Let’s Get Down to Business | Episode 2 out now!

I’ve been pinged!

I knew it was going to happen. Two of the younger members of my family have tested positive for Covid (they’re ok) so inevitably I got the same message on my phone that apparently 600,000 other people have got. You must isolate.

I’m not the only one at A4G. We have one positive test and a few others who have also been pinged.

Of course, we have an infrastructure that allows us to get on with our jobs without leaving our homes. Obviously my plans for a weekend of clubbing are in ribbons but I think I’ll get over that.

But for businesses who provide services that require their staff to visit customers, this is devastating. If you operate on a net 10% margin and 10% of your staff are self-isolating, that’s your profit gone.

In amongst this, let’s salute all those who are starting up new businesses.

In twenty years’ time, they will look back at the circumstances of how they started and feel a huge sense of pride. Well hopefully they will. Because a recent study by the Federation of Small Businesses suggested that 20-25% of new business fail in their first year. Of those, it suggested that 42% failed due to their being no market need for their service or product. 29% failed because they ran out of cash and 23% failed as they didn’t have the right team running the business. And that’s in normal times!

As always, A4G does their bit to help and if you’re starting up, in your first few years or just looking for a bit of a re-fresh, our latest podcast is for you.

In this episode we cover: