Whenever I offer any business advice in this area, it follows a very simple pattern: Discover all the problems you have (some you’ll know about, some you won’t), propose solutions and then put them into action. The problems are an essential starting point and cannot be ignored. Our first ever Business Automation system came about almost by accident when I went into Sussex Academy of Music who were existing website clients at the time and started having a conversation about their online shop. I can’t really tell you how it happened but we spent the next 24 hours, all 3Read the rest of this story…

Good Riddance Kodak I never want to wish anyone out of business but I’m glad that Kodak are out of business. It comes down to the fact that recessions are a good thing. Interest rates are lower Talented people are looking to work for you Someone’s loss is your gain People are looking to save money more (HINT: Be in the save money market and you’ll do fine) If you are one of these people who run around blaming the recession for your own shortcomings, then have a real think. If you were once successful and your not now, maybeRead the rest of this story…

Here’s a post about some of the tools I use to run Advantix. These are almost all web-based tools but some are a little random. Anyway, Lets deeeww eeeett! Customer Database: We use our own software – shock horror! We use AddBook to store info about our customers and it works just as well now as we thought it would. It’s allowed us to be much better at marketing and sell more stuff which is almost always the goal. Use AddBook, we made it free to try with no time limit. www.AddBook.co.uk Sales Process: SignBase, since we built it hasRead the rest of this story…

1. Tighter integration We have several systems and apps, which are awesome on their own but when tied together could be 50x more powerful. We aim to spend a lot of time making our existing systems amazing 2.  Better Marketing Simply put, we haven’t needed to actually do any marketing this year. We’re always busy, and our events have always sold out. Expect more promotion of SignBase and AddBook and videos to explain how they will work in your business. 3. Events Our event series, Automate My Business is going to become our main source of generating leads and business.Read the rest of this story…

It’s been a pretty wicked year for us at Advantix and I have a few “end of year” themed posts prepared to keep you readers happy over Christmas. I set out this year to launch both SignBase and AddBook, and win 2 more BusinessBrain customers. By the end of the year, I’d done all those things and more. We’ve shifted the businesses entirely to almost completely eradicate web design and stick to doing what we do best – Save people time. I’ve decided that our marketing mix is going to consist of 3 things: 1. Word of mouth, and aRead the rest of this story…

I’ve just spent the last 8 hours watching every single Gary Vaynerchuk video I could get my hands on to really understand what it was that mad bastard was going on about. The guy is absolutely fucking crackers but he makes good points every time he opens his mouth. I’m about to change how Advantix promotes itself. I’ve just done the numbers. Do you know many new customers came by advertising. Zero. Do you know how much business we’ve brought in as a percentage of our turnover from word of mouth. 100%. The numbers don’t lie. This is happening whetherRead the rest of this story…

Just because you just spent £1000 on getting your terms and conditions professionally drawn up, doesn’t mean you should shout from the rooftops about it. Just because you are a Limited company doesn’t mean you should shout from the rooftops about it. Here’s what you should shout from the rooftops about: Another customer is happy because of your awesome service You launched another product A customer of yours succeeded because of your help You got investment (and what it means for your customers) Your doing something free for your customers Yes your terms and conditions are important, so is beingRead the rest of this story…

I don’t think I’ve had a meeting with a prospect or a client where I haven ‘t at some point told them to get testimonials off their customers. It seems that people are embarassed or for some reason don’t want to ask. I’m not sure if it’s through fear of coming across rude, or compliment fishing but I have some advice. F**K THAT! You do good work, scrap that – you do GREAT work. It’s your job to educate your customers on why you need testimonials. I don’t have any trouble getting them off my customers because I bang onRead the rest of this story…

I’m just about to vanish off the face of the planet for 2 weeks, ignore all calls and emails and wind up my entire customer base. Or am I? Over the last 3 years I’ve spent 4 and a half months abroad (18 weeks) and taken a 4 week break around September/October time and I’ve only ever had one issue… I was in Tenerife and got a call from the police that my flat got broken into and all my stuff stolen. I called my brother and instructed him to go over and secure the door (not that there wasRead the rest of this story…

I wrote this a while back. It’s a little PDF with 30 of the most useful tips I could share with you in a book you could read in under 5 minutes. I’m pretty sure at least one of those ideas could make you some more money by the end of the week. Enjoy Download Now