True Business- real life for small businesses

Hullo there- Thanks for dropping by.

Truebusiness is a blog, and it’s designed to be about the joys and trials of running a small business. My name is Nick Saalfeld and in the X-Factor-style auditions for the honour of baring my soul to you, I was the lucky winner because I both write and run a small business. Ideal qualifications, I think you’ll agree.

There are plenty of other resources for helping you to run your business, and I don’t intend to try to compete with them- although I will be mentioning lots of them as we progress. What I will be doing here is trying to be honest about the ups and downs of making a crust, as it happens to me. Think of it as a survey with only one respondent. It will therefore be unashamedly biased, and frankly, if I’m in a bad mood you’re going to know about it. Some people will call that refreshing. Others will cringe. What fun.

Seriously though, scanning through the first month’s posts, on the plus side there are already plenty of tips which I hope you will find useful, and a list of cracking websites you should visit. Among the tribulations, you will hear about my abortive trip to New York and the nasty business of “getting rid of someone”. (That’s firing someone, not a mafia hit). And that’s just in the first month.

I’m on the campaign trail too- I want every online business to have the decency to provide telephone support; and as we grow, we’re going to dig out the phone numbers that these companies just don’t want you to have. If you manage to wheedle out a hidden phone number for an otherwise recalcitrant online vendor, let me (and the world) know.

Finally, a word of thanks to the lovely people at the Microsoft Small Business Centre who are kindly sponsoring this blog- it’s very nice of them, and they have a whole raft of articles, tools, software and services for small businesses. Check them out, and if you’re so inclined, buy something. Their sexy new accountancy package, Office Accounting 2008, is very cool, and in some cases free. Thank you, Bill Gates!

Now, you can of course choose to just read my idle ramblings as I try to navigate the stormy waters of running my business. But I’d be very glad if you choose to participate, too. This blog is open to posting, and I would love you to contribute your thoughts, tips, helpful advice or rants. All are welcome. If you’d like to keep up with this blog, do subscribe, or get notified of updates by following me on Twitter.

Nice to meet you, and come again soon.

Nick Saalfeld