Articles

When I work with a business owner, one of my first questions is, ‘Do you have an internal business plan – and if not, why not?’ Most people think of a business plan as a document that’s written for an external audience, usually investors or a bank manager, with the...

We attended a client meeting recently where the business owner chaired a biannual update for the management team. Meeting twice a year may not seem frequent enough but for this company with five operating sites the sessions work well. Every company and every person...

How intelligent are you?  A successful business owner has many attributes, which may include creativity, determination, financial acumen, energy, resilience, resourcefulness – the list goes on.  But does intelligence have a place on the list? One aspect of...

Spare wheel in the boot? Breakdown membership? Mobile phone? Coat and first aid kit? Alternative routes? All measures you might take to help in the event of a problem on your car journey. What is unlikely is that you will have a second car with you. The reasons are...

We had set the date for our annual barbecue some two months earlier but as the week approached, the weather forecast started to deteriorate. Heavy rain and 40 mile-an-hour winds were predicted but we had invited close to 50 guests! As the day approached the weather...

How often have you received a letter from a company telling you they can help you to sell your business? Perhaps it offered you a place at a seminar or a ‘free consultation’ with an expert in valuing your company. Where did the letter go? Set aside because one day...

There are many reasons and circumstances for someone running and owning a business. Of the clients we work with the reasons for doing so vary from it being a long-held ambition, the result of redundancy, a bright idea, the challenge of ‘doing it better than the...

Committing to recruit a salesforce is a major step for any growing business. As the owner of a small and ambitious company the thought of finding the money for relatively expensive salespeople, who may or may not bring in the business, may be a barrier to action...

Inevitable as it is we spend little time talking about death and even less time planning for what we want to happen to our business after we are gone. A lot of exit planning deals with preparing a business for sale to a trade buyer, the management team or to an...