Having run four businesses and worked in business support and regeneration over the last 20 years, I have noticed certain principles in action. Why are some people successful when others flounder? What makes a successful business? Why do some people seem to enjoy their businesses so much and others find them a burden?

To me, attitude is key! Business can be approached with the same principles and spirit with which the rest of your life is carried out – it’s not a separate compartment of life where one can be ‘ruthless’ ‘uncaring’ ‘dishonest’ or ‘unfair’. I, personally, love the frisson of uncertainty that comes, free of charge, with running my own business – often I have no idea what’s going to happen but I am sure I will find the resources to deal with it.  If I can’t, the chances are I will know someone who can help.

Someone asked me the other day what rate of business survival I experience as a local business coach.  For a moment I found myself taken aback by the question: over the last 5 years of working with hundreds of businesses the survival rate we experience is over 92%. It has dawned on me that I only expect success – challenges and ups and downs, yes, but whatever success means to different individuals, I believe it is always possible. At the very least, we take into our future good, solid learning about what to do differently. I’m not good at listening to other people’s cautions and advice – like other entrepreneurs, we like to make our own ‘mistakes’.

I also challenge the idea that today’s coaching-focussed, collaborative business models are in some way ‘soft’. Try buying something from someone you don’t like … try buying something from someone you don’t trust … try motivating yourself, with a heavy heart, to sell something you, yourself, don’t much like and don’t really think is worth the money or effort. I believe attitude is key and look forward to sharing my ideas and suggestions about the issues raised by readers running local businesses.