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Never thought of "Touch base" as business jargon, use it in everyday language  Historically I think I started using back in military days, where some us in a room with a few beers and we descend into a near foreign acronym strewn and slang language. Regardless of how many years we've been back in civvy street.

I remember corporate land took acronyms to a new level, and it used to be good fun on technical conference calls to drop in made up words for a laugh, and your colleagues would wet themselves, leaving the project manager and customer unaware.

Stuff like "thinking out of the box" and blue sky thinking" still make me cringe, and using the word "absolutely" to death during meetings (something I'm guilty of).

But it can also depend on who your target audience/clients are. I tend to subconsciously tailor my blurb depending who I'm talking to, eg, talk to a plumber or a sparky, then be straight to the point, times money, and if you're talking rubbish, they will normally very quickly tell you.

But deal with a large Trade Association at the Director level, then there is an expected dance of bluff and bluster, as everything has to go via the committee meeting, with a decision in about 6 months. Talk to local Government and it can get worse, who may need to provide you with a glossary of their acronyms 

But agree with Legal Stop, I think all trades and walks of life do it, some worse than others!

So lets form a huddle, analyse, then touch base on this debate and see if we need to adjust any KPI's or strategic objectives

Failing that, is the kettle on?

Originally Posted by Rebecca (PayforPrecision)

“How patronising....I might not be fit but I can still throw a mean left hook! ”

How sexist assuming its just for girls, I reckon Clive would make a great cheer leader 

Like it, too much text, so needs simplifying, but the concept is spot on 

Maybe 2 shops side by side, one with a queue of people, one without, the typo website name on the top of the shop, next to the right one.

Then you can add a smart call to action in the actual description. Remember you can have text in your advert, just minimal text in the actual image. Look at the fiverr one above, only has 1 word in it.

I think these days less is more.

Don't put site wide links to external websites, and only add something that will add value. Don't add clutter for clutters sake.

In reality, most people won't really see the footer of your website as a primary place for info, so keep it simple.

Look at the footer on any page of our business directory, lots going on, loads of information. But from heat maps we know very little is used.

The forum footer is much simpler, limiting to a disclaimer, biz info and social media links.

But my favourite is our Trusted Trader site which has a much simpler and clutter free footer. So it looks like we are evolving to a simpler approach.

New thread done

Add your Facebook & Twitter links

I'll start it off.

https://www.facebook.com/MyLocalServices

https://twitter.com/MyLocalForums

https://plus.google.com/+MyLocalServicesAlcester/posts

It sounds like they are taking a liberty 

Depends on what you want to happen, insist they remove your name, or negotiate a consultancy fee. Plenty of companies take on outside consultants as temp employees to fill skills gaps or help them with tenders.

Not discussing it with you first is bordering on fraud. Decide what you want to happen, ie financial compensation, or remove your details, then demand an audience and get it resolved.

We've had a few of those threads over the years. They tend to grow and grow, and then get culled from time to time.

I don't think we have had one since we moved to the new forum format, maybe it's time to start a new one  Normally do it for all members.

I'll add it to my to do list and get one set up, always glad to get good ideas 

Everyone aware now of the new Pension auto-enrolment?

If you are still confused or don't understand it, the Guardian has an easy to read article all about it: Pension auto-enrolment – what business owners need to know

Here's a good example of someone touting data, came through this morning:

Dear Business Owner,

I am sending you this email because there are only 6 hours left before we take our product off the market.

We are the developer and publisher of the largest business database on CD in the UK. The database is the only one on the market to contain details not available anywhere else on 5 million Businesses in the UK including 4,6 million named Decision Makers available by job function and 800,000 Businesses with email addresses.

We have decided to give it to you for a symbolic price of £49 (instead of £998) until 3PM today (the product will be entirely removed from our website at 3PM).

Yeah right  If you ever wondered why you got spammed to death, this is one of the reasons!