A Small Business Update

Having worked for myself for 23 years I feel really sorry for people trying to start out on their own in today's economic environment. Over the years I have enjoyed the independence, lack of interference from anyone else in my business and the satisfaction of building a business from nothing.

However, following 13 years of bad examples of business practice in Government and the Public Sector (who are hampered in their work by centralized state interference) we have not been set good examples. For example, the answer to debt is to borrow more money (or print more to turn into junk bonds), the answer to what do I do if I don't make my business more successful? is to take even bigger bonuses (bankers). If I feel that I'm not paid enough then I claim more in expenses, courtesy of the taxpayer (MP's).

I hope that we can now put this era behind us and believe that the new coalition have better ideas as to how we should 'do business'. We certainly seem to be seeing better leadership by example, although it's still early days, and the over-regulation is gradually being dismantled, we hope.

From my own experiences working for myself, I have a few tips for those starting out in business now.

1) Start in a modest way, try not to borrow money if you can raise your own capital, or borrow from a lender that has a good track record.

2) Grow the business slowly but surely as you would tender or nurture a plant. Don't expect to be driving in the biggest and fastest car overnight or living in the biggest house within a month (unless you were rich enough to start with!). Start out with a good business plan and be prepared to adapt it according to changing circumstances. Get advice on this if necessary.

3) Although I still work in a one man business, my advice is to only start employing others as the business grows and you have the need and wherewithal to do so.

4) Advertise your business through local publications or if you must advertise on-line avoid buying from cold-callers who promise to put you in their directories and are quick to lower the price if you say you can't afford their package or tell you they can guarantee to put you on the front page of Google. Some will even lie about their company in order to sign you up, as I have learnt from bitter experience. These kinds of advertising options were not available when I started my business and I'm sorry for those who get caught by them, as I have been myself.

5) If your prospective accountant makes you do all the work in order to keep your costs down, if your business is simple and straightforward like mine you can enter your own tax return on line although it took a while to set up in my case, (but then, I always seem to be unfortunate).

6) Don't let big predatory companies 'bully' you, particularly into paying bills when they are tardy and sometimes even claim that your invoices to them are not legitimate. I have been treated in this way and refuse to be intimidated or harassed by them, especially if they don't deliver you the service they originally promised. You are as as legitimate if not more so than they are, stand your ground!

7) If you wish to have your own website to advertise your business, preferably get someone you know to design and fine tune it. Some larger companies set up websites which are not fine-tuned to what you request and even have spelling mistakes and just do not deliver what you want but are quite happy to take your money each month. Make sure you are the one who calls the shots. You can build your own website which will be much more effective and in my experience will encourage the right kind of 'traffic'. Contact me if you want further advice in this area. Networking is also useful to find people with the right skills to do the more specialist jobs.

8) Expect every day to be different, especially if you work on your own. Sometimes you get great rewards and job satisfaction, other times things go pear-shaped or lethargy creeps in. Despite the misfortunes one can have, I still awake looking forward to the challenge of another day of freedom working for myself!

My very best wishes to those of you starting out in business, remember, usually smaller businesses create jobs, medium and larger companies often make people redundant at the drop of a hat.

An Idea to encourage economic recovery

I have an idea of how some restoration of growth could be made in the near future by our new coalition government. I have lots of ideas about how wastage could be stopped, for example by scrapping Ofsted, which would release enough funds to provide an extra 5,000 secondary teachers apparently. Also, head teachers who go around bossing other head teachers and hampering them in the demanding jobs they are involved in. They can do without the stress of the extra interference which also stifles creative thinking 'on their feet'.

Anyway, I intend to put forward these suggestions with a host of others when we are given the opportunity to have our say shortly.

My main idea which I wish to propose to stimulate economic growth is the lowering of the duty levied on car fuel, petrol and diesel in particular, I don't know enough to comment on alternative fuels being used and trialled at the moment, I know some of them are more efficient and don't carry the iniquitous amount of duty we pay on petrol and diesel.

I welcome the proposed re-introduction of the fuel stabilizer whereby the Government collects more tax when the fuel price is lower and less tax when the price is higher. This helps the public sector, but to be really radical I think fuel should be well under £1.00 a litre. Remember how shocked we were when it went above £1.00, those days are now fond memories now that we pay over £6.00 per gallon for our fuel.

By having one lot of duty only, either VAT or fuel duty, rather than both, there is scope for some reduction. By lowering taxes it has often been found that the general tax take overall is increased. I, like a large number of my friends and relatives, use my one car (down from 2 cars a year or so ago) as little as I possibly can. Wherever possible I walk or cycle and delight in the benefit this does to my health at the same time, I have lost a lot of weight as a result. My one car does about 56 mpg on the combined cycle and the tax disc costs me £30.00 per year!

If we all did our little bit, cut out unnecessary car journies like the school runs when the school is very nearby, did car pooling to get to work, etc. we could send a very strong signal to the new coalition who are also not very 'green conscious'. Also, think of the carcinogens in the car and lorry fuels we use! As a result of us thinking before we get behind the wheel each time, a great deal could be achieved, economically and to our health. All goods sent to shops could be lowered in price and we might actually be left with some disposable income to buy goods which are affordable. This could result in retailers doing better and taking on more needed staff, providing more jobs and, yes, generating more income tax!

I really believe that we have got it wrong at the moment and the only way forward I can see is to boycott buying fuel wherever we can to force the price downwards. I have heard that there are already tankers anchored offshore waiting to offload fuel because the refineries can't shift the fuel and the oil suppliers are greedy for oil prices to go up to feather their own nests. All this could damage our economy even more than it has been damaged over the last 13 years of new liebour.

Some of you may have other ideas about how we could regenerate the private sector, I would be interested to read your comments.