In sport, if you don’t know how to score then you can’t play the game successfully.  You can’t just take the scoring system from one sport and try to impose it on another – that clearly won’t work.  But the reality is that this is just what is happening in business all over the country, if [...]

I often get asked what is the most common mistake business owners make when they are growing their business.  While I could say it is not setting goals, planning their time, generating enough sales or having effective marketing, the true factor must be the lack of financial understanding. 
Businesses go bust because they run out of [...]

There is a distinct air of despair in many retail outlets these days.  The recession is in its 5th year, the banks are still not lending, house prices continue to fall and people’s discretionary spend is becoming smaller by the day.
In the last few years we have lost some major UK retail giants such as [...]

Many business owners I meet feel stressed and pressured because they can’t get away from the day to day running of their business.  They often don’t feel that they can take the time out to look to the future, to what they would like to achieve over the longer term and to plan their way [...]

Many of the world’s most successful businesses have had a clear and concise VISION - i.e. a succinct and inspiring way of explaning what the company is striving to achieve.  For example, the Ford Motor Company’s vision is ‘To become the world’s leading consumer company for automotive products and services’ – a clear statement of what [...]

In these days of global recession, everybody is tightening their belts and looking for a bargain so naturally it is very tempting for businesses to slash their prices to maintain their market share.  But that is a no-win situation, and as a coach I would always steer my clients away from competing on price.
Today, thanks [...]

As your business grows, it will be the people you employ that are the key to its success.  There is no successful business on this planet that has achieved that level of success based on the efforts of one person alone.  Even though it might seem that entrepreneurs like Richard Branson are the only reason [...]

Many people start their own businesses to get a better lifestyle and for some, that involves working with member of their immediate family, husband and wife, father and son mother and daughter etc.  And why not?  After all, owning your own business can be a lonely affair, so what better antidote than having the people that [...]

Like most things in life, with marketing, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.  So it always amazes me when I come across businesses large and small who, when I ask “what is your marketing strategy” they look at me with a blank expression and say, “what’s one of those?”
My personal feeling is [...]

There are many examples of people pushing themselves to the extreme – for example, competing in the Paris Dakar Rally, long distance running and even hiking to the North Pole. These types of experiences all require the participants to be amazingly self-motivated to be able to endure the loneliness and hardships that can be a [...]