Best Mobile phone for small business

Since starting my business mobile phones website I have often been asked which is the best mobile phone for small business or which mobile phone plan would I recommend for small business users.

A lot of people say they like BlackBerry mobile phones for business use, but more recently the latest Nokia and HTC handsets have gained popularity too.

To be honest I don’t really think you can say which is the best mobile phone for small business as it all depends on what it is to be used for.

On saying that I like the look of the new HTC HD2 at the moment and their appear to be some really nice deals with it on T Mobile at the moment, well worth a look Click Here fo best business deals

T Mobile Business Mobiles

Channel 5 Small Business Series

Channel 5 Small Business Series

Calling All Small Businesses

Are you a small business with big goals? Are you frustrated by the speed of your company’s growth? Would you like someone to inject some energy into your trade?

Optomen Television, creators of award winning television, including BBC2’s Mary, Queen of Shops are aiming to address these questions by producing a major new series for Channel 5. We will tackle the issues that small businesses face on a daily basis in today’s recession soaked world with advice from one of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs. We will help investigate everything from controlling cash flow to increasing your profit margin and with an innovative plan of action to further your business we’ll help you get on the road to success.
Further Information….

Conference for Small Businesses in 2010

The long awaited UK small business (UKSBD) Conference is looking very likely to run in Birmingham in August 2010. The UKSBD now has over 100,000 members registered and a huge turn out is expected for this much anticipated event.

A spokesperson for UKSBD said the event will run over three days and a number of keynote speakers and business mentors are already outlined for next year. It will be a good opportunity for small business owners to have a very strong say in how they are supposed to trade through this recession. Our members are anxious to send a clear message to Parliament on their issues.

The conference planning contract has been awarded to Morris Conferencing against stiff competition. Mike morris MD said,

“With 1000-1200 delegates expected each day there is a enormous amount of cordination on transporting the delegates from their various hotels and the costs have to be low. We have done this number several times abroad with everyone there on time.”

Visit their site on www.uk-conference-venues.co.uk. Tel 08701624909 email info@corporateconferences.co.uk

The Stage Production is going to be the very latest hi tech plasma presentations with interactive polling using mobile sms systems that keep the room buzzing. The planning and installation will be done by www.supereventsman.co.uk Contact them direct on 0114 255 4008 

A spokesperson  for UKSBD said,

“Morris Conferencing are finishing the tender process for the selection of the venues and we look forward to an announcement in December on the website.”

There will be smaller regional meeting planned for next year as well and details and registration will by on www.conference-centres.net 

Tel 01608 6824909 or email info@corporateconferences.co.uk

British Video Training Provider Mediaroots

Mediaroots produce training DVDs for multimedia software, covering programs from software manufacturers such as Adobe, Quark, Apple, Smith Micro and Autodesk products.

Mediaroots use only presenters sourced from the British, having identified a dislike amongst British audiences for strong American accents.

The training DVDs are an affordable alternative to onsite training centres which can often charge upwards of £800 for 2 day training courses.

You can find a list of the company’s products here:
http://www.mediaroots.co.uk/products.html

Stopping Cold Callers

Over the past months I have had problems with other directories and marketing companies abusing my data and taking advantage of the small businesses who register in my directory.

The other day I set up a honeypot listing using fake details and my own telephone number. Within 5 minutes of registering I had received my first cold call and by the end of the day had received 3 other calls.

To make life harder for these cold callers I came up with an idea of no longer displaying telephone numbers and adding a pop up box to reveal the number, whilst doing this I had an idea, I set up a unique statcounter just to reveal how many people were clicking to find telephone numbers.

At the end of the day I went through my stats chacking for the same IP numbers  regularly clicking on different numbers.  From this, it looks like I have at least 3 big companies regularly scanning my directory, a couple of smaller companies, and a well known marketing company, who I cannot name.

I have now removed numbers temporarily to stop the cold callers harrasing people, and will be emailing all businesses registered to warn them about the tactics these cold callers are using.

UK Business Forums

I’ve been regular member of UK Business Forums for nearly 3 years now and in all that time have never noticed it being as busy as it is now.

Membership is up to 30, 600 plus, threads 60,000 plus, and posts 550,000 plus, last month saw the busiest day, with 1,286 people online and full membership now stands at 700 plus.

Most popular UK Business Forum

A search on google for Business Forums brings up over 34,000,000 results and there doesn’t seem to be a day go by without somebody setting up yet another one. Most start with a bit of a flourish but within a few weeks posts start to dwindle and users move on.

Advice for small business

I have recently found a nice site that offers small business advice and is especially useful to those who have recently started a small business or for those who are contemplating starting up.

It has various business articles, the one that caught my eye was talking about Marketing Ideas for New Businesses and how new businesses can overcome the problem of attracting initial customers.

 It is well work a look at, and is a site that I will be keeping my eyes on.

New UK Business Forum causes a stir

I don’t do a lot of work during the day and often spend my free time on Business Forums and SEO Forums.

Within the past few months one of the forums I regularly visit has for some reason been having problems with members arguing and bickering and it just doesn’t seem as friendly  or as useful as it has in the past.

Income Shifting legislation postponed in budget

Advertise your products or services for free

I set up my 3rd demonstation section on my Products Showcase site last night, this time for VikingKids an online store who specialse in selling Childrens clothing from Scandinavia.

The important thing when setting up pages like this is to ensure everything is approved before going online and that the content used is unique and not just copied and pasted from another source.

To achieve this I aks whoever Iam setting the showcase up for to send me some images and the content they would like displayed. I emphasise it must be unique content, are not too worried if it is similar to the information they have on their own site just as long as it is not just a straight word for word copy.

This is a free service whilst in the beta stage, after that I will review how things are working and then maybe open it up to all people who register in my main Business Directory

Top 10 Business Forums in The UK

During the day I spend a lot of my time on Usenet or visiting SEO Forums and Business Forums, rather than just bookmarking the ones I regularly visit I set them all up on a page within UKSBD and just go to them from there.

This gave me the idea of creating my list of Top 10 Business Forums which I did about 12 months ago. After a recent discussion in one of the top UK forums UKBF I have now updated my list to include more details about each forum. I now provide a brief description, stats about members, threads, posts etc. and a few other details.

I will also be expanding the list and are accepting requests from forum owners to be listed, all those that meet my approval are listed completely free of charge.

Clearing Blocked Drains E1

I recently built a new website for company who clear Blocked Drains in Lonon.

Quite a simple site consisting of a homepage, contact page and an  areas covered page. The company Capital Drainage have been operating in the East London area since 1988 and provide fully trained engineers and technicians to ensure you receive a high quality service with the minimul level of disruption.

Capital Drainage also operate in other areas of London and The South East and can be contacted via the form on the new website or by ringing on their Freephone number 0800 731 5484

Are Lycos costing us money in AdWords

I set up a very small highy targeted AdWords campaign last week, very niche but with a cost per click around the £1.00 mark.

On the landing page I obviously have the product, some info and a telephone number which is set up to receive calls about the product.

Who should call the number today? A Lycos representative trying to get me to take out sponsored advertising with them. So not only did I have the experience of hearing the terrible sales pitch (to a TPS registered phone number) I also probably got charged for the rep clicking my AdWords ad.

Choosing categories for directories

One of the biggest mistakes I made when first setting up my main directory site was not spending enough time setting up initial categories and allowing people to create their own.

Checking through the list earlier I now have over 1000 different caregories but some of these are duplicated, some are worded wrong and some are just to vague.

I have toyed with the idea of blending similar categories together and also creating a general category to move people in to when their categories are to vague.

 Had I been starting from scratch, I would probably have lower than half the categories and they would be worded better for search phrases.

Still we live and learn and the new system I have in development has the benefit of past experience to call on.