A lot of my work is about helping people to make decisions that create the outcomes they really want in life. I spend a lot of time listening to people describe their next great idea or coaching them as they talk about their future intentions and I get great satisfaction from playing a part in helping those ideas coming to fruition. But there are also many others who get stuck along the way.

2011 has been an amazing year for those involved in the EBA. Many of our members are going from strength to strength. It is a real joy, and validates all our work, when we receive positive feedback and hear your stories of steady business growth.

Is a Royal Wedding good for business? Even some republicans are likely to have felt a warm sense of good will towards Britain’s newest royal couple as Prince William and Catherine Middleton married in Westminster Abbey on 29th April.

For some people, small errors send big messages that can unfairly undermine the credibility of a product or service. However, most successful business owners will skim-read so fast they won’t even notice a word has been spelt wrong. They are more interested in what a website is offering – and whether it will help their bottom line.

No one likes the ‘R’ word – redundancies, but sometimes they become a necessity if a business is to thrive and survive. The reasons, of course, are varied: businesses are bought, sold or merged; markets change; strategy changes, technology becomes ever more sophisticated. And sometimes things go wrong – business owners miss the warning signs and hit cash-flow problems.