Every campaign we get involved with starts with getting to know what you want to achieve. For large businesses this may start as 'getting £XX sales from this new product' - for smaller businesses simply 'I need more customers'.

From that initial seed we will want to find out why, by how much and at what cost - and we  don't necessarily mean in pound terms.

Especially for smaller businesses too much growth too quickly can cause a business to 'go off the rails'. For many small business owners there may be initial ambitions to become the next 'Dragon' but growth often means more staff and that in itself can be a major stress factor. Trying to juggle excessive new business by working all hours day and night can push many people over the edge and decide it's not for them.

Having realistic expectations, good processes in place, working smarter, not just harder and knowing what and when to outsource are key factors to ensure that you actually continue to enjoy running your business and your business does not end up running you!

Don't be fearful of changing things as your business changes what may have once worked fine when you were dealing with a couple of new prospects a day may not be fine when trying to deal with five new enquiries every day.

Unfortunately many small businesses fail not because they are poor at what they do but because they are not on top of their admin, invoicing and customer service both in terms of handling enquiries and also pre and post customer work communications, which can then have detrimental knock on effects.