Liz Barclay

Welcome to the biz kit – your small business community. The biz kit is about sharing, co-operating and working together to help each other flourish.

There are nearly 5 million small businesses in the UK and each has experiences they can share.

Broadcasts

Each week there’s our programme on what’s happening in the small business world – from funding to employing staff with the latest news on rules and regulations.

We want to know what you’d like us to cover and we’d like you to take part.

Services

Then there’s our catalogue of business organisations; a register where people can find your business and our discussion forums and experts to answer your questions.

The Aim:

By sharing information and experiences we can help each other flourish. Given the difficult economic times we’re going through co-operation is more import than ever – especially in small businesses.

With its 4.8 million (and growing) businesses the SME sector is vital to the economy. Everyone from the sole trader working alone in the back bedroom to the boss with 200 staff has a wealth of knowledge to share. Everyone in ‘the biz kit’ community has been there and done something that someone else in the community would benefit from knowing about.

Take ‘the biz kit’! Be part of the UK’s most important business buddies network. Co-operate, share, mentor, learn and grow.

The Kit:

‘The biz kit’ founders and board members all run their own businesses. We love small businesses and are passionate about their importance to the economy and in their own local communities.

You all run small businesses: the shop, a chain of stores, a post office, farm, electrical repair business, plumbing services….. And if you’re thinking ‘but I don’t run a small business’ you’ve forgotten your home! That’s a small business too.

We want to encourage young people to think of running a business as a career choice; older people to follow their dream when they leave employment and women to understand that they do have the skills they need to get going.

Things run fairly efficiently most of the time until something goes wrong. Then the cracks start to appear. What do you do when you literally need bailed out after a flood? What’s the next step when it comes to getting money out of a reluctant payer? It’s great to have someone to ask; someone who’s been through it.

Even when all’s going well a buddy can be the best resource you have: someone to discuss your responsibilities when it comes to health, safety and staff welfare; what the equality and discrimination laws mean for you; your obligations to provide your 6 staff with a pension?

 And then there are the ‘growing’ dilemmas: who can you discuss your first member of staff with? How could you be preparing for the recovery? What’s the best way to improve your customer service? What kind of website do you need? How should you market your product? What about you waste management and ‘green’ credentials? 

 Someone in ‘the biz kit’ community is the perfect buddy to work with you to develop your business.

 There’s a lot of information available on the internet and we’re not trying to replicate that. You’ll see when you take a trip round ‘the biz kit’ site there are links to all the important business organisations and there’s a massive amount of ‘stuff’ you’ll find helpful - provided to us by those organisations. What we have done is add a clipboard so that you can see an article or page you think is useful and just click it into your own file – then there’s no problem finding it again.

 Register with us so that other people can find your business; find every business organisation in your area that can offer you any help or networking opportunities; tell us whether you’d be prepared to be a business buddy or whether you’d like to find one; join the community and recycle everything from equipment you’ve finished with to freelance staff you’d love to help into their next job.

 We’re often too busy running the show to search for answers. What we really want is someone to ask when the questions arise. So there’s a raft of great experts who can give you quick responses, forums where you can discuss everything under the business sun with other ‘biz kit’ members and our weekly programmes where small business people discuss what’s going on in the SME world…and we want to know what you want to hear discussed; we’d like you to take part and we’d love to record at your business.  

 And on top of all that there’s your weekly business horoscope from our very own ‘mysticmaggie’. ‘The biz kit’ is a not for profit organisation - the place to find the inspiration you need from people who are all part of the community like you. Share, co-operate and grow!