A Christmas present for your brain.
Depending on how busy you are, you may or may not have noticed that Christmas is coming. It’s that time of year when multi-coloured jumpers become the must-have fashion item, Dr Jekyll turns into Mr Hyde at the office party, and retailers layer their ads with...
How do you build a business that will sustainably grow?
Sustainability is never out of the news at the moment. Are you a fossil fool? The solution is less pollution. There is no Planet B. As the world population grows, so does the pressure on our resources. We need an environment and food chain that can continue to...
How to keep your talent.
In 1999 I helped set up the advertising agency, Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy. I know, not the snappiest name ever, but at least it did what it said on the tin. When a client came in to see MCBD, they got M, C, B and D. When we opened the agency doors we were...
When is the right time to sell?
A fundamental question for all owners – when is the right time to sell your business? The answer to this age-old question is this – the time to sell is when someone else is willing to invest more in your company than you are. When you start a business, nobody is...
Does your business make you happy?
As an owner you want your business to make you money. But ask yourself does your business make you happy? It’s a question we ask owners, and all too often the answer is ‘no.’ Take the case of Gavin Rebello. He’d set up a successful optician business, but he didn’t...
Why it’s never too early to have an exit plan.
The idea of exiting may seem far off, and all of your efforts are going into scaling your business. But there are good reasons why it pays to be exit ready. What if you grow tired of your business, or you can’t carry on because of illness, or a key member of your team...
The BGI Value Builder.
The BGI Value Builder System The Value Builder System is a statistically proven methodology for increasing the value of your company. Complete the questionnaire and instantly get your Value Builder Score out of 100. It’s free and 100% confidential.
Do you still love your business?
There are many things in life you can fall in love with. Your partner, your dog, a particular song, a beautiful location, a sports team. But can you add your business to this list? You probably loved it once. After all, who sets up a business they hate? You were...
How to find the idea to reboot your business?
A man called Ingvar Kamprad had the idea to sell furniture you assemble yourself. His company – IKEA. James Dyson came up with the concept of bagless vacuum cleaners. The rest is history. Michael Dell discovered a way to miss out the middlemen and sell computers...
Do people know the true value of your business?
Sector: Food and Beverage - Hand roasted coffee shops. Challenge: Raising cash to grow and differentiate in a competitive market that the banks and accountants did not understand. In 2017 Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi sold for $450m. It’s the most expensive...
Why do you need to target your perfect customers with precision?
Leads, prospects, customers. Where would you be without them? In big trouble. That’s why the mantras – “Sell, sell, sell”, “Show me the money,” “Go big or go home” are so popular in business. They’ve become the war cry of many a Sales and Marketing Director, often...
How can your business escape from the draw of Death Valley?
There’s a place where many businesses find themselves. It’s bleak, dangerous, inhospitable. Certainly not somewhere you’d want to stay for long. We’ve called it Death Valley. It’s a place where many SMEs find themselves as they seek to scale up, but they are not even...
Is your business on the edge of Death Valley?
There are two Death Valleys. There’s the one in California, that recorded the world’s highest-ever temperature, a whopping 56C. Then there’s the other Death Valley, the one we invented for the purpose of this blog. It’s where many businesses come to grief. That’s the...
Is your strategy active, dormant or extinct?
In August, 1833, a volcano on the island of Krakatoa erupted. It sent pyroclastic flows 25 miles into the air. The explosion was heard 2,800 miles away. As a result of the ash and debris, average global temperatures fell by as much as 1.2 degrees for the next five...
Where do ideas come from?
I’ve always loved writing. No idea where this love comes from. My Dad was an engineer. My Mum worked in a shop. But they both shared a love of reading. The written word was always important to them, and it became vitally important to me. Little did I know, that as a...
Has your business gone flat?
Feeling flat is a fairly common occurrence. It can happen at many times throughout your life, like when you’re on a diet. You’ve cut calories. You’re doing your 10,000 steps a day. You’ve eaten more fruit than a monkey. And yet, when you step on the scales the needle...
How can you make your business great?
"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em." So said Malvolio in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Fast forward several hundred years, and ask yourself – how can you make your business great? If you were born into a successful...
Dare you ignore your business warning lights?
You’re driving your car and a warning light comes on. What you do next could have serious implications? You might decide to stop at the nearest service station and sort it out. You could make a mental note to book your car into a garage. Or, the worst option of all,...
Would you fly a plane if you only knew half the controls?
"You are cleared for take-off." "Just a moment. What does that button do?" Let’s be honest, you’d never attempt to fly a plane unless you were totally confident with the controls, had been properly trained and knew exactly how everything worked. But when it comes to a...
Leaders are readers.
As a business leader, we’d like to suggest a new way to improve your business – open a book. Reading is one of the quickest, simplest, and most inexpensive ways a business owner can scale up. “Today a reader, tomorrow a leader,”~ Margaret Fuller. How can reading books...
What’s the purpose of Business Purpose?
“Because it’s there.” That was George Mallory’s classic reply when asked why he wanted to climb Everest. As a business owner, if we were to ask why you chose your particular path, “because it’s there” really won’t cut it. Perhaps it’s because you want to make lots of...
How do you get big, if you can’t raise cash because you’re too small?
In the classic Joseph Heller novel Catch-22, airman John Yossarian is faced with the ultimate dilemma. He discovers that it’s impossible to be excused from bombing duty on the grounds of insanity, as anyone who applies for exemption is clearly sane. Anyone who doesn’t...
Can a mentor help you scale up?
The founders of Google, Virgin, Microsoft, Dyson and Apple. What did they all have in common, apart from building incredible companies and being richer than Croesus? They all had mentors. But surely, you say, when you have a hugely successful business the last thing...
Brexit. How to find certainty in a time of uncertainty.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the...
Strategy. Hit or myth?
There’s a lot of fake news about. It can be disruptive, confusing, divisive. Separating fact from fiction is vital in all areas of life, but no more so than in business. To succeed you need hard evidence, not hearsay. That’s why we’d like to explode eight of the myths...
How certain are you of success?
You probably started 2018 with high hopes for your business. You hoped that sales orders would come in, that new ideas would work, that new recruits would live up to their CVs, that profits will grow, that your operations run seamlessly, that your marketing delivers,...