Business mentors help SMEs survive

PRLog (Press Release) – Jan 28, 2008 – Small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups are usually faced with a large number of problems, especially in the early stages of their development. These include failure to attract and retain a high quality customer base, a lack of expertise about the right marketing approaches needed to boost sales and various financial issues such as taxes, an ability to pay bills on time, staff salaries, supplies and deliveries. The most common denominator for the failure of small businesses is the lack of vision and inappropriate management of existing resources.

Dealing with these issues can be difficult, particularly if the business owner is inexperienced in running a company. Even most top management positions cannot prepare people for being in charge of all facets of a business.

This is where most SMEs would prefer to call in an experienced business mentor and consultant to help them overcome early problems and grow as a successful and confident firm. Business consultancy and mentorship is a recent but very efficient solution for most start-ups. Its aim is to help SMEs and their owners by targeting problem areas and solving various issues.

For instance, Shape Your Business is an experienced business consultant and mentor. The firm provides services throughout Australia and New Zealand. Shape Your Business helps SMEs and privately-owned businesses by providing expert financial consultancy, mentorship on financial and personal issues, sales and marketing, systems and processes and technology. It also provides assistance in solving key organizational and personal issues.

In order to enhance business development, Shape Your Business also offers business lessons on issues such as dealing with customer complaints, sales team development and the benefits and methodologies of preparing client satisfaction surveys. These are usually also presented in the form of live interactive webinars to allow business owners to gain expert knowledge in the most time- and cost-efficient way directly from their desk. For the busiest, webinars are also available in the form of e-books featuring the essentials of a given topic and practical advice for application.

Partnership with a business consultancy such as Shape Your Business is indeed beneficial to firms. How can the firm ensure such excellent performance? Shape Your Business principal Mike Reddy is a qualified accountant who in the 1990s became a respected SME mentoring authority with over 20 years experience assisting managers in some of the region’s most successful companies. SYB is also a member of RAN ONE, an international network of accounting and consulting firms with members in North America, Asia-pacific and Europe, who focus on the unique needs of SMEs and privately-owned businesses. The network provides access to a wealth of exclusive information and resources not available to other accounting and consulting firms.