Workshop

A weekly email explaining the relevance of one essential business concept to growing your business – featuring key terms, perspectives and useful tools.

Workshop 072: Customer feedback loops

A customer feedback loop is a way for a business to learn from the people that use its product or service – whether that's through email surveys, feedback forms or post-purchase follow-ups. It's known as a loop because you don't just gather feedback; you also respond to what people have to say, too.

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Workshop 071: Hiring the right PR agency

PR is all about managing your business' messaging and reputation. While you can handle this in-house, an external PR agency (or individual) can help define or refine your message and help you get it out there – whether that's through traditional press coverage, securing speaker slots on podcasts or even growing your social media channels.

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Workshop 070: Naming your business

In the split second customers spend reading or hearing your brand's name, assumptions will be made. While you need to make sure that your name works from a branding, domain and social handle point of view, there's also the legal side to consider.

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Workshop 069: Finding a stockist

Do you make physical products? Would you like to sell more of them? One way to do that is by getting them stocked in other businesses – whether that's a high-street retailer or an online store. Beyond the potential revenue benefits, you'll get access to a whole new (often larger) customer base – boosting your brand awareness and legitimacy. Here's how to do it.

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Workshop 068: Getting investment-ready

If you've decided that raising money from investors is right for your business, the first step is clarifying which kind of investors suit your situation. The next step is to get your affairs in order, so you're prepared to present your business in a compelling, watertight manner. Remember, this is about finding the right partner for your business.

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Workshop 067: Upskilling employees

Integrating training into your employees' jobs is the essence of upskilling. Here's how to do it.

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Workshop 066: Hiring freelancers

Whether you need graphic designers, copywriters, marketers or coders, freelancers provide flexibility and expertise when and where you need it. But, to get the most out of them and build long-term, mutually beneficial relationships, you need a system in place so that both sides know what's expected. Here's how to do it.

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Workshop 065: Succession planning

Succession planning is about protecting the value you've created and ensuring that your business continues to exist and (hopefully) thrive after you step away. It means stability and clarity instead of indecision, confusion and costly legal and organizational roadblocks. Plus, it can be a useful exercise even if you're not thinking of retirement any time soon.

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Workshop 064: Finding a mentor

The impact a mentor can have is huge. Having someone you trust - and who you can talk to honestly - can boost your personal wellbeing and even improve your business' performance. That being said, finding the right person is key.

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Workshop 063: Creating customer personas

A customer persona (or avatar) is a fictional profile that represents a particular target customer. Usually, businesses will have a handful of them to cover the majority of their customer base. Though these personas aren't real people, they're informed by data and research.

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Workshop 062: Avoiding trademark infringement

Trademark infringement occurs when, whether by accident or design, a brand steers too close to another's intellectual property without permission. The results can get ugly – and expensive. Therefore, it makes sense to get ahead of this one – and take preventive steps to foolproof your brand identity and promotion methods, particularly online. Here's how to tackle it.

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Workshop 061: Managing poor performers

To help someone who's struggling reach their full potential, you'll need a well-considered performance management strategy. Here's how to do it.

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Workshop 060: Product sampling

In business talk, giving away freebies is known as product sampling. But it's costly to run a sampling campaign, and it takes some serious planning. You need to work out what you expect your return on investment to be and have a method of measuring the campaign's performance, so you don't waste your cash.

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Workshop 059: How to write a business plan

Though not every business needs one, writing a business plan can add significantly to your credibility and act as a north star – whether it takes the form of a single PDF, a 12-slide presentation or a comprehensive 40-pager. Here's how to do it.

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Workshop 058: Raising from friends and family

If you're looking to raise external finance for your business, reaching out to those closest to you offers plenty of benefits that institutional investors don't. The catch is that mixing business and personal relationships is not without risks – here's what you need to know.

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Workshop 057: Decision fatigue

Although it's always likely to flare up from time to time, knowing how to mitigate decision fatigue is essential for your business' survival and growth, as well as your mental health.

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Workshop 056: Visual identity

Your visual identity is the impression created by the aesthetic elements associated with your business – AKA, its look and feel. That means that consistency across platforms, products and communications is essential. To achieve that, you'll need to create some guiding principles and design rules to follow as your business grows.

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Workshop 055: Customer education

An excellent customer education program will drive sales, improve usage and increase customer satisfaction. It'll also reduce the resource drain of solving complaints and queries. Here's how to guide your customers at every stage of their journey with your brand.

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Workshop 054: Thought leadership

A thought leader is someone recognized for their expertise and influence in a particular sector who shares their thoughts with the public. But here's the rub - it's not easy to do well.

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Workshop 053: Pivoting

Pivots can be major, like changing the entire business model, or something more minor, like focusing efforts on one product line. But how you do it, and when, is critical.

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Workshop 052: Creating salary bands

A growing business needs to get strategic about how it pays its employees. One very viable option is to bring in salary bands, a scalable pay structure that not only enables pay equity, but also provides flexibility and transparency to employees around pay progression, which can boost retention. It also helps you budget for future hires.

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Workshop 051: Finding brand ambassadors

Brand ambassadors spend time promoting your business – whether that's starting conversations about you within their networks, shouting about you on social media or showing up at events IRL. The right ambassadors can make a huge difference when it comes to spreading the word about what you do, which can have a knock‑on effect on sales, reputation, customer engagement and content creation.

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Workshop 050: Internal transparency

Transparency creates a strong employee culture, helps guide people on where they need to focus their efforts, and generally encourages a working environment of knowledge sharing. What's more, it's become a clear differentiator when it comes to attracting (and keeping hold of) talent.

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Workshop 049: Bootstrapping basics

When you fund a business using your own money and any subsequent sales revenue, you're bootstrapping it. It's how the majority of small businesses are funded, and it builds financial sustainability into a brand from day one. But, if you start this journey without the necessary prep and foundations in place, there are both personal risks (debt, stress, burnout) and business ones (failure). To start the bootstrapping journey, you need to be in a sound economic position, have relatively low startup costs and have firm control over the financial situation of your business. Here's how to lay the foundations.

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Workshop 048: Giving effective feedback

Giving feedback to someone consists of saying: when you act in this way, this is the effect – whether that's positive or negative. The aim, of course, is to have an effect on someone's future behavior. But, despite knowing how important giving feedback is, plenty of managers and leaders find it tricky and avoid it – until small things become long-standing, ingrained issues. Here's how to do it right.

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Workshop 047: Finding suppliers

Whether you're a product or service business, you'll probably be relying on suppliers – be it manufacturers, distributors, importers, infrastructure providers or subcontractors.

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Workshop 046: The art of bartering

Bartering – where two parties trade space, services, products or supplies without money entering the conversation – can be super valuable to small businesses with limited resources. It's a chance to obtain value without spending – and extract value from parts of your business that might otherwise have gone unused. But you need to be careful about what you offer and look to receive, and who you barter with. Sometimes the value doesn't match up; sometimes businesses end up giving away capacity they really need for their customers. Planning is key.

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Workshop 045: How to find the right coach

More formal and structured than mentoring, coaching can be an incredibly useful investment in yourself, as a coach can provide motivation, practical suggestions and an impartial but informed perspective.

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Workshop 044: Letting someone go

Letting go of people who aren't contributing positively can make room for new talent and improve your culture and productivity. That said, the way you go about it is critical – and has a huge effect on the culture of your business, not to mention legal implications if it's not done right.

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Workshop 043: Brand extension

If you want to diversify your brand's offering, one option is to move into a completely different area or category – leveraging your pre-existing identity, customer base and resources to create a new product or service.

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Workshop 042: Onboarding new hires

The aim of onboarding is to help employees assimilate into your company's culture and team as quickly as possible, while giving them all the critical info they need to perform their role. Naturally, a solid onboarding process requires a considered and often bespoke plan of action – something that's possible even for small businesses that don't have fully fledged HR departments.

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Workshop 041: Priority management

Got a never-ending to-do list? Well, priority management helps you apply yourself to where it really matters – and figures out the truly valuable tasks that have the biggest impact.

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Workshop 040: Practicing your pitch

Once you‘ve created a pitch deck, it’s time to work on the verbal side of things – and that means practice, practice and then just a little more practice. The aim is to correct inaccuracies and inconsistencies, cut out the fluff and make sure you deliver your pitch in a compelling and logical manner. Here’s what you need to know to stand out from the crowd.

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Workshop 039: How to find the right co-founder

It seems obvious but it’s worth repeating: co-founder compatibility and characteristics can make or break a business. Spending time mining your network and beyond, and not just settling for someone who *seems* viable, can give your business what it needs to grow. This isn’t about hiring someone, it’s about finding someone to build your business with.

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Workshop 038: Applying for grants

When it comes to small-business grants, the application process is often very demanding and you’re unlikely to be the only business going for it. Here’s how to work out if grant funding is for you – and find the relevant ones to apply for.

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Workshop 037: Writing product descriptions

In the world of online shopping, product descriptions are king. To sell yours, you’ll want to provide the key info, answer any questions and ultimately persuade customers that what you’re selling is the answer to what they’re looking for.

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Workshop 036: Direct competitor research

No matter what you’re doing, it’s pretty likely there are at least a few other businesses doing the exact same thing, targeting the exact same people. Digging into the details of your competitors’ product, their sales and marketing strategy or their customer experience can show you gaps you can exploit and help you keep up with how your sector is progressing in general. Here's how to do it.

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Workshop 035: Finding a manufacturer

Finding the perfect manufacturer for production is a little like finding a needle in a haystack – but it’s one of the most important things you’ll do if your business is based on making – and selling – physical products. Here's how to find that needle.

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Workshop 034: Leading an idea session

Idea sessions allow teams to think innovatively, present ideas, hear opposing viewpoints, riff off one another and improve upon those initial ideas. But to make them work, prep, structure, rules and strong leadership are non-negotiables. That’s where you come in…

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Workshop 033: How to prototype your product or service

With many of the benefits and few of the risks of jumping straight into proper production or building, prototyping is a critical step in product development. The aim? To see what works and what doesn’t, what users are happy (and not so happy) with and what’s actually possible. Here’s how to tackle it.

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Workshop 032: Building your network

The word ‘networking’ carries plenty of baggage – so it’s perhaps better to think of this instead as relationship building with a dynamic of mutual support. Sharing knowledge and opportunities with like-minded people is fun and productive – if you do it right.

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Workshop 031: Product line extension

If you’re experiencing stagnation in sales, or you’re ready for growth, a product line extension (also known as expansion) might be just what you need.

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Workshop 030: Handling team conflict

In the absence of a dedicated HR team, the onus will fall on you to play an active role in conflict resolution – and hit the right balance between micromanaging and being too hands-off. Time to put on that mediating hat.

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Workshop 029: Crowdfunding

A successful crowdfunding campaign takes serious work to make sure it reaches and resonates with the right people. Without further ado…

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Workshop 028: Data privacy

With small businesses always a target for those pesky cybercriminals – and customers putting a lot of trust in you with their data – this is about building in best practice right from the start.

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Workshop 027: Dividing up co-founder responsibility

If you’ve co-founded a business with another person, or people, then at some point – and the sooner the better – you’ll need to formalize roles and responsibilities. To avoid confusion – and conflict – setting down expectations at the start is essential. Here’s how to do it.

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Workshop 026: How to mitigate impostor syndrome

Making impostor syndrome disappear is the aim, but keeping it in check is a more realistic goal – doing so is essential for your mental health and the health of your business. Here’s how to minimise its impact.

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Workshop 025: Investing in your community

This week, we’re looking at community investment – which can mean everything from hiring local to buying from local suppliers and supporting local initiatives: anything that keeps (or increases) money circulating within the community.

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Workshop 024: Identifying angel investors

Angel investors' knowledge, networks and cash can be invaluable when it comes to growing your business quickly – meaning there’s as much skill in the search as there is in convincing them to invest. Here’s how to avoid wasting your valuable time – or worse, giving away part of your business to the wrong people.

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Workshop 023: Conducting one-on-ones

One-on-ones are recurring discussions (every one or two weeks) between you and someone who works directly below you. In them, employees are given the time, space and platform to talk about whatever's important to them – work-related or not. But that’s only if you structure them properly.

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Workshop 022: Brand partnerships and collabs

For small businesses, partnerships present a simple yet effective route to growth: helping build out your brand and reach new audiences, while making exciting, creative decisions with a lower level of financial risk attached. But any partnership or collab needs to be coordinated correctly because, whether they’re strong or weak, they affect the core identity of your product or service – and how both your employees and customers perceive it.

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Workshop 021: Pricing strategy

Your pricing affects how people perceive what you're selling – as well as if, when and why they would buy it. Price it too high and you’ll miss out on sales; too low and you’ll sacrifice revenue for no reason and perhaps even cheapen your brand in the long run. That might not sound like the most creative of activities, but this should be treated as both an art and a science.

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Workshop 020: Crisis management

Creating plans for hypothetical events might not be top of your priority list, but as you dig into it you’ll realise the value of some prep. You might even be able to turn a crisis into an opportunity – enriching relationships with your existing customers, and even gaining new ones.

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Workshop 019: Office space

Although physical offices aren’t perhaps as important as they were pre-pandemic, finding the right space makes a huge difference: for happier and more productive staff, your attractiveness to potential hires and your brand’s image. It’s a balancing act between finding something you can afford and something that fits your business’ needs.

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Workshop 018: Customer feedback

Making sure your customers are happy is key to retaining them and encouraging them to recommend your business to others. Therefore, customer feedback should influence everything from your product development to your marketing strategy – getting this right is essential.

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Workshop 017: Social media planning

Social media can feel like an overwhelming part of a business to manage, but it needn’t be – here’s what to do to create a consistent presence.

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Workshop 016: Product photography

With the rise of online shopping, the choice available to consumers in any given category can be vast – meaning the photos that illustrate what you’re selling and why it’s worth buying are fundamental if you’re selling online. This doesn’t necessarily require a lot of fancy equipment or a professional photographer – you just need to think through your goals and invest some time and energy into bringing those ideas to life. Here's how to do it.

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Workshop 015: Making more sales

Making sales through outreach is notoriously hard – that’s why your strategy needs to be distinctive and relevant to your industry, product and prospects. Here's how to do it.

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Workshop 014: Using SEO to grow

Search engine optimisation (known as SEO) is about setting up your website so that search engines surface it when people search for questions or terms related to your business. Here's how to use it so your business can rank higher in search results.

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Workshop 013: How to create a pitch deck

This week we tackle something that still plays a pretty big part in getting external investment: the pitch deck – the visual story of your business used to spark investor interest.

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Workshop 012: Getting press coverage

This week, we tackle a subject that the vast majority of businesses could do with more of: getting press coverage in the right places. And there’s far more to it than sending out a few hopeful emails.

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Workshop 011: Customer support

Customer support has come a long way since the days of long hold times and infuriating conversations. Now you need to be supporting customers throughout their journey.

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Workshop 010: Pay equity

This week, we’re digging into the world of compensation and the topic of pay equity – making sure that people are being paid fairly across your business.

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Workshop 009: User research

This week, we’re talking about how to use user research in your product development process to help you build something that meets customer needs and wants.

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Workshop 008: Delegation

This week, we tackle a fundamental aspect of management that plenty of founders have trouble with, which results in a waste of valuable energy that would be better spent elsewhere.

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Workshop 007: Content usage rights

It can seem counter intuitive, but you don’t necessarily own content that you pay to create. You might need to licence it from its creator – and if you do, you should have a good understanding of the usage rights available.

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Workshop 006: Effective interviews

For small businesses, getting the right people to join the team is critical – your interview process is not something that should be an afterthought or left to gut instinct.

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Workshop 005: Market assessment and positioning

Here we tackle a pivotal step when launching a new business or product: the process of assessing the market – and determining where you’ll fit into it.

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Workshop 004: How to calculate your carbon footprint

This week, we turn our attention to a subject that's crucial to understanding your business' impact on the environment – and one not as complex, time-consuming or expensive as you might initially think...

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Workshop 003: How to get people talking about your brand

It goes without saying (but we’ll say it anyway) – word-of-mouth remains the most effective way for a business to acquire new customers. While that sometimes happens organically for free (very handy), businesses often need to encourage existing customers to refer their product or service to someone they know. Enter a referral marketing program.

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Workshop 002: Tone of voice

Once you’ve got a logo, colour scheme and name sorted for your business, it might seem like you have everything you need to build a strong brand. But one essential – yet often overlooked – brand dimension is tone of voice. At its simplest, your brand’s tone of voice is your personality. It determines how you speak to your customers online, on packaging, on social media – everywhere, really.

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Workshop 001: Debt financing

Welcome to Courier Workshop, our new email dedicated to helping you launch, run and grow a successful business. This week, we’re starting with a question we hear time and again: how to fund a business with debt rather than equity. We hope you find it useful and of course, as always, we'd love to hear your thoughts.

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