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Everyone in our business knows bringing in new clients can mean months of work without always getting the result you deserve. I wanted to share this recent Import Export Support case study because it shows, even if you don’t win the big prize, your business can still take real value out of the process.

What was the issue? Masters is an award winning distribution and warehousing business with 120 clients across the UK. Masters’ Business & Commercial Development Manager is Mervyn Jeffery who had approached a giftware business who were considering moving their warehousing arrangements. However they needed a Government Bonded Warehouse (Bond), a customs controlled facility that allows a business to defer paying import tax. But, at that time Masters did not have a Bond facility. As Mervyn says “Government Bond is a strange thing, you can’t offer it unless you have a client that uses it”. He continues “To potentially win the business, we needed help with this”. What happened next? An online search led Masters to ImportExportSupport and IES MD Tracey Renshaw. Mervyn Jeffery says Masters are choosy about who they work with: “We ask ourselves ‘Are they Masters people'”, he continues “Tracey came across straightaway as being incredibly knowledgeable, she understood the time scales – and she also understood the Masters’ values”. Working to tight deadlines, Tracey produced a report which outlined the solutions for Masters. These included outsourcing the Bond to a bureau or setting up an internal system. Mervyn says “”Tracey gave us the options, helped us understand the costs and the exposure to the business”. This thorough planning enabled Masters to make a compelling presentation to the giftware business who were left in no doubt that Masters could give them the high level of service they needed. What was the positive take-out? Despite a protracted period of negotiation, in the end contractural obstacles meant the client stuck with their existing warehouse supplier. However for Masters this doesn’t mean the process has been wasted. Firstly, Masters now have a clear process to put a Bond in place. This means they can offer this service to existing and other potential clients. Secondly, Masters and IES have formed a useful working relationship. As Mervyn Jeffery says “When you’re dealing with HMRC you can’t make mistakes. Tracey’s background and experience is very reassuring”. And thirdly, Mervyn’s business experience tells him there is a long-term opportunity in Bonded Warehousing, a service which is likely to be increasingly important in the post-Brexit logistics industry. A PDF of this story can be downloaded from our Case Studies page here. Thanks to Mervyn Jeffery and the Masters team for their help in putting together this story. Images: Tracey Renshaw, MD of Import Export Support; Masters warehouse in Cambridgeshire

Studies and surveys held lately indicated that property owners residing within their own homes tend to shift residences once every ten years. This may sound like a super long time to you but tends to feel much shorter to others. Mate, the fact of the matter is that the decision to move out of your present home is personal. Depending on your situation, your financial circumstances and the market dynamics, we are sure you will make a well-informed choice that will be best for your household’s needs. One cannot deny that evaluating such a choice is an exciting time – full of possibilities! You can either choose to upgrade your home or sell for a profit and live in a smaller property. Here are some tips to help you get started in making what we hope is the right decision for you and your family:

1. You want to reap benefits as the seller

Chances are that your home has leaped in monetary value since you first purchased it. The real estate sector is on fire and you wish to benefit from your investment gains whilst you still can. It seems the right time to sell, does it not? You will do your homework and be well aware that the real estate industry is constantly evolving. Hence, you want to ascertain that the time to sell is the time in your favour. Here is how you can appraise whether this is the case or not:

• The grapevine is telling you that there are bidding wars taking place for properties similar to yours
• The price per square foot is rising within your neighbourhood
• Your neighbours are selling their homes and enjoying profits
• Properties are being snatched up from the market quickly

Sure, you can study and analyse these signs. Or you could be a bit more efficient and save yourself a lot of research trouble by simply conversing with a real estate broker or agent. Try to find a reliable one through your trusted social circle of friends and family. They will be more than happy to provide you with some information and guidance on the happenings of your vicinity and what the right choice may entail. If you are trying to sell your home whilst hunting for your next dream property, do keep in mind that there will be a time lag involved. You will want to make sure that you have enough cash to buy your new home before signing the contract.

2. You have lived in your current home for more five years or more

The general agreement in the real estate sphere is that one should abide within their home for a minimum of five years if they wish to sell without losing any value but to gain instead. As you are already a homeowner, you are well aware of the costs involved in getting or selling a new place.

If you decide to go ahead and list your property on the market, make sure you take into account that you will be handing out five to six percent of the sale price as commission to a real estate agent. Yes, you could try to sell independently but case studies have reflected higher sale prices when real estate brokers are involved in the transaction between a buyer and seller.

3. Things around your home are deteriorating

Is your current property draining almost thirty percent of your present gross monthly income? Is that boiler acting up and you think its time to buy a new one? Sure, you could just invest a few thousand pounds into getting a new boiler, protect it with boiler insurance and do your best to maintain it. However, what if the problem lies deeper than that? What if there are structural issues with the property itself? You could get it fixed and be better off buying a whole new asset instead. You do not want to be spending more on the house than what your mortgage costs demand and fall into the clutches of additional household debt. Unless you manage to amplify your current income and meet those extra costs, you will feel super stressed, drained and possibly lose out on sleep.

4. Your life has evolved since you bought your home

You have raised three children, sent them to college and are done with your responsibilities. Your current home is too large to maintain and too big for just you and your partner. Maybe it is time for a change that suits your present lifestyle more. No matter how much you love your home, such a time will probably arrive.

It could also be the complete opposite: you were previously single and are now married with a baby on the way. You want to move out of the 2 bed apartment you own in the city and get a bigger place in the suburbs with a backyard where you can install a sweet swing set and slide for your peanut. After all, location plays a huge role in the choice you make to buy a property or not. Moving houses can present a lot of opportunities. You could be closer to family, to friends, to better schooling and hospitals etc. Our advice? Make a complete list of the pros and cons of shifting houses so you can make the most optimal decision.

5. Your neighbours are making profits on selling their homes

Ben next door just sold his house for a nice, fat profit! You are inspired to take similar steps. Why not? Strike whilst the iron is hot!

However, hold your horses. Is Ben’s property similar to yours? Is your home as well maintained and preserved as his? If not, then you may need some time to make some upgrades, so you can demand a similar sweet price. Are there more features, more bedrooms, more kitchen and living space? You see you need to consider all potential variables that led to that beautiful sale profit and see if you can replicate the situation with your current home. If yes, wonderful! If not, try to get the advice of a professional real estate broker to help you figure out what would be the best situation for you.

Single page websites are becoming more and more popular for smaller businesses and trade businesses, such as a builder or an electrician. Single page sites suit these industries more, as all of their key business information can easily be captured on one page, unlike a site with online sales or multiple services.

These single page sites get the message across easily, pointing out the benefits of that business and the services they can offer, then directing the customer to easy call to actions so they can contact that company. It’s quick and easy, something that more and more customers are looking for in websites.

How can you fit your SEO into this?

SEO can still work well for single page sites, in some cases, even better. In terms of link building, you will only ever have to direct the links to one URL, gaining some real strength and authority into that page. As you cannot add any inbound links into a single page site, these backlinks can score you some great points to jump in front of your competitors.

The down side to having a single page site, is that you are not able to have more than a handful of key words. Normally, for each landing page that you are looking to optimise for, you can add in 5 for each page, giving you a greater chance of coming up on search engines. However, this does not mean that your competitors will be ahead of the game. There is a greater chance of being able to optimise all key searches effectively, because there is only a handful of them, enabling you to really optimise the ones you do have.

When creating content, it can be a little harder to add in key words, as of course, there is less content to go on the page as there would be with a multipage site. Thinking outside the box for these search terms can be crucial for your SEO. Adding them into your ALT tags, file names, body text and the meta descriptions can often break them up a bit more, still giving you some bonus points for Google.

If you’re interested in having a single page site, take a look at our most recent designs with Electrec and Aylsham Roofing. Two great examples of how you can have a really great looking site, that’s still eye catching, but also informative and easy for the user.

The Tenant Fees Act came into force on 1 June 2019 and applies immediately to the grant of any new tenancy, with a grace period of one year for existing tenancies.

Important legislation

It is a very important piece of legislation for landlords and letting agents, restricting the type and amount of payments that they can require from tenants of most assured shorthold tenancies, student accommodation and under licences to occupy. Houses with multiple occupation are also potentially included.

Prohibited payments

The Act now means that various payments are prohibited unless expressly listed as a permitted payment under the Act.

Permitted payments include the following: rent, tenancy deposits (there are certain caps depending on the amount of rent payable under the tenancy agreement), a holding deposit capped at one weeks’ rent, payments on certain default events such as loss of keys or failure to pay rent, fee for a variation of the tenancy (again this is capped), payment on early termination of the tenancy, Council Tax, utilities, TV licence and payment for communications, i.e. phone, internet, etc.

However, payments that are now prohibited under the Act include tenancy set-up fees, viewing fees, credit-check fees, inventory check fees, check-out fees and fees for professional cleaning services. These prohibitions would apply to any agreement with the tenant, their guarantor or anyone acting on behalf of the tenant.

If a Tenancy Agreement has a term within it that requires a prohibited payment, this will not be binding on the tenant, although the rest of the Agreement will remain binding.

The Act also imposes certain requirements relating to repayment of holding deposits, as well as prohibited payments, but the legislation is complex and cannot be detailed fully in this article. Legal advice should be sought.

Enforcement

The Act provides for enforcement by the relevant enforcement authority by way of financial penalties of up to £5,000 for each breach of a prohibition or repayment obligation.

In addition, if a further breach is committed within five years of having had a financial penalty imposed or the landlord having received a conviction of an offence for an earlier breach, a financial penalty of up to £30,000 can be imposed.

The Act also provides the relevant enforcement authority to require a landlord or letting agent to repay the tenant any monies paid under a prohibited payment, or repay the holding deposit plus interest.

Finally, the Act gives the tenant the power to apply to the First-tier Tribunal themselves for the return of outstanding amounts in respect of prohibited payments/holding deposit.

It should also be noted that if a landlord is in breach of the prohibitions and holds a prohibited payment or deposit, then they cannot serve a Section 21 Notice to terminate the tenancy, unless and until repayment is made to the tenant or, with the tenant’s consent, the money has been applied towards rent or the tenancy deposit.

How Hatch Brenner can help

Our Commercial Property and Residential Property teams have extensive experience in advising Landlords and Tenants on their legal position. Contact 01603 660 811 to speak to one of the team or email helenbarker@hatchbrenner.co.uk.

With affiliate marketing, you can earn commission for every referral or sale made through your website – and it is the main source of income for most price comparison sites, casino portals, fashion bloggers and Instagram influencers.

But driving traffic to your site or brand and generating sales is not always as easy as it is sounds, especially in 2019 when more and more people are trying to do it. Tudor Lodge gives its top tips to make your affiliate marketing campaign work.

Build up a following

If you consider that only a small percentage of people will convert into sales (probably less than 10%), you realistically need to be driving thousands of visitors to your site to make any real impact.

Some of the most common ways to drive traffic are through organic search (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC), social media and email marketing lists. See other digital marketing trends here.

Building up a real following can give you longevity, making your website or company into a brand where you have customer loyalty, recommendations and repeat business. For instance, if you are building up to 5k, 10k or 50k followers, you are just working towards showing your affiliate products to more people and making more sales.

Most successful sites use an authoritative figure as the face of their brand, and this can be backed up by expertise (Mumsnet, MoneySavingExpert, Tipster) or through a memorable personality (Compare The Market, Go Compare). Anything that you can do to promote trust and memorability can add that little extra to get people engaging with your site and making purchases too.

Think commercially

Companies that have affiliate marketing programmes are looking for traffic and customers, and that is why they are willing to offer commission for any sales. The rates and commission that they offer is very negotiable.

You should always ask for an incentive to get started such as a sign up bonus or increased commission e.g 15% instead of 10%.

Where possible, ask for exclusive offers that only your website can give such as a discount, free toy or nectar points (depending on the product).

You need to be commercial, if the product is not selling despite driving traffic, you may have to cut and move on.

Equally, if the commercial rates are not competitive, you need to be ruthless and feature their competitors or other products instead.

Scale

There are several ways to scale your affiliate website if it is starting to work. Whether you are price comparison website, beauty blogger or fitness influencer. One of the best ways is to get help from other people and help you produce content or videos. Finding good reliable people can be tricky, but you can ask for recommendations on social media or use platforms such as Upwork or Fiverr.

But if you are blogging and can put out 20 articles out per day, compared to just 1, this is only going to increase your following and chances of making sales. And don’t forget, push push push through social media!

Ever since the beginning of the downturn in 2008, worker output per hour has stagnated while GDP, employment and total hours worked have continued to rise. This is what is known as the ‘Productivity Puzzle’, a phenomenon that baffles economists everywhere. The Office for National Statistics states that: “If the pre-2007 trend had continued, productivity would now [as of 2015] be 16% higher than it actually is.” Instead, however, productivity rates have more or less flatlined ever since 2010, with no indication of change anytime soon.  As the UK’s ‘Productivity Puzzle’ remains unsolved, it is of utmost importance that employers and business owners pay special attention to the environment in which their workers function to ensure that they can support them in their day-to-day and get the most out of their hours worked. In a stalling economic climate, any increase in worker productivity is powerful, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant.

How to Increase Worker Productivity

Though there are many ways to create a more productive workspace that facilitates and encourages efficiency and effectiveness, most of them can be narrowed down into two broad concepts: Workplace Culture, which includes things like ethos, administration and hierarchy style, worker-boss relationship and employee autonomy, and Workplace Design which includes floor plan, desk setup and computer accessories. By utilizing and making the most out of both physical and philosophical initiatives, any business owner can instigate growth in productivity.

Workplace Culture

One of the most pervasive elements of the workplace is that of its culture. Workers can easily pick up on tension and friction between employee and employer, as well as the general feelings of unease or discontent that may be present in the office. Stress is known to be a productivity killer so creating a sense of security and cooperation in the workplace is vital. Here are some of the growing trends in workplace management that may change the way the UK looks at it’s workers and their productivity.

Remote Working and Worker Autonomy

What was a complete impossibility 10 years ago is rapidly becoming the norm. Remote Working (which is when workers are allowed to work their full-time job outside of the workplace, either from or elsewhere) has even been recognized by Forbes as a serious consideration for businesses moving into the future. By allowing workers to take some or even a majority of their hours at home enables them to choose how they approach their work and make the most of their hours spent. In addition to this, remote workers tend to show more engagement and involvement when they come back to the workplace.

Non-Violent Communication

The way that workers interact with each other may also have a significant effect on overall worker morale and output. By changing the nature of these interactions and using less aggressive forms of communication, the workplace culture can shift dramatically from adversarial to collaborative, allowing for work to be done with much less resistance.

Office Setup

Of course, changing the workplace culture won’t have too noticeable of an effect if the workers simply don’t have the equipment needed in order to be efficient. This is where office setup is hugely important.

Equipment

As most office work is done digitally, repetitive stress injuries such as carpal tunnel are on the rise, as well as severe back pains from sitting for extended periods of time. In order to preserve the health and productivity of your workers, items like ergonomic chairs and wrist-supporting mouse pads are a necessity.

Desk Arrangements

Allowing workers to choose how they sit (or stand) at their desks also has many positives, which range from increased focus and productivity to better long term health. Standing desk arrangements have grown in popularity, and should also be a serious consideration for any workplace setup.