News - Small Business Insider

Putting off taking a holiday? Here’s how to have one and keep your business running

Posted on September 12, 2019 Written by Administrator

Have you been able to take a break this summer? As a small business owner do you put off going on holiday while you cover for other people? Perhaps you need to stop worrying about how your team will cope if you take a break! Luckily there are many tech tools available to help. Set them up and you’ll be able to relax and enjoy a holiday later in the year if you’ve missed out so far.

Why a holiday is a positive for your business

We want you to have a real holiday and not use technology to work in a hotel while family and friends go sightseeing or spend time on the beach without you.

Here’s a reminder of why it is important that you have some time off from your business:

Productivity: if you don’t take time off tiredness and stress build up. Over time this will reduce your productivity. Time off will help revitalise the body and refresh the mind. If you have a micro-business, you have to accept there’s never a perfect time to go on holiday, but it is still something you need.

Handover: Think of a holiday handover as a chance to check how your team perform without you, and with some new responsibilities. There are tools to help manage this, if your team facing a situation that they aren’t sure how to tackle, they’ll know how to reach you.

Maintenance: Getting away is like getting a piano retuned. It’s about maintenance so that you can continue delivering a great product or service to your clients.

Family-time: As a business owner you make the rules. These should include allocating family-time, especially holidays.

The tools to use in your business

Mobile Phone

At home, your phone is probably always immediately at hand. We hope when you’re on holiday you’ll turn it off or decide to check it regularly without it dominating your time.

Make clear to your team that you should only be contacted in an emergency. Tell clients when you’ll be away, and which team member should be their first port of call. You may also choose to say that they can contact you if necessary.

Your phone gives you an invaluable tether to the internet. You’ll need this if your holiday destination doesn’t have WiFi available (or you are cyber-security conscious). For the time being data plans travel with you across Europe. They can also be changed easily to include other parts of the world, usually with a per day fee from your provider.

Productivity and Focus Tools

If there is no escape from doing some work on holiday, organise yourself to have short bursts of concentrated and productive time.

Focus tools such as the Quickstarter POD are, effectively, timers to help concentration on one thing at a time.

You can use Cold Turkey Blocker so you can lock yourself out of your PC or Mac for a specific period of time. If they catch on your family might do this for you.

Another app to help maintain productivity when you are doing a burst of work is RescueTime. This will keep you focused and stop you being distracted by blogs, social media sites etc.

Project Management Apps

Products such as Basecamp, Trello, and Microsoft Teams are increasingly popular. At work they are invaluable for keeping you aware of what is happening and what work needs prioritising on a daily basis.

When you’re on holiday, large numbers of notifications and emails from project management systems can become irritating. You can adjust the settings so that you receive notifications say twice a day. Or switch them off completely!

Outsourcing

When you are away the office phone will keep ringing. There are companies such as Answer who will cover your phones – charging as little as 90p per call. They text and email you or a member of your team so that one of you can respond as needed.

Similarly Virtual Marketing companies can keep your marketing activity flowing, unless your business has something like Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule activity before you depart.

The tools are available so pick some to use and gain the benefits of delegating to your team and finally getting away on holiday.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Young is Director of independent telecoms brokerage Equinox. Gary works with companies, charities and other organisations to help them choose the right telecoms packages for their needs and thereby reduce their costs. He is particularly knowledgeable on the integration of IT and telecoms in business. www.equinoxcomms.co.uk

Twitter: @CommsEquinox

What steps can you take to protect your business from cyber crime?

Posted on September 10, 2019 Written by Administrator

Cyber attacks are aimed at everyone and no businesses are immune. However, it is an unfortunate fact that 43% of cyber attacks are targeted at small businesses. This means that business owners need to invest time and resources to protect their businesses.

Let me share some tips on what you can do to protect your small business from cyber crime.

Invest in training

Unfortunately, humans are still the weakest link in any cyber security protection plan. This means that the key to threat reduction is staff training. Here are a few ‘red flags’ to look out for:

Don’t open emails you don’t recognise or if the topic is worrying. Cyber criminals want to worry you. They’ll say your website has crashed, for example. They want you to open attachments or click on links designed to infect your machine/network.

Check email addresses carefully. Fraudsters use addresses and URLs that are very similar to legitimate ones.

Query requests for large, or urgent, payments. It’s not in our nature to query senior management, for example, but it will protect your business if your team is trained to do this. Emails from Finance Directors requesting an immediate payment is made are a common form of cyber attack.

Be watchful of new contractors, even if they say they’re from your IT company. Whilst most will be legitimate, some cyber criminals will be brazen enough to walk in and attempt to infect your machines. So, if you are not sure, stop and check.

These are just some examples of the threats you face. By making sure your team know what to look out for, and have permission to query/challenge things, you are protecting your network and your business.

You can check the effectiveness of the training by using simulated phishing attacks. Regular, controlled, attacks can identify who is following their training and who needs a little more. We did this internally at Redsquid and reduced click-throughs from 54% to just 4% in only three months.

Protecting your network

Your network protection can come in many guises:

Firewalls

You need a robust hardware firewall. If your firewall is a few years old its ability to protect your network needs to be upgraded as the threats to your network will have increased. Sophos is an example of a good provider of such devices.

Patching

Keep your PCs fully patched. Your operating system provider regularly publishes security updates to protect against the latest cyber threats. It is worth spending the time to install updates as it’ll take you far longer to recover if you are attacked.

Windows 7

Microsoft stops supporting Windows 7 on January 14^th 2020. Running Windows 7 after that date means seriously risking your network and your business. You must upgrade to Windows 10. We recommend you upgrade your hardware to, to benefit from the physical security and performance enhancements built into new machines.

Vulnerability and Penetration Testing

There are many different ways to get into your network and the data it contains.

Vulnerability Scanning helps to ensure the security of your systems, services and applications from a number of common attack vectors, exploited by both automated and manual attackers. Vulnerability testing should ideally be done continuously, but at least every month.

A penetration test is an authorised simulated cyber attack on a computer system, performed by a suitably qualified third party. It’s designed to evaluate and ultimately to fortify the security of a target system through the identification of security vulnerabilities. We recommend these are done at least once a year by an independent body (not your IT provider) for the peace of mind it provides.

These tests also mean you are properly ticking the GDPR box. You need to be able to show you are protecting Personally Identifiable Information (PII) you hold on your customers and staff. If a breach does happen and you cannot prove you have taken reasonable steps, the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) can fine you up to 4% of annual global turnover.

Gateway Prevention

Email gateways are a great way to reduce mistakes. By passing all your email through a gateway, such as Cyren’s email security (https://www.cyren.com/products/email-security-gateway), you block the malware, phishing and spam emails threatening your network.

APIs and Web Applications

Most businesses are using multiple web applications and APIs to streamline productivity. Have you checked whether the ones you use have been tested for intruder prevention? They can become a back door into your network for cyber criminals.

Multi-factor Authentication

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) uses multiple devices to protect your network. Your phone can act as confirmation you are who you say you are, when you are logging into your laptop or into an application. Multiple layers of security make it harder for unauthorised users to access your network.

Cyber Insurance

Protecting your network is always the first step. We also recommend you insure against cyber threats. The right cyber insurance will help you recover. For example, if you suffer a ransomware attack they may consider which is more beneficial – paying the ransom or paying the costs of getting you back running. Take advice on the insurance you should have and read the small print with the greatest of care.

Cyber threats are ever present. A breach of cyber security may not immediately damage your business but the fact that it has happened can seriously damage your reputation. It is a fact of modern business life that you need to regularly review and maintain your protection against cyber crime and ensure your staff are trained and have refresher training as necessary.

References:

https://enterprise.verizon.com/resources/reports/dbir/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48385426

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/report-a-breach/

https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/reporting-fraud-and-cyber-crime

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike Ianiri is Sales Director at Redsquid, one of the UK’s leading independent providers of business Voice, Data, ICT, Cyber Security and IoT Solutions. Redsquid is not tied to a single supplier but rather helps clients boost productivity, reduce costs, and protect and grow their business by creating bespoke solutions from the best technology available in the marketplace.

Web: www.redsquid.co.uk

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/redsquidcomms

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/redsquid

How to build compelling messaging around your equity crowdfunding campaign

Posted on September 4, 2019 Written by Administrator

Many entrepreneurs consider equity crowdfunding a no-brainer. You have a great idea, an innovative product, and/or a disruptive business model ‒ why wouldn’t the crowd invest?

You may be surprised to find out, however, that the majority of equity crowdfunding campaigns never reach their minimum funding target. One of the main reasons for this is the lack of clear messaging. If you can clearly communicate your proposition in a way that resonates with investors and activates their imagination, you’ll stand a far better chance of getting funded.

Clear, compelling messaging is the key to a successful crowdfunding campaign. It’s the thread that runs through all your pitch materials telling investors why you are special, why they should invest, and why now is the perfect opportunity.

So how does one create compelling campaign messaging?

Find your story

When assessing clients to work with, I always look for a good story – either the founder story, a lightbulb moment, or something personal that led to the idea behind the business. So, ask yourself: what’s the human and relatable part of the campaign? What was the story that brought me to this point?

Telling a good story is probably the most undervalued part of campaign messaging. Founders often jump to their idea, USPs, or the traction so far. Of course, these aspects are important, but it’s the story that triggers emotion, creates memories, and builds relationships.

Don’t be afraid if your story is long-winded and unfocused to begin with, you can always trim and make it more concise. The most important thing is to get it down on paper!

The one-minute pitch

Every entrepreneur will be familiar with the elevator pitch ‒ that 20-second snapshot of your business that communicates all the key information. Of course, there is more to an investment opportunity than the basics of the business, so the 20 seconds needs expanding.

That’s why, when I run equity crowdfunding training programmes, I get our entrepreneurs to start by creating a one-minute pitch presentation. They note all of the good things about their business in a succinct way before developing these points into a short script that can be used as a crowdfunding video.

By keeping the video script short and succinct, it forces the founders to focus on the best, most unique aspects of their business and leave the less important things out. It also creates a clear, coherent message that can then be used across the rest of the campaign messaging.

Meeting an unmet need

Once you have your founding story and one-minute pitch nailed down, it’s time to consider your value proposition. Who does your product or service help? What unmet need or problem do they face? How well does it meet and solve their needs? How many people have the same need? How urgent is the problem?

You can have a fantastic product, but unless it addresses an unmet need, it fails to offer real value.

One good exercise to help pin your value statement down is to consider other solutions or products that offer something similar. What needs are they addressing? How is your solution different? What makes it unique?

Often the best new business ideas aren’t those offering something entirely new, but those that dramatically improve on previous solutions in some important way. Disruptors can only improve on existing solutions to shake-up an established industry.

Finding your target audience

Your key messaging needs to be meaningful to your target audience, otherwise you will struggle to capture their imagination. The essential thing to remember is: know who you’re talking to.

Don’t try to appeal to everyone, it’s impossible and will muddle your message. Instead, research your customers and build customer profiles. Then do the same of your investors. In both cases, think about who they are, where they hang out, what they read, what channels they are on, etc.

Not only will building target profiles help you tailor your messaging to each audience (depending on the medium), but it will also help you find the right channels to reach them. Investors, for example, are more likely to use LinkedIn regularly and read trade publications, making PR and LinkedIn outreach two key channels. Whereas, individual supporters may be more likely to spend their time on Facebook and watching videos on YouTube.

Knowing how your audience understands your product and industry, as well as where they spend their time online, allows you to hit them with meaningful messaging that will increase investment in your campaign.

Test your messaging

The final step is to test your messaging. The easiest way is to ask friends, family, co-workers, investors, even strangers what they took away from your messaging. Did they immediately grasp your business idea? Were they moved by your founding story? Did they pick up on the key USPs you wanted to convey? Did they understand the benefits?

It’s also a good idea to keep an eye on the time it took for them to understand the key messages. If you found that you had to talk for several minutes before they understood, then your key messages aren’t clear or concise enough. They should get the basics within a couple of sentences and understand most of the business in around a minute. Any longer and you will struggle to communicate properly to your actual audience.

Communication will always determine the success of crowdfunding campaigns. There are lots of great businesses out there running equity crowdfunding campaigns, and yours needs to stand out in all the right ways for you to hit your fundraising target!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Auckland is a crowdfunding specialist and founder of TribeFirst, a global equity crowdfunding communications agency that has helped raise in excess of £25m for over 60 companies on major equity crowdfunding platforms, with roughly a 90% success rate.

TribeFirst is the world’s first dedicated marketing communications agency to support equity crowdfunding campaigns and the first in the UK to provide PR and Marketing campaigns on a mainly risk/reward basis.

John is also Virgin StartUp’s crowdfunding trainer and consultant, helping them to run branded workshops, webinars and programmes on crowdfunding. John is passionate about working with start-ups and sees crowdfunding as more than just raising funds; it’s an opportunity to build a loyal tribe of lifelong customers and supporters.

See: http://www.tribefirst.co.uk

Twitter: @Tribe1st