small business Archives

A Roadmap to Sustainability for SMEs

There’s little doubt that consumers care deeply about the environment and sustainability, and prefer to deal with businesses which care about these things too. According to a recent survey conducted by Accenture, a leading global management consultancy, 60% of respondents said that since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic they were making more environmentally friendly, sustainable or ethical purchases.

A societal shift towards making better environmental choices had begun well before the pandemic took hold and it is accelerating now that the world is returning to normal.

Small Businesses Need to Up Their Game on Sustainability and Ethical Sourcing

A very good friend of mine, Julian Lyons, runs IMI Ltd., a long-established premium sourcing company based in Central London. Julian recently announced in a LinkedIn post that his company, which does a lot of business internationally, particularly with China, had updated the Sustainability and Ethics Policy on its website. It’s a very comprehensive policy and I know that Julian believes passionately that his company should operate sustainably and needs to avoid at all costs doing business with any suppliers which could be benefitting from the use of child labour or forced labour.

Small Business Websites – What to Include on an “About” Page

It’s important for every small business to give careful thought as to what it puts on the “About” page of its website. After the Home page it’s often the page that site visitors will go to next. It’s one which can strongly influence the decision about whether or not to do business with you.

In other words it’s about credibility and trust. A visitor to your site will typically go to your About page to find out if you’re a business of substance. People only buy from businesses that they trust.

Twitter as a Marketing Tool for Small Businesses

As an active networker I meet a lot of business owners in my local area (Kent and S.E. London). I usually ask business owners I haven’t met before how (or if) they do any marketing on Twitter.

Most of them tell me that they understand the marketing potential of Twitter. Many of them already have a Twitter account for their business, but a lot of them also tell me that they just don’t have enough time to manage this account properly.

It’s certainly true that building up a critical mass of quality followers on Twitter takes time and effort – there are really no easy short-cuts. Business owners will need to set aside some “Twitter Time” each day.