Even if you only are only a small business, you may have some outside space.  Perhaps you’ve a studio in the back garden, or maybe you hire an office in a block and have a balcony. If you can use that space for summer parties, you could well save expensive venue costs.

If when you say ‘summer party’ your immediate thoughts turn to the barbecue, you are not alone. It always seems like a great idea, until you remember that the grill needs cleaning, and then there’s all the smoke, and how long it takes to get the charcoal fired up…

So the traditional barbecue is feeling a bit passé. However, there are lots of attractive, elegant, innovative and affordable products available now that allow you turn even the smallest outdoor area into the perfect summer party venue.

Here are a few ideas to help you wow your staff and your clients:

Provide Warmth with a Gas Fire Pit

Fire pits, units and chimineas aren’t exactly new, but they are developing into new more innovative and creative designs. Gas powered fire pits are becoming increasingly popular as a more convenient and cleaner alternative to the standard wood or coal heating solutions. A gas fire can be built-in or purchased as a standalone unit to add warmth and style to your seating area. Gas Fire Pit tables are sleek, high-end designs, but there are options out there to suit any budget. It is recommended that you always get a professional to install your fire.

https://www.modafurnishings.co.uk/gas-fire-pit-dining-8-seat-round-180cm-diameter-h-65cm-table-only-3316

Shake it up with a Tiki Bar

If you like to whip up exotic cocktails for your guests, an outdoor bar is a must. You could complete the experience with a tiki bar: Tiki culture started in California in the 1930s with idealised exotically decorated bars and restaurants catering to an escapist longing for travel to tropical regions.

You can create your own holiday-at-work vibe over Mai Tais and Singapore Slings. John Lewis sells a fantastically authentic looking rattan bar and stool set that will set the tone for some bar theatrics worthy of a South Pacific island beach party.

https://www.johnlewis.com/kaemingk-rattan-bar-stool-set/p3834494

Create an Outdoor Kitchen Space

An outdoor kitchen area is a convenient and enjoyable way to cook and dine al fresco.  

Depending on your space and budget you can go for a complete kitchen installed in a sheltered seating area. Alternatively, many outdoor living companies sell modular kitchen units for more flexibility to build your own custom space – sinks, fitted barbecue cookers, and even outdoor fridges can create an ideal inside-out gathering spot.

Check out these modular kitchens units from Landscaping.co.uk for some inspiration. https://www.landscaping.co.uk/kitchen-in-the-garden-en/outdoor-kitchens/modular-outdoor-kitchens/

Deliver with a Portable Pizza Oven

Portable outdoor ovens have come a long way – now you can get professional specialist quality cooking with new innovations such as the Roccbox. Created by Gozney, Roccbox is a professional standard compact stone fire pizza oven that can provide delicious stone fired pizza in little over a minute. And it doesn’t have to be pizza – the dry heat that can only be got from a stone oven can make meat, fish and vegetables even more delicious. You can choose either wood or gas burner for traditional fire or changeable heat for a range of cooking techniques.

https://www.gozney.com/eu/products/home-ovens/roccbox/

Get Cosy in an Arctic Cabin

If you do have a large enough space (and a decent budget) – then why not go a step further with an arctic cabin, complete with inbuilt barbecue? An arctic cabin can provide a moment of escape on chilly morning, is ideal for private meetings, and perfect for parties – anytime of year. Arctic Cabins Ltd are the only manufacturer and supplier of the traditional sloping wall cabin design in the UK – a typical cabin seats around 15 people (and can sleep three).

Now you’ve decided on what new features to add, here are a few final tips to enhance your summer get-together:

• Safety – The last and most important point is when using cooking equipment, fires and electrical lighting, ensure that everything is installed and used according to manufacturer instructions. Check for any trip hazards relating to wires (hang or tape them out of harm’s way) and encourage caution around heat sources. 
• The playlist – A little background music can make a real difference, so choose music that sets the tone for the evening. And keep speakers and volume to a minimum – both your guests and your neighbours will not appreciate being sound blasted!
• Lighting – If you are entertaining late into the evening, or have sheltered and shadowy spaces for sitting, make use of small solar lights to brighten the mood and create an ambience worthy of your favourite city pub garden.

Author Bio:

Laura Gozney is co-founder of Gozney, makers of commercial and residential stone fire pizza ovens. Gozney’s latest innovation is Roccbox – the only professional standard portable wood and gas stone oven that can cook a pizza in under 90 seconds.

https://www.gozney.com/uk/

Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) are the clauses in a contract that set out the rights and obligations that both parties should be aware of when they enter into a contract.

It’s crucial for a business that your customers know clearly what they are purchasing and what your terms of business are.  It’s particularly pertinent for online businesses.

So, what should you be considering when drafting your businesses’ T&Cs?

1. Avoiding the usual mistake

A big mistakes that businesses have made in the past is believing that if they hide their terms from the customer, and the customer signs the contract, that these terms can be relied upon. In other words, if the terms of the contract are part of the ‘small print’, the belief is that once the customer signs the contract, whether or not they have seen or read the terms, that they will be bound. 

So, is that true? Can the terms forming part of the ‘small print’ be relied upon? In general, the answer is no!

• Making sure the box is ticked

If the business specifically draws attention to the T&Cs and asks the customer to tick a box to state that they have read and agreed to be bound them, that’s a different story.

It may be as simple as creating a tick box for the customer to check before signing anything. That tick box may state that ‘I the undersigned have read the terms and conditions and am happy to proceed’, and if online, then a link to the T&Cs on the website will ensure compliance.

• Receipt versus contract

Right back in 1940, there was a landmark case in the courts about whether a local authority could rely on a disclaimer (against personal injury) on the back of a ticket given to a customer who hired a deck chair. The courts made the point that in order to rely on this, such a disclaimer would have to be brought to the customer’s notice at the time the contract was being made. In this case it wasn’t, since the customer only received the ticket after he paid over the money. Therefore, it was a receipt, and consequently, the disclaimer could not be relied on since it had not been brought to the customer’s notice before the contract was made, enabling him to pull out if he wanted. One of the Judges in that case commented that if the attendant had mentioned the disclaimer to the deck-chair hirer, before he handed over the money, then possibly the disclaimer would have been activated and could be relied on.

It’s the same with regard to T&Cs. They must be brought to the customer’s attention before anything is signed, and the only way to do this is to ensure that they are clear and available to be read and, in addition, they should be highlighted.

• Effective wording

It is essential to draft T&Cs that reflect the business requirements, and there should be no ambiguity. If badly drafted, customers may interpret them in a different way than intended.  It is a matter of being precise and succinct so that there can be no misunderstandings.

The best advice is to be simple with terminology and not use legal jargon. The more the language is complicated, the more likely that an individual will not bother to read it and this may encourage them not to proceed. On the other hand, if there is a tick box to say they agree to them, and they tick the box, then it may well be legally binding whether or not they have actually read them.

Some terms may be general, for example, confidentiality, intellectual property, disclaimers or limiting liability – and in such cases, precedent clauses (i.e. pre-written, ‘off-the-shelf’ wording) can be used.  Other, more specific terms and conditions can be tailored to fit a particular website or business – you can write these yourself, look at other T&Cs online, or you may want to engage expert legal help from a solicitor or paralegal.

• Complaints about your T&Cs

Should a customer complain that they were unaware of a term in the contract but they have ticked a box to state that they have read the T&Cs and agree to them, then unless the term relied upon is legally unenforceable or ‘unreasonable’, the customer will not have much recourse. If they decide to pursue the point, then the burden will be on the customer to provide evidence that it’s unenforceable or unreasonable in the circumstances. Every business should have a complaints procedure available online, and the first step that a customer should take is to follow this.

From a business perspective, it’s always best to try to resolve the customer’s issues before it’s taken further. Once a complaint is made, for the sake of business reputation, it should be adequately dealt with at this early stage.

Regardless of whether the business decides to acquiesce to the wishes of the customer, it may be advisable to consider whether or not there is grounds for the complaint. For example, maybe the reason for complaint is indeed because the term in question is ambiguous and could be misinterpreted. If so, this is a good opportunity to revisit the T&Cs and tighten them up.

• Ensuring your T&Cs are legally binding

So, every business should have clear, unambiguous T&Cs, that have been drafted to reflect the specific requirements of the company. They should also be considered ‘reasonable’ – and they must be made clear to the purchaser before they buy. By following these simple rules, businesses can protect themselves with T&Cs that are legally binding.

If legal expertise is required to cast an eye over the T&Cs, then it may be a good idea to use the services of a specialist paralegal who can offer advice and assistance at a reasonable cost.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Amanda Hamilton is Chief Executive of the National Association of Licenced Paralegals (NALP), a non-profit Membership Body and the only Paralegal body that is recognised as an awarding organisation by Ofqual (the regulator of qualifications in England). Through its training arm, NALP Training, trading as National Paralegal College, accredited recognised professional paralegal qualifications are offered for a career as a paralegal professional. 

See: http://www.nationalparalegals.co.uk and https://www.nalptraining.co.uk/

Twitter: @NALP_UK

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NationalAssocationsofLicensedParalegals/

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-hamilton-llb-hons-840a6a16/

For most businesses developing your social media presence and increasing your followers is an important part of your marketing and brand development.

However, making entertaining or informative content people want to return to is a time-consuming activity.

One approach to developing, and maintaining control over, your business brand is by publishing a book and offering content and off-line experiences that fit alongside it.

Here are my top tips for getting a book written and published and monetising your followers from this process.

1) Write for you, not for someone else

Publishing a book gives you the opportunity to control the narrative so you can keep your work true to who you are. But you’ll need to find a publisher who shares your vision or publish the book yourself.

Finding a publisher is much easier said than done. The likelihood is that you’ve built your following by offering your audience something that mainstream popular culture has missed. Traditional publishing is designed around maximising the chances of producing bestsellers, which means they look back into the past to try to emulate something that has already been done. It breeds a kind of unconscious conformity, which is not usually a place suited to the wild creative spirit that exists online.

Publishing the book yourself might seem the best route. Afterall it takes a lot of time to tout your book around the publishers. You may feel that this time could be better spent doing it yourself and maintaining control of your work. However, publishing a book costs a lot of money.

2) Crowdfund your book

The obvious solution to this problem is to crowdfund your book. By crowdfunding your book, you will retain complete creative control over your work. You can produce something you care about, which in turn will appeal to your followers.

Traditional publishing is also limited by the public expectation of what a book should cost – typically up to £10 for a paperback and £20 for a hardback. However, by crowdfunding your book, you can sell additional experiences and merchandise around it. For example, video games influencer, Dan Hardcastle, raised over £300k for his book, Fuck Yeah, Video Games, on Unbound.

What’s interesting is that 80 per cent of the money he raised came from non-traditional book sales, unique experiences and greater access to Dan such as signed copies, exclusive illustrations and personalised videos. This is nearly £250k in revenue that he might not have received if he’d simply published through a traditional publisher. Such is the power a crowdfunded book can bring to an influencer.

3) Write something they’re keen to hear about

Writing a book for your followers sounds simple, but what should it be about? Only you know the answer to that. The key is to be as authentic to yourself and your audience as you can. Don’t try and write what you think someone else wants to read. Or even what you think will sell. Write the book you care most about and tell your audience what that is. They will back you if they believe this is core to who you are.

At Unbound, we’ve developed a machine learning algorithm that helps us to predict, with a high degree of accuracy, how much a book is likely to raise before an author crowdfunds it. By using data such as the size of the author’s following and the topic of the book, we can predict with around 80 per cent accuracy precisely how much a book will raise within 90 days of accepting pledges / pre-orders.

However, you don’t need to have a degree in data science to decide what to write about. You’ve got plenty of followers, so run a poll. Crowdsource your book idea and they’re more likely to buy it.

4) Be imaginative with offers

There’s a fairly simple rule to follow when offering rewards to followers: the more creative the offering, the greater the value. And make sure what you offer is authentic to who you are and what you do.

Never has this been so aptly demonstrated than with popular YouTube comedian, Stuart Ashen, when he offered a ‘box of mystery tat’ as part of his crowdfunding campaign for his book Attack of the Flickering Skeletons. He sold three boxes of junk at £250 a piece. But of course it wasn’t really ‘junk’, each was a hilarious collection of unique things Stuart’s fans would recognise and value because they love what he does and they trusted him to deliver something to them that was suitably extraordinary.

5) Engage your top fans

Within any given audience, you’re bound to have a select few avid supporters who will pay a significant premium for exclusive access to you or your ideas. This is a fact traditional publishing simply cannot capitalise on. However, the digital economy has created untold new opportunities for authors to engage with their most passionate fans.

Dan Hardcastle created a reward level at £2,500 for Fuck Yeah, Video Games, which allowed a supporter to choose the video game for an entire chapter of his book. This was clearly only targeted towards the superfan. In some respects it didn’t even matter if someone bought it – it mainly served to demonstrate the depths of his accessibility and creativity, and to act as something that grabbed the attention of his followers. However, as a bonus, it did actually work and he sold out this reward level.

You would have to sell 312 copies of a traditional paperback to match this one purchase from a superfan. Every high level reward like this is bought by people who are die-hard supporters of what you do. They want the opportunity to have something unique. To connect with the creative people they most admire. You.

The other great thing about superfans is that there’s a direct correlation between the quality and passion of an influencer’s audience and the amount of money they’re likely to be able to raise from them. What encapsulates your offering to your followers? What can you offer them that’s unique to you?

Many businesses are succeeding in creating sizeable follower numbers, and publishing is just one of the industries that has the potential to embrace this new paradigm. Find the cross-over in the Venn diagram of the interesting ideas and information you want to authentically talk about as a business and what your audience wants to hear about.  Then your book that will attract eager buyers from your follower base.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dan Kieran is the co-founder and CEO of Unbound, a crowdfunding publisher that combines data science and an award-winning publishing brand with an online marketplace. Readers pre-order books through pledging, Unbound publishes and sells them, giving authors a 50/50 profit split and access to an engaged community.

The publisher’s 200k users from 195 countries have pledged £7m+ to fund 436 books to-date, including bestsellers like Letters of Note and The Good Immigrant.

By predicting future trends, Unbound funds books more quickly and reaches instant, data-driven acquisition decisions.

Website: https://unbound.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/unbounders

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Unbound/

Crowdcube: https://www.crowdcube.com/companies/unbound/pitches/b6ALPZ

Citations

Video Games influencer, Dan Hardcastle, raised over £300k for his book on Unbound: https://unbound.com/books/nerdcubed/

Stuart Ashen sold three boxes of ‘mystery tat’ at £250 a piece during his book’s crowdfunding campaign: https://unbound.com/books/moreashens/