I had a call from a director of a business that I occasionally provide with mentoring to ask me to come round asap. Over the Xmas break he had been having second thoughts about carrying the activity on, even though it was profitable.
There was too much stress and he wasn’t getting on with his business [...]

After writing the title of this piece I thought what more can I say? That’s it isn’t it? Provide a better service than your competitors and you will win business.
But maybe it’s worth thinking about this a bit deeper. No one actually sets out to deliberately provide a bad service and does it really matter [...]

I must admit this blog sounds a bit as though I’m standing on a soap-box, but a recent comment by Google’s chairman, Eric Schmidt, rang true with me. He said:
“I was flabbergasted to learn that today computer science isn’t even taught as standard in UK schools,” he said. “Your IT curriculum focuses on teaching how [...]

Enterprise Zones are the latest government incentive to get businesses growing. Within the Enterprise Zone you can get superfast broadband, lower rates & taxes, and low levels of regulation & planning controls.
That can only be a good thing – right? A great encouragement for younger companies who may otherwise struggle to reach critical mass.
Maybe, however [...]

Almost all businesses now days have to have a web site. Even if you don’t sell over the web, your customers will expect to be able to find you on it.
If they know your name and it’s fairly unique then you are likely to be found. That’s good, you can give your customers contact details, [...]

Whenever I hear advice from successful entrepreneurs the most consistent mantra is “always hire the best people you can afford”.
But how good is “the best”, how do you measure that? Also, if you are in a young company, with very limited resources, how much can you really afford?
Let’s step back for a moment though and [...]

I spent an enjoyable couple of days doing one-to-ones on business planning at a conference last week and the area that was most misunderstood was the need to define and understand your market.
It sounds simple, everyone of course understands their market don’t they, it’s obvious. The market is whoever will buy from us. We don’t [...]

 
Company Partners has been a blessing for those businesses who are looking for business partners, mentors and investors, but what if you need to reorganise your business to make it more profitable, or to grow?
 
I’ve been helping companies that have approached us for a while now, but eventually there is only so much of my [...]

I wonder if anyone you know has been the victim of these? Various business journals have been mentioning for some time that the Inland Revenue has decided to target small companies. On the belief that such businesses would have poor record keeping and so would be able to have more tax squeezed out of them.
It [...]

A few days ago the office of the Prime Minister sent a letter to many small businesses and SME organisations explaining that a new online tool called Contracts Finder has been launched that will show all government tender opportunities.
At the same time he said they would eliminate the prequalification questionnaire (PQQ) for low value orders [...]