Simon Cureton acknowledges that the view of entrepreneurs and business owners as time-poor is something of a cliché. But as CEO of financing platform Funding Options, he’s seen plenty of evidence that it’s one that’s firmly based on fact. In a little over ten years, Funding Options have assisted more than 10,000 businesses in the UK and the Netherlands to find finance, and until quite recently their owners and management teams have had to devote a significant amount of time and effort to put together the paperwork to support their applications. Until a couple of years ago, for instance, they had to send bank statements, sometimes hundreds of pages of them, by email or even fax.

Open Banking has revolutionised this situation, freeing up business owners’ time so that they can focus on the tasks that can really make a difference to their business. In Simon’s experience, using Open Banking has in some instances cut the time taken for a lender to approve an application to a matter of twenty seconds. In one case the time from the moment the lender received the application to the moment when the customer received the funds in their bank was just 18 minutes.

And it’s not simply about speed. By ending the reliance on vulnerable systems like fax or email in favour of ultra-secure data exchange via APIs, Open Banking minimises the risk that anyone might leak or tamper with the information. In terms of quality, by enabling access to a wide range of itemised data in real time, Open Banking allows lenders to make better informed, more accurate, bespoke decisions, and so add a great deal of value to their customers’ business.

Ultimately, Simon believes that’s it all about delivering vital services faster and more securely to British SMEs, helping them and the UK economy to thrive.

Read more

Open banking levels the playing field for SMEs

The post Open Banking appeared first on Small Business UK.

Simon Cureton, CEO of Funding Options observes that in recent years there’s been something of a “green boom”, with huge rises in the share prices of eco-friendly businesses like Tesla. It’s part of a growing international trend for consumers to look hard at the climate impact of the products they buy, and at the social and environmental policies of the companies they buy them from.

At the same time, there’s been a corresponding trend towards green finance, with lenders increasingly channelling their investments towards businesses with good ESG records.

For one thing, this means that SMES, like all businesses, will need to smarten up their green strategies if they’re looking to secure funding, but they should also take note of the opportunities. For instance, some lenders have been offering preferential rates to businesses that have bona fide green credentials. That’s one of the factors behind recent research findings which show that companies with good records in ESG generally enjoy a lower cost of capital.

Simon accepts that it can be very hard to tell exactly which companies are genuinely green, and which are just paying lip service in order to burnish their green credentials. Investigating and validating each potential borrower’s or lender’s green policies and performance is something of a minefield, he says, and to help them find their way safely through it Funding Options has set up a green finance marketplace. Its aim is to bring together companies that offer sustainable and environmentally friendly products and services with lenders which have authentically green policies or which offer financial products specifically designed to fund the purchase or leasing of green assets. 

Simon believes that the green boom has developed an unstoppable momentum.

The climate crisis is sure to remain a key concern for organisations and individuals for many years to come, and any business that plans to survive and prosper in the coming decades will need to adopt a sustainable business model.

Read more

Where to find green small business grants

Looking for finance? SmallBusiness.co.uk is working in partnership with trusted lenders to help you find the best business funding deals. Find out more here.

The post Green finance appeared first on Small Business UK.

Simon Cureton has more than twenty years’ experience in finance, ranging from global corporate banks to alternative lending startups. He’s now CEO of Funding Options, the leading funding platform for SMEs in the UK and the Netherlands, so he’s well aware of the challenges that entrepreneurs and management teams face in securing the finance they need to grow and thrive.

Simon has seen the funding landscape shaken by two major shocks in not much more than a decade. First, the 2008 crash paralysed the whole lending market, drying up the liquidity in the system and placing the big banks under huge pressure. On the positive side, this jumpstarted the rise of a host of alternative, non-bank lenders offering innovative solutions such as peer-to-peer lending and funding circles.

Recovery was painfully slow, and before it was really complete, Covid changed the whole landscape once again, cutting off many businesses’ established revenue streams and forcing them to move online. The upside this time was that this gave further impetus to the digitalisation process that had been gathering pace over the last few years.

In business finance, lenders have been forced to be agile and innovative. New products are emerging all the time, and if entrepreneurs know where to go, they can secure the funding they need far more rapidly and efficiently than ever before. But that’s a big if. The lending market now is fragmented, constantly churning, and extremely confusing.  

Funding Options’ aim is to help SMEs cut through this complexity and point them quickly towards the right lender and the right form of finance for them. The company takes care of the due diligence and allows borrowers access to all of the market in one hit, offering products ranging from merchant cash advances to property asset finance.

Simon Cureton believes that there are a few simple steps that business owners can take to improve their chances of securing that funding. They need to inform themselves about the market, get their management accounts in good order, and make sure they can communicate clearly what challenges their business faces and why they’re seeking finance.

Read more

Embrace your unconventional superpowers

Looking for finance? SmallBusiness.co.uk is working in partnership with trusted lenders to help you find the best business funding deals. Find out more here.

The post The funding landscape appeared first on Small Business UK.

It’s a rare small business that doesn’t go through some periods of financial adversity, whether it’s right at the start or as it begins to scale up. Andrew Walsh believes that entrepreneurs will be much better placed to deal with those difficult periods if they take the time to learn at least the basics of accounting.

In this case a little learning shouldn’t be a dangerous thing, because it will mean you’re exposed to far fewer of those nasty moments when your banker jabs a finger at your balance sheet and asks, “how are you going to fund this?”

You’ll still need to hire an accountant and a credit controller of course, unless you want to spend a lot of your precious time with your company’s books, but when you need to go to the bankers for a loan it’s a big help if you can speak their language.

It’s great if you can start up without any debt, but it’s important not to be underfunded. If you don’t have enough cash in a young business, you risk stunting its growth. If you do decide you need finance, check to see if any grants are available before you turn to the banks.

Banks are often reluctant to lend to small businesses, and there’s a fair chance that any loan they offer will be conditional on security against your assets. You need to look hard at the terms, because they can be extremely rigorous. Plan for the worst-case scenario, and whatever decision you make, be sure that you can deal with the repercussions.

But Andrew believes that determination and persistence are even more important than talent, and it’s when their business is struggling that entrepreneurs prove their mettle.
They need to roll their sleeves up and never lose sights of their goals.

Read more

Hiring an accountant: A small business guide

The post What to do when facing financial adversity appeared first on Small Business UK.

As a keen diver, Andrew Walsh has seen first-hand the damage that carbon emissions are causing to our oceans, and he’s committed to playing his part in the effort to reduce the devastation of the natural world before it’s too late.

As an entrepreneur, he’s also aware that there’s an increasing expectation on the part of customers, partners and investors that all businesses should prove that they’re doing everything in their power to minimise their impact on the environment.

Those are two of the reasons why AW Repair Group has committed to cutting its carbon footprint by 2 per cent year on year.

In partnership with an environmental consultancy, the Group has been through a thorough review of its activities: maximising the use of renewable energy sources, working with suppliers to minimise deliveries, specifying new equipment with variable speed or fuel saver modes, introducing a fleet of electric and hybrid courtesy cars, disposing of its waste responsibly and implementing efficiencies in every area of its operations.

>See also: 8 of the best electric cars for small business leasing

As a result, the whole AW network has now achieved carbon neutrality to the PAS2060 standard.

It’s taken a lot of time and effort, there have been costs in the short term and there’ll be further costs down the line for carbon offsetting. But Andrew sees all this as an essential investment to safeguard the Group’s reputation as a responsible and sustainable business.

Above all, it’s part of AW’s contribution to the global campaign to ensure that we leave
the planet in the best possible shape for our children and grandchildren.

More articles to help make your small business greener

How to win £4,500 to make your small business green

4 ways small businesses can become more environmentally friendly

Where to find green small business grants

The post Why you should become carbon neutral appeared first on Small Business UK.

At what point can you say that your business has made it? According to Andrew Walsh,
the answer is never. As soon as you take your foot off the pedal, the danger is that you’ll slip back. You have to keep on ratcheting up.

Andrew believes that one of the hardest things for an entrepreneur is to be critical of their creation, but they need to take a regular look at every aspect of it with a detached, objective eye. They need to be their own troubleshooter, and identify two or three things that need to be fixed now. And when they’ve done that, they need to do it again and again.

And entrepreneurs should also be looking for continuous improvement in their own performance. One way he does that is by studying the biographies of leaders he admires in business and politics and identifying any features he can adopt as leader of AW Repair Group.

Andrew is also a firm believer in keeping a keen eye on the wider world, through trusted news channels like Bloomberg and Reuters. It’s a routine that has helped him detect emerging trends in good time and prepare himself and the business to respond accordingly.  

It may sound a little premature, but in order to protect your hard-earned success you need to start thinking about succession management. If you’re ultimately looking to sell the business, you’ll need to convince potential buyers that it can continue to flourish without you at the controls. It’s a question of picking the right team, mentoring them and giving them appropriate opportunities.

Sometimes you’ll need to persuade people that they have skills they were unaware of; sometimes you’ll have to, very tactfully, convince them that they don’t have the strengths they think they have.

Once you’ve got the right team, with everyone playing to their strengths, you’ll be able to do the hardest thing of all: letting go.

Read more

Why ignoring employee weaknesses is bad for your business

The post How to protect your success appeared first on Small Business UK.

From sporting champions to showbiz celebrities, not many days seem to pass just now without some public figure declaring that they’re taking time out to deal with their mental health issues.

If you’re fully engaged with getting your business going, you might be tempted to think that that’s a luxury you can’t afford, but Andrew Walsh believes that mental health is an issue that entrepreneurs need to take very seriously – starting with their own.

It can be lonely at the top of any business, particularly when you haven’t yet had time to build your teams, and it’s all too easy to pile pressure on yourself by thinking you need to know all the answers. Before that pressure becomes too intense, you need to make sure that you’ve got strong emotional support from your family and friends.

And you need to cultivate other networks too. It’s very easy to dismiss those invitations from your bankers or accountants to networking meetings, but just occasionally they can put you in touch with people who can provide reliable advice in areas from employment law and pensions to insurance – all those subjects where you really don’t have time to become your own expert.

Leaders need to devote a lot of thought to their workers’ wellbeing too. Be on the lookout for anyone showing signs of stress, and take the time to sit down with them and talk through their problems. At AW Repair Group they’ve also introduced Mental Health Champions – selected individuals who act as conduits through which people can get access to professional advice whenever they need it.   

The time you put into promoting the wellbeing of your people is one of the best investments you can make, and should bring rich returns in loyalty, productivity and customer satisfaction.

Read more

SME wellbeing tips from performance coach, Phillippa Hurrell – a podcast

The post Why it’s important to create support networks appeared first on Small Business UK.

Of course it’s great when your business begins to grow, but growth can generate a fair few challenges too. In this Masterclass Andrew Walsh, founder and CEO of AW Repair Group, will look at some of the issues entrepreneurs face as they start to scale up.

There’s one particular danger that they need to look out for: the temptation to spend too much time working in the business rather than on it. For Andrew, the image that springs to mind is of a captain who’s down below in the engine room when they should be upstairs on deck with their hands on the wheel. If all their attention is on shovelling fuel they won’t notice when the ship starts heading towards the rocks.

So as their business gets bigger, entrepreneurs need to accept that they can’t do everything – or at least that they can’t do everything well. They need to build a team and they need to learn to delegate.

Andrew reflects on the qualities to look for in a new recruit and on the strategies you need to keep people fully motivated and playing to their strengths. When you’re dealing with a small workforce, it’s not too difficult to keep in touch with your people’s feelings and ambitions, but as you scale up, you’ll soon need to introduce more formal review procedures.

You need to talk to all of your people, at all levels, and be approachable and communicative – but without getting too pally. If that happens, it can get tricky when you need to impose discipline and issue reprimands. As in so many cases, it’s a question of balance.

Getting this balance right can be tricky. Walsh goes into more detail in the YouTube video above.

Read more

Four ways to keep teamwork alive as you scale up

The post How to grow your team appeared first on Small Business UK.

In 1988 Andrew Walsh founded the AW Repair Group. Starting out on a shoestring, with a staff of just two, the business has grown to become one of the leaders in the UK’s bodyshop industry, with eleven branches across the East Midlands and a workforce of more than two hundred. In recent years, the Group has been selected among the London Stock Exchange’s Top 1000 Companies to Inspire Britain, and Andrew himself has just been named among the industry’s top influencers.

Among the factors behind the Group’s success have been its ability to identify and anticipate trends in the automotive industry, and its willingness to invest in people and technology to keep it ahead of the field. But there’s obviously a lot more to it than that, and over the course of this series of this Masterclass series Andrew will share some of the experience he’s picked up along the way.

As we’ll see in this first episode, he’s a great believer in the power of the brand. Right from the start, he feels, a business needs to think hard about the image it wants to project and to employ professional designers to ensure that every aspect of its branding matches its vision. It’s well worth spending whatever time it takes to get it right, because it should last you for years to come. You don’t want to be chopping and changing.

And even if cash is short, a small business should invest in promotional materials to make sure its brand is highly visible. Liveried vans and uniforms are great, but if your budget won’t run that far, even branded items like pens and coasters will help to create the impression that your fledgling business is already an established enterprise, giving your customers confidence.

Check out more in the video above.

Read more

The importance of brand identity

The post How to build your business appeared first on Small Business UK.

Brij Thankey started out in the corporate world, “a numbers guy” as he puts it, but he grew weary of conventional thinking and jumped ship to create a different kind of business.

A decade on, that business – Precision FM – is a national leader in facilities management across the UK and Ireland, and CEO Publication has recognised Brij among the UK’s Top 20 Dynamic CEOs.

One of Brij’s guiding principles is that honesty and transparency are what connect with people, and as you’ll see he’s still more than happy to give voice to ideas that go against the grain.

For starters, there’s the notion that big businesses can learn a lot from the way that small businesses operate. When he was starting out at Precision FM, Brij believed he could base the new business on the assumptions he’d acquired in his corporate career, but he soon came to realise he’d need to rethink things from the bottom up.  

Above all, he says, big businesses get too obsessed about the bottom line. They need to recognise that their greatest assets are their people, and that they’ll get the best return on their investment by nurturing them as individuals. They need to ditch the hire-and-fire mentality and understand that in motivating and developing people, patience pays. 

Brij’s greatest ambition is to make Precision FM the UK’s most people-centric company. He believes that the most fulfilling thing about running a small business is your ability to transform your people’s lives – not just in material terms, though the bigger houses and smarter cars certainly help, but above all in a sense of recognition and common purpose. What really counts for them is building something and putting their name to it. To create something for the greater good, that’s magical.

Check out the video above for more.

Read more

Onboarding tips: how to help new employees settle in

The post Embrace your unconventional superpowers appeared first on Small Business UK.

When Precision FM was still in its infancy, founder Brij Thankey began to realise that he couldn’t transfer the ideas he’d picked up in his corporate career straight into his fledgling start-up.

In his earlier life, there were too many instances where desktop modelling on a spreadsheet to see how much money the business could save by ‘getting the machete out’ was the order of the day. But he now saw that he needed to think less about the business’ numbers and more about its people. Get the people side of it right, by recruiting good people and building strong teams, and the numbers would follow.

When it comes to recruiting, Brij’s motto is to look out for the undiscovered gems. He came to realise that when someone did well in an interview, all that told you was that they were good at doing interviews. It was all too easy to reject people at first sight, just because they performed poorly in an unnatural situation that bore no relation to the job they were being interviewed for. Give them a chance, look a little deeper, and they’d often prove to be great out on site, talking to customers and dealing with real-life issues.

Skills can be taught, Brij says, but what you need to look for is the will, the burning desire to do well. Give people an opportunity, be patient with them and most of the time they’ll get there.

Brij pays tribute to the inspiration he got from Phil Carter, the ‘Elon Musk of the training and apprenticeship world’. Phil changed lives, and that’s what Brij aims to do at Precision FM, by identifying those undiscovered talents and helping them to flourish.

If you want to find out more, check out the video above.

Read more

The best talent already works for you – but you don’t know it

The post Adopting a small business mindset is key appeared first on Small Business UK.