Adding Value to your business

Its been a pretty hectic time since I last posted but I thought I'd give you some food for thought before you start with your new year planning for your business.

As you probably know by now I work very closely with some very valued, highly professional companies to help me provide an excellent service to my clients and with the projects that I work on.  These auxilary companies include but not are exclusive to: Andi at  Developing Photo who does all the photography for my clients and does a fantastic job, the guys at Freelance World who are fantastic accountants whom I recommend to my clients, the lovely ladies at Frasermedia whom are top of their game in the PR, marketing and media related world.  To name but a few.

I will only recommend someone I have had personal experience of and that I can wholeheartedly recommend.  Thats not to say I dont make mistakes at times and then have to re-evaluate the people I recommend - but thats few and far between.

I suppose the point I'm slowly getting around to making is that we all need a bank of fantastic suppliers surrounding us and that we can rely upon for excellent quality.  Now as you know this doesn't necessarily come cheap.  But as I say to all of my clients - you get what you pay for.  Dont pay four or five figures for a fabulous website to put your own shot with a £50 camera photos into it - you'll be the laughing stock! Also dont try and do something that you can pay a professional to do.  They are specialised in what they do for a reason.

However there are two sides to this coin - just because someone calls themselves a professional doesn't make them so! This is especially true of the creative industries.  There seems to be this inherant "breeding" that going to college and learning a subject makes you ready to start a business in that craft! This most definately is not so!  I have encountered two projects of late where poor photography and/or design has hampered a whole project that had the ability to be amazing!

If you are looking for any service always make sure they have experience in the field you are working in.  Lets take photographers for instance.  You are looking to get photos done for promotion purposes of your new venture, lets say its a holiday home, and you've seen lots of photographers work and like the work that they are doing.  Have you seen examples of the sort of shots you want/need? Do they do commercial work or is it just families/weddings? Are they capable of giving you good value for money?

You need to think about all of these things before you jump in with any service provider.  Yes they may be good at what they have done so far but are they capable of completing your job to a high standard?

So how much do you value your business? Are you going to put a price on your brand? Yes budgets are tight but remember that these people are human too, they should be flexible to your needs.  Maybe you can do the project in stages if cashflow is a bit slow. Or heres a fantastic tip - what have you got to trade with your supplier? Personally I've done work in exchange for various items from logo design and branding to christmas dinner! As long as both parties are happy with the exchange where is the issue?

So have a wee think as you are planning for 2012, do you really have the correct service providers around you? Do you need to find a new one? Could things look better with a professional slant on them? Why not take the bull by the horns and look elsewhere.  If you need any help give me a shout - first hours advice in exchange for a good coffee!!

Customer Service and Brands

Hi all! How are you all doing? Well I hope.

Its been a pretty hectic couple of weeks here with lots of late nights and early mornings due to various client commitments.  So much so I had to take Friday off (well almost all day off!) yeah I know me taking the best part of a day off but I was starting to burn out and if I didn't catch up on my sleep I knew what would come next - the dreaded tonsillitis and then being forced to take time off when clients are needing me! Not good and very poor customer service!

So this got me to thinking how far do most companies go to ensure consistancy in their customer service and also their brand? 


Now for me its not a problem because I am my own brand and I do all my customer service, but how does the other businesses I work with and promote reflect upon my own.  I was made to have to look very closely at this over the past few weeks and have been trying to get clients to see that doing things themselves does not only reflect poorly on their brand but also what I do.  And yes I can see that other factors can be an issue in these things but are you really willing to put a top quality brand at risk for the sake of a couple of hours of my work?  My answer would be no and thankfully the majority of my clients say the same (I asked them!) but my problem lies with do I continue to work with clients that put their brand at risk and ultimately mine?


Well lets look at all aspects of this.


A huge part of what I do for clients is marketing, promotion and the administration associated with that.  And for the majority of my clients its a case of that they know the value to their business in the work that I do but for two companies (lets call them x & y) they seem to be a little short sighted. But this can apply to any service you utilise so I'm putting this out to you and hoping to get some feedback!


When working with both X & Y I'm doing general admin, producing marketing materials, product development etc and when its working boy is it working but with both this last month has been hard work and when one of my other clients handed me a leaflet saying please tell me you didn't produce this my ears pricked up.


So what is important in your branding?


Consistency and quality! In absolutely everything that your company produces from a £50 steak dinner to your business cards, compliment slips and flyers everything should ooze quality and be consistent.  If you have company colours - always always always use the correct code for them! dont substitute with oh thats near enough! Near enough isn't good enough! You wouldn't accept a lock from the locksmith that near enough secures your premises!


So keep fonts, colours, logos, paper quality, finish the same in everything you do to keep your brand consistent with the level of quality your product or service has.


Now what about customer service? I'm very lucky that all my clients have excellent customer service and never quibble on it.  But someone said to me this week what constitutes good or excellent customer service?


This got me thinking.


Lets miss out good and strive for excellence!


Excellent customer service comes from building relationships with your customer.  This means building a rapport in the few minutes you have with a new customer to encourage them to come back and allow you to build a lasting trust with your customer.  So how do you do this?


Talk to them! They are humans like you and me!  They want to be treated with respect and made to feel like they are your only focus!


Always be polite! And yes this isn't easy with some customers but it a necessary part of building a reputation for excellent customer service.


Smile! Smiling automatically draws people to you and makes you more welcoming and friendly.  This is especially important on the telephone.  People cant read your body language on the phone but can hear a smile in your voice.


Never get distracted when you are dealing with a customer making them your sole focus means that they will feel special and go away feeling so.


Always endeavour to go that extra mile.  Add value to the service some how.  Now this can be easier in a retail environment by giving hints and tips with products, or samples etc but when you are in my line of business it is not so easy. So what do I do? I use social media to help raise the profile of my clients, Twitter is the best tool to acheive this.  Most of my clients are on twitter so I can tweet that I'm there or what promotions that they have on or events etc. Yes this takes some of my time but adds value to the service I provide and gives some free marketing to my clients. 


Now I'm not saying that I'm an expert in customer service but I always endeavour to do my best for a client and the feedback I get is on the whole indicative that I am achieving my target and exceeding theirs! I do however consistently review with clients that they are happy with the service I'm providing and we can adjust as necessary - assuming they give me the feedback I need.


So lets see if we can pick up the branding and customer service gauntlet and strive to exceed expectations!

Planning ahead

Christmas is nearly here! Whatever way you look at it it’s only a month and a half or 8 weeks or 51 days away today (Thursday). And whether you love or hate the season there is a way to survive unscathed.  I used to have this love hate relationship with Christmas (well the commercial aspect) and after some re thinking it’s now a love -love relationship that Christmas and I have (well except for glitter – I hate glitter!)

I realised very quickly that if I applied my “business head” to Christmas then we could exist together much more happily.  Now I’d just like to clarify that everything in this piece relates to the commercial aspect of Christmas and in no way should deflect from the real meaning of the season , according to your belief, and now we have that cleared up I’ll continue.

In my normal day to day life I run my business that helps other businesses and individuals to streamline their lives and pick up the slack – doing admin, sorting out suppliers, organising events etc.  But when it came to Christmas a couple of years ago and I found myself in a situation where I had to embrace the commercial aspect of the season – I froze and went into full blown panic!

This Christmas was not a success! We had no sprouts, bread sauce or kilted sausages with our dinner – all crimes worthy of the firing squad in my family!  I was determined that the following year would be better.  Having relayed this tale of woe to a colleague post Christmas she was shocked! She said but this is what you do for a living! Just do it at home!

The light had switched on and I decided to apply my business strengths to Christmas and the following year we had a roaring successful Christmas dinner and even had some kilted sausages left (unheard of with my lot!!) So anyway enough of my babble I’m going to share with you how you can make Christmas more enjoyable, stress free and even relaxing for you!

Step one

 Planning is the key! Get yourself a note book or planning app or whatever you prefer but this has got to have plenty room in it to write.

Step Two

Start today! It’s never too soon to start planning an event.  Event planners will have been planning for Christmas for more than a year so let us normal folks start today 8 weeks is a good time to start.

Step Three

 Decide do you want low key intimate family affair or are you going all out bells and tinsel everywhere all singing and dancing.  This may sound daft but it will make a difference.

Step Four

 Go grab a cuppa and sit down with your notebook and pen.

Step Five

Lists! Lists for everything! You will need all of these believe me. Cards list, gifts list, food, guest list, responsibilities to name but a few.

Step Six

Grab another cuppa and relax!

Now that’s all covered lets speak about planning again.  What do you want from the season? Do you want to be the one who makes all their own Christmas food by hand from scratch or are you quite happy to take the short cuts and buy things in? There is no right or wrong to this. The choice is entirely yours.  Having now done both I’m firmly of the opinion that buying an M&S uniced cake and icing and decorating it myself with shop bought icing is definitely the way forward!!

Brainstorm all the things you want to do in the back of your note book and cost and time them out.  A homemade Christmas cake is quite expensive for ingredients and should really be made by now (according to the Christmas Queen we all know as Delia) but the decision is yours.  Whatever you decide to do stick to it!

Now you have all your ideas time to implement them.  But first write that Christmas Card List – Lick your green frog, get the horrible bit done and then the fun can begin.

Go out collect all the Christmas Gift Guides, food guides etc that you can find this will make the decision process easier.  Yes I hear you saying but the internet is there.  And yes for some people that is great – personally I find the brochures and catalogues easier to use but whatever suits you!

Now you’ve done all your market research and ooh’d and ahh’d over the delicious turkey dinner from one or the Berry Scrumptious fabulous new range of truffles (which are to die for!) and taken your notes in your notebook, you can set your budget and begin. 

Budget is irrelevant whether you want to do everything for £50 or £5000 the principal is the same.  Budget and allocate and never ever over spend.  Now we have the whole budget let’s allocate it. Decide on a per head amount for gifts and dinner.  Write out your Gift list names and allocate their budget.  You can then as you go along allocate the gifts to be bought.  Soon you will have a full gift list.  But remember and note everything down as soon as you decide it makes for less “oh what was that again” moments.

Same principal applies to the food shopping.  Decide what you want to buy for and the budget for each part.  Are you doing a Christmas Eve function, full Christmas Dinner and Boxing Day too? What about all the accompaniments? Mince pies, nuts, sweets, nibbles etc  Brain storm everything before deciding and writing the list by event of what each course will consist of then transferring it to a shopping list. Don’t forget the refreshments too!

Your guest list is a strange one as you generally know who will be coming and at what point but if you plan for every eventuality you can also update your other lists accordingly.  This year you will be organised when Aunt Betty turns up on Boxing Day with a gift in hand and you can return one and wipe the smug smile off her face!  Speaking of gifts make sure you have a back up supply ready wrapped for any unexpected gifts/visitors etc.  I like to make these food gifts as if not used we can use later!

So you now have a card, gift and food list.  All you need to do is make your shopping lists and away you go.  Personally I will make these into lists by shop and pick a Monday early December and go do the cards and gifts and non perishable food then leave the fresh food 'til 23^rd December.

Now the allocation of responsibilities, you can’t do everything yourself so don’t even try to! It’s a family event so get the family involved. Whether its peeling the spuds or keeping the sweetie bowl topped up or drinks flowing - everyone can get involved.  It takes the strain off you and allows you to enjoy Christmas too. Remember and give someone else the job of battery supplies especially if you have kids!  Make this list very clear and stick it on the fridge so no one can dispute their responsibilities!

I’ve published a time scale for countdown to Christmas that you may want to take a look at here www.karinmcgivern.co.uk/christmas.html

But hopefully now you feel a little more confident about tackling Christmas head on and being able to enjoy it along with everyone else and not feel too stressed out.

Agricultural Generation Gap

Its been a while since I was compelled to blog even though I do have a list of topics sitting ready to write! But todays #aggen debate on twitter has spurred me on!

Having been involved in various ancillary/support roles to agriculture I'd like to give my own view of how I see the whole generation debate.

Firstly this is first and foremost a UK issue not just a Agriculture issue and the UK need to sit up and recognise this. If we dont 'replenish' our farming stock we are going to face a situation very soon where we have no home grown local food for local people and its going to be a total supermarket rule. Or worse our food will all be imported. And yes some of you may say this is an exaggeration but it is a very real future!

Having worked with many farms in the Aberdeenshire area for almost 10 years I have been in the position to have seen both sides of the fence on this story grow.

Firstly lets take the older generation side of it. Now bear in mind this is purely observation and not being from farming stock myself but working within/alongside the industry I feel that I have a unique view.

Older generation farmers are increasingly becoming older! Yes I'm stating the obvious but in what other industry is it acceptable for a 70+ year old person to be working a 12+ hour day? The machinery is increasingly getting larger and more powerful. And sadly as we get older our reactions become slower. Are we looking at an accident waiting to happen? No its already happening - on farm deaths are increasing and a large percentage of them are older farmers. Now this all sounds like I'm anti older generation - I can assure you I'm not. One of the reasons my clients employ me is that I take time to listen to them and regularly have healthy debates with them regarding all sorts of issues. These guys and girls have a mountain of information within their heads in fact I remember saying to one farmer, who unfortunately is no longer with us, that he'd forgotten more than I'd ever know! And it was true!

These people are a mountain of information and if you got them all together could probably teach any advisor a thing or two! I know I was! So people why are we not utilising this magnificient knowledge base before its gone?

I'll tell you - its because the younger generation (of which I am one being only 30!) are too stubborn/in a rush/oh what does he know - to stop and listen.

And yes this may sound like I'm anti younger generation but here is why I am not.

The younger generation have as much going for them as the older generation but in different ways. They have youth on their side! They can understand/handle improvements in technology and equipment etc and are keen and able to progress. But here is the big question - is progression really progression? just because you can now do something quicker doesn't make it better!

And l digress lets get back to the main reason behind the #aggen debate - the inability of younger generation to get into farming due to financial implications and lack of assistance.

There are many parties out there proclaiming to be advising/contributing/handling this issue but in reality none of them are so its time for the industry to stand up and come up with a proposal as to how this could work.

Heres my spin on it.

There are many older farmers struggling to maintain their farms on their own. There is a lack of interest or ability for younger people to get into farming due to various constraints. There is a new entrant scheme available that has too many constraints. So why not do something along these lines.

Make the scheme simpler to get into. If you are a new farmer up to the age of say 40years, looking to start or improve your farming enterprise we will accept you. But this has to be means tested and the farm in question cannot be funded by any other farm. This way genuine new entrants can get a slice of the pie and not just Big Farmer Smiths son who already has plenty money and is trying to and successfully screwing the system! Right so we have a scheme that more people can qualify for now where are the farms coming from??

Well we have all these struggling older farmers so how about approaching some of them to see if they'd be interested in going into partnership with a new entrant. Formal partnership agreement drawn up, maybe a bit of financial assistance to do this etc but when older gen decides its time to sit by the fire or go to the big mart in the sky he knows his farm is in good hands as he's been working alongside his successor already for a while. And yes this would have to be thrashed out to make sure that there is a get out clause/cooling off period etc but why not utilise both sides of the generation gap to make farms work?

I also have seen how badly ancillary industries can work with both sides of the debate.

This makes my blood boil as being primarily an agricultural advisor my clients know that they get a unique service from me where I actually listen to them and discuss things etc and also glean information from them. To quote previously mentioned farmer " Aye ye listen and discuss, unlike a certain establishment fa jist wants yer money and sends yi bits o paper - yi niiver see someone on farm"

Having spoken to lots of people using lots of different advice channels over my 10 year working in the industry the common theme is that they are never fully happy with the service provider and yes you may say they're farmers they're never happy but I can honestly say that isn't true of the people I work with. And yes that does sound rather egotistical but those of you that know me know that is really not the case.

So what do I do differently? I take the time to build a relationship with my client, this could be over weeks or months and I truely listen. I will give advice snippets that I know are guaranteed to work - free of charge then they will come back to me and look for more work. I also refuse to charge a standing fee to anyone and they only pay for the hours I work. I find that farmers respond well to this and having also been in legislation enforecment where I had a similar approach I know this works.

But the key is listening and being interested in what they are saying. So many advice providers dictate this is the way etc and that is not how to do it. You have older clients that as mentioned previously have forgotten more than you'll ever know and then younger ones who have as exciting ideas as you do. Hit both markets but more importantly bring them together and make the #aggen gap smaller. Get this knowledge spread out and allow for flexible working so both sides of the arguement can get a bite at the apple and learn from each other. But more importantly they together can secure the future of Agriculture within the UK.

Organisation and saving money

How often do you deal with an outside service provider – Accountant, solicitor, support service etc?

Are you as organised as you could be with the information that you supply to them?

Having worked with various clients over the last six years, organisation is the one thing that still mystifies me about humans.  Some are super organised (to the point of obsession) and others are so far the other way it wouldn’t be polite to label them!

So, if you are trying to cut your costs a little and are looking for areas to save money on why not make life easier for the people you supply information to.  It will get the job done quicker by them and ultimately save you money in the long run.

How do I do this I hear you ask. Well depending what information you are supplying, will ultimately determine exactly the system to use, but on the whole you are looking to be logical and systematic.

For example invoices and receipts to your book keeper or accountant.  These are easiest kept in ring binders/leaver arch files in date order.  This can be divided up using dividers for each month but as long as they are in some sort of order this will reduce the hours (sometimes days) that your accountant spends sorting and organising.

The same principal goes for your computer. When was the last time you sorted out your filing system on your hard drive?

I did mine the other day and cleaned out 5Gb of space!! 5Gb my first computer never even had 5Gb memory on it total and I was wasting that on my laptop! I now have a personal and business folder in my documents and within them various sub folders. Some of my business examples include invoices, letters, nvz, databases, marketing and website.  But the labels are irrelevant it’s the structure and organisation that is important.

Organisation is the key to making huge savings in both your business and personal life. Whether those savings are financial or time they can be massive.  So take a half day out to reorganise things and see how much time you can save today and ultimately how much money it saves you paying your support services.