Manchester entrepreneur Anne Gwilliam is sharing two decades’ of expertise to help other start-up and small businesses as they enter 2024.

‘The Small Business Success Coach’ is on a mission to reduce the number of small
businesses that fail in their early days and as part of this mission is offering a free online masterclass.

The course – Planning for Financial Success – takes place online at 8pm on January 17 to help simplify the essential numbers for small business owners.

Anne (44) said: “40% of small business owners consider themselves financially illiterate (CPA), and the most common reason for business failure is running out of money, meaning that there is a huge risk to small businesses if their owners do not know their numbers, particularly in the current economic climate.

“With Covid, Brexit and most recently the cost-of-living crisis, the business landscape is far more challenging than in previous years – and I’m hearing from my clients there is
real uncertainty and uneasiness about what lies ahead. I want to do what I can to help get people off on the right foot, and to help give them some confidence back, so that they feel more in control of their business”.

Getting numbers right

Having spent nearly 20 years as an accountant in industry and through the work she now does with small business owners, Anne knows the impact of not getting the numbers right and is determined to reduce the rate of small business failures.

Anne said: “It breaks my heart to see small business owners work so hard to build up their
businesses, just to see them fail. I strongly believe that many small business failures could be avoided if their owners knew the numbers and carried out some simple forecasting.

“It is almost impossible to deal with a shortfall in cash if you don’t know about it in advance, but with some simple cash flow forecasting, you can see problems coming in advance, and more importantly take action to avoid the problem.

“Most small business owners that I speak to dislike the numbers, but the good news is that you don’t need to be an accountant, you just need to know a few simple numbers that could make all the difference to the success of your business.

“That’s why I’m offering this free masterclass (booked via link above) to try to help as many small business owners as possible to get to know those important numbers and avoid becoming a failure statistic in 2024.”