Back to Blog

Mini Budget or fiscal disaster? What the Chancellor announced

The new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, now known as Kami Kwasi, delivered his first major fiscal announcement to parliament on Friday 23 September. Billed as a mini budget in the press, what was actually introduced was ‘The Growth Plan’, a raft of sweeping cuts and changes to legislation. The new measures have already been widely criticised – by both sides of the Houses of Parliament and by economic commentators across the political spectrum. Depending on your viewpoint, this...

Economic Threats

The Bank of England is predicting that the UK will dip into recession at some point in 2022, driven by multiple factors that are causing the economy to stall and falter. It is important to understand what  these key economic threats are? And how are they likely to affect your business in the coming months?After all you don't want your business to run out of cash....

The Five A's of Change

We've spent more than the past year responding to things outside of our control. Everyone has experienced huge change, a lot of it while in crisis mode. Upon reflection, some of the changes were inevitable. If we think about digital transformation and flexible working conditions, these were simply accelerated by Covid. With the commencement of another booster campaign we can hope that the worst has passed. However,  it’s important to pause and reflect on the changes you’ve made to your ...

Want to spend more time doing what you love?

That was probably a big draw when you started out. Chances are, you planned to spend less time in your business and more time with your friends and family. Then reality kicked in and you found yourself coming in earlier, staying later, and taking work home with you on the weekend. This probably wasn’t the life you'd imagined....

Need More Time - top tips

We all have the same 1,440 minutes each day, but some of us achieve so much more than others. We cannot create more time but what we can do is free up time to help lead a better business and ultimately achieve a happier life. How can we do this? by eliminating the top 10 time wasters....

Embrace Automation and Free Up Time

Did you know that small and medium-sized businesses are spending on average 120 hours a year on admin tasks, according to recent research. That is over three weeks! If your team are spending 120 hours wading through tedious and unproductive admin, that’s bad for the business and for your overall efficiency. Fortunately, technology and software automation can go a long way towards automating  low-level admin tasks which will free up time for more productive work or more time away from work...

The Achiever Matrix

Many of the fires being tackled can be put out by concentrating on doing the right things at the right time.The achiever matrix is a great tool to help you work on the right things.The Achiever Matrix is made up of four quadrants and helps you prioritise tasks based on their importance; allowing you to manage your time better and achieve more....

Understanding Your Profit and Loss Statement

Are you using all the information available to run your business or are you leaving it to chance? Your profit and loss statement (P&L) helps you understand your business performance and profitability over time. It’s sometimes called an Income statement and its main purpose is to list income and expenditure. Whereas a balance sheet is a snapshot in time, the P&L shows transactions over a specific period of time. This can be a month, quarter, financial year or any other period, and it can be a s...

The Results Mindset

If you struggle to achieve the results you want, it’s likely you’re disregarding one of the key components of The Results Mindset formula. This formula helps to ensure our ideas are implemented, our goals are achieved, and we obtain our desired results. The formula for achieving results is: Decisions x Actions x Accountability = Results...

Going in a different direction?

This year the globalised economy has created a number of challenges for the average business. Depending on your business purpose and strategy, you may need to either upsize, or downsize, to secure the long-term future of your company. But what are the implications of scaling up, or scaling down, your operations? And how do you refine your business so it's fit for purpose and ready to take on your new aims and goals? The answer is to look carefully at your forecasting and your future decision-mak...

Tale of the Two Lumberjacks

Have you heard about the two lumberjacks? One was continuously swinging his axe chopping wood, the other took frequent breaks throughout the day. At the end of their session the one who took time out had a larger pile of chopped wood. This continued day in day out, week in week out, and eventually the lumberjack who spent his whole day chopping asked how comes you consistently have more wood chopped then me when you spend so much time having breaks. The other replied I was not taking breaks I wa...

7 Ways to Grow Your Business

There are just seven ways to grow your business. The first five grow your sales and the last two reduce your costs. The seven ways are: 1. Increase customer retention.Stop your customers defecting to the competition by keeping them happy. It's easier to retain existing clients than attract new ones. 2. Increase leads generated.Gain more enquiries from people who are not yet customers with improved marketing strategies. 3. Increase your sales conversion rate.Get more of your prospects to buy from...

Quarterly Coaching

Owning your own business is hard work and can often make you feel unsupported. Quarterly Coaching will provide you with accountability and support to keep you on target towards achieving the goals you've set in your Business Plan. We will ensure your Business Plan remains a living, working document and is a filter through which all decisions are made....

Achieving results through accountability

Most business owners understand that the only way to ensure something gets done is to document what is expected, assign it to the right person, and set a due date. But what do you do if the task isn’t done? What are the consequences of this inaction? Think back to your school days when you had homework... maybe you were super organised and got stuck in as soon as the work was assigned, or perhaps you completed it on the school bus the morning it was due. Either way, why did you get it done? Ch...

The fifth way to grow your business - Increase transaction value

During a cost of living crises when we are all feeling the pinch it is more important to remember that the fifth way to grow your business is to encourage your customers to spend more each time they buy. This is not about simply increasing prices it is about adding value to the transaction. Each time someone parts with their hard earned money they weigh up the value they are getting compared to the cost they are incurring. The key is to develop strategies that add value to the transaction instea...

The first way to grow your business - Increase customer retention

Statistics show that it's six times easier and cheaper to make a sale to an existing customer than it is to a new one. Happier customers come back more, spend more money and, most importantly, talk to others. And yet, so many businesses seem focused on getting more customers. Sure, customers are coming in the door, but they might be exiting just as fast, putting a real handbrake on growth. What are you doing to delight your customers? Do you know what your customers want? What is your strategy f...

Budgeting and managing cashflow

If you want to stabilise your finances and grow the business, working to strict budgets becomes a necessity. Managing the cashflow twists and turns of a project can be hard work. But it’s easier to do when you have an agreed budget and can track your spending and performance. So, what’s the best way to stay in control of the budgets you’ve set? And how can you manage your cashflow position to make sure there’s always enough cash to fund the project?...

Coping with the skyrocketing cost of living

Whether it’s refilling your petrol tank or paying at the supermarket checkout, the higher cost of living is hitting every household hard.Across the UK, everyday essentials are surging in price, up 7% on the year to March 2022. Unfortunately, experts predict that prices will keep rising for at least the rest of the year.What can you do to try to keep up with the increasing cost of living? Here are our 12 top tips:...

How to manage poor employee performance

When one member of your team begins to perform below par, this can have a knock-on effect across the whole business. So, dealing effectively with performance issues is a must.Your team is the beating heart of your company. Everyone in your core departments must be able to work productively, with the right levels of engagement, motivation and focus. Productivity will be undermined if employees are beginning to habitually underperform, so it’s important that you look for solutions in a speedy an...

Change happens - have you planned?

Many businesses will have been and are continuing to go through a tough and transformative period as we cope with surging costs and learning to live with covid. In some cases, companies will to have to update, change and pivot just to survive – and this means having to rethink the core mission behind your business. Having got through the pandemic, you now faces a new kind of business reality. It’s a world where buying habits have changed, consumer expectations have evolved, online shopping h...

Are you making time for mindfulness?

As business owners, we all know the pressure of being the driving force behind a business. It can be a stressful experience, and this can have an impact on your wellbeing. Running a business takes up so much of your time, and can consume your waking thoughts. But a tired, stressed and anxious owner is not an effective owner – so there's an increasing need to focus on mental health and to bring elements of mindfulness, meditation and contemplation into your routine. And, investing in employee w...

Adopting an Atomic Habits mindset

We all have habits; some good and some not. Habits are those almost unconscious behaviour patterns we have... so, how do we build better habits? In his book, Atomic Habits, James Clear identifies two types of habits; outcome-based and identity-based. Understanding the difference and reframing your mindset will help you adopt an atomic habits mindset and ensure your desired habits stick....

Spring Statement 2022: Your summary of the key points

The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, delivered his Spring Statement on 23 March. Faced with the task of creating a ‘strong economy’ for the UK, against the challenging background of high inflation, rising costs and being outside the single market, he announced a raft of new measures. So, what was in the Spring Statement for your business? And how will these announcements and new initiatives affect the business landscape in the coming year?...

Making Your Business Sustainable, Scalable and Saleable

The decisions you make in your business are only as good as the data you use to make them. The more accurate and up to date your data is, the better your decisions will be. Leveraging your technology will provide you with accurate real-time data to make more informed decisions in your business. Processes and systems drive your business, so it’s important to ask yourself if all of yours are clearly documented and up to date? Some processes may be followed simply because they always have been. A...

What value can automation bring to your business?

Automation has the capacity to revolutionise your efficiency and productivity. But how many of the automation features that are available to you are actually being used? And could you be getting more value by building automated processes into your operational framework?...