PAYE tax error: 'HMRC may be too late to demand money back'

Extract . . .

"People hit with an unexpected tax demand may be able to refuse to pay as HM Revenue & Customs could have exceeded its own time limits in which to ask for the money, experts have said." 

Link

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/tax/7984853/PAYE-tax-error-HMRC-may-be-too-late-to-demand-money-back.html

Marketing – an introduction for the entrepreneur

Extract . . .

"Although it may sound counter-intuitive, marketing does not start with a new idea or innovative product. It begins with the customer – these are the people who make your business successful and this is where the marketing process begins, not at the point when the product is ready to sell."
 

Link

http://www.marketing-made-simple.com/articles/marketing-introduction.htm

Beginners guide to office property

Extract . . .

Your UK Office Options Explained
Office property generally accounts for 20% of a company's costs, second only to salaries. Therefore the decisions you make about office space today will be vital to the success of your business now and in the future. 

When assessing your commercial property choices in the UK you typically have three options:
1.    Freehold premises
2.    leased or rented offices
3.    serviced office space.

Link
http://www.abbeyoffices.com/services/serviced-office-space/beginners-guide/

Small Business News: A Start-up Guide

Extract . . .

So you’ve decided to start a small business. Great! Small Business Trends was created for people just like you to bring you the resources and information needed to grow your small business everyday. In fact, the collection of resources we’ve collected for this small business roundup may be particularly helpful in your new venture. We hope this startup guide will get you thinking creatively about the first steps in your new venture. 

Link

http://smallbiztrends.com/2010/09/small-business-news-a-startup-guide.html

Fake antivirus programs use ransom threats to scam people

Extract . . . 

Fake antivirus programs appear to be adopting some of the money-raising tactics of more threatening ransom malware, security company Fortinet's latest threat report has found.
The most prevalent malware variant during August was TotalSecurity W32/FakeAlert.LU!tr, a malicious program that masquerades as antivirus software in order to sell worthless licenses for non-existent malware. On its own it accounted for 37.3 percent of all malware threats detected by the company during the month. 

Link

http://www.cio.co.uk/news/3238085/fake-antivirus-programs-use-ransom-threats-to-scam-people/

Three start-ups that are changing the music industry

Extract . . . 

How dizzyjam.com, muzu.tv and The Vynyl Factory are staging a musical revolution.

Link
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/digital-media/7981712/Three-start-ups-that-are-changing-the-music-industry.html

Leopards and chameleons

To the average onlooker success in any chosen endeavour is usually seen as some kind of magical fluke or lucky turn, sudden break through to triumph. The reality is of course that nothing could be further from the truth.

The fact is that there is no such thing as magic luck or instant success, certainly in the field of entrepreneur/ investor relationships. Success of any kind must be prepared for constantly and in a practical manner, so that when the right moment arrives you can take advantage of it and win. And in this context the right moment is of course your first face-to-face meeting. This is the reason why the first five minutes of any inter-relationship is of such extreme and crucial importance and is the subject of these health and guidance notes.

If properly prepared a positive image can project a powerful charisma in those crucial minutes that will make an indelible and everlasting impression.

Charisma and style will flow from you only if you have the right opinion of yourself and if you're not playing some game that you do not believe in this is most important. It's vey important that you let honesty let your feelings show through so they are perceived as real and sincere.

In that first meeting, you probably have, at best, five minutes to make the right impression or the indeed the wrong impression. Although an unhappy investor is not necessarily going to terminate the meeting quickly it may go on for the first half an hour or an hour, it is quite likely that if you haven't scored heavily in those first five minutes, everything that follows is a waste of time.

Bear in mind that you are meeting a stranger, and it's just the same for them. It is crucial for you and very important for the investor, but overall it is much more important for you because after all you want the money and the investor has it!

In those first five minutes you will have decided how much trust or mistrust your new acquaintance and the other person, the investor, will have decided exactly how much he or she trusts or mistrusts you.

It is very important that you step forward to meet each other in a metaphorical sense over and above the initial hand shake. It is this which defines the manner in which each of you perceives the other. The way we put our signals to the other person and by which we establish a communicative bridgehead to each other.

When two people meet in a business situation there is an immediately an automatic and primeval probing in spite of our veneer of civilised demeanour. The handshake has been popular for centuries. It proves that the individual with the open hand does not hold a knife or weapon in it with which to threaten the other person, so in modern day business terminology and culture the handshake is a symbolic gesture.

Whenever you open your mouth to speak, you're going to disclose something about yourself. The way you phrase a question, the way you unburden yourself of an opinion and the general stylistic and non verbal manner in which you speak reveals almost everything there is to know about you.

When you talk the listener hears what you have to say and makes inferences not only on the basis of the logic and sense of what you are saying but on the basis of how you say it. Even so, no one should base total judgement and evaluation on that first impression. Most people know how erroneous a first impression can be, especially when it is based on such slim evidence. Most experienced business people will hold off a little in order to gather more information before fashioning a response.

Picking up conversational clues

There is a strong tendency to judge and evaluate others with great certainty during the first moments of communication. For example, the person who speaks softly is judged to be shy. The person who speaks loudly is judged to be aggressive or bold and, the person who speaks in a moderate tone is judged to be neither too shy nor too bold.

The first impression is all important as it tends to be irreversible. Any extreme type of behaviour thus sets up a bias for all your subsequent perceptions of the person to whom you are talking. You can revise your initial impression later on but first perceptions tend to be the most lasting and are difficult to shake and too change. How do you know what to say in order to impress somebody else. It's easier said than done.

I do believe there is one rule that you can follow no matter where you are and no matter whom you are trying to impress. Try to communicate honestly about who you are, rather than trying to paint a favourable but untrue picture of yourself. If you portray yourself inaccurately in public you are sure to be caught and forced to correct the picture at some point, especially if there are future meetings. why force yourself into a position that could prove embarrassing tomorrow, simply to prove a point today that will mean nothing in the long run.

Be a chameleon

The point about honesty brings up a rather interesting subject in human psychology. There are in this context basically two types of people, perhaps I should say two types of behaviour in people. There are those people who want to fit in at all costs and there are those who care little about fitting in at all. The easiest way to belong to a group is to assume the protective colouration of people in it. For that reason psychologists call people who do want to fit in 'social chameleons', because they usually assume the attitudes and outer manifestation of those they want to emulate.

At the other end of the scale of course, are the rugged individualists who make no point of trying to fit in and are always themselves to a degree that is infuriating to people with an understanding of sociology. These people are sometimes described as 'leopards' probably because of the biblical quotation, 'Can a leopard change his spots'.

It is probably true that there is some chameleon and some leopard in all of us but in some the chameleon element dominates and in others the leopard element dominates.

Thinking about leopards in greater depth, he or she cares little about what anyone else thinks. Obviously for most of us the chameleon is a lot easier to get along with in the first five minutes, rather than the leopard. Their perceptions cause lightening reactions. The chameleon fits in immediately and there is a rapport established instantly.

However, trouble looms when chameleon and leopard meet each other. Psychologists point out that when conversation lags, expressions cloud and vibrations become jangled and intense. There is little communication and what there is just becomes difficult.

When honesty becomes questionable

While honesty and accuracy are important in establishing yourself in any relationship as can be seen from previous discussions on chameleons and leopards, there is a level of self-disclosure that should not be passed in the first moments of a business relationship. Honesty is important, but should be tempered by definite vagueness. In fact it is best to be very vague in establishing a friendship with a stranger, much in the way in that chameleon simply does not ever reveal its true colour.

Too much too soon

To put it mildly, don't be too revealing in a first meeting. This can of course, be misconstrued, but my point about vagueness should not be taken lightly. The important aspect is that you should only stick to the story that is relevant to the matter in hand. So for an administrative example imagine that you have promised prior to the first meeting to bring along a particular document, let's say a piece of market research. and due to the pressure of time or forgetfulness or inability you didn't bring the document along. I won't stage go into the whys and wherefores of why you should be so poorly prepared, but nevertheless, let us assume that you have turned up on time and at the right venue for that first meeting and haven't got the document. Best thing to do is to tell the truth, even if it does mean that you may in your view perceive yourself as looking weak in the eyes of the other person.

This is not necessarily the case though. Honesty really can be the best policy and if for example you found it impossible to get the market research, then best to say so. You are, after all, an entrepreneur and not a professionally trained market research assistant and you may not have the money to engage such a person. Under such circumstances, tell the truth.

Preliminary preparations

Each individual brings to any meeting with another person a tremendous assorted cultural, social and psychological clutter of baggage. The great bulk of this material is involved in preliminary preparation and can be broken down into a number of important elements including:

• verbal language
• non-verbal language
• grooming
• listening ability
• psychological motivation
• charisma
• perception
• enthusiasm
• emotional control
• physical control

Link
http://www.go-between.co.uk