John Grantham

Cambridgeshire Property Services Professional Launches Independent Estate Agency Business

Guest Blog from new Cambridgeshire startup

BY 

JOHN

 – DECEMBER 17, 2014POSTED IN: BUSINESS REGISTRATION, BUSINESS STARTUP, COMPANY FORMATION, COMPANY PROFILE

A serial achiever during 24 years with NatWest in a variety of management roles, John Grantham joined local property experts, Move with Us, in 2005. Several managerial roles followed including working as Manager of the LPA Receivership Team specialising in the sales and rental of residential property. Move with Us are a Sunday Times Fast Track and Profit 100 company providing risk management solutions and effective sales and marketing channels for residential property businesses. The company proved to be the ideal place for developing and honing the skills that John is about to draw on for his new business venture, Grantham Estate and Letting Agents Ltd.

Trading as an OptimHome independent estate agent, John’s business will focus on property in Cambridgeshire, particularly those in and around the market towns of St Ives, Huntingdon and St Neots. Someone who has lived and worked in the region for over 30 years, it is John’s mission to channel his extensive experience across all aspects of property services into providing a unique independent estate agent service that looks after client requirements every step of the way from the valuation to the completion of the sale.

We caught up with John this week to talk about his new business and what led him to go it alone.

Q – John, tell us about what prompted you to leave Move with Us and setup on your own?

A – “It was a combination of things really. Move with Us had just restructured and the conditions for taking the plunge with a new venture were right in that my children are now grown up and my wife is a successful professional in her own right. So I decided to take the redundancy package that was on offer and focus my efforts on starting my own business.

“In addition, after more than 30 years of working for other people I wanted to be my own boss. The idea of making my own decisions and not being answerable to anyone else was hugely appealing.”

Q – We notice you’ve decided to trade as an OptimHome independent estate agent. What was the thinking behind that?

A – “All of OptimHome agents are independent and community based so the opportunity to use a public facing trading name of an established brand was too good to miss. As a start-up business, I feel my association with OptimHome, who are established in Europe and launched in the UK this year, will strengthen my credibility in the marketplace.”

Q – When do you officially open for business and what have you been doing to prepare yourself?

A – “My company begins trading on 2nd January 2015. Aside from the administrative obligations, I’ve been doing as much research as I can obviously so that I can hit the ground running. I’ve also taken steps to secure an office space in St Ives. I was adamant that I wanted somewhere to work from that was away from home.  Most of the work in the office will not be customer facing though, as I plan to conduct client consultations in their own homes, so this will save on overheads in comparison to the other high street agents, which I will pass on to my clients.”

Q – What will set your business apart from the competition?

A – “As well as providing the complete range of property services that you would expect from the established high street chains, my business can offer a lower fee in comparison. I’m also a firm believer that customer service is everything, so my clients can expect both an outstanding service experience as well as excellent value for money.”

Q – Finally John, what is your main goal for 2015?

A – “It is my primary objective that we are able to put something in the region of 40 to 50 properties through the books over the first 12 months. If we are successful in hitting this target than we can probably look at employing some additional staff this time next year.”

For more information on the property services John offers as an OptimHome Independent Estate Agent and to arrange a free no obligation market appraisal of your property, visit his website at www.johngrantham.optimhome.co.uk

- See more at: http://blog.thecompanywarehouse.co.uk/2014/12/17/cambridgeshire-property-services-professional-launches-independent-estate-agency-business/#sthash.BAilMsgm.dpuf

 John Grantham
 Associate Estate Agent
 john.grantham@optimhome.co.uk www.johngrantham.optimhome.co.uk 

 The Whistlers, St Ives, PE27 3EE
 Tel: 01480 270 516 — Mobile: 07852 669 339 

Search

Re(SEARCH)ing the Markets for your Products

As we all discovered at last months "Marketing Strategy" event researching the target markets for your products or services is far harder than you think.

Richard Wishart of Delivery Management will give a practical tutorial of how to check out the best terms to use in your in your marketing communications. Most people dont realise that there is a lot of science available to help you in this difficult process. With his unique expertise in "Google for Work" - Richard will give a practical demonstration of the new Google Trends product. Everybody uses Google for search - make sure they are searching for you and your products.

Chris Thomas of Milton Contact Ltd is an expert at finding UK partners and customers for incoming German trade delegations.  Getting the right brief, finding the best matched UK companies and orchestrating the introductions (in spite of language issues) . Over the years some of Chris's briefs have been very obscure - so he has developed the "sleuth like" instincts of a latter day Sherlock Holmes. Chris will show you how he finds customers and Partners for his German delegates.

Huntingdonshire Business Network will be holding a Seminar on Friday 3rd October 1230-1430.

Researching the Markets for your Products     (click to book)

The event is part of the HBN Small Business Toolkit Series and after the event attendees should be able to:

1. Use the new Google Trend to test the effectiveness of your USP keywords

2. How to find the best customers/partners for your product or service
3. Create a persuasive 1 minute Elevator Pitch

The will CPD Certificates for all seminar attendees. Bring along the 3 best selling terms (or USPs) for your products and services.

#HBNSBT #HBNmember

The event will cost £5.00 for members and £10.00 for non-members. There will be a sandwich buffet lunch. All welcome

New HBN CPD program

CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT 

Huntingdonshire Business Network (HBN) has just launched its new Autumn Seminar Programme complete with CPD accreditation. The HBN seminars take place on the first Friday of every month at the WI Centre in Huntingdon.  They are open meetings and anybody can attend - with only a small charge for a sandwich lunch.  You can book to attend using the HBN meetup group http://www.meetup.com/Huntingdonshire-Business-Network/  

The first event of the new season was "Marketing Strategy" and this was led by 2 HBN members who are marketing experts  +Simon Atack of Ace Tech Training  and +Tracy Marshall of Approach Direct Marketing.  The event was very popular and a great success and Richard Wishart HBN Chairman (above) received the first CPD Completion Certificate from HBN

All recipients of the new CPD Completion Certificates are encouraged to take "Selfies" and post them on line. 

The Seminars are worth 1 CPD unit and can be used to complement the CPD requirements of any professional body or industry.  Micro-business tend to miss out on the formal professional development training given by larger companies but the new HBN scheme is designed to redress this balance.  

Written by Richard Wishart

HBN Chairman

#hbnseminar

#hbnmember

#cpd

Marketing Strategy Event

Creating a Marketing Strategy for your Business

Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers, for the purpose of selling that product or service.  (Wikipedia)

As we get back into the “Cut and Thrust” of business after recharging ourselves during the summer break -  it is absolutely vital that you have a clearly defined Marketing Strategy for your business. As business owners we need very clear and precise definition of the market we are planning to address and the tools and techniques that we are going to use.

Producing a Marketing Plan that then languishes in your desk drawer is next to useless - It must be a living and dynamic document that drives action and is continually updated by new insights and practical experience.  A well documented and measurable  Marketing Plan is a superb tool for galvanising your Directors, Employees and Specialist Advisors to the same strategic business objectives.

Huntingdonshire Business Network will be holding a Seminar on Friday 5th September 1230-1430.  HBN Marketing Strategy Seminar

The event is part of the HBN Small Business Toolkit Series and after the event attendees should be able to:

1. Create an outline marketing strategy for their business
2. Provide a clear definition of the market to be addressed
3. Create a 10 Point Marketing Action Plan

The Seminar will be led by Simon Atack and Tracy Marshall -  two HBN members with considerable specialist marketing expertise.  Richard Wishart HBN Chairman will chair the event and ask the hard questions.

Simon Atack

Managing Director, Principal Trainer and Consultant at Ace Tech Training and Business Development Ltd

Ace Tech Training and Business Development Ltd are proud to be accredited as an official Registered Training Centre for Levels 1 to 6 of the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management's Ofqual certificated Sales and Marketing courses.

Tracy Marshall

Owner,  Approach Telemarketing. All round marketeer, excels in telemarketing to deliver sales appointments, generate new leads and increase new business

Approach Direct Marketing Ltd is a professional business-to-business (B2B) direct marketing agency. We provide a full range of telemarketing, database building, email marketing services which culminate in managing targeted, effective and productive CRM campaigns.

#hbnmember

#Smallbusinesstoolkit

Written by Richard Wishart

Mentions

G+ "Mentions" within Blogger

I think it is great when you come across a significant feature that you have missed.  Came across this today and I had never seen it before but apparently it has been around for 18 months !! I had always been aware that you could "plus mention" within a G+ post - what I didn't know was that you could also "plus mention" within a Blogger post.

• When you type a "+" within the text and then start typing a name you will get suggestions of your connections for you to select and add.
• When you publish your post the mentioned names get added to the G+ post distribution
• When people are reading the post a "Hover card" appears when you hover the cursor over the mention which if clicked will take you to the persons G+ profile

So here is my first test of the "mention" function within Blogger to three of my very best networking buddies
+Chris Thomas +Mervyn Foster +Ann Hawkins

This is a really simple feature but for me it highlights the "social layer" concept within all Google products and how powerful this can be

What do you think?

Written by Richard Wishart

Parking in Huntingdon

Superb new Multi-Story car park in Huntingdon.  Fantastic design, well built and spotlessly maintained. Only one problem  - no cars !!  It would be really interesting to see the planning figures for "the number of cars" that formed the basis for the original Business Case.  When Sainsbury's moves to the other side of town I suspect there will be even fewer cars.

When I visited at 1600 on Monday the 4th of August there were only 6 cars in the whole new car park which has 300 parking spaces over 4 levels.  I make that a 2% fill rate.  More a statement on the attractiveness of Huntingdon Town Centre rather than the car park - but a very useful barometer of the fortunes of Huntingdon Town Centre

On Monday 20th October at 1300 there were only 30 cars in the car park - only a 10% fill rate.  Slightly better than when the car park opened but there were no cars on the 2nd and 3rd floors and the top floor is still closed.

So maybe this is the start of the Huntingdon "Car Park" index

Don't get me wrong - dramatic redevelopment of Huntingdon Town Centre is long overdue but building an empty car park will not change anything.  I do hope that Huntingdonshire District Council has some form of master plan that will increase retail business in Huntingdon and fill up the car park

My car is getting a bit lonely !!

Written by Richard Wishart

Trade with Poland

THE IMPORTANCE OF POLISH TRADE TO THE UK

The UK is Poland's second most important export market after Germany

#poland #trade #HMA

Technical and Vocational Centre

A New Technical & Vocational Centre at Alconbury Weald

The local economy will be supported by an additional £21.1 million worth of investment next year thanks to the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Enterprise Partnership (LEP). The investment will help to deliver over 3,000 new jobs and unlock land for more than 4,000 new homes to be built. The successful projects span the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough area as follows:

Plans include Technical & Vocational Centre at Alconbury Weald Enterprise Campus – developing a new Centre with a focus on the built environment and engineering technical expertise to support the development of the Enterprise Campus and sites across the whole LEP area

Susanne Stent, Principal and CEO of Huntingdonshire Regional College, said:

“We are delighted by this news which will be of huge benefit to our region. We have worked hard with local partners, especially the Local Enterprise Partnership, Urban&Civic and the District Council to create a shared vision which will drive economic prosperity for Huntingdonshire. The Technical and Skills Centre will be a resource providing expertise to increase the number of Apprenticeships and Higher Apprenticeships. We aim to be a recognised market leader in technological skills. The Centre will raise aspirations of young people and create the workforce for tomorrow, providing the technical skills needed for local business development. This will be a centre of expertise for the wider region and will have a profound impact.”

Other parts of the approval 

Cambridge Biomedical Innovation Centre – the creation of a new innovation centre to provide business space for small firms at the growing Cambridge Biomedical Campus next to Addenbrooke’s Hospital

Haverhill Innovation Centres – the development of a new centre at Haverhill Research Park to support business growth in the ICT, Bio-Tech and Agri-Tech sectors

New facilities for The Welding Institute (TWI) at Alconbury Weald Enterprise Campus – expanding TWI’s operation onto the Enterprise Zone to bring more high-skilled jobs, support the growth of businesses in high-tech sectors and act as a catalyst for further growth on the site

Food Manufacturing and Processing Centre of Excellence at Peterborough Regional College – creation of a specialist food manufacturing education resource to train local people who wish to work in the industry

Change of Address

CHANGE OF ADDRESS

The traditional “Delivery Management” process is set for a dramatic and disruptive change as new “Cloud of Things” technologies start to appear. “Proof of Delivery” and “Confirmation of Delivery” business process models will be undergoing a substantive change. The picture above shows the very first ever “Address Beacon” fitted and working on the front door of my house.  

The enabling technology is Bluetooth 4.0 Smart (also known as BLE or Bluetooth low energy) bidirectional radio. BLE beacons operate at 2.5GHz and using a standard coin battery can stay powered up for over a year.  BLE is now standard on all new Android and Apple tablets and smart phones and the Bluetooth Smart interface is being built in to a whole range of wearable tech and personal area networks.  BLE also connects smart watches and Google Glass augmented reality eyewear

.

I am currently using Estimote Beacons for my experimentation.  This beacon incorporates a powerful 32-bit ARM® Cortex M0 CPU with 256kB flash memory, an accelerometer and a 2.4 GHz Bluetooth 4.0 Smart radio. The Beacon transmits regularly and the signal can be picked up by any smartphone or tablet within 70m range - unlike old-style Bluetooth there is no need for any pairing.  A function called Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) allows the range from the Beacon to the Tablet to be calculated

So thats the technical part - but what would the Customer / Delivery Driver experience feel like ?   About 70m from the delivery point the Drivers device would register the “Address Beacon” and receive contextual information from the Cloud about how and where to make the delivery.  Google Street View could be used to guide the delivery driver to the exact delivery point required by the customer.  As the distance to the exact delivery point reduces more accurate instructions can be provided.  

At the point of delivery a “Delivery Token” can be passed from the recipient to the carrier to confirm that the delivery has actually taken place + <date and time> and any other contextual information.  The Token that I am currently using for my “Address Beacon” is “139 PE29 !XY” which is the exact delivery postcode of my house but this is completely configurable.

Trying to draw a signature on a “brick” carefully balanced on top of the parcel whilst holding a struggling terrier in your other arm should become a thing of the past. Most so called signatures that are obtained are completely unreadable

We are very familiar with the concept of time triggering events Everybody understands  Alarm Clocks and how they function.  You now have location triggered events which kick-off particular actions when you are at a particular location.  This is built into Google Now and could be activated by beacons as well as GPS. Imagine “When you are at 21 High Street”  > “ring the bell and collect a package” or > “Take a Meter Reading”. Incorporation of “Parcel Delivery” as a subprocess of a Customers Higher Level Business processes is now very much a reality and Beacon and contextual information can now easily be integrated to augment business process management.   I know of Apps with this specific functionality.

I believe that new “Cloud of Things” concepts will not just completely revolutionise postal and express delivery markets but will also be critical to the adoption of Omni-Channel eCommerce.  In fact the first major and visible take up of Beacons will be in High Street retail. Imagine the following scenario.  

You are in town looking to buy a new pair of work shoes.  The BLE on your phone alerts you that there is an appropriate shoe shop 70m down the street.  As you enter the shop the BLE detects a change in RSSI and your phone displays an internal schematic of the store and how to find the “Gentleman’s Business Shoes” section.  As you arrive at the specific display stand - the context works out that you are looking for Black-Brogues, wide fitting, size 9.5 - in fact exactly the same as you bought the last time.   Using the Beacon context the store sends a message to your phone screen.  They have the exact shoes you are looking for on the stand and would like to offer you a 10% loyalty discount plus another 5% discount if you pay for the shoes using Google Wallet on your device.  Press the accept button - job done !

When I receive the first delivery using my “Address Beacon” at No 139 I will write a blog article about the successful carrier.  Who will pick up this challenge ?

Written by Richard Wishart

Business Systems Architecture

Delivery Management Ltd

richard.wishart@del-mgt.com

303 Sqn

No 303 Polish Squadron RAF 

No. 303 ("Kościuszko") Polish Fighter Squadron (Polish: 303 Dywizjon Myśliwski "Warszawski im. Tadeusza Kościuszki") was one of 16 Polish squadrons in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War. It was the highest scoring RAF squadron of the Battle of Britain.^[1][2][3]

The squadron was named after the Polish and United States hero General Tadeusz Kościuszko, and the eponymous Polish 7th Air Escadrille founded by Merian C. Cooper, that served Poland in the 1919–1921Polish-Soviet War. No. 303 was formed in July 1940 in Blackpool, Britain ^[4] before deployment to RAF Northolt on the 2nd of August as part of an agreement between the Polish Government in Exile and the United Kingdom. It had a distinguished combat record and was disbanded in December 1946.

My wife's late grandfather Wg Cdr B R Grant was an RAF Engineering Officer during the war and had some association with no 303 Squadron during the war.  I discovered a treasure trove of 303 Sqn photographs when Władysław Raczkiewicz the President of the Polish Government in Exile visited the Squadron and was introduced to my wife's grandfather.  I would like to know what my wife's grandfather's association was with this famous squadron.

here are some of the pictures:

Edison Bell Way

EDISON BELL WAY

The arrival in Huntingdon, in 1924, of the Edison Bell Company caused a major stir in the town. It was not just the huge boilers that had to be dragged from the railway to the factory in Ermine Street but the fact that Huntingdon had just acquired its first light engineering works. Edison Bell's managing director James Hough saw Huntingdon as a perfect place to expand his business of making Gramophone records.

Hough was a good businessman and had made his money by buying up Edison Bell's American Patents and creating his own works in London. In Huntingdon he quickly built up a large workforce of some 300 people who were engaged in pressing records of popular songs and the company expanded into the manufacture of gramophones and radios. This highly skilled workforce became vital to the war effort during the 2nd World War when every aircraft flying from our airfields had to be fitted with reliable radios which were often repaired in Huntingdon's workshops.

After just four years the factory was razed to the ground by fire, but it was rebuilt and survived until the mid 1930's when the record making business was absorbed by Decca Records. Eventually the site was acquired by The Silent Channel Company in the early 1960's and it is now the link road bearing the Edison Bell name

Thanks to 

Richard Meredith

Huntingdon and Godmanchester Civic Society

Who wrote the piece for About Town Issue 64

I wonder whether this first manufacturing company spawned the famous Advanced Composite and Audio companies that Huntingdon became renowned for many years later.  I suspect there might even be a link to the aviation manufacturing business established on Portholme

#HBN #HMA #Huntingdon

Maersk Story

Social Media: The coming Revolution in B2B

Jonathan Wichmann with the Maersk Story

If you think Social Media is all about posting on Facebook and Twitter you’re wrong. The real value is what comes afterwards. It’s about becoming a social business with a more digitally adept organisation and better, more efficient and effective touch points.

The full extent of the potential benefits of Social Media in trade and commerce is only now being realised. Over the next few years it will transform the way we do business.

Michael Chui the driving force behind the recent social media study published by McKinsey makes it clear that social media can no longer be ignored:

“It will be detrimental for companies that are unable to adept and exploit the social technologies and the associated optimisation opportunities. This may not happen this year or next but it will not be long. If you do not do it your competitors will and then, sooner or later, you will be out performed.”

Maersk, the container shipping company, recognised the importance and led by their Head of Social Media Jonathan Wichmann transformed the company into an acknowledged leader in the use of Social Platforms. The achievements of the programme are recognised worldwide and both Harvard and MIT have produced case studies for their syllabus.

On the 10th June Jonathan, now with Orca Social, will be in Cambridge to present the Maersk story at the Making Social Media work for your Business Event (Link) to be staged by Cambridgeshire Chamber & UKTI at the Moller Centre. He will give an account of the Maersk journey, explain his views on the right way to deploy Social Media and predict where current trends are leading.

Maersk may be a huge business but the lessons to be learnt from their trail blazing activities in the application of social technologies are as relevant to Micro business as they are to a Multinationals. All of us involved or having the ambition to be involved in shaping business strategy need to attend this symposium.

To book for this event:

http://www.cambridgeshirechamber.co.uk/newsevent.php?newseventid=1474&ct=on

Click link below or scan QR code below to read the fascinating social media story of the Whale

http://goo.gl/1ZpbrE 

#Socialmedia
#Maersk
#Cambridge