding staff and recruiting new staff as sales people. Gradually any expertise you might have found in the Branch has retreated with the retirement of experience leaving training anomalies all over the place.

I had an argument in Lloyds TSB a few months ago about a simple procedure with Executor and Trustee accounts. The experience of the supervisor I was allowed to see was limited to some form filling and the processing centre she consulted at my insistence was not giving way. I should not have bothered. The understanding was not there anymore. I had dared to step away from the script on the clip board and no reasoning was to be tolerated from a mere customer.

So the technology is useful. It speeds things up. The volume of transactions through the Banking system these days would never have been possible without it. It increases security enabling checks and counter measures no one would have thought possible a few years ago. The other face of the coin is that eCrime has become the subject of a special team for small business awareness. Frauds are still there, a tiny proportion of the overall figures, but enormous in their own register. Technology also standardises things, introducing efficiency but losing individuality and flexibility. It makes things possible. It makes things impossible.

Change is good but not for its own sake. There are always losers. Quality, service, value (and not just the price) are all affected. As a small business you have to keep up with what is around if only to dismiss something as not relevant yet. Be aware of the market, your resources and the change in the wind. Your customers will too, so listen when they pass comment and do not dismiss them. In the midst of it all there is advantage to be had by getting it right.

See Bob Shepherd Associates for practical help and guidance for small business.

You Get What You Pay For

2009-12-16T11:41:00.002Z

The problem is they don’t know there is a problem. South Wales Business Support directly and indirectly through the Welsh Assembly is beaurocratic and time consuming. In some cases it is worth working around and waiting around. In many cases it is not.

The stories are legion of businesses going some way down the road of business support only to see it fizzle out after months of misplaced effort. In some cases the only gainer is an ‘adviser’ or ‘relationship manager’ who has drawn a salary from an agency.

The idea seems fine. A bunch of Not for Profit agencies combine with a government backed support system to deliver much needed advice and guidance to new and existing businesses. There are grants as well, bigger ones through the Welsh Assembly directly and smaller ones delivered in various forms through local authority Economic Development Departments. (Already it is sounding complicated.)

At the time of the launch of the revised support system the Chartered Institute of Business Consulting gave a platform to the main architect of the revised support plans. He started by saying that he had come to the job from the outside world. A collective sigh of approbation was heard around the room. The fact that he made that point is indicative of the general opinion of the support system previously. Next he said he approached the reorganisation with the intention of making it simpler. Again a collective murmur of approval went round the room. Two ticks on the list so far and we are doing well.

He said the Assembly’s grants would all be placed in one pot (The Single Investment Fund) and the applications for whatever flavour assistance would all be directed through it. This received neutral reaction. Interested to see whether they could really pull that off the audience of professional consultants and independent business advisers were prepared to give it a chance. From there on the layers of beaurocracy were disappointingly replaced. It is public/euoropean money after all and some accountability has to be accepted.

Any thoughts that the newly established Relationship Managers were there to actively help anyone were quickly dispersed. They have unwieldy paperwork to justify their existence, they are poorly trained and in some cases with little experience of business. In effect they are there to police the applications as a filtering layer.

The FS4B set up is the revised and streamlined Business Eye. If you haven’t been paying attention that was set up out of the old Business Connect, itself spawned from Business Gateway) It is intended to be a posting network of useful operators who can resolve the biggest gripe of the ordinary business – we don’t know where to go. A good idea in theory and hardly worth the money in practice. The Assembly say "Since the 1st of April over 6000 businesses have accessed support from the Flexible Support for Business Regional Centres and 7,000 individuals have accessed support from the Start Up programme.”

Sounds wonderful. They will say also that 71 % were satisfied with the ease of the process and 88% were satisfied with the quality of advice given to them. I don’t know what questions were asked, but something is wrong here. Even experienced FS4b local Managers will scoff at that. Informed advisers will roll their eyes to the ceiling.

An article published by the BBC under their Politics Show is to be found at http://tiny.cc/ebPnf which adds weight to my views. The defensive statement by the Assembly displays a self satisfied complacency at worst and a woeful ignorance at best. Brian Morgan, Professor of Entrepreneurship at UWIC, said the business support offered by the assembly government was "overly bureaucratic, top-down and lacking in real focus". He was being very polite.

The front end publicity is excellent for Welsh Assembly Business support. The delivery does not match the expectation set. Having sat at meetings and heard the senior Enterprise managers talk about business support they are either following the company line with a large spoonful of cynicism or they are blind to the level of incompetence that seems to be rife. The old special consultancy grant is now referred to as the ‘small SIF’ and a manager was pleased to inform us at one meeting that 70% of the applications were rejected, making no mention of the dozens that never got that far.

The training courses have some generic value. But they are inadequate for anything but the basics for a brand new would be entrepreneur. FS4B will not understand your queries or your situation if it is at all complicated and the most of best advisers have left the agencies. The Relationship Managers are a joke to most people and the time scales for any assistance are enough to put you off. Any serious business intent is going to be misdirected, poorly advised and sent up some cul de sacs.

In short, there are two rules

- most businesses are not eligible for most of it most of the time

- and much of the time you are wasting your time.

The attraction of free support is misplaced economy. You are far better off going to a knowledgeable consultant who will require payment but will help you with practical support and realistic advice. Bob Shepherd Associates can help the small business with practical understanding and business advice to get the best out of a badly weighted system if it is available to you and link it to the rest of the finance world.

Banks And The Clipboard

2009-12-03T17:53:00.004Z

Apply a solution to something and Pareto’s 80/20 rule kicks in every time. In the world of ‘Business vs. The Banks’ - which is how many people see it - there are 2 things that are happening with banks that are not well realised.

I don’t like either of them. This is not a case of ‘take me back to the good old days’, though I am tempted to suggest we did not carve it up so badly then. As a business on one hand or a Bank manager on the other, you knew where you stood.

The point is that Banks have taken away most of the local discretions. There were reasons for doing so, some of which were brought on by the severing of the old trodden path of promotions that gave a manager an all round education in both handling people and handling business circumstances over a number of years. The tutelage of senior managers by example was part of the mix and usually the result was a manager who had been round the block, knew the Bank’s operations intimately and had had time to build his own skills in gauging business propositions for the Bank.

There are not that many managers left who came up through the ranks in this way. Those that are, tend to be in senior roles, and the majority of businesses are left far beneath them. Even for them the discretions are heavily managed from above. This means 2 things. It gives the Bank a stronger control over the lending book. Policies and Directives can be applied evenly and technology can be used to grade and report on track record to give a measure of risk.

At the sharp end the business manager has to submit an application for approval to a lending centre often far away. The applications are processed and reviewed according to set measures by relatively junior officers before signing off by a senior lending officer. Neither has seen the customer, or been to the premises, or looked the business in the eye in any way at all.

So, as a business manager, with half an eye to protecting a reputation and building some kind of career, there is a disincentive to submit anything for approval that isn’t ‘watertight’. Despite having targets and other steering mechanisms to attend to, and the more junior the manager the less forgiving they are, he/she is disinclined from the start to put up anything that is not liked and does not possess a belt, braces and a safety chain.

Again there are good reasons for placing a note of caution centrally on such industries as construction, transport, retail, leisure and entertainment, but the caution sticker has branded everything in those less favoured sectors. The balance of risk and probabilities has been skewed too far. It is all very well for the Government to issue exhortations to the banks to lend more freely, and the Government’s loan guarantee scheme has a helpful place, but that overall cautionary inclination is paramount. The Banks can say they are open for business, they are lending and they welcome approaches. All of that is true, but the mechanisms that have developed do not support this in practice.

The local discretion has gone along with a need for much experience. And so too the inclination of the local manager to bother with anything that is not going to get a straight ‘approved, on the basis submitted’ has gone too. The clip board now rules and it is not particularly okay.

Blame Society generally. Blame Globalism. Blame the Economy. It’s why everything is controlled from a far away call centre who has no idea where you mean; it is why services cannot cover the needs of locals. It’s why it isn’t worth complaining a lot of the time because ‘they’ don’t know what you are talking about. Local service is a luxury no one seems willing to provide because 80% of the time an overarching half baked gloss will do. But that is another topic.

For an informed view of your business banking and finances see www.bobshepherdassociates.co.uk

Time Is The Biggest Resource

2009-11-25T20:48:00.003Z

Many small businesses have started up in the last few months. Some born of opportunity and some born of necessity. If they were careful the owners of such businesses have made sufficient headway to believe they can maintain their course and develop their business. Planning and forethought is a major key to this.

Resources is the baseline for any progress. Directly or indirectly money is the lowest common denominator here and the business needed money at least to keep the domestic expenses going until the business took up the load, and then the business itself needed money to get going. There are a hundred and one things to spend out on in the first set up stage.

However once all that is sorted out, and I am not diminishing the effort or the size of that problem, the challenge of keeping it all going starts to manifest itself. At what point does the business have enough energy to employ people? At what point do the first make-do systems, in place and adequate for the initial stages, need replacing with larger thinking? Having made a good start how does the owner find time to move up to the next level?.

Aside from money, which gets into all departments of a business, I maintain the biggest resource is actually time itself. Particularly with small one-man bands, the owner has based his initial stages on doing everything him/herself. That is fine for a while until it is realised that delegation is becoming a problem. How can you delegate when it takes so long to set up or explain for someone else, that you may as well do it yourself? It is a common mistake.

The answer should be to build in the growth and expansion to the early systems so that the problem does not arise. The later answer is to bite the bullet, stop everything and set up afresh at the new level required, accepting a loss of income or work during that time. Both of these are very difficult.

I maintain also that outside help is always needed. The outside view is something a business can never have itself. The skills needed to rescue the situation may never have been there in the first place and that was why the business was set up as it was anyway. Importantly, the time involved to set up the new systems is never going to be there either.

As a consultant visiting widely differing businesses all the time I see the results of poor planning everywhere. It may be the owners of the business know about, and have never got around to dealing with the object of inefficiency. It may be that they do not and are wondering why they are having problems. Large or small the same principles apply, and time is the biggest resource.

Business Lingua Franca

2009-10-13T13:18:00.005+01:00

I happened across an article on the use of the Welsh language and although I should have been doing other things I got sidetracked. There lies the path of procrastination which is one of those concepts anyone starting in business needs to be wary about and manage carefully. Time is your biggest resource.

But what an interesting debate! Most of the major arguments are being aired here. http://cambriapolitico.com/2009/02/welsh-language-lco-a-plea-for-sanity/ is the on line link.

There are one or two observations I have and I do not pretend to a debatable opinion. They all stem from an in- principle opposition to positive discrimination of any sort. I find it equates to a negative discrimination against a majority view. We see enough of that with no reference to languages.

I believe it is in the interests and to the economic and cultural advantage of Wales to encourage the use of Welsh language wherever possible. I do not believe the existing blunderbuss approach is helpful however. Much of the post that arrives from what used to be known as public services – that is Utilities and Government agencies of many kinds have the whole message repeated in Welsh either in a separate copy or in a reverse section of the booklet. I think it is economically perverse to assume everyone wants this. I am all for communication in Welsh where it is wanted . It is surely not beyond the modern technological wit to have either an opt out or an opt in (there’s another argument!) and distribute these communications appropriately from the likes of SWALEC, DVLA, HMRC, Companies House, Local Authorities etc etc .

A couple of further points of interest. The major bank I used to work for had most of the main leaflets available in Welsh placed in the Public Space. In SE Wales in all the branches I worked the only time they were taken was when children scribbled on them.

As a business consultant I helped and advised a Welsh speaking secondary school as part of a scheme where there was a business plan competition. They (not me) decided the plan needed to be presented in English. The plan was good, the ideas were good and the English was not. There were words that would have sounded right but used the wrong version when written. The grammar was ’spoken’ and of course the spelling was all over the place. They could not communicate effectively in English. It was “English, as she is spoke”.

There is a comment about place names cobbled in to spurious Welsh. I happen to live in a Welsh place that until the late 1800s was Welsh speaking. However its name is derived from Old Norman French for many reasons. You can’t do much with that. There are a number of Welsh place names that appear to have been manufactured and to a non Welsh speaker that just seems fatuous and trying to make a silly point.

There are areas of Wales where the demand for Welsh is seen as an obstacle. Monmouthshire and Newport itself has been in and out of England through the centuries. That does not mean we should not have some Welsh speaking schools but there is an argument about compulsory Welsh in schools in the border towns. To accommodate such feeling in some secondary schools the compulsory lesson is given lip service (no pun) and scant regard. Where is the sense in that?

One thing the University in Newport does have a good reputation for is Teaching and the students all have Welsh lessons starting from zero. How many recruits from that bigger place next door or abroad are going to be put off I wonder? Important income for the University shot in the foot it seems to me. Perhaps they should have an opt in or opt out and award a different degree accordingly.

A point is made by one of the contributors about multi cultural communication in our diverse world. That opens the door to exchanges citing English as the lingua franca of the modern commercial world. ( It is odd that the term for such a language should strictly refer to French instead.) In fact the debate veers away from there. Working for one of the local authorities a while ago I was given a card with 54 languages on it saying translation facilities were available. All very laudable except that translation facilities were not available as no one had asked for the service for a number of years. If anyone ever did we would have had to go looking. Such considerations do not apply to Welsh as there are no speakers that do not also speak English.

So is it good for Welsh business to have the language? Probably it is so long as the 90% majority are not disadvantaged by it. Historical and cultural facts of life should be influenced and encouraged one way or another for all sorts of good reasons and if valid will find their own substance in a modern alternative. Trying to force the issue is always wrong. I have no evidence that positive discrimination is a good thing.

For a practical outside view on business and the path you might take see Bob Shepherd Associates.

Changing Values

2009-09-28T16:23:00.004+01:00

Harry Enfield did a wonderful take off Stafford Cripps wondering about inflation in one of his black and white parodies of early fifties public information films. After the ravages of war most working people were unaware of economics in those days as a subject, needing to focus their interest on their take home pay.

In 1952 Colin Brine was 15 and started work on the Railways at £1.17s.6d for a six day week. Teenagers hadn’t been invented and he had only essentials to spend his money on. He probably gave his Mum most of it for his ‘keep’, saved some and went to the cinema on Saturday evening. Translated to decimal currency that is around £1.87 a week. The nearest equivalent now is a 16 year old, below the age for minimum wage rates and earning £140 per week or £7280 per year.

Curiously though it doesn’t translate. Things have changed. The only way you might find a comparison is to examine wages and spending power. That can only be done with things that are available in both registers. So a pint of beer would have been about 2d, less than 1p. Minimum wage (47 hours a week then) was £5.8.1d (£5.42) a week. Presently it is about to go up to £5.80 per hour for ages over 22.

Roughly then wages are about 50 times what they were in 1952. The price of a pint of beer is not. Later in 1971 when decimal values for the pound were adopted, a gallon of petrol was 33p. At the time an average wage was about £15.00 per week. Trying to make comparison with today’s petrol price of around £5 per gallon and the present day average wage of about £450 per week makes no sense. Petrol was far more expensive then than it is now evidently.

The differences in life style, expectations and living arrangements generally make comparisons very difficult and hugely subjective. From the book that cited Colin Brine I read that the crossing keepers in Somerset who lived in the railway houses had two large cans of water delivered by one of the passing freight trains each day. They were not on mains water in the late 50s and early 60s. Until the late 1950s television was very limited and not common. My own in- laws were given a television in 1955 which sat in the corner for a year because they had no mains electricity. Refrigerators (‘Fridges’ in modern parlance) were only common from the 60s onwards. The history of every day private life is only recently coming of age as a study. We probably have the war to thank for that. The idea of enforced rationing and the notion of evacuating your children away to the countryside to spend 4 or 5 years away from you is fascinating for the television writers.

The Land Girls were largely unsung and just family tales from Grandma’s repertoire until it was noticed they were disappearing fast. Now they have a certificate signed by Gordon Brown and a badge to wear. So the television is only reflecting a general resurgence in interest. All the retro programmes and interest in past re-enactments is an attempt to put it all in focus and give perspective. Was it all better then? Some of it was, most of it was not. The things that were better seem to be attitudes and work ethics. What is known as the Fabric of Society.

Why is it that once unassailable aspects of British society that earned world wide respect evidenced by emulation across the world no longer stand scrutiny and are subjected to howls of criticism from our own press and media? Recent attacks and criticism have been aimed at a dysfunctional education system, a ruined Royal Mail, an NHS that does a poor job in many cases, a police force that no longer can be trusted, bus companies that are not there to provide a service any more, railway companies that just can’t cope, banks and financial worlds that fall over, MPs that can't organise their expenses honourably, a farming industry dying and other national institutions that are on their knees, either through inefficiency and an inability to adapt to modern needs or as victims of political dogmas that have not seen the advantage of a commercial strength. The Newspapers themselves are dying on their feet and struggling to adapt old methods of income to new channels of news delivery.

It’s not just globalisation (for which we are in large part responsible) or the fault of one political party or another. Nor is it the dying flickers of a once unbelievably powerful empire that is now allowed criticism and vitriol from those with a particular angle of view to support. I don’t feel it is the old ‘uns complaining things aren’t what they used to be, much to the frustration and exasperation of the young. It might be a mixture of all these aspects and probably more besides.

The same changes in values allow the discrimination laws, health and safety, and any other sort of ‘Rights’ generally to be abused and mocked for the very clip board mentalities they promote, bringing even the standards that we thought were taken as read, into disrepute.

Any sort of fractionalised approach, in industry, education, transport, health, defence, has a short term gain and a long term loss of way. The answer is not to re – nationalise everything. I do think it is to encourage a positive view of what is good and not to drag everything down. The thought is not new. In the seventies we had an ‘I’m Backing Britain’ campaign for just the same reasons. It was good for morale if nothing else, and was not condemned out of hand.

Some positive views are needed, and the rest will slowly follow.

See Bob Shepherd Associates for a positive yet practical view of your business tempered with a realistic perspective.

The World Moves On

2009-09-15T11:48:00.004+01:00

Barclays bank reports the results of research which indicates the Recession has spawned more new businesses than ever before. That is not difficult to imagine. Anyone with initiative who perhaps could not get another job easily (the media has had tales of job applications being over subscribed by several hundred ) who has had a good idea has thought, ‘Maybe now’s the time to have a go.’

The research people all missed that one. For years the status of the UK entrepreneurial spirit has been lamented for its lack of enthusiasm. In particular the Welsh contribution to owner business has apparently suffered from long term historical precedent where the large heavy industries were the natural path. Those large scale employers have left in a sulk. Time has passed and the traditional track has grown over, as have the slag heaps.

Recession is the mother of entrepreneurialism it would appear. Anyone with a bit of an idea can make something of it perhaps. It is hard work, and stressful if you are thinking you need a certain minimum amount each week or month to feed your troops and keep the roof over their heads. However it is a different stress because it is yours alone. That is good generally.

Forget the regular wage. Forget the regular hours. In the first years you can probably forget the family holiday. Our great grandfathers would have scoffed at that hardship. What you can look forward to is personal development. You will do things you never thought you would, never thought you could, or would ever entertain.

As a consultant dealing with Business development I am often surprised at the things some people find they can do and other people find difficult. It is very interesting. Someone who has never had to do what they would call ‘public speaking’ might need to do a business presentation, with slides and timings and leaflets. Some have a go and make a total hash of it. Some are natural deliverers. Some see it, some can’t.

Some people are very comfortable on the phone and have the knack of gaining business. Others have no idea. I came across an answerphone message that was unbelievably incompetent. Unbelievable, not because it was incompetent, but because the business owner obviously thought it would do.

There are many of these subtleties. An outside view from an experienced consultant can help you past many of these pit falls. When ( if!) you do your sums in the first place, allow a place in the budget for advice and help. It will pay you back many times over. View the free services with reservation. They will take you some of the way, but you do get what you pay for. Pay nothing and you will not get much.

Tread carefully and with forethought. That much is the same now as it ever was. Let Bob Shepherd Associates guide you and share your new pathway.

Apples And Pears

2009-08-17T22:50:00.004+01:00

The question of equal pay struck me again this week. Harriet Harman’s department has put out, and the BBC has propagated, the statistics showing the gender gap in wages. Women are paid less than Men, we are told, despite legislation and a shift in society over the last 40 years to even out these values.

I have talked before in these articles about statistics and averages. The problem is that apples need to be compared with apples to arrive at a fair conclusion and that does not seem to be the case here.

Are we talking about income or pay (ie salary/wage)? Are we talking about all women vs. all men or just the working population? Are we considering the entire age range, or taking a like for like sample? Are we comparing jobs where for all sorts of cultural and historical reasons and sometimes plain physical reasons, one sex appears to dominate the workforce numbers?

For example, if you consider the pay of men doing part time jobs where there are direct comparisons available to view, it appears that men are actually paid less than women by some 3.4%. If we are talking about income, it was reported this week that a Police Constable (presumably male but now I think about it the report was not specific) earned an income last year of £90k (actually with a salary of £40k) by earning overtime and actually earned more than most of his senior officers.

All this is not the fault of the statistics Office – the Government’s fact sifting department. The Head of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Michael Scholar, who carries one of those surnames peculiarly suited to his job, has taken issue with the Equalities Office for using statistics in a way that will undermine the public trust.

It is the fault of the Government Departments who promulgate these statistics to further some political point without explanation and in some cases with misleading preambles. Consider the report published by the Government’s Women and Work Commission. On page 5, top right corner, a host of statistics are quoted that are accurate figures, one supposes, but lead nowhere safely. See http://www.equalities.gov.uk/pdf/297158_WWC_Report_acc.pdf

I can’t help feeling we, the Public, male and female, are being manipulated.

In Business it is important to maintain an integrity when dealing with the public. It is a shame that the Governmental servants of our society do not seem to see it that way.

Bob Shepherd Associates, in business to help you do business better.

Fixed Or Floating?

2009-07-27T22:07:00.003+01:00

A long time solution for a bunch of loans or an overdraft that has become solid is a Consolidation Loan. With it the Bank gets reassurance that the debt is actually making progress, the customer gets a manageable outlay that is reducing their debt each month and sometimes the repayments can be less overall than what has been gathered along the way. It only works if it is done in time, collates all the debts into one package and is actually affordable monthly.

The banks are under pressure to build up their Balance Sheets after a period of loose living, but they are also under pressure to help the business community by lending more readily. The two things are incompatible forces and something is not right here. In the days when a local manager knew his customers and was largely responsible for keeping a paternal eye on their excesses he had a discretionary limit within which he was allowed to operate. There were checks, and monthly printouts and lending reviews of varying depth in which the manager’s lending was held to account and if necessary was placed under report to the Area Office.

During the last few years a drive for cost cutting involving a comprehensive move to centralised working has left the local manager with no discretion and the newcomers, without the skills and experience of old. No longer are the principles and canons of lending drummed home. The clipboard has taken over, certainly for the lower rankings. If the customer fits the latest criteria set, then help is available. If it does not, then there is no leeway. Unfortunately the lack of discretion has meant a lack of flexibility as well. In a strange paradox, while it is all centralised the policies could be set at a level but there is still a reliance on the local manager agreeing to put forward the proposition. Is he going to risk his career advancement with string of frilly business ideas?

But having frightened themselves the banks are not about to loosen the central lending reins anyway, no matter how many meetings the Chancellor hold for the chaps at the top. And the system is not flexible enough to do so quickly.

What they can do however is give out consolidation loans. Helpful sometimes, but I have recently observed a sting in the tail. The rates have been of the order of 7% above the Base Rate, which used to be considered a penal rate for commercial lending at one time. Lately I have seen that rate agreed as a floating rate. That means what still is a relatively expensive rate now, with Base Rates low, will become injurious when the rates rise again over the next few months. These are locked in for 3,5,or 10 year loans perhaps. It is not hard to see those rates approaching short term Credit Card rates when the Base Rates go up again. Those rates should be 7% FIXED. That means they will stay at 7% for the life of the loan which is quite a different matter.

The naive customer will be unaware that the nice Bank who has helped him out with his consolidation exercise has effectively stitched hi m up and built in a cushion of protection for its profits to help feather its balance sheet nest.

Bob Shepherd has contacts and an in depth knowledge of Banks in the Business community. He has lectured in Corporate Finance and written courses on the relationship of Business with its Bank. A number of articles on practical banking matters have been published and many appear in these pages. Using this knowledge and others Bob Shepherd Associates is in an excellent position to help with Business finance and relationships with the Bank.

The Big Business Battle

2009-07-17T17:13:00.005+01:00

‘The bigger they are the harder they fall’. So says the old saying. It applies in business. The problem is that little companies only become big companies by committing themselves to expansion. In good times that works well. They make some profits and the investors and the staff are happy. The wheel turns on.

Study the battles of history and you find the components of the armies shaping up to be in the best position, taking charge of their equipment and devising a strategy.

In the computer world some giants are shaping up for battle. Microsoft has 90 % of the world’s operating systems and seems only there to be shied at. Massive fines have been levied for the odd misdemeanour - well, they can afford it can't they? And who likes a smart arse?

Google has so far managed to keep a lot of goodwill but has grown to reckon it is nearly ready to challenge the giant in open warfare. The Google troops have been drawing up. Its PR is working overtime. It has been working on an operating system that will eventually draw swords and charge into open battle against Microsoft.

Others are overlooking the battleground wondering where to gain the best ground. Twitter is growing fast and has failed to achieve satisfactory integration with anyone huge as yet. Nokia is moving in with its own approach and is ready to exploit anything it can get away with, operating systems and applications. Well Microsoft have been having a go at phone systems lately, so blood is ready to be spilled. All the other big computer names are also out there setting up position in the applications market the hardware market or the clever gadget markets.

Unbelievable sums of money are involved and whether or not the consumer comes off best in the end is questionable. The giants are on their mettle. Their products must be good and have perceived value for money. They must work, be useable and be flexible and reliable. On the other hand all the marvellous developments will quickly become outmoded and out of date. Competition is healthy but obsolescence is a problem in the strive for bigger and better products that will out do and out sell the competition. At least with the one major provider the consumer got some continuity and didn't have to open the wallet so often.

So as the phone giants produce more phones that perform like computers , the computer giants expand their applications to be more useful and part of everyday life, the social networks find new ways of harnessing the youthful consumer, the manoeuvring for battle advantage is taking place. Not content to make a shed load of money they all want to take over the world and its doings. Tin hats on chaps... we're going in.

Banking Is The Second Oldest Profession.

2009-07-17T17:12:00.004+01:00

In the late 1990s the banks were going through a relentless drive to centralise, to set up centres for processing anything that moved. The UK staff of one major Bank was reduced in number from some 86000 to around 35000 in the space of three to four years. That was remarkable. It meant that anyone who fancied to go was given a package and it didn’t matter who they were, or what experience they had.

It was all right for a while. Those left on the front line in the branches knew what was going on anyway. Any cracks in the presentation to the public were covered very often. Then as new people came along they had to be trained in a different way. Now the centres could no longer rely on the front line staff covering for them. The branch staff no longer knew what they did. The masters became the slaves in the operations. What started out as services to the front line became the system that everyone had to follow.

Branches were closed as no longer being economic to operate and sold off for wine bars. What happens now is that the branch staff who everyone still thinks of as their bank, their manager etc have a retail position only and no discretion or power. They have no need for qualifications any more . The old idea of a Banker being in a profession has gone. The Chartered Institute of Bankers is hanging on as another trading name for the Financial Services Institute.

An business can approach their Bank. If you want to do so with all the ticks on the list in the right order or you want to fight your way through the banking hoops in some other way have a word with Bob Shepherd Associates who have the experience and the contacts to help you.

Business Ethics

2009-06-15T19:06:00.004+01:00

The way people behave in business has been troubling me lately. The integrity of a business is what is presented to the outside world. It starts off with politeness and courtesy, moves on to turning up on time and then to doing what you say you can. It also covers not saying you can do something when you can’t!

Communication is a lot to do with it. If you say when you are going to pay, make sure you do what you say. For any business struggling with cash flow that is a useful tip. Much better that you get in first and tell them what you can do rather than wait until the boys are coming round and start bleating then!

Think about all the times you have received poor service. A lot of it was unmanaged expectation. Had you been told some investigation was needed and a reply would be given within a certain time you would have waited. Had you been told what was happening/why there was a delay/ given an apology for whatever was amiss it is likely you would have had your opinion of the place enhanced and may even have recommended it.

In the business world nobody likes a non payer when there is apparently no reason for it. In a couple of cases lately, I have witnessed quite large organisations taking the trouble to be awkward over small sums of money owing. In one case, a sizeable private company, which is part of a larger group, owed £200. Emails, answer phone messages and letters went unanswered and when a final demand was issued for the £200 in question they sent a payment of £100. Completely frustrating!

In the case of large public companies, there was a move to be considerate and best practices were bandied around involving at least a bunch of flowers for the worst cases of maladministration. The thought was there even if it was clumsily delivered. For a while, the PR gained was valuable but the practice seems to have gone away now. Probably something to do with the economic climate or the credit crunch.

For serious ethics, you can still look to the professions who have their various codes. Some of these are long standing. The Legal Profession demands a respectful capital L in its title and has had the law Society frowning upon malpractice since 1823. It hasn’t necessarily stopped but it is frowned upon and serious cases are excluded and cannot continue. The Accountants have their various Institutes and there are Accounting practices laid down. The Institute of Bankers exists now largely as an historical forethought for the IFS – Institute of Financial Services. I suspect that was largely because Bank people stopped relying on their exams in the late 1980s. Plenty do still take them, but it is not a prerequisite to getting on any more. However, there has been an industry Banking Code for about 20 years. Others abound but some of the professional institutes have little regard for entry. Having letters after your name used to be a mark of considerable achievement but a lot of them are unintelligible.

A few years ago, a South Wales fraudster was sent down for 3 years for touting himself about as a qualified Tax Accountant when he was nothing of the sort. The initials that appeared to relate to tax expertise on his business card also stood for a department in Scotland Yard dealing with financial fraud.

Make sure your business presents itself properly and soundly to the outside world! Bob Shepherd associates has the understanding and the help you need, from an all important outside view of your business.

Nose In The Clouds Or Nose To The Grindstone?

2009-06-09T23:30:00.004+01:00

I am interested in the apparent disassociation between Arts and Business at all levels when plainly both sides need each other. The official line is that Creative Industries account for 8% of business when plainly everything has to be designed, illustrated promoted and marketed and that 8% actually takes an essential part in the other 92%.

Equally the bankruptcy courts are full of 'Creatives' who just cannot understand why money is important to all aspect of the reaction with the world outside. As a measure of resource, size of involvement and a measure of success money is always there and needs to be understood as a basic ingredient of any business dealings. Many Creative Businesses and others fall by the wayside because their owners have not found the patience to understand the business world or have not found anyone with the patience and understanding to explain it to them.

As a consultant I find I am fulfilling that role more and more. I get introduced to a company to aid the search for finance and I find before we go down that route there are basic cracks in the structure that need attention before any funder or lender will even look at their proposition.

Few people can be good at everything and with most business in South Wales being conducted by small enterprises the need is nearly always there to cover some aspect of their business that is a make-do and get-by at present.

Both for development of existing business and starting from scratch I emphasis the value role of a good business adviser who can give an outside view and perspective, can validate the assumptions you have made, who can bring expertise and contacts to you that you do not have from your own world. In short it is worth paying a little for a part time management colleague to run with you in support for a while.

Whether you are a down to earth methodical left brainer or a butterfly mind that will never have the ability to sit still the same principle applies. You cannot do everything well yourself. Have a talk to Bob Shepherd Associates to see what we can do for your business, to lift your view to your horizon, or bring your view back to earth, or to find out which of these you need!

Are There Green Shoots Or Not?

2009-06-09T23:29:00.002+01:00

A few weeks ago a government minister was castigated by the press and media for suggesting that there were signs of improvement. Let’s not talk it up, let’s talk it down!

I thought she was unfairly laughed down as a naive wide eyed enthusiast in a class of doom laden heavyweight commentators. Well now the shoots have appeared, perhaps! The mortgage people are busy, estate agents are reporting a few properties selling again. Because of that, the off shoot trades are picking up. There is a bit of work for the landscape gardeners, the decorators, the DIY shops etc. We are not out of the woods. Brokers are noting share price rises and wagging their collective burnt fingers in cautious rhetoric. The British penchant for wearing a hair shirt and lashing ourselves in perpetual penitence always notices the empty half of the glass first.

Europe’s largest economy (Formerly known as Europe’s strongest economy) is Germany and is forecasting a 6% drop in GDP for this year. That is a huge drop. Our UK figures were said to be far and away the worst of the developed nations. I am not so sure we are comparing like for like, all the time.

For small business diversity is the key. That does not necessarily mean doing things you have never done before. It does mean expanding your horizons. Spread your risks. I have always pointed out to the building trades (those landscapers, decorators, electricians, plumbers etc) that big is not always best. The big contracts may sound better and they may mean you can say you have work for a longer period of time, but consider for a moment: smaller jobs mean you get paid at a better rate, in smaller amount of course but more often. Your van with your contact details spends a short time outside several different sites/houses/locations and does its advertising job better. Any bad debts you are unfortunate enough to attract are going to be smaller and less likely to be life threatening. It is not all so straight forward as it appears.

Paying a consultant for an outside view of your business may be the making of it. When it’s your business you are in it. That means you cannot see it from the outside. That outside view , probably with experience to add that you do not have yourself is worth so much. Be careful who you engage to help though. Recommendation is a good start, and do expect to pay. In the main you get what you pay for and if you pay nothing, you cannot expect to get very much. Most things free in the commercial world are either of limited value or a loss leader for another package.

Bob Shepherd Associates will give you the outside view and help you grow your own green shoots.

Open Handed Business

2009-05-15T00:13:00.011+01:00

Canterbury City Council are being lambasted for not encouraging enough Pink Tourism. The Council say they are. Why, last year they ...”held a gay open day at the council offices which was widely advertised – including in the gay press – well attended by more than 40 people”.

So, not that well attended then. Apparently they have also contributed “money help and the use of facilities”. Almost any pub gathering would roar with laughter at the implications. And they would be wrong to do so, pandering to the gutter humour that finds itself adorning toilet doors. So should the Council spend money and try to promote minority interests in any way possible? That is a moot point also. Strapped for cash as they all seem to be, should they not concentrate on the major concerns?

Legislation is being passed which will insist that positive discrimination should become the rule in all walks of business and public life. The problems that solves – inclusion it’s called, is probably outweighed by the unfairness and automatic discrimination of the majority.

Luckily there are some people around with sense. Political Parties that have decided to have a women only short list for parliamentary candidates have found their electorate would rather have the best person for the job, regardless of their gender. Police forces who have been instructed that they must recruit a certain number of officers from identifiably minority groups have found that they do not have many willing to come forward and are always going to be below quota.

Equally, or unequally one might say, those councils who have banned the use of terms which might upset some minority are made the subject of laughter at the “PC Brigade running riot”.

So are they or aren’t they? It seems that while any sort of social discrimination is unfair, as is bullying, in the workplace or at school or in the street, so too then is any attempt to do down any particular group. That means positive discrimination is also wrong; and unfair.

The fact that there is an imbalance of any group in business or in public life is probably a reflection of historical attitudes or cultural preferences or physical attributes. Over a period of time education and the sway of opinion will change. We no longer have the humour that was perfectly acceptable 30 years ago. We no longer have bear baiting either. Anyone should be paid the same money for doing the same work. That is agreed. If it isn’t so, then we should examine why and if confirmed then it should be corrected.

If the opportunities are fair but the imbalance remains that is probably all right. In business the legislation is there for anyone discriminating. It is there to stop unfair dismissal. It is there for all manner of dangerous and unfair practices. Employer beware. Unfortunately there are people around who are determined to take an unfair advantage and that means the position is defended at great cost and risk or they are paid off as a practical measure. That encourages his/her mate down the pub to try it on also.

Individual preference should be applauded and promoted. What has been done in the past may not be what we deem to be fair or in order nowadays. But it cannot be changed. If an historic building is not accessible then that is regrettable but just how it is. If it is practical to make some changes that allow anyone with a disability to gain access then let us do that.

The whole of society should support the freedoms of the United Kingdom. This includes the right to be yourself so long as it doesn’t ruin anyone else’s right to be themselves. It includes the freedom to set up a business that caters for a minority interest, so long as you don’t mind dealing with others. It can’t be illegal and it can’t be offensive either and this is where the trouble started.

If it is wrong to force anyone to adopt certain customs then just what is acceptable? Open market democracy voting with its feet is probably the best judge and jury. If it doesn’t cater for enough people it will soon go out of business. It’s always been like that and it works. The bus is taken off if no one uses it. The shop closes if it is in the wrong place. The politicians get voted out if they don’t live up to expectations and their promises. The house prices are low if no one wants to live there.

As for Canterbury Council being accused of not having a gay bar in the town.... Perhaps the investment opportunity for pink tourists hasn’t seemed attractive enough to anyone, gay or otherwise. The question should really be – are there any bars in Canterbury that discriminate against gay people?

It is apparent that they don’t have any Welsh language signs. Will anyone Welsh in the locality of Canterbury please write to the council and demand an explanation.

If you want your business to weave its way successfully through the legislative minefield and if you would like to examine the market for your product or service you should get an outside view from professional consultants. Spend a little to gain an edge with Bob Shepherd Associates.

Lies, Damned Lies and Percentages

2009-05-04T12:33:00.001+01:00

Disraeli’s observations about statistics came to mind when I came across some interesting figures. The problem with percentages and averages is that they leave more questions than they answer.

Apparently 80% of Americans never read a book. We all nod wisely with a ‘thought as much’ look. Actually, these days most people over here could be the same. That doesn’t mean they don’t read newspapers, magazines, internet articles, watch educative programmes, or dip into the text book they are studying for their course. Perhaps they don’t have the time.

More than one million Britons have never left their home town! There’s a statistic that is specific (as long as you know there are around 61 million of us now).

The average wage is now just shy of £500 (£25000 pa) per week depending what you take into account. A ‘Typical’ wage is actually about £85 below that, because around two thirds of the working population don’t earn the average wage. Then of course the average wage for a particular area may be lower still. I think an average wage in South East Wales is probably more like £400 per week (£21000) whereas if you lived in South London it would be higher, and needs to be. I have no basis for that except observation, but the point is made. Averages and percentages need clarification.

So too with the state of the country. The percentages are trotted out and we all nod wisely with a ‘thought as much’ look. Manufacturing is in freefall decline and we are no longer a manufacturing nation. Well, actually until the latest blip in world economy Britain was more of a manufacturer than ever. Services now make up 75% of our economy against 54% in the early 1970s. However the economy has grown by 4 times in 60 years and manufacturing has grown in real terms while not being as big a percentage of the whole as it was. We produced twice as many cars in 2007 than we did in the 1970s, when we had the big names still.

The share of the economy attributable to manufacturing is actually greater than that of France or the US, despite sneering remarks by the French President lately. Our level of Efficiency of Manufacture is also greater than theirs. Half our exports are manufactured. We are world leaders in chemicals, electrical equipment, optical equipment, pharmaceuticals, and our aerospace industry is the largest outside the US.

Most of our stuff is high tech, and the household names are no longer there with the same force. Often lamented is the flow of work to Malaysia and China that we used to do here. Dyson took his vacuum cleaners to Malaysia. However they are still exported from Britain and bring in £500m of foreign currency a year. Offshoring in this way usually benefits the economy in the longer term.

International investment in manufacturing in this country outstrips any other EU country . In 2006 we received £26bn in this way, while Germany for example received £3bn. We do not have the household names as we once had which is a pity for our pride, but the likes of Honda, Toyota, Nissan, GM, Peugeot, BMW, and Ford have all seen fit to make cars here.

The problem with having such a high tech export geared manufacturing sector is that it is vulnerable to a global depression as we are seeing now. The car industry has suspended operations altogether in some cases while everyone guards their wallet.

This leads me to a strong business point. The apparent collapse of things is always difficult. When a large steelworks at Consett closed the town took 10 years to recover its composure. I was at a heavy engineering company recently. When I asked where they got their work, they looked a little vague and told me that 90% of the work used to come from Corus. The problem with all of this is the Change in Circumstances. The ones going out of business are often the dinosaurs who are too entrenched in their past to react quickly to their market. To use a modern Americanism, ‘get used to it!’

We have seen plenty of encouragement for Wales to get entrepreneurial and become innovative and make the most of individual inspiration. They are all saying the same thing. Change is a certainty. Don’t change things for the sake of it but react, take advantage of new circumstances, check your old ideas to see how they still apply, reinvent the approach and change the packaging.

If it is dawning on you that your business is stuck in its past glories, have some outside help. A good consultant can give you that. Development is often a package of the best taken forward and dropping what is no longer effective. There may even be government help for consultancy with a purpose. Let Bob Shepherd Associates see what can be done for you.

Crisis Budget 22nd April 2009

2009-05-04T12:28:00.002+01:00

The headline writers were on top form today, ‘Alastair in Wonderland’, and ‘At least it’s sunny’ all referring to the Chancellor’s budget speech yesterday.

It’s easy to criticise. I have been wondering what else he could have done. The problem is that there are conflicting demands on him. He wants people to spend, but he wants people to save, but he doesn’t want them to increase their personal debt and the interest rate returns are so low as to be silly.

I can’t see the real sense of the scrapped car deal. Most people with a car ten years old or more are not in a position to buy a new one, even with £2000 off the price.

The much discussed 50% tax rate for high earners (over £100,000 pa) affects only 1 % of the workforce. That sounds a bit like the thinking that brought down the VAT rate by 2.14pence in the pound last December. All that did was to ensure the Government took in less revenue and was no effective encouragement at all to go out and spend more on Christmas presents. The same applies here really. Apart from the rate not kicking in for some while it does very little except to hack off people who are in top jobs. Fine if you are in a low paid job, but not really effective.

Have you ever watched the TV news on a Budget night where the BBC analysed a typical family of four and after analysing the pennies on the pint and on the fags concluded they would be £1.75 a week worse off or some other minor sum. Have you ever thought it didn’t actually make much difference?

I wonder , leaving aside the political vote seeking that has obviously tied the chancellor’s hand behind his back, would it have been okay to say ‘Look people of Britain, we are in a crisis and although it isn’t entirely our fault, it is us that has to deal with it. Many of you have benefitted from the lower borrowing rates on Mortgages and other lendings and we are going to take a little more in tax for a short period to lift the country and give the government the ammunition to deal with the current mess. For a short time only we are going to ask for an increase in contribution from the working tax payer of 4 pence in the pound.’ The same rule would apply as those above. Overall it would make a big difference. Individually we would hardly miss it.

Politically unacceptable the pundits would cry. I don’t care. It would get my vote.

Other thinking lately has seen a further public shove towards electric cars. The cost of producing them and the infrastructure for running them outweighs their benefit and will take years to swing the other way. We can’t use biofuels overmuch – we need the food crops instead. What about other forms of energy?

People have developed and considered magnet motors for many years now. You know the force you get with two opposing magnets facing each other? Recent developments have increased the cope for building more powerful magnets and once they are made they go on almost forever. Or surely someone is thinking about solar power to boost batteries and keep them running at a greater efficiency?

The country is in a mess. Go to your room and Tidy it Up!

'Sorry 'Bout That!'

2009-05-04T12:22:00.003+01:00

In December last year Tesco bought out Royal Bank of Scotland's stake in their Tesco Personal Finance (TPF) joint venture for £950m. It now, "plans to develop TPF from a successful, popular collection of financial products to a full-service retail bank in the years ahead".

You could almost hear a general sigh of relief when Chief Executive Mr Terry Leahy said Tesco Personal Finance would be an "old-fashioned bank dealing mainly with Tesco customers who we know". Hoorah! Someone has noticed that we (the customers) have been through a testing time with banks (and most others, to be fair) telling us what we want rather than listening to what we’d like.

They have been telling us that we want slick operations with technological ‘solutions’ for all our modern needs delivered in a low cost way that is available ‘24/7’ at the push of a button. Oh dear! Very slick, very alloy, very hi spec and not at all wooden and warm.

Not that everything old is good and everything new is not. Old fashioned values have a worthy place and innovation does too. The trick is to combine the two. Of the “richest towns in the UK” a theme pops up time and again if you study the list. Most of the top towns have what you might call an old fashioned High Street. There is still a butcher, a baker and probably one of those fantastic hardware stores where you seem to be able to get any odd thing your Mum always used but you haven’t seen for years.

If they are still there and they are successful then they are not actually stick in the mud retailers holding out as the last bastion of the empire. They are tapping into a particular market for quality goods delivered with quality service. In many ways they are ahead of the current game.

If we had managed to be clever in the last 20 years and not cut the costs so hard that the old fashioned knowledge went out of the window along with the personal service we would still be able to apply the nice flashy stuff where it was needed to good effect.

‘Kids of today’ can’t add up. Very true, and how sad. They use their calculator, or more likely now, their phone pad and produce a figure, with no understanding. Exactly the same principle applies to banks and any other service industry in a wider context. The customer gets the standard answer delivered somewhere along the line by computer. I used to call it the book answer but that is no longer appropriate. What is the case though is that no understanding or thought enters into it and there is no discretion for varying what would probably be the right answer in 80% of the cases.

So we, the customers have to work the system or put up with it all. “Sorry ‘bout that” they trill sweetly having wrecked your day, wasted your trip and driven you to find an overpriced coffee on some uncomfortable designer sofa surrounded by uncleared plastic detritus, just to calm down.

When the Banks swept away all the Branch systems into a maelstrom of call centres, processing centres/units and conglomerated computer based services they had something of a good idea. But they forgot the personal element . Some went further than others before calling for a turn around. By then it was too late. More fixes took place to recover the important elements of what had been lost. For some years it had all only worked because there were loyal staff left over from the days when they saw everything pass through and they still understood it. Gradually they went, either through age or encouraged early retirement (displacement). The Banks were slow to pick up the ‘Training Need’ as they call it. The machines didn’t need servicing all the time so surely part timers could cover? Meanwhile the refurbishments no longer had a budget, and those High Street locations were white elephants now. The costs no longer made sense. And wasn’t everyone baying to be on the internet these days?

So more machines then, and people are pleased to use them. You can’t get any sense from the Branch anymore anyway.

In business terms you have to adapt. If you are of a mind to have a clean sweep and brush everything away for the nice new plastic light weight wizzy system, you are probably wrong. Solve one problem and you probably create another. You cannot stay still. There is nothing wrong with change. Applying it is the clever thing.

Take a second look at your plans with an outside consultant. It doesn’t have to cost a lot and it may save you much. In the last week I have managed to stop a good firm putting in a new process that would solve their perceived problem but would have created a dozen more. The second view, from an outside perspective is worth so much. You can get this from Bob Shepherd Associates.

Get Me The Manager

2009-05-04T12:09:00.006+01:00

Personally, I get fed up with companies and organisations that do not have a sense of responsibility in their dealings. Maybe I am getting grumpier than I realised but I seem to feel the hairs on the back of neck rising more often these days. The eyes flash as I check the politeness filters are in place before I steam into print or purposefully pick up the phone.

It is more effective to remain calm and devastatingly polite as you make your case all the while maintaining a steely assurance that you are on the receiving end of some unutterable clap trap and that should they not be able to sort it out, then there will be widespread distribution of pain and embarrassment all round.

I feel the same indignation at the sight of others receiving dreadful service or otherwise being treated less than professionally. I always think it is a curse to be an expert in something. Imagine if you are an expert in carpets. Everywhere you look you would not be able to avoid noticing how badly this was laid, or how that grade of carpet was wrongly placed. Worse still if you are a dentist. Every time someone talks to you it must be difficult to switch off the professional interest.

So for me, having spent 30 years dealing with a well trained service industry it is red rag to a bull to witness some particularly awful deed done in the name of customer service.

You don’t always get past the wall of indifference. Most times you can. With a little practice you can despatch the “S’not my fault” defence by reassuring them that you are sure they understand the notion of corporate responsibility and collective responsibility and that you have nothing against them personally. You can deal with the “ I’m at lunch” or the “It’s not my department” defence by adopting a winning smile enlisting their support to find the correct person to talk to before you do so yourself, and how you won’t forget to include their particular contribution.

Of course you have to speak at the right level. This is not patronising. It just recognises that the appalling state of the company’s training that has led to your present position cannot be expected to be a lone event and that it is very likely to be endemic throughout the organisation.

The appropriate level of indignation and damaged hurt is important. Many years ago I fell off my chair when a righteous young man agreed to sit down to discuss his howling letter of complaint and unbelievable state of distress with my senior manager. I was the witness and noted the professional calming tones “ Now Mr Smith, you’re an intelligent man...” . I just wasn’t ready for the assertive “Ex-actly!” that came straight back.

So we should complain. We should maintain a standard of indignation when faced with appalling service. We should hold people to account. If it’s too expensive we should say so and be prepared to go elsewhere. Demand to see the manager if you get nowhere with the service operative.

There is no need to make a fuss and show everyone up. That only shows you up. Leave them room to be sorry while you receive with gracious acceptance along with the refund.

On the company side there is much ground and superb reputation to be made with a complaint handled effectively. Politeness and efficient dealing is worth its weight in repeat business. As a manager if it is remotely reasonable, back up your employee’s first response before graciously saying you will override the rules to put right the supposed offence. Results - customer happy they have been dealt with properly at a senior level, employee happy that they were vindicated in their response, you with extra seniority points. Next always explain to the employee afterwards what you have done and why. Result - respect shown and rules reinforced.

Always leave room for a complaint to be escalated in the mind of the customer. Even if it is not so, the effect is the same. I once had an employee who was wonderfully capable of hobnobbing in such a way that some of the customers thought he was the manager. A number of complaints were headed off at the pass by this capable fellow. No need for seniority, it was all in the manner.

Training in Complaints Handling should not be cynical. It is a vital part of the service. Keeping a customer is much easier than getting a new one. The Manager/Boss/Director/ Supervisor can enhance the company’s relationships with its customers just by taking a little time to listen and then following up the complaint and the actions taken.

Never forget to follow through the undoing of the original cause of the complaint. That wrong invoice may have a diary note for a final demand that would undo all the repair work at one stroke. That wrong address may have been recorded on another record as well.

You may be wondering what was the spark for this article? Actually several sparks lately have made me wonder if it is me being unreasonable. I end up with the thought that I just do not see why they should get away with it! Who are they? For the time being that remains confidential. The final trump card in my hand is the publicity card. So powerful .

If you want training and coaching for your staff, arrange time with a professional consultant. Are all your customers coming back or are they going elsewhere? It could be so much better.

Talk to Bob Shepherd Associates

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2009-04-19T01:14:00.001+01:00

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Be Adept And Adapt

2009-03-31T11:00:00.001+01:00

It used to be the case that Wales was economically dragging behind most of the UK but the latest figures available from GEM show some of those green shoots. GEM is the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and is a not-for-profit academic research consortium that looks at a variety of information to measure the level of innovative new business activity by regions across the World.

The latest figures are due to be made public shortly and show for the first time that Wales is doing better than the UK average in the younger sectors. The measures are split in age ranges from 18-24, and then decades 25-34, 35-44, 45-54 and 55-64. In the first two age ranges the figures sway very much in Wales’ favour.
It seems to me that IT is the clue. Anyone under the age of,say,35 has not grown up with IT technology around them. Those of us over that age tend to need to be shown the finer points of our mobile phones, laptops, I-pods, digital cameras and any other gizmo with buttons. It just is not intuitive.

Conversely, those under the age of 35 seem have that intuitive grasp of the possibilities and likely result when they press those buttons. ‘How do you know that?’ I have asked some young family member in exasperated frustration when I have been floundering pointlessly round in a loop with some piece of pocket electronic wizardry. ‘I don’t know – it’s obvious‘, comes the reply, guaranteed to improve my mood.

So it may be the March of the IT generation. I realise I have just assumed you know what ‘IT’ is. If you do not then there is no hope for you. Those abbreviations and acronyms that become part of the everyday vernacular now include IT – Information Technology. As much part of the modern day thinking as ‘TV’ was for those witnessing the late fifties and sixties. In black and white we had one then two channels. The screen resolution was improved when we switched from 405 lines to 625 lines and BBC2 took on the mantle of serious and minority programming, leaving BBC1 for the light entertainment, though still very well made of course. ITV had its followers. The audiences for the best programmes reached unbelievable heights. Half the country watched the 1966 World Cup final.

Bit by bit the technology improves, or develops at least, and we move slowly into a fresh era. If you live long enough you end up with a multitude of gadgets from each era of technology, for example, 78s, singles and LPs, tapes and cartridges, compact disks, and now the computerised downloading instruments. You also have all the machines to play them on. (Then retro thinking moves in and you buy a new one to play all the old things on).

You can’t stop it. All you can expect to do is to realise what is available and chose to be selective as appropriate. Any business probably needs a web site now. Not any old web site, but a properly built one integrated with the rest of your marketing presence in the outside world and built to compete and be noticed. There is money to be made on the Internet. Ignore it at risk of being sidelined. Not only will you be left behind and have to wait for the retro market to come round, but you will probably go out of business while doing so.
The new technology both destroys and creates. The world of journalism is seeing it. The traditional News industry is crumbling before our eyes. Those businesses that are slow in embracing not only IT but its possibilities, will become niche specialists, then quaint and old fashioned, then struggling remainders, then ignored and then loss making anachronisms.

Those that are adept are those that adapt.

For Flexible and Practical assistance with the engine room of your business talk to Bob Shepherd Associates.

Shucks! He just can’t help it

2009-03-31T11:00:00.000+01:00

Michael Jackson is at it again. I am always astonished at the sheer front of celebs of all manner of persuasions who can’t help themselves and brave the glare of the public eye, despite having been lambasted and shot to bits over some awful revelation that would curl the toes of their ancestors.

Now he has appeared in public again to announce a last, final, this is definitely it, maybe, tour. His debts are said to be around $200million and even the most casual banker is likely to have put a high risk grade on his account and his name on the cashier’s ‘refer’ list. His tour however is likely to take around $400million.
Being a blue blood celeb though he kept the seven thousand swooning fans waiting for an hour and a half before appearing for three and a half minutes to deliver 111 words, I am told. Following that announcement the ticket site took sixteen thousand hits per minute. One in the eye for those who said the lad was finished.

Other celebs have courted the bright light of public attention to good effect lately. Similarly rubbished was Jade Goody after her well reported outburst. The papers loved it and the column inches expanded in direct proportion to her loss of credit, real and imaginary, monetary and personal. Cynical or not, one can’t help but admire her frank and raw bid for a last slab of money to go to her boys.

Hopefully she has had inheritance tax planning specialists helping her organise the aftermath of her roller coaster stardom so that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs doesn’t claim 40% of the larger portion. Few of us get the chance to lay out our stall ready for the off in such a fashion but I am sure no one would change places with her.

Stardom is a delicate thing, with many reaching for it and just a few reaching it mostly to find they have something hot but dangerous in their hands. The creative industries account for 8% of the country’s turnover according to Government figures. That is the narrow definition. In fact you can take a look around and everything you see that isn’t growing or wandering about has been designed by a Creative in somebody’s industry. You passed by dozens of Brand Names that often have a deep place in our unconscious thought , before mid morning. All creative creations.

There’s a lot in the name. Business names either describe what they do (on the tin...fantastic!) or they build a reputation. How is it few people go into B&Q looking for a pizza? Somewhere along the line somebody told you what they do.

Maybe your business will never reach the dizzy heights of stardom commanding a following ready to sacrifice everything they own for the chance to share time with you. But it is worth spending some time on your name and your brand in the first place and the reputation you gain with your presentation to the outside world.
What may seem an exercise in fluffiness can make a real difference to your business. An outside view is essential and you must get help. If you are unlucky enough to have had the prospect of self employment thrust upon you then this is one small piece of the jigsaw you need to put together to build a creditable business that will eventually earn you an income and a chance to feel you have starred in your own concert, in your own way.

Get practical help from Bob Shepherd Associates.

The Business Of Farming

2009-03-31T10:00:00.000+01:00

Statistics are bandied about and for the most part they wash over us I think. One statistic that did register however was a throw away support for some argument on the radio I heard.

The first part was that there are only one hundred and fifty thousand farmers left in the UK. So far meaningless when you are not told how many there were ten or fifty years ago. However the next part drove home a point worth making. The average age of farmers in the UK is 60.

The speaker went on to say that farming is being allowed to die off as an industry. By far the majority of our food is imported by air and sea, adding to the ‘carbon footprint .‘ Some foodstuff should be imported of course because it is civilised to appreciate salad crops all the year round. Why do we need to import everything though?

It has to be due to economics at a level beyond my full understanding. I believe it is marginally better now but there was a time when the large supermarkets exercised such a demand led regime over milk production that they were paying less than the cost of producing it.

Observation will tell you what a state we are in. Look at the bacon counter and try to find British bacon. It is there but struggling to maintain shelf space against ‘produce of Denmark’. I can’t see that the Danes should have lower wage rates than us which is very often why production is stopped in the UK in favour of overseas.
I get the impression that a once mighty farming industry is largely on its knees. So is it the buying power of the large supermarket chains in a continual attempt to outdo their rivals in the never ending pursuit of more turnover that is killing our farming industries? Is it that no one is prepared to do a day’s work anymore? Have we have become lazy as a nation?

Or is it greed? Greed of the large companies whose accounting managers are trying to squeeze another penny from their operation? Greed of the consumer who has had it drummed in that we can have, and indeed should have, anything we want at a knock down price?

The consumer is caught in a trap. There are few people who can be careless about how they spend their money. For most the purchase of anything involves weighing up the price with the quality and style to arrive at a decision that will serve the required circumstances.

When we want a couple of things we support our local shop. The saving on fuel and wear and tear over driving 7 miles to the nearest out of town retail area makes it worth paying higher prices up the road. But in general , the abundance of cheap clothes and produce and goods skews the balance of the purchasing equation.

Ultimately it damages our standard of living. Ultimately we are worse off. Ultimately it puts people out of work.
Having won our hearts and our pockets it would be good if the large supermarkets stopped their emphasis on cheap cheap cheap for the consumer and put a little back into the supply chain to ease the margins of the suppliers, the transport companies, the technology people, the maintenance people, all their suppliers and all the other cogs in the machine who pay their staff who shop in those supermarkets. And wouldn’t it be good to see British produce again?

Bob Shepherd Associates deals with the engine room of business. This means we have ideas for your business in Finance, Management, Marketing and all the back office tools needed to make the most of your expansion or development plans. We make a study of business from the inside – our clients are wildly different but all share common business features. Talk to Bob Shepherd Associates for a practical understanding approach.

Ooops! Credit Cards and Set Off

2009-03-31T09:00:00.000+01:00

If you are in financial difficulties take note that any Bank has a Right of Set Off within its own books. This is the right to amalgamate credit balances on one account with debit balances on another so long as the legal basis of the account is the same. That could be a joint savings account and a joint overdraft for example. It could also be two accounts at different branches. It could relate to Credit Cards.

In the every day world set off is not normally applied unless there was a case of default going on. In the past a manager might transfer a sum from a deposit account of some kind when an abnormally large cheque was presented. Sometimes the customer was grateful having forgotten to cover the position. The risk was always there that the customers had done the transfer themselves that day and the transfer would be done twice or that money was coming in from elsewhere and had just not shown yet on the account. Not being psychic the bank was on a loser. If that was missed and the cheque was returned the bank was also on a loser. The bank was deemed to know everything somehow and was probably on a loser whatever it did. No one seemed to understand why the bank could not pick up the phone to check the position before returning an item. After all, the customer had banked there for years.

These days, but not quite always, you are most likely to have a cheque returned unpaid if there are insufficient funds in the right account, even with funds on a connected account. It has always been the case that the Law assumes you to have control of your account and to know when Direct Debits, and Standing Orders were due to deplete funds and if you had issued a cheque, to expect it to be presented.

Notwithstanding this, in the event of a default the Bank has a right of set off. This applies to business accounts as well as to private accounts. The owner of the account has to be the same. The name could be different – an entertainer or writer could have an account in a professional name for example. However a Limited Company does have separate legal status as a separate entity unless you are tied in by a guarantee.

What has recently started becoming more common is the case of personal Credit Cards. Normally with a debit balance they can be set off against, say, a current account with money on it in the event of default. It has to be the same Bank of course but there may be a set off where previously separate Banks have now amalgamated. Lloyds and HBOS for example. This could be a surprise to you.

A Garnishee Order is rare and hardly ever seen. A Court can order a right similar to set off if a creditor believes there are funds available in a Bank account. When an Order is presented to the Bank the accounts are frozen until it is sorted out. If however there is a Loan in the same names then the right of set off takes over and usually shows that the net position is in debit anyway. I have seen a number of Orders in the past and only one arrived in time to catch any balances, either because there was a loan in existence anyway, or the customer had simply transferred funds away shortly before. It isn’t a good thing to have on your Bank CV whatever the case.

So if you are in financial difficulties because you have lost your income, talk to your bank in good time. If you have a Credit Card with the same Bank make sure the discussion includes those balances also. Do not forget the Mortgage Company, if it is your Bank. If you are a small businessman with a sole trading business take note that the whole lot is under the microscope. You may call it your company and think of it separately but unless you have an incorporated limited company, then it is still you. If you have personally guaranteed a limited Company it is you also.

The lesson is probably to maintain a small account elsewhere and a separate Credit Card that you only use occasionally. At least you can still get the shopping in.

If you want the street wise view of business or finance see what we think at Bob Shepherd Associates. We move around the Business and Financial world and may have a lot to contribute to your business.

FSB Conference comes to Newport

2009-02-28T10:00:00.000Z

The Federation of Small Businesses which has a strong base in South Wales, is run on a voluntary basis by elected officers to help small businesses. It is non party political and non profit making. With most of the business turnover in this part of the world done by small business, to my mind the representation the FSB has, is not given enough weight. Quite apart from that the Federation has significant benefits for the small business including Legal Support and Advice Lines, Financial Savings and free Banking. I have used their helplines and I am in the process of transferring my business account to save bank charges.

The Celtic Manor Resort is the setting for the FSB's Annual Conference on the 19th to 21st March 2009. The FSB web site carries the following information about them:
“The Federation of Small Businesses is the UK's largest campaigning pressure group promoting and protecting the interests of the self-employed and owners of small firms. Formed in 1974, it now has over 215,000 members across 33 regions and 230 branches.

Our lobbying arm - led by the Westminster Press and Parliamentary office - applies pressure on MPs, Government and Whitehall and puts the FSB viewpoint over to the media. The FSB also has Press and Parliamentary Offices in Glasgow, Cardiff and Belfast to lobby the devolved assemblies. Policy Development Officers work alongside Regional Development Agencies to further FSB influence at a regional level. In addition, Member Services is committed to delivering a wide range of high quality, good value business services to members of the FSB”

The conference web link is:

http://www.fsb.org.uk/default.aspx?id=0&loc=conference2009

This is an organisation that deserves a good press, has something sensible to offer and has the lobbying weight to contribute to the current business debates. I recently attended a bank Bashing meeting between local business and representatives from the banks and the FSB were represented there and contributing their point of view. The local ‘recruitment’ rep is very active and has a wealth of contacts to offer. I feel it is worth supporting.

Bob Shepherd Associates can help your business in all sorts of ways. When we get involved in a consultancy we deliver more than we are asked to do.

Banks And Companies

2009-02-28T09:00:00.000Z

On 9th February, Antony Worrall Thompson was on Breakfast TV bemoaning the lack of help from his Bank. He is able to do that, him being a celeb and all. His Bank certainly won’t comment, due to confidentiality issues.

He has said he was forced to close four restaurants despite knowing "we would have been strong again by December" The celebrity chef confirmed that AWT Restaurants Ltd went into administration on Friday.

Now I don’t know anything about his business affairs but some questions obviously arise that aren’t explained or apparently understood here. In the general way of things, a Bank will not lend without supporting security. We are asking Banks to be more careful these days so that is really not a surprise. In fact it has always been the case. The level at which security becomes economically sensible is from say facilities of £10000. It is possible to get unsecured facilities as a trading entity up to about £25000. There are exceptions, I have recently separately come across two at £100,000 but a rule of thumb is a maximum of £25000.

It is worth mentioning that while a Bank may not lend if there is no security, the opposite is not valid. A bank may still not lend, even if there is security. The lending is on the proposition and security is never intended to be realised. It is a long stop; a safety net..

In the case of a restaurant business with a number of sites the likelihood is that they are all leased. Probably they are all short term leases as well which is considered for sensible reasons to be less than 25 years in some Banks and more in others.

With a limited company’s account the Bank has no one to go after in the case of default. That ‘LTD’ sign is actually a warning to traders. Don’t sue the shirt off us or we’ll all resign and put the company into liquidation. The whole point of a limited company is that it has a limited liability. With small companies in leased premises there are few assets of value to be sold to the vultures in the event of liquidation.

In a Bank’s case the way round is to take security from the Directors personally thereby tying them into the deal. This is often done with a personal guarantee, which is not worth much unless it is ‘supported’. This is usually done by a Charge (a Mortgage in fact) over the personal homes unless other property is available instead. Bearing in mind it is never intended to take action on this, the home owner has exactly the same arrangement with whoever lent the money to purchase the property in the first place. The Mortgage is simply a legal interest in the property with a power of sale in the event of default, and after proving it to the courts. They can’t just turf you out.

Mr Worrall Thompson said this morning that he wasn’t prepared to put his house on the line. The bank evidently could not get covering security any other way it seems. The reason for requesting facilities was to help out in the economic downturn it was said. That sound very woolly. Where there is a particular way forward the case is strengthened so if money is expected from a particular transaction then the exit strategy for the deal is known and can be assessed. A vague, help me out until it gets busy again is not a sound basis for a banking proposition and if the forecasting is over developed to show that it is the way out, the gaps in the story will start to appear.

We don’t know any of this for this case. I use it merely to point out a lesson in normal business. Despite what you read in the papers, Banking is not done on a whim if they feel in the mood that day. Some would say it was better when it was more that way, and you had a local Manager you could butter up with a round of golf, or tickets for the match and a bottle at Christmas. While not a precise science and leaving a little room for discretion and gut feel, the modern Bank has an array of computer aided figure analysing at its disposal and some heavily applied methods.

Remember the Bank will lend because the proposition is good. To help build a good banking proposition it helps to have the interpretation of an experienced professional consultant before you approach the Bank. What seems common sense to you and the rest of the Pub may have wider implications.

To cut through all this nonsense take some advice from industry specialists Bob Shepherd Associates.

Rumour And Misconception

2009-01-31T14:00:00.000Z

‘Pub Talk’, I call it. That pernicious weed called rumour that grows every time it is repeated. Chinese Whispers is a game that is used in Junior Management training courses to illustrate the same point. I have met it often.
‘My mate got a grant for his new business of £50000’. No he didn’t. At least, not just like that. There are grants available, and some areas are more eligible than others. Usually they are match funded which means that the Business owners had to stump up more than that towards the project.

Not every business is eligible. The origination of that idea is sensible even if the practical application is sometimes questionable. The idea is to support industries and areas in particular need. Unfortunately the same thinking also leads one to suppose that an area rich in grants is poor in business.

Not every industry is supported either. Some are more favoured than others and some not at all. It helps if your business is not mobile, has big machinery, and mostly not a retail business and is above Newport and Cardiff on the map and to the left of Monmouthshire. But that is also a misleading generalisation and not exclusively the case.

More Pub Talk involves the Banks. I went to a meeting hosted by the South Wales Chamber of commerce and chaired by the A.M. for Newport East, John Griffiths. What could have been a Bank bashing session between the few local businesses that spared the time to attend and the Local Business Managers saw me supporting the Banks in their assertions that they are still open for good business with supporting plans and a well thought out business case. When you think about that nothing has changed much there.

The excesses of Bank Lending that form the target of the Pub Talk for Banks was done by the secondary lenders trying to gain an edge in the market by accepting the fringe offerings of business. That was made worse by the clever money market folk trading in debt without investigating the foundations for it in the old fashioned way. Youngsters without the historical perspective, not the local Business Managers who are still doing what they have always done. I noted looks of confusion when they were accused of not lending, of whipping facilities away without warning and all the other stories going around.

Any case that does seem to have elements of sharp practice like that should have further investigation. Bank Facilities expire, as arranged. In my experience there are always those customers who abuse the system and then protest loudly when their cheque is bounced. The Bank will act on what it believes to be the up to date circumstances. Administrative error is there as an occasional possibility. So too is the case that many customers believe the Bank has some sort of psychic ability to understand what hasn’t been arranged.

All this illustrates a major point. Be it grants, banks or any of the Business engine room finance and resources, a Business needs help to deal with it all. Running a business involves a number of different disciplines and it is hard to be good at it all and have the time and the expertise to cover it all. That applies to established business just as much as to new business.

A sensible relationship with a consultant offering knowledge and experience in these areas can be worth its weight. Employ an extra pair of management hands with Bob Shepherd Associates.

Corus And Other Redundancies

2009-01-31T13:00:00.000Z

Corus and other redundancies will have a big impact on South Wales and elsewhere similar events occur.

What’s to be done? More people under threat for their livelihood with the Corus announcement and others in the last few days. The more redundancies there are the less people there are to spend money and the retail businesses order less from the wholesalers who order less from the manufacturers who make people redundant.

There are a whole pile of problems along the way. Some businesses have money tied up in loads of perfectly good stock that the punters have turned away from temporarily in the spirit of self protection and caution that stalks the land. The motor industry is a case in point. While we no longer have the vast acres of factories we once had churning out tin can motors with a rust life of 10 years if you were lucky we do still have a significant motor industry that exports about 80% of its production. Even if it is foreign owned the benefit to the UK is still very much in evidence and at least 5 times their size is wrapped up in businesses that supply them, steel being one. As a barometer of wealth and confidence the motor industry is a good measure.

The big industries illustrate that we are experiencing a global phenomenon. It’s not just us. Well, having said that some of it is. The first businesses to go under are the ones built on shaky foundations. In some cases they have problems now because they took a flier at just the wrong time. Another time it would have been good.

Being in business is a little risky. Being your own boss has risks and has pitfalls and is not all jam. On the other hand the compensations are there. So if you are one of those who have been made redundant and you have a little money from it, consider your options. Remember the bible story of the talents – the cautious and careful will bury their small pot of wealth and eke it out carefully. The adventurous and care free will blow it in a few months. When big industries have closed in the past there have been substantial redundancy packages and a recognisable boom period for some businesses as the former employees spent their unaccustomed wealth doing up the house, putting everything right and even going on holiday to make themselves feel better.

The sensible and middle course is to keep some rainy day money by and use the rest wisely. That might include starting up your own business. Have you an entrepreneurial spirit undercover there? The point is to ‘use the rest wisely’. Some of your money has to keep you going in basics while you sort everything out and do your research. As soon as you have an idea you think is reasonable get some help! Consultants are out there with a wealth of expertise that will save you their fees time and again. Our own experience is that new businesses are good at their own field of expertise – your own widgets whatever they may be but do not have the experience or the knowledge of all the background stuff that gets in the way of starting a successful business. And why should you? Finance, investment, grants; marketing, resources, legals and all the paraphernalia you need - It’s a tall order to be good at it all.

Set it all going properly and work hard to get it going you will wonder why you ever thought you needed a proper job. Seek help from Bob Shepherd Associates today.

Unemployment Figures

2009-01-31T12:00:00.000Z

Unemployment figures were released on 23rd January 2009.

It is no surprise that unemployment figures are showing marked increases. 1.92million people are now claiming Job Seekers’ Allowance UK wide with around 100,000 of those in South Wales. These are the highest figures for many years. Quite how many years, is given differently by different commentators. 1999 and 1985 are both being bandied about with some excitement. Part of the problem is that the government has altered the way such statistics are gathered and presented over the years and it is difficult to compare like with like.

All this is little comfort to anyone who has been made redundant and is worried how the bills are going to be met. So too is the juvenile questioning by the TV newsreaders asking correspondents around the regions such gems as “ How is unemployment affecting your area?”

The answer is the simplest economics of course. The circle looks like this and it doesn’t matter where you join in. A company finds its goods are not selling and possibly also it is having to pay more for goods brought in from abroad so it jiggles the price for its goods. That means it has less profit and less to keep its business running. If it is unlucky it gets caught by someone defaulting because they have gone out of business, and the company’s own demise is accelerated. To conserve the business it makes people redundant and cuts costs wherever it can. Those people no longer have a wage and so they spend less. Even those with a wage downgrade their thinking generally by not spending unnecessarily or going for cheaper alternatives and so the retail outlets suffer. They buy less from the wholesalers and the manufacturers and round we go again.

There is not one circle of course, but many interlocking ones. The whole economy is a ball of knitting which is doing its best to unravel. With sterling going even lower to a rate of $1.37 any firm trading in Dollars for its incoming materials or goods has had at least a quarter lopped off its available margin for profit. Either that loss is swallowed or its prices have to alter. If every manufacturer had exactly the same sums to do at identical times it would be a manageable problem. They don’t of course and competition is suddenly very difficult to predict.

The unemployment figures are just a part of the story. Someone has counted the job vacancies and it appears Newport has 2000 at the moment. Completely full employment is impossible. There is always a lag accounted for by those moving away, or new jobs not yet filled etc. Those 2000 jobs might have a high number of requirements making them unavailable for many. You always have questions when statistics are thrown up for inspection.

But when one door closes.... Not easy to see sometimes but now might be a great time to go self employed and try that plan that has always lurked in there somewhere. If the idea is good and properly planned and soundly implemented it may be the way forward. Get help from Bob Shepherd Associates. Be aware that although the basic stuff is for free there are limits to its effectiveness. See other articles covering a similar message.

Business Lending

2009-01-31T11:00:00.000Z

Banks are insisting that they are open for business. It’s all more complicated than just having a new Bank Of England lending rate and they are caught in the media cleft stick with pressures on them to drop rates to borrowers and concurrent gasps when the returns for depositors are examined. They have statutory rules for maintaining an asset position that supports the lending and their commitments and then there are the shareholders to consider who are the owners and to whom the Directors are accountable. In some cases this includes the Public purse for the present which brings us round to where we started.

The mortar that holds all the bricks together is confidence, which continues to take its knocks and spirals on into another round. The self fulfilling prophesy has been much in evidence.

A business can still obtain lending facilities from a Bank, especially if it is sound and well managed and has a sensible well constructed and realistic Business Plan. These are not the questionnaires that you can download and buy in the Stationers. Fill one of those in and you’ll wonder what was the point. You are actually answering someone else’s questions and it deserves to be left unheeded in a drawer somewhere and forgotten., as indeed many of these so called business plans are.

There are various tricks for remembering what should be in an effective plan. One overriding consideration is to think about your audience. What does the Bank need to see in your plan?
They are interested in who you are, what you are about and why you have this business idea. If that is not all strong and respectable you need go no further. You need to demonstrate that your ( plus other partners/directors/key people) have the background, the experience, the contacts and the personal contribution to make the business successful. In short you know what you are talking about.

Then you have to show that the resources you expect to command actually fit the size of your plans. Are you in the right place, with the right premises perhaps, the right suppliers and the right equipment to do what you are suggesting? Resources include background collateral resources. The bank will never lend just because you have ‘security’- your house equity perhaps. The bank may not lend if you have no security.

Have you researched the potential market? How do we know there is demand in this location for these goods and services in the way you are presenting them? What about the competition? You don’t have to do what they do, but you do need to know what they do. The market is what is out there for you. The marketing is what you do about it. There are lots of considerations. If it doesn’t fit together and you don’t have the resources for it you cannot present your business to the outside world in the way it deserves.

Does your underlying process and administration let you down? The whole thing is about showing your business plans are rounded and balanced with everything hanging together in a supportive , productive and practical way.

Resources include time, money, equipment, sometimes premises, and always people. They may be customers, staff, suppliers, outside professionals but they have to be there in some measure and you as a business have to deal with them all.

If you have ever watched Dragon’s Den and given it any thought you will have marvelled at the stupidity of some of the punters who have their wonderful idea and have gone no further with their homework. When the market questions or the money questions come up they look blank. Wonderful television, hopeless business.
So be prepared. Get some help from professionals if you need it. Don’t expect too much from the free resources. They have a place but have a wide brief that only goes so far. Read! Your trade magazines, the Bank small business guides, internet guides, and then realise what you know and what you don’t. None of these will do the job for you. In the end it is down to you. The Bank is interested in who it is being approached by because it is you who will have to put this business in place.

Failed businesses report many reasons. There was insufficient demand. There were too many overheads. The truth in some cases is that they did not do their homework properly. The demand was not there in that location, or at that price, or with that appalling service, or with no marketing to support the idea that anyone would actually find it down that obscure narrow lane behind the derelict building.

Setting up a business or building a business is a careful balancing act. Few people are good at everything. Get help for the things that are not your skill. A good consultant does not need to be expensive but he/she will give you the outside view you cannot have yourself. Give Bob Shepherd Associates a call today and let us help you do what you do best by doing what we do best.

Toying With Investments

2009-01-31T10:00:00.000Z

Rare toys is a rarefied world in more than one sense. Prices for the good stuff are holding up well for the most part which is against the principles of the credit crunch which holds that any available draw bridge should be nailed up tight and we should all dive below the duvet where any form of monetary investment is concerned.

In many cases it starts off with a little bit of spare money and a desire to undo the perceived wrongs of childhood when you pocket money would not stretch to the latest seen desirable Corgi toy, Dinky toy, Action Man , Tracey Island, Barbie Doll, Tri-ang kitchen, dolls’ house equipment or whatever depending on your agenda and gender, chronology and wallet. At the same time there were the odd incidents of misjustice when an occasionally seen Aunt presented you with an Annual for Christmas which would have been fine a year ago but sadly misses the required standard for this year. ‘Eamon Andrews’ Compendium of Games’ was one of mine which will show you what vintage I am, if you are older and can remember him as a rising TV star.

Before you take the ladder up to the loft to rescue those battered diecast toys and annuals there are some things to know. See an advert or a description of some sort which describes something as ‘A Collectors’ Item ‘ and you can be sure that it is not. Even ‘Limited Edition’ is a warning in that if it really is a treasured piece then most of them will survive unopened in their original packaging, unused and unplayed with. Often the real value is in the ones that were everyday and for one reason or another survived relatively unscathed when all their fellow editions got chewed, chipped and chucked out.

By all means reconstruct your childhood dreams with a collection of Rupert, Beano, Noddy and other annuals. Feel no shame in reading them with a warm air of recognition about you. Some read them to the Grandchildren, but it is the same really. Collect a few of the Matchbox toys you never got round to buying or that were given away to cousins when you didn’t notice. Stray from toys to other collectable material. Vinyl records for example.

For an Investment though you must mix your nostalgia with some common sense. Take a couple of issues of the magazines that deal with your interest. There are plenty and there will be something for most of us, usually grouped together on the shelves. Look for the Toy fairs locally and go along to get the feel and note the prices while keeping your hands in your pockets until you are familiar with your subject. There are books and catalogue listings for many collectable things if you seek them out. Study the remarkable effect that the original disposable packaging has on the value if it is still in good condition.

Once you have an understanding of your subject material understand how the Market works. Any dealer will have paid less than half what he is asking. That is because he has the overheads eating into his profits just as with any other business proposition. The travel, the table fees, the fruitless journeys to view worthless collections, the rubbish he has bought to get the item that he spotted that was actually worth something. It is not all plain sailing. If you are selling to a dealer understand these things and adjust your expectations.

Accept that you can’t get all of it/them all at once. If the price is wrong you may need to walk away and watch for the next one to come along. Accept that it is a long term investment. The only way you will recoup is to become a dealer yourself with all the fun and attendant hassle involved. Otherwise you could sell through a specialised auction house. By the time you become expert you will know who they are. I always admired the likes of Elton John who collected die cast toys I believe, as well as many other things. Eventually he gathered it all together and sold it at auction. Consider for a moment that he could have bought anything he wanted but of course, with that collection he could not. He could only buy what he could find.

Whether you become an expert in Coins or Teddy Bears the principles are the same. These days a fantastic resource is available to you on line. There you have the auction sites operating continuously and you only have to tap in a search on some obscure reference to see what is available. Again take time to understand how that market works. Place a ‘watch’ on a few interesting items and see what happens and how the punters play it.
If you really do have valuable items look at the insurance. Educate your family so they understand what you have and don’t give it away. And for goodness sake understand that ‘Collectible’ is spelled that way (with an ‘i’) because of the Americans, copyright reasons, or sheer ignorance.

Bob Shepherd Associates has many different interests and expertise available. Benefit from our experience in money and its applications in Business or Personal life.

The March Of 'IT'

2009-01-31T09:00:00.000Z

If you are more than say 40 years old you may not know that “IT” stands for Information Technology. You didn’t grow up with it and if you do know how to turn a computer on it is because you stumbled on it at some point and had to achieve a certain familiarity because of your job.

Recently, our post man was issued with a magic box. When he delivers a recorded parcel to you now you sign a screen and it appears to carbonate your signature just like those old fashioned Magic Screen notebooks that worked with carbon paper. You do the same if you order your groceries on line. The gas meter reader has a similar device. The point is the contact with the computer as your acknowledgement triggers off a record on line.

If you are under the age of say, 40 you did grow up with computers around you. There are certain intuitive things you know about computers and all their quirks that pass your elders by. For example, when I get an upgrade on my mobile phone my children pick it and immediately explore its intricate depths. I need to be shown.

It isn’t all good. The new girls in the bank cannot add up to save their life I have noticed. You can stand there in mounting frustration while the cashier taps in a few numbers on a calculator with no expectation of the outcome. Presumably, now we have Sat Navs we shall be losing the ability to read maps and have a sense of direction and will just do what it says.

If I say so myself, I am better than most. I have long conquered the fear that by pressing something I will lose everything or somehow cock it up. I do find however that I cannot find a way forward sometimes . The thinking isn’t intuitive for me. It just isn’t obvious and I can get stuck in a technological loop which takes me back to the wrong page no matter what I seem to do. This new fangled stuff is too clever by half, my parents would have said. I recently switched to a Samsung phone having had a string of Nokias and spent several hours trying to master the Samsung thinking. The basic thought that it can’t be difficult or no one would be able to use it, kept me going somehow. Likewise what you can do with computer technology doesn’t present itself to me as possibilities. When I am shown I can see it and express the appropriate degree of marvel.

Society is changing, of course. It always has. In particular the IT generation marches on, year by year. ‘IT ‘ is taking over, as it were. Very few businesses can make do without some form of IT nowadays. The few that do, pass that part of their work to others.

‘Every business needs a web site’. Nonsense still, but probably not for long. Many businesses do actually need a website to exploit their market opportunities. Look at Marketing for a moment. Over the age of 40 and you probably reach for Yellow Pages. Under the age of 40 and you probably do not, naturally going online instead. So the marketing we need to do is affected by the age profile of the market we hope to capture.

It gets deeper the more you look into it. The whole problem is that by the time you are expert enough to know your stuff you are probably incapable of communicating with those who have less than a basic understanding. The best advice for business folk over the age of 40 who are struggling with the complexities is to get some help before you spend endless amounts of money. If you are baffled by a plethora of web firms and IT specialists, seek help from a business consultant that does have dealings with these people while still retaining a healthy scepticism for what is practical and what is wizzy for its own sake.

In any case you do need to embrace the new technology. It could save you stress and money if you bother to take it on to some extent. Some things it does very well. Try to see it, while still reserving the right to use a paper diary without apologising or feeling the need to ‘synch’ it. Discuss it all with a review of your business practices by Bob Shepherd Associates.

There's Money In The Past

2008-12-31T10:00:00.000Z

Peter De Vries was an American satirical writer and it was him who coined ‘Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be’ as well as a pile of other paradoxical truths.

In the case of Newport there isn’t a great deal in the City itself that counts as heritage worthy. The scale is far overbalanced towards Caerleon which is an historic town and has internationally important features. The traffic spoils the picture postcard as it does in many similar cases but it still counts as a worthy place.

For Newport itself we have what’s left of the castle, once a significant centre though few can remember why and it’s no place for a school trip nowadays. We also have some wonderful Victorian architecture., despite the view of some of those in the City Planning department. Just look upwards in Bridge Street, Commercial Street and even in Commercial Road in Pill and wonder at the rationale for all those stone vases and carvings and other carefully crafted decoration that graces many of the buildings alongside the odd branch of Buddleia and some new box of concrete cancer that was put up in the Sixties. There was real money in the town in them old days.

One iconic piece of engineering is still extant on the river. It is the Transporter Bridge. One of 10 that still exist in some form around the world and an example of the remarkable ability we used to have to sort out a logistical problem with creative thinking. Apart from the cost element, well, you’d just find some other way today. How many of today’s engineering marvels will still be marvelled at in 100 years’ time for their audacious solution to a problem ?

Now the bridge needs repairing again after long periods of studied and careful penny pinching neglect. What was thought to be a bill for £160000 has resurfaced as a bill for £8.5m. Heritage it may be but Cadw and UK government sources don’t want to know apparently. So it falls to the owners, who are Newport City to stump up the necessary if we want to keep it going. Under the new regime David Atwell is the cabinet member whose portfolio it comes under. The City has some money for it, some grants have been identified and there is a shortfall to be made up. Mooted is an idea to appeal to the Rate Payers for a voluntary donation over a couple of years to bring in the extra needed.

As a local councillor David has had plenty of involvement with social enterprises of all sizes trying to raise a pound or two for their local area’s community idea. This is bigger. Still, the principles are similar and if indeed David is the one who has come up with the plan himself then he is to be applauded. One cynical person at a public meeting lately was against the idea on the basis that if it worked, the City Council would be encouraged to apply the principle to other schemes. ‘Thin end of the wedge’ thinking. Councillor David Atwell was quick to reassure him. There was a point, in that there are any number of worthy community schemes that need support and there is never enough to go round. The weak link is that it doesn’t mean we should not support anything therefore. Reassurance was given that this would be the only scheme to benefit from a ground breaking idea for fund raising.

There is always an argument for supporting something else. Taking the spend wisely road might lead us to standardised functional infrastructure with no soul. Why do we have flowers in baskets all over the city? For precisely the same reason that the Transporter Bridge needs to be restored. As it happens we know that people come from all over the World just to see it. While they are at it they spend money locally. We get a name for bothering with our heritage and our environment. We get a name that states we care about things and value our past and have an interest in our cultural heritage. Capitalising on it should be easy at many levels. Schools can use it as a support for the curriculum. Visit Wales can trumpet it as a quirky thing to see and do. Engineering students can study it to find out why and how it was done. Some may even use it to get across the river.

It’s all very woolly and largely indefinable. Those that demand supporting figures and a business case simply don’t get the point.

If you have a tourist based business or need to raise money for your business project talk to Bob Shepherd Associates.

Make Do And Mend

2008-12-31T09:00:00.000Z

It was an accepted thing in our house that Dad mended things. To do so he had a fascinating array of tools and jars of this and that, little drawers with hooks and hinges, nuts and knobs, bolts and brackets. Somehow over the years it has become acceptable to throw things out. 380 billion plastic bags are used worldwide every year, and only 5.2% are recycled. The others remain in landfills for 1,000 years. Casual Clothes have become so cheap people have been known to throw them out as an alternative to washing them. The debate over terry nappies vs. disposable nappies rumbles on. If you have been awake in recent years you cannot fail to have noted one or two examples yourself.

Economic conditions have added weight to the recycling equations in very recent years. The Hippies are now in charge. Most have forgotten they ever had long hair all those years ago but some of the ethos has rubbed off and we now think Friends of the Earth are respectable. MI5 no longer follow anyone for reading anything about Greenpeace. Windmills on one’s roof are a leadership statement and wooden kitchen tools are quite normal.
Now we have an interesting set of values. Ignorance and stupidity allows people to drive to their local supermarket car park especially to recycle their coke bottles. I have seen a recycling bin for Books, clearly labelled and with information that books would be sorted and resold through local Charity shops. It had 3 rain soaked phone directories stuffed in the drop in trap leaving it wide open to the wet. You have to wonder how some people manage to walk upright.

I saw 3 bins for glass recycling labelled ‘clear’, ‘brown’ and ‘green’ with someone’s carrier bag left in front of them containing some Blue bottles.

Our values are improving if unbalanced in their approach. Standard sizes and fits are sensible. It is advantageous to have many things as standard as possible. Batteries come in a few sizes. But why do they come in quite so many sizes? They also come in different strengths. Some should run a camera but don’t. Some should last for ages but others do better. So is it the battery makers that need to pause and think or is it the appliance manufacturers that need to allow a bigger battery space into their machine?
Light bulbs have standard fittings. But why so many? A good job was done many years ago standardising the bayonet fittings. Maybe there was a case for the screw fittings. But there are big and small of each, as well as all the different wattages and other variations including the different types of long life bulbs. These are, incidentally, hazardous waste and should be driven several miles to specialist disposal points, thereby negating years of carbon footprint efficiency.

To be fair the electrical industries have it sorted out better than most. I had a car once that broke down one night 100 miles from home with a load of stuff sticking out the tailgate. The RAC man diagnosed a failed alternator. He carried 9 different ones as a matter of course, but not mine. The book said it was only on some models of my car and a different make’s small van. That was it. I can understand a few different sizes for different conditions, but an alternator is mostly the same as an alternator. Mine had a screw hole in a different place to an otherwise identical one he did carry. So we drilled a new hole and made do.
Other common car parts should be standard. Take a look in Halfords or some other display to see how many oil filters you can find, how many spark plugs etc. etc. How many different sizes of tyres are there? Or brake pads ? Surely it is not all necessary?

I had a client who was a tyre and exhaust depot once who had tyres in every corner of space. I asked him how many and he had over 600. There was no real reason why he had to keep a couple of everything made when he could get them delivered in a few hours. His cash flow improved when I pointed this out.
We the consumers should demand less choice. That way when your Christmas tree lights don’t work and you try to buy some bulbs you will not need to discover there are dozens of variations which are essentially the same, but not interchangeable.

We can’t do it with everything but in times when we are all looking to our economic footprint as well as our carbon one, there would be a leaner and more efficient society. There would be no drawers with obsolete light bulbs. No stores of obscure sizes that only fit one item. Dad would have less things to store in his magic jars and Mum would be happier with less clutter.

Is your Business wasting money? Talk to Bob Shepherd Associates about streamlining your approach.

Several Things To Get Right At Networking Meetings

2008-11-30T12:00:00.000Z

Networking may seem daunting to many, but it is an essential business skill. The best networkers accept they are not on a mission with a sales pitch. The real point is to build up your circle of contacts. It’s a big mistake to think you are going to turn up and everyone will slap their foreheads in wonderment that they have somehow managed without your services until now. It is said you have to be in touch with someone seven times before they’ll start to consider you as a colleague for working. Kissing frogs to find a princess is the analogy that is trotted out at these moments.

There are some useful tips you can employ to get into this world that apparently has its own rules and customs. One is to spot the experienced networkers (At least, the ones who are actually good at it). They will work the room and may take pity on you if you are looking lost. They will show interest in you and drop in a reference to their own value.

This small talk is a bit of an art. Try heading for the tea when you arrive and engage anyone there by asking which pot is which, even if you know, or some similar nonsense. ‘Have you been to one of these before?’ is a bit risky. Be prepared for them to say they have organised it and this is the 756th, but you can try it.
Thinking on your feet is the key. In conversation you may spot an opportunity to do business and move on to arranging some further contact. Be sure to keep notes, cards that seem useful. If you can get an attendance list from the organisers it might be useful. But remember when you have done one event you’ll remember everyone you spoke to, but when you have done several you will not.
Points to bear in mind.......

Go to the right places for you No Point presenting to the wrong audience.
Be prepared Have business cards, Have a 2 liner prepared when someone asks ‘What do You do?’
Meet people you don’t know Don’t spend much time hob nobbing with mates you know
Don’t judge a book Everyone knows people – you just don’t know who
What to say If they want to introduce themselves first? – let them!
To Disengage don’t just switch off, move on graciously for another cup of tea

Over everything else, be polite to everyone. Welsh, Scots, English or a minority representative we are British and we don’t like pushy types. Be interested first and interesting second.
Come to think of it most of this applies to those Christmas and New Year parties we all know and love. Gentlemen! To the kitchen if you please!

Bob Shepherd Associates have experience at coaching for networking especially for small business. Let us guide you and help you get it right to get your business right.

Fluff And Slurry Greed And Fear

2008-11-30T11:00:00.000Z

The Credit Crunch is a fierce fiery beast that doesn’t seem to want to lie down. Those who are wise after the event say they saw it coming many months ago. Most of us were unaware, if a little uneasy, about the way things were going in the middle months of 2008.

People talked of the bubble bursting and of previous historical comparisons. Many said that those bubbles were different and had all been based on hot air. Yet there seemed to be anomalies. House prices are one measure everyone comes across in their everyday life and prices seemed to be heading inexorably upwards. Mortgage lenders were forced to accommodate this by relaxing their multipliers and thinking of wizzy new ways to gain an edge over the competition. There were even mortgage products that recognised you were never going to pay it off and included other generations in the long term perspective. Credit card offers showered through the letterbox. Any large trader felt able to offer financial products starting with travel insurance and their own branded credit card.

Then the shocks hit the headlines. Confidence is such a fickle thing. The papers and the media did what they always do and revelled in the excesses of bad news. Confidence trembled some more. The more shocks there were the more the news media reported and speculated. Queues round the block such as we hadn’t seen in our lifetimes. The number of Mortgage products went from 15000 to 3000 overnight. The Government stepped in, actually with rapidity. Normally things take an age to put in place. But the fact that they did so was not only reassuring, but also confirmation that there really was a crisis.

The News speculated some more and away went any reassurance. The RBS Rights issue had been 95% subscribed at a bargain £2 per share. Three months later, the boot was on the other foot and the issue of shares at 65p was almost completely spurned by the same share holders, leaving the Government to pick up the tab. What had been a Bank worth £125 Billion or so was now worth £20 Billion. The change in its Rating by the curiously aptly named Standard and Poors hit the news and sent anyone with savings looking for the on line credit ratings of major international institutions. Confidence is a fickle thing.

Then there was the Icelandic Saga. People found out their favourite charity and their local Authority has millions lodged in high interest accounts that suddenly weren’t guaranteed. The comedians wondered what the cats’ protection charity wanted with all that money anyway.

So the bubbles were popping. We now realise at the height of confidence there was all the fluff and hot air that drove the prices to extremes, encouraging a spiral of greed with ever more speculative energy, feeding press and pub pundits’comment on the excesses available. At the depths of a recessionary spiral the slurry of despair amongst the wreck of long trading institutions, reports of wholesale job losses and speculations of deflation, zero growth and all the knock on effects of a fall in consumer confidence fully illustrate the opposite extreme.

On the way up the spiral feeds on greed. On the way down the spiral feeds on fear. If you want to know how your business fits into what is going on talk to Bob Shepherd Associates.