Spend wisely during the credit crunch

Conquering America

David Soskin, chief executive of Cheapflights.co.uk, is one of the few business leaders that has gone to the US and succeeded. He offers some pearls of wisdom on the topic

The US market has often been described as a graveyard for British companies. Our failures there are the stuff of business legend. Whether it is Marks and Spencer’s acquisition of Brooks Bros, the ill fated purchase of Reltec and ...

Keeping your existing customers happy

Tim Rivett, head of small business at Royal Mail, has some top tips for keeping as well as attracting your customers

GET: the rules of attraction

Making that first connection can be tough. You’ve only got the briefest moment to grab their attention and win them over.

You’re competing with other eligible businesses in the same industry, so how do you make a good first impression?

First up is networkin...

The secret of customer attraction

When it comes to marketing, it's time to stop pushing so hard. After all, you don't like being pushed, do you?

In the ultra competitive world of the 21st century, the secret to business success lies in customer attraction. The people you are trying to market to are inundated with thousands of marketing messages each day. To keep sane, they put up filters. So it's harder than ever to get marketing m...

Is your site search engine friendly?

The wonderful world of blogging

Oh, how delightfully and inextricably New Media we all are. This is, ladies and gentlemen, a blog on blogging. Surely a sign of the times if ever there was one? Worry ye not, though – this isn’t simply some sort of post ironic exercise in meta-discussion. No, there is a straightforward question behind all this, namely: Can blogging drive your sales?

The world of marketing is certainly changing, an...

What's in a name?

A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet, the Bard famously penned. But what if that rose had no customers? Would it matter if it smelled good then?

A poll, by More Th>n Business Insurance, revealing Britain’s most creative business names has thrown up some real corkers, but also highlighted just how important it is for you to pick the right name for your start-up. It could make all th...

Bridging and bonding

The vast majority of business start-ups never progress beyond sole-trader status. Clearly one key reason may be that many people who work for themselves choose not to have employees. Equally, many businesses do not grow because nascent entrepreneurs lack the knowledge of how to fully exploit the potential of their business ideas. The process of ‘bridging and bonding’ could help those looking to br...