Congratulations to Diane Shawe for becoming one of the 2023 Start Up Awards Finalists for her Shoppers Discount Club Business.
Dudley based startup Shoppers Discount Club has been named a finalist ahead of the Midland Final of the StartUp Awards.
The StartUp Awards has been launched to recognise the booming startup scene across the UK which has accelerated since the 2019 pandemic. Over 800,000 new businesses were founded in the UK since 2021, a 4.3% increase from the year before.
A record number of businesses applied to this year’s StartUp Awards, with 1,100 firms shortlisted across ten UK nations and regions. The contribution of these firms – all of which were started in the last three years – is significant, having created over 5,000 new jobs since they were established and generating annual sales of £584 million.
The Shoppers Discount Club is a using AI Conversational Chatbots and QR codes to help bricks and mortar retailers offer live discounts to shopper via their mobile phones in real time, helping retailers attract more footfall into their businesses founded by Diane Shawe in 2022. The business has been nominated for the Mobile and Emerging Technology StartUp of the Year.
Diane Shawe, founder of Shoppers Discount Club, said: “This is amazing. I have a business on the High Street and the idea came to me when I was trying to think of a way that us the retailers could compete with online discounts and offers in real time to attract more footfall. I focused on a solution using Artificial Intelligence Technology Chatbots and QR codes that could instantly engage passer-by in real time and entice them to claim their instant discount via their mobile phone and would not cost a fortune for retailers to use. Its been working for my business as customers are surprised that they can claim an instant discount on certain treatments. ”
Supported nationally by Starling Bank, British Business Bank, BT, Creative Ideaz, GS1 UK, Jeeves, Join Talent, ScoreApp and The Purposeful Project, the programme will celebrate the achievements of the amazing individuals who have turned an idea into an opportunity and taken the risk to launch a new product or service.
The cohort of finalists will be considered for the regional prizes by a panel of seasoned judges with experience founding or supporting entrepreneurial ventures.
Professor Dylan Jones-Evans OBE, the creator of the StartUp Awards, said:
“ Start-up businesses are the lifeblood of any economy, being responsible for new jobs, innovation and in supporting communities in every nation and region across the UK.
All of the finalists this year represent the best of those entrepreneurs who have spotted an opportunity and through their sheer hard work, talent and perseverance, have created an amazing new business that is creating real impact in its sector.”
The StartUp Awards was created in collaboration with the team behind the Great British Entrepreneur Awards, one of the most successful awards programmes in the UK. The StartUp Awards are running for the second year after launching in 2022.
This year’s StartUp Awards finalists can be found online at
The StartUp Awards is a collaboration between the founders of the Great British Entrepreneur Awards – an established programme nationally receiving thousands applications annually – and the Wales Start-Up Awards, the only regional awards currently celebrating new businesses in the UK.
The StartUp Awards will recognise the achievements of those amazing individuals who have had a great idea, spotted the opportunity and taken the risks to launch a new product or service.
Already established and thriving in Wales, the StartUp Awards is now taking the passion and drive to celebrate new business and extending across the whole of the United Kingdom.
Every New Year, I have always checked for the top business growth tips and trends. This year I have decided to present my own because we the business community are stillliving in unprecedented times of uncertainty, fear, transformation, deception, confusion, and outright disruption of the old world ways of doing business.
I am Diane Shawe founder of Virtual Speedy Services Ltd (which I gave birth to during the first lockdown) and author of ‘Answer 77 Questions about your business to avoid business failure’ shares her top small business growth strategies for the year ahead.
2022 has been a year of rapid transformation across all industries as the business community has dealt with shifting customer buying activities and economic challenges, as well as mitigating hot-button issues such as the pandemic and people’s changing conception of work life balance. In a year filled with change, there are some trends that are going to be firmly fixed into 2023 that I am certainly considering. I believe that all businesses should seriously build some or all of these points into your growth plans.
To lead your business in the right direction, here are my humble 10 small business growth strategies.
1. Prioritise your business culture
Throughout the pandemic, businesses have been dealing with “The Great Resignation” as workers are quitting their jobs at record-high rates. One of the reasons for this is that people are changing their definitions of what they consider a healthy work-life balance and what they want in a company culture.
I have certainly seen that the pandemic has shifted the way people incorporate work into their life, whether it’s moving to another county for cheaper housing or not wanting to go into the office every day.
Exploring the opportunity to do remote or hybrid work online or become dropshipping businesses.
In today’s environment, not all solutions are made equal, and culture is now a part of that. “A big factor for employees, in addition to salary and benefits, is culture (wanting more time at home with family, for instance, or having a more flexible working environment. ) so have a culture strategy in place.
2. Consider hiring more freelance workers
The number of gig workers, freelancers, and contractors has grown exponentially over the last few years, and they make up a large portion of workers within the current market.
Small business owners will now be able to bring in more specialised freelance workers to carry out tasks without having to deal with the hiring and training costs that are often associated with recruiting a full-time employee, with the importance of being agile in today’s economic environment. More people are comfortable with remote working and outsourcing their skills.
Peopleperhour.com and fiverr.com are great places to start.
3. Work with micro-influencers
While small businesses may be competing against larger businesses to work with online influencers, collaborating with micro-influencers is an option to consider.
As influencer marketing is becoming more popular than ever… micro-influencers are going to be the best option for small businesses because they don’t cost as much, and they are more open to collaborating with small businesses too.
Adding a couple of these small influencers as a part of your marketing strategy could help you reach specific audiences; growth might not be an impossible feat in 2023.
4. Leverage the way you supply your products and services.
Distributors and businesses across the country have challenging supply chain issues with the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic fallout and its subsequent economic disruptions. In 2023, businesses must be aware of scarcities within the supply chain and get ahead of manufacturing and transportation challenges by working collaboratively with their suppliers.
Checkout companies like Amazon who can provide a fulfilment service for your orders. Consider moving to a drop shipping manufacturer or warehouse so as to reduce your cash investment in slow-moving stock. If you are a bricks and mortar retail business consider launching a online store so customers can place orders.
5. Educate the client and partner with your new paradigms
It’s important to inform your clients and partners about changes you’re making to better benefit your business across a shifting economic landscape. If the changes don’t land, it may be time to consider other options,
Many businesses are painfully aware of how much the talent pool has changed. Working with potential employees and client partners to educate them on the new management styles needed, increased compensation packages, and other aspects of recruitment and retention are very important.
6. Prepare for potential contracting opportunities
Almost 80 new businesses were created every hour across the UK in the first half of 2021, according to research by iwoca – one of Europe’s largest small business lenders.
Analysis of Companies House data reveals that 340,534 businesses were registered in the UK between January and June 2021, an increase of 32% from 257,243 over the same time period in 2019.
London dominates a list of areas to start a business
Iwoca’s Small Business HotSpots UK 2021 reveals that Camden saw the largest number of businesses registered out of all UK local authorities, with 19,755 new companies – a rate of more than four and a half new firms every hour.
The second largest number of new businesses were registered in Hackney (13,646), followed by 10,151 in Westminster. London’s local authorities make up half of the top 10, which also includes Birmingham in 5th with 7,442 new firms and Kent placing 7th with 6,504 businesses.
London saw over one-third of the new registrations with 120,338, followed by the South East (37,573) and North West (33,640). The capital city also witnessed the largest increase in new business registration compared to 2019 of 59%, with the West Midlands registering a 49% rise followed by the North East (28%).
Christoph Rieche, iwoca CEO and co-founder, said: “It is fantastic to see the creation of so many businesses during the first half of this year, they are testament to the entrepreneurial spirit which characterises our vibrant economy.
“Many of these businesses will be unnecessarily constrained by cashflow. At iwoca, we turn cash flow into a superpower, enabling them to grow faster and worry less. We look forward to working with many of them.”
Why is such a growth happening?
A survey I read stated that 39% of people in current jobs are going to quit within the next 12 months, which is not great for an employer, but suggests a start of a business revolution is happening.
What advice would I give to somebody looking to start a business?
There is never a good time to do it, and you just must go for it. It’s all encompassing, and it’s a phenomenon. I just decided to go for it in 2000 and have never looked back. However, you can be clever about it, though – can you cut down your hours in your current role, or could you work part-time initially? Explore your options wisely.
7. Get creative on sales and marketing opportunities
The digital marketing landscape has become increasingly challenging due to congestion and evolving regulations.
This is forcing many traditionally digital companies to explore other sales channels and marketing strategies.
To mitigate these challenges, business should engage with A.I. Conversational Marketing Technologies with its engaging methods it can help explode online conversational engagement with a virtual tool. 8. Widen your business’s online footprint
Small businesses must adapt and be “practical” when it comes to sales, as consumers continue to favour online and mobile shopping.
Businesses need to widen their online footprint to gain a significant proportion of customers from the current market,
A simple way to sell products is to have a sellers account on your popular social media or e-store platforms. To sell services, … list your company on freelance and contract websites.” Also create a blog and YouTube website for reviewing products, testimonials, advice, and tips. Become the expert in your field. Entry competitions, exhibitions, and network meetings.
We have recently launched our online store http://www.online-store.needahairmakeover.co
9. Learn video SEO strategies to rank higher on search engines
Video marketing has become an integral part of a successful marketing strategy with the rise of live videos on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. It’s estimated that by 2022, videos will account for 82% of all consumer traffic. That’s why video SEO should be a top priority for businesses in 2022.
“Small businesses that incorporate short-form videos into their website posts will see more organic traffic coming from search engines,” explained Gilmour. “As TikTok continues to grow, search engine algorithms will shift to articles and posts that include short-form videos. Short-form videos from TikTok and YouTube may even become the main point of ‘how to’ searches.”
10. Utilise partnership marketing to reach a broader audience
Partnership marketing is a strategic collaboration that gives you and your partner company a chance to reach a wider audience together, explained Diane Shawe, founder of Virtual Speedy Services Ltd.
“Collaboration with another company can aid in the development of better marketing initiatives that benefit both parties, If your target clients are similar, you may pool your resources to better your marketing techniques, build your brands and expand your audience reach.”
Start to use smart customer acquisition techniques such as collaborating with discount giants such as wowcher, groupon, or discount voucher websites to help get your business name, brand, or services directly into potential customers mobile.
“Another example, if a consumer purchases a product from you, you can provide a discount coupon that they can use to purchase discounted products from your business partner,” said Diane. “Co-branding of a product or project can also boost both companies’ marketing power.”
Virtual Speedy Services Ltd is set up to provide a suite of services for small and medium-sized businesses to help them efficiently and quickly set up or expand their business. Our core service is AI technology by designing conversational marketing chatbots to generate quality business leads or engage online visitors in real time. We have just launched the Shoppers Discount Club App. Click to find out more https://shoppersdiscount.club
8 minutes and 46 seconds struck a match globally and for most people after being in lockdown for 2 months, a time to slow down, digest, rest and reflect, this 8 minutes and 46 seconds removed the pink tinted glasses around the world about race relations, justice and inequality.
Firstly I needed to look up and define the different faces of stigma.
a) Public stigma is the reaction that the general population has to people with mental illness.
b) Self-stigma is the prejudice which people with mental illness turn against themselves.
c) Both public and self-stigma may be understood in terms of three components: stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination
An example of stigma is the spot on an otherwise blemish-free potato. So when a person maintains they have not experienced racism, or they have black friends or I just don’t get it, they are in some way claiming that in accordance to their blemish free experience it does not exist. Probably not a fabulous example, but we can all improvise.
I have been impressed and recently stimulated by George Baldwin a author who used his distinct perspective and lyrical writing to shed light on issues of race, homosexuality, and religion in a way that placed him ahead of his time when it came to social commentary. One of his poignant quotes ‘times’ as follows:
“What is it you want me to reconcile myself to? I was born here almost sixty years ago. I’m not going to live another sixty years. You always told me it takes time. It has taken my father’s time, my mother’s time. My uncle’s time. My brother’s and sister’s time. My niece’s and my nephew’s time.
How much time do you want for your…’progress’?”
So I want to try and reframe the argument for racism by describing it as Social Oppression. Maybe this way more individuals might be able to see, feel and put into context the often intangible experiences of racism which is alien to some.
Social oppressionis a concept that describes the relationship between two categories of people in which one benefits from the systematic abuse and exploitation of the other. Because social oppression is something that occurs between categories of people, it should not be confused with the oppressive behaviour of individuals. In cases of social oppression, all members of the dominant and subordinate groups are involved, regardless of individual attitudes or behaviour.
The outcome of social oppression is that groups in society are sorted into different positions within the social hierarchies of race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability. Those in the controlling, or dominant group, benefit from the oppression of other groups through heightened privileges relative to others, greater access to rights and resources, a better quality of life, and overall greater life chances. Those who experience the brunt of oppression have fewer rights, less access to resources, less political power, lower economic potential, worse health and higher mortality rates, and lower overall life chances.
Groups that experience oppression within the United States and other Countries include racial and ethnic minorities, women, poor LGBT people, and the lower classes and the poor. Groups that benefit from oppression in the U.S. include white people (and sometimes light-skinned racial and ethnic minorities), men, heterosexual people, and the middle and upper classes.
One thing we should be able to agree on
All humans belong to the same species (Homo sapiens) and sub-species (Homo sapiens sapiens), but small genetic variations trigger varying physical appearances.
Another prospective for instance – in the sea and rivers around the world it is filled with thousands of different fish’s but they are all still fishes because primarily they can only survive in water. Just imagine a group of fishes deciding that another group of fishes did not deserve or fit the criteria to exist in water? They devised strategies to segregate, disenfranchise, starve, degrade and kill, what do you think would happen?
Though humans often are subdivided into races, the actual morphological variations don’t indicate major differences in DNA.
The DNA of two humans chosen at random generally varies by less than 0.1%. Because racial genetic differences aren’t strong, some scientists describe all humans as belonging to a single race: the human race.
Race vs. Ethnicity
Examples of ethnicity include being labelled as Irish, Jewish, or Cambodian, regardless of race. Ethnicity is considered an anthropological term because it is based on learned behaviours, not biological factors. Many people have mixed cultural backgrounds and can share in more than one ethnicity.
Race and ethnicity can overlap. For example, a Japanese-American would probably consider herself a member of the Japanese or Asian race, but, if she doesn’t engage in any practices or customs of her ancestors, she might not identify with the ethnicity, instead considering herself an American.
Another way to look at the difference is to consider people who share the same ethnicity. Two people might identify their ethnicity as American, yet one is black and the other white. A person born of Asian descent growing up in Britain might identify racially as Asian and ethnically as British.
Race Trumps Ethnicity
New York University sociology professor Dalton Conley spoke to PBS about the difference between race and ethnicity for the program “Race: The Power of an Illusion”: “The fundamental difference is that race is socially imposed and hierarchical. There is an inequality built into the system. Furthermore, you have no control over your race; it’s how you’re perceived by others.”
Conley, like other sociologists, argues that ethnicity is more fluid and crosses racial lines:
“I have a friend who was born in Korea to Korean parents, but as an infant, she was adopted by an Italian family in Italy. Ethnically, she feels Italian: She eats Italian food, she speaks Italian, she knows Italian history and culture. She knows nothing about Korean history and culture. But when she comes to the United States, she’s treated racially as Asian.”
Key Takeaways
Differences between race and ethnicity:
Race is biological, while ethnicity is cultural.
Ethnicity can be displayed or hidden, while race generally cannot be.
Ethnicity can be adopted, ignored, or broadened, while racial characteristics cannot.
Ethnicity has subcategories, while races no longer do.
Both have been used to subjugate or persecute people.
Some sociologists believe that racial divisions are based more on sociological concepts than biological principles.
All groups make up a society, social oppression disenfranchised the interconnect structure.
A lone brick cannot build a house, collective brick can, but it has to be based on a strong foundation.
So what needs to be put right
To start with to put in place procedures and policies with zero tolerance to being misinterpreted to correct the collective failure of any institution or organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin.
We have seen the rise of diversity employees and training, but this is often window dressing.
When institutions and organisations prepare there risk assessment, there SWOT analysis there ISO 9001 the findings are then written into the DNA of the company or organisation to ensure there survival.
Educational institutions are important because they need to equally inform their students about the truth of history so that it does not keep repeating the warped narrowing that perpetuates ignorance, victimisation, intolerance and oppressive entitlement behaviours.
I finish with scripture
Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, ‘Here’s a good seat for you,’ but say to the poor man, ‘You stand there’ or ‘Sit on the floor by my feet,’ have you not discriminated among yourselves and becomes judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom He promised those who love Him? But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court?” James 2:2-6
Even though we have all had more time on our hands to effectively rest during lockdown, it would appear that more and more people are actually stressed! Why is this? Stressed if we have no time and stressed if we have to much time. If this is the case then perhaps we’re needed to take a closer look at stress, examine what causes it and holds we can manage it daily.
Stress Man. Businessman suffers from a headache
Stess is created by worrying about things in the future or things that have already happened, both of which you cannot change at the very moment you are worrying about it. Before you read any further do this little test. ‘At this very very moment Whist you are reading this is there a problem affecting you reading this article at this moment in time
Everything seems much faster, urgent and possibly unfilling! Everyone snoops around asking or trying to create a new moment resolution that they all know they won’t keep for the whole twelve days let alone a year.
Living too much into the future or reliving the past are both causes of fear and pain. These are often the questions one is faced with:
• How can you stop the pain?
• How can you switch your mind off,
• how can you stop worrying?
• How can you relax?
• How can I be happy?
30 minutes coffee break ebook available on Amazon and Google Books
Well two words’acceptance‘ and ‘surrender‘ is a good place to start. Become fully present so that the past and future can ceases to have any power over you causing stress, worry and unhappiness.
If only out life was like typing when we can simply undo, delete or Hyperlink to a quick useful reference but alas, lots of things are unavoidable in life. Never before has it become more important to find ways to decrease and prevent stressful incidents and decrease negative reactions to stress, especially as they can lead to short or long term illnesses.
Here are some of the things that can be done instantly by just remembering to be conscious of them.
Managing time
Time management skills can allow you more time with your family and friends and possibly increase your performance and productivity. This will help reduce your stress.
To improve your time management:
• Save time by focusing and concentrating, delegating, and scheduling time for yourself.
• Keep a record of how you spend your time, including work, family, and leisure time.
• Prioritise your time by rating tasks by importance and urgency.
• Redirect your time to those activities that are important and meaningful to you.
• Manage your commitments by not over- or undercommitting. Don’t commit to what is not important to you.
• Deal with procrastination by using a day planner, breaking large projects into smaller ones, and setting short-term deadlines.
• Examine your beliefs to reduce conflict between what you believe and what your life is like.
• Build healthy coping strategies
It is important that you identify your coping strategies. One way to do this is by recording the stressful event, your reaction, and how you cope in a stress journal. With this information, you can work to change unhealthy coping strategies into healthy ones-those that help you focus on the positive and what you can change or control in your life.
Plan how you are going to reduce Stress and Conflict
Lifestyle
Some behaviors and lifestyle choices affect your stress level. They may not cause stress directly, but they can interfere with the ways your body seeks relief from stress. Try to:
• Balance personal, work, and family needs and obligations.
• Have a sense of purpose in life.
• Get enough sleep, since your body recovers from the stresses of the day while you are sleeping.
• Eat a balanced diet for a nutritional defense against stress.
• Get moderate exercise throughout the week.
• Limit your consumption of alcohol.
• Don’t smoke.
Social support
Social support is a major factor in how we experience stress. Social support is the positive support you receive from family, friends, and the community. It is the knowledge that you are cared for, loved, esteemed, and valued. More and more research indicates a strong relationship between social support and better mental and physical health.
Changing your thinking can help change everyone’s mood
Changing thinking
When an event triggers negative thoughts, you may experience fear, insecurity, anxiety, depression, rage, guilt, and a sense of worthlessness or powerlessness. These emotions trigger the body’s stress, just as an actual threat does. Dealing with your negative thoughts and how you see things can help reduce stress.
• Thought-catching helps you stop a negative thought to help eliminate stress.
• Disproving irrational thoughts helps you to avoid exaggerating the negative thought, anticipating the worst, and interpreting an event incorrectly.
• Problem solving helps you identify all aspects of a stressful event and find ways to deal with it.
• Changing your communication style helps you communicate in a way that makes your views known without making others feel put down, hostile, or intimidated.
This reduces the stress that comes from poor communication. Use the assertiveness ladder to improve your communication style.
Courses available now
Continued Personal Development
Life long learning it’s important to you’re continued growth and smiley to core with lives every changing environment, circumstances and economical . Everyday life can often present challenges and like any thing in life if you don’t equip yourself with the right tools trying to fix the problem with the wrong tools can itself be the greater
In this post I’ll show you how to get some top quality back links (a hyper link from one site to another) from a variety of different sources, each source is completely unique and I hope to give you a little insight into some of the methods you can use to create back links . When linking to your website you should always try to focus the links using your keywords in the anchor text of the link if it’s possible.
The big G allows you to create your very own profile page on Google.com, use the link and create your own profile page, add a picture and some text about yourself and then add a few links to your websites. Save the page and your done.
Msn is updated everyday with news and articles on just about every subject you can think of, to get a backlink you just need to comment on an article leaving behind your thoughts, name & website link. I created a video on the process to see it use this linkUsing MSN for free traffic & backlinks
Yahoo answers takes a little bit of work initially before you can get your links on their site but once you have done this first bit of work your ready to reap the rewards. Just create a yahoo account, help others by answering questions, once you have answered about 10-20 questions you will be able to add link in your responses. You can see a more detailed article onhow to use yahoo answers here
I’m sure you’ve heard of GoDaddy ? but I bet you didn’t know you can use the website to get backlinks to your website. All you need to do is visit the site and watch at least one of Bob Parsons videos. At the end of the video you can leave a creative comment and include a link to your website. Once again a more detailed on how to do this can be found here ->How to get back links from Godaddy
You can get a back link from this very page and lots of other too. All you need to do is leave a comment at the end of the article where it says comments.
Note:- I’ll allow most comments but please don’t blatantly leave a spammy comment or three words of text if you I’ll just hit the trash button. Please leave a creative, constructive comment or even a criticism. Just write what you think.I’ve also created a article where you can promote your website without having to spam just go andget a free backlink here
Big Backlink List) Credit goes toideaprofor creating the original list.
Hope you like the list, I’m sure it will help in your back linking efforts.
Leave your comment below or share your favorite backlink sources
I hope you’re feeling thrilled about your future prospects for 2019 and make amazing things happen.
Like you some of us found 2018 rather challenging, but it has helped to shape us into who we will be over 2019. Here is a list of 5 things to put in place this month to help you focus and become more disciplined. A little tip, use your mobile phone diary to set up reminders.
Article by Diane Shawe
DEFINE YOUR WORD
Think about the year ahead and ask yourself what one word would best represent your dreams and direction for 2019. This is a powerful practice because no matter how busy or scattered we may get at various points in our 365 day journey, we’ll always have our word to hold onto and guide us through.
Here are some examples of words to consider (you can also think of them as themes for the year):
FOCUS, REST, COURAGE,
ABUNDANCE, MY VALUES,
SIMPLIFY, ELEVATE, ORGANISED,
SPIRITUALITY, LEGACY,
CHARITY, IMPLEMENT. PHEONIX
Take some time and really reflect on which word holds the most meaning to you in the pursuit of your personal goals. Then take a piece of paper, write your word on it and hang it where you can see it every day. You’ll find that more and more, your thoughts, decisions, and actions in the new year will flow in harmony with your word.
CREATE YOUR READING LIST
As entrepreneurs, we know that reading great books for our personal and business development is essential if we really want to take things to a new level each year. However, if you’re like most entrepreneurs, you probably have a mountain of books that you are still intending to read and you know you have to be more selective about exactly which books you’re going to focus on (and implement!) in the year ahead.
So in 2019, instead of getting overwhelmed by it all, get intentional and put together a reading plan.
Here are some questions to help you create your list:
Which particular books will help me the most right now?
What area of my business am I resisting due to lack of knowledge?
Are there any books that I should read again and implement better this time?
FOCUS ON ONE THING
With the beginning of a new year, it’s exciting to launch into everything we want to do all at once to improve our lives and our businesses, but that’s a recipe for getting quite overwhelmed and discouraged before too long.
There is so much value in focusing on one thing at a time. It’s better to work on 12 habits or goals one at a time, month by month, and successfully achieve them all in a year, than it is to work on everything all at once and only be able to to finish 2 or 3 due to lack of focus.
MOVE PAST AN OLD FEAR
One of the things we love most about a new year is the feeling of a fresh start that it brings. Use the momentum of starting fresh to face a fear and do something you were afraid to do in 2018.
SET A 90 DAY MONEY GOAL
It’s so important to set your goals around money and map out your plans for how you’re going to achieve them. Money loves clarity and the more clear you are about how much you want your business to grow and how you’re going to make it happen, the more you can expect to see results!
First, identify how much money you want to make in your business over the next 90 days. Working from the framework of a 90 day goal is particularly effective because it’s not too long or too short when it comes to achieving something amazing, so don’t be afraid to dream a little bit out of your comfort zone.
Next, map out what that looks like in terms of clients and sales. How many clients would you need in order to hit that goal? How many sales per month, per week, per day? By honing in on these numbers, you’ll be able to set your daily, weekly, and monthly goals with clarity and ease. Best of all, you’ll be able to focus on taking action and making it happen. 🙂
Extracted from Getting Started in the Hair Extension Business by Diane Shawe
If your hair extension studio is a real under-cutter, care will have to be taken to keep costs as low as realistic as possible.
Don’t be shy when it comes to taking money for your services. Charge for the value of the benefits that you offer.
You must put a value on your services; look at your type of clientele, hair extension location, experience of employees, your clients’ needs and, the prices of the competition.
Price is sometimes seen as a sign of quality and value. Price can attract like-minded customers. They think that because your prices are high, the technician in your hair extension studio must be good. If your prices are high, it is important to promote to the high paying customers, the value of your service.
There are a lot of competitors, so low prices alone, might not be enough to keep the low paying customers coming back. Clients who look for bargains are not only looking for low prices, but they want to get great results too.
You must determine how much value you can offer. To be of value to clients, you must know what the clients’ needs are. Understand what benefits they wish to receive, what pain they want to relieve.
Order you copy today from Amazon or Google Play
The benefits they want might be a quick service with no waiting, or it could be that they want an expert doing their hair. They might prefer certain products used on their hair, or to know that they can be squeezed in at short notice occasionally.
Their pain might be that they begrudge spending time on their hair, or that they loathe technicians who don’t listen to them. It might be that they just haven’t found the right retail products to use at home.
Profit margins will be low, so a lot of clients will have to go through the hair extension studio, just for you to be able to pay the overheads. It will most likely mean offering fewer services and probably, rushing clients through. Even the employees will have to be paid a low salary.
In some cases, this could mean that the employees are much less experienced than you may like. You really need to decide on what sort of employees you want in your hair extension studio. You will find that the best technicians won’t want to work in a cheap hair extensions studio. Not only would it hurt their reputations, but they wouldn’t work for a low salary.
Your clientele will most likely be bargain hunters who probably won’t spend on retail products either.
Charge by experience If your employees have exceptional skills or experience, you can charge more. If you promote these benefits well, you’ll find that clients don’t mind paying extra. A lot of clients don’t mind paying for the name, or the prestige.
Some hair extension studios charge by the experience of the hair technician performing the service. As employees reach certain levels of experience, they charge more. This seems to work very well for them.
An easy cost effective business that can be done anywhere
Threading in the UK has become a very popular treatment over the least few years and with a few tips and ideas you could benefit from starting your very own threading business.
There is a huge potential for earning good money as a self employed beauty therapist offering eyebrow threading as a service.
Look at most salons and even shopping Malls these days and they have signs for threading in their windows. Look inside a salon and you will nearly always see them busy.
Customers don’t usually need to make an appointment, they just walk in and wait or get it done after they have had there other beauty treatments.
There has never been a better time to Start your own Threading business from home. Working on your own gives you the opportunity to work your own hours with much more flexibility and freedom then being tied down in a salon.
What’s more you can actually out sell salons with your threading service and make even more money than they do.
1. You can offer very flexible hours.
Working on your own you can offer treatments at unsociable hours such as evenings or weekends. Just think how limited salon opening times are…
2. You can offer discounted rates.
A salon has huge overheads – staff, rent, heating etc, you can operate at very little cost and undercut salon prices hence making your threading prices very attractive.
Eyebrow Threading is an ancient art with hugh earning potential
3. You can offer a mobile service.
Clients love it when you can offer your threading treatments in their own home. Just think of the business mobile hairdressers get. Many people don’t want to visit a salon – they may have work commitments, young children, don’t drive. There are many reasons why people can’t get to a salon and offering a mobile threading service is a superb way to make good money.
Setting up a Threading business is not expensive. Although you should always buy the very best equipment, threading kits, tools and thread is very cheap.
You will have very little over heads, think what would you use for a client? A little talk, some wipes and a few metres of thread. These products will hardly break the bank expenses wise so your profits margins are very high.
The best place to start is to get some threading training.
A decent accredited Threading courses cost under £200 and be booked on this site with a credit card or even Paypal. The price to train is very little compared to other similar industries. A hairdressing course would cost you £1000’s. You can learn eyebrow threading in just one day with our One Day Professional Threading Course Workshop. Combined with a practice and guidance, you ready to go… A Hairdresser trains for months if not years before they can offer their art for profit.
Once you’re trained getting business can be quite easy. Start of by printing or writing some adverts with your details and phone number. Stick these up in your local shops, post office or Supermarket. Chip shops surprisingly do well as people stand in the queue and read everything! Most places charge a just couple of pounds a week.
You local newspaper classified can be a good place to put a small add.
Currently some local paper charge £25 for 6 lines of text. You can also try your local supermarkets notice board, local salon, church, women’s group the list goes on.
Also place averts in online directories so people can find you when they search online. Gumtree and facebook market places are also good avenues.
The best way to advertise these days is to get a small website built. Most people search on the internet for what they need and a nicely designed webpage can be a great source of clients. Get in touch with us if you want a cheap website, we know a man who can!
Once you get a few clients, word of mouth of is by far the best advert for your services and if you do a good job word gets round quickly and you’ll soon be booked up with peoples mums, sister, aunts, uncles?? calling you.
So, put in basic terms, threading training is fast and cheap, materials are cheap and you can start your business in a short space of time with very little outlay. Threading is a perfect business model
So what is Grade Inflation and what are the effects?
Article by Diane Shawe Author extracts from ‘Is Adult Education Broken’
Grade inflation is the tendency to award progressively higher academic grades for work that would have received lower grades in the past.
Grade inflation makes it more difficult to identify the best students, as more students are awarded the highest available grade.
Grade inflation is not uniform between schools. This places students in more stringently graded schools and departments at an unfair disadvantage.
Grade inflation is not uniform among disciplines.
Grade inflation makes it more difficult to compare students who took their exams at different times.
The effects of Compliance Professionals
The rise of the campus compliance professional as expert utilising the perfects means of
gaining media influence with their established position. Though the means of gaining influence
are common, their aims vary from political, economic, to personal. Thus the label of
compliance professional applies to diverse groups of people, including propagandists,
marketers, pollsters, salespeople and political advocates. It’s interesting to note that education is not really targeted
The effects of Grade Point Averages (GPA)
According to a study published in 2014, a one-point increase in high school GPA translated to
an 11.85-percent increase in annual earnings for men and a 13.77 percent annual earnings
increase for women. However, the higher percentage increase was not found to be enough
for women to catch up to men: women with a 4.0 high school GPA still made less, on average,
than men with a 2.5 GPA. We are now seeing evidence of this in unequal gender pay for the same job
College and post-college students often wonder how much weight their GPA carries in future
employment. The employer, company and industry play the largest factor in answering this question.
According to Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., senior vice president of human resources for IAC/Interactive Corp, a company with over 33,000 employees, an applicant’s GPA is the single best indicator of future success in job employment. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, since 2001 there has been an increase in employers looking at and making hiring decisions based on, a candidate’s GPA.
In addition, Job Outlook 2005 survey reported that 70 percent of employers looked at an applicant’s GPA, increasing to 75 percent in 2010. Those looking at and weighing in college GPA reported that their cut off was a GPA of 3.0 or lower (Morsch 2 CL 2007-2010)
GPA is not the only factor that determines future employment. Many employers look for other
pertinent characters such as leadership, teamwork, flexibility and attitude. They may also look at the reputation of the college attended and other work related experiences such as
internships. In a 2010 student survey for recruiters, 45 percent of the students who had
completed an internship had already received a job offer. Many of these jobs were within the
company that they interned for.
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Although GPA seems to be important in the hiring process, other variables may contribute to
the likelihood of getting hired. If a student’s GPA is below a 3.0 or what the employer is looking for, it is suggested to calculate your GPA for only the classes within your major for your resume.
The effects of Consumer Confusion
Confusion occurs when a consumer fails to correctly understand or interpret products and
services. (Turnbell 2002 -2003). This, in turn, leads to them making imperfect purchasing
decisions. This concept is important to marketeers because consumer confusion may result in reduced sales, reduced satisfaction with products and difficulty communicating effectively with the consumer. It is a widely studied and broad subject which is a part of Consumer behaviour and Decision making.
The effects of Choice overload, financial pressures
Choice overload (sometimes called over choice in the context of confusion) occurs when the
set of purchasing options becomes overwhelmingly large for a consumer. A good example is a wine in the UK where supermarkets may present over 1000 different products leaving the consumer with a difficult choice process. Whilst large assortments do have some positive
aspects (principally novelty and stimulation and optimal solutions) any assortment greater
than around 12-14 products leads to confusion and specifically transferring the ownership of
quality assurance to the consumer.
What this means in practice is reduced levels of satisfaction with purchases from large assortments as a consumer may be left with doubt that they have succeeded in finding the “best” product. Choice overload is growing with every large database of online free courses such as Moodle, University offering large choices of taster courses which can often be misinterpreted as real courses.
Taking it all in
By no stretch of the imagination have I scratched the surface of all the different methods of
reviewing standards, methodologies, global rankings and other factors that suggest the
system(s) is failing to adequately prepare students and adults who are still in our system and will be for another 30 years to adjust to rapidly changing technology.
How can educators,prepare individuals for entrance into the global marketplace?
This is done by reviewing potential hindrances and shortcomings, of which I am going to list in my opinion the most relevant ones so that educators around the world can better explore and devote their best and brightest to finding solutions to shape educational strategies with a proactive approach designed to improve overall outcomes for success.
Before I begin I quote a reference from Charles Darwin
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best
manage change.”
Throughout the ages, every human society has experienced challenges adjusting to population
growth, maintaining structural order and creating channels for future generations. How well a society prepares the next generation for survival is imperative for the society as a whole but we have stalled in this process because we seem to be accumulating a pool of adults (who were once the next generation) who appear to be helpless in this new found world of information and technology -The intangible and more important how to work with the tangible.
One critical element of preparation in the 21st century is the ability to engage all ages and
cultures beyond communal borders. At the centre of this struggle for growth and prosperity is education.
I will now explore some of the current educational strategies which are failing to prepare the current adult generation sufficiently enough to enter the global workforce and sustain their family, community and contribute to their countries economic prosperity.
Black male graduates in the UK earned £7,000 a year less from 2007 to 2017 than white males. That’s according toa report by the Resolution Foundation, which highlighted that this discrepancy in pay exists despite the proportion of black men with bachelor’s degrees increasing 24 percentage points over the past two decades, compared to a 15 point increase for white men.
The think tank also revealed the average pay gap between white and Pakistani and Bangladeshi non-graduate men is more than £4 an hour.
So Is #Adult #Education Broken?
#DianeShaweAuthor explores the main failings in education for an economy—powered by #technology, fueled by #information, driven by #knowledge and becoming #automated.
As Isaac Asimov—a master of science fiction literature—once said:
“No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is but the world as it will be.”
What has happened?
How can we make this new economic age enhance, rather than diminish, our quality of earning? How can we make this amazing innovation advance the prospects of all people especially those with experience and not just for the youth?
It is clear that at this moment most educational systems are not keeping pace with changing technology and the ever-evolving world of work.
Not enough people are thinking strategically enough in this area. Fundamentally, we need to change what people learn, how people learn, when people learn, and even why people learn.
We must get beyond the traditional model of students sitting passively in classrooms, following instructions and memorising material that they are tested and scored on which sometimes turn out to be of little use in an every changing economy. It is evident that computers can do that for us!
Will the current type of Adult Education keep you in Employment?
Diane Shawe’s latest publication ‘Is Adult Education Broken suggests that a 21st-century educational system must focus on the areas where humans can outclass computers—such as in cognitive skills, interpersonal skills, fine motor skills, or sophisticated coding skills.
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More and more top fortune company’s are giving way to automation primarily to drive costs down, improve reliability, security and accuracy.
Diane believes that we need to make sure that the type of education supplied can keep a population in work or self-employment, performing meaningful tasks relevant to todays and tomorrow needs.
Education has to become student-centric and move away from solely institutional constructs that are not fluid to change.
Maybe we need to remind ourselves of the purpose of education by looking back in order to move constructively forward.
There has always been a great deal of lip service given to the idea of learning by doing, but not much has been done about it. Diane recommends John Dewey book, Democracy, and Education 1916.
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