It’s Getting Silly Warren Buffett, the great investor said the following “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say “no” to almost everything”. Going back around three decades, business life was a little different. Look at this table and it’s not exhaustive Pre 1990 Now Face to Face Face to Face Telephone Call Telephone Call Letter Letter Fax e-mail Mobile phone call Text Whats App Messenger Linkedin Twitter Snapchat Instagram YouTube   And it is not just other businesses or people trying to contact us, there are also all the companies marketing and advertising in targeted ways. ·         Social networking (Facebook, Link...

Laziness is Good Hard work, dedication, discipline, being an all-rounder – but what about lazy when it comes to pushing your business forward? Businesses go through stages of growth. they are start-up, growth, maturity and renewal (or perhaps decline). Here I am thinking about businesses that are wanting to get to the growth stage (Just now you are a small S of the S in SME). Many businesses occupy the first phase for years, and never get to the growth stage. Perhaps you have self-doubt you will ever get further on; you are frantic but not as successful as you should be. You do the sales, the admin, the company development, the marketing, human resource and so on. The fact that you are very competent, and an all rounder could be your downfall. You need to concentrate on driving your business forward. You need to be “lazy” and not be a whirlwind at all the tasks. Decide on what you are very good at and either delegate or outsource as many other areas as possible. When le...

Grow Up! “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I grew up, I put the ways of childhood behind me” To be honest, men in particular, can be accused of still being big kids. I should know, because I am one of them. But what about business, how do we grow up, how do we put the early years of business behind us and see the business mature into what we always dreamt it could be? The Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce has 628 member companies. Looking at companies split by number of employees, we have as follows: No of Employees No of Companies % 1 to   5 210 33% 6 to 10 83 13% 11 to 20 72 11% 21 to 50 99 16% 51 plus 156 25% Total 620 98%  (The missing percentage is companies with 0 employees!) ...