What we have learnt, written down.
Twenty-one articles on the things Surrey business owners actually ask about — what a slow site costs, whether cold outreach is legal, where the hours go. Numbers where we have them, and no adjectives standing in for evidence.
The five numbers worth tracking, and the ones to ignore
Most marketing reports are full of figures that cannot change a decision. Here are the five that can, and how to find them without buying anything.
Websites
Speed, accessibility and the seven days between a deposit and a live site.
What a slow website actually costs you
Everyone quotes three seconds. Almost nobody says where the number comes from, or what it means on a phone with one bar of signal outside a kitchen showroom in Cobham.
WebsitesFive working days, start to finish
Most website projects do not take six weeks because the work takes six weeks. They take six weeks because nobody decided anything on days two through twenty-nine. Here is the timetable that removes the waiting.
WebsitesThe accessibility rules that already apply to you
Most small business owners believe accessibility is something large organisations worry about. In the UK it has been a legal duty since 2010, and the standard everyone builds to has moved.
Automation
The jobs nobody should still be doing by hand, and what happens to the ones you miss.
The most expensive thing in your business is a missed call
You are up a ladder, under a sink, or with a patient. The phone rings out. Ninety seconds later that person has rung somebody else, and you will never know it happened.
AutomationWhat an AI receptionist can and cannot do
The demonstrations are impressive and the sales pages are not honest about the limits. Here is what actually happens when one answers your phone, including the three situations where it should not.
AutomationWhere the admin hours actually go
Every small business owner knows they lose evenings to paperwork. Very few have worked out which paperwork, which is why the wrong things get automated first.
Brand & content
What a refresh actually changes, and when it is a distraction from the real problem.
When a rebrand is worth it, and when it is a very expensive distraction
Businesses rebrand for four reasons. One of them is good, two are defensible, and the fourth is what happens when sales are down and nobody knows why.
Brand & contentYour logo is the smallest part of your brand
For a local business, brand is mostly the answer to a question you are not in the room for: what is this lot like to deal with when something goes wrong?
Brand & contentWriting like a business people actually trust
Almost every local business website is written in the same voice, and it is nobody's. Here is how to sound like the person who will turn up on Tuesday.
Paid media & search
Google, Meta and local search for a business spending its own money.
Google Ads on £1,000 a month, spent properly
A thousand pounds is not a small budget for a local service business. It is a small budget for the way most agencies run an account, which is why so many of them fail.
Paid media & searchLocal SEO in 2026: what moved, and what never does
AI answers changed the top of the results page and almost nothing about what makes a local business rank. The gap between those two facts is where a lot of money is currently being wasted.
Paid media & searchMeta ads when nobody is looking for you yet
Google finds people who already want what you sell. Facebook and Instagram interrupt people who do not. That difference decides everything about how the money should be spent.
Strategy & growth
The numbers worth tracking, and the customers you already have.
The five numbers worth tracking, and the ones to ignore
Most marketing reports are full of figures that cannot change a decision. Here are the five that can, and how to find them without buying anything.
Strategy & growthThe cheapest growth available is the traffic you already have
Every business wants more visitors. Almost none has worked out what happens to the ones already arriving, which is where the cheaper win has been sitting all along.
Strategy & growthThe customers you already have
Everybody who has ever paid you is sitting in a spreadsheet, an inbox or a card index. It is the cheapest list you will ever own, and almost nobody uses it.
B2B lead generation
Outbound that is lawful, targeted and answered by a human.
Is cold outreach legal in the UK? Mostly yes, with two rules people break
Cold email and cold calling are lawful in Britain if you understand who you are contacting. Almost every business that gets into trouble broke the same two rules, and both are avoidable.
B2B lead generationWhy your lead list is mostly wrong
We built a lead engine from the public register, ran it, and found that two thirds of what it produced was rubbish. Here is exactly how, because a bought list has the same faults and nobody shows you them.
B2B lead generationThe five-minute rule, and why almost nobody keeps it
The single strongest predictor of whether an enquiry becomes a customer is not what you say. It is how long you take to say anything at all.
Reading is not the same as doing.
Everything above is what we would tell you on a call anyway. Half an hour, and you get a price and a date at the end of it — not a proposal to wait for.
Social media
Posting for a local business with a real budget and no marketing department.
Eight posts a month that actually get seen
Most local business social media is a diary nobody reads. The fix is not posting more often. It is posting fewer things that are worth stopping for.
14 Aug 2026 Social mediaThe video that works is the one you shot badly
Local businesses spend money on produced films that nobody watches, then get forty thousand views on a clip filmed on a phone with the sound of a radio in the background.
4 Aug 2026 Social mediaReviews, and the art of replying to a bad one
Reviews decide more local purchases than any advertising you will ever buy. Most businesses collect them badly, and almost all of them reply to the bad ones in the way that does the most damage.
18 Jul 2026See social plans