Our new business information wiki – Business Essentials on the Web

As part of our continuing experimination with all things Web 2.0 (Social Media) we have created a wiki for essential business information. Still currently in beta, this wiki is a designed to allow any of my British Library business information colleagues to add useful links.

 

But more revolutionary (for the British Library) is that we are also opening up the wiki to anyone who has useful information to add. In particular our partners, who have expertise in a wide range of business support activities.

 

The wiki will be of help to people who are not able to come and visit our St Pancras building, and who find that Google does not provide all the answers.

 

Obviously we ony want useful content on the wiki, and will be taking any spam off straight away, much like you see on Wikipedia. Our wiki guidelines explain in more detail.

 

Please join our little community and add your comments and submit links of your own.

http://bl-business-essentials.wikispaces.com

 

The current hot topics are, Business planning, Grants and finance, Industry specific, Intellectual property, Marketing and PR.

If you have any ideas or comments on the wiki, you can email bipc@bl.uk

Starting a business is like playing at Pooh Sticks

During a recent training event I was fortunate to hear Bryan Mills speak. Bryan has had a long and successful career creating and managing IT related businesses (although without an IT background himself). His particular claim to fame is building CMG from a two person business, operating from the founder’s homes in 1965, into a multinational FTSE1oo business.

During his fascinating talk recounting lessons learnt from a lifetime as an entrepreneur he used the analogy of playing Pooh Sticks for business start-up.

As both a fan of the game from early childhood, and having grown up very near to the home of Winnie-the-Pooh the inventor of the game in Hartfield, West Sussex, Bryan caught my attention.

When you are planning to start a business you look down into the swirling river below (the market place for you product or service), you try as hard as you can to see where the current is flowing strongest and is least turbulent (assessing the market opportunity with published and field market research). You drop your stick in as carefully and accurately as you can (detailed business plan preparation). And once it is in, you follow it with Eagle eyes, watching every bob and weave (you track every activity minutely in your newly founded business).

However once the stick goes under the bridge it moves both out of your control and out of sight, and there is nothing you can do to influence its route down the river, across into a bank of reeds, or dropping down to the bottom of the river bed. This is very much the situation once your business is up and running. All kinds of unpredictable events can knock you off course, or sink the business altogether.

Karan Bilimoria and the story of Cobra Beer

Another late night for me last Thursday night. This time to attend the Chartered Management Institute 2009 Sir Kenneth Cork lecture. It was organised by my friend Chris Seow from the University of East London who is the current chair of the City of London Branch of the CMI.

I have to admit I was reluctant to spend another evening in London and went along to support Chris. However, I am glad I made the effort as the talk by Karan Billimoria was absolutely fascinating.

Even while waiting for Lord Bilimoria to start I heard an amazing story from Darren Way the founder of Streets of Growth.

Streets of Growth is a dynamic community leadership organisation founded in 2001 and led by local people in Bromley by Bow East London. Committed community adult and young people work together to offer real solutions and practical approaches to tackling the issues that people face in their local community and so develop sustainable and healthier communities in the East End.

Although I had not been following the Cobra beer story closely, I was aware (along with everyone else in the audience) that they had gone bust in May of this year and had been rescued by the giant Canadian brewery firm Molson Coors.

I was wondering if Lord Bilimoria would mention what seemed to be an unfortunate end to what had been an amazing success story up till that time. His first slide gave an indication that he would not be skirting around the painful aspects of his fascinating twenty year story to bring a new beer brand into mass consumption. The title of the slide was ‘Adapt or Die’. He immediately began to explain how quickly the
credit crunch had impacted high growth business such as his, who were dependent on external finance for expansion. As he pointed out, prior to the crash, cash had been king, but then it became an emperor.

Fortunately, he then went back to the beginning of his story, and spent an hour giving an absolutely riveting speech which concluded with the painful details of the collapse and eventual revival of the business.

As with so many entrepreneurs Lord Bilimoria went against his parents wishes with his plans to start his own business. Although his father as head of the 350,000 strong Indian Army did not want Karan to follow him into the military, he felt a career in the City of London would be a more appropriate use of his Cambridge University education. He was told ‘you should get a real job like a banker’.

But, he had developed a love for beer and recognised there was a significant gap in the market between traditional British bitter beer, and the sharp and gassy lager beers available at that time. There was nothing that was a suitable accompaniment to curry meals in Indian restaurants.

The second slide of the talk consisted of just three words, ‘Aspiration, Inspiration, Perspiration’. He reinforced my experience of dealings with entrepreneurs that the business idea is the easy part. Bringing it to production and then to the market is the hard bit, and may take many years.

Lord Bilimoria went to give many instances when his business nearly died. Often from causes which could never have been predicted. For example, a one year boycott of his product by Indian restaurants (his primary customers), after an article criticising the professionalism of the restaurant owners in a trade magazine which Karan had founded, but no longer had links to. In each of these ‘near-death’ experiences it was always flexibility and a creative approach that led to a solution.

It was good to hear his quite confidence about the new opportunities the partnership with Molson Coors would lead to. He said they were moving from a David vs Goliath situation to one where David and Goliath were working together. He had been impressed by the family culture that was still present despite the global size of the company, and how they had been true to their initial agreement despite the financial turmoil of the period when Cobra was forced into a Company Voluntary Arrangement.

He concluded by listing the Molson Coors definition of what makes a remarkable brand:
1.    A compelling story
2.    Refusing to compromise
3.    An instantly recognisable look
4.    A unique, relevant and consistent product
5.    To inspire brand champions from customers
6.    To deliver enduring profits

Global Entrepreneurship Week 2009

In just over a months time it will be Global Entrepreneurship Week 2009. To be precise, it will run from 16 to 20 November and consists of thousands of events around the world, promoting and celebrating entrepreneurship.

This year we are holding a week of special events and workshops, covering essential skills, getting inspiration and confidence, and chances to meet great contacts.

Each day has a different theme, focusing on a particular area of business.

Here is a summary of our activities, with more information on our website pages:

Monday 16 November: Business basics day -The essentials you’ll need to get going in business – finance, market research and business planning.

Tuesday 17 November: Innovation day – Learn how to protect your ideas and make money from them, plus an evening with Lord Sugar.

Wednesday 16 November: Women’s enterprise day – Meet a whole host of female entrepreneurs, from the big names to women that are just getting started.

Thursday 18 November: Social enterprise day – Start thinking about how you could make your business more ethical or take the plunge and set up a social enterprise.

Friday 20 November: Home enterprise day – Find out more about working from home, watch our free online seminar, and meet other home workers.

Saving Britain’s business future

The September issue of Real Business magazine has two mentions of the Business & IP Centre which are so flattering I can’t resist sharing them here.

In an article titled Saving Britain’s future, Charles Orton-Jones produces a 10-point manifesto to rescue Britain’s economy. At number three on the list is Open Business & IP Centres in six cities. To quote the initial text,
‘In 2006, the British Library opened the Business & IP Centre. The centre fuses the British Library’s vast repository of databases and commercial documents with a plethora of services for entrepreneurs – a sort of Pimp my Business Link.’

A few pages later on, in the article 27 champions of entrepreneurial Britain, Catherine Woods puts the British Library in at number 15 – behind Peter Jones, but ahead of Alan Sugar and Richard Branson.

I met the Prime Thinkers mentors

It’s been a busy few weeks for me recently (so much for a quiet summer). So I have quite a few events still to catch up on.

Our Meet the Mentors event on the evening of Tuesday 30 June was a great success, with around 30 mentors and 90 mentees. With a 3 to 1 ratio, and two hours to network, the mentees had plenty of opportunity to find subject experts to match their interests.

I took a group of the mentors around the Business & IP Centre before the event started, as many of them were not aware of the range and depth of our information and services. It was yet another reminder of how much work we still have to do to spread the word about the Centre.

Maurice Collins, the man behind our very popular Weird and Wonderful display last year was his usual charismatic self and reminded the audience of the expanding Prime Thinkers groups, and how all the money from the £100 fee goes to his Kith and Kids’ charity. Their aim is to empower families living with disability to overcome their social isolation and access the services they need.

Given the enthusiasm of my colleague Clare Harris who organised the event, I’m hoping this will be the first of many Meet the Mentor evenings.

Start-ups who think big

On my way home the other evening I noticed an unusual poster advertising the Daily Telegraph newspaper. The poster consisted of three of the photos below, and was a salient reminder of the humble beginnings of what are now household names.

Some of the entrepreneurs I meet have no greater ambition than becoming their own boss and making enough money to be comfortable. However, some have global ambitions right from the beginning. Last week I saw a client who has patented an invention which if successful could be in every home in the world which uses electricity.

BM 1930: Before it became a computing power house, IBM used to manufacture and sell machinery ranging from commercial scales and industrial time recorders to meat and cheese slicers.

Lamborghini 1955: Lamborghini started out as a tractor-building company in the Italian village of Sant'Agata Bolognese.

IKEA started here. Ingvar Kamprad, aged 17, set up Ikea in a shed in Smaland, Southern Sweden. From here he distributed Christmas cards, packets of seeds and pens.

Google started here. Larry Page and Sergey Brin set up Google as a research project while they were Ph.D students at Stanford University. In 1998 they moved into Susan Wojcicki's garage at 232 Santa Margarita, Menlo Park.

It pays to think big, The Daily Telegraph, Britain’s Broadsheet
It pays to think big is the Telegraph’s major new advertising campaign to promote Britain’s best-selling quality daily paper. It pays to think big, proudly celebrates the fact that the Daily Telegraph is the only quality daily paper in the broadsheet format – giving readers more coverage of news, sports and business.

Marketing Maestros: Innovative Strategies for Small Businesses

Many thanks for writing a blog article about Marketing Maestros!  Just a thought – if possible, would you mind adding a link to the webcasts as well?  http://www.inspiringentrepreneurswebcast.co.uk/

Once again a great Inspiring Entrepreneurs panel this evening, with regular chair Matthew Rock (the founder-editor of Real Business) brining his inimitable enthusiasm to the event.

(You can still watch a  webcast of the event at http://www.inspiringentrepreneurswebcast.co.uk/)

Ajaz Ahmed Chairman of AKQA, the world’s largest independent digital agency showed some impressive examples of innovation in advertising, illustrating his point about the importance of originality.

His key message was for his company to let their work do the talking’. In other words, don’t tell you customers how great you are, show them.

Not surprisingly Simon Calver the CEO of LOVEFILM (a £100 million turnover company) is a fan of films, and so used examples to illustrate his four P’s of business success.

P1 – ‘I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse’ (The Godfather).
Focus on the consumer proposition first and worry about building the brand later on. The three legs which hold up his company are choice, value and convenience.

P2 – ‘Self preservation society’ (The Italian Job) i.e. Preserve the cash in the business. Make sure you focus on the time it takes to get cash in and out. If you get it right it gives you a competitive advantage. Also analyse everything you do – where you spend your cash and how you do it.

P3 – Spin City (American sitcom)  Never under-estimate the importance of PR. In his case they have three targets, their investors, trading partners and of course their consumers. You have to be constantly creating new stories about your business the papers will want to publish.

P4 – Passion (a choice of seven films according to Wikipedia) Make sure you surround yourself with great people from the beginning. ‘Fiirst division people recruit first division people’, which makes the business great. Make sure you have fun too. Simon hosts a monthly BBQ for his colleagues. Also reward your people on a quarterly basis (in the case of LOVEFILM bonuses of between 10 and  20%. This allows for more flexibility in changing targets in a fast growing business.

In conclusion, starting a business is probably the most rewarding thing you can do in your life.

Tristram Mayhew the founder and ‘Chief Gorilla’ of Go Ape, the UK’s leading forest-based adventure company talked about Gorilla marketing.

Instead of focussing on their specific activities Go Ape are branding themselves as ‘creating adventures’, and are encouraging everyone to live life more adventurously.

Gorilla marketing means turning your customers into an effective free sales force. These are his tips:
1.    Wow them with what you do.
2.    Delight them – turn complainers into ambassadors.
3.    Build a trust and charm based relationship
4.    … and they will buy more, and more often – Tristram openly admitted that many of their ideas have been borrowed from the Innocent drinks company.
5.    Innovate, validate, cultivate.

Tristram strongly recommended The Brand Gap, it is very readable and nice and short too.

They are building a loyalty base using Tribe magazine (published every 6 weeks) to reinforce brand values.

They also make use of Social Media such as encouraging customers to post videos on YouTube, and have nearly 5,000 to date with hundreds of thousands of views.

By ‘making friends’ with existing adventure bloggers and giving them free Go Ape experiences they hope to generate positive reports online.

‘Doing good things.’ For example to help support gorillas in Rwanda 25 staff and 85 customers completed a fun run dressed as gorillas.

Will King is the ‘King of Shaves’, creator of the cult shaving brand that has overtaken Wilkinson Sword and Nivea to become number two to Gillette in the UK shaving market.

After 16 years of building the brand Will launched his own razor the Azor one year ago almost to the day. They already have up to 10% market share in the UK.

Lessons learnt:

The Harvard rule of 4
1.    No one has it
2.    Every one will have it
3.    Price for profit
4.    Price for sale

Take an existing product and make it better – eg iPhone, Innocent smoothies.

Change constantly, push boundaries – it also helps to generates news stories for PR coverage.

Will introduced his SPACE strategy, which stands for Satisfaction of Success, Passion and Persistence, Attitude of Action, Confidence and Communication and Enthusiasm and Enjoyment.

There is a great degree of satisfaction in succeeding. If you achieve great satisfaction, whatever that is, it may be having children or running a marathon, but you’ve got to work at that. There’s no substitute for hard work to get that satisfaction of success, which feeds on to the passion and persistence bit. Things don’t happen overnight, it takes years to become truly successful..

You’ve got to have a can-do attitude to get things done; if you can’t be bothered who else will? The confidence and common sense part relates to having confidence in yourself and what you’re doing but not being delusional; if you try to take on Apple with an iPhone it’s a big ask, but if you want to come up with a cover to protect the iPhone clearly that’s something you could do.

There’s a certain amount when you’ve got to have confidence beyond the success that you don’t enjoy, especially when you’re starting out – people won’t give you credit, people don’t believe you’re going to do it, people think you’ll go bust, you’ll owe them money, and you’ve got to imbue them with confidence if you’re going to be successful.

And finally the enthusiasm and enjoyment piece; if you’re not enjoying it then nobody else is, especially if you’re leading a business. So have enthusiasm, have an edge about what you’re about to do because people do look to you, especially if you’re running a business or are involved in senior management. If you can’t get them motivated by transferring your enthusiasm to them, then how are they going to transfer their enthusiasm either to the products you sell or to the services you provide? They’re not.

Many thanks for writing a blog article about Marketing Maestros!  Just a thought – if possible, would you mind adding a link to the webcasts as well?  http://www.inspiringentrepreneurswebcast.co.uk/

Beginners Guide to Business Finance with Johnny Martin

From time to time I take time out to attend one of our partners workshops. This enables me to recommend them to clients and visitors to the Business & IP Centre from personal experience and hopefully to learn something new and useful.

I have been aware of my lack of understanding of business accounts (despite having spent 16 years working for an investment company in the City of London). So although familiar with the terms gross and net profit, cash versus accruals, assets versus liabilities and not forgetting the many and varied ratios such as: Liquidity, Asset turnover, Financial leverage and of course Profitability, I wasn’t confident about what they actually meant.

If you had watched the semi-final of the latest BBC Apprentice series, you would have seen the eventual winner get in something of a muddle about the difference between net and gross profit for the business she had been successfully running for six years.

Now, thanks to attending our Beginners Guide to Business Finance course run by Johnny Martin I am feeling much more confident about how to create a set of management accounts (both for before and after a business starts). And I am now more familiar with these important business concepts. I particularly liked the way he used live spreadsheets to show the impact of a change in price or order volume on the profit (or loss) for the year.

My favourite quote from Johnny after explaining the roles of various accounting jobs from Book keeper to Financial Director was, ‘you can delegate but DON’T abdicate’, financial responsibility for your business. The experiences of both Elton John and Leonard Cohen are salutary reminders of this point.

The courses cost just £18 and are run at regular intervals here in the British Library.

A role model for sustainable business

As mentioned in a previous post, more and more new business are setting up with various shades of green when it comes to their impact on the environment.

However the real challenge, and the real scope and need for change, is with existing traditional firms. For example carpet tile manufacturing. Well, having just watched an inspiring TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) video, I think I may have seen the answer. Ray Anderson the CEO of global carpet company Interface outlines his vision for sustainable commerce, with their Mission Zero commitment to eliminate any negative impact Interface has on the environment by 2020.

He shows how they have increased sales and doubled profits while turning the traditional “take / make / waste” industrial system on its head.

Not only are they acting as a role model by proving how this can be done successfully, they are helping other corporates by developing a business model for them to follow.

The Interface model for sustainable business has emerged, one that guides our journey and from which other businesses can draw inspiration and design their own journeys. As we put the model to work within Interface, we set forth our vision and, imagining all it would take to realize it, developed the Seven Fronts™. We then put in place measurements, called Ecometrics™, to monitor our progress and keep us on our journey’s path. Learn more about the 7 Fronts of Sustainability.

How good is your Escalator Pitch?

I often ask my business advice clients if they have an elevator pitch. Quite a few have not heard this expression before which surprises me.

The basic idea is that in the fortunate event you find yourself in a lift with a potential backer for your business (think Richard Branson), could you convey the essentials of your idea or invention before he got out on the 20th floor?

In practice this means between 30 seconds and two minutes to express all the salient (selling) points without any waffle, which for some of my clients is a challenge to say the least.

To see examples of this in an even more demanding environment head over to Techfluff.tv to watch one of their many escalator pitches. Just be aware that practicing this on the London Underground might get you arrested.

Another inspiring place to visit for when you get a little bit longer to get your idea across (in this case 6 minutes), is Demo.com. In particular have a look at some of the Demo Gods in action to see how it should be done by the best of the best.

About DEMO
The feel you get when you enter the ballroom at DEMO is unlike any other conference. Each company is given just six minutes on the DEMO stage to truly demonstrate how their product will change the world. No PowerPoint or flashy corporate presentations allowed. Just the founders and the technologies many are staking their careers on… it doesn’t get any more straightforward and fast paced than that.

Vote for your favourite marketing hero

As if compiling votes on the favourite brand of the last 50 years wasn’t enough, the Marketing Society also wants to see who is your marketing hero.

There is quite a long list to choose from, but I was disappointed they only managed to find two women; Anita Roddick of The Body Shop fame, and Dianne Thompson the CEO of Camelot Group who run the UK National Lottery. I have added a few others to see who you recognise.

Follow the risers and fallers on the FairTrade 100

Having spent much of my working life working in the investment world of the City of London, the various share indices were bread and butter to me. My key one was actually the FTSE All Share, but the FTSE 100 was a regular feature in my working day.

So I was pleasantly surprised to see that the good people at World Fair Trade Day have developed their own take on the indices by introducing the FT100 for organisations that are “100% committed to Fair Trade”.

You may recognize some familiar names on the list such as Oxfam, Traidcraft, and one of our recent Inspiring Entrepreneurs speakers – People Tree.

However, the nicest surprise, was to see the only company I have ever directly bought shares in sitting in the list. I bought 1,000 shares in Cafédirect over five years ago, and since then the company has gone from strength to strength.

Cafédirect is the UK’s largest Fairtrade hot drinks company. Our brands, Cafédirect, Teadirect and Cocodirect are sold through most of the major supermarkets. We buy from 39 producer organisations in 13 countries, ensuring that over a quarter of a million growers receive a decent income from trade. We are proud to be working with farmers who have the expertise to provide the exceptional quality we require. This ensures that you enjoy the finest selection of coffees, teas and chocolate drinks. As part of our Gold Standard Fairtrade policy, over the past three years we have invested on average 60% of our profits in the businesses and communities of our grower partners.

Desk Space Genie for vacant desk space in London

A common request from visitors to the Business & IP Centre is for us to recommend cheap local office space.

Thanks to Desk Space Genie, a new website that advertises vacant desk space, we can now help people find space right down to an individual desk.

According to Springwise:

The service helps businesses make a bit of money from their unused office space and enables cash-strapped freelancers or other small businesses to become more established.

Desk Space Genie lets space-seeking ‘deskers’ search for a space by postal code or town, contacting the advertisers directly. The site lists vacancies in most major cities around the UK, covering ‘all inclusive’ desk packages with wifi and other utilities, or more basic ‘pay for what you use’ services.

Business tips from the experts

I spent a bit of time today exploring our collection of videos on the Business & IP Centre Inspiring Entrepreneurs YouTube Channel.

We now have 71 videos to choose from with ex-Dragon Doug Richard the most popular with over 9,000 views.

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I decided to have a look at those videos which languish at the other end of the viewing spectrum and came across some pearls of wisdom from the late Anita Roddick.

Her talk was part of our Commerce with a Conscience event from January 2007, and although I was fortunate enough to be present that evening, I had forgotten what an amazing (and unpredictable) speaker she was.

Here are a few quotes to indicate what I mean:

“As entrepreneurs you are incredibly creative, you vomit ideas.”

“What you are lousy at is management, I couldn’t manage my way out of a paper bag.”

“Successful social entrepreneurs are pathologically optimistic.”

Here are just a few of her ideas from the evening:

1. You need to find people who can expedite your ideas, as you won’t have the skills.

2. Set clear goals. Napoleon Hill author of Think and Grow Rich. interviewed some of the richest people in the world in the 1920’s, and distilled their views. The key point was to be so clear of your objective you can visualise it. My subsequent experience as a business advisor has reinforced this view. Only those entrepreneurs who really see where they are going with their business or their idea will succeed in the long run.

3. Learn what you need to know, then network with people who have expertise and knowledge and ask them questions. It seem women entrepreneurs a much better at this than their male counterparts.

4. Copy other people’s ideas if they are great ones. Anita learnt about using tours as a way of inspiring staff and customers from Ben & Jerry’s.

5. Enthusiasm can overcome almost all barriers.

6. Don’t borrow money from close friends or family, as it can lead to control issues.

7. Find your area of excellence.

PitchTV – your chance to make your pitch to Richard Branson

Perhaps not surprisingly in these YouTube obsessed times, there has been something of a rash of video-pitching websites. A friendly version of Dragon’s Den? and See my pitch are just two that I have covered previously.

However, when Richard Branson of Virgin fame gets involved you just know there will be a lot of interest.

PitchTV gives you the “chance to pitch your business idea directly to people who could make your ambition a reality.”

Once a month we’ll pick out a selection of the best video pitches and then let everyone vote for their favourite. Each month the five most popular video pitches will make it on to the PitchTV show which will premiere on Virgin Atlantic’s in-flight entertainment – to be seen by top business professionals from around the world.

So if you think you have the media friendly features to make it through to the final round, then why not give it a go.

http://entrepreneur.virgin.com/pitchtv/

The World Bank ‘Doing Business’

A recent special report in the Economist on entrepreneurship included an article on the World Bank annual Doing Business report.

I have to confess to not having heard of this before. It is a ‘naming and shaming’ report which rates countries for their business-friendliness, by measuring business regulations, property rights and access to credit.

Since the first edition in 2004 it has resulted in more than 1,000 reforms across the 180 countries on the list.

Most of these have been in developing countries, with the top reformers of 2007-8 being Senegal, Burkina Faso and Botswana.

However, the developed nations have not stood still either, with efforts to make it easier to start a new business. In Canada it is now possible to start a business using just one form.

According the the Economist article, Robert Litan of the Kauffman Foundation, suggests the World Bank may have done more good by compiling the Doing Business lists than a significant part of the enormous funds it has lent over the years.

The Chartered Management Institute ‘does’ the Apprentice

Interesting to see that the Chartered Management Institute has started it’s first official blog specifically to comment on the latest series of the Apprentice on BBC television.

I know the show is very popular so I assume they are using this factor to attract visitors. However, they are right in thinking the show is an ideal opportunity to illustrate how management techniques should be applied to solve problems. This in stark contrast to what happens most of the time on the show. The very first episode The Demise of Anita provided a neat lead-in to the role of budgeting.

I think there were several management related issues covered in last night’s show, but with the demise of Anita revolving around her budgeting problems that seems a sensible topic to focus on for this weeks Apprentice blog.

A budget is a statement of expected expenditure or income that has been allocated under a set of headings, for a set period of time. Budgets = incomings as well as outgoings

Sadly you feel that this was the element of budgeting that was severely lacking in yesterday’s task.  Anita was very diligently counting up how much was being spent by the girls, but no mention was given to exactly how much they expected to make.  The checklist outlines some steps you should be taking when drawing up your budget (the following is just a sample).

1. Identify the key plans and objectives – In its simplest sense, to make more money than the other team
2. Determine the key or limiting factors – You only have 1 day’s trading so payback period is very important.
3. What is coming in? – What are your revenue forecasts?  Indeed were there any revenue forecasts?  On this count the boys were much better and factored this into their pitch before heading out to meet the mini cab company.
4. What is going out? – This part Anita seemed to have covered.  She knew exactly how much was being spent.
5. Think through the fixed and variable costs – Last night’s task was simplified in this sense as no labour costs or anything were factored in.
6. Collect all the information you need to set this year’s budget – Another failing for the girls (and to be fair the boys too) here, they gathered no information on how much a car wash could fetch, and therefore how many cars they would need to wash to break even when the money was being spent.  Only in the car afterwards did they question the budget spend and how many cars they would need to wash to break even.
7. Ask some important questions – Basic risk analysis is required when setting a budget, what factors could throw your predictions?  Are your assumptions suitably accurate?
Of course the producers engineer the aprentice activities (usually by allowing insufficient planning time) to ensure things go wrong to provide entertainment for the viewers.

One of the things that really annoys me about the show is the misleading impression it creates of business life. For instance teams really need to work together and support each other when things go wrong. A blame culture is not conducive to business success. Even more misleading is the way ‘Srallen’ is able to fire staff on a whim. Even in these recessionary times HR policies rightly give protection to staff, unless they have received previous warnings, or for gross misconduct. The I am being fired website has more details on what happens in the real world.

Update to our first Free Live Webcast – Mothers of Invention

After a few minor technical hitches I managed to watch the webcast of our Mothers of Invention Inspiring Entrepreneurs event last night.

Although the image was small and a bit grainy the sound was excellent and it almost felt like being there, particularly during the question and answer session.

Highlights for me were Liz Jackson the founder of Great Guns Marketing who had left school with just one GCSE, but through the help her first boss who became her mentor and an unofficial apprenticeship, has become a leader in her field.

Her top tips were:

• Don’t be a nearly man or women. Make every single day count. Pull your finger out and get on with it.
• Don’t believe in luck – Her definition of luck is where hard work meets opportunity.
• And a quote from Henry Ford I had not heard before. “If you think you can, or you think you can’t; you are absolutely right“

It was also fascinating to hear how difficult it was for Gurinder Chadha the director of Bend it Like Beckham to get funding for the film, even with a previous success under her belt.

Our first Free Live Webcast – Mothers of Invention

I am proud of the way my colleagues in the British Library have adopted and experimented with Web 2.0 and social media in the past three years.

We have activities in Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Linkedin, a free e-course on intellectual property, a good old fashioned monthly e-newsletter and of course our two blogs on business and intellectual property.

Our next venture is into the world of live webcasting starting on Tuesday 10 March 2009 at 6.30pm (UK time) with Mothers of Invention.

Not only will you be able to watch our Inspiring Entrepreneurs event online at website www.inspiringentrepreneurswebcast.co.uk/, but also put questions to our panel of experts.

	Gurinder Chadha OBE is one of Britain’s most successful film directors, best known for Bend it Like Beckham, Bride and Prejudice and, most recently, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging. Born in Kenya, she began her career at the BBC before making a huge impact with Bhaji on the Beach in 1993.
	Liz Jackson MBE started her telemarketing business Great Guns at the age of 25, with few educational qualifications and a £4,000 loan from The Prince’s Trust. In the first year of her business, she lost her eyesight, yet has gone on to build a £3m-turnover business with eight offices across the UK.
	Laura Tenison conceived her children’s clothes business in 1993 after a severe car accident in France; the woman in the hospital bed beside her complained about the standard of mail-order kids’ clothes. Today JoJo Maman Bebe is an award-winning multi million-pound retailer with stores across the UK.
	Dee Wright’s business The Hairforce is an innovative nit and lice removal service.  After just three sessions with one of Dee’s “lice assassins” both the nits and the lice are gone, and children are treated like VIPs in a massage chair; the whole experience is fuss-free. Dee supports female staff by providing a job which they can fit around school hours.

The British Library is bringing together four trailblazing British women for an evening of inspiration in celebration of International Women’s Month. If you can’t make the event, you can still join in the debate by watching our live webcast.

In partnership with HSBC, the world’s local bank.

Our speakers:
Gurinder Chadha OBE, director of Bend it Like Beckham and Bride and Prejudice
Liz Jackson MBE, founder of telemarketing business Great Guns
Laura Tenison MBE, who runs award-winning mother and baby brand JoJo Maman Bebe
Dee Wright, the brains behind The Hairforce, an innovative nit and lice removal service

How to watch:
How: Visit the website www.inspiringentrepreneurswebcast.co.uk/
Date: Tuesday 10 March 2009
Time: 18.30 – 20.00 (GMT)

Don’t worry if you can’t make this time; you’ll be able to view the webcast after the event.