Friday 20 August 2010

Should Business Advice be Free?

Discussions about LEPs seem to be gathering pace despite the holiday season and a couple of LinkedIn groups have sprung up to discuss developments around the country - From RDA to LEP and Local Enterprise Partnerships. A separate issue that's also being discussed is whether startups and small businesses should expect free advice at all. Given how much advice is already available on the internet there's an argument that small businesses should just be left to get on with things.

The main argument for free advice being provided by the government is that if businesses are better advised and equipped they are more likely to succeed and grow - with benefits to the whole economy. The counter argument is that people may be less likely to listen to and act on free advice. Given that so many of our members have lots of experience working with small businesses I thought it would be interesting to fund out what you think. If you have a moment, please fill in this one page survey and give us your thoughts - I'll post the results here next week.

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