SME Archives - Marketing Fundamentals

Why I Stopped Using LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn: Company Page Followers No Longer Viewable

How I Follow Up With LinkedIn Searchers

How to use Telegram for New Business – Part 1

Is Steemit Dead?

LinkedIn: Inside an Engagement Pod – Part 1.

LinkedIn Storytelling: How to Tell Stories on LinkedIn

My Most Viewed Post on LinkedIn

LinkedIn: Advice For B2B Businesses – Playlist

B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

Best regards,

Mike Pitt

Founder, Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

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This is video number 358 and blog post number 557

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Google+ is Dead (You Must do This!)

Mike Pitt — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 11:37:28 +0000

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

This video is called, Google+ is Dead (You Must do This!) By Mike Pitt. . Mike Pitt is the Founder of Marketing Fundamentals Ltd, which is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London.

In this video, Mike Pitt discusses the fact that Google + is Dead and will be shut down next year. He also discusses the one thing you must do in relation to Google +.

This video will be of interest to business owners, B2B marketing managers, Content Marketing professionals, Social Media Managers and others who use Content Marketing and Social Media to promote their B2B business. Existing Google + users will find this particularly useful.

Google+ is Dead

The Guardian newspaper was one of the many media outlets to cover a story about Google and their major security breach. In March of this year, Google had a major data breach around the time that Facebook had their Cambridge Analytica data concerns. Google kept their breach quiet at the time, but as a result of their investigation they have decided to close down Google+ next year. Google revealed in their own blog post that potentially 500,000 Google + profiles were affected. What does this mean for you? In the video, I explain what you should do on Google+ from this point forward. If you need an

Have you used Google+ recently? Let me know in the comments section below.

If you’ve liked this post you will also like the following posts:

LinkedIn Storytelling: How to Tell Stories on LinkedIn

My Most Viewed Post on LinkedIn

LinkedIn: Company Page Followers No Longer Viewable

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Professional Services: How Do You Build Trust in Your Company ? 5 ways

LinkedIn: Advice For B2B Businesses – Playlist

B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

Best regards,

Mike Pitt

Founder, Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

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This is video number 249 and blog post number 483.

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The Troubles and Struggles of Applying for a Bank Business Loan

Mike Pitt — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 12:03:23 +0000

Often times, web development and web design firms find themselves in a situation where they have low funds. That’s simply the nature of the business; there are high seasons and low seasons, great years and not so great years. There’s more to making a business work than simply being good at what you do. If you run a company, then you are first and foremost and manager who should be making managerial calls on issues outside your domain. This article can help you understand the concept of business financing a bit better.

Business loans are the lifeblood of smaller companies, and if you need to get a cash injection for your tech company, there are a number of considerations you should weigh up before taking action.

The first is whether you need to get a business loan at all, or whether you might be able to raise the cash you need by changing business practices and releasing cash that is currently being wasted. Often companies can find cost savings within their existing processes and creating additional efficiencies can sometimes solve a cash-flow problem.

The second consideration is whether your team works at full capacity. Can headcount be reduced? Redundancies are not nice but they may unlock additional funds from payroll savings.

The third consideration, is what is your data telling you? Fully detailed performance reporting of the past 1 to 5 years should inform your decisions. In addition, you will need a solid business plan that demonstrates to yourself and your management team what can be achieved and when you are likely to improve your cash-flow.

Following the process described above, you may decide that you want to borrow funds. It could be for a concrete purpose like buying a machine or recruiting a certain person or it could be just to finance your ongoing operations. Whatever the reason is, deciding you want external funding is just the beginning of the process.

Bank Versus Lender

There are a lot of lenders out there in the Australian market and picking the right company or bank to provide you with the funding is essential for a healthy and useful process. The ins and outs of each lender and bank are too difficult to explain, but showing the differences between the two is very possible.

As per this comparison between banks and online lenders made by Small Business Loans Australia, non-bank lenders are generally more expensive, less difficult to deal with and are much quicker to respond than banks.

How Much do You Need to Borrow?

Your first consideration should be how much money you need to borrow from the bank. It can be tempting to keep the amounts to a minimum, so you are not paying out more than you need to. But borrowing too little can be as problematic for a business as borrowing too much, because it could mean being forced to return to borrow more sooner than you might otherwise be comfortable with.

A good rule of thumb will dictate that you will need to borrow funds to keep your business alive for at least 6 more months at current revenue pace, or will help facilitate such a line of cash-flow earlier. That rule of thumb will also say that you should never borrow money for periods shorter than this, because this means you will need to borrow additional capital within the next months.

So, be realistic not only about the amount you need to borrow, but the amount you are likely to be able to borrow and choose an amount that allows you to achieve your aims without creating additional cash-flow stress for you or your business.

What Will Your Bank Need to Know?

Once you know how much you need to borrow, prepare your documentation to take to your bank to convince them that your business is a good ‘risk’ for it to loan to. Your bank will need to know what you want the business loan for – and if you are a start-up or a relatively new business, you may find it difficult to give these details exactly.

Remember to take your business plan and financial statements, with these it should be easier to demonstrate what the money you are borrowing will be used for. Your financial statements will give your bank a clear indication of your profit and loss, cash-flow, assets and liabilities.

Creating your bank-oriented business plan

Spending time researching your business and the market you are targeting is essential to create a viable business plan. It can take more time researching a good plan than it does writing one, so be prepared to put in the leg work.

That loose business plan you’ve devised before even applying for a loan? It’s mostly irrelevant because banks can be overzealous when it comes to business plans.

You also need to provide a strategy for marketing, your product development, and your financial forecasts to show any potential investors, including a bank or other institution lending you money, where your business is likely to be in three to five years.

Your credit score

One of the key measures which determines whether your bank will lend you money will be your credit history, whether that is just for your business or your own personal credit history too. If your business has not been established for long, your personal credit score will be taken into consideration. So ensure you have spent time cleaning up your own credit score if you are trying to borrow at an early stage.

Most companies do not know what their credit score is, or how to improve it. Almost three out of five small business owners have never checked their credit score according to research from Experian and that is not good business practice.

Make your credit score more healthy

Any lender will check your company’s credit score, and you should be checking this yourself on a regular basis. As the Experian website states: “A healthy credit score is made up of three key elements: robust information, sound financial management and regular monitoring.” If you have applied for a number of loans in quick succession, these credit searches for each institution will be listed on your credit score and could be detrimental. Lenders will be concerned about that kind of action, as it suggests a desperate pattern of behaviour that flags your business as having a higher level of risk.

It may be that you need to spend some time working on improving your credit score to make your business more appealing. You can do a number of things to achieve this, such as paying any invoices due promptly, collaborating with your suppliers so they provide feedback on your payment records, and providing as much additional data to credit reference agencies as you can. It has become harder for businesses to get a loan, so the more you can do to improve your business’s chances, the more chance you have of getting the money your business needs to grow.

What will an Online Lender Need to Know?

Generally speaking, online lenders are more technology oriented so a lot of the legwork should be done automatically. Upon signing up you will need to provide either certain documents from your bank, and/or connect the lender to your credit card processor or PayPal account to verify the levels of revenue. The decision whether your web design or web development business be approved will be done automatically with little to no human involvement and the reply will be sent to you in between 1 and 72 hours.

Final words – How to Treat Business Loans

A business loan is not an easy decision to make and is not an easy process to initiate in. Unless you need funds urgently, you will need to develop patience and endurance. Financing your business is a marathon and not a 100 metres sprint.

B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

Best regards,

Marketing Fundamentals Team

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The post The Troubles and Struggles of Applying for a Bank Business Loan appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.

How Often Are Your Team Trained to Use Social Media?

Mike Pitt — Tue, 04 Sep 2018 15:20:55 +0000

Image Credit: https://www.bmmagazine.co.uk

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Social Media has been a part of how we communicate with each other as individuals and as organisations for a long time now. Many people think of the creation of Facebook as the start of the Social Media revolution but as this timeline shows there were many social media platforms before Facebook. The Social Media landscape is a fast moving one, change is constant.

In business generally, companies come and go and in Social Media, platforms come and go. Relatively few people are using My Space now ( yes, it still exists) or Friends Reunited. In this context, it is surprising that many companies go to the trouble of giving their staff some Social Media training but then do not keep these skills updated by re-training their staff. As someone who uses Social Media for business on a daily basis, I am aware of many of the changes made to Social Media platforms and I make a conscious attempt to keep myself updated.

Social Media Training

The first time your team were trained on Social Media, you probably included all the basic functionality aspects including, how to tweet and how to use the LinkedIn Publishing platform etc. Fortunately, when you re-train your staff or create training updates you do not have to revisit functionality, in most cases basic functionality remains the same. This allows for more focused sessions highlighting changes to a particular platform or a new feature that has potential for your business.

A great example of this is provided by IGTV. On June 2oth 2018, Instagram launched IGTV, this has given all Instagram users the ability to upload long form vertical video content; significantly this content can be uploaded from a desktop as well as your phone. IGTV is similar to the early days of YouTube, but with vertical video rather than horizontal. This is a great opportunity for those businesses and organisations prepared to embrace it. Most businesses that I have spoken to either were not aware of IGTV or do not yet have a strategic response to the opportunity.

How Can We Help You?

I have delivered Content Marketing & Social Media Training Days and Social Media Training Updates to businesses and I could do the same for your team, either in person or via a live-stream. To read more about training that I have delivered in the past please click here.

Here’s what people have said about the workshops and training days.

Client Testimonials

If you would like to book a Social Media Training Day, please email me via mike@marketingfundamentals.com

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B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

Best regards,

Mike Pitt

Founder, Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

Follow Mike on Pinterest

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This is blog post number 476.

The post How Often Are Your Team Trained to Use Social Media? appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.

How to Get More Customers: 5 Creative Follow Up Techniques

Mike Pitt — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 11:45:54 +0000

Image Credit: https://www.revechat.com/

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

This video is called, How to Get More Customers: 5 Creative Follow Up Techniques By Mike Pitt. . Mike Pitt is the Founder of Marketing Fundamentals Ltd, which is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London.

In this video, Mike Pitt discusses How to Get More Customers: 5 Creative Follow up techniques that will help you keep momentum with your new business prospects.

How to Get More Customers

Those of you with responsibility for generating new business will be familiar with the following scenario, you’ve had some phone and email contact with a potential customer but now the lead seems to have gone quiet. The business development or sales process has lost momentum. It is in this context that I present some creative ways to re-establish communication with your potential customers and to get them moving down the sales funnel again. Watch the video to find out the creative techniques that I have been using.

The techniques work because they are not being widely used, I created them myself as a response to a situation that I had noticed. If you start to use these techniques, please let me know how you get on in the comments section below.

If you’ve liked this post you will also like the following posts:

Professional Services: How Do You Fill Your Sales Funnel?

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Entrepreneurs – How do you generate new business? 5 strategies that work.

Are you using Hope Marketing? 4 Questions to Consider.

B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

Best regards,

Mike Pitt

Founder, Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

Follow Mike on Steemit

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This is video number 239 and blog post number 472.

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Can a New Company Benefit from Content Marketing?

Mike Pitt — Thu, 15 Feb 2018 11:52:53 +0000

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

Image credit: https://www.nepallegalservice.com

Last month we started working with a new company. When I say new, I mean brand new. The founder was completing his ‘gardening leave’ from his previous role when we initially met last year and his new company website was yet to be found by Google’s search spiders. In no uncertain terms, we were going to have to start from zero. The founder had a lot of senior business experience but this was to be the first time he would run his own company.

In Business to Business circles, a lot of value is placed on a company’s reputation; contributory factors to the building of this reputation are the experience of key personnel, longevity of the business and the communications material that are produced by the company.

Can a New Company Benefit From Content Marketing?

Last month we started to implement our agreed strategy for the founder and the results were almost immediate. Please note, Content Marketing takes time to work. I have articulated my thoughts on how long you should allow in this article, How Long Does Content Marketing Take to Work?

After starting from zero we are steadily building up relevant traffic to his website and generating leads and enquiries. Our client has been pleasantly surprised by the progress we have made so far. Please note that we have not used any paid media channels; no promoted tweets, no LinkedIn advertising, no Facebook ads – just unique content and Social Media distribution.

So, the answer to the question posed in the blog title is yes. Even brand new small companies, often with less than 5 employees, can benefit from Content Marketing if it is well executed. Would you like our help in creating and implementing a successful Content Marketing strategy for your business? Email us or call us to set up the first meeting, the details are below.

B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

Best regards,

Mike Pitt

Founder, Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

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