Running a Business

This section takes you through every important aspect of how to run a successful business. It offers expert guides and advice articles on the key elements of business management such as employing staff, finding customers, marketing and sales, pricing, people management, office and home working, business technology and everything else an entrepreneur must tackle in order to succeed.

How to become more efficient

Keeping a united workforce is certainly a challenge but many simple changes can be made that won't cost. SmallBusiness.co.uk and the CIPD have these tips to help you make improvements.

Employing & managing staff

Finding and selling to customers

How to ask for business

Many of us are nervous about asking for business but the truth is that if we don't ask then it will go to someone else. It is often the reputation that pushy sales people have that puts the whole process in a bad light. These tips from SmallBusiness.co.uk should help to point you in the right direction.

Marketing

Getting started with permission marketing

Permission marketing allows you to develop lasting, profitable relationships with your customers and prospects, at a fraction of the cost of mass marketing techniques.

Employing & managing staff

Holiday pay and “normal hours”

I work a 12-hour shift but my company only wants to pay me for 9.5 hours for my holiday pay. Is this allowed?

Employing & managing staff

Hard HRM Vs Soft HRM

What is the difference between Hard and Soft human resources management?

Legal advice

Employee holidays

I applied for and was granted 10 days holiday from 2nd July until 13th July. I was taken ill on 28th June and my GP requested that I do not return to work until 23rd July. Can I re-take my 10 days holiday at a later date?

Business management

Lessons Learned – Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, founder, The Black Farmer

Three years ago Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones launched his food brand 'The Black Farmer', daring to take on the big stores and their own labels dominating the market at the time.

Legal advice

Coping with the HR maze

A recent research paper from The University of Warwick found small businesses are more likely to experience employee claims than large companies and more likely to lose if the case reach the tribunal stage.

Business management

Lessons Learned – Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, founder, The Black Farmer

Three years ago Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones launched his food brand 'The Black Farmer', daring to take on the big stores and their own labels dominating the market at the time.

Legal advice

Coping with the HR maze

Business management

Make your office more environmentally responsible and save money

In an increasingly competitive marketplace, small and medium-sized businesses are always on the look out for opportunities to cut operating costs. SmallBusiness.co.uk offers a number of simple operational changes that can not only ensure your business is more environmentally sound but also save you money.

Employing & managing staff

The beginner’s guide to share schemes

As your business grows, you may toy with the idea of offering a small number of shares to key employees to keep them attached to the business. This can motivate staff and offers them a stake in the business that they are working so hard to build. SmallBusiness.co.uk teamed up with Gemma Taaffe of Sherrards Solicitors to give you this beginner's guide to share schemes.

Employing & managing staff

Guide to Apprenticeships

In a recent survey conducted amongst members of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), 31.8 per cent reported experiencing skill shortages amongst their current staff, in managerial, advanced IT, technical and sales and marketing roles. So what's to be done? SmallBusiness.co.uk teamed up with the FSB to give you this guide to apprenticeships.

Buying and selling a company