In business it mainly comes down to money for most things. How much do you make in a wage? How much does your company turn over? What does the accountant say is the bottom line at the year end? But do you ever think about how much you could be saving?

As someone who takes negoiating for our clients very seriously it comes as second nature now NOT to pay full price for anything! Oh ok it could just be that I’m a Yorkshire woman, born of a Scot that I’m so very tightfisted, but I’m not about to apologise and let me tell you why… [Read more...]

Ok so I’ve already given you A,B,C and D…so here’s the next (hopefully!) insightful instalment into my A-Z of business.

Experts. So you’ve set up in business and your probably producing a widget or providing a great service and that’s the thing you will be an expert in your given area. That does not necessarily mean you will be an expert in all areas of business, especially if you are just starting out by yourself for the first time. Still not sure what I’m talking about…? Ok when you set up a business it will be something like this – you have a business idea, maybe it’ll be to sell art work that you produce…but that means you need premises, you need to buy in art supplies to produce your work, you have to sell and market your work, you have to bill your customers, and then if you’re really smart you’ll follow those customers up and start to build up a database of clients – probably using a computer system. Ok so let’s look at it closely.

You will have be good at the following: [Read more...]

When you start out in business one of the last things that you will do is interview yourself for the role of MD in your company, but if you were to then would you make the grade?

Well a simple way to find out is to ask yourself have you got the ABCD to do business?

A is for astute. Are you savy enough to know a good business deal from a bad one? Have you brokered deals in the past in someone else’s company? Were they good or bad deals? Are you astute enough to be able to run a company…I mean not everyone will have the skills to be able to do everything from Marketing to Accounts to Sales but that’s what you have to do when you first set out as an SME – so whilst you may be lacking in some of those skills would you be canny enough to know what to do and who to seek out out in order to plug those skills gaps? [Read more...]

I know it’s certainly got a strangle hold on our business. Of course this is an internationally read and contributed to site here at SBB so different business laws will apply to different folk, but generally speaking I do think as a business owner red tape is too constricting.

[Read more...]

Ok you may remember in Part 1, how I told you all about how through hard work you would make a success of business and that no business – no matter how easy the owner makes it look has ever had an easy ride of things.

Well, here in Part 2 I’m going to let you into another dirty little secret of business that the business world will never really own up to.

So what’s the big secret? [Read more...]