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Blog posts tagged growth
The Budget: Picture this
March 24, 2010
Another Budget, another wave of promises of ‘support’ and shiny initiatives. This year, as the Wordle shows, the Chancellor talked a lot about the state of the ‘economy’ and focused his initiatives on ‘business’ rather more than families or public services. This is a Budget about ‘people’, ‘jobs’, ‘recovery’, the ‘country’ at large.
‘Tax’ looms largest, though, but not because there’s a lot of it. Quite the opposite: the Chancellor was very keen to stress that he wouldn’t be raising taxes - at least not for those of us on low-to-middle incomes. If you’re a banker or a non-domicile, though, you’d better get ready to dip onto your pockets.
Does this mean this a ‘Robin Hood’ Budget? If it were truly a ‘rob from the rich to fund the poor’ affair, then you might expect the ten per cent duty increase to be on grapes rather than apples. In case you didn’t pick up on it, cider is being ‘redefined’ so that it is subject to the same duty increases as all other alcoholic drinks.
For the small business, the clues are in the words ‘bank, ‘Bank’, banks’, ‘banking’ and ‘credit’. The Chancellor is making an extra £41 billion available as lending to small businesses via Lloyds and the Royal Bank of Scotland. He has also promised a Small Business Credit Adjudicator whose role will be to decide whether small firms have been unfairly turned down for loans.
After all, it is small business in particular that will ‘fuel’ ‘growth’, ‘increase’ ‘jobs’ and ‘pay’ for the ‘future’. But, as the Wordle shows, they may need quite a lot of ‘help’ to do that.
The Start Up Donut forum is hosting any further discussion on the Budget.
New Year, New Resolutions
December 15, 2009
I absolutely love this time of year. As the clock starts to climb down to the end of 2009 I can feel a real sense of optimism. My renewed sense of buoyancy is partly down to our customers: working in the ecommerce industry the four weeks leading up to Christmas are their busiest. 2009 was a very tough year for all of us but there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful in 2010.
However, success doesn’t come without hard work and I am determined to make 2010 a successful one! Within this post I want to air my three new year’s resolutions for the business.
Do less, better
It may sound obvious, but for any business to success everyone has to be pulling in the right direction. However the start of a new year is a great time to sit back and review if you are pulling in too many directions.
It’s far too easy to do too much. If you’re anything like me I hate turning down projects and opportunities. However doing lots badly isn’t a strategy for success. Doing 100 mediocre things with your business will only make you 100 times more average. Focus, pick a project, do it well and complete it, even if this means you turn down 99 other things.
Talk to more people
The core driver of any business is customers. Customers, like puppies, are not just for Christmas - they need to feel loved and appreciated all year. My second resolution is to speak to as many of my customers as I humanly can. I want to find out how they tick, how their business works, and most importantly why they are my customer and not someone else’s. Anyone in a decision-making capacity within your business should be speaking to customers, not just sales and support.
Be adaptable
One of my sporting heroes is the amazing Rebecca Romero. If you don’t know who she is, Google her, she is inspirational. Romero has won two Olympic medals in two different sports: rowing and cycling. And because of rule changes it looks like she will need to find a third sport to compete in for 2012. I want my business to be like Rebecca Romero, consistently excellent but not afraid to adapt.
Why only three resolutions, well it would be impossible to complete the first one with a list longer than my arm. What are you going to do in 2010 to improve?
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