Issue #30 - Let's get cracking 🐣
Choc on Choc 🍫 | #NationalPetMonth 🐈| Choosing a product or service to sell 👩🔧 | 6 pet care tips for busy business owners 🐕 | The best UK cities for salons 💇♀️| Tunes 🎶 | Podcasts 💬 | More
🦾 G O
A year on from lockdown 📅
Welcome to Issue #30 of The Backbone - the fortnightly newsletter from Bionic.
Who remembers what they were doing on April 12, 2021?
Maybe you went for a haircut? Popped to the shops for a bit of retail therapy? Fitted in a few bench presses at the gym? Or legged it straight to your local for a pint?
Nothing out of the ordinary, really.
Only those things were all very out of the ordinary around this time last year as we were just emerging from the third national lockdown of the pandemic.
April 12th was the date that all ‘non-essential’ shops could reopen (remember, all businesses are essential), along with hairdressers, salons, gyms, most outdoor attractions, and outdoor hospitality.
It all seems a lot longer than 12 months ago. And the more you think about it, the more it all feels like a particularly vivid fever dream.
Things are still tough for households and businesses across the country, but at least lockdowns are a thing of the past and we can all get on with our lives relatively freely again.
We hope you all have a bumper Easter bank holiday weekend and that business is booming for the rest of the year.
🤳 S O C I A L
To help us celebrate National Pet Month we want pictures and videos of your pets being daft, cute, or both. Get involved on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram using the hashtag #PromoteYourPet.
In the meantime, here’s Poppy - the owner of (Chief Customer Officer) Glyn Britton - eating her way out of a box. Exactly the sort of thing we want to see.
📨 S U B S C R I B E
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🗣 S H O U T O U T
#BionicBusinessStory - Choc on choc 🍫
Bionic had a chat with Flo Broughton of Choc on Choc. We discovered how she and her dad set the business up and what they want to achieve in the future.
Bionic: Why do you think it’s so important to shop local?
Flo Broughton: Smaller shops and businesses are often supporting families, it’s not just a big, faceless company. Every sale counts in a local shop so it’s important to show support.
B: What’s your proudest achievement as a small business?
FB: Still trading after 19 years and loving it is our biggest achievement! Making money is great but making chocolate is way more fun!
B: What’s your favourite Choc on Choc creation and how are you spending Easter?
FB: We love our chocolate cheeseboard. The one product people aren’t sure about is chocolate or cheese. The Brie is so unbelievably real! We're looking forward to Easter, as a family. We all love chocolate, apart from my son Charlie, but he gets sweets instead.
B: What other brands inspire you?
FB: Emma Bridgewater is a great one. The brand itself is solid, it knows what it can do and sticks to it. Too often you see brands deviate from their core to just join a trend. At Choc on Choc, we try to stick to what we know we can do. For example, we know we can’t make hollow chocolate, it’s just not our thing. So, we leave that to the experts and concentrate on what we can do well!
Check out the Choc on Choc website to see some more of their marvellous creations. And click on the chocolates below to read more from this #BionicBusinessStory (yes, those vegetables are actually chocolates - cake is so 2021)
📩 J O I N
Get involved with our business community 🔊
Share your thoughts and tips to give other busy business owners a helping hand. Or ask a question to see if anyone can help you out.
🗞 R E A D
How to choose a great product or service to sell
Launching a business isn't easy. A heavily saturated market, fierce competition, and increasing expectations for customer satisfaction are just some of the challenges a start-up company can face.
But the biggest test for an aspiring business owner is to find a product to sell and base their business on. Without the right offering, how can they expect to attract customers and turn over a profit?
To help you find that gap in the market, our handy guide to choosing a great product or service to sell will walk you through everything you need to know to prepare your business for success.
How to manage your pets while running your business from home
Whether you’re a dog fanatic, a cat lover or share your home with a hamster, reptile, fish or rabbit, having a furry (or scaly) friend can add so much to your life. Owning a pet is proven to reduce stress, lower blood pressure and steadily improve mental health. It can also encourage you to be more active and help you interact with other pet owners.
But it can be challenging to balance their needs with your own while running a business. So, here are our top tips to help keep your furry friends out of mischief when running your small business or working from home.
What are the best UK cities for beauty and salon services?
After living in tracksuits and barely leaving the house for the best part of two years, it looks like we may finally have hit the post-Covid era, as businesses are allowed to open without restrictions. That means people all over the country are in search of a glow up - the ultimate transformation from drab to fab.
The number-crunchers at Bionic have been working hard to put together a complete rundown of the UK cities that offer the best beauty businesses and salon services. Where does your city rank?
📊 B U S I N E S S
Get your business costs sorted 💷
Bionic - the business price comparison experts - compare a range of business essentials to help you save time, money, and hassle.
Our tech-enabled team will answer all your questions in simple terms, and help you find the best deal on business energy, insurance, phone, broadband, or finance. No jargon. No-fuss. #BeABionicBusiness 🦾
Check out more ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Trustpilot reviews
🎧 L I S T E N
Playlist
Ever get bored of a song after a couple of minutes and flick to the next one? Well, that will be near impossible to do with this week’s playlist, as each of the 57 songs (an apt number for the variety on offer) is UNDER TWO MINUTES LONG. Hence the title - Songs 2 minutes or under. Blast through 120 second classics from Allah-Las, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Radiohead, Buzzcocks, The Jam, The Clash, Daft Punk, DJ Shadow, and loads more.
Podcast
We’ve featured Today in Focus from The Guardian before, but the episode from Monday, April 11 has really stuck in our minds so we thought we’d share this episode as one that everyone really should listen to. The insect crisis: where did all the bugs go? looks at the drastic decline in insect populations and asks what it means as these miraculous creatures play a vital role in making the Earth habitable. It also makes a compelling case to not absolutely hate wasps!
👩🤝👩🏾 S H A R E
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🏡 H O U S E K E E P I N G
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🚫 S T O P
Thanks for making it to the end of another Bionic bulletin 🤝🏻
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