SMB E-Book : Growth-hacking for ambitious

companies

We held a mini-summit
dedicated to growth.

We invited guest speakers and

business owners to a morning of
idea-swapping, networking and
technology insights.

This is what we learned.

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Small business growth matters to everyone

There were more than 4.9 million small businesses in the UK in 2013 and SMBs accounted for 99.9 percent of all
private sector businesses, according to the Federation of Small Businesses.
Its no wonder that small businesses are often cited as critical to UK plc. Small businesses create jobs, pay tax
and innovate: ultimately its in everyones interest to help them grow.
Of course, every small business wants to grow, but
just like when you were a teenager, growth doesnt
come without a few pains.
Here at Microsoft we want to help, both through
technology and support. Thats why we recently
held a small business summit dedicated to growth.
This ebook summarises the top tips and insights
that emerged from the event, including targeting
overseas markets, making journalists care about
your story and finding the time to invest in growth,
without losing track of day-to-day tasks.

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Look whos talking: meet the experts

Microsoft was in listening mode for our mini summit: we wanted to hear from small businesses and those in the
know to help us better understand our customers.
So while we were busy listening, this is who was busy talking:
Emma Jones MBE: author, entrepreneur, cofounder of StartUp Britain and founder
of Enterprise Nation.

Enterprise Nation is a small business community of over 75,000 people who

benefit from business books, events and funding. Enterprise Nation also presents a
campaigning voice to government and the media on behalf of its members.

Nick Morris: Head of Cloud PR for Microsoft, former founder and owner of
his own PR agency, dogandbone PR.

Nick is a specialist in corporate, business-to-business, trade and consumer

communications.

Our amazing attendees: 20 small businesses were represented at our mini summit. Heres a little glimpse into
who they are:

14 employ between one and five people

Many use contractors on a recurring basis and consider
them one of the team
Six sell to governments, while eight sell to large companies
Nine sell direct to consumers
Every business has a website, and all bar two have a Twitter
account
More than half run a company blog, but only two pay for
PPC advertising
12 use a tablet for work regularly and everyone uses their
smartphone

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Dress for success: presenting your business

Growth isn't a strategy, it's a result, says Hugh MacLeod. And first and foremost its a result of having a
respectable, attractive business that investors take seriously and customers trust.

The basics
Several attendees attested to the fact that
even the smallest details can seriously affect
first impressions:

Your own email domain. If you hand

someone a business card with @gmail or
@yahoo, you will immediately look like an
amateur. Get a professional email address, for
example with Office365.
Landline phone number. Similarly, having
just an 07 number on your business card wont show you in a good light, as Paul Kelly of London
Means Business says. Set up a VOIP (internet) phone or register on Skype for a landline number: this
suggests the permanence of a head office while allowing you to answer calls on the go, wherever you
are.
Limited company. Sapphire Gray recommends registering as a limited company. While this does
suggest you are taking your business seriously, there are other financial and legal implications, so be
sure to check its right for your businesses.
Website. Everyone at the event has a business website, but just having a website isnt enough. Matthew
Stibbe of Articulate says you need to have some way of capturing lead information from visitors to your
site whether its an ecommerce site, a registration page or even a newsletter signup. Joe Carstairs of
GrowthAccelerator added that its not worth spending too long setting up your site: use bootstrap
templates, set an objective for the site then start looking at the analytics and optimising towards that
objective.

Who you are

Understand who you are, find your niche and stick to
it, says Beatriz Garcia-Martinez of Securelybe. People
are always looking for something different, so dont be
afraid to stand out.
Before you launch into marketing and PR, you need to
be sure of your brand and then remain consistent
online, in person and on social media.

Vox pop top tip

Both Sapphire Gray and Dan Roberts of
BananaBerry suggest using videos to help convey
who you are and what you do.
Google loves videos, and customers get a real feel
for you, says Sapphire.

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Spreading the word

Journalists dont care about your businesses, or you as individuals. They are not interested in the story of how
you came to be or your proposition, says Nick Morris.
Luckily thats not the end of the PR story for small businesses. The good news is that journalists are interested in
their readers. If their readers or viewers are your customers or potential customers then thats where they
might be interested.
Nick then described the three core elements of PR, which you can deliver through traditional media (BBC,
Financial Times etc), hybrid media, social and your own channels like blogs.

News

News has to be new and interesting: challenge yourself on what is news. A new
product or service is news to other people; a new board appointment might not be.

Evidence

Demonstrate your success through your customers. Case studies, social media
interaction and quotes. Dont just list a bunch of benefits: prove them. No customer
wants to feel like your guinea pig they want tried and tested.

Opinion

Position yourself as an expert: have a perspective, opinion and insight. Push this
proactively through blogs and social media. Journalists are much more likely to
approach you as an expert on y than owner of company z.

How to prioritise PR
Half a million small business owners search for marketing help online every month: its not a skill many
entrepreneurs have the time to focus on and, despite how important it is, it often gets left until last.
The easiest thing to do is outsource. You dont have to use a big, expensive agency there are plenty of small
agencies and networks of freelancers. Nick suggests going by recommendation from similar businesses to
yours: look at who they work with and get examples of work relevant to your industry.
If you really dont have the budget to outsource, then follow these tips:

Prioritise evidence. Always ask customers for a case study. Keep them short and punchy, and build up a
bank of them so theyre ready at a moments notice: whether for potential customers, journalists or
publishing on your site.
Repackage and reuse. Virtually any PR content you create can easily be converted into helpful sales and
marketing collateral. Make more of what you have.
Dont bombard. Only reach out to people who might be genuinely interested in what you have to say
and have something interesting to say. Enterprise Nation offers a list of the top 55 small business
journalists on Twitter. Start there.
Buffer. This social publishing tool lets you queue up posts on different channels and then publishes
them throughout the day for you.
Remember. The FT front page is not the measure of success. Reaching potential customers is the
measure of success.

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Finding funding and support

Small businesses are just that: small. Officially SMBs are companies that employ less than 250 people, but in
reality 99 percent employ fewer than 50. That is why sources of funding and professional support and advice
are vital to small business success.
While there is a lot out there for small businesses, its not necessarily easy to
find and thats a problem. Dan Roberts from BananaBerry points out,
encouraging people to start a small business is dangerous: if the support thats
promised isnt really there, they will fail.
Emma Jones works to discover and promote sources of funding, accelerator
programs and mentoring networks and suggests three main places to look for
help.

The Government
GrowthAccelerator. The help youll receive with GrowthAccelerator is bespoke, with
the package of support you receive focused on the specific needs of your business.
You apply, pay, on average, 700 and choose an expert from a roster of over 3000,
including former MDs and small business owners. Businesses that use this scheme
grow, on average, four times faster than the average SMB.
Growth Vouchers. This scheme helps businesses get strategic business advice in a
particular area of need, such as marketing, HR or finance and cash flow. It is a
spending-match scheme, meaning whatever you spend, the government will match
up to a maximum of 2000.
Enterprise Nation offers a marketplace of over 7000 advisors to help you find the
right expert for your business. Beatrice Garcia-Martinez invested 1,050 into marketing advice, which was
matched by the Government. With her experts help she secured coverage of her story in the Sunday Times,
winning her advertising worth 18,000.

Big business
Many large enterprises have accelerator and support schemes for small businesses. They provide resources,
mentoring and access to facilities: in return they want your energy, entrepreneurial spirit and ideas. As Emma
Jones says, they want some of your pizzazz.
Shell has run its LiveWIRE programme to address youth unemployment in Scotland since 1982. Shell UKs social
investment manager Christelle Langenhoven explains: We believe that small businesses are key to the
success of the UK economy. If we unlock the ambitions of entrepreneurs, they create growth and the ability for
the UK to compete internationally.

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Microsoft, HP, Unilever, BT Business, Sage, Verisign, Sisco and Accenture are just a few of the big names running
such schemes. Often they are specific to sectors or types of support. Unfortunately there isnt a single
comprehensive list, but Emma Jones suggests following small business journalists and advisors on Twitter as
theyll often promote such schemes.

Peer-to-peer networking
Talk to each other. The confidence you need to
keep on going and growing your business is
something you need every day, says Emma

Vox pop top tips

Several attendees highlighted LinkedIn as an incredibly

Jones.

useful networking tool.

Peers are also a surprising source on investment.

As long as you are approaching someone with a valid

The Funding Circle, backed by the Government,

business reason, people tend to be very receptive.

facilitates small loans from other entrepreneurs,

Attendees found mentors, investors and other useful

allowing you to bypass the infamously tight-fisted

contacts via the professional network, but emphasised

banks. Alternatively you can look for angel

the need to personalise your connection request

investors with industry experience to offer both

messages and never waste peoples time.

money and expertise. If you choose this route, be

sure to look into SEIS (seed enterprise investment scheme) tax relief.

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Expanding your market

Of course, you can have all the PR, funding and support you want, but without more customers, youre not
going to grow. Discussion at our mini summit focused on three main markets that are easier than ever for small
businesses to crack.

Big businesses (again)

Big retailers are desperate to find innovative, fresh
products and brands to enhance their own appeal.
For a small business, possibly run from home, getting a
big, nationwide contract can seem pretty daunting. But
you shouldnt feel you have to change who you are: it
is the brand youve pitched that startup, bootstrap
brand that the big guys are buying into.
For businesses selling products, the way in is a little
simpler, since retailers are already looking for you. In
addition, in conjunction with the Government,
Enterprise Nation runs The Exchange, which pairs small businesses with buyers from big retailers in similar
sectors, such as fashion, food and beauty.
For service providers it can be a little tougher to get a foot in the door. Beatriz
Garcia-Martinez suggests creating partnerships with other service providers who are already working with big
companies. She sells her business as an add-on, giving the other service provider added value they can offer
their client, and a way for her to work with big clients.

The public sector

The Governments target is that by 2015 25 percent of its products and services will be bought from small
businesses. This is a huge opportunity, and one that is getting easier to take advantage of.
Lord Young has worked to remove the pre-qualification questionnaire from the tendering process for small
businesses, making applying for contracts easier. In addition, for contracts of 250,000 and under, small
business providers have to be considered first.
Contracts Finder, part of the .GOV website is a good starting point as is networking at industry events and
business forums, such as Chambers of Commerce. Another sales strategy is simply to spend time with potential
customers: one attendee talked of ensuring he regularly bought lunch for contacts he had made in the public
sector in order to keep his ear to the ground.
One more thing worth bearing in mind is that unlike big businesses, the public sector cannot show bias when
selecting contractors: so appearing too different and unusual can work against you in this market. Alter your
pitch to suit your audience.

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Go global
Selling to international customers has never been easier for small businesses:

Google analytics let you see where your traffic is coming from to help you target interested regions
Social media and blogging lets you market and connect globally
International online marketplaces are increasing in popularity, for example the handmade goods site
Etsy, which has 30 million buyers and sellers and Elance, which runs a marketplace for service providers

There are a few things to consider if you are going to start selling overseas. Enterprise Nation has a book, Go
Global: How to Take Your Business to the World, which contains lots of helpful tips, such as:

Taxes and duties. The UKs Trade and Investments services can help you research and understand
export schemes relevant to your business.
Delivery. If you export physical goods you need to think logistics. Emma Jones recommends UPS as for
getting stuff from country to country.
If you provide services think about cloud storage, such as OneDrive for Business, and video
conferencing with services like Skype, to help you deliver and collaborate seamlessly.

Language. Lingo24.com found that people are 40 percent more likely to buy products from a website if
its in their own language. If you are serious about expanding into particular foreign markets, invest in
site translation services.

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Finding more time

Finally, we wouldnt be addressing the challenges of growing a small business if we didnt discuss time or the
lack thereof. We asked our attendees to talk about their tips and technologies for making room, day to day, to
focus on growth. Its all about productivity and getting things done.

Focus on what you do best and outsource the rest

Business guru, Peter Druckers words were echoed at our mini summit. As a small business owner, you are doing
everything, but there comes a point when you have to prioritise the ways you bring the most value to your
company, and then delegate the rest.
It can be hard to let go, but with technology such as online file sharing with OneDrive or video conferencing
with Skype or Lync, contractors can easily feel like part of the team and you can feel like youre in control.
Finding quality contractors has become easier thanks to online marketplaces and review sites.

Pauline Hinkson of Natural Origin UK recommends Fiverr.com. The site offers a range of freelancers
from infographic experts to video editors all of which offer their services from just $5 per project.
Elance is also a well-known marketplace for service providers from copywriters to coders.

Connected and efficient technology

When people ask Paul Amlani-Hatcher of Pamah where his head office is, he replies: Its in my bag. My thinking
space might be at home but the work gets done on technology technology has totally changed things in that
way.
The technology you use (and how you use it) plays a big part in how productive you can be in any one day. A
recent study by the Boston Consulting Group actually found that small businesses who lead the way in adopting
new technologies, such as cloud, mobile, social and messenger tools, fared better than their slower
counterparts:
The extent to which these leaders outpace other SMEs is both remarkable and remarkably consistent across all
the countries we studied. They often grow faster than the economy as a whole.
Think about integration between different applications and the ability to share and access information. Also be
sure not to double up on unnecessary apps. Several attendees who have Office 365 subscriptions didnt know
about OneDrive and OneNote and were duplicating resources with Dropbox and Evernote.

What to use
We asked our attendees to name one piece of technology that really helps their business grow. These were the
most popular answers:

Office 365 its something everyone uses, a standard.

Skype it lets you appear as if youre in the office, even if youre not.
Microsoft Outlook and Exchange Online it professionalises how we do our email, affordably.
Google apps and analytics
Google and Bing Webmaster tools
Microsoft Lync for collaboration, virtual working, sharing content and conference calls
Dropbox for sharing files with contractors overseas and managing the transfer or large files
Azure it revolutionised what we do in terms of hosting apps, firing up temporary development, virtual
networks and databases. With Azure, youre insane to set up your own hardware.
Yammer it helps our dispersed team feel more integrated.
Carbonite backup services
Evernote for saving and sharing notes and business cards
$

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Top technology tips from Microsoft

It became clear during our mini summit that many small business owners dont know about or understand the
full range of functionality that Microsoft offers them, so we asked our own people to share their top Microsoft
technology recommendations:

Microsoft OneNote: like a digital notebook, you can download it for free and it comes with Microsoft
Office 365. You can scan in documents, grab web pages, set up your notes however you want and
share them with others via SharePoint.
Microsoft Lync: a messenger tool it also lets you screen share, share files, instant message and
videoconference. You get notification of peoples availability and, combined with SharePoint, is ideal for
real-time collaboration on documents.
Microsoft OneDrive: An online storage service, its great for ensuring your business isnt reliant on a
single device and makes it easy to open and share files from anywhere, anytime.
Windows 8.1: the updated operating system lets you design your own start screen so your most
commonly-used apps are up front and the powerful search tool combs through your files, apps and the
internet to help you find what you need.
To get more tips and insights, look for our hashtag
#achievemore on Twitter.
Join our Talking Business Yammer group and be kept
in the loop for future networking events as well.

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