2011 Budget for Small Business The budget has been announced and the government has made a commitment to make Britain the best place to "start, grow and finance" an enterprise.
There's a reduction in company tax, an increase in entrepreneurs...
Scary UK Income Statistics every Business Owner should... Let me hit you with some amazing statistics we discovered this week …
The top 5% of income earners in the UK make over 40% of the income.
Just 6% of companies are creating 50% of the new jobs...
The p-myth: that sales and marketing drives profit Do you know "The P Myth"? It's the myth that sales and marketing drive profit.
Most entrepreneurs believe that sales and marketing drive their profit. In fact, I did too for many years up until I met...
Become a Key Person of Influence in 5 Easy Steps
What is a "Key Person"?
In any industry there are "Key People"
Their names come up in conversation ... for all the right reasons
They attract a lot of opportunities ... the right sort
They earn...
The budget has been announced and the government has made a commitment to make Britain the best place to “start, grow and finance” an enterprise.
There’s a reduction in company tax, an increase in entrepreneurs relief and over 20 new enterprise zones. There’s incentives to take on an apprentice and greater opportunities for SME’s to bid for Government contracts.
While I’m sure you will agree with some of the policies and disagree with others, it’s a good thing for the Government to be prioritising the role of small business. After all, small businesses are creating more jobs and more growth than big businesses.
Of course if the government really wanted to support small businesses they would send everyone in the country to our event on Saturday – “Become A Key Person of Influence” – to learn how to Pitch, Publish, Productise, Profile and Partner their way to growth and success
Unfortunately … even if they wanted to implement this policy they couldn’t; there are only 30 tickets remaining. Luckily, you won’t need to cut your budget to get a ticket, you can get a Click here >>
PPS: Daniel will be on the radio tomorrow morning (7am – 8am 24th March) so tune into BBC London, The Breakfast Show to hear more about his thoughts on the Budget.
Let me hit you with some amazing statistics we discovered this week …
The top 5% of income earners in the UK make over 40% of the income.
Just 6% of companies are creating 50% of the new jobs in the UK.
A person who is in the top 25% earns one fifth as much as a person in the top 1%
In the UK an average CEO earns in a day what an average worker earns in a month.
I’m not going to talk about whether this is right or wrong or if it should change. The point is that when it comes to sheer earning power, all the money moves to “Key People of Influence”. It’s a small group of top performers in any industry that scoop the pool.
Even making the move from being in the top 15% to the top 10% is statistically worth an extra 50% more money to you!
Repositioning yourself as a Key Person of Influence in your industry will be the most rewarding thing you do this year both financially and in terms of personal achievement.
Note: These stats came from Wikipedia under the headings “Income in the UK” and “Executive Pay” and also from http://www.statistics.gov.uk
Posted by Daniel Priestley | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 22-03-2011
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Do you know “The P Myth”? It’s the myth that sales and marketing drive profit.
Most entrepreneurs believe that sales and marketing drive their profit. In fact, I did too for many years up until I met a mysterious business strategist who was introduced to me as the “Millionaire-Maker-Mathematician” (He’s represented his country for advanced maths, he does suduku in 1/3 the time and he has a tendancy to make people very rich with his advice).
I had a 90 minute meeting with him and a year later I had tripled the value of my business. Now, many great people helped me to achieve that result but I must say this one meeting was responsible for giving me a huge mindset shift that made a big difference.
In this meeting, he explained that he had crunched statistics on hundreds of businesses and he did NOT conclude that profit was a function of sales or marketing. In fact he said something VERY NEW to me. He said:
“Income follows assets”
Here’s how the conversation flowed:
Millionaire-Maker-Mathematician – “If you have a 2 bedroom house and the market price for it is £300 per week, how much can you rent it for?”
Dan Priestley - “Of course £300 per week”
MMM – “What about if you hire an amazing sales and marketing team?”
DP – “Maybe £330 per week”
MMM – “Ok, so what about if you made it into a 4 bedroom place?”
DP – “Well I guess it would be worth, £500 – £600 per week.”
MMM – “So you can see that in property, the income follow assets and not sales and marketing. What about in your business? What are the assets in your business?”
DP – “The assets are our database, our network of affiliates, our brand, our systems and some IP we own.”
MMM – “What do you think would happen if I doubled the size of your database, the number of affiliates, the strength of your brand, the robustness of your systems and the amount of IP you own?”
DP – [I thought for a second and then smiled] “Business would go through the roof, we’d make more than double our sales and we would be worth more than twice the value we are today.”
MMM – “Would it be sustainable?”
DP – “Yeah it would”
MMM – “What if instead of doubling your assets, I double your sales team and marketing spend?”
DP – “I’m not sure. We would likely waste some of the marketing money. There wouldn’t be enough leads for twice as many sales people, we would have to do more marketing quick, some would work, some wouldn’t, I think we would either end up spending too much on lead generation or we would annoy the sales people with too few leads”.
MMM – “Would it be sustainable?”
DP – “It has never been sustainable in the past when we’ve tried that approach.”
MMM – “So now do you see that your goal is not to get better at selling and marketing, your goal is to get better at building assets in your business; because…”
DP – “Income follows assets”
After that conversation, I changed my mindset. I focused on creating more assets in the business rather than putting 100% of my focus into sales and marketing. I also viewed sales and marketing differently as well – They were tools to build assets like a database and goodwill.
Sure enough, as he predicted, business started getting much easier. Income went up, valuation went up and opportunities rolled in.
The name of the “Millionaire-Making-Mathematician” is Darren Shirlaw. He doesn’t just make other people millionaires, he’s built his own business with a 200 person team operating in 9 countries.
What is a “Key Person”?
In any industry there are “Key People”
Their names come up in conversation … for all the right reasons
They attract a lot of opportunities … the right sort
They earn a lot more money than most people … and it isn’t a struggle
They can make something successful if they are involved … and people know it
How do you become a “Key Person”… fast?
It’s surprisingly easy to become recognised as a Key Person is you follow these steps…
1. You need to know your niche and your micro-niche
It’s not enough to have a niche. You need a niche within a niche. When you have that, you tend to answer the question “what do you do?” with a lot more authority and power.
A niche is “Bodybuilding” a micro-niche is “Vegetarian Bodybuilding” or “12 Week Transformations” or “Christian Bodybuilding within the M25″. When you know exactly the specific game that you’re playing you don’t just make more money, you also have more fun and see more rewards.
2. You need a book
This isn’t hard. It will take you 6 months (tops) from the day you sit and jot down your concept to the day you open up a brown box full of books with your face on them.
These days you can publish very short runs of books (you could start by ordering 20 copies of your book) and it’s easy to get it up on Amazon. A few shining reviews (from people who share the same names of people who frequent your dinner parties) and all of a sudden your a published author with global distribution.
3. You need to turn your skill-set into an Asset and Productise
Not difficult either. A day with a voice recorder (and no kids in the background), a few quid spent with an audio guy to “top and tail” it and then it’s ready for manufacture.
You’ll spend about £1 per copy for a boxed CD or DVD and once again you can order it in small quantities. Now you can provide value to people all over the world. A good CD or DVD kit can sell for £29 – £129 depending on the content. br />
4. You need to ‘Google well’
Provided your name isn’t Mark Chan this isn’t as challenging as you think either (and even if it is, it’s not nearly impossible). If you take 2 days of focused effort you can set up a great Facebook club, Ecademy Group and Ning Forum.
You can have a social-network profile on a dozen sites, a twitter account with 400+ followers and a dozen blogs. With all that in place you are going to sky-rocket up the Google listings. Staying there will require you to be diligent but if you are organised, that can take less than 30 minutes a day (and it could be done from your iPhone in the back of a cab).
5. You need to nurture Joint Ventures and Partnerships with other people in your industry
Once you have refined your pitch, become a published author, productised your knowledge into assets and have sorted out your social media, it’s time to leverage your knowledge even further into Joint Ventures. This is when you truly start to become a Key Person of Influence in your industry. The more JV’s you do with people in your industry, the more influence you have and the more opportunities come your way.
Now you have these four things in place, sit back and watch what happens to your life. People will ask you to speak at events, you will be referred to as an ‘expert’ or ‘well connected’, you will get focused opportunities coming your way and just like Daisy the Cow, you will be ‘out standing’ in your field!
Posted by Daniel Priestley | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 09-03-2010
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Would you “bet your house” on your next business idea? Not so long ago, Kanya King had an idea that she thought was worth doing just that.
She is the founder of the MOBO Awards, today it reaches an audience of 250 million people each year. Amazingly she started it from scratch just 15 years ago.
In 1996, Kanya King had a vision to create a special way to recognise Music of Black Origin (MOBO). She dreamed of a special event that could inspire people all over the world.
Kanya risked it all to start her business. She took out a loan against her house and set to work on creating the first event.
She knew that if she wanted to grow the business as big as she imagined, she would need to attract some very big name partnerships. To do that she would need to present herself in the right way…
“We spent a great deal of time developing our brand policy, which ultimately allowed us to expand into our business. It’s a huge part of our prime goal and vision and has allowed us to partner with organisations including the BBC and HSBC. Hand in hand with this is the belief that the sky is the limit – we’ve always believed in the power of thinking big, there is no such thing as being too audacious with your dreams”.
Kanya’s story proves that cementing a powerful brand can be the difference between impacting thousands of people and impacting millions (upon-millions). It can be the difference between receiving a pat-on-the-back or receiving an MBE from the Queen.
Success has not dulled Kanya’s sense of social responsibility, she regularly participates in community and industry events, encouraging youth enterprise and vision wherever she can.
She will be 1 of 10 inspiring speakers at “Expand Your Brand” on March 20-21, delivering her personal story in the unique style which has inspired so many to embrace their wildest and most incredible dreams.
If you believe in creative thinking, in taking risks and making sacrifices and, above all, if you want to make 2010 the year when you turn your ambition into attainment then you cannot miss this. Book your tickets here >>>
Posted by Daniel Priestley | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 09-03-2010
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Imagine you walk into an important meeting and the first words out of their mouth is:
“I got your book on Amazon.com and I loved it, you really know your stuff and we’re excited to be working with you”
There’s no question that you are in line to do the business and you’re not going to be arguing over price.
Having a published book is just one way to enhance your personal brand and it’s not as difficult as you think.
Just ask Mindy Gibbins-Klien.She is a best selling author who has also helped over 300 people to write, publish and distribute their book.
Mindy Gibbins-Klein knows that every single person has unique experiences and these unique experiences can form the basis of a great book. The truth is, you have a great book inside you waiting to be written.
Mindy has developed a method to get it written fast and she has the contacts to get it published easily … she even knows how to get it selling quickly.
Mindy knows that whether your book is a NY Times #1 Best-seller or not, it adds a massive premium to your value. Instantly you become the recognised expert in your field and a valuable person to have around.
Mindy Gibbins-Klien is just 1 of the 10 speakers you will experience at “Expand Your Brand” on March 20-21. Her story won’t just be inspirational, she will be sharing exactly what you should be doing to have your book up on Amazon before September 2010.
Posted by Daniel Priestley | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 03-03-2010
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Wouldn’t a nice long holiday be great? Especially if it turned out to be worth a whopping £20Million!
For Deirdre Bounds that is exactly what happened. After taking time out to do a gap year holiday she arrived back to England without a penny in the middle of winter.
Stuck in Leads, sharing a tiny bed-sit apartment, Deirdre couldn’t stop thinking about how wonderful it was to be free in the big wide world, and how terrible it was to be stuck freezing Midlands.
So she started i-to-i Travel, a business she hoped would encourage a few teenager to travel abroad on the best gap year holiday ever.
Deirdre was starting with nothing, but she imagined her brand would one day be the market leader in “ethical travel”.
Ten years later, Deirdre’s company had offices on 4 continents and was the biggest Gap Year Travel Business in the world… And her share was valued at £20Million!
i-to-i was sending tens of thousands of teenagers around the world teaching english, building schools, working in wildlife parks and supporting charities.
In just 10 years, Deirdre Bounds had started with nothing more than an idea and ended up setting thousands of teenagers free in the world.
Creating a powerful brand doesn’t just make you rich, it can also make the world richer and for that reason alone it’s worth getting right.
Dierdre Bounds is just 1 of the 10 speakers you will experience at “Expand Your Brand” on March 20-21. You won’t need to travel to Africa, it’s happening right here in London and tickets are half price through this link (note: only 8 tickets are left at £59 and they are due to increase tomorrow): http://www.triumphantevents.co.uk/?unlock=1348-f4vnzqd3gzuw85qh3dc9tpm8
Deirdre Bound’s story isn’t just inspirational, she will be slowing it down and giving the exact things she did in the early days that enabled her to expand so rapidly. You simply won’t want to miss her presentation. Register today >>>
Posted by Daniel Priestley | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 02-03-2010
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Today’s sunny weather in London reminds me that no winter lasts forever. It’s always followed by the new blossoms of Spring.
No recession lasts forever either. Tough times are always followed by periods of growth where small businesses have big opportunities.
Take a look at Dan Wagner (see Wiki article), he founded his first company in 1984 when unemployment had hit 11.9%. The country had felt the effects of 4 years of a terrible economy.
In 1984, Dan’s company was little more than a good idea but by 1994 he had floated it on the London Stock Exchange for £120m (he was just 30 years old!).
Dan went on to do business with some of the biggest brands in the world – Microsoft, BT and IBM to name a few.
He also got a listing on The Times Rich List and recognised by the Prime Minister as one of the UK’s most innovative entrepreneurs.
Through all the fast growth Dan was known for his dynamic personal brand and his ability to attract the biggest companies in the world to do business with him.
Today he has ecommerce solutions provider, Venda Ltd, which is helping to expand some of the biggest businesses in the UK on the web (Tesco, De Beers, Jimmy Choo, JVC and more). Best of all, Dan is secretly more passionate about helping small businesses to expand their brands and his talk will share the very best strategies he’s developed.
Dan Wagner will share with you his very best experiences on doing business with big businesses and how to make your small business blossom this Spring.
Posted by Daniel Priestley | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 01-03-2010
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In 1998, Mike Harris had an idea for an “Internet Only Bank”. He figured that the internet could be a great place to do your banking without having to go into a branch and see a teller.
But it wasn’t received well, not even by his closest advisor. Mike’s wife Sue joined the opposition “The internet will never work for banking, it’s slow, unreliable and impersonal.” she said.
Rather than getting discouraged, Mike used her feedback to help construct the “Egg Brand Promise”.
Mike realised that Egg had to be known as fast, reliable, friendly and personal if it was going to make sense for customers.
It was the critics who actually helped Mike to build the worlds first internet bank and get it right. Egg grew from nothing to a valuation of £1.3Billion in just 3 years.
Mike Harris has built 3 multi-billion pound businesses in his career and each time he says that it was vital to get the brand right before the growth and success could occur.
When he takes the stage at “Expand Your Brand” he will be sharing the three key ideas that has led to billions of pounds in value that started as nothing more than an idea.
Mike is one of 10 speakers at “Expand Your Brand” who has achieved staggering success and who wants to share the key things he learned along the way.
At this event you will also be hearing from a man who has created over 150 “brand enhancing” products, a woman who’s brand goes out to 250M people a year now, a 19 year old who’s sold 50,000+ books and a woman who built a £20M business starting with nothing more than her frustrations. Click here to find out more >>>
A lot of my friends have recently been asking me “What is the point of Twitter?… Why all the fuss?”
So here’s my answer…
If Google owns all the important information in the world, Twitter owns all of our silly little thoughts. – Daniel Priestley
Do a Google search on the G20 Summit this week and the top hits are likely to be the official web site, the Wikipedia page and a major newspaper article.
Twitter search “G20” and you get minute by minute updates from people all over the world as they comment, debate and even get arrested at the gates!
It’s live and it’s bite sized chunks of info that could only be described as “Thoughts” (although twitter calls them “tweets”).
“Thoughts” are random, they occur in little chunks and they jump from topic to topic freely.
Thanks to Twitter, we are now gladly handing over our “Thoughts” to the internet to be searched and viewed freely, forevermore.
So what is more valuable, information or thoughts?
Clearly information is more valuable and Google will remain the biggest and most valuable internet company on the web but “Thoughts” are valuable too.
Humans love finding out what people “think” of something and in that context we want it to be live, streaming and up to the minute. Twitter can deliver this.
So the value of twitter (as a business) has more to do with “search” than it does “followers”.
What about the Value to me as a user?
If you love sharing your thoughts with people (and you may even get paid to do it) then Twitter is an excellent tool. You can build up a loyal following and keep them updated with everything from your business decisions to the news you are reading to the breakfast cereal you just ate for breakfast.
