With more businesses continuing to crash with major job losses and UK unemployment at their highest levels since 1995 – it’s vital that one customer does not make up more than 12 per cent of your total turnover. Many owner-managed and family run businesses come unstuck if a major customer goes belly up – and [...]

Are you Innovating, investing and exporting to drive your business performance and profitability? The importance of this hat trick of ‘must do’s’ was reinforced by speakers at a business leaders manufacturing debate spearheaded by the Yorkshire Business Insider. The session, hosted by Richard Abbott, explored how best to promote and champion the vibrant manufacturing sector [...]

As a business strategist working with companies in Yorkshire and beyond, it’s become blatantly apparent to me that over the past four years there are some factors which are critical to boosting business performance and profitability – that the experts don’t tell you.   Knowledge is everything Know the basics about everything in your company [...]

What do Lord Sugar’s new apprentices have to do with leadership and sharpening the focus?   The answer is – more than you think. The new series is, as usual, packed with an eclectic mix of egotist, sharp operators and business misfits ratings. Fuelled by conflict, human drama and raw emotion, the formula makes for [...]

  Did you know that 4 billion videos are viewed on YouTube each day? You could be reaping the benefits of valuable business opportunities by harnesssing the power of video which enables you to reach new clients by showcasing your knowledge and expertise. It enables propsects to see, hear and understand how you operate as [...]

Among the most frequently asked questions I get asked, as an experienced business strategist helping owner managed and family businesses across Yorkshire and further afield to boost their profit and productivity, is ‘What differentiates great leaders from average ones?’  Here are my responses:  They ask good questions Questions that get to the core of the [...]

In the countdown to the Equilux – when the day length equals the night time and the snow drops and crocii are replaced with a profusion of daffodils, spring is very much in the air. As a business strategist enjoying the signs of spring emerging from Harrogate’s historic Stray to the stunning Peace Gardens in [...]

I’ve seen through the years how benchmarking exercises – by this I mean measuring how your business is performing against the opposition – unearths uncomfortable truths which many business owners would rather stay buried. In my experience as a business strategist, these disquieting findings are the main reason why many companies avoid such exercises like [...]

Whether or not you are thinking of selling your company in the next few years, it is important for the directors and shareholders to understand how businesses are valued so that informed and timely decisions can be made. As boutique dealmakers at Strategic Corporate Finance, we can’t stress enough why a sound knowledge of the [...]

Is your industry or sector among those which are trapped in an exhausting, downward spiral and bouncing along the bottom with no end in sight? If so, there’s usually two options which owners managers think are left open to them – the first is to wait it out until the bitter end – and the [...]