Business Butler Blog - startups

Wales is facing a crisis as young people desert the principality in search of more rewarding and successful careers elsewhere. The Welsh government is looking at plans to arrest the exodus because if it continues at its current rate there will be severe ramifications for the country’s economy. With the number of working-age citizens continuing to fall, the government is concerned that it will h...

Research indicates that during the pandemic the majority of small businesses in the UK increased their social media presence and are now benefitting from their digital exploits. The past 18 months have had a devastating effect across all sectors and as physical operations ground to a halt business owners were faced with having to pivot in order to survive.

Results from a poll of 1,000 UK ...

Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer recently announced that the Kickstart Scheme has been extended until March 2022. The scheme gives employers funding for creating jobs for 16 – 24 year olds who are on Universal Credit. The Kickstart Scheme was launched in September 2020 and was allocated £2 billion in funding to provide 250,000 high-quality jobs for young people following the economi...

Being self-employed sounds attractive and there are several advantages when compared with working for someone else, such as greater flexibility with your working hours and not being answerable to anybody. However, there are also disadvantages, one of which is the fact that pension payments are solely down to you. There is no employer contributing to your pension pot, so in simple terms, if you ...

Your people are your company’s most important asset. Cheerful employees are likely to be more productive, but employee engagement is complex - where do you start?

Engaging your team is critical to business success. The holy grail is to have employees who are excited to come to work each day. To achieve this, they need to do what they do best, feel connected to their cowor...

Amazon is a company that divides opinion and is often in the news regarding staff welfare issues. This time though the news appears to be positive from the world’s leading online retailer. 

The American giant has started paying staff a £50 weekly bonus at some of its UK warehouses, which is very generous of them, but this isn’t performance related, it’s just for being punctual. Now c...

Everywhere you look online you are inundated with content as businesses vie for your attention and hopefully your custom. Most of the time you just ignore all the noise but now and then there is a post that will catch your eye and it will probably be a video clip.

More and more small business owners are realising that video content is an effective way to connect with prospects and custome...

The importance of branding in the competitive world of business cannot be understated. It is what distinguishes a company from the rest. Branding covers a multitude of disciplines and purposes. Branding needs to be a true representation of a business, communicating how it wants to be perceived and why prospective clients should choose them over all the others in a saturated market.

The ro...

Getting the right kind of funding for your startup is a challenge. You have to find it, get approved, and then use it wisely. But there are many mistakes that too many founders make when they're trying to get their company off the ground. In this post we'll cover 7 key mistakes you should avoid so you can raise enough money for your startup without sacrificing any equity or valuable resources.

Running a business can be exciting, challenging and draining, both physically and mentally. There are so many things to remember and not enough hours in the day to get everything done. Thankfully business owners don’t need to carry on getting more and more stressed because there is help at hand. The solution is to outsource wherever possible, or to be more specific, hire the services of a ...

Latest research indicates that 20% of startups will fail in the first year and 60% won’t succeed past year three, startling figures that would put many people off trying in the first place but business owners are brave at heart. A lack of financial management knowledge is often quoted as one of the main reasons why businesses fail and with that in mind it is essential that business owners equip...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is having a greater influence on everyday life as more and more industries seek innovative solutions to a myriad of problems. You may not be aware that as you travel, work, dine, shop and participate in a host of other leisure activities, behind the scenes AI is hard at work.

But what exactly is AI? Well without getting too complicated, AI can be defined as th...

Amazon is a company that divides opinion more than probably any other. This behemoth American corporation has grown at an astronomical rate since Jeff Bezos started selling books from his garage in 1995.

In its quest for global domination Amazon has consumed everything in its path and has been blamed for the closure of thousands of businesses worldwide. The majority of these hav...

The most pressing issue facing startups today is a lack of finance and almost 30% fail every year in the UK because of this. With that in mind it is imperative that when you are looking for investment you give yourself the best opportunity of success by being totally prepared for the whole process.

Pitching your business to potential investors can be daunting. Any type of business present...

Following the announcement that people in England no longer have to work from home (WFH) from 19 July – and the rest of the UK will follow suit shortly - there will be tens of thousands of workers preparing to return to their offices for the first time in 18 months.

This is great news for business and the economy, although there is still some confusion about what this actually means, so h...

A Guest Blog by Mel Evans, Customer Experience Expert

At a point where you need customers more than ever, it is critical that businesses now focus on their marketing and customer experience (CX) as a central platform to their business development.

At difficult times in business the first response is to make cuts: staff, overheads, stock, facilities, services, etc…it...

A Guest Blog by Julie Plumb, Digital Marketing Expert.

How do you choose the right social media for your business?

Our advice is always not to try and spread yourself thinly across every single platform that you've ever heard of. Choos...

Business owners are renowned for making tough decisions, it’s part and parcel of what they do. From hiring and firing to expansion and closure, if you don’t like making important decisions then don’t run a business. The latest decision facing business owners is one that they would never even have contemplated 18 months ago - should they continue running the business remotely or return to t...

Starting your business is super exciting. You just want to get going with the fun stuff…but often this means that the more ‘boring’ things can be left out. This frequently comes down to legal matters.

As uninteresting as it may seem, protecting your business from a legal perspective is INCREDIBLY important…this includes making sure your BRAND is protected. Whether it be your business name...

Tens of thousands of small business owners across the UK thought 2021 had got off to the best possible start when a ruling made by the Supreme Court in January found in their favour regarding insurance payments to cover losses caused by the first national lockdown.

The fact that business interruption insurance policies were going to pay out was welcome news during the most difficult econo...

Small business owners across the country were waiting with anticipation to hear whether the Chancellor would be the bearer of good news when he announced the budget, after all they had suffered more than most, and any support would be welcome.

Rishi Sunak has endured a challenging year as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and as the saying goes...”you can’t please all the people all of the tim...

A Guest Blog by Caryl Thomas, HR Expert.

This time of year is usually filled with festivities. From Christmas parties to the legendary Secret Santa gift exchange, there is normally no shortage of reasons to get together with friends, family and co-workers during December.

But after a difficult year curtailing coronavirus, and with continued efforts to keep the risk ...

A Guest Blog by Graham Morgan, a Business Expert.

There were 267,000 business enterprises in Wales in 2019 according to the Office of National Statistics and this was the highest number recorded over the period from 2003. The growth from 169,000 enterprises in 2003 has been consistent year on year. Small and medium sized businesses(SME’s) accounted for 62.4% of the estima...

A Guest blog by Graham Morgan, Business Expert.

Wales has recently exited its second nationwide lockdown of 2020. The Welsh Government’s decision to go for a short sharp ‘circuit break’ was based on increasing trends in Covid infection rates across all parts of the country. Certainly not as severe as the lockdown of March, April and May, given many businesses continued tr...

So, you’ve got this dream about starting your own business, which is great but you have grown accustomed to the benefits that working for an employer provide. You enjoy the relative security of receiving a salary every month, paid holidays, sick leave and even pension contributions – who wouldn’t?

You feel it may be too big a risk to sacrifice all of this to pursue your dream that isn’t g...

The number one factor that inhibits startups from growing is a lack of funding. In fact this is the primary cause of new businesses being unable to open in the first place and can be a crushing blow to many budding entrepreneurs dreams. So, if you have just launched your startup, what are your options and where can you go to get your hands on that all important funding?

Grants

It is that time of year when the clocks have just turned back, the nights are drawing in and children across the country start to feel a little bit frightened as Halloween fast approaches.

However, this year millions of adults are also filled with fear and it’s not down to the ghosts and ghouls of Halloween. No, this is fear of the unknown because the end of October marks the end of ...

Entrepreneurs and business owners don’t embark on their ventures with the aim of winning awards – definitely not. Their goals are obviously to grow and establish their businesses by increasing their market share and of course making a profit. And if they get nominated for an award along the way then that is merely the icing on the cake. Or is it?

Everybody loves winning

The UK government’s approach to coronavirus support for businesses during the 2020 pandemic has been admirable. The Job Retention Scheme was the first to be launched and was the most inclusive, safeguarding the jobs of almost nine million workers. This was followed by a variety of business support grants, loans and rates relief schemes devised to help businesses of all sizes and across all sect...