Are you looking for a small business consultant (adviser/mentor/coach) who will:

  • make bold claims about what they can do for your business without having met you or knowing what you do?
  • talk about their proprietary processes that have trademarked names to make them look special?
  • spend an hour with you, then get their junior staff to do most of the work?
  • tell you what you want to hear in order to keep you as a client, not what they really think?
  • charge you a fixed hourly rate with little regard for how much value they add to your business?

If so, you've come to the WRONG place. (But do a quick Google search... I can guarantee you won't have much trouble finding someone!)

So if I won't do these things that seem to be a staple of small business advice, what can I offer?

Click to read more....

Social Branding and How to Build a Tribe

A friend shared a great article with me the other day, published at MediaPost (unfortunately registration is required, although it is free). The article discusses “social brands”. Part of the definition of a social brand relates to the use of technology to communicate with stakeholders (blogs, Facebook, wikis, email newsletters, forums, Twitter, etc). However, as [...]

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Free Web Tools – Part III : Diigo

Part III of this series of posts is about Diigo, a great social bookmarking tool that I can’t imagine living without. At it’s core Diigo is a great place to store and manage your bookmarks, but it goes well beyond that without adding so much complexity that you feel like the simple task of bookmarking [...]

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The Financial Crisis

As someone who has been out of the finance industry for a couple of years, it is very interesting to watch what is currently happening on Wall Street, it’s effect on the wider financial system and the economy in general. I could go on and on about the various emotions that have stirred while reading [...]

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Free Tools – Part II : A Voice Recorder

Okay, so this one isn’t technically free, but given you probably already own one without knowing it or ever using it, the marginal cost to you is likely to be zero. The voice recorder I am talking about is the one that is almost certainly in your mobile phone. I’ve found that my best ideas, [...]

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Free Web Tools – Part I : Evernote

As a small business person I appreciate the value of a dollar, and when I can get something of real value for no cost then I want to share my discovery with others. So here is Part I of a planned series of short posts on my favorite free business tools. Most are software/internet related, [...]

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Web 2.0 for Business

A lot of small business owners I talk to admit to not keeping up with the latest in online applications that could help their business. I've been thinking about writing a post on this topic for a while, but the team at ReadWriteWeb have made life easy for me by writing a good article titled [...]

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The Speed of Trust

I’ve been thinking a lot about why it is that trust in business is so important to me. Is it because it just feels like the right thing to do? (Yes) Is it because it take less energy to be trusting than suspicious? (Yes) Is it because I have been let down, like most people, [...]

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Personal MBA

Nov ’08 Update: I now have a dedicated page for my own PMBA Group. — Training and education is an often neglected issue in small business. Smaller companies often don’t have the free cash flow available to pay for quality education, may not be able to cover team members while they are away, or don’t [...]

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The Importance of Adding Value

While I was out a few days ago on my daily walk (my first “daily” walk for a week) I listened to a great interview on the Escape from Cubicle Nation podcast. The website, www.escapefromcubiclenation.com, is hosted by Pamela Slim, a “coach and writer who helps frustrated employees in corporate jobs break out and start [...]

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Estimating the Value of a Consultant

As I go about setting up my business, one of the difficult decisions I had to make was what to charge for my services. I thought it would be an interesing exercise to document my thoughts during so that others can give me some advice and so that clients can see the thinking behind my [...]

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Will People Outsource to a Generalist?

My goal as a small business consultant is to work with business owners who are specialists in their chosen area and need some help from a generalist to round out the skills within the business, with particular emphasis on assisting with the financial management of the company. But is there a market for outsourcing to [...]

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Why a Blog?

Firstly, a bit about my short-term plan for this website. It is primarily to achieve two goals: b) as a first stop for people that have been referred to me and want to learn a bit more before meeting me; and b) as a place to keep my friends and clients informed of what's going [...]

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