Support the 'Get Brtain Trading' Campaign - It Could Get You into a Job

Get Britain Trading is a new campaign which aims to raise awareness of the contribution that SMEs make to the UK economy and improve the conditions under which all SMEs are forced to operate. It calls for changes to be made that would allow SMEs to prosper - and, of course, to grow, and employ and/or train people.

If you're out of a job for any reason at all, this campaign is important to you.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of small or medium sized businesses in Britain that would like to expand, and would like (or need!) to employ more people - and they would, if they could. The campaign aims to create a climate that would make that possible.

In order to make sure that the campaign has the maximum impact and achieves the desired results, the Forum of Private Business, which has launched the campaign, needs as many SMEs as possible to support the campaign and its aims by going to Get Britain Trading , and signing up to the 'Get Britain Trading' pledge.

Signing up costs nothing and takes seconds - actually, signing up, downloading the logo you can see on the right of this blog, and putting it into place took me, an admitted IT idiot, less than a minute. And it will be on our website tomorrow.

If you know anyone who has an SME, please ask them to sign the pledge and display the logo on their website or blog. If you have started up in business yourself - sign up to the campaign today, and get as many other SME people to sign up as you can.

Any SME owner who puts in an e-mail address - and I did - will get a free guide giving practical and expert advice on common small business issues like bank lending, late payment and cost reduction.

We ALL need the changes that this campaign could bring about if it gets the support it deserves. Please do try to make that happen by spreading the word or taking the pledge here .


Geoff - http://www.metlissbarfield.com/

You Certainly Don't Need Cold Calls From Rogue Debt Management Companies - And Do you Really Need a Land-Line Telephone Anyway?

Better late than never, Citizens Advice has filed a 'super complaint' with the Office of Fair Trading and called for a ban on cold-calling - and upfront fees - by debt management and 'loan finding' companies.

Debt management companies make approximately 840 million cold calls every year - frequently to people who are already in debt or have poor credit histories. Some offer loans against an upfront fee, persuade people to part with their bank details, and extract their 'upfront fees' from their victims' accounts. The promised loans, of course, rarely materialise.

The Charity estimates that rogue debt management and 'loan finding' companies are costing the public £190 million pounds a year. And if something very serious isn't done about cold-calling very soon that huge sum is likely to increase. Current economic conditions have put main-stream credit out of reach for a lot of people - and made any offer of financial help very tempting indeed.

Obviously, you don't have to fall victim to cold-callers of any kind. You can just put the telephone down willy-nilly on all cold-callers. Or you can avoid the nuisance of cold-callers, put yourself out of the way of temptation, and save a lot of money by 'going French'.

The French are dumping land-line telephones in favour of bog standard, no frills, pay-as-you-go mobiles in droves. Several thousand people, for example, live in the same small town I live in - but the telephone directory lists only a few hundred, and those are mostly businesses. Everyone else has opted out of the expense of an in-house telephone that can only be used in the house - and the number of which is, alas, instantly accessible to anybody and everybody who can read - and gone for cheap and secret instead.

There are, of course, pros and cons to not being 'in the book', but the advantages can outweigh the disadvantages. For one thing, bog-standard, pay-as-you-go mobiles are much cheaper than land-line telephones. For another, you can always be sure that you might actually want to speak to whoever happens to be calling you...

Geoffrey - http://www.metlissbarfield.com/

Your Forgotten Assets Are Worth Money - and Maybe You Should Let Go of the Past

I cleaned out the garden shed yesterday - part of the mighty Spring Clean that I force myself into at about this time of year every year - and as I hauled gardening tools and equipment to and fro, and applied spit and polish to everything that was standing still, a couple of things occurred to me.

• I own two lawnmowers - one moterised and an old push-me-pull-me job. I haven't had a lawn (or anything else mow-able!) for getting on for seven years.


• I have a strimmer - but I haven't had anything to strim for getting on for seven years either.


• I have a tiller - but my garden is mature now, so there isn't anything left to till.


• I have a spade - but it's too big and too heavy for me, and it's been hanging in a corner with a John Lewis label attached to it since 2006.

Today was attic day. I found four kitchen chairs (blue with rush seats à la V. Van Gogh), a cupboard full of curtains that haven't seen a window since we left England in 1994, enough glasses to stock a public house, and a stash of ornaments and picture frames that have never seen the light of day in any house of ours. 1984????

Oh, yes. And when I opened the wardrobe this afternoon to pull out fresh clothes, I spotted a red feather boa. I tried it on. If you've got one - don't do it.

All that stuff! It's all in good condition and good working order - even the feather boa - but I had to ask myself why I'd still got it.

It's all going. It's all going in the next car boot sale I see advertised - along with the unwatched, unread and no longer listened to videos and CDs and DVDs and books that are clogging our shelves and cupboards, the clothing that we will never wear again, the tablecloths that we never use, and everything else that might be useful to someone else, but will never be useful to us again until it's turned into money and becomes the future, rather than the past.

Two things:

Firstly, your forgotten assets are worth something to someone else - and the money you get for them could pay a couple of bills, give you walking about money, or let you eat for free for a week or two.

Secondly - and this is just as important - all that old stuff is PAST. It's gone. It's lumber. Getting rid of it isn't just about getting money for it. The fact is that when you get rid of your old stuff you clear your mind as well as your cupboards, make tomorrow a better, unencumbered day, and leave space for the future.

It's Spring. Time to clear the dead leaves and leave space for new growth.

Emily - http://www.therapypartnership.com/