I don’t really watch the telly, but I wanted to see the recent Xmas TV ad campaigns from the big retailers.

I have placed here 9 of the big TV adverts for Xmas 2012.

For me, I liked the Morrisons TV ad, even though it is a little depressing there is still some humour in there. I also liked the Asda ad. I think Mum does play a strong role at Xmas time, for me anyway.

2 full days with Nigel Botterill!! I was sitting right in the front row for the two days and gave Nigel 100% of my attention. I sat and listened to every single word and consumed everything he had to give. I was sitting so close that he could have easily spat on me, and that’s how close I feel to business success…so close I can smell it!!

I travelled down to Birmingham on Monday to attend a very exciting Information Marketing Academy, hosted by one of the most successful Entrepreneurs in the UK, Mr. Nigel Botterill.

Nige’s businesses are pretty much based upon the principles of information marketing. In the last eight years Nigel has built from scratch 7 separate million pound plus businesses…pretty impressive!! So you can see why I’m hoping for big things, and why I absconded to England…alone.

…is it just me or is there a distinctive problem with plumbers?

I recommended a plumber to a family friend recently, he turned up to assess the job but never followed back up…at all. In turn the job went to one of the ‘big 6′.

I then spoke to a very good friend of mine recently and he was having the same issue…the guy just wouldn’t get back to him. My friend had to chase him to find out what was going on!!

This might be a BRAND NEW concept for you, and it will BLOW YOUR MIND!!

Technology has come on a lot in the last decade, as you know. You will be interested to find out that you get such things called CALL TRACKING NUMBERS.

Are you thinking about what you are attempting to achieve with your marketing? Make sure you know what the purpose is and what results you are expecting.

Are you tracking the performance of your marketing? Do you know what marketing efforts are working and which aren’t? If you don’t, have a think about how you can find out if they are working or not. This is VERY important. You need to fully understand what works and what doesn’t, and why.

If you have been actively been asking for feedback form your clients and customers you should be able to extract some of that information to use as testimonials.

This blog post provides advice and tips for small business owners who are looking for inspiration for making use of, and collecting information for, testimonials.

As a consumer, personal recommendations from someone you know and trust are the strongest type of recommendations that we can receive. We can see Ecommerce websites such as Amazon.co.uk heavily using recommendations in order to strengthen the consumer purchasing decision. Although third party recommendations do not have the same strength as direct recommendations, I think you will agree that they help when deciding whether or not to make a purchase.

As part of my desire to add value to businesses and business people, I recently ran a trial service to provide professionals and entrepreneurs with great looking and trusting images of themselves. The initial intention was for these images to be used specifically for online social platforms, websites and marketing materials.

I am very glad to report that the event was a success.

I have worked with a few clients now who have decided, for a number of reasons, to have their blog hosted on a different site as opposed to having their blog directly on their company website.

It is possible that there were good reasons for doing this in the first place, however I just want to quickly highlight the positive impact your blog will have upon your website if you integrate it, instead of having it hosted separately.

My Mum kindly purchased this book for me as a gift, and she thought it would inspire me knowing that I am self employed…and she was right!!

James Caan is the Author of Start Your Business in 7 Days, which is a great book for prompting all the fundamental questions for making your business idea a reality. The concept of the book is based around a 7 day cycle, and throughout these 7 days James takes you through all the essentials, including:

• understanding if you are cut out to be an entrepreneur;
• understanding if your idea is really a viable business model;
• understanding how important it is to find out if there is a demand for your product/service;
• understanding how important your costing’s are;
• understanding the importance of research and knowledge.