Services we Recommend

From time to time our client's ask us to recommend companies we know, or have worked with and who we trust, as a way of fast tracking their research on certain projects.

We have therefore detailed below companies that we are happy to recommend and briefly explain why we recommend them.

As every project is unique you will still need to do your own due diligence before working with them, however we hope that these resources prove useful to you.

Companies do change over time. If you have any great (or negative) experiences with any of these companies please do let us know.  Equally if you have received an amazing service and think we should be sharing it with our members then please get in touch. All feedback can be sent to us via our contact us email link.

You may notice that everything we recommend is online based - this is because we believe that it should be easy to run your business from wherever you happen to be and not only if you are in the office.  What's more, some of these services are FREE!

Autoresponder System

This is the Autoresponder system we use here at Notion. MailChimp has 100's of design templates to help you design email newsletters, it integrates with social networks so you can share your messages, it also integrates with many CRM systems and other online packages and it tracks all your results! It's free for the first 2,000 subscribers and has lots of video's to help you learn how to use it.  But aside from all these features, we like it because the Monkey makes us laugh!

CRM System

Capsule CRM makes doing business easy! You simply add all your contacts and diarise tasks against them, upload emails, attach notes, conversations, docs and files into their record so all history is immediately to hand.  

You can also track your 'sales pipeline' where you track bids, proposals and other opportunities and can see all your potential sales in one place.  We highly recommend this easy to use CRM system.

Task Sharing Software

Mindjet Connect is the ultimate task sharing tool (at least, when researching the market we couldn't find a better one!) and makes working on team / individual projects easy.  You create tasks and can sync them with your google calendar, allocate them against other team members and, very cleverly, the system prioritises your tasks in order of most importance, so you know that if you start at the top of your list you are working on the most important task.  It has a range of other features and makes working within a team easy - no more "have you done X yet"!

Online Accounts Package

We have recently switched our accounts to KashFlow and we love it!  It is incredibly simple to use and gives you everything a small business needs; from Invoicing to cashflow management to VAT reports and everything else you need at your fingertips to keep your business running smoothly.

Online Storage

Access all your files, from wherever you are in the world.  With Dropbox you can have all your files on your computer, laptop, phone and handheld and when you edit a file or save a new file it is updated to the latest version on all your devices.  You can even access when offline and the new files will sync when you have a connection again.  Never be out of the office and wish you had access to a particular file again!

Online Surveys

Create online surveys or polls with SurveyMonkey, a very simple to use package. You could survey your clients, or prospective clients or employees through emails, social media or your website.  Survey's can be custom branded and responses are automatically collated so you don't need to create any whizzy formula's in Excel to collate your data.

Outsourcing to Professionals

We firmly believe that small business owners should outsource as much as they possibly can so that they can concentrate on the important stuff - like growing the business!  So where can you find professional freelancers? Upwork!

Elance has 1,000s of freelancers around the world who will 'bid' to complete any project for you, from designing a flyer to writing an article.  You simply select the bidder who you feel will do the best job based on their references, samples of previous work etc and away you go.  We've used it many times and always had great results.

Other services will be populated shortly

SEO Companies

PPC Management

Recruitment 

Design and Print

Business Networking Clubs

Something to think about

"Who exactly seeks out a coach? Winners who want even more out of life."
Chicago Tribune

“Recent studies show business coaching and executive coaching to be the most effective means for achieving sustainable growth, change and development in the individual, group and organisation.”
HR Monthly