Jola Cloud Solutions' Blog

LinkedIn is officially the world’s largest professional network with over 433 million members in 200 countries. Their mission is to connect professionals to make them more productive and successful. The network provides access to people, jobs, news, updates and insights, all designed to help you be better at what you do. As well as setting up your own account you can also set up company pages to attract followers, post company updates (news, opinion pieces, videos, podcasts, infographics etc.) and drive engagement.

With so many of your colleagues, customers, suppliers and competitors on LinkedIn, getting the basic etiquette right is as important as turning up to a business meeting on time.

5 ways to inspire leadership

According to the Tech Nation report, the digital economy grew 32 percent faster than the rest of the economy between 2011 and 2014. The sector accounts for 1.56m jobs across the UK, with the workforce growing by more than 10 percent over the three-year period - three times faster than the wider UK job market.

App and software development is the fastest-growing niche in the digital economy, growing by 17 percent overall in 2015. Data companies and hardware manufacturers also posted growth of more than 10 percent.

When a sector experiences ‘super-growth’ it attracts more entrants and with barriers to entry in the local supplier market now lower than ever, management and leadership become the key to continued success. 

5 ways to inspire leadership

They say bosses tell people what to do and leaders inspire them to believe in what they can do. Are you looking to inspire your team to help grow your company? Review our tips below;

As more channels of communication become available to us, it is easy to get lost in the technology and forget the basics when it comes to customer communications. We need to communicate with our customers to keep them up to date with products and services, price changes, provisioning updates and of course billing. We also want to make it easy for them to contact us when they want to buy something. Check out these top tips to help you hone your communications and get back to basics.

Audience

Who are you talking to?

Review your mailing lists, magazine readerships and social media followers regularly. Are these the people you want to talk to? If not build the right list. It takes time but is worth doing to make sure you have good white lists and relevant followers. Is it worth sending customer updates via social media if your LinkedIn contacts are made up of marketing agencies, recruitment agencies and people wanting to sell to you?

How do IT and Telecoms companies choose their suppliers?

In the many years I have worked in the IT industry I have been supplier, reseller and end customer. 

Big Telcos

As a decision maker in both a small and medium sized business I wanted a local supplier that I knew and trusted that could offer a range of options with good support. Obviously I wanted a good deal but I know from experience that the best deal is rarely the cheapest. I tended to avoid the big telcos even though I knew they were probably supplying my local reseller. Companies like BT, TalkTalk and Virgin are not geared up to deal with SMEs. Their overheads limit the time they can spend selling and supporting their products and once you get underneath their headline prices they often come out the most expensive.

I am not a lawyer and anything I write on business contracts cannot be relied upon legally, however I have been reading, drafting and negotiating telecommunications agreements since 1986. Of course every agreement is different but over the years I have noticed three contractual areas that come up regularly.

Initial period extensions

This is a very common trick and one you and your customers definitely need to look out for as often it is buried in the small print. Customer A signs a 36 month contract and a day after the 36 month period expires tries to cancel the service.

Lead Generation

One of the things I love most about marketing is lead generation. The work that goes into identifying someone who may benefit from partnering with us and figuring out the best approach, key messages and creating that first touch. I enjoy watching the lead develop into a fruitful relationship. It’s lovely when you eventually meet these people at an event and hear about the projects you have worked on together.

Marketing on a Budget

The biggest challenge is operating on a budget. When you work for big companies you are often blessed with big budgets so you can sponsor events, be at all the functions and buy the best data and software available, to help you manage your campaigns. You have the luxury of hiring marketing and sales teams and even graphic and web designers to help you manage your daily activity. On a budget this is a different ball game and the challenge faced by start-ups and SMEs.

How do you generate leads on a budget?

I have found that it is possible with a bit of time, a dedicated, integrated strategy and a good reporting mechanism.

Habits of good entrepreneurial leaders

Having a great idea and assembling a team to bring it to life is the first step in creating a successful business venture. When money is tight and start-up fundraising is required, stress levels are high. If the visions of success don’t happen like you thought, it may be useful to review good leadership qualities to help steer you through.

Communication

Link the business plan and targets to departmental targets and KPIs and report on them regularly to involve every member of the team. A shared vision, clear targets, objectives and measurements highlights how every action from every member of the team contributes to the overall plan.

Delegation

Delegating tasks to the appropriate departments is important as your business grows. Find out what each team member enjoys doing most. Chances are if they find that task more enjoyable, they are more likely to put more thought and effort behind it. This will not only prove to your team that you trust and believe in them, but will also free up your time to focus on the tasks that cannot be delegated.

Who are Jola Cloud Solutions?

Jola is a supplier of internet connectivity and hosted telephony solutions to UK SMEs via trusted partners. Jola works with UK IT support companies as well as business telecommunication providers to meet the specific IT and telephony requirements of their customers.

Networks

Jola has access to all the major leased line networks and has developed an easy quoting and ordering tool. Jola Partners simply enter a postcode to see exactly what connectivity is available and at what cost from multiple carriers in minutes. They are able to send quotes to their customers and place orders for all Jola products in one single ordering tool.

If you have customers looking to upgrade their ADSL circuits to faster, more reliable fibre broadband and fibre Ethernet and you do not operate your own network, you may be looking for a partnership.

If so, how do you decide the best company to partner with? We have put a few questions together to help you decide.

1 – Do you want to manage the billing?

If so, you need to look for a reseller scheme, where you can set your own pricing and bill your own end users. If you don’t have your own billing platform or prefer not to take the risk on 36 month contracts, a dealer programme might be more appropriate for you. Most reputable suppliers will be upfront with you about their costs and will split the margin with you 50/50. If you go down the dealer route then look for a Partner that has a HMRC approved self-billing system. This guarantees regular payments and avoids the need for you to raise invoices for every penny of commission owed to you.

Working in the IT and telecoms sector you come across suppliers, both old and new, looking for dealers and resellers on a regular basis. Like any good partnership there needs to be a good fit and having access to a few key areas of information can help you make the right decision. We have come up with a list of what to research when looking for a new channel partner as follows:

Experience

How experienced is the business at delivering services via the channel? Check out their credentials. How long have they operated in the channel? How likely are they to compete with you now and in the future?