Ethos and attitude are of great importance in business.

Having a good logo, clear website, accurate up-to-date appropriate marketing materials all create an image that the company wishes to project, but the drive to do so and in what manner, comes from the CEO.

The CEO will set the tone for the whole business. The senior managers will disperse this downwards and outwards on behalf of the whole organisation, (if your organisation is large enough to have this layer of staff).

CEO's come from various backgrounds, brought into companies at various stages to enable the exploitation of their skills and their networks. Young companies often bring in CEO's with connections in the investment world with experience of raising capital in similar technology areas. Home grown companies can get stuck with the CEO who invented the company who often has a focus on the science/IP that created the embryonic enterprise, sometime to their benefit – Steve Jobs for example.

But what about the bigger picture : For a small company would it not be better to bring in a “jack of all trades” who has the skill set for developing relationships where needed, but who revels in the multi-tasking required to get the company moving and understands that emails need to be responded to, that the credibility and scientific/technological standing of the company can make the fund raising easier?

Is it better to bring in someone with greater experience at a higher cost, potentially from outside of your geographic area that you don't have the same knowledge or comfort with or take someone that is locally based that you've got to know who has adequate connections, adequate potential to access the early-stage funding that you need?

These are not questions I have the answers to – they form part of the conundrum that I work repeatedly inside my head.

….but I do know that companies that do not develop their marketing strategy and build brand/product credibility will only succeed through luck not by good guidance...and there is little enough luck around in the current economic climate.

When I started this blog I was promising myself I would write something once a week. Not too onerous I thought as I often have ideas for blog items rattling around my head when I am doing other things. But I am failing.

As with many small businesses it is hard to divide the key people amoungst the key tasks. A lot of the administration of the website, the development of the corporate brand for SSC falls into my area of responsibility and I can find it challenging to keep up with. However it is all important and it is all relevant and I'm still at the stage where I find it all enjoyable.

The blog is something that I am using as a learning tool. As we expand I want to see how social media tools can be used practically for small businesses, and particularly for companies which have a complex technical background to their products and services. I am not an expert in the technical side of this so each time I write something I am also learning more about using Joomla (our chosen system) and RSS feeds etc. Hopefully when I look back I will be able to see improvements in the use of metatags as well as the quality of the content. When I had to add it all as code directly into HTML it seemed more straightforward!

I need to also focus myself on the advice that I provide to others. Do something, move forwards, get a goal, create a strategy, develop an action plan and make it happen -- and then review at significant points to learn from the positive and negative outcomes.

So far this year we have several positives - repeat business secured, new associates to be announced shortly, new clients in the pipeline and a new website to assist the building of the SSC brand. The negatives are not huge and mainly centre on not getting things done on the Admin side as fast or as efficiently as we would like. Goal set, strategy and action plan to follow.

I'll keep you posted.


 

I've just come back from presenting the "Commercialisation and Marketing Strategies" session at Energy YES event in Edinburgh. This is the first for this topic area of Young Enterpreneur Scheme which also covers the themes of Biotechnology, Environment and Engineering. It is one of the excellent ways that Postgraduates can learn about business during their studies and research.

I firmly believe that this is an experience that all postgraduate researchers should be exposed to. The world today requires a better understanding of IP (especially non-patent IP) and how that can benefit pure research and a better understanding of how business works.

And it is fun. I regularly meet students who have never considered jobs outside of academia who have their eyes opened by this type of experience. To explore what marketing is, why potential customers ought to be interested in your "idea" and to be forced to put themselves into the mind of investors who wish only to maximise their ROI can be a brain melting but enlightening experience.

Better still to find that they enjoy it and may wish to pursure a career in technical sales helping to improve the success rate of start-ups based around specialist technologies.

That is what the Knowledge Economy needs, that is what could really make a difference.

And I get the priviledge of being part of that process.

Roll on November and Biotechnology/Environment YES.