Three Free Services to help with Growing a Small Business

Many of the clients I work with are smaller businesses looking for assistance in growth. Obviously, my MSP is able to help these clients from an Information Technology perspective – we wouldn’t be much of an IT Consultancy if we didn’t – but we’re also a Small Business ourselves and so face many of the same non-IT challenges and barriers to growth that our clients do.

Two sources of information I’ve personally found useful as I plan my own businesses growth and thus I suggest to clients looking for answers to similar questions are Business Link and Shell Livewire.

• Shell Livewire is aimed at 16-30 years old who run their own business. They have some very good forums for discussing business with fellow business owners, and they provide some local business advisor’s and mentors. At 31 years of age, this business owner is now actually too old for the site – but it’s proved very useful in the past and I can still pretend I’m a “young person” I guess… 🙂

• Business Link is the UK Governments support service for Small and Medium Sized Businesses and has dozens of offices across the UK – each targeting their local community. I’ve sporadically used Business Link’s services ever since I started-up my business a few years ago, and I recently sat down with a Business Link advisor who was very helpful in helping me formulate a plan to grow the company. They also have an excellent web-site with tons of easily accessible information on everything from Insurance and taking on your first employee. Business Link are also a good starting point if you are looking for grants to enable business growth. I recently put one of my clients in touch with Business Link West Midlands about their “High Growth” scheme, where a large grant may be offered to businesses expecting to reach a turnover of £200k in Year Two of trading. The client wasn’t aware of this scheme and Business Link will openly confess they don’t “reach” everyone they’d hope to – so this was a good referral for both and generated good-will for us too.

Working with a Mentor

Both of the above services are free – but if you’re serious about growing your business (be it a startup or an established business) then I’ll pass on some of the best advice I myself was offered when I first started up, and that was to find yourself a business mentor. If you’re lucky, you’ll find someone willing to give you the benefit of their time and wisdom out of a sense of philanthropy – but if you’re not that lucky (and most business owners aren’t) then it’s worth paying for someone’s time in this role. It took me a while to appreciate the value of paying somebody for their advice, but as a business owner, it’s all too easy to work “in” your business and not “on” it. I’ve found that my business mentors have helped me gain some direction for my business and help me focus and concentrate on what is important when I’m in danger of simply working for the sake of it.

Finally, I’ve today come across a site that purports to offer free and impartial online support for businesses and entrepreneurs called Venture Navigator. First impressions are it may well prove useful, and as it’s free there’s no excuse for not checking it out!