About

Ben Lobel was the editor of SmallBusiness.co.uk from 2010 to 2018. He specialises in writing for start-up and scale-up companies in the areas of finance, marketing and HR.

Startup Funding and Grants

How can we get businesses and investors speaking the same language?

There seems to be confusion around what businesses think investors are looking for in a strong management team, and what investors are actually looking for, argues Nigel Walker, head of innovation lending at Innovate UK.

Business Technology

The benefits of taking your documents digital

Should we be ditching physical cabinets in favour of digital transaction management? In this piece, Helen Sutton presents the case.

Startup Funding and Grants

Seven secrets to securing investment for growth

If you’ve never approached angels or VC firms before, it can be a daunting – and time-consuming – process. Here, Andrew Clough of The Brew discusses how to go about it.

Business Technology

Why the secret to start-up success lies in the data sets

Here, Nick Gaubitch of Pindrop looks at why it can be nearly impossible for a modern-day start-up to succeed without the machine learning capabilities required to analyse data sets.

Marketing

Display sign advertising: How to cut costs

Here, we look at the most cost-effective solutions to make your display sign messages stand out from the crowd.

Advice

Fifteen reasons why you should shop at a local company

Choosing to shop at your local businesses instead of the larger chain stores has many benefits. In this piece, we take a look at some of the bigger ones.

Legal advice

Business legal requirements: Considerations for 2018

Here, Caroline Lavis, associate at Michelmores, looks at a few of the legal issues that UK SMEs should be considering in 2018.

Advice

Deal or no deal? How to make sense of business energy offers

SME buyers are considering energy deals from multiple sources. Here's how to separate the good deals from the smoke and mirrors.

Business management

Seven things small businesses can learn from the Carillion crisis

The collapse of the construction giant holds some useful lessons for SMEs, says Matt Dunham of Dunham Dean Advisory.

Finding and selling to customers

How to enhance sales productivity in your organisation

Sales managers can take several steps to ensure their teams remain focused and productive, as we discuss here.

Business Technology

What manufacturing can learn from agile software techniques

What if there were a way to speed up the manufacturing and hardware design process? Here, we find out.

Business management

How small businesses can expand into the public sector

The public sector procurement system is daunting for many SMEs, but in this piece, Penny Godfrey of Millstream reveals how SMEs can make the process easier.