Success can be very hard to measure, but after working for the last 6 months with freelance security consultant Fred Burns, we have compiled a list of our top 3 tips for companies launching into the Security Industry - whether its jobs, training, resources or recruitment. SpecialiseBecause the security industry has grown so much over the last 10 years its very hard to try and encompass all areas of the industry. Because of this many companies are choosing specialist sectors, such as Door Security, Close Protection Security or Event Security. The advantage of specialising is that you have much less competition, so becoming the number 1 company in your niche is a lot more realistic.
Be The BestSimilar to the Army motto, Security companies are always striving to be the best in their sector. For example you may be looking at setting up a new company supplying Event Security staff but you need to establish yourself - a good name travels much further than a bad reputation. Therefore you may want to ensure your staff has undergone the maximum amount of training possible, your prices are competitive when compared to others, you provide something unique. At the end of the day you need to set yourself apart from the competition, otherwise you blend into the background.NetworkWhen looking at the security industry many will have a shared background experience, often including military or forces work. Because of this, entering into the industry can be like establishing yourself in an old-boys club. Befriending other companies and experts in the security field can be a real benefit to your business, especially when looking at recruitment. Fred has actually advised all security experts, professionals and even juniors to get signed up on the Cross Deck security website as they are playing an instrumental role in bringing the security industry online. As a professional, you can enhance your skill set by using one of the many courses they have available on the site. Including courses for CCTV operator training, door supervision training, and well over 70 different close protection training courses available in the UK. All the security training courses are provided by fully qualified trainers, typically ex-forces and squad leaders - key in providing practical insight into the career and the security business. Along with training, the Cross Deck website is being used more and more for finding a range of security jobs, with over 300 employers listing their UK security jobs the site is quickly becoming the biggest security jobs website in the UK. They currently have over 10,000 jobs including close protection jobs, door supervision jobs and many others.
Somerset seems to be awash with baby shops, retailers, therapy groups and advice classes for new parents. Also when looking at the change in high street retail, you can see there has been an increase in baby shops.
For example in Weston-super-Mare, over the last two months there has been many shops closed, or in the process of closing. However there have been a couple of noticable developments, particularly in the opening of a flagship Mothercare store. Along with this there has been 2 new baby clothing shops opened in the high street.
Baby Clothing
It seems the latest trend, or at least the latest craze, is about baby clothing. I have been speaking to a few local shops over the last week as I was quite curious about this baby boom, and it seems even shops like M&S are reporting an increase of sales in their baby range.
Many people are attributing this to a localised trend in Weston only, because there is quite a lot of schools in the area there is quite a high volume of young adults and this would contribute to a rising demand for baby clothes.
| | Another contributing factor is often attributed to times of the year...statistically there are periods of the year where the birth rate increases, and their are also certain dates when there is a significant decrease. As you can see from the image, July, August and September are the peak months for baby births. As we are already in May, we are nearing this period of the year so you are more likely to find new parents buying clothes and other items in preperation for the birth. Actually, if you are on the hunt for some baby clothes then its best to check out this article published this year. It has some great advice on essential baby clothes, and some additional information on what to buy, and where. |
With the recession hitting the majority of business sectors in the UK, there isn't much room for growth at the moment. However it may seem that ergonomic seating is going to be the next big thing for businesses - many are already reporting growth in the area. This may come as no surprise for some, but I did start to have an incling when The Apprentice winner, Tom Pellerau, pitched a business plan targetting ergonomic seating and custom office seating solutions. Since then Alan Sugar has only gone on to get his grubby fingers all over Toms pre-existing business, the Stylefile. It seems that rather than pursuing the new ideas Tom had, they wanted to make sure all the money has been milked out of his successful business. Its a bit of a shame really, but what did you expect from a TV celebrity. Hopefully we will see something good from Tom yet! Even though I have spoken to a few seating companies and they say that many people are asking for custom ergonomic chairs, especially management and executives. For the majority of these requests, they are having to contact a seating components company who specialise in ergonomic lumbar support, and they are going to create chairs suitable for each worker. Its an incredible job, and it really shows the excess people go to for proper office seating. Its like the Ministry of Defence spending £3 million on chairs all over again!
The construction and electrical installation business has a lot to account for in their contracts as there are a lot of things to look into and over. And that’s where a site diary is used to record all the significant information about the project lest one forgets the details or jumbles them up. From keeping record of the instruments and equipments to be used in the project to keeping track of finances and expenses, the site diary is an electrician’s handyman. It is important to note that a site diary is not for every electrician but for an electrician who is in charge of maintaining the record and supervising the project. Site diaries is a newer name used for an electricians company logs, construction logs and other site journals which serve the same purpose of storing relevant data and to keep it for the books. Site diaries are important in a job where organization is important for smooth functioning. For a long time, physical diaries have been used by many electricians but with the advent of technology introduced digital diaries and they became immensely popular in just a small period of time. Digital diaries have eliminated the need for keeping papers and registers on you as it gets tedious and messy in itself. Now you can have lots and lots of memory in just a simple compact device and you can take it with you to all your electrical installations and electricians maintanance work.
The online marketplace has grown rapidly over the last few years with numerous small companies and startups getting their own website. This has been greatly accelerated by schemes such as the GBBO. In the US it is common place for all businesses and companies to have an online presence, and the majority are looking at developing their online presence and treat it like their physical high street presence. This means a lot more budget is being allocated for website design, functionality and promotion. However in the UK we are a little behind...at the moment getting businesses online is the top priority. These schemes are great for creating more websites online and gives users a better selection between competition. However...can you ensure you do not get left behind? This is a problem we are getting more and more often...'Why is no one visiting my new website?' or 'Why do people not buy anything on my new website?' First you need to find out where you are getting your traffic from. There are 2 main sources - direct traffic, and search engines. Now the majority will be receiving traffic from search engines...and thats where there is great room for improvement. Say you have launched your electricians website, and you want to target the phrase ' electrician somerset'. 1. You are already behind the competitors 2. You are fairly new and therefore recognition is low 3. You do not show up when searching for your keywords 4. Your visitors do not buy anything / contact you This is a typical scenario I encounter on a daily basis...having a website online is not the final answer to success. We will try and tackle the obstacles which are currently giving your competitors an advantage. For example...when searching for your keyword (3) the results are just your competitors. If anyone else carries out this same search, they are going to automatically visit the top 3 results (statistics show that 50% of traffic hits the first listing). How can you get amongst the top? The answer - SEO SEO can be as important as marketing for your high street shop...without it no one will visit the website. Have a look in your local area for an SEO company or SEO consultant, best way is to carry out a search such as 'SEO Somerset' or 'SEO Bristol'. By doing this you are proving to yourself that the top companies are able to perform...if they can get 1st position for their own website then surely they can achieve this for your site too. I really can't be more of an advocate for SEO, I recently spoke to someone in my area about it and they are currently doing a very small amount of work for me but have given me such useful advice on how to improve my current rankings myself as well as hopw to improve other tasks in my company. Contact someone good and they will help your business to no end! After getting visitors to your site, all you need then is for them to make a purchase. This can be a little easier said than done to get it right. No doubt if you have a healthy stream of traffic to your site then you will get the occasional order come through, but this can be improved greatly with a very little amount of effort. A partner once asked us about his statistics which he was quite content with, currently getting around 1 order for every 200 visitors. A conversion rate of 0.5% is actually quite good when compared to competitors in his industry. After speaking with the site owner, he was looking into an SEO company which we recommended, however he also wanted something which would get more immediate results. As he was already getting around 1000 visits a month, we thought there was definite room for improvement. Looking at his site, it was fairly obvious he was not providing enough pictures or enough information on his products. The products only had a select few distributors, so information wasn't freely available. This would obvious cause indecision in the customer, and lead them to another site looking for answers. The answer - Photography & Content Within 1 month we had worked with him and produced a more in-depth and visually appealing product catalogue. We enlisted Atomic Smash to carry out some of the product photography for the site, and our content writer Nina Edwards to review the product descriptions. The results were astonishing! Visits during the month shot to 1,300 - a 30% increase! Bounce rate went down, meaning visitors stayed longer Orders sky rocketed, within the month he received 17 orders so an increase of over 150% Just make sure you address any problems with your site, and dont forget about the user experience and never underestimate the aesthetics and the power of good product photography!
A lot of UK businesses that do not require a lot of capital is advertising. In a global manner, the internet has changed how people view advertising as a business tool. Knowing this, companies have pooled a huge amount of money to watermark themselves in the minds of the consumers through internet advertising. For business companies to acquire more customers, they spend money on advertisement campaigns.
Living in a first world country like the UK gives you an advantage especially today that world economy is not doing well. The world is aware of UK's capabilities as an economic power, ranking sixth all over the world and following number one, Germany and number two, France, they rank third. It is for this reason why businesses, regardless of whether it involves a store or website in UK, will work much better as compared to businesses in other countries who are just trying to improve their economy as of now. If you are looking for people with money to spend, just look around you.
Internet business will surely make you think in new ways. Outside the world of cyberspace, different forms of media like newspapers, television and radio exist. Advertising tools like these aid people to get more customers for their business. The same ways of advertising business can be replicated on the internet. One such place to advertise online are the article directories.
 An article directory is a website where users submit articles and they get posted for free. They provide content about any topic giving the public a wide range of information. Article directories are visited by a lot of people because they provide a huge amount of information. People are free to use the articles posted on these sites as long as the original content is not to be manipulated in any way. When magazines or newspapers are looking for something fresh and new, they would sometimes go online to gather materials. This is good because the chances of people gaining interest in your business increases while reading the article and you direct them to your website with a link at the bottom or in-between the article paragraphs. Submit articles to these article directory sites to maximize public exposure. It requires a lot of articles to gain a significant amount of internet exposure. Should you alone write all the articles? Is this even possible? This is possible- if your hire people to write for you. You can always go online to search for writers who can work full time or part-time and still provide cheap but high quality articles. Many of the online articles are written by writers coming from Philippines and India since they produce articles of professional quality. Low cost and good quality is not only the best thing in this business. What's better is that you don't have to save a lot of money to start with. Establishing a company will cost hundreds or thousands of dollars these days and that's not even fully operational just yet. Not to mention the maintenance of equipment and the cost of employee benefits. Fortunately, an online business doesn't cost that much to run. With a good computer and internet connection, you can even have your business working while you're in the comfort of your own home.
Family holidays are really great to spend with your family in a place for sightseeing tours, eating out, and even wildlife experiences. One place to consider before booking is to find out whether that place provides a nice ambiance for your family. Somerset in South West England is the home of wonderful places such as caves, rivers, the amazing coastlines of Brean Down, and the island of Steep Holm. Take a leap from this modern world to the past as you come across museums – like the Somerset Rural Life Museum that’s best to visit in the summer. If you’re a fan of vintage cars, the great Haynes International Motor Museum will take your breath away. You can also take your family to the Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm and let them embrace the wild. It’s really best to have this place visited in the summer. The South West England coast is really popular for its dramatic view where you can have some seaside fun with your family. It’s also perfect for picnics and fishing trips. There are lots of seaside resorts that you can have yourself booked before your trip. That way, you won’t have to worry about a place to stay during your summer vacation. Weston-super Mare and Burrnham-on-Sea are some of the traditional yet a great place to stay in South West England. Taking some time to research about these wonderful places won’t hurt if you really want to have a great holiday vacation with your family. You should check out www.southwestpictures.com and have a glimpse of the things you can see in South West England. This should take your worries away of visiting this place. Experience the breath taking coastline of Poole and the retro scene in Glastonbury rather than just looking at these places in pictures. If you’re a beach bum, you’ll love to visit Burnham.
 We have been catching up with a few friends and colleagues over the past week, and we got chatting to the guys over at Atomix Gaming. Interestingly enough, they told us all the details of their current business venture and they even allowed us to publish this write up! Atomix Gaming are currently running a few gaming servers online, hosting Battlefield and COD games in the UK and US. However they are planning on branching out into a very different medium...and it isn't theoretical! What they have decided to do, is after the success of their online gaming server, is to bring it to their local area. The guys have been deeply involved with local gaming clans and other regional gaming crews, and it seems they all have one thing in common: The need for a local gaming centre to host tournaments, matches and servers. This is already a very well-developed business model being executed in the states, for example the DeathCon convention which is held annually is a massive success with people travelling all over the world to attend. It definitely shows that the gamers are dedicated and are willing to travel! The Atomix Gaming guys are planning on setting up something similar, obviously starting a lot smaller. They plan on renting a location and kitting out all the necessary equipment...all they ask is you bring your own controller (you can rent one if need be). Tournaments will be a cross of multi-platform games as well as PC and console based games. For the full run down and more information than you could shake a stick at then check out the guys at the Atomix Gaming Centre.
No we aren't talking about wearing a suit, doing your makeup etc. This time we are talking about website aesthetics, and how important they are in the online market place. Online retail is really booming at the moment and there has been a rush to get businesses online. However many businesses are ignoring the look of their site in preference for completion speed and functionality. Obviously the sooner you are online then the sooner you can look at doing business, however your website relies heavily on the look. Studies show that users will navigate away from a website if they do not like the look, and their mind is made up within 3 seconds of visiting that page. So you need to make an impression, and make it quick! Now this doesn't necessarily mean you need to spend thousands of pounds on your website design. Many visually appealing designs will start from a template, its the customisation of this framework that really sets you apart. This is often through widgets, features and most importantly imagery. Many problems would arise that good quality images were either under Copyright protection (as is most found through Google images), or they were expensive to license (through sites such as iStockPhoto).We have since looked into many alternative solutions that work for small business and websites that are run on a budget, and we have found some great resources where you can find high-definition imagery for FREE.1. Stock.XCHNGKnown as the leading source for free stock photography, this site provides over 400,000 images which are free to use for websites, blogs and even video. Many of the pictures are taken with 300 dpi which makes them ideal for print. This is typically my first point of call when looking for stock photography for any blogs. 2. Every Stock PhotoVery similar to iStockPhoto in the layout and design of the website which makes it easy to navigate around the 9.8 million photos which they currently have in their database. This expansive catalog means you will always be able to find something relevant for articles, blog posts or advertisements. 3. PhotoReeSeen as a library of interesting images, PhotoRee is a collection of some of the most beautiful images from Flickr. PhotoRee actually uses an engine which searches Flickr for images licensed under Creative Commons which are available for distribution. Also combined with a member voting system this allows for easy to find photos which match your tastes. Sometimes stock photos will just not be able to match a photographer, which is why we always recommend getting a quality photography company for specific shots. This may include brochure photography or even website product photography which when done right can give you a real advantage over competitors.
Every business owner and entrepreneur has made a series of mistakes, some more serious than others. These errors will teach you more about running a business than any book or lecture ever could....and its usually something you never forget. We have collated our top 5 tips for business owners that we have learnt from our own mistakes. Heeding this advice does not mean that your business will never encounter a problem, it just may help with overcoming that problem. After all problems help build a stronger business. 1. Dont fall for your own hot airBusinesses always benefit from a good salesman, but you need to ensure you do not fall for your own sales speak. This means that no matter how good your product or service is, it will never succeed without a push. Don't sit back and think your a winner because you have a good product, you need to get out there and get your business moving. 2. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)Obviously I am not suggesting you are stupid, it just helps for the acronym. However it is a rule which can be applied to so many areas of the business, why not keep it for your ethos. The most important use for this is when you are a start-up, all start-ups are small businesses with a few or less members of staff. Now if you are working on your own, or a team of two...your resources are going to be stretched. You need to know what you do well, and stick to it. Scaling up and adding service come once you are established and have an income 3. Dont expect your financial forecastExperience has taught us that a financial forecast is a good measure, but it needs flexibility for a small business. When forecasting any financial assumptions for the business, you are a world away from the marketplace and things will often change. We found that attempting to stick to a forecast can be very strenuous. We now recommend that when forecasting for an unknown marketplace, always leave lots of room for leniency and mistake. 4. Plan for growthIt is very rare that you can start a business without funding, and that funding will not typically all come at once. You therefore need to make allowances for the graduation of your business, and the associated costs. No investor or bank will ever part with a blank cheque for you to follow your dreams. You need to make sure that your business plan allows for you to build on a shoestring budget, if you are expecting a large cash injection right off the bat then you have another thing coming. 5. Accept mistakes, then prevent themNo business is perfect, and all businesses will make a mistake. You need to make sure that any mistakes that are encountered, are minimalised. This is mush easier if you make allocations for error, and measures are introduced to ensure it does not happen again. Learning from a mistake is one of the most important factors for a business, just make sure its a controlled mistake. You can check out the Chipp Thomas blog which has a great page on blogging tools. Alternatively if you are interested in reading around the subject then I would defintely recommend a visit to Squidoo and Hubpages.
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