Business Generation

A retail giant is creating 250 jobs as it opens one of its biggest stores in the country in Sussex.

The Next store will open in the former Homebase store in Holmbush Farm, Upper Shoreham Road, Shoreham.

The posts, which have already been filled, include managers, supervisors, and assistants.

The vacancies were recruited locally with a few senior staff coming from other stores.

The 56,000sq ft flagship store, which is the chain’s third largest in the country, will open in August and will be the only Next outlet nationwide selling DIY and garden products.

It will also offer the full range of Next goods and products including womenswear, menswear, children’s clothing and home collections.

Next has installed a mezzanine floor and will introduce a new home and garden store, complete with a café, to the site.

A one-to-one free design service will be available. Cust Read more…

There’s a lot of talk in the marketing blogosphere about the importance of setting yourself apart from your competition–about how to be taken seriously, you must establish yourself as an expert in your field. And while that’s all well and good, no one ever really tells you how you’re supposed to establish yourself as an expert. What goes into becoming an “expert” and how do you know if you’re doing it right or you’re just spinning your wheels and getting no brand karma?

What should small business owners do to help brand themselves as authorities that users will trust?

Below are five tips:

1. Start Small: I’m sure there are a number of things you want to brand yourself and your company as being an expert on. However, start by picking one and building your empire from there. What is the one t

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There is no need to lecture or explain the necessity for utilizing social media marketing for any small business. While it’s easy to set up small business accounts on multiple social media sites, most small business owners do not have the strategy tools necessary to make the most of those accounts.

Although there are many possible strategies that may be useful for your business to use online, we bring you 6 of the ones we feel may be most useful for small business owners.

1. Draw Traffic Back To Your Blog/Website

   One of your overall goals with online marketing should be to increase traffic to your website or blog. If you have a company blog, that should be your “Grand Central Station” for posting detailed and updated information.

   Using your social media accounts, you can simply post teasers such as “Read how [your company] made this customer’s day” and include a link back to your blog. A short pos

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PROVIDENCE — Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee signed a law July 12 moving the state presidential primary vote to April from March in hopes of bringing more campaign attention and spending to the Ocean State.

The 2012 primary will be held April 24, the same day as primaries in Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania.

Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis, who initiated the legislation, said candidates are more likely to stop in Rhode Island if they can combine the visit with stops in nearby states.

“I’ve been calling for a national system of regional primaries since I first took office,” Mollis said in a statement. “They can make small states like ours more relevant.”

Mollis added that the law could “trigger a spurt of campaign spending here on everything from advertising to catering to phone banks.”

Rep. Donald Lally, D-Narragansett, North Kingstown, South Kingstown, and Sen. Erin Lynch, D

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Increasing access to super-fast broadband is more important than building roads in Sussex, according to business leaders. The call comes as council bosses say they aim to plug gaps in the service after an interactive map revealed parts of the county were well behind the national average.

Telecommunications watchdog Ofcom’s map showed that just 3% of homes in East Sussex were able to get superfast broadband. This compares to 92% of households in Brighton and Hove and 42% in West Sussex.

East Sussex County Council said by next year the service will be rolled out to homes in Hastings and Eastbourne.

A council spokesman said: “This will help to boost the economy of those two towns and East Sussex as a whole.

“We will now continue to lobby with the aim of securing this super-fast broadband for the entire county – especially for our rural areas where access to this technology is vital.

“However, our work on this isn’t just about seeking support from BT or from regional and national Government. “The county Read more…

Even if you’re terrible at accounting (but great with customers), you still know the basics of money: We want to be in the black instead of the red. I mean, red is my favorite color everywhere except on a financial statement.

A color can show you the bottom line about your company’s financial state at that point in time.  But what if you are in the red for one quarter and the profits from another quarter have to cover that expense? Or what if your financial statement is black, but not black ?—Meaning you could stand to have more profit, more buffer, more resources (after all, that’s what money is—a resource).

In my opinion, the small business bottom line is marketing (solutions that work).  Marketing is all-important, but unfortunately, it’s also the one thing that many small businesses (in my world) address last—or not at all.  When done right, marketing can improve your financial bottom line.  When done wrong, marketing can cost you more than you can afford to pay.

It’s Not About That

Online marketing is not about the website or the social network page. Offline marketing i

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