The End Of Free Business Banking for SMEs?

May 19, 2012 in Finance, Money, Small Business, Small Business Advice

I was disappointed to learn recently that Santander has stopped offering its free business banking service.

Luckily for me, existing Santander business accounts are still free, it is new account holders that now have to pay the usual bank charges. As I have three separate Santander accounts for my three separate streams of income (Small Business Network, chocolate making and reflexology/massage), this is a relief!

However, I am still rather aggrieved that the banks can’t pull out the stops a little more in these tough economic times, in order to help small businesses by offering free or very affordable banking. After all, SMEs are meant to be the life blood of the economy and one of the major keys to its recovery. Unlike many of us, banks do still seem to be doing rather well (if you discount those in Greece, Spain and Italy perhaps), but bank charges are yet another drain on what can be very meagre small business resources right now.

The good news…there is still one way in which you can get free business banking, and this is with the Co-Op via The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).

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Small Business Network Muswell Hill Meeting Report April 2012

April 23, 2012 in Business Networking, Meetings, Muswell Hill Meetings, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, seo, Small Business Advice, Social Media

With just over 20 people at this meeting there was more of a mellow vibe than usual, which offered the chance to soak up the lovely community feel of SBN. As I am one of the many small business owners who works at home on my own, this monthly chance to engage with a great bunch of people is always welcome, and I so often find that it enhances my mood and refreshes my motivation for my work.

A couple of people were displaying products at this month’s meeting: Sarah Montgomery of Forever Living products was giving away samples of aloe vera juice and Vicky Williams of Jewels of Distinction had a table showing her beautiful jewellery, which I personally love (and am busy saving up for!)

Chocolatier Paul Eagles from Kokoa Collection, also brought along some samples – delicious Madagascan fine chocolate buttons. I was lucky enough to get a whole bag which lasted till about five minutes after I got home…

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Small Business Network Muswell Hill Meeting Report March 2012

March 21, 2012 in Business Networking, Meetings, Muswell Hill Meetings, Presentation Skills, Small Business Networking

As usual, a wonderful meeting! We had well over 30 attendees at this event, including 11 ‘newbies’.

More than one person came up to me and commented on what a varied and friendly group of people it was, and how much they were enjoying it. And in SBN’s fifth birthday month (can you believe it?) it was SO great to hear people say that they’d heard so many positive things about us over the years, and were very pleased they’d finally managed to make it along.

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Small Business Network West Hampstead Meeting Report March 2012

March 8, 2012 in g+, Google+, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, seo, Uncategorized, West Hampstead Meetings

There were eight of us at this meeting, so it was a small, but very enjoyable and productive, event.

Some potentially very productive connections were made, for instance between SBN member Eileen MacCallum, a copywriter who specialises in writing/editing web content (amongst other things) and Ciaran Ryan who does Website MOTs for £99.00.

Also present were Melanie Oakley who provides virtual support, Katharine Locke – herbalist and iridologist, accountant Michael Gainey, Marcia MacLeod, copywriter and owner/creator of Your Allotment magazine, Paul Melnick, a representative from Barclays Bank, and yours truly, Liz Bygrave, my other hat (aside from SBN) being raw chocolate.

Our themed discussion, How To Drive More Traffic To Your Website, was really lively and interesting although naturally, we were barely able to scratch the surface of this vast subject in just 30 minutes! It was great to have Ciaran there as SEO is his area of expertise and he was able to give us some fab tips on the topics we did manage to cover: whether it’s still worth doing ‘reciprocal links’; google (how could one have a discussion about seo and not talk about google?!); and how blogging can help to drive more traffic to your site, including how to set up a blog site that will actually help the seo of your website (more on this at the April Muswell Hill meeting – see below).

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Report on the Muswell Hill February 2012 Meeting

February 27, 2012 in LinkedIn, Meetings, Muswell Hill Meetings, Social Media

This was certainly a buzzing meeting – with 26 attendees, we ran out of chairs! Becky Beach of The Best of News and Events kindly sat on a spare table, which at least gave her a good view of the rest of the room…

We had a really wide-ranging mix of attendees, from a pet/homecare service to garden design, a singing group leader to marketing consultancy, coaching to financial advice, creative writing workshops to computer support. Also present were staunch long term members: personal trainer and Alternative Boot Camp organiser Johanna Green, financial advisor Joe Procopio, aloe vera distributer Sarah Montgomery, reflexologist Louise Exeter, web designer and social media expert Lucy Hall and photographer Amanda Eatwell.

 

A warm welcome to newly joined members Amber White, Becky Beach and Franziska Birke. Amber is a reflexologist and massage practitioner specialising in  Baby Massage and Maternity Reflexology; Becky is editor of six North London magazines including The Muswell Flyer, THe Highgate Handbook and The N21 Directory; Franziska is a coach specialising in small businesses.

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Think You Don’t Need Employer’s Liability Insurance? Think Again!

February 24, 2012 in Business Insurance, Small Business, Small Business Advice

Guest Blog by PolicyBee

Employers’ liability insurance is the type of insurance that concerns your staff.

We can’t compare it to anything else (because there’s nothing else like it), so we’ll just stick to explaining what it’s all about instead. It’s worth us taking a look because it’s the only business insurance that’s required by law.

 

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Why should YOU be on google+?

February 8, 2012 in g+, Google+, Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, seo, Social Media, Websites

There’s a short answer to this: the google search engines LOVE websites that display the g+ badge.

This means that Google will prioritise websites that have the g+ badge over websites that don’t, i.e. they will be ranked higher in search results (and don’t we all want that!). And even when more businesses have clocked on to this, similar websites that display the g+ badge will be rotated so that they all have a fair go at the top.

Why is Google doing this? Well, apart from their desire to take over the world, they do seem to genuinely want the little guys who can’t afford to pay megabucks for specialist search engine optimisation to get a decent stab at high rankings when their websites deserve it – i.e. when they have quality frequently updated content that is genuinely there to serve the customer. They see the g+ pages as a way to do this…as well as to take over the world.

HOW TO GET YOUR GOOGLE+ BADGE

To display the g+ badge you first need to have a g+ business page – very similar to a Facebook Fan Page.

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Report on the West Hampstead December 2011 Meeting

December 7, 2011 in Small Business, West Hampstead Meetings

Well initially it looked like it was just going to be myself and copywriter Eileen MacCallum in an extremely small networking meeting! But luckily we had lots of late arrivals so there were ten of us in the end.

Still a small meeting of course, but as tends to be the way with these smaller meetings, they turn out to be just as much fun, and just as productive as the larger events, just in a different way.

So we had what turned out to be a wonderful group exchange, with a particular focus on a couple of the business people there. One was Marcus Greve, a dynamic Dutchman who speaks six languages and has recently set up a fruit and vegetable stall in Brentford, as well as a delivery service for homes and restaurants, with a focus on quality and freshness combined with lower than supermarket prices. Marcus would like to set up a similar stall in West Hampstead so the group was looking at the viability of that (can you believe – one year is the average time it takes to get a license for a market stall?).

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Report on the West Hampstead November 2011 Meeting

November 2, 2011 in Facebook, Meetings, Online Marketing, West Hampstead Meetings

We had 12 attendees, 4 new visitors, and a very useful and interesting masterclass with the delightful Alicia Cowan, who made marketing your business with Facebook sound like a cinch!

It was obvious that quite a few people had made a special effort to come to this meeting because they are struggling with Facebook, or even with the idea of setting up a business Facebook page. Alicia deconstructed the mystery that is Facebook, and succintly described the exact set up process, also giving some tips on what to call your page: ‘Your Name – Your Business Description’ is a good combination.

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Report on the 17 October Muswell Hill Meeting

October 25, 2011 in Business Support CIrcles, Marketing, Meetings, Muswell Hill Meetings, Small Business Advice

About 18 people pitched up on this month, including Nichola Charalambou of Creative Writes, Sarah Montgomery of Forever Living, nutritional therapist/kinesiologist Ella Owen, Rebekah Hillman of Hillman Legal Partnerships David Roth of North London IT Support and Louise Exeter of Reflexology Plus.We also had Elena Logara-Panteli of Finchley language school Lexis London (where I currently do a fabulous French class!).

The first timers included artist Gillian Beagley, marketing and website expert Anita Brookes, and natural toiletries maker Jacalyn. Jacalyn’s products were gorgeous, I was toying with the idea of buying the lemongrass scented handcream but Debby beat me to it! Watch out for Jacalyn outside the Crouch End Budgens where she regularly has a stall. Also present was Norman Bailey who has recently opened an art gallery in Avenue Mews just off Muswell Hill Broadway and has an exhibition starting up soon in Sable D’Or (our meeting venue) itself.

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