The following checklist will help you to comply with the Data Protection Act. Being able to answer ‘yes’ to every question does not guarantee compliance, and you may need more advice in particular areas, but it should mean that you are heading in the right direction.

• Do I really need this information about an individual?
• Is this information all accurate and up to date?
• Do I know what I’m going to use it for?
• Do the people whose information I hold know that I’ve got it, and are they likely to understand what it will be used for?
• If I’m asked to pass on personal information, would the people about whom I hold information expect me to do this?
• Am I satisfied that the information is being held securely, whether it’s on paper or on computer? And what about my website? Is it secure?
• Do I have consent for all sensitive personal data that I hold?
• If I am transferring data outside of the EEA (ie the European Union plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein), have I either ensure adequate protection or obtained consent from the data subject?

Lawyers4mumpreneurs is a new legal practice established to focus on mumpreneurs’ needs. We cover the full range of business law services and have over 12 years’ experience at the highest level in providing such services. Our aim is to provide mumpreneurs with a top quality, approachable and flexible service that most importantly is affordable. See details of our experience, clients and testimonials at www.lawyers4mumpreneurs.com.

A mission statement might sound like something very grand that only massive corporations have, but even the smallest company can benefit from having a mission statement, company vision or simply a company ethos.

Quite simply a mission statement is a formal, short, written statement of the purpose of a company or organization. A company ethos  is a defined set of values and beliefs.

When we set up Mum’s the Boss we did so to meet a particular gap in the networking circuit and when we planned our meetings we knew they had to tick a number of boxes  and be Child-Friendly, Affordable, Informative, Informal and Supportive. Those five key principles are at the heart of everything we do and have come to form the MTB Ethos.

A company ethos or mission statement will:

1. Allow your customers to identify & connect with your values
2. Inspire trust in your customers, by clearly stating your promise to them
3. Provide a visible sense of direction for your company
4. Help your decision-making when new opportunities arise, as you can quickly test whether they fit in with your values or deviate from them
5. Provide a framework for the growth of your company

So if you haven’t done so already, take a few moments and transport yourself back to the very start of your business, and write down why you set up your company in the first place and what your aims and goals for the business were back then. Are you still on track and being true to yourself? If not, use this as a framework to refocus and regain that vision. Then make a promise to this effect to your customers.  

“Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is simply passing the time. Action with Vision is making a positive difference” – Joel Barker

So how did you all get on with the first tasks from last month? Easy huh? Bet they got you thinking though. The trouble (or even benefit) of any aspect of internet marketing is that the internet constantly changes. So you need to keep up with the times to make sure whatever you are doing is fresh. So let’s get on with this months tasks!

SEO Task for August

Do you remember last month when I asked you to write down your top 10 chosen words that you would hope to be found by? These are your keywords. Keywords work even better for your website when those words can be found on your website itself a couple of times however, the overuse of keywords, a practice called ‘keyword stuffing’, will cause a web page to be penalized and the SEO ranking may be decreased. So as you can see, it’s all about balance.

Your Task: How many times do these words appear on the front page of your website, actually in the copy itself (in the text)? Are they all in there at least once? If not, maybe it’s time to look at your copy and add these words in.

Social Media Task for August

The power of the Retweet!

Retweeting is when you share another persons Tweet on your stream. For example it may look like this: “RT @mumstheboss: Internet Marketing #2 post here www.here.com”

Whilst ReTweets’s are great for sharing information they are also a really good way to network and make new contacts on Twitter. Most people (well the polite ones anyway!) will say ‘Thank You’ for ReTweeting them, use this as an ice breaker and say hello.

Your Task: Retweet at least 3 new people every day for one week. If you only follow a small amount of people and you cannot find anything you would like to ReTweet then perhaps it’s about time you started following some new people. Don’t be afraid to see who your friends are following, you can follow them too if they sound interesting. Give it a go. ReTweets can be the first step to a conversation and then that first step can also be like a handshake of a new contact. 3 ReTweets a day will sound like a lot in the beginning, but imagine if they were 3 business cards you were handing out? You would do it then wouldn’t you ?

Have fun and get out there with your RT’s!

Sally Walker
Sally Walker Media Labs
www.sallywalker.me.uk

“Summer time, and the living in easy….” Well maybe for some, but summer time for mumpreneurs is often a complicated mix of childcare arrangements, snatched hours at the computer, all washed down with a massive amount of guilt.

Why guilt you may ask? Well, I’m assuming many of you, decided to set up your own business to give you quality time with your children, and make your career work around your children – not the other way around. The question on my mind, (as I type this at 07:00 in the morning with my two children playing around me), is how do I make the most out of my six weeks of quality time with the children, but have a business at the end of the holiday?

Before, I add a couple of ideas about how to practically manage the holiday time, it is worth dispelling a few myths and self limiting beliefs that we mumpreneurs can subscribe too:

1. Our business will still be there for us at the end of the holidays – our clients and customers also will be taking time out over the next six weeks

2. Only you can dictate the pace of your business – taking the foot off the accelerator pedal for six weeks, may actually give you the recharge time you need to get the business really firing on all four cylinders in the autumn.

3. Our children may actually enjoy the variety that play schemes, play dates and the odd DVD on a wet summer’s day can bring, rather than resenting our need to do some work.

4. If we were properly ‘employed’ we would only be getting 2 weeks off over summer – so spending a few days a week on the business, is no big deal.

5. The world will not end if you have an untidy house or buy a couple of ready-meals…

Anyway, here is how I plan to get through the next six weeks, ‘guilt-free’ (well, who I am kidding?), and with a business in one piece at the end of it!

1. Take a look at your to-do list and identify anything that is non-essential or can wait a few weeks. Re-timetable these for the beginning of September. For example, all my projects are on hold for the next 6 weeks. About two months ago, myself and my village elder on the Bedford executive village agreed we wouldn’t hold an executive village in August as we both wanted to enjoy the summer, rather than be spending time in August sorting out stuff for the executive village.

2. Focus on keeping your business ticking over rather than growing over the summer. As I have said previously, many of your clients and customers will be on a go slow as well. I plan to only complete my coaching and writing obligations over the summer. Networking and projects can wait.

3. At the start of each week, prioritise your to-do list for the week – and remember that you have seven days and evenings to complete the work.

4. Ask your children who they would like to see over the holiday and arrange a series of play dates. You may find that if you have your children’s friends over, your children are happy and able to amuse themselves, and you are able to get some work done.

5. Block out days in your diary when you are on holiday, and your sole purpose is to spend quality time with your children.

6. On the days when you have to put some hours in on your business, how about getting up very early, and doing 3 or 4 hours work before mid-morning. Then spend the rest of the day guilt free with the kids.

7. Take a look at your council’s website as there are probably details of local summer play schemes available – some may even have some places still available.

8. Delegate and outsource wherever possible. If you don’t have a call answering service, pay for someone to answer your phone in the holiday. It may help you to enjoy your time with the children without wondering whether the phone will ring.

9. Agree a routine on ‘working’ days with your children. Let them know when you need to be working and when you are free. If they are able to help with your work, then let them… (Just in case my clients are reading this, the 3 year old will NOT be assisting on any of our coaching calls…)

10. Stock up the fridge and freezer with home baking and ‘picnicky’ style foods, so lunch can be rustled up in an instance, by you or your partner or children. 

11. Have some ‘emergency’ activities sorted out, which will keep your children safely and quietly amused for an odd hour or so, if a crisis arises in the business, which can NOT wait. For example, CBeebies is my emergency activity for my two children. (I would like to be able to leave them painting or doing craft… however, I have no plans for re-decorating the house just yet!)

12. Make a fun activity out of the daily chores. For example, my two love helping me with the cooking.

Good luck with your summer! What’s your personal strategy for managing the summer holidays?

Heather Townsend(AKA @efficiencycoach) is the Chief Coach at The Efficiency Coach, and co-founder of ‘the executive village’. Heather has recently been commissioned to write ‘The Financial Times Guide To Business Networking’. (Due out  in summer 2011). Heather is a prolific blogger and can be found regularly musing about business efficiency, personal efficiency, career efficiency and networking efficiency.

Setting effective goals is an important aspect of any business. Why? When you set a goal you have a destination in mind. A goal is the difference between where you are now and where you want to be. Then how you reach your goal involves putting a series of steps in place. Each step is an objective or a milestone you need to achieve to help you accomplish your goal.

 Here are 5 tips to help you set goals:

1. Write a list of goals. Include short, medium and long term goals e.g. 3 – 6 months, 1 year and 5 years. Planning goals at different intervals creates flexibility and puts them within reach.
2. Focus on ONE goal at a time. Get really good at one thing at a time. Once you have “taken a step” i.e. achieved your goal move onto the next goal.
3. Take bite sized, easy to digest chunks. Because you can’t eat the whole elephant all at once!
4. Commit to making a success of each one of your goals. Set yourself a goal to dedicate one day per week to market your business. Use this day to concentrate on writing an article, creating a newsletter or making changes to your website.
5. Start with a goal and work backwards. Understand what you wish to achieve and think about how you can achieve it.

 To help you realise your goals and achieve the results you desire set yourself SMART objectives:

• Specific – be clear and definite
• Measurable – consider time, quality, quantity, money and standards
• Achievable – are they within reach?
• Relevant – to your business, marketplace, and customers
• Timed – a start and end date with review points along the way.

Written by Gail Gibson of True Expressions
Discovery, Change, Transformation
Published Author, Writer, Coach and Trainer

At our July Bedford meeting we were delighted to have as our guest speaker award-winning mumpreneur Wendy Shand, founder of Tots To Travel. As a mum of three Wendy is passionate about encouraging women in business – and particularly mums – as she believes they make excellent business leaders and perhaps more importantly, fabulous role models for the next generation.

Wendy’s talk was on how important it is to have an overall vision, not only for your business but also for your personal life, and how having a big vision accompanied by big juicy goals focuses the mind.

At the start of Tots to Travel, Wendy recalled receiving some business advice that encouraged her to think small, so she did.  She went about creating a business with a limiting brand and, perhaps more worryingly, a limiting mindset. 

However, now all that’s changed!  Her baby friendly holiday business has a 5 year vision, big, juicy goals and a planned exit strategy. She explained that with a 3 or 5 year vision in place you can then work backwards and figure out exactly what it is you need to do today to make your vision a reality. And if you think REALLY big at the outset, then even if you only get halfway there, you’ll still have done amazingly well!

Following the meeting we heard of several mums who were spurred into immediate action with real fire in their bellies – so Wendy well and truly got her message across to her audience!

After the meeting I grabbed Wendy for a quick interview where she gave a summary of her presentation.

At the start of the month, in our newsletter, we launched the first of our Monthly Internet Marketing Workouts, kindly brought to us by Sally Walker of Walker Media Labs. By her own admission Sally is a bit of a geek!  She likes pressing buttons, messing about with servers, developing new features for applications such as Wordpress, Simple Machines Forum, phpBB and she also design websites (including this very blog!). However, her real passion is Social Media, particularly helping Mum’s in business. Sally has her

So what is a ‘Monthly Internet Marketing Workout’?   Each month I will be sharing some top tips with you to help you and your business flourish on the internet, using marketing skills, SEO and more.  But first of all a quick definition of SEO and Social Media is in order I think!

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, very simply put, this means making your website ready for Google to grab and it add it to its search engine (or any other search engine for that matter).   In order for your website to be optimised for search engines, certain elements have to be added to your site to get it ‘ready’.

Social Media is a world wide conversation.   It allows anyone with access to the internet to say how they feel, where they are, what they are doing etc.  In business marketing terms, it’s like having a massive noticeboard where you can tell the world about your latest products, services, special offers etc.  As well as networking with other people. There are literally thousands and thousands of social media websites that you can join and network on, however for our Monthly Workouts we will be concentrating on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and we’ll do one each month.

So, let’s get started!

SEO Task for July

Go to Google and type in the search box the words that you hope most people use to search for you by.     For example, if you are a toy shop in Hertfordshire, type in “toy shop Hertfordshire”.    On which page of the search results do you come?  Are you on the first page?  Second?  Tenth?  Last?   Remember to ignore the sponsored links at the top of the page too; they are only there because people have paid for them to be there.  Find where you are and write it down along with the date.

I’ll use myself for an example.  If I type in ‘social media expert UK’ I am on the first page of the search results and I am 4^th down on the list.

Once you have done this, you will either be really pleased with your result or sitting there thinking “oh my goodness, where am I?” well don’t worry, over the next few months we’ll have your SEO kicked back into shape.

Your Task:  Write down 10 words or phrases that you hope people would search for you by.  So going back to our toy shop in Hertfordshire, this could be “toy shop Hertfordshire, online toy shop, wooden toys, children’s toys etc…”  Then do searches on each of these terms in Google.  Does your site show on the first few pages of the search results?  Do your competitors?  Keep a note of where you are on all these search terms and where you and your competitors come.  You will need these for future tasks

Social Media Task

For this purpose I am going to assume that you already have a Twitter account, if you don’t, well go and get one quick, it’s free!

Your Task:  Login to your profile on Twitter and at the top you will see a link that says ‘Find People’.  Click this link and add in the names (business names and personal names if you know them) of all of your direct competitors, one by one, and as you find them, click on ‘Follow’.   You need to be able to keep an eye on your competitors in business, but not because, as you may be thinking, you want to spy on them, but to learn from them.   What do they do really well?  Talk to them!  Yes, you heard me correctly, chat to them, get to know them, if they ask for help, help them, if you need help, ask them for it.   I have a mantra for all business on Social Media, whether you are a large corporate business or a work at home mum and that is “Don’t compete, collaborate” a lot of the ‘Mums’ that I train or work with get sick of me saying it I’m sure, but it is so important.   Businesses, large and small need each other and by using Social Media (and especially Twitter) you can get to know your competitors and interact with them.  Networking with other businesses is a smart move; networking with your competitors is even smarter.

Two tasks that will certainly get your brain thinking about how you work on the internet – roll on August for some more!

See you next time.

Sally Walker
Sally Walker Media Labs:  www.sallywalker.me.uk
Sally Walker on Twitter:  www.twitter.com/sallywalker

If you run an e-commerce website, it is a criminal offence not to include the following information:

• A description of the different technical steps the customer must follow to conclude the contract.
• Confirmation of whether or not any contract will be filed by you and, if so, whether it will be accessible by the customer.
• A description of the technical means by which the customer can identify and correct input errors before he places an order.
• The language(s) offered for the conclusion of the online contract.
• If you subscribe to a code of conduct (such as the Direct Marketing Association code), the name of the code and how the customer can consult the code.
• A description of the main characteristics of the goods or services offered on your website.
• The price of the goods or services, including all taxes.
• The cost of delivery of the goods or services.
• Any arrangements applying to payment and delivery, or performance of the goods or services.
• A notice that the customer has the right to cancel the contract for any reason during the seven-days following the date of the contract.
• If customers are to use a premium rate telephone number, the cost of the call, which must be specified before any call charges are incurred.
• The period for which any special offer remains valid.
• The minimum duration of any permanent or recurrent contract.
• Where goods or services ordered are unavailable, whether you propose to provide substitute goods or services of equivalent quality and price.
• That the cost of returning any goods already delivered will be borne by the consumer (if you fail to specify this you will be liable for the cost).

To ensure that you include all of this information and the essential protections for your business, you would be wise to have a lawyer draw up e-commerce terms and conditions for you. It is a one off fee and it then protects you on every contract you make with your e-commerce customers. Lawyers4mumpreneurs can help you with this at affordable rates. Please contact Suzanne Dibble at support@lawyers4mumpreneurs.com.

Lawyers4mumpreneurs is a new legal practice established to focus on mumpreneurs’ needs. We cover the full range of business law services and have over 12 years’ experience at the highest level in providing such services. Our aim is to provide mumpreneurs with a top quality, approachable and flexible service that most importantly is affordable. See details of our experience, clients and testimonials at www.lawyers4mumpreneurs.com.

As Mums, we are used to dealing with paperwork left, right and centre, for school, the home, the endless lists….But what do we need to hang on to for our businesses? This blog will help guide you through the maze of what’s required.

Keep your financial records for 6 years

Do you need to go out and buy an enormous filing cabinet to keep the mountain of paperwork you will be inundated with? Not necessarily.

HMRC states that you should keep your financial records for 6 years in case they come to investigate your tax return. If they did appear on your doorstep (don’t worry, you’d get a letter first!), they would want to see the original records that went into the figures on your tax return. If you hadn’t kept your records for six years you may have to pay a penalty.

You must keep the original documents for anything showing tax deductions, for example P60s and bank statements. You can keep most other records electronically, as long as they are legible and show all the information on the front and back of the documents. These electronic files can be stored on CD, memory stick or any other suitable storage device. So, thankfully, there’s no need for that huge filing cabinet.

What you need to keep:

• Records to prove your income are items such as sales invoices, till rolls and paying-in slips.
• Records to prove your expenditure such as receipts, purchase invoices and cheque book stubs.
• If you are VAT registered you must also keep a VAT account, showing how you calculated the VAT due to or from HMRC, as well as VAT sales and purchase invoices and import and export documentation.
• If you are a limited company, you will also need to be able to show accounting records proving your assets and liabilities, as well as your income and expenditure. If you have accountant, he or she will be able to help you with this.
• If you are an employer, there are further record keeping requirements including all PAYE records, which in turn include employee benefits and statutory payments made.

How to keep your records:

1. Number each item e.g. you might number the first item you bought this year 001

2. Record each item and its number in the relevant book e.g.in your cash book, you would write ‘001’, the date you bought it and what the item cost. (See rules 2, 3 and 4 for more about the books you need).

3. Write the number (e.g.’001) on the receipt, invoice, till roll, paying-in slip etc itself.

4. File the receipt, invoice, till roll or paying-in slip numerically in a lever arch file (or plastic wallet for smaller items) so that they are easy to find in case of any query by suppliers or customers, or investigation by HMRC.

HMRC asks that taxpayers take reasonable care over their tax affairs. If you have made an error on your tax return, a clear filing system and helpful attitude to the investigators reduces the risk of a penalty.

If you would like any advice in this area or any other areas of accounting or tax, please contact me on 01767 260282 or amy@tayloraccountancy.net, www.tayloraccountancy.net.

Amy Taylor Accountancy takes every care in preparing material to ensure that the content is accurate and up to date.  However no responsibility for loss to any person acting or refraining from acting as a result of this material can be accepted by Amy Taylor Accountancy You should always ask your accountant to give you specific advice which is tailored to your personal and business circumstances and properly implemented.