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Sales supremo Jackie Wade is the author of Successful Selling for Small Business and has travelled the globe teaching businesses large and small how to sell. Watch the video above to see what she has to say about selling in her own words – and read our bio of Jackie below to find out more about her.

Jackie Wade is the petite and passionate sales dynamo from Dublin. Committed to ethical and professional selling practices, Jackie is focused on helping small businesses succeed in highly competitive marketplaces.

Jackie’s love affair with sales and selling began when, aged six, she took charge of the ‘sweetie department’ in her grandmother’s corner shop in Ireland and quickly found a way of earning some real pocket money for the first time. A series of (un)fortunate events during her teenage years, resulted in her running a number of market stalls across the city, and developing a natural flair for cross-selling, upselling and generally winning sales in hard times.

Her career took an international twist when aged 21, she graduated with a degree in international marketing and languages and had the opportunity of supporting Irish software companies looking to expand into European markets. Her wanderlust and international sales career boasts more than 15 years of global business development, working in practically every corner of the globe and spear-heading real growth across a diverse range of companies.

In 2000, following the birth of her twins, Jackie parked her international corporate heels and set up her own business as a sales consultant and trainer; in 2004 the company became Winning Sales. In just a few years, she has become a sought-after sales trainer, working in football’s premiership boardrooms, top universities and law firms, as well as with a host of local businesses and enterprise agencies.

Whether as a trainer, coach or motivational speaker, Jackie’s Irish charm and self-deprecating humour, knowledgeable content and memorable case studies all serve to inspire and motivate audiences of every background across the globe.

More from Jackie on Enterprise Nation

• Ten things you should know about selling

Buy Jackie’s book for more sales insights for small enterprises

As a paperback: Get Successful Selling for Small Business: What It Takes and How to Do It at the special offer price of just £8.50 As an eBook:  Download Successful Selling for Small Business: What It Takes and How to Do It for just £2.00

Sales supremo Jackie Wade has worked with large and small businesses across the globe to teach them the art of selling successfully. Aside from writing a book about Successful Selling for Small Business for us (surely her crowning achievement!), she’s identified ten things that every business-owner should understand about selling before they start to do it.

1. Successful selling is not a black art. It is a logical process and conclusion, based on a simple series of pre-planned, well-executed steps.

2. Sales output is related to input. You get out of it what you put in to it.

3. Selling is not marketing, marketing is not selling.

4. Telling is not selling.

5. You cannot close what’s not closable.

6. No is ok. Every no brings you closer to yes.

7. Likeability is important but not everything.

8. In sales we are all equal – buyer and seller.

9. It’s not about perfection, it’s about doing it.

10. Sales Success = mindset + process + action!

What do you think?

Do you have any sales tips you’d like to add to this list? Please let us know in the comments below.

Find out more about Jackie – and buy her book!

Meet the author: Jackie Wade Buy the paperback: Buy Successful Selling for Small Business as a paperback for the special offer price of just £8.50 Download the eBook: Buy Successful Selling for Small Business as an eBook for just £2

Photo credit: Anthony Easton

Here’s a warming thought for small-business owners on a cold and windy day: Facebook is now the top source of new customers for small businesses.

That’s the conclusion of an online poll of 500 small business owners by technology company BaseKit, which found that 36 per cent of small businesses now use the social media platform to market themselves to new and existing customers.

That’s far more than Twitter (17%) and online advertising (20%) and even more than traditional routes to market for small enterprises such as local business directories (27%) and print advertising (21%). Of course, it’s no great surprise that online marketing outweighs offline marketing in the poll since it was conducted online, but even so it says a lot about the way the habits of micro-businesses are changing.

Smart marketing with Facebook

We’ve known for some time that homegrown firms are using social media extensively as a cost-effective way to engage with existing customers and pick up new ones. With 70 per cent of internet users chatting away on social media – and particularly Facebook – it makes a lot of sense to go where your modern customers are.

As the platform develops (with apps, for example), it’s also becoming a more and more effective way of not only engaging with customers but actually making sales. At our last Go Global event, Lee Fuller of Social Bizzle explained that small businesses are experimenting with Facebook in ever more intelligent ways – he cited group buying as one, for example: in this case, you make a limited time offer on a product that’s only available if a certain number of people commit to buy. It’s a smart incentive for people to like and share the offer with their friends and it’s virtually a guarantee that you’ll pick up new fans and customers.

So Facebook is becoming established as the online marketing platform of choice for small enterprises. But let’s not forget that there’s more than one way to catch a tiger. Artisan businesses swear by Etsy and Big Cartel, for instance; retailers have great success with eBay and Amazon. There are your own websites, too, where good search engine optimisation can make a big difference to your visibility.

Offline marketing still has a role to play…

Offline marketing still has a powerful role to play, of course – in the form of advertising, leafleting and, crucially, face-to-face networking. For fans of stats, businesses worldwide still rate face-to-face networking as twice as effective as social media for meeting and getting to know customers. A ‘marketing mix’ is precisely that – a mixture of approaches to reach different groups of customers in different places at different times.

The online world is huge and it’s stimulating wonderful growth and inventiveness in our micro-business sector. But it’s not the be-all and end-all for every business. More stats: a recent survey by the Federation of Small Businesses found that one in three firms said online selling was simply not applicable to their business (though no mention of marketing online). Coincidentally, that matches more or less exactly to the BaseKit research that found around a third of small businesses had yet to get online at all.

That’s fair enough – there are plenty of firms (small local convenience stores, for instance) for whom online sales and marketing is simply not necessary. But even allowing for corner shops and the like, one in three is a huge number*. I bet there are a fair few businesses among them that simply don’t realise the potential of the web to reach new customers. Self-employed designer working from home? What about Elance? Plumber? There are masses of online directories.

… but you must be online

I’ve no doubt at all that if you look around, you’ll find a business in every sector that’s benefiting from a bit of online marketing – even in sectors you don’t expect. In fact, I have an example of my own.

I have a friend who’s a self-employed mechanic in west London. He has a small garage and has served his local community for the best part of two decades. A year or two back he put himself on Google Places and started to pick up a few enquiries. Then he had a simple website built and taught himself search engine optimisation: his tiny one-man business now tops the search engine listings for almost every relevant search – above chains, big garages and major employers. More than half his business now comes from the web. He’s not on Facebook yet, but I reckon he should be.

My advice: whatever your business, get online in some form, even if it’s just an entry in a directory or a single page website with your name, services and contact details. People automatically search for goods and services online these days and the golden rule of marketing is that you have to go to your customer before they’ll start coming to you.

Simon Wicks, Enterprise Nation editor

* Close to five million businesses in the UK are classed as ‘small’ by government criteria – but these firms can have up to 50 employees and a turnover of £6.5 million. The vast majority of small businesses are actually ‘micro’ businesses with fewer than ten employees. In fact, around 80 per cent of the UK’s ‘small’ businesses are self-employed sole traders – one survey last year numbered sole traders at 4.14 million.

What do YOU think?

• Is Facebook all it’s cracked up to be?
• Is it a waste of time for small businesses?
• How does Facebook compare to Twitter or Pinterest as a way of creating interest in your business?
• How do you use Facebook in your business – and is it getting results?

Join the debate below!

Related posts on Enterprise Nation

• Global ecommerce: The biggest commercial opportunity since the Roman Empire
• Go Global workshops

This week is Finance 4 StartUp Britain Week, where the government-backed start-up campaign has organised a series of free events to help start-ups and growing businesses get to grips with their business finances. the week was launched this morning with a session on Entrepreneurs and Finance, organised by The Supper Club.

“Failure is distressingly unvaried,” said David Brackin, founder of online eBay selling website Stuff U Sell, speaking at the first session in Finance 4 StartUp Britain Week. “It’s all about cash. It’s the only thing that matters.”

He likened setting up a business to throwing yourself off a cliff and building a plane on the way down. “It’s thrilling and risky, but it’s also terrifying,” he told the audience of start-ups at the ICAEW’s Chartered Accountants Hall in the City of London.

Managing money

“Every day you must figure out this: when will my cash run out? The daily cash forecast is vital. If you are not doing this every day, you are neglecting your responsibility to your business.”

Taking time to do this can lead to savings that you might not expect.

“When we started out we looked into two couriers. One was cheaper but wanted to be paid within seven days, the other was more expensive but had 30 day payment terms.

“We went with the more expensive one, because it meant the cash we had would go further and it gave us time to work out if we had a viable business.”

He added: “We now go with the cheaper one, because we can afford to.”

Going back to the free-fall analogy, David said that funding on the way down is hard to do and something that you need to avoid. “You need a good story to say why you’re coming out of that dive, so a credible story is vitally important.

“Raising cash on the way down is also distracting, it stops you from doing your daily job. It’s hard work. If you do need funding, it needs to be done before you jump.”

Minding margins

David was joined by Supper Club founder Duncan Cheatle who talked about the importance of looking at your business frequently and asking yourself the question: ‘What would happen if I put my price up by 10 per cent?’

“The consequence may be that you lose 10 per cent of your client base, but may still impact on margins.”

Duncan suggested that only around three per cent of start-ups require funding. “Lots of things can aid sales growth and produce a strong profit margin. If you don’t have enough margin, then business is not possible and you will be unable to grow. If you increase the risk of that business, it will fold more quickly.”

There are three things that can be done to increase margins, he explained.

• Put prices up
• Reduce costs
• Launch another produce alongside your initial product

The other thing to bear in mind is ‘cost creep’, Duncan said. “About four years ago we worked with a PR agency that was over-servicing one particular client. Introducing time-sheets gave visibility to this and they were able to take this information to the client to negotiate. The client wasn’t interested so the business was able to move away from that client, it made the rest of the client base more profitable which meant they could also go after more profitable clients.”

Gordon Christiansen, CEO and founder of the Colway Group of companies including Red Box office supplies and London Graphics Centre told entrepreneurs to never forget the power of the one per cent. “If you can increase sales by one per cent and reduce costs by one per cent it can make a huge difference,” he said.

Attracting investment

Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) will invest £160m in UK firms next year. “Know the hot button of the VCT before you apply. Often they will only invest in AIM-only, or asset-backed businesses like pub companies or nursing homes,” advised Owen Davies, founder of My Hobby Store.

“It’s not easy to pitch for funds. Keep going, sell yourself. It’s you they are interested in.”

“Look to private individuals,” said Alex Cheatle, founder of TEN Lifestyle Concierge. Most of them won’t think of themselves as business angels. This type of crowd-funding is great. They do it because they believe in you and they just want you to get on with it. They are busy people, they leave you to it. Dealing with this type of funding takes me up to a day a month at most.”

He also suggested that looking at the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and making your business EIS-eligible.

For more information on crowd-funding, tomorrow’s follow tomorrow’s session entitled: Access to Finance: Crowdfunding Platforms & Venture Capital Firms on Twitter using the hashtag #finance4SUB

Find out what’s happening in Finance 4 StartUp Britain Week

• Finance 4 StartUp Britain Week schedule

Photo credit: Andrea Rota

You may have heard other businesses talk about ‘getting good PR’ for a product launch or business initiative, but what do they mean by that – and how do you get PR anyway? In the first of a series of articles on public relations for small businesses, Julie Sherwood of Get In The Press takes a look at the PR basics.

PR – or ‘public relations’ – is the art of getting news about your business in the press, writes Julie Sherwood (left). It’s the art of getting the press to talk about you and effectively gaining ‘free advertising’ for your business. It’s an area that is often overlooked in small businesses, but can reap fantastic rewards if you take the time to understand it. Understanding how PR works is the first step in generating press coverage for your business.

Where does ‘news’ come from?

Journalists source their news and features from people like you and me. They need people to provide them with new research, statistics, product news and imagery. Understanding that crucial fact can open up so many doors for you.

Think about how many newspapers and magazines there are – daily, weekly and monthly magazines that all have content to fill [I came across Vets Marketing Magazine today. Yup, it's out there - Ed]. Don’t forget radio and online media. Every journalist wants to find the next big thing – a reputable spokesperson, the latest must-have accessory or exclusive research findings.

The media source news themselves but also rely heavily on people contacting them with information. This is sent in the form of a press release, but also by building a relationship with PR companies and businesses. If a journalist needs an expert quote, they will often call someone they know, who they have built up a relationship with – or use a press release that lands on their desk at the right time.

Who should you contact? And when?

But it’s not quite that easy.

The downside is editorial staff do get swamped with press releases. Some receive hundreds every day. Most are sent by email and some in the post, but journalists are also hounded on the phone by PR execs ‘just chasing up that press release sent last week’.

Find a happy balance.

• Make sure you identify the right journalists for your story. Get further than the editor – for example, there’s a person responsible for the food pages, technology, finances, news pages.
• Read the publications and pages where you would love to be featured. Understand how the writer works.
• Know their deadlines and press days. Ask the editorial assistant when the magazine ‘goes to press’ and avoid contacting them in the run up.
• Send out regular press releases, when you have something newsworthy.

Remember, you may not get immediate press coverage from every press release. But it will help build up a relationship with your key contacts.

In her next article, Julie will look at how you can develop PR angles for your business.

About the contributor

Julie Sherwood runs PR Coaching courses through www.getinthepress.com and rents a journalist database for the parenting/women’s consumer press at www.parentingmagazinecontacts.co.uk

More about getting PR on Enterprise Nation

• What’s your story?

Photo credit: LoopZilla

Chris Puttnam (above, left) ran his own double glazing business for 20 years until a serious medical condition forced him to leave the business behind. During recovery, he found refuge in his passion – cycling – and it was here he found the inspiration that’s changing his life.

“I can ride 100 miles no problem but I can’t walk half a mile without being in a lot of pain,” sighs Chris Puttnam, founder of cycle-clothing company Velobici. “With cycling, I can feel great for the rest of the day. But if I walk, I feel bad for the rest of the day.”

Like a small number of people in the UK, Chris suffers from ankylising spondylitis, an auto-immune disease that causes vertebrae to fuse together. Like an even smaller number, it’s led to a variety of associated conditions, including iritis (inflammation of the eye), bronchitis and – because of the anti-inflammatory drugs he took for years to treat his back pain before a proper diagnosis – colitis.

The colitis was so severe, in fact, that Chris had to have his colon removed in 2008. He already suspected he may have to give up the hard graft of the double glazing business he had started as a teenager. But 80 nights in hospital over the course of three years and a major operation confirmed it.

“The business was always good to me and I got a good name as far as quality was concerned,” he recalls. “But I was very hands-on and it’s difficult to continue with a business that you can’t really be involved in like that.”

Starting another business – “a natural thing to do”

Chris was at a crossroads, with what appeared to be limited choices. However, he had grown up in a family where he and his brothers were encouraged to make the most of their resources and follow their interests and talents.

His father runs a knitwear factory in the Midlands; older brother David was a professional footballer who played on the wing for hometown club Leicester City, among others; younger brother Mac is a successful restaurateur in Market Bosworth, where Velobici is also based. And Chris himself, of course, had had the gumption to start a life of self-employment at just 18.

“Working for myself had always seemed a natural thing to do,” he explains. “I was never frightened by it or apprehensive about it. But if I were to try to work for someone else, I’d find that very, very difficult.”

Starting another business seemed the logical step. But what?

A passion for clothes – and bikes

Chris grew up around the clothing industry and he’s always loved classic cuts. In his late 20s, he discovered cycling and brought the same regard for style to his new passion. You might say he’s mildly obsessive – Chris currently owns 12 bikes, all classic racers from the 70s and 80s. Most of these come from the hand of legendary Italian bikemaker Ernesto Colnago. “I love my Colnagos,” he laughs.

It’s the fine lines and elegant styling he likes, as well as the high-grade traditional materials. Restoring them is a joy that takes vision, care and unrelenting attention to detail. More than anything, though, Chris loves to ride the lanes around Market Bosworth on a beautiful bike, in sharp kit.

“Looking back at things, when I was at my poorliest the only time I could escape and feel ok was when I was riding my bike,” he remembers. In a hospital bed or on a bike, time and again his mind went back to bikes and clothes, bikes and clothes. As any cyclist with a sense of style knows, the ‘look’ is almost as important as the bike itself.

“I was thinking about things a lot. I just thought ‘You know I can do something. Why don’t I create a label and a brand?’. I thought about it and thought about it. I had this name – Velobici – and I thought ‘Why not? What’s stopping me?’. And there was nothing stopping me.

“So I approached Tara Love, a knitwear designer I knew who’s now my business partner. She basically said I was mad. But I needed help because even though I had a certain amount of knowledge from growing up around the knitwear industry, I didn’t know the day-to-day running of a clothing business. I persuaded Tara and blindly gave it a go!”

Bespoke quality for clothes on wheels

There are a lot of cycle clothing brands emerging in what’s becoming a crowded market. But Velobici is among a small handful that stand out for their quality, style and distinctive branding. Chris’s concern with detail infuses everything from the designs to the choice of materials and even packaging.

The company uses fine merino wool and all the clothing is manufactured close by in the Midlands. The look is classic and stylish and the clothing is designed to be cool off the bike, too.

“We’re about to launch a new roadwear range and we must have created 15 sets of patterns , but we’re now we’re now happy with the final design. We’ve got 25 different samples of our latest jersey,” Chris reveals.

“It drives Tara mad, but you see the design evolve from sample to sample and it means the finished article is fantastic because I know that I’ve done everything possible to make it work how I want it to work. We get a lot of repeat customers, which is fantastic, and we’ve only had four returns since we started 18 months ago – all for sizing, not quality. We’re really pleased about that.

“But it’s down to the process we go through to produce the best we can before it’s despatched. Even the packaging matters – you don’t buy something from us that arrives in a plastic bag. It’s boxed, with our logo on the box.”

Racing ahead

It appears that Chris has found his metier. The business, he says, is “like a runaway train”, but it’s also given him “a new lease of life”. As for his condition, it flares up but is under control (“You remember the good days and try to forget about the bad days,” Chris acknowledges) – and it doesn’t stop him from dreaming.

He has big plans to create a cycling hub around Market Bosworth – café, a shop, a hotel, races… “We’re in the middle of the country here – it’s such an accessible place. If you can create something that people want to come to, it could work. But it’s got to be done right…”

Simon Wicks, Enterprise Nation editor

Find out more about Velobici

• Visit the Velobici website
• Become a fan of Velobici on Facebook
• Follow Velobici on Twitter

About Free Range Friday

FreeRange Friday is a celebration of homegrown businesses and the people behind them. We love to write about the inspirational, innovative and downright interesting things you do. If you have a story you’d like to contribute to Free Range Friday, then please email Simon, the Enterprise Nation editor. In the meantime, here are some previous Free Range Friday stories:

• How Cha found her niche in Large Cup Lingerie
• Secrets of a coffee-loving freelancer
• Spinless Plates – two baby girls and a business in a bag
• How Alex turned a passion for sheds into an income

Photo credit: Lady Velo

A few weeks ago, Enterprise Nation partner AXA Business Insurance provided us with a useful insurance guide for cupcake makers. Now it’s the turn of online retailers. If you’re selling through the internet, do you have all the cover you may need? Read this handy guide to find out…

Britons spent a staggering £5.86 billion shopping online in March alone this year*.Auction sites such as eBay and online marketplaces like Alibaba make it easier than ever for the homeworker to set up stall and compete with global retailers.

But just because you work from your spare room or kitchen table doesn’t mean that you’re not a real business with real business needs. And if you think your home contents insurance will cover you, then think again.

Insurers will regard you as a retailer if your business could technically be run from a shop. This means you won’t have any trouble getting the cover you need.

Do you use a computer?

If you sell online, then the answer is clearly yes. Your home contents insurance won’t cover your computer for business use, so you’ll need to think about business equipment cover. If you take your computer and phone out and about with you, then make sure you have cover for this, too.

Tip: A standard policy may not cover you for computer breakdown or data loss. Always keep a back up and consider an extension to your policy to cover for this.

Do people visit you?

Public liability will cover injury or damage to a person or premises negligently caused by you. If you visit one of your suppliers and they trip over your bag, you could be seriously out of pocket if they are injured and unable to work.

Do you employ people?

If the answer is yes, even if on a temporary basis to help you through a seasonal backlog, you will need employers’ liability insurance. It’s the law.

Tip: There are a few exceptions, such as employing family, so check with your insurer.

Do you sell products?

If so, have you thought what would happen if somebody was injured by choking on a bead that fell off a bracelet you sold them? Product liability insurance will cover you for injury your products may cause people.

Tip: It will also include damage to property caused by something you’ve sold or supplied.

Do you transport your goods?

If you use your own car for visiting suppliers, your motor insurance needs to be extended for business use. If you use a larger van for deliveries, you’ll need to get commercial vehicle insurance.

Tip: Your retailer’s policy may automatically cover goods that you deliver with your own vehicle, but if you rely on carriers you should consider ‘goods in transit’ cover. This will protect your goods wherever in the world they are delivered.

Do you have stock?

Even if you keep it in your home, you’ll need to insure it. It’s unlikely to be covered by your home contents insurance, so talk to your insurer to see what’s covered and what’s not.

Tip: Do you store stock in your garage or shed? Be security savvy and make sure your building is properly locked and alarmed.

How would you cope if disaster strikes?

Most businesses go bust after a major incident such as a fire or flood. Business interruption insurance will cover you for loss of profits and business expenses, as well as paying wages to your employees.

Tip: Check out our guides to business risk and business interruption

What if you were taken to court by a customer?

Legal expenses cover will pay out if a disgruntled customer takes you to court because you’ve broken your contract or if you have a fall-out with an employee who wants to bring a case against you.

Tip: You must always tell your insurer as soon as you become aware of a claim.

*IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index

This post was contributed by Enterprise Nation partner AXA Business Insurance

Chat to the experts about business insurance

Small business insurance experts from AXA are answering your questions in our forum. Anything you need to know about getting your small enterprise protected? Fire away!

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AXA is offering Enterprise Nation readers an exclusive 15 per cent discount on business insurance. Find how to claim your discount and how AXA Business Insurance helps small enterprises meet their insurance needs.

More from AXA on Enterprise Nation

Make business insurance a piece of cake A guide to Employers’ Liability and Public Liability insurance Working from home? Top tips to protect your livelihood AXA is proud to sponsor Enterprise Nation

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Photo credit: Florian Boyd

In her first post on outsourcing and virtual support, Sandra Lewis of Worldwide101 considered why small enterprises should think about hiring in virtual help rather than taking on full time employees. In part two, she looks at how you can get started.

You have been hearing about the many advantages of hiring virtual support – that you have global access to professionals in a variety of fields; that you can hire for a project or for ongoing support; that you do not have to commit to long term employment, pay benefits, or provide office overhead.  You are ready to try it out for yourself.  So, how do you get started?

Just as you exercise due diligence in hiring a contractor to build your house or a full-time employee to help you run your business, similar principles hold true for hiring virtual help.

Posting your project

• Be clear about your needs.  Do you need a few pages written for your website or an entire marketing plan?  Do you need a virtual assistant for a few hours a week, or to cover your office hours? It is good to start off slowly, but as entrepreneurs, we know the tendency while starting up is to try to do everything ourselves.  Think about what would be better outsourced to another – such as routine tasks that will free you up for more strategic work or projects where outside expertise will provide an advantage.  Then think about the qualifications of your ideal candidate – what skills, knowledge and experience should they possess?  Write your thoughts down!

• Be clear about your budget.  It is possible to hire virtual help very cheaply, but as in most things, you are likely to get what you pay for.  An exception might be a new, untested provider who is bidding low in order to break into the market. Online freelance marketplaces like Elance, Odesk, Guru and many others allow you to post your project without specifying a detailed budget, enabling you to get an idea of the going rate by the proposals you receive. You may pay a bit more to use a virtual professional services company that selects providers for you, but make up for it in receiving guidance that allows you to get started quickly and avoid costly mistakes.

• Carefully craft your job description.  The clearer you are about your needs and expectations, the better professional services companies can select providers for you. If you are using a freelance marketplace, providers will look at your project and decide whether or not to apply based on your description.  Choose an established marketplace or professional services provider to post your project – they will attract the best candidates.

Screening candidates

Once you have several candidates to choose from, use whatever tools are available to you to compare their qualifications with needs you identified during the first phase.

• Review recommendations.  Providers associated with online marketplaces should have reviews from past clients that you can review. Professional service companies will also be able to provide such reviews.

• Review work samples. In many cases, candidates may be able to provide samples of their past work. If they have not done so with their proposal, ask for them.

• Interview candidates. At a minimum, an email exchange will give you a little more insight about the qualifications of the candidate. Some providers submit “canned proposals” that do not accurately represent their skills. Get them to answer some specific questions. Better still is a telephone or video interview (Skype is a good, free choice) that will allow you to interact with the candidate. Prepare some specific, open-ended questions ahead of time such as:
• Tell me about a similar project you have worked on in the past.
• What other projects are you working on at present? (to see if they are able to handle the workload)
• What do you think qualifies you for this project?
• How soon could you get started?
• What questions / concerns do you have about the project?

• Try out a small project. One of the distinct advantages of using virtual professional services is that you do not have to make a large commitment. Indeed, it is usually a good idea to try a small project with the provider to test their expertise and how well you work together.

We’d love to hear yours tips and ideas for how you have hired virtual support, so please don’t hesitate to share them below!

Good luck on your hunt for your virtual professional team!

About the contributor

Sandra is the Founder and CEO of Worldwide101, a virtual services company which provides admin and customer service for companies worldwide. Born and raised in France, Sandra has travelled and worked extensively in Asia, Australia, North America and  both Eastern and Western Europe. During her career, she has worked as operations manager for companies such as Regus and BuroServices, with a focus on supporting small businesses to be effective as they scale. She manages her entire team on four continents, on a virtual basis.

Special offer: $75 of free Elance credits with Enterprise Nation

• Get $75 of free Elance credits

Read Sandra’s other posts about virtual support

• Virtual support – it’s never been easier

More about outsourcing and virtual support on Enterprise Nation

• Vintage and Rare: The 24-hour global small business
• When is a subcontractor really an employee?
• Five tips for getting the most out of Elance

Pinterest is a great way to highlight your own products, encourage others to do the same and to build a following by sharing your passion for your sector. Perfect, no? Suzanne Dibble from Lawyers4Mumpreneurs says Pinterest’s ease of use may be encouraging people to play fast and loose with copyright – and yours could be under threat. Here’s her advice for protecting your copyright on Pinterest.

A relative new kid on the social media block, Pinterest is growing quickly, with rating figures suggesting that UK traffic increased almost 50 per cent between December and January alone, writes Suzanne.

Perceived as being particularly attractive to women, the attraction of the site is obvious: users can create virtual ‘pinboards’, grouping together images and other content under their own profile, then sharing them with their followers.

Pinterest’s terms and conditions require users either to own, or have obtained the right to use, any content which they pin. One estimate, however, is that 99 per cent of pins don’t comply with this requirement.

Should you worry if your content is being copied without your knowledge or consent, or without linking back to you as the original source?  The consequences are potentially serious: you lose control of how your images are seen and presented, risking real damage to your brand.

What can you do?

Pinterest offers two tools for copyright holders to use: -

• ‘Pin It’ button. Added to your website, as with Twitter and Facebook buttons, this acts as a kind of virtual permission slip and means that if your customers pin your content to their boards, your details and description go with it. On the site’s Goodies page, there are instructions and a video tutorial on how to install the ‘Pin It’ Button.

• ‘Opt out‘. Within its Help section, Pinterest have now added a line of code which website owners can use to block their content. Anyone trying to copy content which has been protected will receive the message: “This site doesn’t allow pinning to Pinterest. Please contact the owner with any questions. Thanks for visiting!”

If your material is already on Pinterest without your consent and you want it to be taken down, the site also offers the option to submit a Copyright infringement notification

© Suzanne Dibble  2012

About the contributor

Suzanne Dibble is a multi-award winning lawyer whose experience ranges from advising plcs on billion pound deals to advising micro businesses on their day-to-day business law issues. Suzanne is the founder of Lawyers4Mumpreneurs, the only business law practice in the UK to exclusively focus on helping mums in business, and is also a consultant with Virtual Law.

More on Pinterest and other social media

• Infographic: Should small businesses use Pinterest to market their products?
• The top ten legal issues to consider when using Twitter
• Sharing personal information on social media – How much is too much?
• Video: How to use the Facebook timeline for business

Photo credit: Los Amigos Del Fuego