Who we are. How we can help you.

This website is not the work of a corporation or any large organisation.

It is the home site for me and my role as a freelance business adviser in the Northwest of England. It reflects the time spent over the last twelve years helping over three thousand clients of Chambers of Commerce set up their own business ventures. And before that, as the owner of a group of small retail and wholesale businesses.

Many of the concerns and issues raised in all those one-to-one meetings are similiar and usually have quite simple answers or solutions. But those solutions can take forever to find by trawling through other websites. Often, a short discussion or a couple of emails is all that is needed to resolve the question and enable the enquirer to get on with their project. That is what this website offers.

Sometimes a specific or technical answer is needed which is not within my own expertise. At that point, I make use of other professionals or organisations who do have those skills. Within this site are their links, so you can go straight to them and use their services. I cannot warrant or guarantee their services to you - you must always make your own enquiries, to determine their integrity and qualifications and ensure they can offer what you need, at terms you are happy with - but they are worth considering. Their links are embedded through the site.

As the financial support for new businesses has progressively declined over the last decade, affordable and unbiased advice is more difficult to obtain. Cost has become a factor and any form of one-to-one consultancy is an expensive luxury for most start-ups. To deal with this particular problem, we offer to respond to your questions for a token charge, by dealing with enquiries by email and phone. This eliminates the major expense of one-to-one meetings, offices and travel of the more traditional advisory services. This is explained on a separate page.

  For details, email us at  businessbasics@hotmail.co.uk