What It Takes 2

Here are the top 20 most influential businesspeople.

Karren Brady
Businesswoman

Richard Branson
Businessman and Philanthropist

Alison Carnwath
Chairman, Land Securities

Vittorio Colao
Chief Executive, Vodafone Group

Bob Dudley
Group Chief Executive, BP

Moya Greene
CEO, Royal Mail

Ivan Glasenberg
CEO, Glencore Xstrata

Dido Harding
Chief Executive, TalkTalk

David Higgins
Executive Chairman, High Speed 2

John Holland-Kaye
CEO, Heathrow Airport

Vivian Hunt
Principal, McKinsey & Company

Robert MacLeod
Chief Executive, Johnson Matthey

Carolyn McCall
CEO, Easyjet

Lakshmi Mittal
Chairman and CEO, Arcelor Mittal

Alison Nimmo
Chief Executive of the Crown Estate

John Parker
Chairman, Anglo American

Gavin Patterson
CEO, BT Group

Michael Rake
Businessman

John Rishton
CEO, Rolls-Royce

Simon Segars
CEO, ARM Holdings

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Business tips of the day

1.Use Get Listed.org to be listed in the local search arms of Google, Yahoo, and other local search platforms.
2. Use Facebook advertising
3.Tweaking optimisation can make a huge difference
4. The most important part of a website is the product if you haven't got the right product you won't sell.
5. What is the simplest thing a small business can do that will get their biggest gains in terms of Return On Investment is Networking - joining local business groups etc.
6. Advertise on Amazon you can buy anything on Amazon even your tooth paste
7. Staying focused - don't go off on tangents - which is easy to do - is the best advise anyone can give you.
8. Use video and photographs as much as you can
9. Bog e.g. Quick Sprout blog

How and when should business owners give up the day job, find premises or take on employees?
Stuart Saggers: It would depend on the type of business, how labour intensive it is to grow, and what the financial expectations are of the individual.
The important thing to bear in mind is that, whatever the individual decides to do, they should ensure that as their business activity grows their insurance protection grows with the business. If someone takes on employees, they are legally required to have employers' liability insurance (although there are a few exceptions). With respect to the physical business assests, such as business equipment and stock, as you increase with growth in the business, you should ensure that you increase your insurance cover so that, in the event the worst happens, you are fully protected.
Rog How: I've always tried to minimise risk as much as possible when setting up. I only went full-time on our business after the first two years, and I felt as if it was the right thing to do and the business could provide enough to support us.
If you quit your job and start a business, it can be very stressful if you don't make money initially (and it's very rare that you will). You need to be able to cope with a few years of little to no income, or have a second job to support the setup process.
It's more important to lay a solid foundation than it is to quit the day job.

Is there a percentage profit I should be working towards for my business to be viable?
Julie Waddell: That depends on your costs, what percentage of income are they? What percentage of income do you need to reinvest financially? Look at your cashflow with what's coming in and what's going out (get a local bookkeeper to help if you can't do this yourself) and work out if the bit in the middle – profit makes it all worthwhile. You need to start with as much profit margin as you can because it's very hard to increase this later.
Adam Pollard: If you're looking to earn a living, have a think about what wage you'd (realistically) like to draw each month, and then work out what percentage of profit or number of sales you'd need to make to achieve this.
Beware, though, that pushing your profit margin up too high to make it worth your while might ultimately price you out of your market. So think realistically about where you can make up any shortfall in profit without driving your prices up, such as reviewing your suppliers or cutting out any unnecessary costs.

Keep note of your achievements
Get organised – keep notes on your achievements/ success stories for your CV and interviews.
Things to take note of:
o What made the task difficult, what you did to make it successful and the impact your work had
o Did you save money
o Break targets
o Made a presentation
o Take on additional responsibility
o Get great feedback
o led a highly visible team,
o increase profits/ results
o introduce something new
o slash production times
o reduce inefficiencies
o Did you do the task quicker than the industry/company average
o Did it help others
o Was your work notable because of difficult circumstances
o You may have to write a variety of success stories under different skills or character traits for a CV or interview in the future- the more detail you write now the easier it will be to get that CV out under pressure of time.

Think networking
o Number one rule of networking- help others it’s not all about you and how many people you know- put people in touch with each other, giving recommendations and passing on information. Your contacts are more likely to be motivated to repay the favour.
o This is not something you do when you need a new job- people will be less inclined to help you if you only get in touch when you need them.
o Raise your profile, attend conferences / events and participate in online chat- commenting on blog posts, contributing to conversations on Twitter and joining group discussions on LinkedIn

Storytelling is about building relationships - be human engage with your customers

Inspire your customers to tell stories for you to publish on social media- buy from people