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WELCOME to the ‘What’s New in UK Micro Enterprise’ page of my Enterprise blog. My most read and most popular blogs are on the rollover menu at the top of the page. I’ve started a government e- petition to get greater clarity of communication about what they’re doing for micro enterprises and not ‘SMEs’ PLEASE ADD YOUR SIGNATURE HERE - it only takes a minute of your time. The main article on this page is about the new government backed mentorsme programme to provide 40,000 volunteer mentors to help start ups and growing small businesses. A lot of my current writing is devoted to the ENTERPRISE ROCKERS. Enterprise Rockers has its own website which will be gradually developed in order to support our campaigning, voting, polling and recognising all that’s best in the world of micro enterprise owners. We need the power of plenty in order to help make life better and fairer for #MicroEnterpriseOwners. So, if you’re starting or running your own micro enterprise please do join our growing band of Enterprise Rockers. It’s free and there’s no registration required. It is ‘One Rocker, One Vote’ and all we’d really, really like from you is your opinion. GO TO OUR NEW ENTERPRISE ROCKERS WEBSITE HERE
THE MAGIC OF THINKING MICRO: THE FUTURE OF ENTERPRISE LEARNING AND SUPPORT IN THE UK. The Launch of MENTORSME – 40,000 Volunteer Mentors. Will it work and what can we learn? Now you see it, now you don’t: Government Backed New Enterprise Intiatives These last weeks I’ve taken quite a lot of stick from the enterprise support community. First there was the launch of Start Up Britain (StartUpBritain), criticised for being a sales pitch for the large corporates, then the Enterprise Clubs, criticised for providing amateur support to vulnerable start ups and now they seem generally unhappy with the government backed mentorsme (mentorsme ) website and programme. Mentorsme has been put together by the big five banks, on behalf of the British Bankers Association. It has been fully supported by most of the UK business mentor providers, including the IoEE in which I declare an interest. It is eventually hoped that the programme will provide 40,000 volunteer mentors to help start ups and growing small businesses. It isn’t my programme. However, most people know I’m a strong advocate of paid and volunteer mentors as part of the local enterprise learning and support community available to start ups. I’m also an advocate of private and social enterprise sector solutions, learning and support for those starting private sector and social enterprise sector enterprises. Where someone cannot afford the start up learning and support, then like any other career, government and charities should fund it. I believe that everyone preparing for or starting a business in the UK should, as a right, have access to such support. This support will include start up mentors. I’m also grateful to the British Bankers Association for the initiative and funding to do something about creating a UK network of these volunteer mentors. Like the StartUpBritain website this is just a beginning and everything can be improved. Listen to what micro enterprise owners say and act upon it. It is needed. Dealing from the bottom of the deck: Yet integrated learning and support for start up owners is vital for their survival and growth Government don’t value fee paid and volunteer enterprise support practitioners as highly as they should. That’s because they put them and fund them from the ‘business support’ budget. However, nine tenths of the learning of the skills and know how needed to survive and thrive in your own enterprise takes place at pre start, start up and in the first twelve to eighteen months of trading. It is learning by doing and is totally practical in the context of the business being started. Mentors, coaches, business advisers and other enterprise support professionals, including the adviser of choice – independent accountants – are the enablers of this learning. Often they signpost to someone else in the community – online or offline – that can meet the learning need. Adult learning and Employer learning for all careers are still heavily funded by government. All careers apart from that which one in seven of the adult workforce choose to do, which is to start and run your own enterprise. So, 500,000 start ups a year should have the opportunity to have low cost or subsidised, part government funded learning through their enterprise support community. They haven’t the time or the money to go to college or private sector training providers and even if they did it would be out of context and therefore useless. The mentor relationship should continue for at least the first twelve months of trading of the new business. Get this right, alongside high quality, professional business advice and coaching, with free access to problem solving websites, and I can guarantee that over 80% of new starts will still be trading in 3 years time and 6%, we don’t know which are the 6% at start up, will become very substantial businesses and employers. Aces High: Size Really Matters to Government and Banks but it shouldn’t The choice of name for the programme ‘mentorsme’ isn’t endearing to the majority of small business owners. It is, unfortunately, probably accurate in that Government and the Banks would rather have as clients the larger Small and Medium Enterprises rather than the 4.5 million micro enterprise owners with less than ten employees. Nearly three quarters of all businesses have no employees at all and they certainly don’t seem to be interested in them. Train to Gain and other Skills and Employment policies over the last five years have been examples of £billions of government money going to employers with over ten employees and diddly squat going to the 97% of all businesses that have between 0 and 9 employees. Bank lending to ‘SMEs’ is measured in tens of thousands whereas there are 500,000 start ups a year and 4.5 million micro enterprise owners. From a micro enterprise owner, like me, viewpoint this is pretty disgraceful. Naturally, I understand that banks need to make profits and government needs to minimise public spending and maximise taxation. Both are very good at their chosen revenue earners. It must be very difficult for them to understand the world of the self employed and micro enterprise owners. We are very serious about the way we earn our living but they look at our average income and lifestyle and find this hard to believe – far easier to put us in a box called ‘SMEs’ or ‘Lifestyle’ or ‘Home Businesses’ or ‘SOHOs’. Some of the bonuses paid to individual bankers are the equivalent of hundreds of micro enterprise owners’ average annual earnings. i can understand the reasons they look for ’serious entrepreneurs’, ‘high growth businesses’, ’sector leaders’, ‘key employers’ and ‘SMEs’ as customers. They relegate the majority of us, not in the above categories, to our boxes with labels on that indirectly suggest that we have a lack of ‘ambition’, ‘capacity’, ‘education’ and ‘capability’. It is a mistake. Shuffle the pack: Diversity is Good. Discrimination is Bad. (and for the economy and employment too). I hate any discrimination even if it is under the pretext of market segmentation of customers. Discrimination against the majority of start ups and micro enterprise owners is wrong. Developing products, services and policies based on the size of the business is bad for the economy, bad for human endeavour, bad for employment (including self employment), bad for communities, bad for creativity and innovation and does not reflect how life in Enterprise Britain has changed from twenty years ago. Many of the biggest entrepreneurs that the world will ever see are starting their business today. They are starting from home with very, very little resource. It’s called ‘boot strapping’. In government and management speak, like most successful enterprise owners, these brand new enterprise owners are ‘under the radar’ at start up. No-one can pick winners at start up. Yet, in ten years time these start ups of today will have very large income producing businesses. They come from all backgrounds – education, faith, wealth, training, age, community, area and so forth. The great thing about being a successful enterprise owner is that it doesn’t make a scrap of difference where you live or where you you were ‘educated’, unlike just about every other career. Water into wine: Micro Enterprise is Our Beautiful British Future One in twenty of the start ups today will go on to provide most of the new jobs in the country from nice premises in towns and cities. However, most start ups will remain micro enterprise owners. Micro enterprise owners fill stadiums around the world. Micro enterprise owners, like one of my co-owners of my businesses, invest in commercial property and regeneration. Micro enterprise owners change the world through their designs and inventions. Micro enterprise owners have franchisees in many different countries. Micro enterprise owners give us the most influential global technologies or global online networks and global online marketplaces. Micro enterprise owners are often the keynote speakers at large business conferences inspiring government and large company executives in motivation, leadership and entrepreneurship. So, many of the next generation of celebrity entrepreneurs will not be major employers but will still be working from home and will have less than ten employees. They will remain micro enterprise owners, but they’ll provide work to thousands of other micro enterprise owners and freelancers. These are the people that government and banks want as customers and tax payers. The majority of us just want to earn our living from running our own micro enterprise and do not aspire to these dizzy heights. We all are successful in our own way and deserve an equality of support at start up – a universal start up policy for the UK (remember that – good idea). Then everyone; government, banks and micro enterprise owners will achieve their aims. No-one will achieve their aims if our universal start up policy is as cheap and cheerful as we now have it. It seems to many that we’ll have three nice websites. We get a volunteer mentor from mentorsme, a discount on products and services to help us start up from StartUpBritain and some excellent problem solving, regulation understanding information from the BusinessLink website. This certainly isn’t the private sector/public sector/third sector enterprise support partnership, to assist all start ups, that we’d hoped for. It is a start though. I’m sure that the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills has many plans to supplement their mentoring programme started by the BBA mentorsme portal. For 12 years now small and micro enterprise owners, like me, have been urging government to ‘go with the grain’. This means ‘Please don’t launch new eye catching online and offline schemes to support start ups. Instead, enable local enterprise communities and the people who are already trusted by prospective and existing enterprise owners to do more. Use the adult and employer learning budgets, use the premises, technology and personnel resource that government has to enable the existing networks and eco system to reach more people with a better learning and support service. Business networks, accountants, community groups, charities, enterprise agencies, private sector start up workshops, libraries, advisers, coaches, mentors, existing start up help websites and hundreds of thousands of micro enterprise owners that do contriibute to their communities are all in this mix. Government can be an effective local enabler and facilitator of improved enterprise learning and support for all. it is not and never will be a credible national promoter of enterprise. It is a lousy inventor of new enterprise skills and support schemes and it should never have got involved in delivery in the first place.’ Hypnotic trance: ‘I’m Not An SME!’ (#NotAnSME) As we know small and micro enterprise owners don’t like being referred to as SMEs. Robert Craven’s recent articles about this have been read by over 10,000 on Business Zone in a matter of a few days. The vast majority agree with him that ‘SME’, quite often pronounced ‘Smee’, is used patronisingly by Large Company executives, government officials and academics. As a piece of business segmentation it’s a bit of a nonsense too as it really means NEARLY ALL (99.9%) BUSINESS in the UK. There are only 6000 Large companies. Many regions and towns only have SMEs. Most small and micro business owners and the self employed have nothing in common with ‘Medium’ (50 to 249 employees) enterprises which have functional managers, formal governance structures, corporate HR procedures, salary and benefits packages akin to Large Organisations, rigid protocols, systems and processes, and, usually, a fair amount of bureaucracy too. PLEASE SIGN OUR GOVERNMENT E-PETITION HERE Loaded dice: Mistaken Assumptions by Corporate Executives and Government Officials? Reading the launch press releases from government and the banks for mentorsme and then looking at the website made me suspect that they may have made four classic, and patronising, mistakes in assuming that small and micro enterprise owners: 1) will be more successful if they learn from corporate managers, as mentors, the knowledge they possess 2) need more ambition to be injected from a mentor from a larger organisation so that they start and grow quickly and employ a lot more staff c) think that their start up or small business will benefit from some of the good practices of corporates – scaled down versions of large company type measurements, plans, procedures, processes and systems. 4) see themselves as part of a homogeneous group of SMEs and so a one size fit all mentors service for SMEs will meet their needs Owner led Small and Micro Enterprises aren’t boiled down versions of Large and Medium Enterprises. Indeed, you need a very different skill and know how set, than corporate managers have, in order to successfully start and run your own enterprise. Back in the day, I was Managing Director of a 150 staff £35 million company – a Medium Enterprise. I was highly qualified and by that time had also received the best management and leadership training in the world, courtesy of two US multinational employers. Unfortunately, when Clare, who had a similar corporate management background, and I decided to start and run our own business there was nothing we’d learned from our management jobs that was of any use to us. The world of enterprise is about doing everything yourself: great selling, winning deals, innovation, flexibility, risk taking and gaining incredible value for money for anything you buy – if you can’t get it free. Sleight of Hand: Where did our share go? I hate ‘SME’ with a passion because of how Large Organisations and Government deliberately mislead the press and public with its use. The term SME is used very trickily by them. For example, when they explain to the press how they are ‘helping SMEs’ such as with lending or support or regulations the press often use a headline which translates the ‘SMEs’ to mean ‘Small Businesses’. This is just the impression that Government and Large Organisations want to give whereas the reality is, as I’ve previously stated, they are not interested in helping the three quarters of all businesses which have no employees or the 97% of all businesses that have less than ten employees. The 3% of all businesses with ten or more employees get 95% of the attention, support and public funding. It does seem rather disingenuous to claim that these volunteer mentors, including bank managers, will do as good a job helping start ups as 1500, and I believe nearer 5000, publicly funded, accredited business advisers did. Government is broke, when it comes to helping micro business rather than large business, and mentorsme is primarily a no cost replacement for what we’ve had to help start ups over the last ten years. Mind over matter: Banks and Government do need to learn, preferably from the Enterprise Rockers, what is Micro Enterprise Friendly before pushing their schemes on us Thankfully there are a few Large Organisations and Government Agencies that are micro enterprise owner friendly. One of the great ideas behind the Enterprise Rockers charity is that we will very positively recognise those that do treat micro enterprise owners fairly and helpfully in the hope that others will want to raise their game to be recognised by us too. We use the tag #NotAnSME on our e-mails and tweets and we nominate, vote and recognise Large Organisations and Government bodies that do treat us properly, are aware of our business needs, pay our invoices on time and so forth. These are the organisations that help us to #GetEnterpriseRocking. By publicising heavily those that are #MicroEnterpriseFriendly we can inform, educate and improve the UK enterprise culture. We’ll make a lot of positive noise. After all there’s 4.5 million of us, which is a lot of customers and voters. Jokers wild: Should mentors have the Enterprise T shirt themselves? As you’ve read I’m not surprised that the Banks and Government called the mentors scheme mentorsme but it was the first thing that outraged many of the small business owners that have contacted me to say ‘what are you going to do about it?’. What upset them far more than the volunteer mentor scheme’s aims or the name of it was that Mark Prisk MP, the Enterprise Minister, has always said he wanted volunteer mentors that ‘had the T shirt’ and yet here he was announcing that retired bank managers would be amongst these volunteer mentors. I can understand the concern. It took me back 15 years to the reason we founded SFEDI. Retired bank managers and senior executives of Medium and Large companies were doing a hopeless job providing poor and often dangerous guidance to start ups. In fact the job seemed to be to get the prospective business owner to laboriously produce a business plan This process certainly helped them turn people off the idea of starting a business. These plans were works of fiction. I’ve interviewed hundreds of start ups that have had a bad experience with these well meaning corporate folk giving bad guidance. So, you’ll understand why I’ve always wanted the SFEDI standards, assessment and accreditation to only be applied to people that have started and run their own business. The Federation of Small Businesses have always agreed with this position but they are the only other major national business support organisation that do. Using only people with the Enterprise T shirt will always be a too expensive option for directly or indirectly (e.g. Enterprise Agencies, A4e, Inbiz etc) government (or charity) funded enterprise support organisations. The SFEDI standards have greatly improved the quality of support from enterprise mentors, advisers, coaches and information staff in the UK and the SFEDI team will do a good job of training these Bank Managers in mentoring too. It is more of a problem for them that, however well trained they are, most micro enterprise owners, like me, will not use them. They just do not have the credibility without the ‘Enterprise T shirt’. Pick a card, any card: Will a website mentor matching service work? The next problem with the mentoring scheme I was asked to fix was prospective and existing enterprise owners saying that they will not buy these volunteer mentors like a dating service from a computer website. I think they’re probably right but against that there are some people that do buy support for their business from websites. Indeed, many micro enterprise owners as freelancers gain clients from these matching and quotes directories. One of the great success stories that proves this is FreelancerGB This site has 2.6 million freelancers, 125,000 UK users and has already done over £60,000,000 worth of projects. The SFEDI Directory of Business Support Professionals (The SFEDI Directory of Business Support Professionals ) is very popular as is Speed Mentor Central (Speed Mentor Central ). Against this, most micro enterprise owners buy a mentor, adviser or coach (even if there is no cost) through word of mouth recommendation. They may then use a website to locate and check out the person they have been recommended. Revelation: Volunteer Mentors work best as an integral part of a local Enterprise Support Community The success of the Business Volunteer Mentors Association that we had in England about six or seven years ago was due to the 1500 or so volunteer mentors, trained to the SFEDI standards, working alongside the private sector (e.g. fee paid accountants, coaches, specialist consultants and small business advisers) and the enterprise support community (e.g. Enterprise Agencies, Prince’s Trust, PRIME, Inbiz). So it was the professionals that were matching their start up client to a volunteer mentor. These volunteer mentors were successful because they were in a supportive community, always able to signpost their client to the appropriate person within that community. People became volunteer mentors to learn new skills which led to improvements in their business or, for some, fee paying business opportunities as a mentor, coach or adviser. For others it gave the skills that would be useful for freelancing. For others it satisfied their addiction and curiosity to learning from other small business owners. For others, it led to new business ideas and some actually get involved in the business they were mentoring through angel type investment. Some were happy just to put something back into their communities. Most really enjoyed being a part of a vibrant enterprise support community of private sector, public sector and third sector advisers, mentors, coaches, accountants, lawyers, information professionals and so forth. All of them had their expenses paid. In order to recruit 40,000 volunteer mentors, particularly those with experience of starting and running their own small business, all of the above incentives need to be present. Small and Micro Business owners are money and time poor. They earn far less, usually at least 50% less than middle managers in large organisations, and in order to earn their living they work nearly all the time. We like it – it’s better than having a job with a boss. If we want to attract small and micro enterprise owners into mentoring others, which I think we do, then it needs to pass the ‘What’s In It For Me’ test. Big prediction: Volunteer Mentoring Can Work Really Well To Make Britain Great Through Micro Enterprise Volunteer mentoring, alongside professional business advisers and/or coaches can work very well to assist start ups. It requires more than a volunteer mentor to help a start up with test trading and this is the point of having a professional business adviser or coach that is experienced at starting and running micro enterprises. I will restate that if the right support is given, including test trading, then 80% of start ups will survive more than 3 years and 6% will become substantial employing businesses. This is proven. We can’t pick winners so it is best to give everyone these favourable odds of success. My view is that in order to achieve this a volunteer mentor is only one part of the enterprise support that the new start up deserves. SFEDI has well researched standards, assessment strategies and training media and a highly qualified team managed by real small business owners and advised by all the major private sector and publicly funded business support organisations in the UK. Mentorsme hasn’t had a good start but it is just a start. Expect SFEDI to help the Banks and Government (BIS) to improve the whole programme greatly over the coming months. I doubt if I’ll ever be a fan but then again it doesn’t need me as a fan. ___________________ end ___________________
ENTERPRISE ROCKERS UPDATE Here’s just some of the stuff we’ve been doing @EnterpriseRocks : 1) New Rockers join our band every day. Being a Rocker won’t take up much of your time. Promise. Although we keep asking for help, and thankfully lots of Rockers are offering help, we only hope that the majority of Rockers will give us a few minutes a week of their time. This is most likely to be from your home by voting online or contributing to our discussions or tweeting or blogging on our campaigns. We don’t want you to stop getting your micro biz owner friends involved with the Enterprise Rockers because you think it’ll take up lots of their time. We know we’re all time poor. The Enterprise Rockers movement will be free, fun and fair. We will make a difference for all start ups and micro enterprise owners in the UK but we promise that your involvement in the Rockers movement won’t take up hardly any time at all – unless you want it to. So keep getting your friends and colleagues to join our band through FaceBook, Linked In or Twitter @EnterpriseRocks. 2) Recently we’ve seen all the Enterprise Rockers promotional and recruitment efforts begin to pay off. Everyone can see that our numbers are growing very nicely on FaceBook, Linked In and on Twitter @EnterpriseRocks and we’re all doing a a great job mentioning our campaigns in tweets and blogs – particularly #NotAnSME. Our Enterprise Rockers movement has certainly been noticed! There is now, understandably, BigCo, Govt and small business membership organisations’ interest in working with us to achieve our aims. We’re setting up meetings right through the remainder of this year already. We’re still quite a few weeks away from when our ‘One Rocker, One Vote’ rating and voting facility will be added to the Enterprise Rockers website. So, until then, it’s really important we all say what we want from these meetings with BigCos and how we can accept charitable donations from the BigCos without compromising our independence. Use the discussion groups on Linked In, FaceBook and use Twitter @EnterpriseRocks or e-mail me at tony@EntrepreneursUK.com. Many thanks. 3)Tina is totally amazing running her three micro enterprises and fund raising for her Ellie’s Fund charity whilst being the Voice Doozer of the Rockers (I’m the Words Doozer – just). Tina’s meeting all these big nobs and building Enterprise Rocks HQ with its engine room for the Rockers movement. Our launch is on September 1st and I’m panicking but Tina is as cool as a cucumber – don’t eat it! We wouldn’t stand a chance of getting the structure of our Enterprise Rockers Movement and Charity right without so much input from so many Doozer Rockers and Andy giving us his expertise. We’re so chuffed too that the super designer, Adrian (see our Rock n’Roll of Honour board), has offered to design our logo devices. We still need all the help everyone can offer but the main thing is that everyone gets their micro biz owner friends to join our growing band of Enterprise Rockers. This will only work – and work it will – through the Power of Plenty. 4) Our ‘One Rocker, One vote’ facility on the Rockers’ website is progressing and is one of our priorities. But remember we’re not creating ‘another website’ or a membership organisation but a Movement which has lots of real live interaction too through campaigning, street teams activity, face to face meetings, speaking engagements, workshops, awards and events. FaceBook, Linked In and Twitter pages are the main form of online communication between the Rockers and the way everyone can join our movement for free. Our website will just help us to do everything by majority decision. Please keep volunteering for any tasks you can think of that might help us. 5) We need your photo. You’ll see that on the Enterprise Rockers FaceBook group we’ve started a ‘Me and My Micro Biz’ photo album of us all in action in our micro biz. Please add your photo in there too. We’ll use the album to show Govt & BigCos the rich diversity, innovation, capability and entrepreneurship of micro biz owners. They really haven’t a clue what we do to earn a crust which is why they label us ‘Lifestyle’, ‘SME’, ‘SOHO’, ‘not serious’ and ‘no growth potential’ and expect Trade Associations and Chambers to educate us like. Slap your photo in our album on FaceBook. 6) #NotAnSME campaign takes off On Twitter @EnterpriseRocks our #NotAnSME campaign is going great. It’s really been backed by writer rockers like Robert C, Paul D, Marianne and Mike C. All you have to do is to use #NotAnSME on your tweets and e-mails. Many of the other small business websites are catching on to what we’re doing and are publishing our blogs and the #NotAnSME campaign. BIgCos & Govt will soon get the message that they shouldn’t hide behind the ‘catch all’ term SME. We’d far rather they said directly what they will do for us, micro enterprises (97% of all businesses in the UK) rather than what they’ll do for ‘SMEs’ which allows them to help just the 2.9% of all UK businesses that are bigger small and medium enterprises. Thanks. For example, out of the £255 billion of public sector procurement Government say they’ll aim for 25% to be secured by SMEs. (but next to nowt to micro enterprises). The Department of BIS has a budget of £15 billion a year with business support, skills and innovation help for business and ‘especially for SMEs’ but certainly less than 5% will go to help start ups and micro-business owners. 7)Your ideas wanted. Please keep going with the Twitter @EnterpriseRocks #GetEnterpriseRocking campaign where Rockers pledge something they’ll do to help micro enterprise owners. Like I pledge ‘to buy less from BigCos and more from micro enterprises’. You can also just make a suggestion to add to the list of what will #GetEnterpriseRocking so, for example: a) Adrian has called for a much simpler VAT system - the cost of compliance of all the tax collecting and legislation stuff is up to 37 hours a month on average per micro enterprise owner. Not good or fair. b)John & Nina have recommended government funding a free ‘labour pool’ where for a limited time new start ups (of a micro biz) could employ someone who is long term unemployed – clear advantages to everyone. c)Mine is that the Rockers charity raises funds that it can then give to other organisations, that the Rockers have voted as being good ‘uns, to help start ups that need help but can’t afford it. Each would get 12 months of start up support (subsidised because of our dosh) including help with test trading. We know that if they get the right support that over 80% will survive over 3 years and 6% will become substantial employer businesses. Again all Rockers will have the opportunity to vote on which initiatives we all take forward, everything is by majority decision, but first we need your suggestions. Think what we can do without others and also think ‘What could BigCos and Government do to help micro enterprise owners (and what do they do that hinders us too)?’ 9) Our Growing Band is getting bigger all the time but PLEASE we need all Rockers to get more Rockers onto the Enterprise Rockers FaceBook Group and the one on LinkedIn and on Twitter at @EnterpriseRocks. We need the power of plenty to ‘Make Britain Great Through Micro Enterprise’. Get ‘em in. 10) Keep the nominations coming in for #BestRockersWebsites. These are the free websites we use day to day in our micro enterprises to get useful information, know how and solve problems as they arise. Nominations to date include BusinessLink, MarketingDonut, smarta, bytestart. EnterQuest, EssentialBusiness, startingonline, & SmallBusinessCan. Keep ‘em coming in and say if you agree or disagree with any we’ve got to date. When we get our own Enterprise Rockers website rocking and rolling we’ll vote on, say the top 5 nominations. We’re also happy to name and shame so if there are any BigCo or Govt websites you feel purport to help micro biz but don’t – i.e. are not useful but useless – then let us know these and we’ll vote on the useless ones too. 11) If you make things that you could give us a good price to sell to support our campaigns (e.g: certificates, posters, clothing, banners, flags, badges etc) or you have a skill that you’d be willing to donate an hour or more of your time a week to help our campaigns & movement then please let Tina or I know. Oh and half a day free or v. cheap TV & Radio media training before September 1st would be greatly appreciated too. Getting involved in our Enterprise Rockers band will always be free, fair and, hopefully, lots of fun and of real value to all micro biz owners throughout the UK. Cheers Everything the Enterprise Rockers say or do is decided by the majority view from online voting (One Rocker=One Vote). Every micro Enterprise Owner, or supporters of micro enterprise that have owned their own enterprise in the past, can become an Enterprise Rocker. Enterprise Rockers make Enterprise Rock in the UK. This helps us all to survive and thrive in our own enterprises and improves the chances of success for all those starting up. It’s free and you’re under no obligation to do anything but at minimum we’d like you to cast your vote online on the issues, topics, products and services that interest you as a micro enterprise owner. We’re building a free to join, independent, campaigning movement to get a better deal in the UK for all micro enterprise owners and those starting a business for the first time. You can read about our proposed campaigns HERE You can read about how we’re going to Make Britain Great through Micro Enterprise – Our Aims HERE JOIN US TO MAKE BRITAIN GREAT THROUGH MICRO ENTERPRISE BY Micro (0 to 9 employees) enterprises comprise 97% of all UK businesses and there are around 4.5 million of us running our own micro enterprise. Nearly three out of every four enterprises have no employees and over half are run from home. Up to half a million new micro enterprises are started each year, out of necessity or opportunity, as the most viable way of the enterprise owner earning their living. Tweet Participating in the movement and the campaigns is absolutely free of charge. There’s even free sticks of Scarborough rock each month for the best Enterprise Rocker contributions to the campaigns. Wow – too good to be true eh? Together we’ll make the Big Companies, government and its agencies and the major institutions in the UK ‘enterprise friendly’. Together we’ll ensure that everyone recognises the true value of entrepreneurs to the UK society, economy, communities and jobs. This will Make Britain Great through Micro Enterprise. #NotAnSME We will ensure that everyone in the UK recognises the importance of allowing all of us that start and run our own enterprises to have the same equal opportunity to succeed as that for any other career. Above all we strive to improve the enterprise culture, conditions and suppliers, including Government, to give all micro enterprise owners the best chance of surviving and thriving. TIME OUT – see where @EnterpriseRocks HQ is in sunny Scarborough – ‘Postcards of Scarborough’ written and performed by Michael Chapman
Here we recognise ENTERPRISE, and starting and running your own micro enterprise in particular, as one of the very best careers/ways of work life and ways of earning your living which you can undertake at any age and from any background. We promote ENTREPRENEUR as a fantastic cross sector, cross society, global occupation. It’s one of the few occupations where neither privilege nor higher education make a scrap of difference to your opportunity for success. It requires hard work, focus and a willingness to learn from people that have successfully started and run their own enterprises. 95% of all entrepreneurs are micro enterprise owners. We help everyone to GET MICRO ENTERPRISE. #NotAnSME Entrepreneurs UK (Founders: Tony Robinson OBE, Clare Francis, our ace team, partners and friends) are delighted to co-found Enterprise Rockers charity and to help, support and work with the wonderful inspiration and co-founder of the Enterprise Rockers: TINA BODEN . We define ‘Entrepreneur’ as: All of us that risk our own money and time to start and run our own enterprises. Our Enterprise Rockers movement and campaigns are run by and for start ups, the self employed, home businesses and all those running micro businesses (less than ten employees). YOU? This is about MICRO ENTERPRISE FOR ALL. #NotAnSME PLEASE SIGN OUR GOVERNMENT E-PETITION HEREAs an example of what we believe in and our independence from Government and BigCos you could think of us as the opposite to the new StartUp Britain site. It’s a good idea. Start Up britain offers deals on products and services to help all start ups in Britain. We’re in favour of help for all start ups too and there’s nothing wrong with government enabling a small group of successful small business owners, with the support of many of the biggest companies, to offer their products and services – if we’re sure that they are the best products and services. The difference is that the Enterprise Rockers charity can only do what a majority decision of the Rockers allows us to do. So, unlike Start Up Britain, we won’t ever sell BigCo products and services to start ups and micro enterprise owners. We will, however ask Rockers to vote for those Government and BigCo products and services that they believe are very useful to start ups and micro enterprise owners. We will then award it our micro -enterprise friendly logo and publicise the organisations, products and services that have gained this Enterprise Rockers recognition. This will help all start ups and other micro enterprise owners get the best and most appropriate support to help them to survive and thrive. Many micro enterprise owners have said that products and services that are the ones that BigCos and Government think are right for us micro enterprise owners are often not right at all. They’re often boiled down versions of what managers and executives need rather than what pre start, start ups, home and micro enterprise owners need and want. We will ensure that it is micro enterprise owners themselves who say what works for them. But the Enterprise Rockers charity will work with everyone to improve their offer to micro enterprise and so we’ll be very pleased to work with Start Up Britain too. By Making Britain Great through Micro Enterprise we’ll create a fairer society, with micro enterprise owners recognised, valued and properly supported. Everyone should have the opportunity to enjoy success in their own micro enterprise. We know that government and big companies may not choose to help us do this so we need to give them a push. PLEASE JOIN US IN THIS PUSH #NotAnSME #GetEnterpriseRocking @EnterpriseRocks |
How can local, regional and national government be fairer with micro enterprise? For example. on Facebook Mike, Laura, Paul D, Averil and others have started putting together what we want from Local Enterprise Partnerships and how we can get Enterprise Rockers onto their Boards – apparently there are hardly any micro enterprise owners on them! Paul C has also started a discussion on what the Rockers relationship (apart from independent) should be to the banks and govt’s ‘Big Society’? 