13 May Thinking outside the box.

Raising your profile and thinking outside the box.

The key to survival for any small business is to constantly look at ways to develop your offering and raise your profile.  Whatever your current situation, find time to review what your current services offer and what else you could do to add value in what you do.

Adding to your offering and raising your profile don’t need to be huge things which take vast budgets to achieve – small changes and improvements and provide a huge Return on Investment if they answer a current need or requirement of your existing or future clients.

Website – How people see your business is very important when it comes down to picking from a number of potential suppliers, make sure you are clear on who you are and what you do, with clear USPs. Whilst there are many self-design options for websites, it is recommend widely to invest in a professionally designed website which is set up to maximise the effectiveness of your content and offering.

Social Media – Whether you like them or not you cannot argue with the power of social media – good and bad and sharing your message and offer across these platforms is vital to get the message out there to prospective clients.  There are many different platforms, four of the more popular ones in the UK are: (Facts and Figures from https://influencermarketinghub.com/social-media-sites/)

• • Facebook – The world’s largest social media site it is an excellent choice to share your business with a large audience.
  • Twitter – The social media site that allows its users to stay on top of trending topics and engage in relevant conversations. In 2018, the platform had 326 million monthly active users. It has a highly engaged user base, with over 500 million tweets per day on average being Tweeted.
  • Instagram – One of the fastest growing social media sites in 2018, and is very popular with the ages of 18-34 with over 60% of it audience in these categories.
  • Linked In – Often referred to as Facebook for professionals, it is very popular with B2B Businesses. The platform has grown rapidly over the years with over 610 million members. Members can expand their professional connections on the platform, showcase their portfolios, and search and apply for jobs.

Memberships  – As a small businesses we are often members of a number of bodies, such as a Chamber or a sector or industry body. These may offer you ways of advertising and raising your profile through their website or platform to other members as well as other businesses and member of the public seeking services. Look into your member benefits and be sure to make the most of them.

Accreditations – ‘When we next have a quiet period we must get that accreditation’ does this sound like you? We are all guilty of saying when we have time. Sometimes things are worth making time for and by doing a little each week you can have those accreditations on the wall in no time. Start by doing some research as to what the accreditation requires and write a to do list. Our sister company KCS Compliance can help with all of this, click here for more information https://www.kcscompliance.com/ If you get your paperwork in order it can often be a much easier process than you would imagine. Most businesses have the practises in place and already comply with most of the requirements and its mainly the administrative side that puts many businesses off.

Try something different – More so now than ever we are seeing businesses thinking outside the box and looking to see what they could offer or produce to either help the current situation or provide support during this time.  From businesses making hospital beds to offering free advice in specific areas of expertise. Joe Wicks PE Sessions are a great example of helping the nation during these times of uncertainty. Those businesses that can develop a new portfolio of services or change working practices are likely to be in a better position as we exit from lockdown.

Within the tender writing industry we have found a number of new clients contacting us who are using this time to look at different ways of increasing their work.  Where many would not have had the time to look at tendering for larger public sector contracts, they are now finding more time to consider this as an option for generating new business.

Raising your profile and increasing your Service offering will help you when submitting Tenders, those businesses who can show the services they offer and the work they do in a professional manner and understand who they are stand a better chance of being able to ‘sell’ themselves during the tender process.

As always we are working with our clients to help and support them in finding and winning new contract work. If you would like to talk to us about how we can help you find new opportunities, help support you on being Covid 19 compliant as you return to the workplace, managing accreditations, or writing tender responses, then please get in contact  https://www.bidandtendersupport.co.uk/contact/