smallbusiness.co.uk: Helping your business think big

As a small business owner, I have a lot of respect for “ Sir Alan Sugar”, (and you won’t hear many Tottenham Hotspur supporters say that) his business success is an inspiration for any entrepreneur. However has he lost touch with us menial small business owners? Have his comments been distorted by the media? Or is just craving more attention, after all the only thing worse than being talked about is…. After his alleged comments, my opinion has changed slightly. As for his business acumen, he sold Amstrad for a fraction of its once worth and Tottenham Hotspur have recently announced record profits, only a few months after Sugars departure. So is Sugar the be all and end all when it comes to business?

Sugar quit as chairman in 2001 (if I remember right). He pretty much steadied the financial ship as the club was going bust - he also signed Jurgen Klinsmann. As for the latest comments - out of touch seems to be the general feeling. But then, what exactly does an Enterprise Czar do?

This is an easy one, how about Alan Sugar shutting up and stop moaning about small businesses and getting on with the job whatever it is, he obviously thinks he is brilliant, well if so let us see it in practice, talk is so very cheap. I for one am not interested in what he has or has not done because every business is unique to itself with different problems and needs just like people, what was good for him could be bad for someone else and vice versa. sorry as a small business owner I have no respect for someone who criticises generally it shows they have not really got a clue as to what is really needed to get this economy back on its feet if it ever will. Certainly not by grandstand negative comments that does no one any good except to artificially inflate an already oversize ego. Throughout this recession we seem to have somehow given birth to a huge number of inflated egotists that seem to be doing very well by feeding that inflated ego at the expense of a huge number of hard working small business owners which everyone seems to forget are the backbone of this country and are in the majority when you look at british businesses, where would you be without all the small businesses in the rural areas and isolated towns, I think many thousands of people would suffer if all we had were the big companies to service the huge number of small communities of which this country is made up of we would find ourselves in a much more serious position, which may happen if someone does not stop the huge flow of small business closures before it is too late, as I think we all agree this happened with the Post Office closures, too many too quickly. I think everyone is fed up with the negativity and criticism from all the people who are in a position to pull this country together. If I may suggest why not shut up and do the job you are supposed to be doing with a positive attitude and use your brains not your mouth, who knows it may work as nothing else seems to be. As for the Prime Minister I really do not accept he is our Prime Minister, I did not get my right as a british citizen to vote for or against him he was not the peoples choice as Prime Minister but there by default, and such a position of power should surely only be achieved by a majority british vote not by default it is time that was changed. Especially if he has to employ someone like Alan sugar in order to help solve the present economic crisis, someone who has never had the interest of the british people at the top of list but only himself, which is fine for him, but a disaster for the british people, I think the british people deserve someone who at least appears to support us all. After all we are paying for them.

Call me a moaner if you will, I bought my partener in business out three years ago, borrowing £1.4m from the bank who were happy to loan it on interest only for three years, within a year I was requested to pay fixed interest at 5% above base rate. Low and behold the credit crunch hit and I was informed due to devaluation I now did not have enough equity through no fault of our own . I told them I had thought about that and had all the properties valued at a cost of £350 and if I were to sign over a further property to them they would be within their remit. The bank insisted they should revalue the properties themselves and gave me a bill of £3500 for doing so. I then had to pay my solicitor another £1300 fees to give it to them. Needless to say I did not enjoy the low interest rate. The three years are now up the bank took another £10.000 set up up fee require 25% of loan repaying over three years and require my key staff people and myself to have costly insurance cover and of course keep up with the interest and other bank charges. On top of this the authorities we work for want a 10% cut in our fees. Clearly trying to find another bank is near impossible, so of course I am moaning, we clearly qualify for a Government Secured Loan but this too has been rejected by the bank. Everyone in Government including Sir Sugar are forgetting it is in the shelter of each other that people live.

Sir Alan Sugar is right to say whatever he likes, he says it as it is and thats the best way to be in my opinion. His track record speaks for itself, just got to read some of the comments above to see that he makes a valid comment.

I like Lord Sugar, but it's a long time since he started a small business. Here's a challenge for him. Start a business equivalent to a Credit Union (BU)giving start-ups access to £500 - £2500 on submission of their business plan, with the BU having a 10% stake in the business. The loan is repaid with interest in line with cashflow availability. When the new enterprise reaches an agreed turnover and profit, they either take on an apprentice, or pay a levy into the Business Union. When the initial BU gets to an agreed size, they start a new one and so on. Remember Lord Sugar, for every apprentice that you take on, thousand applied. How's that for potential?