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This week, with the help of Mary Thomas, Nick Mason and Howard Feather, Ben explores how successful businesses can overcome difficulties, both professional and personal to strive for success.
Hosted by Ben Thompson, the Oxford Business Podcast is a monthly podcast featuring conversations with experts in a range of fields including marketing, finance and sales.
Ben Thompson 0:07
Welcome to the podcast of the Oxford Business Community Network produced by Story Ninety-Four in their podcast studio in Oxford, an amazing place, definitely recommend coming to have a look. My name is Ben Thompson, co-owner of the Oxford Business Community Network. Our podcast aims to share the expertise, knowledge and experience of our members covering those key issues impacting your business. For this episode, really delighted to be joined by three people that I respect highly. So we've got Mary Thomas of Concise Training and Concise Digital, we've got Nick Mason of Wagner Mason accountants, and we've got Howard Feather, Howard Feather Business Advisor. And today we're going to be talking about all things related to owning a small business in Oxfordshire. So let's just start by introducing our guests today. So Mary, tell our listeners a little bit more about you.
Mary Thomas 0:54
Hi, so I'm Mary Thomas and my businesses are Concise Training and Concise Digital. We've been going since 2008 and we are all about digital marketing. So on the training side of the business, we will help you do your own digital marketing. So we have e-learning courses, we do webinars, I do consultancy, and we do City and Guilds qualifications. When I say digital marketing, I mean all of the different social media channels, blogging, websites, and search engine optimisation, you can learn it all and do it for yourself. Or if you don't want to do for yourself, we offer an outsourced approach. So we are website designers, we do SEO, we manage social media campaigns across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and we also do paid social media campaigns, as well as blog posting and newsletters.
Ben Thompson 1:41
Amazing. Thank you for the intro and Nick, tell the listeners a little bit more about you.
Nick Mason 1:45
Sure, Ben. My name is Nick Mason. I'm a chartered accountant, I run Wagner Mason accountants. We work with our clients to make sure their compliance is out of the way early. By that I mean getting their accounts in corporation tax and personal tax file with HMRC and Companies House in a timely manner rather than wait till the last minute and making sure they minimise their tax in a legitimate way and most importantly, we work with them to make sure they've got the financial information they need to run their business on a day to day basis.
Ben Thompson 2:14
Amazing. Perfect. And last but not least, Howard.
Howard Feather 2:16
Hello Ben, thanks for having us. So it's Howard Feather of Howard Feather Business Advisors and I think I'm gonna use this 30 seconds that went quite well down at the OBCN the other day, and I'm a practising musician, I've focused on three octaves of business. The middle one is coaching and mentoring where I challenged business owners and really challenged their thought processes. The octave below is that of more of a consultant where I tell them what they don't know. And then the octave above is therapist, I listened to those problems and let them air those problems out.
Ben Thompson 2:43
Absolutely. And certainly one of the best presentations that I've seen in networking. So hats off to you on that one. So let's just start the round table if that's okay. So Mary, focusing, I guess, before we come to marketing with your small business hat on and maybe blend marketing in, if you wish. What makes a successful small business? What do you see?
Mary Thomas 3:05
Somebody who understands their market has to be from a marketing point of view, and understands their money, in an accounting point of view. But it's flexible. I think, particularly over the last few years, it's been really important to have that flexibility, and be prepared to change, divert, and go with the flow.
Ben Thompson 3:27
Really good insight. I'm gonna bring a similar question along to you, Nick. I know Mary touched on money there. But there's lots of stats out there, isn't there about the percentage of businesses that fail within the first five years or whatever else? What do you see, as I guess, across your clients, or across Oxfordshire, in terms of the trends that makes a successful small business,
Nick Mason 3:50
Probably understanding the numbers and being on top of the numbers. I mean, in the old days, you might get businesses that didn't have a clue whether it made a profit until nine months after the year-end when the accountants presented with a set of accounts. Whereas these days with the cloud bookkeeping software, you can know to the second where you're at in terms of like your P&L, and in terms of your balance sheet. So by that, I mean, in terms of who owes you money, who do you owe money to? So what's your sort of cash balance? Because a lot of businesses get into trouble when they run out of cash and that could be because if not chased any customers to pay them off, they've done the work or they're paying their suppliers too early, or whatever it is really. So yeah, yeah. Being on top of the numbers,
Ben Thompson 4:36
No, good insight. Howard, a bit more of a fluffy question for you if that's okay. But I think, you know, we're all small business owners and I think sometimes running a business can be a lonely place, and I think that certainly when it's your own business, the bad days at work are certainly worse than the normal bad days and the good days and the highs, highs are a lot higher. What do you see with your clients in terms of, I guess, keep going, what, you know, what techniques do you give in terms of, I guess, keep focused on the goal and I guess bounce back from that lonely place, I guess.
Howard Feather 5:11
Yeah, of course, if it's alright, I'll go actually addressed the question a bit, taking a step back. And I think what you've hit on is as small business owners, it's really raw, we're really emotionally attached to our business, it's all us. All three of us have got our names in our business, when you're working for somebody else, it's somebody else's brand, it's somebody else's values. It's somebody else's problem. But actually, as a small business owner, it always falls on you and you mentioned the good days and bad days, the bad days can normally outnumber the good days, however, we focus on the negative, even if you've got nine good days in a row, that one bad day, just kind of massive, massive, and that's where the loneliness comes from because you've got nowhere to turn to and I think that's one of the things a lot of my clients find is they struggle to, where do I go for when that happens? Who do I talk to you? What do I turn to? At work, we've got a, or when we work for a big corporate, we've got structures in we've got managers, we've got HR, team colleagues, but actually, as the business owner, there is no one to go to and I think one of the things I find easiest, and I know everyone in this room is find a peer group of people that are in the same boat. Networking is a really easy, low-hanging fruit with that one is because everyone that goes networking is in the same boat at some point, they've gone through that journey, they've gone through that, wait a minute, have I just made a silly mistake and just gone and bought a printer for loads more money than I should have? Or have I actually made a sound investment? I need somebody just to bounce that off across.
No, absolutely. No, you made some really good points there. Mary I'm going to come across to you because I think that one of the things that we often hear said is that everybody starts their business because they're an expert at something. So you're an expert in marketing, or whatever else, but actually running our business, we're not necessarily an expert in all the parts. So if you don't run a marketing business, you're probably not an expert in marketing. If you don't run an accountancy firm, you're probably not an expert in finance. So I guess, what would be your advice to small businesses under that umbrella of marketing? And what are the things to do and the things not to do? I guess.
Mary Thomas 7:19
Ooh, that's a... how long have you got? I'm going to start with something that sounds really, really basic, but it's something we had today, actually, we've got a new client or a new prospect, has a great business idea, has come up with a great name, it actually describes his business really well and so he wanted to use that as a domain name, you know, so we went off and he looked for domain names and the dot coms gone, but the .co.uk is available. So we said, yeah, go, that's what my business name is going to be. Let's get the logo sorted out, let's get everything else and we sort of then said, Okay, so who wants to do social media. The name's gone on Facebook, the name's gone on Instagram. So what's the point of having that brand name with the domain name, if it doesn't match up? And it sounds really really obvious, but it's a mistake that so many people make, and they want to create this brand name, which is great, it means they want people don't want people to recognise it. But then if they've got to use a different name on Facebook, and a different name, again, perhaps on Instagram, it's a really easy thing to do. Right?
Ben Thompson 8:27
Definitely.
Mary Thomas 8:28
But could have a lot of consequences when you do it wrong. So I'd say that's one thing, from a very, very basic point of view that we come across a lot. But then it's the traditional marketing, it's understanding your product, it's understanding who your target market is. It's understanding where your target market hang out, where you're going to find them on all these digital channels. Are they actually on digital channels? Are they on the right digital channels, and then how you're going to start talking to them and unfortunately, these days, you've got to put money behind it. You've got to advertise on Twitter, certainly on social media and I'd also say always have a website don't rely on social media, there are a lot of businesses that have set up, particularly during lockdown, a lot of businesses set up on Facebook, particularly and then they upset Facebook and Facebook decided to shut them down and they've got no business.
Ben Thompson 9:21
Really interesting and just building on that, do you believe that that's due to budgets or because it's, I guess an easier point of entry, setting up a Facebook page then it is to go to an expert and get a website built.
Mary Thomas 9:35
It's definitely an easier point of entry, isn't it? Everybody thinks they know Facebook, so it's easy to set up a Facebook, talk to my friends. My friends buy from me, they support me. But as the business then grows, all your contacts one Facebook and I don't know, we all know that Facebook gets upset very quickly and there's nobody you can talk to about it. So if that does happen, then you've lost your contacts, so you've got to drive them to your website.
Ben Thompson 10:02
No that's really good points really, really good points. Nick, I'm gonna come across to you because I think the reason you are my accountant, other than being a nice guy, not that I tell you that is because you're very practical, aren't you? And like Mary and Howard, you're very practical with the advice and I think that a lot of our accountants aren't saying put your mobile phone through the business or do the £50 vouchers and those kinds of things. I guess in terms of continuing with that practicality, what are the biggest things that you see when you take on a new client that they're I guess, not doing under kind of the finance umbrella? And I guess, a secondary question to that and the answer might just be no. Should small businesses have a budget? Should they be budgeting? And should they be, I guess despite being small, should they be looking at, okay, I have a marketing budget, I have a coaching and consultancy budget, I have a X budget.
Nick Mason 10:02
I mean, taking the second point, I mean, I think when a small business is starting out their resources often scarce and need to spend their money wisely. So I suppose they need to identify what's going to give them the best value for that money they've got to spend, because they might not have sort of thousands to spend on marketing or accountancy or whatever, really. So I suppose yeah, having some sort of budget and where it's going to spend them. What they expect back from it is a good idea, really. But in terms of a new business, when they're starting out. I mean, a lot of people start their own business, because they're very good at something and delivering that to their clients, but they're not necessarily, like you picked up and start with to the point to Mary, they're not necessarily know anything about HR, hiring people, finance and all these other aspects of running a business. So suddenly, they're going from something they're experts at, to doing all these other things that they don't really know that much about. So I suppose it's finding where they need the help the most and using their resource there, really. But if they've got a complex business, then doing all their, like finance and bookkeeping themselves might not be a great idea, because it could all go horribly wrong, and they wind up spending more to have it corrected afterwards and likewise, if they don't spend any money on marketing, they've got no other source to generate any clients, where's the work going to come from? And so on really.
Ben Thompson 12:31
No, absolutely. No really, really good point and I think one of the things I've learned about small business is often it's very easy to try and save money, but actually the biggest cost of most things, whether that be marketing or recruitment or whatever else is putting it right when it goes wrong. So now it's some really, really interesting points. Howard, you're known across Oxfordshire as Mr Networker, you certainly do a lot of it and you're very good at connecting different people in different businesses and I think my perspective with networking is a lot of people say, Oh, you can only network if you're an accountant, you'll do really well or if you're an insurance broker, you will be you'll do really well in, in various groups. What's been your kind of view on networking and how have you become so well known in networking and what are kind of your top tips under the networking umbrella?
Howard Feather 13:22
Well, first of all, thank you for the compliment. I'll take it. I think it's very much actually like the points to both Nick and Mary have said, is having an outcome before you start and actually thinking about why you're bothering doing it, why you're doing it. If you're going to spend some money, why are you spending it? What do you want out of that? And networking is a fantastic marketing stream, it is my preferred one. But it's not a quick win, like probably most forms of marketing and actually, if we're doing our accounts, right, we're doing anything with our business properly. It's not a quick win. It's the long one that we're in for. The secrets of networking is carrying on trying to learn how to do it, because I would absolutely guarantee I still don't know what I'm doing. But I was told at a very young age, you've got two ears and one mouth, use them in that proportion. If you listen more than you talk at networking, and everyone around this room will find that ironic. But if you've listened more than you talk, you will actually understand and listen to what people are doing. So whether they're trying to sell their product, whether they're asking for advice, whether they're asking for help, and then you can then match people up and link people with like-minded people, because you've been listening. So if Nick needed somebody who's in HR, well, I know straightaway that we've got to look for someone who likes golf, because if they don't like golf, they're not going to like Nick and that you can straightaway work out what relationships are going to work just because you've listened to both sides of that party and actually, is it I need a holding hand and saying yes, I need a bit of help and that's what I need or am I just voicing an opinion and I just need to be validated that I'm right. And that's the secret I think.
Ben Thompson 15:00
Absolutely, some really, really good advice there. Mary, moving, I guess, from networking to online, one of the things that I think we all see quite regularly, but you would see more than we do is under that kind of marketing umbrella when you get businesses who market market market, they try and do it themselves, or they don't do it themselves, or they find somebody through whatever platform and spend a lot of money on something, and then they get really busy and then they turn off or it doesn't work, and then they start again. So I guess, under the marketing umbrella, what would be, and I appreciate there isn't gonna be a one size fits all, but what's your broad advice to businesses under marketing in terms of should it be consistent? Should it be turned off when you don't need it? Should you just keep it there? Like how should marketing spend work and how should I get a marketing strategy work in terms of during those busy times, and indeed less busy times?
Mary Thomas 16:00
It will depend on business to business inevitably. But I think there is an underlying I guess it's an underlying hum that you need to have. So you always need to be producing regular, useful content. And the way, you said marketing, marketing, marketing, a lot of people sell, sell, sell, and people definitely aren't on social channels, any social channels to be sold to. So it's a matter of adding useful information in a very similar way to when you go networking, you offer useful information, added value, you do exactly the same thing online. So you have that general hum, where everything is branded, preferably. But everything is useful. It's added value content. So people get a brand awareness about you, a message about you and then perhaps when you're less busy, you might do some more shouty work, where you are doing more campaigns where perhaps you're completing more videos out there or more reels out there, or your perhaps you put money behind it. And then there's almost another level on top of that, where you're sort of really yelling, where you got a much more specified campaign, perhaps of doing a competition or something like that, where you're really driving traffic to get an audience. I think there's the three levels that you could do that you can potentially turn on or off. But everything, my philosophy is everything, virtually everything to 75/80% of what you do has to be added value. People have to have a reason to follow you. If you just talk about your latest product all the time. I have this so what, who cares, actually? So it's how you offer value or how you have you generate brand awareness?
Ben Thompson 17:45
No really, really, really good advice there. No, thank you, Nick, coming back to you under I guess kind of this small business umbrella really? What should businesses do when it's not going so well? So I think I think we've talked kind of quite positively so far, in this episode of the podcast about, you know, the good practices, so whether that be around networking, or whether that be around finance, or whether that be around marketing, but when we're looking at a business that might be starting to run short of cash, or might be starting to go a bit quiet on clients or something's not quite going right, what would be your advice and I guess, how do you counteract that?
Nick Mason 18:27
Well I suppose you've got to try and identify what's causing the issue, isn't it? Because if it's lack of cash, then why is it lack of cash? Is it because you're losing money? Or is it because you're not getting the money in from clients? Because he's not getting the money from clients. And that's something that can potentially be much easier to resolve really by just sort of having some basic credit control procedures and how you go about collecting money. But I suppose if you're losing money, then I suppose it's have you got unnecessary costs in the business you can cut out? Are you pricing your work properly? I mean, I suppose some businesses don't really understand what margins they're making on their product, they might sort of say, well, I buy it for X and sell it for Y, but they don't build in the full cost of what it actually costs to sell their product or the overheads and etc, involved in it. So I suppose it's understanding what is the issue and then seeing if something can be done about it. But obviously, like, if it's I suppose, if you're losing money and you're not in a position to raise your prices, or go and find some more customers with a better margin, then you've got to seriously consider whether that's the right business model to carry on with really, where someone like I'm a business coach, like Howard, would obviously step in and give you some support with that.
Ben Thompson 19:54
No, definitely, definitely. It's really interesting. I think we've all seen businesses through networking and through our own networks that, you know, they're run by such lovely people and potentially it's a good product, but not necessarily good business. So it's really good honest advice there. Howard, Nick's set you up quite nicely there, didn't he in terms of that. So I do have a question for you, but maybe build on that point first.
Howard Feather 20:20
Yeah, I think one of the problems that small businesses own, let's, again, we've mentioned, we've put our names all over it, we pour our passion into it. So let alone our own money. So we've pulled up time, our blood and sweat, I mean, you'll hear small business owners singing their praises about how much blood, sweat and tears they poured into their business. But when you've put that much of an emotional investment into the business, no wonder we don't want to give up and there are analogies that we can find all of the diamond miner that I think it was an inch, if he carried on going one further, inch he would have hit the biggest diamond mine in 100 years over in America. But we all have to draw a personal line where we feel actually, I can't go any further and we've got to make sure that we've got that network of people, those close friends or advisers that we can turn to and go, am I going in the right direction? Am I trying to reinvent the wheel here and I'm missing the point completely? Or am I on the right thing, but I just need to make one more tweak and I think there's there's a million-dollar question of which way to go. But actually, as long as it feels right for you and you're doing it for the right reasons, it's always going to be the right way. I am a huge believer, there is no correct way of doing business. But there are certainly a lot of wrong ways of doing it. So we've got to make sure that we're not going down those blind alleys and making sure that we've got the people giving us the right advice at the right time.
Ben Thompson 21:42
No good, good advice there. Good advice. Just building on that one Howard, I've used the word lonely a few times in this podcast, hopefully, people are still enjoying the podcast, rather than making it sound lonely. But if you work within a corporate, you have that support network ahead of you, don't you but when you're the head of a business, you have a support network in a different way and I think it's really easy for us to presume everybody knows what we do. So can you just kind of talk to the listeners a little bit more about the support that you could offer to clients? Or I guess more broadly, the support a coach or consultant or mentor would offer in that way, just to be quite useful for the listeners?
Howard Feather 22:25
Yeah, of course, I think diving back each advisor, mentor, coach will be do them in a different way. But primarily it's going to be that sounding board. So it's going to be somebody that you can share almost those deep, dark thoughts of, is this going horribly wrong? Am I doing right? And you get to bounce those ideas off because, again, as a small business owner, you've got 100 ideas, 100 things, plates spinning all the time. So sometimes you do just need to stop addressing and when we're in the corporate world. It's called an annual review. It's called a quarterly review, we do that with our bosses weekly and if you're underperforming, it's even more often. But as I say, that's one of the reasons a lot of us left. But when you're on your own, we don't get a chance to stop, we've always got something else we could be doing. We've got that invoice we could be chasing what if I just do this, that's another sale. If I go to one more networking meeting, I might get the next big one and we're always chasing, we very rarely stop until our accountant says right, I need everything from the last year and we go oh wait a minute and we have a look how I did last year. But it's just a taking that stop, addressing what's happening right now, almost as well as stopping to celebrate the successes, I think that's probably one of the biggest failings, that small business owners do that they could they're constantly pedalling, they're constantly going for more, they're constantly striving for bigger, that they miss each and every one of their successes along the way and again, it's another really subjective term success because what I call successful, it's going to be different from every person around this table. Society will tell us it's the big flashy car, it's millions of pounds in the bank account, it's whatever. But actually, everybody's version of success is different. So something I tell a lot of my clients is comparison will kill all of the joy in the business. As soon as you compare yourself to anybody else. You're ruined, the monkey starts sitting on your shoulder and they start whispering those horrible things that all small business owners hear regularly, and a business coach or an advisor, or even just a mentor, somebody you network with regularly, holding you accountable just to check are you all right? How's things going? Have you done what you said you do last month? That's, for me the most powerful part of what we do.
Ben Thompson 24:37
A really good overview, thank you for that. Mary, just something I sort of it's quite a big topic, but I would like to give you a big topic to answer within the time limit, Nick did touch on it earlier in terms of that kind of what you do yourself and what you outsource and I think that you're incredibly well qualified to talk about that because you train businesses how to do the marketing themselves, but you also do it for them. What's your view in terms of what should be done in-house and what should be outsourced? And I appreciate, there's probably not a one size fits all. But I guess, what are the considerations when making that... I guess that thought process?
Mary Thomas 25:19
Okay, so I think it all comes down to the skills available in the business a lot of the time the business has. But when we're talking to businesses about an outsourced approach, we would be thinking about what are the... you're creating content, or you're creating posts for social media, or you're updating your website if it's something that has to happen right now. So if it has to happen, right in the next 24 hours, because something is happening, and it's that urgent, then you probably want to do that yourself. Because the nicest one in the world, not many agencies, unless you're paying them an awful lot of money, are going to be able to respond, guaranteed that quickly. So when we respond as quickly as we can, but if it's that if you're doing a lot of it, where it's real-time, you're probably best off doing yourself, if you are the person behind the business. So if you are the business, and you're a one-man band, and your personality is the business, then it's a good idea to do your own videos, and probably your own posting yourself. It's going to be difficult to outsource that sort of thing, because you got to lose that personality. There's two ideas.
Ben Thompson 26:32
Good advice, really good advice, and certainly what I was looking for, so no, thank you for that. We have come to the end of the episode. But I just want to end by saying thank you so much to the three of you for, yes, such insights. Certainly three people that I think we've all four of us have come together through networking and yeah, I think there's the common phrase in networking know, like and trust, isn't it? And certainly, certainly me to the three of you, I would yes, certainly use that phrase today. Thank you for that.
If you are just listening in to the Oxford Business Podcast, of the Oxford Business Community Network, I definitely recommend listening back in. So we've had Mary Thomas of Concise Training and Concise Digital, Nick Mason of Wagner Mason accountants and Howard Feather of Howard Feather Business Advisors. So thank you again, to the three of you, and also to Story Ninety Four for producing this podcast and their amazing podcast studio in Oxford. Please do subscribe to our podcasts and we look forward to sharing more information with you very very soon. Thank you so much.