newbury today now available on facebook

Ah the secret of great comedy! A couple of days ago Morgan PR wrote about Netteam Consultants, a local company helping businesses stop their employees wasting their time on such social notworking sites as facebook.

Today I notice that newbury today has established a group on said notworking site. It should be pointed out that newbury today is the online sister of the Newbury Weekly News, publishers of the Newbury Business News - which on Thursday this week will feature the story about companies trying to discourage employees from surfing their day away!

What better justification could there be for visiting newbury today's group on facebook than to keep on to of all interesting news in Newbury?

Presumably this means you get to 'poke' a journalist if you have a story?

Refreshing Approach from a Truly Super Market

Asked what kind of shop might qualify as a ‘hidden treasure’ people would be forgiven for not thinking of a 5,000 square foot supermarket in the heart of Wash Common in Newbury; however this independently owned branch of Budgens is not your typical supermarket.

Writing another feature for the 'Hidden Treasures' feature in next month's Newbury Business News brought me to Budgens where I discovered the transformation had begun in July last year when the store was bought by Mike Estlea, a man who understands that the customer comes first and that there is a place for a local supermarket that cares for its community.

He was honest and welcoming and I gained a fascinating insight into the business, although I perhaps remain most impressed by some thoroughly community minded action in the run up to November 5th.

Fireworks are very lucrative for retailers and clearly many look no further than the bottom line, but Mike Estlea took a different view and refused to sell fireworks, lest they be improperly used and upset local residents, his customers.

Better still on Halloween they introduced an ‘Over 18’ rule on the sale of eggs. Incidentally, at least 80% of those eggs come from local suppliers, like a growing range of products in store.

New VIP Phone Service from Verbatim

Verbatim is well known in West Berkshire and beyond as The Phone Answering Service; it handles thousands of calls every day for companies large and small (including Morgan PR) so that no caller is faced with an engaged tone, endless ringing or hated answer phone.

Praised by customers for its professionalism, Verbatim is rolling out the red carpet with a new VIP service that adds a personal touch that has enhanced the service yet further.

I found out more when Morgan PR met with Joint MD at Verbatim, Graham Hill for a feature in the November edition of the Newbury Business News.

Essentially clients who provide Verbatim with the telephone numbers and other details of the clients, suppliers and even family and friends will benefit from a VIP service that recognises these callers and gives them the personal service you hope your own team would. Probably they'll do it better!

It would natural to assume such personal service comes at a price, but this is not the case, as Graham told me with a smile: “We were asked by some clients whether we would be charging a premium for this new service. However, we are most certainly not because we believe we should do our best for all of our clients no matter what they spend with us.”

For Morgan PR Verbatim has been one of our most powerful tools. Soon after we signed up we were contacted by a company in Andover looking for PR support; it turned out they had turned to Google to look for local public relations services, and Morgan PR was among the top three in Basingstoke, Andover and Newbury and the company called all three. Morgan PR was the only one who answered – or rather Verbatim handled the call for us. That one answered call led to initial business worth £2,000 and a lifetime value which will far exceed that. I know that without Verbatim that business would have been unwittingly lost.

They Say the Best Things in Life are Free...

...however, companies cannot survive on stagnating cashflows with that problematic matter of salaries, not to mention if they want to expand or invest in new equipment...

Forgive me, Morgan PR was coaxed into a charming insight into everything from factoring to invoice discounting and a myriad of other ways that companies can avoid those cashflow blues, courtesy of Helen Mackenzie from Capital Corporate Finance.

The company is one featuring in the forthcoming edition of the Newbury Business News, out on October 11, and Morgan PR was interviewing Helen for Capital Corporate Finance's profile.

One of three directors Helen has been with the company for 11-years and has seen firsthand how the marketplace has changed. She explained: “When I started out there were effectively only a few funders coming to the market, as few as four or five; now there are some 75 funders out there and they all have something different to offer.

“It used to be a simple case of factoring of invoice discounting, but the marketplace is more sophisticated now and it can be confusing for a company in need of help to know where to look.

“Our typical clients are SME with a turnover of anything from £2 million to £20 million and we place about 100 deals a year in the marketplace and those will relate to a total turnover in excess of £80 million. It makes us a significant player and that in itself helps us find the better deals.”

A Game of Dog & Mouse

That saying about never working with children (I'm a school governor) or animals (chickens and a dog) has always seemed a bit dramatic to me, and recently I was lucky enough to work with a consummate professional and said star, Oscar, is pictured above.

He might be a dog, but Oscar is a key part of Publicity Project's team and Owner (of the business and Oscar) Sue Elsden was keen he appear in the photographs Morgan PR was taking for the current edition of the Newbury Business News.

I suggested getting him working at one of the Macs, half joking, but moments later he was tempted into the chair and encouraged to 'look businesslike'.

Thank Japanese technology for designing cameras that allow for burst photography, for Oscar briefly put paw to mouse and looked every bit the essential member of this leading graphic design team, as your can see here!

Tell Someone You Love Them – Or That You Don’t With a Mungogram!

TWO entrepreneurial Newbury brothers today launched www.mungogram.com a revolutionary website that allows people to log on and send greeting cards suitable for a host of special occasions – with their own message recorded inside.

“The idea for Mungogram came about on a road trip with my brother Sam,” explained Alex Green as he posed with Mungo amid the greenery of the Madagascan Gin Palace for a pre-launch photoshoot with Morgan PR. “We were going to see a relative and stopped to buy a greeting card. Sam came back with some hideous card that spewed out a repetitive tuneless noise, which he then insisted on singing for the rest of the journey, driving me insane.”

“With a little imagination and a touch of brainstorming we realised we could do this better and soon after Mungo was born – well actually we looked at different characters before choosing the friendly gorilla you can see here.” he said hugging the life size cut out of Mungo, who will feature on some excellent radio adverts from today on Kick FM.

“Essentially visitors log on to www.mungogram.com and choose their occasion – birthdays, thank you, get well soon, congratulations on your divorce – we have a very wide selection and also an ‘Adults Only’ section that is a bit more risqué!

“They can then choose one of a host of pre-recorded messages from our own library, or – and this is where the fun starts – record their own 12 second sound clip to go in their card. This can either be done through the site using their PC or if they prefer via a free 0800 telephone number. They can preview, re-record and make any changes until they are happy – and then we can post that directly to the recipient, or send it to the customer to sign and deliver, and all for just £4.99.

“There is nothing out there, either in the shops or on the web that compares with Mungogram.com and hopefully generations to come will be spared some of those awful excuses for cards lurking in the shops and will instead be entertained by Mungo!”

The success of Mungogram hinges on the ease with which the website operates for visitors and that is down to BCL Numedia, the Newbury web solutions company headed by Darin Brockman.

“Mungogram is a fabulous idea,” Darin Brockman commented. “It has been a real fun project to be involved in and a challenge to realise the vision behind the concept.”

Alex Green was quick to praise the team at BCL Numedia too, he said: “We had the idea, but could not have brought it to market without the help of Darin and his team; they have brought it to life and made Mungo a reality. They are a seriously talented company and I shall be sending them a Mungogram to say so!”

The above article features in today's Newbury Business News and readers can send a Mungogram too and enjoy a generous 10 per cent discount just by entering the code NBN when prompted on the website www.mungogram.com The offer is valid until the end of August.