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Blimey, guess he needs to stick to presenting!

"This was the BBC presenter’s third firm to close within 12 months after the closure of Gregg’s Bar & Grill in Bermondsey, South-East London, which was branded a ‘travesty’ by critics, and West Veg greengrocers, trading as Secretts Direct."

It's wrong though, his company has folded, leaving suppliers £93k out of pocket. He's obviously doing well for himself with a TV career, so shouldn't he pay this back?

Or does that mean he is now banned from being a company director?

So it looks like the BBC will formally sack Jeremy Clarkson today over his recent behaviour and confrontation with a Top Gear producer.

Listening to Chris Evans this morning on the way to work, he categorically denied any claims that he is considering taking over and said he has no interest, quipping to all the journalists camped outside his studio that they might as well and go for a cup of tea

So is that the death of Top Gear, or is it now set to be reborn again?

I'd be surprised if they bring someone in to replace Clarkson and continue with James May and Richard Hammond, as their style and humour seems to be embedded and linked with the Clarkson style. But it's a massive show and a revenue earner for the beeb, so pity the poor writer who gets tasked to craft the replacement format 

What do you think, will the beeb soldier on with My and the Hamster and try and replace Clarkson, or start again with a new format?

You can't beat a bit of forward planning and micro managing, but planning your exit 5 years from now and suggesting suitable replacements for half a decade ahead is quite impressive

So does anyone think Mr Cameron has dropped a clanger by answering an interview question with the comments he won't run for a third term?

Or is it a media hyped storm in a proverbial political teacup?

Hi David

Hope you don't mind, I moved your post over to the PPC forum as you've raised some interesting points and I think PPC could be an effective route for you.

It sounds like you have been doing PPC for a while, so should have built up a good bank of data, ie what key words work well for you, which negative ones to add.

Surprised why you think it's been a waste of time over the years though, because if a PPC platform isn't performing for you, drop it and move on.

If multiple platforms aren't working, and you are generating traffic but no conversions then that sounds more like a landing page issue, or untargeted traffic.

Most platforms these days are fairly straight forward to tune. In Facebook you can very quickly get granular targeted information, whilst Google relies on some tuning, keyword performance, adding in negative terms so they won't trigger any ads.

Each PPC campaign should be (assuming that's the objective) tuned to leads and conversions. Every click needs to be highly targeted, rather than paying for browsing web traffic!

So that leaves your landing page(s).

Have you done any landing page analysis? Do you send everyone to your home page, or to a particular landing page per campaign? Have you tried any split testing?

Check your analytics which will tell you everything you need to know about bounces, how long people were on your page and where they went next.

If you are sending people to your home page, imho when landing on it as a fresh visitor it comes over as very busy.

There's lots going on, lots of things trying to grab my 3 seconds of interest before I carry on surfing.

But your own data will tell you that. Compare the years of PPC data, analytics and customer conversion data and see which pages are working and which may need a tweak. Rinse and repeat until the leads start coming in.

Stats wise, if you set up each PPC's relevant tracking code for conversions, then this should match roughly any analytics. 

For your industry, I'd be surprised if PPC didn't work, it should be more a case of making leads viable with enough margin for profit.

Does that help?

Bloomberg are reporting that the UK's inflation rate has dropped to zero, the lowest since official records began in 1988.

Apparently the Bank of England Governor reckons inflation will go below zero in the months to come. This is obviously all being driven by low oil prices, so no doubt we will all be moaning next year when inflation starts rising!

For us the low inflation seems to be driving down dollar/sterling exchange rate, which is currently £1 = $1.49. This means things like adsense revenue is worth more as well as revenue coming in from the States. 

So zero inflation seems to be good new for us. How about anyone else? Does the low inflation impact your business, if so is it a good thing or a bad thing?

It seems this topic is as relevant as ever. 

Has anyone else got any other thoughts, or has anyone had any success by following some of the suggestions?

Will confess to being a bit of a slacker in the spelling and grammar department!

For a project we're currently working on, have got forum member Rebecca on the case, proof reader guru.

Downside though is she keeps finding lots of mistakes and problems so is keeping us busy 

But at least we will be grammatically correctish, with a few minor deviations and artistic licence, or is that license 

Sad story on the BBC about the plight of owner driver sub contractors for City Link. Some of them were businesses in their own right, with vans on finance and staff, all liveried and logo'd as City Link.

MPs have questioned flaws in the insolvency laws, as City Link continued to trade without notifying anyone about the seriousness of the business finances. It sites examples where contractors had just ordered or taken delivery of new vehicles at their own risk, unaware that the company was about to fold. 

Due to insolvency laws, they are far down the pecking order and will get 2p in the pound if they are lucky, with lenders and investors being at the top of the tree.

According to the BBC News, the MP's report:

"says that under the current rules it is in the financial interest of a company to break the law and ignore the statutory redundancy consultation process, if the fine for doing so is less than the cost of continuing to trade.

The fine will end up being paid by the taxpayer, it pointed out."

The counter argument is that without protection for lenders, businesses will struggle to get investment in the first place, but in this scenario it does seem morally wrong.

What does anyone else think?

It's like a foreign language!

I can't even understand younger relatives on social media 

Hi Steve

Starting and running a business can be very frustrating as well as rewarding. Indizine makes some great points, and social media could be a possible way to generate leads.

Hopefully your initial customers will be blown away with your service and if not repeat customers, will pass your details on as word of mouth. This is the most effective form of marketing going, costs nothing, but takes a long time to build and maintain a professional reputation. Make sure you leave spare leaflets or cards with customers so they can give them to their friends.

Maybe refer a friend discounts etc.

One thing that surprised me is the number of peaks and troughs in a business calendar. As a new business you have little idea what to expect, so get as much info and data from the franchise owners.

eg for us, Xmas and school summer holidays are bad periods, for others they are busy periods. So we have learnt to diversify as well as prepare for lean months. Maybe you are simply experiencing a lean period in your calendar. 

Once you are aware of it, you can prepare for it. Husband precious revenue and plan everything to an inch of it's life. You will have a bad or couple of bad months, that's just business, but you need cash flow to keep you going. Again data from the franchise should help you plan until you have enough experience and your own data.

You maybe top of page 1 of Google for oven cleaning in Moray, but if your phone isn't melting in your hand, that tells me that that either that keyword isn't the best for your sector, or there isn't enough demand, or too much competition.

Assume you did your due diligence and established you have a big enough market for your services, rather than relying on franchise sales pitch (whose product is to sell the franchise).

In which case find out what people are typing into Google to find your services. Keep wearing out the shoe leather, leaflets are great, I may not need you now, but in 6 months I know there is a flyer round here somewhere, or another will pop through the letterbox and remind me about my dirty oven.

How are you with the local landlord community? Rental market is notorious for dirty ovens, students has to be even better, (assuming they know how to work it!). Forge partnerships with landlords or estate agents/letting agents. Become known locally as the go to guy for oven cleaning.

Nothing harder in this world than starting up a business. A franchise is supposed to give you a shortcut to success but is still a lot of hard work.

It won't happen over night. Reputations and building a name takes time. It's an awful lot easier and less stressful being PAYE and working for someone else!