Enterprise Nation

This time last week the Enterprise Nation team was on full alert and gearing up for a hectic Small Business Week; a week that welcomed new webchat guests, content and sponsors to the site. From the quiet of my home office this morning, I look back on the week that was.

Small is beautiful

The most abiding memory I’ll have from Small Business Week is the high sense of optimism and confidence.

Amidst headlines of economic turmoil, small businesses remain steadfast and confident about growth. This message was all around; at the launch of Small Business Week when dashing Dragon, Peter Jones, suggested there had never been a better time to start a business and when top man from BT Business, Bill Murphy, revealed his team received 7,000 start-up enquiries in the seven days leading up to 13th October.

Staying with Bill Murphy, when asked how small businesses should respond to current market conditions, he replied:

“Focus on three c’s; confidence, customers and cash. And trade your way through this.”

It was a great reply from a great man.

That day continued at private member’s club, One Alfred Place, where we met up with 6 of the 16 profiled home businesses in our 2008 Home Business Report. They were all to a man excited about the future; a future that saw increasing turnover, happy customers and efficient technology.

I heard this repeated over the coming days - from home business owners and then from the enterprising places who were winners in the Enterprising Britain Awards – the places that are doing the most to encourage and support start-up and innovative businesses.  

Online, the week was awash with our webchats, new content and new sponsors. Sales and marketing continued to be the hot topic on the site that’s enjoyed and eaten up by you all.

We watched and listened last week and we’re getting together as a team this week to talk about new features we can bring to you and ways we can continue to build the business.

Enterprise Nation, as with your business, and as per advice from Bill Murphy, is concentrating on being confident, taking care of our customers and watching over the cash.

That’s all on the ‘to do’ list ... thank goodness I am back and cushioned in the four walls of Redbrick House ... there's work to be done! – Emma Jones  

• Find out more about Small Business Week 2008 here