Too many small businesses are leaving themselves exposed by relying on a single client for the majority of their work, a new survey suggests.

The research, carried out by Close Invoice Finance, estimates that 350,000 small and medium sized businesses depend on one customer for more than 75% of their business (based on a sample of 500 business owners).

While one big fish can do wonders for your business’s income, it does tend to leave you scuppered if for some reason that client goes elsewhere or folds (both all too common at the moment at the moment as businesses look to cut costs or go bust).

Always aim to spread your bets. It might be harder work to pitch to lots of different clients and maintain numerous different relationships, but it’ll be worth it when something goes wrong with one of them.

Consider whether business insurance might be worth the expense too - the survey also found two in five businesses weren't covered.

• Find out more about business insurance from business insurance comparison site Coverzone's CEO

Poor Susan Boyle. The Britain’s Got Talent darling, the ‘ugly duckling’ who took not only the nation but the world by storm (15 million viewers are tuning in worldwide to watch her and her YouTube clips are getting similar ratings), is crumbling under the pressure. Today it was revealed that her behaviour has become so erratic that ITV are in talks about whether they should pull her from the final.

But it doesn’t necessarily take tens of millions of pairs of eyes on you to push someone to dangerous stress levels. A new study held by Norwich Union found nearly half of the 1,400 business leaders, full-time workers and GPs asked felt stressed.

As an idea of the effects stress can have on the body, one in five of those asked were also suffering from depression, 46% suffered from insomnia, a third from migraines and one in five from anxiety attacks or palpitations.

On top of those symptoms, stress can also cause irritable bowel syndrome, eczema, irritability, and a predisposition to falling back into old habits and ticks. Not to mention premature heart problems.

None of which are exactly conducive to the fitness of body and mind you need to really execute a project well.

To complicate matters, many people don’t realise they’re stressed – the simply notice the symptoms. If you think you might be stressed, or you’re noticing any of the symptoms above and can’t find a cause for them, the following steps will help. While some of these steps may sound ineffective and trivial to you, the small things really do add up. If you’re consciously focusing on making yourself better in one area, you’ll subconsciously look after yourself in other ways too.

Spend time with people outside the company. Don’t talk about work. Break your mental cycle and take yourself away from it. Reconnecting with the outside world will remind you it’s there and and help take you out of your stress hole.

Eat lunch away from your desk. We know as well as you it’s often impractical or impossible to take a full lunch hour a day. But a change of scene, even if just for 10 minutes, gives you a mental break.

Tidy. There’s a reason people become obsessive compulsive – ordering and tidying things makes them feel they’re bringing order to a chaotic world. Use that psychology to your advantage. Trick your brain into thinking you can cope by creating mini-order.

Exercise out your stress. Cycle to work if you don’t have time to exercise outside of working hours. The endorphins and fresh air will sharpen your mind, and the physical activity will help combat your pent-up stress. Kick boxing or similar are particularly effective frustration busters.

Break the work-home-work-home routine. If the only thing you do outside work is sleep, you’re going to feel like there’s no way out. Stop for one drink somewhere with a friend, catch a film if you can, or just read a book for 10 minutes before passing out. Give your brain something to think about that’s not the piles of work on your desk.

Eat enough fruit and veg. Feasting on crap late at night is not going to do you any favours. Keeping your body topped up with everything it needs gives it the best chance of surviving the long hours.

Break work down into smaller parts. We’ve all heard this one before – but that’s because it’s so effective. The Guardian’s resident psychologist Linda Blair says: “If you make a series of small changes, things will start to feel more manageable. Choose to do something that will make a positive difference – however small – in your life quickly, say within one week.” Make lists and schedules – break every task down into bite-sized chunks.

Switch off. Meditate, watch mindless trash on TV, have a long, silly chat with an old friend on the phone. If you don’t give your brain a rest, you burn out. And if you burn out, you can’t work. If you can do something to switch off before going to sleep, all the better – work-nightmares and constant waking through the night never help stress. If you’re too busy burning the midnight candle to do that, make at least two half hour slots a week for switching off. And don’t be afraid to be protective of that time.

Treat yourself. Go for a nice meal at the weekend, buy yourself something you want. Congratulate yourself for working hard. Make it feel more worthwhile.


 

With the recession bearing down on us and the stock market going a little bit haywire, it seems running a business is a little bit more exciting than it used to be. So exciting, in fact, that a new survey has found entrepreneurs are the most aspirational role models around.

The study, published by Standard Life, found a quarter of 18-25 year olds want to be a business leader such as Alan Sugar or Richard Branson, with just 9% saying they wanted to be famous.

Smarta knows The Apprentice and Dragons’ Den have made the business world a bit more accessible, but we’re pretty sure there are other factors at work here.

With graduate recruitment at an all-time low, perhaps the recession has forced school- and college-leavers to reassess their options.

Or perhaps the old adage that ‘business is the new rock’n’roll’ is finally catching on. 

• Read our special report on young entrepreneurs

“It’s about choosing the right products, the right audience and seeing if they can cope with extreme pressure,” said Sir Alan as he sent the Apprentice-ees off to build their TV careers to yet more dizzying heights. Well, presenting on a satellite shopping channel. (The TV shopping market, as it turns out, is worth an impressive £1bn.)

But actually, this week’s task turned out to be more about risk. No entrepreneur ever got ahead by playing it safe, and a couple of the apprentices had to learn that the hard way.

First off, Yasmina, leading James and Deborah. Yasmina decided playing it safe by aiming for volume not margin was the best strategy for success. “Let’s not be too risky. Go for low price and follow your instinct,” she said as the team headed off to pick their products from a vast warehouse of cut-price dreams.

With the adage quantity not quality clearly in mind, team Yasmina ended up with a leaf-grabber worth £24.99 as their most expensive product, and an oh-so-fetching manmade poncho-scarf-hybrid as the cheapest, at £9.99, in a range of suitably bile-worthy colours and faux-tie-dye effects (yes, really).

(Incidentally, allow us just one Jamesism this week: “You can get polyester that’s manmade?” Seriously, where does he come from?)

So, no risk-taking and low-prices from Yasmina. Sir Alan, as you may have guessed, didn’t like it.

Watching in secret as the team fumbled their way through sales – even, at one point, getting the price wrong on some unfathomably vile hairclips – he bemoaned the fact ‘there isn’t one killer product, no high price product’.

We feel your pain Sugar. They never learn.

Even when previous tasks have followed virtually identical templates - pick a couple of products then sell them, making sure you stick to the key business lesson: pick some low-risk, cheap products to sell in bulk, and one or two higher-risk but much higher price items to bring in the big bucks.

It’s not that difficult.

After all, Howard’s team managed it, picking up a metallic-leaf emblazoned leather jacket (yes, predictably horrendous, although even Alan said he could see it selling) and a low-fat chip pan. Both neared £150, working nicely alongside much cheaper items in the £10-£20 range.

Unfortunately for Howard, one of the lower price items happened to be a craft kit encouraging one to stick sequins to a bit of foam laying dubious claim to being shaped like a cat. Even the kind of people who watch QVC and JML weren’t willing to spend their pennies on that.

So Howard’s strategy was right – but his team’s selling was wrong. None of them mentioned prices enough, they didn’t lead viewers to the phone number or the website to convert product interest to sales, they just banged on about their products. And, as we all know, interest in a product is worth nothing without a sell at the end.

Which meant that in the end, Howard’s team lost, with £1,376.73 in sales versus Yasmina’s team’s £1,541.88. It was unfortunate, really, as Sir Alan clearly acknowledged Howard had the better strategy.

But Deborah’s such a whirlwind salesperson she managed to pull Yasmina’s team out of the darkness of awful products and shift so many pukey ponchos the producers of the show said she was almost at a professional standard. Deborah is doubtless a one to watch.

Howard, on the other hand, was the one to watch shuffle sorrowfully down the corridor. Sir Alan axed him for being too risk-averse (he didn’t go for an electronic pet dinosaur Lorraine was pushing that Alan liked, because it was more than £200 – “but novelty value is what sells!” Alan exhaled, exasperatedly). “Your actions lack ambition,” Nick told Howard. “He’s an organisational person, and it’s a sign of the times, but I haven’t got time for just ordinary people,” said Sir Alan.

Business hopefuls, take note – if Sir Alan Sugar says entrepreneurial risk-taking is the way forward in times like these, you better make damn sure you start upping the stakes.
 

Entrepreneur Simon Duffy, co-founder of men's natural grooming line Bulldog, casts his expert eye over the follies of the wannabes

I was a bit underwhelmed with this week’s task – it was so similar to the week before. It was just about identifying the right products then selling them in a competitive way.

So the teams should have been really up to speed about how to structure the task. They should know how to pick right products for their audience, and should have made sure they had some that would turn quickly and some of higher value.

I thought the leaf-grabber was a smart product. I suspect lots of pensioners were watching and this product might appeal to them. I agree with Sugar that the chip pan was the best choice - but it was presented in the worst way.

Compared with the previous week, the art of selling was more influential in this task. That’s where Howard’s team fell down.

Howard was pretty unlucky. It probably comes back to not putting Lorraine by herself. Putting himself with her was in the best interests of his team,  but if he’d been more focused on winning the Apprentice it might have been a better strategy to work with Kate.

I think Kate was stitching Lorraine up a bit in choosing the the leather jacket which she knew Lorraine would have to model on TV.

But then Lorraine should have been selling the guitar, she was great at it, whereas Kate was just embarrassing. The wrong people were selling the wrong products.

It all comes down to sales pitch. Howard and Lorraine had a great product and they didn’t sell, whereas Deborah had an awful product and sold loads.

This was really Deborah’s week. She came into her own selling that poncho, which was the worst product. Debroah doesn’t listen, but she can sell.
 

If you’re looking for investment and based in the southwest, get yourself down to the Angels Den SpeedFunding event in Bristol on 16 June.

It’s an incredibly rare chance to pitch to up to 20 angel investors in one evening. You pitch to them one at a time, face-to-face – but here’s the catch - for only three minutes each. Like speeddating, geddit? There’s then a chance after the SpeedFunding to network with said angel investors over a couple of glasses of wine, in a more relaxed fashion.

At £249 + VAT per person, the night’s not cheap, but if you’re serious about meeting angels face-to-face the fee will pay for itself. And while the sped-up pitch may sound intimidating, there’s a session lasting a few hours before the event to teach entrepreneurs and business owners how to prepare their pitch.

This is the first time a SpeedFunding event has been held outside London, so it should be a thriving and busy opportunity to network in the southwest. (Previous events held in the capital have been major successes.) Angels Den, which is organising the night, matches start-up companies needing funding with potential investors.

Bill Morrow, founder of Angels Den, says: “We chose Bristol to host our first SpeedFunding event because not only is it a vibrant, buzzy city it’s also a hotbed of entrepreneurial talent proven by the fact that more businesses survive in the South West after three years than anywhere else in the UK.  SpeedFunding is a quick and simple way to ensure that the best ideas from the southwest get funded and succeed.”

To attend the SpeedFunding™ event on 16 June you need to register with Angels Den and load your business summary and plan onto its website.

Angels Den is also holding a Free Drop-In-Day on June 3 at Kings House, Bristol, for local businesses seeking advice on how angel investing works, tips on writing a business summary and plan and how to pitch to a business angel.  Companies can register, on a first-come, first-served basis, by calling on 0117 905 5014 or emailing , to book one of the half hour sessions.

• Read more from Angels Den founder Bill Morrow
• Read more about angel finance
• Check out the event here

Image: Polandeze

It’s one of the most closely guarded secrets in the drinks industry. Only two people in the whole world know it, and they never, ever travel on the same aircraft. It is locked in a bank vault in a top-secret location somewhere in the depths of Scotland. Its 32 ingredients are mixed in a sealed room by just one man, once a month – and he’s been guarding the recipe for years.

The Irn-Bru recipe is hotter property than the Bank of England’s alarm code. (Well, almost.) And now its mysteries are being revealed to just one more person. As Irn-Bru’s 71-year-old chairman retires, he passes on the 108-year-old secret combination of flavours onto his daughter Julie, the company secretary.

The fizzy orange spectacle of a soft-drink (more Scottish than a Terrier feasting on a Haggis on Burns Night with his old friend Nessie the Loch Ness Monster who, incidentally, is clad in a kilt) is Scotland’s top-selling beverage (on the non-alcoholic side of things, obviously). As such, it makes Scotland one of the very few countries in the world where Coca-Cola doesn’t hold the top spot.

And for a local-brand drink, that’s about as rare as a secret that remains secret for five generations.

Irn-Bru has always kept it in the family – chairman Robin Barr is the great-grandson of the drink’s inventor. But for the first time in the company’s history, leadership will move out of the Barr family’s hands – non-executive director Ronnie Hanna will step up as chairman.

It’s an interesting twist. The family keeps hold of the secret recipe, but management passes to external hands. And that’s worth noting. If you’re succession planning, who are you going to pass the reigns to? The person either most capable or most keen to do the job? Or your next of kin?

For the purpose of this argument, let’s assume Julie Barr isn’t becoming chairman either because she doesn’t want to, or because her management experience falls short. You don’t want a four-generation family company to suddenly pass to someone else. So you allow an outsider who already knows the business to run it, but keep the most important asset (in this case the recipe) safely in the hands of blood relatives.

That way, you can be sure the company won’t fold and it’ll be run commercially, but you don’t give the new chairman power enough to fully own the brand - and you leave your next of kin with a nice inheritance, too.

It’s a deft move, although one probably borne as much out of sentimentalism as commercialism.

But succession planning isn’t always so easy. Here’s a few things to think about if you’re facing that decision:

Don’t force the business onto your next of kin. Talk about it with them openly, yes, but don’t be at all pushy. They’re unlikely to put the real effort and passion needed to run the business if they don’t truly want to.

Do encourage senior members of staff to express their interest in taking over. Hearing their thoughts on why it should be them and what direction they’d take the business in is going to be a vital step.

Don’t pick the person who’s most like you. Businesses need a fresh lease of life. If you’ve reached the point where you’re ready to retire or move on, the business will benefit from a jump-start and a fresh pair of eyes that can bring new ideas and rejuvenate staff stuck in their ways.

Do think very carefully about bringing in anyone from outside the company. Not only does it risk offending existing senior management, you risk handing your pride and joy over to someone who doesn’t fully understand the workings of your business and the full history behind it – plus, they’ll be unfamiliar to clients and risk damaging relationships.

Don’t be afraid of asking tough questions of whoever you have in mind. This is your only opportunity. Make sure you trust them entirely with what they want to do with your company.

Do take a step back once the next person has taken over. Interfering will only agitate the situation. You’ve made your decision – now let them get on with it.

• Read more about succession planning from Rene Carayol
• Read advice on succession planning

Got fired recently? For 26-year-old Alex Light, there was only one answer. After losing his job in Dubai real estate, Light set up Bad Times Bootcamp to help unemployed people get fit and get to know each other – neatly creating an anti-cyclical business that not only flourished during the recession but capitalized on it.

Light now hopes to spread the concept across the globe, welcoming the possibility of sponsorship in order to keep the classes free while supporting himself and his new social enterprise.

A bright idea but with one obvious catch: what happens when the downturn turns up? When keen fitness fanatics run back to their desks and the delights of full time work, Light will be pounding down beaches alone.

That’s the problem with creating a business that capitalizes on only a passing trend – and while it may seem a little crude to call the recession a ‘passing trend’, we all know it’s not going to last forever. If the most recent reports are to be trusted, things are already looking up.

Yes, coming up with an anti-cyclical idea can translate into pure business gold – but don’t invest your all into it if it doesn’t have staying power past the economic dip. Always, always aim for a business that makes the most of a growing trend. That way, the only way is up.

*Update*

Alex Light has contacted Smarta to explain Bad Times Bootcamp is in fact just a group to help people through the tough times. "The concept is not a business and in no way is an entrepreneurial exercise," he says. "It is free for all, to help the guys who are having a tough time being unemployed.” Sorry Alex!

But cautions about starting an anticyclical business still hold true - be wary of capitalising on passing trends if serious money-making is your aim.

We know it may be too early to say for sure, and we know the danger of using the overused ‘green shoots’ line only to hear old branches crashing all around us, but, hell, we can’t resist a bit of good news.

More than a quarter of those asked in the Forum of Private Business’s (FPB) latest Economic Downturn Panel survey said they saw an improvement in the ‘viability' of their businesses in the past month – double the number experiencing a decline.

And satisfaction with bank support among FPB members is at its highest since November last year (12% of those asked reported an improvement).

Which is really no big surprise, since the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) announced that high street bank lending to small businesses rose by £271m between February and March. Backing that up, 8% of FSB members surveyed said provisions of overdrafts had improved for them.

The BBA also said deposits from small businesses had increased by £881m in the same period.
We’re not saying it’s getting any easier out there for any of you. But these tiny specks of hope are at least a flicker of light.

And since nobody ever got anywhere in business by being negative, hopefully a tiny glimmer of improvement will help you keep pushing on through the darkness.

• Image: Jelleprins

Smarta opened its paper this morning to discover the surprising news that airline Virgin Atlantic has marked its 25th anniversary by almost doubling its annual profit.

That's great news for Richard Branson, not so great news for rival airline British Airways, which reported on Friday that it had made a pre-tax loss of more than £400m, with no sign of recovery in sight.

Willie Walsh, BA’s chief executive, told The Guardian last week he doesn’t think the economic environment will improve. “We don’t see any signs of recovery, nothing,” he sighed.

What have Virgin done that BA haven’t? They both charge similar fares and fly to different destinations – how can the two outcomes have been so different?

“We’re just managing the business to make sure we remain strong and hang on to our cash,” said the company’s chief executive Steve Ridgeway with a cool shrug – which may just hit the nail on the head.

It could be something to do with Virgin’s policy of hedging against oil prices, which hit $147 last year. BA cited high fuel prices as one of the biggest causes of its losses last year, so it could be that – or could it be that BA has just branched out too much?

BA has seen a catalogue of problems in the last few months, beginning with Terminal Five and going downhill from there, with 2,500 redundancies announced last August and a new issue over its proposal to, in the words of Richard Branson, ‘effectively merge’ with American Airlines.

“It doesn’t make sense to encourage even less competition by allowing dominant carriers to increase their stranglehold,” Branson said of the merger yesterday – but he might not have too much to worry about. If Walsh doesn’t play his cards right, BA might not be around for much longer.