Chris Grayling ‘Army of Entrepreneurs’ Proposal

Every business start-up has a cost, and if you’re on the dole you can’t easily afford to buy basic equipment. At the moment the only start-up cash available from the “new deal” for unemployed people trying to start a business is £400. We don’t think that’s nearly enough, so we’ll give the [...]

The Creative Entrepreneur – WOW

Good networking event last night hosted by WYLLN, bmedia and nti.
Explored a couple of questions:

In a fast-moving industry dominated by freelancers and SMEs, what does ‘Leadership & Management’ really mean?
Why is it important?

More prosaically put – why are so many creative/digital businesses poor at establishing basic business processes, managing other creatives and getting paid?
My opinion?
It [...]

15 second pitch for entrepreneurs

» link to 15SecondPitch.com: Market yourself effectively in 15 seconds for a great site to help you build a winning pitch in about 5 minutes.
Your pitch can also be critiqued by other entrepreneurs.

Getting the right enterprise clients

I recently received an e-mail from a friend and customer of mine who is managing a size-able enteprise project:
“Mike
I am using the training that me and the team have had from you to inform a business plan.
We are identifying an issue with people coming to us wanting funding for safety passports, fork lift truck licences [...]

Building the Entrepreneurial Team

One of the most powerful and effective things we can do for our clients is to help them to think really hard about how they build the full range of skills and passion that their enterprise is going to need if it is to really work well.
It will need a managing director – someone to [...]

Tumbleweed Moments

We might be moaning about the leaves that blow into the garden – but at least we don’t have 6 ft of tumbleweed to clear away.
But here is what enterprising Idahoans get to do with their problem – sell it over the internet at $16 a pop plus postage!
Can you imagine [...]

Minding the Assets

It is deeply ingrained in most enterprise professionals to try to fix things. Business plans, cash flows, products and people.
We listen to our clients for signs of weakness or difficulty and then we try and fix the problem, usually by referring them to a course or another expert.
Much of our work is biased towards [...]

Enterprise Problems are Multi-Dimensional

There is a school of though that says that enterprise professionals just need to be experts on helping clients with the business planning process. However in my experience the enterprise dimension is just one several that need to be addressed if the client is to be helped to make real progress. If the [...]

Some Great Enterprise Lessons

This 7 minute video from the US has some very powerful lessons about enterprise and entrepreneurship.
Especially when they talk about the nature of their business plan!
Enjoy!

Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in the US is one of the world’s top organisations for research and development into the SME sector. Although care has to be taken in translating their work (largely research based in the US) to the UK, I always find their publications to be worth a read.
They have just [...]