We note the encouraging statistics of an increase in business start-ups in 2011, according to analysis by business insurance specialist, Simply Business, and nicely summarised in their infographic reproduced below.

We shouldn’t try to project any great economic recovery from such figures, especially as we know that a reasonable proportion of new businesses will fall over in the first year (a failure rate of anywhere between 40% and 90%, depending which blog you read.)  But it does suggest that in the absence – or certainly with the decreased availability – of ‘safe’ and rewarding employment, many are choosing to put their future prospects in their own hands.

If the rate of business start-ups was an indicator of a national economic recovery then maybe we could expect a uniform show.  Instead we see greatest increases in the regions of East Anglia, the South West and Northern Ireland.  And most interestingly, among the over 65s (up by nearly 19%!), although the survey reports the 25-34 year olds as being the most entrepreneurial age with over a third of all start-ups from this age group.

Every large business was once a small business and although these start-ups may not be making a huge impact on national GDP for some time, these are the real  green shoots of recovery.

Source: Simply Business

Many of you are probably familiar with the letter Lily (age 3 1/2) sent to Sainsbury’s to ask why Tiger Bread is called Tiger Bread and the response from Chris King (age 27 & 1/3) at Sainsbury’s. (I bet you, you went ‘ahhh’ when you read them.) Both letters are lovely and we know about it because Lily’s mum put the letter onto her blog and it went viral from there. According to a BBC article Sainsbury’s has now agreed to rename Tiger Bread to Giraffe Bread due to popular demand. (And we all go ‘ahhh’ again, don’t we.)

But what is the renaming of the bread down to?  Is it due to Social Media that customers have been able to influence change. Or did it all begin with the use of more traditional communications? Or is it as simple as someone taking the time to listen to the customer (even if the customer is only 3 1/2.) So as some celebrate the social media for the success for having Giraffe Bread and others might think that the mother is to thank for ‘helping’ Lily to write the letter, or even Chris King who wrote such a lovely response – fact is they all listened. Lily listened enough to question the response she was given, Lily’s mum listened enough to ‘help’ writing the letter and Chris listened enough to respond to the letter. And at the end of it Sainsbury’s listened to everyone enough to change the name of Tiger Bread.

So when was the last time you really listened to your customer – or does the old adage ‘no news is good news’ suffice? I guess Sainsbury’s didn’t see the bread discussion coming (who would) but none-the less they listened and – more importantly – acted upon the opportunity.

If you would like us to listen to you, to help you to listen to your customers better, give us a call.  Who knows where the next Tiger Bread discussion starts…

Nearly done with the preparations for Christmas and a little spare time left (or need a break from shops, lists, wrapping paper and sticky tape?) Then here’s a little festive reality check for you.

According to a survey by Sainsbury’s, the average Brit spends 829 hours (34.5 days!) shopping for Christmas in their lifetime! And it takes 6.3 hours of preparation to transform products from supermarket shelf into the festive menu. However, the average family takes just 75 minutes to enjoy the meal (though I swear I have eaten with far more efficient families!)

And what would Christmas be without spending? ICM Research on behalf of Retail Week surveyed 2030 people in September 2011 about their spending and shopping habits for Christmas. 42% said they would spend the same as last year, 39% vowed to spend less and 10% were anticipating higher spending. It seems that younger people are more likely to spend more. But those youngsters might also be responsible for the fact that 31% said they would do more online shopping this year compared to last, and 42% thought it would be the same amount.

Irrespective of where it’s spent, there is no denying that even in this continuingly difficult economy, huge amounts of money are spent at Christmas.  Found on the web site moneyexpert.com, parents in the UK will spent £2 billion on gifts this Christmas, with an average of £178 on presents and stocking fillers per child.  And it’s serious business: the article carries on to say that a 13-year-old school girl from Bedford threatened to kill Santa Claus in her Christmas wish list, if he didn’t bring the right presents. Her mum has confessed that she will buy her daughter what she wants, with the exception of the demand for a ‘real-life Justin Bieber’. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

More survey analysis next year. Merry Christmas everyone!

Jerry Wellington, Independent Financial Advisor and Director with Financial Planning Concepts, Truro, gives us permission recreate his latest email newsletter.  Whilst the world of finance and banking is complicated and beyond many of us for much of the time, this article takes a slightly different approach of explaining how the worldwide debt crisis came about.

Just like analysing the results of your latest customer survey, sometimes we just need to hear things as they really are!

Dear Robert

My thanks today to one of our clients, we’ll call him ‘S’ for the sake of anonymity, for his contribution explaining the current economic situation as far as he sees it.  Enjoy J

…I always enjoy your newsletters and have decided that there is an opening for more communications of that style.  The following anonymous contribution is my first attempt to keep people informed…

SMART FINANCE!!

Gordon was the proprietor of a bar in Glasgow.  He realises that virtually all of his customers are unemployed alcoholics and as such can no longer afford to patronise his bar.  To solve this problem, he comes up with a new marketing plan that allows his customers to drink now, but pay later.  Gordon keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).

Word gets around about Gordon’s “drink now, pay later” marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into his bar.  Soon he has the largest sales volume for any bar in Glasgow.  By providing his customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Gordon gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, he substantially increases his prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.  Consequently, Gordon’s gross sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic president at the local bank recognises that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Gordon’s borrowing limit.  He sees no reason for any undue concern because he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral!

At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS.  These ‘securities’ are then bundled and traded on international securities markets.  Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them as “AAA Secured Bonds” really are debts of unemployed alcoholics.  Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb – and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation’s leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Gordon’s bar.  He so informs Gordon.  Gordon then demands payment from his alcoholic patrons.  But, being unemployed alcoholics – they cannot pay back their drinking debts.  Since Gordon cannot fulfil his loan obligations he is forced into bankruptcy.  The bar closes and Gordon’s 11 employees lose their jobs.  Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%.

The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank’s liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.  The suppliers of Gordon’s bar had granted him generous payment extensions and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the BOND securities.  They find they are now faced with having to write off his bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.

His wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, his beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion pound no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.  The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never even been in Gordon’s bar.

Now do you understand?

Best wishes

Jerry Wellington

Independent Financial Advisor and Director

Recreated with kind permission of Financial Planning Concepts Limited, 4 Walsingham Place, Truro, TR1 2RP, Tel. 01872 278588

Your invitation to a FREE Bodmin Chamber Network Event

Tuesday 29th November 2011

at the Bodmin Jail

6pm-8pm

Businesses and residents in Bodmin will be pleased to know that Superfast Broadband is just around the corner!

You are invited to join us to hear from our guest speaker Julian Cowans of the Cornwall Development Company.

Julian will be speaking about the Superfast Cornwall programme designed to deliver high-speed fibre optic broadband for Bodmin by Spring 2012, where the new infrastructure will bring about lightning upload and download speeds potentially as high as 40Mbps to 100Mbps.

This is a great opportunity to hear how Superfast Broadband can help your business and ask any questions you may have regarding the benefits this will bring to Bodmin and the rest of Cornwall.

Come along and meet like-minded people in an informal atmosphere where this is a great opportunity to start building business relationships.

This month, there will be no charge for this event.  Refreshments will be available on sale at the bar.

Don’t miss out!  Be at the Jail on Tuesday 29th November at 6 – 8pm.

To book your place, please respond by email or if you need any further information please email or telephone Maggie Halton on 01726 851769.

We look forward to meeting you!

I’ve just stumbled across a blog post by Ivana Taylor, publisher of DIYMarketers, who asks the excellent question, “Are Traditional Online Research Panels Dead?”

Like Ivana, I take an active interest in others’ work and feel a sense of duty to participate in surveys when invited to do so, though often with the professional curiosity to check out the competition and to see if I might just learn something new!

We often make use of independent panels to provide online survey sample. We do so with diligence, wary of how the panel was recruited and conscious that such sources will have particular bias to them – just as  other methodologies will.

One thing we are very aware of is that because the survey is online and responses can be compiled quickly and often relatively inexpensively, it doesn’t mean that the survey has to be “quick and dirty.”  It doesn’t mean that it’s now a techie’s job to implement rather than the exec’s.

With experience, I’d say even more care is needed because there can be more to go wrong. Routing can be complex and when mistakes are made they tend to be highly visible and can be complex. And expensive. How are you going to explain to the client that 100, 500 or 1000 people didn’t answer the most important question on the survey because someone hadn’t re-tested the routing after inserting a new response code?

Whilst online research panels may not be dead, as sure as eggs are eggs they will slowly suffocate if researchers don’t take due responsibility for applying them with care and attention.  Mis-quoting the length of surveys, presenting questions that are highly irrelevant to the respondent or collecting data for 20 minutes before booting out the respondent because he or she doesn’t qualify, are all too common and eroding panel members’ trust and good will.

Panels are far from dead, but if we squeeze life out of them then they soon will be.

Businesses in Cornwall! Can you help please?

For a current piece of research, we’re looking for people in local businesses to join a focus group, where those businesses have either already invested in or are interested in investing in:

– energy management for their business, and/or
- low carbon or renewable energy technologies, such as solar panels, wood fuel, heat pumps, biomass boiler, etc. and/or insulation, lighting, boiler replacement, heat recovery, etc.

If this doesn’t apply to your business but would on a domestic case (or for a member of your family or a neighbour) then we’d also be keen to hear from you for a different focus group.

The group is running in a couple of weeks time – if you think you may be able to help, please drop me a line and either myself or a colleague will give you as call sometime over the next few days to check details.

Thanks! Hope everyone has a great bank holiday weekend.

Regards

Robert Rush
PFA Research Ltd

robert.rush@pfa-research.com
Tel. 01208 262000

Sometimes I feel like I’m spending an unjustifiable amount of time getting the wording in emails or other forms of communications right and I will run emails past colleagues just to be sure. And without a spell check on every computer I would be lost. I always think that this is partially due to the fact that English is not my first language and I haven’t had the opportunity to learn all the ins and outs at school. However, the plus side is that I have a nice feeling of achievement if my suggestions for sentence structure or use of words are taken up, and a childish pleasure if I can find spelling mistakes in official documents. But I do understand that language is a living breathing thing and will change over time. The question is when those changes settle in, what will be acceptable and what won’t be. I am a firm believer in rules and strict guidelines (now there is German heritage for you) when it comes to the written word – not a sentiment everyone shares.

But I was quite reassured in my belief, coming across a BBC news article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14130854) the other day.

Charles Duncombe, an online entrepreneur, says that poor spelling is costing the UK millions of pounds in lost revenue for internet businesses and says finding staff who can spell is a big problem. According to Mr Duncombe many applications of school and university leavers contain spelling mistakes and/or poor grammar and some even use text speak (Oh, I hear you Mr Duncombe!) And taking the PC spell checker away (please don’t!) even more problems are unearthed.

But does spelling really matter when using the Internet and new media? According to the article it does. Mr Duncombe measured the revenue per visitor to the thightsplease.co.uk website and found that the revenue was twice as high after an error was corrected.

So, the old saying ‘If you do something, do it right’ still applies in my opinion. You can use every medium and new media you can think of – if your message looks like you don’t care, why should your audience?

Though my favourite saying has always been ‘A synonym is the word you use if you can’t spell the other one’ – something I do a lot.

I’m Alex and I am at PFA Research doing work experience which is a government scheme where a student in Year 10 or above in a school has a placement on an employer’s premises in which the student carries out a particular task or duty, more or less as would an employee, but with an emphasis on the learning aspects of the experience.

I have found a site for the eCornwall “site of the week”.

Hammer and Thresher is a surf technology and design company focused on the creation of surfing hardware and enhancements in our continuing mission to maximise the energy transfer from wave to rider. Hammer and Thresher is well placed to develop it to its full potential.

Being summer, I chose Hammer and Thresher as the site of the week for starters, because surfing is very appropriate during summer, especially in Cornwall. Bold striking colours on their website attracted me to believe this could be a site of the week, with the rolling pictures, the page is never still. Clever use of text referring to surfing is used as a smart technic of persuasion, giving me confidence in my choice as the site of the week, as they know their selling point, informative and also well-built website.

So overall, I think this is a site of the week because it is appropriate to summer 2011.

My name Alex and I am doing work experience at PFA Research. Work Experience is a government scheme where a student in Year 10 or above in a school has a placement on an employer’s premises in which the student carries out a particular task or duty, more or less as would an employee, but with an emphasis on the learning aspects of the experience.

Although spending most my time on computers at PFA Research on work experience, and not moving all day to different lessons, it’s still not all too different  to Sir James Smith’s secondary school, as you still have to arrive on time and notify someone if absent and staying focused.

Being at school for only an hour less than work experience is not much difference to my usual day, so still having much spare time. However perhaps spending my time working, on the surface, doing much different things, with school I move from lesson to lesson learning whereas here, at PFA Research, I don’t move from lesson to lesson, although still learning about work, obviously through work experience.

Waking up only 30 minutes later for work experience than for school also doesn’t mess the rest of my day up, so with the actual differences between work experience and school are so significantly small, I consider them pretty much the same, with the odd bigger difference.