Enterprise news and opinion from Cobweb

There is almost certainly one in your town or city, and it will be open during business hours from Monday to Friday, and possibly after hours and on Saturdays as well. It’s an under-publicised resource that can be used as a venue for research, meeting clients, and even as an office in the early stages of trading, totally free of charge. What is this resource? Your local public library…

To survive in business, an owner-manager will need to be competent at a number of things, such as selling, finance, stock and debt control and admin, as well as being proficient at their ‘job’ i.e. their profession, trade or technical background. Unfortunately, most owner-managers don’t have the right balance of attributes to make them effective or successful at running a business…

Being a small business owner or sole trader is one thing, but being an entrepreneurial small business owner – one that thinks and acts in a way that can set you apart from most of the other small firms operating in your sector or industry – is a different matter altogether…

Plans. Planning. Business Plans. What exactly do these terms this mean to you? Everyone you talk to and everything you read about starting up and running a business seems to say more or less the same thing…

This week we’re going to take a look at some common, and occasionally fatal, mistakes that are made by new business start ups – and sometimes by their supposedly more experienced counterparts…

Tens of thousands of professionals and public sector workers who have been made redundant are grasping the opportunity to become self employed. But is this a good time to start up in business – in the midst of the worst economic downturn for almost a century?…

One of the biggest worries facing new business owners, or anyone thinking of starting up their own venture, is that they won’t be able to compete with all the bigger players that are already out there and established in their sector…

The role that the small and micro-business sector plays and contributes to the health of the economy in the UK should never be understated. In 2012, over 4.5 million small/micro-business proprietors accounted for 47% of private sector employment and 35% of total private sector turnover…

The business world just isn’t fair. The smartest and most solvent of people, the hardest workers, those with the brightest ideas, and those who are quickest to get a new product on the market go bust just as easily, and quite often more easily, than anyone else…

Being a first-time business owner often involves becoming a first-time employer somewhere down the line – and for some starts ups, this is the case from day one. Being your own boss and having people working with and for you is not only a pleasure (of course), but also at certain times quite painful, frustrating and distracting…