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Clive and myself had a jolly out of the office yesterday and were invited down to London for a digital marketing event hosted by Yext. The theme was the rise of intelligent services and there was a whole host of superb speakers, from Yext CEO Howard Lerman to Microsoft Search Evangelist, Christi Olson.

It was a genuinely thought provoking day that will change the way all business owners, small or large think about marketing in the future. The audience was full of industry heavyweights including execs from Yell, Tescos, large marketing agencies and everything in-between. But the topics discussed will impact every single business owner.

The key takeaways are that the traditional SEO role is ending, so a 15 year old industry needs to reinvent itself as Digital Knowledge Managers. According to Microsoft, voice search is set to be 50% of all searches by 2020, with Bing being re-positioned and perfectly placed to capitalise on this shift in marketing focus. But the biggest one was that China is ahead of the game in voice search, with Western Europe playing catchup!

There was so much good stuff that business owners need to take on-board, I need to break it down into a few blog posts to make it digestible. But the whole way we currently address and focus our marketing efforts is going to change forever.  Those that react will reap the rewards, while old school mentality will be left far behind. 

Here is me and Clive in full smooch and networking mode  - erm well at least thinking about it 

Exciting and scary times ahead, but stay tuned and I will explain and help out as much as I can.

A virtual office is the perfect way to go. You should be able to get short term deals and gives you the external impression of being larger than you are.

A lot of virtual offices will act as a mail drop for you, be your business address and also provide meeting room facilities so you can entertain clients and host meetings.

Then when you are ready, you can move to a physical office, knowing you have a growing business and can justify any extra expenses. Some small businesses now even prefer virtual offices, or have staff based at different business centres that utilise hot desking, ie a single fee for a workstation access, tea coffee, meeting rooms etc.

There are so many options now and the stigma of virtual offices and staff is a thing of the past, its all about flexibility and keeping costs down and profits up 

Some great advice.

Welcome aboard Keith and with contributions like that, your just the sort of member we are looking for 

Hi Dan, welcome aboard and sounds like you are about to embark on an exciting adventure!

Marketing strategy wise is always going to be dependant on your type  of business, and what works for one may not work for another.

But leaflets are a great inexpensive way of getting your name out locally. Personally I'd be peeved having to open an envelope to look at junk mail. If I'm in the market for a removals firm I'll keep your flyer, if not it will go in the recycling. I would imagine most people would google a removals company so a fast professional looking website is a must. Also don't forget Google My Business listing, which will give you a right hand panel in the Google search results.

Directories are ten a penny and we all want your cash  Down to you if you see perceived value. But even free listings do have value, as long as all your details are correct. Google and the other search engines use these as "citation" references, ie you are who you say you are and offer a little bit of help for your own website.

Most decent directories also have customer review facilities, so as soon as you get genuine customers (please don't fake them!), having  reviews about your business on multiple sources builds credibility and a positive web presence.

Likewise ensure you have a Facebook business page and LinkedIn. Don't be salesy, be social. Facebook marketing can be very powerful, cost effective and very targeted. Google PPC is also very powerful. But it's easy to burn through money if inexperienced and people will try and fleece you are 20% of your budget to manage it for you. Works for some, not for others so maybe some trial and error.

Another good way for credibility is industry associations, so maybe research BAR membership and see if it viable for you. BAR are part of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute Consumer Code, so it means you can put a nice Trading Standards and BAR logo on your wagons, website and marketing literature.

There's a starter for 10, but very best of luck, let us know how you get on and feel free to ask any questions 

What a fuss over her the choice of outfit for the Queens  Speech. Social Media and news channels seemed to be on a bit of a frenzy analysing the fact her Hat looked like the EU flag and the speech was all about Brexit.

I just think she's got a wicked sense of humour, good on you ma'am 

Image from social media, credit unknown.

A recent large update hit our office Windows 10 machines, albeit staggered over a few weeks.

What we have found is that each machine that has been updated, the MS Outlook client is no longer capable of searching.

Now it may be a coincidence, but I'm not a big believer in co-incidences, particularly when Microsoft updates are involved!

Our email is supported by a third party who also provide us with an exchange server, but they seem to be at a loss and any suggested fixes such as rebuilding the index haven't worked.

Unfortunately our man Clive is quite reliant on the search facility so it's causes some pain. Anyone else had the same problem or come across any solutions? Microsoft suggest fix 101, re-install windows, so I'm hoping for a more intelligent response 

I've been hearing about and reading  a lot about technological convergence in recent months. There are many theories doing the rounds but basically the idea is the amount of new technology and ideas that can be combined is going to fuel a new age.

A good example of early technological convergence is the iphone. The fusion of a personal organiser, web browser, phone and entertainment system into a single hand held device.

An example of technological convergence that will have a huge impact on our lives is self-driving or automated electric cars. The electric car is now a valid proposition and is rapidly (finally) evolving month by month, year on year. Couple this then with the competing technologies for automated vehicles, and we will very soon see a revolution in transportation.

With the huge ongoing efforts to come up with a viable artificial intelligence, to breakthrough medical discoveries to even space tourism, the next thirty years could see our workplace, home life and general well being change form all current recognition.

The forces driving these changes are already underway, so from a business point of view it's time to embrace and not ignore. But how do we embrace change when we don't really understand what to expect or how to position ourselves?

Take a look at your own business. What aspects are likely to change in the future?

• Can you visualise how customers will interact with your product or services in the near future?
• Will social media play a bigger part of your customer service experience?
• How many of your customers will start using devices such as Amazon Echo or Google Home?
• Will your teams roles change as automation removes mundane tasks?
• Will your teams location become more scattered or less centralised as remote working becomes more popular?

Times are definitely changing, people will have their own thoughts whether it's for the better or not, but as small business owners we have the opportunity to react and respond quicker than our big business counterparts. 

So are you thinking of the future and taking steps to move your business into this new technological convergence age?

Twitter latest update seems to be a storm in a teacup, obviously a slow news day 

Some funny memes though on the BBC page.

Memes mock Twitter's major redesign - BBC

Doesn't look much of a major redesign to me?

Before:

After:

Aha, I stand corrected 

Not the lifetime supply of meal deals I was hoping for, but a warm cosy feeling none the less

Although a big reader, I was encouraged earlier this year to start reading more business type books. But like most of us with kids spare hours are few and far between, so someone suggested listening to audio books. Now the drive to and from work is filled with inspiration and plenty of fresh ideas, while not taking any more time 

Some of them have been absolutely superb and would strongly recommend you read/listen, challenging what you think you know and making you think smarter.

My current personal favourites are:

The E Myth by Michael Gerber

The E Myth takes you through a scenario of a struggling business, in which the owner is trapped as an employee rather than a business owner. The book charts the process from creating yourself a job to having a systematised business that you work on and runs independently without you.

Certainly resonated with me and I realised I didn't spend enough time working on the business as opposed to in it.

Entrepreneur Revolution by Daniel Priestley

I found this a fascinating insight into the mentality of how people view work, the world and business. Well worth a read, in fact I read it twice. We we are programmed into the industrial age, going to work for someone else, working hard for someones else's goal, so you can  retire, have a couple of holidays in retirement, play golf and die with dignity.

Daniel argues that this age and mentality has moved on and we are now moving into an entrepreneur revolution, and you shouldn't be ashamed of enjoying life now and working for yourself rather giving all your effort for someone else.

The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone

Grant Cordone seems to attract admirers and criticism in equal measure, but I listened to the audio book which is narrated by himself and you can't help but feel energised listening to his enthusiasm. I thought he spoke a lot of sense and his thought process in a nutshell is it will take you 10 times more effort than you think it will to achieve a goal.

So adjust your goals accordingly, increase them by a factor of 10 and apply 10 times more work to achieve them. It's better to only make 60% progress on a £10,000 revenue goal than a £1000 one. 

The Chimp Paradox by Prof Steve Peters

One of my favourite all time books and have applied it's teachings to my team and also to my home life. It's completely changed the way I deal with people, confrontation and now have a much better understanding of why situations occur and how to deal with them.

Prof Peters uses humour and day to day scenarios to explain how the human brain works, why we act as we do and breaks down complex brain science into simple easy to understand areas, the chimp, the computer and the logical brain. The chimp is the emotional part of your brain who is trained to fight or flight, is always on the defensive and is unfortunately 10 times faster than your logical brain. Understanding this is key to confrontation, negotiation and lots of handy techniques for recognising when your chimp is out of control and how to calm him down. He explains everything from road rage, unpleasant confrontations, to marital bickering or even affairs! Can't recommend highly enough  

If you go for the audio book, it's narrated by Prof Peters himself.

You can search for any of these on Amazon or Audible.

So always looking for more inspiration, has anyone got any good suggestions or read/listened to any decent business or self-help books recently?