Networking Event, Buckinghamshire 13^th October

If you’re look­ing for a net­work­ing event to go to in the next week or two then get along to Mar­low, Buckinghamshire.

This is the Refer-On hub show­case, where reg­u­lar weekly meet­ing mem­bers from many hubs (groups) across the coun­try turn up for a big half-day net­work­ing event with mul­ti­ple speakers.

The details are below and for what amounts to a half-day sem­i­nar on sort­ing out your busi­ness it’s an absolute steal, espe­cially as it get you very quickly con­nected to a large num­ber of busi­nesses. You’ll def­i­nitely leave with more than you arrived with, and I’m not talk­ing a hang­over or influenza…

It’s an early start on Thurs­day, so if you want to you can be out, lunched, and back at your desk by one o’clock. The theme? Well, that’s another rea­son to come; who doesn’t want to get to 2012 with their business?

Get­ting to 2012 with your business

Date: Thurs­day, 13^th Octo­ber 2011
Time: 07:00–12:00

Loca­tion:
Crowne Plaza, Mar­low
Field­house Lane
Mar­low
Buck­ing­hamshire
SL7 1GL
www.crowneplazamarlow.co.uk

The Price

Mem­bers: early bird: £27.00 inc VAT (Full Price: £31.80 inc VAT)

Vis­i­tors: early bird: £36.00 inc VAT (Full Price: £39.60  inc VAT)

Tables £100 + VAT includes 1 ticket

You can reg­is­ter for the event here: Online Registration

The Agenda

• 07:00–08:15 – Breakfast
• 08:45 Intro­duc­tion
• 09:00 David Finch – “Effec­tive Mar­ket­ing – How to Increase your Returns”
• 09:45 Q&A
• 10:00 Net­work­ing. Dis­cover your next busi­ness alliance
• 10:30 Return to seats
• 10:40 Rob Pick­er­ing, work­shop. “The Peo­ple factor’
• 11:30 – 12:00 Prizes and close

The Show­case is spon­sored by:

Action Coach:                                                 www.actioncoach.com/robpickering

Bolton Ser­vices:                                                www.refer-on.com/2011/09/1068

Crowne Plaza, Marlow-on-Thames:                www.crowneplazamarlow.co.uk

Ken­ne­tiq:                                                                    www.kennetiq.com

If you’d like to know more about Refer-On you can visit their site at Refer-On.com or you can read about what makes Refer-On dif­fer­ent at Rough-Rons (albeit slightly irreverent).

I hope to see you there on the 13^th!

(So reg­is­ter for the event here: Online Registration)

Pre­vi­ous Show­case Testimonials:

“Just a quick e-mail to con­grat­u­late you both on a great show­case, which I thor­oughly enjoyed! Enjoy the week­end – you deserve to!” — Jehangir

“Hav­ing done the rounds of all the local net­work­ing groups, Refer On stood out a mile. There are no rules about attend­ing every week, the mem­bers are all very friendly, seri­ous busi­ness peo­ple and it’s not just focused on refer­rals but on offer­ing sup­port and moti­va­tion.” —Jus­tine Har­vey Char­tered MCIPD Direc­tor and Senior Consultant

“I’m sure that every­one who attended would like to join me in say­ing a big Thank You for organ­is­ing an excel­lent event, def­i­nitely the best yet! I always say that net­work­ing is like going to a party with­out the alco­hol – I have made so many friends through Refer-On and I am sure the impact it has made on my busi­ness so far is just the tip of the ice­berg. Thank you, it is great to be part of the team. ” — Helen

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Permission Marketing — a one minute description

This Per­mis­sion Mar­ket­ing guide is the sec­ond in a series to explain mar­ket­ing con­cepts, the first being Rela­tion­ship Mar­ket­ing. The next 60 sec­ond guide will be Inbound Mar­ket­ing, with a final one minute on how every­thing fits together. Per­mis­sion Mar­ket­ing isn’t a strat­egy in itself, you have to attract enough inter­est in the first place to get to ‘per­mis­sion’, but under­stand­ing the moral out­look it drags into play is impor­tant; per­mis­sion is given point by point, it isn’t an agree­ment by prospects allow­ing you to bat­ter them senseless.

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What is Relationship Marketing — a one minute description

An easy intro­duc­tion to Rela­tion­ship Mar­ket­ing, the first in a series of guides to explain often mis­un­der­stood con­cepts. The next 60 sec­ond guides are on Per­mis­sion Marketing, Inbound Mar­ket­ing, their rela­tion­ship to other types of mar­ket­ing and then one minute on how they fit together. Collect them on your iPhone and you’ll have a four minute refresher on the way to the board­room for your next meet­ing with the cre­atives. ¹

The idea behind these videos is to add con­text and clar­ity. If this one has whet your appetite rather than sati­ated your thirst and you want to inves­ti­gate fur­ther, well, it would prob­a­bly be appro­pri­ate to start at Wikipedia.org’s Rela­tion­ship Mar­ket­ing entry.

Nat­u­rally enough, ‘Con­tent’ is the next sub­ject series after these four audio blasts on mar­ket­ing. How to get it, how to make it, what to do with it and why, when and where to pub­lish it.

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4 Comments

Minutecoach Pay As You Go in the Small Business Resources Café, Chesapeake.

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Tools for Social Networking — where to find them

So you’ve peo­ple fol­low­ing you, and some you’re fol­low­ing, and some who are friends, it’s all get­ting a bit con­fus­ing, and you’re ask­ing your­self where the value is in social net­works, who counts and why. Well then, a few social net­work­ing tools might be welcome.

Have a lit­tle look at http://gist.com to assess the activ­ity and poten­tial of your con­nec­tions across mul­ti­ple out­lets, and http://friendorfollow.com for Twit­ter, which will let you know who you are fol­low­ing that is not fol­low­ing you. Er, and vice versa.

In addi­tion, for a list of tools for social media to speed your efforts in real­is­ing the value of those con­nec­tions visit http://oneforty.com. It is a use­ful site, but I’d start research­ing at lunchtime, say around one o’clock, and plan to stop at oh, I don’t know, say one forty… or you’ll be there all day…

Philip Stan­ley

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Should a business pay overhead costs for home workers?

When a busi­ness moves employ­ees into home­work­ers, should the busi­ness pass on a pro­por­tion of its over­head cost sav­ings to make up for the increased facil­i­ties use at home?

This is one in Minutecoach’s LinkedIn Q&A Best Answers series, widened out and rewrit­ten for those not on LinkedIn. If you’d like to read the orig­i­nal, you can use the link at the end of the article.

There is no moral imper­a­tive for a busi­ness to do this, just busi­ness com­mon sense and ‘perks’.

Some com­pa­nies who offer home-working toward the high end (sales reps, man­agers, etc.) will pro­vide a tele­phone line, broad­band con­nec­tion, printer, portable dock or home com­puter, VOIP/virtual switch­board etc. because these tools are cen­tral to the busi­ness oper­a­tion and the busi­ness needs to con­trol and pos­si­bly audit usage, secu­rity, expo­sure, call track­ing, etc.
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How to come up with a pricing model for an online service?

How do you come up with the best pric­ing model for an IT ser­vice. It’s online, doesn’t have direct com­peti­tors, so there is noth­ing to com­pare it to.

This is one in Minutecoach’s LinkedIn Q&A Best Answers series, widened out and rewrit­ten for those not on LinkedIn. If you’d like to read the orig­i­nal, you can use the link at the end of the article.

One way of find­ing a price when you have a new ser­vice with­out any easy com­par­isons is to abstract until you iden­tify the real value in the service.

Or said another way, don’t price the ser­vice, price what it is accom­plish­ing.
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How to turn a sales negotiation from cost to value?

Clients tend to dwell on cost because that is what they know to nego­ti­ate… any tips on how to swing the nego­ti­a­tion away from cost and over to value?

This is one in Minutecoach’s LinkedIn Q&A Best Answers series, widened out and rewrit­ten for those not on LinkedIn. If you’d like to read the orig­i­nal, you can use the link at the end of the article.

Why cus­tomers nego­ti­ate on cost
In ser­vices sales clients dwell on cost because they know how to nego­ti­ate on cost; they’re com­fort­able. Attempt­ing to move from cost to value can remove that com­fort and even raise ques­tions as to motive, because it ‘feels’ to a cus­tomer as though you can’t, or won’t, nego­ti­ate on a level play­ing field.
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What is a good reason to make a spin-off?

What would be for you a rea­son to make a spin-off? Please share your thoughts and experiences.

This is one in Minutecoach’s LinkedIn Q&A Best Answers series, widened out and rewrit­ten for those not on LinkedIn. If you’d like to read the orig­i­nal, you can use the link at the end of the article.

Risk reduc­tion in start­ing a spin-off
Often a com­pany will inherit or develop busi­ness that needs to be sep­a­rated from estab­lished busi­ness. Not nec­es­sar­ily exer­cise of new tech­nol­ogy, new prod­uct devel­op­ment or any­thing ‘phys­i­cal’, it could sim­ply be the land­ing of a large renew­ing con­tract that will not be ‘busi­ness as usual’.
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Help with pricing an e-book

My hus­band and I are chess coaches, spe­cial­iz­ing in teach­ing chil­dren. We recently started a new busi­ness (Your Chess Coach) and are build­ing a web­site where we plan to sell lessons designed to help par­ents teach a very young child.

This is one in Minutecoach’s LinkedIn Q&A Best Answers series, widened out and rewrit­ten for those not on LinkedIn. If you’d like to read the orig­i­nal, you can use the link at the end of the article.

Peo­ple see your e-book before they print it
Con­struct­ing an e-book from poor fonts with poor typog­ra­phy and lay­out, ‘Hi there!’ lan­guage, and lib­eral up-selling of other prod­ucts prac­ti­cally guar­an­tees your e-book will be printed on econ­omy, sta­pled together and stuffed in a drawer.
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