The recent outbreak of the Covid-19 virus has prompted a large number of businesses to consider asking their staff to work from home. But working from home is not a new phenomenon. The UK has one of the highest proportions of home-based workers, which has grown significantly over the last decade as more people choose…
Category: Sunday supplement
“My customers don’t go on Facebook” she told me.
I was chatting with a successful businesswoman this week who has an in-demand service in a well-defined niche. In fact she targets females within that niche. Clever. I asked how she generated leads and found new customers to which she replied “Networking, but its time consuming and I’m not growing as fast as I’d like”.…
Are you becoming a dinosaur?
I have supported Liverpool FC for a long time. I can remember the heady days of the 70s and 80s when they were European champions. For nearly a generation, between 1975 and 1990, Liverpool were dominant. They won 10 titles in England’s top division. They won the European Cup, which preceded the Champions League, four times…
The deficit myth
This week’s Sunday Supplement is a little different from usual. I’d like you to watch a short video of the 2020 Harcourt Lecture by Professor Stephanie Kelton. Her lecture starts after 10 mins (you can skip the introduction) and last for 40 mins. It is worth the investment of your time. Stephanie explains why austerity did more harm…
You can spend it, but can you buy it?
A phenomenon has occurred in recent years that has almost gone unnoticed by most of us. It was always said that time is the only thing we spend but cannot buy. But in recent years more and more businesses have been created that give us the opportunity to ‘buy’ time that we would otherwise spend…
Forty years and counting…
I have been a Chartered Accountant for over 40 years; The 1970s, when I qualified, were pretty grim politically and economically with a great deal of industrial unrest. I didn’t care. I’d spent 3 years at University, got the job I wanted, spent another 3 years training as a chartered accountant, got married, bought my…
Looking at the books, you can see a litany of accounting failures.
After my father died I found among his papers a booklet detailing the history of his mother’s family, the Goodliffes, over several generations during the 19th century, during which they built a thriving wholesale grocery business in the Midlands. In one passage it describes how Thomas Goodliffe, my great-grandfather, went on the first escorted tour…
He didn’t know it was impossible
Did you see Messi’s goal? No, stay with me! This football related analogy has an important message for your business. I’ve been a Liverpool FC fan for more years than I can remember. Last week they played Barcelona FC in the semi-final of the Champions League. They are demonstrably two of the best teams in…
How Universal Credit is destroying a once great nation
Regular readers of my blog will know that on occasion I hand over the pen, metaphorically speaking, to highlight some injustice that should concern us all. Last week the Trussell Trust reported that it handed out over 1.6m food parcels last year, over 500,000 of them to children, as benefit cuts, Universal Credit delays, and rising poverty fuelled…
You just can’t get good staff any more.
‘Really?’ I said. ‘It can’t be that hard’. ‘It’s almost impossible’ he replied. ‘There are so few people on the market and none of them are any good’. It wasn’t a conversation I wanted to continue with. After a couple more questions I said: ‘Thank-you for your time, but on balance I don’t think we…
