I am sure, like us, you are running your business on fewer staff than normal at present, as the peak of the holiday season, August, is upon us. At what can be one of our busiest times of year, this isn’t always easy to manage. And the temptation as business owners is not to go away ourselves. But this isn’t the way forward, as it can actually hinder our growth and development as SMEs. (more…)
LATESTPOSTS
- The Holiday Season Posted: 10/08/10
- Service, service, service… Posted: 22/07/10
- Great Taste Awards 2010 Posted: 15/07/10
- A Great Summer Posted: 07/07/10
ARCHIVE
Popular Categories
-
The Holiday Season
Posted: 10/08/2010 -
Service, service, service…
Posted: 22/07/2010
If anyone has watched “Mary, Queen of Shops” most recent series, you will have heard Mary Portas continually banging on about service . As I mentioned last week, service is one of the key differentials between large retailers and small, independent retailers i.e. the small retailer actually cares about the customer and wants to give good service whereas most staff in the large retailers don’t give a monkey’s. Well, that’s the theory, anyway, one quite borne out by some of the rather grumpy characters featured in the recent series. (more…) -
Great Taste Awards 2010
Posted: 15/07/2010The Oscars of the food world are upon us again.
I think all the judging is complete and the Gold Award
winners will be announced over the summer with the grand awards ceremony at Fortnum & Mason’s on 6th September. I say “I think” the judging is complete as I wasn’t invited to judge this year. I believe I upset the Guild of Fine Food Retailers last year by using my calculator to calculate the revenue from the entries, and making a note that the judges weren’t paid their expenses! (more…)
Rude Health
Granny used to say, “Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dine like a pauper.” This taught Rude Health two important things: the first was to make breakfast as brilliant as possible. The second was only to visit granny at lunchtime. (more…)
A Great Summer
What a great summer so far, although as I write this I hear of heavy rain in the North-West. I can’t remember the 
last time it rained in the South. Great weather for BBQ products and drinks sales; I hope you are all making the most of it.
It is always at the hottest time of year that my team are focusing on Christmas more than any other time of year. The sales team are out getting orders (100% up on last year so far), which shows a certain degree of optimism about the economic conditions! (more…)
Football, the Budget and Food
Well, as least the country can relax for a few days as England played better and we haven’t embarrassed ourselves as much as France at the World Cup. As I have mentioned before, the two other World Cups I have been running my own business, have been miserable affairs as far as turnover was concerned. So far, however, this has not been the case in 2010. Thank goodness for that as we had enough bad news in the budget this week to make up for lack of misery elsewhere. (more…)
Thinking Bigger
I have just returned from a week away in Devon, which was a good chance to spend time with my children in some fantastic weather and re-charge the batteries.
It has been an exciting year so far in 2010, but has also involved some long hours, so it was good to virtually forget about work for a week. As is my custom when away I read a business autobiography. This time it was the turn of Theo Paphitis of Dragon’s Den fame. It was a very readable, perfect for the beach, and as usual when reading books like this challenged me to think bigger. (more…)
And What Now For The Economy?
Of course I write with particular reference to our sector, speciality food, and am wondering whether the recent long-drawn-out election result will make any difference to us?
I am getting mixed reports from the sector at present. Some our my sales team are reporting that there is more caution around than they have seen so far this year, but on the counter-side our first few Christmas orders are considerably larger than last year’s early orders. (more…)
Welcome to the summer!
The ridiculously cold weather (and the fact that our Christmas catalogue is at the printers) must mean summer is on its way! Well, actually we can’t complain – April was a fabulous month for weather with two very warm weekends, which got the punters flooding through the doors of food retailers throughout the UK. My own company, Cotswold Fayre, was 25% up on last April, and I think this was largely due to the weather with particularly good drinks sales. (more…)
Who Are We Voting For?
Of course, I am not going to make the mistake of pushing one particular party over another with the General Election pending, but do we think of our businesses when voting? or simply go with the party we have always voted for?
Personally, I don’t always go for the same choice– I have voted for four different parties over the last four elections for different reasons every time. Many of us may live in areas where it may have seemed in the past that our vote counted for little as our constituencies were set blue or red or even yellow. (more…)
Looking Forward To The Summer!
Well, it seems that summer, or at least spring, has finally made a brief appearance; let’s hope it doesn’t disappear again as quickly as it came! Hopefully some of you have had a week off with the kids during the Easter holidays, and maybe this week is your first week back at work. I always think that the week after Easter is a very significant one, as it is the first week of the rest of the year! (Someone once said that to me without realizing what they were saying – and every week is, of course!) (more…)
