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Hello All. A while ago, I attended a Management Development course that was taken by Steve Miller. Steve is a motivational speaker and has appeared widely in the media and on television, his courses and master classes cover a number of areas including losing weight and gaining confidence. A main feature of the course I did was about developing and selling yourself, either in paid employment, if you are pushing for promotion or working for yourself and trying to sell your services. For a lot of small business owners, particularly freelancers, you are your businesses product. You are trying to sell you. Whether it is your services (such as a car mechanic window cleaner or painter and decorator) or your expertise (i.e. an accountant or solicitor) you have to convince the potential client to invest their money in you. Steve’s view was that confidence is the key to this important area. That may not be rocket science, but he went on to show us how being able to sell yourself, and be conf...

Hello again. Some time ago I attended a seminar aimed at people looking to start their own business, the main speaker was very engaging and offered some great tips for small businesses, his name was Tom Edge. Tom started working for himself over 30 years ago after being made redundant, and now runs a very successful training business. He regularly runs seminars for would-be entrepreneurs, he also has his own website – the link is below – which contains some great general business tips, a section specifically for start-ups, and a newly launched business club, which is subscription based. The website also has details of Tom’s range of business self-help cd’s, aimed at specific parts of running your own business. All in all this is a good source of small business tips and advice from someone experienced in helping small businesses thrive and survive. www.tomedge.co.uk

Hello again. I read some interesting facts recently about business success rates, the article announced that some 90% of new franchises succeeded, and although there are varying measures on the success rates of other start ups, the rate is nowhere near as high as this. So what makes the franchise model that much more successful than any other business model? Well clearly, because it is a franchise, the business concept has been tested and proven successfully. Franchisees have the benefit of operating a model that others have used and have a backup (in their franchisor) that they can go to for advice and support. The downside of a franchise is that you are likely to have to pay a royalty fee or give a share of your profits to the franchisor, but this is often seen as a small price to pay to run a successful business of your own. Finally and probably most importantly given the current credit crisis, statistics show that you are much more likely to get bank finance to start a franchise...