Connect Convince Convert (Small Biz Digital Media)

The Office of the Small Business Commissioner (OSBC) is an independent public body set up by Government under the Enterprise Act 2016 to tackle late payment and unfavourable payment practices in the private sector. The OSBC covers the whole of the UK - England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The late payment culture that exists between businesses in the UK means that:

- a third of payments to small businesses are late

- the average value of each payment is £6,142

- 20% of small businesses have run in to cash flow problems due to late payments

- if small businesses were paid on time, this could boost the economy by an estimated £2.5 billion annually

The current Small Business Commissioner, Liz Barclay, leads an independent office aimed at empowering small businesses in resolving disputes around unfair payment practices and provides advice, including on how to take action if a payment is overdue.

The Commissioner urges small businesses to use the OSBC’s complaint investigation service and promises to take action to tackle the worst examples of supply chain bullying.

Steve Ennis from Business Doctors is your host and the show was produced by Dave Bird in his Small Biz Digital Media studio.

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The benefits of lifelong learning for business owners are discussed by Dr Scott Andrews from the Worcester Business School at the University of Worcester.

Lifelong learning helps keep business leaders and owners ahead of the game so they can face the not yet known challenges with confidence.

This ability to use lifelong learning to adapt and adjust to business challenges builds resilience.

The Worcester Business School provides wide-ranging support for the business community in the Worcestershire region.

A specific example is the Help to Grow government funded programme which targets business leaders and owners to take their businesses to the next level. The focus is very much on learning from one another as well as from the front.

As well as structured learning there are opportunities to go into organisations to look at challenges they face in a more bespoke way.

The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) is one of a number of professional bodies the Worcester Business School works with.

Scott is an experienced Principal Lecturer In Leadership and Management with a demonstrated history of working in the higher education industry. His two areas of research focusses on leadership in not for profit, value-driven organisations; and in Participant Centred Learning in Management education, especially through use of Case Study methodologies.

Steve Ennis from Business Doctors is your host and the show was produced by Dave Bird in his Small Biz Digital Media studio.

Customer retention has a strong psychological basis and it reflects how people think and feel. Our guest Dr Helen Watts (Deputy Head of Worcester Business School at the University of Worcester) did her PhD researching customer retention in fitness clubs. So while rational factors such as service quality and value-for-money are important, Helen's motivation was to look further at emotional factors influencing whether the customer leaves the business.

Organisations need to focus more on meeting customer needs on a personal level. In a diverse customer base, these needs and motivations will vary.

The Worcester Business School offers an Executive MBA suitable for business owners. It has marketing modules which cover customer retention and building long-term customer relationships.

Technology can help customer retention by identifying trends and patterns in large datasets, using machine learning. Large qualitative datasets can also be examined based on what customers have said.

Customer retention has touch points throughout the business, not just in marketing or sales. It's smart to have all these touch points identified, managed, and optimised.

Customer referrals is a strong KPI when it comes to customer retention. The ideal scenario is when the retained customer becomes a raving fan and advocate. To do this, have strategies where you offer them more. Always understand customer expectations, so you can meet or exceed them. Also understand why customers leave and have clear communications everyone is aware of.

Steve Ennis from Business Doctors is your host and the show was produced by Dave Bird in his Small Biz Digital Media studio.

Life is too short, and work is too long to spend it doing something you don't enjoy!

Everyone deserves to love what they do for a living, and that comes from doing the work you love, and are brilliant at.

Our guest Andrew Horder is a workplace coach who works with the following people to help them fulfil their potential doing work they love:

Employees - to truly understand their Core Process so they can add most value in their job and maximise their enjoyment.

Executives - to find Flow and get the most out of themselves and their team, allowing everyone to follow a strategy that balances purpose and pragmatism.

Entrepreneurs - to build a team where each individual understands how they best contribute to the purpose and success of the business.

Dave Bird produced and presented this show in his Small Biz Digital Media studio.

Samantha Lloyd, Head of the Private Client Department for SME Solicitors in Worcester shares how she works closely with bereaved families on probate matters, supporting them through these difficult times.

Samantha specialises in wills, probate and estate administration, capacity issues including powers of attorney, Deputyship applications and Trust administration.

The key theme of the conversation is how she is able to make legal work less intimidating.

She emphasises that while the legal processes need to be followed within certain timescales, the personal support provided to grieving families is just as important.

She and the team are approachable and sympathetic and work through the legal procedures at a pace the family are comfortable with, letting them decide how much involvement they wish to have.

No two estates are ever the same, so the legal procedures are applied to the individual family circumstances, taking into account the assets and what the will says.

Along with having a will in place and kept up to date, Samantha also covers the equally important lasting powers of attorney both for private individuals and business owners who need to appoint someone they trust to act on their behalf.

Dave Bird is your host and producer for this show which was recorded in his Small Biz Digital Media studio.

Check out our guests on other episodes hosted by Steve Ennis and Martin Hill.

Sharon Smith, CEO for Herefordshire and Worcestershire Chamber of Commerce shares how you can raise your business profile, develop your skills and gain support from the local community.

The Chamber provides support for the business community through such activities to build sustainable local economic growth.

As a business you can enjoy greater prominence in local markets and ultimately increased sales.

Sharon discusses how marketing activities such as events and networking play a vital role, including sector-specific business forums, conferences, expos and award ceremonies.

Training and personal development are key themes with the Chamber offering courses on marketing, PR, sales and customer care.

Collaboration is critical for business growth, so the professional service forums in the Chamber provide an opportunity to increase connections, referrals and offer added value to clients.

The Chamber thrives on member participation in activities such as content sharing, newsletter updates, promotional pieces and even netwalking and cross-border networking!

All of which upholds its original vision to Connect, Create and Celebrate!

Steve Ennis from Business Doctors is your host and the show was produced by Dave Bird in his Small Biz Digital Media studio.

Video content is a proven way to connect with new audiences, convince them you add value and ultimately convert them into leads and customers. However, as a business owner you may feel rushed off your feet, hate being on camera, or just not want the hassle!

Dr. Dave Bird, owner of Small Biz Digital Media, shares his unique approach to take the time, torment and tech out of video creation, so you can focus instead on what you're good at. Running your own business!

Rather than focus on vanity metrics, he helps businesses rapidly move their viewers through a buyer journey with their brand. The results are greater brand awareness, earned trust, more qualified leads, higher sales and repeat business from the best clients.

And while the lenses, lights and microphones in his studio matter, the message conveyed is the real deal-maker. As a Master Practitioner in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), he makes sure the visuals and dialogue work together powerfully to have a real impact on viewers. He uses his coaching skills to help people deliver confident pieces to camera, with supplementary footage added to help tell their story.

The video formats span the full buyer journey, including social shorts, video business card intros, FAQ videos, video podcasts, explainer videos, sales videos and video testimonials.

Dave also told the story of his professional journey starting out as a fish scientist and then becoming a marathon running coach before moving into filming small business owners.

Dave was in conversation with Liz Gait of EG People Development.

The show was produced by Dave Bird in his Small Biz Digital Media studio with grateful thanks to Martin Hill and Will Bannister for help with the filming.

The Connect Convince Convert show helps you grow your business by getting actionable insights from the experienced business leaders and owners that we interview.

Dave Bird, the founder of Small Biz Digital Media, produces the show from his studio in Great Malvern, Worcestershire UK and is an occasional presenter. He is a videographer and content strategist and can also help you create your own podcast.

Steve Ennis from Business Doctors is one of our main presenters. He is a business coach helping business owners to achieve their goals via a clear growth roadmap and plan.

Martin Hill from Sandler West Midlands is our other main presenter and an occasional camera operator when Dave is presenting! He empowers ambitious business leaders to grow their business though sales, leadership and management training.

And last but definitely not least are the real stars of the show, our guests! They work in a wide range of sectors but all share the experience and expertise to inspire you with their success stories to take positive steps forward in your own business.

Mobu are a vitamin brand with added pizzazz. They pack their vitamin packs with all that stuff that your doctor tells you about.

Their products are designed for consumers who may be craving an energy boost, need digestion support or just want to feel great.

Mahul Patel the founder discusses how the business got started, the challenges he faced and his aspirations to break into the retail space and become a household name.

Steve Ennis from Business Doctors is your host and the show was produced by Dave Bird in his Small Biz Digital Media studio.

The benefits of mindfulness in the workplace are discussed by Chris Hopkirk and Hayley Aghanian from the Business of Mindfulness.

They provide mental health and wellbeing strategies to companies to support and improve their employees' wellbeing and in turn help create a more successful business.

They take a diagnostic approach and listen to understand your needs. They work together with the Human Resource and Health & Safety team to develop a tailored programme that builds on your organisations values and delivers sustainable, improved behaviours in all employees.

They also provide mental health first aid training and mindfulness workshops, with professionally qualified mental health and wellbeing coaches, whose training can have a positive impact on all employees and deliver measurable improvements to business profitability via the improvement of key KPIs.

Steve Ennis from Business Doctors is your host and the show was produced by Dave Bird in his Small Biz Digital Media studio.

Top tips on how to run a successful Indian food business are shared by Suki Pantal from Suki's Curries and Spices.

Suki has spent 36 years in India and is now living in the UK and has a treasure trove of home-cooked Indian food recipes and tips.

As a recipe creator, she is passionate about diverse Indian cuisines and loves sharing her family recipes and those inspired by her travels all over India.

In 2022, she appeared in the TV show - The Great Cookbook Challenge with Jamie Oliver - on Channel 4.

She does private group cook-along via Zoom, speaks on traditional Indian cooking at various forums, and can be seen in cookery theatres at Food Festivals across the UK.

She has written her first cookbook which can be pre-ordered from 6th April 2024.

A wonderful case study on how you can combine business with pleasure and follow your passion!

Martin Hill from Sandler West Midlands is your host and the show was produced by Dave Bird in his Small Biz Digital Media studio.

Bob Dylan is the focus in this episode where I interviewed Steven Jenkins, Director of the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, OK.

Bob Dylan has donated voluminous archives from his career as a singer-songwriter from the early 1960s to the present (he is currently on his acclaimed Rough and Rowdy Ways tour at the time of writing).

The Bob Dylan Center has a number of longstanding exhibitions which dive deep into Dylan’s greatest songs such as Like A Rolling Stone, Tangled Up In Blue, Jokerman, and Not Dark Yet.

On the walls surrounding these are posters, interactive displays and audio recordings in chronological order over seven decades of creativity.

There are also changing exhibitions and the one I saw was the excellent How Many Roads looking at Dylan’s involvement with the Civil Rights Movement from 1961-64.

With its extensive archives section, the Bob Dylan Center also serves Dylanologists and other music scholars looking to analyse documents, recordings and even hand-written song lyrics in depth.

There is considerable appeal however for even casual visitors with excellent immersive video content of Dylan songs, interviews and documentary material as well as high quality audio resources using headsets. There is also a fantastic collection of memorabilia such as jackets Dylan wore, typewriters, guitars, even letters from other great singer-songwriters such as George Harrison and Johnny Cash.

You get to play producer in a simulated recording studio for mixes of songs like I Want You, Like A Rolling Stone and Knocking On Heaven's Door.

Nearby is a jukebox donated by acclaimed singer-songwriter Elvis Costello loaded with Original Dylan songs and covers.

And one of the real highlights is an immersive video room charting his whole career and featuring documentary footage, interview, lyric sheets and live performances.

Steven Jenkins was asked in the interview why we need the Bob Dylan Center and put forward a strong argument that Dylan is just as relevant today as in the 1960s when he rose to fame with albums like The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin, Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde.

Indeed, one of the highlights of this episode is the lyric notebooks Dylan kept while writing songs for the 1975 album Blood On The Tracks and the fascinating ways each song evolves. We find out about the song-writing process Dylan uses and how it has changed across the decades.

Bob Dylan as a singer is also discussed given the criticism he often receives for his nasal-sounding vocals. By contrast, his unique ability to convey emotion and phrase words in such a way to get his message across is highlighted.

We are also treated to Steven's choice of favourite Dylan songs through the decades which I have to say align closely to mine. I first discovered Dylan when Paul Gambaccini played Precious Angel on Radio 1 way back in 1979 so that and the Slow Train Coming Album will always be a favourite of mine.

Even as a long-time Dylan fan I learned loads from the Bob Dylan Center. As Steven says in the interview it's not just a collection of memorabilia but a careful and considered display, diving deep into one of the greatest content creators in modern times, putting his work into context with the social, cultural and political forces operating during changing times.

If you are a die-hard Dylan fan don't be surprised if you feel a little overwhelmed and emotional in a good way after visiting and allow plenty of time to take it all in.

If that wasn't enough, you have another extraordinary museum waiting for you next door. The Woody Guthrie Center. The reason Dylan wanted the Bob Dylan Center to be in Tulsa was...

Dragons' Den features entrepreneurs pitching for investment from five venture capitalists willing to invest their own money in exchange for equity.

So who better to invite onto the Connect Convince Convert show to talk about how to pitch anything to anyone than Peter Hill, now known as Peter The Speaker.

He floored the Dragons with his outrageously confident pitch to get an offer for his Petvictus cat product.

And the sales advice he offers in his conversation with Martin Hill from Sandler West Midlands will help you massively increase conversions on the products and services you offer as small business owners.

Martin is the perfect host for this show as he helps clients build their sales confidence, develop high-performing sales teams, improve their sales management, create accountability systems, and grow their sales revenue and profitability.

The show was produced by Dave Bird in his Small Biz Digital Media studio.

Innovation is an important strategy to help businesses grow.

Businesses of all sizes should take the opportunity to innovate as it’s now a much more holistic approach to solving a problem.

It’s no longer just about bringing out a new high tech product as it could just be improving on existing business processes.

Kristo Shivachev discusses here how his company Simple Design Works helps businesses innovate successfully.

Key considerations for a business innovation are:

• Involve the whole business not just specific teams
• Decide what form of innovation is needed and the timescales required. We discuss four main types here
• Embracing innovation is essential in some cases to remain viable as a business as the Blockbuster example demonstrates
• Things change fast, so talk to your customers and get their feedback 
• Use quantitative methods to identify trends and then dig deeper to uncover the reasons why a product may or may not be viable
• Future pace the impact the innovation will have so you’re not redesigning for the sake of it
• Understand that innovation is about managing risks, budgets and timescales
• Adopt a ‘fail-fast’ approach getting hands on as quickly as you can with prototype products
• Getting proof of concept through customer testing is an important milestone in product development 
• Optimisation of the product is the next stage in its lifecycle where the emphasis is on refinement
• Fear of failure is a mindset that must be overcome in any innovation project 

Martin Hill from Sandler West Midlands asked the questions and the show was produced by Dave Bird in the Small Biz Digital Media studio.

Robin Walker, MP for Worcester shares some of his experiences serving the local community, particularly small businesses.

Key themes in this wide-ranging interview are...

- Making a difference to the community through increased educational opportunities such as getting a long-term settlement for schools.

- Solving smaller problems in surgery sessions that have a big impact on the lives of individuals.

- Time spent on the Business Select Committee.

- Listening to constituents and what they really want, such as getting the hospital upgraded and tackling traffic problems in the city through the Southern Link Road.

- Learning from your mistakes in business and successfully getting out of a rut.

- Getting the details right to stimulate business growth and having the strategies in place to attract investors.

- Having the right work/life balance even when you live in two places!

Steve Ennis from Business Doctors asked the questions and the show was produced by Dave Bird in his Small Biz Digital Media studio.

I’m an animal lover if you overlook my fear of big spiders

So I was thrilled to film a world-class equine locomotion expert at a recent Alignment Horse Event in the Cotswolds.

Very topical having watched the incredible dressage events at the Paris Olympics.

Liz VanRoss harnesses the wisdom of horses.

AlignmentHorse is a revolutionary science-based approach to equitation. Riders will be taken on a journey starting with the anatomy of their horse and how this organises movement and informs how best to teach our horses about locomotion in Alignment. You will learn how to apply this knowledge for outstanding performance while safeguarding your horse’s wellbeing.

This knowledge is invaluable to owners, riders, handlers as well as equine therapists and equine professionals such as dentists, saddle-fitters, podiatrists, bitting specialists, nutritionists. Non-riders may attend as auditors for an opportunity to learn the theory and watch the action.

Liz developed the “AlignmentHorse” approach and uses it both to develop and rehabilitate horses. She has helped hundreds of horses with her work. The AlignmentHorse approach prevents occurrence and re-occurrence of debilitating equine conditions. Liz works closely with horse owners and riders at all levels up to Grand Prix and Four-star Eventing, to help them to work in better alignment and harmony, benefiting the horse’s mental, physical and emotional well-being.

And the incredibly skilled work she does is a great metaphor for how we can help clients as coaches, consultants or creators.

We have tools and techniques we can use as ‘the rider’ but that’s to no avail if we don’t quickly understand and work with the wisdom of our clients.

We should also get off our own high horse from time to time and work with mentors like Liz in our own chosen fields.

This episode was produced by Dave Bird of Small Biz Digital Media with thanks due to Sam Johnstone for the filming on-site.

Our guest Nick Baxter is an ex pro rugby player with a passion for all things "team" and "network". He runs Baxter Williams, a consultancy that specialises in recruitment, employee engagement and team building.

The focus is on connecting exceptional people supporting companies ranging from SMEs to PLCs. Through long-term relationship building they are committed to going beyond the numbers game to bring personality to the recruitment process.

For job candidates that means being treated as people not just as a CV or a profile. Candidates are only shown roles and companies that are relevant, interesting and career-enhancing allowing them to realise their true potential.

And for company managers and leaders responsible for recruiting talent it means they have more opportunity to connect with talented and motivated people.

Every candidate is pre-screened and matched against the key competencies for the role, with the right experience or potential to deliver. Most of all, care is taken to ensure they will share the same values and behaviours of the recruiting organisation ensuring the perfect culture fit.

Clients also have access to a unique and extended network providing significant value beyond recruitment. These key introductions help businesses grow or access new opportunities.

Baxter Williams specialises in recruiting talent for commercial roles and also executive search division to deliver high profile and confidential executive assignments with discretion and trust.

Steve Ennis asked the questions and Dave Bird produced and presented this show in his Small Biz Digital Media studio.