Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs
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.
While a team of hardworking, capable staff can help a business thrive, it only takes one bad apple to wreak havoc within an organisation. We ask the experts how small businesses can tackle this common problem.
Employing & managing staff
Business Technology
Many small businesses in the UK currently don't take enough advantage of trading online. Plenty of businesses have websites, but as few as ten per cent of these allow customers to buy goods or services online. It's a little like having a corner shop without putting in a cash register.
Legal advice
The Data Protection Act (1998) covers personal data (including audio and video) which identifies living, individual persons. It covers information held about customers and employees on both paper-based records and on a computer.
Employing & managing staff
When starting your business, you may well only be working with a small number of other people. If your business is a success and you want to expand, you may well look to take on employees. Even if you’ve been running a business for a while, now might be the time you’re looking at taking someone on.
Marketing
This is all about learning from other people who are experiencing, or have experienced, similar things to yourself. You get more from networking events if you're an active participant so get involved in debates, discussions, social events and exhibitions. Networking is valuable whether you're starting up or have been running a business for years.
Office & home working
Leasing property is a popular option for many small businesses, but the contracts are often packed with legal terminology.
Office & home working
Deciding where to physically carry out your work is something which needs careful consideration. The nature of your business may dictate your location or premises choice.
Employing & managing staff
If you are purchasing a business and do not need to employ all of the current staff, are you able to let them go by law? Carolyn Mumby from Employment Law Essentials answers this tricky question.
Office & home working
Deciding where to physically carry out your work is something which needs careful consideration. The nature of your business may dictate your location or premises choice.
Employing & managing staff
If you are purchasing a business and do not need to employ all of the current staff, are you able to let them go by law? Carolyn Mumby from Employment Law Essentials answers this tricky question.
Small Business Insurance
Nationally, burglary is one of the most common types of crime experienced by businesses, with higher rates of re-burglary than domestic properties. This article runs through the main measures to ensure the on-site security of your business premises and minimise risk.
Employing & managing staff
Three-quarters of small business owners admitted in a recent Business Link survey that their management and leadership skills left some room for improvement. Use these top tips to become a better leader.
Business management
When it comes to raising money for your small business, it is worth looking beyond traditional funding options, such as bank loans and overdrafts, to more flexible alternatives.
Legal advice
We have just bought a small shop and Post Office, the shop employs three staff members, which we have inherited. The owners previous to us were not in good health, which is why they had more staff than we actually need and more than the business can sustain. Is there any way we could cut their hours by law, or to even get rid of them altogether? None of them have a written contract and all of them are 60+ in age.
Investing in a franchise
Starting a new business is an exciting venture. But – especially in well-established industry sectors – a key question is whether it would be better to buy a franchise or go solo.
Partner content
Read here for 16 tried and tested tips and tricks to improve potential cash flow problems
Partner content
Business broadband offers a host of advantages over standard domestic connections, here’s why you should be considering an upgrade