Has your business tried these today

Things to help your business today.

• Keep your ear to the ground

Knowing our competitor’s offers, pricing policies and guarantees means you can legitimately claim you offer the very best. Remember, watch them but don’t be tempted to copy them! In fact, the opposite applies; try to be innovative and stress our unique selling points.
• More positive thinking
Use all the media available to us to deliver good news about our business and raise our profile. Well written press releases (and we have interest in us form both TV and Radio presently) focussing on new initiatives, promotions, or company events and celebrations are likely to get published. It’s free advertising and the good news will make a nice change for people to read!
• Rabbit rabbit rabbit

Regular contact with our customers is essential. Write to them and thank them for their custom, send them promotion information or just pick up the ‘phone to remind them who you are. Email newsletters are a great idea and won’t cost us the earth and these will go out monthly.
• Stress the value

Try to focus our messaging on the things that matter most to buyers in slow economic times:- i.e. their bottom line, great value for money and a fast return on their investment. Remember, our customers are facing tight times too.
• Measure, measure and measure again

Do we really know what’s bringing in the business? Evaluate every one of our marketing activities carefully including those you specifically use. Set yourself specific goals, such as a number of calls to make, a percentage of call-backs, etc, and then track how each activity delivers against those goals. Be ready to change marketing tactics that are not driving immediate business value and sales.

Office Coffee machine Tips

10 Things to consider when you looking to have drinks machine for your office.

1. Location
2. Water connection
3. Energy consumption
4. Reliability
5. Cleaning
6. Range of drinks
7. Quality of drinks
8. Backup service
9. Sustainability
10. Ease of use

UK Vending

Ring 0800 454301 for your free demonstration.

Standing Orders and Direct Debits explained

Standing Orders and Direct Debits explained

(originally written and posted by Martin Button in 2008)

Back in 2008, in our BLOG (UK Vending Ltd – NewsVendor) we included this article. It was written and provided to support our staff when involved with our commercial customers acquiring goods from us via some form of finance agreement. Most people had by then signed DDM’s to pay variable periodic bills due in their private lives yet many were concerned and often uninformed as to what their DDM protections were in the business world. So we wrote and published this article to explain and reassure. It is actually quite difficult to obtain a  licence to issue DDM’s and take variable payment accordingly and requires substantial ‘good standing’. Our fifty years of impeccable business trading made us a bit of shoo-through when we applied. We are Britain’s longest serving vending business; still family owned but with a national footprint and high-tech support. This article has been invaluable to our staff and customers and indeed we know that it has been invaluable to many seeking clarity of explanation and who were someone else’s customers. We hope it may be of use to you too.

Banking – direct debit guarantee

Direct debits are now a major part of daily life, with many people using them each month to pay their household bills. The direct debit guarantee is a powerful safeguard for customers. So it’s important that firms make sure their staff understand its provisions so those who can really benefit from using Direct Debit Mandates to pay regular bills do so without making the mistake of not doing so for totally spurious reasons. The Direct Debit Guarantee scheme is operated by all banks in the UK and Ireland and is a perfect guarantee that if, in the unlikely event that something did go wrong, the payee can immediately have their account credited by their own bank and without quibble of any kind with the sum taken – all they have to do is ask.

If you pay by standing order, it is up to your bank to send the payment. If you pay by direct debit, it is up to the payee’s bank to call for the payment, but you will rightly look to your own bank/building society to ensure the smooth running of any direct debits. Mistakes and errors are covered by the direct debit guarantee.

The direct debit guarantee applies to all banks and building societies taking part in the direct debit scheme. It says that:

	If there is a change in the amount to be paid or the payment date, the person receiving the payment (the originator) must notify the customer in advance.
	If the originator or the bank/building society makes an error, the customer is guaranteed a full and immediate refund of the amount paid by the customer’s own bank or building society.
	Customers can cancel a direct debit at any time by writing to their bank or building society.

Standing order or direct debit?
Some organisations when seeking regular payment or repayments from their customers wrongly describe a standing order as a ‘direct debit’, or a direct debit as a ‘standing order’. It’s maybe not be too surprising then that customers also get the terms muddled up, because standing orders and direct debits do broadly the same thing, even though they work very differently. It doesn’t help, though, when even bankers themselves sometimes describe them wrongly. We at UK Vending Ltd like clarity so here’s a brief explanation:

standing orders are customers’ instructions to their bank to pay a set amount, to a named beneficiary, at regular intervals (say on the 1st of the month) – either for a specific period of time or until cancelled.

direct debits are:

	customers’ authority for beneficiaries to claim payments (variable in amount and frequency) from the customers’ accounts;
	and
	customers’ instructions to their bank to allow the taking of those payments.

A standing order requires the customer’s bank to send the money. A direct debit requires the beneficiary to claim the money.

Typically, a standing order might be used to pay a fixed amount to a savings account or to a local club. A direct debit is more likely to be used to make payments that can vary from time to time – such as mortgage instalments or utility bills or lease payments which allow for the possibility of changes in VAT or fluctuations in the taxes that make leasing worthwhile for both customer and lease company.

The day-to-day advantage of a direct debit over a standing order is that, as and when and indeed, if the payment amount changes, the beneficiary will claim the new amount automatically – but only after first telling the customer of the change. With a standing order, customers need to give their bank new instructions each time a change is needed.

How the systems work
Standing orders can be simpler than direct debits but are not usually acceptable for commercial repayments like leasing because of the cost of reset-ups if taxes and/or VAT fluctuate – nonetheless, they can be simpler because the beneficiary is not involved in claiming payments. At set times, the customer’s bank just sends the money to the beneficiary’s bank and only the customer can alter the payments. The beneficiary can be anyone.

In contrast, the variable nature of direct debits means that beneficiaries can claim different amounts at different times. This flexibility is the main advantage of the direct debit system – but there is a potential worry to some people that unscrupulous or inefficient beneficiaries might claim money that is not due to them.

It simply cannot happen – because to combat this – and to reassure customers – the direct debit system contains two main safeguards:

	The direct debit guarantee provides for the customer’s bank to refund disputed payments without question.
	Direct debits can only be set up for payments to beneficiaries that are approved ‘originators’ of direct debits. In order to be approved, these beneficiaries are subjected to careful vetting procedures – and, once approved, they are required to give indemnity guarantees through their banks. UK Vending Ltd is, and has been for many years, an approved Direct Debit originator and beneficiary.

Usually, the customer has to sign a direct debit form, although some particularly trusted originators are authorised to set up direct debits where the customer has given authority over the phone. If that sounds a little risky, remember that the originator must have obtained the bank account details from the customer – and that the customer is fully protected at al times by the Direct Debit Guarantee.

Payments themselves are made by a system that is in some ways based on the cheque clearing system. This means that the process usually starts two working days before the money is due to reach the beneficiary’s bank account.

Direct debits are processed through BACS (Bankers’ Automated Clearing Services), as follows:

Day 1:	BACS receives electronic details of all direct debit payments due on Day 3
Day 2:	BACS sorts the information between banks and gives each bank a report of all payments due on Day 3
Day 3:	Payments are made – the beneficiary’s bank account is credited, and the customer’s bank is debited

Just as with a cheque, a bank can ‘bounce’ a standing order or a direct debit if there’s not enough money in the customer’s account on Day 3 to cover it. And, in most circumstances, the customer can cancel, or ‘stop’, a standing order or a direct debit up to and during Day 3 – the day of payment.

Recent trends and developments
Consumers are making more and more use of direct debits. Over the past couple of years, transaction numbers have gone up by about 12%. In fact, DDMs (Direct Debit Mandates) have seen something of a surge in recent years – with the increased use of internet banking making it easier not just to set them up, but also to keep them up-to-date.

Since late 2003, BACS has comprised two organisations:

	BACS Limited – responsible for physically processing payments, and maintaining the payment network; and
	BACS Payment Systems Limited – governing the rules under which payments are made, and responsible for maintaining and developing the integrity of payment schemes.

The principal advantage of an automated ‘regular payments’ system is that, if it all works correctly, the right payments are made at the right times without regular human intervention. But ironically, this is also its biggest potential weakness. If, at the outset, payment information is keyed wrongly into the bank’s system, then payments will be made wrongly and will continue to be made wrongly until someone spots the mistake. Often, it will be the customer, not the bank, who discovers the problem –and sometimes only once the person who was expecting the money has complained that they’ve not received it.

Banking – Direct Debit Guarantee

Direct debits are now a major part of daily life, with many people using them each month to pay their household bills. The direct debit guarantee is a powerful safeguard for customers. So it’s important that firms make sure their staff understand its provisions so as not to make the mistake of refusing to set up a DDM to make important regular payments because of fear that something could go wrong – in any meaningful way it cannot go wrong as if some feels the wring sum has been taken they can call their bank and claim an immediate recredit to their account – no quibbles allowed by their bank – you ask and you get, it is that simple.

If you pay by standing order, it is up to your bank to send the payment. If you pay by direct debit, it is up to the payee’s bank to call for the payment, but you will rightly look to your own bank/building society to ensure the smooth running of any direct debits. Mistakes and errors are covered by the direct debit guarantee.

In summary – the direct debit guarantee applies to all banks and building societies taking part in the direct debit scheme. It says that:

	If there is a change in the amount to be paid or the payment date, the person receiving the payment (the originator) must notify the customer in advance.
	If the originator or the bank/building society makes an error, the customer is guaranteed a full and immediate refund of the amount paid.
	Customers can cancel a direct debit at any time by writing to their bank or building society.

Standing orders can be simpler than direct debits but are not usually acceptable for commercial repayments like leasing because of the cost of reset-ups if taxes and/or VAT fluctuate – nonetheless, they can be simpler because the beneficiary is not involved in claiming payments. At set times, the customer’s bank just sends the money to the beneficiary’s bank and only the customer can alter the payments. The beneficiary can be anyone.

Consumers are making more and more use of direct debits. Over the past couple of years, transaction numbers have gone up by about 16%. In fact, DDMs (Direct Debit Mandates) have seen something of a surge in recent years – with the increased use of internet banking making it is easier not just to set them up, but also to keep them up-to-date.

Martin Button is the Managing Director of UK Vending Ltd, Britain’s longest serving vending company. UK Vending Ltd (UKV) is a national supplier of prestige vending products and a provider of unique financial packages supporting UKV sales. UKV is a family owned business started some fifty years ago by Martin’s father John. It was the first vending company anywhere in the world hosted on the internet when most had not yet heard of the World Wide Web. One of Google’s ‘naturals’, UKV had an online shop before Amazon and Ebay. UKV had a successful background in email marketing before most companies had begun to understand its power. Imaginative marketing coupled with excellent staff recruitment and management, planning and customer service may be key to UKV’s long-term success in this competitive market. However, sheer business savvy and insight is what makes it work.

UK Vending Ltd

“Something you know about your customer may be more important than anything you know about your product”.

Isn’t the trouble with most ‘selling messages’ simply that they are ‘selling messages’?
People like you and me can recognise a selling message from ten feet even without our glasses.
But what is the problem with that? Unless you are able to recognise that you have the money (can afford it), you have the authority (can make the decision), and you can see the need (usually a problem you can identify that the product or service offering solves) you wouldn’t commit to buy would you? Just one of these three: ‘money, authority, need’ should be absent and you are not in the buying game no matter how powerful the selling message. This is usually reduced to an acronym ‘MAN’ – it really isn’t sexist, just a simple memory aid for defining a prospect.
So you may be the ‘MAN’ but what would make you or me move forward and actually buy or consider buying? Maybe not any one thing contained in a ‘selling message’ would have that effect on you or me but the more we can identify with the offering or perhaps more importantly, the more it identifies with us the more inclined we are to view it positively.

This is called ‘targeting’. Even something dull and unimaginative like “As a teacher” when writing to teachers is likely to get them reading.

Advertising and marketing professionals will tell you that they have seen exactly those words increase response by several hundred percent in a mailing to sell apposite products. Yet this is the most basic form of target identification.
In simple terms, increasing the power of your selling messages requires accruing or buying ‘defining’ data-bases and ensuring the right message reaches the right people, in the right way….. enough times. Repetition is good.

Well that seems very simple doesn’t it? Just use database knowledge intelligently.

The trouble with selling, marketing and advertising is that people think it is easy and therefore anyone can do it – then sadly, that ‘anyone’ does. Invariably, it is then done badly. But everyone can learn. The easiest teacher is their experience of normal (i.e. non-commercial life). Most of us will not challenge things we can agree with. Therefore, you must ensure that your offering begins with something that identifies that this offering is aimed particularly at them. Then say something they can agree with. Then keep on phrasing the offer in ways they can continue to agree with.
Once you’ve got someone to agree to one thing you can then say something else hard to disagree with – and so on until you ask for a reply – i.e. a ‘call to action’.

Having agreed to everything else, why should they now say “no”?

“The perfect advertisement is one of which the reader can say, ‘This is for me, and me alone’.”
Pete Drucker

The database you use and buy or compile is often the key. This is not an area for economy – get the best you can afford. The target your message at a particular group and ask each member of that group a question they can agree with or make a statement they must agree with. The more agreements they make the more inclined they are to say yes to any call to action you make.

It works for us at UK Vending Ltd – it will work for you. Remember, ‘sell smart’.

Martin Button is the Managing Director of UK Vending Ltd, Britain’s longest serving vending company. UK Vending Ltd (UKV) is a national supplier of prestige vending products and a provider of unique financial packages supporting UKV sales. UKV is a family owned business started some fifty years ago by Martin’s father John. It was the first vending company anywhere in the world hosted on the internet when most had not yet heard of the World Wide Web. One of Google’s ‘naturals’, UKV had an online shop before Amazon or Ebay. UKV had a successful background in email marketing before most companies had begun to understand its power. Imaginative marketing coupled with excellent staff recruitment and management, planning and customer service may be key to UKV’s long-term success in this competitive market. However, sheer business savvy and insight is what makes it work.

 
UK Vending Ltd

A wise man once told me “The only alternative to perseverance is failure”

A wise man once told me “The only alternative to perseverance is failure”
 
Although we may know things, far too often we don’t do them.

So here’s something we do at my company UK Vending Ltd. We send out volumes of straightforward e-mails week after week after week.

Let me guess what you’re thinking. Is it something like this?

“Isn’t that far too often?” Or, “If you took your time and sent out a variety of more imaginative ones you’d do much better”.

Well, we do what we do for two reasons:

1. Because it works. And it works because we never know when prospects will buy, so we have to keep plugging away.

2. Because it’s better than doing nothing. In fact it is a lot better. Like many in business we are so busy, despite our careful planning, fighting fires each day and attending meetings (some more valuable than others) and all the other things successful business management requires that we would probably send out nothing if we weren’t careful about sticking to this not very imaginative plan.

We have all constantly met other business people who spend weeks, even months, squandering priceless days and weeks over small details that will make little or no difference – when they should just get on with it.

Things have not changed since Voltaire said a couple centuries ago: “The best is the enemy of the good”.
 
We communicate more than our competitors. Once we have a prospect we keep relentlessly at the prospect. For how long? Usually until they give in.
 
Hold on you say:” Isn’t that “pressure selling?” Think of it this way: we actually believe that we are really good at what we do. We love our business. We give excellent service. Our products are truly great and the prices eminently affordable. We want everyone to know about us and what we do. We want them to see just what we could do for them in solving their hot-drinks, water and day to day vending needs. We are always amazed, not just me but everyone in my company, when we can’t get someone to see the obvious: we are really, really good at what we do and we could benefit them. So when should stop telling them what we believe. We believe….  never.
 
We don’t sit around wasting hot air on whether something will work out; we just get on with it.
 
 
 
Martin Button is the Managing Director of UK Vending Ltd, Britain’s longest serving vending company. UK Vending Ltd (UKV) is a national supplier of prestige vending products and a provider of unique financial packages supporting UKV sales. UKV is a family owned business started some fifty years ago by Martin’s father John. It was the first vending company anywhere in the world hosted on the internet when most had not yet heard of the World Wide Web. One of Google’s ‘naturals’, UKV had an online shop before Amazon and Ebay. UKV had a successful background in email marketing before most companies had begun to understand its power. Imaginative marketing coupled with excellent staff recruitment and management, planning and customer service may be key to UKV’s long-term success in this competitive market. However, sheer business savvy and insight is what makes it work.

Motivating people: in practice in the workplace – fifty years in business here at UK Vending Ltd has taught us a few things about motivation

Motivating people: in practice in the workplace – fifty years in business here at UK Vending Ltd has taught us a few things about motivation

Each day all we managers have to get on with the business of managing towards a conclusion – i.e. a goal. A wise man used to say to me: “If you don’t know where you are going then how are you going to get there?”. We need a plan and we need skills and in many cases it would be so much easier if it was only ourselves we had to manage. There are no born managers as there are no born drivers. Occasionally we come across an exceptional leader but they are few and far between. Management means we must show leadership and just as management is a learned skill, to a degree leadership too can be learned. Part of management and all of leadership is about motivation. I learned the theory(ies) years ago and note them for readers below – putting them into practise is the thing. We learn to drive but some are better drivers than others. Being the best motivator of your staff that you can be is vital to business success – the divide between being ‘motivational’ and ‘demotivational’ is very small. This is a vital skill to learn and below is a theory to learn and apply and some tips.

Clearly, all of these theories (below) are valid, although they each have their own approach and emphasise some factors more or less than others. Nevertheless, you and I have the responsibility of translating such theory into practice, and actually motivating those around us in the work environment. Thus, we need to contemplate the practicalities of:

1. being a good leader
2. working as a team
3. improving jobs
4. developing people
5. paying staff
6. providing a safe and healthy workplace.

Being a good leader

People and the relationships between them are probably the biggest influence upon motivation, for better or worse. You can almost certainly have a hugely positive impact here, simply by being a good leader. If not one already, you can improve by understanding your personal, departmental and organisational goals, leading by example and then motivating others to follow your lead by involving them in everything you do that is relevant to them and within the capacity of their increasing work skills.

Working as a team

Likewise, teamwork has an absolutely vital role to play in motivating people. As a leader of what you hope will prove to be a successful team, you must be able to identify the characteristics of a winning team so that you all have something to aim for. You should also recognise team members as individuals with differing wants and needs and treat them as such. Strong teams are made of strong individuals. Build on the individual and encourage their co-operation and trust of their colleagues. Drawing on this knowledge, you will need to employ various teambuilding tactics in order to create and subsequently maintain a cohesive and effective team. These are learnable.

Improving jobs

If employees are affected by the people who work alongside them, then they will obviously be influenced as much by the jobs that they are doing for the firm. Again, you may be in a position to exert a positive influence in this area. Accordingly, you need to appreciate the importance of job enjoyment of people, and be capable of appraising employees and their employment to see how well-suited they are. If they are ill matched and not fully satisfied and demotivated as a result you will wish to rearrange their workload to improve matters. Having the wrong person in the job is bad for all the other people they work with and inhibits success across the board.

Developing people

Everyone wants to feel fulfilled at work, and that they are making the most of their talents and abilities and are progressing as far as they can. To achieve this, you must think self-development among your team, helping them to set their own standards and targets to work within and towards. Staff need to be trained to give them the skills and knowledge necessary to do their present and future jobs properly. You should assess employees regularly too so you can see how they are developing and if – or hopefully when – they are ready to be transferred or promoted to more demanding, high status jobs.

Paying staff

Pay ad other financial benefits can inspire people to work harder and better or demotivate them if they are seen as unacceptable. Although you may not have much influence here, you should consider pay levels within your business to judge if they are satisfactory; think about the different pay systems which operate and their respective pros and cons; and contemplate the overall pay package being provided, taking account of such benefits as sick pay, health insurance and pension scheme.

Providing a safe and healthy workplace

Similarly, the work environment can even make people feel good or demotivate them if it is not utterly satisfactory so far as they’re concerned. Hopefully, you will be in a position to ensure safe working conditions and build a healthy environment. At the same time, you may find useful to know something about the law in this field make certain that your firm is meeting its legal obligations to employes.

 

Martin Button is the Managing Director of UK Vending Ltd, Britain’s longest serving vending company. UK Vending Ltd (UKV) is a national supplier of prestige vending products and a provider of unique financial packages supporting UKV sales. UKV is a family owned business started some fifty years ago by Martin’s father John. It was the first vending company anywhere in the world hosted on the internet when most had not yet heard of the World Wide Web. One of Google’s ‘naturals’, UKV had an online shop before Amazon and Ebay. UKV had a successful background in email marketing before most companies had begun to understand its power. Imaginative marketing coupled with excellent staff recruitment and management, planning and customer service may be key to UKV’s long-term success in this competitive market. However, sheer business savvy and insight is what makes it work.

UK Vending Ltd

Incentives work when made into sensible offers for sensible people

Incentives work when made into sensible offers for sensible people – this has worked for UK Vending Ltd for the past fifty profitable years in business

It is astounding how so few people realize two things:

1. Incentives pay, when used wisely.
2. If you use them all the time you cheapen your brand.

Why do they pay? Because generally you get all the people you would have got anyway – plus a few you wouldn’t have and the extra ones convert into customers at much the same rate as the others.

Victor Ross, Chairman of Reader’s Digest once said: “I have never seen a relevant incentive fail to pay for itself.”

If you’re not trying incentives, do.

If you are, test alternatives (it may make a huge difference).

The first question is obvious but often ignored: why do incentives work?
There are three reasons.

1. They overcome fear – of being sold something the prospect doesn’t need or can’t afford.

2. They overcome laziness.

3. They give an excuse for trying you.

For all these reasons they should be prominent.

Always describe your incentive, and say what it’s worth. If it costs nothing, it’s worth nothing. The more desirable it sounds, the more replies you’ll get. The more it’s worth or the greater the perceivable value, the more people want it.

Try more than one incentive. You can have one for replying, one for replying within 14 days, one for buying two or buying the luxury version, trying another product or service or recommending a friend.

Try a few things people might lose – a threat, if you like. It may work even better. In fact studies suggest it does based on the ‘bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush’ principle or ‘fear of loss is greater than desire to gain’.
• They have to buy by a certain date, or on a certain day.
• There are only so many left.
• It’s a limited edition.
• It’s restricted to certain privileged customers.
People are cynical. They think the cost comes out of the product. Always say why you’re being so nice.
• As a reward for doing something.
• To encourage them to try.
• Because “we find it’s the cheapest way to get new customers”.
• Because it’s our centenary.
What makes a good incentive?
• The Golden Rule: add value, rather than cheapening the brand.
• A free gift adds value; repeated discounts cheapen your brand.
• Discounts are better for acquiring customers, or rewarding them.
• Use them sparingly.

Martin Button is the Managing Director of UK Vending Ltd, Britain’s longest serving vending company. UK Vending Ltd (UKV) is a national supplier of prestige vending products and a provider of unique financial packages supporting UKV sales. UKV is a family owned business started some fifty years ago by Martin’s father John. It was the first vending company anywhere in the world hosted on the internet when most had not yet heard of the World Wide Web. One of Google’s ‘naturals’, UKV had an online shop before Amazon or Ebay. UKV had a successful background in email marketing before most companies had begun to understand its power. Imaginative marketing coupled with excellent staff recruitment and management, planning and customer service may be key to UKV’s long-term success in this competitive market. However, sheer business savvy and insight is what makes it work.

ukvending.co.uk

“Good advertising is just salesmanship in print” – Just one of the reasons we have been so successful in business for fifty years

“Good advertising is just salesmanship in print” – Just one of the reasons we have been so successful in business for fifty years

Famously said by a very great advertising man and by and large the promotional motto of my company UK Vending Ltd – although, we now also include every other form of media as well as print.

We are Britain’s longest serving vending company (just another way of saying we are the oldest). We’ve been around for some fifty years as a family business and we’ve been a private limited company since 1969.In our fifty or so years we have seen quite literally thousands of other vending companies come and go and probably tens of thousands of other types of business. So why are we still here and relentlessly growing year after year and even through a recession as we did through the last recession? Why do we attract new customers daily yet keep customers in some cases for forty or so years? The answer is not simple and includes of course good customer service, excellent products, affordable and reasonable pricing, sound IT systems. But what we learned half a century ago is not to keep our proverbial light hidden under a bushel. We go to market every day. We take our message out to our prospective customers and our existing customers each and every day. We know we are good so we want to tell our prospective world all about what we do and how we do it for people and businesses just like them. Our existing customers we never, ever take for granted and our offers extend to them too and are not just used to attract tomorrow’s customers.

We ask ourselves the same question of every advert or promotional item we create: “Does it at least do what a professionally trained salesperson would do”

Yes of course we are selling. We are salespeople and proud of it. When did you last hear of a good idea that didn’t need selling? Never right? Why? Because otherwise you just would not have heard of it. For most of us existing in the real business world without the financial resources of international car makers, banks or canned drinks companies we seek the biggest bang for our buck we can get. What works? A sound clear message delivered regularly. Whilst others are still contemplating whether to use a leopard or a tiger as the principle image or a serif or non-serif font, we have already arrived on our prospects desktop. Our salespeople speak a common tongue peppered with words like ‘value for money’, ‘excellent customer service’ and our other standards.

Have you noticed just how many adverts aren’t actually ‘selling’ in anything they say or do? One well known marketing man calls these sorts of adverts “promotional masturbation” designed to please the advertising designer and not achieve much by way of message delivery to prospects or any motivational selling.

Years ago it was called the ‘singer not the song’ stratagem and by and large it has never really worked. No matter how good the voice is, if the song is actually crap then it becomes somewhat pointless and unrememberable.  The big advertising agencies seek to show the differences however small between them as they pursue the same corporate clients. This means they have endlessly to come up with new differences in the same way tooth-paste adverts annually include another unpronounceable additive to make it ‘new’ and ‘improved’ and improve for a time at least its market share. So they add ever more esoteric imagery in the same way that some clothes designers march models up and down catwalks wearing creations no-one in their right mind will ever actually wear.

Sadly, what the advertisers with the biggest budget do is muddy the waters for the rest of us. A sleek and loping tiger in a forest may attract attention in an advert just before an already famous car marque comes on the screen. We already know about the car marque and the pre-imagery is there to reinforce our irrational interpretation of the marque. But how does that help the rest of us in business who don’t have the same product identity or budget? It doesn’t; in fact it hinders us because it gets in the way of our clear thinking. It makes us all aspire to this form of presentation – sleek, gimmicky and full of imagery – because we feel this is now what our public expects through their day to day conditioning and exposure. Anyone other than me remember the old mnemonic ‘KISS’ (Keep it simple stoooopid!).

 

 

Martin Button is the Managing Director of UK Vending Ltd, Britain’s longest serving vending company. UK Vending Ltd (UKV) is a national supplier of prestige vending products and a provider of unique financial packages supporting UKV sales. UKV is a family owned business started some fifty years ago by Martin’s father John. It was the first vending company anywhere in the world hosted on the internet when most had not yet heard of the World Wide Web. One of Google’s ‘naturals’, UKV had an online shop before Amazon and Ebay. UKV had a successful background in email marketing before most companies had begun to understand its power. Imaginative marketing coupled with excellent staff recruitment and management, planning and customer service may be key to UKV’s long-term success in this competitive market. However, sheer business savvy and insight is what makes it work.

www.ukvending.co.uk

Fairtrade – v – Sustainability and the rest

Fairtrade – v – Sustainability and the rest. Understanding the principles behind each have helped us grow our profitable national business consistently over the past fifty years

In 2008 we developed our company’s (UK Vending Ltd) BLOG (NewsVendor). We didn’t want a BLOG that merely promoted UK Vending Ltd and our excellent products and services, as useful as this would have been. We wanted a bill-board which was also a consumer-interest magazine that might address issues central or tangential to our business and which might interest, perhaps entertain and inform our staff and our customers. We have strived for fifty or so years as a business to be seen as just a little removed from the conventional. We wanted to be conventional enough to deserve the trust of our many thousands of customers but to be able to take the time and trouble to work with our world and our community in ways other than the very worthwhile providing of high quality solution to their vending problems.

We provided then as we do now excellent hot-drinks products so we had articles about coffee and tea, Fairtrade™ and Sustainability and related items. We provided crystal clear mineral water so water articles were necessary. Our machines and equipment were particularly environmentally friendly so we had articles about them. We provided finance so we wrote and explained what these did and tax implications and benefits of these for businesses. Each day we found prospective customers who were unsure about Direct Debit Guarantees so we wrote articles to explain and inform accordingly. These articles were popular. They appealed to our customers and helped to explain to those not our customers just what sort of company we are. It brought us business. Reading through some of these articles the other day, I realised just how time has moved on as well as some of the then facts. It seemed to me time to revamp and republish so little by little, for those who did not see them first time around, here they are again. For those who did here they are again but brought up to date.

 

The biggest challenge of being an ethical consumer is understanding what is ethical consumerism

 

Consumers have traditionally looked to Consumer Organisations to provide them with independent comparative and verifiable information on products and services related to safety, performance, quality and value for money, so that they can make choices and purchase with confidence. With globalisation and increased awareness of the impact of trade on both environment and economy, consumers have also become increasingly interested in being informed on the environmental, ethical and social impacts of these products and services, and the businesses that provide them. Consumers International’s studies on, green food claims, the sustainable coffee sector, unethical drug promotion and most recently, ‘What Assures Consumers’ (in collaboration with AccountAbility), all highlight the challenge that consumers meet when trying to decide, not only between so called ethical and unethical products, but the confusion that is caused by the large numbers of logo’s and claims, when distinguishing between sustainable products.

A lack of transparency, misleading claims and tokenistic involvement by big players will ultimately turn consumers away from building fair trade from niche market to mainstream, which ultimately consumers want to support. The buying public needs to have the tools available to raise awareness, provide credible information, and to act as watchdog, to support responsible sustainable consumerism.

As ‘choice’ became an issue for consumers in developed countries, independent consumer organisations who tested the products and services that were available, such as Consumers UK, Consumers Union USA, Que Choisir, France and Choice, Australia, became the trusted choice of consumers to find verifiable information on safety, performance, convenience and value for money. With globalisation and increased awareness of the impact of trade on both environment and economy, consumers have also become increasingly interested in being informed on the environmental, ethical and social impacts of these products and services, and the businesses that provide them.

However consumer organisations continue to struggle to find the equivalent tools for comparing ethical behaviour that enabled them to confidently recommend one product over another for performance.

With the sale of ethical trade products growing exponentially each year, the Fairtrade label alone retailing sales of over 2 billion Euro globally and an anticipated growth of 33% annually, it is clear that consumers want to support and build towards mainstreaming ethical trade. However, in order to do this consumers need to have clarity and confidence in the increasing number of claims related to ‘fair trade‘ schemes and labels that are appearing on foods and products in the market place.

On one website ‘ethical superstore.com’ over 150 product manufacturers with between 1 to 50 product lines each, from wine glasses to tables to trainers, all come under the banner of ‘ecofriendly and fair trade products’. For even the socially aware consumer, the challenge of comparing or deciding to support the ethical benefits of purchasing Traidcraft glasses, versus Fairtrade wine from Fairtrade media or a Revolve recycled note book as a gift for your socially aware friend can be a daunting one. Consumers need to be confident that the tee-shirt made with 100% fair-trade cotton wasn’t produced using unfair labour, and that the only thing fair-trade about chocolate covered mangoes, isn’t the 10% chocolate coating.

UK consumers are the largest purchasers of fair-trade (ethical) products spending £25 billion on ethical goods and service in 2005. This grew steadily each year until 2010 when for the first time in five years a ‘dip’ in spend occurred as the recession bit into the pocket and disposable income of the British consumer. This consumer interest has been reflected by large companies such as Coop, Marks and Spencer that have transferred all of some of their own brand products, such as tea and coffee to the Fairtrade™ brand, effectively mainstreaming these goods into UK society, an action welcomed by Consumers groups everywhere. However, there’s a long way to go.

There is a danger that consumers are being misled into believing that an entire company has been given a sustainability seal of approval. In the vast majority of cases, the ethically sourced and certified products on offer barely make up a percentage point of the brand’s product range.  In Nestle’s case, the Fairtrade certified Partner’s Blend makes up less than 1% of the coffee they buy (some estimates put it as low as 0.02%) and accounts for just one coffee product out of a range of 8,500. The marketing of the launch of Partner’s Blend was widespread, but it is still near impossible to find it on the supermarket shelf. There may eventually come a tipping point where a critical mass of consumers will ask of these leading brands ‘if 10 percent of your products can be ethically sourced, why not 20 percent? Why not 50 percent? Why not your entire range?’

For developing countries there is a longer journey to travel. In developing countries such as Brazil the issue of fair-trade is not yet a reality and there is no market for fair-trade products.

The Consumers International research project ‘From bean to cup’ highlighted the confusion for consumers when trying to distinguish between sustainable coffee products. There are presently five certification schemes operating, each measuring different aspects of sustainability, Fairtrade, Organic, Rainforest Alliance, Utz Kapeh and Bird friendly. It is unclear whether this will expand the market or lead to competition between schemes. What is clear is that whilst research showed that these schemes really did make a difference to coffee farmers, it is vitally important that the benefits of these sustainable initiatives are effectively communicated to the consumer and that’s why we at UKV are campaigning to raise awareness about certification schemes.

Members of CI such as Which? and Consumentenbond (CB) have also led with reports explaining how fair-trade and social reporting work, why there are price differentials at the till but also recognising the concerns of consumers created by a proliferation of claims and critical media reports.

Percentages to perk you up

 

Consumers are further faced with corporations informing them of their individual approaches to behaving ethically, such as the one recently launched by Marks and Spencers – ‘We’re calling it Plan A because we believe it’s now the only way to do business. There is no Plan B.’ This was advertised over two green pages in the UK press and it gave a strong message – however, it takes more time on a website to find what Plan A actually means in practice. How can consumers compare this to other corporate ‘Plans’, such as those from giants Nestle, Kraft or Sara Lee, which have met with mixed reactions from the ethical movement? For consumers, ethical website to find what Plan A actually means in practice. How can consumers compare this to other corporate ‘Plans’, such as those from giants Nestle or Kraft which have met with mixed reactions from the ethical movement? For consumers, ethical trading is most crucially about transparency and accountability. Communications should not be about forcing consumers to choose between or prioritise the plethora of sustainability issues that will arise in a company’s supply chain. It is about making the responsibility choice the easy choice.

Consumers International recent survey with AccountAbility, surveyed the attitudes of UK and US consumers towards climate change, and showed that consumers want tougher government action to phase out products that contribute to climate change, more information about the environmental impact of the products they buy, and independent verification of the climate change claims made by businesses about their products.

• Two thirds of consumers agree everyone needs to take more responsibility for their personal contribution to global warming.
• Two thirds of consumers believe corporations need to take global warming more seriously.
• Sixty per cent of consumers want companies to provide more information at the point of sale about the effects of their products on climate change.
• Over half of consumers believe governments should be forcing businesses to phase out products that contribute to global warming
• Seventy per cent of consumers want climate change claims made by businesses to be proven by independent third parties

Whilst referring here to climate change, it is not a huge leap to see that consumers’ confidence would be assured with similar actions when purchasing in the ethical/sustainability market and that point of sale information is vital. For governments as well it is becoming increasingly important to have a common definition of ethical trade – and how such concepts as fair, responsible, sustainable and alternative trades fit within this definition.

It is clear that consumers want to support and build towards mainstreaming ethical trade. In order to do this, consumers need to have clarity about the increasing number of claims related to ‘fair trade’ schemes and labels that are appearing on foods and products in the marketplace. Consumers need to be confident that when purchasing these products that the claims are credible, and the businesses that produce them have a genuine commitment to long-term sustainability initiatives. Primarily consumers want to support ‘good’ fair trade schemes and traders and be confident that the information at the point of sale enables them to do just that. With ethical trade becoming big business the potential for ‘ethical washing’ by insincere business becomes greater, just as ‘green washing’ became synonymous with the demand for environmentally friendly products by consumers.

Consumers International, recognising the confusion among consumers due to the proliferation of ethical trading initiatives and the growth rate of these products, asked COPOLCO to consider whether an ISO deliverable may be able to provide some solutions. The survey that was carried out showed that there is not a clear understanding of the definition of ethical or fair trade. Different labels focusing on different aspects such as fair wages, organic, labour practices, sustainable production and community support leave consumers confused – and the danger is that consumers will then revert to buying what they know.

Whilst asking COPOLCO to explore further a guidance standard covering the definition, principles and minimum requirements of ethical trade, Consumers International and AFNOR, recognising the strong reservations of the fair trade movement also expressed the need for a standards development process in line with and going beyond that being used to develop ISO 26000 which gives guidance on social responsibility. It was equally recognised that an ISO deliverable should not deal with the substance of fair or ethical trade, as this has been dealt with in standards specifically developed for the fair trade movement, by FLO and IFAT.

Ethical consumerism is here and it is growing fast: the 8 million people who have bought Make Poverty History white bands and the current ethical marketing bonanza both demonstrate this clearly. UKV believes that an internationally harmonised standard, agreed in a balanced multi-stakeholder process, could be a vital tool towards making real gains in mainstreaming ethical consumerism.

Martin Button is the Managing Director of UK Vending Ltd, Britain’s longest serving vending company. UK Vending Ltd (UKV) is a national supplier of prestige vending products and a provider of unique financial packages supporting UKV sales. UKV is a family owned business started some fifty years ago by Martin’s father John. It was the first vending company anywhere in the world hosted on the internet when most had not yet heard of the World Wide Web. One of Google’s ‘naturals’, UKV had an online shop before Amazon and Ebay. UKV had a successful background in email marketing before most companies had begun to understand its power. Imaginative marketing coupled with excellent staff recruitment and management, planning and customer service may be key to UKV’s long-term success in this competitive market. However, sheer business savvy and insight is what makes it work.

Disposable cups and the environment

Disposable cups and the environment – these are the facts, you make your own mind up as to which is less harmful to the environment

In our industry – we at UK Vending Ltd are constantly pressed to adjudicate on the issue of disposable cups: paper – v – polystyrene. Our customers want advice. Their consensus seems to be that paper cups are better than polystyrene because of the biodegradable factor. But are they? Is paper more or less resourceful than polystyrene and long-term, which harms the environment most? We investigated. Here are the facts. We offer no conclusions. You decide and you order from us what you will. We will continue to be the one certainty in the process.

The main raw material needed to make a paper cup is wood, which is a renewable resource.

However, collecting wood impacts on the landscape – trees have to be cut down both for use as wood and to make space for roads so that the wood can be transported.

A polystyrene cup is made from oil. Collecting and transporting oil can cause environmental damage, particularly if spills occur during drilling or transportation.

More petroleum is needed to make a paper cup than a polystyrene one. This is because the wood for the paper cups has to be transported by road or rail to the manufacturing plant.

The oil or natural gas needed to make polystyrene cups is taken to the plant through a pipeline. 4.1 g petroleum is needed to make a paper cup but only 3.2 g for a polystyrene one. If the paper cup has a plastic or wax coating even more oil or gas is used.

Paper cups are made from bleached wood pulp, which is made from wood chips. Only about half the chips are turned into pulp. Bark and some wood waste are burned to supply energy for the process. In total about 33 g wood and bark is used per cup.

A paper cup weighs about 10.1 g; a polystyrene one about 1.5 g. To make, a paper cup costs about 5p; a polystyrene one about 2p.

To make paper, chemicals such as chlorine, sodium hydroxide, bleach, sulphuric acid, sulphur and limestone are needed. These chemicals are not recycled. In total about 1.8 g of these chemicals are needed per cup.

Efficient catalysts are used to make polystyrene so most of the chemical involved can be recycled. About 0.05 g chemical waste is produced per cup.

So much wood pulp is used to make a paper cup that the whole process requires about 12 times as much steam, 36 times as much electricity and twice as much cooling water as the

process used to make a polystyrene cup.

About 580 times as much waste water is produced during the manufacture of a paper cup as when a polystyrene one is made. The waste chemicals are mainly removed from the water but there is still at least 10 times more chemical waste than for polystyrene.

Making polystyrene produces about 20 kg waste metal salts per tonne. Making paper produces 1– 20 kg, depending on which paper plant it is.

More waste gas is produced for polystyrene than for paper per tonne of material made. However, paper cups are heavier than polystyrene ones so less waste gas is produced per polystyrene cup.

 

Polystyrene cups can be reused because they do not soak up water. Paper cups can be reused but washing can destroy them.

Polystyrene cups can be recycled. The recycled material cannot be used for food or drink but it can be made into packing materials, insulation, patio furniture, tiles and other products. However, at present only a small proportion of polystyrene waste is recycled.

Paper cups cannot be recycled. The glue that holds the parts of the cup together cannot be

removed in the recycling process. If the paper is coated with plastic it is even harder to find a way to recycle it.

Both paper and polystyrene can be burnt in an incinerator so that the energy produced can be

used. Paper provides 20 MJ per kg and polystyrene gives 40 MJ per kg.

Martin Button is the Managing Director of UK Vending Ltd, Britain’s longest serving vending company. UK Vending Ltd (UKV) is a national supplier of prestige vending products and a provider of unique financial packages supporting UKV sales. UKV is a family owned business started some fifty years ago by Martin’s father John. It was the first vending company anywhere in the world hosted on the internet when most had not yet heard of the World Wide Web. One of Google’s ‘naturals’, UKV had an online shop before Amazon and Ebay. UKV had a successful background in email marketing before most companies had begun to understand its power. Imaginative marketing coupled with excellent staff recruitment and management, planning and customer service may be key to UKV’s long-term success in this competitive market. However, sheer business savvy and insight is what makes it work.
UK Vending Ltd