The Duncan Reid Consultancy

10/04/2026

It might be a sign of the times but there's lots of empty, derelict or void commercial buildings around these days.

Now that may be a function of so many businesses pivoting to more agile, smaller logistical operations over the last decade, changes in technology meaning that less space is required, moving to JIT methods or the fact that we don't make anything in this country anymore other than call centres, estate agents and AI bulls**t course trainers...
..or then again, it could be that the World has gone a little bit crazy and anyone looking to invest is sitting on their hands for a while whilst waiting to see if the last square on their 'Apocalypse Bingo' card comes up or not. (I just need 'Godzilla spotted wading up the Mersey' to get a full house incidentally...)

But if you have got a business building standing idle, you really should be looking after it. And it'd be a shame for it to burn to the ground wouldn't it? Now why does that make me sound like a Peaky Blinders style villain? 😁

But seriously, you'd do worse than check out the advice from the folk I know over at NW Fire Solutions about avoiding fire risks in your empty property. Give them a call, it's a much easier conversation than an awkward one with your insurance broker.

https://www.nwfiresolutions.co.uk/blog/what-are-the-fire-safety-risks-in-unoccupied-buildings/

17/03/2026

With my retired CyberSec hat on, just spotted this exploit that's boring so won't make the news but is potentially really bad news for anyone with a Ltd Company.

A huge exploit in the Companies House webfiling system. You could access a different Company's dashboard by simply pressing 'back' four times when prompted for an auth code.

Just check your Companies House entry is correct and you don't suddenly have Mickey Mouse as a co-director!

https://x.com/DanNeidle/status/2032506756786511908
..and bringing it back on topic. Security of a website impacts SEO so if you know anyone that would like their site auditing from a security perspective then that's a referral, please get in touch!

25/11/2025

"Alone we can do so little : Together we can do so much" A quote attributed to Helen Keller and as true today as it's ever been.

Can any of my contacts help out a local Charity? Sunflowers

We live in turbulent times. War-torn skies loom large in the news. Extremism of all ilks rises its ugly head, setting neighbour on neighbour, friend on friend. Science is decried. Conspiracists & the corrupt assume power and none of us feel we have enough money in our pockets. And my Council still forgets to empty the bins...

But that makes it more important than ever to lend support when & where we can. Individually, we may only be able to do a small thing. But when 500,000 other people do the same small thing, suddenly it's no longer small.

Nationally (with a Merseyside focus), I support (with time rather than money) the The King's Trust - a Charity doing great work supporting young people, not just in establishing self-supporting businesses but throughout their steps from education to the workplace too.

Closer to home, supporting a wonderful charity in Liverpool called Liverpool Sunflowers who support people living with cancer and long-term conditions.

They’ve got their Christmas Raffle coming up and on the lookout for any prizes, so if you’ve got anything that they could use as a prize, it’d mean a great deal for their fundraising.

They have said they’d be happy to share any prizes donated on their Social Media and will tag you in any posts. Can you help? Let me know or get in touch with Bobby Magee ASAP!

Feliz Navidad to you all. And a Bah Humbug to anyone who deserves it.

Thanks!

[And in 2026, rather than posting LinkedIn bu****it about how getting up at 4 in the morning and drinking an organic kumquat smoothie has made you a superior being, just stop being such a prat and go and do something small for a small, local charity - I'll respect you all the more for it] 😉

07/10/2025

Today I had the pleasure of talking to a bunch of startup businesses at the LIverpool offices of The King's Trust, an organisation that does so much good work in supporting young people.

These were people in the throes of starting up their business so I talked on online marketing, some SEO & lots on marketing mindset & social media. (SEO basics, AIDA, marketing avatars, choosing the right platforms, generational differences, what's your message, social media disasters (lots of fun that one), reviews and just giving some mental tools to make sense of social media from a business perspective.

For brevity, I nearly typed [...make sense of SM...] but then I realised that would be an entirely different workshop entirely!

I very nearly swore when I had a mini-rant about LinkedIn bu****it posts. You know the ones. AI (and human) generated garbage that adds nothing. Achieves nothing. And means even less.

Yes, I'm calling out all the LinkedIn gurus. You know, the ones with perfect teeth & glossy hair (like a labrador) with a photo of their immaculate lifestyle. "You too could be like me" they insinuate, "If you only had the balls to stump up £49.99/month for my coaching".

Then I realised where I was going wrong - no professionally photographed images to accompany my post, pushing viewers into a buying frenzy.

So here it is. My cup of cold coffee to make it a perfect lifestyle post... perhaps.

But I don't really care. Because I'm not really selling stuff. Certainly not made-up guru stuff. I'm pretty much at capacity working with people I want to work with. Interesting people. Where I can make - and see - the needle move, making a tangible difference to their business.

Sure I've always got space for a chat over a coffee & an eccles cake if you want a bit of advice or would like me to shoehorn your exciting business idea in somewhere. (I'm not saying no. But I'm not saying yes either. Oooh, a toasted teacake as well? Now perhaps...)

All these AI LinkedIn posts have a parable type ending don't they, so what have I learnt today?

○ Well, I've been reminded that the The King's Trust is stuffed full of people that do great things on behalf of those just starting out (it's not just about self-employment incidentally).

○ I've seen their problem solving skills excel! (I don't even know the staffer's name who extricated me from tech hell but she was awesome)

○ I've learnt my POS laptop that's used as a presentation & homework hack is no longer compatible with modern display screens 🤬 (Should I replace or just buy some displayport adaptors. Decisions, decisions...)

○ Cold coffee still tastes disgusting

○ That I still get a bit wiped out for the next day if I've done too much at the gym following my February glitches

○ That my presentation (nominally about 3½ hours but I follow the Ken Dodd model of timekeeping) is a good 7-8000 steps long

○ That as someone once said to me, I do actually "know a lot about this stuff - for an old bloke!" 🤣

22/04/2025

A spot of intense focus - and cheap, unlimited coffee - before I head off to drop a dress off to be altered. Before you ask, no it's not mine!

Busy day beckons, station drop off done. Now to do some edits to a Mortgage Broker's GMP products & services listings before a quick jaunt over to Litherland with the party frock.

Then home to drill a wall, put out the washing, screw a hook, sort out some missing H1s on a fire consultancy website, sort gallery images for a horsebox manufacturer and update some schema & content for the mortgage site.

If I've got any time left between that lot, I'll be making more coffee and probably get a call to pick random teenagers up from the station because their poor legs just aren't upto it! 🤣

03/12/2024

Get those lovely reviews for your business with an easy-tap NFC card to make it easier for customers to leave a review! Now in stock - cool black Google Review cards as well as our original white card versions.

https://dakesart.etsy.com/listing/1757534490

03/09/2024

It's getting close to the last days of the School Holidays (Hurrah! Some might say...)

So here I am in a trampoline park whilst daughter & a friend try their best to regurgitate the McD they had on the way here!

But I have everything I need to carry on working. Laptop. Coffee. And my very own Internet access.

My own Internet? How very posh! "Why doesn't he just use the free-wifi like everyone else?" I hear you say.

Because that's what the hackers want you to do. And no, they don 't just hang out in Hollywood and similar places. Everyone is at risk. So that little white box is my own router. Works off a SIM card, fast enough for general use and gives me some basic security.

No hangers-on & no-one sniffing my packets to find the passwords to my stash-filled bank account thank you very much (if you believe that, I would remind you I have a daughter. Which is like having a permantly broke, little best friend.)

Top Security Tip Folks: Free Wifi can - and has - been used by hackers to deploy a fake honeytrap which then captures all your traffic. Doesn't happen often, but do ya feel lucky punk?

Have a chat with your IT Provider (or me) about your own mobile 4/5G router or at the very least, a VPN to protect your data when you're working in that swanky hotel lobby with the £12 lattefrappamocachino. Or alternatively, let's have a coffee and I'll bore you about SEO and the overlaps with cybersecurity. SEO words of advice always free although you may have to buy the coffee. And a cake.

03/09/2024

Highly recommended!

Breeze Guest House is an incredible Bootletique hotel a stones throw from Liverpool City Centre. Julie who manages the Hotel has created a discount code for those booking, if they make a donation to Liverpool Sunflowers. Thank You so much

01/08/2024

Getting reviews is a great thing for businesses. It demonstrates that you're a credible organisation that other people have had good experiences with - 'Social Proof' they call it.

So anything you can do to make it easier for happy customers to leave you a glowing review is A GOOD THING.

Which is why we've introduced these NFC cards. Waterproof and made of robust PVC, simply have your client tap them on their phone and they'll be taken to your review page where they can tell the World how good you are!

No hassle, we program them with the review destination and we've tested them on luddites who had no problem tapping their phone with them - buy them here for just £4.98...

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1757534490/google-review-card-tap-for-instant

22/07/2024

Now here's a thing, just received a letter from a local estate agency by email.

But sent in MS Word DOCX format (with grammatical errors and formatting all over the place too).

That makes their letterhead & potentially past docuemnt versions open to me. Oh, the mischief that a nasty person could cause...

If your business sends letters by email, at least please save them as a PDF first. It's still not *that* secure but at least it displays how you intend, looks professional and doesn't give away details on previous versions.