Smarta 100 top tips business ebook

The Smarta 100’s top tips for smarter business

Who are the Smarta 100? Contents

The Smarta 100 were selected as the UK’s smartest small businesses by Deborah Meaden, Charlie Mullins, Sahar Hashemi, Michael Birch and Shaa Wasmund, along with the help of Smarta.

The Smarta 100 are the most exciting, promising, disruptive new businesses, the family businesses who remain the cornerstones of communities, the innovators ploughing their own furrows in staid or declining industries, the recession-busters making a mockery of the doom and gloom, the web wonders, the teenpreneurs, mumpreneurs, olderpreneuers and, er, just about anyone who’s running a small business worth shouting about.

Because at Smarta, we believe smart business isn’t necessarily about making millions in your first year and selling in the second year (though it might be!). It’s about providing a service that truly helps your community, or doing something completely different and daring, or just doing a really ruddy good job even when there’s only one of you working on it. It’s about thinking miles outside the box for every aspect of your business and always being super-resourceful with what you’ve got – whether that’s £10 or £10,000,000.

www.smarta.com/smarta100

Ideas & creativity

Resources: save time and money

Marketing & advertising

Premises

Starting up

Suppliers & distribution

Social media

Employees & team

Planning

Partnerships & collaboration

Online business

Ethics

Funding & finance

PR & customer service

Technology

Exit strategies

Click on a image to view top tips. Once viewed, click smarta logo to return to this page.

Ideas & creativity



Ideas & creativity

buddi:

Don’t wait for ‘the big idea’. Many founders start without one. Even for those who have one, it’s rarely a great one - and often a bad one!

Zopa:

You need an idea, but once you have one you don’t need lots more. So focus on execution.

Clyde Marine Training:

All our development ideas for the business have come from our staff. They know what they’re good at and what they like. Allowing them free space to think and be creative means they feel more involved with the business. Watching their ideas progress encourages others to do the same and increases everyone’s motivation.

Thirst Solution:

Only listen to constructive criticism - negativity is no good for you or your business.

Catwalk Genius:

Avoid the usual route of basing a whole business on a problem you once experienced. If an exit is your goal, start there: which companies are doing the acquisitions? Get to know them. Look for the problems they haven’t managed to solve yet, then do it well for them, in a way they can’t easily replicate.

The Cake Kit Company:

The process of coming up with a great idea for a new business need not be shrouded in mystery. You need to talk to people, hear positive and negative feedback, write notes and scribble down ideas until all angles have been covered.

Zoopla.co.uk:

Finding ideas that have worked in other markets, or that can be improved, can be quite a lot easier than developing genuinely new ideas. There is no shame in not being an inventor.

Tribewanted:

Think beyond what might sound plausible. When you’ve got to the point where it sounds impossible but exciting, start bringing down the barriers, one by one, to make it slightly less impossible. Soon you’ll find there is bridge between the dream and the reality.

Wonga.com:

Extra-magic ingredients for success are ensuring your solution isn’t easy for others to replicate and can be scaled easily once proven successful.

Prefio.com:

Most of us who start new small businesses are going to be fighting against established competition and alternative providers. An incremental change to an existing idea isn’t enough to mark you out from the crowd. Find a really pressing problem and do something break-away to address it.

Gatszu.com:

It’s important to be creative and innovative, but not at the expense of functionality. A fancy website may look great, but if it doesn’t do as it should and sell your business and its wares, then it’s not fit for purpose.

Drinksin:

Quickly record all ideas, however far-fetched they may seen. Keep them all in one central place so as a company you can review them regularly and sort by priority. Always support ideas and creativity within your company but keep dogged focus on what ideas are the real priorities, and be ruthless about removing the ‘nice to haves’.

With Support From

Starting up



Starting up

Carbon Retirement:

Whenever I’m in a meeting or chatting with someone new, I draw a picture - and the penny drops. No matter how simple you think your business is, a picture always helps!

Parkatmyhouse.com:

Find a like-minded co-founder: someone who shares your passion for success, believes in your idea and has the necessary skills to complement your own. And who you’d be happy going for a drink with.

Struq:

Learn to sell and be bloody good at it.

Bulldog Natural Grooming:

Understand where your strengths lie. Work with a wider team or business partner to help you in the areas where you might be weaker.

Arena Flowers:

Get a bookkeeper. You need someone who’ll do the mundane task of punching receipts and numbers into accounting software. Everyone hates doing it, but it’s key.

Shoot:

Own all the IP in your business. Make sure you check this with all contractors from day one and make sure it is contractually written down.

Hemingway Kits:

Concentrate on the enjoyment, not the money.

Highland Wi-Fi:

Get a logo and website for your company before you start. Make sure your artwork is perfect before you print business cards. There’s nothing worse than blurred business cards.

Gatszu.com:

Fight, beg, borrow, and pull in every favour you can to get going with minimal funds. There are no excuses.

Furnish.co.uk:

People who are just starting out spend a lot of time early on perfecting a ‘pitch’ and business plan, because they feel that’s the expected route to get investment. Forget it. Most important thing is to put 100% into getting a product out there, however basic. Everything else comes later.

Pins and Ribbons:

It’s always worth testing your product initially on family and friends. If they give you the thumbs up, try selling on eBay (or similar), where you only need to make a small investment to find out how the product is received.

Dust and Vac:

Think local at first rather than national - start small so you can iron out any issues. This lets you spot any weak areas which you may need to address before rolling it out.

Dust and Vac:

Get feedback from everyone, and do not take anything to heart. You want to hear the negatives - they will improve your business.

ThirdYearAbroad.com:

Use work experience students – I wouldn’t have been able to start up without them. They’re enthusiastic, hard-working and very creative. And they’re good company when a lot of start-up work can be very antisocial.

Skimlinks:

Surround yourself with advisors and mentors that you trust. Listen humbly to everything, and then make a gut call. You need to have a good gut, or at least the courage to act on it, but know you can sometimes be wrong. Entrepreneurship is all about decisions: informing yourself, understanding the market and the players in it, and making a call quickly and confidently.

Buddi:

Most entrepreneurs fail at first. It’s the keeping going that matters.

With Support From

Planning



Planning

Shoot:

Manage costs carefully as it will take much, much longer than you expect to make a return.

Comp Bio Products:

Do not try and do everything immediately. Start with a couple of lines and expand gradually - it makes managing your finances simpler.

Shoot:

Grow in line with actual rather than forecasted revenues.

Furnish.co.uk:

Base any business decisions on the assumption that your target consumers don’t care about your business.

Dust and Vac:

Don’t price yourself too cheap. Even if it looks like another company is doing well, they might be serving 20 customers for the same money as you serve 10.

Arena Flowers:

Realising that not everything can be worked out in PowerPoint or in a spreadsheet is a great freedom and lot of fun. It won’t work every time, but it can really help to say: “Ah, let’s just go for it!”

Drinksin:

Don’t be afraid to make changes. It’s sometimes hard to do this when you’ve spent a long time down one road, but failure to be flexible when there’s a problem can be a real risk. Take a step back from time to time to remind yourself what it is you’re trying to achieve.

Highland Wi-Fi:

Update your business cash-flow on a regular basis so you know exactly where you are and where you’re going.

Ambition Communications:

Don’t spend hours on complicated spreadsheets.

Girl Geek Dinners:

Always double the amount of time you think a task is going to take. It’s all too easy to forget to factor in time to change, edit and review products before releasing them.

Mixcloud:

A business model is not just about increasing revenue - it’s also about driving down costs.

With Support From

Funding and finance



Funding and finance

Cyclescheme:

Don’t get into private equity too soon. You’ll stay more profitable and less stressed if you wait.

Skip-Hop:

The lack of a vast pot of money for start-up capital can be a good thing. It means you’re limited in what you can do, which concentrates your activity on core competencies and activities. You can test your business model in a small way, on a focused area, meaning you can assess success before increased expenditure. As your company grows and capital becomes less of an issue, you will have learned a valuable lesson regarding testing and exploring new markets.

Tepilo.com:

If you can go out and raise £5m before you’ve launched, great – but make this count. Timing is everything with finance. Don’t put the pressure of returns on yourself if you don’t need to – get trading instead.

Tepilo.com:

If you’re pitching for funding, make everything you say very clear - especially the part about what an investor can hope to gain from their time and investment.

Zopa:

Ask everyone you know if they know anyone and can provide introductions, then ask them again. Then ask them again.

bizk.it:

A team of three co-founders combining idea and product with commercial and then technical ability has a far greater chance of raising early finance that one person attempting to hire or freelance people.

Dust and Vac:

Know your bottom line at all times and you will always make a profit.


An internal investor is going to add greater value than an external one. With employee or colleague buy-in you create a team that are as hungry for success as you are. External investors are much more likely to add distraction, demand reports that don’t help you win business, and want their money out as quickly as possible.

Girl Geek Dinners:

A strong sales plan and sustainability are key to self-financing. Consider what the minimum you need is to start-up, and your ideal amount. Figure out what you need to do differently to get from your minimum to your ideal, and across what time scale you want to do that in. And always keep in mind your breakeven point.

With Support From



Green Hands:

When it comes to buying anything for the business, assume the budget is zero. Work out a way of doing it for nothing. It’s amazing how much of the small stuff you can either do without, find an alternative for or do for less.

Showstorm:

Outsource anything you can that is ancillary to your core business and you can save a fortune in time and money. Use www.elance.com, www.getacoder.com and www.guru.com. They work like eBay in reverse – you can pick the cheapest bid for the work you need to outsource.

Showstorm:

Only check your email twice a day and set up an auto-reply to explain your availability.

Showstorm:

Your mobile phone is for your convenience, not everybody else’s. If you are working on something or you’re in a meeting, switch it off.

Arena Flowers:

Spinvox is handy: it turns all voicemails into texts so you don’t waste time calling up to listen to them, and you can read them during a meeting without seeming too rude.

Green Hands:

Working flat-out is exhausting, and it can damage your efficiency. Announce to yourself when you definitely won’t be working and block out your diary. Choose a day to have ‘off’ each week. Have a night-time curfew (when there are no deadlines) and things will happen quicker in the morning.

GardeningExpress.co.uk:

Negotiate, always, wherever you are, and in whatever you’re doing. They can only say no. Lots of small discounts here and there really do start adding up.

Green Hands:

Call Business Link for every question you have, every day. It’s free, and there are hundreds of immensely talented business people working there waiting to take your call.

bizk.it:

Invest only in the product and people behind it. You can use rented desk space or start from home, or use new initiatives like Tech-Hub (London), offering low-cost serviced accommodation in a start-up environment. Hosting services like Amazon web services are fantastic for start-ups.

With Support From



Arena Flowers:

Suppliers can be bigger ‘investors’ than, well, investors! A lot of your funding requirement can come through credit from suppliers. It’s not the lowest-risk approach ever and not the way to finance a business long-term, but it can give extra liquidity that was never expected.

Highland Wi-Fi:

Look globally to source the cheapest suppliers for your product.

Findababysitter.com:

Always perform a vendor selection process with at least three shortlisted suppliers for the job. A few simple questions asked of each supplier will help massively with the decision-making process.

Comp Bio Products:

Find a reputable local supplier to work with. This enables easy communication and the ability to resolve any issues quickly.

Urbantopia:

Check out manufacturers from around the world - don’t limit yourself to England. With the internet, the world is a much smaller place, and you can get almost anything cheaper outside the UK.


Do ensure that you have proper contracts in place for any people or suppliers you’re dealing with. If the worst were to happen, these can save a lot of hassle and tears before bed time.

Arena Flowers:

Never, ever be dependent on one supplier – they will try and abuse that relationship. Have a back-up supplier for every key part of your operation. This is important for disaster-recovery planning too.

With Support From



Tepilo.com:

Working with partners saves you time and money, and helps you learn. You’ll be combining audiences, sharing marketing costs, contributing to each other’s ventures, amalgamating useful contacts, discussing markets and shouting about each other - all invaluable.

Skip-Hop:

Focus on the value that you can bring to your partners or collaborators.

A Suit That Fits:

Networking is very important - and lots of fun. It’s a great way to learn about other business and also let people know what you’re up to.

NuBeginnings:

No matter how good a friend they are, always get the relationship properly documented.

4Networking:

Finding referrals for people is easy if you trust them.

Arena Flowers:

Building a track record is key for B2B. Small deals that may seem irrelevant can lead to bigger and better things and help business gather momentum.

Arena Flowers:

At some point most business will have a disagreement with one (or all) of a supplier, investor, competitor, employee, the government, a plagiarist or just a random nutter. A deal that isn’t properly written down and documented leaves room for different interpretations through being too unspecific. At the very least, get things spelled out in a clear and detailed email that can be referred back to. Legals don’t necessarily require lawyers, they just need doing.

Busymummy.co.uk:

If a strategic partnership does not ultimately add value then there is a risk you’ll become distracted- you might miss essential business-growth opportunities. Always ask yourself if it’ll enrich core business.

With Support From

bizk.it:

Save the launch party budget unless someone sponsors it. Instead, launch your service at a conference. It is 1,000% more effective, and usually free.

Catwalk Genius:

When you’re assessing your customer relationships, don’t just measure the things that are easy to count or that everyone else is measuring. ‘85% of customers get an answer in three days’ tells you nothing useful. Instead, you might collect data on the length of time that elapses between each customer’s first contact to the point when their query is fully dealt with. Averages are only half the story - analyse the variation too.

Hemingway Kits:

Not only is the customer always right, you’ve got no right to profit from his custom unless you sincerely believe he’s got more than he paid for.

Highland Wi-Fi:

Always answer the phone and always return the call promptly if you were busy. Get a mobile phone tariff with free minutes and always offer to call the customer back if they are calling from a landline to mobile. They love that. Get an 0800 number – they’re not expensive. Customers avoid companies with 0845 numbers like the plague.

Shoot:

Engage personally with each of your customers and always respond openly and kindly to negative criticism. Great customer service is so rare that you’ll stand out, and you’ll learn something each time you listen.

Dust and Vac:

Deal with customer issues in person if you can. It lets you read body language, and shows how much their custom means to you.

The Thoughtful Bread Company:

Whether you have a sound business idea or not you will be inundated with advertising sales people telling you how keen they are to ‘work with you’. Don’t pay for advertising. Instead, think of a hook to get local journalists interested. Editorials will always draw more attention than any advert, and they’re free.

Mamascarf:

Lots of media requests are advertised on the internet. Apply to any that are relevant. Some PR websites charge a nominal amount for it, but sites such as Mumsnet.com are free.

Mamascarf:

Contact press agencies with your story - they sell stories to the national press. Follow every email up with a telephone call a day or so later. I’ve often found that emails or press releases don’t get read until I drew someone’s attention to them.

Prefio.com:

Don’t think that a weekly press release sprayed out to a large a list of contacts is actually going to get you very far. If you play it safe like the masses, the best you can ever achieve is to be one of the masses. Don’t be afraid to raise eyebrows. Work with an energetic, passionate PR person to identify the news hooks and create something people really want to hear about.



With Support From



Dust and Vac:

Ask local printers to give you discounted or free flyers by letting them print their details on the reverse.

Skip-Hop:

When placing advertising in magazines or other offline media, suggest and negotiate editorial content to run alongside your advert. This is always more powerful than your advert alone.

Gatszu.com:

Create a database of customers and keep in touch with them via email marketing. Send them exclusive offers as incentives to use your business. Sponsor the local under-11’s football team. Dress up as a chicken and run the London Marathon for charity. Stage an event. Enter awards. Anything.

Comp Bio Products:

Don’t try and get too many customers at once. If you get a good success rate, you stand the chance of failing due to lack of supply. Target single areas of you target market, one at a time.

Booths Garden Studios:

What worked last year might not be the best for this year, because the channels are all changing so quickly. Google AdWords is getting more expensive. Check out Facebook – it’s half the price of Google.

Catwalk Genius:

www.Survey.io includes a great metric for making sure you’ve got the product fit right for your market: ask your early users how disappointed they’d be if they could no longer use your product or service. Then don’t blow your marketing budget until you can prove they want it enough.

Cyclescheme:

Don’t get suckered in to buying advertising space - write some editorial for your local press instead.

Dust and Vac:

Get your company name on everything. Stick it on your car or your bike and park it up somewhere busy: cheap advertising!

Drinksin:

If you use a graphic designer, ask them to provide you with editable versions of everything, so you can make changes yourself for free when needed.

Drinksin:

Email marketing is a very low-cost way of marketing. To improve your email marketing, take note of every good email you receive personally and file the ones you like. Going to this file when in need of inspiration can help you understand how to improve your own.

With Support From


Social media


Social media

Tepilo.com:

If you’re not using social media you’re missing a huge audience. And it’s free! Use it as brand awareness and to earn a reputation for being helpful to others, not for selling. Pure broadcast of your own products will get you nowhere.

PrivateFly.com:

Take on a student part-time to help run your social networking campaign. Arm them with an iPhone so they can work in-between lectures, on the bus and from their bed. As part of the Facebook generation, a sharp tuned-in student can come far cheaper than any media agency. But keep a tight rein so they fully understand your brand and your company values, and make sure they listen and respond to your customer base.

Furnish.co.uk:

Get cool blogs to write about you by writing about them first. Send them a link to what you’ve written. They’ll be far more inclined to link to your article and write about you this way than if you just email a press release.

Dust and Vac:

Get a Facebook account and write on the walls of other groups in your area: appreciation societies and the like. This feeds through to group members, so targets locals without you even leaving your front room.

Girl Geek Dinners:

You have to be prepared to put time and effort into creating conversation and feedback, otherwise these tools are only going to be doing half what they should be.


Twitter is more than just a numbers game. You must engage with your followers and be yourself. A quality following is worth a lot more than one where people are simply attracted to you for discount codes.

Drinksin:

Encourage everyone in your start-up to have their own company Twitter account. Allow them to be ambassadors of the company - just be clear on what information is sensitive and what information is free to discuss and promote.

Mixcloud:

You can reduce the cost of customer acquisition by letting your customers an army of marketeers and evangelists. Help them share and talk about you more by investing in social media sharing tools for your website.

With Support From


Online business


Online business

EasyInsites:

No matter what type of company you have, having an online presence is beneficial.

Highland Wi-Fi:

Use website analytics to discover where your customers are coming from, what they are searching for and to fine-tune your site keywords to attract more business.

PrivateFly.com:

If you’re selling online, make sure you show your customer exactly what their options are as clearly and visually as possible – we use 360-degree views to sell private jets’ interiors, as an example. Customers want to make informed decisions. It also makes for a more efficient online business model, lessening use of your offline team resource, as you won’t have to answer so many enquiries.

Contextured:

SEO everything! Choose company and product names to rank, use suppliers who will give you links and employ staff who will contribute their online presence. Online is fierce - you must SEO to compete.

Wealthystudent.co.uk:

Research, research, research. Online, you can see your immediate competitors; you can ask your potential audience questions before you start; you can research trends on Google, find out how much your competitors are making via Companies House; and most importantly, discover your niche in the market.

Wealthystudent.co.uk:

It’s unlikely that you need to spend more than £1,500 on a website. Test your idea very cheaply and play a game where you are not allowed to spend beyond X amount a month (my X is about £500).

Skip-Hop:

You need good quality inbound links to make your website successful on search engines. Link exchanges are much less valuable. Think of innovative ways to get these links, perhaps in return for products or services from you. For example, we offer a free set of double-dutch ropes to schools that link into our website. This gets us valuable links, provides great viral promotional activity and begins a relationship with a potential future customer.

Skip-Hop:

Develop a news area to your website and ensure it has regular and original content. Write about your industry as well as your business. Outside agencies will pick up on news from your company, and you’ll be seen as having a finger on the pulse with an opinion that matters. It helps your search engine rankings too, so include some keyword articles.

With Support From


Technology


Technology

Gatszu.com:

Embrace technology. It’s progress. Keep up-to-date with it and use it to your advantage. Encourage staff to, too.

Highland Wi-Fi:

You get what you pay for in the tech world. What might seem cheap at the beginning can turn into an expensive product when you have to replace it shortly afterwards with something better.

A Suit That Fits:

Keep up-to-date with the latest technology. Use new and exciting innovations to delight customers. For example, we developed a ‘suit wizard’, allowing customers to design every single part of their suit for free.

EasyInsites:

Don’t try to invent or develop your own technology (unless you are a technology company). There is so much out there that can be accessed through partnerships or purchased from others.

bizk.it:

If you’re building a technology product or service, do it in-house. If you can’t afford to hire the talent, bring in a partner with the expertise.

With Support From

Premises



Premises

Showstorm:

The vast majority of businesses do not really need offices, a shop front or warehousing. Work from home instead.

eCourier.co.uk:

Unless your business absolutely positively requires it, avoid fancy offices in expensive neighbourhoods.

eCourier.co.uk:

You might be able to get funding from a local council or RDA for setting up in a less economically-developed area.

Findababysitter.com:

Always try and get more space then you need. This helps you scale and it gives you the opportunity to sub-let, which can have a positive impact on cashflow.


Don’t spend money on fancy offices and furniture – just make sure you have the environment to get the job done. No client or customer is impressed with expensive office fittings in this economic climate. Most clients are too busy to visit you anyway (and it makes you look a lot hungrier for their business if you offer to travel to meet them).

With Support From

Employees & team



Employees & team

Skimlinks:

You should be the hardest working person in the company, and your team have to look up to you and respect you. You are asking them to give up a part of their life to make your dreams happen. If you can’t reward them with money, reward them with insight, opportunity, and involvement.

4Networking:

If you have a partner and you agree all the time, one of you is redundant.

bizk.it:

If you’re starting up with zero capital, share your idea with two or three brilliant partners and form a team of people with complementary skills in certain areas.

Thirst Solution:

Reward yourself when you hit targets or reach goals.

bizk.it:

Only invest in people - rent everything else!

NuBeginnings:

No one is indispensible. I’ve spent huge amounts of time trying to keep bad staff members because I was worried about replacing them. But once they were gone, we found wonderful replacements. All the pain was unnecessary. And the harsh truth is you are not indispensible either: your business should be able to run without you.

Arena Flowers:

Don’t allow petty politicking, childish bickering or any ‘it’s not my problem, guvnor’ rubbish. And don’t blame people for making mistakes – at least not the first time.

Clyde Marine Training:

Your company will only ever be as strong as your weakest member of staff, so invest the time and money to make sure everyone knows their role and has the tools available to do it effectively.

Booths Garden Studios:

Working in a small team is like having to pull a huge ball of concrete. Good people will grab a rope and pull in the same direction as you, making the job far easier. Bad people will sit on the rock, and slow you down. So choose wisely.

Urbantopia:

Employ young, inexperienced but talented new graduates to work for you, especially for art based or design stuff. They’re cheaper than experienced people and sometimes even better.

Struq:

If their eyes don’t light up, don’t hire them.

Tepilo.com:

Don’t take on people you don’t need to – it may sound obvious, but do you really need a marketing person, a finance person, a CEO, a sales person, a PR person, a cleaner, a PA, a receptionist, and so on? Get one person with a combination of skills and cut your wage bill in half. Think quality, not quantity.

Dust and Vac:

Your staff can see things you can never see because you are far too inside your business. So listen to them. And you never know - that apprentice you hired last week might be the business brain of tomorrow.

Wonga.com:

You can never be sure about someone just with a few interviews and a CV, so don’t be afraid to use your gut feel to make hiring decisions too.

Drinksin:

Always stand by your team and never wash laundry in public.

Drinksin:

Just because you’re the co-founder of the company, doesn’t mean you will always know more. Seek out people more experienced than you that can fill gaps you can’t cover. And make sure people’s roles are clearly defined.

With Support From

Ethics



Ethics

Zopa:

Naked capitalism is less and less acceptable. People want an ethical dimension. It helps with recruitment and in building a sustainable brand.

Carbon Retirement:

It’s hard to bring your values to bear on everything that you do. It takes extra energy and time - but it’s worth it. It gives you the satisfaction of not only forging a path in your chosen sector, but doing it in a way you’ll always be proud of.

The Thoughtful Bread Company:

Do not underestimate what having good ethics and a sound environmental approach to your business can do for you. Consumers are genuinely starting to take notice. Don’t let putting this off be the reason potential customers chose to spend their money with your competitor instead of you. Start with an ethical and an environmental policy to help map out what you’re trying to achieve.

NuBeginnings:

Always go the extra mile to make sure you treat people how you would like to be treated. Some will take advantage, but most will not. It is always worth it.

Arena Flowers:

Be generous and helpful to others, as it feels good, and you never know when the favour might be spectacularly repaid. Especially online, helping others out can help you back.

Tribewanted:

When you make a decision about your business, ask yourself if it’s good for everyone involved: suppliers (the whole chain), customers, your team, your local environment. If it works for all of them, it’s the right decision.

With Support From

Exit strategies



Exit strategies

Highland Wi-Fi:

If you plan to sell your business, it’s important to detach yourself from it right from the beginning. Do not get emotionally attached or you will struggle to see it for what it really is.

PrivateFly.com:

Never has it been more important to network if you’re trying to sell your business, and never has ‘cold calling’ been so challenging. Tell everyone you know about your business, and sell yourself and your achievements. Reconnect with old colleagues, suppliers, school friends, neighbours, and use every networking tool you can.

Zoopla.co.uk:

Great businesses get great exits with little effort or design. Focusing on a potential exit in the first two to three years of any new business can distract from the far more important task of building a great business – even though investors understandably want some clear thought around this early on.

Gatszu.com:

Know your exit strategy at the beginning, or at least have a good idea of how and when you’d ideally like to get out, then shape your business plan to suit. Eye up competitors, or businesses that complement yours, and who may want to buy you out. Subtly let them know you’re there.

Zopa:

Unless you’re starting the next Amazon, don’t bother too much with exit strategies.

Zopa:

If you do sell your business, it’ll most likely to be to someone you have talked to for a long time. So talk to lots of people!

With Support From


4Networking www.4networking.biz

A Suit That Fits www.aSuitThatFits.com

Ambition Communications www.ambition-communications.co.uk

Arena Flowerswww.arenaflowers.com

bizk.it www.bizk.it

Booths Garden Studioswww.BoothsGardenStudios.co.uk

buddi www.buddi.co.uk

Natural Groomingwww.meetthebulldog.com

Busymummy.co.ukwww.busymummy.co.uk

Carbon Retirementwww.carbonretirement.com

Catwalk Geniuswww.catwalkgenius.com

Clyde Marine Trainingwww.clydemarinetraining.com

Comp Bio Productswww.comp-bio.co.uk

Contexturedwww.contextured.com

Cycleschemewww.cyclescheme.co.uk

Drinksin www.drinksin.com

Dust and Vacwww.dustandvac.co.uk

EasyInsiteswww.easyinsites.com

eCourier.co.ukwww.ecourier.co.uk

Findababysitter.comwww.findababysitter.com

Furnish.co.uk www.furnish.co.uk

GardeningExpress.co.ukwww.GardeningExpress.co.uk

Gatszu.comwww.gatszu.com

Girl Geek Dinnerswww.girlgeekdinners.com

Green Handswww.greenhands.co.uk

Hemingway Kitswww.hemingwaykits.com

simple and profitable web marketing

Contributors


Contributors

Highland Wi-Fiwww.highlandwifi.com

Mamascarfwww.mamascarf.co.uk

Mixcloud www.mixcloud.com

NuBeginningswww.nubeginnings.co.uk

Parkatmyhouse.com www.parkatmyhouse.com

Pins and Ribbons www.pinsandribbons.co.uk

Prefio.com www.prefio.com

PrivateFly.com www.privatefly.com

Shoot www.shootgardening.co.uk

Showstorm www.showstorm.tv

Skimlinks www.skimlinks.com

Skip-Hop www.skip-hop.co.uk

Struq www.struq.com

Tepilo.com www.tepilo.com

The Cake Kit Company www.thecakekitcompany.com

The Thoughtful Bread Company www.thethoughtfulbreadcompany.com

ThirdYearAbroad.com www.ThirdYearAbroad.com

Thirst Solution www.thirstsolution.com

Tribewanted www.tribewanted.com

Urbantopia www.urbantopia.co.uk

Wealthystudent.co.uk: www.wealthystudent.co.uk

Wonga.com www.wonga.com

Zoopla.co.uk www.zoopla.co.uk

Zopa www.zopa.com

Smarta 100 top tips business ebook

Business

Transcript of Smarta 100 top tips business ebook