Emma Jones: ON Getting Small Businesses Paid On Time

brilliant so if the 86 hours that you mentioned sort of went down to 30 or something then that's quite a that makes a different world doesn't it really

yeah 56 hours that a small business owner can then say actually i could spend that time on winning another sale hiring a person looking at what support's available so yes that's that's the aspiration

OK, by the way, don't worry about not answering the question immediately.

I often forget the question that I've just asked.

So that's not a problem.

I mean, having worked with so many entrepreneurs, I mean, what are the biggest opportunities for small businesses in the next few years? I mean, are they all driven by technology or are there other things that we've been talking about, you know, technology and platforms and stuff like that in the context of late payment? But beyond that, what do small businesses have to look forward to in terms of their opportunities in the next few years?

Yeah.

And again, great question.

And I'd love to offer probably kind of three things, actually, that if I was running a small business now, certainly that I'd be excited about.

The first is very local.

So I am optimistic about high street regeneration.

There was a lovely piece in the press this week about the value of the experience economy, that it's growing.

I wouldn't say exponentially, but the experience, the value of the experience economy is growing.

So families, friends, they want to spend on travelling to new places in the UK, dining out, experiences.

I think that's creates great opportunity for small businesses because, of course, small businesses are close to the action.

They can come up with good ideas.

So I think local high street regeneration, experiential economy, I think is a great opportunity at a kind of a whole different level.

I think going global is a big opportunity for small firms in the U.K., Technology has certainly enabled that to happen, that, you know, you can have services or products built and designed in the UK.

And of course, you can get them everywhere all overseas.

So I do think export still remains a big opportunity.

And then the third one kind of brings us back to government.

And it's another topic that I'm really passionate about, which is selling to the public sector.

So a couple of years ago, a new piece of law did come into effect called the Procurement Act.

And a big part of the intention of the Procurement Act was for government to buy more from SMEs.

And in fact, well, I'm hoping that this Friday you'll see from my weekly LinkedIn newsletter is going to be a profile.