Your skills

67% of respondents to our survey identified industry expertise as the single most valuable business skill they have. One small business owner summed it up as follows: ‘Our expertise makes our clients trust us and return year after year for more’.

When asked what skill was lacking, 44% cited marketing.

‘Marketing is all about clinching the deal and ensuring your
company seems bigger and better resourced than it actually is’.

So how would businesses in our survey go about adding marketing to the skills in their armoury?

53% of businesses in our survey would learn the skill themselves
22% would hire specialist staff on a temporary basis

We can help businesses in a number of ways including offering our award-winning* seminar programme, a free marketing consultation, Business Skills training and software packages. In addition, if you would like free advice on how best to market your business, look no further than our next hub ‘Marketing and Attracting Customers’. It will provide a clear guide to marketing on a shoestring and includes advice from the DMA.

Sources of help and advice

What’s the best source of information and support for small businesses? When asked this question, many of the respondents to our survey discounted the official help available, preferring instead the informal network of contacts with other small business owners.

In fact the result was overwhelming with 50% of respondents stating that they go to fellow small business owners for help and advice.

We’d like to help you make the most of what is obviously a very useful source of information. So, in Wave 2 of our Local Business survey we included the three top burning questions that business owners would like to ask other business owners. We’ve also asked everyone for their top 3 business tips, which should make very interesting – and hopefully rewarding - reading.


* 2009 Moneyfacts Award for ‘Innovation in the SME Finance Sector’; SFEDI ‘Financial Services Start-up Product or Programme’.