Robert Craven triumphs again for Barclays

"Let's talk more profit" at the Hilton Hotel, Portsmouth.

As always there are three balls to keep in the air - one each representing Operations, Marketing and Finance. Yet again everyone's good at Operations - because we all said "I could do that better"

If you score each element out of ten then Finance is always the numeric average of the other two so if Operations is ten and finance is six then marketing can only be scoring TWO.

It always comes down to marketing.

So how do you improve your marketing:
- make sure your cash is coming in
- make sure your systems are effective
- get rid of your worst customers
- get rid of your worst performing products and services
- get rid of under-performing staff

THEN put your effort into where it counts:
- increase your prices
- increase the volume of sales
- increase the number of customers

So what's on my new list to do:
- telephone our customers for more referrals
- develop a new presentation for our poorest performing service
- review our prices
- Be DIFFERENT, get into the mind of the customer
- edit our web site

"We work with small businesses, who have a problem with managing their business growth.

what we do is provide expandable phone and data systems via the internet which means that they can work together better and operate more efficiently. Thus they make more profit so that they can achieve their personal goals.

We are the only company to have taken the eLink team-working software and extended it to suit all the day to day needs of small businesses for the whole office process from developing sales, booking appointments, running the operations, invoicing and credit control, and for those who need it incorporating project cost control.

We have also integrated the eLink system with the VoIP phone system for dialling calls. We have tested the system on all PCs and Notebook PCs and also with using 3G Dongles so that you and your team can utilise it anywhere.

Outlook or Exchange Server are integral so that all the office processes run coherently. We have also added software to automate many office activities and report generation.

Our clients tend to be young businesses who just want the freedom to grow their real business out-sourcing to us the job of looking after the under-lying office systems and protecting their corporate data.

Our customers select what they want anywhere along the spectrum from a one person phone system or a one person contact and appointments system upwards to the whole works."

However I met some ten people all of whom I'd love to do business with, all positive, all looking forward, all driving, all confident in their businesses:
- limousine company
- telecoms company
- structural engineers
- chewing gum cleaners
- sportswear manufacturers
- motor vehicle servicing
- chocolate supplier
- chiropractic clinic
- tearoom and cafe
- management consultant

Lots of ideas from round the room, everyone thinking hard, everyone looking inwards to check what they could be doing better.

Good to meet people, good to review how we work, good to exchange experiences.