Harleygrove

The 3 most important things to keep your business afloat

admin — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 06:18:16 +0000

People will tell you that marketing is the most important skill or tool you should have; others will say customer service; and yet others will say pitch perfect salespeople, but in my view, they're wrong.

Of course these things are important; without marketing, customer service and sales you wouldn't have much of a business.

But let me tell you what are THE most important areas of your business to focus upon in order to prosper and grow

Credit Control

Debt Recovery

Credit Risk

Let's have a look in-depth:

Credit Control

Credit Control means controlling the money you give 'on credit'. If you deliver goods and allow your customers to pay later, you're extending credit. If you allow clients to pay 50% up front and 50% 30 days after you've provided a service, you're extending credit. If you allow customers to pay a monthly invoice by cheque or bank transfer rather than standing order or direct debit, you're usually extending credit.

Which is fine – if you can keep on top of it. If you know who is paying when and ensure that they do. But it only takes a couple of bigger clients to pay late, or a BACS payment to be missed without you noticing, and your business could start to slide. Before long you're spending more time chasing money and payments than new customers and it could be the beginning of the end.

Debt Control

The flip side of credit control is debt control. While I understand that sometimes bills are paid late, and sometimes there are valid reasons, I speak to clients day in day out who have been owed thousands for months, when a good bit of debt control in the beginning would have kept on top of it.

Imagine someone pays you £100 a month for a service and one month the payment is late. You have two choices; chase the debt immediately in a friendly manner and encourage the client to pay while the amount owed is quite small. Or allow it to build up into 10 months of owed monies, chase for £1000, scare the customer to death and never see them (and maybe not your money) again.

Keeping on top of what people owe you means that you can nip any problems in the bud – not to mention that in some cases it can mean you getting paid rather than finding out 6 months later that the company owing money went out of business owing millions!

Credit Risk

Wouldn't it be great if every order form you received had one of two stamps on it?

“He's loaded and pays his bills on time – go for it”

“He's skint, bluffing and lives in his car – don't touch him with a barge pole”

If every time you take an order and extend any type of credit you have no idea of how credit worthy these customers are, you're taking a risk. And you're gambling with YOUR money, let's not forget, not theirs!

Make a point of doing credit checks on the people you extend credit to – it shows them that you're serious and flags up any potential problems early on.

So what's a business to do?

Larger companies may be able to hire people for debt and credit control, and buy credit checks on every customer that comes through the door.

For everyone else, I'd recommend the following 3 pieces of software:

Credit Guardian - Check your prospects and customers out for Credit Risk; FREE software and annual subscription based on the number of companies and linked with Experian

Credit Hound - Chase your debtors with Self-Chasing Credit Control software and make sure that you get your money back

Debt Recovery – Harley Grove are pleased to have partnered with TAK-Outsourcing.com to provide this service for when nothing seems to work when trying to get your money from your debtors.

Don't let bad credit risk, bad credit control and bad debt recovery bring your business to its knees.

What type of printing personality are YOU?

admin — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 07:10:38 +0000

The Office printer – there it sits in all it's glory for the use of each and every member of staff. But which one of these printing personalities are you?

Master Printer

The Master printer has piles of important looking documents, sometimes printed in triplicate, spread around his or her desk. They know that the more piles of paper they shuffle in a day, the more work they look like they're doing and the more important they seem. A true Master of Printing colour codes his paper too!

Prolific Printer

The Prolific printer doesn't believe in software back ups and is paranoid about losing information, so every email / article / spreadsheet / memo is printed out and kept. But don't think that because a Prolific Printer prints everything out, they can find things at the drop of a hat. The reams of pointless printing they've done means that finding anything worthwhile is like looking for a needle in a haystack!

Scatty Printer

The Scatty Printer is probably the same person spilling the tray of coffee on the office carpet, elbowing the boss in the stomach by accident and dropping the kettle in the middle of an important meeting. Rather than checking the documents they print, they just press 'control-p' willy nilly, then stare uncomprehendingly at a printer spewing out a 500 page document on full photographic quality and double embossed paper costing £50 a ream.

Retro Printer

The retro printer lives in the past – sometimes even down to his or her dress sense! He hates reading on the screen so will print everything off 'so that he understands it' – he'll make notes on everything in red pen and couldn't possibly reply to an email without printing, reading, annotating and then getting ready to type. His waste paper bin is full of screwed up emails that say "Shall we meet at 10 or 11?" and "What do you want for dinner tonight darling?"

Secret Printer

The Secret printer knows that printing everything out is bad for finances and for the environment, but they just don't feel complete without their printouts. They'll sneak to the printer while everyone is out, or stay late to print and amend documents, rather than be caught out wasting office and precious resources.

Stingy Printer

The Stingy Printer is usually the person in charge of paying for things. He'll buy the thinnest of paper, often job lots of kids colouring paper going cheap on the market, and set the printer to print in the lightest possible mode, no matter whether the document is a shopping list for the office or a 15 page tender for a £500k job. He won't replace the (refillable) cartridges in the printer until it is absolutely necessary so often documents will come out with one colour missing entirely.

The Perfect Printer

The Perfect Printer knows down to the last penny how much it costs in ink, electricity and paper to print out an email, and the cost to the environment too. Every email she sends out has a stark "STOP! DO YOU REALLY NEED TO PRINT THIS EMAIL?" (that everyone else in the office ignores) and she knows how to work the printer to get double sided copies with the lightest print on the cheapest recycled paper better than the manufacturers. She'll tut noisily when others print out 'unnecessary' documents and ensure that everyone recycles their paper; firstly into scribble paper, then shredded for the office hamster, until being taken home for the compost heap.

Whichever type of printer you are, we all know that we need to print less in order to save time, save money and be a little more green.

At Harley Grove, we recommend offices that spend a lot on printing to take a look at Spindle Professional. Spindle Professional allows you to easily merge information from business applications to produce documents that can be sent by email, fax, printed and archived (including directly into INVU Digital Document Management software and Microsoft Sharepoint). Piles of archived documents in big filing cabinets can be reduced to bytes and pixels and stored on disk. Fax directly from your PC so no need for printing. Merge info from two or more documents into one to avoid pointless printing. Make huge savings on your printing costs.

Spindle Professional is versatile and equally suitable for use across a range of business applications. Sales & Marketing, Human Resources, Customer Services and Accounting functions can all benefit from a more streamlined and automated approach.

If you would like a web demo of Spindle Professional please click here.

photo credit: (matt)

How Credit Control Software Could Save Your Business

admin — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 07:36:31 +0000

Imagine 2 scenarios:

Scenario 1:

You have a client with whom you get on really well. You speak a couple of times a week on the phone, he orders new work regularly, and every so often you receive cheques from him.

You provide your goods or services as soon as he orders, and invoice him when you get around to it. You're not sure whether or not he always pays on time, or what the state of his account is, but he phones every few days, so it can't be that bad, eh?

And then you don't hear from him for a couple of weeks, then a month. You notice his blog hasn't been updated for a while, and his website offers are out of date. The cheques have stopped coming in.

A few days later you receive a letter from his solicitors. His firm has gone into liquidation and you have to let them know how much he owes you. You won't have much of a chance of being paid, as he owes the tax-man and bigger suppliers than you.

You try and work it out, then realise you've not invoiced him for a couple of the more recent jobs – too late now, as you can't invoice once you've received that liquidation letter.

As you look closer at his account you realise that although cheques have been coming in, they don't cover all of the invoices, and some of the larger invoices have been outstanding for a few months now. You thought he owed in the region of £1000 but you realise all the smaller jobs have added up and it's in the region of £5000, quite a large amount to your company, and a bit of a kick in the teeth.

You're going to have to work extra hard over the next few months to recoup that loss, in fact you’re not sure you'll be able to pull it back, and of course you have suppliers to pay, maybe even staff, as well as overheads. You keep the card of the liquidation company, just in case…

Now imagine Scenario 2.

Same client, same relationship. Except that every time he calls you log into your credit control software that tells you exactly how much he owes you, how overdue it is and how good he is at paying you. You gently remind him you can't do any more work until the last invoice is settled, and he pays up happily, as it's only a small amount.

When it becomes clear that he always pays late, you speak to him and explain your tight cash-flow, and rein him in a little. When one of his invoices is due, an email is sent to him reminding him.

He's still not the best of payers, but his account is pretty much up to date when he asks you for quite a large amount of work. You explain that you'll be happy to do it upon receipt of a 50% deposit. He offers to settle the outstanding invoice, but based on the info your credit control software has given you, you know that extending credit to him is a risk, so stand firm.

A few days later the letter from the liquidation company comes in and you realised you could have been in the middle of thousands of pounds worth of work for this customer, but thanks to your software giving you a warning, you're not.

You check his account – he owes you £100. It's not ideal, but it's bearable. You know you can still pay your bills and suppliers this month. Your business is safe.

That's just one customer – multiply that situation times the average amount of customers you have and realise that good credit control is one of the most important aspects of running a business.

There is software out there to help you – and it could be the difference between life and death for your company.

For more details on credit control software please see our credit control software page.

photo credit: alancleaver_2000

The perfect customer – or is she?

admin — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:33:29 +0000

She walks into your office for a meeting, immaculately dressed in an Armani suit. The Gucci bag she's carrying screams good taste. You're sure those shoes are Prada. And she's wearing enough Swarovski jewellery to blind an army.

As she rests her immaculately manicured nails on your desk, you catch a smell of Chanel Number 5, and wonder how much the cut and colour of her hair cost; it obviously wasn't done at the local Supercuts salon that's for sure!

Everything about her oozes classiness, and it seems that money is no object.

She wants your marketing and promotion services, and is happy to pay for the best. You quote a price that most people would raise eyebrows at, and she accepts without the hint of a worry.

She offers to pay a deposit, but will of course want a decent discount, or else she'll be happy to pay in instalments over the next year. She's good for the money of course.

She pulls out the Platinum Amex card, and reminds you that monthly payments mean you have a steady income, she knows what's going out of her bank account (she keeps a VERY close eye on her finances, you know) and you'll have a long term relationship. And, of course, she'll add on extra services each month so that your monthly fee will just grow and grow.

You think of your mortgage and how handy guaranteed money would be, and agree, glad to have such a wealthy and discerning client aboard. As soon as she's left the office you plan how you'll work all the hours there are, which smaller clients you can ditch and how you can get all her work done soon so she knows how good you are and starts ordering now.

Feeling proud of yourself for closing such a fab deal, you close up early and go home to tell the wife and kids.

As you do you walk past a grotty flat above a corner shop. Out of a banged up old car that's pouring diesel fumes, you don't notice the woman wrapped in the motheaten old coat get out of the car and let herself into the flat.

You don't see her take the Armani suit off, check to make sure the tags are still there and put it back in its box to return. She puts the 'Gucci' bag back with the other replicas she's bought for a few pounds from eBay and is grateful you didn't look too closely. The fake jewellery and shoes follow suit, and she smiles as she thanks God that Boots still offer perfume samples. Those immaculately manicured fingers dial her hair and nail specialist sister, to thank her for the freebie she got as an early Christmas present, and she promises to return the platinum Amex card when her sister buys her lunch the next day.

“Hey sis,” she says “I think it went well. They took my order, and hopefully the work will bring in enough business to pay off the other 3 marketing companies and my debts, as well as them, before the first invoice is due for payment. Maybe this deal will be the one that saves my business…”

It's an extreme scenario, but every day small businesses essentially give credit to people they hardly even know. Imagine if that person placing the large order with you was 5 weeks from going bust? Maybe the company so eager to put down a deposit to get better payment terms has a history of paying their bills really late?

YOU'RE the one that's going to suffer in terms of cash flow, hours spent chasing debts, and possibly even only narrowly avoiding bankruptcy yourself.

That's where Credit Guardian comes in. Credit Guardian™ is a brand new approach to managing credit.

Created by Draycir and powered by Experian, Credit Guardian™ gives small and mid-sized businesses affordable, year round access to business intelligence, helping them make better and more informed choices about managing customer credit.

For a FREE Download of the software and FREE monitoring for 90 days of 3 companies (these can be your customers, suppliers, prospects or even your own company), visit our Credit Guardian page or click on the download link above on the right..

photo credit: vancouverfilmschool

5 Reasons To Stay On Top Of Credit Control

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 21:00:11 +0000

There's an often used saying that goes:

“A sale is not a sale until it's paid for”

Yet that's something that lots of small businesses often forget – the sale isn't really a sale until the money is in the bank.

It's very easy to look at your list of sales and think you've done well, but if your credit control isn't up to scratch, then it's all just figures on a piece of paper.

Here are X reasons why you should keep on top of your credit control.

Suppliers
If you're not collecting money from your buyers and customers on time, then the chances are you're paying your suppliers late too. This leads to bad relationships, loss of discounts and preferential treatment, and can in turn lead to suppliers refusing to deal with you. As you're finding out yourself, no-one likes to provide goods or services to a customer who doesn't pay up on time!
Staff
Obviously your staff won't be happy if it's clearly difficult to pay them every month, and even less so if they're paid late, but it's not just their salary that can be affected by lax credit control. If you're not collecting money on time, and not paying suppliers on time, then the chances are it's your staff bearing the brunt of the money chasing phone calls, and that can be really bad for morale. Reducing production and conviviality among colleagues. Unhappy staff don't do a great job!
Reputation
This works both ways – if you become known as someone with less than perfect credit control then your suppliers will take advantage of this and pay later and later – your reputation as a bit of a pushover could spread and before you know it you're spending more time chasing money than you are earning it. And of course, no-one wants to have the reputation of being a late payer, so you may find it hard to get new suppliers and preferential prices if it's widely known you can't pay on time.
Bank
More and more these days the banks want to see a steady flow of money coming into a business account. If all of your chasing is done when your business bank account is into the overdraft, it's quite clear to your business bank manager that your credit control policies leave a lot to be desired. Also, if you want to apply for a loan or an overdraft / extension in the future, the bank will look at how your account has been run – if your credit control makes your business look unprofitable you're unlikely to get that loan.
Continuity
Whether you're a one man band or a small team of people, having to stop and chase money or answer money chasing calls eats into your production time. If you have to stop work for a client because they haven't paid, it gets harder to pick it up again. If you have to tell a supplier to stop provision of a service or goods because you haven't paid, then when you do pay, it could be a while before they can start again. Continuity in business is important to keep the flow of a job going, don't let your bad credit control spoil it!

They say that cash is king and as we can see, good cash flow is essential to running a successful business – no cash, no business.

Giving your customers credit may be good for sales but do you have the right procedures to collect the cash?

Credit Hound® is designed to automate and streamline the processes involved in good credit management. Greater automation of your chasing procedures improves productivity and brings savings to key areas in your business.

Are YOU prepared for future postal strikes ?

admin — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:06:11 +0000

Are you getting totally fed up with the uncertainty of when the next postal strike will be happening ? It's only a matter of time, surely ?

Worried that your important documents won't reach your customers, suppliers and other business contacts ?

Not getting paid because your invoices to your customers have been lost in the post or caught in the backlog ?

Well, don't fear, Spindle Professional software is here to Save the Day !!! Spindle Professional enables all of your documents, be they invoices, statements, sales information, mail merges etc… to be emailed, faxed, printed, electronically archived into a location of your choice, automatically attached to your CRM software*, pre-indexed and uploaded to Microsoft Sharepoint etc…….. The best part of all this is that not only can all of the above actions be completed by just clicking to print ONCE but also, all of your documents can be easily branded with your company image, thus saving you the cost of buying loads of pre-printed stationery. All of your documents then look professional but also very consistent across the whole business. Spindle Professional saves you lots of time and, in many cases, storage space, and therefore saves you what could amount to lots of money. We at Harley Grove have not found any software that Spindle Professional will not work with and these include every Sage software package (from any of the accounts packages to manufacturing and CRM etc …), all of the Microsoft software packages (including Microsoft Office, Microsoft Accounting software etc…), Sun Accounts, SAP Business One, together with many lesser known software packages. We at Harley Grove are 95% sure that if you use software that currently prints to a Microsoft Windows printer, then that software will work with Spindle Professional. We have loads of examples of software that we have personally implemented with Spindle Professional.

Don't just take our word for it ; Spindle Professional has just been awarded the prestigious WINNER prize in the Paperless Office Software Category of The Software Satisfaction Awards 2009. So…. if you want to beat the postal strike and save even more money for your business, get in contact with us at Harley Grove on 0845 8800767 or visit our website at www.harleygrove.co.uk for more information.

* Currently automatically attaches to the following CRM software: ACT! , Sales Logix, Sage CRM; more to come !!!

20% Discount off of Sage software etc…

admin — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:41:41 +0000

Harley Grove are able to offer various Sage software at a 20% discount off of Sage's published RRP to customers for the months of July and August 2010 *

The software that we are able to supply with this discount is as follows:

Sage 50 Accounts 2010 (all variations)

ACT! by Sage 2010 (all variations)

Sage Job Costing

Sage Forecasting

Sage Manufacturing

Sage Payroll (all variations)

Sage 50 HR

Sage P11d

Harley Grove are also able to provide FREE assistance in choosing the correct software for your business, implementation and training at reasonable cost, and also various technical support options. We do not sell any of this software online because we take the time to make sure that you the customer are making the correct choice and we will help you to do this, using our experience. If the software does not "fit" your requirements then we will not sell it to you.

So…call us today on 0845 8800767 or email any enquiry to rob@harleygrove.co.uk and receive our personal treatment. We look forward to talking with you.

* Please note that Harley Grove are not a Sage Business Partner and provision of the software is via an affiliation with a Sage Business Partner that we work very closely with.

Sage 50 Accounts 2010 – Now Available !!!

admin — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:50:58 +0000

Sage UK have now released their brand new version of Sage 50 Accounts 2010 . See below for some of the major changes to this already extremely popular accounts software and contact us NOW at rob@harleygrove.co.uk to request a FREE online demonstration.

Sage Pay ‘pay now’ option

To help you get payments quicker, there’s a new ‘pay now’ button that you can add to PDF documents if you are a Sage Pay user. For example, if you send invoices by email you can now embed a ‘pay now’ button in your invoice. This lets your customers make immediate card payments online via the Sage Pay website – which provides more flexibility of payment as well as the benefit of you improving your cash flow.

Usability improvements

Sage have added some nice features that enable, for example, the ability to create a credit note directly from an invoice, save user preference settings to remain next time you log in; sort and filter customer and supplier information to find things quicker and the ability to edit recurring entry dates without creating a new entry.

Legislation updates
If you trade in the EC, you’ll find Sage 50 Accounts 2010 keeps you on the right side of the law come January 2010. Changes to the way VAT returns are made for trade in the EC means submissions will have to be split by Goods and Services. So you’ll be prepared. And you’ll also continue to find the online VAT submissions process as easy to use as ever in preparation for mandatory online submissions in 2010.

Barcode
You can now create barcodes within the products area – a great way to track and trace products and documents or speed up stock takes and pick lists. If you currently use barcode software, this will be a real time saver for both Sage 50 Accounts users and your customers. This new feature also works alongside the sophisticated stock and purchase order management tools available in Sage 50 Accounts 2010 Plus and Professional.

Cash register
If you currently have a retail or trade outlet, the new cash register in Sage 50 Accounts 2010 is a dedicated tool that will help you account for and bank takings, track discrepancies and manage your float.

Data Import Wizard
The new wizard helps you get information into Sage 50 Accounts 2010 even quicker than ever from sources including Microsoft Excel. The simple 5 step process lets you map fields in your import file directly to fields in Sage 50 Accounts. You can save even more time by saving the procedures for files that you import regularly. You’ll also find that the report explorer screen has been updated in line with all Sage 50 products so it’s even easier to find and run reports.

ACT! by Sage 2010 – Now Available !!!

admin — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:32:15 +0000

Sage UK have now released their brand new version of ACT! by Sage 2010 in early September and it’s a “cracker”. See below for some of the major changes to this already extremely popular CRM software and contact us at rob@harleygrove.co.uk to request a FREE online demonstration.

Enjoy the newly designed look of ACT! with proven easier to learn and use navigation, instant access to search, related tasks, big “easy” buttons, and the new Welcome page.

You’ve got to see the new look! Not only will you get streamlined layouts, you’ll also have instant access to search from any view—no longer going through the lookup dialog; related tasks that provide you with more options for working with contacts, groups, opportunities, and more; consolidated menus with relevant feature options; big “easy” buttons for tasks you complete most often; and a new button that lets you create anything new, from contacts, to activities, and more.

Take advantage of leading-edge Web 2.0 technology that automatically integrates LinkedIn®, Facebook, Google Maps™ and more with ACT!:

Tap into the endless possibilities of social networking and online resources for instant knowledge about your customers. See your customers on Twitter, LinkedIn®, Facebook, Plaxo, and ZoomInfo, or other sites you choose, to quickly understand more about their interests, their past work history, and their connections. Sites included with ACT! are:

• Twitter (added manually) • LinkedIn® • Facebook • Plaxo • ZoomInfo Contact • Contact’s Web site • Google™ • Google Maps ™ • Google News™ • Weather • Yahoo! Local Info • Yahoo! Person • Google Driving Directions

Generate actionable demand with end-to-end e-marketing that intelligently and automatically reaches out to your ACT! contacts, runs e-mail marketing campaigns in minutes, and delivers results right to the ACT! Contact Record, saving you money by helping you focus on the right customers.

• E-mail Marketing which allows you to create striking e-mail templates with a simple online editor; send e-mails to contacts, lookups, groups, and companies with a single click directly from ACT!; and track contacts who opened and clicked e-mails.

• Drip Marketing which allows you to create a series of e-mails that are delivered to ACT! contacts over a period of time—automatically. Not only does it save you time, it automatically drives sales processes by delivering Call Lists of contacts that should be called first.

• Survey and Web Forms which enable you to gather valuable feedback from existing contacts so you can build and grow your ACT! database. Survey results are mapped to ACT! fields to ensure the freshest data is available for marketing and selling purposes.

• Marketing Results tab which includes a ranked Call List of the most interested contacts so you know who to call first. For example, if Chris Huffman opens an e-mail five times and clicks three links, she is more interested than another contact that only opened an e-mail once and didn’t click on any links.

Tailor opportunities to fit your selling model:

Sales tracking functionality in ACT! has been completely redesigned to maximize the way you manage leads. Sales opportunities now behave and appear like contacts, groups, and companies, making them more flexible than ever, so you can:

• Add new fields and tabs.
• Customize the product/services grid to include the fields you need to track your information.
• Personalize the layout with the colors and graphics that best represent the look of your business.
• Track activities, history, documents, notes, and more—all tied to the sales opportunity.
• Set security options.

Track customers, sales, and users with new dashboards:

New dashboards have been added to ACT!, giving you at-a-glance snapshots of your customers, your sales opportunities, and even your users. New dashboard charts include:

• Recently Created Contacts
• Recently Edited Contact
• Contact History Count by History Type
• Contacts by Country
• Contacts by Department
• Opportunities Open by Product
• Opportunities with Contact Info
• Opportunities by Products
• Opportunity Weighted Total by Sage
• Remote Database Information by User
• Remote Database Sync Status by User
• User Status

Send calendar invitations from ACT! to leading e-mail solutions, like Gmail™, Apple® iCal®, Windows Live™, Microsoft® Outlook®—or any iCalendar connected calendars:

Not all your customers use ACT!. We know that, which is why you can send ACT! calendar invites to customers who use iCalendar connected calendars, like Gmail, and the invitations you send will appear on their calendar. These include:

GmailApple iCalWindows LiveFacebookGroupWise®OutlookLotus Notes®

Tips for Twitter Novices BY a Twitter Novice (Part 2)

admin — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:52:15 +0000

Harley Grove really haven’t been using Twitter for very long and we are always learning of new ways in which to make the most of it. This is the second Tips for Twitter Novices BY a Twitter Novice; probably best to read the first one first (if you see what I mean). Please note that there are far more Twitter-knowledgeable people out there so this is really our view as a novice to Twitter and hopefully this blog will help similar novices.

Since the last Tips for …. blog, we have found and started to use a few further Twitter tools and applications that further enhance the Twitter experience.

Recently, Harley Grove attended a local meeting of other Twitter users (“tweeple”). The meeting was very useful in that it meant that the users met face-to-face and exchanged ideas and tips of how they use Twitter. Harley Grove have been looking into finding and setting up similar meetings (“tweetups”) and events and came across Twtvite, which is a great event management tool to use with Twitter. You are able to locate tweetups or create your own, show a map of its location, add to your calendar, manage waiting lists if event full etc…

Twitter is great and one of the great things about it is that you are restricted to 140 characters so you have to get your message across in a clear and concise way. However, there are times when you would like to send longer messages and don’t want to be tied down to the 140 characters such as when you need to provide customer support. This is where twtlong comes into its own as it allows longer tweets and creates a “bridge” between the normal tweets and a blog; sort of a “midi-blog”. You are also able to add photos, videos etc…

Need to let everyone know about Special Offers that you are currently running ? Give twtQpon a try as it enables you to produce money-off coupons to distribute via Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. We are about to use it to promote special discounts against some of our services.

When Harley Grove was having its website re-designed, we thought we would ask other tweeple for their feedback on how they thought it was looking. So… we used twtpoll to ask them and we collated the answers using this very useful Twitter application that allows you to create simple online polls to use with Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites.

Harley Grove have now updated their status quite a bit and, although we haven’t got loads of Followers and don’t Follow many other tweeple, it would be a real pain to have to set it all up again and impossible to remember what we tweeted about some time ago. So…we looked into being able to take a backup of all of our Followers, people that we Follow and all of the tweets that we have created. Tweetake covers all of this and makes sure that you have this backup of your Twitter experience. However, it only currently takes care of those users with less than 1000 followers so use Twittersafe if you have more than 1000 followers.

Twitter is great for direct messaging (DM) to and from your Twitter Followers and that your DMs are sent to you by email. Yes, this is great, but when you want to reply to these DMs when you have been notified by email messages, it’s a real pain because you then have to go into your Twitter client and then reply from there. Well, not any more as you can now use Topify to reply via email. This saves loads of time and although you need to sign up for a free Topify email address, we have found this very useful.

Anyway, we hope that we have given you some more useful ideas and we hope that these tips will help you gain more from Twitter. We are novices but if you really want some expert Twitter information then we would strongly recommend @NikkiPilkington ’s TweetMentor Twitter training.

Finally, the most IMPORTANT point (if you are not already) :