Sage

Watch Blue Eyed Sun MD, Jeremy Corner, on a Facebook Live panel session with Dragon's Den star and tycoon, Peter Jones. The panel was led by Kevin Poulter and included Janice B Gordon, both fellow Sage Business Experts. Organised by Sage the broadcast on 13th June was part of their ongoing support for business builders.

The discussion included topics like ambition, what makes British business great, brexit, greeting cards and BambooCups. The evening continued with a fireside chat between Peter Jones and Sage CEO, Stephen Kelly. Attended by Sage customers it was fascinating to listen to Peter's journey and to hear tips for businesses within the audience.

Click on the link to download a free ebook on Business Ambition.

You can watch the playback of the discussion by clicking on the image below:

NB. There are some issues with viewing this video internationally. We are working on this.

This year I'm attending the business event Sage Summit London, having previously visited Sage Summit in Chicago and New Orleans.

Sage Summit London has some fantastic headline speakers including Deborah Meaden and Kelly Hoppen from Dragon's Den. I'm looking forward to hearing from Martha Lane Fox, of LastMinute.com fame. Sahar Hashemi co-founder of Coffee Republic will also be very interesting. Last, but not least, I can't wait to hear from Jamal Edwards, creator of SBTV.

As a Sage customer and fan since 2001 I've found myself doing quite a lot with them in recent years. I've written many blog posts on the Sage blog. I am a Sage Business Expert offering business advice and help to other entrepreneurs. I also work together with Sage on social media and PR campaigns. Several of their senior executives cite Blue Eyed Sun as a case study for small businesses looking to use social media to improve their digital marketing. Much to the amusement of my friends, Sage Summit London has been using photos of me for their online marketing campaigns, some of which you can see to the right of this post.

As well as hearing from the keynote speakers there are some interesting smaller sessions in which I'm hoping to pick up tips on retailing online, how retailers can overcome the challenges of the high street and the latest trends in social media and digital marketing. I also plan to see what Sage have been up to with their new software developments and hear more about their new chatbot Pegg. I've also been asked to mentor small businesses and start ups on Thursday afternoon.

I'm looking forward to meeting new people at the event, as well as seeing some digital friends in person for the first time. I'm looking forward to catching up with my friends on the Sage Team, my fellow Sage Business Experts and other entrepreneurs in my business community. It promises to be an inspiring and eventful two days. If you feel that it might be time to work on your business rather than in your business for a day or two, why not join me? If you can only do one day, I recommend the Thursday. Do reach out to me on my Twitter @JeremyCorner if you are attending. It would be lovely to see you.

Click here to register and attend. It's FREE!.

Be sure to catch me on Facebook Live between 12:30-13:30 GMT on Wednesday 5th April.

I'll also be coaching new businesses in the Mentor Area on Thursday 6th April at 16:00.

Sage Summit London runs from Wednesday 5th - Thursday 6th April at Excel in London

Read my blog posts on the Sage UK Blog

12 Things I learned at Sage Summit New Orleans

15 Things I learned at Sage Summit Chicago

I was recently invited by Sage to Chicago to speak at their annual Sage Summit. The business focussed event, held over 3-4 days, is an opportunity to network, learn and grow. It featured some amazing keynote speakers and loads of smaller breakout sessions and interesting seminars.

As you can see by the photos on this page I was lucky enough to meet some of these amazing people and learn some useful business lessons from them. Here are my highlights:

Determination

On my Virgin Atlantic flight there I wondered what it would be like to meet Richard Branson and decided to do everything I could to make it happen. Incredibly, the very next morning I was shaking his hand. I then set myself the challenge of meeting the rest of the celebrity speakers that week. It wasn’t easy. I was just determined and had a good energy for making it happen. I believed that I could do it. I even managed to blag backstage access to The Killers gig that week. Determination and self belief are so important to achieving your goals.

Don’t be needy

At the same time as being determined it’s important not to be desperate. Although I believed that I could achieve my goals, I was also prepared to fail. I just didn’t focus on the failure. I focused on what I wanted but not to the point where it consumed me. In a cab ride in Chicago, the adventurer and philanthropist Justin Packshaw shared similar advice he once received from an experienced entrepreneur, “Needy ain’t sexy.” It sums this up nicely I think.

Your Team

Richard Branson, whose Virgin group comprises more than 400 companies, could never have grown without delegating. As he says, “Find someone better than you to run your business.”

Star of  Shark Tank (America’s Dragon’s Den) Robert Herjavec agrees “If you’re going to do everything in your business, you’re always going to stay small. The only way to grow is with a great team.”

Do what you love

Fellow TV Personality and entrepreneur Daymond John explains how to achieve this: “Make a list of things you love doing and things you don’t. Then, outsource everything you don’t love doing and it will change your life.”

One Word

I caught up with business youtuber Evan Carmichael who has a book coming out called: Your One Word. The book is about finding the core word that has meaning for you and truly inspires your business and team. Evan’s word is ‘Believe’ and his team is so into 'believing in entrepreneurs' that one of them even has the word 'Believe' as a tattoo on her arm. Having a focus for what you are about and what you want to achieve with your business is so powerful.

Power of Focus

Hearing actress Gwyneth Paltrow talk about KPI’s (key performance indicators) and sales funnel strategies was an eye opener. I find it inspiring that anyone can shift career, take on new challenges and start up a business. As the founder of successful online retailer Goop, Gwyneth’s key take away was to remember to focus, “Where you look is where you go. Keep your eye on the prize and believe in yourself.”

Understanding Customers

Another actress, Zooey Deschanel, also made the shift to business even though she didn’t see herself as particularly business minded. She partnered with experienced people and created HelloGiggles, a positive online community focussed on empowering millennial women. For Zooey, she felt instinctively that “If I like it someone else will like it.” She then shaped her brand around her audience which helped it to grow. It’s so important to put yourself in the shoes of your customers to understand your business and grow.

Solicit Feedback

I was invited to lunch with Donald Brydon the Chairman of Sage and a handful of Sage customers. He was very interested in what customers thought about Sage, good and bad. It really doesn’t matter whether you have a small business of a large FTSE 100 plc to run, soliciting feedback from your customers is essential. If the Chairman can make time to do it, so can we.

Social Conversation

Actor and tech investor with over 150 companies in his portfolio, Ashton Kutcher, is a social media whizz and arguably has generated a lot of his business success through his use of Twitter and other social platforms. Social media is not a broadcast platform he says, “It’s a conversation with a feedback loop.” You must engage with your followers. Just as you must engage with your customers.

What’s your Story?

I’m fascinated by how companies create the emotions attached to logos, how customers perceive brands and how brands endure over time. Understanding what your focus is and communicating that well are key to success. I was lucky enough to spend some time with branding expert Sasha Strauss from Innovation Protocol who reminded me how important it is for the brand message to work at every level throughout your company. For example, did you know that every employee at Disneyland is called a cast member? From the toilet cleaners through to the performers they are all cast members focussed on creating an amazing show for their customers.

Saving Time and Money

Taking time to of my busy schedule to attend an event which isn't directly connected to my card business doesn’t seem that sensible, but opportunities are everywhere to generate more business or to cut costs. I always pick up useful titbits of information at Sage Summit. On the export panel I sat on, my friend Gemma Price from SuperFood Market mentioned how she saved thousands renegotiating her courier costs. That single piece of advice has now been actioned and will save our business in excess of £5,000 this year alone.

Not just about the money

Global public benefit company Kickstarter has generated over $5 billion for start ups and created over 300,000 jobs through it’s crowd funding model that helps a range of creative projects get off the ground. It’s co-founder Yancey Strickler reminded us at Sage Summit that supporting someone’s idea and investing in their passion, even without receiving equity in return, is a hugely valuable way of contributing to the world.

The Value of PR

One of the reasons I’ve been able to maintain such good levels of PR and marketing over the years is that those in the media know that I am quick to respond and happy to help. Because of this I got the opportunity to be interviewed on Bloomberg Radio in Chicago which was broadcast throughout America. I shared the success of our greeting card business and even generated a sales lead from an American business wanting to send cards to their customers. It’s important to make PR a regular activity in your business. Click here to listen to my interview.

Network Power

Last year I made friends with Huffington Post blogger, Sandy Abrams, and Social Media Expert, Rebecca Coleman. We kept in touch online and supported one another’s talks, blog posts and social media activity at Sage Summit. If you want to have good reach on social media you need to build a network of supportive friends. I think it’s essential in business too.

Picture It 

It’s so easy to dismiss selfies as narcissistic and self indulgent. I changed strategy this year with the aim of increasing my personal brand and awareness of my businesses. Images are a very powerful way of doing this. When you tag people in the images it shows up in their feed so they can then easily remember you and share you with their networks. Search engines all index them. Images with celebs have a similar power and high level of engagement so grab selfies whenever the opportunities arise.

One of the reasons I leapt at the chance to attend my second Sage Summit is the insatiable appetite I have for learning and growing. Being around inspiring people who are all focussed on improving their businesses and their lives is incredibly energising. It’s definitely worth setting aside time in your calendar each year to sharpen your saw rather than keeping on hacking away with the same blunt instrument and wondering why it’s not working.

Jeremy is speaking on ‘Ten things to do in business before using social media’ at the Autumn Fair eCommerce Theatre on Sunday 4th September.

Read my daily diary from the Chicago Sage Summit on the Sage UK blog

Discover the 12 business lessons I learned at Sage Summit 2015 in New Orleans

Thanks to my friends at Sage, I recently had the pleasure of meeting Graham Hussey and Mark McDonagh from The Start Up Van at their pop up shop in Shoreditch, London. The Start Up Van helps some of the most talented, fun and influential people in the start up community to tell their story. They have quickly amassed over thousands of followers on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook and are worth following if you love business and start ups.

The interview was filmed in two sections. In the first short clip below I share the Blue Eyed Sun story. Watch it to hear how we set up our greeting card publishing business, how the business has changed over the years, what's next for Blue Eyed Sun and how we contribute to our industry through The Ladder Club and our involvement with the GCA and the GA.

We also touch on the Looking Back from Perfect exercise which I will be sharing with  delegates at this year's Sage Summit in one of two talks I am giving in Chicago this July. The Start Up Van guys will also be there and I'm looking forward to catching up with them again soon.

Click on the play button on the image below to watch the first clip:

The second clip below is the Start Up Van's quick fire round where the Graham and Mark ask some fun short questions including: what valuable lesson we could teach start ups, which three people I'd have dinner with, what's been our hardest day running Blue Eyed Sun, what I love most about what we do, what musician inspires us, what's the biggest thing that's happened to us, what is our biggest regret and what motivates us.

There's a funny moment where I completely embarrass myself answering one particular question that makes this one especially worth watching:

Details of Jeremy Corner's Sessions at Sage Summit 2016 in Chicago

12 Business Lessons I learned at last year's Sage Summit

9 Tips for Social Selling that I learned at Sage Summit

Visit The Start Up Van Website

Her Majesty The Queen has been graciously pleased to approve the Prime Minister's recommendation that Blue Eyed Sun should receive a Queen's Award for Enterprise in International Trade this year. The award is in recognition of exceptional export growth in the last three years.

The Award was conferred on 21 April 2016, Her Majesty's birthday.

Jo and Jeremy Corner, Blue Eyed Sun’s owners, have been invited to HM The Queen's Reception at Buckingham Palace in July 2016 along with other Queens Award winners.

“We are thrilled that the Blue Eyed Sun team has been recognised for their hard work in growing internationally with this highly prestigious and coveted award. It’s an honour to be flying the flag for greeting cards especially in a year when the Queen celebrates her 90th birthday and will certainly be receiving many thousands of cards as part of her celebrations.” - Jeremy Corner, MD.

Thanks to all of our wonderful export customers, distributors, suppliers, UKTI and our amazing team at Blue Eyed Sun who have all helped us to win this award.

Learn more about exporting in our talks with UKTI at trade shows

See recent talks on how to export greeting cards with the GCA

Watch this short video by Sage as part of UKTI Export Week which features tips on exporting:

As a Sage Business Expert I was recently invited to attend the Sage Summit 2015 in New Orleans. This annual event is a brilliant opportunity to learn, network and connect with other businesses. Not only does it focus on growing one’s business, for me, it was the perfect chance to sharpen my saw and renew myself for the next phase of our company’s development.

The event consisted of a series of keynotes, seminars and booths that offered a range of experiences throughout the show which looked unlike any trade show I have ever visited before. The scale and scope of it was epic. The central hall layout had a huge circle in the middle laid with plush thick carpet, from which radiated several buzzing seminar theatres each one called things like Profit, Grow, Lead, Differentiate, Customer, etc. The design of the space meant that it buzzed with excitement as one wandered from session to session. It really was inspiring.

I thought I’d share some of my highlights from my week there with you:

1. When you taste success, spit it out

On the first morning I ran into business and social media expert, Thomas Power. In the first of several interesting discussions with Thomas at the conference, he mentioned that if you ever taste success, you should spit it out. In other words, don’t spend too long revelling in the taste of it. Whilst it’s important to celebrate success, it’s even more important to to keep moving and not to sit on one’s laurels. It’s this kind of complacency that leads to executives patting each other on the back as they inadvertently walk off a cliff.

2. Zero moment of truth 

Marketers have been using a three step mental model of marketing for a long time. 1) Stimulus - producing an advert 2) Shelf - stores focusing on point of sale; historically known as the first moment of truth 3) The Experience - of the product at home. Consumers have a good experience or bad one and they share it. This is also known as the second moment of truth.

Google investigated where influence now takes place as shoppers move from undecided to decided. The average shopper in 2011 used 10.4 sources of information up from 5.3 in 2010. What surfaced was a fourth step called the zero moment of truth. This is where shoppers do research, read reviews, price compare and talk with friends to inform their decision making before going to the shelf. Marketers who can keep on top of all four steps have an advantage in the marketplace.

3. Websites are essential 

When I asked a panel of marketing experts how independent retailers could compete with the online world their answers were a stark reminder that the world is changing and those not changing with it will be left behind. “Any retailer without a website is dead in the water,” was one candid response.

The good news is those retailers that have unique identifiers and do it well will stand out from the crowd and survive. Their general consensus also was that blogs drive traffic like nothing else. So if you don’t have a good blog, perhaps it’s time to start thinking about one.

4. Personal Stories Rule

Millennials are often tasked with sourcing suppliers and they use social media tools to influence their decisions. The stories and social media posts that get the most likes are the personal ones. People want to see that brands are human. Include pictures of staff birthdays on your company profiles. Even though your customers might not all be on social media, you can bet their kids are. If you build authentic connections with them, they will send their parents to your business.

5. Creating a club

In discussing changes in retail one evening VP of Marketing at Sage, Sophie Leguillette, told me the story of she once noticed retail store Anthropologie offering a 20% off voucher to anyone joining their Anthro Loyalty Program in store. She asked the staff if there was any incentive for selling the membership to which ‘no’ was the reply.

Instead the assistant raved about useful benefits, like how the program kept records of your receipts for you so you didn’t have to keep hold of them in case of returning items. There were also special offers, advance notice of promotions, etc. Well trained staff offering a club to which loyal customers can belong is a great incentive for encouraging repeat business.

6. Competing with Amazon  

At a session on e-commerce I asked the retail experts how independent retailers could compete with the online commerce giants like Amazon. The reply was to focus on value added premium options like engraving, customisation and improved packaging. They also agreed that retailers need websites and when set up there should be sufficient marketing resource allocated to the website to make sure that it is found.

7. Talk Different

If you look at your five main competitors you will often find that the language they use is often very similar to each other and to your own. If you want to stand out from the crowd and win business, then the way you talk about your business and how you engage with customers must be different. Take a look at how you communicate and explore new creative ideas for changing how you behave.

8. Nobody likes to be sold

Everybody likes to buy and yet nobody likes to be sold. These days there is a huge amount of competition for attention in the marketplace, both online and offline. Shoppers now find things at the time and place of their choosing. 68% of the buying decision is now made before purchasing. If you want to be the place consumers choose to purchase these things then you need to spend time building yourself as the expert in such products. Rather than selling the products, sell your story and message. Make sure it’s written down and you have a strategy for how to do this so that your whole team is on board.

9. Small is the new big

Keynote speaker Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube, wisely pointed out that great businesses start from improving one small thing. For Chad it was making it easy for him and his friends to post videos online. Many people look at YouTube, which he sold for $1.6 billion (and which now is estimated to be worth over $40 billion), and think it’s all about the big idea. It’s from the little solutions that successful businesses and products emerge.

10. Create Great Content

If you are going to market your business online you must focus on great content and stop focussing on selling. Nobody wants to be sold to. It’s all about placing the products you are offering in a context that is relevant and meaningful to your followers. Be supportive of your tribe. Be a giver not a taker. Be helpful and create the type of content that people want to share because it has value in their world.

11. Feedback Loops

One of my favourite keynote quotes from the whole week was from American designer and thought leader, William A. McDonough, who observed during one keynote session that a system without a feedback loop is, by definition, stupid.

So, if you are making or selling anything, you need to design in feedback from your customers. You’ll also need feedback loops within your business so that your team don’t keep making the same mistakes. It’s worth having feedback loops with your suppliers too, so that the supply chain runs smoothly. Note to self: design more feedback loops into our business.

12. The Secret to Social is Engagement

We are all guilty of counting our followers or subscribers on social media. The real power of social media is the same as that in the rest of our social lives. It's in engagement. What are you doing to interact with your friends on social? Are you sharing, helping and caring? Blasting out ads and shouting our wares is fine at a market but not in a regular social life.

The week was an incredible experience and I loved every minute of it. Thomas Power even coached me through a personal development exercise called the core process, which was the final sharpening of my saw before I left New Orleans and headed home.

I met new friends, learned new things and returned to the UK feeling refreshed and renewed for our business. If you get the chance to go on seminars like this, jump at them. It’s a great way to spend time working on your business rather than in it.

Learn the 9 secrets of social selling I found at the Sage Summit

Discover the 7 habits of highly effective retailers

What cheap greeting cards really say about us

I just had the most amazing day at 10 Downing Street with the StartUp Britain bus tour. Having mentored many small businesses over the years and being a Sage Business Expert, I was invited along by sponsors Sage to meet the Prime Minister David Cameron, Anna Soubry (Minister for Small Business) and Sajid David (Secretay of State for Business). 

StartUp Britain's bus tour is traveling throughout Britain until the 7th August. The bus offers free mentoring and workshops to support businesses who starting out or are looking to grow. It's similar to the The Ladder Club seminars we do in the greeting card industry each year. This kind of encouragement is invaluable for small businesses and it's great to see such strong support for it by the Prime Minister, MP's and sponsors involved. Click here to see the schedule of stops

It's always great flying the flag for greetings cards at these events. So often people seem surprised to meet someone running a successful and growing card business. I guess many assume things have changed because of Moonpig, social media and texting. The truth is we all love to receive greeting cards. Last year the UK spent £1.29 billion on single cards alone - more than tea and coffee put together! Despite technology, cards are still such a lovely personal way of connecting with friends, loved ones and with customers.

I also had the pleasure of meeting few of the other business people at the event including Gemma Price who runs Superfood Market, a company that specialises in Vegan produce. The growth of her StartUp in the last two years been phenomenal. Starting with her vegan blog, she now has a 54,000 square foot warehouse selling over 10,000 lines from her website www.superfood-market.com! I'm veggie and my diet is 90% vegan with a lot juicing, so I'm looking forward to exploring her company's beautiful site and ordering something soon! 

Carol Smillie was also there and talking pants! She too has started a business in the last couple of years called Diary Doll, which specialises in pretty underwear which have a waterproof panel to protect women against potentially embarrassing situations. As you'd expect she is as lovely in person as she is on TV. I also bumped into my good friend, Maria Allen, whose laser cut jewellery and gifts we sell on our Ivy Ellen wedding website. Maria's company has had fantastic success on NotontheHighStreet.com and it was great to catch up with her and hear her news. 

I have to say a special thanks to my lovely friends at Sage for inviting me along. I look forward to seeing them again soon when I run the Great North Run in September with Team Sage to try and #BeatTheCEO. 

For small businesses it’s difficult to keep up with all of the technology available to us these days, much of which is actually free. We've done quite a lot of work on this ourselves over the last few years and are constantly learning new tools that we love to share. Here are the top 10 business tools we use daily and find most valuable to our business:

Magento  Bought by Ebay in 2011, this easy to use ecommerce software does exactly what you want when setting up a webstore. It’s free open source software, which means that it doesn’t matter if the company who created it goes bust (I’ve had this happen previously). We run our Blue Eyed Sun trade website and our Ivy Ellen consumer site on Magento. Both allow us to sell a variety of products in a number of ways online. Magento really comes into it’s own for those selling to the public online as it can link into larger marketplaces like eBay and Amazon. It also taps straight into Paypal and Sagepay to receive credit card payments securely. Most importantly, our team can easily update new product images and descriptions. You will need help from an expert to set it up correctly and a little support from time to time to tweak things, but generally you can keep costs down on an ongoing basis by doing most of it yourself. 

Google Analytics This tool starts with a small piece of code that you can have your web developer add into your website and link back to your free Google Analytics account. Once it’s set up, you can see huge amounts of info on who’s visiting your website, what sites they are coming from, what search terms they are using, what browsers or devices they are using, where in the world they are viewing your site from and so on. Knowing the number of visitors to your website, how many of them are new and how long they are spending on your site is all incredibly important for improving your customers’ experience. Analytics also tells you your bounce rate (the percentage of people who leave the first page they land on) which is really important for ranking well on search engines (i.e. search engine optimisation or SEO). It also helps us to track the success of our Google Adwords when we pay to advertise on Google searches. 

Dropbox This free online data storage tool is incredibly useful for backing up digital files in the cloud (i.e. on the web). You can also use it to share files with anyone in the world. For instance we’ve created a dropbox folder that only our printers and our office can see. We can then drop our artwork into the folder when it’s ready to go to press. It has the advantage over email when sharing large files like graphic artwork which can clog up inboxes or be blocked at server level. We know sales agents that use Dropbox to share PDF brochures quickly and easily with customers just by emailing them a link to their drop box folder rather than emailing large files. The recipient can then choose when they want to download the info. 

Sage When we first started our business, we managed our accounts and payroll manually. It was a hugely time consuming and thankless task. I remember being on the verge of tears pouring over grids of numbers trying to figure out PAYE and NI amounts for our first staff. These days we run all our accounts and payroll through Sage and it is a pleasure using this powerful business software. We subscribe to SageCover support which provides us with telephone help, data repair and software updates all through the year. It’s expensive, but I always say it’s like having a good bed. You sleep every day, so it’s worth paying for a good one. We use Sage daily to manage all of our customers, invoices, bills, suppliers, staff, etc. If you’re going to run your business well and make a success of it, up to date numbers are crucial.  

WordPress We use this fantastic free blogging software every week, as well as a number of plugins to it which help us get the most out of this great tool. There are two ways of using Wordpress: You can create a blog at wordpress.com or you can add the WordPress software to your website. We use the latter as we prefer all of the content that we create to stay on our web domain. Essentially the first option is like renting a house and the second is like owning your own home. Our blog is an essential way of keeping our customers up to date with useful information and improving our SEO. 

MailChimp This tool helps us automatically email our customer base with nice looking emails that have a higher rate of success at getting through and being seen. MailChimp is so powerful it can tell us when our customers opened our emails, what they clicked on and their location when they clicked. This helps us to adapt and taylor the emails to our customers’ needs and make them more relevant to them in the future. You pay for credits which allow you to send a certain number of emails. On average it works out at less than half a penny an email. MailChimp will update you when people unsubscribe, help you figure out the best time of the day to send your emails and help you reduce the number of unsubscribes so that your list stays strong. 

Hootsuite I’m not going into all of the different social media tools in this article as there are too many and they have different strengths and weaknesses for different businesses. Having said that, we rely on Hootsuite on a daily basis to manage most of our social media interaction. This dashboard style tool allows us to schedule all of our posts to Twitter, Facebook, etc and to track keywords used on Twitter throughout the day. It saves us hours of time and searching. 

Microsoft Office What would we all do without Microsoft Office? Love it or hate it it’s still the king of word processing, spreadsheets and email. Even though I regularly use Apple’s Pages and Mail, I find that Word, Excel and Outlook are vital on a daily basis throughout our office. Despite having Sage we still run all sorts of reports on Excel to track sales, stock control, etc and keep on top our numbers. It’s indispensable to most businesses despite other alternatives. 

ACT One of the best CRM (customer relationship management) tools on the market, we use ACT to manage our marketing database of customers and prospects. If you want to serve your customers well you need a tool like this to help you do it. It is hugely flexible and allows us to securely hold a great deal of info on our customers. We have it networked in our office so that team can see histories of discussions between any specific customer and any member of our team. It’s all noted down so that nothing is missed. It also plugs into Sage so that we can access financial data on customers from inside ACT if we need to. 

Adobe Creative Suite The tool on which our company most relies for design, pr and marketing is the Adobe Creative Suite, which includes Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. All of our cards, press releases, adverts and images are created using Photoshop and Illustrator. All of our brochures are created in InDesign which is a layout package used most often by magazines (as an alternative to Quark). Photoshop allows us to manipulate images so that they look their best for the printing press as well as saving them in different formats for different purposes like high quality print jobs or websites. Illustrator is used to create what are known as vector graphics. These tend to be images containing sharper lines like logos that can be scaled up or down without losing quality, something that’s not always possible with regular photoshop images. There’s a steep learning curve with the Adobe Creative suite and it is expensive to run, but once you’ve mastered it your artwork will never be the same again.  Well there's our list. There are others that we use and our list does change over time. Some of these top 10 business tools may be very familiar to you and some you may already have found alternatives for. If not, do take a look at them and see if they can help you improve how you run your business. Please feel free to share this post if you enjoyed it. 

Read 10 Business Basics to get right before you start using Social Media Discover Two Simple Steps to get yourself to the Top of Google Learn the 7 Habits of Highy Effective Retailers

Here are the slides from my talk on Exporting Overseas with UKTI at Autumn Fair International today. All of the links and logos in the slides are clickable and the hyperlinks will take you to the respective websites. A video of the talk is embedded below.

Although Blue Eyed Sun has exported to a handful of international customers over the years, it is only since 2012 that the company has begun to focus on overseas expansion. As a result, we’ve distributed to over a dozen new countries in the last two years. Last month I was invited by UKTI (UK Trade & Investment) to speak at Autumn Fair International on the subject of “Exporting Overseas”. I also got to meet our new Minister of State for Trade and Investment, Lord Livingston, at a special lunch during the show. The UKTI have ambitious targets to grow British export over the next few years and can offer businesses great advice on where to get started and how to export. Here’s what I’ve learned so far about export from a card publisher’s perspective.

Firstly, I believe that it’s important to establish yourself and your product well in the UK before you start thinking about exporting abroad. You need to make all of your mistakes here first as they will all be magnified once you start distributing internationally. You also need to be sure that all of your operational systems are strong enough to support the increased volume of business. Do you have enough warehouse space? Can your operations team cope with the extra demand? As margins are greatly reduced when you export there is less room for error. Supply chains lengthen when you work with distributors and you need to be sure that you are a strong link in the chain. You not only let down your distributor when things go wrong, but their agents, retailers and consumers.

The potentially negative impacts on your business include: strain on your cashflow, credit risks on bad debts that are difficult to chase overseas and fluctuations in currencies which can affect your profits if you don’t get paid in Sterling. Some countries have different laws regarding Intellectual Property and you run the risk of being copied abroad. You can also suffer quality control difficulties because of the increased volumes, freight forwarding issues because of third party couriers and miscommunication problems due to language differences. So why do it?

Well the good news is that exporting can also improve your business. The larger volumes and lower margins have forced us to find better ways of doing things in our business. We’ve had access to new markets and sales we otherwise would not have had. Our products are sold across the world which is very exciting and we have met some great business people who have provided fascinating and inspiring insights into how things can be done in the greeting card business. All this whilst growing our business, flying the Great British flag abroad and providing more jobs for people in the UK.

There are a number of ways you can export abroad when starting from scratch. The most popular for UK publishers is to work with a distributor in the specific country. This is helpful as they buy the products outright (at a discount) and assume the risk of selling them and paying for their sales force, freight forwarding costs and warehousing. The advantage of working this way is that you have someone on the ground to take care of the retailers, who speaks the language and understands the nuances of their local market. Alternatives are to sell direct to retailers abroad or to establish a network of sales agents or reps who cover the territory and report directly to you. You take on more risk, but gain more profit if successful.

The best places to identify and target these markets is by reading trade magazines like Progressive Greetings, attending trade shows that are strong for international visitors (Spring Fair and Autumn Fair, PG Live), joining associations like the GCA, contacting the UKTI and networking with other publishers for recommendations or by joining groups on LinkedIn. You can also take advice on international distribution from specialist consultants like Robin Littman.

Remember that you will need help once your export strategy starts to take off. The extra orders will mean more admin and paperwork that needs close attention. Sometimes you will need to alter products to suit different markets and you may have a variety of different logistical requirements that need keeping an eye on. You have to stay on top of your export sales once they start so that they don’t drop off and leave you with dips in turnover. Most importantly you have to keep your eye on UK sales so that current customers don’t suffer with slower lead times because export volumes have ramped up and overloaded your operations.

Once we decided to expand abroad, I hired an assistant to help me with the extra workload. She has done very well within our business and has gone on to become our operations manager. Export has helped our team to become more focussed. It has helped us all improve our communication, time management and delegation skills. Our team has had to raise it’s game and is stronger and better for it. Those that didn’t grow with the business have moved on. We don’t carry anyone anymore as we can’t afford to. Everyone has to pull their weight because the team demands it from one another. This is exciting to be a part of.

Our export strategy has also led to greater sales and improved profits. Because we sell to a number of countries, our company isn’t reliant on any single customer. Instead we have a nice spread of business across a range of retailers and distributors. The product life cycles of our cards have also improved as we extend their lives in new markets. Some of our older best sellers still sell really well abroad because they are relatively new to those markets. This in turn spreads the development cost of these products across a larger number of sales. Production costs are reduced through greater volumes as savings are made on purchases and operational efficiencies. We also have more options for clearing older stock which may have slowed down at the end of it’s product life cycle in the UK.

Since we started distributing we have improved our warehouse layout and stock control systems. The extra space we have had to take on has made it easier to hold better stock quantities for our UK customers. This means improved lead times, which means more order cycles in the year and increased turnover. We’ve also made our marketing more efficient by using the trade shows we attend to regularly catch up with international distributors and develop our business with them. Upgrading to the latest version of Sage software also lets us handle international currencies with ease.

Finally our export strategy has had an effect on how we’re now designing our products. For example, our market leading, embroidered Vintage range was adapted from square to rectangular shape for a German distributor. Because the changes on these adaptations were time consuming we developed a new range called Picnic Time which are much easier to adapt to our distributor’s needs with a new font and a shape suited to his requirements. This new range is up for a Henries Award this year and may not have come about in its current form were it not for our export strategy.

Whilst export does have it’s challenges and was not something that Blue Eyed Sun really started to push until we were ready, it has had many benefits to our business. We’re looking forward to expanding our international sales further this year and working with UKTI for the first time.

Exporting Overseas is one of many subjects covered in the Ladder Club seminars for new publishers organised by Lynn Tait and held in Leigh-on-Sea on the 4th and 5th of November. For details contact Trudi on 01702 480 180 or email waiteandtaitbakery@hotmail.com

Click on the video below to watch my talk and slides together:

Other blog posts you might like:

Read How to get things done when you don't feel like it

Click to see how Blue Eyed Sun doubled sales and halved the owners working week

This article features on pages 30-31 of the October edition of Progressive Greetings which you can read online here

Here are the slides from my talk on social media for retailers given today at the Widdop Bingham showrooms in Manchester. I will be writing further info into this post in August, which you will also be able to read in that month's edition of Progressive Greetings trade magazine. 

In the meantime, you might also like to read:

How to set up a Twitter page for your retail business

How to set up a Facebook page for your retail business

How to get started on LinkedIn

Two simple steps to get yourself to the top of Google

You might also be interested in these small business social media stats from Sage: 

This infographic was produced by Sage UK