Becoming an entrepreneur allows you to be more in control of your future, as Mike Bacon explains in this video.

Becoming an entrepreneur will always involve taking risks. In this video David Spencer-Percival explains why he went for it.

In this business growth show Alistair Brew discusses the financial industry supporting entrepreneurial businesses.

Business growth show - Finance support for entrepreneurs

There’s absolutely no shortage of entrepreneurial talent in the UK, lots of fantastic ideas, I think it’s been about those, those ideas, those businesses now being picked up by the financial community and supported on the journey through its the different levels of expansion.  It’s taking, I think it’s getting better and people are more joined-up and hopefully we can support some businesses from the very early stage right through to the giants.  The Americans have traditionally done this very well, we want to be able to do that in the UK as well now.

If you found this business growth show interesting , why not follow Inside Finance on Twitter @InsideFinanceTV and let us know what you think.

 

Corporate governance issues arising from boardroom structure includes how much each member should be paid for what they are expected to do, as Rob Wirszycz discusses in this TV show.

Corporate governance issues - Defining roles

Remuneration is a really sticky area in a sense.  Actually, if I’m a Non-Executive Director I don’t expect to own any shares.  My belief is that a Non-Executive Director is there to be completely objective.  And I’ve been in many Board meetings where effectively the Board meeting is a meeting of the shareholders.  Self-interest always wins in those meetings.  So if I’m a Non-Executive Director in a meeting and I’m there, my job, I’ll accept a retain, a relatively small retainer, depending on what they want me to do.  If they do anything away, outside of the brief, my belief is that that should be paid for separately.  But so just to be a Non-Executive Director, I would like to be paid for the very clear, clearly-defined, but I don’t want, expect any shares. As a Chairman it’s different.  Now the Chairman, I’m acting on behalf of the shareholders, so I actually have to have alignment with them, so what I always ask for when I’m Chairman is again a retainer, which is a small amount of money, relatively small amount of money, but I want to be able to earn shares based on the achievement of the plan.  So if we achieve the plan, which I’m owning, then I believe that I should be aligned with the shareholders’ interests and I should be able to earn in shares into the business.

If you are interested corporate governance issues take a look at our briefings on director's remuneration and board effectiveness.

 

Entrepreneurial spirit cannot be taught. There comes a point when you need to stop moaning and start doing things your way. In this video Simon La Fosse explains why he became an entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurial spirit finds a better way to do business

I was getting a bit bored actually.  I think partly boredom, partly you I kind of felt I’d reached a certain part, a time in my life when I was, I had enough evidence about working in a certain way being a really effective way to work and a pleasurable way to work and I’d seen too many organisations that I’d worked for just, I’m not saying it, it sounds a little bit arrogant but not quite seeming to get that.  And so there comes a point where you’ve got to stop whinging and you’ve got to put your money where your mouth is and say “Actually, I think there’s a better way to do business and that’s what we’re going to stand for as a firm” and that was, I took a gulp,  remortgaged the house, as far as the bank was concerned to build an extension, which is yet to be built, and took the dive.

Inside Finance will continue to bring you inspirational success stories from those with entrepreneurial spirit.

Business strategy development is the job of the board. In this TV show Rob Wirszycz discusses how they can get these decisions right.

Deciding on strategy development

Boards, I believe, are where decisions are made.  And, you know, while you want the Chief Executive and their team to make other decisions, you know, ask forgiveness rather than permission sometimes, but the decisions are in my view, what I call an irrevocable allocation of resources. So, if we make a decision at a Board, we don’t go back and relitigate, unless the facts materially change.  I mean I think there’s a quote from John Maynard-Kings, who sort of said, you know, “when the facts change I change my opinion” and that’s the truth, you know, you shouldn’t hold on to something when the facts are materially different.  But the Board makes those irrevocable decisions, they write them down, everybody has to agree, so you can’t come out of a Board meeting saying “Well, I know they said that then but I’m doing this”.  Decisions are really important in Boards, and that’s the role of the Non-Executives, be they Directors or Chairmen, is to ensure that the decision is taken in a proper context and it’s not because “We would think that way because we’re all in our 40s and 50s and male”.

Keep browsing Inside Finance TV for more expert insight into strategy development processes. Why not watch the full briefing From the top - Being an effective board director

Business risk can come from many unknown variables. When working with an investment manager people should be clear about how much risk they are prepared to take, as Michael Pagliari explains in this TV show.

Investment & business risk

I think that you know individuals sometimes tend to give misleading answers when asked about the amount of risk that they want to take. So for example a typical response that you get from an entrepreneur is ‘oh, I don’t really want too much risk but you know I’d like to make 10% returns’. Now in the current sort of environment that we exist, where interest rates are at zero, 10% is a very ambitious rate of return, so the statement is actually pretty incoherent. So at that point I think you need to dig deeper and find out exactly what the client needs as a minimum requirement and make sure that it is coherent with his underlying thought process. They understand risk very well in their own business, in the context of managing financial assets my experience has been that that knowledge is of the same type of thought process does not necessarily transfer itself well to their financial assets. And that can mean, that can mean that either they take on too much risk in their financial assets or they take on too little. Ideally, I actually think that it takes about a couple of years until you really understand a client’s risk profile and as you get to know him you make some adjustments. So my personal suggestion or my personal methodology is to start with a relatively conservative risk profile until I feel that I really understand and know the client better. Investment does involve risk. The value of investments can go down as well as up. This video contains information believed to be reliable but no guarantee is given. See Video for full disclaimer.

Interested in informed financial planning? Why not explore more TV shows on Inside Finance?

   

Person centred planning means understanding the needs of the client and working from there. In this TV show Charles Gowlland of Smith & Williamson discusses the survey they did to find out about their family office clients.

Research for person centred planning

We wanted to understand what our family office contacts and clients were thinking about all manner of subjects, not just about investments or tax or education but a whole number of topics, so we interviewed over the course of 2013 nearly 40 families with whom we had contact and some of whom we acted for already, most of whom we acted for already and in total their wealth we estimated over a billion pounds. We wanted to get the broadest possible idea of what people were thinking and so we were conscious to try to ask some entrepreneurs, newer money, perhaps the two generations, the generation that had made it, who might have had young children, as well as much more established money that might have been in existence for five or six generations. Because we act for such a wide range of clients we were able to sort of capture what they all thought.

If you enjoyed this video about person centred planning, please browse more videos on Inside Finance TV.

 

There are many business benefits of the UK environment as Stephen Drew of Smith & Williamson discusses in this TV show.

UK's business benefits

I think there are a variety of reasons as to why people would choose the UK as a good place to invest. Certainly we have some interesting sectors that appeal to a large number of investors from outside of the UK, and in particular we’re seeing a lot of activity in life sciences, the creative industries around professional practices and professional services and in the technology space. So they’re sectors that are seen as high growth and there are foreign investors that want a piece of that action and therefore they have a certain amount of appeal to see how they can get involved with those sectors. When combined with a business environment that’s reasonably friendly and it’s quite easy to get involved with those businesses, to make the investment programmes, and to start fresh businesses and that makes it an easier investment decision compared to other territories. The UK government has been very helpful in trying to make the taxation environment business-friendly and therefore there are attractions again for encouraging foreign investors to actually put cash into the UK economy, which will help the general improvement in what we’re looking for within the UK as well.

If you are interested in discussion around UK business benefits and investment in different environment, please browse more TV shows on Inside Finance.

The attitude to risk will change depending on how much there is to lose. As Charles Gowlland explains in this TV show a Smith and Williamson survey found that threats to wealth are a common concern.

Fearful attitude to risk

There were a number of things, I think when we looked at the results of the survey we weren’t completely shocked or surprised by anything that came in and to a certain extent that gave us a lot of reassurance that we already had a good sense of what they were thinking and what they were worried about. So from that point of view there were no radical shocks. But I still think there were a couple of aspects that came out of it that were interesting to us. One of the areas was the concept of threats to wealth, I mean this is obviously one of the big long term issues for families. They’ve made their money or they’ve inherited it, how do they ensure that that money, that wealth persists through the generation and there were four main categories of threats to wealth as far as we could see it, and what was interesting I think about the response was that they were broadly similar in that people were equally worried about each of those and there wasn’t any particular split by, if I can put it like this, by how old the money was. So in other words these fears were common to all types of clients and those categories were legislative change that might be adverse league or tax, the financial mismanagement, the children squandering the money or volatility in financial markets. And included in those was inflation, and I think certainly for some families with a long and bitter history, inflation for them was a big worry.

Keep an eye on Inside Finance for more great TV shows on attitude to risk and other related subjects.