About Paul Harper
My passion is business and marketing. I got involved in digital in the early days of desktop computers, I was an early owner of a desktop PC in the 90s. Working with Xerox during the digital revolution really was fascinating and the bedrock for my future business development.
I founded my website design – Britnett – and training business in 1999. As the Internet and website business grew I was involved with over 2000 website builds and Internet marketing for businesses nationwide – from independent businesses to larger corporate businesses including, out of interest, pet shops through to construction engineering businesses – and most in-between. Business development, marketing and sales are my specialism.
I work with a selection of businesses now – I am the company marketing department – I provide marketing services from an hour a month to a few days per week. I am supported by industry experts; Michael who is our coder, Josh is our graphic designer and Mohamed is our server environment support.
In recent years I have worked with 200 SME’s in the UK providing mentor and marketing support.
Bio; Paul Harper is an experienced entrepreneur who has started and managed a number of businesses from retail, hospitality, and marketing. After working with Xerox in the United States he returned to the UK to build the largest franchised Internet marketing company in the UK and exited in 2011. He is now a consultant and a SFEDI recognised business mentor. With Zedcomms Paul helps develop business in the UK and some overseas.
Zedcomms are a responsive professional business support and marketing company with over ten years of experience. We as a team focus on delivering results for a business. We use the tools available to us now with the experience we have and the development abilities to achieve results for our clients.
Zedcomms provide sales and marketing services to businesses locally and worldwide. Our background and experience include business support, business mentoring, Internet marketing, business-to-business sales, retail sales, sales team set-up and development, customer care, mailing list building, and consultative sale training.
Managing Director Paul Harper has developed successful sales and marketing systems in most industries. Trained in the USA by a world-class corporation, Paul achieved ‘off the sheet’ record-breaking sales results with the Xerox Corporation. He was the founder of Britnett, a national UK sales, and franchise organisation. The marketing strategy that built Britnett to be a nationally respected organisation relied on customer transparency and rewards for success. Paul evolved his ethos across 34 franchise offices and over 2000 client accounts. He grew the company from a one-man band to be the biggest of its type in the country.
Vision and belief
Paul’s vision back then was remarkable. Just think – there was no Google in 1999, best then were AltaVista, HotBot, and Northern Light. Getting onto the “information superhighway” required a 486 SX25 or a Mac 68030 series with a staggering 8MB of RAM and, while cable and DSL were becoming available, most still used dial-up modems.
He believed that the web was the future and that organisations’ online presence would become more and more important as the world-wide-web grew and developed. He also believed that customers wanted to be able to manage their own website, albeit with help from professionals. They certainly didn’t want to be beholden to their web designers to make any and every little change to their website they might need.
So, he found a content management system (CMS) and employed graphic designers and support technicians to make this happen. We are indebted to him for providing such a great foundation upon which we continue to build.
Internet Marketing and Social Media
We analyse and suggest how to build your marketing using websites and social media. Pull technology is the best way to market a business. We set up and manage a marketing platform to fit with your business and budget to produce what you require. This could be leads, brand recognition or sales online and in-store. You can retain us an agreed plan or use our services as and when required.
Content is King
The old adage is that content is king, whether that is a website, a book, a seminar or a training course –it probably applies to packaged food too! But if this is true, then control of the content is vital to business owners and organisations of all sizes.
The first CMS was Showcase from Hamilton New Media and this was followed in 2005 by an own branded system called Britnett Carver based on a market-leading American product. A new version (Carver 2) was introduced in 2010 along with an instance on one of the world’s fastest servers known as Carver ADV supporting high-volume e-commerce sites.
Experience counts
Paul and his team had great success providing websites and related services to local customers in and around the picturesque town of Barnard Castle, near Darlington on Teesdale. Paul decided to offer their services and technology wider afield and signed up a number of agents. Over the years this developed to recruiting consultants and, in 2010, offering a more formal franchise opportunity.
The great benefit of this expansion has been the number of websites Britnett has developed over the years and hosts on an ongoing basis. There are some 2000! If you have a look at our portfolio, we hope that you’ll agree that you can see the experience we have built up in the outstanding quality and wide range of designs on show.
Britnett became part of the Pennine Holdings Group on 28th January 2011 with the specific intention of taking the business to the next level.
Managing Director, Paul Harper, sold the Internet marketing business in 2011 that he founded and operated for twelve years. Paul had involvement with over 2000 website development projects in the UK.
I have worked with thousands of websites from a pet food supplier stock including frozen mice (snake food) which we sold online to a company that sold aluminium bridges internationally – and all in between.
He instigated portal software developments setting the standard of features and backup support many try to emulate. His business development experience from grass-roots business start-up to Ltd company, growth to the corporate level, and development in the UK and USA can bring can be of use to a wide spectrum of businesses in all parts of the UK and the world.
Meet Paul and talk about your business and you will see his passion and deep thought as he works with you and mentors you to achieve your business goals.
Paul works with a number of businesses as a marketing and development director.
Zedcomms Social Wall 
View Paul Harper’s profile | Digital Drive Champion
Sectors we have worked with:
- Borough and City councils.
- Digital support organisations.
- National government-sponsored business support organisations.
- National and international banks.
- Business Link
- Digital City
- Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.
- Small Firms Enterprise Development Initiative
- Retail building industry customer sales.
- Department store customer sales.
- Hospitality customer care and up-sell.
- Big-ticket item sales and consultative sales.
- Auto trade selling skills and data capture.
- Retail furnishing customer sales.
- Restaurant customer care, customer growth, and marketing opportunity development.
- Restaurant data building and coupon development to increase football.
- Business to business direct sales.
- New technology sales and training.
- Internet product marketing and sales.
- Telephone lead generation.
- Email lead generation.
- Franchise development.
- Franchise sales.
- Franchise support.
- Sales team development.
- Sales management mentoring.
- Staff motivation scheme and award programmes.
- Staff ladder climb motivation and mentoring.
- Internet marketing.
Specialists we work with:
From designers to coders, telesales callers to mystery shoppers. Should your business project need it Zedcomms can provide it. The ethos with Zedcomms will always be to the point, clear and uncomplicated with a focus to achieve results at the best cost.
Zedcomms is the trading name of Zed Communications Ltd, registered in England and Wales No. 07530026. A Fellow (FIOEE) member of the Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs (IOEE). Member ID: IOEE139403718219454.