Yesterday’s budget reminded me that there are still considerable tax benefits to owning your own business, beyond the normal personal tax choices of taking salary, or dividends.
The Chancellor has for a start not only continued with the Entrepreneur Relief Rate of 10% but expanded it up to a value of £5M. Now many entrepreneurs busy [...]

Well let’s first look at the terminology “hung parliament”. It is a term that is designed to send shivers down your spine. Hung, drawn and quartered, a hung jury, hung from the highest tree.
It provokes the public into a sense of unease, if not outright terror. The danger is that this sense of [...]

The Tories have vowed to get rid of Business Link, the government-funded business advice service in England, but what if anything will replace it?
Business Link has had over the years a mixed reputation. Your view of the whole organisation usually depended on which adviser you were allocated.
I certainly remember my original encounter with them. I [...]

In the past the stereotypical entrepreneur was always seen as young and if you look at Bill Gates and Richard Branson they started their empires when just out of their teens.
However latest findings in the States have shown that the fastest growing age group for people starting a new business are the 50 – 65 [...]

During our last Business Plan Workshop we had an interesting question asked  – “when should someone accept that their idea for a business will not work?”
Normally I am adamant that you need persistence and belief in yourself, never give up your dream. But this made me stop and think.
Certainly in the past I’ve had entrepreneurs [...]

Over the years I’ve had friends that have talked about starting their own business but never got around to it. More recently I’ve also had hundreds of entrepreneurs contact me about various aspects of either starting a business, or making a significant change to an existing business to move it to a higher level of [...]