It regularly surprises me that so many people seem afraid to fail.

When I talk to people about blogging (and often, this is in order to convince them to try it), one of the things I hear a lot is that they are worried about writing something that’s incorrect or that other people might not agree with. WOW, I’ve never thought that when writing these blog pieces. This is an alien concept to me but seeing as though so many people say it, I thought it was worth giving some time to in this post.

I often get a similar reaction when talking to people about how I started my business at 19, straight out of University. They say things like: ‘I could never have done that’, or ‘you’re very brave doing that’ Well the truth is I never even questioned it – not once. Failure was not an option – I was going to throw everything I had at my business in order to see it succeed.

You probably won’t remember back to when you were one, but around that time you probably learnt to walk. Did it happen straight away? Did you bounce up one day from crawling, onto two feet and proudly walk around? I’ll tell you now, you didn’t! You probably had a few goes and quite a few falls – some really hurt. You failed a number of times but you persisted and then, one day, you were finally able to walk

Richard Branson, in his book ‘Business Stripped Bare’ (aff link) gives another good example of this in the music world (one he knows pretty well ). Listen to a musician learning to play a new song. They try and try again before getting it right, they fail hundreds of times, it’s just part of the process.

It seems to me, that as we are growing up we’re more prepared to fail in order to learn. What happens when we become adults? Why do some many people become afraid to step out of line and do something a bit different?

I think this separates the true Entrepreneurs – they don’t have this worry about failure, it’s just part of the process.

So here’s the thing, if you don’t push your boundaries, if you don’t try new things with a preparation for getting it wrong, then you’re not going to get anywhere new. Entrepreneurs are awesome at this – they don’t question failure, it’s part of their makeup. They pick themselves up after a fall, dust themselves off and learn from it.

Through life, you’d be extremely lucky if everything you do works out exactly as planned, every decision you make ends up being the right one – it rarely happens.

So get stuck in – don’t question the what might be’s – try and find out for yourself….today

Do you worry about failure or do you just jump on in? I’m really interested to know your views on this.

p.s. If you like what you’ve read here then you should sign up to my RSS feed and every time I update this site the post will be sent to your reader automatically

At the time of writing this, Amazon actually have a sale on the HD version which is normally £160 and is now about £130. I’m not sure how long it’s on for so get yourself over there and get one quick – I promise you won’t regret it: http://amzn.to/cNBqGU (aff link)

So why and what should you be using Video for in your business?

Here’s a few ideas for you:

• Video your clients giving your business/you testimonials (Here’s one YouGen.co.uk (a client of ours) gave Optix)
• Video reviews of your products of services (Here’s one of a company reviewing the Ipad)
• Video tips relating to your industry – this helps position yourself as an authority (A great guy @robin_dickinson does this brilliantly in his black chair series – these are awesome for business owners by the way)
• Video people that attend seminars you’ve put on, to get good quality honest feedback (Here’s one we took at our Inbound Marketing seminar recenty)
• Video ‘How To’s’ for you products (Here is a How To Use Twitter Video I found quickly)
• Video your staff talking about working for your business

Here’s why it’s worth it:

The Optimisation Game - If you upload your video to YouTube you get two bites of the ‘optimisation cherry’ – Yes, Google own YouTube meaning they have dibs on two of the largest search engines in the world. More often than not you’ll see YouTube video’s shown in search engine results and guess what folks – those are free to get listed in (well apart from the time taken to video them of course) Doing a review of a product on video and uploading it to YouTube is likely to gain hundreds if not thousands of views. With a clever bit of manipulation and optimisation, you could be pulling in traffic you never thought possible.

Video adds credibility – A client of yours can speak more credibly about you than you can about yourself. You are bound to talk about your business with verve and vigour. Having a client talk about your service/product adds authenticity and credibility in bucket loads.

Video conveys more information – There are so many more dimensions on film. Mannerisms, passion and emotion can be seen and evoked with film.

Video shows personality - It can tell a story better than an flat image.

My online marketing business has it’s own YouTube channel over at: http://www.youtube.com/optixsolutions – check it out for a few ideas.

One thing I must say, is that however good flip cameras are, there are limits of what they can achieve for you and this is where I recommend working with a good video production company such as my friends over at KOR Communications who specialise in the production of high quality video and the services that surround that. Companies like KOR have a background in broadcast and can help you with media training (how to conduct yourself on film etc), they can write scripts and they can edit and brand – something you might not feel comfortable with yourself if you’re doing say a corporate video about your business – My experience tells me not to mess about with that kind of thing yourself – get the pros in 

So have you had success with video? What’s the feedback been like around what you’ve produced? Can you link us to any of your work?

Oh and don’t forget that deal at Amazon: http://amzn.to/cNBqGU (aff link)

p.s. If you like what you’ve read here then you should sign up to my RSS feed and every time I update this site the post will be sent to your reader automatically

Whether it be your business or your home life, I know you’ll have been wanting to make changes (probably for years). You’ll have thought about it time and time again but probably never got round to it. Let me guess; you’ll start tomorrow or perhaps New Year would be a good time or you’re going to start when someone else starts with you? Sound familiar? Before I go any further – I’m no different and this is the reason for this post!

A week or two ago Robert Pickstone (whom I know through Twitter) wrote an excellent post on his blog about the #21days challenge and created the hashtag for people to follow. He had read the book by Jack Russell , a Devon based motivational speaker, ‘Don’t tell the bumble bee’ (affiliate link) in which Jack explains that to successfully break a habit or make a change, a consistent period of 21 days of change is needed. Robert decided through social media, to pull people together and see how many he could get to take the challenge.  He now has a good 50+ people committing to start the #21days challenge from this Monday (28^th June) and I will be one of them.

I met Jack Russell about 7 or 8 years ago and he inspired me too.  I’d not heard much about him in the last 5 years (he travels the world so it’s not surprising really) until I saw Robert’s post. I was genuinely excited. I commented back and started to help spread the message to my followers on Twitter.

I’m an open an honest person and am more than happy to share my challenge. I’m planning a two-parter which ties into both business and home life. I plan to address the work life balance first by changing my (somewhat ridiculous) working hours to make sure I’m in earlier in the morning and leaving no later than 6:30pm. I work late most nights which is not particularly healthy for anyone. With these new working hours I intend to change the first part of my day (the first hour before anyone else gets into work) into ‘marketing time’ – I will concentrate purely on the marketing of my business. I will not open up email or tweetdeck – it will be pure marketing time….let’s see how it goes. I’m quite excited!

Just before I submitted this post, I thought I’d give Jack a quick call to let him know what was going on and luckily I managed to get him on the phone. He’s about to go off for a couple of weeks running courses but was absolutely thrilled to hear about this challenge. He wished everyone taking part the very best of luck and hoped to be able to drop into Rob’s blog post to say hi to everyone when he was back.

So are you up for changing anything? If you are why not join us on the hashtag #21days. Get yourself over to Rob’s blog and tell everyone what your plan is, I hope to see you all there and good luck

p.s. If you like what you’ve read here then you should sign up to my RSS feed and every time I update this site the post will be sent to your reader automatically

I’ve met Nigel a couple of times now but this time I was lucky enough to get an hour with him before the big event, discussing ideas and thoughts on business. I’ve written before about how important it is to ditch the negative people in your life and surround yourself with positivity and success – When you chat to someone successful like Nigel you can’t help but be lifted and ideas immediately start to flow – I was at the venue at 5ish and didn’t leave until 9:30pm – it felt like about an hour!

Now i’m not going to simply copy and paste Nigel’s points – that wouldn’t be cricket. However, from the 18 secrets, I’m going to share my big 3 takeaways from the night.

1). “Making the jump from ordinary income to big income business means you need to make the jump from ‘doer’ of the business to ‘marketer’ of the business.” How true – if you’re stuck in the business doing the work on a daily basis, how can you be out promoting it and taking it to the next level? I’ve focused on this quite a lot in my own business in the last year and we’ve certainly reaped the rewards. I’ve built a great team around me who are able to deliver the product, while I market the business. A friend of mine (Richard Carpenter) uses the analogy of driving a car being like running a business: You start by driving the car yourself, taking it in whichever direction you want. The key is to move yourself from the front seat to the back seat and be driven around while you simply direct where you want to go. Although I’m being a bit sneaky by putting two tips into one, Nigel also pointed out that we should all concentrate on our marketing first thing in the morning (pref before anyone else gets into work) – a great piece of advice in my opinion and something I’m going to try and focus on over the next few months.

2). Your most valuable asset in business is your database! Your database is critical to your success if you’re going to make it big. Build it at every opportunity, get in contact with your customers regularly, send them something, make them an offer, give them a reason for coming over or for you to go and see them. There are loads of studies about how much easier it is to sell to your current client base than a new one yet many of us get caught in the trap of trying to pour more and more in the top of our funnels while not looking after the people who have already shown they trust us and are willing to spend their hard-earned with us! Absurd when you think about it! Your database makes it easy to keep in contact – go back and work out a plan for it today. (*If it’s email marketing then get in touch with my team at Optix because they offer an amazing service there – plug over*) I particularly loved this sentence from the presentation:

“It’s not your customer’s job to remember to do business with you….it’s your job to remind them”

3). Commit to learning. No successful businessperson got to where they are sitting on their backside watching TV. Many of these people are continually learning, all day everyday. They have huge libraries of business books, they are like sponges for information. Are you? Do you go home and put the TV on or do you read a business book and learn something new about your industry, competitors or other successful people? This last year I’ve spent time building my library of books, especially in the areas of business success and sales. Here are a few that I’ve read recently which I’d recommend hugely (affiliate links):

The Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness

Think & Grow Rich

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

What Would Google Do?

Little Gold Book of Yes! Attitude: How to Find, Build and Keep a Yes! Attitude for a Lifetime of Success

Little Black Book of Connections: 6.5 Assets for Networking Your Way to Rich Relationships

And thanks to a friend Julian Summerhayes who kindly gave me the following book which I can’t wait to read this week:

The Go-giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea

By the way, here’s the great news for any of you who hate reading (I actually fall into that bracket myself believe it or not) – Check out http://www.audible.co.uk/ – A great site which you can subscribe to and download new audio books/mp3s to your ipod/iphone/mp3 player and catchup with all the great stuff above while on the move

So those were the three big take aways from my night at 18secrets – do you agree with these? Do you have some killer tips to share? Let’s discuss…

p.s. If you like what you’ve read here then you should sign up to my RSS feed and every time I update this site the post will be sent to your reader automatically

Why is this? I think there are a few reasons personally. If you want work, people will appreciate your efforts, they will see how comitted you are, the fact that you’re not just a jobsworth who only does the absolute minimum or just comes for the free food and drink. You’ll also get the chance to talk to far more people than your competitors having been there so early and leaving so late. This tactic also gives you more time to target who you really want to meet.

Something interesting also happens when you’re one of the last at a meeting or in a room after an event – there is an air of relaxation – the actual event is over and most people have gone home. The remaining people have done what they need to do and can relax, meaning the environment for doing business is less stressed. Watch out for this next time and see if you get the same feeling, let me know if you do.

I appreciate this is a short post this week but I can’t stress just how important this has been to my business. In the early days of my web design company, I went to every networking group out there, I got there early, scanned the list of people going, made sure I got to speak to those that I wanted too and then didn’t leave until everyone else did. There is a fine line and you need to make sure you don’t overstay your welcome (i.e. leave when the person putting on the event leaves and see if you can help them clear up but don’t keep them from getting home or you won’t be popular )

So do you get there early and stay late or are you just there for the ‘bit in the middle’ – Has anyone made a pretty penny being one of the above? I’m keen, as always to hear from you.

p.s. If you like what you’ve read here then you should sign up to my RSS feed and every time I update this site the post will be sent to your reader automatically

OK so there are probably hundreds of things you need to be successful in business but I’ve been day dreaming this last week and working out my top 5 – I love a top 5 as you know

So here they are in no particular order

1). Passion – In bucketfuls. I spend an awful lot of my time with other businessmen and women. In my working life, networking constitutes at least half my time. It’s one of the key ways we build our brand and get our company noticed. From there, when people want a job done, we’re at least in with a chance. One trait of seriously successful businessmen and women I’ve met over the years is passion for what they do. Passion is catching; you know when you’ve met someone who is passionate about their business – you come away feeling good about yourself. Without this trait you’re going to start off on the back foot. If can’t get passionate about your business is it the right business for you? Think on that for a while.

2). Sales skills – Every start-up business needs to bring in sales. If you’re on your own then that’s you pal If you’re not and you don’t like selling you better hope you’re in partnership with someone that does. You could have the best product or service in the country but if no-one knows about it then you may as well give up now. Sale’s doesn’t need to be cheesy, it doesn’t need to be immoral, it doesn’t need to feel dirty! Much of good quality sales is about building relationships and making the customer want to buy (not be sold). I strongly suggest reading the book below (affiliate link) which will, without a doubt, help with your sales process. In fact, even if you’re not in sales or running a business, read it anyway because its awesome.

The Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness – You can buy it from Amazon here.

3). A good product or service – Not technically a trait, but the ability to either come up with or be involved in selling a good product or service is a trait that I see all the time in successful people. You make your own luck, you earn it. These people have a sixth sense for getting involved with projects that do well. They fail a lot as well but the difference is the ones that work, really work. I know there are an awful lot of people out there selling sub standard products and services in their business – forget that – it’s a short-term attitude if you ask me. It won’t be long before you’re found out and the churn rate on customers will be huge meaning you never build relationships with people, you continually need new prospects poured in the top of your sales funnel. If you ask me, without a good product or service that you truly believe in, just don’t bother. You need to believe that your customer is truly better off by choosing you over your competitors.

4). A head for numbers and in particular cashflow – Since I started this blog almost exactly a year ago I know for a fact the most blogged about topic has been cashflow. There is a good reason for this – because it’s so damn important Without cashflow you have no business. I’m not going to go over old ground again on this. I wrote quite a lengthy post about cashflow here and even gave a step by step guide on how to write a cash flow forecast – you have no excuse

5). The ability to accept help and support – Business is a lonely place sometimes, help and support is essential but how often have I seen business owners that think they know it all and therefore are not prepared to accept it fail – Too many is the answer!!! Friends and family without their own business may not understand quite what it takes to run a business and unless they ever do it themselves they may never understand. This doesn’t mean you don’t listen to these people or dismiss their input – it can be just as valuable. It’s important to build a network of support around you that you can bounce ideas off. I’m lucky to have a great business partner at Optix Solutions who I bounce ideas off and chat with about strategy regularly. We also have a couple of mentor figures who consult us on the business regularly and keep us on track. We also have supportive families and friends – all of which make the days when it’s not so fun, easier to deal with. The successful businessman or woman doesn’t know it all and is willing to listen to others…do you?

So what are your top 5? Maybe you just want to add in a couple? I’m keen to hear from you

p.s. If you like what you’ve read here then you should sign up to my RSS feed and every time I update this site the post will be sent to your reader automatically

Just before I start, If you were confused by ‘p2p’ in the title it stands for People to People. More on that later.

I want to take a look at something that’s become very important to me recently – personal brand. In my opinion one of the biggest changes in marketing this last year or two (since social media) is the move from business brands to personal brands. There has been a lot of talk about whether you should promote your business through social media channels using a business account, or through personal accounts from staff within the company, or even a combination of the two. I’ve been sitting back studying the trends for quite a while now and have formed my own opinion on this given everything I know and have witnessed through the last year or two. I’m going to use Twitter for this post as it’s probably one of the easiest social media channels to look at.

So if you’re starting up a business or are simply just getting into Social Media how should you create your accounts? I believe there are a few good (not right or wrong) ways of doing this. My view is to research others then adapt these to my own requirements. Here are my recommendations for accounts to look at:

Take a look at the Ford US Twitter account – There is a guy called Scott Monty who heads up social media and under the Ford account, shares the responsibility for tweeting with a number of other staff there. They differentiate the tweets by using the ^ symbol followed by the initials of the staff member there. This has the immediate impact of personalising the brand. The bio clearly defines who does what so when communicating with them you feel like there is a personal touch (shown below):

“·  Bio Drive One. This account is run by @ScottMonty (^SM) & @GwenPeake (^GP), Digital Communications, @JWard35 (^JW) @MSchirmerFord (^MHS), Product Communications”

ASOS the famous online clothing retailer take this a step further and encourage staff members to have their own accounts, preceded with ASOS_ – They appear to then build their own networks while subtly promoting ASOS if there is the opportunity (but not shoving things down people’s throats). This is another great way of spreading a brand message using a personal touch.

Dell Outlet use Twitter for coupons and promo codes for their outlet store. They were famously one of the first major brands to come out in public with a true social media ROI. They have other accounts for customer service and engaging users although interestingly they appear to now be engaging much more on this Outlet account (maybe someone had a word!). There is speculation over whether a social network should be used for pure sales like this and I certainly wouldn’t advise you try this if you’re in an SME without brand power like Dell, but clearly its working for them so one to watch.

At Optix Solutions we have a number of accounts – The main Optix account is used to promote client websites, site launches and news from the business. It’s definitely been harder to build followers on this account but we do see it as another strand to the businesses marketing mix. We also do our best to show our business personality promoting things like new staff, goals, achievements and events that we put on – like #optixhatday (where all the staff had to wear a hat) and #optixhawaainday (where we dressed in colourful clothing because of the rubbish summer we had). We then encourage our staff to create their own accounts and build their own networks. This is really important as a business because of the power in numbers. The more people we are talking to locally, the more know us, the more likely we are to pick up the opportunity to quote on work as and when it happens. None of these accounts directly sell, they simply build relationships.

Olivier Blanchard (The Brand Builder) wrote a fantastic post on a new classification of business p2p (person to person).

I completely agree with Olivier’s post and am really looking forward to doing business in a new ‘p2p world’ but for these companies to exist and flourish it’s vital that some of the more old school way of thinking is put aside and staff are empowered to concentrate on their personal brands.

Aren Grimshaw of Tonick Media summed this up for me at the recent Likeminds event in Exeter. He said, ‘The simple way of describing the use of social media in businesses is to draw the analogy with the traditional village shop where you walked in and the owner knew your name, what you bought each time and probably asked how your partner and kids were at the same time’. It’s all about personal service and personal connections. Nail this and you’ll nail social media channels like Twitter

These maybe basic, but for the starters amongst you here are my ‘Banksy’s top 5 tips’ for working on your personal brand online:

1). Use a picture of your face on social networks – where possible use the same picture across the networks for consistency. Some people like to show themselves doing something they enjoy (like sport) – This is fine if you can see the face too. It’s important to personalise a medium which could be seen as fairly impersonal. Don’t hide behind a silly avatar. I like to recognise who I’m talking too and then when I meet them in real life I know instantly who they are.

2). Be likeable – This goes for all walks of life – on and offline but is so important. Consider what people say about you when you’re not in the room – if you’re not sure or are worried about this, you may just need to think about your attitude a bit and work on it.

3). Be Helpful – Don’t spend all day talking about yourself or trolling other people. No one likes listening to someone else go on about themselves all day or belittling others. Consider what you can do to help your friends, family and colleagues now. Go and do something memorable for them this minute. Give value without expecting anything in return – it’s a philosophy that will stand you in good stead. On social media platforms like Twitter you need to make sure you’re retweeting people, thanking them when they retweet you and point your followers in the direction of information they would find useful.

4). Mix it up – Business and Pleasure – In my opinion it’s much easier to relate to someone if they are a mixture of business and pleasure. It’s far easier to get on with someone if you can uncover things that they like to do outside work and perhaps common interests.

5). Attitude – Ok, so maybe this is covered by some of the points above but it’s just so important to everything you do and how far you’ll go. Do you wake up in the morning full of life, go to work and love what you do? Attitude is catching – make sure you surround yourself with positive people where possible, they will rub off on you and help you succeed. In the same way, negative people will drain you – rid your life of these people.

So if you’re going to be a p2p company as Olivier’s blog sets out, you need to make sure you and all your staff (if you have them) adopt these values early and make sure they are ingrained in the fabric of your organisation.

Bonjour

P.S. We’ve partnered with the forward-thinking team at Like Minds to produce a White Paper on how businesses are (or aren’t!) using Social Media and we would love for you to be a part of it! All you need to do is take a few minutes to fill out the survey here: http://bit.ly/9FUt8W.

p.p.s. If you like what you’ve read here then you should sign up to my RSS feed and every time I update this site the post will be sent to your reader automatically

The speaker line up included names from Orange, Sky, Ogilvy, Reuters and one of the world’s leading social media masters – Chris Brogan (author of best selling book – Trust Agents). It was nicely balanced however with local participants such as John Harvey, Exeter’s city centre manager, Helena Holt, CEO of Devon Air Ambulance and many others, not to mention the fantastic ‘Endevours’, where local charities were given 5 mins on stage to promote their causes. Likeminds is exciting for a city like Exeter, most events of this type are held in larger cities like London, so to have people descend on Exeter for a couple of days is unbelievable, raising both the profile of city and showing what great waves it’s making in the social media world. It would be very easy to write for days and days about this event (as many others will) and in light of the fact that this blog is aiming at reaching out to young entrepreneurs and adding value to people looking to start up businesses, I’m going to pick up on how it felt to spend some of the day with a social media ‘rockstar’ – Chris Brogan.

If you’re not in the social media or marketing world yourself you’d be forgiven for not having heard about this guy but for those of us who are, let me tell you, he’s a bit of a hero. He co-authored (Affiliate Link) Trust Agents, a fantastic book about how you should conduct yourself online and build trust and the rewards that can lead to. He has over 100k twitter followers and thousands of people subscribe to his blog.

I was extremely lucky to have the opportunity to talk with Chris a couple of times that day, at Lunch (where he even paid the tables tab!) and at dinner for the sponsors and speakers in the evening (how lucky was I!). This is a very humble guy – it would be very easy in Chris’ position to simply rub shoulders with the other people around the world who share his success but I get the feeling his mantra is about never forgetting where you’ve been and helping the up and coming stars (in fact he references this in his book and definitely carries it out in real life). All day, Chris gave his time to whomever approached him, always happy to share stories and sign books – it must have been pretty exhausting for him but he never once looked uninterested in anyone – in fact, far from it, he always showed interest beyond the call of duty. This is how he does business and in my opinion it’s one of the main reasons he’s been so successful. I see the same traits in Trey Pennington (whom I also met from Likeminds last year). These guys are just genuinely nice and make it their business to help others (they are true connectors) – they know when they do this that they will benefit, maybe not immediately but certainly over time. This has been part of the way I’ve built my business. Where possible I try and add value to others, helping them with their problems or challenges – I never ask for anything in return, but over time this definitely leads to more good than bad experiences. I’d strongly recommend you considering this path for your business too.

Another thing that particularly impressed me about Chris was his ability with names. Chris signed my book at lunch and asked me my first name for it, later that night, having met literally hundreds of people he was still calling me by it and that was special – I noticed he did this with everyone he met. I wrote a post about the importance of a name a while ago. This skill is so important in getting ahead in business and clearly Chris knows this.

I want to end on something Chris said in his keynote speech at the end of Likeminds. It was probably my ‘take-away’ for the day – ‘Make your customers feel special’ – Chris talks of the ‘guest experience’ for customers, a term coined by Disney I believe. This is essentially going the extra mile for them and leaving them with a warm feeling, one that makes them want to refer you on. This was also one of the points that Jeffrey Gitomer makes about great customer service being the number one priority for any company – get that right and you’re on the road to success. I learnt about a system called the ‘net promoter score’ the other day – it’s a system that monitors how many of your customers would be prepared to refer your business. Most companies struggle to get above 30% and in fact many are far lower. It strikes me that social media tools, on top of good company principles and values would lead companies to increasing their NPS scores, something I may focus on in another blog post sometime. We’re all looking for more success, I think it’s absolutely vital to remember everyone that’s helped you on the way up and make sure that you always remain true to your values – Chris Brogan is a bit of a master at this and I learnt a lot from the day with him. I hope to have passed some on to you all out there.

Make sure you follow Chris on @chrisbrogan

P.S. We’ve partnered with the forward-thinking team at Like Minds to produce a White Paper on how businesses are (or aren’t!) using Social Media and we would love for you to be a part of it! All you need to do is take a few minutes to fill out the survey here: http://bit.ly/9FUt8W.

p.p.s. If you like what you’ve read here then you should sign up to my RSS feed and every time I update this site the post will be sent to your reader automatically

If you’re new to the location based games world then let me bring you up to speed as quickly as possible. This is another one of those big ‘Internet crazes’ (Some say it could be the new Twitter or Facebook!!). Once again, the UK finds itself a little behind the US but it won’t be long before we start to catch up and see a lot of people playing these location based games. In America there are literally thousands and thousands of people online but in a town like Exeter where I’m from, in Devon, there are only a handful of people playing (all testing the water much like myself).

Here’s a really simplified overview of how these games work:

• Via a mobile website or application, a user/player ‘checks-in’ to a location – usually a place of work/cafe/restaurant
• User is geo-targeted by mobile device so they can only log in if they are actually in the vicinity.
• User then gets rewards in the way of points, items and badges for checking in
• User can choose to post this to social media sites like Twitter or Facebook – This is where much of the outrage and the idea of Please Rob Me has come from
• Leaderboards (in some games) give a sense of competition and keep users interested (stickiness)
• In the US, clever business owners are catching onto publicity/marketing opportunities for these games – for example, in one of the games if you check-in the most times at a location you are known as ‘The Mayor’ of that place – Cafe’s/Restaurants are rewarding these loyal customers with good deals or even freebies. In some cases, it goes further and points built up on these games can actually be traded as currency at these locations – old fashioned loyalty schemes packaged in a new and exciting way.

There are two big players in this arena with a number of other applications also using location. The two big players in town are Foursquare and Gowalla, with services like Google Buzz and Yelp also determining your position to give you location specific data or tell others where you are.

As I noted in the bullet points above, this is an exciting opportunity for savvy business owners to cash in on the new ‘mobile generation’ and over the next 12 months this will be an interesting market to watch in the UK. It’s one that I certainly intend to continue using and advising my clients on.

So – The Flipside – Should we all be frightened about using these new websites and apps? Are we really telling people when we’re not in and that we’re an easy target to burgle? My opinion is that in some ways this service opens us up to potential risk if used incorrectly. Like most services online you need to approach them with a degree of common sense, if you do this, then I don’t see why you can’t enjoy the benefits of services such as Foursquare and Gowalla and the exciting new opportunities these will bring to the UK.

I just want to throw in a few reasons why I don’t think you should be worried:

• A lot of burglary is opportunistic – If someone is planning via Twitter and other social media sites then my guess is they are going to go to other serious lengths to get into your property anyway
• Just because I check-in somewhere doesn’t mean my partner/housemate/dog/cat/friends aren’t at my house ready for any unsuspecting would be Twitter burglar (see my points below for word of caution)
• A huge proportion of homes are empty in the day while people go to work – should we all stop working because we’re letting people know we are not at home?
• If someone wants to see if you’re at home, they probably only need to walk by your house and make a few quick decisions on whether you are there or not (car there/lights etc…)
• I would guess that a stake out of a house is far more effective than a stake out of someone’s twitter account if someone really wants to get to your property
• A check-in doesn’t specify a time period – you could be checking in just as you leave a location and are on your way home!

The Dutch creators of Please Rob Me claim to have created the site in order to point out the risks involved in using these services – If this is the case, I personally think they should go a little further in giving some tips to users on how to minimise their risk. As they don’t, here are mine – please spread them round to people you know using these games:

• Don’t check-in when you are at home – That tells people where you live in the first place
• Don’t let friends and family check-in when they are at your home – See above….
• Don’t check-in mentioning you’re with your partner/housemates – Even though you’re out and about, they may well not be
• Don’t check-in on holiday – now that’s a risk I don’t believe is worth taking
• If you want to be ultra cautious and as it’s not time specific, check-in when you’re just leaving the venue and on your way home

If you start playing these games, do it with a degree of common sense and have fun – the opportunities they present are fantastic.

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1). Come up with a company name – Might sound obvious but when you make a success of it then this will stick and be quite difficult to change. A lot of people ask me where the name Optix Solutions comes from and to be perfectly honest here is the answer:

• 4 guys sitting in a university bedroom chatting about setting up in business
• Probably a few beers had been sunk (we were students after all)
• One said, ‘Web Design is quite visual’
• Another said ‘Optical – that’s visual’
• ‘Optical Solutions’ someone shouted out
• ‘How about Optix Solutions – that’s a bit more street!’

So there you have it – easy as that! Now as it happens I quite like our name and its worked well for us but given the chance again I probably would have put some more thought into it and considered the future when it started to become a known name in our town – I’d urge anyone going through this process to do the same.

2). Register your domain name – I pondered over which should come first – this point or the next. I decided on domain names because of the difficulty of getting good ones these days. In an ideal world your domain name would:

• Be Short(ish) – although almost every permutation of 3 and 4 letters have been taken
• Protect your brand – register .com / .co.uk / .net and any other relevant endings for your type of business
• Try and avoid hyphens where possible – they are difficult to spell out over a phone and confuse people
• Not point traffic at competitors or unsavoury sites – If you can’t get all the endings for a domain you want, make sure you check what is on the ending that’s already registered. Users make mistakes and you want to see what site you’ll be sending traffic too – I’ve seen some terrible examples of this happen to people I know

If you’re not sure on domains then take advice and talk to people that know about them. At Optix we regularly advise on domains and register on our clients behalf. Give our office a call on 01392 667766 if you want some friendly help.

3). Register your company name – Once you have the name you should probably do a few things based on where you want to take the business. I’m a firm believer in starting by creating a limited company where you’re protected as the business owner. You probably don’t know if you’re going to make a success of it, so the more protection the better. If you’re on a shoestring, then you might not be able to afford to speak to Solicitors at this stage, but in an ideal world you’d want to check there are no trademarks or other legal issues you could come up against later, when you become well known. A solicitor will be able to run quick checks on names to let you know whether this is likely to be an issue. As a startup I never saw the importance of this but as I’ve become more business savvy and seen examples of people having to change brand and company names that they’ve poured thousands and thousands of pounds into, because they never made these checks, I now understand the need for it. Registering a company name is something you need to do at Companies house – there are plenty of agents out there that will do it all for you for about a hundred quid – We used a company called Jordans who were excellent.

4). Find a good Accountant/Bookkeeper – The number of small business owners that I meet that try and do their own books and accounts is unbelievable! Why would you do that? It’s hard enough running a business as it is without then having to work out a whole new world of numbers that go with it. Oh, and then there’s the small point about getting it wrong as well. You don’t want that to happen or you could end up with all sorts of problems to deal with. There are plenty of fantastic bookkeepers and accountants around who are setup to help start-ups. You won’t need someone in full time, you’ll probably only need that person one or two days every week/month at first, to enter data and help with things like Tax and VAT. For under £20 an hour (bookkeeper) that is money well spent in my opinion and one I truly feel any small business needs to budget for. Accountants are more expensive and I would advise trying to find one you can pay for monthly rather than getting lumbered with a large bill when accounts come round each year – this will help cash flow and save you from a yearly heart attack each time you file your accounts.

5). Find a good Solicitor – Like Accountants, Solicitors are a necessity for some things. You can probably word your own terms and conditions and contracts if you want but you’ll be on thin ice if anything happens and you need representation. When you get into the world of leasing or buying, you’ll have to employ a solicitor to assist you anyway. My advice is get in with a firm early. There are lots of firms out there who will offer you 30mins to an hour free and my advice would be to go and speak to a few and choose someone you like and has a good reputation. We work with a firm call Ashford’s whose head office is in Exeter but they work all around the world. The guys at Ashford’s are fantastic and I can recommend them wholeheartedly – They’ve acted for me on a number of things, all business related.

6). Talk to local business advisors – Some love em, some loathe them, but my experience of organisations like Business Link has been relatively positive. Find a good advisor at this organisation and they will really help you succeed in business and here’s the best thing for you start-ups – its FREE! Yes the magic word! Because of the fact its free they are usually stacked out which is why I always recommend you find yourself  mentor as well and pay them (See this post about mentoring). Give Business Link a call and they will help signpost you if they can’t answer questions themselves.

7). Find a good Bank Manager – Notice how I say Bank Manager and not just Bank? Your relationship with your bank manager will be critical to your success. You never know when you’ll want that overdraft extended or perhaps the limits on your card increased, or even just a better rate on something. Well this will almost certainly come down to your relationship with your bank manager. Go to each bank and spend some time with the commercial managers there and choose on relationship and gut feel (throw in some sense on what they are offering too of course). We love our bank manager at Optix (bet you don’t hear that said very often!) – If you’re in Exeter then I would be delighted to make the introduction to him should you so wish.

It’s funny how things flow back to you when you start writing about the past. Start-up can be a really exciting time – just make sure you’re not too proud to get as much advice as possible and soak it all in. As ever, I wish you the best of luck.

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