Using Goals to build a high performance business culture

August 9, 2010
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If you haven’t already set goals for yourself and your team then recent research further strengthens the argument that effective goal setting improves performance and results. “We found that specific, difficult goals consistently led to higher performance than urging people to do their best….In short, when people are asked to do their best, they do [...]

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Be a Better Business or a Different Business – You decide

August 6, 2010
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When starting a business or reviewing your existing business strategy, you have the choice of two overarching strategic options open to you: Be better than the competition OR Be different from the competition Which option you choose is key. The future survival of your business depends upon it. Most entrepreneurs or business owners choose option 1. They [...]

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Why Business Leaders need Vision

August 4, 2010
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“Start with the end in mind” says Stephen Covey, in his landmark 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. Meanwhile, Fast Company co-founder Alan Webber advocates that entrepreneurs should: “Answer the final question first” Two highly successful visionary guys with a consistent key message – but what does this mean for you as an entrepreneur aiming [...]

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CBI provides blueprint for building a Creative Britain

August 2, 2010
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Creating growth – A blueprint for the creative industries is a recently released paper by the CBI aimed at focusing the UK coalition government on doing more to support UK creative and digital industries. Although I think this report provides a good overarching vision of what our UK creatives need from the government to flourish, [...]

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10 tips on effectively managing your business cashflow

July 28, 2010
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You often hear the quote “Cash is King” and this is absolutely true as many ‘profitable’ businesses go bust. This seems strange but I always remember being taught during my professional accountancy training that: “There is only one fact on a company balance sheet and that is Cash. The rest is all subject to judgement” [...]

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A business idea shared is a business (almost) launched!

July 23, 2010
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As a budding entrepreneur, its understandable to want to hold onto and covet that killer business start-up idea. If you are on your own and perhaps struggling to drive the new business idea forward, the danger is that with every day you let pass, someone else gets closer to climbing ahead of you and launching the same or similar business. Or the pain or [...]

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11 essential action points after starting your company

July 21, 2010
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Better to be a disciplined entrepreneur from day one. Here is a checklist of 11 tips how: Get your company incorporation certificate, Memorandum & Articles of Association downloaded and on file. Plus a shareholders agreement if you have one. This will form the basis of your statutory books which you must maintain for any changes [...]

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7 tax incentives for UK digital & technology startups

July 19, 2010
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Having taken the risk and side-stepped the typical job route to become a tech entrepreneur and wealth-creator, its a good job that there are still some tempting UK tax incentives out there to support you. Here are just 7 tax ideas or tips that you should be thinking about for your start-up: Entrepreneur’s Relief – [...]

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Seeking Seed Funding: 12 tips for early stage startups

July 15, 2010

I was recently put on the spot at a Technology event and asked how much I would charge for assisting a tech startup in preparing a business plan to secure investment funding. I answered “it depends”. A cop-out? Not in my opinion. Why? Because it depends on where you are in the investment cycle. If [...]

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Andy Leach (CEO North West Fund) on the launch of this exciting £185m fund

July 13, 2010

Here is a recording of a recent talk given by Andy Leach, CEO of the £185 North West Fund at a recent Techcelerate event in Manchester. This venture capital fund is currently the largest in the UK and is intended to provide essential funding for over 700 North West businesses over the next 5 years. Listen [...]

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