Wednesday, 26 November 2014

Business Doctors - What we do



Who We are:

We are a network of experienced business people, passionate about sharing our skills and experiences.

Our aim is to offer hands-on support to business owners enabling them to overcome their individual challenges and helping them to achieve their growth aspirations for growth. Our clients may be striving to achieve the next level of growth in turnover and profitability, working hard without seeing the results, facing staff issues or planning to build the value of their businesses for financial security.

What we do:

We are dedicated to helping small and medium sized businesses achieve their Vision through:

Free Strategic Health Check
Strategy – Full Facilitation and Support
Focus – Sales and Profit Growth
People – Engagement and Organisational Performance
Implementation and interim support: Management, Sales, Operations and HR
Recruitment – Advice and Psychometric Testing
Training and Development
Access to Funding and Financial Support

If you are looking to grow your business, get more customers and increase your profits, it’s worth taking the time to review how your business is performing now and get some advice on how to hit the big time.

We are NOT Consultants…We’re Experienced Business people

What makes us different?

In tough economic times, strong business succeed while weak ones fail. Business doctors have been helping small and medium sized business (SMEs) get stronger, survive and thrive since 2004

We have developed 10 practical steps to business success that will help you realise the full potential of your business. Using these we demonstrate:
1.      The antidote to the Dragons Den
2.      Breaking Big formula
3.      How to achieve Business Freedom


We have developed cutting edge propriety software that when applied to your business will:

1.      Make your business 71% more valuable
Through an analysis of 6,955 businesses, we’ve discovered that companies that achieve a Scalability Score of 80+ out of a possible 100 receive offers to buy their business that are 71% higher than what the average company receives. Whether you want to sell your business soon or keep it forever, the ultimate litmus test of any business involves a simple question: would someone want to buy your business?
2.      Answer the 8 questions you need to know about a business you are growing, buying, selling or advising.
Business Attractiveness Survey gives you a clear picture of whether your business is 'hot' (or not). We unpack the major risk areas to privately-held businesses so that you can see where you need to reduce risk, and increase your attractiveness in the market. You get a clear understanding of the overall risk level of your business, specific action areas, and our suggested cost of Equity capital to use in Valuation/financing decisions.

But don’t take our word for it see what our customers say!

“With a more than 30% sales increase in the 12 months following the Business Doctors process ACS increased its net margin from -2% to + 9%.” Richard Rainford – Managing Director, Amenity Contract Services Ltd

“In the last 6 months sales have grown by 10% and margins have increased by 4%” Simon Parkinson – Managing Director, Abrasive Technologies

“Through Business Doctors hands on assistance we increased our YOY sales by 24%” Steve Copley – Managing Director, TASC Group LTD

Where to find us online?


Monday, 24 November 2014

What the value of your business?

Do you own a valuable business?

When you spend a lifetime trying to build a successful business, it leaves little time for much else, including thinking about an exit plan; but even if you are planning to pass the business on to family, you want to ensure you are offering them a valuable business. Whether you are creating an exit plan for the short term or for 20 years hence, it’s never too late or too soon to start understanding – and increasing – the value of your business.

Seventy percent of all business owners in today’s market plan to sell or pass their business on within 10 years. But 76% don’t have an exit plan, and many do not know the value of their business.

A well thought out exit plan can:
  •          Protect the legacy of your business;
  •          Build value for your business;
  •          Provide financial security for your family and your stakeholders;
  •          Make it easier to deal with any unexpected events (illness, accident or death); and
  •          Help to prepare you and your business for the future.


The Sellability Score is a highly effective tool to initiate the process of building a plan. By using it as a gauge to measure how sellable your business would be today, it can help you focus on where to increase your efforts within your business. The online tool is quick and easy to use, and it generates a personal report that highlights:

  • What you should consider when thinking of transitioning your business;
  • How saleable your business actually is;
  • The likelihood of receiving a premium offer; and
  • What your financial options are.


After completing the questionnaire online, you will be provided with a score for your business and a summary of what the score means. Meanwhile, I will be notified that you have completed the questionnaire and I will receive a copy of the comprehensive report for your business. Once I receive the report, I will set up a time with you so we can meet, review the recommendations together, and discuss any next steps required.


I’m looking forward to discussing your Sellability Score with you. 

Thursday, 20 November 2014

Duct Tape Marketing and Business Strategy

Duct Tape marketing is a great resource and guide for drawing up your marketing strategy. I have incorporated relevant steps from the business doctors 10 steps to Strategy Made Easy (SME) to illustrate how the aspects from Duct Tape marketing strategy fits into your overall business strategy

Know Your market. As SMEs we do not take the time to truly define what our ideal customer looks like. Our efforts are aimed at selling to the entire market resulting in a hit an miss process that under delivers on our revenue expectations. A quick way to get an insight into this is to look at your top customers and analyze where your highest returns are coming from, then hone in on the aspects that make those customers buy your products

"So What Factor". Ensuring differentiation of our services as SMEs are essential, this entails finding your "so what" factor and should be applied to all products and services. To assist we have developed our WOW Factor Developer that ensures you manage costs while adding value in you differentiation strategy (more on that in our next blog)

Now apply the aspects defined in the first two steps into the final steps for your marketing plan as per Duct Tape marketing by John Jantsch below:

Create information that educates. Think of your marketing materials, web sites, white papers, marketing kits as information products.
Package the experience. Use design to evoke the appropriate emotional response from your ideal prospect.
Generate leads from many points. Your lead generation efforts must allow your prospects to experience your firm from many different angles.
Nurture leads along the logical buying path. Build the lead conversion system for before, during, and after the sale.
Measure everything that matters. The secret is in finding and measuring the intangibles – those things that eventually add up to profit.
Automate for leverage. Embrace the Internet or else. Create access, stimulate community, capture innovation, and build knowledge to automate the basic delivery elements of your information business.
Commit. Create daily, weekly, monthly, and annual marketing calendars, make marketing your new habit.