Blog
Blog
The Curator: How to Thrive as a Middleman
Bringing Value to a Company Being a middleman (or woman) has become risky business in bringing value to a company. When was the last time you used a travel agent? Agencies have largely become irrelevant given the rise of online travel booking companies. How about a...
Where to Start, When Growth Stops
Why would two companies in the same industry, with the same financial performance, command vastly different valuations? The answer often comes down to how much business growth is likely in the future. The problem is that a lot of successful businesses reach a point...
Prevention is Better Than Cure
To grow a valuable business, one you can sell, you need to set up your company so that it is no longer reliant on you as the business specialist. This can be easier said than done. Especially when, like a PR consultant or plumber, what you are selling is your...
Seven Powerful Ratios To Start Tracking Now
If you're selling your business, or planning to sell you business, there are a number of ratios you should start to consider tracking. Doctors in the developing world measure their progress not by the aggregate number of children who die in childbirth, but by the...
Digital Marketing Masterclass: Part 6
Test and Measure When you’re doing online marketing, whether it be from an email through to PPC, SEO, social media, you’re in a position whereby you can track every step of the process. There’s some really good tools out there, things like HubSpot which track inbound...
Digital Marketing Masterclass: Part 5
Data v Creative So, in this particular module I want to cover off why data is more important than creative. Now you’ll have an agency, or you’ll be in a networking group where people will talk about brand and they’ll talk about creative and they’ll talk about having...
Digital Marketing Masterclass: Part 4
Consultative Working So this module covers a consultative approach. Now that could be internally, so you’ve got a team of people over every month, every fortnight, measuring progress in each of the areas as you try something – test and measure, test and measure, as we...
Digital Marketing Masterclass: Part 3
Competitor Analysis This module covers competitive analysis. It’s very important because if you type in the name of your product or service online you will either be somewhere, or you will be nowhere. It’s very important you start to identify and look at the people...
Digital Marketing Masterclass: Part 2
Gross Margin The first key methodology to address, or look at, is gross margin. When I did an MBA, you are given case study after case study after case study after case study, and you learn very quickly to get into the numbers, to look at the management accounts and...
Digital Marketing Masterclass: Part 1
Introduction My name is Mike Raybone, I am Managing Director of AIM Internet and a Business Consultant in Birmingham. This is a series of videos to cover off some of the issues that small business owners face when looking to get involved in marketing or direct...