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A Harvard Business Graduate was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small tired boat with just one fisherman docked.

Don't forget that there are new minimum wage rates in force tomorrow.

What problems will the 2012 Olympics cause you?

It seems as though the country, or at least parts of it, is grinding to a halt due to the white stuff. Obviously it's a big problem for employers and could cost thousands of pounds in lost income. However, with the use of relatively inexpensive (Often free) modern technology, for some workers there should be little or no disruption.

The National Minimum Wage (NMW) was introduced by the National Minimum Wage Act 1999. Each year, on 1st October, the levels are adjusted to raise the minimum wage to achieve a basic standard of living for workers. Are you paying enough?

There are major changes to pension rules for employers on the way. Depending on the size of your business, you could be affected as early as October 2012. However, for businesses with fewer than 250 employees they won't come into effect until February 2014. The rules are numerous and are too complex to list here. Therefore it is imperative that proper advice is sought and that it is tailored to your business.

In the first week of February some of us went ROWE. Mark, Nathan, Bev, Lian, David, Tracy and Michael all started trialling working in a Results Only Work Environment (ROWE). Basically, this means they can work where they want to and when they want to as long as the job gets done.

I was amazed to learn of some regulations that were introduced in 2008 and how they can put small businesses at risk, if they don't know about them. These regulations provide your customers with a minimum cooling off period of 7 days for most contracts entered into at their home or place of work.

Click here if you want to know more

And why you do not need to correct my spelling!

HMRC have announced that they are planning a programme of checks that will review the adequacy and accuracy of records kept by small and medium-sized enterprises. It is planned that this campaign will begin over the summer of 2011 with around 200,000 small businesses being selected for checks.

With cash flow being of such importance to all businesses a timely reminder of the best practice in ensuring that business owners avoid bad debt and have the best chance of recovering the debts that are incurred was given courtesy of local accountants GreenStones. They hosted a seminar recently in conjunction with Robert Partridge Managing Director of Effective Credit Collections Limited who spoke about these issues and gave practical tips as well as a detailed explanation of the operation of the court procedures available for collecting overdue invoices.

Bob Partridge of Effective Credit Collections shares his four top tips for collecting your debts...

Most business owners pay an accountant each year to construct a balance sheet of assets less liabilities at a certain date. This can be a very useful tool to analyse the business net worth, cash flow requirements and liquidity. Clever business owners also construct a summary personal balance sheet to measure their personal net worth.

In the last budget the Chancellor announced that the Annual Investment Allowance (AIA) will be reduced from £100,000 to £25,000 from April 2012. At the same time there will also be a reduction in the writing down allowance from 20% to 18%.

The new penalty regime for late filing and late payment of self assessment income started in April 2011. One of the most significant changes is that penalties will still be payable even if you have no tax liability or you have already paid the tax liability.

If you run a business or social enterprise based in the East of England, the East or West Midlands that employs less than 250 people and has the potential for fast or high growth (Increase turnover by 20% from three years), you can now get help to develop your leadership and management skills.

HMRC have just announced on their website that they have set up a dedicated post room for receipt of paper forms P11D & P11D(b) for 2010-11

If you have recently started a new business you may be in line for a call from HMRC under their new pilot scheme. HMRC have announced a telephone education strategy in which they will call new business owners “to offer to talk them through some of the main things they need to know as a new business and to signpost them to the available help online”.

When you start a business, few imagine it ever coming to an end, well all good things do eventually come to an end. To ensure you maximise the potential and minimise the pain, it would be a good idea for you to plan your exit from your business.

The Coventry Rioch Arena, home of the Sky Blues, hosted the annual 2011 conference for the Institute of Sales Marketing and Management and this month I was privileged enough to attend on behalf of GreenStones. This is the second time we have attended the event and would recommend it to anyone wanting to improve their sales and marketing.

HMRC, the Council of Mortgage Lenders and the Building Societies have announced that they are now working together in a new scheme designed to combat mortgage fraud.

Share boiler room scams use high pressure sales techniques to sell investments to unsuspecting clients with the promise of high returns. The stock they are selling is often worthless, in unquoted companies or simply doesn’t exist at all.