Small Business Matters

StartUp Britain Enterprise Calendar launch

A few key members of the Intuit team had a great day yesterday, attending the StartUp Britain Enterprise Calendar launch.

The StartUp Britain Enterprise Calendar is a new, interactive calendar of enterprise events, showcasing Britain’s vibrant and dynamic enterprise community. The calendar should be a great tool for entrepreneurs, signposting them to key events and growth opportunities. You can also submit your own events to the enterprise calendar.

Following the launch of the new calendar, Mark Prisk, minister for business and enterprise, said: “We want 2012 to be the year of enterprise, where entrepreneurs can unlock their business potential. Enterprise events don’t just take place on one day, or during one week, but they appear throughout the year and across the country. We need to make sure people know that there is support and advice available, that it is easy to get, and it is often on their doorstep.”

He added: “The Enterprise Calendar is a great addition to our support for business in 2012 and beyond.”

(pssstt…don’t forget you can download our calendar too, which will also help you keep up to date with events as well as key financial dates.)

Expert advice

“I shifted to QuickBooks and I understood how the business ran. In some ways that was one of the most delightful periods of my life with King of Shaves because I understood everything financially.” Will King, founder of King of Shaves

There was also a panel discussion on the day, with some expert advice from Intuit UK's very own managing director, Pernille Bruun-Jensen, as well as Will King, founder of King of Shaves, Doug Richards, original Dragon, investor and serial entrepreneur and Bob Forsyth, head of UK SMEs at Ernst & Young.

Watch a snippet here:

You can see more short interviews with Pernille over at Business Zone.

Pernille discusses shows how the Enterprise Calendar can help kickstart your business 

Is there a business in you? Intuit’s Pernille explains how everyone can be involved in startups 

New small business resources

StartUp Britain, which Intuit is a sponsor of, has also launched a range of new resources for small businesses. These were highlighted at the event and include:

2012: A small business wishlist

By Anthony Teasdale

It's not often the self-employed ask for help – after all, by our very nature we’re extremely self-reliant. But with an economic downturn that shows little sign pointing in the opposite direction, there's a few things that could benefit a significant number of us in the year ahead.

As someone who runs a small business myself, here's what I'd like to see take hold in the coming months…

Small businesses working together 

Five years ago, banks were queuing up to give small business loans or extend their overdrafts, confident that they’d get their money back – and more – soon enough. Today the situation is very different, with loans increasingly difficult to obtain. In Coventry, a group of business meet once a month to talk with local banks about how they can get finance – and it’s the numbers of people joining forces that gets the banks to listen. Ask around your area and see if anyone else wants to do the same. 

Business trend predictions for 2012

2011 has been quite a year, both in business and beyond – from the summer riots, to banking fraud, and companies and countries alike going to the wall.

In cheery news, it has been mooted that ‘2012 will be the end of the world’. However, David Bowler and Julia Payne,  co-founders of business consultancy Incisive Edge,  believe it will only be the end of the world for those entrenched businesses which choose to hide.

They comment: “Those businesses which simply work to protect the balance sheet, and fail to invest in growth in a brave new world, will not succeed.”

Here, Payne and Bowler offer their predictions for business trends in 2012:

Top tech tactics for productivity

This post is written by Francesca Geens. Francesca runs Digital Dragonfly a technology consultancy that specialises in one-person businesses. Francesca is especially interested in productivity and the use of technology to improve people’s day-to-day business lives. 

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier but from experience with my clients I think most people will agree that it doesn’t always feel this way! So what are the three easy steps you can take to increase your productivity - or better put, your tech sanity?

Instead of the usual long list of favourite productivity apps, I thought I would add some best practice into the mix as I find that this can often make the biggest difference.

Finding the business idea that’s right for you

This guest post is by ReeRee Rockette, who owns Rockalily Lipstick as well as a creative business group called Wonderful Women: Minding Our Own Business.

I meet many people who dream of being self-employed but just aren't sure where to start. They don't feel they have a stand-out talent or skill, and just don't know what they could become. I definitely know the feeling - I had no clue what I would be if I wasn't a teacher and when I quit, I still wasn't exactly sure!

What follows are some of the strategies I used to discover my new career:

Five ways to get more traffic to your website

By Joe  Carstairs

Unfortunately, many people don't realise that their website is sitting in cyberspace completely unnoticed. Unless you direct traffic towards it, it simply won't be seen.Therefore, just as you'd invite people to your office for a demo, you need to be directing people to your website. 

It might seem intimidating but there are simple steps you can take to make it easier than you think. Here are five easy ways to get more traffic to your website.

Putting financial fitness first: BIS and Intuit partner to deliver new financial skills programme for British business

Intuit has announced a nationwide series of business boot camps which will support the new Finance Fitness campaign announced by Vince Cable today.

Intuit, the makers of QuickBooks small business accounting software, will run events in six cities across the UK, assisted by the new government campaign to get SMEs the advice and guidance they need to access and manage finance.

The cities will be announced during Global Entrepreneurship Week on 17 November. The events will be run as business boot camps providing practical training and will also include opportunities for business owners to speak to Intuit pro-advisors, as well as leading entrepreneurs.

Size doesn’t matter in the global marketplace

This post is written by Linda Kozlowski, Director of Global Marketing and Customer Experience for Alibaba.com. 

With many businesses feeling the impact of the current economic uncertainty, it’s no surprise that the outlook for 2012 is less than rosy. Without a positive change in economic conditions, many small and medium businesses, particularly those that operate with small teams and limited resources, could cease trading altogether. More than ever, reducing operating costs and driving revenues are essential to survival. It will be the savvy businesses who are willing to adapt their approach that will come out on top.  

The advantages of guest blogging

You might not be familiar with the term ‘guest blogging’ but it's really a simple concept that can help to promote your business. It means writing a blog post (normally only 500-1000 words) for an existing blog that is not owned by you.

Freelance writers usually charge for this content, whilst businesses provide it because of the branding and reputation benefits it brings. Here are some of the advantages guest blogging can have for your business.

How an innovative start-up landed big-name backing and a Kindle advertising deal

A new service, launching today, has seen a start-up company gain day-one advertising investment from insurance firm Hiscox and become the first service outside of Amazon to offer advertising on Kindle content in the UK. 

clipDO uses a browser button called a bookmarklet to ‘clip’ news articles and other text found on the web and send that text directly to their Kindle e-reader all with one click. clipDO offers Kindle, and soon tablet users, a new and simple way to access the news and other information online. The service is entirely free because it’s supported by advertising.

We spoke to clipDO’s founder Jon Slinn about how he made it happen.